Popovers and Candlelight: Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a Restaurant EmpireRecounts the true story of an entrepreneurial woman who succeeded in a male-dominated industry in the twentieth century. What would you do with your last sixty dollars? If you were Patricia Murphy you d turn it into a fortune by buying a rundown Brooklyn diner. On the cusp of the Great Depression, the diner became an overnight sensation, the first of nine popular Patricia Murphy s Candlelight Restaurants that opened over the course of four decades in New York and Florida. Popovers and Candlelight recounts how Murphy bucked Mad Men erasexism in a male-dominated field and created remarkable dining experiences with solid American fare, a talented staff, and eye-popping décor. Dripping in diamonds, she transcended ethnic prejudices to become a socialite and built a brand that sold fragrance as well as food. Mutinous siblings, a desperate manager, and a typhoid outbreak brought it all to an operatic end, but Marcia Biederman restores Murphy and her contributions to their proper place in women s and culinary history. This book will delight readers with its rags-to-riches story and fascinating view of class, gender, ethnicity, and food culture during much of the twentieth century. An impressive accomplishment on many counts: Biederman describes an important but forgotten chapter in mid-century restaurant history, portrays an outsize, Mildred Pierce like personality, and gives a memorable sense of postwar, populuxe suburbia. Paul Freedman, author of Ten Restaurants That Changed America |
Contents
1 Truth or Dare | 1 |
2 Patricia of Avalon | 15 |
3 New Girl | 27 |
4 On the Heights | 43 |
5 Remodeling | 57 |
6 War | 67 |
7 Love | 77 |
8 Schism in the Suburbs | 87 |
12 Grieve Drink Expand | 137 |
13 Where the Yachts Are | 147 |
14 Storm over the Marina | 157 |
15 Manhattan Transfer | 167 |
16 Desperate Measures | 181 |
17 Ignominy | 191 |
18 The Partys Over | 203 |
Notes | 211 |
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Popovers and Candlelight: Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a ... Marcia Biederman Limited preview - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Popovers and Candlelight: Patricia Murphy and the Rise and Fall of a Restaurant Empire Excelsior Editions |
| Author | Marcia Biederman |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | SUNY Press, 2018 |
| ISBN | 1438471548, 9781438471549 |
| Length | 256 pages |
| Subjects | › Biography & Autobiography / Business Biography & Autobiography / General Business & Economics / Small Business Social Science / Gender Studies Social Science / Popular Culture |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |