Context Is All

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Context Is All The Cookbook Collector By Allegra Goodman Dial. 394 pp. $26.00.

FROM HER first novel, The Family Markowitz (1996), Allegra Goodman has written in an American- Jewish idiom she has made distinctly her own. Neither shticky nor scabrous, it is attentive to both sides of the cultural equation - the larger contemporary scene, and the more insular tribal domain. In this newest and most ambitious book she has broadened her scope considerably, taking on a cast of characters that includes dot-com milhonaires and rare book dealers, ultraobservant Jews and college students with their heads in the sky, once again demonstrating the ease with which she navigates between secular …