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)

April 2024 Cookbook Reviews

 

Italian Snacking by Anna Francese Gass

Anna Gass grew up in the US, but her family was from Italy so they often went back to see family. Gass grew up eating mostly Italian food because that was what her mother knew how to cook and then when they were in Italy that's obviously what they ate there. She remembers her grandmother baking snacks for them in an outdoor brick oven and that was what inspired her to seek out all the various Italian snacks and recreate the recipes. In the Introduction she talks about what are Italian snacks or Spuntini, then she describes the various regions of Italy and what each is known for. Then the recipes are divided into 4 categories - midmorning snacks, afternoon treats, evening appetizers, and street food. There are several recipes that I'd like to try and a wide variety of sweet and savory snacks.

April 2024 Reviews

 

She's a Badass: women in rock shaping feminism by Katherine Yeske Taylor

I picked this book up because of the title and because I love music (although I have zero musical or singing ability personally). I loved her introduction about how she got into music journalism and how much women in music inspired Taylor as she faced sexism as a journalist and witnessed it in the music scene as well. I wasn't familiar with all the women she profiled but she definitely found a variety of women that showed feminism's progression (or lack thereof) through the 1960s and 70s through to today. I think this is a great concept for a book but I felt like some of the stories sounded the same after awhile. I think there were several women all from the same time frame and type/style of music and it felt like their stories were very similar or too much of the same things. While I felt like this was a good book overall, there were definitely other women I would like to have seen profiled. It would have been nice if the author included why she selected these specific women. The subtitle for the book is Women in Rock Shaping Feminism, yet many of the women specifically said they do NOT consider themselves feminists. I always find that interesting when women who ARE changing things for other women don't like that term or choose to use it to describe themselves. Overall, I did like the book but it got a little repetitive for me.

Some quotes I liked:

[Lydia Lunch] "She is unimpressed with the contrived provocativeness that so many commercially successful artists seem to portray these days. 'I think a real conundrum of our times is that we have what I call 'the new Puritanism.' And then we have this really extreme hypersexuality,' she says. ' I don't think it's liberating to wear a leotard onstage in a surgically enhanced body that other women will never live up to, claiming you're doing this for women's empowerment, when you're a corporate prostitute to a mainstream media-conglomerate.'" (p. 56-57)

[Donita Sparks of L7) "'I think that there was such vitriol toward the word feminist from the male community, and even from other females...'It has especially disturbed her to see women rejecting the 'feminist' label...[and on the Spice Girls making 'girl power' more mainstream palatable] 'It was funny and infuriating at the same time. You can't just dance in front of a neon sign that says 'feminist.' You've got to do more than that.'" (p. 96)

[Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses, the Breeders, and Belly] "But another incident in the 1990s made it even more evident that women were not always being treated fairly in the music business. She recalls 'sitting in a program director's office and having him say to me, as if this were completely understandable, 'Well, we can't pitch your single to radio because there are too many women on the radio right now.' And I remember being like, 'What?' 'Just to give you an idea of how bone-level this kind of systemic thinking was at the time, he wasn't even being a dick about it. It was just like we were comrades in the same battle, and I should understand that this was part of the war, basically: 'Well, you should understand. There are too many women right now, so we just have to wait a few months.'...Considering that radio playlists have always consisted of consecutive male artists' songs, the double standard was glaring." (p. 122)

Through the Wilderness by Brad Orsted

Brad Orsted had the dream - a beautiful wife, three daughters, and a beautiful home. He had grown up in an abusive and dysfunctional home, but his mother seemed to mellow as she got older and was especially excited to be a grandmother. When Brad's youngest daughter is around a year and a half old he lets his mom take her for a weekend. But something happens and Marley ends up dead and his mother refuses to tell the truth about what happened. This sends Orsted's life into a spiral of grief, guilt, and rage. He responds to that by drinking until he passes out most nights. Two years after Marley's death Orsted's wife lands a job in Yellowstone National Park and they move out there. Nature was always Orsted's refuge as a child, so he ends up turning back to nature to try to escape his grief over Marley's death. Eventually, the nature in Yellowstone helps Orsted decide to get sober and really deal with his grief and anger.

I wanted to like this book and there were likable parts, but overall it could have been better. 1) the story of what actually happened with Marley's death and the immediate aftermath was interspersed into several chapters. I think it would have been better to have that at the beginning of the book and then move into Orsted's healing/nature journey. It could have been divided into Before Yellowstone and After Yellowstone or something. 2) I feel like he kind of glosses over his sobriety and basically said he just white-knuckled a lot of it, which doesn't seem like great advice. 3) many marriages don't survive the death of a child, but I was surprised his managed to make it 10 years after Marley's death and then end once he had gotten his shit together. 4) after reading about his childhood I'm genuinely SHOCKED he left Marley alone overnight with his mother. Not blaming him for Marley's death, but that seemed like an obvious not good idea. 5) his obsession with the bear cubs seemed like obvious transference and you never know why they ended up euthanized. 6) I liked the photos added but it seemed odd to include both a picture of his biological dad and adopted dad when he never talks about meeting/talking to his biological dad and still considers his adopted father his dad. Overall, I didn't love it and probably wouldn't recommend this one.

