Marché des Capucins, Bordeaux, France

Le Marché des Capucins is one of the oldest markets in France and it rightfully carries the title “The Belly of Bordeaux”. It’s probably the most important gastronomic center in Bordeaux which makes it a must-visit for anyone traveling to Bordeaux. we went for cheese and charcuterie, and left with that plus local pate, an assortment of olives, and some fresh strawberries that were magnificent. We were not planning to cook on this trip--we hope to do so when we are in France for longer visits, but not this one--but if we were planning to do so, this would have been an excellent spot for seafood and vegetables.

When it comes to local food, oysters are one of the highlights of our region. Bordeaux is just one hour away from Arcachon, one of France’s main oyster farming centers. It’s thus not surprising to find good oysters at the main market of Bordeaux. The place we sampled these was a restaurant in the market, Chez Jean-Mi--we made a coupleof mistakes, basically not knowing where exactly the line for a table was, but were seated within about 10 minutes of our trying to sit down--it is a great place to have fresh seafood ans a great place to people watch. We were there on a Sunday, a day of rest for many a local restaurant, so we were pleased to get a nice meal in the late morning.

Splinters by Leslie Jameson

I have to say that this on a number of levels reads more like fiction than a memoir. There is so much in the way over overblown about it that it doesn't quite fit for me. The voice is perceptive and the writing is excellent, but it is so up close that if I had written it I would hope that my editor would have taken me aside and ask if I was sure that I wanted something this rough and raw to be put out into the public eye. The author recounts the birth of her daughter, the dissolution of her marriage, and the early days of single parenthood; the result is a captivating story about the all encompassing, sometimes tedious capacity of small children to ensnare time--and in this case the child sucks all the air out of the room. Mom is unable to give much of anything of her self beyond what she gives to her child, and there is not much else left for anyone else. If I wasn't yet a parent this would frighten the hell out of me, the loss of your senses in the bottomless need that consumes the author once she becomes a parent. It is well written, to be sure, but I wanted another degree of separation, some perspective that maybe it wasn't quite so, and I wasn't getting it from this.

Influences, Bordeaux, France

My spouse and I arrived in Paris in hte morning, made our way to our train station in the afternoon, and arrived in Bordeaux in the early evening, which of course felt like the middle of the night interspersed with fitful sleep. As as result of our bleary thinking, and not being content with the pre-dinner hour fare at various bistros, we managed to not make a decision until it was practically time for dinner. It was a happy error, because we went to this wonderful restaurant that was just around the corner from our apartment hotel. The best news is that it is open on both Sunday and Monday nights, both of which are lean for restaurant choices. This was an exceptionally organized and prepared meal.

Michelin notes: In a quiet street just a stone's throw from Place Gambetta, this inviting façade has a pleasant surprise in store. A French-American couple – chef Ronnie (who has worked in some decent establishments in California) and pastry chef Aliénor – work in tandem to serve up delicious aromatic dishes that are meticulously plated in a friendly atmosphere. Fresh and subtle fare! The dish at the top is not much to look at but Wow, possibly the best asparagus I have ever had. The foam is smoked herring and the red dots are reduced strawberries. Another memorable dish is just abobe--the langostine, grilled on one side and served in a sauce of crab and langostine cream reduction. It was not unique but the execution was perfect.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

The author is part Arapaho and part Cherokee and these are the people who populate his novels. This book is almost a companion to There There, his first bool. It centers around Orvil Red Feather, who was hit by a bullet while dancing at the event. It also tells the story of Orvil’s younger brothers Loother and Lony; their great-aunt Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, in whose care they have been since losing their drug-addicted mother to suicide; and Jacquie Red Feather, Opal’s half-sister and the boys’ estranged “real grandma”, a recovering alcoholic. The novel’s first sections belong not to these people but to their ancestors, beginning with Jude Star, a survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre and then ease into the present day. It is hard to describe why this style is so effective, but it is. His first book was good, and this is even better. The central question is what happens to people when the things they inherit from their forebears are overwhelmingly the bad stuff – wounds and torments, ill luck, curses and injurious predilections? What kind of life is possible after genocide and colonization? Good questions that are well answered.

Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

We chose this not because it is a famed wine producing region--in truth, we don't know much about this wine, and we have not had great success in drinking it--combined with it's price point, we were going to need education in this area. No, it is because we have been exploring France, region by region, for thirty years, and this was one we had never been to before. It is a port city on the Garonne River in southwestern France. Bordeaux is an ancient city. Around 300 BC, the region was the settlement of a Celtic tribe, the Bituriges Vivisci, named the town Burdigala, probably of Aquitanian origin. The 18th century, however, was the golden age of Bordeaux. The Port of the Moon supplied the majority of Europe with coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton and indigo, becoming France's busiest port and the second busiest port in the world after London. Many downtown buildings (about 5,000), including those on the quays, are from this era. In the “never forget” side the of the equation, Bordeaux was also a major trading center for slaves. In total, the Bordeaux shipowners deported 150,000 Africans. It is quite beautiful, despite that, and full of excellent food and wine.

A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power

This book has had mixed reviews, but I found it because it was one of the New York Times Notable Books for 2023, and I really enjoyed it and would recommend it. It has an unusual organizing principle: dolls. The book describes three generations of Dakhóta and Lakhóta women—girls, really—from most recent to least, and back again. Each girl had a beloved doll. In the 1960s, Sissy had Ethel, a Black Tiny Thumbelina doll. In the ‘30s, Lily had Mae, a used Shirley Temple doll. And at the beginning of the century, Cora had Winona, a traditional Dakota doll made from deer hide. Each doll seems to be inhabited by a spirit; each girl seems to hear her speak. Cora, and Lily after her, suffer at the Indian boarding schools they’re forced to attend, and while their dolls try to protect them, their powers are limited. Sissy, meanwhile, bears the brunt of her mother’s inherited trauma. This is a reflection on how American Indians have been treated over the years, the significant traumas that continued well into my lifetime--I have a coworker who's mother was sent to one of the boarding schools, designed to smother both a culture and a people, genocide by capturing the children, never realizing that your genetics are fixed, it cannot be changed, and so while intentionally malicious it was also poorly thought through. The reader sits in that with this book and mourns with the women herein.

Priscilla (2023)

Let me start off by saying that this is not an enjoyable viewing expereince. I didn't know it when I watched it, but it is a Sophia Coppola film, and as one review said, her pictures are all, in one way or another, about captivity and isolation. For the characters held captive the cage is often a gilded one, and the cage in search of a bird. I could not say it better myself. The movie is written by the director and based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, and honors the author by giving us her perspective. Elvis famously met Priscilla Beaulieu in 1959 when he was in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany; Priscilla was the daughter of another officer stationed there and was, well, 14 at the time the two were introduced. It was still creepy from my perspective, not so much in the pedophile sense, but rather that the shy superstar was looking for a touchstone, more of a person to possess rather than a partner, and by wooing someone so young, he managed to get mostly what he wanted for far too long. She was captured by him and it took her a long time to figure out how to escape. All of this is interesting, but not to watch, so look for this one if you are interested in what Priscilla has to say, but not for any other reason.

Fire Weather by John Vaillant

In my head, the soundtrack for this book is similar to the 2022 All Quiet On The Western Front--where every time something that is worse than the terrible situation that defines WWI happens, a sousaphone gives the viewer a heads up with soul trembling sound. The author starts off with the harrowing account of the 2016 inferno that engulfed the Canadian oil town of Fort McMurray, and the lives of the people who confronted it and then uses that example as an urgent warning about what the future holds. Fire number nine, which began in those same boreal forests, was among other things an awesome demonstration of the power of all that fire can be. A day after the blaze was first identified, it had increased in size 500-fold. Despite the efforts of firefighters, armed with bulldozers and aerial water bombers, it doubled in the next few hours and then it doubled again. On 2 May the fire did the unthinkable and crossed the Athabasca River, a third of a mile wide, which divides the southern part of Fort McMurray from the tree line. By 3 May, 88,000 people had been evacuated from its path; by the end of the following day, about 2,000 of the city’s buildings had been destroyed. By then the fire had become a firestorm – creating its own weather in the form of gale force winds and lightning, which seeded more fires as it spread. The author then goes on to describe why given everything, this is likely to not be the exception but rather the norm--and the Canadian fires of last summer show that to be true.

