Grilled Cabbage with Chili Garlic Butter

On a recent vacation where cooking featured heavily, this was another cabbage dish that was a win--it wasn't much to look at but it was surprisingly good to eat. A little more sauce wouldn't go amiss, but it was very good as it was. 1 large, round white cabbage 2 tbsp olive oil flaky sea salt For the dressing 2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped 2 red chillies, halved, deseeded and thinly sliced 6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 100 g (3 1⁄2 oz) butter 1 tsp flaky sea salt 1 small bunch of parseley, roughly chopped Cut the cabbage into four or six wedges, depending on how large it is, and brush the cut surfaces with olive oil. Set the wedges cut-side down on a very hot grill to char for 4 minutes, then flip and grill the other cut surface for 4 minutes. Finally set the wedges on their rounded sides for a final 4 minutes, just to soften the cabbage a little. Remove to a platter and sprinkle with a little flaky sea salt. While the cabbage is charring, combine the shallots, chilli and garlic with the butter and set in a small pan on the side of the grill over a low- moderate heat, enough to just melt the butter and lightly confit the vegetables. Stir occasionally, cooking for about 12–14 minutes or until the shallots are soft and look translucent. Remove from the heat, add the salt and chopped dill and mix well. Pour the butter dressing all over the warm cabbage and serve straight away for best results. To cook without a BBQ Use a lightly oiled, preheated griddle pan on your stove top and cook the cabbage wedges just as you would on the fire. Prepare the dressing on your stove too, in a small pan over a low heat.

The Territory (2022)

This was shortlisted for the Academy Award this year and it tells a story that is hard to tell cinematically. The movie opens with a speech by Jair Bosonaro pledging to take indigenous land and essentially nationalize it. His administration undermined the government agency tasked with protecting those rights, issued regulations that are harmful to Indigenous people, and halted the recognition of their traditional lands. The government has also weakened the federal environmental protection agencies, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA, its Portuguese acronym) and the Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity (ICMBio), leaving Indigenous territories even more vulnerable to encroachment. The movie has a hard time telling a compelling story but it is always dedicated to it its main advocacy for the Amazon rainforest’s Indigenous Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people. For three years, director Alex Pritz and a small crew filmed the struggles by the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people to keep their Indigenous land. There are fewer than 200 of them left, but they have great pride in their culture and the land of their ancestors. The protection of their land is essential for more than their own livelihood and rights, but also the world—the Amazon rainforest holds a great deal of importance as the “lungs” of the world. To watch this land then be destroyed gradually by invaders who are wielding chainsaws and setting fire to large swaths of land is harrowing in its own right, and then their feelings of entitlement to do so is appalling. The package is not neatly tied up or succinctly told, but it is none-the-less compelling.

Four Treasures of the Sky by Jennifer Tinghui Zhang

The history of racism against Asians runs deep in the American history and this multi-layered story demonstrates the darker side of settling the West. It is told in the voice of a well-considered memoir and is as lyrical as an epic poem. The book opens with 13-year-old Daiyu, named after a beauty who has been cursed with a tragic fate, is kidnapped. It’s the first day of spring. Her parents have already disappeared, vanished in the middle of the night from their small fishing village. Her grandmother has already shaved her head, put her in boys’ clothes, and sent her to the nearby city of Zhifu. Once there, Daiyu has a series of lucky breaks but faces inevitable hazards, which is a pattern that is repeated throughout her life. She lives life as a boy and life as a girl, and while the sexual exploitation that marks her stint of living in her real skin is both predictable and horrifying, her life as an Asian man in 19th century America is not remarkably better. There are so many layers to this book. In the many roles she must assume to survive, Daiyu somehow retains her optimism and kindness. She falls in love even though she can never express the depth of her feelings to anyone. Although you can sense the futility of her impossible dream to reunite with her parents. Daiyu uses this as her strength and meaning behind her every effort and decision in this generous, brutal, and heartbreaking novel.