The Ultimate Serial Killer Trivia Book by Jack Rosewood

I received this book as a gift from a coworker who knows how much I love true crime stuff. While it's definitely an interesting book and there was a lot of trivia/facts I had never heard before, it was a hard read because it was just a running laundry list of serial killer facts and figures. If you read a true crime book, even if it's about a serial killer, there is still other stuff going on in the book - background, other people, etc. This was a LOT of just gruesome facts and cases all in one place. I did like how the author divided the information into chapters by topic (although I could have done without the cannibalism chapter...). Overall, it was an interesting book but maybe I should have read like a chapter a week instead of plowing through it like a regular book/story.

Some quotes I liked:

"The USA has both the highest number of recorded serial killers and the highest rate per capita (0.99% per every 100,000 people). California is the US state that has produced the most serial killers, boasting over 1,000 since 1900. During the 1970s, California was dubbed the 'murder capital of the world.' Canada has only seen 106 serial killers between 1900 and 2016, despite its landmass being 1.6% larger than the United States. This puts its capita rate at 0.29% per 100,000 people." (p. 13-14)

[The Monster of the Andes] "[Pedro] Lopez was finally caught in 1979 after allegedly killing 'three girls a week for years.' It turns out Lopez wasn't lying, as he led authorities to a mass grave in Ecuador containing the remains of 53 girls. Lopez was sent to prison, with authorities believing he could have killed up to 300 people. However, Ecuador has a prison term limit of 20 years, so in 1999, Lopez was released into the world. Since then, no one has seen him." (p. 101)

The Hidden Language of Cats: how they have us at meow by Sarah Brown

I've always been a cat person so when I saw this book I knew I wanted to check it out. Dr. Sarah Brown started her doctoral program by studying cat behavior in two different feral cat colonies. This book is the result of her years of studying cat behavior. This book focuses totally on how cats communicate with each other and with humans. It was much more science focused than I was anticipating and I would have preferred a more general interest book than detailed information about dozens of cat-focused experiments. There were definitely things I learned and things I'll look for in my own cats, but as any cat owner knows cats do what they want whether the "research" backs it up or not. I'd always heard that cats only meow to humans, not other cats (outside of kittens to their mother). But my current cats meow to each other ALL THE TIME - calling each other to play or to show the other a toy/bug/whatever. I also really liked the very cute, simple line drawings that illustrated some of the pages - that really added to the book. But, overall it was definitely high on the science side of things and not as easy of a read as I was hoping for.

Some quotes I liked:

[On cats marking/spraying urine] "Herein lies a problem: many cleaning products contain ammonia, and so does cat urine. So when we cover a urine mark with our 'pine-scented' ammonia-based product, an area that now smells to us like a Norwegian pine forest smells to the cat like ammonia from cat urine. But not their own. This unfortunately results in them having an overwhelming urge to mark over the offending smell with their own urine once more. In this way owners often unwittingly enter into a scent 'conversation' with their cat rather than managing to properly eliminate the original smelly mark." (p. 46-47)

"One of my favorite words used in the study of human-animal interactions is 'gentling.' It refers to a combination of stroking/patting and calmly resting a hand on an animal, with or without speaking quietly. It's a technique long used to enhance bonding between humans and many animal species, including farm, laboratory, and companion animals." (p. 133-34)

The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder by David Grann

Two years after leaving England with a fleet of five warships survivors from The Wager wash up in Brazil telling a wild story of shipwreck, murder, and survival. These men are hailed as heroes who survived shipwreck, starvation, and a myriad of illnesses and trials. But a few months later another small ship lands in Chile and says the first group are actually mutineers who abandoned their captain and ship. The Navy calls a court martial and all surviving sailors from The Wager are called to testify. The press and public are fascinated with this dark tale of shipwreck and mutiny - but which group will prevail in the court martial? Who is actually telling the truth?

David Grann does an AMAZING job of telling this wild story that highlights the adage, the truth is stranger than fiction. And actually several maritime authors use the story of The Wager as inspiration for fictional books in later years. Grann gives the back stories of several of the key players in this real life drama, tells the story of The Wager's doomed voyage and shipwreck, and how the sailors who survived lived to tell their tales. It's amazing that anyone survived to today reading about how AWFUL life on the sea was for the sailors - and that was before any fighting/war even happened. Life on a ship it was almost like a prison with the chance of drowning added in and Grann explains how press gangs went around basically abducting men into service because it was such a hard life and high mortality that few would volunteer. What's amazing to me is several of the survivors went on to continue in Naval careers after their ordeal! The shipwrecked sailors ordeals were horrific and as one reviewer aptly put it - this was like Lord of the Flies non-fiction edition. I can't reiterate enough how well Grann lays out this story and the amount of research he did to get all the facts together and then convey it to the reader. He also includes several color photographs of paintings that depict some of the sailors and ships involved in this story, as well as some photographs of the island they were shipwrecked on in Patagonia. Once again, he's taken a true story that could have been lost to history and turned it into a page-turner book that you can't put down until you know what happens in the end.

