Hi everyone!
Saturday morning Mary, Laila, Barb, Jan and I met at the labyrinth and then headed out to Eben Fine Park and then back along the creek to Vic's for coffee. It was a gorgeous morning and we ended it together at the Farmers Market, shopping for Colorado corn, tomatoes, peaches, beets and garlic.
Book Report:
Susan is reading a book that Lynn recommended recently - The Tricky Part by Martin Moran. It is a memoir dealing with the sexual abuse suffered by Moran as a young Catholic boy growing up in Denver. The story is certainly disturbing but he is an outstanding writer.
From Publishers Weekly
To everyone else in the Denver neighborhood where he grew up in the '70s, Moran was a studious Catholic boy. No one knew he carried a secret that would fester for 30 years and lead to extreme anxiety, sexual compulsion and suicide attempts. At age 12 he met Bob, a church camp counselor in his 30s who, for several years, took Moran hiking and camping, and had sex with him. Moran painfully recounts the inner workings of a lonely, insecure adolescent who, out of a desperate need for friendship and acceptance, continued a sexual relationship with a man 20 years his senior. Feeling guilty and shameful regarding the affair and his homosexuality, Moran lived a life in which the erotic and the illicit fused, and compulsive sex became a means of self-punishment. Over the years, Moran, now a writer and actor, managed to glean bits of guidance and self-acceptance from his aunt, a contemplative nun; a New Age music teacher; friends; and eventually, recovery groups and therapy. Moran's Catholic-American gothic differs from other abuse/recovery/coming-out memoirs in that it examines a uniquely gay mind/body split as it subtly reflects on a gay man's spiritual quest for self-determination and love.
Cass recommends The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago - Sounds like a revealing look at the food we eat.
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Pamela KaufmanPollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota. (Apr.)Pamela Kaufman is executive editor at Food & Wine magazine.
Website of the Week: http://www.greendimes.com/ - reduce your junk mail and have trees planted on your behalf.
Podcast of the Week: http://grammar.qdnow.com/ - quick and dirty tips for better writing.
Vocabulary Word of the Week: laconic
laconic \luh-KON-ik\, adjective:
Using or marked by the use of a minimum of words; brief and pithy; brusque.
Readers' reports range from the laconic to the verbose.
-- Bernard Stamler, "A Brooklyncentric View of Life", New York Times, February 28, 1999
In the laconic language of the sheriff department's report,there was "no visible sign of life."
-- David Wise, Cassidy's Run
There was one tiny photograph of him at a YMCA camp plus a few laconic and uninformative entries in a soldier's log from the war year, 1917-18.
-- Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir
Laconic comes, via Latin, from Greek Lakonikos, "of or relating to a Laconian or Spartan," hence "terse," in the manner of the Laconians.
Quote of the Week: The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.” from Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Buddhist Monk
Cooking and Food Report:
From The 150 Best American Recipes Cookbook:
Spaghetti with Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Basil and Parmesan Cheese from The Tomato Festival Cookbook - Serves 4
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more (about 1/4 cup) for roasting
1 large white onion, cut into 1/2 inch dice
6 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
18 fresh basil leaves, plus 1/4 cup cut into thin ribbons
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 heaping pints ripe cherry or grape tomatoes, rinsed and patted dry
3 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pound spaghetti
2 cups loosely packed arugula
1/2 cup finely grated Pamesan cheese for serving
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
Heat the 1/4 cup oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Add the whole basil leaves and red pepper flakes and stir well.
Toss the tomatoes with 1 teaspoon of the salt and the sugar and place in a roasting pan. The pan should be large enough to hold them in a single layer. Spoon the onion mixture over the tomatoes. Add enough oil to come halfway up the tomatoes. Roast until the tomatoes are tender but not falling apart, about 3 hours. Stir once, gently, during the roasting. You can roast the tomatoes up to 6 hours ahead of serving.
Bring a large pot of water with the remaining 2 teaspoons of salt to a boil. Add the spaghetti and stir constantly until the water returns to a boil. Cook until the pasta is al dente, about 7 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the tomatoes and onion in a large saucepan over low heat. When the pasta is done, drain and transfer to the saucepan with the tomatoes. Add the arugula. Toss well. Add the basil ribbons and toss again.