Hibakujumoku or Atomic-Bombed Trees

I saw this exhibit at the Harry Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri--a mini-road trip from Kansas City, and one well worth taking. The library was established to preserve the papers, books, and other historical materials relating to former President Harry S. Truman and to make them available to the people in a place suitable for exhibit and research, and it has undergone a refurbishment recently--you walk through American history in Truman's life time, and it is very well done. His house is seperate from the library, run by the Ntional Park service, and free, but you need reservations so attend to that before you go to the library.

For over a decade Katy McCormick has examined Japan's A-bombed landscapes in Nagasaki and Hiroshima--given that it was ultimately Truman's decision to drop these bombs on a civilian population, it is fitting that it be seen in his library. Her work portrays the survivor trees or hibakujumoku subjected to the first use of atomic bombs in 1945, signifying the vulnerability of life in the face of nuclear threats. Standing in school yards, temple grounds, and city squares, the A-bombed trees are living memorials, rooted among the ashes just below the surfaces of now-thriving cities. This is just a taste--this is a beautiful exhibit.

A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks by David Gibbins

I had never thought a lot about shipwrecks until my youngest son became a Classics major, and I was plunged into that world by virtue of being his scribe and his reader. He is an auditory learner who is more than a little deaf and because of a previous medical condition, doesn't write very well either--I went to a total of three in person lectures and many more online lectures, and learned an awful lot about what can be learned from a shipwreck. In short, this book is a bit gimmicky in it's title, and while it is not just the story of those ships, the people who sailed on them, and the cargo and treasure they carried, but also the story of the spread of people, religion, and ideas around the world; it contains stories of colonialism, migration, power, obstacles to overcome, and the real options that seafaring gave humans before we had flight. The author is an underwater archeologist who has been at the dive sites for these wrecks (and more, I would presume) so he does bring a first hand account of the wrecks themselves, as well as the history surrounding them, but it does not encompass the totality of world history. The book is reasonably well written, but did not knock it out of the park for me.

French Girl (2023)

This is very much a romantic comedy that should be seen as that and nothing more. I watched it on a TransAtlantic flight, and that is the perfect setting within which to watch it. The plot is simple. Gordon is involved with Sophie. Sophie is a gifted chef and Gordon is a gifted middle school teacher--she sees his shining light, but he is less sure of it himself. When Sophie's ex, Ruby--a mega-star chef and a media sensation--tries to lure Sophie back home to Québec City with a too good to be true chef opportunity. I enjoyed it, and was particularly fond of the setting in Québec City--my parents spent their honeymoon 67 years ago at Château Frontenac, which is the restaurant featured in this movie. Built in seven stages from 1892-1893, this building is an excellent example of the Château-style hotels built by Canada's railway companies. Enhanced by a magnificent site, the hotel evokes the romanticism of the 14th- and 15th-century château of the Loire Valley. My mom had the hotel receipt from their stay, which was $15/night. amazingly--now parking is literally $14/hour, so the times they have changed. We ate in the bistro, and while the view far exceeded the food, it was a wonderful experience, and a nice walk down memory lane for my mom after we burried my dad in his hometown in Northern Maine on their anniversay.

Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Kristensen

I really enjoyed this book--written by an author with a lot of other books, lucky me, and set in coastal Maine, a place of my childhood. Rachel is coming home, but only after her mother has died, and there is a lot of back and forth about how that happened and should it have happened. The bottom line for me was that her mother was a toxic person for Rachel, even though for a lot of people she was fun loving, the bottom line is that she was cruel behind closed doors, competed mercilessly with her daughters, and pitted them one against the other for all of her life, and into her death. So way to go Rachel for avoiding all that. What Rachel does not avoid is a divorce from her gay husband, his declining health, having to make up with her sister, and coming to terms with middle age realities amidst a reckoning with her past. This is beautifully written and while you can mostly see the ending from a mile away, it is still lovely to get there and behold.

Bếp Mẹ ỉn (Le Thanh Ton Street), Ho Cho Min City, Vietnam

This is a Bib Gourmand restaurant on the Michelin website. As an aside, and as this is the last restaurant we ate at in Vietnam, and I haven't mentioned this, this is my last opportunity to do so, but I am very happy that there are Michelin rated restaurants in Vietnam. Is it flawless? No. They do look at places that are noodle places, but really just pho restaurants, which as far as I am concerned is not the greatest broth and noodle dish that Vietnam has to offer, but in doing so, Michelin elevates the cuisine. The only downside is that the places we ate at without this recognition were amazing, and they were also places where we ate our fill, each had a beer, and the bill was well under ten dollars. In any case, at this place, which is traditional South Vietnamese food, there were quite a few people like us, there because of Michelin, and from all over the world. I got a chance to teach some South Koreans how to use the translucent but not rehydrated rice paper to eat their Bánh Xèo with, which was very pleasureable.

