Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest by Lauren McDuffie
Thursday, August 1, 2019
July 2019 Cookbooks
July 2019 Reviews
The Very Worst Missionary by Jamie Wright
Jamie Wright had a very interesting path to becoming a full-time missionary in Costa Rica. She grew up Jewish (by conversion, not birth) then fell away from church and became a very promiscuous and wild teenager dropping out of high school at 15 and getting pregnant at 17. She and her boyfriend Steve got married and miraculously stayed married having two more children. As a harried, young mother to three boys Wright started attending the local Christian church and really found a home there, eventually her husband joined her and they started leading the youth group together. After going on a few short-term mission trips to Costa Rica with their youth group kids, the family starts thinking about doing something "bigger" for God by going into the mission field full time. So the Wright family gets rid of most of their belongings and move to Costa Rica for 5 years. During that time they start to realize that much of the mission work they are involved in is unnecessary and doesn't really help the local's needs - jobs, money, etc. They also realize that (including themselves) there is no real screening process for who can go into full time missions, so they see a lot of people who really aren't doing good work. As Wright struggles with these conflicts The Very Worst Missionary is born - a blog where Wright gets real about the inconsistencies she is seeing and her own personal struggles. While several reviews I read complain about her language - there is a lot of cursing - I side with Wright that being real and failing is better than being fake and still failing while making everyone around you feel worse. A funny, yet heart-breaking look at one woman's not-so-great experience as a full time missionary that brings to light some real issues that the Church needs to address.
Some quotes I liked:
"The questions started during a study of the life of Christ, because that was the first time I truly looked beyond how everyone else was doing it and started to see how Jesus did it. I began to really see what he said and where he went and what he did and how he treated people. The guy touched lepers with his bare hands and hung out with the neighborhood undesirables. He talked to the impoverished, the infirm, the outcast as though they mattered as much as anybody. And when faced with greed and corruption in a house of God, Jesus braided a whip and quite literally overturned the tables of injustice. When I took the time to examine how he lived out his days on earth, it changed everything about how I saw the club. Following Jesus started to make a lot more sense - but the church started to look kinda wonky." (p. 63)
Pages 77-85 Wright's meltdown during a women's Bible study is HILARIOUS and sadly true.
"Pretending to be someone else is exhausting. I'd given so much energy to keeping up appearances that when I finally realized I could drop the act altogether, it was like stepping out of a furry suit on a hot summer day. In a word, it was refreshing. It was terrifying too, because all of a sudden I was seeing and feeling and experiencing the world as my own self, and I felt exposed. But for the first time ever, I also felt free." (p. 90)
"To be fair, many of these enthusiastic new missionaries didn't know what to make of me and Steve either. We were the nondenominational, egalitarian beer drinkers. Steve had tattoos and I had a ring in my nose. All of this was taken by some as evidence that we were heathens in need of the gospel. The frequency with which we were evangelized by fellow students was almost hilarious."
(p. 129)
"I do believe that God can use anyone to do anything (that I am writing this book is a prime example), but I was beginning to see how that is a pretty weak standard by which to choose whom we send out into the world to 'be the hands and feet of Jesus,' or whatever you want to call it. This isn't about having unrealistic expectations of ordinary people, and it's not about negating God's ability to surprise us by doing amazing things. It's about recognizing that we have a responsibility, as the church, to choose whom we send, so that we send the right people to do the right things in the right places - and to not send them when it's not right. And therein lies the real problem: There's really not much choosing going on. If you raise your hand (and have enough cash), someone will send you out...Moreover, the Bible tells us that Jesus handpicked the first disciples and 'selected' the seventy-some pairs of missionaries he sent out. Like, he chose them from among a larger group of people he'd been teaching for months." (p. 133-34)
"In the love our players developed for one another, the spirit of belonging they shared, and the promise of community that comes with being part of a team, the little world of Costa Rican semipro football felt in many ways like a church. Steve and I discovered that the growing connection and increasing intimacy we had within our football family felt more alive and meaningful than any part of the 'work' we were doing on campus as so-called missionaries." (p. 164)
"A few months into Steve's first season with the team, they went out to participate in a sports clinic hosted by a Christian athletic ministry from the States. The group would donate used football gear and a few hours of specialized instruction in exchange for the opportunity to evangelize. Every team in the league agreed to this deal from these complete strangers because they needed the gear, and the extra training was always helpful. On the morning of the event, though, this is what Steve witnessed: Local coaches and players who'd attended the same clinic the year before took a few minutes ahead of time to solicit volunteers to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. On our team of fifty, the head coach assigned a half dozen guys to raise their hands at the appointed time. Everyone else was urged to play along but not overdo it, so that the missionaries would feel successful and keep coming back...'It's mutual exploitation,' explained Mateo, who worked for Intel and played tight end. 'Everybody wins.' Caught between these two worlds, Steve and I felt conflicted. It was great to see the teams getting resources and support. But we knew those missionaries were gonna go back to their home churches and celebrate a false account of changed lives." (p. 167-38)
"For me, the experience of dismantling my simple ideology felt bittersweet. It was necessary and liberating, and at times it felt damn good, but it was also sad, and confusing, and lonely. It's scary to get back up after you've been crushed by the realization that the church you grew up in or the ministry you championed or the spiritual leaders you adored, supported, and trusted were perhaps not as awesome and amazing as you once believed. If they turn out to be abusers, liars, crooks, pathological narcissists, and/or asshats in general, it's worse, and some people never recover from the pain, anger, and disappointment." (p. 210)
Some quotes I liked:
"The questions started during a study of the life of Christ, because that was the first time I truly looked beyond how everyone else was doing it and started to see how Jesus did it. I began to really see what he said and where he went and what he did and how he treated people. The guy touched lepers with his bare hands and hung out with the neighborhood undesirables. He talked to the impoverished, the infirm, the outcast as though they mattered as much as anybody. And when faced with greed and corruption in a house of God, Jesus braided a whip and quite literally overturned the tables of injustice. When I took the time to examine how he lived out his days on earth, it changed everything about how I saw the club. Following Jesus started to make a lot more sense - but the church started to look kinda wonky." (p. 63)
Pages 77-85 Wright's meltdown during a women's Bible study is HILARIOUS and sadly true.
"Pretending to be someone else is exhausting. I'd given so much energy to keeping up appearances that when I finally realized I could drop the act altogether, it was like stepping out of a furry suit on a hot summer day. In a word, it was refreshing. It was terrifying too, because all of a sudden I was seeing and feeling and experiencing the world as my own self, and I felt exposed. But for the first time ever, I also felt free." (p. 90)
"To be fair, many of these enthusiastic new missionaries didn't know what to make of me and Steve either. We were the nondenominational, egalitarian beer drinkers. Steve had tattoos and I had a ring in my nose. All of this was taken by some as evidence that we were heathens in need of the gospel. The frequency with which we were evangelized by fellow students was almost hilarious."
(p. 129)
"I do believe that God can use anyone to do anything (that I am writing this book is a prime example), but I was beginning to see how that is a pretty weak standard by which to choose whom we send out into the world to 'be the hands and feet of Jesus,' or whatever you want to call it. This isn't about having unrealistic expectations of ordinary people, and it's not about negating God's ability to surprise us by doing amazing things. It's about recognizing that we have a responsibility, as the church, to choose whom we send, so that we send the right people to do the right things in the right places - and to not send them when it's not right. And therein lies the real problem: There's really not much choosing going on. If you raise your hand (and have enough cash), someone will send you out...Moreover, the Bible tells us that Jesus handpicked the first disciples and 'selected' the seventy-some pairs of missionaries he sent out. Like, he chose them from among a larger group of people he'd been teaching for months." (p. 133-34)
"In the love our players developed for one another, the spirit of belonging they shared, and the promise of community that comes with being part of a team, the little world of Costa Rican semipro football felt in many ways like a church. Steve and I discovered that the growing connection and increasing intimacy we had within our football family felt more alive and meaningful than any part of the 'work' we were doing on campus as so-called missionaries." (p. 164)
"A few months into Steve's first season with the team, they went out to participate in a sports clinic hosted by a Christian athletic ministry from the States. The group would donate used football gear and a few hours of specialized instruction in exchange for the opportunity to evangelize. Every team in the league agreed to this deal from these complete strangers because they needed the gear, and the extra training was always helpful. On the morning of the event, though, this is what Steve witnessed: Local coaches and players who'd attended the same clinic the year before took a few minutes ahead of time to solicit volunteers to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. On our team of fifty, the head coach assigned a half dozen guys to raise their hands at the appointed time. Everyone else was urged to play along but not overdo it, so that the missionaries would feel successful and keep coming back...'It's mutual exploitation,' explained Mateo, who worked for Intel and played tight end. 'Everybody wins.' Caught between these two worlds, Steve and I felt conflicted. It was great to see the teams getting resources and support. But we knew those missionaries were gonna go back to their home churches and celebrate a false account of changed lives." (p. 167-38)
"For me, the experience of dismantling my simple ideology felt bittersweet. It was necessary and liberating, and at times it felt damn good, but it was also sad, and confusing, and lonely. It's scary to get back up after you've been crushed by the realization that the church you grew up in or the ministry you championed or the spiritual leaders you adored, supported, and trusted were perhaps not as awesome and amazing as you once believed. If they turn out to be abusers, liars, crooks, pathological narcissists, and/or asshats in general, it's worse, and some people never recover from the pain, anger, and disappointment." (p. 210)
Shame Nation: the global epidemic of online hate by Sue Scheff
If you are online in ANY way this book is a must read. In 2003 Sue Scheff was cyberattacked by a spiteful client. The attack almost ruined Scheff's business and nearly destroyed her self-confidence, but she chose to fight back and won a landmark lawsuit. Now she works to help people prevent and recover from cyberattacks. In Shame Nation Scheff explores why there has been such a rise in online hate and cyber-shaming, preventing and surviving a cyberattack, and how to recover after you've survived an attack and ways organizations are working to combat online hate. There are tons of real stories from people who've been bullied and shamed online to illustrate Scheff's points. And while these stories (and the thousands more that happen every day) and sad and terrible, Scheff does end the book on a hopeful note that this current tsunami of online hate will inspire a backlash of love and hope. Definitely eye-opening and worth reading.
