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Here are the tastingspoons players. I’m in the middle (Carolyn). Daughter Sara on the right, and daughter-in-law Karen on the left. I started the blog in 2007, as a way to share recipes with my family. Now in 2024, I’m still doing 99% of the blogging and holding out hope that these two lovely and excellent cooks will participate. They both lead very busy lives, so we’ll see.

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BOOK READING (from Carolyn):

Jackie, by Dawn Tripp. Oh goodness. What a book. I loved it from the first page. It’s a novel, however. Tripp has done plenty of research, trying to ferret out the truth about Jackie Kennedy’s real life. If the novel is a true portrayal of her life, I admire Jackie even more. She was an extremely shy person. Jack cared about her, but not enough. She adored her children. She loved Jack (sadly). The Kennedy family insisted Jack marry a suitable bride, and he did. But he was so busy being a politician, he forgot about his family. And philandered, as we know. Tragic story, really. I never did comprehend why she married Onassis, but you’ll understand (better) if you read the book.

The Day the World Came to Town, by Jim DeFede. Please do read this book. It’s a charmer. True story about the little town of Gander, Newfoundland, when 38 jets landed there on 9/11, and stayed there for days and days until the U.S. reopened its airports. It’s about the loving, generous people of Gander who gathered in the 7,000 people who came off those planes and needed to stay somewhere – and be fed, and bathed, and soothed. You’ll fall in love with the people of Gander. I sure did.

The Frozen River, by Ariel Lawhon. I do like mysteries. Love Louise Penny, for instance. This is one that keeps your nose in it to find out what happens next. A man’s body is found under the ice in the Kennebec River (Maine) in 1789. Very unusual factors. Really interesting facts and interwoven, tangled stories evolve.

The Sweetness of Forgetting, by Kristen Harmel. Cute story. Hope, a 30 something woman, lost her mother to cancer, she’s estranged from her husband, and her funds are running low, despite owning a successful bakery on Cape Cod. Then her grandmother in France, suffering from Alzheimer’s but sometimes lucid, beckons Hope to come to France to learn the family history about WWII Paris, to uncover a secretive past. Really good read.

The Honeymoon: A Novel of George Eliot, by Dinitia Smith. I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but it wasn’t this. It’s a novel, but based most likely on lots of truths. After Mary Ann Evans (who became known later as George Eliot, because women authors had no clout) was married to her beloved George Henry Lewes, and then he died, she was devastated. She was a novelist, but feeling her age, her appearance (not particularly pretty) and her loneliness. John Walter Cross was an admirer and he asked her to marry him. She did. It was as someone wrote, an imperfect union. For sure. They honeymooned in Venice (this was 1880). He was 20 years younger. Very unusual story. But interesting.

The Night Portrait, by Laura Morelli. In Milan in 1492, a 16 year old girl becomes the mistress of the Duke of Milan, a very powerful man of the age. She finds herself being painted by  Leonardo da Vinci, who is trying to ingratiate himself into the court. The painting has a long life. Move forward 500 years and the painting is found and protected by the Monuments Men following WWII. Riveting story. Loved it.

These Tangled Vines, by Julianne MacLean. Quite a story about an Italian family, both in Tuscany and in Napa Valley. Lots of twists and turns, and romances. Enjoyed it. There’s intrigue too.

When We Meet Again, by Kristin Harmel. There are so many books out these days about finding some little something that sends the protagonist on a journey to find his/her roots. This is another one. Good story, though. The young woman in question receives a painting and a note saying: “He never stopped loving her.” Off she goes to find the truth, from the Florida Everglades to Munich and back.

Outside of Grace, by Anna Daugherty. Ava leaves home to study in Scotland. Life there isn’t to her liking (partying, etc.) and then she’s assaulted. Loyalties are tested. This is a Christian novel. Very interesting and heartwarming in the end.

Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell. This is so “today.” A guy is hired at a company as a security officer, but his job is to read the employee’s emails. All of them. He’s especially intrigued about two women, friends, who email a lot about their personal lives. He get pulled into their lives, their friendship, their families. And he begins to fall in love with one of them. Very cute story.

Summer Island, by Kristin Hannah. This is one of Hannah’s earliest books (2002). When Nora’s children were young, she walked away from them and her husband to pursue her career. Years pass and when one of the daughters is injured in an accident, she returns to the family home in the San Juan Islands to allow her mother to care for her. And, secretly, to also write a tell-all, about the scandal of her mother’s life. Things don’t necessarily turn out the way it’s expected. Good story.

The French Ingredient, by Jane Bertch. A memoir. Jane visited Paris at age 17 and wasn’t thrilled. Decades later she’s offered a transfer there for her job. Now she’s fluent in French and has a different dream for herself. She opens a cooking school (still there today, called La Cuisine Paris, opened in 2009). It’s for English speakers, to learn some of the intricacies of French cooking. It’s the story of the school, her life, the food, and a few recipes (I think there were). She had to continually remake the school to suit the audience, but she succeeded. Cute story, for sure.

What I Ate in One Year, by Stanley Tucci. If you love pasta, you’ll be devouring every recipe. This is his newest book, kind of in diary form of the meals he and his wife and family ate over the course of one year. And then some of his insights about life, Italy, cooking, traveling, family, etc. There really isn’t a “story” to this book. I think I was glad when I got to the end. I didn’t save any of the recipes. Glad I got it as a library book!

The Ride of Her Life, Elizabeth Letts. Such a story . . . a 63-year old woman with a bad medical prognosis decides (this is 1954) that she must leave Maine and go to see the Pacific Ocean. She has no car and her farm is being foreclosed. First she’s on a just-purchased old horse and off she goes. It’s a charming story about the people she meets (she has no money), the people who house her and her horse, the help she gets, eventually becoming something of a celebrity. There’s a dog in the story too. Absolutely adorable story. I cried.

The Two-Family House, by Lynda Loigman. Oh gosh, what wicked webs we weave sometimes. Brooklyn, NY, 1947. Two babies are born in a 2-family brownstone. The mothers are sisters. One sisters has boys and the other girls. Aah, huh. Something happens. The sisters eventually become undone with each other, and the families. Very interesting, creative story. Good read.

Working Stiff, by Judy Melinek, MD and T.J. Mitchell. Dr. Melinek is a forensic pathologist in New York. September 11th. Oh my goodness, the difficulties, the horror. It’s about the daily life of medical examiners, but this one with such interesting stories to tell about the victims of 9/11. Really interesting read.

Wandering Through Life, by Donna Leon. This is a memoir of Leon’s life. Or at least it’s some chapters that do reveal a bit about her life. Not a lot. Stories aren’t long. She taught school in Iran in 1976. Wow. Then she went to China and Saudi Arabia. Then she got to Venice which because her home love story. She also loves opera, cappucinos. No huge revelations here. Okay read. Leon is 80 now and reminisces a lot about Venice.

Swan Song, by Elin Hilderbrand. She’s such a creative writer. Takes place on Nantucket, when a $22 mil home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons. And soon afterwards goes up in flames. The arson mystery. Really riveting.

The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff. A murder mystery, but set within the secretive confines of the Mormon church. Part of the story is about Ann Eliza Young who separated from Brigham Young way back in 1875, and began a crusade to end polygamy. That in itself makes a good story. But this book is set mostly in present day with a different set of Mormon characters, polygamers. Very interesting.

The Big House by George Howe Colt. This one is a memoir. About an old, old summer house on Cape Cod, and the people who inhabit it. It’s falling apart – 11 bedrooms. It’s seen every possible scenario, marriages, deaths, love affairs and divorces over 5 generations. The subtitle of the book: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home. You’ll be cheering for the house by the end. Loved it.

Maria, by Michelle Moran. You know the movie, The Sound of Music. About Maria, first a novice/nun, then she marries Von Trapp and takes on his numerous children. Throw a big rock at all of that beautiful (bubble) life you thought was there in the movie. Not much of it is true. The movie script changed lots of things about the Von Trapp’s lives to make a good story. The children didn’t like Maria – why? Because she wasn’t a very nice woman. Certainly not a loving mother. She was a tyrant, and as soon as they could when they became adults, they left the family. It was hard to do so, however. Lots of guilt heaped on them to help support the family and their legacy in Stowe, Vermont. Only one of her children stayed in touch with Maria at the end of her life.

Last to Eat, Last to Learn by Pashtana Durrani. If you’re an educator, or admire those who do, you’ll love this story. It’s a memoir about the author and her family. Specifically her father who believed in educating the women in his family. The subtitle: My Life in Afghanistan Fighting to Educate Women. She’s done so much in her life to help (and fight) for education. Including founding a nonprofit called LEARN to get education materials to remote areas. She’s a target of the Taliban. All the profit from the book go to that nonprofit, learnafghan.org.

Acceptance, by Emi Nietfeld. Wow. A memoir of her life, which was harrowing in the younger years. Her single mom was a hoarder and doesn’t provide the nurturing needed. Or the love either. Emi ended up in foster care, but a couple of teachers give her encouragement. Despite it all, including homelessness, she earns her way to an acceptance at Harvard. And she’s sleeping in her car. Imagine? She relishes her education and soars through it. She overcame a lot, oh my goodness. So admirable. You’ll cheer her on throughout the book. She’s a journalist now, also a software engineer, and a mental health advocate.

Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson. I read this book awhile ago now (August, 24). This is the brand new book about Elon. I was riveted from page one all the way through. It’s a long book, but now that he’s on Trump’s team (he was a great pick for this new venture) you’ll be intrigued with his life. I thought this was an extremely well written book about a very complex and brilliant man. Difficult man? Oh yes. Enigmatic? That too.

The Lost King of France, by Deborah Cadbury. The subtitle says it all: How DNA Solved the Mystery of the Murdered Son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. This book was SO interesting. I enjoy crime dramas, and this one is of the highest order.

The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow. This is a novel, but it reads almost like a true story. About a musical manuscript suddenly unearthed, in of all places, in Queens, New York. The music is un-authored and the heroine in the story, a music expert, believes it to be from one of the great composers of all time. Intriguing story altogether. Loved it from the first page.

A World Full of Strangers, by Cynthia Freeman. A young 17-year old girl is all alone in London when her mother dies. She makes it to New York in 1932. Strangers help her, including her mother’s closest friend from her childhood.  She grows up, marries (not the best choice) has a son. Shattered dreams all along the way. All are resilient despite the drama. Good read.

Secrets of a Charmed Life, by Susan Meissner. Dual time line story about a current day scholar at Oxford, who interviews a very elderly woman who is finally willing to share her WWII stories. The other timeline is 1940s Britain and about the children who were evacuated. The two timelines meet eventually. Very interesting story.

James, by Percival Everett. Just won the National Book Award. If you were a fan of Huckleberry Finn, this is a new retelling of the story. Can’t say that I was riveted to the narrative (I suppose even as a child, I couldn’t identify much with Mississippi rafting). But it’s about friendship, obviously.

