The Old House at Home (1940)

This is a very fun read. Here’s a taste:

> He liked to fit a whole onion into the hollowed-out heel of a loaf of French bread and eat it as if it were an apple. He had an extraordinary appetite for onions, the stronger the better, and said that “Good ale, raw onions, and no ladies” was the motto of his saloon.

As a lover of both crusty baguette ends and onions, I can’t wait to try this.

The author, Joseph Mitchell, was one of the great New Yorker nonfiction writers. More pieces by him:

https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/joseph-mitchell

https://www.amazon.com/Up-Old-Hotel-Joseph-Mitchell/dp/06797...

Other favorites of mine are A. J. Liebling, Calvin Trillin, and Ian Frazier:

https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/a-j-liebling

https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/calvin-trillin

https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/ian-frazier

Memorable pieces that are similar in theme to “The Old House at Home” are “The Jollity Building” by A. J. Liebling and “Canal Street” by Ian Frazier. Both are still in print:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/101453/the-telephon...

https://www.amazon.com/Gone-New-York-Adventures-City/dp/0312...

For the interested, the book Two And Two has a lot more about the Old House. I used to visit regularly when I lived northeast and there's no place quite like it.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rafe-bartholomew/tw...