Some quotes I liked:
"Strikingly, Chubb Limited recently became the first insurance firm to offer its clients coverage against cyberbullying and other forms of man-made digital disasters. For $70 a year, American families can add a protection plan to their existing policy and get reimbursed for up to $60,000 in costs resulting from online harassment, such as unwarranted job loss, technical support for tracking down cyberfoes, public relations support for image repair, and even therapy bills." (p. xix)
"Comedian and actress Margaret Cho spoke in an Observerarticle about taking a specific action she dubs 'hate shame.' People often say, 'Oh, don't feed the trolls.' I screenshot what they say, report it, and I'll send it to their employers, their spouses - things of that nature, where you're calling attention to the hatred and cutting it off at the same time with immediate hate shame. If you hate shame, it automatically forces them to revisit the hatred they're spewing, that can be potentially very damaging. And using it against them - as opposed to internalizing the trolling and feeling uncomfortable with it - it's a good opportunity to stand up for yourself and also bring reverence to the kind of racism, misogyny, and homophobia that these people perpetuate. We should all practice this kind of self-defense." (p. 95-6)
"Emily Lindin, author of Unslut: a Diary and a Memoir, has a strong message that always strikes a chord when she talks with teen girls about slut shaming: she points out that online porn is readily available, so these boys already have all the masturbatory material they could ever desire - what they are really after is power to lord over you, control you, even blackmail you. She asks young women pointedly, 'Do you really want to give them that power?'" (p. 148)
"Researchers at the University of Michigan crunched data that tracked years of incoming college freshman's empathy, and found that empathy has declined by 40 percent in the last three decades - while narcissism has risen by 58 percent. This inability to see those on the other side of the computer screen as people deserving of our compassion is one of the huge drivers of our Shame Nation." (p. 227)
Some quotes I liked:
"Strikingly, Chubb Limited recently became the first insurance firm to offer its clients coverage against cyberbullying and other forms of man-made digital disasters. For $70 a year, American families can add a protection plan to their existing policy and get reimbursed for up to $60,000 in costs resulting from online harassment, such as unwarranted job loss, technical support for tracking down cyberfoes, public relations support for image repair, and even therapy bills." (p. xix)
"Comedian and actress Margaret Cho spoke in an Observerarticle about taking a specific action she dubs 'hate shame.' People often say, 'Oh, don't feed the trolls.' I screenshot what they say, report it, and I'll send it to their employers, their spouses - things of that nature, where you're calling attention to the hatred and cutting it off at the same time with immediate hate shame. If you hate shame, it automatically forces them to revisit the hatred they're spewing, that can be potentially very damaging. And using it against them - as opposed to internalizing the trolling and feeling uncomfortable with it - it's a good opportunity to stand up for yourself and also bring reverence to the kind of racism, misogyny, and homophobia that these people perpetuate. We should all practice this kind of self-defense." (p. 95-6)
"Emily Lindin, author of Unslut: a Diary and a Memoir, has a strong message that always strikes a chord when she talks with teen girls about slut shaming: she points out that online porn is readily available, so these boys already have all the masturbatory material they could ever desire - what they are really after is power to lord over you, control you, even blackmail you. She asks young women pointedly, 'Do you really want to give them that power?'" (p. 148)
"Researchers at the University of Michigan crunched data that tracked years of incoming college freshman's empathy, and found that empathy has declined by 40 percent in the last three decades - while narcissism has risen by 58 percent. This inability to see those on the other side of the computer screen as people deserving of our compassion is one of the huge drivers of our Shame Nation." (p. 227)
Maid: hard work, low pay, and a mother's will to survive by Stephanie Land
I almost didn't read this one based on the very mixed reviews, but decided to give it a try. When I saw that Barbara Ehrenreich wrote the introduction, I thought surely it can't be terrible if Barbara Ehrenreich is writing the introduction. Was this book Evicted or Nickel and Dimed? No. But, it was still a well-written account of one woman's struggle to provide a better life for her daughter and how hard that can be with no family safety net at all. Stephanie Land is twenty-eight when she unexpectedly gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. She hoped her boyfriend Jamie would step up to the plate, but never did except when he could do something to throw in her face. When he starts to become violent Land finds herself and her infant daughter homeless. She is able to cobble together enough government assistance and work to stay barely above water, but there is always the looming dread of something unexpected - illness, car accident, etc. Her family was almost as broke as she was, but were also abusive and not to be relied on. Land realizes that her only escape is education. She enrolls in community college and by the end of the book she is able to transfer to a University and there is a lot more hope for her and her daughter.
A lot of the bad reviews of this book pointed out every little mistake or bad decision Land made. Did she make some really bad decisions and mistakes? Yes. Haven't you? It's nice to know there are so many people out there making NO MISTAKES AT ALL in their personal lives. I feel like Land is honest with the bad decisions she made and owns it. Several reviews complained that she played the victim and never took responsibility, but I didn't read it that way at all. One thing she sees over and over in the houses she cleans is that it doesn't matter how much money you make you can still be miserable - not that having more money doesn't make things easier, but just money in and of itself doesn't make you happy. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised based on the reviews I read and am looking forward to what Stephanie Land will write in the future.
A lot of the bad reviews of this book pointed out every little mistake or bad decision Land made. Did she make some really bad decisions and mistakes? Yes. Haven't you? It's nice to know there are so many people out there making NO MISTAKES AT ALL in their personal lives. I feel like Land is honest with the bad decisions she made and owns it. Several reviews complained that she played the victim and never took responsibility, but I didn't read it that way at all. One thing she sees over and over in the houses she cleans is that it doesn't matter how much money you make you can still be miserable - not that having more money doesn't make things easier, but just money in and of itself doesn't make you happy. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised based on the reviews I read and am looking forward to what Stephanie Land will write in the future.
Beauty in the Broken Places by Allison Pataki
A quote I liked:
Ultimately, I realized, this was the moment when things between God and me finally got real. This was when I needed to live the faith that I had been thinking, for thirty-one years, that I had been living. I did not understand why the things that had happened had happened. But did I still - even in that place of not knowing or understanding, especially in that place of not knowing or understanding - believe that God was with me? Was He there beside me in my pain and brokenness, just as I had always believed Him to be beside me in my joy? Did I believe that God could take this heartbreak and this fear and this fatigue and somehow weave something beautiful from all of the frayed and feeble threads? That there was a divine plan at work here, a much larger picture than the one I could see, a framework that exceeded my capacity to understand? Yes, I realized. I did. I did still believe that God was beside us." (p. 214)
I Will Not Fear: my story of a lifetime of building faith under fire by Melba Pattillo Beals
While her story is incredible, I enjoyed the first half of this book more than the second half. The first half is about her growing up and the struggle of that year at Central high school, then going to California and how her life changed there. The second half of the book seemed to really jump in time and some of the stories with the twins seemed very bizarre - not that I didn't believe it happened, but just bizarre and maybe needed more explanation. Overall, it was a good book and it did focus on how faith shaped her life.
A quote I liked:
[At an NAACP meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.] "At this point we were three weeks into the semester at Central High, and I was exhausted, depressed, and disappointed. I was still in shock at the price integrating that high school was exacting from me. I was somehow convinced someone would change things in an instant, so I couldn't stop myself from spilling my feelings about how much I was suffering to Dr. King. His quick answer was loud and clear as his huge eyes held mine with a commanding stare. 'Melba, don't be selfish. You're not doing this for yourself. You are doing this for generations yet unborn.' His voice was kind, his face empathetic...I had been waiting for white students to change, extend kindness, and welcome me, when maybe it was my task to change...Dr. King's statement was life-changing." (p. 55-6)
The Cooking Gene: a journey through African American culinary history in the Old South by Michael Twitty
Some quotes I did like:
"I want to be clear: my dream was to be able to put myself in the evolving narrative of Southern food from it's beginnings to now, and to do so I had to be able to do what most African Americans had the most difficulty doing - trace my ancestry to Africa and follow the lineages across the Southern map into the present day." (p. 125)
"Long before the current movement to taste the past and revive forgotten terroir, it made sense to me that the Caseknife pole bean from Wesley and the Cowhorn okra from Peter and yam potato from William were something more than just neat relics. They were the very taste of how my ancestors survived slavery." (p. 268)
"History did not let the historical black garden go unremarked. These spaces were little landscapes of resistance: Resistance against a culture of dehumanizing poverty and want, resistance against the erasure of African cultural practices, resistance against the destruction of African religions, and resistance against slavery itself." (p. 269)
"Earlier that summer, I had been in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, where during the time of Jim Crow black farmers and landowners got together and decided that sharecroppers in the cotton and sugarcane fields had enough trouble to not be in debt to white planters, so they created a community farm where all who were hungry could get produce. That was 1912. The year of my travels was 2012, and somehow, without black Twitter, without Facebook, without Instagram or Snapchat, black farmers in a time of Klansmen and lynch law solved the problem of food insecurity. Thankfully, the secret weapon, the garden, had not been forgotten." (p. 275)
Monday, July 1, 2019
June 2019 Cookbooks
The Little Swedish Kitchen by Rachel Khoo
I guess I'm just not into Swedish food because nothing in here really jumped out at me as something I wanted to try. I did like that it was organized seasonally instead of by appetizers, entrees, etc. I'm not saying it's a bad cookbook, just not my thing.
Whole Hog BBQ: the gospel of Carolina Barbecue with recipes from Skylight Inn and Sam Jones BBQ by Sam Jones
I mainly checked this book out because of the subtitle - the gospel of Carolina barbecue. Being from NC I know the importance of good pulled pork barbecue. I wasn't familiar with Sam Jones and the long-running Skylight Inn barbecue restaurant in Ayden, NC. But, after checking out this book I think I may need to take a Eastern NC food trip and visit Skylight, Sam Jones BBQ, and Vivian Howard's Chef & Farmer. While I'm not quite in the place to start barbecuing whole hogs, if you are this book gives detailed instructions on how to build a pit and how to barbecue an entire hog. So, while I won't be building a whole hog pit anytime soon, this was a fascinating look at one family's role in NC BBQ.
Where Cooking Begins: uncomplicated recipes to make you a great cook by Carla Lalli Music
I don't consider myself a professional chef, but I guess I'm not quite a beginner either because this book was a little too basic for me. The first section is about planning and preparing for cooking, the second section illustrates various cooking techniques like steaming, pan-roasting, making pastry dough, etc. The third section is the actual recipes using the techniques described earlier. One thing I did like is that each recipe has "spin it" options that give other ways to use that recipes either with different ingredients or ways to use ingredients you already might have on hand. There just weren't any recipes that jumped out at me that I really wanted to try. I do think this would be good for someone who is a VERY beginner because the photos of the cooking techniques would be very helpful.
