House of Smoke by John T. Edge
John T. Edge grew up in a small town in Georgia. From his earliest memories, his mother emphasized that the land they lived on was once owned by a Confederate General and it was their duty to remember and honor that heritage. But as an adult, Edge started to wonder about the validity of the Southern history his mother and childhood promoted. Edge flunked out of college the first time and went back in his early 30's to study Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. While working on his graduate degree, he and some fellow students with the help of author John Egerton, held the first Southern Foodways Alliance symposium. The SFA became Edge's career and he built his career on showing how Southern food can help heal racism in the South. In 2020 Edge won a James Beard award and due to COVID, there was going to be a Zoom event. During the Zoom presentation, things went south (no pun intended) and afterward several people on the SFA board called for Edge's resignation. People that he considered friends abandoned him, or worse claimed they always knew he was racist and using SFA to promote himself. After stepping down from the organization he helped create, Edge had to take a hard look at himself. Were these allegations true? Was he being scapegoated? Or was it something in between? Edge has since moved on and holds no grudges toward SFA. He still writes about Southern food, still works as a college professor, and still struggles with reconciling the South he grew up in and the hard truths of Southern history.
I knew who John T. Edge was because I read a lot about food and Southern food in particular. I knew about SFA and I remember when the story broke about him being forced out. I remember reading the New York Times article and feeling bewildered. There didn't seem to be any obvious smoking gun that would have forced him to step down. It almost appeared like people were more jealous that he was the "face" of SFA and had become very famous. Even after reading this book, I still don't understand what really happened and why. But his story is very interesting and his personal struggle between his love of the South and also recognizing the truth of Southern history is something I can relate to as well. I'm glad that he wrote this book and that readers not only get to know him and his personal history better, but hear his side of how things went down with the end of his career with SFA.
I knew who John T. Edge was because I read a lot about food and Southern food in particular. I knew about SFA and I remember when the story broke about him being forced out. I remember reading the New York Times article and feeling bewildered. There didn't seem to be any obvious smoking gun that would have forced him to step down. It almost appeared like people were more jealous that he was the "face" of SFA and had become very famous. Even after reading this book, I still don't understand what really happened and why. But his story is very interesting and his personal struggle between his love of the South and also recognizing the truth of Southern history is something I can relate to as well. I'm glad that he wrote this book and that readers not only get to know him and his personal history better, but hear his side of how things went down with the end of his career with SFA.
Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey
Birdie is a single mother to precocious six-year-0ld Emaleen. They live in Alaska and Birdie works in a dive bar at a campground. She and her daughter live in one of the rental cabins. Birdie wants more than her day-to-day existence but options are limited in their small town. Then Arthur shows up at the bar. Arthur is a recluse who lives off the grid deep in the woods of Alaska. Birdie draws him out and eventually they develop a relationship and she and Emaleen move up to his off-grid cabin. But, Arthur has a big secret that will threaten his relationship with both Birdie and Emaleen. Years later, when she is an adult, Emaleen comes back to Alaska to try to piece together what really happened to her while living on that remote mountain with her mom and Arthur.
I hadn't read anything about this book before reading it. All I knew is that I loved both of Ivey's previous books. Apparently this was supposed to be a retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, but then Ivey kind of retracted that and said it's a "loose" retelling. After reading the book, I would have NEVER thought that. Mostly because Arthur wasn't magically transformed into a beast, he was some kind of shapeshifter who goes back and forth from human to grizzly bear with no real explanation of how he came to be. And he and Birdie never really seemed to develop a real relationship.
I was really looking forward to reading this one, but it was a big let down. Birdie was AWFUL. She basically forces a very one-sided relationship with Arthur and takes her daughter into a crazy unknown and potentially very unsafe situation just so she can feel more free. And for someone with Birdie's personality living off the grid would NOT go well. But she just magically adjusts to no running water and no idea of how they will eat/live beyond that day. And Arthur just disappearing into the wilderness for days on end is no problem too. Like what the hell could he be doing out in the middle of the wilderness?! And you're not concerned at all?! Without giving away too much, the end is INSANE. I did come to like Emaleen, even though her early chapters were irritating, and I'm glad she was able to come back to Alaska and get some closure. But this book was just odd. Weird and odd and nothing like her previous books. If this was the first book I had read by this author I probably would have put it down. The first 100 pages are very slow and I only kept reading because of how much I enjoyed her previous books. I hope this is just a fluke, but I did not like this one at all.
