July 2023 Cookbook Reviews

 

All About Cookies by Christina Tosi

After recently reading Christina Tosi's memoir/cookbook Dessert Can Save the World, I wanted to check out some of her cookbooks. This one is as the title states, All About Cookies which makes sense as that is what her bakery were first known for. And there is just about any and every kind of cookie you can imagine from basic to very elaborate. There are also lots of great photographs of these cookie and plenty of helpful tips as well. While I like Tosi's story and she seems like a super fun and creative person, her desserts are just too over the top for me. I guess my tastes are just more simple, but I'd rather have a really great chocolate chip cookie than one with 10 different mix-ins. But I did find a couple recipes I'd like to try and if you're looking for some new cookie recipes you could definitely find something new to try in here.

Milk Bar Life by Christina Tosi

After reading Christina Tosi's memoir/cookbook Desserts Can Save the World I decided to check out some of her cookbooks. After reading her memoir this cookbook makes total sense - it's a variety of recipes (still mostly desserts) that trace back to her family and things she personally likes to eat/cook at home. It's far from gourmet and more like nostalgia cooking or remaking things she enjoyed in her childhood. Several reviews complained that this cookbook was so much worse or different than Momofoku Milk Bar, I haven't seen that one so I didn't have anything other than her memoir to compare this cookbook to. I didn't think it was amazing and if I hadn't read her memoir I would probably be more confused about how she is a famous chef now. I did find a couple recipes I'd like to try and photographs are great, but not a gourmet cookbook by any stretch.

July 2023 Reviews

 

The Shotgun Conservationist by Brant MacDuff

Brant MacDuff grew up loving animals of all kinds, so of course he hated hunting. But as an adult he started to recognize that eating meat meant some kind of animal had to die and started looking into sustainable meat. What he found was surprising - hunting is the most sustainable source of high-quality meat. MacDuff started getting into hunting and found that it combined two of his favorite things - being outdoors and eating high-quality meat. In The Shotgun Conservationist MacDuff explains how hunting is really good for everyone - the animals, the environment, and the people eating the meat. Most people probably don't realize that almost all the money for environmental conservation comes from hunting and fishing licenses and without hunting there wouldn't be money to maintain these public lands and natural areas that anyone can enjoy (even non-hunters). As a former anti-hunter, MacDuff does a great job of explaining how his views came to change and make his case that everyone should be for hunting, even if you don't personally want to hunt. I thought he did a great job of making his case especially around the issue of sourcing high-quality food/meat. The last chapter covers some more controversial issues around hunting like fur trapping and using dogs with hunting. He is a great writer and really covers this issue very thoroughly and with plenty of humor too. Overall, even if you think you don't want to be a hunter if you're interested in food and sustainable meat you should check this one out.

Some quotes I liked:

[On plant-based meat products] "No doubt we are headed for a similar reconning with processed plant-based foods. Imitation meat is not an environmental panacea, and it's certainly not a less harmful food choice than meat. Once we start shipping beans to and from energy-intensive processing factories so they can look and taste like chicken nuggets, we enter a state of diminishing environmental returns. If a concern for animals and habitat were the prompts for someone's vegetarian diet, then they should just eat the beans. As much as people might question the motives of hunters, I question the motives of some vegetarians. Why choose something meant to look and taste like meat if you don't want to eat meat?" (p. 20)

"In a piece for the Center for Humans and Nature, Mary Zeiss Stange, author, environmental activist, and conservation scholar, wrote, 'By opting out of meat-eating, we cannot ignore the blood that is still, inevitably, on our collective hands. Mechanized farming is lethal to animals and their habitat, and a farmer harvesting a field of soybeans wreaks more carnage in a single sunny afternoon than your average hunter could accomplish in an entire lifetime.'" (p. 21)

"We've removed ourselves from the environments our food comes from (vegetables included) to such a degree that people really do think it all just comes from the grocery store. If you don't see your meat as former animals, then why would you care about how they lived or died? Acknowledging they were animals seems so much more productive to me than just respecting them postmortem. I hate terms and phrases like 'respect its sacrifice' and 'gave its life.' I promise you the animal did not give its life to you. A steer did not walk onto your grill and say, 'I understand you need burgers for the Fourth of July weekend, I volunteer as tribute.'" (p. 31)

[On hunting invasive species] "Iguanas and pythons are dangerously destructive invasives in southern Florida - they've cleared the Everglades of 90 percent of its native mammal population (pythons alone are responsible for the disappearance of 99 percent of raccoons, 98 percent of opossums, and 87 percent of of bobcats; marsh rabbits, cottontails, and foxes have completely disappeared)." (p. 111)

[In the US you can't sell wild game to a business or restaurant] "When you see venison, elk, or alligator on a menu, that's a captive, farm-raised animal just like a cow or pig. It may be 'exotic' because you don't see it on menus often, or called 'game' because it might be a game species, but it was never wild." (p. 118)

"Native Americans used small, prescribed fires to regenerate the soil in certain areas, which led to new growth of forest understory and protection from larger fires. But the practice was outlawed by a US government that thought using fire was primitive and dangerous. Thus began some one hundred years of fire suppression strategies in America that have turned much of the country into a giant tinder box." (p. 124)