Why We Read, by Shannon Reed. Funny. Introspective. Informative. All those things, wrapped up in the writer’s journey reading through her life. It’s the whys and what she gets from the various books that makes it interesting.

Mrs. Van Gogh by Caroline Cauchi. There’s another novel out about the same subject (see next book below) – Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s brother’s wife. Johanna dedicates her life (after her husband’s early death, and Vincent’s death even earlier) protecting but also marketing Vincent’s art, saving it for posterity. And also eking out a living for herself. Loved the read.

The Secret Life of Sunflowers, by Marta Molnar. I liked this book (version) better than the one above. It drew me in even more to the story about Johanna Van Gogh and her hard life trying to support herself and also protect Vincent’s work. The early part of the book describes the troubled life of Vincent and his brother’s guilt about taking care and/or supporting him. This book uses a diary (purportedly written by Johanna) as its kernel. Loved it.

Long Island by Colm Toibin. The turbulent story of two (or really four) related families who live close together on Long Island. And a baby that’s dropped into the arms of one of the wives and the intricate web that creates. Very interesting story.

Three Inch Teeth, by C.J.Box. Another one of Box’s white-knuckling mystery stories set in Wyoming, with Joe Pickett, the game warden who stars in many of Box’s novels. Riveting as always.

The Gown, by Jennifer Robson. I’m not a seamstress. Never really took to it, though my mother made lots of clothes in her day. This story is about the wedding gown designed for Queen Elizabeth, and about the various women who created it. Two women are honored by the Norman Hartnell fashion house, to create the gown. With pounds and pounds of embroidery and beads. I think it said how much it weighed. Eee gads! Heavy. It’s based on true history, although the author weaves it into a really interesting novel. Loved it.

The Secret of Villa Alba, by Louise Douglas. This is a very intriguing mystery about a woman who disappeared in 1968 in Sicily. And the Italian tv sleuth who decides to figure out what happened to her. You have to get almost to the last page to learn the truth. I couldn’t figure it out.

The Concubine, by Norah Lofts. Over the years I’ve read several books about the wives of Henry VIII. All quite fascinating. This one is all about Anne Boleyn. It’s historical fiction, in that the author gives a voice to all the characters, including Henry himself. Henry waited years upon years to have his way with Anne (she holding him off because he still was very married to Catherine of Spain). There’s one tidbit of insight (true? who knows?) that once Henry finally bedded Anne, he was quite disappointed with the act, and barely bothered to visit her bed except to his need for a son, each time equally disappointed (with the act). Such an interesting sideline to the fated life of Henry (and Anne), wanting nothing more than a son to succeed him. Henry did marry Anne Boleyn, but then beheaded her 2 years later, claiming she’d been an adulterer. Many people of the time called Anne The Concubine, hence the title. No one knows for sure whether she was or she wasn’t an adulterer. Made for a good read.

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. Oh my goodness. One of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. I love nothing better than being engrossed in a book, so much that I can’t wait to get back to it. This book takes place in Maine, in some previous decades, and revolves around the friendship between two women and their families. This fictitious area, called Fellowship Point, was purchased by a small group of like-minded couples, as a place to spend the summers raising their children. There was a special land grant for this property, and as these two matriarchs reach old age, their purposes are at odds. The book covers so many subjects (let alone the beauty of the Maine landscape, which plays large) including reflections on aging, writing, land stewardship, family legacies, independence, and responsibility. Secrets are kept and then revealed. I guarantee you’ll be intrigued once you begin the first page.

On Mystic Lake, Kristin Hannah. One of Hannah’s earlier books. Another one I could hardly bear to stop reading. A woman sees her young adult daughter go off to school. In the next breath her husband tells her he’s in love with someone else and leaves. She’s nearly off her hinges. Grief? Yes. Disbelief? Yes. Eventually she retreats to her hometown in Washington State, hoping for some peace and understanding. She meets someone. Well, read the book.

A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira. A very different historical novel about the Pacific Northwest in its very early days. In the fleeting days of youth, in Scotland, a boy and a girl fall in love. The girl, with her family move to America, to some unknown place in Washington Territory. It takes years, but the boy makes his way to America too, to find her. Wishing doesn’t always make the best bedfellows. There is great plenty (coal) and great hardship (from the unforgiving land and equally unforgiving landlords of the coal industry). Very interesting history; liked the book a lot.

The Women, Kristin Hannah. Obviously I’m a fan of Hannah’s writing. She tackles some very difficult subjects, and this one is no different. During the Vietnam War, gullible Americans like me, believed what was delivered via media that there were no women in military service in Vietnam. Not true. Although this book is fiction, it delves deeply into the harsh environment of the nursing corps (and doctors too) who did their best to patch up the thousands of soldiers who could possibly be saved after the ugly battles. Another book I could hardly put down. It also covers PTSD, not only in the badly wounded soldiers, but the doctors and nurses who were bombed and lost lives too. The book is an eye-opener and one every American should read.

The Map Colorist by Rebecca D’Harlingue. Who knew there were such map-coloring artists back in the 1600s. And to find a woman doing it was unheard of. I was very intrigued by the actual art involved, and in this story she had to hide behind her mother’s skill because a young person simply couldn’t do the job, so the publishers thought. Her skill comes to the fore as she begins working with a wealthy man in her Dutch neighborhood. Very intriguing story. D’Harlingue is a very good story teller.

The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl. Such a cute book – I devoured it. As much for the story as the occasional descriptions of food. Stella receives an unlikely inheritance from her mother – a one way ticket to Paris. The time is right and she goes. Wandering the streets she spots a vintage Dior gown hanging in a consignment store. The store owner insists she try it on, and then insists she buy it and wear it for a night of new adventures. Next stop: oysters at Les Deux Magots. There she meets an octogenarian and her real adventure begins. Hold onto your seat as Stella’s life takes on wings. So cute. A little bit of magical thinking, but plausible and fun from beginning to end. Loved it and could hardly put it down.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle. Amazon tells it best: “Where do you see yourself in five years? Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers. She is nothing like her lifelong best friend—the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content. But when she awakens, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight—but it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one you’re expecting.”

The Paris Daughter, Kristen Harmel. Never ceases to amaze me how authors can come up with a different take on a war novel. Riveting. Two young women meet in a park is Paris in 1939. Elise and Juliette and Juliette’s very young daughter. Elise must run as she’s Jewish, but she entrusts her baby to her friend Juliette. At the end of the war Elise returns to Paris to try to find her daughter. Oh, what a wicked web we weave sometimes. You’ll hang onto every new revelation in her journey to find her daughter.

Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo. This book almost defies belief, but it’s a true story. In 1848, an enslaved Black couple, she fairer skinned, him dark skinned, manage to escape bondage by posing as a white woman with her slave (not husband). They journey from Georgia by various means, mere feet from the slave traders trying to find them, with ingenious methods of disguise. They’re handed from one “underground railroad” home to another, in between taking public transportation. Their goal: freedom in Philadelphia. Yet once they get there they don’t feel free, so they continue their journey northward. What a story. Another one every American should read. This book has been given many awards; so worth reading.

The Tiffany Girl by Deanne Gist. Such an interesting story. Flossie Jayne, a student at the Art Institute in NYC, is asked to help THE Mr. Louis Tiffany, finish the very elaborate glass chapel at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, when the glassworker’s union goes on strike. Many women were employed (when it was thought they couldn’t possibly have the strength to cut glass), working day and night, to finish the work. This is Flossie’s story, of the people she meets, and foists off, but always with her eye on the dream, succeeding in the art of cut glass design. Very interesting story. If you’ve ever admired Tiffany glass lamps and other decor items, you’ll enjoy learning more about what’s involved in making them.

The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki. Ah, to live within the life of the rich and famous. This is a book of historical fiction, but is very much the story of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Her life. Her goals. Her daughters. Amazon notes: “Presidents have come and gone, but she has hosted them all. Growing up in the modest farmlands of Battle Creek, Michigan, Marjorie was inspired by a few simple rules: always think for yourself, never take success for granted, and work hard—even when deemed American royalty, even while covered in imperial diamonds. Marjorie had an insatiable drive to live and love and to give more than she got.” Her life wasn’t all sweetness and light. She was a survivor, had a good solid head for business, and married several times. Her life was very Oprah-esque, with fresh flowers in abundance every day, dripping with jewels and custom clothing. But she also knew how to scrimp and remake herself. Fascinating read. Wish I could have met her and  had tea (one of her favorite things).

Fox Creek by William Kent Kreuger. A Cork O’Connor Mystery. Kreuger is known for his love of the land. I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time. This one is new. This one weaves Indian territory and mores with a murder mystery. Very riveting as any mystery should be.

Chenneville, Paulette Jiles. From Amazon: Union soldier John Chenneville suffered a traumatic head wound in battle. His recovery took the better part of a year as he struggled to regain his senses and mobility. By the time he returned home, the Civil War was over, but tragedy awaited. John’s beloved sister and her family had been brutally murdered.” This is the story of his dogged, relentless journey to find and kill the killer. Grip your seat as he weathers some very treacherous adventures. Really good read, rugged outdoors kind of story. I’ve loved Jiles’ writing ever since I read News of the World by her. She’s a really good story-teller.

The Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. Oh my goodness. From Amazon: In 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family—parents, husband, sons—were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.” I’ll tell you, this is a very hard book to read. The writer, the victim, tells you in intimate detail what happened at the time, immediately after, and then recounts months by month and a loooong time after her journey of grief. She barely functions. Wishes she’d been swept away too. Harrowing account of the facts and the journey of living again.

The Art of Resistance by Justus Rosenberg. From amazon: Unlike any World War II memoir before it. Rosenberg, has spent the past seventy years teaching the classics of literature to American college students. Hidden within him, however, was a remarkable true story of wartime courage and romance worthy of a great novel. Here is Professor Rosenberg’s elegant and gripping chronicle of his youth in Nazi-occupied Europe, when he risked everything to stand against evil.” His parents sent him off to Paris early on to go to school, from Danzig (which likely saved his life), but he becomes the hunted, and eventually part of the underground. Gripping book; well worth reading.

The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood. A little bit of a reach, but believable nonetheless. A young woman, an accomplished librarian from Austria in 1940, is sent to Windsor to sort the centuries of valuable books, maps and treasures of the Royal Family. She believes she’s on a mission for British intelligence. She very distantly befriends Princess Elizabeth. Years later her sister unearths documentation about her sister, and she undertakes a journey of discovery too. You’ll learn a lot about Windsor Castle, even what they did during the Blitz. Lots of intrigue. Very sweet book and interesting since I love books about the Royal Family.

