February 2024 Cookbook Reviews

 

The Fresh-Milled Flour Bread Book by Tim Giuffi

I've started getting into milling my own flour and my library hasn't had very many books on the subject at all. So, when I saw this one I definitely wanted to check it out. But, almost immediately I was disappointed. The author talks about how he got into milling and baking in the Introduction, then talks about grain mills and different types of grains. Then it goes right into the recipes. My issue? At least 2/3 of the recipes require a sourdough starter - that is not super obvious by the title. Yes, it is in the subtitle, but I would argue that the subtitle does not imply that ALL the recipes will be for sourdough. Also, there are a lot of tools and specific types of pans noted in the recipes with no explanation. I'm a good home cook and read a lot about cooking and food and I had to look some of the equipment up because I wasn't familiar with it. There is no section about recommended tools/pans/etc. or a chapter on how to start and maintain a sourdough starter. It was very disappointing because I felt like there wasn't enough information.

Week Light by Donna Hay

I had checked out a couple other cookbooks by Donna Hay so I decided to check this one out too. While I'm all about eating healthy, I just didn't see hardly any recipes I wanted to try. I did like that in the "basics to brilliance" chapter there was a base recipe and then several recipes using that base. If you really enjoy ethnic, vegetarian food I think this is the cookbook for you. But, if you want to eat healthier and still include meat and dairy there wasn't much here for you. I liked her other cookbooks that I checked out but I didn't like this one much.

Flour Lab: an at-home guide to baking with freshly milled grains by Adam Leonti

I've started getting into milling my own flour but have had a hard time finding cookbooks that are designed specifically around home milling. This one seems to fit the bill. I think I will end up buying this one because I felt like it was the most comprehensive one I've seen yet. I especially liked how much information he gave in the first few chapters about types of wheat, types of mills, general info about wheat and milling, supplies, cooking tips - then on to the recipes. While I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, they look pretty simple to follow and there is a wide variety of recipes. This book has definitely inspired me to source some more varieties of wheat and try to expand beyond just whole wheat bread.

February 2024 Reviews

 

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (Evening Edition book club)

I didn't know who Jennette McCurdy was and never watched either of her Nickelodeon shows iCarly or Sam & Cat. One of my book clubs voted this one in and as someone who often reads dysfunctional family memoirs I thought this would be a good fit for me. Jeannette's mother was obviously mentally ill (as was her grandmother and probably her father too) but it was hard for me figure out what exactly her diagnosis would have been - she was a hoarder, anorexic, extremely overly involved in her children's lives (to the point of still bathing them into their teens), and threw explosive tantrums when she didn't get her way. She was obviously narcissistic but there had to be more. Jeannette's mother's dream was to be an actor, so she pushed her only daughter into that role. Because of both that forced push into acting and all the underlying mental illness, Jeannette developed OCD, a SERIOUS eating disorder, alcoholism, and several extremely dysfunctional dating relationships. But she was also a movie/TV star. Even though that was all her mother ever wanted, it still wasn't enough. Thankfully, during Jeannette's run on Sam & Cat her mother died of cancer. Despite the title being somewhat of a dark joke, by the end of the book I was glad her mother died too, I just wish it had been earlier. It took Jeannette YEARS of self-destructive behavior before she finally started getting help and admitting to herself just how abusive her mother was to their family. The ending is somewhat hopeful, but this was a hard, hard read. I read hard stuff ALL THE TIME and I was glad to put this one down. After reading this book I wonder what her brothers experiences were like or if Jeannette got the worst of things since she was living her mother's dream. I felt bad for the whole family even though Jeannette's father and grandparents definitely helped enable her mother's behavior. Overall, this was a tough read and I probably would have only given it 3 stars but she is a good writer. I'll be curious what my book club members will think of this one.

A quote I liked:

"Fame has put a wedge between Mom and me that I didn't think was possible. She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she's happy and I'm not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited." (p. 121)

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Books & Banter book club)

Crook Manifesto picks up with Ray Carney 4 years after Harlem Shuffle ended. Ray has decided to stay on the straight path and just run his furniture business on the up and up. But when his daughter is desperate to see the Jackson 5, he turns back to some of his shady connections to try to score tickets for her. This reopens the door to his crooked life with a bang. The book is divided into 3 sections and each section covers 3-4 years. In the first section Ray reconnects with a crooked white cop to get the concert tickets for his daughter. The second section brings back Pepper and follows his unusual security work on a movie set. The third section Ray and Pepper team up to try to track down an arsonist who injured the child of one of Ray's tenants.

I absolutely LOVED Harlem Shuffle and Ray Carney's struggle with whether to stay straight or bend toward crooked. This one was a disappointment. All the heist/criminal stories seemed really far-fetched, especially the first one with the crooked white cop. It felt very over the top and like something from a criminal action movie. The ending of the book is very ambiguous and really leaves you hanging. I know this is the second in a trilogy so that's probably on purpose. But for all the action the ending was just kind of lame. Whitehead's writing is wonderful and there were lots of great funny lines and quips, but I just didn't like this one. I will probably read #3 when it comes out just to see what does happen with Ray, but it will be hard to recommend this one.

Some quotes I liked:

[On the Carney house on Strivers Row] "Of course they were going to buy it. What else was an ongoing criminal enterprise complicated by periodic violence for, but to make your wife happy?" (p. 19)

"Carney still had the business card: Martin Green, Antiques. Why hadn't he thrown it out? Because he knew or wished a day like this might come. Crooked stays crooked." (p. 29)

"Carney had worked with the detective long enough to know he was lying, and lying about the tickets as well. It was his own fault. He had been on the straight and narrow for four years, but slip once and everybody is glad to help you slip hard. Crooked stays crooked and bent hates straight. The rest is survival." (p. 51)

"Hippie attire aside, black men generally kept their beards and mustaches fit and sharp, their Afros immaculate. These white kids walked around with stuff on their heads that - well, dead alley cats rotting behind garbage cans kept it more correct. The new shit was always upon you and you had to adjust, such was life, but the new shit came so fast these days, and it was so wily and unlikely, that he had a hard time keeping up." (p. 139)

"'I don't take money from guys like that.' Foot soldier for assholes? He'd already done that in World War II. No. A man has a hierarchy of crime, of what is morally acceptable and what is not, a crook manifesto, and those who subscribe to lesser codes are cockroaches." (p. 179)

"Poor girl makes good, was a more interesting story than suburban girl makes good, he supposed. Pepper had heard of passing for white before but passing for broke was a new one on him." (p. 194)

"Was the trio playing 'The Star-Spangled Banner'? This fucking bicentennial shit was driving Carney batty. It was inescapable, like a dome of red, white, and blue smog." (p. 214)

"Payback had healed the old crook - planning, anticipation, execution, and basking in his bloody ingenuity afterward. When her mother passed, Elizabeth got a copy of that book On Death and Dying, which identified the Five Stages of Grief. When Pepper was laid low, the Four Stages of Putting Your Foot Up Somebody's Ass provided similar comfort." (p. 278)

Disobedient Women by Sarah Stankorb

Disobedient Women is a hard but important read for any Christian. Sarah Stankorb is a journalist who has been reporting on religion and often on how people are harmed by religion. She found much of her early content from blogs in the early 2000's - the beginning of the "deconstruction" movement in evangelical Christianity. In this book she highlights several women who experienced sexual abuse in their churches and found the strength to stand up, call it out, and fight back. She covers 4 main churches/denominations - IBLP (Bill Gothard, Duggar family, and the Prime documentary Shiny Happy People), the Southern Baptist denomination, Sovereign Grace Ministries (CJ Mahaney and Joshua Harris of I Kissed Dating Goodbye fame), and Doug Wilson's Christ Church in Moscow, ID. In all of these cases there were YEARS of abuse that was covered up and not reported to the authorities. Stankorb shows how complementarian theology and purity culture creates an atmosphere that is ripe for abuse. While some of these women did see some changes or at least got out of their toxic environments, this is not a happy ending kind of book. As a Christian it is gut wrenching to read about pastors and church leadership not only BE the abusers but also hide and cover up obvious abuse and pedophilia in the name of "forgiveness" and not making their church look bad to the public. I don't know what Bible they are reading but this is NOT in there. I kept thinking of Matthew 18:5-7 that says in part "If anyone causes one of these little ones - those who believe in me - to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea..." To me it's super obvious that the common denominator with all these situation is complementarian theology. The over-arching Church needs to do better.