"I'd asked [Sophie Egan] why hunting doesn't come up more in food writing - I've read articles about hunting in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that mention food, but I cannot recall ever seeing an article about sustainable eating that mentioned hunting - but I didn't really need to ask; I knew the answer. And I was unpleasantly relieved to hear Egan agree with me. Think of the organizations and people that write about sustainability, food ethics, and the climate emergency. Putting aside the fantasy that politics never interfere with reporting, it's not hard to see how maybe (and I'm gonna generalize here) the left-leaning organizations that report on those topics don't want to include something they consider a right-leaning activity." (p. 134)

"There was a small element of pride, the same pride I imagine a gardener feels after uprooting a carrot they've grown. I didn't feel superior to the deer. I didn't feel I had conquered nature. I finally felt equal. We show dominance over nature when we remove ourselves from it, and when we think we can remove ourselves from it. Buying a cheap pork loin or dino-shaped soy nuggets at the market, that was the grotesque show of dominance over the natural world, I realized, not [hunting]." (p. 143)

Searching for Savanna by Mona Gable

In the summer of 2017 twenty-two year old Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind vanished. She was 8 months pregnant and was about to move into an apartment with her boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, Ashton. A week later the couple who lived above Savanna's family appeared with an infant they couldn't explain and a few days later Savanna's body was found. This shocking case further highlighted statistics that show Native women often experience sexual violence and murder at much higher rates than other ethnicities. Mona Gable set out to tell Savanna's story and tie it to the MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women) movement.

I really wanted to like this book and I did in the beginning. Gable does a good job of setting up the scene for when Savanna goes missing. One thing that was different in Savanna's case was that the police DID investigate pretty quickly and her case got a lot more media attention than other missing Indigenous persons cases. But, once the murderers are caught and the baby is found alive the book just goes downhill. It's extremely repetitive and there are a lot of oddly written/quoted sections. Plus, later in the book you find out that Savanna's family didn't really speak to author much so I'm curious how she got all the background info if they weren't really speaking with her in depth. And there was very little tie in to other MMIW cases. There were a few sections on how Indigenous women were trying to get more funding and attention to MMIW issues, but that was definitely not a major focus of the book. Overall, after the killers were caught the book just seemed to rehash a lot of the same content over and over. I definitely think it could have been written in a better way to tell Savanna's story AND include more information on other MMIW cases/stories. It would have been extremely helpful to know how many more MMIW cases were there just in the timeframe from Savanna's disappearance to the conclusion of the murder trials. Overall, I wish it were better but I wouldn't recommend this one.

Faith & Fake News by Rachel I. Wightman

I picked this one up when I read that the author is a librarian and a Christian who started teaching classes at her church called Faith and Fake News in early 2020. Probably not even realizing just how important those classes would be with everything that happened in 2020 (and beyond). I am also a librarian and a Christian, so I thought this book would be right up my alley. Rachel Wightman does a great job of breaking down how faith and information and technology intersect and how we as Christians should interact in the digital world. The book is divided into 3 sections - the information landscape, evaluating information, and deciding what to do. The biggest takeaway seems obvious, but is often hard to apply in our day-to-day online interactions - how would Jesus interact with people online? Social media is often fueled by outrage - whatever is outrageous is often what gets pushed the most. As Christians we should be striving to bring salt and light wherever we go - including the internet and social media. We should also be striving to promote the truth - not just what we think is the truth or our opinions/views on any given topic. Wightman does a great job of pointing out how often our social media/online interactions are fueled by emotion not intellect and the importance of thinking before we speak - in person or online. At the end of each chapter she gives several reflection questions and exercises to help us think about how we interact online and things we might need to work on. Overall, I felt like it was a very thorough, non-political book with some great reminders. I think this would be an excellent church class or small group study as well.

Some quotes I liked:

"...a survey by the Pew Research Center in 2018 showed that many adults struggle to distinguish between fact and opinion. They showed over five thousand adults ten statements, five opinions and five facts, and asked the participants to rate the statements as fact or opinion. 'The main portion of the study, which measured the public's ability to distinguish between five factual statements and and five opinion statements, found that a majority of Americans correctly identified at least three of five statements in each set. But this result is only a little better than random guesses. Far fewer Americans got all five correct, and roughly a quarter got most or all wrong.' Interestingly, participants were also more likely to label facts as opinions if they went against their political persuasion." (p. 120-21)

"Ultimately, though, what I hope we can realize is that we're 'never free from the possibility of being mistaken.'" (p. 130) [This quote reminds me of Rick Warren's recent writing that he realized he'd been wrong about women in church leadership and how as Christians we should believe that God is inerrant, but our views are not.]