Long Time Gone by Charlie Donlea. If you watch any crime shows, you know how important DNA is these days. Here is a mystery that comes from familial DNA, in a framework of a current day research project. The protaganist is a fellow (woman) preparing to be a medical examiner. She’s assigned a project regarding DNA, requiring her to submit her own. She knows she was adopted, but nothing more. Oh my, stand by as this book unfolds with drama within nearly every page. Could hardly put it down. Her life is threatened and she doesn’t know who is friend or foe.

A Most Intriguing Lady, by Sarah Ferguson with Marguerite Kaye. Sarah Ferguson, yes, that Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has now written her second novel. About a very astute young woman who deftly avoids the marriage mart, but comes from the ton. She wants to “do” something with her life other than be a companion to her aging mother. Plenty of characters, some intrigue, a love interest, cute story, you know how it will end, but good reading nevertheless. I liked Ferguson’s first book better, Her Heart for a Compass.

Under the Java Moon, by Heather Moore. Sometimes these WWII books are tough to read. This is a true story (written as fiction, though) about a few Dutch families who are taken prisoner on Java Island, by the Japanese. Certainly it’s a story about unbelievable deprivation and sadness, but also about resilience too. Not everyone survives, as you could guess, but you’ll be rooting for young Rita who takes on so many responsibilities far beyond her 6-year old’s abilities. I read this because a dear friend of mine’s husband (now deceased) was in the Army during WWII and spent a lot of his duty in Indonesia and had horrific stories to tell about the weather and environment (awful!). A period of his life he liked to forget. The book certainly brings that period and place to the forefront. I’m glad I read it.

Never in a million years would I have picked up Blind Your Ponies, by Stanley Gordon West. If I’d read the cover or flap that the bulk of the story is about basketball, I’d have put it back on the shelf. But oh, this book is – yes, about basketball, but it’s about a place in time in Montana, a few decades ago, when a tiny town supported their high school team. It’s about a dream. About the town who believed in them. About a tall young man who comes to lives in the town, and his deliverance, really, from a pretty awful background as he plays basketball, when he’d never played before. It’s about relationships, marriages, families and about how this little team makes it. Such a great story and SO glad I read it.

A Girl Called Samson, by Amy Harmon. I’m a fan of anything written by Harmon, and this one delivered as all her books do. 1760, Massachusetts. Deborah Samson is an indentured servant but yearns for independence. From being a rather tall, skinny kid (a girl) to faking it as a young soldier (a young man) in the Continental army. You’ll marvel at her ability to hide her true self. It’s quite a story. She’s thrown into the worst of situations in the war and comes through with flying colors. You’ll find yourself rooting for her and also fearing mightily that she’s going to either get killed, or be “found out,” by some of the men. Riveting story beginning to end. There’s a love interest here too which is very sweet.

On Mystic Lake, by Kristin Hannah. This is a book Hannah wrote some years ago, and tells the story of a woman, Annie, who finds out (on the day their daughter goes off to a foreign land for an exchange quarter) that her husband is in love with another woman and leaves her. Annie, who has been the quintessential perfect corporate wife, is devastated. She felt blind-sided. She cries and wallows, but eventually she returns home to her small town, where her widowed dad lives, in Washington. There she runs into many people she knew and at first feels very out of place. Slowly, she finds the town more welcoming and she helps a previous boyfriend, now widowed with his young daughter. A connection is there. Annie has to find herself, and she definitely does that. Her husband rears his head (of course he does!) after several months, and Annie has to figure out what to do. I don’t want to give away the story. Lots of twists and turns.

The Vineyard, by Barbara Delinsky. A novel with many current day issues. Husband and wife own a vineyard in Rhode Island. Husband dies. Widow soon (too soon) marries the manager, a hired employee, much to the consternation of her two grown children. Widow hires woman as personal assistant (much of the book comes from her voice) and she gets entangled into the many webs, clinging from the many decades the winery has tried to be successful. Really interesting. Lots of plot twists, but all revolving around work of the vineyard. Cute love story too. It wouldn’t be a Delinsky book without that aspect.

Consequences, Penelope Lively. I’ve always loved this author’s writing style. Have read many of her books. This one follows a rather dotted line family, the women, as they grow through worn-torn London and England. There’s poverty and both major events and minor ones that send the story’s trajectory in new directions. Riveting for me. Lively won the Booker Prize for Moon Tiger, her most famous book.

Below Zero, C.J. Box. Mystery of the first order. A Joe Pickett novel (he’s a game warden in Wyoming) with a family member thought dead is suddenly alive. Or is she? Joe’s on the hunt to find out. I don’t read these books at night – too scary. I love his books, though.

Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin on the Siberian Taiga, by Sylvain Tesson. I’m not sure what possessed me to read this book. About a late 30s guy who seems to crave solitude; he’s offered a 11×11 cabin in the cold/frozen Siberian outback, on a huge lake that freezes over in winter. Here’s a quote from the book: “A visit to my wooden crates. My supplies are dwindling. I have enough pasta left for a month and Tabasco to drench it in. I have flour, tea and oil. I’m low on coffee. As for vodka, I should make it to the end of April.” Vodka plays large in this book. Tesson (who is French, with Russian heritage) is a gifted writer, about the wilderness, the flora and fauna, about the alone-ness, the introspection. Mostly he ate pasta with Tabasco. No other sauce. Many shots of vodka every day. Drunkenness plays a serious role too – what else is there to do, you might ask? He lived there for about a year. I’d have lasted a week, no more.

The Auburn Conference by Tom Piazza. Another one, given my druthers I’m not sure I’d have picked up. For one of my book clubs. Excellent writing. 1883, upstate NY. A young professor decides to make a name for himself and puts on an event, inviting many literary luminaries of the day (Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Forrest Taylor and a romance novelist [the outlier] Lucy Comstock). Part panel discussion, part private conversations, the author weaves a tale of discord, some moderate yelling, some rascism and much ridicule of the romance novelist. Also some words of wisdom, maybe not from the authors you’d have expected. Unusual book.

As Bright as Heaven, by Susan Meissner. 1918. Philadelphia. About a young family arriving with the highest of hopes. Then the Spanish Flu hits and dashes everything. You’ll learn a whole lot about that particular virulent flu and the tragic aftermath. Really good read.

Hour of the Witch, by Chris Bohjalian. Boston, 1662. A young woman becomes the 2nd wife of a powerful man, a cruel man. She determines to leave him, something just “not done” back then. Twists and turns, she’s accused of being a witch. Story of survival, and a redeeming love too.

My Oxford Year, by Julia Whelan. At 24, a young woman is honored with a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. She’s older than most of her fellow classmates, and as an American, doesn’t fit in very well. She’s left a good job back home, but determines to try to work some for the political campaign job she’s left, and also do the work for her Oxford scholarship. She meets a professor. Oh my. Such an interesting book. I loved learning about the culture of Oxford, and there’s a fascinating romance too, somewhat a forbidden one with said professor.

Madame Pommery, by Rebecca Rosenberg. I love champagne. Have read a number of books over the years (novels) about the region (and I’ve visited there once). This is real history, though in a novelized form. Madame Pommery was widowed, and determined she would blaze a trail that was not well received (no women in the champagne business for starters). And she decides to make a different, less sweet version. She’s hated and reviled, but sticks to her guns, veering away from the then very sweet version all the winemakers were producing. Fascinating story.

The Wager, by David Grann. A true tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder back in the 1740s. Not exactly my usual genre of reading, but once I heard about the book, I decided I needed to read it. This is a novelized version of the story, based on the facts of an English shipwreck, first off Brazil, then later off Chile. Of the men, their struggle to survive (and many didn’t). Yes, there’s murder involved, and yes, there’s mutiny as well. Those who survived stood trial back in England many years later. Riveting read.

Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate. 1939. A shantyboat in the backwaters of the Mississippi River. A 12-year old girl is left to care for her younger siblings when her mother is taken ill. A mystery ensues, and soon officials chase these youngsters to take them into an orphanage, one that became infamous for “selling” the children, weaving wild tales of their provenance. Dual timeline, you read about a successful young attorney who returns home to help her father, and questions come up about the family history. Fascinating read. You’ll learn about this real abominable woman, Georgia Tann, who profited by her “sales.”

The Vaster Wilds, by Lauren Goff. This tells the story of a young servant girl, in the aftermath of the starvation in Jamestown, the beleaguered town that virtually disappeared because the people weren’t prepared for the harshness of survival in those days. She escapes before the demise of the town and heads west, with nothing but the clothes she’s wearing. She survives longer than you might think, and encounters a lot of interesting experiences and people. Very interesting historical read.

Lady Tan’s Circle of Woman, Lisa See. Historical fiction, from 1469, Ming Dynasty, China. Based on the true story, however, about a young woman mostly raised by her grandmother who is a well known physician. Her grandfather is a scholarly physician, her grandmother, more an herbalist, or like a pharmacist of the day. Tan eventually marries into a family and is immediately subjugated by the matriarch, who won’t allow her to practice any of her healing arts. Quite a story, and also about how she eventually does treat women (women “doctors” were only allowed to treat women) as a midwife and herbalist. You’ll learn a whole lot about the use of flowers and herbs for healing and about the four humors.

Winter Garden, by Kristen Hannah. Quite a story, taking place in Washington State with apple orchards forming a backdrop and family business. Two sisters, never much friends even when they were young, return home to help care for their ailing father. Their mother? What an enigma. She took no part in raising them, yet she lived in the home. She cooked for the family, but rarely interacted. Yet her father adored his wife, their mother. How do they bridge the gulf between each other and also with their mother. Another page turner from Kristen Hannah.

Trail of the Lost, by Andrea Lankford. Not my usual genre. This is nonfiction, about Lankford who has plenty of credentials for rescue services, and is an avid hiker herself, determines to try to find some missing people who have disappeared off the face of the earth on the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s about how rescues work, everything from the disconnect between active citizens who want to help, and seemingly the unwillingness of authorities to share information. Not exactly a positive for law enforcement in this book. Really fascinating. There are hundreds of people who have disappeared off various long hike trails in the U.S. This is about four who were hiking (separately and at different times) on the PCT.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin. I’ve never been a “gamer.” Not by any standard definition, anyway. Not like people who really get into games, adventure, killers, etc. And this book isn’t a game .. . but it’s a novel (and a great story, I might add) about how these games come into being. How they’re invented, how they morph. First there were two college students, then a third person is added, and they end up creating a wildly popular game. A company is born. And it goes from there. Mostly it’s about the people, their relationships, but set amidst the work of creating and running a gaming company. Not all fun and games, pun intended.

Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. Oh gosh, what a fabulous book. It’s a novel; however, much of the story is about the intelligence of octopus. In particular this one, Marcellus, who lives in an aquarium in a fictitious town in western Washington State. More than anything the book is about relationships, not only Marcellus with a woman (of a certain age) who cleans the aquarium at night, but the various people in this small town.