Pesto: the modern mother sauce by Leslie Lennox
I love pesto, so when I saw this cookbook I knew I wanted to check it out. Lennox gives information on how she started her pesto business and also about mother sauces and why she thinks pesto is the modern mother sauce that can be the foundation or an addition to many dishes. She gives a basic pesto recipe, ways to vary it, several ways to use pesto in salad dressings, and tips on growing basil at home. Then she gets into the recipes - some use pesto as more of a garnish, but many include pesto in a larger way. There are several recipes I'd like to try and I have a TON of basil at home in my garden, so this cookbook was good timing.
June 2019 Reviews
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean grew up going to the library regularly with her mother - special trips that bonded them and their love of reading. As Susan got older she quit using the library and started buying books instead. When her son wanted to interview a librarian for a school project they went to their local branch in Studio City, CA and that visit reignited Orlean's spark of love for libraries. When she found out that the Central branch of the Los Angeles had burned in 1986 and arson was suspected she dove into the story. In this book Orlean explores the Central library fire and suspected arsonist, but also explores the role of libraries in general and more specifically the history and current staff at the LA Central library.
I had heard such good things about this book and I'm a public librarian so I was very excited to read this one. But, I was disappointed overall. The story of the Central library fire is a very small part of the overall book and it's never resolved either. Orlean is all over the place with the book and it's hard to follow all the storylines and people she includes. She goes back in forth in time and gives a LOT of detail about people or things that don't seem important to the overall story. Since I already work in a public library I'm not surprised by most of the information she gives about the role of libraries. I think this could have been an amazing book and the descriptions of the fire and what was lost in the first few chapters is really interesting. I also think it was really interesting how people volunteered to help the library and the fund-raising efforts to help rebuild the collection. But, it just got really bogged down in too much detail about too many people and events. I will say the chapter on how often arson is wrongfully determined was eye-opening. I hate to say it, but I would not recommend this one.
There was a lot of interesting information about libraries, so there were some quotes I liked:
"With Lundquist directing, the volunteers worked for the next three days around the clock. Most were strangers to each other, drawn together unexpectedly, and worked together for hours, diligently and peacefully. They formed a human chain, passing the books hand over hand from one person to the next, through the smoky building and out the door. It was as if, in this urgent moment, the people of Los Angeles formed a living library. They created, for that short time, a system to protect and pass along shared knowledge, to save what we know for each other, which is what libraries do every day." (p. 37)
"The library is an easy place to be when you have no place you need to go and a desire to be invisible." (p. 60)
"Szabo [the current LA city librarian] acknowledges the fact that the library has attained a sort of guardianship of many of Los Angeles's street people. When he ran the library system in Atlanta, he sent bookmobiles to the motels where many homeless people lived, to offer books and story hours for the children. He included a public health nurse on the bookmobile so the nurse could check on residents' well-being once the bookmobile had drawn them out." (p. 73)
"In 2014, Szabo had established Career Online High School - COHS - which is the first accredited library-based high school program in the United States. Through the library's website, adults who had not gotten their high school diploma could take any of the nine hundred COHS online classes for free, and graduate with a diploma rather than a high school equivalency certificate. Szabo frequently preaches the gospel of the library as the people's university, and with COHS, he had managed to make good on that notion." (p. 77)
"[Glen Creason a senior librarian] also waited on a patron named Richard Ramirez, who was looking for books on torture and astrology. (It turned out that Ramirez was the serial killer known as the Night Stalker and was sentenced to death for thirteen murders in Los Angeles. 'He was definitely really creepy,' Creason says.)" (p. 159)
"In the year leading up to Prohibition, when the ban on alcohol seemed inevitable, every book about how to make liquor at home was checked out, and most were never returned." (p. 175)
[In the 1930's when a telephone reference dept. was added] "So many people called for help solving crossword puzzles that Warren finally forbade the librarians to answer those requests, because they hardly had time to answer non-crossword questions." (p. 200)
"OverDrive [and ebooks] may be the future of book lending, but that's not the same thing as the future of libraries. Libraries are physical spaces belonging to a community where we gather to share information. There isn't anywhere else that fits that description." (p. 299)
I had heard such good things about this book and I'm a public librarian so I was very excited to read this one. But, I was disappointed overall. The story of the Central library fire is a very small part of the overall book and it's never resolved either. Orlean is all over the place with the book and it's hard to follow all the storylines and people she includes. She goes back in forth in time and gives a LOT of detail about people or things that don't seem important to the overall story. Since I already work in a public library I'm not surprised by most of the information she gives about the role of libraries. I think this could have been an amazing book and the descriptions of the fire and what was lost in the first few chapters is really interesting. I also think it was really interesting how people volunteered to help the library and the fund-raising efforts to help rebuild the collection. But, it just got really bogged down in too much detail about too many people and events. I will say the chapter on how often arson is wrongfully determined was eye-opening. I hate to say it, but I would not recommend this one.
There was a lot of interesting information about libraries, so there were some quotes I liked:
"With Lundquist directing, the volunteers worked for the next three days around the clock. Most were strangers to each other, drawn together unexpectedly, and worked together for hours, diligently and peacefully. They formed a human chain, passing the books hand over hand from one person to the next, through the smoky building and out the door. It was as if, in this urgent moment, the people of Los Angeles formed a living library. They created, for that short time, a system to protect and pass along shared knowledge, to save what we know for each other, which is what libraries do every day." (p. 37)
"The library is an easy place to be when you have no place you need to go and a desire to be invisible." (p. 60)
"Szabo [the current LA city librarian] acknowledges the fact that the library has attained a sort of guardianship of many of Los Angeles's street people. When he ran the library system in Atlanta, he sent bookmobiles to the motels where many homeless people lived, to offer books and story hours for the children. He included a public health nurse on the bookmobile so the nurse could check on residents' well-being once the bookmobile had drawn them out." (p. 73)
"In 2014, Szabo had established Career Online High School - COHS - which is the first accredited library-based high school program in the United States. Through the library's website, adults who had not gotten their high school diploma could take any of the nine hundred COHS online classes for free, and graduate with a diploma rather than a high school equivalency certificate. Szabo frequently preaches the gospel of the library as the people's university, and with COHS, he had managed to make good on that notion." (p. 77)
"[Glen Creason a senior librarian] also waited on a patron named Richard Ramirez, who was looking for books on torture and astrology. (It turned out that Ramirez was the serial killer known as the Night Stalker and was sentenced to death for thirteen murders in Los Angeles. 'He was definitely really creepy,' Creason says.)" (p. 159)
"In the year leading up to Prohibition, when the ban on alcohol seemed inevitable, every book about how to make liquor at home was checked out, and most were never returned." (p. 175)
[In the 1930's when a telephone reference dept. was added] "So many people called for help solving crossword puzzles that Warren finally forbade the librarians to answer those requests, because they hardly had time to answer non-crossword questions." (p. 200)
"OverDrive [and ebooks] may be the future of book lending, but that's not the same thing as the future of libraries. Libraries are physical spaces belonging to a community where we gather to share information. There isn't anywhere else that fits that description." (p. 299)
Inspired: slaying giants, walking on water, and love the Bible again by Rachel Held Evans
Some people view the Bible as a literal instruction manual, while others view it as a metaphor or collections of stories no different than fairy tales. Christians say the Bible is Inspired, but what does that mean? Rachel Held Evans started exploring how the Bible is meant to be read and used today and her findings are in this book. Each chapter starts with a re-imagining of a popular Bible story, then goes on to explore a type of literature or story found in the Bible and how it was used then and what it could mean for us today. She doesn't shy away from hard issues or stories, but also doesn't make the Bible out to be more or less than what it is. Beautifully written and expertly researched this book does NOT disappoint. Evans was an amazing writer and the worst part about finishing this book is knowing it's her last one and I don't get to anticipate her next book and the one after that.