The food here is really good, and the menu is much more varied than many more traditionally Vietnamese restaurants where we ate are--so it is likely to be geared to us as tourists. We ate at one restaurant in Hue that was this varied, and while there were many Vietnamese eating there, many of our fellow patrons were like us. In any case, it is worth trying this place and places like this, especially if you are on a short trip. We were in country for two weeks and I feel like I barely got started on cracking the code on Vietnamese food. I laughed at a characterization of the Vietnamese that I read in a memoir I am reading by a việt kiều (an overseas Vietnamese person) that characterized the Vietnamese as a skinny people obsessed with food.

32 Yolks by Eric Ripert

The more chef's memoirs that I read, the more it seems that in order to become wildly successful as a chef you need to come from a miserable family situation. Eric Ripert's father was a charismatic cad and his ambitious mother kicked him to the curb after the serial philandering became too much for her. He never had much contact with his father afterwards, and when his mother remarried to a sycophant who wanted to kick the child from her previous marriage to the curb, mom did not much resist, and in a lot of ways, maybe he was less damaged by being abused by non-family than being ignored by his mother. In any case, he had great grandparents who cooked well (as did his mother) and his love of food and creating food set him on a successful path early on. Which is not to imply that he didn't work hard--he very much did, and in the atmosphere where abuse was the norm and praise was hard, if not impossible, to come by. The one thing that I do not know is did he take his own experience and become a better boss because of it--he implies that happened, but that is the part of the story that is untold. This is well written and it is a well told story. I would definitely recommend it, but it will not leave you regretting that you did not choose a chef's path.

Dumb Money (2023)

This is the story of Game Stop. It is on the one hand the story that almost always gets pulled off, which is hedge funds and the way they make it so they cannot lose, at the expense of others, and on hte other about the one time that did not happen. Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, a relatively unknown personality on the Reddit channel wallstreetbets, who became massive when he orchestrated a short squeeze against GameStop. The simplest way to explain this is that major hedge funds make a fortune off the failure of companies, essentially betting that they will go under and profiting off job loss and financial ruin. When Gill convinced his followers, mostly young people, to buy GameStop stock, it skyrocketed many times over its initial low buy-in. Gill became a multi-millionaire on paper but held onto the stock, sending billionaires into a tizzy, leading to a day-trading company called RobinHood colluding with a hedge fund owner to stop stock trading. An open market relies on buying and selling, which means someone here cheated. It led to Congressional investigations, including implications that Gill himself had insider knowledge, because how could someone from the sector of investors that the fat cats call “dumb money” have lost them billions. Well every once in a while David beats Goliath, and then sometimes Goliath is unmasked as a cheater.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones

The book opens with In 1855, Henry Townsend, a former slave who is now the owner of 33 slaves and 50 acres of land in Manchester County, Virginia, lies dying on his bed. When I did my last tour of former plantations, the first place my friend and I stopped was a similar situation, with black people owning other black people, and even though that trip was after this book was written, I had not read it and so the concept was a new one for me. The allure of slavery is apparently not restricted to whites (I could have known this, since the slave trade involved Africans selling other Africans). Summarizing the plot of this award winning novel is a hopeless enterprise. A lot happens. Time is fluid. What is ubiquitous is that enslaved women are raped and white Southerners routinely enslaved their children, and the dynamic of that is a common underlying thread. The book has been described as a moral vision, which locates the struggle between good and evil not in the vicissitudes of the diabolical slaveholding system of the American south, but inside the consciousness of each person, black or white, slave or free, who attempts to flourish within that soul-deadening system. There are no real heroes or heroines in the populous world of this novel, nor are there unmitigated villains, though there are many who fail to live honorably despite the best intentions.

