Overall, an interesting and fun read. The premise is certainly shocking, and paints an incredibly frightening picture of multinational corporate America. And the book is certainly gripping enough; it's actually kinda shocking to find this sort of work over in the nonfiction section.

Perkins certainly isn't going to win any accolades for his writing, though. His style is rather turgid and chock-full of cliche: all the women are shockingly beautiful, the men dark, dashing and mysterious. It's basically the non-fiction version of a bad Grisham knock-off. Perkins seems to see himself as a sort of "international man of mystery," which contradicts his main premise that it's not a Spy-vs-Spy world, but one where the hit men operate openly.

Worse, Perkin's credibility is hard to assess: the people, companies, and agencies mentioned have issued more or less categorical denials — and yet, if the story's true ...

• jacobian
• May 6, 2009
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
• Reply

Alinea is probably the most innovative restaurant in the world; it's no surprise, then, that this cookbook is simply amazing. It's without a doubt the most beautiful book about food I've ever seen; the photos alone are worth the price.

Calling it a "cookbook" is actually pretty inaccurate: yes, there are recipes, but they're presented exactly as made at Alinea, meaning you'll need exotic chemicals like UltraTex-3 and equipment like immersion circulators to actually pull these recipes off as-is.

Still, Chef Achatz's approach to food is something to inspire any cook. He wants us to stop taking food and ingredients for granted, to notice flavor and composition in wholly different ways.

Anybody at all interested in food needs to read this book; I guarantee it'll change the way you think about cooking.

• jacobian
• October 10, 2008
• Alinea
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