Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger– Nigel Slater
We start today with a foodie book. I have been on a foodie kick lately, and also have been slightly more adventurous in the kitchen than usual. Probably something to do with the fact that I have stopped vomiting 24/7 and no longer gag when merely opening the refrigerator door. This book is not a cookbook; it is a memoir, written in delectable anecdotes, about, mostly, food and the nostalgia certain foods evoke in us. At the same time, Slater tells his boyhood story, about his distant, mercurial father, his sickly mother, his beloved – yet probably pedophilic - gardener. It’s like eating a box of really nice chocolates – you think, “I am only going to eat one more,” and then scarf down every last one in a sitting. “One more story, and then…” and then ninety pages later, you finish the book. I am certainly interested in looking at Appetite, Slater’s new cookbook, but since the Carnegie doesn’t have it yet, I requested this one: Real Fast Food. I like his writing style, and I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I care for his cooking style. I found out about Slater on this blog; this woman is a serious foodie, decent writer, and quite a good photographer, I think. The cookbooks link is here, scroll down to May 17.
All In My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache - Paula Kamen. Because I fear I am one of the Tired Girls (Salon is down for maintenance, I will post the appropriate link when the site is back up). And all the reviews say this is much more than a book about chronic pain.
Crescent – Diana Abu-Jaber. Simply because I loved The Language of Baklava, and need to read more of her stuff.
Kindergarten – Peter Rushforth. Still can’t remember how or why I found this book or wanted to read it. But it looks interesting. I like the author’s name too. Rushforth…it’s so …descriptive….
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Dan is totally digging the Jasper Fforde books. We very rarely have any reading material in common, so this is a bit of a pleasant surprise for me. He liked The Eyre Affair enough that the day after he finished it, I went out and bought him the second one because he mentioned he was enjoying it so much. This makes me happy : )I think what might have done the trick was telling him that these books are like Hithchiker's Guide for English majors. And here's a weird thing - he's never read Jane Eyre. (He's a guy, what did I expect?)I tried to think about how that would affect your reading of The Eyre Affair?
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Cute Simon story:
At dinner the other night Dan and I were discussing various marriages/couples we knew. I said that my brother had been smart and married money (not that he married FOR money, he definitely married a woman with whom he was and is deeply in love, but nevertheless…). Dan laughed and said he’d married debt, and I corrected him and said actually he’d married into a jump up from trailer park. Then Simon interrupted this and said, “No, Daddy, you married love.” Awwww.
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Food Glorious Food, a little kitchen/gourmet shop in my neighborhood, has begun a Saturday morning bakery. Their cream puffs are incredible - real whipped cream, not that nasty yellow custardy filling, and dark chocolate on top. Yum! The blueberry pie is nothing to sneeze at, either, and the Boston cream pie - not one of my favorites normally - is quite nice. God, I love pastry.
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This summer we are trying out this farm co-op project where you send the co-op checks and then every week, you go pick up (from a delivery location in your neighborhood) seasonal produce from a local farmer. Yesterday was our first pick-up. Dan was the driving force behind our participation and turns out we are actually splitting the take with neighbors (I’m sorry, Gina, I know you were interested in this too – I wasn’t even aware we’d actually signed up after all until Dan told me Thursday night that I had to go pick the stuff up on Friday!) .
We got:
• dozen baby beets and greens
• handful of asparagus
• medium sized bag of field greens
• medium sized bag of spinach
• dozen eggs
• chunk of raw milk cheddar
• jar blackberry jam
I am not sure how exactly we are splitting the take, or what to do with some of it – I have never cooked a beet in my life. But it should be a good exercise in supporting local organic farming, and trying out new foods. And it turns out we have an excellent city farmers’ market on Mondays in East Liberty. (The Zoo one is good too, but I work most Thursdays.)
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This is sort of turning into a book *and* food blog. Fortunately for me, Gina is way cooler about this than our previous blogmates, so I only feel compelled to apologize minimally.
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I recently - um, like today - discovered the the word esoteric does not mean what I thought it meant all these years. In fact, it means pretty much the opposite. How embarrassing.
2 comments:
Psyched to see you're a member of a CSA plan! We just bought a share from our local farm but we don't get the box-o-veggies; it's more like a bank account and now whenever we go to the farm it's "free," at least until we use up our money. I think there are merits to the box version, though; you definitely get more variety than if you're allowed to choose (and stick to your tried-and-true favorites).
And a shout out for Jasper Fforde while I'm commenting, too.
yes, but what the heck am i supposed to do with beets? : )
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