Trust, by Herman Diaz. This novel is an enigma in so many ways. It’s a book, within a book, within a book. About the stock market crash back in 1929, but it’s about a man. Oh my. It’s really interesting. This book won the Pulitzer. That’s why I bought it.

Cassidy Hutchinson is a young woman (a real one) who works in politics or “government.” She’s worked for some prestigious Washington politicians, and ended up working for Trump. The book is a memoir of her short spin working at the highest levels, and obviously at the White House. She worked under Mark Meadows and suffered a lot of ridicule when she quit. Truth and lies . . . when she couldn’t live with herself and subvert the truth. Enough, gives you plenty of detail leading up to and after the January 6th uprising. She testified to Congress about what she knew. Really interesting. I almost never read books about politics because I think many (most?) of our elected politicians succumb to the lure of power and forget who they work for, us, the public.

Becoming Dr. Q, by Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology at Johns Hopkins University. This is his memoir about how he went from being a penniless migrant from Mexico to one of the world’s most renowned experts in brain tumors.

The Invincible Miss Cust, by Penny Haw.  In 1868 Ireland, a woman wasn’t allowed to attend veterinary school, much less become a veterinarian. It took  years of trying (to the horror of her aristocratic family) and finally someone took her under their wing, she enrolled using a pseudonym (a name not revealing her gender). This is a true story of Aleen Isabel Cust, who did just that.

Her Heart for a Compass, by Sarah Ferguson (yes), the Duchess of York. I was pleasantly surprised as I read this book that it wasn’t the usual romantic romp – there’s more to this story than you might think. Ferguson utilizes some of her family ancestors as real characters in the book. Sweet story but with lots of twists and turns.

Someone Else’s Shoes, by Jojo Moyes.Nisha, our heroine, is a wealthy socialite. She thinks her life is perfect. At the gym someone else grabs her gym bag, so she grabs the similar one. Then she finds out her husband is leaving her and he’s locked her out of their high-rise apartment. She’s penniless. No attorney will take her on. She has nothing but this gym bag belonging to someone else (who?).

The Eleventh Man, Ivan Doig. What a story. Ben, part of a Montana college football team in the 1940s, joins the service during WWII. So do all of his eleven teammates. After suffering some injuries in pilot training he is recruited by a stealthy military propaganda machine. His job is to write articles about his teammates as they are picked off at various battle theaters around the Pacific and Europe. Ben goes there, in person, to fuel the stories. Ivan Doig is a crafty writer; I’ve read several of his books, my favorite being The Whistling Season.

Wavewalker, by Suzanne Heywood. Oh my goodness. A memoir about a very young English girl who goes off with her besotted and narcissistic parents and her brother on a years-long sailing journey supposedly following the route of James Cook. A very old, decrepit 70-foot schooner. Four people, 2 sort-of adults and 2 children. Sometimes a helper or two. A seasick mother. A dad who is driven to the extreme, whatever the damage he creates. She spent 10 years aboard.

Claire Keegan wrote Small Things Like These. It’s won a lot of awards, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Takes place in Ireland. Some profound questions come up in this novella, about complicity, about restitution. There’s a convent nearby, and attached one of those places young girls were sent if they found themselves “in the family way,” and about how the church helped, supposedly, by taking the children and placing them in homes, without consent. It’s ugly, the truth of the matter. Really good read.

Nicholas Sparks isn’t an author I read very often because his books are pretty sappy, but daughter Sara recommended this one, The Longest Ride. It begins with Ira (age 93), stuck in his car as it plunges off the edge of a road, and it’s snowing. As the hours tick by, he reminisces about his life.

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind, by Barbara Lipska. Interesting that I’ve read two books recently about the brain (see Doctor Q above). This is a true story about a woman, a neuroscientist, who developed a metastatic melanoma in the brain.

The Price of Inheritance, by Karin Tanabe. This is a mystery, of sorts. Our heroine is an up and coming employee at Christie’s (auction house). In bringing a large collection of expensive art to auction, she makes a misstep about the provenance of a desk. She’s fired. She goes back to her roots, takes a job at a small antique store where she used to work.

The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese. Did you read Cutting for Stone, years ago, by this author? Such a good book, so I knew I’d enjoy this one, and oh, did I!. The book takes place in a little known area of southern India, and chronicles a variety of people over a few generations, who inhabit the place.

Finding Dorothy, by Elizabeth Letts. My friend Dianne recommended this book to me, and it was so special. Loved it beginning to end. It’s based on the story of 77-year old Maud Gage Baum (her husband Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz).

The Bandit Queens, by Parini Shroff. It’s about a young Indian woman, Geeta, as she tries her best to make a living after her husband leaves her. Yet the community she lives in, thinks Geeta murdered him.

Attribution, by Linda Moore. We follow art historian Cate, as she struggles to succeed in her chosen field against sexist advisors. She finds what she thinks is a hidden painting.

The Measure, Nikki Erlick. Oh my goodness. This story grabbed me from about the third sentence. Everyone in the world finds a wooden box on their doorstep, or in front of their camper or tent, that contains a string. Nothing but a string. The author has a vivid imagination (I admire that) and you just will not believe the various reactions (frenzy?) from people who are short-stringers, or long-stringers.

The Book Spy by Alan Hlad. True stories, but in novel form, of a special Axis group of men and women librarians and microfilm specialists, sent to strategic locations in Europe to acquire and scour newspapers, books, technical manuals and periodicals, for information about German troop locations, weaponry and military plans of WWII. I was glued to the book beginning to end. Fascinating accounts.

A Dangerous Business, Jane Smiley. What a story. 1850s gold rush, story of two young prostitutes, finding their way in a lawless town in the Wild West. There’s a murder, or two, or three, or some of the town’s prostitutes, and the two women set out to solve the crime.

Storm Watch, by C. J. Box. I’m such a fan of his tales of Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett’s adventures catching criminals. Loved it, just like I’ve loved every one of his books.

Defiant Dreams, by Sola Mahfouz. True story about the author, born in Afghanistan in 1996. This is about her journey to acquire an education. It’s unbelievable what the Taliban does to deter and forbid women from bettering themselves.

Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This is fairly light read, a novel – but interesting, about the meaning behind many flowers.

The Rome Apartment, by Kerry Fisher. Such a cute story. Maybe not an interesting read for a man. It’s about Beth, whose husband has just left her, and her daughter has just gone off to college. Beth needs a new lease on life, so she rents a room from a woman who lives in Rome.

All the Beauty in the World, a memoir by Patrick Bringley. Absolutely LOVED this book. Bringley was at loose ends and accepted a job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He’d been a journalist at The New Yorker magazine, but after his brother was ill and died, he needed refreshing. After his training at the museum, he moves from room to room, guarding the precious art, and learning all about the pieces and the painters or sculptors.

The Queen’s Lady, by Joanna Hickson. I love stories about Tudor England, and this one didn’t disappoint. Joan Guildford is a lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth. Oh my goodness are there twists and turns.

Once in awhile I’m ready to read another Louise Penny mystery. This time it was World of Curiosities. Usually I’d write something wonderful regarding “another tome about Three Pines.” Not going to say it this time. Three Pines becomes a sinister place. Murders (many).

Over the years I’ve read many of Jodi Picoult’s books. This, her newest, or very new, is called Mad Honey. Oh, my. This book is beyond Picoult’s usual borders, but then she always writes edgy books. That’s her genre. This one is written with a co-author, a woman who is gay (I think) and also a trans-gender.

Philippa Gregory is one of my fav authors. Just finished her 3rd (and last, I think) in the Fairmile series called Dawnlands. If you scroll down below you’ll find the 2nd book in the series, Tidelands. Very interesting about English history, but about the same families from the first book in the group. Loved it, as I loved all of them.

Am currently reading Rutherfurd’s long, long book, Paris. I love these involved historical novels about a place (he’s written many about specific places in the world). It’s a saga that goes back and forth in time, following the travails of various people and families, through thick and thin. Some of it during the era of the King Louis’ (plural, should I say Louies?). Very interesting about some of the city’s history and royalty.

Although this book says A Christmas Memory, by Richard Paul Evans, it’s not just about Christmas. A young boy is the hero here, but really an older widower man who lives next door plays a pivotal part of this book.

Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult. Another page-turner. I loved this book. A thirty-something woman, about to take a trip with her boyfriend, when Covid breaks out. Covid plays a major role in this book, beginning to end. She decides to go anyway as her boyfriend is a doctor and cannot leave. She ends up on a remote Galapagos island, and you go along with her – with people she meets, the life she leads, the isolation she experiences, the loneliness she feels, but the joy of nature is a sustaining aspect.

Not everyone wants to read food memoirs. When I saw Sally Schmitt had written a memoir, titled Six California Kitchens, I knew I wanted to read it. I met Sally a few times over the years when I visited Napa Valley, and bought some of her famous pickled items, chutneys, jams, etc. She was the original chef at The French Laundry, before it became truly famous by Thomas Keller.

Being a fan of Vivian Howard (from her TV show), when I saw she’d written another book, I knew I should buy it. This Will Make It Taste Good is such an unusual name for a cookbook, but once you get into the groove of the book, you’ll understand. What’s here are recipes for some “kitchen heroes” she calls them. They’re condiments. They’re food additions, they’re flavor enhancers.

As soon as it came out, I ordered Spare, by Prince Harry. I’ve always been interested in the Royal Family.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. Usually I don’t seek out short stories. I might have purchased this book without realizing it was. There aren’t that many stories – each one gets you very ingrained in the characters. I love her writing, and would think each story in this book could be made into a full-fledged novel.

A Lantern in Her Hand, by Beth Streeter Aldrich. A very interesting and harrowing story of early pioneer days in the Midwest (Nebraska I think); covered wagon time up to about 80 years later as the heroine, Abbie Deal, and her husband start a family in a small town.

The Messy Lives of Book People, by Phaedra Patrick. From amazon’s page: Mother of two Liv Green barely scrapes by as a maid to make ends meet, often finding escape in a good book while daydreaming of becoming a writer herself. So she can’t believe her luck when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero, mega-bestselling author Essie Starling, a mysterious and intimidating recluse.

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. I’m a fan of this author and relished reading his book about a year in his personal life, with his wife and very new, newborn twins. Doerr was given an auspicious award – a year of study in Rome, with apartment and a stipend. There are four chapters, by season.

Kristin Hannah’s Distant Shores is quite a read. Some described it as like a soap opera. Not me. Interesting character development of a couple who married young. She put her own career/wants/desires aside to raise their children. He forged ahead with his life dreams. The children grow up and move on. Then he’s offered a huge promotion across the country. She’s torn – she doesn’t want to be in New York, but nothing would get in the way of his career.

Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton is divorced. But she’s still sort of friendly with her ex. It’s complicated. Out of the blue he asks her to go on a trip with him to discover something about his roots.

Tidelands,  by Philippa Gregory. It tells the tale of a peasant woman, Alinor (an herbalist and midwife), who lives barely above the poverty level, trying to raise two children, during the time of great turmoil in England, the rancorous civil war about Charles 1.

