The Long Game (2023)

I was test driving watching movies and sewing on my Featherweight while traveling by car for work-related reasons, and was restricted by what I could stream on Netflix and this seemed like a good bet. It is a film that is an an adaptation of a true story about the golf team from San Felipe High School in Del Rio, Texas, set in the 1950's. They're a group of Mexican-American boys who all caddied at an upscale private country club in their community where they were not welcome to play and certainly not be members. They aspired to play golf themselves, so they built their own crude practice course in the middle of the South Texas desert. They're brought together as a golf team under their coach (JB Peña), who has just taken a job as an Assistant Superintendent at the high school and is an avid golfer. He is a veteran of WWII and like many brown and black soldiers he was treated better abroad than at home, and aspires to membership at the (all-white) country club where the boys work, but is denied because of his ethnicity. They face a lot of obstacles and discrimination in the golf world and the community as a whole as they strive for legitimacy and acceptance, and deal with their own individual struggles in handling and overcoming it. Cheech Marin plays "Pollo", a longtime employee of the country club who shares his (often humorous) outlook and serves as kind of a mentor to both the youths and Peña. They're also helped by Frank Mitchell (played by Dennis Quaid), a former PGA Tour player who is a member at the country club but sees potential in the youths, so he takes on the role of teaching them the game and uses his influence as a country club member to get them into golf tournaments. It's a good story with some unforeseen twists and turns, a good mix of humor and drama, and some very touching moments. It's a golf movie, but one that non-golfers can enjoy. If you're looking for a light movie to watch, it's worth your time.

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

I was reading this book when Obama's 2024 Summer Reading list was released, and lo and behold, this was on it. I see this as an overlap with the movie that he and his wife's production company Higher Ground, supported making--American Factory. The theme is how are people making it with the shifting ground for jobs for the American work force. The background is reflective of the increasing concentration of resources in the hands of a tiny cluster of gargantuan corporations; the transfer of manufacturing operations from the American heartland to China and the Global South, where labor is cheap; the rise of online retail, with its seductive conveniences and its indifference to the environment, and what that leaves workers who have a high school education, sometimes less. Luxury at the top, fear in the middle, serfdom at the bottom, and nobody going anywhere. The main characters all work for Town Square, a big-box mega-retailer not unlike Walmart. The book focuses on the logistics team: the people who unpack delivery trucks before dawn and break down the boxes to line the shelves. There is no protagonist, this book is one where it is every man for themselves, not because they don't function as a team, they do, but because they are all vying for a leg up on the ladder, which is both a struggle and a lot like the jockeying for position that you would see at any organization, but the consequences of not moving up is loss of health insurance, living in your car because you can't make the rent, food pantry's and no leisure time because you have to juggle three jobs. It is harrowing and it rings true.

The Beautiful Game (2024)

If there is a sub-genre that is sure to put smiles on faces and often fit for family viewing, it’s a sporting underdog story. This one focuses on the Homeless Football World Cup, which has been held every year since 2001 and involves seventy countries--which is the ultimate underdog story, people who have no permanent housing getting together to play soccer. Bill Nighy is the star of the show--he plays Mal, an experienced Football Coach and talent scout who now oversees the England homeless football squad. The movie opens in a park in London, where Vinny catches his eye with some deft moves (albeit against a group of kids). Mal invites Vinny to join the squad with Vinny living out of the back of his car and struggling to find shift work. The bulk of the action revolves around the World Cup itself taking place in Rome with a ragtag mix of players, who do not seem to be able to work especially well together. This blend of hopeless players, inspired by their coach, feels reminiscent of other feel good movies in the genre. This tackles some deeper themes like addiction, with comments on belonging and cultural differences highlighted by some players from the competing teams being refugees. While, for the most part, there is plenty to admire in The Beautiful Game, it gets bogged down in some of its subplots, which can at times meander. Streaming on Netflix.

I Love Russia by Elena Kostyuchenko

This book is almost unbearably sad, from start to finish--the weight of that sadness begins almost immediately, and that is the thing that for me made it hard to read. The idea for the book was conceived in Ukraine. In May 2022, the author, a journalist, visited four locations—the Polish border, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Odesa—on a five-week assignment for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She witnessed destruction on an apocalyptic scale—apartment blocks reduced to rubble, orphanages emptied by the threat of heavy shelling, bodies scorched with “charred black [messes] for a face.” At the end of her trip, she was told not to return to Moscow. Because she’d transgressed Russia’s draconian new censorship laws specifically targeting anti-war media, a target had appeared on her back seemingly overnight. These conditions made her turn inward. She began to work on a book that contextualized her past reportage with personal reflections on Russia and the turn to fascism that Putin has been driving. The entire book has moments that cause the reader to reflect, but the section where her mother explains to her that Ukraine has always been Russian and why, which aches with both manipulation and naivete, is what runs through the book as a whole, and you leave with a better understanding of just how hard it is to escape a fascist leader once they have you in their grips.

