Each November, I used to check this book out of my local library and browse through its lovely pages. But alas, before I could get through – it had to be returned. I did this for three consecutive years, until this year – finally – I found a used copy at my favorite book store .
The Christmas Chronicles takes the reader from November through January and covers everything most-British-holiday.
Each day of the season, Mr. Slater writes about food and its preparation sensuously and lovingly, but also gardening, practical tips, and decorating his home. He delves into childhood memories and fascinating insights into Christmas traditions and their origins.
There are lots of recipes, many of which I would never attempt, but are bound to make the cold months in the UK bearable. There are mince pies, malt loaf, winter drinks and Christmas wreaths, candlelight and carols.
There are much-loved (again very British) Christmas classics, such as goose and turkey (and making the most of the leftovers), mincemeat pies and, the infamous Christmas pudding –a flaming dome of booze-drenched cake which is featured in many a Dickens’ Christmas.
Here’s one I have tagged and may try — Panna Cotta flavored with buttermilk with cranberry and orange sauce.
Here are some favorite quotes:
The icy prickle across your face as you walk out into the freezing air. The piercing burn to your sinuses, like wasabi. Your eyes sparkle, your ears tingle. The rush of cold to your head is stimulating, vital, energising.
Home means more to us in cold weather. Making ourselves comfortable is a duty. Making friends and family comfortable is an art.
And some photos – and a sample of the lovely text – click to make larger:
The book itself is gorgeous. It’s beautifully produced, with thick paper, and gold leaf on the cover which catches the light prettily — as a bonus, it has a ribbon bookmark (something I always appreciate).
This book is not for everyone but if you are (or know) a raging anglophile then this would be a wonderful gift for the season. It celebrates the joy of simple pleasures — such as a cup of hot chocolate or the scent of oranges spiked with cloves.
I’m loving reading it every day, (I’m a bit behind) and will miss dipping into it each day once I get to the end. It’s like a daily dose of Dickensian joy during the season.
I am reading, or rather trying to read, three different books and none of them have grabbed me as yet. And so I flip around from tome to tome hoping to settle into a groove, but so far, nothing. I am not alarmed, this happens sometimes and I know my reading will turn a corner.
In the meantime, a friend and Book Barmy follower asked me about Barbara Kingsolver and had I read her latest, award-winning novel, Demon Copperhead? Alas, I had to reply no, but explained Ms. Kingsolver is is one of my favorite authors. This intrepid reader asked, then why no reviews of her books on your blog?
Say what? I scrolled and searched this blog top to bottom and, she was right, nothing about Ms. Kingsolver anywhere! It’s time to correct this oversight right now.
The Bean Trees
This is Ms. Kingsolver’s debut novel which I read when first published way back in 1988, but its story is still clear in my mind. The Bean Trees tells the story of an improbable heroine named Marietta Greer. Marietta grew up being raised by a single mother in a small town in Kentucky. After high school and working in the town’s small hospital for 5 years, Marietta decides to take a road trip with an eye to settling somewhere else. Along the way, she stops at a diner for dinner. Coming out to her car afterwards, she finds a native American baby wrapped up in a blanket placed on her car seat. The baby’s aunt talks tearfully with her, begging Marietta to take the baby. The baby’s mother is dead and the father seems threatening. Under these circumstances, Marietta reluctantly accepts the baby and drives away. She names the child Turtle and gives herself a new name as well (Taylor). Together they travel to the outskirts of Tucson, where her car breaks down and they find themselves at an auto repair shop called Jesus Is Lord Used Tires which also happens to be a sanctuary for Central American refugees.
Here Taylor meets a pair pair of elderly ladies who watch over the children and another older woman who rescues Guatemalan refugees. She becomes part of this family of new friends and establishes a sense of home in this new location. It turns out, given her past abuse, Turtle needs all the love and support they can give her.
This is a impactful story of how a nurturing environment lets a child flourish. And at its heart, The Bean Trees is a most memorable novel about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising connections and heart in apparently empty places.
Pigs in Heaven
The sequel to The Bean Trees continues the story of Turtle and her adoptive mother Taylor. It opens with them living together in Tucson along with Taylor’s boyfriend. It’s a life that is not the most perfect of environments. They barely make ends meet, and although Taylor does her best, her income is limited. But she gives Turtle a great deal of love, and along with her boyfriend, they make up a family. Turtle seems happy, and after years of being mute, she’s learned to talk, and all seems to be going well.
Unfortunately, Cherokee attorney Annawake Fourkiller accidentally discovers the existence of 6-year-old Turtle, and learns that Taylor had illegally adopted Turtle outside the Cherokee nation. Annawake wants to rectify this problem, because she making the case that Turtle needs to be raised by the Cherokee. Taylor, wants to protect her child.
