What a lovely!

Relish: my life in the kitchen
by Lucy Knisley


No wonder this book was so in demand at the library!  It was funny!  You definitely do not use the phrase "it's only food" around this author.

I wouldn't use the phrase anyway--if you don't have any food, or if you have to choose between paying your rent and and buying your groceries this month, it's a lot more than "only food." It's a livelihood for many thousands of people, an obsession for some, and a delightful discovery for a few more.  After a few hours spent perusing cooking blogs, I start thinking rude thoughts about certain folk lacking lives.  But it's still important.

And to this amazing author and comic artist, it's a framework for a lovely little book about her life and the ways it was shaped by food.  She's great and I've got to see what else she's done!

I guess I'll read her third one soon

Whose Hand?
by Judith Yates Borger

I contemplated taking this book off the list several times, but each time I read the other people's reviews and got too curious to skip it. I'm kind of glad I didn't.  It was a solid little mystery framed with interesting personal interactions.  If I agree with many of the reviewers who said that the detective (actually a reporter) ought to spend a little more time on her family and a little less time lolly-gaggling around and putting herself in mortal peril...well...it didn't spoil the story for me.

Right book, wrong reader?

The Wind Masters
by Pete Dunne

With all the lovely books on my to-read list, I had to go pull a random library book off the shelves.  And I got what I deserved.  It was a lovely little volume of highly anthropomorphized scenes of most of the raptors in North America, going about their daily lives or participating in the singular rituals of courtship, brooding, or raising young. It excluded owls for some reason--possibly the author wasn't so much an expert on owls as he was on hawks and vultures.

It was lovely, yes, and the writing very good.  But it left me cold and I had to struggle to finish it.  There just wasn't enough substance mixed in with the speculation. For me.  I think a lot people would love this. The California Condor story is great.

Should be the not-so-great depression

The Great Depression
by T. H. Watkins


Very readable.  I always considered that word a cop-out word--it doesn't really tell you anything but it sounds important.  Let me start over.

It's written in a comfortable style with plenty of detail to make you feel full but not stuffed. The research is there, but not in-your-face.  It's a companion to a documentary, and I would have enjoyed watching it more than reading this.  As full of pictures as it is--every three or four pages is a group of picture pages--seeing and hearing the history would have been more enjoyable. But I had the book, so there it was.

It's short, though. More personal stories and first-hand observations would have brought it alive.  The story of organized labor in the era was a new one for me, and fascinating, but a little too much "big actor" stories and not quite enough "ordinary Joe" in the account.

That's my impression, anyway. All the same, it's a good length for a starter and leaves you full of jumping-off points.

 

Speechless

A Tale For the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki


Holy cow!  This is one of the best books I've ever read.  And I'm scared to recommend it to any of my friends.

The grim parts are...well...grim.  And gritty and they hurt like hell. Don't be fooled by the beginning. It's going to get real serious real soon. But there's fun, too--Nao's grandmother is a Buddhist monk with a peculiar habit of taking two seeming opposites and making them into "same thing."  When down looks up, up is down.  (I hope I quoted that right--in an audiobook, it's hard to look back.)

The audiobook was read by the author.  At the end she explains that the printed book has footnotes that were impossible to pull into the reading, but by doing the audio she could introduce phrasing and pauses and make us hear the voices she heard in her head as she read every line out loud, during the writing. I approve that. In fact, I'm in love with Ruth Ozeki.

If I'd known it was half recipes...

Prevent and reverse heart disease
by Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr

I was curious, okay?  And it took a long time for it to be available in the library--always checked out.  So I waited.

Sigh.  Or as Westley would say, "Get used to disappointment."  It's a good case study followed by a lot of (possibly) bad recipes.  I don't mistrust his science, although it would be great to see a 7-year followup, right about now.  I just mistrust some of his logic and (possibly) his wife's cooking.

Here are the ingredients for Dahl:  onions, garlic, fresh ginger, and yellow peas.  That, is Dahl?  There's another one that at least includes a little turmeric and chili peppers, but I wouldn't bother.  It doesn't look like Dahl to me.  Can I help it if I like spices?  But--and this is a big but--if you're not a highly adventurous eater, these recipes may be right up your alley.

One other tiny gripe about the recipes--they seem very impracticable for the very people who need them most--men.  Times may be a changing, but I still know too many men, old and young, who don't have a handle on a kitchen.  Calling a recipe "easy" when it requires zesting an orange; purchasing curry powder, cumin, rice, raisins, orange juice and vegetable broth; chopping bell pepper, onion, parsley and a mango...well....  I have all of those ingredients in my kitchen right now.  Making this "easy, easy" recipe would take me about 45 minutes, not including shopping--and I'm used to it.  I'm not fast, but not exceptionally slow, either.

For a husband and wife team who like to cook, the recipes are fine.  But for older people, economically challenged folks, single moms with full-time jobs, etc., they're totally off base.  Especially for people on a budget--no way.  Last time I looked, portobello mushrooms cost more than pork chops.

I was puzzled by his recommendation that you take a daily multivitamin to ensure you get enough folic acid, Vitamins B6 and B12.  B12, I understand.  But anyone following his diet and getting enough calories should be getting plenty of folic acid and probably B6, too.  Throwing in a chemical cocktail of lethal megadoses of vitamins to address a possible deficiency of two or three?  I just looked at a typical vitamin+mineral supplement--it has 100% or more of the daily RDA of 12 of its 22 ingredients.  Why not just recommend a B-complex supplement with folic acid?