Maple Syrup: Another Roadside Attraction

We love Vermont maple syrup. Especially the amber variety--which used to be called Grade B--it is darker and more full flavored than the more widely available golden syrup. The lighter variety is the more widely valued, but we prefer the amber syrup. The lighter syrup is collected when it is colder. Most of the sugar in sap is sucrose. When sap is tapped, naturally occuring yeast and bacteria break sucrose down into the smaller molecules fructose and glucose. The warmer the temperature, or the longer sap waits to get collected, the more sucrose gets converted. Fructose and glucose go through a Maillard reaction, or browning, when exposed to heat. Sucrose doesn't. The more fructose and glucose in the sap and the longer the sap boils, the darker the syrup.

Vermont makes more than half the country’s maple syrup, more than any other state. In 2024, Vermont’s sugar makers produced a record of 3.1 million gallons. All that maple is processed in more than 3,000 sugarhouses statewide, from smaller family-run operations to industrial syrup producers. We prefer to buy from a small producer, which is someone who has a sign on the street that they sell syrup. You knock on the door, tell them what you are looking for, they'll name a price and you pay in cash. It is so much funner than going to the super market, and the syrup is delicious.

Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle King

There is so much to learn in this book that centers on Fu Pei-mei, the Taiwanese woman who broke with tradition to show people how to cook. The traditional Chinese art of food preparation was something that you would not write down. It was instead passed down within the family, and the secrets were closely guarded--so when Pei-mei first wrote a cookbook, and then demonstrated the recipes on television, she was bringing Chinese food into the modern day. Her cookbooks were bilingual, so that they could be shared across language as well as being inter-generational. Then, like Julia Child and French cooking, she went on TV to demonstrate how exactly to make these recipes. Chinese cooking prioritizes two essential qualities: huohuo (“fire-time”) and daogong (“knife-skill”). The former is the precision with which a cook can control the heat of her stove, the latter the blade of her knife. Think of the perfectly sliced green scallions, thin and trembling like blades of grass, that accompany a Peking duck or the way beef sliced for a stir-fry instantly cooks on a heated wok, evenly seared on the outside, still juicy and tender within. Both of these skills were broadcast live on Taiwan Television in 1962, when a housewife and cooking instructor named Fu Pei-mei was asked by the network to host a 20-minute cooking show. The set was makeshift, decorated by a cloth fish stapled to the wall. Fu had been asked to bring her own ingredients and equipment, which included her wok, cleaver and brazier--it was just as low budget as the PBS shows that Julia Child made, but despite all of this, both shows were both ground breaking and wildly popular. The author has introduced a Taiwan icon to an American audience.

The Miracle Club (2024)

Here is an overall tip for watching movies you never heard of on Netflix--the higher percentage shot is to pick one with a cast of people you have heard of before. This one includes Laura Linney as well as Kathy Bates and the newly departed Maggie Smith, so hard to beat that line up. The story is less exciting than the cast. Set in 1967 in Ballygar, a hard-knocks community in Dublin, four friends have on tantantalizing dream: to win a pilgrimage to the sacred French town of Lourdes, that place of miracles that draws millions of visitors each year. When Maureen dies, leaving her closest friends to mourn: Lily, Eileen, and Dolly, they skip the funeral and try to win a trip to Lourdes instead. The actual service in the actual church is therefore occurring unattended, save for Chrissie (Linney), Maureen’s long-estranged daughter, fresh from America and not at all on good terms with Maureen's neighbors. The story unfolds as to where the bitterness originated, and as is almost always the case, there is a misunderstanding and an assumption that is flat out wrong at the center of the dispute, and while the whole thing is fairly predictable, it is also a cautionary tale, because there are quite a few people in present day America who want to see a return to the morays and choices that women had then. This is a good watch in your living room movie, not something to seek out, but enjoyable in a quiet way.

Wait by Gabriella Burnham

I am on a roll. I am reading about how the other half lives--the half (or more) of Americans who live at or under the poverty line. The setting is Nantucket, that beautiful island off the coast of Massachusetts, which is associated with gorgeous estates, wealth, pretty boutiques, cobblestone streets, photogenic beaches, and clambakes. The other half of the story, less-told one, is the Nantucket of undocumented immigrants, broken families, housing insecurity and hopelessness--that is the half this book is about. The story is about a family where the mother is illegal and is raing her two daughters alone, working several jobs and barely making it. The story follows daughter Elise, who learns, days after her college graduation, that her mother, Gilda, has been deported to Brazil. She had overstayed her visa and, as she explains to her older daughter, was thrown out of the country "like she was nothing." Elise has no other family besides her sister, Sophie, a recent high school graduate. Together, they must find a way to support themselves on Nantucket, no small feat in a place where affordable housing is scarce and the cost of living high. The sisters are offered a lifeline by Elise’s college friend, an heiress named Sheba who has her own problems (such as getting rejected from a yacht club), which is how we see the stark contrast between the haves and the have nots.