While I think this is well researched book and very eye-opening I was expecting something more along the lines of She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey based on the description. I also think the book could have been divided a little better - more clearly by the denomination/church. And while I did appreciate the author's personal story as it did relate to the book and her own faith struggles, I felt that it sometimes detracted from the overall story as she did not experience faith/church abuse. Overall, it was a good book but still a hard read.

Some quotes I liked:

"Over the years as [Christa] Brown refused to back down [on asking the SBC to create a database of known abusers], she became a common recipient of SBC leaders' ire. Otherwise buttery-voiced pastors dripped venom toward her. Former SBC president Paige Patterson called SNAP [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests] advocates (Brown was by then SNAP's Baptist director) slanderers, and thus, 'evil doers' and as 'reprehensible as sex criminals.'" (p. 78)

"The Washington Post called [Rachel] Held Evans 'the most polarizing woman in evangelicalism.' In reality, Held Evans became a voice for moderation within a religious movement sliding rapidly toward deeper extremes." (p. 82)

"In hindsight, the relative youth of the leadership team at Covenant Life, aside from Mahaney, did strike Pam as unusual. Most of the church leaders seemed to be in their twenties. They might have 'real strong gifting,' but a pastor who has never had children, giving advice to parents with teens, could mean a disconnect. 'Telling everybody what to do, without knowledge, without real experience, or education,' she elaborated. If pastors did have degrees at all, they weren't in theology." (p. 104)

"Although Mahaney took a leave of absence in summer 2011 to examine his character flaws - pride, unentreatability, deceit, and hypocrisy - by spring 2012, he'd returned and SGM moved its headquarters from Maryland to Louisville, Kentucky, close to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and its Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW; which Mahaney joined in 2000, later serving as vice chairman)...In 2012, Covenant Life Church voted with a 93 percent majority to break away from SGM. By spring 2013, Mahaney had stepped down as president of SGM. Nearly twenty churches left the network." (p. 117-18)

"There was another, ample reason for purity culture's reconsideration. In 2016, many evangelical leaders who had taught young girls they were tempting boys into sin with front-hugs or premarital kissing appeared to develop politically motivated moral amnesia. With the promise of a president who would nominate Supreme Court justices to help overturn Roe v. Wade and other major culture war precedents, major evangelical leaders fell in line with thrice-married socialite Donald Trump." (p. 172-73)

What an Owl Knows: the new science of the world's most enigmatic birds by Jennifer Ackerman

I've always been fascinated by owls and so I was interested when I saw this book. Then I realized I had already read one of Ackerman's previous books, The Bird Way. Even though I remembered that her previous book had been pretty science-heavy, I was still interested enough in owls to check this one out. It was very interesting, but also very science-heavy and not always the easiest read. There are nine chapters that focus on different aspects of owls from how they mate and nest, raising owlets, their vocalizations, all the way to how owls are seen in different cultures (as a harbinger of death or revered as wise). I did learn a lot and I realize now just how rare and special the times I've actually seen owls in person are as owls are VERY elusive even to skilled scientists who exclusively study owls. I did really like that there were lots of pictures, both in black & white and also a section in the middle of color photos. Overall, it was an interesting book but not a quick read.

Some quotes I liked:

"It's easy to love a living tree, with its lush foliage and canopy of greenery. But snags are like skeletons. They've lost their leaves, sloughed their skin. Their bones are furrowed with insect tracks, riddled with holes, rotted at the core, and their tops are stunted and snaggled. But what life they support! More than a hundred species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians use snags for nesting, roosting, denning, and feeding, including these magnificent owls." (p. 138)

"Mott describes a nesting hollow in a tree that had been used for more than ten years by a pair of Powerful Owls. Fires ripped through the area and burned the tree from the inside out. After the fire, the pair sat in an adjacent tree. 'Large forest owls make a really obvious grieving noise when they've lost a chick,' she says. 'And they did the same thing for this tree hollow. It was quite heart-wrenching.'" (p. 142)

"In the United Kingdom, it's legal to buy a pet owl if the bird is captive bred. You don't need a license or any credentials. Moreover, owls bred in captivity can be sold without any regulation, and it's a lucrative trade. A Snowy Owl can bring in about £250. In the wake of Harry Potter, so many people bought pet owls in the UK, only to dump them after realizing the cost and complexity of caring for them, that a special animal sanctuary opened to adopt the unwanted birds." (p. 212)

[On caring for injured owls] "They restore essential flight feathers on the wing and tail through 'imping,' a remarkable technique in use since the thirteenth century in birds used for falconry. 'We clip the damaged feather near the base, leaving a hollow keratin sheath,' explains Pierce. A matching feather molted from a donor bird is cut to length and inserted into the sheath with a tiny keratin dowel and then superglued to keep it in place. 'If all goes according to plan,' she says, 'the imped feather serves as a good replacement for the original feather until the bird molts it naturally, dropping the imped feather and growing a new one.'" (p. 216-17)

"Owls can also offer surprising glimpses into the ecological past. It's an idea raised in Anthony Doerr's beautiful novel Cloud Cuckoo Land. In the sanitized virtual world he has been hired to create, the book's main character surreptitiously undermines the system by slipping in the truth in the form of little owls, 'owl graffiti, an owl-shaped drinking fountain, a bicyclist in a tuxedo with an owl mask,' writes Doerr. 'Find one, touch it, and you peel back the sanitized, polished imagery to reveal the truth beneath' - the calamities, drought, famine, and suffering of the real past. There is a deep hunch here. Owls may be mirrors of our souls, but they're also windows into what life was like long ago." (p. 267-68) [I had forgotten about that part of Cloud Cuckoo Land and how much owls played in that storyline.]

This Country: searching for home in (very) rural America by Navied Mahdavian

Navied Mahdavian and his wife Emelie were living in the San Francisco Bay Area when they visit rural Idaho and decide to buy some land there. Hoping that by living off the grid they can afford to actually work on their passions instead of jobs to pay the ever higher bills in the Bay Area. Navied is Iranian-American and so stands out even more in rural Idaho. They both seem shocked by the racism and extremely conservative political views of their neighbors. While they do make some friends and try to make it work in Idaho, once their daughter is born they decide that they don't want that ultra-conservative rural culture to be what she grows up around. So they move to Salt Lake City, Utah - no ultra-conservatism there I'm sure... This was a quick read and there were some interesting parts to their story, but I didn't love it. It felt like this was a VERY quick overview of their time there and could have been better or at least had some of the parts more fleshed out. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one.

Emotional Labor: the invisible work shaping our lives and how to claim our power by Rose Hackman

Emotional labor is often viewed as a problem of privileged white women, but it literally affects every person on the planet - just some more than others. And often it is women who perform the majority of emotional labor. Rose Hackman does a great job of exploring the issue of emotional labor from several points of view. I personally mostly think of it as issues within a marriage or household, but she highlights aspects from service jobs, caregiving (hospital workers, childcare, and elderly care), racial identity, violence against women, how it affects men, and even how prison creates more emotional labor for the family (and often women) on the outside. I was really impressed with how broad her scope was in the book. It's frustrating to read how many people still say things like "Oh, women are just better at _____, that's why they do it." I do think Hackman gives some good suggestions and ideas for recognizing the importance of emotional labor and how to make it more equal in a variety of circumstances. I do think some of the chapters were a little long and repetitive, hence the 3 star rating. But, a good overview of all the myriad ways that emotional labor impacts us all.

