Selection Day by Aravind Adiga

This is a tale that revolves around class, poverty, opportunities and the use of athletics to escape to a better life.  The story is from Mumbai, but if race were added in, it could have been in the United States.
The book is about two young boys from Mumbai whose father raises them to be the very best cricket players in the world.  You know where that is going.  They are both his hope of sports glory, which eluded him, and getting out of poverty.
Cricket is, of course, a wonderful way of writing about shattered dreams – both personal and national. As such, it isn’t necessary to know the game to appreciate this finely told, often moving and intelligent novel. Cricket here represents what is loved in India, and yet is being corrupted by the changes within the nation.  The nastiness of cricket isn’t only to do with money and corruption. The book takes in class, religion and sexuality – all issues that disrupt the dream of a sport that cares for nothing but talent and temperament. The relationship of the two brothers is significant but eventually becomes secondary to the one between the younger boy, Manju, and Javed, a good-looking Muslim from an affluent family who chooses to walk away from cricket and wants Manju to follow him. Manju’s attraction to Javed, and his awareness of the barriers between them, is subtly and often surprisingly explored.  In the end we do not know if Manju loves cricket or not, but we do know that it has made him.

Step (2017)

This is at heart looking at ways out of poverty.  Everyone on this high school step team comes from income challenged families, and the majority of them will be the first in their family to go to college.  Their lives as students is one thing, but their experience as a step team is another way for them to express who they are.  The two extremes are Cori, who is an excellent student focused on getting a full ride scholarship to an outstanding school.  Her parents are 100% supportive of her, and she is both ambitious and focused.  Step is a way to get out of her more shy shell and express herself.  The other end of the spectrum is Blessin.  She is beautiful and talented and intense on the dance floor, but she really struggles with focus in the classroom.  He mother also struggles, but with depression rather than academics, and she isn't quite as committed to Blessin's success as her teachers and counselors are.  The two of them come out at different places at the end of high school, and then we get to have a little bit of a peak at what lies ahead for them.  Great documentary.

Shrimp in Lettuce Leaves with Serrano-Mint Sauce

Wow, this was really good, and also low carb.  I am always looking for new ways to cook and experience shrimp,  and this is a definite winner.

• 1 pound large shrimp (about 36), peeled and deveined
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 12 leaves green curly leaf lettuce

Serrano-Mint Sauce:

• 1 cup tightly packed mint leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1 Serrano chili, seeded, coursely chopped
  
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• Salt

Preheat the grill to medium-high. In a large bowl, toss shrimp in oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the shrimp for 1 to 2 minutes on each side or until just cooked through. Be careful not to overcook the shrimp, or they will be tough and rubbery. Remove from the grill.
Place about 3 shrimp in each lettuce leaf. Drizzle with the Serrano-Mint Sauce. Sprinkle with a few cilantro leaves. Roll up the lettuce leaves, and eat immediately.

Serrano-Mint Sauce:

Place all ingredients, except for salt, in a blender. Pulse until smooth. Season, to taste.

The Only Story by Julian Barnes

This is a well written, sad but oddly comforting story told in the way that this author does as well as anyone.  
Barnes has been exploring the May-December romance and this time it involves a 19 year old man and a 48-year old woman.  The woman is damaged from an early age.  She had an uncle who sexually abused her and has a husband who physically abuses her.  She meets Paul at her tennis club and he falls hard for her.  The intensity of her feelings are harder to gauge, and are likely deeply colored by her traumatic history.  The relationship spans years and comes to an end not because of their age difference or a change of heart, but because of Susan's addiction, both to alcohol and her abusive husband.  The last section of the book is a kind of "what if" scenario that is odd and yet, the whole premise is not entirely within reason.  If the writing is the most important part of reading a book, this is a story well told. 

Don't Think Twice (2016)

This movie is on and about the art of improvisation.  Before the story gets going, there is a brief introduction to the history of improv, as well as an explanation of the cardinal rule of improv, which is commonly known as "Yes, and ... ," this means that a performer says "yes" to everything that happens on-stage. One of the cardinal sins of improv is saying "No." 
The movie follows a New York-based improv group through a year in their lives. The Brooklyn theater where they've been performing has been sold, and homelessness approaches.  One of their members makes it big and the others try to ride his coat tails, which puts him in awkward situations.  The competition to make it is inconsistent with the desire to create scenes that are made up of teamwork.  We get an up close and intimate look at the inner workings of this art form.  Really good and it grows on you after you finish.

Salmon with a Rhubarb Sauce

The thing that I have most consistently made with rhubarb is Strawberry Rhubarb pie and Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, with a recent foray into Rhubarb Simple Syrup for cocktails, but as one article I read pointed out, it is a vegetable and therefore well suited to savory dishes.

• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon grated peeled ginger 
• 1 onion diced
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 pound rhubarb, stalks only, cut into 1-inch pieces
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• Four 6-ounce salmon fillets with skin
• 4 ounces pea shoots or watercress

Step 1    

In a saucepan, combine the ingredients above the rhubarb and cook. Add the rhubarb; bring to a boil. Cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is jamlike, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Discard the vanilla bean.

Step 2    

In a nonstick skillet, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Cook, turning once, until lightly browned, 8 minutes. Spoon the sauce onto plates, top with the salmon or vice versa (which is my preference) and serve.

The Act of Shunning

I completely understand wanting to kick people who work for the current administration out of your place of business.They are amoral liars who I would not want to share a meal with, be near in a public venue, or serve them.  But doing so plays right into their hands.  How is this different from not serving them if they were black or gay?  They will play it for all that it is worth, despite their support for the bakery that didn't want to serve a gay couple, because they are all about lying, remember?  Consistency is just really not in their wheel house.
So instead I think we ignore them.  Really ignore them.  Move tables yourself, or leave the restaurant if it makes you ill to sit next to them.  But I would argue that refusing to see them when they are right in front of you is the appropriate response.  They are dead to you.  You cannot see them.  You will not react, because they are nothing to you. Their moral turpitude renders them invisible.  Literally turn the other cheek, and close your eyes to them.

Swiss Army Man (2016)

I read a review of this movie that described it as Cast Away meets Weekend at Bernie's, which succinctly sums up the scenario without delving too deeply into what the take home message might be. One of the film's creators summed it up differently, saying it is about a suicidal man who has to convince a dead body that life is worth living. Therefore it is a film exploring the contradiction and comedy and drama in that.
There is an odd mixture of stupid fart and penis jokes wrapped around a core message that no matter what your current perspective is, there is good to be found out there, you just have to seek it.  Hank has all but given up on his life but when Manny, a dead man who speaks (and farts) asks him why he should pull himself together in the land of the living, he desperately tries to make it worth his while.  Hank's father has abandoned him, he is painfully shy, but there is something to love in there.  It is both sweet and a little stupid at the same time, but so originally different that at no point did we consider turning it off.  

Lemon Caper Dressing

Pay attention, because there is a lot of lemon in this.
It can be used on vegetables as well as salad, or to finish off a chicken or fish dish.

• 2 medium lemons
  
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
  
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (choose one whose flavor you like on its own -- we used Maille)
  
• 2 tablespoons drained capers, finely chopped
  
• 1/2 teaspoon Maldon or another flaky sea salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar
  
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  

1. Segment the lemons over a bowl to catch the juices (see note below). Set aside.
2. Squeeze the juice from the membranes into a separate bowl, add the rest of the ingredients, and stir well.
3. Add the lemon segments and toss gently to coat them without breaking them up. Use straightaway or chill in the fridge, covered, for up to an hour.
4. Note: To segment the lemons: Use a sharp knife to cut off just enough of the fruit's top and bottom to expose a full circle of the flesh on either end. Stand the lemon on one of its ends, place your knife point at the seam where the fruit meets the pith, and use a gentle sawing motion to cut away a wide strip of pith and skin, following the curve of the fruit from top to bottom. Repeat the process until all you have left is a nice, round, naked fruit. If you've missed any white pith, trim it off. Make a cut down either side of each segment, right against the membrane, and gently pry out each segment, one at a time (see slideshow). Flick out any seeds, and set the segments aside in a bowl, reserving the juicy membranes.

House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

I read about this book in The Week, which is not where I get most of my book recommendations, but some of them, and it was right on this time.
This is in your face about pride and Mexican culture.  The elegance that men carry with them each day as well as the machismo.  The role of food in the eyes of those who live there.  The border itself between Mexico and the United States and all that that says about those on either side of it.  The good, the bad, and the ugly--that classic combination that drives the best of fiction--are all on display here.
This noisy, messy, jockeying for position of a family in this novel revolves around the dying patriarch Miguel Angel “Big Angel” de la Cruz.  Three generations gather over the course of a weekend for a final celebration. His mother recently dead, Big Angel himself is on the way out after an outsize life of danger, romance and striving. There are flashbacks to harder times and choices made, and there it the present, where they all are and why.  Orbiting him is a proliferating solar system of children and relatives, and with them a galaxy of feuds, slights, alliances, resentments, flirtations and memories.  It is a flipping of the finger at those who think that Mexico is mono dimensional.  There are rapists and murderers, just like here, but the breadth and beauty that is Mexico is like a hymn being sung.