Serve immediately in warm shallow bowls with Parmesan sprinkled over the top.
From Lucinda and The Silver Palate Cookbook - Summer Pasta with Tomatoes, Basil and Brie - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=231&topic_id=497&mesg_id=6922
From Susan and Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa - Breakfast Bread Pudding - http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_36124,00.html - next time, I might slice the bread a bit thinner than the recommended 1".
That's all for now - have a great week!
Love,
Susan
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday Morning Walkers - August 19, 2007
Hi everyone!
Thanks to Andrea for planning such a lovely walk out in Gunbarrel at Twin Lakes. Jan, Laila, Christie, Mary and I joined her there and we had the special treat of seeing lots of hot air balloons. Chris joined us for coffee at Page Two Cafe.
Some Labyrinth news - I'm so excited to tell you that Jack and I stopped over at the Grillo Center Labyrinth yesterday afternoon. What a delight to discover that a wedding ceremony had just been celebrated on the labyrinth. We missed the actual ceremony but were able to take some photos and speak to some of the guests. See phot above.
Book Report:
I re-read a book that I read many years ago and was reminded of recently. I found a copy at the Longmont library and read it in one day! The Resort by Sol Stein is a novel that is frightening and hard to put down.
From the Back In Print Book Store
The resort
by Sol Stein
About this title: Cliffhaven--Magnificent new resort near Big Sur. Surrounded by redwoods. Guarded by Oceanside cliffs. Protected from prying eyes. By reservation only. Cliffhaven--Founded by a man with very special interests, catering to a very special clientele. Margaret and Henry Brown, vacationing New Yorkers innocently driving down the sea-washed coast of California, are just the right sort of people. Cliffhaven--It has a spectacular entrance, a three-star restaurant, lavish accommodations--and no exit! "This novel should do for California vacation retreats what jaws did for swimming in the Atlantic."--"Los Angeles Times" Book Review "A thrilling nightmare...A Dante's "Inferno..".more than fulfills the remark "I read it all in one nail-biting session."--Eli Wallach "Not only a thriller...a parable and a warning to all who say 'It can't happen here.'"--"Jewish Post and Opinion"
Andrea is reading Ann Patchett's Magician's Assistant. I have that on my shelf of "to reads". Patchett's novel, Bel Canto was one of my favorites reads.
Amazon.com
The Magician's Assistant sustains author Ann Patchett's proven penchant for crafting colorful characters and marrying the ordinary with the fantastic. When Parsifal, Sabine's husband of more than 20 years and the magician of the title, suddenly dies, she begins to discover how she's glimpsed him only through smoke and mirrors. He has managed to keep hidden the existence of a family in Nebraska--his mother, two sisters, and two nephews. Sabine approaches them hungrily, as if they are a bridge to her beloved husband and a key to the mysteries he left behind
Chris is reading The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka. It sounds like this book provides an opportunity to examine how your living spaces reflect the way you live and to consider how you can scale-down and simplify your life.
From Library Journal
Architect Susanka believes that the large homes being built today place too much emphasis on square footage rather than on current lifestyles. Here she shows how homes can be designed to feature "adaptable spaces open to one another, designed for everyday use." She describes how to examine occupants' lifestyles, how to incorporate the kitchen as the focal point of the home, how to give the illusion of space, and how, with storage, lighting, and furniture arrangement, a smaller home can be comfortably livable. Photographs of contemporary homes as well as those by Frank Lloyd Wright and other modern architects illustrate Susanka's ideas and show the timelessness of the style she advocates. This thought-provoking book will be a good addition to architectural and interior design collections.
Laila recommends Doc Susie by Virginia Cornell.
Diane Donovan, The Bookwatch
Doctor Susan Anderson was a rare women, indeed: a female frontier doctor who searched for health, success and romance in the wild western lands of the Colorado Rockies. Her true experiences are recounted by Cornell, who met the elderly Doc Susie when Cornell was a young girl. Three years of research have contributed to a biography which reads like an adventure novel.
