American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis

I have long neglected you, dear novel eats. But it isn't that I wasn't reading. I just didn't find any food that was different, in a meaningful way, from what I keep posting. I will keep posting boring food items when I have the energy, of course. This post, though, is a little different. That is, the food detail and the choices.

• First, our hero meets friends for dinner at the friends' house, and they have sushi with many different types of alcohol. Much is made of how the hostess tries to array the pieces on the platter and of how one uncouth guest actually puts his in his pocket.

Our hero later goes out to dinner with friends. They eat at a restaurant in NYC and they have:

• Our hero (actually the psychopath) orders monkfish and squid ceviche with golden cavier as an appetizer and gravlax potpie with green tomatillo sauce as a main course.
• His friend Price orders tapas for appetizer and venison with yogurt sauce and fiddlehead ferns with mango slices for main.
• Friend McDermott orders sashimi with goat cheese as appetizer and smoked duck with endive and maple syrup for main.
• Van Patten has scallop sausage for appetizer and grilled salmon with raspberry vinegar and guacamole for main.

Another day Patrick takes a woman out to dinner at a posh restaurant. He doesn't patronize any other type of restaurant. They order:

• Patrick has shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as appetizer, meatloaf with chevre and quailstock sauce as entree.

• His date has peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash as an appetizer and red snapper with violets and pine nuts for her entree.

Another dinner out with friends:

• Patrick has radichio with "some kind of free range squid" for an appetizer.

• Anne and Scott both have monkfish ragout with violets for an appetizer.

• Courtney has something off-menu, like Cajun popcorn, for an appetizer.

• All have a blackened medium-rare redfish for the entree.
  

There is a bit of an odd moment when Patrick recommends that Anne have rum with diet pepsi instead of coke. It becomes much too important.

Another day, Patrick discusses a meal a friend had at another restaurant, and asks some interesting questions:

Was the chicken cut into a particular shape? ("No, just...chicken"). Was the cheesecake warm? Made with goat cheese? Something else? ("No..just cheesecake"). What's "broiled"? ("Something they do in the oven")

Dinner with Evelyn:

• Patrick: dried peppers in a spicy pumpkin soup as appetizer, free-range rabbit with Oregon morels and herbed french fries for main

• Evelyn: dried corn and jalapeno pudding as appetizer, quail stuffed into blue corn tortillas garnished with oysters in potato skins for main

Dinner with Armstrong:

• Patrick: poblano chiles with orange-purply marmalade, free-range chicken with raspberry vinegar and guacamole and extra tomatillo sauce

• Armstrong: sun-dried tomato brioche ("looks like a big bloody sponge"), calf's liver with shad roe and leeks

Christmas party hosted by Evelyn:

roasted hazelnuts
lobster and oyster bisques
celery root soup with apples
Beluga caviar on toast points
creamed onions
roast goose with chestnut stuffing
caviar in puff pastry
vegetable tars with tapenade
roast duck
roast rack of veal with shallots
gnocchi gratin
vegetable sturdel
Waldorf salad
scallops
bruschetta with mascarpone and white truffles
green chili souffle
roast partridge with sage, potatoes an donion and cranberry sauce
mincemeat pies
chocolate trufffles
lemon souffle tars
pecan tarte Tatin

There are other meals but this selection should do.

Seven Up, by Janet Evanovich

The condensed version:

donuts, beer, pancakes, pineapple upside down cake, fried chicken, donuts, donuts...

Elephants Can Remember, by Agatha Christie

I am rereading this book. It has been many years and I do not remember any of it. It's a treat.

Hercule Poirot likes his little glasses of sweet wines, usually berry-flavored. So we get late-night meetings when he has that.

* A meeting at nine at night with a woman asking for help: strong coffee and petits fours. I couldn't help but think how times have changed when I read this. The woman commented that sweets help re-energize. Which is true!

A Charmed Death, by Madelyn Alt

Our psychic hero, Maggie, eats like most fluffy mystery folks eat.

