Cookbook Review: THE FOOD YOU CRAVE by Ellie Krieger

Getting back to school means getting back to routines and getting back to health. So one of the book recommendations I was most enthusiastic about trying this fall was a recommendation from our own Beth Fish: The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger.

As the Weekend Cooking crew may remember, I have a love/hate relationship with Food Network personality cookbooks. But this particular book won a James Beard Award in the category of “Cookbook with a Healthy Focus.” Those two recommendations were enough to put the book on my library list.

Who is Ellie Krieger? Krieger is a registered dietician with a Master’s degree in Nutrition. She hosts the Food Network show Healthy Appetite. Krieger is a prominent member of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, and she was head nutritionist for the White House’s “Healthy Kids Fair.”

Take on Cooking: Traditional favorites reimagined into healthy meals.

The Delicious Parts:The book is beautifully designed, with lots of photos (although not for every recipe). The recipes are easy to understand and prep, without myriad ingredients that some healthy cookbooks employ to make up for a lack of fat, so I found they were fine for weeknights. Her strategy is to change the proportions of non-healthy ingredients in recipes, rather than use unpleasant or unsatisfying substitutes, which I appreciated. The book is jam-packed with nutritional information, which I found very helpful. For example, rather than just give total fat information for recipes, she breaks down both good (mono- and polyunsaturated fats, like the ones found in nuts and veggies) and bad (saturated) fats. She also includes daily numbers to shoot for in many nutrition categories.

My First Bites: I cooked four recipes from the book: Confetti Chili, Aromatic Noodles with Lime-Peanut Sauce, Buffalo Chicken Salad and Chicken Chop Suey. They all came together easily, and my family enjoyed them all. The Confetti Chili was spicy from the chipotle, smoky from the adobo sauce and cumin, and sweet from the corn. Made with canned beans (suggested by Krieger) and tons of veggies, it came together in about an hour. It could easily become our house chili. The only recipe my husband wasn’t too enthusiastic about was the Chop Suey. It was a bit bland, but since the original is kind of a bland, Americanized version of Chinese food, it would probably be a winner with people who are fans. And even at that, I got a great idea for turning dumpling skins into a healthier Asian crunchy topping than those canned fried noodles.

Not Quite To My Taste: When it comes to dinner, Krieger really focuses on meat dishes. Red meat factors heavily in the Main Course section, but we don’t tend to eat steaks and chops very often. Still, for meat lovers, finding healthier ways of cooking them would be a real plus. Oddly, I wasn’t blown away by the salad choices; many were more “go-withs” than meals on their own. Still, those negatives are based on my personal taste and lifestyle. I think Krieger really does a great job with the promise of the book.

Recommendation? Devour, Split, Send it Back to the Kitchen? Devour or split, definitely – but I’d lean toward devour if you’re looking for a solid, healthy lifestyle cookbook with a broad range of recipes. You certainly won’t be disappointed with this one.

One Great Recipe: Ellie Krieger’s Confetti Chili

1 T olive oil
1 small onion, diced (1 cup)
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced (1 cup)
1 medium carrot, diced (½ cup)
2 t ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
1 lb. lean or extra lean (90% lean or higher) ground beef
One 28-oz can no-salt added crushed tomatoes, with their juices
2 c water
1 canned chipotle chili in adobo sauce, seeded and minced, plus 2 t of the sauce (I didn’t seed the chipotles, because we love heat)
½ t oregano
One 15.5 oz can black beans, preferably low-sodium, drained and rinsed
One 15.5 oz can kidney beans, preferably low-sodium, drained and rinsed
1 ½ c frozen corn kernels
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1) Heat the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, and carrot, cover, and cook, stirring, for occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the cumin coriander and cook, stirring for 1 minute. And the ground beef; raise the heat to high and cook, breaking up the meat with a spoon, until the meat is no longer pink. Stir in the tomatoes, water, chipotle and adobo sauce, and oregano and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, partially covered, stirring from time to time, for 30 minutes.

2) Stir in the beans and continue cooking, partially covered, 20 minutes longer, until the chili is nicely thickened. Stir in the corn and cook until heated through. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

FTC disclosure: I did not receive a free copy of this book for review. I borrowed it from the library.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman

I love how Neil Gaiman’s books find both magic and terror lurking in the most mundane places. In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, an introverted little boy finds a mystical world at a farmhouse just down a bumpy road from his house – a place of both wonder and fear. But more fabulous than the full moon that always shines on one side of the house to the little nameless boy who is the main character in the story is actually finding a friend, in the person of a strangely mature 11-year-old girl named Lettie Hempstock.

The little boy meets Lettie and the other Hempstock women when his family car is used by a tenant to commit suicide on their property. This sad act sets off a chain of events that puts the little boy, his family, Lettie Hempstock and perhaps the whole world in danger. But in the background of all the harrowing activity is the absolute calm of the Hempstock farm, where Lettie, her mother Ginnie, and grandmother Old Mrs. Hempstock live in absolute harmony with nature: where the fires are cozier, the kittens are cuddlier and the food tastes better than anyplace on earth. Which makes the juxtaposition of good and evil in this book particularly jarring.

This story certainly bears some resemblance to Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book -- but definitely at an adult level. No children’s book could deal so forthrightly with a father’s attempt to murder his own son – or that same father’s entanglement with an evil nanny. Still, Gaiman brings so much whimsy to the characters that you find yourself lulled into a false sense of security – and then startled back into remembering this is not a “warm and fuzzy” tale. For example, after one near death experience, the young boy’s mind turns to spotted dick, a favorite dessert:

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I found joy in things that made me happy. The custard was sweet and creamy in my mouth, the dark swollen currants in the spotted dick were tangy in the cake-thick chewy blandness of the pudding, and perhaps I was going to die that night and perhaps I would never go home again, but it was a good dinner, and I had faith in Lettie Hempstock. p. 206

This is a unique story, despite the fact that the Hempstock women are reminiscent of the Fates –- life forms so old and powerful that even the Greek gods could not understand or sway them. But the similarities ended for me there. I absolutely couldn’t put this book down. I imagine many people will have this one on their R.I.P. VIII lists this year, and I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Thanks so much to Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting!

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a free copy of this book for review. I borrowed the e-book from my public library.

Audiobook Review: COLOUR SCHEME by Ngaio Marsh

I fell in love with Ngaio Marsh last year when I read Vintage Murder for the Vintage Mystery Challenge. How can you not love a writer who devises a death-by-champagne-bottle plot? So when I put together this year’s list for the Vintage Mystery Challenge 2012, I created a “Vicious Vacations” theme (murders that take place in a location I’d kill to visit!), and knew I had to put another of Marsh’s New Zealand-based books on the list. The only one I was able to find on audible was Colour Scheme, so I downloaded it. And it finally came up on my gym cue last week. The fact that I logged an extra hour and a half on the treadmill indicates that my second Marsh title didn’t disappoint.