I hadn't read anything about this book before reading it. All I knew is that I loved both of Ivey's previous books. Apparently this was supposed to be a retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, but then Ivey kind of retracted that and said it's a "loose" retelling. After reading the book, I would have NEVER thought that. Mostly because Arthur wasn't magically transformed into a beast, he was some kind of shapeshifter who goes back and forth from human to grizzly bear with no real explanation of how he came to be. And he and Birdie never really seemed to develop a real relationship.
I was really looking forward to reading this one, but it was a big let down. Birdie was AWFUL. She basically forces a very one-sided relationship with Arthur and takes her daughter into a crazy unknown and potentially very unsafe situation just so she can feel more free. And for someone with Birdie's personality living off the grid would NOT go well. But she just magically adjusts to no running water and no idea of how they will eat/live beyond that day. And Arthur just disappearing into the wilderness for days on end is no problem too. Like what the hell could he be doing out in the middle of the wilderness?! And you're not concerned at all?! Without giving away too much, the end is INSANE. I did come to like Emaleen, even though her early chapters were irritating, and I'm glad she was able to come back to Alaska and get some closure. But this book was just odd. Weird and odd and nothing like her previous books. If this was the first book I had read by this author I probably would have put it down. The first 100 pages are very slow and I only kept reading because of how much I enjoyed her previous books. I hope this is just a fluke, but I did not like this one at all.
How Lucky Am I by Christian Watson
Artist Christian Watson first drew Mr. Skelly for his two children as a way to talk about death in a less scary way. He posted a few of the pictures on Instagram and they went viral. How Lucky Am I is a collection of Mr. Skelly artwork with a few pages of inspirational writing included throughout the book. It's a quick read and would make a great gift for a fan of Mr. Skelly.
Will This Make You Happy by Tanya Bush
This is framed like a food-memoir where Tanya Bush goes from being depressed and directionless to reinvigorated by baking. That is not at all what readers get here. Bush is insufferable. She got laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and is stuck in a small Brooklyn apartment with her boyfriend who's working remotely. The pandemic was hard and I'm sure trying to find a job during the pandemic was even harder. Her boyfriend was amazingly supportive of her and she just lashed out at him constantly. Then every baking related opportunity she got she also bitched about as well. Six weeks as a baking intern is Tuscany did turn out to be a bait-and-switch for free waitstaff, but you're still in Tuscany FOR FREE. Then miraculously she gets a job as a baker for a nearby cafe which seemed unlikely given she hasn't seemed to have improved on the baking front. Almost everything she makes at home she complains about or complains that her boyfriend isn't impressed enough. Then she's complaining that it's too routine and not exciting anymore. She was exhausting. I don't know why her boyfriend stayed and I guess they are now married. She forced him to open their relationship so she could have a fling with a woman she met. She just seemed awful and not liking her as I was reading didn't inspire me to try any of her baking recipes. This whole book was about her just not being happy with anything in her life and it always being someone else's fault. Hard pass on this one.
Especially awful quotes:
"Relief flushes through me; we are back on safe ground. Now I am getting everything I want." (p. 204) [This is her response to her boyfriend agreeing to open their relationship. Don't you want a partner just like this? Ugh.]
"I know I'm supposed to take something profound from her speech, but I can't. I just feel exhausted. I don't want to quit, I just want it to feel the way it used to." (p. 284) [Her response to her mentor at the cafe trying to give her career advice that it's still work and every day isn't going to be awesome.]
Especially awful quotes:
"Relief flushes through me; we are back on safe ground. Now I am getting everything I want." (p. 204) [This is her response to her boyfriend agreeing to open their relationship. Don't you want a partner just like this? Ugh.]
"I know I'm supposed to take something profound from her speech, but I can't. I just feel exhausted. I don't want to quit, I just want it to feel the way it used to." (p. 284) [Her response to her mentor at the cafe trying to give her career advice that it's still work and every day isn't going to be awesome.]