Jan is listening to the audio of The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford. She's loving listening to it but doesn't think it would be a great read.
After more than a decade, Richard Ford revives Frank Bascombe, the beloved protagonist from The Sportswriter and Independence Day. Fans will be scrambling for The Lay of the Land, a novel that finds Bascombe contending with health, marital, and familial issues wake of the 2000 presidential election.
Website of the Week: http://www.laptoplunches.com/ - cool site for those of you wanting to be more environmentally conscious when sending kids back to school or packing your own lunches to take to work.
Podcast of the Week: http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/06/11/070611on_audio_danticat
Quote of the Week: contributed by Mandy -
"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."
- Bertrand Russell
Vocabulary Word of the Week - contributed by Barb -
She "stumbled on this one re-reading a portion of Loren Eisley's, "The Immense Journey.":
"Once..on a memorable autumn afternoon I discovered a sunning blacksnake brooding amomg the leaves like the very simulacrum of old night."
simulacrum \sim-yuh-LAY-kruhm; -LAK-ruhm\, noun;
plural simulacra \sim-yuh-LAY-kruh; -LAK-ruh\:
1. An image; a representation.
2. An insubstantial, superficial, or vague likeness or semblance.
Cooking and Food Report:
Saturday night's dinner was Brisket a la Carbonnade - I found the recipe in a wonderful cookbook called The 150 Best American Recipes - It is originally from Ruth Reichl's Gourmet Cookbook and appears online at http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-09-30-gourmet-recipe_x.htm - it was absolutely delicious. I was a bit disappointed that a bit too much of the yummy liquid evaporated - I would recommend covering the pot with aluminum foil before covering with the lid to make it tighter seal.
Sunday night's dinner was Amazing 5 hour Roast Duck - another recipe from The 150 Best American Recipes - It is originally from Eli Zabar's Vinegar Factory newsletter and appears online at http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/special/2006/150best/roast-duck.html. It is a unique method for roasting duck and produces a very crispy skin and tender meat. Jack loved it but next time we'll try it with a glaze and sauce.
I served an interesting salad with the duck. Jack didn't love it but I thought it was very good. Roasted Greens Panzanella Salad from Giada de Laurentiis featuring red chard, kale, sun-dried tomatoes, and ciabatta bread cubes with a simple oil and balsamic vinegar dressing - http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_37317,00.html
That's it for now - have a lovely week!
Love,
Susan
Saturday Morning Walkers - August 13, 2007
Hi everyone!
Sorry this is so late but I just got back from Los Angeles and our cruise.
Jexy, Joe, Jacob and I joined, Joe's mom Barbara and extended family on a family reunion cruise to Mexico. We had a great time - it was my first cruise and Jacob was my "stateroom mate". Thanks again to Barbara and all the Bloom relatives for making me feel so welcome.
Book Report:
I finished Pete Hamill's new novel, North River. Jack and I have both enjoyed Hamill's earlier books like, Snow in August, Forever and Downtown. He is a classic New Yorker who writes novels and non-fiction books which capture the essence of New York and its history.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The North River is what real New Yorkers call the Hudson. Two blocks from its shore, Dr. James Finbar Delaney lives on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. He is a GP, servicing the indigent poor. A wounded veteran of World War I, he is despondent that his wife, Molly, has deserted him and that his only child, Grace, has left her son, two-year-old Carlito, in his care. In the dead of winter in the Depression year of 1934, Dr. Delaney knows the cause of death was always life. Delaney is numb from the war and the abandonment of his family. When he saves the life of gangster friend Eddie Corso, Italian hood Frankie Botts is not happy. Delaney can feel the threat to him and his grandson in his bones. To further complicate matters, the FBI shows up looking for Grace.
If there's any consolation for Delaney in the chaos that has become his life, it's Carlito and Rose, his Sicilian illegal alien housekeeper, who has become little Carlito's surrogate mother—and Delaney's lov er. Soon the North River comes to symbolize Delaney's tormented life, as enemies and loved ones float in it, and Grace, on a liner, returns to New York to further complicate Delaney's new, delicate household. Hamill (Forever; A Drinking Life) has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world.
