It is also the title of one of the essays, which was published in Gourmet magazine in 2004.

[2] The list of essays is as follows: The book received positive reviews from critics.

The magazine's critical summary reads: "His trademark footnotes, essays in themselves, rarely fail to entertain—if you can follow them.

But a few critics ask whether this collection exhibits more high jinks than actual intellectual insight; the arrows and boxed comments in the essay "Host," for example, may just obscure a Very Important Point.

The three-CD set contains complete readings of the following essays: "Consider the Lobster", "The View from Mrs. Thompson's", "Big Red Son" and "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart".