From the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author James Salter and his wife, Kay—amateur chefs and perfect hosts—here is a charming, beautifully illustrated tour de table: a food lover's companion that, with an entry for each day of the year, takes us from a Twelfth Night cake in January to a champagne dinner on New Year's Eve. Life Is Meals is rich with culinary wisdom, history, recipes, literary pleasures, and the authors' own memories of successes and catastrophes.For instance: • The menu on the Titanic on the fatal night• Reflections on dining from Queen Victoria, JFK, Winnie-the-Pooh, Garrison Keillor, and many others• The seductiveness of a velvety Brie or the perfect martini• How to decide whom to invite to a dinner party—and whom not to• John Irving's family recipe for meatballs; Balzac's love of coffee• The greatest dinner ever given at the White House• Where in Paris Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had French onion soup at 4:00 a.m.• How to cope with acts of God and man-made disasters in the kitchenSophisticated as well as practical, opinionated, and indispensable, Life Is Meals is a tribute to the glory of food and drink, and the joy of sharing them with others. "The meal is the emblem of civilization," the Salters observe. "What would one know of life as it should be lived, or nights as they should be spent, apart from meals?"

“I expected a leisurely, engaging conversation about living and eating from Life is Meals–largely because of my admiration for the penetrating and gorgeously written fiction of co-author James Salter, whose 1967 novel, A Sport and a Pastime, is one of a dozen of the most important novels of the past half century. And I got it. In this delectable ragout of food lore, history, anecdote, instruction and recipes, Salter and his equally engaging wife–journalist and playwright Kay–are like a couple you might encounter in a railway dining car wending its way through the Andes or Alps: welcoming, knowledgeable and enthusiastic eaters and drinkers . . . [And] they never met a piece of trivia they wouldn’t chew on. . . . As its subtitle suggests, Life is Meals is broken into 365 brief entries–from a few paragraphs to a page and a half each–some of them seasonal or specific to a given day, others offered at random. . . . Other entries are built on reminiscences of wonderful outings to four-star restaurants and appealing dives around the world and to recollections of home-cooked meals with friends from the worlds of books, theater, film or art. . . . In a show of due diligence, Life is Meals also pays charming tribute to titans of modern American cooking–from Julia Child to James Beard to pioneering restaurateur and chef Alice Waters–either through appealing vignettes about their exploits in and out of the kitchen or through recipes they shared with the authors. On top of all that, there is plenty of kitchen wisdom dispensed, some of it ostensibly rudimentary but really worth being reminded of. . . . [This] is a frequently fascinating, always companionable book, one that most people will choose to keep by the bed or easy chair for occasional forays into the intriguing world the Salters describe and wax so lyrically and enthusiastically about. Alternatively, if you’re the type who tends to be invited for dinner at the homes of others, the book might make what is commonly called a ‘hostess gift.’ . . . [You] can rest assured you’ll be invited back.”
–Rod Cockshutt, Raleigh News & Observer

“One of my favorite new books is Life is Meals.”
–Joe Stumpe, Wichita Eagle

“It’s such a joy when you stumble upon a book as delightful as Life is Meals. . . . This book is a fabulous little gem–the authors wrote an entry for each day of the year, all unrelated, so you can dip in and out as you wish. . . . If you’re a foodie, a lover of trivia or just someone who appreciates a good, casual read, pick up Life is Meals. It’s delicious.”
–Susan Shinn, Salisbury Post

“Fond food memories are what make James and Kay Salter’s Life is Meals a volume to savor. It’s all about keeping a record of good food, good times, good friends.”
–Jean Prescott, Sun Herald (South Mississippi)

“Evoking the mood of Ford Madox Ford’s Provence, A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals, Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Robert Baldick’s Dinner at Magny’s, and Brillat-Savarin’s Physiologie du goût, [Life is Meals is] a readable and quotable collection of thoughts and anecdotes inspired by an interest in food. It also recalls the sumptuous feasts in the novels of Huysmans, Proust, and Lampedusa; in James Salter’s Light Years; and in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. This culinary calendar, which can be opened at random or read straight through, has entries for every day of the year, often pegged to birthdays of famous foodies. It evolved from the Salters’ notebooks, recipes, and readings, and includes ‘things of interest, bits of history, opinions, occurrences, odd facts.’ Knowledgeable, lively, and amusing, it has a rare quality: charm. Filled with joie de livre as well as joie de vivre, it suggests a hedonistic yet civilized life . . . The Salters write about food history and wine lore, favorite cookbooks and classic recipes, great chefs from Carême to Alice Waters, and magnetic restaurants. There are social nuances and shopping hints, memorable and disastrous dinner parties, shrewd gossip and literary anecdotes, personal history and European travel, and famous friends . . . . The Salters describe aphrodisiacs from truffles to chocolate and, like Casanova, emphasize ‘the sensual importance of dining, the opening act of so many seductions’ . . . The authors serve up some superbly written recollections . . . . Life is Meals is really about living well. As Graham Greene wrote of Ford’s Provence, it is ‘an elaborate pattern of memories, historical and personal. The subject is the good life–as it should be lived by all the world.’”
–Jeffrey Meyers, Gastronomica: A Journal of Food and Culture

“Life is Meals is partly a memoir of parties [James and Kay Salter] have hosted together over the past 30-some years, partly a cookbook, partly a historical and literary food guide, and wholly an homage to the pleasures of creating and eating a meal.”
–Aspen Home magazine

“A pleasant culinary collection of bits of history, essays, ideas, remembrances and recipes–one for each day of the year.”
–Marion Sullivant, Post and Courier

“This exquisite little book has a story for every day, from a commentary on peanut butter to a list of a kitchen’s barest necessities to the menu on the Titanic on that fateful April 14. A reader could sample one piece a day, or gulp them down all at once–it’d taste good either way.”
–Eugene Weekly

“We need extra nourishment in the winter season. To me, that means feeding the body and feeding the mind. I have a recommendation that combines the two: Life is Meals: A Food Lover's Book of Days. A year’s worth of deliciously textured day-by-day entries about preparation, tasting, culinary history and personal history.”
–Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered, National Public Radio

“Divine . . . [Life is Meals] has now kept me up two