There are a LOT of quotes I really liked:
"At the heart of the gospel message is the story of a God who stoops to the point of death on a cross. Dignified or not, believable or not, ours is a God perpetually on bended knee, doing everything it takes to convince stubborn and petulant children that they are seen and loved. It is no more beneath God to speak to us using poetry, proverb, letters, and legend than it is for a mother to read storybooks to her daughter at bedtime. This is who God is. This is what God does." (p. 12)
"If I've learned anything from thirty-five years of doubt and belief, it's that faith is not passive intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It's a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, all-night-long struggle, and sometimes you have to demand your blessing rather than wait around for it." (p. 28)
"They say art should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. I think the same is true for Scripture. For centuries the Bible's stories of deliverance have offered comfort to the suffering and a challenge to the privileged." (p. 43)
"So when we join with our spiritual ancestors in telling our stories of deliverance, we must remember to name each wilderness, to mark those spots where, when all hope seemed lost, we encountered God - at a desert well on the road to Egypt; on a bridge in Selma, Alabama; at a shabby airport chapel in Chicago; in a labor and delivery room on Candlemas Day. God made a way where there seems to be no way. It's the steady refrain of our narrative heritage." (p. 50)
"While it is shortsighted to discount Scripture's laws as totally backward and amoral, it is just as misguided to pretend they reflect a more just society than they do. No one who values the inherant worth and dignity of their fellow human beings should want a return to ancient Israel. Those were not the 'good old days.' Not by a long shot." (p. 54)
"If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we've been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything." (p. 57)
"But this is the deleterious snare of fundamentalism: It claims that the heart is so corrupted by sin, it simply cannot be trusted to sort right from wrong, good from evil, divine from depraved. Instinct, intuition, conscience, critical thinking - these impulses must be set aside whenever they appear to contradict the biblical text, because the good Christian never questions the 'clear teachings of Scripture;' the good Christian listens to God, not her gut. I've watched people get so entangled in this snare they contort into shapes unrecognizable. When you can't trust your own God-given conscience to tell you what's right, or your own God-given mind to tell you what's true, you lose the capacity to engage the world in any meaningful, authentic way, and you become an easy target for authoritarian movements eager to exploit that vacuity for their gain." (p. 66)
"The Bible isn't some Magic 8 Ball you can consult when deciding whether to take a job or break up with a guy, not is it a position paper elucidating God's opinion on various social, theological, and political issues. While we may wish for a clear, perspicuous text, that's not what God gave us. Instead, God gave us a cacophony of voices and perspectives, all in conversation with one another, representing the breadth and depth of the human experience in all its complexities and contradictions." (p. 103)
"When God gave us the Bible, God did not give us an internally consistent book of answers. God gave us an inspired library of diverse writings, rooted in a variety of contexts, that have stood the test of time, precisely because, together, they avoid simplistic solutions to complex problems. It's almost as if God trusts us to approach them with wisdom, to use discernment as we read and interpret, and to remain open to other points of view. 'The iconic idea of the Bible as a book of black-and-white answers,' wrote Beal, 'encourages us to remain in a state of spiritual immaturity...In turning readers away from the struggle, from wrestling with the rich complexity of biblical literature and its history, in which there are no easy answers, it perpetuates an adolescent faith. It keeps us out of the deep end, where we have to 'ride these monsters down,' as Annie Dillard put it, trusting that it's not about the end product, but the process." (p. 104)
"Often I hear from readers who left their churches because they had no songs for them to sing after the miscarriage, the shooting, the earthquake, the divorce, the diagnosis, the attack, the bankruptcy. That American tendency toward triumphalism, of optimism rooted in success, money, and privilege, will infect and sap of substance any faith community that has lost its capacity for 'holding space' for those in grief. As therapists and caregivers explain, to 'hold space' for someone is to simply sit with them in their pain, without judgment or solutions, and remain present and attentive no matter the outcome. The Psalms are, in a sense, God's way of holding space for us. They invite us to rejoice, wrestle, cry, complain, offer thanks, and shout obscenities before our Maker without self-consciousness and without fear. Life is full of the sort of joys and sorrows that don't resolve neatly in a major key. God knows that. The Bible knows that. Why don't we?" (p. 110-11)
"The fact is, despite wistful nostalgia for the days when America was a supposedly 'Christian nation,' the history of this country is littered with the bodies of innocent men, women, and children who were neglected, enslaved, dispossessed, and slaughtered so the privileged class could have more and more and more and more." (p. 126)
"'Jesus came to die,' they often say, referring to a view of Christianity that reduces the gospel to a transaction, whereby God needed a spotless sacrifice to atone for the world's sins and thus sacrificed Jesus on the cross so believers could go to heaven. In this view, Jesus basically shows up to post our bail. His life and teachings make for an interesting backstory but prove largely irrelevant to the work of salvation...Jesus didn't just 'come to die.' Jesus came to live - to teach, to heal, to tell stories, to protest, to turn over tables, to touch people who weren't supposed to be touched and to eat with people who weren't supposed to be eaten with, to break bread, to pour wine, to wash feet, to face temptation, to tick off the authorities, to fulfill Scripture, to forgive, to announce the start of a brand-new kingdom, to show us what the kingdom is like, to show us what God is like, to love his enemies to the point of death at their hands, and to beat death by rising from the grave. Jesus did not simply die to save us from our sins; Jesus lived to save us from our sins. His life and teachings show us the way to liberation. But you can't fit that on a bumper sticker." (p. 154-55)
"The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget - that what makes the gospel offensive isn't who it keeps out but who it lets in." (p. 186)
There are a LOT of quotes I really liked:
"At the heart of the gospel message is the story of a God who stoops to the point of death on a cross. Dignified or not, believable or not, ours is a God perpetually on bended knee, doing everything it takes to convince stubborn and petulant children that they are seen and loved. It is no more beneath God to speak to us using poetry, proverb, letters, and legend than it is for a mother to read storybooks to her daughter at bedtime. This is who God is. This is what God does." (p. 12)
"If I've learned anything from thirty-five years of doubt and belief, it's that faith is not passive intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It's a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, all-night-long struggle, and sometimes you have to demand your blessing rather than wait around for it." (p. 28)
"They say art should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. I think the same is true for Scripture. For centuries the Bible's stories of deliverance have offered comfort to the suffering and a challenge to the privileged." (p. 43)
"So when we join with our spiritual ancestors in telling our stories of deliverance, we must remember to name each wilderness, to mark those spots where, when all hope seemed lost, we encountered God - at a desert well on the road to Egypt; on a bridge in Selma, Alabama; at a shabby airport chapel in Chicago; in a labor and delivery room on Candlemas Day. God made a way where there seems to be no way. It's the steady refrain of our narrative heritage." (p. 50)
"While it is shortsighted to discount Scripture's laws as totally backward and amoral, it is just as misguided to pretend they reflect a more just society than they do. No one who values the inherant worth and dignity of their fellow human beings should want a return to ancient Israel. Those were not the 'good old days.' Not by a long shot." (p. 54)
"If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we've been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything." (p. 57)
"But this is the deleterious snare of fundamentalism: It claims that the heart is so corrupted by sin, it simply cannot be trusted to sort right from wrong, good from evil, divine from depraved. Instinct, intuition, conscience, critical thinking - these impulses must be set aside whenever they appear to contradict the biblical text, because the good Christian never questions the 'clear teachings of Scripture;' the good Christian listens to God, not her gut. I've watched people get so entangled in this snare they contort into shapes unrecognizable. When you can't trust your own God-given conscience to tell you what's right, or your own God-given mind to tell you what's true, you lose the capacity to engage the world in any meaningful, authentic way, and you become an easy target for authoritarian movements eager to exploit that vacuity for their gain." (p. 66)
"The Bible isn't some Magic 8 Ball you can consult when deciding whether to take a job or break up with a guy, not is it a position paper elucidating God's opinion on various social, theological, and political issues. While we may wish for a clear, perspicuous text, that's not what God gave us. Instead, God gave us a cacophony of voices and perspectives, all in conversation with one another, representing the breadth and depth of the human experience in all its complexities and contradictions." (p. 103)
"When God gave us the Bible, God did not give us an internally consistent book of answers. God gave us an inspired library of diverse writings, rooted in a variety of contexts, that have stood the test of time, precisely because, together, they avoid simplistic solutions to complex problems. It's almost as if God trusts us to approach them with wisdom, to use discernment as we read and interpret, and to remain open to other points of view. 'The iconic idea of the Bible as a book of black-and-white answers,' wrote Beal, 'encourages us to remain in a state of spiritual immaturity...In turning readers away from the struggle, from wrestling with the rich complexity of biblical literature and its history, in which there are no easy answers, it perpetuates an adolescent faith. It keeps us out of the deep end, where we have to 'ride these monsters down,' as Annie Dillard put it, trusting that it's not about the end product, but the process." (p. 104)
"Often I hear from readers who left their churches because they had no songs for them to sing after the miscarriage, the shooting, the earthquake, the divorce, the diagnosis, the attack, the bankruptcy. That American tendency toward triumphalism, of optimism rooted in success, money, and privilege, will infect and sap of substance any faith community that has lost its capacity for 'holding space' for those in grief. As therapists and caregivers explain, to 'hold space' for someone is to simply sit with them in their pain, without judgment or solutions, and remain present and attentive no matter the outcome. The Psalms are, in a sense, God's way of holding space for us. They invite us to rejoice, wrestle, cry, complain, offer thanks, and shout obscenities before our Maker without self-consciousness and without fear. Life is full of the sort of joys and sorrows that don't resolve neatly in a major key. God knows that. The Bible knows that. Why don't we?" (p. 110-11)
"The fact is, despite wistful nostalgia for the days when America was a supposedly 'Christian nation,' the history of this country is littered with the bodies of innocent men, women, and children who were neglected, enslaved, dispossessed, and slaughtered so the privileged class could have more and more and more and more." (p. 126)
"'Jesus came to die,' they often say, referring to a view of Christianity that reduces the gospel to a transaction, whereby God needed a spotless sacrifice to atone for the world's sins and thus sacrificed Jesus on the cross so believers could go to heaven. In this view, Jesus basically shows up to post our bail. His life and teachings make for an interesting backstory but prove largely irrelevant to the work of salvation...Jesus didn't just 'come to die.' Jesus came to live - to teach, to heal, to tell stories, to protest, to turn over tables, to touch people who weren't supposed to be touched and to eat with people who weren't supposed to be eaten with, to break bread, to pour wine, to wash feet, to face temptation, to tick off the authorities, to fulfill Scripture, to forgive, to announce the start of a brand-new kingdom, to show us what the kingdom is like, to show us what God is like, to love his enemies to the point of death at their hands, and to beat death by rising from the grave. Jesus did not simply die to save us from our sins; Jesus lived to save us from our sins. His life and teachings show us the way to liberation. But you can't fit that on a bumper sticker." (p. 154-55)
"The apostles remembered what many modern Christians tend to forget - that what makes the gospel offensive isn't who it keeps out but who it lets in." (p. 186)
The Best Cook in the World: tales from my momma's table by Rick Bragg
This book is Rick Bragg's ode to Southern food and his mother Margaret, also known as The Best Cook in the World. Cooking skills go back generations in the Bragg family. As his great-grandfather Jimmy explained it to Bragg's grandmother Ava, when you're poor and working hard, manual labor jobs you want not just food for sustenance, but food you actually look forward to eating when you get home - it might be the only spot of good in your whole day. Jimmy and other Bragg family members managed to make mouth-watering feasts out of scraps - they had to as they could afford little beyond what they could raise, grow, forage or hunt. Bragg sits down with his Mom as she's getting older to try to get recipes for the food she grew up eating and making and also the family stories that go along with all the recipes. Of course Margaret and all the people she learned from never used printed recipes - some could not read or write. Bragg does an amazing job of telling his family's story through food and food was important for them and I think for everyone. You always remember the food you grew up eating. You will find yourself fascinated by Bragg's crazy family lineage and craving the food he describes even if you didn't grow up eating that way. Thankfully there are several recipes in each chapter so you can try to carry on the tradition of cooking great food for your own family.