Maurice Questing is an insufferable, conniving, lascivious man. A long-term resident of Wai Atta Tapu*, a small thermal spring resort, it’s clear from the beginning that Questing has some kind of hold over Colonel and Mrs. Claire, the stuffy but good hearted expats who own the spa. The book takes place during World War II, and the daily blackouts and shipping reports that were part of the daily life of New Zealanders at the time feature prominently in the book. The setting allows Marsh to put together a fascinating group of characters and possible motives for Questing’s inevitable – and quite gruesome – murder.

In addition to the Claires and Questing, other expats include the Claire’s adult children, ugly duckling Barbara and son Simon, who is working to perfect his Morse code in advance of being called up to the air force. There’s also the famous (and high-maintenance) Shakespearean actor who is taking a cure of lumbago in the mud baths, Geoffrey Gaunt, along with his entourage: personal secretary named Dikon Bell, a New Zealander, and his British dresser and man-Friday, Calley. Another guest at the hot springs, Septimus Falls, is totally agreeable, but evasive about his background. Spa handyman Smith is known to hate Questing openly, even accusing him of attempted homicide.

One of the things that made this book particularly interesting was the inclusion of Maori characters, including a retired Member of Parliament, Rua. Marsh treated the Maori characters and their traditions with dignity, while still illustrating the tensions between the three cultures: Brits, “colonials,” and native New Zealanders. One of the possible premises for Questing’s murder stems directly from the Maori element in the novel, since he is accused of stealing Maori artifacts for illicit sale to collectors. The second premise is indirectly related to the Maori, as there appears to be a fifth column spy signaling from the Maori reserve lands where Questing is known to wander in the evenings.

I never figured out the murderer, in part because I didn’t pay as much attention to the title as I should have. There are a couple of interesting twists toward the end, and more than a few red herrings, but I love it when I think back and the solution to a mystery was difficult but fair, which has been the case in both of the Marsh titles I have read. I’d call it good fun.

I am finally on the board for another challenge, Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2012, hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block! I have some catching up to do, but that’s what summer is for, isn’t it?

*An apology – since I listened to the audiobook, and couldn’t find a complete list of characters online, I have likely spelled some names wrong. I have gone with the most common spellings.

Weekend Cooking Book Review: WEEKNIGHTS WITH GIADA

Confession: I didn’t have the best experience with my first Giada de Laurentis cookbook, Giada’s Family Dinners. The dishes I tried came out fine, but almost everything was in the “Weekend Cooking” category – the stuff you make rarely, because it takes lots of time and lots of ingredients. (The Everyday Family Entrees section included Rack of Lamb with Mint-Basil Pesto and Veal Scallopine with Saffron Cream Sauce. Delicious, yes, but not the stuff a working mom is likely to whip up after a day at the office.) Still, the flavors were good, so when I saw the Netgalley of her new cookbook, Weeknights with Giada, was available for review, I decided to put it to the test before I bought it.

With a beautiful steak in the freezer, we decided to try the Rib Eye Steaks with Smoky Arrabiata Sauce. The prep was simple: the arrabiata sauce consisted of canned, crushed tomatoes and veggies with a serrano pepper and smoked paprika for kick. No oil at all – just a few pulses in the food processor and heat for 25 minutes. And the steak was just coated with olive oil and salt. Definitely an “after work” kind of meal, but reviews were split. My husband loved it. My oldest pronounced it, “Meh.” But my youngest asked, “Why can’t we just have ketchup?” And I thought the addition of 2 tablespoons of sugar into the already sweet crushed tomatoes (I used San Marzano tomatoes) was just too much against a not very spicy arrabiata. But I liked the idea, and it was a good deal healthier than ketchup. Score one and a half a points for Giada.

To be fair, I wanted to try one more recipe. In reading the book, I noticed that a number of recipes called for canned salmon. That seemed weird to me – I grew up on Long Island, and while I can easily give up meat, I could never give up fish. But I am fussy about it. Could Giada convince me to like canned fish? I was dubious. Still, sustainably caught fresh salmon is very pricey, so sustainably caught canned salmon, at about half the price, would be a nice alternative. So last night we tackled Salmon Cakes with Lemon-Caper Yogurt Sauce.

Verdict: YUM! I really couldn’t believe it. The salmon cakes were a bit of a mess to put together, and next time I would definitely put them on parchment paper while they rest in the fridge. I was suspicious about making two recipes (the cakes and the sauce) on a weeknight, but in this case a number of ingredients could be prepped once and used in both recipes. My husband and I agreed it wasn’t any more hassle to put two together than one. And the taste was fantastic. Both of my girls went back for more, and my oldest said she loved the salmon with the corn. Four points for Giada that round.

Maybe it stands to reason that now that she’s a mom herself, De Laurentis has a better feel for the pressures of a working mom who still wants to put a healthy meal on the table. I found this a big improvement, time-wise, over her previous family-oriented book, and I’ll probably be buying this one, because there are a number of other meals I’d like to try, especially the pastas.

Salmon Cakes with Lemon-Caper Yogurt Sauce from Weeknights with Giada by Giada De Laurentis

Salmon Cakes

1 (14.75 oz) can boneless, skinless pink salmon, drained

1 large egg, beaten

1/3 cup chopped fresh chives

26 saltine crackers, crushed

½ cup frozen corn, thawed

¼ cup mayonnaise, plus more as needed

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained

1 tbsp grated lemon zest

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp unsalted butter

Using a fork, flake the salmon into ½-inch pieces into a medium bowl. Add the egg, chives, ½ cup of the crushed crackers, corn, mayonnaise, mustard, capers, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix gently until just combined. Form into 10 patties, each about ¾ inch thick (if the mixture is too dry to form into patties, add extra mayonnaise, 1 tbsp at a time). Carefully coat the patties in the remaining crushed crackers and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil and butter together over medium heat. Add the patties and cook 7 to 8 minutes on each side, until golden and crispy. Drain patties on paper towels.

Lemon-Caper Sauce

½ cup full-fat plain Greek yogurt

1 ½ tbsp capers, rinsed, drained and chopped

1 tbsp grated lemon zest

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl, mix the yogurt, capers, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!

Weekend Cooking Book Review: Tamar Adler's AN EVERLASTING MEAL

If I told you that I might never make a recipe from a cookbook I’d read faithfully, you’d think it was a flop, wouldn’t you? So if I then told you that this has become one of my favorite books, inspiring and heartwarming, you might think I was a bit loony. But I can make both statements without reservation when discussing Tamar Adler’s outstanding meditation on cooking from the heart and pantry, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for people who love food: cooking it, sharing it, and just thinking about it.

Adler’s book shares the life lessons she has learned while working in the kitchen. The chapter entitled “How to Feel Powerful,” for example, explores the tactical use of strong ingredients like anchovies, capers, olives and cornichons that should always occupy your pantry. Another chapter, “How to Make Peace,” discusses turning a small amount of anything into a meal through the use of rice and polenta. It’s more philosophy than cookbook, really, and thought-provoking in its simplicity.

