Taste: Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci may be best known as an actor. He’s worked in movies such as “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Conclave,” the “Hunger Games” films, “Big Night,” “Captain America: The First Avenger,” “Julie & Julia,” etc.

“Big Night,” a movie he also directed, was about food, chefs and restaurants. It proved prescient in Tucci’s career and indicative of what’s important in his life.

In recent years, Tucci has possibly become better known as a foodie rather than a movie star.

He has penned cookbooks, starred in a food-related documentary series “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy,” has a line of cooking products. He has penned two food-related memoirs: “Taste: My Life Through Food” and “What I Ate in One Year.”

I read the recently published “What I Ate in One Year” first. My review noted it is a book that chronicles a year in the life of Stanley Tucci … mostly in food. Places he ate and food he prepared while filming “Conclave.” Foods he made at home with his wife, Felicity, and their young children. Foods they made and restaurants visited traveling with his family. All from the early days of January 2023 to the end of the same year.

“Taste” is more of a traditional memoir … with recipes.

Tucci shares food stories from his childhood growing up in an Italian-American home; his move to New York City to pursue a career in theatre; his rise through films; his home life, etc. Again, with recipes.

In most cases, Tucci includes recipes for mentioned dishes throughout the memoir. If he writes about making pizzoccheri, he includes a recipe for pizzoccheri. He doesn’t offer a recipe for every food mentioned but he does include several, along with a few drink recipes.

“Taste” is a tasty memoir, served best not only to Tucci fans but lovers of eating food and making food.

Fantastic Four: John Byrne Years

Marvel unleashed some big excitement in the early 1980s.

John Byrne took over the reins of the monthly “Fantastic Four” comic book. From 1981-86, Byrne penned, drew and inked Marvel Comics’ first family. His FF run came after Byrne earned his chops with fans as the penciller, usually with Terry Austin inks, and Chris Claremont’s scripts on “The Uncanny X-Men.”

The FF run came before what seemed like Byrne being tapped to revamp numerous characters, with varying degrees of success, from Marvel’s Hulk and Namor to DC hiring him to modernize Superman later in the 1980s. He also developed team books such as “Alpha Flight.”

His Superman and his Fantastic Four runs were something special. Both captured the original magic of their respective characters while adding new dimensions which have become regular traits 40 years later. He brought magic to characters that had become stale.

With the “Fantastic Four,” Byrne touched upon the big bold designs and larger than life stories of the team’s co-creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He added new facets to FF bad guys such as Dr. Doom, Galactus, Puppet Master, etc. He moved the Inhumans to the moon. He tapped into the all-consuming powers of Reed and Susan Richards’ son, Franklin. He briefly transformed Ben Grimm’s Thing into his original lumpy form. In the Negative Zone, he flipped the comic book format by making one issue horizontal instead of vertical … think reading a comic book in the same way you flip through a calendar. He gave Sue Storm the respect she deserves by not only changing her original name from the Invisible Girl to the Invisible Woman but developing her talents to make her arguably the most powerful FF member.

John Byrne seemed to have fun playing with the Fantastic Four and he took readers along for the ride. Forty years later, the stories and art are still bold, dynamic and fun. Byrne’s stories make great reads in the aftermath of the “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” movie trailer released a couple of weeks ago and in preparation of the movie’s scheduled July release.