Some quotes I liked:

"One of the cleverest tricks of patriarchy is that it transforms all work deemed feminine into fixed, subliminal expressions of femininity - however much work involves active time, effort, and skill. The best way to maintain a system in which women work for little to nothing, and for the benefit of others, especially men, is to convince society that they are not working at all." (p. 8)

"The point with emotional labor is not that it inherently points to an injustice. When seen, when valued or appreciated, or when part of an exchange, a mutuality, an ecosystem where love is power - then it needn't be exploitative. Quite the contrary: doing emotional labor for people who are doing it for you is the goal, not the problem." (p. 66)

"When women are told to 'smile' by a stranger on the street, they are being reminded of this through harassment. When women going about their business are accused of having a 'resting bitch face,' they are being reminded of their expected constant enthusiastic performance for the benefit of the world. A man not smiling while going about a task is never told he has a 'resting dick face.' He's likely treated as busy and important, if his expression is noted at all." (p. 87)

"As opportunities to be in the public eye have hugely expanded for women over the last decades - as previous formal barriers to public life have lifted - so, too, has the volume and level of feedback audiences inflict on them. This is true whether audiences are parents at a swim lesson, friends and acquaintances on social media, or television viewers of a political debate...This reality, instead of receding with women's legal progress, has only intensified. Today, women are more scrutinized, and more set up for humiliation than ever." (p. 92-93)

"The threat of rape and assault has a paralyzing effect on our ability to live life to its fullest, our willingness to jump on a bike, take a walk, use public transportation, explore the world. It has a paralyzing effect on our freedom...This constant lookout is a form of emotional labor that conditions us to double, triple think, to be hesitant and impose limits on ourselves and on our lives. To be a strong, empowered woman does not mean no longer taking precautions; it means making painstaking decisions about freedom versus safety, saving versus safety, economic opportunity versus safety." (p. 114-15)

"Homicide stands as the fourth leading cause of death for girls and women one to nineteen years old, and the fifth leading cause of death for women twenty to forty-four. Unlike male victims of homicide, who are mostly killed by members of the same sex, 98 percent of killers of women are men." (p. 118)

"An extraordinarily grim academic article from 2009 looked at the marital outcomes of 515 patients diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, observing groups battling malignant primary brain tumors, other forms of cancer, and multiple sclerosis...When the patient was male, and supporting spouse female, divorce happened in 2.9 percent of cases. When the patient was female and the supporting spouse was male, divorce happened in 20.8 percent of cases - it was seven times more likely to happen...the disparity is too big to brush under the carpet. It shows a severe gender gap in terms of who steps up to provide care and emotional labor in the most essential times, and an incredible gender gap in terms of who benefits." (p. 188-89)

Deadly Declarations by Landis Wade

When 96-year-old Matthew Collins dies and a hastily written will is found that revokes his previous will and leaves his fortune to Sue Ellen Parker, the most hated resident at the Indie retirement community, Collins' friends Yeager and Harriet rope in new resident and recently retired lawyer Craig Travail to help solve this mystery. But they quickly uncover a new mystery involving the Meck Dec, or Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, that may have led to their friend's demise and could also land the three of them in even more trouble. The characters in Deadly Declarations prove that there is more to retirement communities than card games and crafts - sex, lies, secret relationships, local historical mysteries, courtroom drama, and more follow these characters throughout the novel. Several twists and turns keep you guessing until the end.

While this is not the type of book I normally read - 1) Landis Wade is a local author and has participated in library book club discussions of his book and has done several other program about writing for the library and 2) this is the book chosen by a community for their community read program and they've asked me to come speak at their event. I figured the least I could do is read the book and participate in the whole event.

Wade is a good writer. While I didn't love every aspect of the story and there were some pretty outlandish things thrown in, it was funny and well written enough to keep my attention. I loved the character of Craig Travail and how his story was told and expanded throughout the book. I did feel like a few parts were a little melodramatic and over the top - but again it kept my attention and even with some crazy things I wanted to see how everything played out in the end. Overall, it was good but not my personal cup of reading tea.

January 2024 Cookbook Reviews

 

Christmas Feasts and Treats by Donna Hay

I wasn't familiar with Donna Hay, but happened to see an ad for a new cookbook. My library system didn't have the new one but we had a couple of her previous ones so I decided to check them out. This is a slightly different holiday cookbook. It's divided into two main sections - feasts and treats. I like that in "feasts" section there are basic recipes for holiday main dishes like ham, turkey, etc. with several different ways to make those main dishes. Then in the "treats" section it's more recipes for cakes, breads, and cookies. I did feel like these recipes were a little more on the advanced side - not really for beginners. There are still lots of great color photographs and tips along the way and a few recipes I'd like to try.

Basics to Brilliance by Donna Hay

I wasn't familiar with Donna Hay, but happened to see an ad for a new cookbook. My library system didn't have the new one but we had a couple of her previous ones so I decided to check them out. Overall, this seems like a really good cookbook. The recipes are organized in a couple basic sections, then each section has a "basic" dish like fried chicken, or pork ribs, then a few recipes using that basic base. There were several recipes I'd like to try and lots of helpful photographs and tips. My only (small) complaint is that it's a BIG book and the recipes take up multiple pages. Also, the background of most pages is black/dark and the text is white and kind of small so it can be a little harder to read. But, I do like the way she organized the recipes and it looks like lots of good stuff to try.

January 2024 Reviews

 

Class: a memoir of motherhood, hunger, and higher education by Stephanie Land

I absolutely LOVED Maid, so I was excited to see that Land had a follow up book about her time juggling college and single motherhood. After reading this book I just don't like her. She would probably say it's because of the stereotypes/preconceived ideas of poor people. But another review put it perfectly - I had to remind myself that she was 35, not 21. She wasn't a teen mom when she had her first daughter - she was 28/29. So, it's not like she missed out on all the fun party times of your 20's and was making up for it now. It's like she just never grew up and was perpetually 21 in her mind and actions. The main things I had issues with:

1) She left her daughter with ANYONE. I kept waiting to find out she had been molested or something. I can imagine it's overwhelming and hard to figure out childcare, but I was shocked by just how randomly she would find someone to watch Emilia.
2) She was hooking up with a LOT of dudes and never using birth control. WTF?! You know how this happened the first time, right? Plus, beyond unplanned pregnancies there are STDs, AIDS, etc. I lost a lot of respect for her when she was using the rhythm method of birth control and not in a serious relationship. That method has a 1 in 4 chance of pregnancy. Again she was 35 when she got pregnant the second time - not a dumb teenager.
3) College was SO important to her, yet while she's going she's constantly worrying about whether this degree will actually help her find paid work. She somehow was both flippant and overly invested in her degree.
4) Deciding to keep the second unplanned pregnancy in her mid-30's and then being shocked when other people weren't supportive or happy for her. Maid and this book continue to highlight just how hard being a single mother is and yet somehow she thought adding another child (with NO father in the picture, even for child support) would somehow make things better?
5) She also purposely chose to not find out who the father was (it was only possibly 2 guys) so that this child wouldn't have an abusive parent like her older daughter does. Here's an idea - stop sleeping with shitty guys! I mean if you're just really into "the bad boy" at least use some reliable birth control! These poor kids.

I did feel bad because it was painfully obvious to me that she sought romantic relationships because her parents were pretty terrible and basically cut her off. It also felt a lot like adding the second kid would make her even more of a victim, yet it would also reinforce the stereotype of the "welfare mom" having more kids to get more benefits. I feel bad for her kids. I'm sure now after the success of Maid and the Netflix series on top of that, she is fine financially. But what if it hadn't? What is there was no Maid and she had $50,000 in student loans, was still working shitty jobs and now had 2 kids to take care of?