Turtle and Taylor flee their home and the boyfriend in Tucson, and are on the run. They live from motel room to motel room, eating what they can afford. It gets to a point where Taylor does not know what to do next, in fear that she and Turtle will be discovered and eventually Turtle will be taken away from her. Yet, she wonders if what she is doing to Turtle is the right thing to do. When Alice Greer, Taylor’s mother, gets involved, the story takes a surprising turn, and soon Turtle’s biological family gets involved as well. I was glued to the book, wanting to know whether Taylor gets to keep Turtle, or is told to hand over the child to the Cherokee Nation. Pigs in Heaven gives us a fictionalized glimpse into the past and present realities of Native American people.
Prodigal Summer
This is perhaps my favorite of Ms. Kingsolver’s novels. I happened to read it at a difficult time in my life, it captured my complete attention and I struggled to put it down for those pesky things that interrupt reading like working, eating, sleeping.
Prodigal Summer tells the story of three sets of characters living in the Appalachians in Virginia. Ms. Kingsolver gives these stories environmental themes starting with “Predators” which follows Deanna, a Forest Preserve ranger who lives alone in a small cabin high up Zebulon Mountain. She unexpectedly begins a romance with a roaming coyote poacher, although Deanna is working to protect a hidden den of coyotes. Next is “Moth Love” about newly married Lusa and her adjustment to life on her husband’s family farm and the unruly family that comes along with it. Finally there is “Old Chestnuts” which focuses on Garnett and Nannie, two elder folks who have lived next door to each other their whole lives. Their cantankerous relationship eventually arrives at mutual understanding and a unique sense of harmony.
The characters vividly jump off the page, and their stories and voices griped this reader all the way through. There are clear themes running through the book reflecting Ms. Kingsolver’s in depth knowledge of biology, farming, and evolution. The danger of man destroying earth’s creatures because of a domino effect, an exposition on crop insecticides and the devastating results.
Now I’ve just gone and made this book sound boring — but trust me, Prodigal Summer is anything but — it’s quietly gripping and life affirming. I loved the pure joy that shines through the pages. The contagious adoration, for nature — from top predators to insects, to extinct trees and blossoming weeds
A stellar story, a love-song to nature and life. I came away liking coyotes and grieving the American chestnut.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
This is a memoir which covers a year in which Ms. Kingsolver and her family spent eating only food they had either grown themselves or purchased from local farmers personally known to them. The author’s skill as a storyteller shines through, and there are some wonderful sections as she relates their adventures plotting how to foist some of their bumper zucchini harvest off on unsuspecting neighbors and how they helped their new turkeys re-learn the lost art of natural copulation.
I learned quite a bit about food and gardening, such as the biological secrets of root vegetables. Her chapter on asparagus helped me understand why the tough, road-hardened variety found in stores is only a pale shadow of an just-picked organically grown stalk. Her description of the succulent morels (almost) made me want to take up mushroom hunting (a high risk venture I fear) and I was greatly impressed on how this mild-mannered novelist “harvests” her chickens at home.
On the down side, Ms. Kingsolver’s memoir is laced with a rather heavy dose of preaching. The first part of this book is particularly thick with commentary on the evils of our current food system. She points out again (and again!) how much better food can taste when it hasn’t been subject to the rigors of corporate food production. More than once, I found myself slogging through sections that left me feeling guilty about some of the food in my kitchen…but, as I kept reading I was inspired to adopt some of her suggestions. Her sweet-potato quesadilla is a regular recipe on our menu and I still have to try her dried-tomato pesto.
Despite the meandering and Ms. Kingsolver’s need to argue every counter-point, I came away impressed and inspired by her strongest narrative: how a renewed connection to food transformed her family and their relationship with the community. By purchasing your neighbors food, you can help with the fossil fuel problem and keep their farm in business. Small yet significant gestures such as buying milk or eggs from the same family in your area keeps them in business and is a huge step in the right direction.
(As I write this we have just returned from out local farmer’s market with some lovely strawberries).
Flight Behavior
Thirteen years ago, this novel tackled climate change – before it became the current crisis we hear about every day. Dellarobia Turnbow a young Appalachian woman, is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She sees it as a sign from God that she should return to the farm and resurrect her marriage.
Actually, what Dellarobia witnessed was a swarm of Monarch butterflies, which normally winter in Mexico, but moved to her small town because of environmental changes. A lepidopterist (don’t you love that word?) comes to study them, and teaches Dellarobia about these butterflies and how the whole population of Monarchs could be in danger of extinction. This highlights her boredom with her husband and her desire for something bigger.