* watching television alone: grilled cheese with tomato sandwich

* making teen helper feel better: hot chocolate with lots of marshmallow creme, dusted with cinnamon, eaten with candy cane

* At a diner for lunch: chicken noodle soup (which she perceives as a "light meal") and cheesecake

* Dinner at home: classic coke, canned ravioli, large-curd cottage cheese with pepper

The Devil's Corner, by Lisa Scottoline

Our heroine, Vicki Allegretti, is an Assistant U.S. Attorney who feels the need to go Nancy Drew from time to time. She also pines for a married man, Dan.

Dan comes to her house early and fixes breakfast: coffee, eggs scrambled in butter.

The night before, Vicki notes that she had eggs too. A lot of eggs get eaten in these fairly fluffy detective novels.

At home for lunch: turkey sandwich, coffee

On stakeout with new friend: McDonald's burger (friend has salad in a cup)

Dinner at home with Dan (Vicki cooks): filet mignon with onions, baked potato

The Rottweiler, by Ruth Rendell

We don't get to watch many of these characters eat. It is a cast of many, but the ones who seem to eat most often are Becky and her nephew Will.

Will appears to subsist on eggs, toast, fried potatoes (chips), sometimes fried tomatoes. He brings sandwiches for lunch with the ingredients not divulged.

Becky too offers and eats eggs for dinner from time to time, more often than I'd expect. She prepares a meal of porked chops, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots for Will and his "girlfriend" Kim.

Kim and Will go out to eat at a Lebanese restaurant one time, but we don't know what they had.

S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries), by Sue Grafton

I missed reporting on several books. There wasn't much eating going on in them, but that's meaningful in itself.

Breakfast after a run: cereal

Lunch with Chet, one of the characters in the case: Santa Maria-style barbecue (tri-tip, salsa, beans, rolls)

Lunch at local restaurant-bar with client and friend: filet mignon, medium rare, salad, baked potato (not for these folks any adventuring)

Lunch in car with client Daisy, from deli: braunschweiger on rye. Daisy and another character have sliced-turkey on sourdough. Also nibbled: potato chips, sodas, cookies.

Breakfast at motel: eggs, bacon, toast

Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George

Not much detailed eating in this or in any Elizabeth George book.

* Thomas Lynley, at the cottage of Daidre Trahair, assists in the making of dinner: Portobello Wellington, couscous with sun dried tomatoes, green beans with garlic and mint, salad with simple Italian dressing.

Bare Bones, by Kathy Reichs

Temperance Brennon is the upper-middle-class featured character in this series. She likes food, has her preferences. She also gets by on various fast food options from time to time but rarely will we see her at McDonald's.

* Takeout at home alone with cat Birdie: enchiladas, guacamole and sour cream, diet coke.

* Breakfast at home alone: Grape-Nuts, coffee

* Barbecue at home of tobacco sales person: pulled pork, coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans, greens. We don't know how many of these items Tempe ate because she was interrupted by the discovery of some bones.

* Lunch subsitute or snack at work: diet coke and Quaker caramel-nut granola bar.

* Breakfast with Ryan: coffee, bacon, eggs.

* At work: granola bar and diet coke

* Dinner at Toscana's with Ryan: perrier with lemon, veal marsala. Ryan had Sam Adams, sea bass. Both came with salads. Tirimisu for dessert.

* Dinner with Ryan at Sylwyn Pub: cheeseburger and fries, diet coke. Ryan had barbecue & fries, Pilsner Urquell.

* Lunch with Ryan at Pike's Soda Shop: grilled cheese sandwiches.

* Dinner at daughter Katie's: hors d'ouevres bought by Tempe: stuffed mushrooms and cheese sticks, linguine vognole whipped together at last minute by Tempe (olive oil, fresh parseley, canned clams, oregano, linguine)

* Dinner at home alone: large salad

* Later that night: yogurt, carrots, celery

* Breakfast with detective Woolsey at the Coffee Cup: fried eggs, biscuits, salmon patty, coffee

Shakespeare's Counselor, by Charlaine Harris

I think I missed a few meals, but there really weren't many.

* Celebration after successful catch: steaks on the grill

Two for the Dough, by Janet Evanovich

Ms. Steph grabs a lot of junk food wherever she goes:

* Nighttime at home: pint of ice cream.

