SECRET INGREDIENTS The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink

This production of THE NEW YORKER's finest food writing is not as tasty as it might have been. The major glitch is the lack of an index, which means that, while readers can dip into the collection at will, audiobook listeners must hear it with no knowledge of what's coming. The content's unusual order--Anthony Bourdain's kitchen shock jock beside MFK Fisher's paean to "cookery witches"--makes the lack of indexing particularly frustrating. Eight different actors read the essays, articles, and poems. It's an interesting approach, which unfortunately doesn't work. The actors' widely varying voices and skills increase the production's uneven quality. Edible? Yes. Satisfying? No. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2008]