Read Reminders of Him, by Colleen Hoover. A page turner of a story. A young woman is convicted of a crime (young and foolish type). Once released her sole purpose is to be a part of her daughter’s life.

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty. Oh my goodness. The wicked webs we weave. How in the world did the author even come UP with this wild story, but she did, and it kept me glued. Sophie walked away from her wedding day, and always wondered if she made the wrong decision.

Very funny and poignant story, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that one). Mrs. Palfrey, a woman of a certain age, moves into an old folks’ home in London. It’s a sort of hotel, but has full time elderly quirky residents.

For one of my book clubs we read Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus. This book is so hard to describe. Elizabeth is a wizard at chemistry and struggles to be recognized for her intelligence and research. She meets a man at her company who is brilliant too. They make quite a pair. They have a child, then he suddenly dies. Her work isn’t taken seriously, so she leaves her employment and becomes an overnight phenom on a cooking show where she uses the chemical names for things like sodium chloride, etc. You go alongside her struggles, and her raising of her daughter. LOTS of humor, lots to discuss for a book club.

Horse. Oh my, is it a page turner. Loved it from the first page to the last. Sad when it ended. It’s a fictional creation but based on a real racehorse owned by a black man, back in the 1850s. Technically, the story is about a painting of the horse but there are many twists and turns. If you’ve ever enjoyed Brooks’ books in the past, this one won’t disappoint.

The Book of Lost Names, by Kristin Harmel (no, not Hannah). Certainly a little-known chunk of history about a woman who becomes a master forger during WWII to help get Jewish children out of France. Not easy to read, meaning the difficulty of anyone finding the means and place to DO the forgery and right under the noses of the Nazis. Really good read.

Liane Moriarty’s first novel, Three Wishes, follows the travails of adult triplets, so different, yet similar in many ways. Two are identical, the third is not. So alike, and so not. It takes you through a series of heart-wrenching events, seemingly unrelated, but ones that could bring a family to its breaking point and test the bonds of love and strength.

Recently I’ve read both of Erin French’s books, her cookbook, The Lost Kitchen, and since then her memoir, Finding Freedom. About her life growing up (difficult) about her coming of age mostly working in the family diner, flipper burgers and fries (and learning how much she liked to cook). Now she’s a very successful restaurant entrepreneur (The Lost Kitchen is also the name of her restaurant) in the minuscule town of Freedom, Maine. She’s not a classically trained chef, but she’s terrifically creative. See her TV series on Discover+ if you subscribe.

Jo Jo Moyes has a bunch of books to her credit. And she writes well, with riveting stories. Everything I’ve read of hers has been good. This book, The Girl You Left Behind, is so different, so intriguing, so controversial and a fascinating historical story. There are two timelines here, one during WWI, in France, when a relatively unknown painter (in the style of Matisse) paints a picture of his wife. The war intervenes for both the husband and the wife.

Eli Shafak’s Island of Missing Trees. This book was just a page turner. If you’ve never read anything about the conflict in Cyprus (the island) between the Turks and the Greeks, you’re in for a big history lesson here. But, the entire story centers around a fig tree. You get into the head/brain/feelings of this big fig tree which plays a very central part of the story. You’ll learn a lot about animals, insects (ants, mosquitos, butterflies) and other flora and fauna of Cyprus.

Also read Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. Ohhh my, such a good book. I couldn’t put it down. Whatever you do, do not read the ending before you start the book. I’ve never understood people who do this. The book chronicles the day a mom just ups and disappears. The grown children come back home, in panic. The dad isn’t much help, and he becomes the prime suspect of foul play. There is no body, however.

If you’d like a mystery read, try Dete Meserve’s The Space Between. It’s just the kind of page-turner I enjoy – a wife returns to her home after being away on business for a few days, to find her husband missing and what he’s left for her is an unexplained bank deposit of a million dollars, a loaded Glock in the nightstand, and a video security system that’s been wiped clean.

Read Alyson Richman’s historical novel called The Velvet Hours. Most of the book takes place in Paris, with a young woman and her grandmother, a very wealthy (but aging) woman who led a life of a semi-courtesan. Or at least a kept woman. But this grandmother was very astute and found ways to invest her money, to grow her money, and to buy very expensive goods. Then WWII intervenes, and the granddaughter has to close up her grandmother’s apartment, leaving it much the way it had been throughout her grandmother’s life, to escape the Nazis. Years go by, and finally answers are sought and found. An intriguing book, based on the author’s experience with an apartment that had been locked up similarly for decades, also in Paris.

Susan Meissner is one of my favorite authors. This book, The Nature of Fragile Things tells a very unusual story. About a young Irish immigrant, desperate to find a way out of poverty, answers an ad for a mail order bride.

Also read Rachel Hauck’s The Writing Desk. You could call this a romance. A young professional, a writer of one successful book, has writer’s block. Then she’s asked to go to Florida to help her mother (from whom she’s mostly estranged) through chemo. She goes, hoping she can find new inspiration.

Also recently finished The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. The book goes backwards and forwards in time, from the 1600s in London with the day-to-day lives of a group of Jews (who had to be very careful about how they worshiped) to current day as an old house is discovered to hold a treasure-trove of historical papers.

Colleen Hoover has written quite a book, It Ends with Us: A Novel, with a love story being the central theme, but again, this book is not for everyone – it can be an awakening for any reader not acquainted with domestic violence and how such injury can emerge as innocent (sort of) but then becomes something else. There is graphic detail here.

Nicolas Barreau’s novel Love Letters from Montmartre: A Novel  is very poignant, very sweet book. Seems like I’ve read several books lately about grieving; this one has a charming ending, but as anyone who has gone through a grave loss of someone dear knows, you can’t predict day to day, week to week. “Snap out of it,” people say, thinking they’re helping.

Another very quirky book, that happens to contain a lot of historical truth is The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World: A Novel by Harry N. Abrams. Set in Japan just after the tsunami 10 years ago when 18,000 people died. At a private park miles away, some very special people installed a phone booth, with a phone (that didn’t work) at the edge of the park, and the survivors of the tsunami began wending their way there to “talk” to their deceased loved ones. Very poignant story.

No question, the most quirky book I’ve read of late, a recommendation from my friend Karen, West with Giraffes: A Novel by Lynda Rutledge. Back in the 1930s a small group of giraffes were brought across the Atlantic from Africa to New York, destined for the then-growing San Diego Zoo. The story is of their journey across the United States in the care of two oh-so-different people, both with a mission.

Could hardly put down Krueger’s book, This Tender Land: A Novel. Tells the harrowing story of a young boy, Odie, (and his brother Albert) who became orphans back in the 30s. At first there is a boarding school, part of an Indian (Native American) agreement, though they are not Indian. They escape, and they are “on the run.”

Just finished Kristin Hannah’s latest book, The Four Winds: A Novel. What a story. One I’ve never read about, although I certainly have heard about the “dust bowl” years when there was a steady migration of down-and-out farmers from the Midwest, to California, for what they hoped to be the American Dream. It tells the story of one particular family, the Martinellis, the grandparents, their son, his wife, and their two children.

Also finished reading Sue Monk Kidd’s recent book, The Book of Longings: A Novel. It is a book that might challenge some Christian readers, as it tells the tale of Jesus marrying a woman named Mary. I loved the book from the first word to the last one. The book is believable to me, even though the Bible never says one way or the other that Jesus ever married. It’s been presumed he never did. But maybe he did?

Jeanine Cummins has written an eye-opener, American Dirt. A must read. Oh my goodness. I will never, ever, ever look at Mexican (and further southern) migrants, particularly those who are victims of the vicious cartels, without sympathy. It tells the story of a woman and her young son, who were lucky enough to hide when the cartel murdered every member of her family – her husband, her mother, and many others. It’s about her journey and escape to America.

Also read JoJo Moyes’ book, The Giver of Stars. Oh gosh, what a GREAT book. Alice joins the Horseback Librarians in the rural south.

Frances Liardet has written a blockbuster tale, We Must Be Brave. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Although the scene is WWII England, this book is not really about the war. It’s about the people at home, waiting it out, struggling with enough food, clothing and enough heat.

William Kent Krueger wrote Ordinary Grace. From amazon: a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God. It’s a coming of age story.

A Column of Fire: A Novel by Ken Follett. It takes place in the 1500s, in England, and has everything to do with the war between the Catholics and the Protestants, that raged throughout Europe during that time, culminating in the Spanish Inquisition.

My Name Is Resolute by Nancy Turner. She’s the author of another book of some renown, These is my Words:

The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape by James Rebanks. This is a memoir, so a true story, of a young man growing up in the Lake District of Northern England, who becomes a shepherd. Not just any-old shepherd – actually a well educated one. He knows how to weave a story.

 

Tasting Spoons

My blog's namesake - small, old and some very dented engraved silver plated tea spoons that belonged to my mother-in-law, and I use them to taste my food as I'm cooking.

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Posted in Cookbooks, on January 15th, 2012.

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It was just last month that I read an article in our local newspaper, written by Judy Bart Kancigor, about this book. [As an aside, I have one of Kancigor’s recipes here on my blog already – one of my favorites, a Layered Hummus & Eggplant appetizer.] Hardly before I’d finished reading the newspaper article, I went to my amazon account and added the book to my wish list. Thank you, Sara, for buying it for me for Christmas!

This book, Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival is a treasure; there just are no other words for it. I’m not Jewish, and I don’t necessarily cook Jewish food as such, but I am always intrigued about the stories behind ethnic dishes. One of Kancigor’s mantras is “you don’t have to be Jewish to cook Jewish.” Yes! Until now, I’ve never owned a Jewish cookbook. Now I do, and I’m glad of it. Not only because of the history contained within the book, but because I’m grateful in some small way – happy – humbled – to honor all those souls who didn’t survive the Holocaust.

So, what’s this book all about? The writer (editor and writer), June Feiss Hersch, interviewed countless families in the process of compiling the stories and recipes in this cookbook.  Earlier, she approached the Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage (in New York City), with the germ of an idea, to publish a cookbook of stories and associated recipes from Holocaust survivors. An aside: all the proceeds from the book go to the museum. It’s already into its 4th printing.

The recipes cover a broad Eastern European geography (ethnic and physical) including Poland, Austria, Greece, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine. And at the back is a lengthy list of Yiddish words, pages I referred to often, since I didn’t know the meaning of words like schmuts (dirt), cholent (a sacred stew prepared on Friday, baked overnight in a community bakery oven, to be eaten on Saturday), shtikel (morsel); and bashert (fated). I loved learning some of these new words (aside from other Yiddish words I did know: schlep, maven, nosh, kibbitz, mentsh, and shul).

