American Han by Lisa Lee

This book is really good and a little bit hard going. It is the author's debut novel and it has a rawness to it that she might lose with time, but has a certain wisdom to it. The Korean word “han” is difficult to translate precisely into English, but the concept revolves around a profound sadness, regret, resentment and a loss of a collective identity that arises from historical injustice, such as occupation, war, and separation. It is, in other words, a generational trauma with Korean characteristics. It is set during the time of the first tech boom, and is anchored in the despair and rancor that defines the Kim family of the San Francisco Bay. Jane Kim is a third year law student at a second tier law school in San Francisco, when her mother leaves her father and her brother gets into big trouble for police brutality. It is a story of change, and change at a time when it is unusual. All four of them are unhappy in the life they have thus far forged, and so they step out into the less secure unknown in search of happiness.

Lorraine Woodruff-Long: Quilting Through Fog

My quilt guild hosted this quilter last month and I have been thinking about her work ever since. On the 4th of July she announced her new portest project, which is related to the 27 Grievances in the Declaration of Independence that the colonists leveled at King George III. They sound eerily familiar to the fascism of today's GOP, which has allowed for the stripping away of many basic human rights protected in hte Constiturion. She is a clever quilter when it comes to protest and she has a foot firmly in the traditional quilting camp, which I very much like. The quilt pictured behind her here is a great example, where her commentary on climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps is dramatic and subtle at the same time. I look forward to continuing to be inspired but the ideas of others and nurturing a more creative me.

The Spinach King by John Seabrook

This is a memoir that chronicles three generations of the author’s family and their South Jersey-based agricultural empire, Seabrook Farms. At the heart of the narrative is the author's great-grandfather, C.F. Seabrook, an autocratic, driven patriarch who revolutionized the frozen-food industry. Often hailed as the "Henry Ford of agriculture," C.F. built the company into the biggest vegetable factory on earth. This is a story of improbable success followed by implosion through his paranoia, greed, and abusive treatment of family members. The emotional core of the book lies in the author's complex relationship with his father, Jack—a stylish, patrician figure and playboy who desperately sought his father's approval. Jack had a lavish life style and hobnobbed with movie stars but further squandered the financial resources of the business. Beyond the family drama, the book does not shy away from the darker history of Seabrook Farms. Seabrook made a fortune during World War II by employing interned Japanese Americans and, later, displaced persons from Europe to staff his massive fields. The book uncovers the company’s controversial labor practices, including a violent 1934 labor strike involving armed vigilantes and the Ku Klux Klan. These events paint a complex picture of ingenuity coexisting with labor exploitation.

Qui Plume La Lune, Paris, France

Our last meal in France! We made it a good one, walking the mile or so from our hotel right outside Le Gard Notre train station, so we got a chance to experience the city a bit, even though I was still a bit under the weather from my shoulder replacement surgery, and not up to the usual marching about we do. Paris is a beautiful walking city and so well worth doing at least a bit of that. This is a wonderful place, with great atmosphere as well as food. Here is what they say on the Michelin website: Qui plume la Lune boasts two very different interiors: one with bare stone walls and natural materials and the other a riot of colour and dried flower compositions. The chef executes a creative score that showcases the season’s finest ingredients: fillet of croaker, risotto of tapioca pearls; tender beef fillet with mash and roast celery; poached pear and muscovado sorbet. The dishes are artfully plated and indulgently served, the cooking is spot on and the flavours and seasonings exquisitely balanced: just the ticket for a good meal in a warm, elegant setting. We were seated in the more formal half of the restaurant, pictured above, and very much enjoyed the meal.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Kate Quinn is the master of historical fiction when it comes to under appreciated stories about the valor of women. Igenerally prefer a story that captures an era in history rather than the specific details of that event or time period as told in nonfictional works and the story of the women who ran networks during Resistance in France is no exception. I read Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson after reading about it in The Economist, and while it was factually correct and told about a a young French mother who led the "Alliance," the largest and most effective intelligence network in occupied France, this book, which is essentially a parallel story in an earlier war, was more riveting and in many ways more memorable that that. This tells two stories, that of women who spied in WWI and that of women who spied in WWII,and we swing back and forth between their stories. Underlying them is the bleak outlook for talented women in the first half of the twentieth century. In any case,while I wouldn't hold this up as great literature, I very much enjoyed it and it is great story telling.