Some quotes I liked:
"It is the one place in our culture where living in the past makes a lovely sense, not an antidote for all the rest of it, but a balm. There is a reason why many black Southerners - and some white ones, like my mother - still call this kind of cooking soul food, because it transcends the pain and struggle of the everyday, a richness for a people without riches." (p. 13)
"She believes that most outsiders, including Southerners who have never stood in a field and salted a tomato, have forgotten what Southern country food used to be, or ought to be. 'I mean, it ain't s'posed to be easy.'" (p. 19)
"The secret to a good biscuit, he believed, was a soft, domed top but a thin, crispy bottom. You got this with a little extra lard on the biscuit pan's bottom - not a whole lot, just a little more - so that the flour on the bottom crisped as the rest of the biscuit baked. Some people did not like it and preferred a soft, fluffy biscuit through and through, which concerned him not at all. Those people could make their own damn biscuit, if they did not see the glory in his." (p. 57)
"Thick grits are good, even if they seem a little too thick, she said, parroting her own mother, who was parroting Jim. Watery, thin grits are always an abomination, a thing not even food. Some chefs try to mask this by serving grits in a bowl, as if they meant them to be a watery mess. Grits should not be served in a bowl, like, ugh, cream of wheat, but should be thick enough to hold up in a pool or puddle on the plate. They should not need butter, salt, or pepper after the fact, but some people like saltier grits and more buttery ones. Some people go crazy and put diced ham or bacon in them. These people are Philistines. The cayenne will give them a little heat, but not so much as to be silly." (p. 66)
"[Ava] was a true Pentecostal...She wore her hair to below her waist then, and her skirts to her shoe tops. Around a cookfire, the girl was a human torch. At the woodpile, she was little more than a backstop. 'It's be easier on your shins if you was to put on some pants,' he said. 'Be easier to get out the way, when the wood come flyin' at you. Hard to chop much wood, anyway, in a damn bedsheet.' She told him that, like thievery, drinking, fighting, and smarting off to ladies, to wear pants would be a sin. 'Hell is a wide place for y'all, ain't it?' the old man said." (p. 75)
"In those days, it was not a matter of turning a switch on an electric stove, or lighting a pilot light. To prepare a meal meant chopping and splitting wood, building a fire, and - in summer - cooking within an envelope of heat that was damned near unbearable. A simple pound of butter, with milking and churning, was a half-day's work. A bushel of green beans took an hour or more to pick, and more time to snap. And to procure and clean and cook a chicken - well, a chicken was a by God endeavor." (p. 284)
"'I don't know when people stopped caring about their food,' my mother said. 'I don't mean the cooks. I mean, people will just eat what you throw at 'em. It's like they give up on having anything good.'" (p. 411)
Some quotes I liked:
"It is the one place in our culture where living in the past makes a lovely sense, not an antidote for all the rest of it, but a balm. There is a reason why many black Southerners - and some white ones, like my mother - still call this kind of cooking soul food, because it transcends the pain and struggle of the everyday, a richness for a people without riches." (p. 13)
"She believes that most outsiders, including Southerners who have never stood in a field and salted a tomato, have forgotten what Southern country food used to be, or ought to be. 'I mean, it ain't s'posed to be easy.'" (p. 19)
"The secret to a good biscuit, he believed, was a soft, domed top but a thin, crispy bottom. You got this with a little extra lard on the biscuit pan's bottom - not a whole lot, just a little more - so that the flour on the bottom crisped as the rest of the biscuit baked. Some people did not like it and preferred a soft, fluffy biscuit through and through, which concerned him not at all. Those people could make their own damn biscuit, if they did not see the glory in his." (p. 57)
"Thick grits are good, even if they seem a little too thick, she said, parroting her own mother, who was parroting Jim. Watery, thin grits are always an abomination, a thing not even food. Some chefs try to mask this by serving grits in a bowl, as if they meant them to be a watery mess. Grits should not be served in a bowl, like, ugh, cream of wheat, but should be thick enough to hold up in a pool or puddle on the plate. They should not need butter, salt, or pepper after the fact, but some people like saltier grits and more buttery ones. Some people go crazy and put diced ham or bacon in them. These people are Philistines. The cayenne will give them a little heat, but not so much as to be silly." (p. 66)
"[Ava] was a true Pentecostal...She wore her hair to below her waist then, and her skirts to her shoe tops. Around a cookfire, the girl was a human torch. At the woodpile, she was little more than a backstop. 'It's be easier on your shins if you was to put on some pants,' he said. 'Be easier to get out the way, when the wood come flyin' at you. Hard to chop much wood, anyway, in a damn bedsheet.' She told him that, like thievery, drinking, fighting, and smarting off to ladies, to wear pants would be a sin. 'Hell is a wide place for y'all, ain't it?' the old man said." (p. 75)
"In those days, it was not a matter of turning a switch on an electric stove, or lighting a pilot light. To prepare a meal meant chopping and splitting wood, building a fire, and - in summer - cooking within an envelope of heat that was damned near unbearable. A simple pound of butter, with milking and churning, was a half-day's work. A bushel of green beans took an hour or more to pick, and more time to snap. And to procure and clean and cook a chicken - well, a chicken was a by God endeavor." (p. 284)
"'I don't know when people stopped caring about their food,' my mother said. 'I don't mean the cooks. I mean, people will just eat what you throw at 'em. It's like they give up on having anything good.'" (p. 411)
Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer is No by Kate Kaufmann
As someone who has chosen to be childfree, I was really excited to read this one. Unfortunately, it was kind of a let down and the end was pretty depressing. As the author points out there are usually two types of women without children - those who chose not to have children and those who can't have children, but may have wanted them. The author falls into the second camp and I think that fact makes the focus of the book lean more in that direction. She spends a lot of time talking about step-parenting, step-grandparenting, finding other children to invest in, etc. I never wanted kids and I don't want to be a teacher or caregiver for children either. I don't feel like I have to invest in children in some way to be valuable. I do like that she gets into more day-to-day issues like housing options for single or childfree people as they age, dealing with end of life issues and wills, how having children or not can affect your health, what will your legacy be, etc. The chapter on religion and not having children was interesting, but also disappointing to me. I felt like she kind of glossed over how hard it can be to be childfree in a religious community - or maybe that's just been my issue. It was an interesting book, but I felt like it leaned more toward people who really wanted kids and couldn't have them and learned to deal with being childless. I also agreed with another reviewer who said the ending of the book left her feeling depressed - maybe because the last two chapters dealt with end of life planning and leaving your legacy. But, I guess reading this book kind of reiterated how I already feel - I do NOT regret not having children, but it's been very isolating for me. I know very few childfree couples, especially in any churches I've attended, and I've found it very, very hard to maintain friendships once the friend has children. The author really didn't give me a lot of hope of that changing. It is an interesting book, but I wouldn't really recommend it.
Some quotes I liked:
"Abma and Martinez's study was cited to in an article titled, 'Childless and Godless,' published in The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy. Authors Bryce J. Christiansen and Robert W. Patterson summed up the study's finding by saying, 'This study highlights - among other things - the sterilizing consequences of irreligion.' It's ridiculous to suggest that those without children would have procreated if only they'd remained regular churchgoers...some of us have found the church less than welcoming." (p. 151-52)
"The Pope made a distinction between the childless and the childfree. He suggested that couples who are unsuccessful having children 'look to Jesus and draw on the fertility that Christ has with His Church.' However, he didn't mince words when it came to the childfree. 'These couples who do not want children, in which the spouses want to remain without fertility...in the end this marriage comes to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness. It is not fruitful, it does not do what Jesus does with His Church: He makes His Church fruitful.'" (p. 156) [Yes, I LOVE taking advice on whether or not to have children from the Pope who also does not have children who repeatedly cites Jesus, who also did NOT have children...]
"In fact, researcher Leslie Ashbury-Nardo found that those who go against cultural stereotypes by intentionally choosing not to have kids can be met with what researchers refer to as 'moral outrage.'" (p. 237) [People don't like it when other people live outside the box they choose to live in.]
Some quotes I liked:
"Abma and Martinez's study was cited to in an article titled, 'Childless and Godless,' published in The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy. Authors Bryce J. Christiansen and Robert W. Patterson summed up the study's finding by saying, 'This study highlights - among other things - the sterilizing consequences of irreligion.' It's ridiculous to suggest that those without children would have procreated if only they'd remained regular churchgoers...some of us have found the church less than welcoming." (p. 151-52)
"The Pope made a distinction between the childless and the childfree. He suggested that couples who are unsuccessful having children 'look to Jesus and draw on the fertility that Christ has with His Church.' However, he didn't mince words when it came to the childfree. 'These couples who do not want children, in which the spouses want to remain without fertility...in the end this marriage comes to old age in solitude, with the bitterness of loneliness. It is not fruitful, it does not do what Jesus does with His Church: He makes His Church fruitful.'" (p. 156) [Yes, I LOVE taking advice on whether or not to have children from the Pope who also does not have children who repeatedly cites Jesus, who also did NOT have children...]
"In fact, researcher Leslie Ashbury-Nardo found that those who go against cultural stereotypes by intentionally choosing not to have kids can be met with what researchers refer to as 'moral outrage.'" (p. 237) [People don't like it when other people live outside the box they choose to live in.]
The Idle Beekeeper: the low-effort, natural way to raise bees by Bill Anderson
I picked this book up based on the title. My husband and I took a beekeeping class and have tried to keep bees for two years, but never had a hive successfully overwinter. It was just too expensive to keep buying packages of bees that just died, so we're taking a break. Before this book I was not familiar with the Warré method of keeping bees, but it was very interesting. The Warré hives are built to mimic the size and type of hollow tree wild bees prefer to make their home. The boxes are rotated so that when you harvest honey in the fall you take the top box and in the spring you add an empty box to the bottom. While some aspects of harvesting the honey from the Warré boxes seems complicated, I do like that in theory when you add a box the other boxes will be lighter as the bees consume their honey stores over the winter. With Langstroth hive boxes I can't physically lift them when they are full of bees and honey, but the Warré boxes are smaller, so it might be more doable. There was a lot of good information about catching swarms and not checking on the bees constantly. The bees know what they're doing and we're just trying to provide a suitable home for them and harvest some of their honey as well. This book definitely gives me more ideas about better ways to keep bees when we try again in the future. Anderson also gives full color pictures in the Appendixes if you want to build your own Warré hives.
Some quotes I liked:
"Maverick mycologist Paul Stamets also keeps bees. He noticed that a raised bed of woodchips in which he was growing King Stropharia mushrooms was being visited by his bees - with extraordinary determination they had lifted relatively enormous chips of wood to expose the intricate strands of his mushrooms' mycelium growing below the surface. When he looked he could see that the bees were sucking on little extracellular droplets that the mycelium had exuded like beads of sweat...these droplets contain acids, enzymes, and all sorts of messaging molecules: the mycelium is self-organizing and self-educating - as it grows and penetrates its environment, the tips of the mycelium explore anything new or unfamiliar, and then intelligently change themselves to find solutions to fight new toxins, or build new enzymes to digest new food...But Stamets discovered that the mycelial droplets his bees were so keen on were specifically and spectacularly antiviral too. They upregulated the bees' immune systems." (p. 125-27)
Friday, May 31, 2019
May 2019 Cookbooks
Emily: the cookbook by Emily and Matt Hyland
I really liked the authors of this cookbook and their restaurant philosophy. Emily and Matthew Hyland built the beginning of their relationship around pizza. After Matthew worked in several restaurants they decided to open up EMILY, a pizza restaurant. They've since expanded to two other locations and decided to create this cookbook as a way to share their food with a wider audience. While I liked their story and the ideas behind their food and restaurant, I just didn't find that many recipes I wanted to try. But, if you're wanting to expand your homemade pizza game this is one you should definitely check out.