"In another class, a participant brought up another helpful point about humility and either-or thinking. She reminded us all that when Jesus interacted with people, he didn't rush. And even more importantly, he also often responded to questions with more questions or open-ended responses, or both. Although he was the ultimate truth-teller, he didn't always give people straight answers (much to their frustration, I imagine) but responded with open-ended prompts; his questions and responses allowed him to find his intersection with the culture at the time and ultimately teach them other ways to think about issues." (p. 137)

"In his book Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk, Eugene Cho posits that many Christians in the United States have taken their political views and put them in front of their theology or faith. That is to say, for many Christians, we look at our faith through the lens of our political perspective instead of letting our politics be informed by the lens of our faith." (p. 138)

Year of No Garbage by Eve O. Schaub

I really liked Schaub's previous books, Year of No Sugar and Year of No Clutter, so I was excited to see a new "year of" book from her. And while Schaub is a great writer and obviously very dedicated to her causes, this was a downer of a book to read. Of course Schaub starts out the Year of No Garbage in 2020, not knowing what was to come with COVID-19. And I do feel like she just barely mentioned all the extra garbage created from COVID - disposable masks, gloves, takeout food containers, single-use everything, so many cleaning products it's a wonder we're all alive, etc. Basically the book turned into the evils of plastic and that was the bane of the Year of No Garbage. Not that I'm saying plastic is good, but to basically find out that recycling plastic is impossible was hard to read about - just very discouraging. And Schaub was EXTREMELY hardcore - hand-washing all kinds of plastics and holding on to them hoping to find a way for them to be recycled - almost no one would go to those lengths. Plus, the other downside to this book was that a lot of the stuff she did would be out of financial reach for most people - from paying for special recycling boxes for hard-to-recycle goods, buying a bidet, and shopping almost exclusively from small, health food stores - these are not things the average person can afford to do regularly. I'm not saying we shouldn't all try to reduce our plastic use, but she seemed to have a lot of money to throw at this issue. I did learn some things that I will use now - specifically battery recycling and the plastic bag recycling bins at grocery stores can take more than just plastic grocery bags. Overall, if you want to read about the evils of plastic and how they will NEVER GO AWAY - this is the book for you. Just be prepared to be depressed at the end.

Some quotes I liked:

"But part of my objective in doing a year-long project is not just to demonstrate how hard it may be to live in a way that's different from our cultural norm, but also to ask the questions: Why is this so hard? Should it be? Are there good reasons to rethink things we have till now accepted? (p. 6)

"Worldwide, the pandemic is estimated to have generated somewhere between eight and eleven million tons of additional plastic waste." (p. 81)

"I was coming to realize something. Recycling in this country isn't supposed to actually work. Recycling is broken. And maybe, just maybe, companies like it that way...There simply isn't enough of a standardized approach in this country to make recycling work in any real, effective, and comprehensible way. Instead, we're just supposed to think it works, so we keep buying the products made with materials we as a society don't know what to do with. Shut up and buy stuff! (p. 101-102)

"I've heard it called 'consumerist environmentalism,' and it hearkens back to my frustration with all the glass and aluminum straws that come with their own carrying cases. To be clear: I don't think there's anything wrong with buying a beautiful object if you love it and it will bring you a little bit of aesthetic joy every time you use it, especially if it avoids the use of the ever-problematic plastic. But there's a lot of stuff out there masquerading as useful and sustainable, when it's really just more stuff." (p. 130)

"So when you hear about 'plastics recycling,' we probably shouldn't picture shiny new food containers. Instead, maybe we should picture plastic being melted, ground up into chips and then reinserted into our environments to degrade further, shedding toxic, chemical-laden microplastics that flow into our ground and water supply...That's not even the worst part. The very worst part is that the plastics industry has known this all along....industry documents from as far back as the early seventies describing large-scale plastic recycling as unfeasible." (p. 166-67)

"I was abjectly terrified by this brand-new idea: the idea that we modern humans were playing with chemistry and don't fully know what we are doing, or understand the potential ramifications." (p. 191) [this could apply to food, chemicals, medicine, almost anything...]

The Magic Feather Effect by Melanie Warner

Melanie Warner looks at why alternative medicine works (or doesn't) and the power of placebo in The Magic Feather Effect. Everyone has heard a story of someone who was miraculously cured by acupuncture or energy healing, but is that really the case? And is there science to back up alternative medicine? I was surprised to learn that there are tons of scientists out there trying to study whether alternative medicine is beneficial and also studying the power of the placebo effect. One thing I found particularly interesting is that the placebo effect is more powerful and has a longer lasting effect for some ailments over others - it's not particularly helpful with things like cancer or diabetes, but can greatly benefit things like fibromyalgia or chronic pain. Warner does a great job of really looking into several common alternative medicines/treatments and finds people along the way who claim that particular treatment is what cured them. I definitely think our medical system/industry is not always right and that people often seek out alternative treatments when they feel the medical establishment has failed them or harmed them. And after reading this book, seeking out alternative treatments obviously work for lots of people.

Definitely an interesting book. I picked this one up because I had read Warner's previous book, Pandora's Lunchbox, about processed food. When I saw that she had this one it sounded interesting too so I picked it up and it was definitely worth reading.