The one good thing is that she is a good writer and kept me engaged with reading the book. But after reading this I just didn't like her as a person anymore. Anyone can make mistakes or bad choices, but we all know some things have bigger consequences. Land does a great job of showing how to make all the worst decisions and yet it's somehow not her fault.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng (Books & Banter and Evening Edition book clubs)

In an undisclosed year in a future, dystopian America, PACT - The Preserving American Culture and Traditions Act shapes everyone's lives. Anyone viewed as "anti-American" and in particular anyone of Asian descent is immediately suspect. Bird is twelve years old and living with his father. Three years ago his mother, Margaret Miu, left them. A line from one of her poems became the rallying cry of anti-PACT protests. Bird quickly learned that everyone associated him with his mother even though he doesn't know where she is or why she left. One day he receives a postcard in the mail from her - no words, just a drawing. It triggers a memory that leads to him tracking her down and finding out what really happened when she left.

Celeste Ng is a very talented author. Each of her books is so different, yet all draw you into the character's world. The post-PACT world that she builds in Our Missing Hearts is terrifying because it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch from a possible reality. People lash out when they are afraid and want to find someone to pin their anger and fear on. COVID also highlighted just how far people are willing to go in the name of "the greater good." Historically children have been taken from parents as a means of control - and often it works for a long time until enough people are willing to stand up and stop things. We never learn from history either - atrocities against Indigenous people, slavery, the Holocaust, Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, etc. What happens to the few who choose to stand up to what they see as injustice? Can one person make a difference in a society that seems happy to turn a blind eye? These are all issues that Ng explores brilliantly in Our Missing Hearts. I also LOVED that she made librarians the main part of the network of resistance in the book too.

Some quotes I liked:

"Did you know, their teacher explained the year before, that paper books are out of date the instant they're printed? The beginning of the year welcome talk. All of them sitting crisscross applesauce on the carpet at her feet. That's how fast the world changes. And our understanding of it, too. She snapped her fingers. We want to make sure you have the most current information. This way we can be sure nothing you use is outdated or inaccurate. You'll find everything you need right here online...So you banned all those books, Sadie said, and the teacher had blinked twice at her over her glasses. Oh no, sweetie, she said. People think that sometimes, but no. No one bans anything. Haven't you ever heard of the Bill of Rights?...Every school makes its own independent judgments, the teacher said. About which books are useful to their students and which books might expose them to dangerous ideas...It's our job as teachers, she said, her voice soft but firm...To decide what's worth keeping and what isn't." (p. 31-32)

"PACT, its proponents insisted, would strengthen and unify the nation. Left unsaid was that unity required a common enemy. One box in which to collect all their anger; one straw man to wear the hats of everything they feared." (p. 186)

"All over the country, a scattered network of librarians would note this information, collating it with the Rolodex in their minds, cross-referencing it with the re-placed children they might have learned about. Some kept a running written list, but most, wary, simply trusted to memory. An imperfect system, but the brain of a librarian was a capacious place...Librarians, of all people, understood the value of knowing, even if that information could not yet be used." (p. 236)

Exit Interview: the life and death of my ambitious career by Kristi Coulter

In 2006 at the age of thirty-five, Kristi Coulter left her comfortable yet boring job for a middle management job at Amazon. While Coulter was ambitious and wanted to be challenged in her job, she could have never foreseen just how challenging working at Amazon would be in a variety of ways. Coulter stayed at Amazon for 11 years and by the time she finally did quit, only 2% of employees had been there as long as she had. While we've all likely read horror stories about working at Amazon I think most of what I've read has to do with the warehouse workers and delivery drivers. But, we've all also likely read stories about how crazy working for huge corporations like Amazon/Facebook/Google/etc. can be too with tons of hours and cutthroat ethics. Coulter's experience is different in that when she started working at Amazon they were already well-known, not just starting out. But, they were also on the verge of the marketplace domination that they have now and she was a part of many of the new "non-book/media" things they were starting to sell. Her experience is also unique in that she is a woman in middle management who desperately wanted to advance and yet never seemed to meet the ever-changing requirements. She also quickly noticed that there were very few women on her level and even fewer above her. While she didn't experience the kind of bro/fraternity culture/sexual harassment many employees of silicon valley or other start-ups did, she did experience a serious glass ceiling and obvious (to her and other women) gender discrimination. She was once called "stupid" in a meeting with a peer-level manager and was also told by her superior at the time that in order to move up to the next level of management she would need to "change the world" - no other direction. But that also could give plausible explainability for never promoting her too.

While reading the book I wondered why she did stay as long as she did. I was also surprised by how little she seemed to tell her husband about the discrimination and craziness - I think she knew he would want her to quit. It's not worth fighting for recognition in an organization that doesn't see you a full person. When she finally does leave it's after a New York Times article is published that highlights just how poorly women are treated as Amazon employees and Jeff Bezo's reaction to the article, basically blowing it off. I'm sure nothing has changed at Amazon because Amazon's sole purpose is to make Jeff Bezos shit-tons of money. And for everyone who proclaims to hate Amazon, probably most of those people are still buying stuff from them because it's just so easy. I really like Coulter's memoir. While I personally can't relate to being so ambitious that I would put up with all the stuff she did, she did an excellent job of giving us an inside peek of what it was like to be a female manager at Amazon between 2006 and 2017.

Some quotes I liked:

"It's starting to bug me how much John downplays his career...Maybe I'm being sucked into power-couple fantasies, or maybe there's just something about his refusal to cop to being successful that makes me feel alone in this new life. Maybe it's the innate male confidence that eats at me. He doesn't need to puff himself up, because no one's invested in tearing him down." (p. 169-170)

"2013: At performance review time, I notice that a man who works for me and is one level down in the organization makes forty thousand dollars a year more than I do...I ask my HR rep if she knows what's up. 'There are just so many factors that go into compensation,' she says. 'It's hard to say.' She suggest I contact the comp team directly. 'This is a really busy time of year for them, though.' I wait until the review cycle wraps up and then I email them but I never get a response. The man is a poor fit for his job and impervious to my coaching and every time I see him I think about those forty thousand dollars." (p. 181-182)

"This is the moment it finally truly lands that I will never outrun my gender. Of course on some level I've known that for years, but never so starkly. I will never overcome the belief that the presence of women means a slower, softer, weaker Amazon. There is nothing I can do to make these men any smarter or less blind, because they're the norm and I'm a deviation." (p. 290)

Stained Glass Ceilings: how evangelicals do gender and practice power by Lisa Weaver Swartz

Stained Glass Ceilings is an academic study comparing and contrasting how gender is theologically taught and practiced at two prominent seminaries. Swartz interviews students and professors at both Southern Seminary (a Southern Baptist denomination based seminary) and Asbury Theological Seminary (a Wesleyan, non-denominational seminary). The whole book is only 4 chapters - how gender is theologically taught at both seminaries and then how gender plays out in practice at both seminaries. Her basic finding is pretty sad to me - Southern is a complementarian theology so they have VERY prescribed roles for both men and women particularly when it comes to ministry/church leadership. Asbury is an egalitarian theology so they are open to women being called to full time ministry and/or church leadership - yet it doesn't play out that way in real life. Asbury focuses on gender-blindness and seems to think that since they support women in ministry/church leadership that that is the end of the discussion/issue. When in reality women's experiences DO matter because if you never hear about the problems women have in ministry you can't help correct them. By seeing it as a non-issue you actually invalidate any issues that someone does have - this can obviously apply to other issues beyond gender as well. It was also shocking to me how many of the Asbury students were vehemently anti-feminist - that totally didn't make sense for an egalitarian focused seminary. It was just sad for me to see that the women's experience as Asbury wasn't better. Swartz actually says in her introduction that while writing this book she "...often recalled Mark Noll's words in the opening paragraph of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: 'This book is an epistle from a wounded lover' (1995). This book is, likewise, a work of both critical scholarship and Christian lament." (p. 15-16). While it was an interesting book, it was not an easy read and was very scholarly. Would I have still bought it if I knew this on the front end? Probably, but it was not a book you could easily pick up and read a few pages then put down. But, for women in the Church it's still an important read.