Other books people were reading on the ship:
Joe's sister Lauren had just started, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Pollan also wrote The Botany of Desire which Lauren liked very much.
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Pamela KaufmanPollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virgin ia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous.
He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him.
Just as long as we could eat at a table, not i
Joe's mom Barbara read (not on the cruise) and recommends Carolyn See's memoir called Dreaming. She is the mother of Lisa See who wrote Snow Flower and Secret Fan, On Gold Mountain and most recently, Peony in Love.
From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning novelist (Golden Days; Making History) and book critic See has a pungent, earthily feminine style that has never been put to better use than in this saga of her clamorous, perpetually inebriated family. Daughter of a hard-drinking, charming show-business hanger-on and an equally hard-drinking hellion of a mother, See also went through two chaotic marriages, countless gallons of tequila and white wine and enough mind-altering substances to knock her sideways for most of a decade before settling down, with two miraculously surviving and equable daughters and her elderly English professor companion, to become the quirkily admirable writer she is today. Her sister Rose, enmeshed for years in a life of petty crime, drug-dealing and appalling men, was not so lucky. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, all seemed somehow to be disappointed at what American (mostly Californian) life had to offer, and retreated into bottles, needles and pills. It all makes for wonderfully liv ely reading, but See's thesis that this is life for much of America's aspiring underclass doesn't quite ring true (perhaps it's simply that a preponderance of these goofily hope-addicted people wind up in California). And in the midst of all See's hard-headed, courageous and humorous observation, it is jarring to come across a paean to some of the more banal and outre of New Age gurus. What is lacking in the book, despite its many anecdotal pleasures and galloping readability, is any sense of a cultural context to Americans beyond a search for ways to feel better about themselves.
Website of the Week: Teach for America - http://www.teachforamerica.org/ - thought I'd share this site with you since this is how Jexy got into teaching right out of college. It really is a remarkable organization that has now been in existence since 1990. You can hear more about on the Satellite Sisters podcast that will be broadcast on Wednesday, August 15. They will be interviewing founder, Wendy Koop.
Podcast of the Week: Jack listened to this show about Ralph Nader on Pacifica, a public radio show out of LA and just thought it was amazing. "While I was sitting in LA traffic today I caught a program on Pacifica radio about Ralph Nader. It was a compilation of interviews and testimony he has given during his career, from his start in the 60s through an interview with Amy Goodman last month. I always thought well of Nader, but really didn't know much about him and was also annoyed that he "interfered" with possible Democratic wins in recent presidential elections.
After listening to this program, I was so impressed by the work and commitment of this remarkable person that I wanted to pass it on to you all."
You can listen or download a podcast at:
http://www.kpfk.org/index.php?option=com_content
Vocabulary Word of the Week - I've chosen this Jewish word in honor of my relationship with Joe's mom, Barbara and my soon-to-be son-in-law, David's mom, Cora.
machatonista
child's mother-in-law
Cooking and Food Report:
Before the cruise, Jexy, Jacob and I went to one of the many new hip and trendy restaurant/bars opening up in her neighborhood of Highland Park. It is called The York - http://www.theyorkonyork.com/. Here's a review from Eating L.A. - http://eatingla.blogspot.com/2007/07/york-rocks-highland-park.html
As you might expect, the food on Royal Carribean's Monarch of the Sea was plentiful. The meals were fine - what was really outstanding was the level of service from the waitstaff and the entire crew. I was very impressed. The crew of 1600 men and women represent 60 different countries. They spend 8 months on board and then are off for 4 months.
That's it for now. I need to settle back home after my exciting trip. Have a great week!
Love,
Susan
Sorry this is so late but I just got back from Los Angeles and our cruise.
Jexy, Joe, Jacob and I joined, Joe's mom Barbara and extended family on a family reunion cruise to Mexico. We had a great time - it was my first cruise and Jacob was my "stateroom mate". Thanks again to Barbara and all the Bloom relatives for making me feel so welcome.
