Stuffed

Adventures of a Restaurant Family

De: Patricia Volk

Narrado por: Barbara Rosenblat

In this wildly funny and charming memoir, Patricia Volk entertains with a unique perspective of New York in the mid- to late-twentieth century and of a bigger-than-life family that owned fourteen restaurants, including Morgen's in the garment district.

Volk's family came to these shores determined to make their mark. Great-grandfather Sussman Volk brought pastrami to the New World. Grandfather Jacob was known as the "most destructive force on Wall Street" and was memorialized by E.B. White as "the greatest wrecker of all time" for his innovative method of demolition. Uncle Albert was the first man to stir scallions into cream cheese. The last of Grandfather Herman Morgen's fourteen restaurants was a famous garment center hangout. One grandmother won the 1916 trophy for "Best Legs in Atlantic City." The other was a 300-pound calendar girl. Ms. Volk's handsome, demanding restaurateur father invented the six-color retractable pen and pencil set and the double-sided cigarette lighter (so you never have to worry which end is up). For three generations, just about every Volk and Morgen (with the exception of Uncle Al, who had an eleven-year affair with Aunt Lil and then refused to marry her because she wasn't a virgin) has, no matter what the circumstances, exhibited a terrifyingly positive attitude. With a cosmic disdain for the status quo, all of them, the tyrants, do-gooders, lovers, martyrs, and fakes, lived at full tilt.

©2001 Patricia Volk (P)2002 Blackstone Audiobooks

Reseñas de la Crítica

"What the book really memorializes so beautifully isn't just a restaurant, or a now-vanished style of eating, but a city in its rich and juicy prime: New York." (New York Magazine)
"Emotionally luxurious and heart gladdening." (Kirkus)
"The message of Volk's loopy, generous memoir, Stuffed, is that there is no such thing as too much food or too much feeling....Stuffed is just what a good restaurant meal should be; soaked in atmosphere, full of strong flavors, handsome on the plate." (Los Angeles Times)

Part memoir, Part cookbook

I was fascinated by the cultural Jewishness the author's family embodied, her descriptions of the mix of observance and non-observance mirrors our family's own NY Jewish roots. With a front row seat, Patricia Volk invites us into her world of mid-20th-century life in New York City. Beyond the restaurant world into which she gives us a peek, we can also see how business was done and the weird disconnects between lipsevice to ideas and the reality of how life was lived: all people are the same, but the housekeeper makes in a week what that purse you just bought on a whim costs, etc.
If you like food history combined with stories about how people really lived, you'll enjoy this story of one of the popular restaurateurs in the city.

overstuffed

This memoirs became sweeter or stickier as it progressed. It sarted as an interesting description of a family completely involved in the restaurant business in New York. As the family begins to age and retire Patricia Volk looses the light touch of the earlier part of the book.

Disappointed

This book doesn't delve into the history of the family restaurant. I was hoping was an indepth description of the life of a family in the restaurant business.
Instead, I had to keep reminding myself what this book was supposed to be about. There is very little about the family business or any 'adventures' at all pertaining to a restaurant family.