Some quotes I liked:

"Two decades after the Conservative Resurgence, gender egalitarianism remains a symbolic foe. It is also a conveniently tangible one. The conservative warriors of the resurgence battled over far more than gender, but an enemy as nebulous as 'liberalism' can be difficult to combat. It is much easier to attack the visible practice of allowing women in the pulpits." (p. 41)

[On the topic of Southern Seminary President Al Mohler speaking at Brigham Young University, a Mormon college] "Later, when I interviewed Mohler in his office, he explained the visit to me, reiterating, '[Mormons] are way beyond our confession. We do not recognize them as Christian, but on issues of family structure and many deep moral convictions there's commonality there.'...[then asked about commonality with egalitarian Christians] 'I think those relationships are going to be quite strained, more so than even in the past as we go into the future.' 'Why is that?' I pressed. 'Because,' he answered, 'I think the hermeneutic involved in egalitarianism is going to have a great deal of difficulty withstanding some of the other cultural pressures.' For Mohler, fears that an egalitarian reading of the Bible would lead to an interpretive slippery slope seem to have stymied alliance with egalitarian Christians, even other evangelicals." (p. 42) [Mind-blowing to me that a complementarian would choose to side with Mormons than other egalitarian Christians]

"Renee, one of the few single women enrolled in Southern's MDiv program, confessed to me that she had struggled with the complementarian framework for much of her life: 'I always thought that something was wrong with my personality, because I'm very talkative, very outgoing. I'm very opinionated and I have all these [ideas]...I want to lead things. So how do I do that in a biblical sense? I always felt like something was wrong with me, like God had created me right and I just messed it up.'" (p. 82)

"Dan did, however, acknowledge the context: 'I know traditionally it's been males who have dominated.' He nevertheless failed to engage the enduring legacy this tradition left in its wake. Instead, he worried about the possibility of what he called 'reverse domination' of women over men. Others agreed. Struggles to gain power have no place in a unified Church." (p. 103)

"Even the most enthusiastic boosters of genderblind equality, however, often recognized a problem. Some of the same administrators who insisted that Asbury was free from sexism also expressed bewilderment at how difficult it was to attract good women faculty members...They could not explain why men and women, equally called by God, might navigate uneven paths toward answering those calls." (p. 121)

"Clear policies and biblical teachings might support a woman's right to pursue church leadership, but she must also overcome cultural forces that normalize men's perspectives, leadership styles, and bodily mannerisms." (p. 136)

2023 Year of Reading

 In 2022 I lowered by Goodreads reading goal to 75 and I kept the same goal for 2023. However, my Dad passed away unexpectedly in June of 2023 and that derailed a lot of things in my life. I was able to get back to reading but there were several weeks of not reading in the summer. At that point I decided that I didn't care if I met my goal and wasn't going to push myself too hard to try to meet it. Well, in December I really had a big reading month and realized I was 1 book away from meeting my goal. So, I did read a short book on December 31 just to meet my goal of 75. I also read 25 cookbooks this year. Here are my Top 10 books (mix of fiction and non-fiction), Top 5 cookbooks, and the Worst 5 books I read:

Top 10 Books

We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian

Cheap Land Colorado by Ted Conover

Waco Rising by Kevin Cook

The Woman They Wanted by Shannon Harris

Chenneville by Paulette Jiles

On Our Best Behavior by Elise Lochnen

All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore

Homestead Tsunami by Joel Salatin

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Top 5 Cookbooks

Still We Rise by Erika Council

Zucchini Love by Cynthia Graubart

The Ranch Table by Elizabeth Poett

Clean & Delicious by Dani Spies

Seinfeld: the official cookbook by Julie Tremaine

Worst 5 Books

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

Feral by Emily Pennington

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbe

December 2023 Cookbook Reviews

 

Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus

I recently started milling my own flour from whole wheat and have been looking for books in my public library that have recipes for freshly milled flour and/or talk about freshly milled flour. There have been very few in my library. But one of them is this one - Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus. She founded Carolina Ground Mill in Asheville, NC - one of the only stone ground mills that also sources locally grown wheat to mill. I had heard of Carolina Ground before but this book gives the background on how and why Lapidus started this mill and its importance in the NC local food movement. The first half of the book is Lapidus's personal story and how she started Carolina Ground Mill. It also includes features of other local bakers who are part of the mill cooperative and test bake with new types of milled flours and grains. The second half of the book is recipes. My only complaint about the recipes is that most of them cater to sourdough or naturally leavened bread. While she does include a good tutorial on creating a natural leaven, I was personally looking for more recipes that are for freshly milled flour. I do think this is a good book that focuses on the importance of sourcing local food/ingredients. It may be one I purchase in the future since the focus is on NC too.

December 2023 Reviews

 

The Woman They Wanted by Shannon Harris

Shannon Harris didn't grow up in church or the evangelical homeschooling world. Yet she ended up becoming Christian "royalty" by marrying Joshua Harris, the famed author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and eventual head pastor of Sovereign Grace church. Shannon's story is sad. A friend invited her to church and she really enjoyed the music so she kept visiting. Eventually she got a part time job at the church and that was how she met Josh. Their "courtship"/relationship seemed really odd given how much control CJ Mahaney had over Josh and who he would marry. That the poster boy for purity culture and courtship would marry someone who didn't grow up in church and wasn't a virgin is pretty crazy for that culture. As a new believer she was swept up in the church culture and any red flags she saw could be explained away as someone who didn't grow up going to church - maybe this is how it is and I just don't know. What's most sad is how she was groomed/prepared for being Josh's wife. She wasn't allowed to have her non-Christian friends in the wedding, she was pressured to get rid of a ring that a previous boyfriend had given her, she was explicitly told any dreams or career plans had to be given up so that she could support Josh and the church. I'm still not sure why she went along with all this given her background. Someone who grew up in that culture, sure. I don't know if it was something about her personality or what but she initially bought into everything they were telling her - until she didn't. The memoir is sparely written but she is able to say SO MUCH with so few words. This isn't a tell-all of all the inside bullshit from a toxic church and it's downfall. It's her looking back and seeing her own story in a new light - how she was pressured and shamed into being someone completely different - The Woman They Wanted.

I grew up in the evangelical church so I was familiar with the Christian bestseller, I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. I never read the book because even as a Christian I didn't agree with the premise of "courting" and not having any physical contact at all during dating. I knew that Harris had recanted (for lack of a better word) his views from that book after there was a huge backlash from (mostly) women who were seriously harmed by those views/theology. So when I heard about his now ex-wife writing a memoir I couldn't wait to read it. I never knew anything much about Josh Harris or Sovereign Grace church that he was a part of and eventually pastored, or the more recent allegations and abuse coverups. The only thing that was missing in my opinion from this book is a little more about her relationship with Josh - did they ever talk about these issues at all? Did he ever feel trapped in his role? etc.

I will say as someone who is still a practicing Christian all the one star reviews of this book that I read were people who don't like that Shannon left the Church/Sovereign Grace/complementarianism/etc. This book never pretended to be a theological exegesis. This is her story. And if you don't think she should get to tell her story then you're helping her make her point. Her voice was silenced and so are MANY other women in complementarian churches. That is NOT Biblical. So, be ware of the one star reviews that aren't about the book at all but are more about disagreement over theology.