Some quotes I liked:

"She was christened in honor of Sir Charles Wager, the seventy-four-year-old First Lord of the Admiralty. The ship's name seemed fitting: weren't they all gambling with their lives?" (p. 18-19)

"Byron confronted an inescapable truth of the wooden world: each man's life depended on the performance of others. They were akin to the cells in a human body; a single malignant one could destroy them all." (p. 38-39)

"Logbooks were supposed to be preserved from a wreck so that the Admiralty could later determine the potential culpability of not only the captain but also the lieutenant, the master, and other officers. Bulkeley was shocked to discover that many of the Wager's records had disappeared or were shredded, and not by mere accident. 'We have good reason to apprehend there was a person employed to destroy them,' he recalled. Somebody, whether a navigator or perhaps even a more senior officer, wanted to shield his actions from scrutiny." (p. 102)

Learned a new word - "internecine" which means "destructive to both sides in a conflict." and definitely summed up the shipwreck survivors of The Wager. p. 160

"Eighteenth-century British naval law has a reputation for being draconian, but it was often more flexible and forgiving in reality. Under the Articles of War, many transgressions, including falling asleep on watch, were punishable by death, yet there was usually an important caveat: a court could hand down a lesser sentence if it saw fit. And although overthrowing a captain was a grave crime, 'mutinous' behavior often applied to minor insubordinations not deemed worthy of severe punishment. Nevertheless, the case against all of the men of the Wager seemed overwhelming. They were not accused of negligible misconduct but, rather, of a complete breakdown of naval order, from the highest levels of command to the rank and file. And though they had each tried to shape their stories in ways that justified their actions, the legal system was designed to strip these narratives down to the bard, hard, unemotive facts." (p. 233)

"Strikingly, there was one surviving castaway who never had a chance to record his testimony in any form. Not in a book or in a deposition. Not even in a letter. And that was John Duck, the free Black seaman who had gone ashore with Morris's abandoned party. Duck had withstood the years of deprivation and starvation, and he had managed with Morris and two others to trek to the outskirts of Buenos Aires. But there his fortitude was of no avail, and he suffered what every free Black seaman dreaded: he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Morris didn't know where his friend had been taken, whether to the mines or to the fields - Duck's fate was unknown, as is the case for so many people whose stories can never be told." (p. 248)

"John Byron, who married and had six children, stayed in the Navy, serving for more than two decades and ascending the ranks all the way to vice-admiral...in the cloistered wooden world he seemed to find what he had longed for - a sense of fellowship. And he was widely praised for what one officer called his tenderness and his care toward his men." (p. 254)

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Evening Edition book club)

In 1952 Elizabeth Zott is working at Hastings Research Institute in a chemistry lab. She is the only woman in the building who is not a secretary. She meets Calvin Evans when she goes into his lab to "borrow" beakers because no one will give her any - then a few weeks later they bump into each other again at the theater. Once they start talking they never stop. Calvin is the first man to see Elizabeth for her brilliant mind and treat her as an equal. They also fall in love and move in together. Fast forward 10 years and Elizabeth is a single mother and accidentally lands a television show teaching cooking through chemistry. While she is the exact opposite of what everyone at the studio expects a woman on TV to be like, she draws a HUGE following precisely because she treats women as intelligent human beings who can do more than just look pretty and pop out babies. Along the way she finds out a huge secret from Calvin's past that will impact her future in incredible ways.

In looking at the first page of Goodreads reviews for this book it gets mixed reviews. I'll admit there were a few big things that I found extremely unlikely - 1) the rape at the beginning of the book while not unlikely (and sadly probably happened WAY more than anyone wants to know) I don't think the police would have reacted the way they did. This wasn't a he said/she said or date rape situation, it was an employer who beat the shit out of a woman and attempted to rape her. I think it was put in to highlight how often that kind of stuff happened and how the police were dismissive (and probably mostly still are today) but it seemed pretty exaggerated even for 1950. 2) birth control would have been MUCH harder to obtain in 1952 and it's mentioned like how could I have gotten pregnant when we were using contraception. In doing some research condoms were available but again I don't think in 1952 they were just on the shelf at the local drug store - hence the need for so many unwed mother homes in that time period. 3) the daughter actually being named Mad on the birth certificate - NEVER would have happened. I'm sure it was just meant to be funny but that just seemed dumb to me. 4) there was an obvious issue with religion and those views would have been kept much quieter (even if people thought/believed them) in the 1950s and 60s. To be fair Elizabeth and Calvin both had religion hurt them in HUGE ways multiple times. Madeline Murray O'Hare started up in 1963 so it's not totally outside of the realm of possibility, but again pretty heavy handed and unusual for the time.

Several reviews complained about how Elizabeth seemed to have time traveled from the current time with all her modern day views of feminism, sexuality, atheism, etc. And I agree it's pretty over the top but it's fiction and it does make for an interesting character. I also think there are two things that make her character a little more believable for the time 1) she was brilliant and so she could have been like the brilliant scientist who didn't have common sense type of person. She was so brilliant and could see the obvious logic of her views so she never understood why society didn't agree. 2) she obviously had a very unconventional and dysfunctional childhood. She didn't have parents who were enforcing the societal norms of the day (other than telling her brother he was going to hell for being gay). I think these two factors could make her into someone ahead of her time and/or just willing to go her own way even if that meant being alone. She also wasn't in the traditional family home waiting for a boy to propose. She had to fend for herself from a pretty young age so that would make anyone more independent regardless of the time period.

