Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

I saw this on Obama's reading list and it is both something I might have otherwise missed, and that I really enjoyed. It is set in Boston in 1974, President Richard Nixon has just resigned, a federal judge has ordered the busing of students to desegregate the city’s public high schools, and irate White parents are raising hell. Among them is Mary Pat Fennessy, widowed by her first husband, divorced by her second and working as a hospital aide in a skilled nursing facility. Mary Pat’s quotient of personal losses increases right away. Her only surviving child, 17-year-old Jules, fails to come home after a night out with friends, or the following day, or the day after that. As a lifelong resident of Southie, a lower-middle-class Irish neighborhood where everybody knows everybody else’s business, Mary Pat assumes it won’t take her long to piece together what happened. Yet her inquiries get her almost nowhere, and the police don’t fare much better. Then comes a complication. On the night of Jules’s disappearance, a young Black man was found dead on Southie subway tracks, his mangled body suggesting that a train ran over him, but all is not as it appears. The book deals with racism and poverty in a very effective and different way.

Wedding Cake

The cake! Something that seems to be fading a bit in importance, which overall I think is a good thing. The last wedding I went to was on a dairy sheep farm, and the cake was a tower of cheese--so much more pratcial and so much less fragile--and about equivalent in cost to a bakery cake! My friend that I bake with and I made this one for the wedding on one of my son's and it is always a bit of a pain and it is not at all practical as a means of feeding your wedding guests. It is soley for the pictures, it often times seems. So, we made it a real cake, with real frosting that was purported to hold up well to the elements, and told the wedding planner that it was just for looks, do not worry if flies land on it or bees swarm it. Almost no one will eat it, and we will warn them--it is at their own risk!

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

This book is long listed for the 2023 Booker Prize, and it fits that bill well. It is a debut novel and the prize committee has a track record of including first time authors amongst those it recognizes. It deals with intense truths about life in a not usual and often heart rending ways. The book begins a few days after 11-year-old Gopi’s mother’s funeral, which leaves Gopi and her two older sisters in the care of their father. Gopi practices squash every day at Western Lane, a sports center just outside London to such an intense degree that it is inescapably about coping, grief, and loss--for both she and her father. The book ends with her playing the final of the Durham and Cleveland squash tournament. The arc is picture perfect: tragedy, sporting trial, potential triumph. The tension is heightened by squash-obsessed, emotionally uncommunicative Pa; fearful Aunt Ranjan is the obstacle that stands in Gopi’s way. There is a love interest, Ged, whose mother intervenes at all the wrong moments--as mothers are prone to do. The underlying emotional truths are raw and well told.

Chile Margarita

In the lead up to the wedding for one of my kids, I sent my spouse to Trader Joe's to get a few things that I needed (or at least preferred to get there) for the food. We had a monumental undertaking and I wanted all the do ahead pieces to be accomplished in that time frame (no, that did not 100% happen! But enough of it happened that it wasn't terrible to be in my house or in my shoes the week of the event). One silver lining to that stop was that he bought these dried oranges and the chili lime salt mix and decided to pair them with some of the voluminous chiles in our garden and make a cocktail. Tequila 2 1/4 oz Mezcal 1 1/2 oz Ancho Reyes 1 1/4 oz Lime juice 1 1/2 oz Chocolate bitters 5 dashes City’s bitters 5 dashes Shake with ice; strain over fresh ice into glasses rimmed with Chile-lime (I used Trader Joe’s, but could use Tajin), garnish with dehydrated citrus wheel.

