'His writing here is a high-glazed wonder' Kathryn Hughes, Guardian. 'I need to read anything that Adam Gopnik writes and these essays on food, eating and - it follows - life are a particular feast. His acuity, grace, sensitive intelligence (in short, his brilliance) are, as ever, dazzlingly displayed and yet with the lightest of touches' Nigella Lawson. 'Brilliant ... flamboyant and greedy' Independent. 'Extraordinary' GQ. 'Like the Argentinian [Lionel Messi], Gopnik is always worth watching' Telegraph. 'Gopnik, a brilliant writer on the New Yorker, makes a passionate case for the centrality of the table to our lives, and the binding force of sitting down to the 'nightly miracle' of dinner' Sunday Times. 'He may be the best food writer there is. He's certainly the most thoughtful - the most philosophical' Evening Standard. 'Gopnik writes beautifully ... this is a lovely history of the way we think about all sorts of things' William Leith. 'These are personal essays in the fullest sense of the word, sieving the big subjects of the book's subtitle - family, France, food - through one man's well-furnished mind' Guardian.

Adam Gopnik is the author of Angels and Ages, Paris to the Moon and Through the Children's Gate and is a contributor to the New Yorker. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.