May 2024 Cookbook Reviews

 

Food Gifts: 150+ irresistible recipes for crafting personalized presents by America's Test Kitchen

I love to give food gifts and so I was excited to check out this new book. The author does a great job of breaking down different types of food gifts and unique/interesting ways to present them. I really like all the color photos of different types of food gifts and packaging ideas. But I was surprised how many of the food gifts were things that needed to be refrigerated or needed to be eaten right away. I guess I like giving food gifts that DON'T necessarily need to be eaten right away. And if something needs to be refrigerated then it kind of defeats the purpose of the cool packaging/gift basket if you give it to someone and they immediately need to refrigerate it. The author does give a lot of recipes and again lots of great color photos, but I would have liked to have seen more preserved/canned items or gifts that didn't need to be refrigerated.

Cured: cooking with ferments, pickles, preserves, and more by Steve McHugh

This is a unique cookbook in that the focus is on curing/preserving food and then how to use those preserved foods in a variety of recipes. There are 8 chapters that each focus on a type of preserving - acid, ice, dry, sugar, fat, cure, ferment, and smoke. Each chapter starts with describing that type of preserving and gives a few base recipes and then several recipes using that base/ingredient. At the end is a page discussing charcuterie boards and also canning. Overall, I thought this was a really unique and interesting cookbook and there were a few recipes I'd like to try.

Nicoise: market inspired cooking from France's sunniest city by Rosa Jackson

The author is from Canada but her family lived in Paris, France twice while she was growing up. The first time early enough that she learned French. As an adult Jackson decided to move back to Paris. She ended up working as an English translator for the Cordon Bleu cooking school. She eventually moved to Nice and opened her own cooking school for tourists. In this cookbook she focuses on Nicoise cooking with recipes organized by seasons. There were a few recipes I wanted to try and her descriptions of Nice definitely make you want to go and visit it in person.

Pizza Night: deliciously doable recipes for pizza and salad by Alexandra Stafford

The cookbook is all about pizza. There are several pages at the beginning that talk about ingredients, pizza cooking tools, several dough recipes (including a gluten free one), and recipes for sauces, spreads, and dressings. Then the rest of the recipes are organized by season and include both pizza and salad recipes. I've never seen a pizza cookbook organized by season so I really liked that. There were a few recipes I'd like to try and overall this is a very thorough pizza cookbook.

Love Language of the South by Stacy Lyn Harris

I'm a Southerner and I LOVE Southern food. So I always check out new Southern cookbooks. I wasn't familiar with Stacy Lyn Harris or her TV show The Sporting Chef before checking out this cookbook. Overall, I was not impressed. There is an introduction to each section talking about the kind of recipes included and then again throughout the recipes there are more "letters" about various Southern things. I felt like the recipes were organized in a weird way that wasn't cohesive. I also felt like there was too much other writing included throughout the book. I like having an introduction with memories/discussion/whatever before a chapter of recipes but there was just a LOT in this book and it felt very random. I also felt like there were a LOT of pictures of the author all dolled up in hunting gear or tailgating - places where you likely wouldn't be all dolled up. Again, pictures of the author and/or family are normal in this type of cookbook but it was just too much. None of the recipes jumped out as something I want to try and honestly I was just kind of turned off overall. This felt like a fake homage to the South. I love the title of this book and feel that food is the love language of the South but this book didn't deliver in my opinion.

The Heirloomed Kitchen by Ashley Schoenith

Ashley Schoenith grew up in the South eating homemade, from-scratch food and that's still how she prefers to feed her family today. In this cookbook she gives some of the heirloom recipes that have been passed down from the cooks in her family. In the Introduction she gives some tips on "kitchen essentials" for tools you'll need in the kitchen. She also includes "Heirloomed kitchen basics" with instructions on how to flour a cake pan, separate an egg, etc. - I thought that was a very helpful section especially for beginner cooks. Then she gets into the recipes that are divided by type - breakfast, appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, etc. She also includes 2 chapters on desserts, one on cocktails and drinks, and one on sauces and condiments. There are plenty of Southern favorites like fried okra, deviled eggs, pimento cheese, and red velvet cake. I do agree with one review I read that the photos are tinted in an odd way that make a lot of the pictures have a slight brownish tint and don't always make the food look as appealing as it could. Overall, this was a solid, Southern cookbook and there were a couple recipes I'd like to try.