Forbidden Words Quilt Project

I just heard Lorraine Woodruff-Long speak about this project, which has been completed and is a quilt that is going on tour. Quilters have always been political and in the current climate, we are starting to feel like screaming is appropriate. Here is the background for this project from their website: A growing list of words and materials is being scrubbed from government websites and documents and flagged for review by federal agencies in an attempt by the Trump administration to remove all references not only to diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to climate change, vaccines, and a host of other topics. PEN America initially compiled a list of more than 250 words and phrases reportedly no longer considered acceptable by the Trump administration, from “abortion,” to “women,” and including “disability,” “elderly,” “Native American”and, unsurprisingly, the “Gulf of Mexico.” The list has now expanded to 384+ words and phrases, encompassing even desirable goals like “safe drinking water,” the mention of which can now result in research grants or other agreements with the federal government getting nixed. Some agencies ordered the removal of specific words from public-facing websites or the elimination of other materials (including school curricula) in which they might be included. In other cases, federal agencies used key words to flag materials for further review or asked staff to limit or avoid their usage. FORBIDDEN WORDS QUILT PROJECT Throughout the Fall 2025, they reached out to quilters, creators and makers to create blocks that will be sewn into a quilt featuring the words/phrases compiled by PEN America that are being flagged by the U.S. federal agencies to ban, limit, or avoid. Text will be created using fabric, letter templates and fusible, and cut out by hand and ironed onto a fabric block. Blocks will be cut from repurposed shirting, ideally from thrift and reclamation outlets or from your own home. THree quilters in my own guild (that I know of) participated in this amazing project. More to come.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn

This is straight ahead romance novel stuff, made more pervasively known because of the Netflix mini-series that now has four seasons, and likely more to come. The book hews close to the series, with some more believable progression of the relationship between Kate and Anthony. The advantage of the book is that there is a view into the character's inner thoughts and that is missing when it comes to the big screen. The one interesting given in this time period compared to 200 years later, which is where we are, this is set in the time of Jane Austen, a hundred years before the onset of WWI, is that the expectation that one would marry for love is very low. Women marry for financial security, for them and their families, and men have dalliances and marry for duty (and maybe keep up with the dalliances). The idea that there would be joy or love involved is secondary, and when that is the baseline, it is no wonder there is little in the way of happiness to be found. The Bridgertons break that mold and are better for it (of course, they are also rich).

La Grand Cerf, Villers-Allerand, France

We wended our way back towards Paris after a week in Alsace, and this part of the Champagne region is much more charming than staying in Reims proper. I had wanted to stay there, to see the famous church that Monet painted, but did not need to go back, and this restaurant was spectacular, well worth finding if you are in the neighborhood. Here is what they have to say on the Michelin web site: At the foot of the Montagne de Reims and on the road to Épernay, this imposing inn unabashedly brandishes its opulent style. Come evening, the elegant dining space done out in pale wood takes on a romantic air – the perfect setting for fine classic French cuisine delivered by chefs Dominique Giraudeau (who shone for many years in the kitchens of Gérard Boyer at Les Crayères) and his associate, Pascal Champion. On the menu, top-notch produce, from John Dory to free-range milk-fed veal, as well as game, lobster and truffles. We opted for the mid-sized menu--not the plat du jour, but one step up from that, and it was really lovely. The table ware was particularly nice, not fussy but quite pretty.

The Rarest Fruit by Gaëlle Bélem

This book, almost a novella, chronicles strange-but-true history of vanilla and its introduction to the West.The aromatic flavor was introduced to explorer Hernán Cortés by the Aztecs, whose civilization he would famously destroy. And that when cuttings of the vanilla planifolia orchid were brought back to Spain in 1529, European horticulturalists were unable to figure out how to get it to produce the beans they assumed would make them a fortune. And also that the plant then proceeded to languish in royal gardens for nearly three centuries until a gardener shipped it to the French colony of Bourbon (now Réunion), where an illiterate slave named Edmond Albius — a 12-year-old Creole boy — developed the method for hand pollination still used in its cultivation today. Edmond’s discovery had widespread economic and culinary impacts, but it’s his relationship with Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont, the white botanist who raised him, that lies at the heart of the story. He was Edmond’s adopted father, but he is also his owner. He dotes on his adopted son, teaching him the Latin names of flowers but not how to read the books in his library. He spares Edmond from toiling in the sugarcane fields, assigning him instead to the garden, but indignantly dismisses the boy’s aspirations of becoming a botanist and he does not free him. In fact, he steals credit from him, which was later restored to Albius by history.

You People (2023)

I hesitate to admit that I watched this moive because it was so atrociously bad, but watch it I did. There are a lot of good quality actors in this, which is why I kept trying it--on three seperate occasions before I could get all the way through it. I just kept thinking it might get better, but it didn't. The set up is kind of a modern Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, with Jonas Hill as the love interest and Eddie Murphy the Black Muslim dad. The twist is that his wife had a white grandfather, who Murphy thinks poisoned the well--so race and religion are a bit more nuanced in portrayal but that is where it stops. Full stop. This has nearly every stereotype about black people and Jewish people that you can imagine, and maybe it is supposed to be funny or make you think, but all it did was make me cringe, and I hope I save you from having to watch it.