Some quotes I liked:

"...Arthur Kleinman, a noted Harvard psychiatrist and medical anthropologist who, in a series of articles and books starting in the late seventies, drew a distinction between the treatment of illness and disease. People often use these terms indistinguishably, as I've done to this point, but in Kleinman's view, disease is the objective pathology of things you can measure - cancer cells, inflammatory markers in the blood, arterial blocks, blood sugar levels, reduced lung capacity. Such defects, he says, are the primary, if not exclusive, focus of most doctors, who seek to address them with drugs, surgery, the implantation of tiny machines, and the wholesale replacement of organs, sometimes with miraculous results. Disease, Kleinman writes, 'deals with the patient as a machine.' Illness, on the other hand, is the lived experience of symptoms, 'the monitoring of respiratory wheezes, abdominal cramps, stuffed sinuses or painful joints,' and the personal and emotional meaning we attach to such things. It is also the difficulty these symptoms create in our lives and the failure, frustration, anger, demoralization, and depression they breed." (p. 131)

"Since embarking on this journey, I've learned that this is what alternative medicine does for people. By making us feel supported, by summoning the power of expectations and belief, by relaxing our bodies and reducing stress, mind-body therapies move molecules in our brains in a way that can reduce the ills we feel in our bodies. They shift those symptoms for which brain activity plays a significant role - pain, panic attacks, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, psychosomatic neurological problems, and other unexplained symptoms - even though we're far from a complete scientific understanding of how exactly they do all this. These therapies can also calm, empower, and inspire us, giving us more resilience than we imagine we have, and leading us down paths we wouldn't otherwise find. They do things that standard medicine doesn't often pay enough attention to or quite know how to handle." (p. 229)

The Alpha Female Wolf: the fierce legacy of Yellowstone's 06 by Rick McIntyre

Rick McIntyre was a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park. As part of his work there he worked on The Wolf Project which collected data on the Yellowstone wolves and would also trap and collar wolves so they could track them for further data. McIntyre spent 15 years going out every single day to look for the Yellowstone wolves. He became a passionate advocate and was often sought out by park visitors so they could see the Yellowstone wolves in the wild. In this book McIntyre tells the story of 06, an alpha female wolf and one of the most famous Yellowstone wolves. He does a great job with her story and also gives enough background on the wolves in Yellowstone that you understand where she falls in the Yellowstone wolf lineage. I had previously read American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee which covered more of the history of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, but also focused on 06 and her impact in Yellowstone. Blakeslee notes in his book how much information he got from Rick McIntyre for his book, so when I saw that McIntyre had written this one I wanted to read his account as well. McIntyre has written a series of books all focusing on a particular Yellowstone wolf. While I did enjoy this one a lot, I felt like Blakeslee's book was a little more dramatic and compelling of a read. But, I definitely think this one could stand on it's own mainly because McIntyre was so devoted to the wolves and took time every day to write down notes of his observations of the wolves. Reading this book makes me REALLY want to go to Yellowstone and see these amazing animals in their natural environment.

A quote I liked:

[In the early 1900s when some of the National Parks were being created, park rangers were instructed to kill any and all wolves found - not realizing that wolves and predators are a needed part of the ecosystem.] "In 1905 the state legislature [in Montana] passed a law ordering the state veterinarian to capture wild wolves, infect them with the mange mites, then release them back into the wild so they could pass the infestation to fellow family members. That bill was called 'An Act to provide for the extermination of wolves and coyotes by inoculating the same with Mange.'" [Basically, if the wolves had mange badly enough they would freeze to death in the winter because of their lack of fur. People are awful.]

June 2023 Cookbook Reviews

 

Zucchini Love by Cynthia Graubert

Zucchini is one of my favorite vegetables and it grows so well in my garden that I usually get a LOT. And while I love fried zucchini, I'm always looking for new ways to use this summer vegetable. Zucchini Love gives tons of great recipes for using zucchini in new and different ways. The author also includes tips on what recipes work best with what size zucchini. Everyone has found that hidden zucchini that went from perfect to giant overnight, so I think that is especially helpful. Recipes from fried zucchini to fritters, soup, breads, and even desserts are included. Even though I already use zucchini several ways I did find a few more recipes I'd like to try. If you are a zucchini fan definitely check out this cookbook.

June 2023 Reviews

 

You Will Find Your People by Lane Moore

As I've gotten older I feel like it's harder and harder to make new friends or keep friends. I've read several friendship books in the past couple years and so far I relate to this one the most. Not that Lane Moore and I are the same, but this is one of the first friendship books I've read where the author addresses family dysfunction/trauma and how that affects your friendships. I'm definitely interested to read her previous book now. While Moore is not a psychologist or "expert" on friendship, she doesn't frame herself that way - this is more a collection of essays about how she's navigated the often turbulent friendship waters and what she's learned in the process. I thought there was a lot of helpful information especially if you do come from a more dysfunctional background - that baggage affects EVERYTHING. I also liked that the focus wasn't just on other people, but also looking at yourself and what baggage you're bringing to the table, things you need to work on, etc. There is a lot of boundaries talk which is super important for ANY relationships. Overall, I definitely liked it and found it helpful and will look for other books by Moore in the future.