Some quotes I liked:

"It was common for a new person to be invited to visit a Care Group. It was a brilliant retention tactic actually, because a person couldn't officially join a Care Group until becoming a member, and they couldn't become a member until they took a ten-week course and agreed in writing to what they had learned...Once you completed the course on the church doctrine, the next step was to go for a new member's interview with a pastor. There you'd need to tell your story, and the pastors had to be satisfied that you were a 'real Christian,' because there were so many counterfeits these days, they said. If you made it this far then you were in, but not until you agreed to do two things: attend a small group regularly and commit to a volunteer team. Oh, and agree to be put under church discipline if necessary." (p. 38) [SO. MANY. RED. FLAGS.]

"Modesty is one of those catch-all words that the church loves. It becomes sort of a broom and is used to shoo away all kinds of unwanted behavior according to personal preference. I used to think of clothing mostly when I heard the word modesty, but I realize now it is more all-encompassing that that. Modesty is a state of being. What the church was really asking was for women to diminish themselves in any and every way. This one tiny, soft-sounding word was actually razor sharp. In one fell swoop it cut us down to smaller size saying, Be less. Less visible. Less loud. Less colorful. Less present." (p. 111)

"Being his wife also meant that we were always 'on.' Even our private life was subservient to my husband's career and the church. One Valentine's dinner I wanted to have a glass of wine and Josh asked me not to for fear it would get back to someone higher up. One day I came home to discover my childhood music collection had been thrown away for the very same reason. I had to return the prenatal yoga video I purchased in case someone saw it and thought we were turning Buddhist. Big church brother was watching over us all the time. This became very draining for me. There was no place, public or private, where I could let my hair down and relax." (p. 118)

"The church split and all that came with it devastated me. My whole world just crumbled in an instant. Relationships I'd built my life around just turned to dust in my hands...And the hypocrisy of it all was too much to take. To have heard the words forgiveness and grace in hundreds of sermons, thousands of prayers, in every quote, every song, at every meeting and then to discover that in real life it had no impact on our actual relationships...I had never experienced something so deeply and profoundly disturbing in all my life." (p. 132)

"I remembered something else, too. I remembered that love should feel like love. Whether it is friendship love or God's love or parental love or spousal love it doesn't matter. Love should feel like love. If it feels like something less, then it probably is." (p. 168)

"I assumed the church understood love. I assumed it loved me, a woman. It never occurred to me that misogyny was a reason behind the teaching of submission. Or that shaming those living outside the box of patriarchal norms was really just a way of hiding hatred and fear. This has to be one of the greatest ironies of the church. To proclaim a Creator so loudly, yet disrespect the creation so deeply." (p. 215)

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Books & Banter, re-read)

Bill Furlong is living a quiet, unremarkable life in Ireland in 1985. While times are tough with factories and businesses closing down, Furlong is still doing fine delivering coal and wood to locals. Winter is his busiest time and while delivering coal to the local Catholic church Furlong uncovers a distressing "open secret" relating to the local Magdalene laundry. This discovery causes Furlong to think about his own origins more and just how good his own family has things now. But, instead of minding his own business, Furlong decides to do something that will definitely have repercussions for his family and the troubled young woman he helps.

This novella is beautifully written in a quiet, sparse way. Bill Furlong is a wonderful character and I'd love to see a follow up novel set a few years after this one to see what happens to everyone. I felt like it was kind of a twist or remake of the Nativity story in some ways. I had heard of the Magdalene laundries, but after reading this book I read more about it and it is certainly appalling. I appreciate the way the author drew attention to this issue is a unique way through this novel. While not a traditional "happy" Christmas book definitely a good book to read around the holidays. Hopefully my book club will enjoy it as our holiday read this year.

Notes on re-reading 12/5/23:

I was almost able to read this book in one sitting. Somehow it seemed shorter reading it a second time. I liked it equally as much as when I read it the first time. I do really like how the author did such a good job of exploring a very complicated issue with so few words. Very sparely written but powerful. Bill Furlong is a wonderful character and I'd love to see a sequel one day with an update about Sarah.

A quote I liked:

"As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?" (p. 113)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (Evening Edition, re-read)

Harry Potter is famous among the wizarding world, but he doesn't even know he's a wizard. All he knows is that his parents died when he was a baby and he's been living with his awful Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and cousin Dudley for the past 10 years. As his 11th birthday approaches odd things start happening around him. On his birthday he finds out that his parents were actually wizards and were killed by Voldemort, a powerful wizard who chose the dark side. But when he tried to kill Harry something happened that seems to have (at least partially) destroyed Voldemort and his powers. Now that he's 11, Harry is going to be enrolled in Hogwarts Wizard school. Hogwarts changes everything for Harry - he's popular already, he makes friends, excels in school, and finally feels like he has somewhere he belongs. However, it appears Voldemort may be trying to make a comeback and Harry feels like he must try to fight back against this dark magic that threatens the world he's only just come to know. Harry along with his trusty friends Ron and Hermione fall into a wild ride of magical adventures in this first book of the Harry Potter series.

I read this book for the first time in the early 2000's (before Goodreads) and loved it. I went on to read the whole series and watch all the movies (which do a great job capturing the books as well). Rowling does such a good job with the whole Hogwarts/wizarding world, as well as the characters. Harry is a perfect underdog you want to cheer on and see succeed. The friendships and characters only get stronger and better as the series goes on. One of my book clubs selected this for our "classic" book this year. I'll be curious to see what they think of this one if they haven't read it before. There has already been a little debate about whether or not it should be considered a "classic." I personally think Rowling is an amazing author and the Harry Potter books will stand the test of time and definitely deserve the "classic" label.

A quote I liked:

"You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them." (p. 297)

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

I absolutely LOVED Evicted and was excited when I heard that Matthew Desmond had a new book coming out. But, I was disappointed with Poverty, By America. Evicted was that perfect kind of non-fiction book that draws you in immediately and you just can't put it down. It read like a story even though there were still plenty of facts and statistics. Poverty reads like a PhD dissertation - tons of facts and stats and very little personal stories. With a topic like this you need the personal stories to draw you in and feel the impact - that was what was so well done in Evicted. Plus, poverty is such a broad topic that it's hard to narrow down the causes and potential solutions in one short book (only 189 pages). Desmond points out some obvious issues around poverty, but he didn't have much in the way of solutions. I agreed with many of his points but I just don't know that poverty could ever be totally eradicated - there are just way too many variables at play. One thing kept running through my mind (and also did while I was reading Evicted) is the Bible verse 1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is the root of all evil..." Money isn't inherently wrong, wealth isn't inherently wrong - but the LOVE of money and the willingness to do anything to anyone all the time to keep lining your pockets is what's behind a lot of the poverty issues. From payday loans, rent hikes, low wages, the gig economy, etc. are all ways that people or companies can keep more of the profits for themselves instead of just offering a fair service. But, again this is so complex I just don't think trying to be "poverty abolitionist" is going to fix everything. This was a disappointing read for me. Definitely NOT another Evicted.