The book is partly a treatise on the dire consequences of climate change, and uses the fictional Feathertown, Appalachian people, as a counterpoint – those who tend to reject scientific explanations for changes in nature, regarding them as God’s will.
Flight Behavior didn’t have a strong plot in the usual sense, but the characters were interesting and the dangers of climate change were boldly drawn. It’s not my favorite of Ms. Kingsolver’s books, but it’s well-written and worth reading.
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One of the things I most admire about Ms. Kingsolver is how unique her books are from one another. She creates unforgettable, deeply drawn characters in compelling situations, all while delving into varying, and important, cultural and environmental themes. I always come away smarter and impressed — no — wowed by her writing.
I just took a break, because I remembered I had another of Ms. Kingsolver’s novels on my shelf – unread. Maybe this is the book I will finally settle upon.
I am focusing on happy things right now – walks with Husband, long talks with good friends, fresh peach ice cream, a pedicure, Netflix comedy specials, and finishing a page turner/thriller I started on the plane (more on that later).
The other day, I heard about new book from and co-written by Oprah (yes she’s baaaack) and it’s getting lots of press. More about that book HERE.
I may order this book from the library eventually, but in the meantime I remembered I had this one my shelves and dug it out the other day.
The Happiness Project: Or Why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have Way More Fun
I know I at least browsed through this book years ago, after picking it up at the library book sale, but I really didn’t remember it. I’m not a big fan of self-help books, but I decided to give it try again ~~
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project. She decided to spend a year devoting each month to a “theme” designed to make herself happier and then write about it.
The introduction explains that while she was content – she wasn’t really happy, and because she’s a mom and wife she couldn’t escape to an island and stroll beaches — so she had to do her ‘happiness project’ from home.
I enjoyed the introduction and found some laughs as I picked through chapters, and I even related to some of her insights.
It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously — and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.
She cleaned closets and de-cluttered, while another month she focuses on friendships encouraging us to make time for friends and to be there. Even all those events you don’t like? Tupperware sales party- just do it! In the same vein, Ms. Rubin goes on to suggest that we should reach out and make three new friends. That’s a tough one for me, I can’t keep up with the beloved friends I have now. Plus, as I get older (and with lingering post COVID social anxiety), the ‘make new friends thing’ takes much more effort.
Another chapter is about treating her husband better as she is a nag, and while I am not a nag, I sometimes don’t appreciate or cherish my Husband as I should every day and the following quote really hit home….I need to be better at this.
He is my fate. He’s my soul mate. He pervades my whole existence. So, of course, I often ignore him.
October’s chapter was pay attention – be in the moment.
November: Keep a contented heart. Here she mentions laughing, using good manners and giving positive reviews. (Whoops I’m not taking her advice on that last one right now.)
I tried Book Barmy friends, I really tried, to make this book work for me and help me – but found I was growing bored and somewhat weary of her simplistic view of happiness.
Is happy being in a constant state of bliss or exuberance? Or is it finding contentment? Or is happiness simply not wanting to kill someone today?
I think – no I know happiness is different and unique for everyone. One friend swims in the frigid waters of the bay, another loves sewing, and yet another volunteers as a school aid.
So I’ll go back to my own list of things that make me happy – they are tried and true; I have a 700-page best seller on my Kindle (great happiness), there’s a new Netflix series to try (hopeful happiness) I haven’t made Husband’s favorite dinner in a long time (favorite thing to do), there’s a new city park to explore (oh yay) and as they say, if you have a garden and library you have everything you need.
When I think of happiness, I am always reminded of the last scene of Love Actually – where Hugh Grant narrates that the best place to see love (and I’ll add happiness) in action is at the arrivals gate at Heathrow (or any airport for that matter).
With apologies to those in colder climes, spring has come to our little garden. The daffodils are up and earlier this year, we let our seven year old friend plant our bulbs wherever he wanted. The result is a lovely madness of blooms. Bunched together in some spots and varieties mixed together willy-nilly. Makes me smile with delight.*
So there I was cutting these daffs to take indoors when my thoughts turned to our garden at large. So much to do after the rains – oh the weeds – the weeds. Luckily, our seven year old child laborer gardener is also keen to help weed. No matter if he pulls up the wrong thing – odds are in our favor that he does indeed pull mostly weeds.
The other evening, my thoughts turning to more gardening, I turned to my collection of gardening books and pulled out an old favorite. Not an instructional garden book, but a memoir of a first garden.