My last quibble is a little more personal.  He keeps alluding to the plant-based diets of the rural Chinese, the Okinawans, the Tarahumara, the Papua Highlanders, and some native Africans.  In those populations, heart disease was rare or unknown.  I don't doubt that their diets were plant-based or that they were low fat, getting less than 10% of total calories from fat.  And I completely agree that it makes no sense to do studies that consider a "low fat" diet to be a modified American diet that still has 20-35% of total calories from fat. I noticed that the 2015 Dietary Guidelines  disparaged low-fat diets, but I didn't see what they considered low fat.  Of course, the Guidelines appeared to be mostly authored by the American Dairy Council--I wonder how much money they spent to get so much milk product in there?  I shudder.

Anyway, in regards to comparing his recipes to the example diets, what I don't see is the missing 9% and the vital ingredients that might be lost on account of it.  Let me do the numbers:  taking a typical breakfast (oats+fruit), lunch (soup &salad), dinner (entree & vegetable), and dessert, I got 1321 calories and 7.3% fat.  Not bad, but a little lean.  I'll add a cucumber sandwich, a roasted sweet potato, and increase the soup a little.  Now I'm up to 1579 and 6.5% fat.  So, okay.  That's closer to 10% than not.  So now I'm convinced that his diet contains adequate fat, but I don't see the harm in adding an occasional sprinkling of pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, an egg or a chunk of fish.  Plus I believe it is unlikely that the diets he mentions contain no meat products at all.  Rural Chinese eat meat and fish in small portions.  Okinawans: fish or shrimp in Miso broth.  Tarahumarans: fish, chicken and squirrels.  Papua HIghlanders: special occasion meat and the sago grub (raw, yum!)  No luck on the African diets--I'm not sure where to look.

So I guess I'm okay with it.  I just wish they'd do a followup recipe book for the cooking-impaired.

Random observation

The 2015 Dietary Guidelines  say, "...hand washing is recommended after going to the bathroom, changing diapers, coughing or sneezing, tending to someone who is sick or injured, touching animals, and handling garbage."

So, touching animals is one step away from handling garbage?  I'm doomed.

Light and fun but not the upcoming one

Loot
by Jude Watson

What a ride!  More crosses and double-crosses than a New York Times Sunday puzzle.  I had to read the ending twice to be sure I got it right.

As always, I find it impossible to write about something like this without giving away the best parts.  I will only say it is young adult but anyone could enjoy it.  Coincidences happen but they're not always annoying.  And not always coincidences, as our young protagonists come to learn.

I could eat the pictures

Where Flavor was Born:

Recipes and Culinary Travels Along the Indian Ocean Spice Route

 

by Andreas Viestad, Mette Randem

It’s more than a cookbook, less than a travelogue, and almost informative enough to be a reference book.   Doubled in thickness, it would have made an excellent reference book.  But that apparently wasn’t the publisher’s goal, so I’ll just call this a cookbook with context.   The context is fascinating—history, travel adventure, and lots of tantalizing detail.  For me, it’s a jumping off point for hours of wasted web browsing…or maybe some visits to my local library.  There are certain things at a library that haven’t yet made it online.

I’d love to cook through it.  Some of the ingredients would be hard to find but I suspect most of them would be at my Central Market or the H-Mart Asian Market.  (I might need an interpreter for the latter.)   But since I’ve not yet made a thing, I can’t evaluate any recipes.  He’s liberal about substitutions and optional ingredients, too, which helps.  If it’s a recipe starring cinnamon, for example, I wouldn’t want to try it with cassia.  Note: have I ever tasted “real” cinnamon?  Per the web, it’s only grown in Sri Lanka.   But if it’s a fish recipe starring turmeric, he will suggest a few varieties of fish and then add, “…but any firm-fleshed white fish will do.”

My books for 2015

I have no idea why I can't
arrange these side-by-side,
but I'm not in the mood to
edit HTML!

End of the cooking vacation

What I said: Cooking Vacation.  Not a vacation from cooking, but a vacation for cooking.  I tried way too much stuff and apparently haven't given up yet--I have egg foo young in the fridge ready for frying.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

But the purpose of this post was to have been to illustrate my second and last attempt to make spaghetti squash the "normal" way, with tomato sauce and cheese.  I mean, enough with the vegetable homeopathy!  Just because squash looks like spaghetti doesn't mean it's going to complement a tomato-garlic-basil sauce.  And just because cauliflower can be made to look like rice doesn't mean I'm going to serve with with fried round steak and gravy.

But I stand corrected.  This is delicious.

The quick and the abandoned

The Alchemyst
(The secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #1)
by Michael Scott

Doesn’t stand on its own, or even attempt to. Makes me greatly miss the early Potter books—each had a beginning and an end.  Even though they built on top of each other, you didn’t have to read all seven to have a happy time. I knew this was a series before I started it, but I was expecting some small bit of closure.

Other than that picky problem, it was fine.  Good magic; good characters.  I didn’t quite get what made the evil villain tick, but maybe that will come in time.

 -----------------------

Life after life
by Kate Atkinson

I had to give up on this.  I feel a little ashamed of myself for admitting it.  On Goodreads.com there are rave reviews with five-star delight, including those of a couple of people whose tastes I admire.  Everyone agrees that her writing is lyrical and delightful, and I agree.   If I could speed read to the end, I might become one of those adoring fans.

But, there are also reviews like this:
    The premise of the book makes it sound really good but let’s face it; it is just Groundhog Day in disguise.

And this:
    The length, the repetitive scenes, the incredible number of times Ursula dies and is reborn, are all tedious and terrible torment to get through. 2/3rds in, I found myself offended for having my time wasted.

Which is what I expect I would be saying if I forced myself to continue.   Plus, having this on the top of my pile is actually making me not want to read.  I read a cookbook just to prevent having to pick it up again.

Abandoned.