Odes for Foodies

When I found an easy recipe for angel food cake, I decided it was time to liberate the dozen eggs sitting in my crisper. The cake was wonderful with seasonal fresh strawberries. The only drawback was cleaning the ungreased footed bundt pan. What a horror.

Finding Olivia Ford’s “Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame” seemed timely, and reading through the table of contents from Tea Loaf to Treacle Tart had me wondering if it was a cookbook rather than fiction.

When Jenny becomes a finalist for the popular British Bakes, she bakes pastries for the show based on memories of what she ate at crucial points in her past. Who hasn’t had a bout of nostalgia when eating a favorite dish, but Jenny’s trip down memory lane has a secret she has hidden from her husband of almost sixty years.

You will probably guess the secret and predict the outcome – an easily digestible book.

Still hungry, I fed on Ruth Reichl’s “A Paris Novel,” an amazing tour of food and art. Having been a fan of Reichl’s nonfiction (“Garlic and Sapphires” is my favorite) based on her stint as a food critic, I wondered if her research for this novel has been in person at the restaurants she so carefully details. Her enamoured descriptions from appetizer to dessert, with accompanying wines, is the work of a true foodie with professional experience.

According to the author’s note, this book grew out of her editor’s request that she expand a chapter from her memoir about trying on a little black dress in Paris. The dress is the catalyst to finding new people, food, and art in Paris.

Although the many plot turns are sometimes pedantic, Reichl’s food writing is superb. She makes you hungry to find the dishes she is eating with such relish. I remember Gigi in the American musical based on the French novel by Colette, being schooled in how to eat ortolans, whole baby birds, but here Reichl’s heroine Stella eats them with gusto – “All her senses were concentrated in her mouth as her teeth crashed down again and again. She felt the skull crackle and tasted what must be brain. It was hot, it was primitive. It was exciting.”

Lots of reasons to go to Paris – and Ruth Reichl’s fictional food travelogue is a good one.

Anxiety

Listening today to Samir Chopra’s Smithsonian webinar “To Be is To Be Anxious” and his quote from Kierkegard – “…we want to live but we are scared to live…” triggered my recall of Sarah Bakewell’s book How to Live. I may read it again. Here is my review from 2011, when we had less to worry about.

https://ncbookbunch.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/the-worlds-first-blogger-montaigne/

I ordered Chopra’s book Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide. The author says to worry is just being human. Thank goodness.

In her review for the Wasington Post, Becca Rothfeld says “{The author’s} goal is to show that, even if we are fated to anxiety by our very nature, we needn’t be anxious about being anxious. Contra those who would abolish every form of friction or frustration, {Chopra} insists that anxiety is a way of honoring who and what we are. It is, in his words, ‘a fundamental human response to our finitude, mortality, and epistemic limitation.’ Who knows what sort of truncated beings we would become without it?”

What, me worry!

Tax Day

Although Americans mark this day as the deadline for rendering to Caesar, I imagine most days to be taxing for many who still watch the news or try to manage on their own through the muddle.

Things could be worse. I recently attended a presentation with the speaker admonishing the audience not to start sentences with “at least,” as in – at least you can still swallow, even if you lost all your teeth. Well meaning is not always a comfort.

Books can be a balm or a distraction and lately I’ve gotten less choosy about what I will read. The Prize books are not as appealing, while fantasy and romance have been sneaking into my repetoire – they seem less taxing.

One of my favorites is Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library.” I reviewed it back in 2020 – when life was taxing but at least I had a partner.

https://ncbookbunch.wordpress.com/2020/10/09/the-midnight-library-by-matt-haig/

More recent on my list:

The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

and the Sarah Maas books.

What are you reading?

Clear by Carys Davies

Davies use of beauty, calm, and fortitude amidst the turbulence of Scottish seas and a cruel historic mandate gives her short novel “Clear” an astounding force in its message. By combining two important nineteenth century hallmarks in Scottish history, the breaking away of Scottish Presbyterian ministers from the control of their wealthy land owning sponsors, and the Clearances, the cruel banishment of poor tenants from small islands in the North Sea to make way for profitable sheep grazing, Davies creates a story about two unlikely friends.

John Ferguson, a poor minister who has joined the freedom movement to establish a church without the encumbrance of wealthy patrons, decides to earn some money by agreeing to evict Ivar, the sole occupant of an isolated island off the coast of the Scottish mainland.

Within hours of finally landing on the island, John falls off a cliff, losing consciousness, and is rescued by Ivar. Although the two men do not share a language, Ivar tends John’s wounds and teaches him words in his language. They become friends and John is too ashamed to admit that he’s come to kick Ivar out of his home.

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Mary learns something about this particular clearance that causes her to set off in search of her husband. The resolution is abrupt when Mary arrives to rescue her husband, and she manages a sensible solution reaffirming the value of human connection, but sadly not stopping the unleashed greed. Clear is a short read with a powerful impact.

Anne Lamont’s Reading List

Someone mentioned Anne Lamont’s Ted Talk on “12 Truths…” so I looked for it on youtube -easy to find and something I will probably listen to again and again, both laughing and crying through it, and appreciating her last truth.

Next, I found her reading list; it’s short. I found the last book for $2.99 and a few in the library. I always appreciate a list of books to read and I’ve discovered books I never would have known about.

---

Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild

“I have been foisting this on everyone since the election. A famed sociologist from Berkeley spends months visiting the Louisiana Bayou and getting to know the people who live there—their values, problems, minds, hearts, lives, and dreams. What they tell us in their conversations and how Hochschild changes by listening to them give me hope for our country.” -AL

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin

“This is a beautiful, hilarious, big-hearted novel about four really good, slightly odd mixed-up people (like us) as they form couples: shy, worried, and brave. I have given away THOUSANDS of copies.” -AL

Praying for Sheetrock by Melissa Fay Greene

“This is one of my favorite nonfiction books ever. It’s about a small backwoods county in Georgia in the 1970s struggling to be included in the progress for civil rights and about the idealists who lead the cause against entrenched racism. It’s a story that reads like a novel, filled with eccentrics and ordinary folks. Lovely in every way. If you read it, you will owe me forever.” -AL

The Illustrated Rumi by Jelaluddin Rumi

“I love Rumi so much. I can open this book to any page, read any one of his poems, study any one of the illustrations, and feel spiritually rejuvenated—or at least a little less cranky and self-obsessed.” -AL

Women Food and God by Geneen Roth

“This is the most profound and helpful book on healing from the tiny, tiny, tiny issues around eating and body issues that some of us have had for, oh, most of our lives. Charming, wise, funny, and deep.” -AL