High on the Hog: a culinary journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris
High on the Hog tells the story of foods and culinary history that started in Africa and were brought over via slaves to the US and are now part of our collective food culture in America. Each chapter talks about a period of time and how food and/or cooking shaped that time period. Harris also shows how food has played a pivotal role in the lives of African-Americans and how that role has changed over time too. In the same vein as Michael Twitty's The Cooking Gene, this is a unique look at how Africa and the slave trade shaped the food culture of the US. Definitely an interesting book and now that I've read the book I'll check out the Netflix series based on it.
Some quotes I liked:
"Most Americans today base their ideas of the antebellum South on images created in popular culture that have little to do with the realities of history. Despite a tendency to generalize slaveholding into North and South, there was no monolithic South even in the antebellum period. The region was divided into upland and coastal, and then subdivided further into the Up South, the Carolinas and Georgia, the Deep South, and the Gulf South. The mountainous spine of the Appalachians further bisected the region and was an area in which slaveholding was minimal. Each area had a unique experience with enslavement...In fact, even in slaveholding areas, in many cases hard-pressed whites had only a few hapless slaves; and in more than a few cases, owners were apt to be working in the fields alongside their one or two slaves. Less than one quarter of white Southerners held slaves, and half of those held fewer than five. Only 1 percent of Southerners owned more than one hundred, and a minuscule number owned more than five hundred and the large spreads that we imagine; they lived mainly in South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana." (p. 93)
"It is somehow fitting that so much of the organization of the Civil Rights Movement took place around tables in home kitchens and restaurants like Paschal's and others. After all, during the 350-year-plus history of African Americans in this country, we were relegated to the kitchen and kept in actual or metaphorical servitude. The food that flourished in these restaurants during the 1960s and 1970s came to be known as soul food because it fed the spirit as much as the body on the long march to institutionalized equality." (p. 201)
"...SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference] began to train student activists on black college campuses in the South who provided the next wave of protest. This wave did not start at the kitchen tables or the black restaurants where King and his followers had planned the Montgomery bus boycott. Rather, it started at the lunch counter of a five-and-dime store...This phase of the fight for equality began in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960...The sit-ins galvanized the country, demonstrations were staged in more than one hundred cities in the South and the North, and the lunch counter rapidly became a national symbol of the South's inequalities." (p. 203-4)
"Then, in 1977, the publication of the autobiography of writer Alex Haley, Roots, and the subsequent television miniseries based on it transformed the way many African Americans thought of themselves and Africa. Blacks were galvanized by Roots, and large numbers made pilgrimages to the African continent with hopes of discovering their own ancestral origins." (p. 214)
The Rural Diaries by Hilarie Burton Morgan
I honestly almost didn't read this one because I wasn't sure I wanted to read a celebrity-turned-"farmer" memoir, but I'm glad I did. Hilarie Burton was mainly known for her role on the TV show One Tree Hill, but she has been in other movies and TV shows and does continue to still act today. When she met fellow actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan (of The Walking Dead fame) they instantly fell in love. While they were both Hollywood actors, they both grew up in small, rural towns and wanted to get back to their roots. After their son was born they discovered the small town of Rhinebeck, New York and knew this was the place for them. They first bought a cabin with some acreage, but then a few years later bought an old horse farm and turned it into Mischief Farm. When a local store in town was about to close, Hilarie & Jeffrey along with two other couples (including Paul Rudd and his wife) decide to buy it and keep it going. The Rural Diaries shares Hilarie's journey from celebrity/actress to small-town mom/farmer/small business owner. Complete with pictures, this is a quick, fun read about how a celebrity couple got back to their small town roots.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips (Books & Banter book club)
On an August afternoon sisters Alyona and Sophia disappear while their mother is at work. One eye-witness thinks she saw them get into a dark SUV with a man, but month by month there is no sign of the girls or any evidence of a crime. Each chapter of Disappearing Earth covers one month from the August the girls go missing to the following July. Each chapter focuses on a woman in town and sometimes how the abduction relates to them and/or things they are dealing with. By the end of the book through a seemingly random encounter the case of the missing girls is solved - albeit somewhat vaguely. While the overall story seemed interesting and I wanted to know what happened to the girls, about half way through as each chapter kept introducing new characters I started to wonder if all these characters were going to tie into the main storyline or not. Because this is for book club I'm going to go back and take some notes on which characters are in which chapters. If not for book club I don't think I would have finished this one. Honestly, each of the characters/storylines introduced was SO depressing and bleak. Bleak is the best word I can think of to describe just about any book I've read that was set in Russia. While the main mystery is mostly solved, there isn't resolution for every character/story introduced in the book. I read that the author wanted to explore what "everyday harm or hurt against women looks like" and she definitely did that in this book. Overall, if you enjoy extra bleak stories of "everyday harm" toward women then this is the book for you, if not then I would suggest giving this one a pass.