* At crime scene: coffee and chocolate-covered doughnuts

* Dinner at parents' house: chicken, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, apple pie

* later that night, at home with Morelli: a beer and leftover chicken, two more pieces of apple pie

* Breakfast with Ranger: hot chocolate, blueberry pancakes, extra syrup (Ranger had coffee and half grapefruit)

* Breakfast at home: cereal and coffee

* Dinner at the parents': suffed cabbage, spice cake, ice cream

* Dinner with Morelli and Ranger at Big Jim's: ribs and greens

* on a stakeout: Popeye's spicy fried chicken and biscuits

* Another stakeout: kitkat, bite-size peanut butter cups

* TV with Morelli: popcorn (microwave)

* Breakfast at home: coffee, rice krispie marshmallow treats

* Lunch at parents' with Morelli: soup, bread, cookies

* Alone at home: hot choc and peanut butter & honey sandwich

* Stakeout: cheeseburger, fries, milk shake

* TV with Morelli: corn chips and beer

* At parents' home at night: ham & provolone sandwich, milk

Shakespeare's Trollop, by Charlaine Harris

* Lunch on the run: a piece of fruit

Twelve Sharp, by Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum is a fan of desserts. At least she says so. And donuts.

* At bf Morelli's place with Morelli: cold pizza

* Breakfast at Morelli's the following morning: coffee, raisin bread

* Dinner at Stephanie's parents' house: mashed potatoes, pot roast, green beans

* Alone at her condo: peanut butter and olive sandwich, diet soda

* In Ranger's apartment: cheese and crackers and beer

* Takeout to eat at home (that same night): pizza and a six-pack

* At a food court with Ranger: pizza

* Picked up to eat in to bonds office: meatball sub for Steph, spaghetti for Connie, spaghetti & meatballs for Lula

* Lunch in kitchen at home with Ranger: turkey sandwich

* Takeout with Ranger: Kung Pao chicken, fried rice, fried dumplings, Great Wall of Chocolate Cake. Ranger has brown rice, steamed vegetables, lemon chicken.

* Lunch in kitchen with Ranger and Morelli: cheesecake. Ranger has chopped salad with grilled chicken, Morelli has meatball sub.

* Dinner at mom's: roast beef sandwich, cole slaw, potato salad, three-bean salad, macaroni.

* Breakfast with the kidnapper: junk candies from a convenience store

Shakespeare's Christmas, by Charlaine Harris

I seem to have missed most of the eats in this little fast-read. I caught a couple.

*In a diner with an old friend: Lily has a butterscotch milkshake while her friend has a hamburger with everything and fries.

*Christmas day: Lily cooks a meal out of her freezer (most of the dishes she prepared ahead and froze): Turkey, spinach Madeleine, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce.

Lethal Lessons, by Karen Hanson Stuyck

A fluffy mystery.

Our hero, Liz, eats a lot of tex-mex. The novel is set in Houston, Texas.

*Lunch with friend: chicken salad sandwich, with apples, nuts, and curry.

*Lunch with friend in hospital cafeteria: tuna salad sandwich, apple, green jello

*Dinner with co-worker: veal piccata. Co-worker had spaghetti carbonara

*Dinner with friends at restaurant: tostados (by which I think she means tortilla chips), chicken fajitas and small margarita. Friend has large margarita and taco salad, friend's daughter has "multiple entree platter" and coke, plus more chips.

Note: friend's daughter is chubby. Every time we see her eat she is shoveling it in, more than anyone else. Again,the usual assumption that fat people simply eat all the time, more than anyone else.

*Dinner alone at home: wine, then later scrambled eggs, toast with butter and jelly. Describes it as comfort food, as Liz is feeling out of sorts.

Remainder, by Tom McCarthy

I don't think I have made it through a single book, since I started this blog, without missing food somewhere in there. In fact, I have made it through entire books before I remembered there was food in them - and they did not make it in here.

So here I am, well into this remarkable, strange book, and I am just now realizing there has been food. So I will start where I am.

The main character is - do we even get a name? A young man, 30, who has had a bad accident. He comes into a large amount of money through a settlement and he is damaged forever. I am not sure he sees it that way, but he certainly acknowledges that basic human activity is nearly beyond him.

Lunch with his consultant and a councilor: Our subject and his consultant eat fish soup, kedgeree and sparkling water. The councilor has venison sausages and red wine.

