Long anticipated and quickly over

                       Skinny Bitch
                         by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin


I was going to give this book to the library as soon as I finished it, but on second look, I might keep it around on account of the lists of recommended food.  Some good ideas here


The book is okay, I guess.  I don't disagree with much of anything they say. 
 My favorite chapter is, "Have No Faith: Government Agencies Don't Give A Shit About Your Health."  The title is a little harsh but the basic meaning is truer than true.  The individual people may be kindly and concerned, but the heavy hand of American agribusiness is present in any decision they make.  Anywhere you look, it's the fox determining construction standards for the chicken coop.

 Their four-week menu is a joke, just like all the menus they print in the women's magazines.  If I followed it carefully, I'd be cooking two hours a day and throwing away a lot of food.

Example. Monday.  Breakfast: mango, banana, kiwi and soy yogurt.  (Side note: since I hate yogurt, what would be the point of soy yogurt?  The only reason I would ever force myself to eat yogurt is for the probiotics and I doubt if they're present in soy yogurt...oh.  It has live cultures too.  Okay, then.)

So here goes my grocery list: mango-1, banana-1, kiwi-2, soy yogurt-1
Lunch: spinach salad with shredded carrots, chopped almonds, red onion, fresh garlic, cubed tofu and sesame oil.   Sounds good but it would take a half-hour just to prepare.
Add to grocery list: bag spinach, bag carrots, bag almonds, onion-1, garlic-1, tofu-1 12oz box.
Add to leftovers in fridge: 1/2 bag spinach, 7/8 bag carrots, 3/4 bag almonds, 7/8 onion, 10-oz tofu.
Supper: pasta with zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, fresh parsley, pine nuts and olive oil.
Add to grocery list:  all except the garlic and olive oil.
Add to leftovers: 1/2 box pasta, 3/4 bunch parsley, 7/8 box pine nuts.

Are you getting the idea?  the only things that every seem to get used up are staples, like garlic, nuts, and yogurt.  On almost every meal, I have to buy something that only comes in a certain size, and then use very little of it--tofu, alfalfa sprouts, 3-bean salad?   Can you even make a single serving of 3-bean salad?  Say, 1/3 can each of three different canned beans; a stalk of celery; a scoop of mayonnaise.

The only way I could follow this would be to spend an hour each week in Whole Foods Market and package up little one-serving portions of everything.  And it would cost a fortune.

. 

I've been bewitched

Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

It's impossible to review this without major spoilers. Any specific thing I mention would rob you of your delighted surprise when you encountered yet another of Ms. Hartman's odd creations. I can only compare her to J. K. Rowling--they both took a "same old story", a theme done millions of times before, and shot it to the moon.

Here's the thing--J. K. Rowling took the notion of "What if witches and wizards existed in the world and you might be one?" Rachel Hartman took "What if dragons and humans signed a treaty to coexist peacefully, despite deep-seated hatred and mutual disgust?" Then Rowling added Voldemort, Hagrid, boggarts, Death Eaters, House Elves, floo powder, Diagon alley, Parseltongue, horcruxes....

As to what Ms. Hartman added to her magical world, I can't tell you for the reason described above. I can tell you she writes a story that sweeps you along, curious and fascinated and revolted at once. She creates real people (and dragons) and a central character that you're rooting for from page one.

The only bad thing about this book is that the sequel isn't due until next year.

LOVE and other four-letter words

Can it be said that Carolyn Mackler is channeling the spirit of Judy Blume...even if Judy Blume is still alive?  I hope neither of them is insulted by my comparison.  They both capture the psyche of the emerging adult so well--the confusion, the desparate need to fit in and the even more desparate need to stand out and be unique.  And oh my god--the parents! 

Carolyn Mackler took on the peer group as well--a bold move for her.  Haven't you ever had a friend who was all about herself?  Where you were just a sounding board for her, her, her?  I have.

So, if you're a teenager fighting all the usual problems--not that I'm saying they're not problems, because they are and if you don't learn to deal with them in your own unique hemisphere, they will engulf you and devour--

Read this book.  You'll make a friend, I think.

Poor, sad garden.

          More weeds than sprouts. 





