The great composer Virgil Thomson did not believe in coffee filters. He brewed his coffee in a sauce pan and strained the grounds through a sock. That tasty story is one of many in a new book that is a veritable banquet of food and personality anecdotes.

Moira Hodgson, longtime restaurant critic for the New York Observer, tells Host Liane Hansen about some of the tasty tales of life and cooking in her new book, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: My Adventures in Life and Food.

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