Kedgeree? I am thinking of some of the horrors I faced while in Ireland. Is there a relation? I have to look it up. Wikipedia says: Kedgeree (or occasionally kitcherie, kitchari or kitchiri) is a dish consisting of flaked fish (usually smoked haddock), boiled rice, eggs and butter. It's a popular dish.

A Fit of Tempera, by Mary Daheim

A cutesy mystery.

* Dinner at the family cabin: steak fried in butter, sauteed mushrooms, salad, hashbrowns, sugar cookies

* Breakfast in the cabin: buttermilk pancakes, link sausage, fried eggs, orange juice, coffee

* At local eatery: hamburgers, fries, green salad, pepsi

* Dinner in town: prime rib, medium rare for Judith, hamburger steak with mushroom gravy for Renie, both with soup, salad, roll, dessert, coffee

Indemnity Only, by Sara Paretsky

V. I. Warshawski runs around Chicago, picking up food here and there.

* Lunch at a "quasi-Greek" place: crab salad and glass of chablis

* Lunch at Barb's Bar-B-Q: Fresca and chef's salad. V.I. really wants a burger and fries but worries that if she eats stuff like that she will end up with arm flaps, like an older woman she saw that day.

* Dinner date at a fancy restaurant, after V.I. is beaten up and is carrying the bruises: Senegalese Soup and spinach salad. Bread and butter. Coffee. Large dish of ice cream. With Kahlua.
V.I.'s date has baked oysters and quail. And some kind of gooey torte.

* At Bagel Works deli: two corned beef sandwiches (jumbo corned beef on rye) and a Fresca

* At little coffee shop: cheese omelette, juice, coffee

* At Lotty's place: "a little boiled chicken"

* Dinner with reporter: white wine, mostaccioli, heavy with cheese
Reporter has spaghetti with meatballs

* Dinner with date: poached salmon, salad bar, wine, Ahab's spectacular ice-cream-and-cordial (at this point she is "sick of being virtuous")

V.I. steps on a scale, notes she is down two pounds and wonders, because of "all the starch" she's been eating. Starch, V.I.?? How about fat?? And might I add, very little fiber has shown up in these meals.

* Lunch alone at a steak house: small butt steak, undressed salad, tall gin fizz

* Breakfast alone in a coffee shop: Denver omelette, no potatoes, whole wheat toast, juice.

Blood Work, by Michael Connelly

I've missed a few books. I might get back to them later.

Star of this one is Terry McCaleb, former FBI agent. He's retired because he had a heart transplant and can't afford the stress and physical activities associated with his FBI career.

He doesn't have his appetite back and doesn't much taste.

On his boat, alone: scrambled egg whites with tabasco sauce and white dry toast.

Another day, alone in his boat: sandwich of white bread with processed cheese and a canned coke.

Shakespeare's Landlord, by Charlaine Harris

At home, lead character Lily Bard fixes herself chicken breast, a roll, broccoli with parmesan.

On a weekend, Lily buys food enough to fix several meals at once and freeze them:

A taco casserole
A stew
Some chicken breast thing

Nobody's Fool, by Richard Russo

I have let most of the meals here get away from me. I get so caught up in the behavior and words of the characters that I flat out forget. So I'll take it up with what I remember.

* A thanksgiving dinner prepared by Sully's ex-wife, standard Thanksgiving food, on a paper plate, wrapped in foil. Sully brings it into a bar, has the bartender heat it up in the microwave, and offers it to a friend.

At different times Sully has a hamburger at the local bar ("the Horse"). He doesn't have much appetite, can hardly look at food much of the time.

At one point Sully makes a foolish bet and ends up eating a pickled egg that had landed on the floor. He hates even the sight of pickled eggs and it surprised me that he didn't throw it up.

The Unbidden Truth, by Kate Wilhelm

For the most part, practical food:

* A meeting in a restaurant does not include a description of the food ordered.

* A dinner at Frank's (father of main character Barbara Holloway):

a layered casserole of freshly-picked vegetables and lamb riblets

* On the road: sandwiches and a thermos of coffee; no description of what is inside the sandwiches

* At a campground, cooked on a camp stove: hamburgers and spicy black beans

* At a campground, cooked on the camp stove: bacon and eggs and coffee

* At a campground, potatoes baked in foil in the fire, steaks cooked on a camp stove, deli slaw, wine. Comments from the chef - Darren - that if Barbara wants her steak well-done he will hang up his chef's hat.