In the chapter entitled “How to Build a Ship,” Adler discusses how to regain your love of the kitchen when you’re overwhelmed or frustrated. Here’s some great advice:

Let smells in. Let the smell of hot tarmac in the summer remind you of a meal you ate the first time you landed in a hot place, when the ground smelled like it was melting. Let the smell of salt remind you of a paper basket of fried clams you ate once, squeezing them with lemon as you walked on a boardwalk. Let it reach your deeper interest. When you smell the sea, and remember the basket of hot fried clams, and the sound of skee-balls knocking against each other, let it help you love what food can do, which is to tie this moment to that one. Then something about the wind off the sea will have sttled in your mind, and carried the fried clams and squeeze of lemon with it. p. 142

So why won’t I make a recipe from the book? Because Adler’s recipes are simply meant as a starting point for the readers own imagination, tastes and circumstances. I can’t help feeling that I’d fail Adler miserably by making up one of her recipes as written, as she’s inspired me to do so much more. But she definitely provides some wonderful templates in the book, including a recipe for Ribollita I intend to work from this week.

The cover notes indicate that Adler was an editor at Harper’s Magazine, as well as a cook at Prune and Chez Panisse. This book brings together both her talent with words and her love of food in a really beautiful way. I can’t think of a real cook who wouldn’t enjoy this book, and I’ve already picked it out as a great Christmas gift for at least two people, as I think it would be especially comforting to read in winter.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!

Book Review: Angela Davis Gardner's BUTTERFLY'S CHILD

Very few people can have watched the tragic end of the famed opera, Madama Butterfly, without wondering what happened to the little boy she loved and hoped to protect through her own suicide, placing him in the care of his American father, Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton. Angela Davis-Gardner’s Butterfly’s Child offers one possible glimpse of Benji Pinkerton’s future in a novel that certainly captures the raw emotion of Puccini’s masterwork. The novel is beautifully written, and the story is compelling, but it also left me oddly deflated, without the hope that infuses the opera it’s based on*.

Imagine what life would be like for Benji in rural Illinois at the turn of the last century. Frank and Kate Pinkerton tell everyone they’ve selflessly adopted a “heathen” child, although it’s clear to anyone who bothers to look that Benji can’t be pure Japanese. The newly married Kate is devastated to learn of her husband’s liaison with Butterfly, and struggles to give Frank an American family of their own. Benji finds love from his grandmother, Mrs. Pinkerton, and the local veterinarian, Dr. Keast, and he grows up a motivated and intelligent young man, determined to find his mother’s family in Japan. But Davis-Gardner takes Pinkerton down a far darker road than the one I’d imagined, turning what was a callow fellow in the opera into a truly cruel one in the novel. As his web of lies unravels, it’s clear they’ve turned him into a worse father than he was a husband – poor Butterfly sadly bet wrong on his character:

Rage boiled up in him. He imagined lashing Benji with a cat-o’-nine-tails, wrapping it around his neck, and tearing off that suffragist’s clothes and making her march through town naked. In the saloon, men would take turns with her. Aimee Moore too – she was in on this. pg. 221

This book contains a couple of huge plot twists that I don’t want to give away because they are central to the novel. But in the end I can say that one of those twists unfortunately rang hollow to me – specifically, the one that involved the US diplomat Sharpless, who had grown fond of Butterfly and sought a way to revenge her death. “Really?” I couldn’t help wondering aloud. I am not sure how exactly to walk the literary line between “life” and “art” in this kind of a novel, and I am looking forward to hearing others’ opinions on this plot line.

I love novels with multicultural themes, and this one does a great job of dealing with race from many perspectives, without much sentimentality or anachronism. I also love opera, and I enjoyed Davis-Gardner’s reexamination of Puccini’s characterizations. There is a lot to like in this novel, but in the end I didn’t find it as satisfying a “next act” as I had hoped. But maybe my own thoughts on the opera made that inevitable.

I read this book as part of a TLC book tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

In 140 characters or less: Angela Davis-Gardner’s emotional look at the consequences of Madama Butterfly’s final, desperate act of love.

*Yeah, I know it sounds weird to call an opera that ends with a woman plunging a knife into her chest “hopeful,” but in the sense that she is taking a leap of faith in her “husband” Pinkerton, I’ve always seen it that way.

Book Review: R.L. Prendergast's DINNER WITH LISA

I grew up with my father’s stories of the Great Depression. Only it never seemed so depressing at all. My father was part of a huge Irish-American family, growing up among some 30 cousins in New York City. He spoke wistfully about taking potato sandwiches to school because there was no meat. And how he hated rice, because eating it meant that they couldn’t even afford potatoes. (To this day, my dad won’t eat rice unless it’s safely tucked under a plate of Chinese food!)

R.L. Prendergast’s Dinner with Lisa gave me a new appreciation for my own family’s Depression era history. So much so that I already put the book on my dad’s Christmas list. It’s that good!

Joseph Gaston is out of luck. His beloved wife died right after the birth of their fourth child, and his small farm has been taken in bankruptcy. His only hope for his family’s future lies a week’s train ride away on the other end of Canada, in a little town called Philibuster, where his Quebecois brother Henri and his wife have helped him secure a coveted job at a local dairy. Without a job, he might soon be forced to give up the children to a relative – or worse, the government . Prendergast does a good job of outlining the bleak options available to the poor in mid-Depression, as well as explaining the failed policies that brought them to that place. Sometimes the situations seem eerily familiar:

Joseph had heard stories of camps where men spent eight hours a day clearing brush and piling stones. The workers could have been employed productively, cutting timber to make houses for the poor, or constructing public buildings, but for the fact that some big contractor or lumber company with political connections would raise a stink. Free labour would kill their businesses. The rich knew how to stick together.Kindle location 1775

I remember my dad telling stories about his uncles getting work with the W.P.A., and I always love seeing the results of those projects when I visit National Parks in the US. The book made me think about how bad the situation must have been for the government to have taken such extraordinary steps to put people to work.

Joseph soon finds that the little town retains its Wild West character, with a crooked mayor, divided loyalties and a deep hatred of outsiders that constantly threaten to undermine his chance at a new life. But it’s also home to a group of industrious free spirits who are making the best out of a very bad situation, finding fun, food and fellowship whenever and wherever they can. The supporting cast brought Prendergast’s novel to life for me: Beth Hoogaboom, the rowdy dry goods store owner; Police Chief Montgomery Quentin, who knows the dark side of the mayor’s policies, but remains under his thumb to keep his job; and Tom Wah, a Chinese immigrant fearful of losing the family he has built in Canada to the town’s bigotry. I also loved the intimate way the Prendergast brought us into the lifeworld of the Canadian plains, with black blizzards and freezing temperatures and lots and lots of gophers.

Dinner with Lisa was a surprising title. I sat down to read it and didn’t put it down until I finished. Prendergast is a new author to me, but I will definitely seek out more of his work. This is highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction, Canadian fiction, and fiction with Western themes.