Some quotes I liked:

"If you've survived a Greek myth-esque series of relational disappointments, you know that trying to figure out how to make a friend when you've been hurt so many times, or never really felt loved or accepted in a lasting way, or never had a model of healthy friendship, can feel impossible." (p. 4)

"Friendships really are the biggest group project you'll ever be a part of, and many people address friendships the same way they address group projects:
1. They opt out of doing any work, assuming the other person will do it.
2. They do all the work and resent everyone else for not doing their part.
I have often found myself in category two - in both group projects and many of my friendships." (p. 75)

"Part of the problem is we're told to find people who feel like home to us. And if your 'home' was full of unhealthy patterns and toxic relationships, what will feel like home to you is actually the last place you should be." (p. 75)

"We talk about abusers isolating you from your friends and family to gain more control over you and your decision making, and I don't want to brag, but I can do that all by myself!" (p. 112)

Dessert Can Save the World by Christina Tosi

Christini Tosi believes that dessert fixes everything - have something to celebrate? The answer is cake! Going through a hard time? Ice cream can make it better. And for Tosi celebrating even the smallest victories is made better by dessert. She grew up seeing her Mom work a demanding job and still make time to bake and give treats away to everyone in her path. Tosi started experimenting with baking at an early age and quickly found her creativity sparked by dessert concoctions. She decided to go to culinary school and eventually worked in some of the most well-known restaurants in New York City including wd-50 and Momofuku. She eventually opened Milk Bar, first an offshoot of Momofuku, then a multi-location empire with cookies and ice cream in grocery stores. In this book Tosi explores her life philosophy by way of desserts. Each chapter focuses on an idea that applies to both desserts and life. Tosi is an optimist and that definitely shines through in the book. Each chapter also includes a few recipes that relate to that chapter's topic or stories. Overall, a very uplifting book that encourages readers to not only eat the cake, but make it too and then share it with friends, family, coworkers, and strangers.

Eat a Peach by David Chang

I love a good food memoir and I had heard about this one, but didn't pick it up until after I finished reading Dessert Can Save the World by Christina Tosi and she talked so much about how David Chang encouraged her to go out on her own with Milk Bar. I didn't know much about Chang before reading this book other than associating his name with Momofuku. This is an odd book for sure and Chang doesn't always paint himself in the best light. His reason for opening Momofuku came from his depression (he's bipolar) and he decided to do whatever he wanted with the restaurant because in his mind he probably wouldn't be alive in 10 years so why follow the rules. And that's basically how he's operated ever since (yet, he did live past those 10 years). His ideas often come from his manic times and he believes work and always trying to out-do himself is what's kept him going all this time. But, he sounds incredibly hard to work for. He describes terrifying outbursts of rage almost like an out-of-body-experience and while he reiterates over and over how he's trying to work on that it keeps happening. The way he talks about his successes is almost like it's a continual surprise to him. Maybe it's just the way he's retelling it, but it kind of comes across like he just did whatever and everyone loved it and now he has a restaurant empire - it seemed a little over-simplified to me. But, I've never eaten at any of his restaurants so maybe the food IS amazing and worth the hype. It was an odd book overall, but it did keep my interest and I liked how much he tries to reckon with everything - his mental illness, the restaurant industry, the #metoo movement, racism in food, etc.

Some quotes I liked:

"When I was a student at the French Culinary Institute, I once proposed a project using pork stock, which is common in Asian cooking. My instructor scoffed at me: 'Pork stock is for savages.' I walked away with my head down, wishing I had the courage to tell him he was wrong." (footnote on pg. 36)

"It should be said that I like fancy restaurants very much, but at that point in American dining, fanciness had become paramount. I recall a restaurant manager once telling the staff as we prepared to cook for the New York Time critic that, in order of priorities, the critic would be considering (1) service; (2) decor; and (3) the food. It was around that time that I first started thinking, Fuck this. I don't want my work to be an accessory to the carpet and chairs." (footnote on pg. 40)

"As with any addiction, the deeper I got, the higher the dosage I needed. Drug addicts don't get the same pleasure that a random party kid gets from doing a bump in a bathroom stall. They need much more. Sex addicts continually need to up the stakes of their pursuits - more partners, multiple partners, married partners. Marathon runners graduate to ultramarathons and Ironman competitions. It's no different with workaholics...Recovering alcoholics talk about needing to hit rock bottom before they are able to climb out. The paradox for workaholics is that rock bottom is the top of whatever profession you're in." (p. 52)

"When Kitchen Confidential came out, I was cooking at Craft. Cooks and chefs had yet to become cool or even normalized, and honestly we were all skeptical about this chef of a not-great restaurant in New York writing a tell-all about our business. Tony never worked in the upper echelon of restaurants. That gave many of us in the industry reason to thumb our noses at him, but it's also what made him remarkable. He was a lifelong line cook - the kind of guy who never aspires to climb the ladder of fancy restaurants. He represented the majority of cooks, and he wrote about our world with extraordinary intelligence and empathy...Many of the stories he championed in his writing and television shows were the ones that chefs care about: camaraderie, honesty, creativity, and the Latin American cooks who prop up the whole business. The person who may have done the most to legitimize our profession was the one we originally didn't think had the chops." (p. 142)

[On the #metoo movement and the restaurant industry] "The need for a quick resolution points to a desire to get it over with, when, in fact, the only solution is to sit and marinate in how uncomfortable this all is. I have to commit the years it will take to learn about the people around me and reject my baked-in biases." (p. 228)

May 2023 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Outdoor Cook by America's Test Kitchen

Like all the cookbooks by America's Test Kitchen that I have looked at this one is super thorough. The first section is all about the options for cooking outdoors with tips for gas or charcoal grilling, fire pits, flat-top grills, and smokers. Then the recipes are organized by type - snacks/appetizers, weeknight dinners, gatherings, dessert, etc. Each recipes gives tips on how to make that meal using either a charcoal or gas grill. There are also lots of tips on best practices for cooking outside. With summer coming up this would be a great cookbook to check out to up your grilling game.

