Black, White, and The Grey by Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano

Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano share in detail what their ideas, intentions, and collaboration in the development of a restaurant in the Deep South. They use the language of food to tell their story of a Black woman and a working-class White man coming together to explore the African diaspora, the legacy of slavery, port cities, and the migrations that influence foodways and family culture. Their story shifts and expands the narrative of what American food is and can be, and tracks the emotional landscape of partnering with someone from a different background. So part of this is what goes into opening a restaurant and how to incorporate the partner's values, hopes, and dreams. Then part of it is how to worked out in real life. Once the partnership was formed, it was anything but easy sailing. Bailey was not as instrumental in early restaurant design sessions as she should have been; her perspective as a working chef with over 20 years of experience would have significantly enhanced Morisano’s concepts. Bailey abetted this lack of inclusion early on, as she found that growing into the role of a true partner required a strong voice and trust in her co-workers, qualities she was developing. This lack of leadership on her part led to misunderstandings about her level of commitment and several serious arguments. It would be easy to gloss over these disagreements and consider them merely the usual growing pains. By revealing them to readers, the authors give a little master class on how to lead, dismantle limiting beliefs, share responsibilities, and temper angry outbursts. Stepping into one’s power was essential.

Me Moth by Amber McBride

Unusually, this story is written in a lean and spare free verse. Moth, a black teen, has lost her parents and brother in a terrible car accident. She's moved from New York City to Virginia to live with her Aunt Jack, leaving not only her home and friends behind but also her dreams of becoming a famous ballerina. But she can still dream of her grandfather, who was a Hoodoo root worker and a conjurer. When he died, he left Moth a box of herbs, roots, and soil, and she continues to practice Hoodoo. Then there is Sani, a boy with long black hair tied in a knot, who is also new. He's been living in New Mexico with his Navajo father, a Medicine Man and healer, but has come to Virginia to live with his White mother and her new husband and family. He finds himself very much an outsider within the family and in the community. They are both other, outsiders who can't fit in, and who are struggling with loss. It is a story about grief, friendship, and the search for identity is rich, vibrant, haunting and unforgettable.

Chinese Chicken Salad

This should fall under the heading: Things To Do With Your Costco Rotisserie Chicken. Mainly what I was looking for was a dressing that would work for this, which I found on the Serious Eats website. It is a keeper. For the Chicken: 2 cups shredded cooked chicken Dressing: 1/3 cup unseasoned rice vinegar 1/4 cup soy sauce 3 1/2 tablespoons honey 1/4 cup sesame oil 1/3 cup vegetable oil 3 medium cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped (about 1 tablespoon) 1 1/2-inch square piece fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped Salad-->you can really use anything you want, these are more ideas than strict ingredients. 4 to 5 romaine lettuce hearts, chopped 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced 2 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced 1/2 cup grated carrots, from 2 carrots 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1/3 cup salted cashews or peanuts Make the dressing. Combine vinegar, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, vegetable oil, garlic, and ginger. Blend in blender until homogenous.

Finding Freedom by Erin French

I started my spouse down the road of chef memoir's and as can happen with such a push, the timing was just right, and he has taken off like a house afire on this quest. En route to whatever his destination ends up being, he listened to this and thought I should too. The author's journey to having a destination restaurant was improbable at best. She starts off life as a girl roaming barefoot on a 25-acre farm in Freedom, Maine. Her father buys a diner that the family largely runs single-handedly, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, working 16 hour days to keep it afloat. As a teenager she falls in love with food while working the line at the same said diner. Her father is an abusive, often cruel, alcoholic who offers nothing in the way of nurturance other than a roof over her head. Her mother would have benefitted from some visits to Al-Anon, but in the absence of that, helps her daughter in the most non-confrontational of ways, and there are the usual stumbles along the way that happen when a child from a working poor family attempts to escape their origin story. So she doesn't escape--she has many stumbles along the way, including an unplanned pregnancy, dropping out of college, a marriage to a much older man who cannot stand her success, an addiction to pills and booze, and a divorce that was if anything more abusive than the marriage. Instead she stays, and she works hard, and she makes the most of her innate skills and those that she learns along the way, and she builds a homemade life for herself. So there you have it, a chef road not often taken.

Eat In/Go Out

As we head into winter, which could also be called the season of respiratory illnesses, I have been getting vaccinated about once every week or two, and reflecting (once again) on the changes that the pandemic brought about for me. The first is that while I was an avid vaccinator before the pandemic, I am a militant one now. I now get the flu shot because I don't want to die of a respiratory illness, but for decades I got it because I work in health care and I didn't want to kill someone else. We seem to have lost that community focus, so hand onto it when you find it, make your own community, and while it is unnecessary when someone who chooses not to vaccinate themselves or their family dies, it is not a tragedy because they made that choice--the tragedy is that they kill others. The other, far less consequential change is that I am now firmly in the Eat In camp. I started out there, mostly because I like to cook, my spouse likes to cook, and we are not billionaires and would prefer to spend many of our discretionary dollars on something other than mediocre food out. During the pandemic I realized that if I cannot eat the food in a restaurant I would rather make something at home than get take out--it just doean't hold up. I also learned to deep fry. The quality of tempura at home is so much better than what I have had out that I don't order it out any more. It is so easy to make at home, and so much better. My fear of frying is gone, thanks to COVID, and it made me one step closer to rarely leaving my house.