I read this book as part of a Premier Virtual Author Book Tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

This is another hit for the Historical Fiction 2012 Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry. Looks like there is little chance of me not finishing that one!

Book Review: ENCHANTMENTS by Kathryn Harrison

How does a teenager process the fact that her beloved father’s murder signals the death knell of the world she’s known? What part of her old world can she take with her into the ominous new one? And who can she turn to for comfort when her lot in life is to comfort others? These would be difficult enough questions to tackle for any young woman – but for a daughter of the monk Rasputin, the personal turmoil reverberates throughout a country.

Kathryn Harrison’s Enchantments is a beautifully written story about the end of the Romanov dynasty, imagined from the point of view of an actual eyewitness: Matryona “Masha” Rasputina. Novels that present a well-known story from a new standpoint are certainly not uncommon. Still, there is something to be said for “pivoting the table” as my quantitative friends would say, and exploring a tale from a new or unique angle. Harrison uses the tsarina’s desperation at the loss of Rasputin to bring Masha inside the palace as a surrogate healer for her hemophiliac son, Tsarevich Alexander, which gives her narrative a unique insider/outsider perspective on the last days of the royal family – and a turbulent time in history.

The novel centers on the relationship between the tsarevich, known to his family as Aloysha, and Masha. Rasputin led the tsarina to believe that Masha shared his healing powers, but Masha is not convinced, and instead uses her true gift – story telling – to amuse the doomed young man while they wait for they know not what. Ironically, her stories give him an appreciation for a Russia that none of the other Romanovs ever bothered to know, which is the reason why he’ll never rule it.

Harrison’s writing is rich and evocative, as she describes the end of an era:

In the years before the Bolsheviks seized the city, St. Petersburg was a playground in the throes of a kind of decadence – determined, desperate – that presages collapse. As if the aristocracy knew apocalypse was imminent and, also knowing there was nothing to prevent its arrival, stayed up drinking and dancing and inhaling cocaine when they could get their hands on any, distracting themselves by whatever means they found. Spending money in a frenzy of champagne, caviar, jewels, gowns. On parties with full orchestras, themed costume balls excusing all manner of ostentation: hostesses riding through ballrooms on gilded elephants, servants dressed up like gondoliers or Vikings or pharaohs. p. 180

I loved Masha’s voice, but unfortunately the disjointed, asynchronous narrative was not as successful for me. The story jumps from Rasputin’s early life to the family’s time in St. Petersburg to Siberian folk wisdom to Masha’s exile from Russian rather incoherently at times, so that I often didn’t have a handle on the plot. I cared about the characters, but in fits and starts. I also found the “coming of age” portions of the book between Aloysha and Masha squirm-inducing. They seemed to belong more in a YA title than in this one – especially because they were accompanied by high-end philosophical thought on the nature of virtue and morality.

Still, the story was interesting and fast-paced, and it made me rethink what I knew about Rasputin and the Romanovs, so I would highly recommend it to lovers of historical fiction, especially those with an interest in imperial Russia. This title counts toward the Historical Fiction 2012 Challenge, which seems to be the only one I’m tearing up so far this year. Thanks to Historical Tapestry for hosting! I do have some additional books to review, though, so I’m hoping to start really making progress on my reading goals for the year!

I read this book as part of a TLC book tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

In 140 characters or less:The beginning of adulthood and the end of the world from a Rasputin's perspective.

Book Review: TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG by Connie Willis

Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog introduces readers to a near future when Oxford historians routinely travel through time for investigative purposes. Their work is underwritten by a wealthy, overbearing American – Lady Schrapnell – whose pet project is the rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral to reproduce its appearance on the day her revered Victorian-era grandmother saw it for the first time, and thereby changed the course of her life, as well as the whole family’s. But the small-scale interactions of the historians and their environment set up the possibility of large-scale disasters down the proverbial road: like the possibility of the Allies losing World War II.

The book represents a loving homage to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, whose subtitle was “To Say Nothing of the Dog.” Ned, the time traveler tasked with finding an artifact from the Coventry Cathedral called “the bishop’s bird stump,” has made so many time jumps that he has a form of the bends, and misunderstands the mission he’s on. And like Jerome’s crew, Ned and new found friends Terence St. Trewes and his absent minded Oxford don Professor Peddick travel the Thames in a skiff, and find more adventure than the relaxation they so desperately need.

I think it’s taken me seemingly forever to review the book because this Hugo-award winning novel defies simple description. Yes, it’s a time travel story. But after reading it, I’d probably categorize it under “humor,” before “science fiction.” Because unlike other novels that might focus on the mechanics of voyages in time and space, this book shoves those aside, focusing instead on the truly hilarious consequences of unintended actions. I adored the way Willis took a beloved classic and retrofitted it – even allowing the characters from the original to make a cameo appearance! Oh, and there’s even a couple of love stories.

In fact, if there’s any downside to the book, it’s that Willis seems to gloss over some information about the “world” she’s created that the reader could really use. For example, what is the new time traveling ability based on? Why do individuals react to it so differently? If I was in a mood to be particularly persnickety I’d call it somewhat troublesome that the book’s ending reveals that one of the science fiction “premises” the story was based on was completely unfounded. But it feels like quibbling, because those things didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book.

If you’re looking for a light and amusing sci-fi title, this is definitely it. I’d also suggest it to those who love contemporary humor titles, especially Douglas Adams (although I’m certainly not promising you’ll love it as much as Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Christopher Moore (and I’d call this a clear winner over his Fluke). I was planning on counting this for Carl V’s Science Fiction Experience in January, but couldn’t get my act together to get the review up in time. Reading this did inspire me to seek out a few more sci fi titles, so it’s still a win!

In 140 Characters or Less: Time travel hijinks, in search of a cantankerous cat.

Weekend Cooking: The Everything Vegetarian Pressure Cooker Cookbook

Anyone who knows me well knows that a cookbook is a great gift. My darling daughters went out in search for one for my birthday, and found one that seemed to combine two things I love: my pressure cooker and vegetarian food. Which is how I came to own Amy Snyder and Justin Snyder’sThe Everything Vegetarian Pressure Cooker Cookbook. I absolutely loved the idea behind it, and went right to work trying recipes.

I wish I could report it was a major success. But I really can’t.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great ideas and combinations here – the authors know a lot about mixing flavors, and they are not afraid of the spice rack, that’s for sure. But I have two main problems with the book. First, the recipes are unnecessarily complicated. Second, the directions, as written, assume quite a bit of culinary knowledge, especially for their vegan substitutions.

Pressure cookers are all about shifting cooking time – I think of mine as the “opposite” of my slow cooker. When my prep time for the day falls in the morning, I plan a slow cooker meal. But when the only prep time I’ll have is right before dinner, I often look to the pressure cooker for a quick soup or risotto. However, that convenience goes out the window if the recipes require lengthy prepping and soaking – and that is exactly how the bean recipes in this book are written. For example, the Chickpea-Parsley-Dill Dip (a yummy combination, right?) includes two separate pressure treatments of the beans: first under pressure for one minute, followed by a quick-release of pressure, followed by a 1 hour soak, followed by draining the beans, adding more water and putting under pressure for 20 minutes, followed by natural pressure release (which depending on the cooker, could take another 20 minutes). An experienced pressure cooker user would simply keep the beans under pressure for 35 minutes or so and be done with it. And in the cases, such as bean soups, where the beans are finished in broth, the book still calls for a soak in water before cooking. Why, when broth is so much tastier?