Braised Red Cabbage with Vinegar

This is an excellent recipe to have in your back pocket--introduced to me by one of my kids, so even better--it uses a ubiquitously available vegetable, very winter friendly as well, affordable, and this comes together in no time. It can be served warm, room temperature, or cold, all equally good. Any vinegar will do, and you can add a little stock if the braising turns to burning. 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1 cup chopped onion 4 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed 1 1/2-pound red cabbage, cut into ribbons 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds 3-4 tablespoons red wine vinegar Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté until beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Add cabbage and cumin seeds; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss until cabbage is wilted, about 4 minutes. . Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmerBOUT 10 minutes. Add vinegar. Cover and cook until cabbage is tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

The Great Experiment by Yascha Mounk

The subtitle of the book is: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Succeed. It was yet another work of non-fiction on Obama's reading tlist in 2022 that I read based soley on that, his recommendation. He will make me care about politics and how it can be an agent for positive change. Apparently the egis of this book came from the author speaking on German television in 2018, where he remarked that Germany was “embarking on a historically unique experiment – that of turning a monoethnic and monocultural democracy into a multi-ethnic one”. He was immediately deluged with emails from far-rightists who felt his comment corroborated their belief in a conspiracy to eradicate the white race. This might have prompted him to reflect that the word “experiment” was perhaps a less than optimal way to characterize mass migration and its consequences. Instead, he went away and wrote an entire book around this very theme. This is not so much a book full of solutions or policy suggestions but rather a string of observations. He identifies the elements of the caste system within all cultures, and not to give too much away, elements of autocracy leverage the fear of losing the advantage of being on top to prize away democracy for power and financial gain. This is the lesson of Trump, that racism is alive and well, but can be triumphed over if we pay attention.

Strange World (2022)

This movie did not make the final cut for a Best Animated Movie nomination this year and part of me gets it. All the basic elements of this movie are all too familiar. There’s a family of adventurers, a dire mission to save the planet from a mysterious ecological crisis, an absent father, a present father, three generations of insecure men, and a bunch of under-developed female supporting characters whose personalities range from strong to loving, understanding and nurturing. For all it's lack of original plot and story line, there is amazingly lush animation that is pretty jaw dropping to watch and experience. The movie zips along at a good clip, and there are some surprise moments that are really fun to watch. This really is in the Disney tradition of a movie for kids that their parents won't be bored out of their minds because the dialogue is pretty well done, and matches the fast pace of the action.

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

This book, which is more eight interlocked stories than a novel per se, is constructed with heart, intensity, and a surprising amount of humor, considering the central themes. The linked stories center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. His parents, who are a mix of colors and cultures, have emigrated from Jamaica in the 1970's looking for opportunity and a better life. After a fight with his father―who is reckoning with his failures as a parent and his longing for Jamaica―Trelawny is left homeless, and works a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin, Cukie, looks for a father who doesn't want to be found. They are all experiencing the danger of climbing without a safety net. The book is all about what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. It is occasionally lyrical, studded with sly commentary and contagious laughter, all the while delivering body blows.

Descendant (2022)

This is about the ship Clotilda and the living descendants of those who were aboard it; this is an oral history lesson with some facts to back it up. The ship, built and financed by wealthy Mobile, Alabama resident Timothy Meacher around 1856, was used to bring the last slaves acquired in the international slave trade to America in 1860. Since this type of slave trade had been deemed illegal in America by then, and was punishable by death, Meacher burned and sank The Clotilda afterwards to cover up his crime. The descendants of the 110 victims of Meacher’s treachery settled in Africatown, a section of land now incorporated into Mobile, Alabama. The denizens there, past and present, were privy to the first-person narrative of Cudjoe Lewis, once believed to be the only living survivor of the Clotilda. Lewis told his story not only to his kin, but also to author Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote it down for her 1931 book, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo. The text of this documentary is about the search for The Clotilda, which up until 2019 has never been found. The descendants talk about what they know about their past, what has been passed on through generations, but also about what they think about the present and the future in terms of responsibility and reparations. That for me was the most fascinating part of the story; there is no single belief or stance, and the responses are thoughtful and balanced. Black history is American history, but so often it has been corrupted, miscategorized, bowdlerized, or flat-out ignored in schoolbooks and classes. Erasure cannot be done to oral traditions, so long as there is someone alive to tell the tale and pass it on.