Book Report:
I finished Pete Hamill's new novel, North River. Jack and I have both enjoyed Hamill's earlier books like, Snow in August, Forever and Downtown. He is a classic New Yorker who writes novels and non-fiction books which capture the essence of New York and its history.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The North River is what real New Yorkers call the Hudson. Two blocks from its shore, Dr. James Finbar Delaney lives on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. He is a GP, servicing the indigent poor. A wounded veteran of World War I, he is despondent that his wife, Molly, has deserted him and that his only child, Grace, has left her son, two-year-old Carlito, in his care. In the dead of winter in the Depression year of 1934, Dr. Delaney knows the cause of death was always life. Delaney is numb from the war and the abandonment of his family. When he saves the life of gangster friend Eddie Corso, Italian hood Frankie Botts is not happy. Delaney can feel the threat to him and his grandson in his bones. To further complicate matters, the FBI shows up looking for Grace.
If there's any consolation for Delaney in the chaos that has become his life, it's Carlito and Rose, his Sicilian illegal alien housekeeper, who has become little Carlito's surrogate mother—and Delaney's lov er. Soon the North River comes to symbolize Delaney's tormented life, as enemies and loved ones float in it, and Grace, on a liner, returns to New York to further complicate Delaney's new, delicate household. Hamill (Forever; A Drinking Life) has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world.
Other books people were reading on the ship:
Joe's sister Lauren had just started, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Pollan also wrote The Botany of Desire which Lauren liked very much.
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Pamela KaufmanPollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virgin ia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous.
He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him.
Just as long as we could eat at a table, not i
Joe's mom Barbara read (not on the cruise) and recommends Carolyn See's memoir called Dreaming. She is the mother of Lisa See who wrote Snow Flower and Secret Fan, On Gold Mountain and most recently, Peony in Love.
From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning novelist (Golden Days; Making History) and book critic See has a pungent, earthily feminine style that has never been put to better use than in this saga of her clamorous, perpetually inebriated family. Daughter of a hard-drinking, charming show-business hanger-on and an equally hard-drinking hellion of a mother, See also went through two chaotic marriages, countless gallons of tequila and white wine and enough mind-altering substances to knock her sideways for most of a decade before settling down, with two miraculously surviving and equable daughters and her elderly English professor companion, to become the quirkily admirable writer she is today. Her sister Rose, enmeshed for years in a life of petty crime, drug-dealing and appalling men, was not so lucky. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, all seemed somehow to be disappointed at what American (mostly Californian) life had to offer, and retreated into bottles, needles and pills. It all makes for wonderfully liv ely reading, but See's thesis that this is life for much of America's aspiring underclass doesn't quite ring true (perhaps it's simply that a preponderance of these goofily hope-addicted people wind up in California). And in the midst of all See's hard-headed, courageous and humorous observation, it is jarring to come across a paean to some of the more banal and outre of New Age gurus. What is lacking in the book, despite its many anecdotal pleasures and galloping readability, is any sense of a cultural context to Americans beyond a search for ways to feel better about themselves.
Website of the Week: Teach for America - http://www.teachforamerica.org/ - thought I'd share this site with you since this is how Jexy got into teaching right out of college. It really is a remarkable organization that has now been in existence since 1990. You can hear more about on the Satellite Sisters podcast that will be broadcast on Wednesday, August 15. They will be interviewing founder, Wendy Koop.
Podcast of the Week: Jack listened to this show about Ralph Nader on Pacifica, a public radio show out of LA and just thought it was amazing. "While I was sitting in LA traffic today I caught a program on Pacifica radio about Ralph Nader. It was a compilation of interviews and testimony he has given during his career, from his start in the 60s through an interview with Amy Goodman last month. I always thought well of Nader, but really didn't know much about him and was also annoyed that he "interfered" with possible Democratic wins in recent presidential elections.
After listening to this program, I was so impressed by the work and commitment of this remarkable person that I wanted to pass it on to you all."