As for cooking know-how, the book claims to have a vegan version of every meal – and that’s true to some extent. In fact, the preface of the book makes it clear that the authors prefer and recommend a vegan lifestyle, rather than vegetarian. But the substitutions consist mostly of plopping vegan versions of dairy (and meat) products into existing recipes. There’s not a lot of thought or testing in that. And alternative products, such as smoked paprika, aren’t really called upon. It’s “top with vegan cheese, such as Daiya Mozzarella Style Shreds,” or “use vegan margarine, such as Earth Balance.” I didn’t really like the product placement aspect of the substitutions. And I prefer my vegan recipes to be vegan by design, not veganized knock-offs of carnivorous or omnivorous fare.

That’s not to say that the gift was unappreciated. And I’ll definitely use it for inspiration. But I know I have to recalculate liquid amounts, because I don't soak beans. And I avoid recipes with substitutions. Simplifying the steps, I wound up with a lovely Creamy White Bean and Garlic Soup, scented with rosemary. Again, a great combination – but minus the 8-hour pre-soak of beans called for in the recipe. I just sautéed an onion and 6 cloves of garlic in olive oil in my pressure cooker, then added a pound of rinsed navy beans, 8 cups of veggie stock and a bay leaf to the cooker and held it under pressure for 25 minutes. After the pressure released naturally, I added a tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary and the juice of a lemon to the cooker, and let the soup thicken for 10 minutes before I pureed it with my motor boat. Salt and pepper, and a loaf of bread, and we had dinner!


Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting!

Book Review: The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

Sometimes, even the most serious person must feel the need to play around. President Richard Nixon escaped from the Cold War by bowling. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote comic operas. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer played in the Par 3 Tournament before the Masters.

Jorge Luis Borges, along with Margarita Guerrero, wrote The Book of Imaginary Beings (El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios).* And a great diversion it is!

The book is just as the title implies: an encyclopedia of the strange and fantastic creatures that inhabit the literary world. Some, like the Harpies, have a long and varied history that comes down to us from classical mythology, both from European and Asian traditions. Others people modern works by authors such as C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra or Edgar Allen Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Borges wrote two editions of the book, first in 1954 (entitled The Anthology of Fantastic Zoology (Manual de Zoología Fantástica), and an expanded version in 1967. He obviously hoped to expand the book further, as the prologue to the 1967 edition notes:

A book of this nature is necessarily incomplete; each new edition is the core of future editions, which may be multiplied to infinity. We invite its eventual readers in Colombia or Paraguay to send us the names, reliable descriptions, and most conspicuous habits of their own local monsters.” p. xv (English language edition)

Alas, a further edition was never issued. I can only imagine the incredible entries that might have come from the communities of the Africa and Oceania.

Still, the 120 beasts described in the volume provide important glimpses into the potential of the human imagination, as well as insights into the cultures that provided the myths. Take, for example, The Ink Monkey (El Mono de la Tinta), which comes to us from China:

This animal is common in the northern regions and is about four or five inches long; it is endowed with an unusual instinct; its eyes are like carnelian stones, and its hair is jet black, sleek and flexible, as soft as a pillow. It is very fond of eating thick China ink, and whenever people write, it sits with folded hands and crossed legs, waiting till the writing is finished, when it drinks up the remainder of the ink; which done, it squats down as before; and does not frisk about unnecessarily. – Wang Tai-hai (1791) p. 134 (English language version)

Such a monster could only come from a culture where ink was highly prized and expensive, and hints at the frustration of running out of such a precious commodity. Other mythological creatures, like dragons, seem to pop up in multiple locations. Borges refers to these as “necessary” monsters in the preface to the 1954 edition, but not in the 1967 version, so maybe he didn’t find them so “universal” upon further review.

I found this book because of an early review for the Read-A-Myth Challenge from The Parrish Lantern. His review was outstanding, and includes a really fun “monster quiz” I urge you to take. I enjoyed this book tremendously, as it was fun to read over a period of months, one entry at a time. My daughters and I referred to it while watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and agreed that JK Rowling had taken some real liberties with the Basilisk. But that’s what mythology is for, isn’t it? The monsters we create – and recreate – tell us about ourselves and our world, while linking us to our past.

Okay, last review to finish the last challenge of the year. I really enjoyed the Read-A-Myth Challenge, and I made it to Level 3 Mimir: World Myth! I included myths from both the Greek and Sufi traditions, two non-fiction books about mythology, a modern reinterpretation of a classic myth, and an anthology. Bellezza and I were able to organize a read-along of Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad for this challenge, which was really a lot of fun, and introduced me to a number of new blogs. So thanks to JoV and Bina for hosting this wonderful challenge. It was a blast – even if it did take me the entire year to complete it!

*I read the Spanish version of the book, a gift from my in-laws. But I used the English language version, illustrated by Peter Sis, for reference. Of course, the order of the two books is completely different, as they are alphabetized by noun, but the content is the same. So in this case, the English translations given were actually approved by the author.

Book Review: The Manual of a Warrior of Light (Manual del Guerrero de la Luz) by Paulo Coelho

Okay, I’m ’fessing up here: this is not the book I planned to read to finish the Book Bloggers Abroad Challenge 2011. This is supposed to be a review of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. I took it out of the library after reading boatloads of great reviews, and eagerly started to read. But it just didn’t grab me. I have no idea why. So I put it down and figured I’d get back to it at a different time.

And then, well, time ran out.

A week left in the challenge, at a very busy time of year, and I had to reassess. I absolutely hate to leave a challenge incomplete. So I went back to the Judith’s list on Leeswammes, and saw Paulo Coelho was on the author list. I had The Manual of a Warrior of Light (Manual del Guerrero de la Luz) on the shelf. And it was mercifully short. So I did a late game substitution to finish the challenge.

Generally, I enjoy Coelho. I have appreciated his focus on personal responsibility and the spirituality of books like The Alchemist and Veronika Decides to Die. His simple, direct style of writing is easily accessible, and I find it a good way to practice Spanish*. But unfortunately, Warrior of Light has no real narrative flow. Rather, it is a compendium of axioms and quotations informing the reader (ostensibly training to be Warrior in the army of God) how to live a life in the active service of goodness. In this framework, everyone must choose to wage a metaphorical war against the forces of evil. Some of Coelho’s battle instructions are principles borrowed from other works, such as The Pilgrim’s Progress or the I Ching. But most come directly from Coehlo’s own spiritual Christianity (Coelho is a Jesuit-educated, devout Catholic), full of the same kind of paradoxes that are the hallmark of a similar book, Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, which I reviewed earlier this year.