As I write this, I’ve only read about half the book – I’m not even through reading the chapter on Poland (obviously there are more Polish recipes than those from other countries). But I’m awed by the stories. The true stories of survival, about the Crystal Night (when over 1,000 synagogues were burned to the ground and over 7,000 Jewish business destroyed), about people who hid in cupboards, cellars, forests, barns and other places to avoid the ghettos and concentration camps. But it’s also stories about people who did survive concentration camps (mostly ones who were interned there later in the war) or work camps. About those few who had skills the Nazis needed and wanted so they were fed better than some. About how prisoners hid food for others. About how they kept their spirits alive. About how they survived. About meeting other survivors, about first loves, marriages, boat trips to Israel, or America or Canada. About the yearning to live and thrive. About how some survivors would never – ever – talk about their wartime experiences – or shared them only at the end of their lives. And about how these proud Jewish people honor their loved ones by preparing the family recipes regularly.

Each country chapter contains numerous stories  (told from the actual survivor or a spouse or grown child) along with a photo or two about the family. About where they were from, their years of trying to escape, and managing to survive either in the dense forests with virtually no food, or in the concentration camps. And, thankfully, about their liberation and emigration somewhere else. Then, following that is a recipe, or two. Most of them are the actual recipes from the Holocaust survivor, or a descendant; a few are creations or re-creations from celebrated Jewish chefs (like Faye Levy, Mark Bittman, Daniel Boulud, Gale Gand, Ina Garten, Jonathan Waxman, Joan Nathan, Sara Moulton, and others).

In my copy, several recipes have been yellow-stickied already, and this week you’ll read about the first one I made from this book – a braised red cabbage and apple dish. Nothing fancy, but oh, so very delicious. Next I plan to make a Chocolate Chip Cake, and a Citrus Rice Pudding. Then maybe I’ll try one of the cholent recipes in the book. I’m intrigued about a 24-hour, slow-roasted stew.

Obviously, I highly recommend this book. If you enjoy reading stories, then a recipe to go along with it, you’ll be mesmerized by the book, as I’ve been.

Posted in Cookbooks, Desserts, on May 23rd, 2011.

This is the final post in the 3-part series about this new cookbook I own. After telling you all about how the book came to be, and the amazing process Amanda Hesser went through to get it accomplished, I thought I should share with you at least one recipe. Actually I’ve made one recipe from the cookbook – the Summer-Squash Casserole I wrote about recently. It was fantastic. I even got my first splotch of food on the page! Darn. I have way too many little yellow and pink stickies poking out of the book, all recipes I want to try. I think my next one will be the 1948 Green Goddess Salad.

In the cookbook Amanda wrote a lengthy headnote about the Purple Plum Torte:

This plum torte is both the most often published and the most requested recipe in the Times archives. By my count, Marian Burros (who was given the recipe by Lois Levine, with whom Burros wrote Elegant but Easy) ran the recipe in the paper twelve times. And when I asked readers for recipe suggestions for this book, 247 people raved about the torte. The plum torte happily lives up to its billing: crusty and light, with deep wells of slackened, sugar-glazed fruit.

I’ve thought a lot about why this torte struck such a chord with people: the answer, I think, is that it’s a nearly perfect recipe. There are only eight ingredients, all of which, except for the plums, you probably already have in your kitchen. There are just four steps, most of which are one sentence long. You need no special equipment, just a bowl, a wooden spoon, and a pan. The batter is like pancake batter, which most everyone is comfortable making. And baked plums are sweet and tart, making the flavor more complex and memorable than a hard-hitting sweet dessert.

It also freezes well. “A friend who loved the torte said that in exchange for two, she would let me store as many as I wanted in her freezer,” Burros wrote one year when she ran the recipe. “A week later, she went on vacation for two weeks and her mother stayed with her children. When she returned, my friend called and asked, ‘How many of those tortes did you leave in my freezer?’

“‘Twenty-four, but two of those were for you.’

“There was a long pause. ‘Well, I guess my mother either ate twelve of them or gave them away.’”

In later versions of the plum torte recipe, Burros cut back the sugar to 3/4 cup—feel free to if you like—and added variations, such as substituting blueberries or apples and cranberries for the plums (I haven’t tried either, but Burros was a fan). She jumped the shark, in my view, though, when she created low-fat variations with mashed bananas and applesauce. While I respect her enthusiasm for innovation, this is one recipe that needs no improvement.—Amanda Hesser

This particular recipe also contained several reader comments (presumably from the 6,000 emails and letters she received from her request for favorite recipes). Most recipes don’t have that much information. At the end of every recipe is the origin of it, the article title it came from, and the date. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading through recipes by the dozens, and noting the year it was published, like a sour milk cake from 1876 or a sauce for venison from 1880. Or even Dwight Eisenhower’s Steak in the Fire, from 1949, from one or more of his fishing trips to Wisconsin.

Obviously, you can tell, I’m really enjoying this cookbook. If you need a gift for someone, this would be a perfect one. Especially if that person enjoys cooking as well as reading about it. Or buy it for yourself – I don’t think you’ll be a bit sorry you did! The book is a bargain at $23.52 at Amazon.com: The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century.

As a result of Amanda’s and Merrill’s collaboration on this cookbook, (they’re now business partners too) they have a blog called Food52, in case you’re interested.

printer-friendly PDF for the Purple Plum Torte

Purple Plum Torte

Recipe By: The Essential New York Times Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser
Serving Size: 8
NOTES: In the cookbook are several comments from long-time readers who suggested using apples or frozen cranberries. Someone else used mango, peaches, adds 1/2 tsp of vanilla and the grated rind of a small lemon to the batter. Yet another person added a teaspoon of almond extract to the cake batter. Someone else wrote that if you have more plums and want to use them, stand the plum halves on their sides and put them in a spoke pattern on the batter.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 cup sugar — plus 1 T. or more, depending on the tartness of the plums
8 tablespoons unsalted butter — softened
2 large eggs
12 whole plums — purple variety, halved and pitted
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice — or more or less, depending on the tartness of the plums
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1. Heat oven to 350°. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt.
2. Cream 1 cup sugar and butter in a large bowl with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer) until light in color. Add the dry ingredients and then the eggs.
3. Spoon the batter into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan. Cover the top of the batter with the plum halves, skin side up. Sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and the lemon juice, adjusting to the tartness of the fruit. Sprinkle with the cinnamon.
4. Bake until the cake is golden and the plums are bubbly, 45-50 minutes [Mine takes 60 minutes to be completely cooked in the center]. Cool on a rack, then unmold. [Optional: serve with almond-flavored whipped cream.]
Per Serving: 331 Calories; 14g Fat (35.6% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 51g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 84mg Cholesterol; 97mg Sodium.

Posted in Cookbooks, on May 22nd, 2011.

As I explained yesterday, my friend Linda gave me this cookbook for Christmas. I’ve been so intrigued by not only the 12-page introduction to the book, but I’ve yellow-stickied about 40-50 recipes in it so far, and I’m only about a third of the way through.

Yesterday I posted the initial story about the Introduction. Here’s the continuing saga . . . the final phase of compiling recipes for this 1,104 recipe book (932 pages long), after she’d tested 400 recipe recommendations from readers (that took 2 years), and tested another 400 recipes spanning the 1850-1950 range, was to research the Dining section of every issue and the Magazine food columns too. She’s glad she did, because she added lots of other recipes to the book, including favorites like Stuck-Pot Rice with Yogurt and Spices (p. 351), Thomas Keller’s Gazpacho (p. 146), and Tangerine Sherbet (p. 734). Numerous stories about Craig Claiborne had her reading recipes from these other sources. In about 1974 Claiborne began cooking with Pierre Franey – once a week the two men would cook in Claiborne’s kitchen at his home in the Hamptons. Franey did the cooking and Claiborne sat at his trusty IBM Selectric typewriter and made notes which went into the weekly column. As the story goes, the parties they threw there were legendary, including the one where so many people stood on Claiborne’s deck that it collapsed.

New, up and coming chefs’ names began appearing in the paper – Alice Waters, Emeril Legasse, and then Mark Bittman. As Amanda read the recipes she tried to provide balance in the cookbook – the book couldn’t be all Osso Buco and chocolate mousse, so she added recipes for Oriental Watercress Soup (p. 111), Charleston Coconut Sweeties (p. 683) and Tuna Curry (p. 435), for instance.

Her test for whether a recipe would go in the book was simple: once she made it, would she make it again? In making sure she made raspberry granita 3 times, baked Teddie’s apple cake 4+ times, and she made stewed fennel at least 6 times.

Amanda does explain that almost none of the recipes originated at the New York Times. They were someone else’s recipe –whether it was Aunt Mable’s poundcake or a famous chef’s rendition of Cornish game hen. She phrases it thus: the newspaper was just a waystation for recipes, which pass through on their way from chefs and home cooks to readers. Therefore the archive (the cookbook) is a mish-mash of traditional, innovative and everything in between.

She notes, though, that in the process or writing the book several significant things changed:

  1. The main improvement has been intensity of flavor. Recipes are much more aggressively seasoned now, with layers of herbs and spices.
  2. Cayenne was the only chile-based heat up until about 1970; chiles, in many varieties, are now commonplace.
  3. Meats, especially chicken, cook nearly twice as fast as they did 100 years ago because animals are raised more quickly and exercise less, which renders their meat more tender.
  4. Egg yolks have either shrunk or lost their binding strength – old custard recipes that called for 3 yolks generally needed 5 to 6 “modern” egg yolks to set.

Sometimes she left the language of the day in the recipe. Other times she had to update the instructions or she added Notes for clarity. I just love reading Amanda’s notes – not only is she a very good writer, but she’s interesting and finds humor in the kitchen. Some recipes contain no headnotes, others contain a lengthy one. A few recipes include comments left by readers, or from the 6,000 responses she received to her query. They often suggest other changes they’ve made. Each and every recipe includes the date, origin of the recipe and the title of the column. What there is not in this cookbook are photographs of any of the food. With 1,104 recipes, it would have been a Herculean task to photograph them all as well as test them. I do love photos of the food, but the written word will give you a pretty good clue as to whether you want to tackle a recipe.

Needless to say, I’ve been very impressed with the cookbook. So far I’ve made just a couple of the recipes in the book – the Summer-Squash Casserole I made a couple of weeks ago was one of them. It was sensational. Next on my radar is to try the 1948 recipe for Green Goddess dressing. Stay tuned tomorrow – I’m going to give you the recipe for the number one requested dessert, the Purple Plum Torte.

This is Part II of this series. If you are motivated to buy the book, here’s the link. It’s a bargain at $23.52 at Amazon.com: The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century.

As a result of Amanda’s and Merrill’s collaboration on this cookbook, (they’re now business partners too) they have a blog called Food52, in case you’re interested in following their food travels.

Posted in Cookbooks, on May 21st, 2011.