Butter Celebrates! by Rosie Daykin
Even if you don't make anything from this cookbook it's nice to just flip through and look at all the gorgeous desserts. Rosie Daykin opened Butter bakery in 2007 and she finds that when people order desserts from Butter she feels like she is part of whatever they are celebrating, hence the title of this cookbook Butter Celebrates!. The cookbook is organized by holiday since it is about celebrating, but many of the recipes could be used anytime. I also liked that in the introduction she gives tips on entertaining, important tools for baking, and other tips to make your home baking better. Overall, a good cookbook and there are definitely a few recipes I want to try out.
A New Way to Food by Maggie Battista
Maggie Battista grew up always being the heavier girl. Everyone always had a backhanded compliment like, "your face is so pretty" or "good thing you're so smart." Her parents would hide food from her, but that only served to teach her to hide food and sneak it when alone. Finally after many years of struggling with her weight she began to work toward truly loving herself and that led her to a healthier life overall - not just the goal of losing weight. In A New Way to Food Battista shares her struggles and gives recipes she used to eat healthier without giving up whole food groups or constantly depriving herself. I liked that she focused on just making steps toward being healthier, not before and after photos or insisting that her way is the right way. She shows what she did, but also encourages readers to find their own way or start where they can now. While this is definitely a cookbook there was a several page introduction to each section and I almost feel like this would have been better as more of a memoir with recipes included instead of a cookbook with long memoir-like sections. But, overall I like her approach and while I don't want to be vegetarian Battista is showing what worked for her. And there are a few recipes I'd like to try as well.
Food52 Genius Desserts
I've checked out some of the other Food52 cookbooks, so when I saw this one I all about desserts I was interested. There are some odd recipes like parsley cake that looks like you're eating a grass cake, but there are plenty of others that look amazing. I was surprised to see that the recipe on the cover for the gorgeous chocolate cake is a vegan recipe. The recipes in here really run the gamut of desserts from simpler cookies and bars to more complex cakes and pies. There is also a good introduction with tips for baking and "genius tools" that give info on tools that unexpectedly really help with baking. And throughout the book there are "genius tips" from how to crack eggshells more cleanly to "the most important rule in pie dough." Overall, a very thorough dessert cookbook from the well-established Food52.
The Prairie Homestead Cookbook by Jill Winger
I didn't realize when I put this book on hold at the library that Joel Salatin wrote the foreward - that's all the endorsement I need to know this is a great book! Jill Winger and her husband decided when they were first married to buy a farm in Wyoming and start homesteading. At the time Winger was learning through trial and error, but she wants to pass on the knowledge she learned, especially about cooking, on so others can benefit from what she learned. There is SO MUCH great information in this cookbook! And so many recipes I want to try that I will probably end up buying it. The first part is recipes and the second part is about growing your own ingredients from veggies to meat and milk. But, Winger reiterates that you don't have to live on a farm and raise livestock to homestead - you can still source high-quality, local food from farmers. In the second section she also gives a brief overview of canning, but as I always say if you want to learn to can take a class or learn in person from someone who's experienced - don't just go by a book. Overall, this is an AMAZING cookbook filled with all kinds of great recipes and homesteading tips.
Let Me Feed You by Rosie Daykin
I just recently looked through one of Daykin's previous books, Butter Celebrates!, so I was excited to check this one out since it was a more traditional cookbook, not just desserts. Let Me Feed You is laid out like a tradition cookbook with chapters on breakfast, sandwiches, soups, salads, mains, vegetables, etc. and there were quite a few recipes I want to try. The only odd thing to me was before each section there was a one page article about some random thing in Daykin's life like her love of dishes or old dogs. While there is nothing wrong with these little articles they just didn't fit with the cookbook. If this were more of an overall home type book that included recipes it would work better, but it just seemed odd and kind of stuck out in the book. But, the recipes look great and there were a lot that I'd like to try.
Mostly Plants by Tracy, Dana, Lori, and Corky Pollan
When Michael Pollan said in his book In Defense of Food, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." as his guide to healthy eating, he started a national conversation about food and what we should eat. This quote is also the inspiration for this cookbook created by his 3 sisters and his mother. While the Pollan family grew up eating the typical meat, starch, and veggie meals over time many of them moved into vegetarianism or flexitarianism. So, this cookbook is a way for them to share some of their favorite meals that can be made meat, dairy or gluten free easily. Michael Pollan writes the foreword and in the introduction the reader is introduced to each member of the Pollan family who contributed and their personal food journey and philosophy. While I'm not a vegetarian, I do buy all my meat from local farmers which is more expensive, so I do try to have some vegetarian meals just to stretch my food budget. There are definitely some recipes I want to try in here. Overall a good cookbook if you're looking to add more vegetable-centered meals to your table.
Well + Good Cookbook by Alexia Brue and Melisse Gelula
This is a cookbook for celebrities or ultra-wealthy people who have the time and money to source a bunch of random/exotic substitute ingredients (or have staff doing this for them). Every recipe is full of stuff like almond meal, arrowroot powder, baharat, etc. I personally believe that you can eat well with actual foods and not substitute every form of dairy or flour. I understand lots of people have food allergies/sensitivities, but this cookbook says it's for eating healthier, not for food allergies. When literally every single recipe had several substitutes I just lost interest. I'm not into spa food I'm into real, whole food. I'm not saying this is a bad cookbook, it's just not for me.
The Farm Girl's Guide to Preserving the Harvest by Ann Accetta-Scott
This is the second book in the last month that I've picked up only to realize Joel Salatin wrote the Foreword! Anything Joel Salatin endorses has got to be right up my alley. I put this title on hold because I'm always looking for new canning ideas or recipes. Ann Accetta-Scott does more than just give some canning recipes this is really a primer for preserving your own food. She covers several different ways to preserve food with lots of tips and tricks. She also goes into detail about why some foods need to be pressure canned vs. water bath canned - which is very important. While I did enjoy this book and got some new ideas, I always say that for canning food you need to take a class or learn from someone who is experienced. I would NOT recommend learning to can from a book. But, this is still a wonderful book for someone who's interested in preserving more of the food you grow or buy from your local farmer.
May 2019 Reviews
Hippie Food: how back-to-the-landers, longhairs, and revolutionaries changed the way we eat by Jonathan Kauffman
In Hippie Food Jonathan Kauffman shows how the back-to-the-land and hippie food movements of the 1960's and 70's transformed America's food culture. When the hippie movement started food wasn't at the forefront, but it quickly became another area that could be revolutionized against the mainstream. Kauffman explores several themes and foods of the counter-cultural era and how now those foods and ideas are considered normal and mainstream - things like tofu and brown rice, organic farming, and co-ops. Each chapter gives insight into how a particular idea or food emerged, how it transformed over time, and how it still shows up today. This was a really interesting look at both the counter-culture food movement of the 1960's and 70's and also just how influential it was - despite the push-back from the media and mainstream at the time. Definitely an interesting book, but I would still argue that there is still a counter-cultural food movement going on today and unfortunately many of the issues the hippies were fighting against are still going on today (industrial agriculture, chemicals, destroying nature, profits over health, etc.)
Some quotes I liked:
"The food Americans were eating in the mid-1960's resembled nothing that any civilization on Earth had ever eaten before. The United States outright manufactured a meal like the Dining Deck Supper [from the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook] - through innovations in farming, food processing, flavoring, packaging, and, yes, marketing, as well as a queer eagerness to abandon the culinary wisdom of the generations that preceded them." (p. 6)
"'Plastic' became the shorthand for commercial food, and the antithesis of what was natural. Plastic meant lab-manufactured, factory-made, chemically flavored and colored and preserved. Plastic food was wrapped in plastic bags and stacked on plastic shelves in great, impersonal, modern supermarkets. It looked created, not grown or made by human hands. It tasted like plastic - or rather, it tasted like nothing that came from fields, forests, and waters." (p. 118-19)
"They had no idea of what exactly they were going to do when they got back to the land, only that they needed to go...[Robert Houriet] wrote in the introduction to his 1971 book, Getting Back Together, 'Only afterward was it called a movement [the back-to-the-land movement]. At the outset it was the gut reaction of a generation.'" (p. 185)
"Nonvegetarian, noncounterculture eaters at the time may only have seen hippie food, vegetarian food, as brown or lacking. They were missing out on how it was transforming kitchens across the country. Cooking from the vegetarian cookbooks of the mid- to late 1970's would fill home cooks' cabinets with jars of new spices, make tahini and soy sauce refrigerator essentials, lead the American-born to tiny markets that catered to new immigrants, and stuff their canvas totes with produce their parents may never have cooked, or even seen." (p. 231)
"Just as the 1970s interest in whole foods sent longhairs into tiny health-food stores, the Paleo, vegan, and gluten-free movements of the early twenty-first century have sent people to food co-ops and natural-foods stores, where contemporary shoppers have taken bulk-bin staples and used them to their own ends." (p. 275)
"The growth of the organic marketplace is even more spectacular. Organic food is, arguably, the most visible legacy of the 1970s food movement." (p. 277)
Some quotes I liked:
"The food Americans were eating in the mid-1960's resembled nothing that any civilization on Earth had ever eaten before. The United States outright manufactured a meal like the Dining Deck Supper [from the 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook] - through innovations in farming, food processing, flavoring, packaging, and, yes, marketing, as well as a queer eagerness to abandon the culinary wisdom of the generations that preceded them." (p. 6)
"'Plastic' became the shorthand for commercial food, and the antithesis of what was natural. Plastic meant lab-manufactured, factory-made, chemically flavored and colored and preserved. Plastic food was wrapped in plastic bags and stacked on plastic shelves in great, impersonal, modern supermarkets. It looked created, not grown or made by human hands. It tasted like plastic - or rather, it tasted like nothing that came from fields, forests, and waters." (p. 118-19)
"They had no idea of what exactly they were going to do when they got back to the land, only that they needed to go...[Robert Houriet] wrote in the introduction to his 1971 book, Getting Back Together, 'Only afterward was it called a movement [the back-to-the-land movement]. At the outset it was the gut reaction of a generation.'" (p. 185)
"Nonvegetarian, noncounterculture eaters at the time may only have seen hippie food, vegetarian food, as brown or lacking. They were missing out on how it was transforming kitchens across the country. Cooking from the vegetarian cookbooks of the mid- to late 1970's would fill home cooks' cabinets with jars of new spices, make tahini and soy sauce refrigerator essentials, lead the American-born to tiny markets that catered to new immigrants, and stuff their canvas totes with produce their parents may never have cooked, or even seen." (p. 231)
"Just as the 1970s interest in whole foods sent longhairs into tiny health-food stores, the Paleo, vegan, and gluten-free movements of the early twenty-first century have sent people to food co-ops and natural-foods stores, where contemporary shoppers have taken bulk-bin staples and used them to their own ends." (p. 275)
"The growth of the organic marketplace is even more spectacular. Organic food is, arguably, the most visible legacy of the 1970s food movement." (p. 277)
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - Books & Banter book club
Shaker Heights, a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio is a progressive town with every aspect planned out perfectly - from where trash cans are to be picked up (out of sight, not on the curb) to what color you're allowed to paint your house (color options depending on home style). The Richardson family is the fourth generation of their family to live there and like the neighborhood their life is expertly crafted. Then Mia and her teenage daughter Pearl move into their rental property and soon their perfectly planned life starts to unravel. When a long-time family friend of the Richardson's adoption of a Chinese baby turns into a lengthy court battle with the biological mother, even more cracks start to show up in the Richardson family. Celeste Ng does an incredible job of exploring many aspects of motherhood through several characters in the book. The way she weaves all the stories together is amazingly well-done. I liked Ng's previous book Everything I Never Told You, but I LOVED this one. It should make for a really great book club discussion.