My Time Will Come: a memoir of crime, punishment, hope, and redemption by Ian Manuel
Ian Manuel grew up in a rough neighborhood in Florida. He and his mom had been homeless at times, she spent time in prison as did both his father and brother. Even though he did have a few good influences in his life, for Ian the pull of petty crime and fitting in in his neighborhood won out. At the age of thirteen during an attempted robbery he accidentally shot a woman. She lived, but he was charged with several weighty felonies and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the age of fourteen. At first prison was actually better than life outside - he had 3 meals a day, friends, and a place to sleep. But, he started getting in trouble for what would be seen on the outside as typical teenage rebellion, but in prison any small infraction has harsh punishments. Because of constantly getting in trouble Ian ended up spending eighteen years in solitary confinement. Because of this his mental health seriously declined and he began self-injuring as a way to get attention and get out of his cell. What Ian didn't know was that his case had caught the eye of Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson knew there were some pending court cases for the Supreme Court regarding death penalty and life without the possibility of parole for juveniles. He reached out to Ian and ended up finally getting him re-sentenced to time served after twenty-six years in prison. Another miraculous aspect of Ian's story is that when he had been in jail for around a year he reached out and called the woman he shot to apologize. They corresponded off and on over his time in prison and she was instrumental in helping him be re-sentenced by showing that she forgave him and believed he was rehabilitated.
Ian's story is not an easy one, but like the many others that Bryan Stevenson has told he is not the worst thing he's done. His time in prison did rehabilitate him, despite that not being the goal of prison at all. He lost his entire immediate family during this incarceration, but he still held on to hope that he would get out and be better. My only small complaint with the book is I would have loved another chapter about how he's doing now that he's out of prison. Like Anthony Ray Hinton's book The Sun Does Shine the book ends with Ian getting out of prison and celebrating with his legal team and some family friends. I would love to have a follow up with some of the people Stevenson has helped and how they readjusted to life outside of prison and what they are doing now.
A quote I liked:
"The United Nations considers solitary confinement for more than fifteen days torture. It was my condition for eighteen consecutive years. Scientists have shown that solitary confinement, especially of juveniles, can damage the brain, provoking panic, anxiety, depression, loss of control, and even suicide. I managed to endure it and survive." (p. 95)
Keys to Bonhoeffer's House: exploring the world and wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Laura M. Fabrycky
Laura Fabrycky's husband works for the US Embassy and so their family is uprooted every three years for his work all around the globe. When they land in Berlin, Germany for his work Laura wants to visit the Dietrich Bonhoeffer museum that was created in the Bonhoeffer's former home. After their initial tour Laura comes back several times and eventually ends up volunteering there as an English-speaking guide as the museum is very close to their house. This book is part memoir of her family's time in Berlin and part exploration of how Dietrich Bonhoeffer influenced her life and faith. Being in Berlin and studying Bonhoeffer's legacy during the 2016 Presidential election felt like eerie timing. I happened to read Eric Metaxas's book Bonhoeffer: pastor, martyr, prophet, spy the summer of 2016 and it also felt like eerie timing for me. I found this to be a really unique book and an interesting view of Bonhoeffer and his continued legacy. Fabrycky is an excellent writer and I very much enjoyed this one.
