Description:
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
In the last few decades, restaurants and food culture have achieved extraordinary cultural presence. Chefs are heroes and thought leaders, well-executed entrées go viral, dining out has become theater, plating has become art and ubiquitous Instagram content. But in recent years restaurants have faced crisis upon crisis. Restaurant takes a deep dive into the drives, desires, and anxieties we bring to dining out at this time of uncertainty. It explores the meaning we find in good food and warm hospitality. It shows why the restaurant offers unique opportunities to change the quality of our engagement with others and to create shared meaning across the tableBrief description: Brian Duff is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New England, USA. He is the author of The Parent as Citizen. His writing about restaurants, food and wine has appeared in the Portland Phoenix, the Boston Phoenix and the New Yorker.
Review Quotes:
"A lyrical meditation on nourishment, conversation, and our fantasies that are all the more vital for being inevitably disappointed." --Rebecca L. Spang, author of The Invention of the Restaurant
"This wonderful book ventures into the belly of the beast: post-pandemic America's reckoning with its appetites. Duff artfully exposes the question of the restaurant's future to be one of the pressing problems of our time."" --Margret Grebowicz, author of Rescue Me: On Dogs and Their Humans "A smart and engaging account of what it means to eat in a restaurant today, what it doesn't mean, and what it can mean if we are careful and thoughtful enough." --Robert Appelbaum, author of Dishing It Out: In Search of the Restaurant Experience