You can listen or download a podcast at:
http://www.kpfk.org/index.php?option=com_content
Vocabulary Word of the Week - I've chosen this Jewish word in honor of my relationship with Joe's mom, Barbara and my soon-to-be son-in-law, David's mom, Cora.
machatonista
child's mother-in-law
Cooking and Food Report:
Before the cruise, Jexy, Jacob and I went to one of the many new hip and trendy restaurant/bars opening up in her neighborhood of Highland Park. It is called The York - http://www.theyorkonyork.com/. Here's a review from Eating L.A. - http://eatingla.blogspot.com/2007/07/york-rocks-highland-park.html
As you might expect, the food on Royal Carribean's Monarch of the Sea was plentiful. The meals were fine - what was really outstanding was the level of service from the waitstaff and the entire crew. I was very impressed. The crew of 1600 men and women represent 60 different countries. They spend 8 months on board and then are off for 4 months.
That's it for now. I need to settle back home after my exciting trip. Have a great week!
Love,
Susan
Saturday Morning Walkers - August 4, 2007
Hi everyone!
Sorry I missed the walk this morning but I did catch up with Barb, Cass and Mary for coffee at Caffe Sole. From there, I headed down to Lakewood for a meeting with a group of women who have created a referral agency for doulas and postpartum doulas, called With Women http://www.with-women.com/. It was definitely worthwhile and will certainly pursue that as a way of connnecting with clients.
Book Report: it is a short one this week. I just finished Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union which Jack highly recommended a couple of weeks ago. It was slow getting into it for me, a bit confusing, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It definitely became a "page-turning" mystery and detective story with the most interesting background of a fictional Jewish district in Alaska.
I'm just beginning Ireland by Frank Delaney. He's one of our presenters for the upcoming Literary Sojourn in October and I think this will be a wonderful read.
From Publishers Weekly
BBC reporter Delaney's fictionalized history of his native country, an Irish bestseller, is a sprawling, riveting read, a book of stories melding into a novel wrapped up in an Irish history text. In 1951, when Ronan O'Mara is nine, he meets the aging itinerant Storyteller, who emerges out a "silver veil" of Irish mist, hoping to trade a yarn for a hot meal. Welcomed inside, the Storyteller lights his pipe and begins, telling of the architect of Newgrange, who built "a marvelous, immortal structure... before Stonehenge in England, before the pyramids of Egypt," and the dentally challenged King Conor of Ulster, who tried, and failed, to outsmart his wife. The stories utterly captivate the young Ronan ("This is the best thing that ever, ever happened"), and they'll draw readers in, too, with their warriors and kings, drinkers and devils, all rendered cleanly and without undue sentimentality. When Ronan's mother banishes the Storyteller for telling a blasphemous tale, Ronan vows to find him. He also becomes fascinated by Irish myth and legend, and, as the years pass, he discovers his own gift for storytelling. Eventually, he sets off, traversing Ireland on foot to find his mentor. Past and present weave together as Delaney entwines the lives of the Storyteller and Ronan in this rich and satisfying book.
Rae read and recommends Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
In this ambitious fourth novel from Whitbread winner Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum), private detective Jackson Brodie—ex-cop, ex-husband and weekend dad—takes on three cases involving past crimes that occurred in and around London. The first case introduces two middle-aged sisters who, after the death of their vile, distant father, look again into the disappearance of their beloved sister Olivia, last seen at three years old, while they were camping under the stars during an oppressive heat wave. A retired lawyer who lives only on the fumes of possible justice next enlists Jackson's aid in solving the brutal killing of his grown daughter 10 years earlier. In the third dog-eared case file, the sibling of an infamous ax-bludgeoner seeks a reunion with her niece, who as a baby was a witness to murder. Jackson's reluctant persistence heats up these cold cases and by happenstance leads him to reassess his own painful history. The humility of the extraordinary, unabashed characters is skillfully revealed with humor and surprise. Atkinson contrasts the inevitable results of family dysfunction with random fate, gracefully weaving the three stories into a denouement that taps into collective wishful thinking and suggests that warmth and safety may be found in the aftermath of blood and abandonment. Atkinson's meaty, satisfying prose will attract many eager readers.
Website of the Week - found by Rae - www.results.org - a website of a grassroots lobbying organization - "RESULTS: creating the public and political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty" - Rae just joined the local group in Washington, D.C - we all need to be empowered to make real change in our own communities!