Some quotes I liked:

[On the rise and reliance on contract workers in all spheres] "Of the roughly 750,000 workers around the globe who help make and sell Apple products, only around 63,000 work directly for Apple." (p. 53)

[On the exorbitant interest on payday loans] "The APR for a two-week $300 loan can reach 664 percent in Texas, 516 percent in Wisconsin, and 460 percent in California...Except that when the loan comes due, you usually still happen to be broke. So you ask for an extension, which will cost you. If you took out a two-week $400 loan with a $60 fee ($15 per $100), the loan officer might allow an extension if you pay the $60 fee when the original loan comes due. Then he will issue another fee, say for an additional $60. Just like that, you are charged $120 for borrowing $400, and that's if you as for only a single extension...The average borrower stays indebted for five months, paying $520 in fees to borrow $375. Keeping people indebted is, of course, the ideal outcome for the payday lender. It's how they turn a $15 profit into a $150 one." (p. 75-76)

Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways by Brittany Means

Brittany Means grew up with almost no stability. Her earliest memories are being in the car with her Mom driving - driving to someone, away from someone, just driving. When she would ask her Mom "Where are we going?" she would reply, Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways. Sadly, Brittany's life was hell. Almost every bad thing you can imagine happened to her - often multiple times. Her entire childhood was trauma, poverty, abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional), addiction (her mother's), instability, hoarding, and some extreme Pentecostal Christianity thrown in as well. Literally every single adult in her life failed her over and over again. It's almost amazing in a terrible way how every time it would seem like things might get better, they would get worse instead. It was also amazing in a bad way how many times CPS was called and didn't dig deep enough to see what was going on and how she was coached to give the "right" answers. Her half brother in addition to all the other trauma was actually abducted by a stranger, molested, and almost murdered. I mean how much could happen to these kids?! I think the hardest part to read about was her abusive relationship with her high school boyfriend. His family had taken her in after her Mom abandoned her again. But, they had to keep their relationship a secret while she was living there and it was VERY abusive in every way. It seemed like it could have been such a great opportunity for some stability and an actual home, then it too turned into yet another trauma for her. College was her escape and that's where she met her current boyfriend who was finally someone good for her and to her. College is also where she discovered therapy and finally started addressing all the trauma she'd experienced and started working on creating healthier ways for herself. Knowing she survived everything and is a functional adult is amazing. Brittany is a great writer but there was just SO MUCH BAD STUFF that it was a hard book to read. Like other dysfunctional family/trauma memoirs this won't be for everyone.

Some quotes I liked:

"I knew that the first-grade teacher hated me for never finishing the work packets and for humming to myself without realizing it. She looked at me the way people in the store looked at me sometimes, like I was failing some test I never knew I'd started." (p. 155)

"Planting a seed is easy. Tending to it so it can grow is the hard part." (p. 281)

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn by Will Harris

Will Harris is the 4th generation to farm his family's land in Georgia. His father started industrializing their farm and Will picked it up and continued in that vein for awhile as well. Then he started to realize that industrial farming was hurting everything - their land, the animals, the farmers, the community, and even the food. Because he was already financially stable, he started making incremental changes that over time lead to some very big changes. He eventually built a slaughter facility on his farm to be able to control even how his animals were slaughtered. White Oak Pastures farm now has 6 generations of the Harris family living on it and is considered a pioneer in the regenerative farming movement.

I was all set to LOVE this book, but I was disappointed. The writing felt very rambling and could have been organized better. It also seems a little suspicious that suddenly Will Harris had this epiphany one day while his cattle were being loaded to go to a feed lot and he decided to completely change every aspect of the farm. That needed to be more fleshed out in my opinion. It was portrayed like this overnight HUGE change. While he did talk about things that were failures as he started to transition the farm, overall the depiction of this seemed a little too easy and simplistic. I also found it interesting that his father started having dementia in his early 60's and it was never mentioned that maybe that was because of all the chemicals he used and was exposed to while farming. But this was the reason Will came back to the farm to run things when his Dad started to decline more.

I also did not appreciate that he acted like he was THE regenerative farming pioneer and NO ONE ELSE WAS DOING THIS at the time. Polyface farm started in 1961 - they didn't achieve the fame they have now until later when Joel was running it, but other people were doing regenerative farming in the US before the 1990's. Maybe Harris didn't know about Joel Salatin. But that's hard to imagine as it was a very small world of farmers like that in the 90's and early 2000's. He never mentioned Joel or Polyface at all which seemed odd to me as Joel is such a huge voice for this movement and has been for a LONG time. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan that featured Joel was published in 2006 and really sparked a lot of the public interest in this kind of farming and food.

Overall, I just didn't care for the tone of the book. Harris comes across as arrogant in my opinion and like he was the only one doing this for so long (which is not the case). The book was rambling and kind of all over the place. There are many MUCH better books out there about regenerative farming and the pioneers, or current voices, of the movement. Check out anything written by Joel Salatin or Ben Hewitt.

There were some quotes I liked:

"Separating animals from the landscapes they evolved to live on - grasslands for herbivores, forests for hogs - was our original sin. Moving them indoors into industrial-scale houses, or fully away from their natural environment in concrete feedlots, was the ultimate arrogance." (p. 125-26)

"I believe that to raise food the right way, humane slaughter must be brought under the farmer's oversight - whether it happens on their own farm is not as important as whether the farmer has a direct connection to the process, and some influence over how it is done. This is extremely unusual even today." (p. 136)

[During COVID] "On our cyclical farm we didn't miss a beat. That's not said from a place of arrogance. But the pandemic impacted us a lot less than it impacted the Big Food system, because we are not as dependent on external sources for the things we need done, and we don't rely on other entities to take our products to market. Building a system in which we have control over production, processing, and marketing made it easier for us to pivot under duress." (p. 244)

Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus

I recently started milling my own flour from whole wheat and have been looking for books in my public library that have recipes for freshly milled flour and/or talk about freshly milled flour. There have been very few in my library. But one of them is this one - Southern Ground by Jennifer Lapidus. She founded Carolina Ground Mill in Asheville, NC - one of the only stone ground mills that also sources locally grown wheat to mill. I had heard of Carolina Ground before but this book gives the background on how and why Lapidus started this mill and its importance in the NC local food movement. The first half of the book is Lapidus's personal story and how she started Carolina Ground Mill. It also includes features of other local bakers who are part of the mill cooperative and test bake with new types of milled flours and grains. The second half of the book is recipes. My only complaint about the recipes is that most of them cater to sourdough or naturally leavened bread. While she does include a good tutorial on creating a natural leaven, I was personally looking for more recipes that are for freshly milled flour. I do think this is a good book that focuses on the importance of sourcing local food/ingredients. It may be one I purchase in the future since the focus is on NC too.

Food, Inc. 2 by Karl Weber, ed.

The first Food, Inc. documentary was life changing for me. I had recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, then after I watched the first Food, Inc. I totally changed how I ate. I stopped buying meat at the grocery store and only purchased it directly from local farmers. We started growing more food, learned to can, and basically changed how we ate. So, needless to say I was very excited to hear that Food, Inc. 2 was coming! While waiting for the new documentary I decided to go ahead and read this companion book to the second documentary. I was a little concerned that the focus might be on more plant-based and fake meat, but that was not the case. There were some mentions, but overall the book is still a good collection of essays by a variety of authors continuing the discussion on our current food system and how it could be better. I love that the first section is essays by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser who were the narrators of the original Food, Inc. documentary. There was a ton of really interesting information that continues to highlight just how awful the current industrial food system is for everyone. I can't wait to see the new documentary! In the meantime I'm still reading about our food system and still adding to what I'm doing at home and supporting my local lunatic farmers.