President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier by CW Goodyear

So, why Garfield, you ask? Before read this I would have agreed with you. I did venture to his homestead once when I was in Ohio (which is the breeding ground of more Presidents than any other state than Virginia, and let's face it, they got a huge head start with the whole pre-and post Revolutionary War cabal, making a name for themselves with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution business). It’s not immediately evident why anyone should write an ambitious, thorough, supremely researched biography of James Garfield, the first such effort in nearly a half-century. The nation’s 20th president served just 200 days in office, 80 of which he spent dying after being shot by an assassin’s bullet, and seemingly the most interesting part of that abbreviated tenure — the assassination. Wrong! Garfield lived it all — starting work as a teenager on an Ohio canal towpath, traveling across a region whose canals his father helped build, teaching and ministering on the frontiers of the Western Reserve, then rising in local politics through the turbulent prewar years as the country was wrenched apart by slavery, ascending to fame in Civil War combat as one of the few Union officers who showed any ambition and aggression in the early years (bravery mixed with equal parts luck on the battlefield), and then catapulting himself into Congress at 31. From his first election as head of the debating society at Williams College to a then-long tenure of 17 years in the House and finally on to the White House, Garfield never lost an election. And, in advance of him becoming president himself, he presided over preventing Southern Dixiecrats from stealing the election from Rutherford Hayes from succeeding. He was the original Black Lives Matter guy. He saw the dangers for ex-slaves in the post-Civil War South, and while he lost many of these battles, he was unwaveringly anti-slavery before the war, and a supporter of full rights for black citizens. He lobbied for equal pay for equal work for black soldiers. Again, did not win many of these battles, but he fought them. It was his intellectual curiosity and thirst for education that would be one Garfield’s most lasting legacies: He fought for the creation of the federal Department of Education as one of the reforms necessary for a maturing country, which had extended the franchise to Blacks in early Reconstruction. The man who shot him wanted his VP, Chester Arthur to be President--which happened, but Arthur died of kidney disease at the end of Garfield's term, and it is possible he was born on the Canadian side of the border, no one knows for sure.

The Calm Before The Storm

My spouse and I recently cooked for our son's wedding weekend, which consisted of a rehearsal dinner for 120 people and the wedding dinner for 250 people. We did a fair amount of planning ahead of time for the event, and we had the desserts for both events in the freezer long beforehand. We were roasting a pig for the big day and had some help lined up for that arduous task, but we hadn't quite nailed down what we were going to make other than that. So, what did we do? We took a quick 4-day vacation to clear our heads, calm down a bit, catch our breaths, and planned the menu. We went to my spouse's family house in central Vermont, a place that his grandparents bought before WWII and which he has been going to all his life, and I have been going to for over 40 years. When I think about it, it is the place that each of us has been going to longer than any other place period, and certainly as a shared experience, Vermont is it for us. We both feel a sense of peace there, and we have long established things we do as well as something new, but hands down, we have a reliably good time there. I have to admit that when we got to the airport on Thursday morning before the sun came up I had serious second thoughts. Is this a good idea? Abandon ship with very little actually done and take time for us? It turns out it was an excellent idea--my head stopped spinning with all that I had to do and say, all the meeting and greeting, all the emotions that such events are bound to stir up, and just focused on peace and place.

Everything's Fine by Cecelia Rabess

Here is the question at hand--can a black liberal woman and a white conservative man make it work? I am thinking no, and that's it, washing my hands of it, but this first time author works to see it through, what are the odds? Jess is low woman on the totem pole at Goldman Sachs. She is patronized and undervalued by the men around her, including Josh, who fails to see how race and gender put her at a disadvantage, and how little credit she gets for her ideas. They bicker; they get in each other’s hair. Eventually, they become friends. There’s definite romantic chemistry but when they hook up, it’s a surprise to both, although Josh will later admit to Jess that he had always been a bit smitten. This is a good book, one that is able to laugh at itself, and you will remember it when you hear Everything's fine again. Because in fact it is not.

Khai Jiao

I admit, this is not much to look at, but it is possibly the best Asian egg dish I have had, and maybe one of two go to ways to prepare eggs (prior to trying this, I also enjoy a more traditional French style omelet, leaning towards a less fluffy and thinner version that has a lot of flavor). I added green beans, and you can add anything--I put in in the pan with the oil hot, and then added egg over it once it was heated a bit. 2 large eggs ½ teaspoon lime juice or vinegar ½ teaspoon Thai fish sauce 1 tablespoon water 1 tablespoon rice flour or cornstarch 2-4 Tbs. vegetable oil (the traditional recipe has 3-4 times this much--it is supposed to fry!) Combine eggs, lime juice or vinegar, fish sauce, water, and rice flour or cornstarch in a medium bowl. Beat with a fork until frothy. If the flour forms a few lumps, break up as many as possible with a fork. Heat the vegetable oil in a small pot or a round-bottom wok set over medium-high heat until lightly smoking. Hold the egg bowl about one foot above the pan and pour the egg mixture into the oil in one go. The egg mixture will immediately puff up. Do not disturb it. After a minute or once the bottom is browning, flip the omelet. There’s no need to keep it nice and round; we want asymmetrical edges. Let the other side cook for another 30 seconds. Remove the omelet from the pan and serve immediately.