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

This book of essays is filled with intensely personal stories from the author's life. No one is safe, and she acknowledges that. She has written about her spouse, her marriage, her family of origin, and her best friend from graduate school in the past, so people in her present are fair game for reflection and sharing. The reader feels invited in, like the author has included you in the circle of warmth and friendship that exudes from her writing. It’s clear that Patchett forms deep and lasting friendships; the tone of the stories that she relates, the generosity of spirit they convey and the fact that we often hear of the same people through the years in various essays all speak to this being true. To her credit, Patchett, while forthright in describing her relationships, is never unkind. She speaks of all these people with great fondness, and she shines the same light on herself and her character that she shines on others. This is wonderful to read, and like the bookstore owner that she is, she left me with two book recommendations that I immediately took out of my library to read.

The Bad Guys (2022)

In the month lading up to the announcement of what will and won't be in the running for the Academy Awards, I like to watch things that might be nominated, based on a superficial reading of lists by those who make a living generating such lists, and that is how I agreed to watch an animated cartoon about bad guys. My son had been trying for quite some time to get me to sit down and watch it, and I almost did on a trans-Atlantic flight that had a particularly sparse selection of movies that I hadn't watched. I am here to say that while I do not think this is in the top five animated movies of 2022 that I have watched (which is a far smaller number than those that are nomination-eligible), this was a fun movie to watch. I didn't know until after watching it, but the story is based on the kids’ graphic novel series of the same name. It follows a group of fun-loving criminals who lean into their rap as the villains of the animal kingdom for thrills and profit. Wolf is their silver tongued charismatic leader and Snake is the cranky but loyal safecracker side kick. Shark is the enthusiastic master of disguise, but the amusing running bit is that it’s always totally obvious he’s a shark and Tarantula (Awkwafina!) is the speedy and resourceful hacker, an assignment where it would indeed be useful to have eight arms. And the main skill the quick-tempered Piranha seems to bring is toxic flatulence, which at first seems like a gratuitous gag to make kids in the audience giggle. In any case this gang of pigeon holed misfits go about planning and executing crimes until they have a turning point, and work for the greater good. The script is surprisingly well done, and it is overall enjoyable to watch.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

This is a time shifting tale that weaves together a modern, mostly invented, tale with an earlier story that is also invented but built upon the foundation of a true story. In the present Theo, a PhD student in art history rescues an oil painting of a racehorse from a pile of discarded stuff on a Georgetown sidewalk, and a researcher gets the skeleton of a horse unearthed in a Smithsonian attic. In 1850 Jarret, an enslaved boy, is present at the birth of a foal and becomes the only person that horse grows up to trust. These are the ingredients to some masterful storytelling. From the beginning, the weave of the narrative is clear: It’s no surprise that the horse in the painting is the same animal whose bones are collecting dust in the Smithsonian and the same again as the newborn foal who will find a devoted, lifelong companion in the boy, Jarret. The horse’s name is Lexington, and he was a real-life racehorse who won six of his seven starts and became a legendary thoroughbred sire whose offspring dominated American racing in the late 19th century. Brooks includes other figures from history: Lexington’s various owners; Thomas J. Scott, a Pennsylvania-born animal painter who served in the Union Army during the Civil War; and the modernist art dealer Martha Jackson. But the central characters — Jarret; the art historian Theo; and the Smithsonian zoologist Jess — are invented. Racism and racing are the prominent themes throughout, and neither are invented, but do form the basis of a tale well told. I very much enjoyed this book, even though the message is delivered with a mallet rather than with subtlety.

