European

For the past few weeks, I’ve been eyeing Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift’s newest book, “The Splendid Table’s How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions” (2008, Clarkson Potter, $35). I’d flipped through it a few times at my local independent bookstore, but I was determined to not cave in to my little compulsion issue. After the third or forth time I’d picked it up, though, I realized that the book and I seemed to have developed a relationship, and that I was no longer in “whim territory.” I finally plunked down the $35 (ouch) and introduced this little gem to its new home, the precariously stacked pile of cookbooks in my office.