Happy Place by Emily Henry

I am not one who goes in much for romance--when reading frothy fiction, I lean toward murder mysteries instead; but I have enjoyed the two previous Emily Henry books that I have read. In spite of myself, I liked them a lot. This one follows ex-fiancés Harriet, a conflict-avoidant surgical resident, and Wyn, a quick-witted charmer who dances through life into their long drawn out and secret break-up. They have both struggled to find something that they love to do that isn't just being with each other, and they have failed kind of miserably. Instead of figuring that out, they split up with each other. This is how they get back together (which is really not a spoiler because this is an Emily Henry book--too short for them to find happiness elsewhere, so it must be with each other). They share a group of close friends that, for the last decade, have scheduled an annual getaway to a small cottage in Maine as a respite from their daily lives. But this year, Harriet and Wyn haven’t told their friends that they have broken up, leaving them lying through their teeth for a week as they pretend to be a couple to avoid breaking their friends’ hearts. This has a lot of the successful elements of her previous books, but for some reason this just didn't resonate for me. On the other hand, would I read another one of her books? Absolutely!

Rediscovering Quiche

When I left my parents house to go to college almost 50 years ago there were only two things that I made reliably well--chocolate chip cookies and quiche. My father's company when I was in high school was on acreage that was once an apple orchard, and rather than cut them all down, they left them, and employees were allowed to pick apples there. My parents took that opportunity to make lots of applesauce, apple butter, and apple pies every fall. Mostly I peeled and cut apples, but I somehow also learned to roll out crust, and both of these skills have served me well in the years since. Along the way though, I stopped making quiche, I cannot say why. That neglect is over now, because in the intense run up to my son's wedding a couple of weeks ago, where my spouse and I were prepping all the food, I decided I should add quiche to my list of things to do. We had family and friends coming on site the morning of the wedding to set everything up and it seemed like an easy food to serve. You didn't even necessarily need a fork or a plate to eat it, it could be hot or room temp (hot is better, much better) and the most surprising thing of all, it was still easy to make. I hadn't lost it! I used the Moosewood cookbook that I have had since my first year of college for the filling, and I was happy with the results. It is nice to go back to the beginning sometimes. We also had chocolate chip cookies, but my spouse made them, and they had the added punch of cardamom, something my early cookies lacked but is a nice addition.

A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo

This book is long listed for the 2023 Booker Prize. I do not know the Yoruba language or have much in the way of exposure to the culture--I have studied the art, and that is it. So I am going to quite from another review related to this aspect of the book: "Yoruba and an unmistakable Nigerian verisimilitude permeates the novel. Readers unfamiliar with tribal nuances in southwestern Nigeria get no glossaries, soggy transliterations, or italicizations of Nigerian contexts. Yoruba intonations and folklore are exquisitely upheld, while Nigerian food holds an unapologetic stake without anglicized equivalents; characters eat amala, akara, boli, and pounded yam with efo riro without any exposition for a Western audience. Sporadic uses of Pidgin English and colloquial expressions like “sha” and “jare” keep the dialogues authentic." The story moves between two polar protagonists of different socioeconomic classes: a 16-year-old Eniola and Wura, a 28-year-old doctor. Eniola, poor, leaves school and becomes a tailoring apprentice when his parents cannot afford to pay his fees. Dr. Wura, the pride of wealthy parents, gets engaged to Kunle, a TV presenter and politician’s son. Political rivalry paradoxically binds and dampens the characters’ lives. There is a forthcoming governorship elections provoke rivalry between two political aspirants, Wura's father and Eniola's benefactor. They both receive financial support from a wealthy man who imports sundry supplies for government offices and donates to political campaigns in exchange for prospective contracts. This is where the two families meet for catastrophic events that crash and burn them up.