Fire Of Love (2022)

Volvanoes and volcanic eruption is captivating to watch, and this is a story about love of volcanoes, but also about love. Maurice Krafft met his wife Katia on a volcano--they were both vulcanologists who were fascinated by what happened with eruptions from the center of the earth, a window into what happens inside the planet. What made them different was that they were also filmmakers and story tellers. They took what fascinated them and let all of us be fascinated along with them. Their filmwork financed their continued exploration of volacanoes. Their union not only produced a trove of astonishing imagery that can be endlessly reworked and put to a variety of uses, it gave any future filmmaker who wanted to retell their story a gallery of metaphors for love, passion, obsession, and commitment. From the opening images of the Kraffts driving a Jeep through snowy tundra and pausing to unstick the vehicle from an ice patch, shot after shot serves its own narrative function and also as a symbol for passion and commitment to their craft and their work. It started in the late 1960s and ended in 1991 when a pyroclastic flow on Japan's Mt. Unzen wiped them out along with a group of 41 scientists, firefighters, and journalists. On the one hand it was a tragedy but on the other, it seemed inevitable from the beginning that this was how it was likely to end.

The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

This book has a lot going for it and a lot going on. At the center of the book is Daunis, a graduating high school student with a complicated past and an equally complicated present. The novel opens with her in the middle of traumatic change, as her maternal grandmother has just had a stroke and months previously her maternal uncle was found dead of a meth overdose. Daunis is the biracial daughter of a white mother and an Anishinaabe man, which was a scandal at the time-- her mother was a teenager when she became pregnant, and shortly thereafter her father got another woman pregnant and married her--so Daunis has a half brother who is just a few months younger than her. The book has so much going on-- issues related to native rights, identity, traditions, and language, another is what is kinship and what does it mean, what is community and membership, then there is the problem of drugs in general and meth in particular. Then there is the role of sports in a community and how it shapes things. Finally, there are issues of responsibility--it is a very well done coming of age book and the Obamas thought so too because they bought the rights to make it into a television series.

Navalny (2022)

If you watch only one documentary this year let it be this one. If you find your support for Ukraine flagging, thenlet this bolster your conviction that Putin is a danger to the world and should not be ignored or underestimated. He means to destroy everything and everyone in his path, and this will remind you that no enemy is safe from him. The movie opens with the suggestion that the filmmaker is making a movie for the case of the death of Alexei Navalny, and then proceeds to tell his story. You can immediately see why Putin hates him. The fact that he is handsome, charming, smart, funny, and likable, all things that the Russian leader lacks. He has a beaqutiful family that shares both his bravery and his charming good looks. Then there is the fact that Navalny was extremely popular politically, telling the Russian people and the world about Putin and the oligarchs he abetted taking vast amounts of money for themselves and robbing Russia of those assets. So he goes about trying and nearly succeeding in killing him--and Navalny goes about demonstrating that that is exactly what happened.

The Books Ahead

While I never really get completely through the list of books to read that I develop and maintain from year to year, I do spend time in January every year thinking about the year ahead as it pertains to me and reading. Last year was the best year of reading that I have had recently, maybe ever. The pandemic left me home and with more time on my hands, and as it became clear that by 2022 it was the have's and the have not's--those who were vaccinated could take more chances in public places and those who were not could not safely do so. Even though my whole family fell into the fully vaccinated camp, we still spent more time at home or with each other than out and about. So it is true that I had more time to read than ever before, and while I read almost a book a day throughout last year, there were still many things on my Ro Read list that I did not get to, and hoping the 2023 sees me reading just as much.

Mercato Storico Albinelli, Modena, Italy

The thing that I love about this region in general and this city in particular is that it is all about the food. The region is rich in local specialties, and they are all on display in the market. The day we spent in Modena was the worst weather we experienced the whole trip, with an all day rain on top of an already cold day--but the market is indoors and a great escape from the elements.

The thing that we came for, and what we left with as well, was the parmesan. We tasted quite a few of them, bought a wide variety, with variations in the length of the aging for each, the cow milk that the cheese is made from, as well as different parmesan makers. In addition to this we bought a kilo of a blooming rind cheese we tried and liked, as well as a truffled pecorino that was amazing. The cheesemonger said it is a truffle experience at an affordable price, and he was right on about that.