From the Ground Up by Amy Stewart
I read this first when it came out in 2001 — during those dark days after 9/11 and I needed simple distraction. I just re-read it again and was once again surprised by how much I enjoyed this little gardening book.
From the book’s flyleaf:
Amy Stewart had a simple dream. She yearned for a garden filled with colorful jumbles of vegetables and flowers. After she and her husband finished graduate school, they pulled up their Texas roots and headed west to Santa Cruz, California. With little money in their pockets, they rented a modest seaside bungalow with a small backyard. It wasn’t much—a twelve-hundred-square-foot patch of land with a couple of fruit trees, and a lot of dirt. A good place to start.
From the Ground Up is Stewart’s quirky, humorous chronicle of the blossoms and weeds in her first garden and the lessons she’s learned the hard way. From planting seeds her great-grandmother sends to battling snails, gophers, and aphids, Stewart takes us on a tour of four seasons in her coastal garden. Confessing her sins and delighting in small triumphs, she dishes the dirt for both the novice and the experienced gardener. Along the way, she brings her quintessential California beach town to life—complete with harbor seals, monarch butterfly migrations, and an old-fashioned seaside amusement park just down the street.
This garden memoir is set just down the coast from us in Santa Cruz and I can relate to the coastal garden trials and tribulations. Furthermore, Ms. Stewart captures the mindset of the amateur gardener with all its joys, mysteries and disappointments. And I’ve made all the mistakes and I’ve had the joy and disappointment. From the Ground Up is interwoven with some viable garden tips — but it’s more than just a gardening book – it’s a book about life. Just read this excerpt:
But gardening is none of that, really. Strip away the gadgets and the techniques, the books and the magazines and the soil test kits, and what you’re left with, at the end of the day, is this: a stretch of freshly turned dirt, a handful of seeds scratched into the surface, and a marker to remember where they went. It is at the same time an incredibly brave and an incredibly simple thing to do, entrusting your seeds to the earth and waiting for them to rise up out of the ground to meet you.
If you have the gardening bug or you know someone who does. Whether you are into one specific species of plant or an eclectic gardener (we definitely fall into the latter category) — or even if you’d rather garden from your comfy chair – From the Ground Up is a delightful story of a new gardener, her first garden, and how she and her garden grew and changed.
Ms. Stewart is also know for several other garden books which are very well regarded.
One about the history of poisonous plants and their victims.
And another about the flower industry
Both look very interesting for someday.
But for now, From the Ground Up will go back to its place on my shelves for yet another re-read.
* Out here we have to plant new bulbs every year because in our temperate climate and without frost — very few bulbs re-bloom.
Lest you think we are the only ones with bulbs planted in wild abandon – check out the tulip garden in Golden Gate Park…also makes me happy. I wonder if they have their own child gardening helpers?
This past weekend, I pulled my back wrong and then my knee started acting up and I was hobbling around like I was ancient (which I’m not – yet). Then, given the horrific shootings, Chinese New Year was a somber affair among our neighbor friends. No parties or sharing of cheerful foodstuffs.
In short, I was feeling sorry for myself, a state of mind which I abhor.
Whenever I catch myself having a pity party — I pull out either of these two books and open to any page to remind myself what a plum and cushy life I lead.
Covered Wagon Women
Edited and Compiledby Kenneth L. Holmes
Covered Wagon Women was recommended by friend (looking at you, with love, GH) many years ago and it still has a treasured place on my shelves — just for times like this when I need to kick my ass attitude out of an inappropriate bad mood.
These are the collected diaries and letters of fourteen pioneer women traveling west in covered wagons during the 1840’s.
Mr. Holmes, a historian has left everything in its original source — unedited diary entries, letters and other correspondence. This is how the women actually wrote then, complete with original dialect, spelling, and punctuation — complete with mistakes. The women speak in their own voices, without any modern influence. It will take you a few pages (or chapters) to get into the rhythm of their voices — and figure out the spelling — but after a bit, you get the hang of it. Whenever I re-open this book and read an entry or two, I always feel like I am actually there in the wagon listening to their personal accounts.
Every entry gives a slightly different viewpoint on the hardship and horror these remarkable women experienced and endured to discover new lives out west. Some are mundane, others soul-crushing, and some spirit-lifting. We read of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon.
Because this collection is told from a woman’s point of view, domesticity is shown to be a means of survival, much as a gun. They cooked meals every day under dire circumstances. They sewed, weaved, knitted and mended clothes and bedding. They washed up when they had enough water, but went dirty for weeks if required. They walked miles over some of the roughest terrain America possesses – rocks, sand, dust, mud – over flat rutted trails and up and down mountain paths. They fed and milked cows, helped keep oxen and horses alive, birthed babies and buried them.
