Weiss, Tamara

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Weiss, Tamara

PERSONAL: Married.

ADDRESSES: Office—Midnight Farm, 18 Water-Crowell Lane, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Clarkson Potter, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Business owner. Midnight Farm, Martha's Vineyard, MA, co-owner.

WRITINGS:

Potluck at Midnight Farm: Celebrating Food, Family, Friends on Martha's Vineyard (cookbook), photographs by Nina Bramhall, foreword by Carly Simon, Clarkson Potter (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Co-owner with noted singer-songwriter Carly Simon of the gift-and-home store Midnight Farm, Tamara Weiss is also the author of the cookbook Potluck at Midnight Farm: Celebrating Food, Family, Friends on Martha's Vineyard. The book features more than one hundred recipes gathered from the numerous potluck gatherings the author has attended or hosted, from dinners and brunches to late-night grills on the beach. All the recipes come from those who attended the potluck food gatherings and include a few celebrity favorites such as actress Mary Steenburgen's "Corn Spoon Pudding" and writer William Styron's "Daphne's Fried Chicken." Overall, Weiss includes the entire menus for eleven potluck meals appropriate for various seasons. She cites the occasion for each menu, gives credit for the recipes to the various guests, and comments on why the recipe is special to them.

A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that while "a few recipes do not even seem appropriate to the potluck format," the book serves up "a collection of solid—if unsurprising—dishes appropriate for entertaining." Dwight Garner, writing in the New York Times Book Review, noted that Weiss's text "is full of chatter," which "makes Martha's Vineyard sound like a minimum-security prison for the criminally self-absorbed." In a review for Library Journal, Judith Sutton called Potluck at Midnight Farm, "attractively designed and filled with color photographs." Writing on the Writers Write Web site, a contributor commented that the book gives a charming and delightful portrait of entertaining casually with delicious recipes, beautiful photographs and interesting anecdotes."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, March 15, 2002, Judith Sutton, review of Potluck at Midnight Farm: Celebrating Food, Family, Friends on Martha's Vineyard, p. 103.

New York Times Book Review, June 2, 2002, Dwight Garner, review of Potluck at Midnight Farm, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2002, review of Potluck at Midnight Farm, p. 92.