The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

I listened to this YA book that is on the Reese Witherspoon recommended reading list, and very much enjoyed it. Jo Kuan is a heroine that you can feel good about rooting for. She is a foundling who has many talents but many limitations placed upon her. Almost everything about her happens in hiding, and she is someone who should shine. When the book opens she is less than thrilled to be back working as a lady’s maid after being unceremoniously fired from her job as a milliner’s assistant – but she needs the work, and there aren’t many professional opportunities for a poor girl of Asian descent in 1890s Atlanta. Her adoptive father, Old Gin, isn’t as young as he used to be, and they can’t live on his wages alone. The only bright side is her new anonymous position as a newspaper advice columnist, Miss Sweetie, counseling Atlanta’s young and fashionable on the most important topics of the day. Her progressive takes on everything from segregated streetcars to bicycles and women’s suffrage make the column a huge success, but the more Jo speaks Miss Sweetie’s mind, the more the city clamors for her identity to be revealed. At the same time, she knows Old Gin is hiding something from her, and Jo suspects it might have something to do with her real parents. Finding out the truth could mean sacrificing both her anonymity and her steady income, not to mention her and Old Gin’s safety. The book unwinds at an enjoyable pace to an equally fine ending.

Coronation Coleslaw

I am always on the hunt for a new coleslaw recipe! I love a cabbage salad, of just a salad that has cabbage shredded into it. We are entering the season of locally grown greens and this is a nice additional side to a green salad. This comes from the ever reliable The Kitchn website, which you should also check out. FOR THE DRESSING: 2/3 cup regular or vegan mayonnaise 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 4 teaspoons curry powder 1 tablespoon honey 2 teaspoons onion powder 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper FOR THE SLAW: 1/2 medium head green cabbage (about 1 1/4 pounds) 1/2 medium head red cabbage (about 3/4 pound) 1 large carrot (about 5 ounces) 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons golden raisins, divided 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons salted, roasted cashews Kosher salt MAKE THE DRESSING: Place 2/3 cup mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 4 teaspoons curry powder, 1 tablespoon honey, 2 teaspoons onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper in a large bowl and stir to combine. MAKE THE SLAW: Prepare the following, adding each to the bowl of dressing as it is completed: Cut the core from 1/2 medium head green cabbage, then thinly slice until you have 4 cups. Repeat with 1/2 medium head red cabbage until you have 3 cups. Peel and grate 1 large carrot on the large holes of a box grater (about 1 cup). Add 1 1/4 cups of the golden raisins and stir to combine, making sure the coleslaw is evenly dressed. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to let the flavors meld. Before serving, add 1 1/4 cups of the salted, roasted cashews and toss to combine. Taste and season with more kosher salt as needed. Transfer the coleslaw to a serving bowl. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons golden raisins and 2 tablespoons cashews.

Shiloh: A Requiem

Best known as the author of Moby-Dick, Melville was also a talented poet. This work is a meditation on a major battle from the Civil War. Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the field in clouded days, The forest-field of Shiloh— Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh— The church so lone, the log-built one, That echoed to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying foemen mingled there— Foemen at morn, but friends at eve— Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!) But now they lie low, While over them the swallows skim, And all is hushed at Shiloh.

VanDusen Botanical Gardens, Vancouver, British Columbia

Essondale (now the Riverview Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam) is the site of the earliest botanical garden in Canada, started by “Botany John” Davidson, the provincial botanist. He moved the botanical garden to the new UBC campus in 1916, where it remains to this day. This gorgeous botanical garden had a humble beginning, and let that be a lesson to us all--things can be transformed, you just have to have a vision, and a lot of luck, money, and zoning. This started as part of the railroad, then in 1912 it became a golf course. I do not know if it is true, but there are some large swaths of grass remaing, and maybe they linger from that time.

Roy Forster was the garden’s curator from 1977-1996; he oversaw the planting of 12,000 trees, flowers and shrubs representing 3,072 species. During excavation, workers discovered sea shells — evidence that the land had been under the ocean about 12,000 years ago. In 1999, Forster received the Order of Canada in recognition of his work in designing the VanDusen gardens

South To America by Imani Perry

The subtitle of this book is A Journey Below The Mason-Dixon Line To Understand The Soul Of A Nation. The author is black, southern born and northern raised, so when she goes about exploring the south, town by town, and region by region, she does so with a different perspective than some and with an eye to telling a story of what the past, present, and the potential future that each place has, and how it all fits together. She starts in Appalachia, the remote mountainous region that spans from Mississippi to New York, and touches 10 Southern states. She visits Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where white abolitionist John Brown attempted a slave revolt in 1859 and paid for it with his life. She has a mixed mission, the first to experience and portray each place at it is today and to provide the historical perspective, but also to take these and look at where the near future will be, which is nowhere near the same as she moves from place to place, and she struggles to try and tie it all together. It is more textured a portrayal than lumping everything below the Mason Dixon line together. Northern popular opinion has it that Southerners are fat, poor, and uneducated. Statistics will tell you they are politically conservative and reactionary. History has it that they are racist and violent. While there is some truth to those assessments, they don’t come close to painting an accurate or helpful picture of the South, which is much more complex, multifaceted, and contradictory--and she posits that we had better figure it out or we too are doomed to repeat the past.