There is much unsaid in these letters. They rarely speak of their personal suffering, but instead relate what happened simply and factually. Despite the brevity, when a letter mentions how long they went without water and how many animals and people died because of it, it is easy to read between the lines.
There are 11 books in this series, and maybe someday I will tackle more, but for now this first in the series is enough to remind me of the luxuries in my life – water at the turn of a faucet, a warm bed, soap – well, you know what I mean.
Get yourself out of your bad mood and check out Covered Wagon Women – available at your local library.
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
by Elinore Pruitt Stewart
In the same vein, but not nearly as grim, is Letters of a Woman Homesteader, which I have read cover to cover.
As a young widow Elinore Pruitt left Denver in 1909, with her young daughter, and set out for Wyoming, where she hoped to buy a ranch. Determined to prove that a lone woman could survive the hardships of homesteading, she initially worked as a housekeeper for a neighbor — a kind but taciturn Scottish bachelor, whom she eventually married.
In twenty-six letters written to a friend back in Denver, she joyfully records her days, not considering the life she has chosen on the frontier as hardship. Instead, she revels in the natural beauty of her surroundings and in her friendships with like-minded women in her frontier community.
Elinore and her friends, face the unexpected with courage and good humor. They live unselfishly, and are overly generous with kindness and deeds for those less fortunate. She tells of unified and skillful hospitality; impromptu weddings, spur of the moment feasts for strangers, and designing and sewing wardrobes for a needy family in just a few days time.
Spring and summers were hard, she concedes, and were taken up with branding, farming, doctoring cattle, and other chores. But with the arrival of fall, Pruitt found time to take her young daughter on camping trips and serve her neighbors as midwife, doctor, teacher, Santa Claus, and friend.
My well-worn copy contains the original illustrations by N. C. Wyeth. However, I found out the digital version of Letters of A Woman Homesteader is free — as this classic is in the public domain.
Described by the Wall Street Journal as “warmly delightful, vigorously affirmative,” this classic of American frontier life will charm today’s audience as much as it fascinated readers when it was first published in 1914.
The reading is indeed enjoyable and flows beautifully — it reads like a novel.
So there you go. In a bad mood? Need a good kick in the attitude? Instead of self help books or those cheesy gratitude journals, read about women who met extreme hardship and tough lives with bravery, strength, humor, kindness, and grace.
Now I have to go unload my wonderfully modern and convenient dishwasher – no tin pans rinsed in the creek for me.
Back in my advertising days, I was lucky enough to be part of the magazine publishing industry – only peripherally, but still a wonderful perk. In that time, printed magazines were a honorable part of advertising media, with wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) full page advertisements. Another benefit of advertising in magazines, was the complimentary subscriptions we received. One of my favorites was House and Garden magazine.
House & Garden editor-in-chief, Dominique Browning, wrote a monthly column for the magazine and this lovely book brings together those columns. They cover personal stories and essays about home decorating, gardening, and raising children with universal themes of domestic life.
In Around the House and in the Garden, Browning adapts and expands these well-loved pieces, adding dozens of new essays, to create an insightful and moving narrative about the solace and sense of self that can be found through tending one’s home.
From the book blurb:
Around the House and Garden is a book for anyone who has ever felt the need to reinvent a life or a space, who has ever fallen in love with the idea of home – the place where we reinvent ourselves.
I’ve had this book for years and never got all the way through it. A while ago, I re-started it and left it next to my bed to read a chapter a night — they are each distinct, none are more than four pages, and easy to digest independently. And while I thought I would read one essay before sleep, in the end, I found myself reading the last half the book in one sitting.
Ms. Browning weaves in many reflections on her life in her two homes. The houses come to symbolize the state of her heart and mind. Some are sad, as she tries to bounce back from a divorce, yet it’s also a wonderfully uplifting book. I loved reading about her journey of healing while remaking her home and her reflections on gardens, decorating, and cultivating the comforts of a home.
It especially speaks to anyone starting over in their lives after a divorce, but could be just as useful to anyone attempting to create some kind of spiritual retreat in which to nurture their bodies and souls.
When I was reading this beautifully written book, I imagined myself sitting in a cozy living room having a cup of tea and a long talk with a lovely, yet vulnerable Ms. Browning — only after we had taken a long stroll through her gardens.
This book is Book Barmy prescribed for these long winter nights when you need calming, gentle, diversionary material to lull you to sleep while trying not to think obsessively about something that can wait until tomorrow.