The warrior of light is pure as a dove, and prudent as a serpent.

When he meets to talk, he doesn’t discuss the behavior of others. He knows that the forces of darkness use an invisible network to spread their evil. This network captures whatever information is released into the air and transforms it into the intrigue and envy that sap the human soul.

In this way, everything one says about another is always picked up by that person’s enemies, and supplemented by their own dark load of venom and evil.

Because of this, when a warrior of light discusses his brother, he imagines the brother is present, listening to him. p. 81 (My translation from the Spanish, so my apologies to Mr. Coelho if I haven't captured it exactly)

Warrior of Light provides a good summation of Coelho’s philosophy. And certainly it offers a framework for understanding his other novels. But it’s really too choppy to read straight through like a novel, as I did. Reading it again, I would look at each of the pages as a kind of “meditation,” the kind of thing to read and reflect on early in the morning, or right before going to bed. Still, it’s a very interesting little book, and I imagine Coelho fans will love it like his other works. Students of philosophy and those who enjoy spiritual titles would also enjoy it. I just wouldn’t recommend it as a place to start reading Coelho’s work.

So that’s the Book Bloggers Abroad 2011 Challenge complete. I read some very diverse titles for this challenge, representing 5 continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. I thank the bloggers whose recommendations led me to the books for this one. And thanks again to Judith for hosting!

*Coelho actually writes in Portuguese, but since I don't read it, I buy the Spanish editions.

Book Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

How quickly do we form our impressions of others? How dependent are those impressions on the way someone appears? What determines whether or not we simply interact with another person, or truly form a connection with them? It is when Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog explores these deeply human questions that the novel is wonderfully successful.

Madame Renée Michel works as a concierge for an upscale condominium in one of Paris’ most elegant neighborhoods, and occupies a small apartment in the building. The building’s other residents include the upper crust of French society: food critics, members of Parliament, government ministers. To the building residents, the widowed Madame Michel appears in every way a model concierge: aging, ugly, unfashionable, and a bit dim. But in reality, Madame Michel is an autodidact, voraciously reading everything she can get her hands on. She spends her time off seeking out great books and great art. But she conceals her erudite nature from the resident of 7, rue de Grenelle, believing that her job is safer if the elites she works for believe she is not trying to reach beyond her social class.

But a few people in the building see through Madame Michel’s ruse. Portuguese housemaid Manuela, Renée’s one true friend, knows that beneath her crusty exterior Renée is a person of great passion – even if she doesn’t guess the depths of her friend’s thirst for knowledge. The newest resident in the building, wealthy Japanese businessman Kakuro, recognizes a line from Tolstoy that Madame Michel carelessly inserts into a conversation. And Paloma, the all-seeing 12-year-old daughter of high-minded French socialists who make time for every cause save their family, notices the intelligence in Madame Michel’s eyes, and senses a kindred spirit. Madame Michel’s interactions with these individuals, and the lessons we can draw from them, are truly surprising and inspiring. It is significant that all of Madame Michel’s friends come from outside of French culture, including Paloma, the only French member of the bunch, who does her best to place herself outside of what she sees as a hypocritical order. This is, no doubt, a part of Barbery’s treatise on the French social system, which makes up a significant portion of the book.

And that, unfortunately, is where the book fell down for me. Barbery was trained as a philosopher, and a great deal of the book comprises essays on the nature of being, moving and knowing, as experienced by the characters of Madame Michel and Paloma Josse. Some of these pieces are quite interesting, such as her discussion of Dutch still lives. But in other parts of the book she opines on topics like phenomenology and aesthetics for chapters at a time, without drawing any interesting conclusions. As with Alexander McCall Smith’s Sunday Afternoon Philosophy Club series, at those times I had the distinct feeling I was being schooled, rather than entertained. Also, I’m no expert in French sociology, nor am I a Marxist scholar, but I am pretty sure there are worse examples of classism on the planet than modern day France – even if there is a lingering elitism that the fifth Republic has yet to address.

Still, there is so much to like about this book. There are some laughs and some extraordinarily tender moments. I will probably never look at a camellia the same way again after reading this book, and that’s a powerful thing. I particularly loved the incident when Madame Michel and Monsieur Ozu are leaving for dinner, and the wealthy ladies of the building have no idea that the woman on their new friend’s arm is their concierge: they simply don’t see it, because in their world it simply can’t happen. Barbery captured the moment perfectly.

I hated the ending of the novel – no quibbling about that – but it didn’t ruin the book for me. (It did cross my mind after reading it that I wouldn’t enjoy having dinner with the author, but that was just an idle thought, and not an issue I’m likely to face any time soon. However, it should signal how very much I thought the ending was somehow mean-spirited). Lovers of literary fiction, translated fiction and philosophy should definitely have this book on their TBR lists – although I imagine many of them have read it already, considering the extraordinary success of the novel around the world.

This is my third book for the Europa Challenge 2011. My last review, of Amara Lakhous’ Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio will appear on the Europa Editions Challenge site this week – but I’ll hold off posting it here on Col Reads until my buddy Jess at Desperado Penguin is ready with her review. I am already looking forward to the 2012 Europa Editions Challenge. Thanks so much to Marie at The Boston Bibliophile for hosting!

Book Review: The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

One of the places where I am flat out behind the curve is in the area of German literature. And since I try to use challenges to make up for those kinds of inadequacies, I went with one of the German recommendations for Judith of Leeswammes’ Book Bloggers Abroad 2011 Challenge, and ordered a copy of Walter Moers’ The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear.

About 20 pages into the book, I had to admit I wasn’t enjoying it very much, despite the author’s engaging illustrations. About 50 pages into the book, I realized that what was killing the book for me was the publicity I’d read about it in the first place.

So I’m here to disabuse anyone who reads this post of the idea that The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear resembles A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in any but the most superficial of ways. Yes, both Bluebear and Arthur Dent hurtle from adventure to adventure, encountering new (to them) and strange life forms along the way. And both Bluebear and Arthur Dent can call upon the seemingly comprehensive knowledge of an Encyclopedia to explain (after a fashion) said life forms. But that’s pretty much where the comparison ends. The five-book A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (hehehe) is a masterpiece of British humor and biting social commentary, very definitely for adults. And The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear is a pleasant-enough children’s fantasy. Yes, there is some social commentary, but it is very subtle and nestled firmly in a hopeful tale of the goodness of almost everything – once you just understand it.

Once I got past the hype, at around page 200 – of a whopping 703 pages – I realized that I’d actually be enjoying the book if I were reading it with my daughter, who’s in 5th grade. Or to a class of children. There really would be a lot to discuss with kids. I would love to get their thoughts on “bacterial intelligence,” for example. And I wondered what children would make of the 1600H character – how can a “bad idea” be good? I can imagine all kinds of exercises that could go along with teaching this book. It would be hilarious to have children write their own congladiator boasts, for example. Or to describe a day on the SS Moloch. With those possibilities in mind, I liked the book way more toward the end than I did at the beginning, even though I found the story was a bit slow a lot of the time.