Chinese Egg with Tomato

I cannot believe we have had The Wok as long as we have and not made this. We are almost at the end of the second tomato season, but there you have it, the summer has been busy and filled with other recipes. For the Scrambled Eggs: 6 large eggs (305g) 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste 1 tablespoon (15ml) water 5 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons (85ml) neutral oil, such as peanut oil, divided To Finish: 4 scallions, white and light green parts minced, dark green parts sliced thinly on the bias, divided 4 small garlic cloves (15g), finely minced One 1/2-inch piece (10g) fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated 6 ripe Roma (plum) tomatoes (about 1 1/4 pounds; 545g), cored and cut into 1-inch pieces, or one 28-ounce (794g) can whole peeled tomatoes, tomatoes drained then cut into 1-inch chunks 1/2 teaspoon Diamond crystal kosher salt, plus more to taste; for table salt, use half as much by volume or the same weight 1 dash MSG (optional) 2 tablespoons (30ml) Shaoxing wine 1 teaspoon (5ml) Chinese light soy sauce 1/4 teaspoon finely ground white pepper 1/2 teaspoon Chinkiang black vinegar 1/4 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (optional) For the Scrambled Eggs: In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together eggs with salt, water, and 2 teaspoons (10ml) oil. Eggs being scrambled with a whisk in a metallic bowl. Heat a well-seasoned carbon steel wok (see note) over high heat until lightly smoking. Add 2 tablespoons (30ml) oil, swirling to coat wok. Add eggs, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, allowing eggs to form a solid layer at the bottom of the wok before slowly scrambling with a spatula, until eggs are gently scrambled in large curds, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer eggs to a plate and set aside. Wipe out wok of any remaining egg. To Finish: Return wok to medium-high heat and heat until very lightly smoking. Add remaining 3 tablespoons (45ml) oil and swirl to coat the wok. Add scallion whites and garlic and cook, stirring and tossing constantly, until fragrant, about 20 seconds; do not let them scorch. Add ginger and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 10 seconds. A metal spatula stirring minced garlic and scallion whites in a well-oiled wok. Add tomatoes, salt, and MSG (if using), and cook, stirring and tossing frequently, until tomatoes soften and their juices come to a boil. Tomatoes added to garlic and scallions in a wok. Add Shaoxing wine followed by the soy sauce, pouring each around the sides of the wok so that they sizzle. Season with salt. Soy sauce being poured near the top edge of a wok filled with tomatoes.k Reduce heat to medium, then add eggs and white pepper, stirring to combine and breaking up any very large egg curds. Continue to cook until tomato-egg mixture is thoroughly combined and heated through, 2 to 3 minutes. 4 image collage of step-by-step photos of stirring scrambled eggs into tomatoes in a wok. Stir in black vinegar, remove wok from heat, then stir in sesame oil, if using, and scallion greens. Transfer to a serving plate and serve immediately with rice.

What Napoleon Could Not Do by D.K. Nnuro

This could be subtitled: America, It Is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be. This is a family tale set in Ghana, but the story could be told from many corners of the globe. This one is written by an Iowa City resident who can here to learn how to write and stayed. Early in the novel, the Ghanaian father presiding over his son’s divorce ritual is introduced by his well-read brother to the concept of schadenfreude, the pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. This could be an alternative subtitle, should one even do that sort of thing with works of fiction. Unlike tales that are often told, this family is not one that looks out for each other--it is more like every man for him or her self. The book examines the lives of siblings Jacob Nti and Belinda Thomas. Belinda is the academic success, whose skills and contacts got her accepted to boarding school in the U.S., then university and law school. The lack of a green card made employment difficult, leading to an early marriage to Wilder, a man nearly twice her age. Wilder is a black American who is not only old enough to have known Texas before and after the Civil Rights movement, but also fought in Vietnam, so he is a special kind of jaded, something that doesn't enlighten Belinda, nor does it quell her fury. Jacob is back in Ghana, with few prospects and a dwindling sense of hope that he will ever make it to the states. His divorce, from a Ghanaian woman living in the U.S., after five years of long-distance marriage and many failed emigration attempts, launches the novel. I would recommend this (and so did Obama--it is on his 2023 summer reading list).

Longarm: Changing The Game

A year ago I took some classes at the American Quilt Society's meeting in Des Moines to see if I should get a long arm quilting machine. In the year before that my spouse and I plus two of our kids had all moved from queen sized to king sized beds, and I knew from preious experience that I could not quilt that size on my beloved Bernina 1130 machine. So it was a choice between sending them out to be quilted and quilting them myself with a new machine. I signed up for three separate classes and in between them I went up to the exhibit hall and tried out the various long arm quilting machines. They had similarities and differences, but I immediately discounted the ones that were way more expensive and the ones that were too industrial feeling for me. The later may be a mistake, as they are also ones that need less maintenance and are built to be used more than I will ever be able to use mine, but I was just too overwhelmed by them. I didn't feel that I could approach them, either physically or in my mind's eye, so I had to cross them off. I do not know anyone who has a long arm so I was going to be largely on my own if I took this plunge and I needed a machine I could wrap my head around. One year in, I have come a long way, and I have so much further to go! I have made mistakes often, but learned how to fix them, and I have made over 50 quilts, most of them small, but not all of them. I have started to think more about the quilting, not just about the piecing, and I have given away quilts to babies like I used to when I was younger. It was a very good decision and my only regret is that I didn't get to this point sooner.