Independence Palace, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam

Surrounded by royal palm trees, the 1960s architecture of this landmark government building and the eerie ambience of its deserted halls make it an intriguing spectacle. The first Communist tanks to arrive in Saigon rumbled here on 30 April 1975 and it’s as if time has stood still since then. The building is deeply associated with the fall of the city in 1975, yet it's the kitsch detailing and period motifs that steal the show. It's also known as the Independence Palace. After crashing through the wrought-iron gates – in a dramatic scene recorded by photojournalists and shown around the world – a soldier ran into the building and up the stairs to unfurl a VC flag from the balcony. In an ornate reception chamber, General Minh, who had become head of the South Vietnamese state only 43 hours before, waited with his improvised cabinet.

This building clearly holds significance for the Vietnamese--not only were we very under-represented as Americans touring an iconic Vietnamese building, many of the visitors were in groups, from the veterans on the front lawn posing in front of the tank that stormed the gates so many years ago, to groups of youth, the palace that was for the most part uninhabited remains fixed in time, with it's red reception room representing power, it's green meeting room decorated to promote negotiation, and the yellow dining room to advance good digestion, it is stuck in the time when the modern Vietnam began. And to remind each visitor that it had a violent pastm there is a Huey on the roof. If you get to Saigon, this is a must see.

The Revolutionary Temper by Robert Darnton

The Ancien Regime, as the French ruling class was known in 18th-century France, always sounds like such an immovable force. It speaks of arbitrary power, stiffened with protocol, girded by gold, topped by a dusting of icing sugar (something we all enjoy about France today) and utterly stuck in its ways. Until, that is, revolution arrived in 1789 with a clap of thunder to reset the clock so that everything could start over. Yet, as is shown in this book, the last 50 years of old France were in fact febrile and shifting, rocked by a series of social and political affairs that reached far beyond elite circles, engaging men and women who were more used to worrying whether the cost of bread would rise by another two sous--which of course it did, and that was also in the mix. The author labels this new flexible mood the “revolutionary temper”, by which he doesn’t simply mean that the French people eventually became so cross that they embarked on a program of violent protest that led to the guillotining of the king and queen in 1793. Rather, he is referring to a frame of mind that was shifting. The role of food prices is not fully fleshed out in here, which is a pity because it sounds like there were some climactic factors that led to severe weather and crop failure that might have been a harbinger of the future (or maybe not). Instead he suggests that between the end of the war of the Austrian succession in 1748 and the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the French population underwent a series of convulsions, some as molten as others were icy, which resulted in a subtle but powerful molecular shift. After 500 years of rigidity, it made anything seem possible. Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution', published in 1790, posits that unlike America, the French were not ready for democracy, whereas this author focuses on the things that boiled over rather than why ultimately the whole thing collapsed on itself.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2024)

I watched this as the last movie on a Trans-Atlantic flight--which did not involve alcohol, but it was essentially 10PM at night for me--this is a situation in which I am usually most forgiving. I also confess to liking the well-worn treads of even mediocre romantic comedy. So I am bucking the trend and saying this is a not terrible sequel to an original that I very much enjoyed. Much like the first movie, these people are not beautiful people, as one reviewer said "this is not the Hollywood alternatice universe where Julia Roberts couldn't get a date", instead these are people you might run into at church (especially if you go to a Greek Orthodox Church, because the cast is also authenitcally Greek--except for the ones who aren't supposed to be. Gus, the patriarch of the Portokalos clan has died (this happened in real life as well), and Toula is tasked with getting the clan to her father's home village for a reunion of his childhood friends. Not one of the current generation has been there, and the scene is Greek island paradise in a dilapidated and uninhabited town. And you guessed it, very little happens--the movie is more about people and relationships than action of any sort.THere are multiple subplots going on, none of them to hard to solve, nobody is trying too hard and everyone is likable in their own way by the movie's end. An ending which predictably allows for another film to follow. This is a movie franchise that is better liked by audiences than critics, and while it is not one for the ages, it is a comfortable movie to settle in with and no one will find it objectionable.

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

This is a Read With Jenna selection, which is not how I found this, and it was not 100% to my taste. It is a reflection on breaking up, which is perhaps the rub for me-- I have had very little to do with and am not seeking additional experiences. This is the story of what happens when Jen breaks it off with Andy and it is told largely from his point of view--she gets the last say, which is brief, but also frame shifting. He’s a 35-year-old struggling to make it comedian who was still awaiting his big break when Jen, his girlfriend of 4 years, dumped him. He is caught by surprise. She says it’s because she wants to be single but he doesn’t believe her, and is convinced that if he can only determine the real reason, they may yet reunite. He then goes on to convince us that Jen has dodged a bullet when he engages in some cyberstalking, trying to kickstart his career, and navigating the daunting practicalities of living in London unaided by Jen’s salary-- you feel as though you’ve turned up at the very worst moment in Andy's otherwise unremarkable life. There’s a distinct charm to these well-meaning characters and their relatable dramas. The dialogue is excellent throughout and the prose, consistently solid, sometimes really shines. In the end, Andy's lovelorn misadventures will prove to be the making of him.