So in the end, I would recommend The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear -- to children. And to lovers of children’s literature. And to those who enjoy cartoons, as Moers is a talented illustrator. It probably wouldn’t be something I would have picked up on my own, so I’d say it was a good stretch of my boundaries, and that’s always a good thing. So thanks again to Judith at Leeswammes for hosting the Book Bloggers Abroad Challenge. I have the last one for that one read, and a review will be up later this week!

Book Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

I remember how jarring it was to find out about the Japanese internment camps that dotted the country during the Second World War while reading Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston’s touching story, Farewell to Manzanar, in middle school. “My government would actually do something like that?” I wondered. I remember asking my father, who admitted that it was the case – and he was also honest enough to admit that he didn’t think right after Pearl Harbor most European Americans felt very bad about what was happening to Japanese Americans, even if in hindsight it makes absolutely no sense.

But I haven’t read anything else about that particular period in American history, so I was happy to see that Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was on the reading list for my book club’s December meeting. I was hoping to get more of an “adult” view of the time period, since Wakatsuki Houston was writing a memoir of her childhood. In retrospect, that expectation may have been my biggest problem with the book, because what Ford gives us is a very interesting novel told from the perspective of a Chinese American child, Henry Lee, who loses his closest friend, a Japanese American girl named Keiko Okabe, to the internment camps.

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t love it. I did think Ford did a good job of bringing to life a tension that I frankly never thought about: the rift between the Chinese and Japanese diasporas living on the West Coast of the US during World War II. Pan-Asian tension over Japan’s actions during WWII, and accusations about the country’s subsequent attempts to “whitewash” those actions, still flares up regularly in Asia – in fact, it’s so common there’s a Wikipedia entry called “Japanese history textbook controversies.” Henry’s family in China was clearly at risk during the war, and his parents’ feelings might have been rendered comprehensible to the reader, even if they remained unjustified. Instead, Ford leaves Henry’s family completely unsympathetic throughout the book. I saw that as a major flaw, considering Henry’s decisions toward the end of the novel.

My other big problem with the book was the relationship of Henry and Keiko. Sure, my dad is always saying that people “grew up faster” during the Depression and the War. But I had a really hard time buying into a love story centered on 12-year-olds. If they had been friends for years before the internment order, the story would have made more sense to me. Or perhaps if they’d been older when they met, it might have worked better. The action seemed kind of abrupt, and the rationale simply wasn’t well-developed enough to capture me completely.

My book club had mixed opinions on this one. Many agreed that the characterizations of two of the supporting characters, lunch lady Mrs. Beatty and street sax player Sheldon Thomas, were the best in the book. We also loved the way Ford used the device of the abandoned items from Japantown in Seattle to anchor the story. “Sweet” was a word that came up often in our discussion. But while some were enthusiastic about Ford’s writing style and narrative flow, others weren’t as impressed. Some thought the book had a YA feel, which isn’t necessarily bad, but indicated a lack of character development and ambiguity. I can see why this book has a real following, especially for those who love historically based romances. It is definitely a standout first novel and I would definitely read another Ford title.

Book Review: The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology by Marcel Detienne

Marcel Detienne’s The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology was one of the first books I put on my list for the Read-A-Myth Challenge, because it seemed to combine three things I love to read about: food, history, and mythology. And it definitely did that. But despite the title, the emphasis of the book is more on the way the evolution of the myth of Adonis – a myth affirming the renewing cycle of birth and death that symbolizes the calendar year – reveals prevailing societal attitudes and beliefs in classical society.

For those of you who, like me, stowed your copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in a box in your parents’ basement after college with a promise to retrieve it “once you had the room for it,” only to have said box’s decaying contents hauled to a local used book seller when the parents finally retired and moved to Florida many years later, a refresher of the Adonis myth might be in order. In what is arguably the most famous version of the myth, Myrrha is cursed by the Furies to fall in love with her father. Her nurse helps her seduce him during the harvest festival of Ceres. When he realizes of whom he’s had carnal knowledge, he vows to kill his daughter. Myrrha flees Cyprus for Arabia (the place where spices come from) and wanders for nine months. She finally begs the gods to have mercy on her, and they grant her wish by turning her into a myrrh tree, (because after all, what could be more merciful than losing your body and gaining some foliage?). Realizing that Myrrha is pregnant, Lucina, the goddess of childbirth, goes and touches the myrrh tree and it splits open to spew forth Adonis*. Myrrha continues to cry sappy, scented tears for her lost son that are the basis for the perfume trade.

The young Adonis is so beautiful that Venus falls in love with him while he is still a child, but for some reason has Proserpina foster him in the Underworld. Once he becomes the most gorgeous man on the planet, both of the goddesses want him for their own, so Jupiter intervenes, and decides Venus can have him for a third of the year, Proserpina for another third, and that Adonis can choose for the last third. Like Paris, Adonis chooses beauty (Venus) over power (Proserpina), to predictably bad results – Proserpina sends a wild boar to kill him while he’s waiting around in a lettuce patch for Venus, providing a one-way tour of the Underworld for Adonis. Venus cries foul, and Jupiter intervenes by declaring Adonis dead only part-time, giving him to Venus for half the year (spring and summer) and to Proserpina for half the year (fall and winter).

So where do the spices of the title come in? According to Detienne, the true significance of the Adonis myth is its ability to link the botanical, classical world with the exoticism of the East, the place where spices, so significant for the culinary, ritual and sexual lives of the Greeks and later Romans, originate. But more than that, the Adonis myth provides a powerful reminder of the dangers of unbridled emotion in women, who are linked alternatively to both virtue (through Demeter, motherhood and the harvest) and licentiousness (through Venus, carnal love and spices) throughout the mythological cycle.

In fact, the title refers to gardens that were planted by the secret Adonis cults, groups of women who came together to mourn the death of Adonis by planting quick growing seeds, like herbs, that would sprout during the festival and quickly die, leaving behind their scent. This, of course, made Greek men like Plato very uncomfortable, because women were getting together without men – and you know how much trouble those women could get into when there wasn’t a man around to control things! (Who knew planting a terrarium could become a means of subverting hegemonic masculinity?)

In contrast to a festival such as the Thesmophoria which was celebrated in public and in very official manner, the Adonia took place in private, in some private house where women would meet together, each the confidant of the other’s secret love affairs, for a fleeting moment rejecting, in a way, a social order noted for its public and masculine character. pp. 129-130

This is a short book, especially by scholarly standards, but Detienne has a rambling style, shifting between myths and Greek sects with no introduction or explanation. I didn’t find it an easy read, but that may be a matter of style more than substance – I found myself having to put it down and pick it back up multiple times. It may just be a cultural thing – the book is translated from French, and it’s entirely possible that French readers do not crave the organization that an American reader would. But I certainly learned a lot, and I think those interested in ancient cultures, food history and feminist history will all find something to enjoy with this book.

