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The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading
Garner gathers a literary chorus to capture the joys of reading and eating in this comic, personal classic.
Reading and eating, like Krazy and Ignatz, Sturm und Drang, prosciutto and melon, Simon and Schuster, and radishes and butter, have always, for me, gone together. The book you’re holding is a product of these combined gluttonies.
Dwight Garner, the beloved New York Times critic and the author of Garner’s Quotations, serves up the intertwined pleasures of books and food. The product of a lifetime of obsessively reading, eating, and every combination therein, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading is a charming, emotional memoir, one that only Garner could write. In it, he records the voices of great writers and the stories from his life that fill his mind as he moves through the sections of the day and this book: breakfast, lunch, shopping, the occasional nap, drinking, and dinner.
Through his lifetime obsession with these twin joys, we meet the man behind the pages and the plates, and a portrait of Garner’s life, eager and insatiable, emerges. He writes with tenderness and humor about his mayonnaise-laden childhood in West Virginia and Naples, Florida (including his father’s famous peanut butter and pickle sandwich), his mind-opening marriage to a chef from a foodie family (“Cree grew up taking frog’s legs to school in her lunch box”), and the words and dishes closest to his heart. This is a book to be savored, though it may just whet your appetite for more.
Reading and eating, like Krazy and Ignatz, Sturm und Drang, prosciutto and melon, Simon and Schuster, and radishes and butter, have always, for me, gone together. The book you’re holding is a product of these combined gluttonies.
Dwight Garner, the beloved New York Times critic and the author of Garner’s Quotations, serves up the intertwined pleasures of books and food. The product of a lifetime of obsessively reading, eating, and every combination therein, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading is a charming, emotional memoir, one that only Garner could write. In it, he records the voices of great writers and the stories from his life that fill his mind as he moves through the sections of the day and this book: breakfast, lunch, shopping, the occasional nap, drinking, and dinner.
Through his lifetime obsession with these twin joys, we meet the man behind the pages and the plates, and a portrait of Garner’s life, eager and insatiable, emerges. He writes with tenderness and humor about his mayonnaise-laden childhood in West Virginia and Naples, Florida (including his father’s famous peanut butter and pickle sandwich), his mind-opening marriage to a chef from a foodie family (“Cree grew up taking frog’s legs to school in her lunch box”), and the words and dishes closest to his heart. This is a book to be savored, though it may just whet your appetite for more.
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First published January 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 406 reviews
November 25, 2023
This interesting memoir from New York Times book critic Dwight Garner came out last month and while it initially wasn’t on my radar at all, I decided to pick it up when I saw what the book was about: reading and eating (perfect timing for Thanksgiving!). In this memoir, Garner writes about his “upstairs delicatessen” (a term borrowed from critic Seymour Krim) which refers to his memories involving his two lifelong passions — “reading about eating” and “eating while reading” (what a fantastic title/subtitle!!). Divided into 5 chapters (aptly titled Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Drinking, Dinner) plus an Introduction and Interlude, Garner writes enthusiastically about his experiences with his “twin joys” of reading and eating, but more than that, he also compiles for us a full-to-the-brim cornucopia of food (and eating) references and quotes from his broad range of reading over the years (his reading runs the gamut from books, poems, short story collections, essays, magazine and newspaper articles, etc.). Some of the writers and works he mentions are well-known, others I’ve honestly never heard of, but regardless of whether I was familiar with the works or not, it was still a lot of fun to read.
Literary references aside though, I also enjoyed reading about Garner’s life and his “food adventures” growing up in West Virginia and Florida. I found the section where he talks about his relationship with his wife Cree especially fascinating given their completely opposite food-related backgrounds — she comes from a family of “food connoisseurs” (chefs and restaurant owners) who were all about fresh ingredients and growing their own food (he mentions that his wife grew up bringing leftover frog legs to school for lunch), while he comes from a working class family that pretty much ate whatever they found around the house (i.e.: bread laden with mayonnaise and cheese slices, potato chips, some red drink from powder mix, etc.). Despite these differences, their relationship not only works, but thrives — Garner relays their family’s “quirkiness” in relation to food with such affection and humor, which I really appreciated.
Overall, this was a fun, delightful read that I highly recommend — though words of warning that some of the food that Garner describes as having eaten might make you feel queasy (personally, I will admit to feeling a tad grossed out when I read about the famous “peanut butter and pickle sandwich” that Garner describes his dad making for him, but that’s mainly because I dislike pickles). With that said, the sheer volume of food-related anecdotes that he gathers in here is impressive, so if anything, picking this one up for those nuggets alone was well worth my while.