* Reference to a plan to stop at Sisters for soup and salad. I take this as an indication Wilhelm is in her comfort zone, choosing places she personally knows (Sisters).

* Dinner made by a friend: quiche and a roast. Neither is described in greater detail.

Taking the Heat, by Brenda Novak

It's funny how quickly these books get away from me. I have missed posting about a couple already.

This book is a romance! Not my cup of tea but here it is in my house so it gets read. It is hard for me to pass a book on to another without reading it. Perhaps I also get a perverse pleasure in describing the book in the reviews I make on bookcrossing (http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/jlautner).

Gabrielle Hadley has recently moved to Florence, Arizona, and taken a job as a prison guard. She is supporting her one-year-old daughter while living in a single-wide trailer. Her ex-husband cares about her and wants to help more but Gabrielle refuses help beyond child support and the occasional visit. She wants to make it on her own.

Early on Gabrielle comes home from work, exhausted, and fixes dinner:

canned soup
frozen vegetables

I think we are meant to understand how poor she is and how determined.

She brings her lunch to work, and later the prisoner takes a look at it out in the desert (where he escaped and grabbed her purse):

turkey sandwich
potato chips
cookies
diet soda

Snapshot, by Linda Barnes

Barnes has created a character named Carlotta Carlyle, who is a 6'-2" redhead, early thirties (I think), private investigator with a mouth. Barnes reveals some food prejudices here:

One character, a large woman, asks Carlyle to pick her up some snacks. Junk food - twinkies, chips, chocolate, sodas. When Carlyle has lunch with this woman Carlyle hardly eats anything, a kind of reaction to the shoveling of food by her friend.

It is not uncommon in novels for fat people to be represented in this way, as addicted to junk food, never far from a candy bar, always eating. I would so love it if some of these writers would look at their own actual experiences with fat people. I think they'd realize very few of them are eating all the time, often they have no more of a fixation on junk food than their skinny friends (even less at times) and that in fact they may not eat as much total as their skinny friends. But then that might break the long-held beliefs of so many.

Later in the book Carlyle fixes herself dinner of spaghetti with a jar of marinara sauce laced with a bit of red wine. She figures she has to spend so much time eating why spend time cooking.

Lunch at home by herself, Carlotta fixes a soup with boiling water and a dried soup packet. We don't get to know what kind of soup.

Seder: Carlotta celebrates seder in her own way. The food includes potato kugel (made by the fatty mentioned above), gefilte fish with horseradish, chicken soup with matzo balls - this made by Carlotta, who lets us know she uses water, salt, dill, along with chicken, and that it includes a "debate" over the merits of parsnips over sweet potatoes. And wine. This bit, about the soup, is as far as Barnes takes us into Carlotta's skills as a chef, and of course she's a natural.

The Last Coyote, by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch meets with a reporter and has an egg salad sandwich while the reporter has a burger and fries.

Harry cooks from time to time but not in this novel.

Play Dirty, by Sandra Brown

Play Dirty is a "romantic suspense" novel by a veteran writer of this genre. The main character grabs and goes:

A breakfast of instant coffee, toast, and milk

Lunch at Sonic drive-in of a jalapeno cheeseburger, frito pie, two orders of tater tots, and a strawberry-lemon slush. I almost thought he ate there because Brown goes to Sonic often.

No romantic scenes with one or the other character making like a chef. We can be grateful for that.

Why?

When I read mysteries, suspense, other escape novels, I tend to notice the food the characters eat. Sometimes a big deal is made of it: the characters are great chefs, they prepare their signature dishes, people eat it and make love and so on. Other times the food is secondary, a plot device, a setting.

It seems from my memories that food in these novels tends toward the unadventurous. Again and again I read of pasta, fish, steak on a grill. I have gotten tired of the fuss made over what is not all that special and decided to take a closer look by actually documenting what characters eat. So there you are, that's what I'm doing here.

The Woods by Harlen Coben

Coben is no gourmet writer, nor does he pretend, in this novel, that his characters are.

Burger and beer during a break in a courtroom proceeding. Purchased at a nearby bar & grill.

Deli sandwiches ordered in during the trial: chicken salad on whole wheat, meatball sub.