Some quotes I liked:
"But ignorance and silence - telltale hallmarks of civic irresponsibility - are the shadows into which both victors and vanquished can easily retreat. After the war, those who had once been full-throated Nazis were reinstalled into their places in polite German society in rather astonishing numbers. A report released in October 2016 by a commission of German historians and lawyers found that 77 percent of the senior officials in the post-World War II West German justice ministry had been Nazi Party members, a success made possible by 'the fascist old-boys network' protecting its own from punishment." (p. 22)
"Though I wanted to discover the secrets that allowed him to live with such courage and tenacity, and though I was tempted to discern analogies between his world and mine, I saw that his times are not my times, and the world he lived in is not my world. That is not to say there is no correspondence - far from it. It is more to say that, like Bonhoeffer, we also choose whether to enter more fully into the questions of our time and step into them courageously with hope or to ignore them and try to evade our responsibilities, shrinking back in fear, disconnection, or despair. Above all, I wrote this book as a sign that I have chosen hope and invite you to do so too." (p. 27-28)
"By reminding the world of evil's banality, Arendt challenged a dominant narrative that the Nazis were blood-thirsty monsters, red hot rather than coolly, mindlessly indifferent. In her reporting on the significant trial for Adolf Eichmann - one of the administrators of the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to slaughter all Jewish people - Arendt saw Eichmann as the pathetic embodiment of the rule-following bureaucrat, incapable of his own thought, desperate for direction from those stronger than him, a person who has surrendered his agency to others. Nazi pabulum and propaganda were his thought and speech, and he saw himself as fulfilling his duties but did not believe himself to be morally responsible for his actions." (p. 40)
"One line in Ozment's book [A Mighty Fortress] stood out to me: 'Historical experience has...left Germans more fearful of anarchy than of tyranny, inclining them to hedge, if hedge they must, on the side of good order. This they have done in a compelling belief that is is not freedom, once attained, but discipline, carefully maintained, that keeps a people free.'" (p. 71)
"In that one moment, I saw how casually I had fashioned him in my mind as a successful hero without considering how much he let go of in life, the many private sufferings and dying-to-self moments he chose, long before the Nazis put him to death in 1945." (p. 186)
"Beyond all their unrealistic political plans, a more depressing reality remained: even if they had succeeded in killing Hitler, the German population was unlikely to have cheered their coup as a liberation from tyranny. More likely, Hitler's death would have made a martyr of the Fuhrer since the general public was already so trained to worship him - even if with a fearful awe." (p. 194)
That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
Daisy Shoemaker has a great life on paper - she's married to the love of her life, has a teenage daughter, and a successful cooking business. But, she feels like her husband kind of looks down on her business as more of a hobby and her teenage daughter is constantly getting in trouble at school. When she accidentally gets some emails for someone with a similar email address the two women send a few emails and get together. It seems like they could be friends. But, the other woman, Diana, has an alternative motive for wanting to meet Daisy. She has been tracking down three men she met the summer she was fourteen in Cape Cod - the summer she was raped. Daisy is married to one of those men and Diana's original plan was to meet her and get as much information about her husband in order to try to get some kind of revenge. But, Diana ends up genuinely liking Daisy and her daughter and is torn about what to do now.
Told from Daisy, Diana, and Daisy's daughter Beatrice's points of view, That Summer perfectly captures the #metoo movement and the ramifications for men who's pasts are coming back to haunt them. Similar to Emily Giffin's All We Ever Wanted, Weiner does a great job of showing all sides of this very complicated issue and the long-running consequences. I would highly recommend this one!