I did find the book funny - Garmus is a GREAT writer. Yes, there are several dark topics/scenes but there was humor throughout. I found myself laughing out loud several times. I also LOVED Six-Thirty even though I am NOT a dog person at all. He was such a great character and I loved that we got to hear his point of view too. There was a lot going on throughout the book but I found it read quickly and especially toward the end I really wanted to see how everything would play out. I'm sure my book club is going to love this one.

Some quotes I liked:

"Elizabeth Zott held grudges too. Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less. Less capable. Less intelligent. Less inventive. A society that believed men went to work and did important things - discovered planets, developed products, created laws - and women stayed at home and raised children. She didn't want children - she knew this about herself - but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career. And what was wrong with that? Nothing. It was exactly what men got." (p. 14)

"When one is raised on steady diet of sorrow, it's hard to imagine that others might have had an even larger serving." (p. 39)

"Elizabeth considered this. No, she did not know how men were. With the exception of Calvin, and her dead brother, John, Dr. Mason, and maybe Walter Pine, she only ever seemed to bring out the worst in men. They either wanted to control her, touch her, dominate her, silence her, correct her, or tell her what to do. She didn't understand why they couldn't just treat her as a fellow human being, as a colleague, a friend, an equal, or even a stranger on the street, someone to whom one is automatically respectful until you find out they've buried a bunch of bodies in the backyard." (p. 237)

"The problem with being a minister was how many times a day he had to lie. This was because people needed constant reassurance that things were okay or were going to be okay instead of the more obvious reality that things were bad and were only going to get worse." (p. 243)

"The next day - Tuesday - Mudford's tree assignment revelations were the talk of the school: Madeline had been born out of wedlock; Amanda didn't have a mother; Tommy Dixon's father was an alcoholic. Not that any of the children themselves cared about these facts, but Mudford, her mean eyes wet with excitement, ate up the data like a hungry virus, then fed it to the other mothers, who spread it around the school like frosting." (p. 266)

Eve Isn't Evil by Julie Faith Parker

I really wanted to like this one and was excited enough that I bought it first (I rarely buy books as a Librarian). But I didn't really like it. I could tell from the first chapter that I wasn't going to agree with the author 100%, which is fine. I felt like some of the chapters were better than others and some stuff was just WAY out there in my opinion. I definitely consider myself a Christian feminist but I felt like some of the chapters it was way too much of a stretch for her "feminist interpretation." In chapter 3 she talks about the story of Abraham and Sarah and how they decided to make things happen their own way by using their slave Hagar to have a child with Abraham. She explains this like a modern day surrogate - except it definitely wasn't. Hagar was a slave, so there was NOTHING consensual about this whole thing and that was never brought up at all - that would have been a feminist interpretation to talk about those aspects of Bible stories. She also talked about the role of prostitutes and goddesses in Biblical times - but again it was almost in a way like these women were exalted in that day and time which would not have been the case either. I also felt like some of her more personal examples in the chapters felt forced - some worked really well like what happened with her parents in the chapter about Job. I do agree with her that Jesus is my favorite Jewish feminist too. Overall, I didn't love it. I probably won't keep it either. I feel like a MUCH better book is The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr and as she says just because patriarchy is the backdrop of the Bible doesn't make it Biblical. I would pass on this one.

Some quotes I did like:

"Biblical stories have been used to devalue women and limit their options because of what we are told they mean. Surprisingly, though, a lot of what we think is in the Bible comes from interpreters' biases and not the text itself." (p. 11)

"In Proverbs, the universe is cause and effect: do good, you are rewarded; do bad, you are punished. The book of Job turns this idea on its head and asks, 'Really?!' by showing a virtuous person who endures undeserved strife. Job's friends are convinced that he must have done something terribly wrong - otherwise why would this calamity have befallen him? They cling to a cause-and-effect way of understanding the universe because it works for them. They are safe and believe that Job's actions must have led to his misery. This theology - that horrible things happen to those who deserve the trouble - is as common ('it must be God's will') as it is cruel (blaming the sufferer for their pain)." (p. 76)

"Feminism and the Bible are not at odds with each other. Yes, women have been fed words of the Bible to nurture toxic thinking about their own supposed inferiority. But it is the feeders, not the scriptural food, at fault. No one should shove Bible verses down someone else's throat to make them choke, shrink, or suffer. Rather, we pick up the Bible to see what is good food for the soul, delights the senses, and is desired to make us wise." (p. 129)

March 2024 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Art of Extract Making by Paul and Jill Fulton

This is a unique cookbook in that it is all about extract making. The author gives a great overview of vanilla beans and how they are grown, harvested, sorted, sold, etc. Then he gets into actually making the extract - what kind of spirits to use, jars/containers, and other details. The last section is a variety of extract recipes. I thought the book was very thorough and did a good job of walking you through making your own extract. I just made my first batch of homemade vanilla extract last year and I'm excited to continue making extracts and might try some of their recipes in the future. I was also lucky enough to be able to visit the Hawaiian Vanilla Company on the Big Island of Hawaii back in 2014 and actually see how vanilla is grown and harvested in person. I was also able to get very reasonably priced vanilla beans at the local farmers markets in Hawaii. If you're curious about making your own vanilla extract definitely check out this book.