With some pride, I admit I make a mean spaghetti sauce – a recipe handed down from my maternal great-grandmother who got the original from a newly immigrated Italian family – or so the story goes. Anyway it is Husband’s favorite meal and I make it on his birthday with plenty of extra sauce to freeze for during the following months.
This year, I deviated for Husband’s birthday. Why you may ask? Well I had just started Stanley Tucci’s memoir Taste and the way he describes his families’ ragu made my mouth water. The book contained the recipe (among others) and I followed it to the letter. It was very, very good, – a little simpler, a bit lighter, and fresher. It won’t replace my mother’s/great grandmother’s version, but it was in one of the first few chapters –and I just had to try it.
But lets get to the book shall we? Taste falls into the genre of narrative cookbooks, but this is more of a memoir of meals and should come with the following advisory:
Warning. Reading this book may cause unexpected weight gain.
Stanley Tucci recently had a CNN series touring Italy and …eating … and eating. As I watched the series, I remember how much I like Stanley Tucci – he is funny, smart, and good looking. I loved him in ‘The Devil wears Prada,’ and ‘Julie and Julia. But reading this book, I was also reminded of his film from 20+ years ago ‘The Big Night’ which showcases his love of cooking and food.
Taste is Mr. Tucci’s own story about the importance of food and family. His upbringing and relationship to food throughout his life. A funny and wry writer who leads you through his life, career, the ups and downs, interlaced with frequent recipes, memorable meals and food experiences.
With charm and wit, he shares personal anecdotes to show how food influenced his life and how food connects him to his family and Italian heritage. He also shares his health battles and a very relatable (we were all there) section on how his family handled the pandemic.
Reading Mr. Tucci, I was in the presence of a foodie of the best sort. One who makes sure you are comfortable, with a drink in your hand, and takes undisguised joy in preparing a wonderful meal for loved ones to enjoy around a warm and welcoming table. But it’s not just the cooking and preparing of food. Taste shares Mr. Tucci’s love of good ingredients and our relationship to those ingredients is of great importance.
To me, eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself. I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community.
While I found Taste a little jumpy and in need of some editing, it was really enjoyable. There are many fun vignettes and the food descriptions are absolutely wonderful — see advisory above. He describes his mother’s wonderful cooking, praises restaurants where he had fantastic meals (sadly many now closed), and goes on (and on — where was his editor?) about food that made a lasting impression on him. His description of the best spaghetti carbonara he’s ever had will have you salivating. And if you’re still using grocery store parmesan in the green can, Taste will have you contemplating saving your pennies dollars for some real Parmigiano Reggiano.
Mr. Tucci is a Hollywood star with famous friends and he does do some name dropping which he endearingly fesses up to right at the beginning. He is also able to frequent the best butchers, greengrocers, and specialty food shops in London where he now lives. Mr. Tucci’s pleas to find the best ingredients may be hard to swallow (pun definitely intended) for some more moderate food budgets. But try to overlook those and enjoy the read.
Taste is a delightful romp through Stanley Tucci’s life, table and career.
HERE is the Tucci Ragu Recipe – well worth making.
Warning: Taste contains profanity, and if you’re squeamish, there is a home slaughter of a goat.
It’s going to rain all weekend, so I just returned from the nutso grocery stores and I’m hunkering in to do some January clean outs. You know, that pile of old tee shirts that I imagine I’ll wear at the gym (if I ever went to the gym) or those stacks of CD’s I never play anymore.
But instead (you knew this was coming) I headed to a seldom used bookshelf in the guest room and searched for books to get rid of. Books are much more fun to sort through than tee shirts.
I came across this book which, from my notes inside, I read in 1990 – a year after it was published.
Should it stay or should it go? Let’s see, shall we?
The Day I Became an Autodidact,
and the Advice, Adventures, and Acrimonies That Befell Me Thereafter
You may remember one of my favorite books A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey. This autobiography, cum journal comes to us from her precocious daughter when she was just a teenager.
At age fifteen, Kendall decided to throw off the shackles of a formal education after receiving her high school summer reading list:
“Being told what to read by someone else is a violation of basic human rights. Or at least basic literary ones.”
So she graduates high school early, and pursues her own intellectual and artistic interests, at home with her fabulously oddball family – her novelist mother and her father, playwright Oliver Hailey. This is her account of the journey.
Each entry begins with (capitalization is all hers):
WHAT I HOPE TO DO: (Get a Head Start on Reading Everything Ever Published); and ends with WHAT I DID (Had a bumpy first date with Dostoevsky).
Kendall tears through Roman history and Greek plays. Upon reading Aristophanes, she writes:
“Plays about the gods are always fun. It is so comforting to think such cut-ups are running the universe.”