May 2024 Reviews

 

A Strange Life: selected essays of Louisa May Alcott edited by Liz Rosenberg

I've always loved Louisa May Alcott and how she was very much ahead of her time. So when I saw this little essay collection I thought I'd check it out. All of the reviews (at the time I read it) on Goodreads were 5 stars and after reading the Preface and Introduction I was excited to read the essay selections. I really enjoyed 3 of them (How I Went Out to Service, Transcendental Wild Oats, and Happy Women) but there were several that were only a page long and I could have used more information because they just seemed too short to get much from them without any context. I didn't find the portion of Hospital Sketches as amazing as other readers did either. Overall, it was a quick read with some selections from Alcott outside of Little Women. Probably still worth reading if you're a big fan but I didn't love all the essay selections.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid - Books & Banter book club, re-read

Alix Chamberlain is a woman used to getting what she wants. She runs a successful confidence-driven brand, has two small kids, and a loving husband. She's not thrilled about moving back to Philadelphia from New York City, but it only made sense once the second child came along. Now she can have the big, beautiful home to complete her family life. One night there is an emergency and Alix calls her regular babysitter Emira Tucker to take their two-year-old daughter out of the house while they deal with the police. Emira takes Briar to the nearby grocery store where the toddler loves to look at all the food. But while they are there another customer and the store security guard confront Emira and accuse her of kidnapping Briar. A bystander films the encounter. The crisis is averted when Emira calls Mr. Chamberlain who rushes over and reams out the store security guard. The bystander offers to email Emira the video in case she wants to press charges or anything. Then later Emira runs into the bystander again and they start dating. What Emira doesn't know is that her new boyfriend, Kelley, used to date her boss Alix and according to Alix, Kelley ruined her senior year of high school. After an explosive Thanksgiving dinner where this all comes to light, Emira struggles with the overlapping of her personal and professional lives. Then someone leaks the video and Emira thinks only she and Kelley have access to it. Such a Fun Age is an incredibly well-written novel with lots of twists and a surprise ending.

I honestly wouldn't have picked this book up except for one of my book clubs reading it, but I LOVED it. Reid does an incredible job with both the main characters. Alix has a weird fixation on Emira and truly thinks they can be real friends even when it's super obvious they can't. Emira really enjoys babysitting Briar and seems to appreciate her quirky personality more than her own mother does. There are a lot of interesting dynamics at work throughout the book with all the characters. Very well done. I can't wait to see what Kiley Reid comes out with next.

Update after re-reading May 6-8, 2024:

I loved the book just as much re-reading it for my other book club. Even though I knew what was going to happen I was still just as entertained and excited as the first time I read it. I felt like this time I noticed more of the weird hints about Alix's obsession/fascination with Emira throughout the book. I can't pin exactly what's going on with her character but she definitely has a very weird obsession/fascination with Emira and seems genuinely shocked that Emira doesn't want to be her BFF in addition to her babysitter. I'm curious to see what my book club thinks of this one.

Some quotes I liked from re-reading:

"The tears came so easily that through her sobs, Alix thought, Thank God. It felt like Emira really was hers. And that Alix's intentions must be good after all." (p. 203)

"It would never be a relief to know that a locker malfunction was to blame for her demise, rather than Kelley Copeland himself. Believing that Kelley was the starting point of her adversity would always be easier than believing she'd simply slipped through an unlucky crack. This choice to believe otherwise, to pretend there weren't coffee-colored letters pressed into her chest, would keep her close to him, even if staying close to Kelley meant holding a grudge for something that he never did. And all summer long, as Alex rolled silverware and received lousy tips, it was easier doing it while mad at Kelley, rather than having no relation to him at all." (p. 298-99)

All Who Are Weary by Sarah J. Hauser

As a Christian sometimes we can quote scripture all day long but still have a hard time getting that head knowledge into our hearts and minds fully. Sarah Hauser struggled with clinical depression and also had several losses and situations in her life that she was grieving. Christians also sometimes believe (incorrectly) that as a Christian you can't be depressed or that if you're struggling it's because you don't have enough faith. Hauser walks you through several promises in scripture that speak to these issues. We don't have to do it all ourselves and life struggles are sadly common and normal - but that doesn't mean they don't hurt. A lot of her personal examples are around motherhood and her struggles with feeling like a good enough mother. While that's not everyone's story she is just sharing her own personal experiences and how she combatted the depression in her life with the promises in scripture. I really liked how open she was with her own struggles and story. All too often it seems like the only stories Christians want to tell are the triumphant overcoming everything-is-better-now-sunshine-and-roses stories. But sometimes just surviving is the triumph. Hauser gives a great voice to people who may be struggling to know they're not alone and God is here for you offering real rest and comfort.