Podcast of the Week - Seder on Sunday - http://www.am1090seattle.com/pages/84914.php?contentType=34&contentId=1199 - from Seattle's progressive radio - until recently, Sam Seder co-hosted a show on Air America with Janeane Garafalo.
Vocabulary Word of the Week - from Mandy - I came across this word in a Salon.com letter to the editor. I had never heard it before--thought the word origin was particularly
interesting:
Shibboleth [shib-uh-lith, -leth]
–noun
1. a peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that
distinguishes a particular class or set of persons.
2. a slogan; catchword.
3. a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.
[Origin: < Heb shibboleth lit., freshet, a word used by the Gileadites as a test to detect the fleeing Ephraimites, who could not pronounce the sound sh (Judges 12:4–6)]
Cooking and Food Report: I did some cooking this week - here goes!
Spaghetti all Amatriciana from Michael Chiarello of the Food Network - I used whole wheat spaghetti which works real well with this hearty sauce.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_35291,00.html
Grilled Steak Salad with Green Beans and Blue Cheese - from Epicurious.com by way of the Culinary School of the Rockies - a great source of recipes - check them out online - www.culinaryschoolrockies.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105157 - I cut this in 1/2 for the two of us and used one strip steak (about 3/4 lb) which I sliced very thin. I also used just a tiny bit of blue cheese - a little goes a long way.
Dry Rub Ribs by Dave Leiberman of the Food Network and Balsamic Barbecue Sauce from Giada de Laurentiis - I wrote these up several weeks ago but they deserve another mention. They are so easy to do and absolutely yummy - the ribs cook very slowly in the oven so make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to get them in before you're ready to eat.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_36115,00.html?rsrc=search
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_36958,00.html
A Great Baby Shower Gift Idea - if you know anyone in your life ( a friend, co-worker, relative) that is expecting a baby and you have a shower gift to get, consider giving the services of a postpartum doula. It is a great idea for several friends or relatives to share the cost.
That's it for this week - I leave on Wednesday for Los Angeles. I'm joining Jex, Joe and Jacob for a 3 night cruise out of LA with Joe's extended family. Joe's mom, Barbara, graciously invited me along for this family reunion and I am really looking forward to it. It will be my first cruise and of course, my cabinmate is the one and only Jacob Milo Rowland! I return on Tuesday the 14th - my blog email may be late or non-existent next week - we'll see how things go!
Love,
Susan
Sorry I missed the walk this morning but I did catch up with Barb, Cass and Mary for coffee at Caffe Sole. From there, I headed down to Lakewood for a meeting with a group of women who have created a referral agency for doulas and postpartum doulas, called With Women http://www.with-women.com/. It was definitely worthwhile and will certainly pursue that as a way of connnecting with clients.
Book Report: it is a short one this week. I just finished Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union which Jack highly recommended a couple of weeks ago. It was slow getting into it for me, a bit confusing, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It definitely became a "page-turning" mystery and detective story with the most interesting background of a fictional Jewish district in Alaska.
I'm just beginning Ireland by Frank Delaney. He's one of our presenters for the upcoming Literary Sojourn in October and I think this will be a wonderful read.
From Publishers Weekly
BBC reporter Delaney's fictionalized history of his native country, an Irish bestseller, is a sprawling, riveting read, a book of stories melding into a novel wrapped up in an Irish history text. In 1951, when Ronan O'Mara is nine, he meets the aging itinerant Storyteller, who emerges out a "silver veil" of Irish mist, hoping to trade a yarn for a hot meal. Welcomed inside, the Storyteller lights his pipe and begins, telling of the architect of Newgrange, who built "a marvelous, immortal structure... before Stonehenge in England, before the pyramids of Egypt," and the dentally challenged King Conor of Ulster, who tried, and failed, to outsmart his wife. The stories utterly captivate the young Ronan ("This is the best thing that ever, ever happened"), and they'll draw readers in, too, with their warriors and kings, drinkers and devils, all rendered cleanly and without undue sentimentality. When Ronan's mother banishes the Storyteller for telling a blasphemous tale, Ronan vows to find him. He also becomes fascinated by Irish myth and legend, and, as the years pass, he discovers his own gift for storytelling. Eventually, he sets off, traversing Ireland on foot to find his mentor. Past and present weave together as Delaney entwines the lives of the Storyteller and Ronan in this rich and satisfying book.