The thing that we did not get, but I wished I could have were the the tortelloni that we saw everywhere--maybe going forward we can work on getting better at this!

The Other America

And I’d like to use as a subject from which to speak this afternoon, the other America. And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for our situation. And in a sense, this America is overflowing with the miracle of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies and culture and education for their minds, and freedom and human dignity for their spirit. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America, millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America, millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America, millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America, people are poor by the millions. And they find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty, in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to other children. Little children in this other America are forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority, farming every day in their little mental skies. And as we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of blasted hopes and shattered dreams. Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican-American, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups, millions of them are Appalachian whites. Probably the largest group in this other America, in proportion to its size and the population is the American Negro. The American Negro finds himself living in a triple ghetto. A ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, ghetto- Is to deal with this problem, to deal with this problem of the two Americas. We are seeking to make America one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

The Fabelmans (2022)

This is Spielberg's back story, which he co-wrote with Tony Kushner during the pandemic, and it is very very good. The events are apparently not 100% accurate but do follow the arc of the director's actual childhood. You can tell from the opening sequence that it is going to be a good story. The mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), is a former concert pianist who became a homemaker and piano teacher. The father, Burt (Paul Dano), is a scientist who works for various tech companies and there are four siblings, including Sammy. One night, Mitzi and Burt take their 8 year old son to his first theatrical film experience. The movie ends with a spectacular train crash that was created with miniatures. Sammy becomes obsessed with the sequence and asks for a train set, which he crashes in an attempt to recreate the scene, infuriating his father, but his mother gets it. She suggests that he shoot the trains crashing with his father's movie camera so that he can watch one crash over and over instead of bashing the trains until they fall apart. Mitzi can tell from watching the boy's first film, which employs multiple, dynamic angles to capture the crash, and uses editing to build suspense and set up visual jokes, that he has real promise, and supports his creative endeavors going forwards. THe film ends as Sammy is not going to college but rather trying to get jobs that involve film and TV, and we know what happens next.

Bologna University Library, Italy

The library started with two acts of generosity. Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (1658-1730), a noble of Bologna and General of the Empire, created in 1712 the Institute of Sciences and endowed it with his own scientific collections, his books, 900 oriental manuscripts and 120 manuscripts relating to his work. In 1742 this first core of the library was enlarged by the acquisition of manuscripts and printed texts as well as the collection of xylographic tablets and the water colours of the great Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. I In September of 1755 Pope Benedict XIV (Prospero Lambertini 1675-1758) donated to the Institute library about 25.000 printed volumes and 450 manuscripts. In the same year he ordered the typographers of Bologna to present the library with a copy of every printed work and, in the following year, 1756, he decreed that the library open its doors to the public. Women as well as men were allowed in.

The library itself is breath taking and well worth the considerable effort to tour it. The tour is free, but needs to be booked ahead, and the starting point is not marked. We set out ahead of time, made a number of wrong turns, but arrived on time--others were not so fortunate! The very coolest part is the hand written card catalog, which is in itself a work of art.

Razorblade Tears by SA Crosby

I read this because it was on Obama's 2022 reading list, and in my experience, her does not disappoint when it comes to book recommendations. I did not realize this is a crime drama, which is a genre I read pretty widely in. The book opens with the gangland shooting of a gay interracial couple, leaving their small daughter parentless. The shooting victims are both professionals, one a journalist and the other a baker, but the fathers of the two have had brushes with crime and done jail time. They decide to find out who killed their offspring and why. The subtext is that while the sons were alive neither father accepted their homosexuality but now that they are dead they deeply regret that and want to avenge them. The process of uncovering the truth leaves a lot of people dead, most of them deservedly so but not all, and it is bloody and violent, so skip this if that is a deal breaker, but there is a lot to recommend this, with a subtext elated to race and tolerance that is well done.