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate - Evening Edition book club
In the current day, Avery has come home to Aiken, SC from working as federal prosecutor in Washington, DC to help her father, a state Senator, through a health crisis. Raised with wealth and privilege, Avery has a chance encounter with a woman in a retirement home that causes her to question her family origins. She starts digging into the past and uncovers the horrific story of Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage where thousands of children from poor families were stolen and sold to wealthy or famous families all over the United States.
Lisa Wingate does an excellent job of tying Rill and Avery's storylines together. While neither character is based on an actual person, the Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage and Georgia Tann are real and the story is based on sadly true events. The author gives several books about the actual events in the "note from the author" at the end of the book. I can see why there has been so much hype about this book and it should make for a good book club discussion.
The Stranger in the Woods: the extraordinary story of the last true hermit by Michael Finkel - re-read, Willow Grove book club (original review August 30, 2017)
This is one of those books that proves the axiom "truth is stranger than fiction." If this were a fictional story it would be completely unbelievable. For 27 years cabins around North Pond in Albion, Maine were routinely burglarized. Locals called the burglar the North Pond Hermit and he mostly stole food, batteries, books, and other small-scale supplies. No one thought it was the same person burglarizing for 27 years, but when Christopher Knight is caught in 2013 he confesses to upwards of 40 break-ins per year for the past 27 years. At 20 years old Knight just walked into the wilderness of Maine for no clear reason other than he wanted to be alone in the quiet of the woods. He survived by stealing everything he needed from food to clothes to shelter from seasonal cabins and a nearby camp. He only encountered humans on two occasions and never called his family or left the woods except for these break-ins. After he is arrested Michael Finkel manages to create a rapport with him and begins writing and visiting him which eventually leads to this book. Knight doesn't really even want to tell his story, if he could have his way he would go back into the woods again. He knew the stealing was wrong and never tries to justify it, but he truly enjoyed living a life of solitude in the Maine woods. Finkel does an excellent job of telling Knight's story from Knight's own perspective, as well as the perspectives of locals who were regularly burglarized. Finkel intersperses facts about solitude and hermits throughout Knight's story. Overall, a fascinating book that I just blew through in the course of a day at the beach.
Some quotes I really liked:
"According to more than a dozen studies conducted around the world, Knight's camp - an oasis of natural quiet - may have been the ideal setting to encourage maximum brain function. These studies, examining the difference between living in a calm place and existing amid commotion, all arrived at the same conclusion: noise and distraction are toxic...The body responds immediately, even during sleep. People who live in cities experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormone. These hormones, especially cortisol, increase one's blood pressure, contributing to heart disease and cellular damage. Noise harms your body and boils your brain." (p. 113)
"I began asking cabin owners - and, later, many others - to estimate the longest time they'd ever spend without human interaction. By this I meant not seeing anyone or communicating in any way, including phone, e-mail, or text messages. Just time by one's self, unconnected, though reading or listening to the radio or watching TV alone was okay. Nine out of ten people, often after a contemplative pause, realized that they had never passed a single day in solitude. Usually it was no more than a handful of waking hours. My father has lived seventy-three years but hasn't tried a dozen hours alone. I once embarked on a three-day solo wilderness trip but encountered a pair of hikers and stopped to chat, so my record is around forty-eight hours. A few accomplished explorers I know have gone a week. To meet someone who's finished a month would be extraordinary. Chris Knight, with his thousands upon thousands of days alone, was an unfathomable outlier." (p. 131-2)
"A large majority of men, and twenty-five percent of women, a University of Virginia study found, would rather subject themselves to mild electric shocks than do nothing but sit quietly with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. Unless you are a trained meditator, the study's authors concluded, the 'mind does not like to be alone with itself.'" (p. 136)
"He left because the world is not made to accommodate people like him. He was never happy in his youth - not in high school, not with a job, not being around other people. It made him feel constantly nervous. There was no place for him, and instead of suffering further, he escaped. It wasn't so much a protest as a quest; he was like a refugee from the human race. The forest offered him shelter." (p. 182)
Re-read in May 2019 for a book club I was covering for a co-worker. Just as good the second time around. Found a few more quotes I liked:
"Knight insisted that his escape should not be interpreted as a critique of modern life. 'I wasn't consciously judging society or myself. I just chose a different path.'...Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see 'the unfathomable stupidity of man.'...The Indian writer Jiddu Krishnamurti has been quoted as saying, 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.'" (p. 122)
"After ten days in solitary confinement, many prisoners display clear signs of mental harm, and one study showed that about a third will eventually develop active psychosis. There are at least eighty thousand such inmates in America. The United Nations has determined that holding a person in isolation for more than fifteen days is cruel and inhuman punishment." (p. 136)
Some quotes I really liked:
"According to more than a dozen studies conducted around the world, Knight's camp - an oasis of natural quiet - may have been the ideal setting to encourage maximum brain function. These studies, examining the difference between living in a calm place and existing amid commotion, all arrived at the same conclusion: noise and distraction are toxic...The body responds immediately, even during sleep. People who live in cities experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormone. These hormones, especially cortisol, increase one's blood pressure, contributing to heart disease and cellular damage. Noise harms your body and boils your brain." (p. 113)
"I began asking cabin owners - and, later, many others - to estimate the longest time they'd ever spend without human interaction. By this I meant not seeing anyone or communicating in any way, including phone, e-mail, or text messages. Just time by one's self, unconnected, though reading or listening to the radio or watching TV alone was okay. Nine out of ten people, often after a contemplative pause, realized that they had never passed a single day in solitude. Usually it was no more than a handful of waking hours. My father has lived seventy-three years but hasn't tried a dozen hours alone. I once embarked on a three-day solo wilderness trip but encountered a pair of hikers and stopped to chat, so my record is around forty-eight hours. A few accomplished explorers I know have gone a week. To meet someone who's finished a month would be extraordinary. Chris Knight, with his thousands upon thousands of days alone, was an unfathomable outlier." (p. 131-2)
"A large majority of men, and twenty-five percent of women, a University of Virginia study found, would rather subject themselves to mild electric shocks than do nothing but sit quietly with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. Unless you are a trained meditator, the study's authors concluded, the 'mind does not like to be alone with itself.'" (p. 136)
"He left because the world is not made to accommodate people like him. He was never happy in his youth - not in high school, not with a job, not being around other people. It made him feel constantly nervous. There was no place for him, and instead of suffering further, he escaped. It wasn't so much a protest as a quest; he was like a refugee from the human race. The forest offered him shelter." (p. 182)
Re-read in May 2019 for a book club I was covering for a co-worker. Just as good the second time around. Found a few more quotes I liked:
"Knight insisted that his escape should not be interpreted as a critique of modern life. 'I wasn't consciously judging society or myself. I just chose a different path.'...Carl Jung said that only an introvert could see 'the unfathomable stupidity of man.'...The Indian writer Jiddu Krishnamurti has been quoted as saying, 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.'" (p. 122)
"After ten days in solitary confinement, many prisoners display clear signs of mental harm, and one study showed that about a third will eventually develop active psychosis. There are at least eighty thousand such inmates in America. The United Nations has determined that holding a person in isolation for more than fifteen days is cruel and inhuman punishment." (p. 136)
Dwelling: simple ways to nourish your home, body, and soul by Melissa Michaels
Melissa Michaels believes that our dwelling - both our home and our body are connected and taking care of one can inspire you to take care of the other and taking care of both are equally important. In Dwelling she goes through several ideas to create a more nourishing life for yourself. Some of the reviews I read complained that it was repetitive, but I think in each chapter she was trying to highlight ways to incorporate that chapter's idea into your home life and that could have overlap. I didn't find it repetitive, but I did find some of the chapters seemed to jump around or kind of seemed randomly put together. But, overall I think it was a good book about how to make your dwelling better and better reflect you and your values. I also liked that each chapter had several journaling prompts to help you work out ways to make changes and improve aspects of your life.
