"I read this book because I've always been interested in food, especially since moving to the Bay Area. It's very comprehensive. One of the things I like about the book is the way it's broken up into chapters. You can enjoy a chapter, and kind of set it down, and even leave it and walk away, and then pick it up later, and keep going through it. So it's not necessarily something you have to just plow through.

It really chronicles sort of the — I think they say the gourmeting of American cuisine, mostly talking from James Beard's era on; but really I think focusing more on how California cuisine really changed everything throughout the nation and eventually ending up with this world where we live in now where you can buy baby lettuce everywhere, whereas when I was growing up in the 70's, you never even heard of anything like that

The information is presented in chapters by subject, and it is chronological mostly. It's academic feeling, although there's a lot of interesting industry gossip incorporated into the information that's presented that makes it a little bit more juicy. It runs a little bit dry because it is so informative, but I think that little bit of gossip helps. They talk a lot about Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, they talk a lot about Pete's Coffee, and they talk quite a bit about Neiman Ranch.

I think people who live in the Bay Area or California might have local/regional interest, and of course anybody interested in food. I'd give it four stars."

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