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Natalie Heller Mills is a "tradwife" influencer. She and her family (husband Caleb and 5 kids + one on the way) live on a 500 acre ranch in Idaho and live off the land. The reality is they live off her husband's family money and a slew of hired hands for both the kids and the land. But of course none of that is shown to their thousands of followers. One day Natalie wakes up and it's 1855. It's the same land, the same house (but before the extensive renovations), and the same husband (mostly). The kids look familiar but also are clearly not her kids from the modern time. Natalie is not sure what is going on but she knows she does NOT want to live in 1855. Can she get back to her old, modern life? What exactly happened to her? Isn't the pioneer spirit of Yesteryear what she wants to embody?
I don't want to give away the ending, but this is THE CRAZIEST book I have EVER read. Natalie and Caleb Mills make Nick and Amy Dunne from Gone Girl look like the most normal, sane people you could meet. There is a LOT going on in this book - the whole "tradwife" thing, influencers, religion, education, feminism, the manosphere, politics, money, marriage, motherhood, and more. Even after finishing the book 2 days ago, I still don't know how I feel about it. Would I highly recommend it? It depends - there are a LOT of uncomfortable parts. Did I hate it? No. But I didn't love it either. Similar to how I felt after reading Gone Girl - you will hate the main characters but the story is so crazy that I do think it's worth reading. And it brings up a lot of relevant issues that are worth talking about. Seriously though, what the hell did I just read.
Some quotes I liked:
"The full truth was that he wasn't anything smart. He was a nice, dumb rich kid. And what did that make me? A fool. An embarrassment of a woman...I'd assumed that Caleb's presence at Harvard justified some sort of success of critical thinking skills - but I hadn't considered until now that he'd gotten in on the worth of his last name alone...My husband was an idiot. Worse, there was absolutely nothing to be done about it. In the world I came from, divorce was a German word that translated loosely to a lifetime of destitution and misery followed by eternity in Hell. You didn't leave your husband if he slapped you in the face, or had an affair, or set you up on a weekly allowance so sparse that you snapped at your children when they spilled a glass of milk, and you certainly didn't leave your husband if he was just some dumb rich guy." (p. 110)
"I could practically feel the collective psychic weight of a hundred relatively gullible women trying to hold so many contradicting truths in their brains at one time: everything they had to succeed was already inside them, but also they needed to pay this woman in order to succeed, and a truly successful social media sales cycle should happen effortlessly, it should happen in our sleep, and yet we needed to start reclaiming some of our own time from our families so that we could commit ourselves to the effort, and the point of this course was to remind women to sink further into their own Divine Christian Feminine, and also, it was time to develop some hard masculine skills, ladies, it was time to learn some math!" (p. 225)
"People aren't so different from pigs, apparently. Once they learn a rotten thing can be eaten, they will eat it, and then they will become addicted to it. They will let it drive them mad. That bearded man? He was the first person to smell the rot of our farm and label it a delicacy. Those homesteading folks over at Yesteryear Ranch, with the tired young mother and the grinning doltish cowboy? They were, as it turned out, not rotten at all, but a perfectly fermented vision of America. Delicious, the bearded man announced, and everyone else rushed toward me with their forks...The goal of an influencer is not to be lovable, and it is not to be unbearable. The goal is to be both at once. In other words: addicting." (p. 247)
I don't want to give away the ending, but this is THE CRAZIEST book I have EVER read. Natalie and Caleb Mills make Nick and Amy Dunne from Gone Girl look like the most normal, sane people you could meet. There is a LOT going on in this book - the whole "tradwife" thing, influencers, religion, education, feminism, the manosphere, politics, money, marriage, motherhood, and more. Even after finishing the book 2 days ago, I still don't know how I feel about it. Would I highly recommend it? It depends - there are a LOT of uncomfortable parts. Did I hate it? No. But I didn't love it either. Similar to how I felt after reading Gone Girl - you will hate the main characters but the story is so crazy that I do think it's worth reading. And it brings up a lot of relevant issues that are worth talking about. Seriously though, what the hell did I just read.