Tacos & Tequila by Cider Mill Press

I was really excited to check out this cookbook but it was a little disappointing. There were 3 basic recipe categories - tacos, fixings, and cocktails. The taco recipes were basically just proteins or main fillings - I was hoping for more combinations of ingredients in one taco recipe. There were several recipes for things I didn't know what they were. I think a one or two sentence description especially for something not common would have gone a long way. If you want cocktail recipes there were A LOT so it lived up to the title that way. There were a couple recipes I wanted to try but I wasn't impressed overall.

The Farm Table by Julius Roberts

Julius Roberts was working in a London restaurant but was realizing that he didn't enjoy the restaurant hours/life. He had always been interested in the ingredients and the head chef's constant search for the best quality ingredients. So he quit his chef job and moved out to his family's home in Suffolk where there was more land and he could grow some vegetables and raise some animals. He started with 4 pigs then continued to add animals and gardens until he outgrew that space and needed to find a larger farm further out. What I liked the most about this book was his introductions to each section (the recipes are organized by season) where he talked about what was going on at the farm during that season. I also love how honest he was about how hard it is to raise animals and then slaughter them. There weren't tons of recipes I wanted to try personally, but I love that he organized them by season and there are lots of beautiful pictures of both the food and the farm.

 

March 2024 Reviews

 

Eat Everything by Dawn Harris Sherling, MD

When Dr. Sherling first started practicing medicine she encountered a patient who was having gut related issues and was down to only being able to eat granola bars. After extensive testing, Dr. Sherling was no closer to a diagnosis for the patient than when they first started. Throughout her career she continued to see people with these type of gut issues that had no obvious diagnosis - then it started happening to her too. It was on a family vacation to Italy that helped open her eyes. In Italy Dr. Sherling could eat all the foods that caused her problems at home - dairy, wheat, etc. What she found was that in Italy food was almost exclusively made with local, whole ingredients. In the US most people consume a lot of ultra-processed foods full of additives and emulsifiers. These additives and emulsifiers can wreak havoc on our microbiome, the good bacteria and fungi in our digestive tracts. In this book Dr. Sherling shows us her journey and how she now tries to help her patients with a whole-food focused diet in addition to any medications they may need. The book is divided into 3 sections - the first section explores what is wrong with our food and why these additives are causing health problems, the second section looks at specific types of foods and how to source better quality ingredients/foods, and the third section is how this plays out in real life with tips for still eating out, managing weight, and dealing with or finding the right diagnosis. In the Appendixes she includes a list of additives and why they might be problematic, a sample weekly meal plan for focusing on whole foods, and 25 whole-food based recipes. Overall, while I didn't agree with EVERYTHING she said this is a pretty impressive book. Dr. Sherling explores yet another layer of our industrial food system that is bad for us and how we can do better.

I'm thankful that I don't have any gut/digestion issues, but even if like me you don't have these issues these additives are not good and it's much better to eat whole foods anyway. I would add to her suggestions sourcing locally grown/raised food from local farmers. Or even better grow some of your own food too with a vegetable garden. I've found that homegrown vegetables taste WAY better than store bought and you're much more likely to eat the stuff you took the time to grow. I'm already a big proponent of homemade, from-scratch cooking so this book was right up my alley.

Two quotes I disagree with:

"You may have a hard time finding unadulterated cream on store shelves (at least without a co-op market or dairy nearby) because without some kind of emulsifying agent, the pasteurization process causes the cream to separate as it sits in the store's refrigerator. So you either need fairly fresh pasteurized cream or really fresh unpasteurized cream to go additive-free. As a physician, I cannot recommend drinking unpasteurized cream. Pasteurization has prevented thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses. It isn't a bad thing. It just makes finding good cream a challenge. Listeria, the bacteria you can get from unpasteurized dairy, is worse than additives." (p. 83)
[I personally know people who had life-long gut/digestive issues that were cured with raw milk. Yes, getting Listeria is MUCH worse than additives. But, raw milk can often be consumed even by people who are lactose intolerant and has so many benefits that pasteurization removes. The problem with most food-born illnesses is the industrialization part. How did people drink milk in the pre-pasteurization time and not all die from Listeria? Small and local is how.]

"After the highly successful introduction of sugar, and later high-fructose corn syrup, the cereal additives just kept coming. With an emphasis on marketing and convenience, more traditional breakfast foods didn't stand a chance. And so today we have an entire aisle in the grocery store devoted to ultra-processed breakfast bits delivered in brightly colored cardboard boxes...But you will have to pry the cereal box out of my cold, sleepy hand. One kid won't get out of bed. The other can't find her shoes. And we all need to get going! Mornings are challenging in most homes, and cereal provides a cheap and quick solution - one that most kids over the age of six can handle getting for themselves." (p. 92)
[I was REALLY surprised to see a medical doctor advocate for breakfast cereal. Cereal is one of the absolute WORST things you can eat with almost no nutritional value. And as for cheap? It is $5-8 for a box of Cheerios ($3+ for the generic store brand). Compare that to a dozen eggs. Eggs are a MUCH better breakfast and only take about 5 minutes to cook. There are PLENTY of other breakfast options that are much better than cereal.]

Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee - Books & Banter and Evening Edition book clubs, Community Read, re-read

Edward Lee spent two years traveling the US exploring immigrant food. Immigrants are what makes up America, so how do immigrants incorporate their food into their new culture and how does American food change with the influence of all this immigrant food? These are some of the questions Lee explores in this book. Each chapter focuses on a specific ethnic food in a small town in America. Often it's surprising as Lee claims the best Jewish Deli is in Indianapolis, or there is a huge Middle Eastern population and food culture in Dearborn, Michigan. Lee says, "The plate of food has never been the be-all and end-all for me. Quite the opposite: for me, good food is just the beginning of a trail that leads back to a person whose story is usually worth telling." (p. 32) and that is exactly what he does in this book he highlights not just ethnic food all over the US, but the specific people who are cooking this food and their stories. Definitely an interesting look at just how diverse the food culture is here in the US.

Notes on re-reading for Community Read 3/1 - 3/6/24:

I didn't enjoy this as much this time as I remember liking it the first time. I think it's just a case of bad reading timing. While I do like his writing and he is entertaining, this time reading it it just came across inauthentic to me. Like he would be irritated when strangers in a restaurant or bar didn't want to chat it up with him - dude, you're a stranger to them that's creepy. This time reading it I felt like he was trying to be like Anthony Bourdain on his TV shows - but those were obviously planned they didn't just film Bourdain trying to talk to strangers. I wasn't as impressed this time but I am looking forward to seeing him speak at our library event.

Some quotes I liked this time:

[I forgot that he mentioned Staunton, VA in the book which is now a place I go at least once a year thanks to Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm.]

[On talking about the longevity of Shapiro's deli in Indianapolis] "'All the chefs these days are artists, and that's fine, but then you have a restaurant linked to an individual, not a tradition. There will never be a restaurant that lasts one hundred years anymore. Chefs change their food depending on the trends. We don't.' 'So there is no chef here?' 'We don't call them chefs. It is family recipes that are made by everyone. It speaks to the culture of a group, not an individual. If we persist in making food that is an individual expression, our restaurants will only last as long as the artist's whim or the public's attention span. This...' he gestures to the room. 'This can go on forever.'" (p. 325)

"I hate it that these women, the true guardians of this tradition, are getting overlooked. They are the ones who kept this food alive while the culinary world was busy fawning over European or California cuisine. For Janice and Shirley Mae, food was never about a trend or a concept. It was, and is, their heritage. And because of women like them, we now have an actual flavor profile we can reference when we talk about dishes such as pork neck and turnip greens. It's a living thing, not just words in a historical text." (p. 356)

"Their two approaches to cornbread are not simply a variation in technique. They represent a rift in their upbringing: one rural and the other urban. I never would have made that distinction if I had not talked to them at length. I would simply have assumed that they made different cornbreads for reasons that random. It took me a long time to understand that their choices in their cornbread recipes tell an intimate story of their past." (p. 358-59)

Of Time and Turtles: mending the world, shell by shattered shell by Sy Montgomery

I love Sy Montgomery's writing and I ALWAYS learn something new when I read her books. Of Time and Turtles is no exception. Shortly before the COVID pandemic Sy and her friend Matt Patterson start volunteering with the Turtle Rescue League (or TRL for short). This New England rescue does a LOT for turtles - rescuing injured turtles and rehabilitating them, marking and protecting turtle nests, incubating rescued turtle eggs, even providing long term for turtles they've saved but for varying reason can't be released back into the wild. The book spans two years starting at the beginning of 2020 and going into 2022. While I could have done without some of the COVID related comments (death tolls, how the vaccine will save everyone, etc.) it wasn't super heavy handed. I was honestly amazed at the work TRL does for the turtle world in New England - driving all over to pick up injured or discarded turtles, spending a lot of time caring for seriously injured turtles, and much, much more. Turtles really are amazing animals and Montgomery does a great job of highlighting just how unique they are, as well as just how long they can live (up to 200 years!). I've always been someone who stops on the side of the road for a turtle and helps them across but after reading this book I will keep my eyes even more peeled for turtles.

The main thing I could have done without in the book was the chapter that revealed that Alexxia and Natasha (the couple who runs TRL) are both transgender women. That really added NOTHING to the story, their rescue work, anything. It just felt like it was mentioned because trans everything is such a focus right now. Honestly I was like why is she including this. If either of the women were writing a book about their rescue and how/why they started it that would make sense, but it felt unnecessary to add that into this book. Otherwise, the work they do is amazing and Montgomery's experience with their rescue made for an interesting book and anyone would look at turtles differently after reading this.