Milk Street Noodles by Christopher Kimball

This is a very thorough cookbook about all things noodles. The first chapter called "Pasta Primer" gives recipes and info about the different types of noodles used throughout the cookbook. Then the noodle recipes are divided by type - cool dishes, noodle soups, Italian classics, one-pan pastas, etc. Most of the recipes seem pretty straightforward with basic ingredients. And of course you don't have to make your own fresh pasta to use, but that is definitely worth doing sometimes. Overall, a solid cookbook for the noodle lovers out there.

Vegetable Revelations by Steven Satterfield

I'm not a vegetarian, but I love to look at vegetable focused cookbooks because I have a big garden so I'm always looking for new ways to prepare the vegetables I'm growing (or find at the farmer's market). I really liked that this cookbook started out with a section called "building blocks" that was recipes for spice blends, stocks, condiments, etc. The second section has all the recipes divided by type of vegetable - roots, leaves, legumes, nightshades, etc. Most of the recipes look straightforward and not overly complicated. I just didn't find tons of recipes I wanted to try. I do think it's still a solid, vegetable focused cookbook.

May 2023 Reviews

 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (Books & Banter book club)

In June 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska after serving time at a juvenile work camp for manslaughter. His mother left when he was 10 and his father recently passed away after losing their farm to foreclosure. Emmett plans to pick up his eight-year-old brother Billy and head West. But, unbeknownst to him two of his friends from the work camp stowed away in the car bringing Emmett home. They have very different plans that rope Emmett and Billy into 10 days of unplanned adventures.

I wasn't particularly interested in reading this book even though I'd heard only good things about it. If a book is 576 pages it better be amazing. And this was definitely one of those books that is so long, but you wish it was even longer so you could stay with these characters. Told from several perspectives, but mainly Emmett, Duchess, and Woolly (the two stowaways), the ten days of traveling, mishaps, close calls, and adventures draw you into each character. Each of the main characters are so different and yet so lovable in their own way. I was prepared to not like Duchess as the ringleader of this whole fiasco, but he grew on me too. He is probably a sociopath, but you couldn't help but like him and feel sorry for him as more of his backstory was revealed. Woolly and Billy were my favorites and I wish Woolly's story could have ended differently. Billy was the focus of some of my favorite scenes - Billy and Ulysses, when Billy meets Professor Abernathe, and the scene with Billy and the safe. His character really brought an overall lightness to the book because he was so young and innocent. Emmett didn't stand out in obvious ways, but you could tell he was level-headed, observant, and determined to be there for his brother.

I could have done without the chapters about Sally - that just seemed kind of randomly added. Maybe implying a romantic relationship down the road with Emmett? But, I didn't like her very much and don't feel like she added much to the overall story. The only other character/scene that seemed odd was the Preacher - especially when he finds them the second time. That seemed highly unlikely. And probably only because it was the 1950's, but it also seemed miraculous that all these Nebraskans traveled in and through New York City so easily and found each other over and over again.

Overall, I loved each of the main characters and was impressed with how the storyline progressed in unexpected, yet not outlandish ways. This was a surprisingly well-written book with characters I'll be thinking about for a long time.

B.F.F.: a memoir of friendship lost and found by Christie Tate

Christie Tate always struggled with relationships. Once she was finally in a healthy dating relationship she felt like she had grown up. But, then Meredith, a friend from her recovery meetings, tells her now it's time to work on her friendships with women - "the work never ends, right?" Soon Christie is looking back at all her past friendships to see what went wrong - and a lot of the time it was her. While I can't relate to her specific relationship/friendship issues (which are many), I can relate to the struggle to make and keep friendships. And I have plenty of my own, different, issues as well. As Christie works through her issues around friendship, her relationship with Meredith grows into the kind of friendship she always wanted. When Meredith is diagnosed with cancer, Christie has the opportunity to really show up as a friend to Meredith during a very hard time.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. I didn't read Tate's previous memoir Group about her group therapy work, but I loved her writing. She is real and extremely honest even when it doesn't make her look good, but it's not so self-deprecating as to be off-putting. She is also very funny and there were several times I laughed out loud while reading. Overall, a very unique, but heartwarming look at one woman's struggles with friendship.