Lightyear (2022)

This is the origin story for how Buzz Lightyear, the toy, ended up in Andy’s toy box all those years ago. This being a movie designed to propel toys forward, Buzz was the hero of a movie. He is a space ranger, working with a gay black woman boss and is the same concrete, obsessive, stubborn guy who follows his own path rather than following orders that we know from the Toy Story movies. He is also at core a guy who wants to help others, and, when all is said and done, is at once irritating and likeable. The one out of continuity thing is Buzz has a sidekick, Sox, and emotional support cat who is also exceptionally gifted at calculations and problem solving. How Andy had Buzz and not Sox is a huge mystery. In any case this is exceptionally lame when held up to Toy Story 4, but an acceptable cash generating parallel story movie.

Poached Salmon in Green Sauce

My spouse made this as part of our Xmas dinner, and it was astoundingly good. For the pickled peppers we used a comination of sweet and hot, which I would recommend. 1 cup white wine 2 carots, sliced 1 celery stalk, sliced 1 small onion, diced 5 peppercorns 2 cloves garlic 1 piece of cinnamon stick 1.5 lbs of fish salt to taste Green Sauce 1/4 cup olive oil 4 anchovy fillets 2 cloves garlic, minced 3 Tbsp. chopped parseley 1/4 cup minced onion 1/4 cup finely chopped pickled pepper 2 Tbsp. capers 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar 1 tsp. lemon zest Combine all the poaching ingredients (without the fish) into a skillet and add water to a depth of 1" and simmer for 25 minutes. Cut the fish into portion sizes and put into pan in a single layer in the skillet--if the fish isn't submerged, add water until it is. Cook for 8-10 minutes. Remove fish with a slotted spoon, debone and remove skin, and put on serving platter. Add all the green sauce ingredients to a small saucepan, but hold back the zest and 1 Tbsp. of parseley. Heat until anchovies dissolve. Put zest on fish, then the sauce, and top with the remaining parseley. The original recipe says to discard the poaching vegetables, but my spouse strained them, and served with the salmon, and they were quite tasty with it.

The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

I found this on the New York Times list of 100 Notable Books, and liked the thumbnail sketch of the plot and thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is written like a play, in five acts, and tells the story on a landed gentry family on the Dorset coast. It spans the time from WWI to WWII, with what are probably not unusual circumstances when inheritance is at the forefront of priorities in most families under the circumstances. The setting is the manor house known as Chilcombe and three related children grow up there in the early 20th century, at a time when the king owned many things, including dead whales that wash ashore. They are somewhat benignly neglected and they each find their own ways with what they have. At one point they build a theater with the remains of said whale, and it becomes a part of who each of them becomes. The three all become involved in the war, and their bucolic location is more vulnerable as well. The WWII chapter of the book is by far the longest, just as the war was quite long for England, and there is a quite different ending for each of them. The very best part is that there is a subtext in this book that is telling a story just as loudly as the one the text reveals, and it is deftly done.

Slow Horses (2022)

I read a review that subtitled this ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Failure’, which is a hilariously accurate depiction of what I think is a great spy show. It is flat out amazing, and in my memory at least, better than the original, a series that is written by Nick Herron. It is a smart, witty, cleverly plotted show that has at core a group of sidelined spies who are not quite fired but no longer part of the main show due to varying degrees of failings who end up being essential to MI5’s headline-grabbing operation that is unfolding behind the scenes in a very different way than the public is privy to on the evening news. Gary Oldman demonstrates yet again that he is a consummate actor who can take on any role with the gusto that it deserves, and he clearly revels in the material that the Jackson Lamb character offers up for him. There are two seasons available and you are definitely left wanting more, and we watched them one at a time because we found them so adrenaline pumping, but they should also be savored rather than binged

Franceschetta58, Modena, Italy

This was definitely the best place we ate while on our recent trip to northern Italy and I would 100% make the trip back to Modena to eat here if I was nearby. Massimo Bottura has a better known and Michelin lauded restaurant that has been called the best or amongst the best in the world, and this is not that, but it was pretty spectacular and a fraction of the cost. This dish, which was gambas that were grilled on one side and raw on the other, which sounds unpleasant, but was the winning dish of the meal--topped with fried tempura batter, it was just perfect.