Rae read and recommends Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
In this ambitious fourth novel from Whitbread winner Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum), private detective Jackson Brodie—ex-cop, ex-husband and weekend dad—takes on three cases involving past crimes that occurred in and around London. The first case introduces two middle-aged sisters who, after the death of their vile, distant father, look again into the disappearance of their beloved sister Olivia, last seen at three years old, while they were camping under the stars during an oppressive heat wave. A retired lawyer who lives only on the fumes of possible justice next enlists Jackson's aid in solving the brutal killing of his grown daughter 10 years earlier. In the third dog-eared case file, the sibling of an infamous ax-bludgeoner seeks a reunion with her niece, who as a baby was a witness to murder. Jackson's reluctant persistence heats up these cold cases and by happenstance leads him to reassess his own painful history. The humility of the extraordinary, unabashed characters is skillfully revealed with humor and surprise. Atkinson contrasts the inevitable results of family dysfunction with random fate, gracefully weaving the three stories into a denouement that taps into collective wishful thinking and suggests that warmth and safety may be found in the aftermath of blood and abandonment. Atkinson's meaty, satisfying prose will attract many eager readers.
Website of the Week - found by Rae - www.results.org - a website of a grassroots lobbying organization - "RESULTS: creating the public and political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty" - Rae just joined the local group in Washington, D.C - we all need to be empowered to make real change in our own communities!
Podcast of the Week - Seder on Sunday - http://www.am1090seattle.com/pages/84914.php?contentType=34&contentId=1199 - from Seattle's progressive radio - until recently, Sam Seder co-hosted a show on Air America with Janeane Garafalo.
Vocabulary Word of the Week - from Mandy - I came across this word in a Salon.com letter to the editor. I had never heard it before--thought the word origin was particularly
interesting:
Shibboleth [shib-uh-lith, -leth]
–noun
1. a peculiarity of pronunciation, behavior, mode of dress, etc., that
distinguishes a particular class or set of persons.
2. a slogan; catchword.
3. a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth.
[Origin: < Heb shibboleth lit., freshet, a word used by the Gileadites as a test to detect the fleeing Ephraimites, who could not pronounce the sound sh (Judges 12:4–6)]
Cooking and Food Report: I did some cooking this week - here goes!
Spaghetti all Amatriciana from Michael Chiarello of the Food Network - I used whole wheat spaghetti which works real well with this hearty sauce.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_35291,00.html
Grilled Steak Salad with Green Beans and Blue Cheese - from Epicurious.com by way of the Culinary School of the Rockies - a great source of recipes - check them out online - www.culinaryschoolrockies.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/105157 - I cut this in 1/2 for the two of us and used one strip steak (about 3/4 lb) which I sliced very thin. I also used just a tiny bit of blue cheese - a little goes a long way.
Dry Rub Ribs by Dave Leiberman of the Food Network and Balsamic Barbecue Sauce from Giada de Laurentiis - I wrote these up several weeks ago but they deserve another mention. They are so easy to do and absolutely yummy - the ribs cook very slowly in the oven so make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to get them in before you're ready to eat.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_36115,00.html?rsrc=search
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_36958,00.html
A Great Baby Shower Gift Idea - if you know anyone in your life ( a friend, co-worker, relative) that is expecting a baby and you have a shower gift to get, consider giving the services of a postpartum doula. It is a great idea for several friends or relatives to share the cost.
That's it for this week - I leave on Wednesday for Los Angeles. I'm joining Jex, Joe and Jacob for a 3 night cruise out of LA with Joe's extended family. Joe's mom, Barbara, graciously invited me along for this family reunion and I am really looking forward to it. It will be my first cruise and of course, my cabinmate is the one and only Jacob Milo Rowland! I return on Tuesday the 14th - my blog email may be late or non-existent next week - we'll see how things go!
Love,
Susan
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