Literary references aside though, I also enjoyed reading about Garner’s life and his “food adventures” growing up in West Virginia and Florida. I found the section where he talks about his relationship with his wife Cree especially fascinating given their completely opposite food-related backgrounds — she comes from a family of “food connoisseurs” (chefs and restaurant owners) who were all about fresh ingredients and growing their own food (he mentions that his wife grew up bringing leftover frog legs to school for lunch), while he comes from a working class family that pretty much ate whatever they found around the house (i.e.: bread laden with mayonnaise and cheese slices, potato chips, some red drink from powder mix, etc.). Despite these differences, their relationship not only works, but thrives — Garner relays their family’s “quirkiness” in relation to food with such affection and humor, which I really appreciated.
Overall, this was a fun, delightful read that I highly recommend — though words of warning that some of the food that Garner describes as having eaten might make you feel queasy (personally, I will admit to feeling a tad grossed out when I read about the famous “peanut butter and pickle sandwich” that Garner describes his dad making for him, but that’s mainly because I dislike pickles). With that said, the sheer volume of food-related anecdotes that he gathers in here is impressive, so if anything, picking this one up for those nuggets alone was well worth my while.
January 20, 2024
It's hard to find a descriptor for this one. I enjoyed it and it especially worked as bedtime reading because it's really just snippets of information....about food.
Divided into sections like breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, he also includes a chapter on grocery shopping. We get a mini-biography of his own life of reading and eating (he's a book critic for the NY Times), but it's full of little tidbits about authors and what they eat, fictional characters and their favorite foods, quotes about eating and reading and anything else he thinks he should add. My only quibble is that sometimes I wanted more than one sentence or one paragraph. Overall, a fun book.
Divided into sections like breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, he also includes a chapter on grocery shopping. We get a mini-biography of his own life of reading and eating (he's a book critic for the NY Times), but it's full of little tidbits about authors and what they eat, fictional characters and their favorite foods, quotes about eating and reading and anything else he thinks he should add. My only quibble is that sometimes I wanted more than one sentence or one paragraph. Overall, a fun book.
January 8, 2024
Charming but lightweight literary memoir of eating and cooking, fused with a commonplace book of famous writers on eating and cooking.
April 21, 2023
A compendium of great quotes and stories about eating , drinking , and napping. What more can you want. Garner must have read every book, poem, memoir that touches on eating and drinking because he quotes great lines, stories and poem about those activities profusely through his book. And they are fabulous. This couple with the telling of his food experiences growing up and as an adult combine to make this book entertaining and informative. Highly recommended.
October 14, 2023
I so enjoyed this book about “eating, reading, reading about eating, and eating while reading!” Author Dwight Garner has really done his homework as he talks about famous authors, their books, and comments they have made, all regarding food and drink. Garner, himself a journalist, book reviewer, food critic and lover, has accumulated hundreds of quotes about food but also adds in some of his favorite life memories when food was an important “ingredient.”
He divides the book into chapters: Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Swim or Nap, Drinking, and Dinner. It feels like a day in which many people express their opinions about how much food and drink have impacted their lives.
It was fun, witty, educational, and scrumptious! I loved it and highly recommend it!
Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy.
He divides the book into chapters: Breakfast, Lunch, Shopping, Swim or Nap, Drinking, and Dinner. It feels like a day in which many people express their opinions about how much food and drink have impacted their lives.
It was fun, witty, educational, and scrumptious! I loved it and highly recommend it!
Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy.
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January 16, 2024I don't know about you, but I like to eat, read, and smile. Dwight Garner combines them all here. Not profound, no, but great fun.
December 24, 2023
Easily the most delightful and charming book I’ve read all year, and also one of the funniest.
Reading it is a little spooky, in some ways, because its structure is basically the same as my own mind—anecdotes and stories, one after another. This does give me pause, in a way; do I like it because it’s good, or because it’s written the way I think, and I’m just appreciating the similarity?
There are biographical similarities, too. Garner and I are only a year apart in age; we both went to small, lovely liberal arts colleges; we both moved to Manhattan in our youths, to work as editors/writers (though, of course, he did so much more successfully). He even spent ten years living in northern Westchester, just a few miles north of the village I lived in. The biggest difference there is that he started out elsewhere (West Virginia and Florida), while I grew up solely in Westchester (not counting my first eighteen months in the city). As a fellow Westchesterite, I particularly appreciated his new verb, “to cheever.”