Blue Water Cafe, Vancouver, British Columbia

I had a wonderful trip to Vancouver that included a meal at this fabulous seafood restaurant (there are several things on the menu that are either plant based, or contain land animals, but the only reason to go here to have them is if everyone in your party wants out of this world seafood and you are the accomodating sort). They hace a renowned sushi menu, which I would have delved into if I had been dining with my spouse, but we stuck to the other parts of the menu, and were not disappointed. Pictured is their appetizer sampler, which is repleat with delectable choices, and then we had the catch of the day and scallops, both of which were cooked perfectly and accompanied by delicious sauces and falvorful vegetables. This is a must go to restaurant in a happening area downtown. Added bonus was that we could walk to it from where we were staying.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

This author is always entertaining, whether it be serious fiction (as this is) or more of a crime drama, she is fun to read. Her work set in or around this time period tends to be a bit darker, some would say Dickensian, where you are anxiously worried about an impending disaster, but that largely doesn't happen much here. This is a sprawling and sparkling tale set in London in 1926, overrun with flappers, gangsters, shilling-a-dance girls, disillusioned veterans of the Great War, crooked coppers, a serial killer (so some bad things happen), absinthe cocktails, teenage runaways, snazzy roadsters and a bevy of people with hope and promise but not much in the way of common sense. The figure at the center of this particular metropolitan web is a tough entrepreneur named Nellie Coker who presides over an empire of sin. Her string of five nightclubs stretches from the classy Amethyst to the low brow Sphinx. In the Author’s Note, Atkinson identifies the now largely forgotten Irishwoman Kate Meyrick, the “Night Club Queen” of Soho, as the real-life inspiration for Nellie and her brood of mostly adult children who help run the clubs. She goes to jail at one point, and spends the rest of the story figuring out who ratted her out, and she takes us along for the ride.

Asian-ish Vegetable Salad

For spring, and the beginning of the local fresh vegetable season! 3tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2tablespoons lime juice 1tablespoon fish sauce 1tablespoon minced shallot ½teaspoon minced garlic 1bird’s eye or serrano chile, thinly sliced Kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) and pepper 8ounces asparagus, trimmed, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced at an angle 4ounces cherry tomatoes, halved 3cups thinly sliced mixed vegetables (such as carrots, radishes and cucumbers) ½cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, coarsely chopped In a large bowl, combine oil, lime juice, fish sauce, shallot, garlic and chile; season with salt and pepper. Whisk well. Add the asparagus, tomatoes and other mixed vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Toss to evenly coat and let stand at room temperature for 5 minutes, tossing occasionally. Fold in cilantro and serve.

The Revolutionary Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff

I very much enjoyed this biography of Samuel Adams, who was born into a prosperous family in 1722 in the city state of Boston. Adams could afford to attend and graduate from Harvard, but he squandered his inheritance before becoming Boston’s most inept tax collector. Elite education developed his mastery of words while downward mobility cultivated his empathy for working people — and his rage against men of fortunes, privileges and luck. He especially hated a fellow Bostonian, Thomas Hutchinson, who grew ever richer and more powerful by acquiring multiple offices, including chief justice of the superior court and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts — until Adams ruined his popularity with insidious rumors. Both sides crafted conspiracy theories. A lot of time is spent of Adams explaining why he felt unfairly dealt with. While Adams claimed that British leaders plotted to ruin colonial prosperity and freedom, Loyalists depicted Boston’s radicals as conspiring to dupe common people into wreaking anarchy. Adams became Boston’s leading revolutionary, rallying that seaport to resist Parliament’s taxes and reject British rule. Unlike his cousin John Adams, Samuel cared more about swaying men behind the scenes than about taking credit for posterity. Slipping in and out of backrooms, he seemed to manage every protest, riot, election and newspaper diatribe. His many friends recalled Adams as a selfless hero utterly devoted to liberty. His many enemies defined him as a reckless and deceitful incendiary. Adams left us too sparse a paper trail to find a deeper character between the polarized accounts, burning most of his letters lest they implicate friends in treason. Ironically, as the financially strapped Adams, he inherited the lowest rung on the family business ladder, and it is why he is widely known today.

San Diego Bird Festival

There I was, in the middle of an atmospheric river-something that sounds so lovely and is really a climate catastrophe, trying my hand at birding for the first time. The women who invited me, very good life long friends, called and said maybe I shouldn't come, that birds don't care for high wind and torrential rain, but I had committed. I was doing what Mel Brooks reccommended, I was trying out potential post-retirement hobbies while I was still active enough and with a full time salary to support me, and birding held a lot of appeal for me. It got you outdoors, looking for things in all sorts of natural places, and learning more about them. Despite the weather we saw a couple hundred different kinds of birds over the course of three days. I discovered that birders are generally very kind and willing to share what they know. I found out that with a good pair of binoculars I, too, could spot birds and in the end, I decided I would happily do this all over again.