Some quotes I liked:
"When it comes to our home, it's important to make decisions that nurture us rather than stress us. Even if you have the means to make expensive or extravagant changes in your home or can afford to move to a more lavish neighborhood, you may decide to live more modestly. Someone else may choose to live in a more expensive neighborhood to avoid the traffic to and from work. Two hours gained for their family every day might be worth the additional expense for the peace added to their home." (p. 50)
"But by incorporating this technology into our lives, are we missing out on fully living in the moments? Are we living our best life? Or are we spending our lives trying to look like we do? Does a camera or the use of social media inspire us to create more vivid memories and even better savor each moment? If we don't know what to do without our cell phone in hand, or we've lost touch with what fuels our soul and fills our self-worth, we've lost something that should be precious to us." (p. 94)
Some quotes I liked:
"When it comes to our home, it's important to make decisions that nurture us rather than stress us. Even if you have the means to make expensive or extravagant changes in your home or can afford to move to a more lavish neighborhood, you may decide to live more modestly. Someone else may choose to live in a more expensive neighborhood to avoid the traffic to and from work. Two hours gained for their family every day might be worth the additional expense for the peace added to their home." (p. 50)
"But by incorporating this technology into our lives, are we missing out on fully living in the moments? Are we living our best life? Or are we spending our lives trying to look like we do? Does a camera or the use of social media inspire us to create more vivid memories and even better savor each moment? If we don't know what to do without our cell phone in hand, or we've lost touch with what fuels our soul and fills our self-worth, we've lost something that should be precious to us." (p. 94)
Growing Winter Food by Linda Gray
Every year I say that I'm going to try a fall/winter garden or grow more root vegetables to use over the winter months and every year I run out of time. This book is a great overview of growing, harvesting, and storing winter vegetables. The first section goes over some gardening tips and gives a few charts on what vegetables are good for what seasons. Then the rest of the book is different foods and with each one the author talks about how to plant (whether direct seed or seedlings), how to care for the plants, harvesting, storing, nutrient info, and a few recipe ideas. It's really a small book that is full of very helpful information. This is one I might need to buy to keep on hand for the future whenever I finally get around to doing more in my garden.
Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee
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.
Vegetable Gardening Wisdom by Kelly Smith Trimble
This small book is packed full of helpful gardening tips, tricks, and ideas with a few recipes thrown in as well. It's divided by season - late winter, spring, summer, and fall and each section's tips are relevant to that season. There were a lot of good tips and inspiration, but I also liked that it's a book you could easily pick up and read a few pages and pick up again later. I read through each section at a time, but you could easily read it any number of ways. This is one that would be good to have on hand and flip through once a year or so just to refresh. Good for the beginning gardener or someone more seasoned. A great book overall.
Fed Up: emotional labor, women, and the way forward by Gemma Hartley
"Day in and day out, women anticipate and manage the needs of others." this first line of the book description is the basic definition of emotional labor. All the mental work that goes into running a household or workplace - who's birthday is coming up, buying gifts, making sure bills are paid, making doctor or house maintenance appointments, etc. the list is never ending. As a women's studies minor in college I was well-versed in Betty Friedan's "the problem with no name" and the "second shift." But, it wasn't until this book that I really understood that a frustration I've felt and apparently that every single woman has felt is the weight of emotional labor. Hartley states that she has a wonderful, involved husband who does a lot, but a lot in comparison to other men or a lot compared to her? That's the real question. I also have a wonderful husband who does a lot and while we don't have children I have definitely been frustrated to feel like I do most, if not all, the emotional labor. Hartley does a great job is fleshing out how emotional labor plays out in our homes and workplaces. Most of her examples involve parents and I'm sure the emotional labor goes WAY up when kids are added to the mix. She also gives some solid ways to make changes in your own home which is good - the book is not just bitching about how men don't do enough, she actually shows how she addressed this with her husband and how over time they were able to make some pretty significant changes - and how they BOTH changed, not just him. Hartley points out that much of the issues women have with emotional labor is due to how our society views gender, work, value and gender roles. So, in order for this issue to ever get better we need to address it with our significant others and do the hard work of trying to change ourselves and our relationships for the better. Definitely a must read for everyone.
Lots of quotes I liked:
"Even when there is a fifty-fifty split in domestic labor and childcare, we aren't quantifying the emotional labor that goes into these tasks. Often it's easy to miss the 'more' that we do, because much of the 'more' is invisible. At the heart of so much emotional labor is the mental load that goes into ensuring everything gets done. For every task that produces a physically visible result, there are many mental steps behind it that remain unseen. Those steps are largely noticed, tracked, and executed by women." (p. 5)
"We need to know it's okay to want more from our partners, even when society tells us not to, because that is how progress is made." (p. 84)
"The fact that people need to like you for you to get promotions is true of both genders, but an aggressive and less emotionally involved man is rarely blacklisted as 'overbearing' or a 'control freak.' He is seen as a strong leader and detail oriented...Maintaining high expectations for emotional labor in the workplace puts women in a position where they cannot possibly win, at least not in the same well-liked capacity as men who exhibit similar qualities." (p. 145-6)
[Hillary Clinton when running for President in 2016] "She was, in short, too close to the masculine standard for comfort, but still too feminine to be the leader of the United States. In such a no-win position, it speaks deeply to her political aptitude that she went as far as she did." (p. 149)
"In the large majority of rapes - those perpetrated by someone the victim already knows - we ask if she was leading him on (indeed, if her emotional labor went too far into intimate territory). We ask what she did to stop it from happening (could she have walked the fine line more carefully?). We ask what she was wearing (was she playing the appropriate role in her appearance?). We scrutinize the emotional labor performed by the victim, because it is more socially acceptable to criticize the behavior or victimized women than it is to criticize men who are criminals. It is this aspect of rape culture that makes victims so hesitant to speak out about their experience in the first place." (p. 165)
"The root of the problem was that I was asking for the wrong thing. The truth is that I don't need 'help' - I need full partnership. There is a difference between the two. Helping means 'this is not my job.' Helping means 'I am doing you a favor.' Helping means 'this is your responsibility.' Helping implies that the helper is going above and beyond, while the responsible party is falling behind. Why is only one of us responsible for our shared life? Full partnership, on the other hand, means not having to delegate and micro-manage. It also means significantly shifting our perspective on who is expected to do what - who is expected to be in charge...'Help' is a bandage on a broken bone. We need a total reset. And that doesn't just mean changing our partners' perspectives; it means changing our own too." (p. 209-10)
"I'm motivated by the cultural idea that women are meant to be perfect and that anything less than perfect makes me less than worthy. So I keep reaching and reaching for perfect, and I get better and better at emotional labor...Rob was able to figure out a way to keep everyone happy and comfortable, without any guidance from me, when I gave him the space to do so. He did so without striving for perfection, without second-guessing himself, without wondering if his way was the best way. His standards are not my standards, because he has not been taught to expect domestic perfection for himself. He approached emotional labor without any baggage: good enough was good enough." (p. 220-1)
"'The more conservative homeschooling mothers would be willing to accept that this is my role as mom. This is my duty. This is what God wants me to do,' Lois tells me. 'The Christian faith helped them manage their feelings of stress.' There was a feeling of purpose behind their emotional labor, and that, coupled with the unquestioned expectation that they would not receive help from their partners, allowed them to 'manipulate their feelings' so that emotional labor did not weigh on them so heavily." (p. 232) [this subject should be the topic of a whole other book...]
"Setting boundaries isn't about others at all. It's about you. It's about making sure that your time, mental space, and emotional energy are being spent in ways that align with your values and priorities. Emotional labor always serves a purpose, but it doesn't always serve you...We need to stop modeling martyrdom and start modeling boundaries - no longer allowing emotional labor to overwhelm us but rather harnessing those skills to make our lives more fulfilling." (p. 238)
Lots of quotes I liked:
"Even when there is a fifty-fifty split in domestic labor and childcare, we aren't quantifying the emotional labor that goes into these tasks. Often it's easy to miss the 'more' that we do, because much of the 'more' is invisible. At the heart of so much emotional labor is the mental load that goes into ensuring everything gets done. For every task that produces a physically visible result, there are many mental steps behind it that remain unseen. Those steps are largely noticed, tracked, and executed by women." (p. 5)
"We need to know it's okay to want more from our partners, even when society tells us not to, because that is how progress is made." (p. 84)
"The fact that people need to like you for you to get promotions is true of both genders, but an aggressive and less emotionally involved man is rarely blacklisted as 'overbearing' or a 'control freak.' He is seen as a strong leader and detail oriented...Maintaining high expectations for emotional labor in the workplace puts women in a position where they cannot possibly win, at least not in the same well-liked capacity as men who exhibit similar qualities." (p. 145-6)
[Hillary Clinton when running for President in 2016] "She was, in short, too close to the masculine standard for comfort, but still too feminine to be the leader of the United States. In such a no-win position, it speaks deeply to her political aptitude that she went as far as she did." (p. 149)
"In the large majority of rapes - those perpetrated by someone the victim already knows - we ask if she was leading him on (indeed, if her emotional labor went too far into intimate territory). We ask what she did to stop it from happening (could she have walked the fine line more carefully?). We ask what she was wearing (was she playing the appropriate role in her appearance?). We scrutinize the emotional labor performed by the victim, because it is more socially acceptable to criticize the behavior or victimized women than it is to criticize men who are criminals. It is this aspect of rape culture that makes victims so hesitant to speak out about their experience in the first place." (p. 165)
"The root of the problem was that I was asking for the wrong thing. The truth is that I don't need 'help' - I need full partnership. There is a difference between the two. Helping means 'this is not my job.' Helping means 'I am doing you a favor.' Helping means 'this is your responsibility.' Helping implies that the helper is going above and beyond, while the responsible party is falling behind. Why is only one of us responsible for our shared life? Full partnership, on the other hand, means not having to delegate and micro-manage. It also means significantly shifting our perspective on who is expected to do what - who is expected to be in charge...'Help' is a bandage on a broken bone. We need a total reset. And that doesn't just mean changing our partners' perspectives; it means changing our own too." (p. 209-10)
"I'm motivated by the cultural idea that women are meant to be perfect and that anything less than perfect makes me less than worthy. So I keep reaching and reaching for perfect, and I get better and better at emotional labor...Rob was able to figure out a way to keep everyone happy and comfortable, without any guidance from me, when I gave him the space to do so. He did so without striving for perfection, without second-guessing himself, without wondering if his way was the best way. His standards are not my standards, because he has not been taught to expect domestic perfection for himself. He approached emotional labor without any baggage: good enough was good enough." (p. 220-1)
"'The more conservative homeschooling mothers would be willing to accept that this is my role as mom. This is my duty. This is what God wants me to do,' Lois tells me. 'The Christian faith helped them manage their feelings of stress.' There was a feeling of purpose behind their emotional labor, and that, coupled with the unquestioned expectation that they would not receive help from their partners, allowed them to 'manipulate their feelings' so that emotional labor did not weigh on them so heavily." (p. 232) [this subject should be the topic of a whole other book...]
"Setting boundaries isn't about others at all. It's about you. It's about making sure that your time, mental space, and emotional energy are being spent in ways that align with your values and priorities. Emotional labor always serves a purpose, but it doesn't always serve you...We need to stop modeling martyrdom and start modeling boundaries - no longer allowing emotional labor to overwhelm us but rather harnessing those skills to make our lives more fulfilling." (p. 238)
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