As I thumb through this book, I find my underlining throughout — who would not find an eclectic kindred spirit in a teen who reads and raves about Pride and Prejudice, Life With Father, Anna Karenina and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
She raves about Will and Ariel Durrant (whom I’ve never attempted) but I agree with her on Henry James:
“Several readers were reported lost for years in a Henry James sentence.”
The Hailey family is no doubt privileged — they jet off to England to purchase a third home and hobnob at Sardi’s after Broadway openings. Throughout it all, Kendall is a typical teenager, but with an old soul. She has a boyfriend, of sorts:
“We talked for an hour and a half until he had to leave for the orthodontist. It is hard to talk too seriously of love with someone who still has to go to the orthodontist.”
And, has normal teenage angst:
“I have discovered that it does not really matter if I write, read or am nice to people. All that matters is that I lose weight.”
Kendall’s view on nuclear war, while simplistic, struck a cord with me:
“I think everyone who has the power to start a nuclear war should be made to see Our Town at least once a day — until the last thing they want is the power to destroy life. If they could see how precious one life is, perhaps they would stop seeing nine hundred million lives as an endurable loss.”
At times, she is wise beyond her years:
“The world is much too random a place for any of us ever to end up with exactly what we want, but then very few of us are bright enough to know exactly what we want.”
I remember I found The Day I Became an Autodidact schizophrenic — at times irritating, entitled and narcissistic — but also funny, charming and whip smart – just like any normal teenager.
The book is staying for a re-read – now, back to my pile of tee shirts.
My Kitchen Year ~ 136 Recipes that Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl
I’d been lusting after this book since it first came out. I was hoping it would come into the the bookstore where I work (and have a discount), but it never did. My friend and fellow foodie, Susan, already had the book and was full of yummy descriptions. I told her I had to have it and was just going to buy it – expense be damned. Then, a few days later, Susan announced she had come into an “extra” copy which she would give me. (I secretly suspect my dear friend actually bought it for me, but we’ll go with her story.)
From the book’s publicity blurb:
In the fall of 2009, the food world was rocked when Gourmet magazine was abruptly shuttered by its parent company. No one was more stunned by this unexpected turn of events than its beloved editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, who suddenly faced an uncertain professional future. As she struggled to process what had seemed unthinkable, Reichl turned to the one place that had always provided sanctuary. “I did what I always do when I’m confused, lonely, or frightened,” she writes. “I disappeared into the kitchen.”
Happily this is more than just a cookbook, although it is packed with (as the title states) 136 hunger-inducing recipes — what makes My Kitchen Year shine is Ms. Reichl’s personal writings, snippets from her journal, and musings on food interspersed between the recipes. She tells of the final weeks closing up the magazine, packing her office. Of going into Chinatown with her beloved fellow staffers for a final lunch at a favorite restaurant. And how can you not have a craving for chocolate cake when reading this passage?:
I needed an antidote to the poison of self-pity. What I needed, I decided, was to bake a chocolate cake. I emailed a few friends, asking them to tea. Why a cake? Because the precision of baking demands total attention. Why this cake (The Cake that Cures Everything)? Because the sheer size of it makes special demands. But most of all, because it is impossible to hold on to gloom with so much chocolate wafting its exuberant scent into every corner of the house.
Most everyone was saddened when Gourmet magazine suddenly stopped publication (I was a subscriber for over 15 years and am still in mourning) but, apparently, none of us were as astonished as Ms. Reichl, herself. She knew nothing of the decision and had, in fact, personally supervised the December issue which, sadly would never make it to press. How I would have liked to see that last issue. She ruefully describes how each magazine issue would have had multiple covers of beautifully photographed Christmas cookies.
Reeling, she escapes to her home in upstate NY …
I longed for the feel of knife in my hand, the heft of water splashing into a pot. Yearned for the joyous sizzle, burble, and hiss that are the ever-changing soundtrack of the kitchen. I missed the daily transformations: fruit ripening, dough rising, bread toasting into golden slabs. I’d always thought of these elemental pleasures as minor diversions, but now I understood they they’re the glue that holds my life together….in a world filled with no, it is my yes.
This long-time food writer and one time NY Times restaurant critic has made a career of haute cuisine. But here Ms. Reichl shares her appreciation (and recipes) for simple meals, often made with farmer market obtained fresh ingredients. She has eaten the world’s best food in the finest restaurants, yet upon bringing home spring’s first asparagus, she cooks it quickly, drizzles it with fine olive oil and eats the spears by hand while still standing at the stove.