Some terrifying statistics and data:

"Turtles are a red-hot commodity in the ruthless world of the illegal wildlife trade. Like the underground market for guns, drugs, and sex, turtle trafficking is networked, clandestine, and lucrative. A single Yunnan box turtle could command $200,000 on the black market. A Chinese three-striped box turtle, whose powdered plastron is rumored (incorrectly) to cure cancer, can fetch as much as $25,000. In many parts of Asia - where most of the stolen turtles turn up in phony elixirs (often claimed, due to turtles' longevity, to preserve youthful beauty in women or sexual potency in men), as tortoiseshell accessories like pens and bracelets, or sold as prestigious pets - more than three quarters of the native species are either threatened with extinction or already gone from their natural homes. So many Asian turtles have been 'vacuumed from the wild,' as one TSA [Turtle Survival Alliance] video puts it, that now the reptiles are being snatched from ponds, woodlands, and seas of the United States to be illegally shipped to feed this malignant market." (p. 31-32)

"A survey by the State University of New York biologist James Gibbs estimated that in the Northeast, Great Lakes, and southeastern U.S., in areas crisscrossed by roads, up to twenty percent of the adult turtle population is killed by cars each year....Results of another study, concentrating on snappers living in an Ontario-area wetland bisected by a highway, were equally dire: Here, in the seventeen years between 1985 and 2002, the snapper population dropped from 941 to 177. The researchers predicted that things would only get worse. The snappers would soon be gone from the swamp." (p. 51)

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that the odds of a sea turtle hatchling surviving to adulthood may range from an unlikely one in one thousand to an almost impossible one in ten thousand. Survival rates may be even more disheartening for the less-studied freshwater turtles and tortoises. Some researchers estimate that as many as ninety percent of snapping turtle eggs may be destroyed before the babies are even born. 'I used to find turtle eggshells outside the nest and think, Oh great, baby turtles hatched here,' Jeanne tells Matt and me. But because hatchlings leave their eggshells behind, in their underground nests, seeing scattered eggshells aboveground means that predators got them." (p. 84)

The Meth Lunches: food and longing in an American city by Kim Foster

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this book but it definitely delved into some things I wasn't expecting. The book starts out (and gets the title) when Foster's family moves from NYC to Las Vegas, Nevada and need some work done on their house. They go through an agency that matches out of work laborers with homeowners who need work done. The family meets Charlie who is semi-homeless due to his meth addiction. As his addiction progresses Foster starts referring to their meals with Charlie as The Meth Lunches. Next we get into the Foster family becoming foster parents and some of the CRAZY things that come along with that - including Foster finding the mother of one of their foster children in jail and bringing the kid to her for visits (I'm pretty sure she was NOT supposed to do that) and overall getting overly involved with the families of some of their foster kids. Then COVID hits and Foster starts up a food pantry to replace a little free library in their yard - this also devolves into craziness and drug addicts routinely stealing meat to sell for drugs and showing up at all hours demanding food supposedly for "several" families but again likely taking it to resell for drug money.

In all of these instances Foster seems to get WAY overly involved with all of these people. I think her intentions were good but I worried for her family and the amount of potential danger she was exposing them to every day. Her food pantry eventually gets shut down when it's reported by another food pantry operator (apparently there is a lot of rivalry and competition between food pantry operators - who knew?!). While there was a lot of interesting information, a lot of the stories seemed pretty far out there. It seemed like she was addicted to chaos and got very quickly invested in all these people's lives more than she should have possibly. It seemed a little over the top to me. There was also a weird dichotomy between her vivid descriptions of all the ethnic food she made her family and the homeless or poverty-level people she was interacting with throughout the book. Overall, it was interesting but definitely a wild ride I wasn't totally expecting.

Some quotes I liked:

"Food can be a weapon. Food can be a way to control. And punish. And abuse. And force people to conform. The Meth Lunches with Charlie get me thinking about the severely wounded people in our new community and what food means and doesn't mean to them. I think about hoarding food. And giving food. And accepting food. And having no food at all. Food is a litmus test, I think. It must be. What we are eating and how we are eating tells us something integral about how we are doing, what our lives are like." (p. 29-30)

"Because humans need food, consistently, multiple times a day, food is one of the first ways children gauge how safe they are. Food, how much they get, when they get it, and how their caregiver provides for them when they cry out, sends a fundamental message about their worth in the world. That message is hardwired into their brain's pathways. It stays with them, always. Being fed consistently is safety." (p. 74)

"McDonald's offers something substantial to the communities it inhabits. For my son and many kids in the system, fast-food restaurants offer comfort. They provide consistency and permanence in their unpredictable lives. The burger always tastes the same. The nuggets. The fries. They never change. And wherever you go, whatever family takes you in this time, no matter how many times you move, the Play Place rocks the same colors. The same netting. The same slides and tunnels...Starbucks calls itself 'the third place,' the space we inhabit outside of home, work, school. But McDonald's is American's third place for a much larger, if less privileged, population...For the unhoused, addicted, and the hardest-struggling people in our communities, McDonald's offers luxuries, like Wi-Fi. Cheap food. Bathrooms. Outlets for phone charging. And a lenient staff who often allow people to hang out in booths, sipping coffee. It's a place to connect with other people, where no one will shoo you away." (p. 102-3)

Own Your Past Change Your Future by Dr. John Delony

I recently found Dr. John Delony on Instagram and really liked the clips from his podcast and work with Dave Ramsey so I decided to check out this book. I wasn't sure what to expect but I liked it. Like the title says he discusses how to Own Your Past Change Your Future. The book is divided into two sections - The Stories are the Problem and The Stories are the Solution. The first section looks at all the stories in our lives - stories you're born into, stories others tell about you, stories about relationships, stories we tell ourselves, etc. In the second section he gives some concrete tips for changing your future by addressing those stories and putting down the ones that aren't helpful. While also encouraging us to get connected, change our thoughts, and then change our actions. Interspersed throughout the book are his personal stories and stories from people he's helped in various roles Dr. Delony has held over the years. Overall, I thought the book could be helpful and several chapters have questions at the end to help you work through some of the stuff he's talking about. I was also impressed that he had quotes from Andy Gullahorn and Andrew Peterson - two amazing musicians I enjoy and follow.

