Thursday Drive: Cookbooks and a Literary Hotel

Despite the limitations of a cranky computer, we managed to limp over to A Bloomsbury Life, where Lisa tells us about Sophie Dahl's new memoir cookbook, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. Lisa couldn't wait until 2010 for it to be published in the U.S., so she ordered it from Amazon.co.uk.

Once you see the "voluptuous delights" inside, you'll know why she couldn't wait, and you too may want to do as Lisa did and suffer through the pint adjustments.


Continuing today's cooks and books theme, Patricia (aka Mrs. Blandings) shares some wonderful insights about the movie Julie & Julia courtesy of Mark Ricker, its Production Designer.

Patricia's alias, of course, comes from the 1940s movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, but Mrs. B's dream house is in Kansas City!


From the malls and suburbs of Kansas City, we hop to the picturesque coast of Oregon and a hotel high above the Pacific whose guests relish the absence of TVs, radios and phones in their rooms (although one public phone is available).

The Sylvia Beach truly is a "hotel for book lovers".

Its rooms are not only named for famous authors, they're decorated in the time period in which the author lived, and each is stocked with its namesake's books. The Agatha Christie Room even has clues to a mystery tucked here and there for its occupant(s) to find.

A fabulous dinner (not included in the rate, and by reservation only) is served family style at 7:00 in the Tables of Content dining room. If people at a table are willing, they'll play a game called Two Truths and a Lie. There are plenty of comfy, overstuffed chairs upstairs in the reading room where tea, coffee, and plenty of books are always available, and hot spiced wine is served every evening at 10:00.

Sylvia Beach, btw, was an American girl who went to Paris in the early 1900s and opened the famous Shakespeare & Company bookstore.

The Sylvia Beach is not a hotel for children. Guests come for the peace and quiet, and to get attuned to the rhythm of the surf on the beach below.

But be sure to book your favorite room well in advance, else you'll end up in the Edgar Allan Poe Room, reportedly haunted (which could be just the intentionally creepy way it's decorated...but maybe not). The third floor is also said to be haunted.


bon appetit!