Ms. Reichl uses food as a gift of love, not only for herself, but also for her friends and family. Whereas before, she would have gone to someplace fancy with lowered voices and expensive menus, now she entertains at home, serving her home-made meals around her table where everyone happily lingers, talking until the wee hours. She looks around and feels at peace and finally, at home.
In terms of a cookbook, the recipes are wonderful. Not overwritten with just the right amount of instruction. There are plenty of Asian inspired entries, but nothing too complicated. I just counted and I have pencil checked at least 25 in the index to try – Fresh Apricot Pie and Food Cart Curry Chicken are in the plans for the near future here in the Book Barmy kitchen.
I have read all of Ms. Reichl’s books (list HERE) and they range from her early childhood with a mother who was a horrible cook to one of my favorites Garlic and Sapphires which recounts her days as a restaurant critic (which often required donning various disguises). During the year after Gourmet, she also wrote a novel called Delicious – a fun plot which mimics her own experience — namely, the closing of a food magazine and the poor writer who stayed behind to answer all the on-going readers letters.
You don’t have to be a hard-core foodie, or a past subscriber to Gourmet Magazine to enjoy any of Ms. Reichl’s books. But, if you appreciate good cooking and delicious meals, do go ahead and treat yourself to your own copy of My Kitchen Year.
It’s January and all thoughts here at Book Barmy turn towards new beginnings. It’s time to clean out the fridge, toss the leftover Christmas cookies, make a salad or two and get back to the gym – or at least dust off and organize my gym bag — small steps, folks, small steps. So what better book to read than this?
In terms of dusting things off, I’ve had Drop Dead Healthy on my shelves for ages and never opened it. Strangely, I can’t remember where I got it. I wonder if it was a gift from a well-meaning fit friend? But then I remembered, I bought this book last January during what now appears to be my annual mission to transform myself. As one of quotes on this books says, “Why go to the gym when you can sit and read a funny book about it instead?” USA Today
During this month of repent and resolutions, we are bombarded with a myriad of health fads, hard-sell gym memberships, hundreds of different diets — not to mention, legions of healthy living articles, cook books and television shows. Mr. Jacobs, on his own quest to get healthy and fit, takes us through his experimental dips into many of these fads and trends .. all with very funny results.
He goes “Caveman” with the Paleo movement and enjoys their diet of nuts and berries (but passes on crushed insects, despite their reputed high protein value). I laughed out loud when Mr. Jacobs tries a pole dancing workout class where he was the only man among fifty women wearing high heels and sporting an alarming amount of cleavage.
In an attempt to combat the “Crimes of Excessive Sedentary Behavior” and consume extra calories while working, he bypasses the webpage advertisements for $400 treadmill desks and rigs up his own version — with his laptop perched on a stack of four cardboard boxes that teeter on an end table at the end of the treadmill — and he even dares to include a photo.
Mr. Jacobs mystifies his family by bringing home a toilet seat that requires a third world squatting pose to navigate, which he read was healthier than the conventional sitting position – again a photo is provided — thankfully, with the author fully clothed
Jacobs tries veganism, raw food, Atkins, juice cleanses, along with dozens of other diets. He tries Cross Fit, anti-gravity yoga, running barefoot though New York (ouch and yuck) and Stroller-cise with other new moms and dads — “I push Zane’s stroller through Central Park while jogging, jumping, stretching and getting stared at”.
What Drop Dead Healthy does best is detail the author’s personal experiences and reactions — much like sitting with friend over coffee (non-fat of course) and listening to his funny and self-deprecating stories of trying to get fit and healthy. However, we are laughing WITH him….not at him. In fact, we cheer along as he posts his periodic checkup results and his slow, but steady weight loss.
Even the appendixes are fascinatingly funny – from how to fit in exercise all day long; “wear a diving weight vest all day – be prepared for suicide bomber jokes” (or potential police arrest, I’d venture) to best food advice; “Don’t be so obsessed with healthy food that you end up alone in the corner eating organic kale and silently judging your friends.”
There is humanity to Mr. Jacobs story. He finds inspiration in his loved ones. His 90-year old grandfather who remained active in community affairs long after his formal retirement, his eccentric Aunt Marti, those adorable but rambunctious sons, and his endlessly patient wife, Julie–all are a constant reminder that healthy relationships are paramount in any well-lived life. In the end, we are motivated to get some exercise in any way we can and eat healthier — but the larger lesson is that health is highly personal – each of us must choose what feels right and healthy for us – a balance of body, mind and spirit.
I just have to show you the back cover~~~
N.B. I also learned that drinking ice water burns 8 calories a glass. If you drink 8 glasses, that’s 64 extra calories a day. Now let’s see, a small glass of wine is 100 calories…