There were lots of quotes I liked:

In April 2020, "...President Donald Trump issued an executive order that declared meatpacking plants to be 'critical infrastructure' under the Defense Production Act of 1950 and prohibited closure by state health authorities." (p. 12) under the guise that the American people NEEDED this meat that was being processed especially during COVID. " In 2022 "The House subcommittee found that the risk of severe meat shortages, cited repeatedly by the industry to avoid worker protections, was a myth. For example, during the spring of 2020, the United States had 622 million pounds of pork in cold storage - enough to supply American grocery stores for more than a year. 'During the first three quarters of 2020, Smithfield exported 90 percent more pork to China than it did during the same period in 2017, while JBS appears to have exported a whopping 370 percent more,' the subcommittee report said. The profits of the meatpacking industry skyrocketed during the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, Tyson's net income increased from $2 billion to $3 billion, while the net income of JBS rose from $937 million to $4.2 billion." (p. 22)

"Many ultra-processed foods are deliberately formulated to be hyper-palatable, instantly gratifying, and habit-forming. A recent review of the science concludes that some 'are created in ways that parallel the development of addictive drugs, including the inclusion of an unnaturally high dose of rewarding ingredients that are rapidly absorbed into the system and enhanced through additives.'" (p. 44)

"In July 2021, the Rockefeller Foundation released a report estimating the true cost of food in the United States. It found that while Americans reached into their wallets and paid just over $1 trillion to purchase food in 2019, the actual cost - including the economic toll of pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, health care, and other factors - was three times that amount, at more than $3 trillion." (p. 92)

"...Iowa is home to twenty-three million pigs at any given moment, an increase of 64 percent in the last twenty years. And pig waste is a real shitstorm compared to chicken waste. In 2019, a University of Iowa research engineer calculated that, while Iowa has a population of just 3.2 million people, it produces the waste of 168 million. In November 2019, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources found that more than half the state's rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands failed to meet water quality standards due to pollutants including nitrogen, E. coli, and cyanobacteria. The agency has documented hundreds of manure spills from confinement operations, which regularly kill thousands of fish and other aquatic organisms." (p. 94)

"However, in the United States, despite the populist movement, anti-tipping sentiment was largely quelled in the 1850s and 1860s due to restaurant employers' quest to seek ever-cheaper labor. In 1853, waiters in large northeastern cities, who were mostly white men who received full wages and no tips, went on strike to demand higher salaries from their employers. In response, restaurants replaced these male waiters with women entering the workforce, offering them far less wages. Twelve years later, when emancipation finally resulted in the slaves being freed, restaurant owners sought an even cheaper source of labor. They hired newly freed African Americans arriving in northern cities after emancipation, offering them service jobs with no wages at all - only the opportunity to obtain white customers' tips." (p. 105)

"A 2021 study on the impact of subsidies on farmer behavior also concluded that subsidies often disincentivize producers from risk-mitigation efforts. If crop insurance and subsidy payments neutralize negative impacts from low prices or poor yields, a farmer has less incentive to take proactive steps against those outcomes - for example, by paying for cover crops to boost soil health, diversifying rotations, or repairing degraded riparian buffers to prevent nutrient runoff." (p. 126)

"Rather than encouraging Americans to adopt healthier eating habits, US industry has a vested interest in producing and selling medications aimed at alleviating diseases caused by unhealthy foods. Accordingly, between 1999 and 2018, the pharmaceutical industry spent roughly $4.7 billion on lobbying while making $414 million in contributions to political campaigns. It shelled out another $877 million in contributions to state-based candidates. Most of these contributions were targeted toward senior legislators responsible for drafting health-care laws or committees that oversee referenda on drug pricing and regulation." (p. 127-28)

"...data from OSHA summarized in a 2019 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report shows that in the United States, a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for in-patient treatment about every other day between 2015 and 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, eight workers died, on average, each year because of an incident in their plant." (p. 210)

"Charles Eisenstein writes, 'When you eat something, you eat everything that happened to make that food come into existence. You are affirming a certain version of the world.' He then asks, 'Does it nourish you? Are you happy with the reality you are saying yes to?'" (p. 235)

Homestead Tsunami: good for country, critters, and kids by Joel Salatin

Joel Salatin is my hero. In his most recent book, Homestead Tsunami, he looks around at the wave of new homesteaders and writes this book for them. Well, actually he had 3 people in mind when writing this book 1) people who think they want to homestead and are afraid to take the plunge, 2) people who are currently homesteading and are getting burned out or discouraged, and 3) people who don't understand why a friend of family member picked up and moved out to the country to raise their own food. During COVID lockdowns baby chicks sold out, canning jar lids couldn't be found anywhere, seeds sold out, and the #1 things searched in Google was sourdough recipes - all this made Joel very happy to see so many people turning back to homesteading basics. I don't know how you could ever read anything by Joel or hear him speak and not be encouraged - regardless of where you are on your own homesteading/food journey. He is so inspirational and moving and in this book he expertly lays out all the ways that homesteading is better than all the alternatives. He covers everything from land, food, animals, nature, entertainment, relationships, ingenuity, and much, much more. I'm so thankful for Joel and his encouragement in all the forms it takes. The world is hard, yet while reading this book I'm reminded of so many of the good things. I don't know if I would really consider myself a "homesteader" but I definitely have the "homesteading mindset." I've been gardening and canning for over 13 years now and it never gets old. Growing your own food and cooking and preserving it is exciting every time. But, Joel does a much better job of describing it than I can - pick up this book and be inspired to start your own homesteading journey.

Some quotes I liked:

"Money you don't have to spend is worth more than face value. If you save a dollar, it's really worth about $1.40 because in order to spend a dollar, you have to earn the dollar plus all the taxes associated with it. If you don't have to spend a dollar, you don't have to pay taxes on the earnings and you don't have to pay sales taxes when you buy. These are huge savings." (p. 28)

"The goal must be to take all that angst, all that negative energy that many of us feel right now, and channel it to a positive solution. As homesteaders, when the culture heads like a stampeding herd toward shallowness and dystopia, we must be beacons of hope and help." (p. 32)

"In a day when the word defund seems to be bandied about as the ultimate test of ideological purity, how about we apply the word to things like trash, monocrops, and chemicals? Let's defund GMOs and factory chickens. Let's defund processed foods and unpronounceable ingredients. While we're funding our own enjoyable kitchens and homesteads, we defund outfits that cheat and cheapen. That's a great twofer." (p. 227)

[A friend in Norway who's family owned land going back 500 years] "To hold onto such a massive parcel for several centuries seemed almost other-worldly to me and prompted me to query him on how it could be done. Without hesitating, he responded, 'primogenitor.' I blinked. 'Say what?' He laughed good naturedly and explained the European custom, dating back to Biblical times, that required giving the firstborn either all or most of the family land in order to keep it from being broken up...Noting that my friend was the second-born son, I couldn't resist asking, 'How does it make you feel, as the second-born?' Without a hint of resentment, he answered, 'No problem. My whole role in life is to make sure my older brother doesn't lose it.' It was such a charitable yet matter-of-fact answer I was dumbfounded. Upon later contemplation, I realized the social equity, the familial power, behind both the statement and the practice. This fellow grew up in a culture where legacy trumped equity. Where the family's interests outweighed individual aspirations. Done at scale and ubiquitous in the culture, such thinking creates social cohesion Americans can only imagine. You only find thinking and contentment like this is extremely old, stable, homogeneous cultures." (p. 255)

"Modern American culture seems fixated on chaos, on destroying nature's design and God's order. Our plants and animals know what they are and how to act. A pepper plant never sends out curly, grasping vine tentacles. A carrot doesn't mate with a radish. A pig doesn't wonder if it would be happier if it were a cow. Being this imbedded in a place that honors and respects the Creator's standards, boundaries, and designs brings solace to the soul. It massages our spirits with consistent common sense. It assures us that 'God's got this.' We need that." (p. 277)

Foster by Claire Keegan

I really enjoyed Keegan's book Small Things Like These, so I was excited to read another one by her. Foster is written in the same sparse style and it's amazing how much storyline and feeling she can pack into so few words. An unnamed child is taken to live with her aunt and uncle for the summer. Without it ever being spelled out you get the feeling that her parents are not great and have too many children already, yet another is on the way. The child quickly realizes how different this house is from her family's and what she feels for maybe the first time is real love. Her aunt and uncle take care of her lovingly and she experiences a calm, happy home. When it's time to go back home to her parents you see just how deeply the summer impacted the child and her aunt and uncle. The overall tone of the book is sadness mixed with hopefulness and similar to Small Things Like These there is an ambiguous ending. Keegan is an extremely talented author and I am already looking forward to more from her.