Good Apple: tales of a Southern Evangelical in New York by Elizabeth Passarella
Elizabeth Passarealla grew up in a conservative, Christian, Republican household in Memphis, Tennessee. But, she always dreamed of moving to New York City and after college she did. She ended up meeting her husband there and is still living in the city with their three children. Good Apple is her story of how she continues to reconcile these two worlds - her conservative Christian upbringing and faith and living in one of the bluest cities in the US. Her family back home thinks she crazy for trying to raise three kids in a two-bedroom apartment and many of her current coworkers or friends don't understand her on-going religious faith. Her writing is pretty funny and there were several times I laughed out loud while reading this book. I can definitely relate to her feelings of not really belonging in either world. For me, as a Christian woman who's chosen to not have kids that is VERY alienating in the Church, and I'm sure most of my coworkers and friends don't understand my religious views and I also work in a more liberal career field as well. Overall, this is a funny and mostly light-hearted memoir of one woman's personal experience living as a Evangelical Christian in New York City.
A quote I liked:
"What I'd like to say to my Christian brothers and sisters is: my political party, and yours, is not a big deal. It should not be the basis for your identity. It should be a footnote to the person that you are. I don't agree with every stance the Democratic Party takes. Does anyone agree with everything their chosen politician stands for? The only person who has walked this earth and lived a blameless life was Jesus. Your congressman, even the handsome one, is a majorly flawed human being. We are all making though decisions, weighing options, and trying to go with our conscience. Where mine leads me might not be where yours leads you. That's the lovely outcome of freethinking people." (p. 66)
Finding Freedom by Erin French
I remembered liking Erin French's cookbook The Lost Kitchen, so when I saw that she had a memoir coming out I wanted to check it out. I love a good food/chef memoir. But, honestly I wish I hadn't read this one. Her life was so awful that it's honestly a miracle that she's created such a successful restaurant against all odds. Her parents owned a local diner and Erin grew up helping out there and that's where she learned to cook. But, her father was an alcoholic and a MEAN one, so he never encouraged her, only berated her when she did something wrong. She and her sister are 21 months apart in age, but don't get along at all and often go years with no communication. She got pregnant at 21 and had to drop out of college. Just when she started getting on her feet with her son, she meets her future-husband Tom who is almost her father's age. The way she described their relationship starting I honestly didn't understand why she ever got together with him. Maybe telling the story in hindsight she could see all the red flags she ignored (there were a LOT), but either way they get married and he adopts her son. Oh, but guess what? Tom is also a mean alcoholic. So, Erin turns to Xanax and alcohol to cope with her POS husband and trying to run the restaurant she just started. Then, her husband has her involuntarily committed after a fight, closes her restaurant, and gets primary custody of her son using the commitment against her. Isn't this sounding like a great time already? So, at the age of 33 she is back living with her parents and trying to scrape her life back together. Honestly, the last section of the book is the only (mostly) redeeming and hopeful part of the whole book. She does manage to re-launch her restaurant, divorce Tom, and get half custody of her son, but it's still a LONG way from even a kind of happy ending. The one part that made me the happiest was that Erin's mother ended up divorcing her father after seeing Erin go through her ridiculously bitter divorce and come out on the other side happier. But, it's obvious that Erin is still trying to get her father's approval through her restaurant which is sad. I think she desperately needs some therapy if she's not getting it because just reading about her life made me feel depressed. I would not recommend this one.
Frontier Follies: adventures in marriage and motherhood in the middle of nowhere by Ree Drummond
This is a fun and light-hearted collection of essays by Ree Drummond, better known as the Pioneer Woman. She covers stories from when she was first married and adjusting to ranch life all the way up to the present talking about sending her two oldest kids off to college and their newer foster son. In typical Ree fashion the stories are mostly funny and self-deprecating. One of the funniest, in my opinion, was a group showing up for a Lodge tour but accidentally coming to Ree's actual house where she was in the tub. Overall, a good, light-hearted, and fun read. This was exactly what I needed after the last book I read that was super depressing!