Dim Tu Tac, Saigon, Vietnam

Saigon is an overwhelmingly large city, with 12 million people, and while people drive slightly less crazily than in the rest of Vietnam, and it is easier to cross the street here than anywhere else we were, we were still committed to walking to dinner, and trying to make it a 1/2 hour radius around our hotel. There are a number of well reviewed European restaurants in Saigon, but we were interested in staying in the Asian food realm, and chose this one, which is Cantonese food with a Michelin Bib Gourmand rating.

The restaurant is continuously open in the afternoon to evening, which is another plus, because we enjoy eating our last meal of the day earlier than most these days. We do not have even an acceptable Chinese restaurant in our town, so this was a real treat for us. The duck, which is a favorite of my spouse, was the highlight, but every dish we got was excellent, and we would highly recommend this if you were willing to veer off the Vietnamese cuisine path for a meal.

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

This is amongst the last of the 2023 Booker Prize longlisted books that I have to finish, and while it is very well written, I did not love it. It is what I would call dystopic science fiction, which is not a category I love. Dr Leigh Hasenboch is the center of this story--she trained as a marine microbiologist in Rotterdam to escape the memory of her late father, Geert, and his torrential volatility. If there is violence in her past, there is hope in her future: Leigh is now working on an expedition ship off the Caribbean coast of South America, exploring a vent that has appeared in the Earth’s crust below the sea, which appears, impossibly, to be three times deeper than the Mariana Trench. The depth readings, which the crew assume to be somehow corrupted, throw into doubt anything they might find – such as new life – down there. Meanwhile, others are looking outward: scientists make a breakthrough in propulsion technology, dramatically accelerating space exploration. Now a crewed mission could reach the Oort Cloud at the fringes of the solar system in 10 months; even interstellar travel is possible, using multigenerational crews. The long, slow process to get from the deepest part of the planet to the farthest reaches of space is described in this long, slow-moving book, which comes to a somewhat anti-climactic ending. The story is so well told you will barely notice that part, and it has a unique way of messaging about the future that is worth thinking about.

Pasta With Zucchini, Corn and Shrimp

This is a great summer dish! Salt and black pepper 1 pound linguine or other long pasta 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and tails removed (about 20 shrimp) 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 4 tablespoons olive oil 6 garlic cloves, minced 1 medium shallot or ½ medium onion, minced Red-pepper flakes 2 cups chunked zucchini 2 cups corn kernels (2 to 3 large ears) ¼ cup chopped fresh mint, for garnishing ¼ cup chopped fresh basil, for garnishing In a large pasta pot, bring salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to the packaging directions until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water, then drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Meanwhile, pat the shrimp dry with a paper towel and season with salt. In a separate large pot, melt 2 tablespoons of butter into 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high. Add shrimp in a single layer and cook until just opaque, about 2 minutes per side. Use tongs or a slotted spoon to extract shrimp and set aside. Maintaining medium-high heat, add the garlic, shallot and a pinch each of salt, black pepper and red pepper, stirring constantly until the garlic is fragrant and shallot is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add zucchini and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 4 minutes. Add corn along with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and a pinch of salt; stir to coat. Cook until the corn is bright yellow and warm, about 2 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the vegetables, they should maintain their crispness. Add pasta to the pot with the vegetables, followed by the shrimp, ½ cup of the reserved pasta water and the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir to combine, reheating the shrimp while creating a glossy sauce, for about 90 seconds. Remove from heat and add chopped mint and basil and stir. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve immediately.

True Biz by Sara Novic

In some ways this is a coming of age story, but there is an additional layer added that two of the three main characters are deaf, and there is a lot of deaf culture and American Sign Language packed into each chapter, with some additional nuggets at the end of each chapter. So it is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. There is the additional layer that I as the parent of a hearing impaired child can learn from, which is the solutions you choose for your child should be The book is set in a fictional Deaf school in America, and covers the perspectives of a Deaf lesbian CODA principal; a deaf teenager who cochlear implant failed her, leaving her with very little language; and a Deaf boy from a family with many generations of Deaf people, who grew up in an environment rich with language and culture. The book is well written, engaging, and every page is absolutely packed with Deaf experience, in a way that I found deeply satisfying. Many issues that come up within the Deaf community were touched on and I learned a lot that book reviewers who are deaf have commented on the authenticity of these issues. The experience of being able to communicate with ASL, being denied that ability and the effects that has had, that racism is for real in the deaf community (shouldn't come as a surprise, but the depth and breadth continues to unsettle me), and so much more is a value added part of the book. Highly recommend.

Ancestral Temples, Hoi An, Vietnam

Ancestral Temples in Hoi An. We were here on the eve of Hung King Commenoration Day, a holiday dedicated to remembering. Since Confucianism was introduced to Vietnam during the Chinese domination, filial piety, the most fundamental of Confucian values, is very influential and important to Vietnamese families. Accordingly, children are obliged to respect their parents in life and to remember them after they die. The practice of ancestor worship is thus an expression of filial piety toward deceased parents, relatives and ancestors.

These incense coils (which pack flat if you would like to bring one home to burn in your own temple, or you can purchase one here, and they will burn for you) are very cool! Ancestral Temples in Hoi An. We were here on the eve of Hung King Commenoration Day, a holiday dedicated to remembering. Since Confucianism was introduced to Vietnam during the Chinese domination, filial piety, the most fundamental of Confucian values, is very influential and important to Vietnamese families. Accordingly, children are obliged to respect their parents in life and to remember them after they die. The practice of ancestor worship is thus an expression of filial piety toward deceased parents, relatives and ancestors.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawsett

When all is said and done, I enjoyed this book. I am not one for a book about fairies, and this one is dusted with them and whimsical nature observations, which as I said, is not where I am most comfortable as a reader, but I got there in this book, and while it is more diversionary than deeply thoughtful, I ended up thinking about it more than I would have guessed. The titular Emily Wilde is brilliant at a great many things when it comes to academia. A meticulous researcher and foremost expert on the study of faeries, she’s determined not to let the fact that she’s a woman hold her back from making advances in her field. But the one thing Emily isn’t good at is interacting with other people. She’s quite content with being an habitual outsider and she has no interest in making friends. But when she arrives in the remote hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik on her latest assignment, Emily’s lack of people skills starts her off on the wrong foot with the gruff townsfolk. Which is a bit of a problem when she’s relying on their hospitality and knowledge to aid her research. Further compounding Emily’s frustration is the arrival of her charismatic colleague and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby. Both aggrieved and secretly relieved by his unexpected appearance, Emily grudgingly welcomes Wendell’s help in winning over the locals and seeking out the mysterious faeries in order to complete the encyclopedia she’s compiling. Though Wendell’s own secrets might prove to be more useful than Emily could ever have imagined, she has no intention of letting him take the credit for her work. And she certainty has no intention of falling for his frustratingly endearing charms either. As you might imagine from the set up, they end up working well together and getting accomplished what neither of them could have done alone.

Sitting In Bars With Cake (2024)

Let me start of by saying that while this movie had some promise, to my ear it didn't quite deliver. The other thing you hsould know is that this is not the romantic drama or comedy that you might think it is from reading the blurp on the plane. This gets sad fast, and it never much recovers from that. So the punch line is delivered first, but here is the structure that it was built on. So, it is not really about the cake part of the equation, even though it starts off there. Jane and Corinne have been friends since elementary school. They live in Los Angeles, are roommates, and also work in the same PR agency, based in the Capitol Records building. Corinne is an assistant to a swashbuckling powerhouse and she is the bubbly effervessant half of the friendship. Jane works in the mail room. She spends her free time baking, afraid to tell her high-powered parents she doesn't want to be a lawyer. The extroverted Corinne thinks quiet Jane needs to have more fun. The idea is born: Jane should bake cakes and bring them to bars--this dies not come out of nowhere--Jane is an amazing baker, who dreams up unusual cake ideas and then executes them to perfection. Corrine thinks that cake could be the icebreaker that Jane needs to meet guys. You gotta have a gimmick? Probably not, Jane could meet guys who Corrine's light brings in, but there's not much of a plot in that. The nightlife of Los Angeles holds no appeal for Jane, but she goes along with the plan. Then comes the serious part, which will go without saying beyond what was revealed above.

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

This book is a story that unfolds through several narrators and starts with the disappearance of a 4 year old First Nation child. Joe, who was 6 at the time, narrates the unfolding of terrible events. His family was traveling down to Maine from their home in Canada, as they did every summer, to pick berries in the fields of Mr. Ellis, and one day their youngest family member wanders off and never returns. They look and look for Ruthie, but they have to return home without the youngest family member. The strength of the story lies in its understanding of how trauma spreads through a life and a family, and its depiction of the challenges facing Indigenous people. Two of Joe’s older siblings have been wrested out of the clutches of Indian boarding school, which the federal government forced them to attend to wipe out their languages and culture and assimilate them into White society. Then, in the years after Ruthie is kidnapped, the family loses a child to racist violence, and Joe disappears for decades. Though the plot is overly drawn out, nuanced characterizations benefit from all the space they have to develop. The author is of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry, and she allows Joe to gradually reveal the way his guilt and rage over the loss of his siblings festered and erupted in alcoholism, domestic violence and flight within a framework that we can all understand if not relate to. It is a good story and it is well told.

Hoi An, Vietnam

Hoi An Ancient town is located in Viet Nam’s central Quang Nam Province, on the north bank near the mouth of the Thu Bon River that at one point was the capital of ancient Vietnam. The town reflects a fusion of indigenous and foreign cultures (principally Chinese and Japanese with later European influences) that combined to produce this unique survival. This is considered a "must see" city in central Vietnam, and it is charming, to be sure--the City of Lanterns. We didn't avail ourselves of this, but we hear a woman talking at some length about taking a class in lantern making. This was a stop where we did typical tourist things, like traditional performances and a canal boat ride in a round woven boat. We stayed at a resort, sat by the pool and ate at restaurants where we could have ice and lettuce.

The town comprises a well-preserved complex of 1,107 timber frame buildings, with brick or wooden walls, which include architectural monuments, commercial and domestic vernacular structures, notably an open market and a ferry quay, and religious buildings such as pagodas and family cult houses. The houses are tiled and the wooden components are carved with traditional motifs. We liked it here, but I think if I were to do it over again, I would spend more time in Northern Vietnam. As Americans we are more familiar with the south, but culturally and artistically, the North is where it is at.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

I really enjoyed this book about two half sisters work to protect their dead father’s collection of magical books. It reminded me of things that I liked about magic in the Discovery of Witches series. Esther and Joanna Kalotay are keepers of an impossible secret: that magic exists, and it's channeled through certain enchanted books. Esther and Joanna’s father, Abe, is fanatical about his collection of these books, but despite having devoted his life to magic, he's never been able to figure out how they were written. One terrible day, he tries to enact a spell from a mysterious book and is killed. This tragedy leaves Joanna, who shares her father’s ability to sense magic humming in a book, to tend to the library. Before he died, Abe had warned Esther, who is mysteriously immune to all magic, that she must take care never to stay anywhere for longer than a year, always leaving on Nov. 2, or she will risk being hunted down and killed by the same people who murdered her mother. The two discover many truths and some things that were false along the way to a successful collaboration to save the library.

The Beekeeper (2024)

This is classically Jason Statham, from the get go to the very end. Full out action, with he as the lone ranger seeking vengeance against a far more numerous and better armed opponent. He is a total bad as with a certain elegance to his killing machine. Statham's character is named Adam Clay, a modern upgrade to Clint Eastwood's The Man with No Name. We don't know anything about Adam except that he lives out in the country raising bees and selling their honey, and that he's played by Statham, which means he's no ordinary beekeeper. His best friend is an older woman named Eloise Parker, who lives in the farmhouse near his and rents him space in her barn. According to Adam, Eloise is the only person who ever took care of him. Eloise makes the terrible mistake of responding to a phishing scam from a data mining company that empties her bank account as well as the account of a nonprofit she helped found, leading to tragedy. Adam trades his beekeeper uniform for commando gear and disguises, and works his way up the criminal food chain, doing what the law won't--seeking vengeance on people who pray in the elderly and less fortunate. There is no confusion about who the good guys and the bad guys are, and while this is definitely not a good movie, we are all rooting for Adam Clay.