The second best dish was a bowl of homemade tortellini, which the region is renowned for, in a parmesan cream sauce, was something so god you savored every single bite and ate it slowly enough to really enjoy just how special it is. I hope the parmesan we brought home from Modena serves us well over the next year.

Strangers To Ourselves by Rachel Aviv

The author of this book, which explores various aspects of mental health for several patients, has had her own struggles with finding balance and happiness in her life. She grew up in a house with high standards and conflict between her parents that led to her being hospitalized with an eating disorder as a six year old. This book, which looks into the lives of people with extensive hospitalizations for mental health diagnoses, really doesn’t reflect the average patient or the state of the art of mental health care in the 21st century. There is a concept that as a mental health professional I see often in people seeking care, that in taking medication they will experience cure, rather than improvement, and they fail to understand that much of the work of getting better lays squarely with them, that we are more teachers and guides, using what we know from experience with patients and education, but they know themselves and need to be an active participant in the process. There is a profound lack of insight into what happens in mental health on display in this book, as well as a replaying of old tropes and misconceptions that will be unlikely to help anyone who is struggling who reads this, other than to feel like they are not alone in what they feel and experience. I will not be recommending this to anyone, but do think that it is important for fellow mental health professionals to read things that are being recommended—this is on several “Best Books of 2022” lists and is bound to get a broader readership as a result.

The Bear (2022)

This show, which there is sadly only one season so far, was so intense that we could really only watch one episode a night, and led to our return to what I would consider to be the TV viewing of my youth, where we watched more than one series at a time. As one reviewer pointed out, it is aptly named. Before I go on, definitely watch this, even if nothing I say going forward makes you think you will enjoy it. It is so worth tolerating the intensity because it is amazing. Carmen (Carmy) Berzatto (hence ‘The Bear’) has had an astoundingly successful career as a Michelin-starred chef in New York and has returned home after inheriting his family’s sandwich shop after his brother committed suicide. Carmy inherits an ornery and surprisingly talented existing crew. They are not the least bit impressed with Carmen or the changes he tries to upgrade the enterprise to be profitable. His one new hire is an ambitious sous chef Sydney (played by Ayo Edebiri), who trained at the Culinary Institute of America and is the only one in awe of – in fact the only one who understands – Carmy’s talent and reputation as a chef. The show, set in a busy Chicago sandwich shop, does almost too good a job at creating atmosphere. Watching it felt like being stuck in that kitchen with the cooks as equipment broke, tempers clashed, and no amount of time ever seemed enough to make sure all the food was ready for the arrival of hungry customers. It was intense, uncomfortable, and raw—-but I cannot wait for the next season to watch.