Bang Bang Crash by Nic Brown

Athenaeum is one of my all-time favorite bands. I've seen them live probably dozens of time in the late 90's and early 00's. One of my first official dates with my now-husband was to see Athenaeum at Tremont Music Hall (which is now high-end condos). So, when I saw this book and realized it was a memoir of the original drummer with Athenaeum I couldn't wait to read it. Brown is a great writer and I absolutely loved the first 1/3 of the book where he talks about his childhood, how he got into playing the drums, and starting Athenaeum with Mark Kano. That section really took me back and it was fun to read about the band from the insider perspective. Brown graduated from high school right when the band really took off and a record deal was imminent. He was accepted to Duke, Columbia University, and Princeton and turned them all down to be a rock star. But, shortly after Athenaeum signs a record deal with Atlantic Records Brown starts being embarrassed by their music. I could never really figure that out. He talked so highly of Mark Kano and the connection they had in making music, but didn't seem to enjoy music at all once they were "successful." He tried playing with some other bands when he quit Athenaeum and went to Columbia University. Eventually he starts writing and is now a published author and professor at Clemson University. He is still reluctant to talk about his time in the band and seems embarrassed by it. But, it was his idea to do the reunion show for the 20th anniversary of the Radiance album (which I had tickets to and then my husband got the flu and I couldn't find anyone to go with me at the last minute so I missed it). By the end I found this whole book odd. Once he started being embarrassed of Athenaeum's music I started not liking him as much. I really don't understand why he seems so embarrassed and almost ashamed of his time in the band and as a musician. I don't know why Athenaeum never made it bigger after their record deal, but in this book I was hoping for more time with the band and less in Brown's head.

I was also super disappointed with his drum teacher Pete. Once Brown started playing with Mark Kano and Athenaeum was forming he played some of their music for Pete. Pete was VERY into jazz and showed his disappointment that Brown was playing rock 'n roll instead of jazz. I think that opened the door to Brown being embarrassed of Athenaeum because he looked up so much to Pete. I don't know why Pete couldn't have been happy for Brown's success at the time even if it wasn't his personal taste.

Some quotes I liked:

"You spend hours in the attic with Mark, who can already drive, so sometimes when you get home from school his red Nissan pickup truck is already parked at the curb. Inside, his baby sister will be sitting on the chopping block with your mother, who will say hi, and then you will rush upstairs to find Mark working on a song called "Summertime." Or you will find him working on a song called "Haircut." Or you will find him working on a song called "On My Mind," a song that after you play it with him for the first time fills you with such amazement that later you lay on your bed imagining just what it means about your life to have been involved in its creation." (p. 3-4)

"And how great is it that you get to make that music with Mark? Because Mark is, why not admit it, so much more talented than you are. He has a gift so great as to be almost a burden to him. He hears things you cannot - that the harmony is off, oh, the compression is too much, I need to adjust my new chorus pedal et cetera, et cetera - and these things that he hears complicates his life much more than your life is complicated...And Mark has also become your closest friend, something you can now look back on and see clearly, but at the time you would never acknowledge, because already you and Mark treat each other like something beyond merely friends. Friends hang out and have fun. You two, though - it's a type of human alchemy. You create magic from nothing, just pulling sound from the air." (p. 5)

"The main complication for me was that, as a drummer, I'd been yoked to the projects of others for so many years that now, as a writer, I had suddenly become so intoxicated by the opportunity to have an artistic project be all my own that any hour potentially spent working on someone else's art seemed like a waste of my time." (p. 106)

The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science by Kate Zernike

In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women scientists - paying them significantly less money, cutting them out of opportunities, taking away desirable classes, giving them less physical space, etc. Nancy Hopkins was the woman who led the charge to look into how MIT treated it's women scientists differently than the men scientists. While for a long time Hopkins didn't consider herself a feminist, once her eyes were opened (because of two specific instances in her career at MIT) they were OPEN and she knew she couldn't be the only one experiencing discrimination. She pulled together 16 women in higher ranking positions and couldn't believe how similar all their experiences were - and they all thought it was only happening to them or was for other reasons than that they were women. Together the banded together and forced the university to see there was a problem and not just see it but deal with it.

The Exceptions is Hopkins's story of how she got into science, her experience as one of very few women scientists and professors, and how eventually she became a leader in the fight for women in science. Hopkins and the overall story of women in science is interesting, but VERY detailed. I found the book picked up steam in the second half of the second section and the third section. I think the author was trying to really show the progression of women in science and highlight these pioneering women who not only showed that women are just as smart as men, but did so under extreme duress and harassment. But, a lot of the other women's stories, particularly in the first section, tended to kind of drag the overall book. There was also a LOT of detailed science in descriptions of what the women were working on, their mentors in science, etc. But, without all that it would have been harder to show all these women's achievements and just how hard they worked to get into this field. What's sad is that in a lot of ways it feels like not all that much has changed. Women are still expected to be primary caretakers of children/elderly/household/etc. whether they work outside the home or not. There may be less overt sexism, but there is still plenty of unconscious bias and subtle discrimination. Probably more so in fields like science and technology. Overall, I did like the book even though it took me a little longer to get into it because of the level of science and detail.