The Ascent of Birds by John Reilly

This is a book for the intelligent and inquisitive birder who wants to know the science– but also for students of evolutionary biology and all those who have wondered at how we have ended up, in any part of the world, with the mix of species we see today. It is written by an intelligent and inquisitive birder who understands the science, so it all works out! It is a book about the evolutionary origins of, and relationships between, different groups of birds and about biogeography. The level of detail is astounding, and while several reviews describe it as beautifully written, I would characterize it as comprehensive in scope and that the break down of highly detailed information about exactly how bird families happened evolutionarily speaking is astounding but understandable in this account. There is the very occasional instance of going rogue (most notably when he calls David Sibley egotistical)--but he largely sticks to the pattern, whereby he walks the reader through what was known and written about birds from an early time, far earlier than Darwin, and then what we now know from DNA about birds.

Confetti Rice Salad

We looked for a rice salad that we could make the component parts of ahead of time, that could be served at room (well air) temperature for my son's outdoor wedding with no refridgeration nearby, and that could have as much vegetable added as we could muster. This is where we landed. 2 cups uncooked basmati rice 4 cups water 1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar 1 red pepper 1 green pepper 1 cucumber 3 scallions 4 hard-boiled eggs 1/2 cup parsley chopped 1 pt. grape tomatoes Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Stir in the rice to coat with the butter. Add four cups boiling water and the salt. When the water comes back to a boil, stir it once, reduce the heat to low and cover tightly. Cook for 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork and then add the oil, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cool. Chop the red and green pepper into 1/8-inch dice. Peel and seed the cucumber, and cut it into a fine dice. Slice the scallions into very thin rounds. Chop the hard boiled eggs coarsely. Toss the chopped vegetables and chopped eggs with the rice and the chopped parsley and garnish with the grape tomatoes.

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

I read a review that said that this book is told " in Victor LaValle’s signature style, blending historical fiction, shimmering prose, and inventive horror". Yes, that is it exactly, and at least in this case, is on the side of the underdog. The year is 1914, and Adelaide is running from a violent moment that has changed the course of her life. She is leaving Redondo, California, in a rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. She is bringing with her the literal baggage that comes with and from that violent moment, and we as readers have no clue as to what it is. What we do know is that she is desperate to keep that baggage contained, whether it is the actual bag that she has brought with her, or the trauma that has been inflicted upon her and her family due to the circumstances that fell upon them all. There is a lot of black people and the rush to settle the west, as well as the surefire danger that women face in these circumstances, and a fresh take on the way it might have gone in a fantasy world.

Maori, New and Old

The Maori got to New Zealand first. They have been the tangata whenua, the indigenous people of what they named Aotearoa. Arriving from the Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki over 1,000 years ago, the great explorer Kupe, was the first Māori to reach these lands and call it their own. These populations all descend from Polynesian settlers who sailed to the Society Islands and Austral Islands over 1,000 years ago. The Society and Austral Islands later served as the origin point for migrations to the remaining remote Polynesian Islands, such as Hawaii, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). They had a robust culture that inevitably clashed with the British who arrived after them, and they were left with little choice but to assimilate.

That was then and this is now. About 18% of New Zealanders identify as part Maori. Many Māori cultural practices are kept alive in contemporary New Zealand. All formal Māori gatherings are accompanied by oratory in Māori; action songs; formal receptions of visitors, accompanied by the hongi, or pressing together of noses on greeting, and sometimes by ritual challenges; and cooking of food in earth ovens (hāngī) on preheated stones. Carved houses, which serve as centres of meeting and ceremony in Māori villages, are still being erected. For many Māori people, the most significant issue in New Zealand remains that of the land, which are largely unresolved.