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson

This is a beautifully written memoir/family history highlighting all the women in Crystal Wilkinson's family line and how cooking was their legacy and way of showing love. Crystal became the family keeper of stories and family recipes. Looking back at five generations of Wilkinson women Crystal tells their family story through food. She is also telling the story of Black Appalachian history through cooking as well. Going from slavery days to the modern day this beautifully written collection of essays will make you want to get in the kitchen and make some of your own food memories. Each essay covers a food topic and is followed by a few recipes that are mentioned in that essay or Crystal's updated version. There is a struggle between keeping family recipes in the traditional way and creating more modern/updated versions. I thought Crystal did a great job illuminating that struggle. She was vegetarian off and on for 20 years and at times wouldn't eat her grandmother's food that was seasoned with pork and her grandmother never understood that. Today Crystal tries to keep her family's cooking legacy alive by making both the traditional recipes and her own updated/recreated versions. I just can't reiterate enough how beautifully written this book is. I wish it was twice as long so I could keep reading more. There are several recipes I'd like to try as well.

Some quotes I liked:

"I reach back in my memory. I can see us there on the hillside, but I have forgotten so much that I thought I'd never need. I am a child of plenty. I was never hungry. Food was never scarce. When I was a child, I thought this information was expendable...By the time I came along, my grandmother was already putting the harder days of her life behind her. Days of hunger pangs and worry about how she and my grandfather would feed their seven children were gone. She wanted to show me the family's old ways, but we weren't out at first light when the dew dried out of necessity." (p. 41)

"During slavery and even after manumission, not many Black people had the fortune of eating 'high on the hog' (loins, pork chops, ham). Instead they adapted with resilience and skill and made the offal 'low parts' into delicacies. My grandfather often recalled a recurring heartbreak he suffered as a young husband and father. A racist man he worked for refused even the offal to him. 'He would rather see the chitlins rot on the ground than see me take them home to feed my young'uns,' Grandaddy said. The resounding ancestral memory of my people doing without echoes loud in me still." (p. 194)

"It never dawned on me that my daughters wouldn't be exactly like me, staunch feminists who lean into their domesticated side. While Ron washes all the dishes, launders our clothes, keeps the house clean, I work outside our home as a writer and professor and I cook all the meals. I don't have to cook and sometimes I don't, but cooking is how I commune with our ancestors. I love cooking. It's one way that my family knows I care. Wouldn't my children follow in my footsteps? Perhaps it's my generation, but I've never seen cooking as an oppressive act, though it was for some of my foremothers." (p. 229-230)

"I have the privilege of education, of making a living from my mind and not my domestic labor in a white woman's kitchen. I cook out of homage, for pleasure, and not by bound duty. I am keenly aware that Black Appalachian foodways are a legacy to be treasured, to be passed on to the next and the next and the next. I'm thankful that my children and grandchildren will find their own ways to morph and change culinary traditions, to add to and subtract from their mother's mother's mother's ways, to honor the calling of the kitchen ghosts, however they see fit." (p. 233)

Secrets of the Octopus by Sy Montgomery

This is a book all about the octopus complete with tons of beautiful, color photos. If you're a fan/reader of Sy Montgomery then you probably are already familiar with her book The Soul of an Octopus about her time working directly with octopuses at the New England Aquarium and even learning to scuba dive so she could try to find octopuses in the wild. There is a little overlap in content, but this book is mainly just about octopuses and not her personal experiences with them. It's divided into 3 sections - Masters of Camouflage, Gelatinous Geniuses, and Octopus Kingdom. After the epilogue there is also a section of "octoprofiles" with profiles of 16 octopuses and cuttlefish. Pulling from cutting edge science, Montgomery shows just how incredibly smart, unique, and interesting octopuses are. There were several funny stories about octopuses from either aquariums or laboratories where they pulled pranks, escaped tanks, invaded other tanks to eat the fish inside, flooded rooms and even shorted out the electricity three days in a row (before the keepers figured out the octopus didn't like a nearby bright light). In short, everything we know about octopuses is constantly changing and they can be very hard to study in both captivity and the wild. But this book highlights some of their most unique characteristics and the included photographs completely make the book. Overall, if you're interested in octopuses this is a great book to check out.

A quote I liked:

"Keepers at SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium in Auckland, New Zealand, taught their female giant Pacific octopus, named Rambo, to thread her arm down a tube to press an orange button to take photos of visitors with a waterproof digital camera - making her the world's first documented 'octographer.' Other institutions have encouraged their octopuses to exploit their artistic talent. Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center devised a system of levers that allowed its giant Pacific octopus to move a series of paint brushes against a canvas outside her tank. After their first octopus painter, Squirt, became a sensation, other aquariums in Tennessee and Florida trained more octopus artists." (p. 103-106) [I would TOTALLY buy an octopus photo or painting!]