Interestingly, though, we’ve read relatively few of the same writers. I’m familiar with most of the names he mentions, but in that “Oh, yes, I’ve seen their stuff around, never gotten to them” kind of way. I get the definite impression that he reads a lot more memoirs than I do. On food writers, though, we’re pretty even.
It’s the kind of book that sends one running to the bookstore or library, because he makes so many books and writers sound so good. Similarly, I want to remember a million wonderful lines from it, so I start to write them down but then give up almost immediately, because I want so many that it’s pointless, and I should just read the whole damn book again.
Reading it is a little spooky, in some ways, because its structure is basically the same as my own mind—anecdotes and stories, one after another. This does give me pause, in a way; do I like it because it’s good, or because it’s written the way I think, and I’m just appreciating the similarity?
There are biographical similarities, too. Garner and I are only a year apart in age; we both went to small, lovely liberal arts colleges; we both moved to Manhattan in our youths, to work as editors/writers (though, of course, he did so much more successfully). He even spent ten years living in northern Westchester, just a few miles north of the village I lived in. The biggest difference there is that he started out elsewhere (West Virginia and Florida), while I grew up solely in Westchester (not counting my first eighteen months in the city). As a fellow Westchesterite, I particularly appreciated his new verb, “to cheever.”
Interestingly, though, we’ve read relatively few of the same writers. I’m familiar with most of the names he mentions, but in that “Oh, yes, I’ve seen their stuff around, never gotten to them” kind of way. I get the definite impression that he reads a lot more memoirs than I do. On food writers, though, we’re pretty even.
It’s the kind of book that sends one running to the bookstore or library, because he makes so many books and writers sound so good. Similarly, I want to remember a million wonderful lines from it, so I start to write them down but then give up almost immediately, because I want so many that it’s pointless, and I should just read the whole damn book again.
January 17, 2024
Dangerous to read before bed, as you will become hungry.
November 5, 2025
This one left me wondering: am I missing it? The book is certainly pleasant, and Garner’s enthusiasm for food and literature is obvious, but where’s the substance? Much of it feels like a curated scrapbook of what other authors have already said about eating, reading, and living, peppered with his own anecdotes that don’t quite coalesce into anything more meaningful. It’s like spending time with someone who loves to quote great lines but never quite adds their own insight. Charming at times, sure but ultimately, it left me hungry for something more thought-provoking.
March 26, 2024
Just so good. And will probably change the way I look at food in literature forever. Made me think about books he doesn’t mention—Jo March eating lemon drops while reading in a tree is a big one that I have often imitated. Also, Kinsey eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches (or egg sandwiches) while reading thrillers on rainy afternoons.
June 5, 2024
Recommended for those who love to eat, those who love to read, and those who love to read while eating. Cheers!
December 19, 2023
Commonplace book-cum-food memoir. Gluttony of the finest order interspersed with observations and quotes lovingly collected. Garner's omnivore tendencies serve him better in literature than in food and I found myself actively worrying for his health...
From Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon:
She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?
From Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon:
She was the third beer. Not the first one, which the throat receives with almost tearful gratitude; nor the second, that confirms and extends the pleasure of the first. But the third, the one you drink because it's there, because it can't hurt, and because what difference does it make?
December 30, 2023
The overlap of two of my great passions - food & reading! By page 20, I'd already encountered two words I didn't know, which enamored me further with the book. The writing veers from pretentious into raunchy, and is hilarious in parts ("when you brag about not caring about what you eat, you're bragging about a character defect."). It's a mash up of the author's thoughts, various foodstuffs, and other writers' thoughts on the topic.
"The worst thing about death is that you can't take a book with you."
"The worst thing about death is that you can't take a book with you."
April 21, 2023
A really wonderful read a perfect book for a foodie for someone who loves to read and if your New York lover this book is for you.The author had me laughing made me hungry and adding to my cookbook collection.Will be recommending this delightful memoir.#netgalley #fsg
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April 4, 2024I DNF'ed this book about half way through, so I do not feel it is right to leave a rating. I love both books about books and about food, so this seemed right up my alley. However, I found it disjointed and a slog to get through. The bout of TDS was enough to make me quit altogether.