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

If you are not interested in or find books that focus on the uber rich to be uninteresting, undeserving of your attention, or irritating, then you should go not further, this book is not for you. I went to college with quite a few people who would fit in nicely with this family, and while I am not fascinated by them, I do see some value in seeing what matters to them because it is them and their money who have a big say in how things happen. You don't have to look any further than the influence peddling on the Supreme Court to realize that it makes a difference for all of us. And to be clear, I liked this book, because a lot of what follows may cloud the bottom line on that! The book focuses on the Stockton family of Brooklyn, high net worth WASP buccaneers of New York real estate. They consist of the under intellectual matriarch Tilda, obsessed with tennis and tablescapes; her husband, the amiable Chip, who quietly manages the empire and thinks that literally everyone should understand what their place is without having to be told, and certainly without complaint; daughters Darley and Georgiana; and son Cord. Pampered, naïve Georgiana works for a charity and Darley and Cord have both “married out”. Darley has renounced her trust fund because she refused to present her husband to be with a prenuptial agreement to wed tender-hearted nerdy Malcolm, aviation whiz and a second-generation immigrant of color, while Cord, who works alongside his father, has just married Sasha, a graphic designer from a rough and ready blue-collar Rhode Island family. Sasha plays our culture guide, and is the one voice in the book who is at least figuratively saying WTF throughout the family shenanigans--she loves Cord but just doesn't get a lot of the rest of it. I saw a meme yesterday that said something to the effect that she met her dream guy and thank goodness he is from the same social caste. This book goes a long way to making the truth of that crystal clear.

Between The Sheets

THis is a bittersweet day in our household--while the rest of the country remembers the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, we also remember this date, 22 years ago, when our youngest son got his last dose of chemotherapy, and as we now know but did not know then, it was curative for him. So we raise a toast to the lifetime that we have with him, and remember those who were lost that day. This scales up for a batch cocktail and is delicious, balanced and beautiful. It is equal parts: rum, coiuntreau, cognac, and lemon juice.

You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson

I read this on a travel day recently, and it is a good airport read, where you can't always get a moment of quiet amidst the near constant drone of fellow passengers and overhead announcements. I found the book through Reese Witherspoon's recommended YA books, and since I am in training for having a granddaughter who will likely read in this genre soon, I am beefing up my reading in this area (I read a lot as a tween and teen, but never in this particular niche, so have some catching up to do). In this book, high schooler Liz has to come up with a new plan after losing her hoped-for college scholarship. She is living with her grandmother after her mother died far too young, and money is very tight. Her brother reminds her that the school Prom Queen is awarded a scholarship, too. Liz is hesitant because as a poor, black girl, she wasn't born in the classic mold for this. Prom Queens are generally everything Liz isn’t, which she is well aware of but she is desperate and decides to give it a go. Her dream is to get her undergraduate degree at Pennington (the school her mom went to) and then move on to medical school so she can develop a cure for sickle cell anemia—the disease that killed her mom and that her little brother Robbie inherited. And she can only do that if she secures the funds to go to Pennington. During her run for queen, Liz has a few advantages. She’s the top of her class, which accounts for a small portion of who will end up on prom court, and she has friends who are ready to strategize, campaign and completely redesign Liz’s public image. But as a shy, relatively unknown student, Liz must put herself into situations that require her to be outgoing, friendly and happy. She’ll have to battle her anxiety and make herself known when all she wants to do is sink back into non-existent bliss. Throughout the process, she makes new friends, rediscovers old ones and even loses a few. She also manages to find love in Mack, a new girl at their school also running for queen, and does a slow rolling coming out, culminating with going to the prom with her new found partner. It is a bit cliché and a bit predictable, but that is the genre in a nutshell, and I enjoyed it.

Tell It Like A Woman (2022)

I did not love this movie, but I liked it in the way that you might enjoy a documentary--something that tells hard truths in a somewhat jarring way without sparing the audience's feelings in the process. It was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Song, which it did not win, but that is how it got on my radar. The film is actually seven stories in one. In the first, Jennifer Hudson stars as an incarcerated mother with substance abuse and mental health issues. In the second, Marcia Gay Harden plays a doctor who helps a woman (Cara Delevingne) with schizophrenia and no home. In the third, Eva Longoria travels to Italy to bury her sister, only to find that she's been assigned as guardian for a niece she didn't know she had. In the fourth, Anne Watanabe plays an overworked mother whose kids do something nice for her. In the fifth, Margherita Buy plays a veterinarian put in a position to help an abused woman. In the sixth, Jacqueline Fernandez stars as an unhappy plastic surgeon who lets go of her pursuit of perfection after meeting a trans woman. The seventh is an animated film where alien-like creatures, forced to repeat gender stereotypes playing on televisions in surveilled concrete cells, are liberated.