Some quotes I liked:
"The full truth was that he wasn't anything smart. He was a nice, dumb rich kid. And what did that make me? A fool. An embarrassment of a woman...I'd assumed that Caleb's presence at Harvard justified some sort of success of critical thinking skills - but I hadn't considered until now that he'd gotten in on the worth of his last name alone...My husband was an idiot. Worse, there was absolutely nothing to be done about it. In the world I came from, divorce was a German word that translated loosely to a lifetime of destitution and misery followed by eternity in Hell. You didn't leave your husband if he slapped you in the face, or had an affair, or set you up on a weekly allowance so sparse that you snapped at your children when they spilled a glass of milk, and you certainly didn't leave your husband if he was just some dumb rich guy." (p. 110)
"I could practically feel the collective psychic weight of a hundred relatively gullible women trying to hold so many contradicting truths in their brains at one time: everything they had to succeed was already inside them, but also they needed to pay this woman in order to succeed, and a truly successful social media sales cycle should happen effortlessly, it should happen in our sleep, and yet we needed to start reclaiming some of our own time from our families so that we could commit ourselves to the effort, and the point of this course was to remind women to sink further into their own Divine Christian Feminine, and also, it was time to develop some hard masculine skills, ladies, it was time to learn some math!" (p. 225)
"People aren't so different from pigs, apparently. Once they learn a rotten thing can be eaten, they will eat it, and then they will become addicted to it. They will let it drive them mad. That bearded man? He was the first person to smell the rot of our farm and label it a delicacy. Those homesteading folks over at Yesteryear Ranch, with the tired young mother and the grinning doltish cowboy? They were, as it turned out, not rotten at all, but a perfectly fermented vision of America. Delicious, the bearded man announced, and everyone else rushed toward me with their forks...The goal of an influencer is not to be lovable, and it is not to be unbearable. The goal is to be both at once. In other words: addicting." (p. 247)
Cookbooking: a fan's guide by Debbie Berne
Cookbooking is about all things cookbooks. Cookbooks have changed over time and continue to change and evolve even today. Berne looks at all things cookbooks and divides the book into short chapters about different types of cookbooks. Each chapter has lots of cookbook photos and lists of cookbooks in that theme/topic/type. There are also some side notes about other relevant topics in some of the chapters. Berne also includes some photos of cookbook shelves whether from a restaurant/chef or friends/followers. Overall, this is a really great look at all things cookbooks. This would make a great gift to a foodie/cook/cookbook collector.
Murder by Cheesecake: Golden Girls cozy mystery #1 by Rachel Courage
The Golden Girls have moved from the screen to the printed page with this cozy mystery. Rose Nylund's cousin is getting married and when the venue in St. Olaf burns down, they decide to move the wedding to Miami. Rose enlists all the other Girls to help with planning a traditional St. Olaf style wedding in record time. Dorothy decides she wants to find a date for the wedding and tries out a new videotape dating service. When she meets up with her potential date things seem promising until he ditches her. Then at the wedding venue, her date is found dead in the kitchen walk-in freezer. All signs point to her as the possible killer and the Girls have to figure out who the real killer is AND continue helping Rose put on her cousin's St Olaf style wedding.
Let me start by saying two things: 1) I LOVE the Golden Girls and 2) this type of book is NOT anything I would normally read. That being said, I didn't really like the book. There is WAY too many little quotes and quips that are pulled from Golden Girls episodes. I'm not sure if the author was trying to make sure readers know that she knows her Golden Girls stuff or trying to set things up for any readers who may not be familiar with the Golden Girls. Either way, it was too heavy-handed for me. Also, I agree with several reviews that the wedding Rose is running took up WAY too much of the storyline. It's supposed to be a mystery not wedding fiction. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one.
One quote I did like:
"'Exactly!' Gustave said. 'It seems to be all about nightlife and dancing and nothing to do with family and community! Plus, there's all sorts of criminal activity, drug cartels, and smuggling. Haven't you seen the television show Miami Vice?' 'Oh no, it's nothing like that,' Rose said. 'It's more like...Miami Nice!'" (p. 74-75) [If you don't know, the original name for the Golden Girls TV show was going to be Miami Nice as a play on Miami Vice.]
Let me start by saying two things: 1) I LOVE the Golden Girls and 2) this type of book is NOT anything I would normally read. That being said, I didn't really like the book. There is WAY too many little quotes and quips that are pulled from Golden Girls episodes. I'm not sure if the author was trying to make sure readers know that she knows her Golden Girls stuff or trying to set things up for any readers who may not be familiar with the Golden Girls. Either way, it was too heavy-handed for me. Also, I agree with several reviews that the wedding Rose is running took up WAY too much of the storyline. It's supposed to be a mystery not wedding fiction. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one.