This is my fifth book for the Read-A-Myth Challenge hosted by JoV and Bina (only one more to go!), and the last of the titles I committed to for the Dewey Decimal Challenge (even though I wound up reading a bunch of additional non-fiction for that challenge) hosted by Jen at The Introverted Reader. So thanks to all of you for hosting!

*I included a kind of creepy rendering of that moment from Franchesi. The screaming tree reminds me of the ones from The Wizard of Oz!

Book Review: Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes, A Love Story

How does a university-educated Ghanaian woman independent enough to divorce her first husband despite the objections of her traditional family wind up the second wife of a handsome philanderer?

Is it possible that the best way to really think about marriage is to approach it from a completely different perspective?

That perspective is the amazing gift of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story, a book that grabbed me from minute one, and still had me turning pages until the last one. Esi is a wealthy, educated civil servant who loves her job. Her husband, Oko, feels neglected by her devotion to duty. Their clashes eventually lead to the dissolution of their marriage, although Esi’s “Western” notions of autonomy find little support even among her staunchest allies – her grandmother, her mother and her best friend are all perplexed by her desire to leave a perfectly good man.

If her dissatisfaction with her marriage is based on imported Western values, her fascination with Ali, the well-to-do travel agent, is completely primeval: they are attracted to each other from the second they meet, and soon start a steamy affair. Ali is obsessed with Esi, so much so that he becomes jealous of her, despite the fact he is himself cheating on his own family. The fact that he’s already married is not an insurmountable problem to possessing Esi in Ghanaian society: Ali can make Esi his second wife.

And that’s the most fascinating issue in the book. Living in a traditional society with a host of non-traditional ideas, Esi starts to see the things a marriage provides to women: security, partnership, networking. These are the things that Western ideas about marriage, focused almost completely on love, tend to ignore. She also looks at the negative aspects of marriage for women, including their presumed subservience to men in traditional relationships. Is it possible to find the perfect balance of freedom and dependency in any marriage? Could being a second wife allow a woman to live a less conventional lifestyle while still operating within the comfortable framework of a traditional society? I certainly never thought about it before I read Changes, but I will admit that the novel really forced me to think about relationships in a completely unique way.

It’s probably obvious that I loved this novel, and I’m really grateful to have found it because of Judith’s Book Bloggers Abroad 2011 Challenge at Leeswammes! I would absolutely recommend this book to lovers of world fiction and feminist fiction, as well as those who are interested in African literature. But I really believe the book deserves a wider audience, as it speaks to the very essence of what makes society work. Aidoo writes beautifully and with great compassion – I will definitely seek out more of her work.

Book Review: Phoebe Taylor Atwood’s The Cape Cod Mystery

I took this book out of the library twice previously this year, and had to return it for one reason or another. But the third time was a charm for Phoebe Taylor Atwood and me, because The Cape Cod Mystery, the first of her Asey Mayo series, wound up being my favorite book for this year’s Vintage Mystery Challenge, hosted by Bev at My Reader’s Block.

Author Dale Sanborn takes a cottage in Cape Cod to escape the summer heat and work on his latest sensational novel. But he can’t escape the many people who are furious that he’s used thinly veiled versions of their own lives to people his books. Sanborn turns up dead hours after he runs over wealthy Bill Porter’s beloved dog – and the only clue seems to be a can of sardines, a type the local dry goods store stocks especially for Porter, making him the prime suspect. The sleepy little seaside town doesn’t even have a jail (can you imagine when the Cape was so remote?), so the local sheriff puts poor Porter in the stocks (the actual stocks left over from the Pilgrims, no less). Porter puts his life in the hands of the man he trusts most in the world: Asey Mayo, a former sailor with a long and probably jaded past. Mayo sets out to find the real killer in a weekend to avoid Bill winding up in a big time Massachusetts prison.

The murder represents a good mystery, but Mayo is what makes the book great. At first he appears to be just an ordinary old handyman for a large estate. But Atwood quickly reveals a man with a near-encyclopedic memory and a veritable Rolodex of personal acquaintances from all walks of life who are ready to help him solve the mystery. He’s totally smart without being a bit flamboyant – kind of an anti-Poirot. His dialogue is written in dialect, so you can really get a feel for his strong New England accent, which I absolutely loved, because it doesn’t seem condescending – just spot on. Reading it really did make me think of those great accents you hear Down East in Maine, where I used to spend my summers.

The best thing about joining this year’s Vintage Mystery Challenge was pushing myself to read seven different female authors. I found a whole new set of writers to seek out in addition to Atwood, including Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers and Margery Allingham. So thanks a million Bev for hosting. I’m already working on my own “Vicious Vacations” list for 2012!

Book Review: Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

When I dislike the main character in a novel, I usually don’t like the novel. So how can I explain my fascination with Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine? Rosalinda represents all that is wrong with motherhood – she constructs her relationships with her daughter and later her granddaughter completely strategically, always thinking how she might benefit from their interactions. She’s seems almost completely unaware of how she is viewed by others. It’s totally over-the-top. Which is probably why she’s makes such a compelling unreliable narrator.

Rosalinda is inordinately proud of her Tartar heritage (which comes along with a host of folk medical remedies that are truly hilarious). She’s proud of her beauty and youthful appearance (especially her shapely legs, which she believes men swoon over). She’s proud of her family (or at least she believes she could be, if they’d simply do as she tells them). Her lack of self-awareness has benefits, as she walks around Russia and later Germany convinced of her own important place in the world, even if she’s cleaning someone else’s toilets – or rifling through someone else’s private papers.

Of course, her megalomania has disastrous effects on the people in her life, especially on her daughter Sulfia, who can never quite escape Rosalinda’s sphere of influence and therefore misses every chance at happiness with her own daughter, Aminat. Aminat herself watches Rosalinda with a keen eye, and the reader has the impression that she’s just waiting for her chance to act – she reminded me of a mouse eyeing a big, Persian cat, just waiting for the cat to lower it guard enough for the mouse to make its move.

What Bronksy gives the reader with The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is a true tragicomedy, which succeeds only because Rosalinda is so totally outrageous that it’s funny, in a thoroughly disturbing way. It reminded me of Voltaire’s Candide, but without the main character’s growing realization that perhaps everything wasn’t alright with the universe after all – despite tragedy after tragedy, Rosalinda remains convinced of her own omnipotence from start to finish. This book really worked for me, although I can appreciate that it might not work for everyone. With a good sense of gallows humor, I think the reader will enjoy the novel despite their feelings about the narrator, a pretty interesting feat for Bronsky to pull off, in my opinion.

I was planning on this being a weekend cooking post, but after reading the novel, it doesn’t seem right – the only thing foodie about the book was the title. But it still counts for the Europa Editions Challenge, and I’ll be cross posting this on the Challenge Blog. The semester ends on Friday, so I’m still hopeful I can finish up a couple of the challenges I have lingering before then. If only I had some little elves to do my grading for me, so I could just read my holiday break away!