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

I was not 100% sure that I needed to know more about Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life, but it turns out I was wrong about that. When it turned up on Obama's short summer reading list, I was sold. The author uses a trove of materials—some of them only recently available—augmented with voluminous archival work and hundreds of interviews for personal insights, to advance the already appreciable quantity of first-rate biographies and intensive scholarship on King. There were many things I knew, from the fact that his wife was well aware of his affairs, his tendency to be quick to forgive his own trespasses and slower to show the same to others, and the fact that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI were spying on him--but there is a lot in here that I was unfamiliar with. He also recovers the man, foibles and all, from the too often hollowed-out, sainted symbol that competing ideologies have sanitized for national observance. The book starts with MLK's enslaved family's history in antebellum Georgia, his stern father’s high expectations, and his soothing mother’s calm warmth, through his April 1968 assassination in Memphis. The ambitious, anxious, contemplative, depressed, fun-loving, uncertain private King gets equal attention to the determined, eloquent, fearless public person in the spotlight. From his decrying state-sanctioned and vigilante violence to his stance against the U.S. war in Vietnam and his Poor People’s Campaign, it's all and paints a thorough picture of King.

Pickled Banana Peppers

The garden has been going crazy this summer (it has been dry so all the water is coming from the hose rather than the sky, but with somw bouts of heat to enable growth, and our peppers have been astounding. Our banana pepper plants are four feet tall! So we are doing some prickling and preserving for the winter months. 2 cups white vinegar ▢2 cups apple cider vinegar ▢1 cup sugar ▢1 teaspoon mustard seed ▢1 teaspoon celery seed ▢1 pound banana peppers, tops removed then sliced into rings (see my notes below about the seeds) Bring the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed and celery seed to a rolling boil. Pour brine over peppers to within ½" of the top. Wipe off the rim and put lid and ring on. Leave for 1 week or longer to let peppers marinate (if you can wait that long!) You can also follow proper canning procedures and then process them in a water bath canner if you prefer. Follow the USDA guidelines for proper sterilization and timing. Be sure to verify that the lids have completely sealed down if storing on the shelf.

Biting The Hand by Julia Less

The book is a story of racism and cultural identity told in three parts. In sections titled “Rage,” “Shame” and “Grace,” Lee traces her intellectual evolution through the events of her own life, growing up Korean and struggling to find her place. She admits, she was an angry girl who grew up to be an angry woman, but she was provoked. She demonstrates a knack for meaningful storytelling as she recounts her father’s harrowing escape from North Korea as a child, and her enrollment at a private all-girls school in a wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood while her parents struggled to make ends meet. Let's be real, anger can be traced through it all, it is only that the slant is slightly different each time. She seamlessly blends her own experiences with piercing discussions of identity and racial stratification, serving up conclusions likely to challenge readers across the ideological spectrum. In fact, recognizing the need for constant reexamination in our white-centered society, Lee even challenges her own views. This is not a gentle book, but rather one that is screaming throughout, and you can't help learning something from it.

Elemental (2023)

I have read some mixed reviews about this movie, and while it is not on par with the Toy Story movies or the best of Hayao Miyazaki's work, as far as ordinary animated movies go, this is above average, and my son and I enjoyed it very much. The movie is set in Element City, where water, earth, air, and fire people live together -- but the fire folks have been discriminated against and mostly live separately from the other elements, in their own community. It opens with a fire couple arriving at an Ellis Island-like processing center, where they're dubbed Cinder and Bernie Lumen because the agent who helps them can't get their actual names. They eventually have a baby girl named Ember and buy a rundown building that they fix up to be both their home and their livelihood. Ember grows up knowing that she'll eventually run the shop, although she has trouble tamping down her temper with difficult customers (who amongst us cannot relate to that?). As a young adult, Ember (Leah Lewis) is on the cusp of proving that she's ready to manage the store, but one of her hotheaded outbursts causes Wade Ripple, an emotional water guy, to get pulled in through the pipes. Wade turns out to be a government inspector, who feels duty bound to file a pile of citations, which will close the shop if they go through. Determined to keep the crisis a secret from her aging parents, Ember teams up with Wade to find a way to save the store. During their time together, they encourage each other and start to wonder whether different elements can mix, despite what they've always been taught. The take home message is to embrace those who are different from yourself, and the movie is voiced by a multi-cultural cast in case you missed the message.