My friend Linda T and I exchange Christmas gifts each year, and we’ve gotten into the habit of giving one another a new cookbook. And this is the one she gave me this last December. What a gem it is, at 930+ pages. When I opened it she said “you’ve got to read the Introduction first – it’s really interesting.” Dutifully I did, and within a few short paragraphs I’d retrieved my little pad of pink stickies and began putting them on the recipe pages referred to in this Introduction. This section of the book is about 12 pages long and mostly gives a detailed explanation about how the book came into being, but mostly it’s about how Amanda Hesser and her assistant Merrill Stubbs accomplished the project.

It started one day in 2004 when Hesser was having lunch with a colleague at the Times. They were discussing what their next projects were. In talking over how food and recipe interests have changed over the decades a germ of an idea was born in Hesser’s head. She wanted to write a book that encompassed 150 years of the New York Times food writing (recipes). Not the time just since Craig Claiborne wrote his book, or any number of books since then. No, she wanted to go way back into the paper’s history and chronicle the best.

Her first step was to put a journalist’s query into the newspaper and the magazine, asking readers to send her a note (letter or email) about their favorite recipes published in the New York Times. She received nothing less than 6,000 replies! Yikes! It was there that she learned about Craig Claiborne’s Paella (p. 309) that took him 6 years to perfect; about Le Cirque’s Spaghetti Primavera (p. 314) that no fewer than 3 people claimed to have invented themselves; and a Forget-It Meringue Torte (p. 823) a meringue cake that “billows like a jib in the oven.”

The respondents mentioned recipes having saved marriages, or reminded them of their lost youth, or something that symbolized family gatherings. Once the list had been collated (on an elaborate spreadsheet, obviously) there were 145 single-spaced pages of recipe suggestions. Four of the top five recipes were desserts (in a couple of days I’ll share with you the #1 recipe – the most frequently requested recipe at the newspaper.

Those top 5 recipes are (and if you’re anxious to know about each recipe, just click the link – I found all of them online, but not necessarily from the New York Times’ website):

Purple Plum Torte (265 votes; p. 763)
David Eyre’s Pancakes (80 votes; p. 813)
Teddie’s Apple Cake (37 votes; p. 752)
Chocolate Dump-It Cake (24 votes; p. 781) and
Ed Giobbi’s Lasagna (23 votes; but the Lasagna on p. 342 edged out this winner)

For two full years, Amanda and Merrill began cooking together in the evenings to test the 400 recipes that they culled from the list. A few times each week they’d gather at Amanda’s home, cook, test, note-take, serve dinner about 10:30. The 3 of them (including Amanda’s husband) would weigh in on each dish and recipes were tweaked and adjusted until they got them just right. So, that 2-year stint covered the years from about 1950 to about 2004. Along the way they observed that we sort of stopped making extravagant desserts. We learned how to cook pasta correctly and how to sauce it properly. We also learned about roasting vegetables. We also left German food (mostly) behind, and we “largely failed to adopt Chinese cooking at home.” Yup.

The Introduction includes some very interesting food-related timelines, starting with 1860, when the first refrigerated car carrying strawberries were transported on the Illinois Central Railroad. In the 1920’s White Castle promoted hamburgers and its cleanliness. By minimizing its seating area, the chain established the notion of “take-out.” In 1930 the Boston Oyster House at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago popularized its “salad bar,” a concept that really didn’t catch on until the 70’s.

She assumed some readers would be mightily upset that their favorites weren’t included in the cookbook (including a recipe for “clams possilipo” that eluded the searchers – nobody could find the original recipe – so I assume they couldn’t include it because they couldn’t actually prove it was published in the Times), but Amanda hoped the inclusion of Cucumbers in Cream (p. 225) and Fontainebleau (a kind of dessert cheese, p. 829) would make up for it.

This is Part I of this series. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the next stage of the cookbook writing. It’s just as interesting. If you are motivated to buy the book, here’s the link. It’s a bargain at $23.52 at Amazon.com: The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century.

As a result of Amanda’s and Merrill’s collaboration on this cookbook, (they’re now business partners too) they have a blog called Food52, in case you’re interested in following their food travels.

Posted in Cookbooks, on May 22nd, 2009.

seven sins of choc title pg

My friend Yvette plunked this book down on my lap recently and said – “just take a look at the photos and recipes in here.” The book is huge – one of those coffee-table sized books. But was she ever right about the stunning photos. I could have gazed at each picture for awhile, just to study the arrangement of flowers, chocolate, ribbons, table scapes, interesting props, etc. I’d never heard of the book. I did take a photo of one recipe, a Chocolate Apple Cobbler. It just sounded so different, although there isn’t anything particularly unusual in the recipe. I don’t associate apples and chocolate (pears yes, strawberries yes, apples no). I’ll have to try the recipe and see how it tastes.

Most of the chocolate recipes contained in the book were quite elaborate. Perhaps more steps and processes than I’m generally willing to do for a dessert. That’s probably why the cobbler was appealing since it may have been the simplest recipe contained in the book. So, here are a few photos from the book – all photographed by Thomas Dhellemes. The book: The Seven Sins of Chocolate, by Laurent Schott. If you’re interested, it’s available for under $10 used through Amazon.

sin choc 1a

sin choc 2a

 

 

 

 

 

 

sin choc 4a

sin choc 3a

A year ago: Cream of Cucumber Soup (a favorite – a chilled soup, really nice for summer)
Two years ago: Apricot Ice Cream (have fresh apricots?)

Posted in Cookbooks, on October 25th, 2008.

fresh green beans
All the information here about green beans comes from one of the chapters in Russ Parsons’ book titled How to Pick a Peach.

What I learned:

  • That cooks all around continue trying to find ways to keep green beans green. The chemistry involved is interesting: every green vegetable goes through three stages of green: (1) raw, the vegetable is a deep but dull green; (2) in the early stages of cooking the color turns bright and vibrant (this change occurs as the cell walls soften and tiny amounts of oxygen are driven off while other gases cloud the pure color of the chlorophyll); (3) the green turns to olive drab because of a chemical change in the chlorophyll – partly due to an enzymatic action, but mostly due to acids released during cooking.
  • Some of the age-old methods for keeping beans green are myths (like using baking soda in the water – – makes the texture slimy, though; cooking in heavily salted water – – no scientific basis that that method works).
  • The best method for keeping green beans green is to cook them in plenty of water (so less acids are released to each bean) – quickly – no slow heat-up here – the less time beans are in the water the better – cook just until they’re done to your liking – then plunge them into ice water. [This is the method I’ve used for about 15 or so years, I guess – probably learned it at a cooking class].
  • Green beans we buy are actually immature beans – as a legume they grow for the seeds inside, which if left to mature, become nugget sized and the pods will toughen.
  • There are two types of green beans – the round (Blue Lake and haricots verts), the more traditional green bean; the flat (like Italian Romano) are more meaty and assertive, and are cooked much longer. They even seem to improve with lengthier cooking.
  • Green beans come in a variety of colors. So they really shouldn’t just be called “green” beans. The old term was “string beans,” but the strings were bred out of beans in recent years (except heirloom varieties). A more likely name is “snap beans.” If beans are fresh, they should snap (not just bend) in half.
  • You should remove the stem end, but removing the tail-end is not necessary [I always leave them on because they’re very tender and look better].

How to Choose & Store:

  • They begin to lose moisture as soon as they’re picked, so eat them soon.
  • There should be no sign of wilting or mold.
  • Store tightly wrapped in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.
  • Russ Parsons gives his favorite green bean quick cook method – boil them for about 7 minutes, plunge into ice water, pat dry, then dress with olive oil, lemon juice and just a bit of garlic just before serving (lemon juice will turn the beans gray if allowed to sit). In the book, he also includes two other recipes: a Chicken Salad with Green Beans and Basil Mayonnaise, and another for using the Romano style beans, called Overcooked Green Beans.
  • Here in California I never – ever – see the flat Romano beans at grocery stores or farmer’s markets. I’m going to have to look more closely – maybe they’re there and I’ve just never noticed. I have two real favorite recipes for green beans. I hope you’ll try them.
  • Green Beans with Garlic (a real favorite of ours)
    Green Beans with Shallots & Balsamic Glaze

    Posted in Cookbooks, on August 22nd, 2008.

    vine-ripened tomatoes

    I’ll be doing some cookin’ in the kitchen later today, but no new recipes this morning. I still have plenty of recipes to post from my own collection, but I don’t have photos of them – – yet. Therefore, since it’s high season here for tomatoes, I’ll give you the low-down on them, with all the info coming from the book How to Pick a Peach, by Russ Parsons. This particular chapter has more chemistry-related content than most others I’ve shared with you. It may be a bit more scientific, but I found it very interesting.

    What I Learned About Tomatoes

    • Tomato flavor or lack thereof, is one of the biggest complaints in the produce world.
    • Scientists who study flavor chemistry have identified more than 400 compounds that go into the taste of a ripe tomato. And more than 30 of those are regarded as essential (as low as one part per million). The human nose can detect some odors/flavors in parts per trillion. [Now that’s a statistic we foodies need to remember. Really.]
    • Here are the four compounds found in greatest concentration in tomatoes: Z-3 hexenal – a fresh green fragrance (like cut grass); Beta-damascenone – generally described as fruity and sweet; Beta-ionone – fruity and woody; 3-methylbutanal – nutty-cocoa facets (it’s happens to be in Parmesan cheese)
    • Flavor compounds present in a whole tomato change when the tomato is altered (cut).
    • When a tomato turns from green to red, it’s caused by the development of coloring chemicals called carotenoids, which have flavor-causing chemicals attached to them.
    • As a tomato ripens, the amount of sugars build
    • As a tomato ripens, the acids change, from malic to citric
    • As a tomato ripens, a whole host of aromatic chemical compounds are formed: hexanal (winey), alanine and leucine (meaty), and valine (fruity. Furaneol (pineapple aroma) is also created.
    • Tomatoes can be picked green and will continue to ripen, especially if exposed to ethylene gas (that’s what nearly all tomato producers do).
    • Even vine-ripened tomatoes (that we consumers pay a premium to buy) are picked at a stage that most of us would consider green, when only the very first traces of a tan, yellow or pink blush appear on the tomato’s base.
    • The biggest challenge with tomatoes is to produce a fragile, temperamental product on an industrial scale. The same problem exists for nearly every agricultural producer.
    • Unfortunately, taste has been the least of anyone’s concern in the industrial side of the business, and as a result, breeders have developed tomato strains that resist all manner of cankers and wilts and very little on flavor.
    • Temperatures below 60 degrees F reduce the aroma-creating volatiles in the fruit.
    • If you ever go to a grocery store and see tomatoes are being refrigerated, don’t buy them. (Industry experts are still trying to educate grocery stores in proper storage, and it’s not in the cooler.)
    • Eighteen states grow tomatoes here in the U.S., with California and Florida leading the parade. But, a third of all sold here come from overseas (Mexico, Canada and the Netherlands primarily).

