Insatiable

Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess

By: Gael Greene

Narrated by: Nancy Travis

Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The tastiest, most uninhibited memoir in years, Insatiable is a feast for the senses and an aphrodisiac for the soul. "I love Le Cirque, but can I be trusted?" writes Gael Greene, the highly respected restaurant critic for New York magazine, whose fierce wit and sensuous prose changed the way Americans think about food.

Now, Greene lifts the lid on her most provocative subject yet: herself. And oh, what a pot-au-feu it is, bubbling over with piquant humor, saucy erotic adventures, and some of the most lovingly described meals in literature (at Le Pavillon, Lutece, Troisgros, Tour d'Argent, La Pyramide, Girardet, Le Bernardin). From Manhattan's snootiest boites to the gourmand shrines of France and Italy, this is the story of a woman who invented a fabulous career out of dining on someone else's dollar.

With her passion for fine food, her nose for hypocrisy and social humbug, and, above all, her appetite for love and life, Greene traces her rise from a Velveeta cocoon in the Midwest to journalist wannabe, to powerful critic of New York magazine. What timing: to be un grand fromage in the world of food, just when eating well was becoming a national obsession. Love and food, foreplay and fork play, haute cuisine and social history; all become inextricably linked as the author embarks on what seemed, at times to her, a frivolous quest to satisfy insatiable hunger.

Until the specter of hunger on her own street engaged her energy and Citymeals-on-Wheels emerged. Along the way there are intimate portraits of the culinary icons of our time and revealing dissections of New York's legendary "in" spots and their invisible caste systems-at The Colony, Elaine's, La Grenouille, "21", Le Cirque, Odeon, and Balthazar.

Earthy and delicious but also penetrating and astute, Greene's memoir deserves a prominent place on the shelf of gastronomic classics.

©2006 Gael Greene (P)2006 Time Warner AudioBooks

Critic reviews

"Her fun memoir spices up the standard chronicle of food supped and wine sipped with breathless descriptions of sexual trysts, travel tales, and signature fashions." (Publishers Weekly)

Sensual Pleasures

I was going back and forth on 2 star or 3. The writing has some good visual metaphors. I read this on vacation at the beach. That's what it is a beach read. Light, sex, food and a woman who has more confidence and bravado than a roomful of sorority girls.

Great Story of Food and Sex

We have always enjoyed the New York Magazine articles by Gael Greene, dating back to the late 70's. This book is basically her autobiography, telling about her encounters with famous food (and other) people over the last 30 years. She is an excellent chronicler of the New York social scene, especially as it relates to food. It's interesting now to hear the "behind the scenes" story of some of the articles we read in the 70's and 80's, when we lived in Philadelphia and would make regular trips to NYC for food and plays.
It will help if you're a "foodie" when you listen to this book, and there is a lot of sex involved also, as she tells about her various escapades. But I loved it and listened to it in two days.

Stick a fork in this one

I have been in the food and wine business for over twenty years and thought that this would be right up my alley, it was not. The book can be transcribed in one sentence: She had sex with Elvis, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and a 2 bit porn star and ate foie gras everywhere she could order it and lived happily ever after.....there, now you don't have to read this book and waste your credits.