An alarming number of the sunflower sprouts have disappeared--are they a tasty snack for sommot, or just succumbing to weather?  I've planted all I had...I think.

Food of the Week is back!

Yesterday's food was
 
Bulghur.


Sounds to me like it's one of those slimy foods that peasants ate in the dark ages, probably with a little cabbage or dried peas in a thin soup. 

But I'm wrong--it's a cereal made from the groats of wheat, typically durum wheat.  A groat is a seed that's had the outer covering removed.  So they take these groats, which have the germ (embryo, if you will), and the bran (the inedible covering), and...I'm so confused!  If the groats still have the bran, what part did the hulling take off?

In any event, the bulghur you buy has been parboiled, dried, and coarsely ground.  It's high in protein and fiber, has a decent amount of iron and vitamin B-6, and little else except yummy complex carbs.  Remember the complex carb movement of the seventies when everyone was jamming on pasta?

On the other hand, since it's made from the same old wheat everything else is, it's subject to the same old problems of a modern-day slice of bread.  I won't be seeking it out.

But the stew it made--


The China Study Cookbook Recipe #17 is Zesty Bulghur Stew

Not nearly enough zest for me, but good!  Face it--anything that calls for garlic and onions, chickpeas, lentils, sweet potatoes and a grain, simmered in vegetable stock, is good.  I can't say that I could even taste the bulghur--it was just a thickener.  Quinoa or rice would have done as well.  But I'm eating it and smiling.

Lovely rainy Sunday--must make time to read

                  Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day:

                  One Man, Eight Countries, One Vintage Travel Guide

                     by Doug Mack

It's hard to review a book that you neither liked nor disliked.  Although Goodreads' 1 to 5 star rating system attempts to soften the impact of a 2 by labeling it, "It was ok," a 2 rating still seems like a "D" to me.  And a D, although kinder than an F, is still a failing grade.

I finished it, but if it had been fifty pages longer, I probably wouldn't have...and that observation alone says "2". Why my negative vibes? Just this--it reminds me of the Peanuts comic strip. I love Peanuts, and Charlie Brown is the star of Peanuts. But I wouldn't take a trip with him.

Here's the story:  taking the guidebook used by his mother in 1967, Europe on Five Dollars a Day, Doug Mack sets out on his own European tour to see, hear, and feel the places that were popular before travel guides became big business.  He deliberately eschews other forms of research--no Google, modern guidebooks, or Facebook--so that he can experience the Old World unprepared and unexpected.  And he takes along his Mother's letters to his Father, written during her own ten-week tour.

It's a great premise for a book.  Occasionally it's really funny.  The only substantive criticism I have is that it contained too much "history of travel guides since Frommer's history-changing edition."  But still I didn't like it.  Dare I say the author was always keeping a part of himself back, hiding from his own camera lens?  That's how it felt.  The bits of his Mother's letters were interesting, just interesting, and if they gave him any insight into his own feelings--or hers--I didn't see it.

He did seem to change a little during the trip, and if he writes another travel story, I might just like to read it.

However Long The Night

 by Aimee Molloy


So many quotables I'd like to post, but that might spoil your enjoyment of the book!  I'll just include one:

Life has legs and continuously walks.  We must walk with it or we will be left behind.


After a "teaser" episode and a brief sketch of Molly Melching's background, the book jumps into  her early years in Senegal--how she grew to love the people and the culture, to learn Wolof, the language of the people, and develop schools for children--schools that taught them to read and write in their native language.  Imagine learning to read in French when you don't even speak French?  Pretty useless.

She even wrote and illustrated her own childrens' books, in the beginning.  Children learned the magic of the written language, and soon she continued the process with adults in adult education programs called Tostan.  Tostan means, "breakthrough"--it taught the basics of sanitation, science, medicine, reproduction, and above all, human rights to people who'd been hung up in the constant struggle for basic survival.  Once the people started getting this basic education, they empowered themselves to make change--one village lobbied for a water line; another a health center and exercise class.

Later she was (unwillingly) dragged into the movement to end female genital cutting.  Not that she didn't hate the practice--she did--but because she knew that any attempt to impose "foreign ways" on a proud and ancient culture was doomed to failure.  Change must come from within--always.

And did it?  Read the book.  Find out for yourself.