Pad See Mao

One of my sons is on the quest to find the perfect Drunken Noodle dish, and while this isn't quite it, it was quite good and three of us polished it off for lunch. For the chicken & marinade: 2 tablespoons water 12 ounces sliced chicken thighs or chicken breast (340g) 1 teaspoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon oil 2 teaspoons cornstarch For the rest of the dish: 8 ounces wide dried rice noodles (225g) 1 tablespoon brown sugar (dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water) 2 teaspoons soy sauce (Thai soy sauce preferred) 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce 1 tablespoon fish sauce 1 tablesppon oyster sauce pinch ground white pepper 3 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil (divided) 3 cloves garlic (sliced) ¼ teaspoon fresh grated ginger 2 shallots (sliced, about 1/3 cups) 1 scallion (julienned into 3-inch pieces) 4 Thai red chili peppers (deseeded and julienned) 1 cup holy basil or Thai basil (loosely packed) 5 to 6 pieces baby corn (split in half, optional) 2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine Work the 2 tablespoons of water into the sliced chicken with your hands until the chicken absorbs the liquid. Add 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon oil, and 2 teaspoons cornstarch, and mix until the chicken is evenly coated. Set aside for 20 minutes. Follow the directions on the rice noodle package to prepare your noodles. What we usually do is prepare a stainless steel bowl with hot tap water to soak the noodles for about 15 minutes. Then we just drain them and set aside for cooking. Stir together the dissolved brown sugar mixture, soy sauces, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and white pepper in a small bowl and set aside. Heat your wok until it’s close to smoking, and spread 2 tablespoons of oil around the perimeter of the wok. Add the chicken and let it sear for 1 minute on each side until it’s about 90% cooked. Remove from the wok and set aside. If the heat was high enough and you seared the meat correctly, your wok should be still clean with nothing sticking to it. If not, you can wash the wok to prevent the rice noodles from sticking. Continue with the wok on high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil, along with the garlic and grated ginger. After a few seconds, add the shallots. Stir fry for 20 seconds and add the scallions, chili peppers, basil, baby corn and shaoxing wine. Stir-fry for another 20 seconds and add in the rice noodles. Use a scooping motion to mix everything for another minute until the noodles warm up. Next, add the prepared sauce mixture and stir-fry at the highest heat for about 1 minute until the noodles are uniform in color. Take care to use your metal spatula to scrape the bottom of the wok to prevent sticking. Add the seared chicken and stir-fry for another 1 to 2 minutes.

Midnight on the Marne by Sarah Adlakha

I think this book is possibly better than I thought it was. I am not a huge fan of science fiction or alternative history (which is a handicap for this book), but I very much enjoyed the author's debut novel, which features both, so eagerly started this one. The novel has at it's center a battle that turned the course of WWI. The Second Battle of the Marne occurred in the summer of 1918, with American troops as part of the Allied forces, and was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack failed when an Allied counterattack, supported by several hundred tanks, overwhelmed the Germans on their right flank, inflicting severe casualties. A counter offensive was launched that eventually led to the end of the war in November. The premise here is what would have happened if the battle had failed. The writing is very solid, good dialogue, likeable characters that I cared about, but I found the what if to go on too long and the battle part of the novel to be less compelling. To be fair, I read War and Peace last year, the ultimate work of fiction to depict battles, written by a combat veteran, so maybe my bar is too damn high.

Glass Onion (2022)

Benoir Blanc, the great detective (an homage to Hercules Poirot), is back. We (and the critics) agree that it is ever so slightly inferior to the original, but part of that is related to a repeating of the very appealing style of detection that Benoir does. The ever talented Edward Norton convincingly plays Miles Bron, a billionaire tech bro who isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks. Once a year, he amasses his tight-knit clique—a disparate group of people who smugly refer to themselves as “The Disruptors”—for a lavish, weekend vacation. They are all purposely exaggerated in their personas. This time, he’s shipped them all multilayered puzzle boxes as a tease for the murder mystery he’s planned at his isolated getaway. His mansion manages to be gaudy yet chicly minimalist, an indication that he has no discernable style all his own. The murder victim is supposedly him but something else entirely emerges, and while it is not quite as clever as the original movie’s plot, it is very entertaining.

All'Osteria Bottega, Bologna

This was the place that we ate in Bologna that is where I would go back to if I had the chance. There are two things that the city is famous for—the pasta with a mixed meat ragu (what we in America call Spaghetti Bolognese) and tortellini in broth, which is a kind of chicken noodle soup, except the noodles are actually stuffed with parmesan and sprinkled with more grated parmesan in the broth when you eat it, and you can imagine how this would help nurse you through a bout of illness or a bad hangover. These are exceptionally good here, and something I can imagine having at least once a week without tiring of.

The things I liked about this osteria (besides the affordability of the food) was the old school atmosphere, the local diners, the friendliness of the staff (our waiter dutifully brought us the dessert we ordered, but also the dessert he thought we should have ordered, which was far better, and a little after lunch digestive that was much appreciated), and the unfussy but delicious food.