World Travel by Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain was working on this book, at least in the formative stages, when he killed himself in 2018. His long time assistant, Laurie Woolever, his long time assistant took the brainstorming sessions they had and the places they had been plus the people who knew him well, and put together this book posthumously, something that is maybe more or less what he would have wanted it to be. I would be interested in her story as well--she worked for Mario Batali before she spent a decade with Tony and so she has seen and heard a lot. I have made a couple of attempts to watch some of No Reservations and Parts Unknown, and it just doesn't quite click for me--even his writing is not 100% my cup of tea. That said, I love his approach to food, places to eat, things to savor, his values when it comes to the people who prepare food and work in the business (treat the kitchen staff well, value them, and without immigrants we wouldn't be able to eat out is how I would sum it up), and how to think about travel. I do not mind his abrasiveness, in fact I kind of dig it, but a little less wouldn't go amiss. He is really into bars, bar culture, and drinking in a way that does not resonate with me at all, and it does seep in to what he looks for when dining out, so while I like the places he goes, I am not always on board with where he goes when he gets there. Reading this book (the audiobook has long stretches that are read by his brother, who sounds eerily like him) I found out two important things. The first is that he agrees with me on the best cities--Montreal over Vancouver or Toronto, and Melbourne over Sydney--as well as worthy countries for food forward travel. The other is that there are places I have not been that I really need to get to! I liked this a lot, not all of it, and not everything about it, but if you are into either food or travel, this is worth a read.

Lobio With Onions Pomegranate

This is adapted from naoim Duguid's book Tate of Persia, which our cookbook group cooked from last month. Throughout the cookbook, I think it could use more context, and hacks that you could use in a western kitchen. In this recipe, using beans that become quite creamy when cooked or overcooked is a good tip--mine were not this, and the dish was good, but I think it could veer to greatness as a vegan side. The Georgian spice mix has corainder, fenugreek leaves, and marigold petals--or you can pick up a mix at Trader Joe's if those are not in your spice cupboard. 4 cups cooked beans plus 1 1/2 cups cooking water 2 bay leaves 1/4 c. vegetable oil 1 1/2 cups chopped onions 1 red pepper, chopped 6 cloves garlic minced 1 tablespoon dried chilis 2 Tbs. Georgian Spice Mix 2 Tbs. tomato paste 2 Tbs. pomeranate molasses 1/4 cup red wine salt to taste top with chopped herbs Cook the beans and water with the bay leaves--or add bay leaves when rehydrating the beans to start with. Add oil, onions to a saute pan and cook until the onions are sweated--add the garlic and cook until the onions are translucent. Then add the chilis, Georgian spice, and tomato paste and stir. Add the beans and as much of the liquid as you would like to the pan, plus the pomegranate molassess and the wine and cook 5-10 minues or so.

Democracy's Data by Dan Bouk

This is yet another look at the systemic racism in the United States--the book focuses on the 1940 census for some in-depth reporting but has a sub-text of the whole process of the census. It this is a powerful bit of protest against centuries of Black people being misidentified, undercounted and downright erased from the public record. The author is a historian who has also studied computational mathematics, and he believes passionately in the ideals of the census, but reveals in abundant detail how badly it has failed society. Native Americans were long excluded and ethnic classification abetted among other horrors the roundup of Japanese Americans to internment camps and the deportation of Mexican immigrants. In theory, counting the population seems so basic, so neutral: a math problem that requires meticulous attention to detail. But the numerical is political, with representation and resources at stake, so of course it has been manipulated. Bouk shows how, from its beginnings, the census has been subject to partisan interests, which continues up to and including the last census. I am reminded of the quote that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. It is a messy business when you look at it closely and it is miraculous that it works at all.

The Embroidered Pig

I have always been a crafty person. I am not good at all crafts—I can barely knit, and while I have tried crochet on more than one occasion, it is a skill that eludes me. Embroidery is something else altogether. I have embroidered since I was in grammar school and across my lifetime it has been a constant. So when my son asked me about custom embroidering aprons for the groomsmen at his wedding, my first thought was not to send them out but rather to get a machine that does embroidery and take a stab at it myself. The bottom line is that it went fine—my spouse got some great denim aprons at an auction, enough extras to be able to practice on and to have enough to give people beyond those identified one if it worked out. I only had to rip out one before I got the hang of it. The task of taking on a new technological skill without instruction was daunting, but in the end, I was happy I did it and happy with how it turned out. Now to figure out the next project!

Silver Nitrate by Sylvia Moreno Garcia

I have really enjoyed reading this author's work over the past year, and while I enjoyed this, I enjoyed it less than the others that I have read. She leans heavily on Mexican culture, the occult, horror, all wrapped up with a touch of romance, and that is true in this book as well. The setting is Mexico City, 1993. Two lifelong friends in their late thirties, find themselves in the midst of a plot they don't necessarily want any part of. Montserrat is a gifted sound engineer who is stubborn, introverted, abrasive, and a bit of a misanthrope. . Tristán is a former soap opera star and bad boy now relegated mostly to voiceover work after some press that he might be bisexual sank his career, haunted by the death of his starlet girlfriend ten years prior in a car accident that left him scarred both psychologically and physically. When Tristán moves into a new apartment after yet another messy breakup, he discovers he’s now neighbors with cult horror director Abel Urueta, who invites him to dinner and he brings Montserrat along, as she is a big fan. Abel has an ulterior motive it turns out--and here is where it gets a bit weird. He saved a single reel of the film, shot on silver nitrate film and stored in his freezer (much to Montserrat’s alarm, as silver nitrate film is highly flammable and prone to spontaneous combustion). He asks them to help him complete the spell by recording fresh dialogue for the key scene and syncing it to the film. Suffice it to say it does not go as planned, and not everyone makes it. I have to say that I am not a fan of horror, and this did not change my mind.