April 21, 2024
I enjoyed this so much. I borrowed it from the library, but I need my own copy. There are countless references to so many writers and books that I want to get to know better. There’s a whole whole lot in this book, but it’s so enjoyable, and he made me laugh out loud several times. So good!
January 30, 2025
Scattered, pretentious, contrived, and forgettable. My friend Tasha’s handwritten notes in the margins from reading it previously were the best thing about the book.
May 19, 2025
A compendium of food writing. Delicious!
Jim harrison: “If you eat badly you are probably living badly.”
Charlie Kaufman in Antkind: “Starbucks is the smart coffee for dumb people. It’s the Christopher Nolan of coffee.”
“It's a cliché but as valid as ever: when we talk about food, that's never all we're talking about. Food is a peephole into social class and ideological predilection; it's a gateway to aesthetics; it touches us on instinctive, academic, mythic, associative, spiritual, and monetary levels. Like poetry, it offers clues to the beauty of living. It's as revealing as sex, and as we age, it's sexual compensation. As feeder and fed, we know the world by putting it in our mouths.”
Jim harrison: “If you eat badly you are probably living badly.”
Charlie Kaufman in Antkind: “Starbucks is the smart coffee for dumb people. It’s the Christopher Nolan of coffee.”
“It's a cliché but as valid as ever: when we talk about food, that's never all we're talking about. Food is a peephole into social class and ideological predilection; it's a gateway to aesthetics; it touches us on instinctive, academic, mythic, associative, spiritual, and monetary levels. Like poetry, it offers clues to the beauty of living. It's as revealing as sex, and as we age, it's sexual compensation. As feeder and fed, we know the world by putting it in our mouths.”
January 13, 2024
Upstairs Delicatessen is part memoir and part literary commentary. The main theme is food and drink. It’s a quick and casual read. Truth to be told, I have no idea who Dwight Carner was before I picked up this audiobook. If you are a fan of Dwight Garner, you probably would like it better. I am not keen on who’s who in the magazine editors’ world, but I do enjoy reading (listening, to be precise) famous authors writing about food. My favorite is chapter 5.
February 1, 2024
A fun palate cleanser (pun intended, I guess)
March 27, 2024
Very fun book about food, food writing, and the way food gets written about in literature. My only complaint is that at times it felt more like a collection of quotes by other people, rather than a book of its own.
January 5, 2025
The Upstairs Delicatessen by Dwight Garner is a lively foray into how food is written about, discussed, and enjoyed in fiction--and nonfiction. Garner revels in food and delves into chapters on breakfast, lunch, and drinks with gusto, taking you through a literary gastronomic tour of how writers and other luminaries have captured their love or distaste of particular foods in print.
October 4, 2024
Felt extremely validated that he shared many of my cooking practices/opinions
Also I want to speak to who first decided it was awkward or embarrassing to eat at a restaurant alone to tell them how wrong they are. It makes me sad to think people are thinking that about themselves all the time versus actually taking pleasure out of their lives! Their loss!
Also I want to speak to who first decided it was awkward or embarrassing to eat at a restaurant alone to tell them how wrong they are. It makes me sad to think people are thinking that about themselves all the time versus actually taking pleasure out of their lives! Their loss!
February 9, 2024
Exactly as advertised! If you are a book lover, a food lover, or ideally both this is essential.
February 17, 2024
One of my favorite voices on the NYTBR podcast (and in print) weaves personal food narrative with thoughts and stories and quotes from other writers and people of note into a tight work divided into courses, so fun! I could really go for a dinner party about now.
January 7, 2024
Delightful way to refine and expand both your grocery and your reading lists. Would make for a good gift for the book and food lovers in your life.
March 28, 2024
Ah, two of my favorite things! Cute little book. The author curiously mentions Proust a great number of times, along with numerous sexual references. Other than that, he skillfully weaves his way through foods, food groups, meals, and all along.... literature.
April 6, 2024
To be honest, I'm disappointed by this book. Instead of having a coherent narrative, it's merely a collection of loosely-related vignettes about eating and reading. I wish the author digs deeper into the topics he's writing about instead of immediately jumping to the next thing. While it's still enjoyable—there are some beautiful descriptions in here—there's just not much substance to it.
November 14, 2023
4.5 stars. A delight. Dwight Garner is my (and many others') favorite book reviewer for the NYT.
May 19, 2024
So enjoyable. Not one you sit down and read through. One you consume in bite-sized chunks. Highly recommend for my foodie friends.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 406 reviews