Some quotes I liked:

"God didn't speak to Moses' fear and insecurity by saying, I know you can do it, Moses! He didn't even reassure Moses that Pharaoh would be kind or receptive in any way. In fact, God made it clear the king of Egypt wouldn't easily listen (3:19). In other words, neither Moses' opinion of himself nor the opinion of anyone else mattered. God wanted Moses to trust in Him, what He's capable of, and what He could do through - and sometimes in spite of - Moses' insecurity." (p. 90)

"Faithfulness means there's something we're banking on that we cannot see...We're willing to play the long game instead of looking for instant gratification." (p. 128)

"Musician and author Andrew Peterson talks about the difference between work being 'overtly Christian' or 'deeply Christian.' We need both. We need the bold and unashamed preaching of God's Word. We also need our art, our music, our child-rearing, our attitudes at work, our gardening, our everyday faithfulness to be a reflection of a deeply Christian way of living." (p. 132)

"Grief doesn't live only in the moment. It steals a piece of the future - one you wonder about, long for, and miss - even though you never really had it." (p. 154)

Housewife: why women still do it all and what to do instead by Lisa Selin Davis

After Lisa Davis became a mother she found it was extremely hard to work enough to pay for childcare, so she ended up taking a break from her career but also bristled as the label "housewife." For most people the term "housewife" brings a very specific image to mind - 1950's June Cleever type who vacuums in heels and greets her husband at the door with a martini in hand for him. Davis dives into all things Housewife and proves that what many people harken back to as "the good old days" never really existed and was actually a created image more than an actual way of life for many people. While she does bring up several good points throughout the book, I didn't love it. I felt like she was disappointed in her own career path (a low paying job whether you have kids or not) and conflicted about having the privilege of not working full time. Her husband seemed pretty good, so it's not like he wasn't helping with the kids and chores anyway. To me the whole vibe of the book was her personal conflict about motherhood and her career choice. It was also more political than I would have preferred but I think some of that was the time - Trump's election, the newer promoting of the whole "tradwife" trend, and then COVID. Overall, I didn't love it and I think many of her suggestions are pie-in-the-sky things that will likely never happen (universal income, or retirement funds for stay at home parents). But, I do think any/all workplaces should offer parental leave and BOTH genders should be encouraged to use ALL of it with no fear of retribution or career suicide - this would set up fathers to be more involved from the start and not just dump stuff on the mother because she's "better" at taking care of the kids. I just didn't love this one.

Some quotes I did like:

"In September 2020 alone - just in time for school to start, or not start, as the case was for most - 865,000 women dropped out or were forced out of the workforce, four times the number of men." (p. xvii)

"In the early to mid-twentieth century, the bulk of hospitalized mental patients were men. But by 1942, 75 percent of Freeman and Watts's lobotomy patients were women. A 1951 study of American hospitals found that 60 percent of lobotomies were performed on women. In another study, of Stockton State Hospital's lobotomy program between 1947 and 1954, 245 lobotomies were performed. Despite the fact that there were more male patients in the hospital - many diagnosed with schizophrenia, a common indication for lobotomy at the time - 84 percent of the lobotomies were performed on women. Thirteen of the fourteen patients who received multiple lobotomies were female." (p. 79)

"But the book [The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan] wasn't just about her personal grudge. It was about the limits of the cultural project of the 1950s: to keep certain classes of women, particularly the educated ones, off the corporate ladder so men retained the room to climb it, while also excluding less wealthy classes of women from the luxury of housewifery." (p. 95)

"Still, wives' suicide rates dropped by as much as 13 percent after no-fault divorce was adopted, and domestic violence rates within married couples fell 30 percent." (p. 108)