The Weeds by Katy Simpson Smith

This book is beautifully written, almost poetic, and it is also beautifully illustrated, making the weeds come to life. The book takes place in the Roman Colosseum, which is full of wonders and history and secrets—and plants. Observing, cataloging and communicating with these plants is the heart of this novel, as the narrative connects two women across time who are both performing these archival acts. Set in 1854 and 2018, the book moves between the voices of these two women, interlocking their lives as they document the presence of (or absence of) plants. In 1854, a woman was caught stealing, and her misbehavior has led to her being indentured to English botanist Richard Deakin; he sends her into the Colosseum to catalog the flora and their uses. She also tells her own story and meditates on the ways that society impinges upon her selfhood. She speaks to her missing love, a woman who is off on a boat, now married to a man. In 2018, a woman has run from the entrapment of her life, but she finds herself newly hemmed in as she seeks the plants on Deakin’s list, makes notes, begrudges the presence of tourists and wonders what her next step might be. What will she be allowed? The novel shifts between these centuries and women. They mirror parts of each other; they both encounter violence at many turns and scales, and each reacts to the ways their voices and choices are constrained in their societies. The plants around them produce their own forms of tension and stories--it is a well constructed story well told.

Daisy Buchanan

It has been a mightly fine summer for cocktails! Last summer we were on the road so much that we failed to harvest much of our garden and we didn't spend nearly enough time outside enjoying it. This year has been the reverse--we have rarely traveled and spent a lot of time at home, making food and drink for family and friends. This one shows off that despite the shortage, we laid in enough yellow chartreuse to get us through. 2.0 oz Rye 0.75 oz dry vermouth 0.5 oz Aperol 0.25 - oz Yellow chartreuse Stir with ice and pour into coupe or Nick and Nora glass. No garnish. Daisy; what a gal! Seems dainty, but packs a punch!

Dirt by Bill Buford

This book opens unevenly--even though I read and enjoyed his book about his experience as a chef in Tuscany, and was inclined to like this as well, I did not like the opening chapters at all. The author is perhaps trying to draw the reader in, but it put me off--so if you feel the same, soldier on, this is worth reading. Buford has a way of making his dreams materialize, so when he decides that he wants to experience the French kitchen in an upscale way, he goes about making it happen. He travels to the culinary capital of France, the city of Lyon, with his wife and young children to make it happen. His immersion is largely in a rarefied world of high craft, one concerned with “paintings on a plate”, recondite flavors and ingredients touched by dozens of fingers. This is the world of the tyrannical Michelin guide and of aspirants to its stellar approbation. Many aspire, few achieve: and those who do are often bankrupted by the effort to keep up the appearances demanded of them. He explores a number of fascinations throughout the book, mostly related to haute cuisine: the snout to tail dishes that use all of the animal, the origins of French cuisine, mastering the art of several dishes, and learning more about terroir and what that is all about. If you love food, this is well worth looking into, and if you love French food, in all it's variations, this will pique your interest, and maybe more.

Roman Holiday (1963)

I haven't seen this movie for at least 15 years and maybe longer ago than that, and while it is dated, it also holds up. It is well-scripted and well-acted with gorgeous visuals shot on location in Italy. If you love Rome, you will see all the classic places (although it avoids some classics, the truly well known sites are well represented). Audrey Hepburn plays a European princess from an unnamed country who is on a meet and great tour that requires a grueling schedule and no breaks, either mental or physical, so she sneaks off for a night while in Rome. When a sedative she took from her doctor kicks in, however, she falls asleep on a park bench and is found by an American reporter, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who takes her back to his apartment for safety (which probably played better then than now, I must say, but he plays it disgruntled rather than attracted and being good). At work the next morning, Joe finds out Ann's regal identity and bets his editor he can get exclusive interview with her--and so much of the movie is about getting a great story and photos to match-- but in a world where romance gets in the way and money is not for everyone, things are not as they first appear. It's a charming film with wit fresh enough for a modern romantic comedy, yet with an old fashioned sensibility.