Some quotes I liked:

"Then as now, I saw the story as one of remarkable persistence and risk on the part of sixteen women who did not consider themselves activists...They were not interested in publicity; they just wanted to get on with their work. As I explored their story - and the story of women in science before and after them - the word that kept coming up, in different conjugations, was exception. Women who succeeded in science were called exceptional, as if it were unusual for them to be so bright. They were exceptional not because they could succeed at science but because of all they accomplished despite the hurdles. Many had pushed past discrimination for years by excusing individual situations or incidents as exceptional, explained not by bias but by circumstance. Only when they came together did the MIT women see the pattern. That recognition alone made them exceptional, too." (p. xv)

"...while the first white woman to get a doctorate in math in the United States was in 1886, the first Black woman was not until 1943." (p. 38)

"A psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania recognized her own struggles in what [Patricia Albjerg] Graham had written (an article in Science magazine titled "Women in Academe."). Day care would help, she wrote, but it would not change the assumptions that constantly undermined professional women with children: employers considered them uncommitted to their jobs; teachers, guidance counselors, and judgmental neighbors considered them uncommitted to their children. 'Until children are considered a family responsibility for two consenting adults, women cannot have equal opportunities in employment,' the professor wrote. 'Only when social roles require comparable efforts from professional men and women can equality of opportunity be said to exist.'" (p. 98-99)

"The civil rights legislation of the 1960s had established broad protections against discrimination in hiring and promotions, but those protections had not extended to women in academia. It had been a hangover from the anti-communist panic of the McCarthy era, when hundreds of professors were hauled before Congress or fired by their universities under suspicion of left-wing beliefs or affiliations. Congress wanted to show that the government would no longer meddle in university employment decisions, so it exempted higher education from the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and from Title VII, which prevented job discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or religion." (p. 103-4)

"The most commonly reported problem, however, was not sexual assault or the rank discrimination that civil rights statutes had made illegal. It was what Mary [Rowe] called 'the minutiae of sexism,' the slights against women that were so casual that in isolation they weren't 'actionable.' 'Most are such petty incidents that they may not even be identified, much less protested,' she wrote in a presentation for the American Association of University Women in 1974. These were invitations to seminars and meetings that were not extended, the pages that were not typed, the professor who refused to learn his female students' names or vowed that if a woman were given tenure, he'd make her life so miserable she'd quit: 'It is her work which by mistake is not properly acknowledged, not reviewed, not responded to, not published, her opinion which is not asked for.'" (p. 162-63)

"Nancy understood that she came from a cohort of women who considered themselves lucky to be hired onto university faculties at all. Sometimes it was easier not to think about how you were treated." (p. 280)

"'Each generation of young women, including those who are currently senior faculty, began by believing that gender discrimination was 'solved' in the previous generation and would not touch them,' Nancy wrote. 'Gradually however, their eyes were opened by the realization that the playing field is not level after all, and that they had paid a high price both personally and professionally as a result.'" (p. 336)

"Almost two decades later, there's still work to do. A landmark report in 2018 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that 50 percent of female faculty members had experienced sexual harassment, and that the biggest complaint was not 'sexual coercion' but put-downs about their intelligence, exclusion, and the kind of marginalization that the women of MIT had described twenty years earlier." (p. 351)

Under the Henfluence by Tove Danovich

We're getting our first flock of laying hens any day now, so I figured it would be a good time to read this book. Tove Danovich always wanted chickens, but living in New York City made that pretty difficult. But, when she and her husband moved to Portland, Oregon her chicken dreams could come true. She initially started with three chickens and almost immediately realized that was not enough. Because of her own chickens Danovich dives into all things chickens - from visiting the hatchery where she purchased her chicks to meeting chicken trainers and people professionally showing their chickens and everything in between. She also explores the dark side of chickens - mostly in the food industry, but also when it comes to roosters and dealing with them when people either don't want them or local ordinances don't allow them. This was a quick read and an interesting book, but I just didn't love it. She is VERY much a chicken person and spends a LOT of time with her chickens. I never really wanted chickens, but my husband wore me down over time. I love animals and I'm sure I'll enjoy our chickens, but they won't be pets for us - they are for eggs and if that goes well we might branch off into meat chickens too. While she didn't push it on the readers, Danovich quit eating chicken after getting hers and I'm not interested in doing that. I am interested in sourcing local, humanely raised meat/eggs/dairy which is why we're getting our own chickens to begin with. I think this book has a lot of good information, but is more geared towards people who want to keep chickens as pets with the bonus of getting eggs.

A quote I liked:

[I was impressed that Danovich sought out spent commercial laying/battery hens to keep as pets/let them live a natural rest of their lives] "I noticed that the flock I raised from chicks only made a purring noise when they were at their absolute peak happiness - a dust bath in the sun when the weather wasn't too hot or too cold - Thelma and Louise [the rescued battery hens] did it constantly. For them, every day was the best day they'd ever had." (p. 185-86)

April 2023 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: leftovers A-Z by Tamar Adler

Tamar Adler's goal is cooking with absolutely NO WASTE. This book is organized by type of food - vegetables, bread, beans & rice, meat, etc. and then within each section it's organized alphabetically with ideas for what to do with that leftover item. Each section starts off with a short food related essay, although not always about the topic of that section. I'm all about leftovers and not wasting food. When you're growing your own food you're even less likely to waste it because you know all the work and effort that went into growing it firsthand! But, some of her ideas seems ridiculous - repurposing leftover cupcakes? Is that a thing - having leftover cupcakes? I think instead of encouraging eating leftovers and repurposing odd and ends this cookbook feels more like you need to repurpose every part of every leftover into something new. I'm all about eating leftovers, but that's because I don't want to cook every night. Overall, it's a unique idea but I don't know how practical it is especially for a newer cook.