    How to Choose and Store Tomatoes:

    • Avoid tomatoes with any flaws – nicks, dents or cuts.
    • Choose tomatoes that are heavy for their size.
    • Other than looking at the color (more red than green) disregard color unless you’re going to eat it immediately.
    • Over-ripeness can be just as much trouble as under-ripe. Over-ripe tomatoes are mealy with off flavors.
    • Trust your nose.
    • Do not EVER put a tomato in the refrigerator – it’ll kill flavor faster than anything.
    • Do not store tomatoes in direct light.

    Russ Parsons’ Favorite Simple Dish: Dice seeded (cut a tomato in half and squeeze gently to remove most seeds), unpeeled tomatoes as finely as you can. Dress them with a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Taste them, and if they need a little red wine vinegar, add that. Place a log of fresh goat cheese on a plate and spoon the tomatoes around it. Parsons says “you may never go back to tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.”

    The book also included recipes for an Heirloom Tomato Tart, Golden Tomato Soup with Fennel, and Seared Scallops with Tomato Butter.

    When I did a search within my own recipe collection posted here at TastingSpoons, my list was huge. But tomatoes may have played a very minor part of most of those recipes. Here are the ones where they played a starring role, or contribute some significant flavor: sorry to harp on the combination of watermelon and tomatoes, but here are the two I’ve posted about that, watermelon and tomato salad, and watermelon and Feta salad. Then there’s my favorite BLT Salad, Strawberry Gazpacho, Pasta ala Puttanesca, Bacon & Tomato Dunk (an appetizer), Creamy Tomato Soup (from canned tomatoes), Siciliana Sauce, and Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce.

    Posted in Cookbooks, on August 9th, 2008.

    zucchini

    If you’re anything like I am, you take zucchini for granted. It’s available almost year ‘round, and it’s a very easy and quick go-to vegetable. Today’s post is another installment in my series about fruits and veggies, based on Russ Parsons’ book, How to Pick a Peach. I buy a lot of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash every month of the year. I avoid the baby squashes and scalloped squash because I think they’re bitter. The baby varieties are very bitter to me. The scalloped squash not as much.

    What I Learned:

    • Grown all over the world, zucchini and the other summer squashes account for 6 million TONS of product a year.
    • Consumption of squash in general has increased 33% in the last decade! 40% of zucchini sold in the U.S. comes from Mexico.
    • Zucchini is actually a fairly modern invention – the first mention of it is from a 1900 Italian seed catalog. It probably made its way to the U.S. after World War I, brought by Italian immigrants to California.
    • There are drawings and paintings of a zucchini-like squash from prior to 1900, but they’re two other breeds of summer squash: Cocozelle, an Italian forebear of today’s common zucchini (Cocozelle are thinner and longer than zucchini with a small bulb at one end. They’re richer in flavor and are generally about 8-9 inches long); Marrow squash (paler/greener and tapered in shape, are denser, so work well/better in soups/stews).
    • More than a hundred varieties of zucchini are grown today.
    • Most commonly known squashes besides zucchini are crookneck (yellow, with narrow bent necks and bulbous bodies), straightneck squash (like crooknecks but with straight bodies), and scalloped squash, which can be either yellow or green and in a flattened shape with scalloped edges.
    • Golden zucchini, introduced in 1973, is also becoming more popular. At some farmer’s markets you may find round varieties (Tondo and Provencal Ronde de Nice), but they’re not actually squash but a pumpkin variety.
    • Don’t forget to try squash flowers – oh so delicate – must be eaten the same day – chopped up or battered, stuffed and fried.

    How to Choose & Store:

    • Choose firm squash, free of wrinkles and nicks.
    • Really fresh squash will bristle with tiny hairs
    • Cook them within a week.
    • Seal in plastic bags to keep them moist but not wet.
    • Do not wash until just before preparing them.

    Recipes included in the book: Zucchini frittata, and Garlic-and-herb-stuffed tomatoes and zucchini.

    Here are the zucchini recipes I’ve posted so far:
    Ina Garten’s Zucchini Gratin – a real favorite
    Shepherd’s Pie with a Latin Twist
    Calabacitas con Crema – a real favorite
    Adobe Stew – a delish winter soup, but with a bit of zucchini
    Sopa de Calabacitas (Mexican Zucchini Soup)
    Zucchini Ribbons
    Chilled Zucchini Soup

    Posted in Cookbooks, on July 16th, 2008.

    gorgeous yellow-fleshed peaches

    This is another installment in my so-called series on fruits and veggies, all based on the book “How to Pick a Peach,” by Russ Parsons. Here in California, peaches and nectarines are in high season. And they are delicious this year, I must say.

    What I Learned:

    • Peaches and nectarines are nearly interchangeable (other than the obvious: the nectarine has no fuzz) from the consumer’s point of view.
    • White-fleshed fruit is better and sweeter than the golden fleshed (yes, really).
    • As consumers we seem to prefer red-toned skin of the fruit, but really the best P’s and N’s are those with a golden tone to the skin. The red is a breeding technique (a genetic variation actually) and doesn’t indicate anything; in fact, it hides whether the fruit is ripe or not.
    • Parsons tells an interesting tale about a marketing experiment: A tasting panel was given two nectarines: one a fairly tasteless red variety, the other a great-tasting gold. Sitting around, tasting and talking about the fruit, the consumers unanimously agreed that the gold was a much better nectarine and that was the one they would buy. Then, on the way out the door, the panelists were offered boxes of nectarines as a thank you. One held the preferred golden fruit, the other the red. To a person, the consumers picked the red fruit to take home. Red sells.
    • Growers have bred out peaches with the tiny beak at the bottom – it tends to break during packing and shipping, which can cause the entire case to rot.
    • All nectarines are grown in California; peaches come from 28 states, but more than half from California.
    • The greatest demand for white-fleshed fruit is from Asia – used to be that more than 80% of the fruit went to Taiwan. Not true any longer as we’re tending to recognize the value in the white-fleshed fruit.
    • The difference between a nectarine and a peach is simply one gene. They’re so closely related, though, that sometimes peach seeds will sprout a nectarine tree. [Isn’t that amazing?]
    • Nectarines are a slight bit more acidic with a lemony top note. Peaches tend to be muskier and richer in flavor.

    How to Choose & Store:

    • Remember, red doesn’t mean better. Choose from the background color – golden, not green. If it’s hung on the tree to near maturity, it should have a distinctive orange cast.
    • If they are still firm, leave out on your counter until fully ripened, then refrigerate. Do not chill under-ripe fruit – it will turn mealy and dry.
    • Don’t peel nectarines, but peaches should be peeled. Cut a shallow X in the blossom end, then blanch quickly in boiling water, then place in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. The skins should peel right off.

    Parsons gives recipes for Peach Gelato, Nectarine-Cardamom Ice Cream plus Nectarines and Blackberries in Rose Geranium Syrup. But he mentions his favorite (no recipe), which is merely fresh peaches and shortbread.

    – – – – – –

    Or how about a peach shortcake? I had some buttermilk golden raisin scones in the freezer – I baked those, smeared on some Devon Cream (both of these items left over from the luncheon tea about a month ago) and sliced the peaches on top. And then I drizzled about a teaspoon of heavy cream over the top. My market doesn’t have any white-fleshed peaches (yet), but these yellows were just fabulous. I searched for the ones that had less red on the skin – they all were quite red, but I spotted a few with less red than others.

    golden raisin scones topped with Devon Cream and fresh sliced peaches

    Here are the recipes I’ve posted so far for peaches or nectarines:

    Southern Peach Cobbler

    Peach-Raspberry Streusel Cake

    In case you’re interested, the photo at the top was taken in my kitchen, but the nearly setting sun happened to be narrowly slotted right into my photo area. I re-arranged the peaches with that lovely warm highlight on the center of the bunch. Makes it almost look like they are luminous, doesn’t it?

    Posted in Books, Cookbooks, on June 28th, 2008.

    we’ve always had paris . . . and provence by Patricia & Walter Wells 

    If you’re a foodie, and have an interest in France (and French cooking), you’d likely enjoy reading Patricia & Walter Wells’ new memoir, We’ve Always Had Paris . . . and Provence: A Scrapbook of our Life in France. Now in their 60’s, the Wells have lead a charmed life, in my opinion. Not without a lot of hard work, however. They’ve now been there for over 30 years. Both from journalistic backgrounds (New York Times), they decided to take a risk and move to Paris. Their story doesn’t quite fit the romanticized vision of such a move – I assumed they lived high, in the toniest of digs. But, the reality was a small rented apartment, with minimal space and furniture. However, they managed that way for years and years. Meanwhile, Walter worked hard at the IHT (Int’l Herald Tribune) and Patricia was eventually hired by the New York Times to write a column about Paris/France from a food point of view. Both of them are “driven,” to keep working, to improve, to learn, to grow, but it’s all fueled by their utter love of life.

    When exactly Patricia arrived on my foodie radar, I don’t recall, but it was a long time ago. She used to free lance articles in Gourmet, I believe, so I knew Patricia was linked to Paris somehow. I read her first Bistro Cooking cookbook, published after she’d lived in Paris for some years. Last year I bought Vegetable Harvest, a lovely book of every imaginable vegetable recipe. With this newest book, though, Patricia and Walter trade off telling the story of their lives, their jobs, learning French, cooking in their small Parisian apartment kitchen, their neighbors, the telephone system, and a lot about restaurants. The difference with them vs. us, the average joe, is that Patricia WAS on an expense account much of the time, so they were able to eat at some of the finest restaurants in that city, night after night, for free. I suppose, given those circumstances, when I might cook at home it would likely be simple food.

    Eventually they bought an apartment and there were interesting tidbits about the renovation, which took nearly a year. Then they bought a farmhouse in Provence, and began going from one to the other place nearly every weekend. The Wells know/knew some very impressive people, (like Paul Bocuse, Joel Rubichon, Julia Child, even James Beard), but entertained them with relatively simple food when they visited in Provence. Patricia has a real willingness (and a competitive nature) to learn and make some very difficult food (more than I do, for sure). They raise a varied garden at their Provencal home. Eventually Patricia rented a Paris loft too and outfitted it as an office and cooking school. I’ve always thought it would be great fun to take a class from her. However, her Provence classes are $5,000 for 3 ½ days, not including lodging. Her entire cooking classes schedule for 2009 is full, as of this writing anyway.

    With each chapter there are one or two recipes. Sometimes they were related to the chapter subject, or a recipe received from a local chef. The recipes are not particularly complicated except for the ones around foix gras. A few looked interesting: peach wine (homemade), dried cranberry and apricot bread, lemon chicken and scrambled eggs with black truffles. I didn’t buy the book for her recipes, though, but for the charming stories of their lives in France. They love it there and it shows. Highly recommended read.

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