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A Really Big Lunch

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A Really Big Lunch

By: Jim Harrison, Mario Batali - introduction
Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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About this listen

Jim Harrison's legendary gourmandise is on full display in A Really Big Lunch. From the titular New Yorker piece about a French lunch that went to 37 courses to pieces from Brick, Playboy, Kermit Lynch's newsletter, and others; from the relationship between hunter and prey to the obscure language of wine reviews, A Really Big Lunch is shot through with Harrison's pointed aperçus and keen delight in the pleasures of the senses. And between the lines, the pieces give glimpses of Harrison's life over the last three decades. A Really Big Lunch is a literary delight that will satisfy every appetite.

©2017 Jim Harrison (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Food & Wine Gastronomy Social Sciences
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Even if you have no idea who Jim was or what else he wrote and are only really interested in food you should read this, it is an absolute delight from page one. Warm, funny, dry and erudite. Just read it.

This book is a gem.

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Apparently, this book has been compiled from articles previously printed in numerous places. This review is written some weeks after completing the audio: Just couldn't put into words how I felt about it. Firstly, until seeing this book freely available to download from the Audible Plus programme, I cannot recall hearing of Jim Harrison. Obviously much admired as a person ('My hero') by Mario Bateli, who wrote an introduction, I found the man seriously underwhelming, unpleasant, self opinionated and, mostly, tedious and unnecessarily crude although there was humour at times.
Could be that the narrator, Joe Barrett, was chosen to give a similar semblance of Jackson's own voice, I don't know, but although his actual performance was good, the result made me dislike the author even more.

At times eloquent and, as previously mentioned, sometimes funny especially in the second half of the book, as well as occasionally intruding a full recipe, the main thing to recommend it is that it is free.

"Everything living ends up as a turd."

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