One quote I did like:
"'Exactly!' Gustave said. 'It seems to be all about nightlife and dancing and nothing to do with family and community! Plus, there's all sorts of criminal activity, drug cartels, and smuggling. Haven't you seen the television show Miami Vice?' 'Oh no, it's nothing like that,' Rose said. 'It's more like...Miami Nice!'" (p. 74-75) [If you don't know, the original name for the Golden Girls TV show was going to be Miami Nice as a play on Miami Vice.]
Salt, Sweat & Steam by Brigid Washington
Brigid Washington decided somewhat on a whim to enroll at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) after a break up. She's older than many of the students but is excited to challenge herself through this rigorous program. And she is definitely challenged. The CIA is no joke and has extremely high standards. At first, it's hard for Brigid to find her community at the CIA, but she does connect with some friends and a potential crush/boyfriend. But as she nears the end of the program, her dream internship falls apart at the last minute and she starts to doubt her future in the culinary world.
Washington's writing is great. She conveys the rigor of the CIA classes really well. But, there was a lot missing that would have helped this memoir. I don't understand enrolling in a VERY expensive program on a whim with no clear direction on what you want to get out of that degree. Going to work in a restaurant, sure. Signing up for $50,000+ in student loans to get over a broken heart? I don't know. Also, I feel like there needed to be more to the end than she and Joseph are back together and he proposes. Did she ever go work in restaurants? How did she pay off these student loans? How did she get into her role now as the vice-chair of the journalism awards committee for the James Beard Foundation?
There were also a couple things that really bothered me. Her "relationship" with Leo - ugh. He may have been hot, but a hot douchebag is still a douchebag. I really didn't understand why she wasted so much time with him when it was VERY clear he wasn't interested in anything other than keeping her interested in him. Also, she kind of glossed over how/why she got the school newspaper editor's job over other students who had already been contributing to the paper. Why would they give that role to a brand new student and not the more experienced people already working on the paper? Finally, her ridiculous push to change school policies so she could try for the Italy internship. I feel like there's a fine line between going for what you want and expecting all the rules to be broken just for you. I feel like she shouldn't have pushed for that and then in the end when the CIA changed all the rules for her, she STILL didn't get to go. It felt like when she didn't get her way with this internship, that's when she started to have second thoughts about working in fine dining. But, she had no real plan or goal all along! Overall, I liked the writing and the parts about the program at the CIA. I didn't love her choices and the feeling of all the rules should be broken just for her.
Washington's writing is great. She conveys the rigor of the CIA classes really well. But, there was a lot missing that would have helped this memoir. I don't understand enrolling in a VERY expensive program on a whim with no clear direction on what you want to get out of that degree. Going to work in a restaurant, sure. Signing up for $50,000+ in student loans to get over a broken heart? I don't know. Also, I feel like there needed to be more to the end than she and Joseph are back together and he proposes. Did she ever go work in restaurants? How did she pay off these student loans? How did she get into her role now as the vice-chair of the journalism awards committee for the James Beard Foundation?
There were also a couple things that really bothered me. Her "relationship" with Leo - ugh. He may have been hot, but a hot douchebag is still a douchebag. I really didn't understand why she wasted so much time with him when it was VERY clear he wasn't interested in anything other than keeping her interested in him. Also, she kind of glossed over how/why she got the school newspaper editor's job over other students who had already been contributing to the paper. Why would they give that role to a brand new student and not the more experienced people already working on the paper? Finally, her ridiculous push to change school policies so she could try for the Italy internship. I feel like there's a fine line between going for what you want and expecting all the rules to be broken just for you. I feel like she shouldn't have pushed for that and then in the end when the CIA changed all the rules for her, she STILL didn't get to go. It felt like when she didn't get her way with this internship, that's when she started to have second thoughts about working in fine dining. But, she had no real plan or goal all along! Overall, I liked the writing and the parts about the program at the CIA. I didn't love her choices and the feeling of all the rules should be broken just for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment