The Groom to Have Been by Saher Alam

I did not love this book, but ever since I finished it I cannot stop thinking about it, so there is something to this that bears attention. The book is written from a male perspective, and is about a first generation Indian-Canadian Muslim's attempt to follow mostly in the footsteps of his parent's traditions in the meeting and courting of his future wife. The book has the same push me-pull you qualities that Jumpa Lahiri's book 'The Namesake' describes for first generation immigrants. They are pulled between what is acceptable for their family of origins culture and the prevailing culture. There are clear advantages and disadvantages of each, and no clear path between the two to take. In Lahiri's book, there is no winning. Gogol tries several paths and is never able to find the perfect fit. Here, Nasr is terribly torn between a woman he has fallen in love with (who is also out of reach, because of her traditional pathways) and a woman he is engaged to. The book explores the nature of marriage--what constitutes a relationship that will last over decades. And does so within a cultural context that parents know best. I am not sure that I buy it, but it is food for thought.

Childhood Cancer Guides

I just got back from Seattle, where we had our last board meeting of the 2009 year for the non-profit I am on the board of. It is very emotional, because the reason I am involved with Childhood Cancer Guides is that I have a child who had and survived childhood cancer. It would of course be worse if I had a child who had not survived, but that is hard to imagine. So it is a labor of relief rather than a labor of love. Relief that I had them when I was going through my son's treatment, that there were people who had managed chemotherapy for over a year and come out of it with not just their sanity but also good humor. The stories I gathered nine years ago were full of cold hard realities, but also hopes, solutions for the inevitable bumps in the road, and dreams for a future. They taught me how to negotiate the path I was dealt rather than the path I would choose. In other words, they did not offer false hope, but real hope. Obtainable hope. It might be easier to leave the experience behind, but I can't. One of the reasons to continue with it is to try to contribute, to offer someone else a life line. That's what these books were for me, and long may they live.

Clams in Garlic and White Wine a la Mario Batali

In Seattle, one really needs to eat food from the sea, especially if one does not always live in close proximity to a large salty body of water. Ever the compliant visitor, I ate nothing that walked the land while in the Northwest.
One of my favorite preparations for clams comes from the Babbo Cookbook, which is for shrimp and clams, but it can be made equally wonderfully with either alone.

Clams in Garlic and White Wine

2 lb. clams
6-10 cloves garlic crushed and diced
1 c. white wine (not too sweet)
1/2 tsp. crushed red peppers
1/2 c. parsley, chopped small
1/2 tsp. olive oil (this is the point of major departure with the Batali recipe, which uses 1/2 c.)

Sautee garlic in olive oil until soft, add crushed red pepper and stir briefly, then add white wine. Heat to simmering, add clams, and cover. Cook 3 minutes. Add parsley and salt to taste. Serve immediately. Crostini with aioli is great with this, to sop up the cooking liquor. It is equal parts phenomenal and simple. Warning: you must love garlic to fully enjoy.

Opus by Michael Hollinger

I saw 'Opus' in a wonderful small intimate theater in Seattle. The play is centered entirely around an established string quartet, which is successful and changing. They have kicked out their violist and are starting with a new one. There are a number of themes that intermingle in the play, which is one act, and 90-minutes long. I love the format--you get in, you get immersed, it's intense, it's over, you get out. Maybe it is my ADD, maybe it is my age, but sitting still for longer than that is just too hard, and the break is not always good--it allows some of the intensity of the work to dissipate.
The first theme has to do with the creative process. The quartet has had a volatile and brilliant member--who was too unpredictable to be first violin, so he is a violinist turned violist. So not happy, not stable, mercurial and inspirational. As the group ages, they become less able to tolerate his short-comings and ultimately vote him out. But he is not one to go quietly into the night.

A subplot is the relationship between the creative leader and the actual leader of the quartet--which is also going down the tubes (Allen Fitzpatrick and Todd Jefferson Moore). Their personal tribulations intermix with the group's problems, and the tension is palpable. Finally, there is the role playing that occurs within any group--we are used to seeing family dynamics, but really, it is group dynamics, and the play is best at depicting the shifting dynamics between each member--the scapegoat, the peacekeeper, the one who suffers in silence until he can take no more. It is a psychologically powerful play, well worth seeking out and seeing.

Dale Chihuly

One of the most magical man-made places I have been that is outdoors is the Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. It is an open outdoor walk over the highway from the Museum of Glass on one side to the Tacoma Art Museum and the train station on the other lined with Dale Chihuly's work. Even on a cloudy day, of which there appear to be many, this is a magical place. The first time I was here was about 5 years ago, and I was on a mission to see the places in the Northwest that I had missed on numerous previous trips. My husband was at a meeting where he got up before dawn and could barely squeeze in a late evening dinner before collapsing exhausted at the end of the day.

I rented a car and the day I drove into the outskirts of Tacoma I was unexpectedly stunned. In an industrial part of town sit two museums, a train station, and a bridge between them that are all spectacular. There are numerous Dale Chihuly's work on display in this small improbable spot (40 in the Tacoma Art Museum, 6 in the train station, and dozens on the bridge), but my favorite is the overhead seascape of glass. I watch this, sometimes lying on the ground, looking at the dozens and dozens of undersea creatures rendered in colorful glass, and marvel.

I love this place on many levels. The thing I like best is that someone could see the sea and transfix that myriad of delicate texture, color, and movement into something so different and yet so remeniscent of the place it came from. I spend my professional time immersed in dirty work. I am fiercely practical. I do not sit still all that well. I don't have many magical bones in my body. But for me, this is it. A temple of glass. A place to dream. To think big thoughts. And to feel that man can do marvelous things.

Pike's Place Market

I am in Seattle, a city that I like, but somehow a little bit less than everybody else seems to like it. I am not sure why--it is gorgeous, mountains in abundance, and spectacular views galore. It just is not a place that I have fallen in love with. We are just friends. It does have one favorite spot for me. I love to walk and I love to cook, and a am perhaps a little overly fond of eating, so Pike's Place Market is someplace that I love to visit. There are crowds of people milling about, the market itself is packed with seafood, vegetables, crafts, and fruits, and it is a full sensory experience to be there. It smells like the ocean, the visual array of fruits and vegetables piled beautifully and neatly in stall after stall is a feat for the eyes, there is a constant crush of people, and the whole place is essentially indoors, so there is a dim that is overwhelming--you really can't talk to anyone while walking so it is a strangely crowded and solitary experience.

One thing that I really miss about where I live is that there is not "local seafood". We have amazing possiblities for grass fed, locavore, free range land animals of any sort, and the quality and affordability of these options is something to be thankful for. But the stacks and stacks of fish that you walk past at the market are a thing of beauty.

That Old Cape Magic

Late middle age is a time of life when everything is predictable and yet somehow you fail to see any of it coming.
So says the main character, Griffin. So true. I thought the book contained alot of painful truisms that are hard to face until you are well into middle age. Things like your parents have toxic elements and they have been slowly leeching healthier impulses out of you for years. And they don't mean to. They love you. It is just a part of the relationship that is inevitable. And while your spouse might have a better relationship with their parents, that one is also inevitably toxic in some way as well. Worse yet, when you inherit not only genes but also bitterness from your parents, it leaves you vulnerable to loss and sadness in ways that you don't even begin to understand for years to come. To truly separate and individuate, which Mahler thought we humans should be able to accomplish by the time we are three years old, in reality takes decades. We can tolerate physical distance from our parents at a young age, but the emotional ties are tenacious and often the only tools we have to cut them with are butter knives. Then amidst all the slow dawning of clarity, sometimes a marriage gets off course. What was a comfortable tissue of lies about one's family gets ripped, sometimes even shredded, and suddenly the marriage you once felt anchored to loses its footing, and leaves you adrift. You lose sight of the things that are important about the relationship, if only momentarily. This is the novel's landscape. It is more unflinching than bleak, but it does not pull any punches. Marriages of long duration take work. Parenting is not for wimps. And while one does not have a choice about being an offspring, that can be the hardest job of all.
This book did not arrive to rave reviews and for a strict Russo fan, this is not like Bridge of Sighs or Empire Falls. Those are "big" books, books that have a whole community in the periscope of the book. In that sort of book, we get to know a whole array of family, friends, neighbors, enemies and co-workers. The warp and the weft of a community are carefully described thread by thread, and then we see how they interweave. This is not that sort of book. This is more of what I would call a "little" book. A book where you see one flawed character slowly and painfully look in the mirror at his life, and piece by piece try to reassemble the puzzle into a new picture. The scope is narrower, but more focused and in depth. I am not sure you can read this in college and really hear what it has to say, but if you could see the truisms in it, you might have an easier go of it over the next 40 years. The even trickier part is how to help our children get over us as parents.

Turkey Soup

8 c. turkey stock
2 c. celery diced (use the leaves too)
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1/2 tsp. cumin
4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
2 c. leftover turkey (cut against the grain of the meat, about 1/2" thick)
1/2 c. rice, cooked (optional--can use white or brown, long grain or short, or substitute some white beans if you want more fiber)
1/8 c. lime juice (more if needed, to taste)
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
Saute celery and onions in a small amount of olive oil, add in cumin and stir. Add stock and garlic and bring up to simmer--add rice, turkey at the end--just to heat them up, then take off heat and add lemon juice and cilantro, salt and pepper. You can add other vegetables too Avoid carrots, but green peppers, frozen corn, or frozen peas work well. Bok choy is another option that adds a nice green. A slice or two of jalapeno pepper also works if you like a little heat.
When I was a child I had a real aversion to the post-Thanksgiving soup. I have come a long way since those days (I don't think I ate vegetables that weren't an ingredient in a garden salad at that point, and I went on to become a vegetarian for a decade) but I do believe that simple soups require attention to the balance of their flavors. It is not hard, but you have to think about it.

Mark Bittman is the current master of this approach to cooking. For the beginner, The Minimalist Cooks at Home is a good introduction to this cooking style, which comes with some tips on how to start out a dinner meal, and what you might serve with an entree. His masterpiece, in my opinion, is How To Cook Everything, which is the cookbook I would choose if I had to go to to a deserted island with one cookbook. But it doesn't really teach you this philosophy, which is a good perspective to have in your cooking armamentatium. You can also learn a lot about how to cook more simply and what goes together by reading his blog: http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/

Eloquence in the Raw

Posted by my friend Sally Dayton, a grammar school teacher in Chicago, to her Facebook page:
"Dear Mrs. Dayton, You say that I do a lot of talking and I know you are true. Many people tell me that. But you are more confident in your sayings. I just want to know do you still like me in a way of a student? You are my teacher and I should let you be. I act like I'm the boss but I'm not. If you read this thank you! Because it's no way for me to act like this."

I love it. This is a child who the Irish might say has kissed the Blarney Stone of Eloquence (pictured here, and definitely one terrifying stone to kiss, in my experience), but didn't have the basic groundwork to be rewarded for the gift. The child has insight and maybe a little ADD. The apology feels sincere, and the admiration for the teacher is apparent. But the grammar--now there is a place to do some work. This is the child for whom a good relationship with a teacher could make a difference. I was recently at a workshop on how to use plain language in educational materials for adults, and learned that less than a third of adult Americans are proficient readers, and 40% are non-fluent readers or illiterate. Which does not mean they are unintelligent. Not at all. The opportunity to fix this painlessly for adults has passed. Not so with this child. Support those who teach in the grammar school years--it is exhausting work that is not rewarded with power, glory, or very much money. It is important work that changes lives, communities, and nations.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

The NY Times review of this subtitled it "The Reluctant Immigrant" and that captures the book. And perhaps a long-standing group of Irish immigrants. Maybe more than a few Italians as well, if the scenario in "The Golden Door" are to be believed. The premise is that 1950's Ireland is unable to sustain the population it has, that the opportunities for education are minimal and that even the educated can't find jobs within Ireland that utilize their education, and that someone from every family has to go even further away than England to find work and support the family. Eilis is just such a person from her family. She is not going to anything and she is not escaping anything--she is unlike the early waves of American immigrants. She is hard-working and smart, taken under the wing of a Catholic priest who not only helps her find opportunities to better herself, but doesn't dissuade her from her love affair with an up and coming Italian boy. She is finding a new beginning.
Then the homeland beckons her. She returns after her sister suddenly dies, and is very easily swept up in the life she left--until her secrets from America come creeping up to haunt her and she returns there. Not so much because she misses it, though, but because she has made choices that don't allow her to stay in Ireland. The book has a bittersweet tone throughout, which I think captures the mood of those who leave a place they love and where they are loved in turn--but feel they have to go.