Your faithful foie gras scribe is headed to Paris next week for the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, where The Foie Gras Wars is being named Best Book for Food Professionals (U.S./pdf).
It’s also in the running, along with entries from 22 other countries, for the worldwide prize, to be announced at the Feb. 11 ceremony.
The first-ever Paris Cookbook Fair runs the next four days, and most of the major French—and other European—publishers are supposed to be represented. It’s an ambitious event.
TFGW hasn’t been released outside the U.S., so, yes, the translation rights are available. Anyone have any ins with French or Spanish publishers?
Should’ve mentioned this earlier, but The Foie Gras Wars won the 2009 Great Lakes Book Award for general non-fiction. The ceremony was held in Cleveland on Oct. 2, just minutes after I received a text that Chicago was the first city eliminated among those vying for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
Well, heck, at least Chicago represented in Cleveland. Aside from TFGW’s glorious triumph, Columbia College prof Joe Meno won the fiction prize for his novel The Great Perhaps, and Becky Anderson accepted the Voice of the Heartland award for her Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.
Oh, and I grabbed a late dinner the night before at the bar at Michael Symon’s Lola and wound up sitting next to Jeff Carlisi. Name ring a bell?
He was the original guitarist for 38 Special, and, yes, he co-wrote “Hold On Loosely.”
The Foie Gras Wars made its national media debut last night on, yes, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The $8,000 question for the pumped-up contestant was
“The Foie Gras Wars is a 2009 book that features what type of animal on its cover? A. Sheep. B. Dog. C. Duck. D. Cow.”
The guy needed a lifeline, so he chose the “Ask Expert” option. This night’s expert was none other than Wolf Blitzer. He told the guy he didn’t know the book (not yet anyway–one book on its way), but he knew foie gras comes from a duck, so that was his guess, though he didn’t want the contestant to risk $8,000 on his answer.
The contestant trusted Wolf anyway and got his $8,000.
OK, now how to get this book on American Idol?
In the Los Angeles Times’ “Daily Dish” food blog, restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila reports that she put “The Foie Gras Wars” on her summer reading list with happy results:
I can’t believe I ever put the book down. Admittedly, the topic sounds like hard going, but this is so well-written and so balanced in its treatment that it is, improbably, a real page turner. It has everything: fascinating characters, devious deeds, wit, suspense, science.
That posting prompted the L.A. Times’ “L.A. Unleashed” animal-related blog to note later in the day, “We’re hard pressed to think of a more controversial food than foie gras…” before it sums up the issue and quotes Virbila’s conclusion:
“‘Guaranteed, you’ll think and think hard before you take that next bite of foie.’ (Coming from a food critic, that’s saying quite a lot.)”
Also today on her “Eat All About It” blog, Rebekah Denn posted some thoughts about the book (”I admire how thoroughly Caro embraced ‘the moral whiplash’ of his research, uncovering revealing facts on all sides”), including parts of an interview with me, and previewed my July 14 appearance at Words & Wine in Seattle. Denn previously wrote about the book for The Christian Science Monitor.
Very nice to see that people are still reading this sucker.
Bryan Pease of the Animal Protection and Rescue League had been suing Guillermo Gonzalez of Sonoma Foie Gras for libel over statements Gonzalez made to me in an October 2005 Chicago Tribune article. Pease had shot undercover video at Sonoma Foie Gras showing a rat chewing the bloody rear ends of two ailing ducks, and Gonzalez said he had never seen such a thing.
“I very seriously believe–I am almost convinced–that this was staged,” Gonzalez said.
In the story, Pease shot back: “Guillermo Gonzalez’s accusation about us staging that footage is one of the craziest, stupidest things I’ve ever heard this psychotic animal torturer to ever say.”
Gonzalez countersued Pease.
After years of motions, jury selection finally was about to begin Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court when, my Chicago Tribune colleague Robert Mitchum reports, the two parties settled, on confidential terms.
Pease told Mitchum he was happy the suit was settled but disappointed that he wouldn’t be presenting his case to a jury, saying, “It would undo some of the harm that is caused when claims like this are made that footage is staged. Having these issues aired in court is one way to bring them to life.”
Gonzalez and his attorneys weren’t available for comment in the story.
is finally updated. More to come.
Finally, belatedly, I’m getting this sucker up and running. Watch this space.
Blog posts are coming soon!