Vermont: It Never Gets Old

Let's face it--Vermont is the best New England state--I feel somewhat chagrined to admist it, being of Maine roots and having recently driven from the bottom of the state to the top, avoiding the coast (which is both what Maine is known for and the attraction for the non-Mainiac to the state and not my thing, so take this with a grain of salt), Vermont has it beat. I was not a big fan until I met my future spouse and he took me there over four decades ago and I fell immediately and deeply in love with it. First there are the mountains, which are spectacular and everywhere. They interfere with it being much good for row crops, but the fields are ever green and so dairy cattle abound. They make for quaint scenery and also for excellent cheese. Artisanal cheese in Vermont has been a growth industry over the years I have been visiting. It started with excellent cheddar, which is always a winner with me, but now it is one of the best places to get a wide variety of high quality cheese that is locally made. Then there are the multitude of small towns that have good restaurants, a few breweries, a multitude of shops where people make things, and all in all, it is practically perfect. I hope to spend more extended time in state when I retire and have more time on my hands to fill with beauty.

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been a fan of Ruth Reichl for a very long time, and across her career changes. I have read a lot of her previous written work, which includes mostly memoirs and food-related writing, and so to me, this feels like a work of fiction that has a fair amount of autobiographical back structure to it. As a number of other reviewers have noted, the author shines when she is describing food, and there is an awful lot of that (in a very good way). Stella had a very problematic relationship with her mother--she was essentially ignored her entire life, and Stella was left to manage herself. When her mother dies in the early 1980's when Stella is in her early 30's, she receives a small inheritance that comes with strings attached--it will be a plane ticket to Paris and travelers checks. France has no hold on Stella until she falls in love with a dress. Through haute couture, Stella finds her inner beauty, along with a mentor and spirit guide in Jules as well as a guardian angel in a book store owner. Stella doesn't quite know herself, and she certainly doesn't know her creativity and talents, and as her time in France unfolds, she finds all that and more. It is a charming story with some whimsy, a lot of wonderful food, a bit of romance, and quite a lot of history from that time period in the City of Light.

Gallus Handcrafted Pasta, Waterbury, Vermont

What a treat! This new restaurant is in the location of a previous favorite--the Waterbury Hen of the Woods restaurant moved into a very modern building and left this charming (but small) site behind. I love this old mill, aside a stream (of course) with a dry staacked black slate foundation, and now it has new life with a handmade pasta restaurant run by the same chef! The menu is a pared down one, with about bread, about 5 appetizers, 6 pasta dishes, 2 mains, and one dessert. The drinks menu is similarly slimmed down, but wow, everything packs a punch. From our recent visit--and we will be returning--the favorites included: first, the eggplant parmesan, which was a lovely blend of fired eggplan, parmesan, and a bright tomato sauce--I could have had another order and still wanted more. The second for me was the meatballs in the spaghetti and meatballs. They were light as a feather and full of flavor, with the spaghetti being a great foil for them. All the food was delicious, and the few things our table did not try that night were ordered by fellow diners and looked equally tasty to what we ordered. And the swag they have is top notch to boot.

Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

Everything about this book is such a pleasant surprise. I finished it just days before it was long listed for the Booker Prize, and it is very fitting of that particular prize. I found it to be refreshingly new as well as the very best of story telling. The setting is the 12th Annual Daughters of America Cup, held in Bob’s Boxing Palace in Reno, Nevada: a two-day competition of fists and fury, with eight fighters in three knockout rounds. We get into the heads of all eight girls, and we do so first while they are fighting each other. The quarter finals consists of 4 pairs of opponents, the winner moving on to the next round of fighting. The narrative goes back and forth between each girl and also back and forth across their lives, both before and after this fight, and is passed easily from one to another through brief moments of connection--it is like a boxing match in the very best of ways, a graceful dance between the two boxers, and here between their stories. What’s most impressive is how, in a relatively short novel with so many central characters, the author manages to make each girl spark distinctively and sympathetically – even though this means that each tends towards a single overwhelming personality trait, that feature holds true for each girl, from her childhood to the match itself and why she is there, all the way into their future adult selves. It is a thing of beauty to behold.

The Quest to Quilt

I have been working on getting myself back into quilting after my father died, and this quilt, which is a pattern that is available free of charge, was one that I did with a class at my local crafting store, Home Ec Workshop. I so love the store, it is in a hundred year old house, with lots of quilt-friendly fabric and lovely yearns for sale, and a classroom in the back that is just fun to be in. I had taken one class there since his death, and unfortunately, I did not care for the pattern much. I did manage to make 2 throws, and I quilted them both before the class ended--so a very good start--but it did not stick, and so I needed yet another push from somewhere. Luckily I have a co-worker who quilts. She has been doing double duty as a fabulous person to work with AND an inspirational quilter. She was my spirit guide at my first QuiltCon last year, she introduced me to her Modern Quilting Guild--which was a huge boon, because they are almost entirely on line and so I joined them, a source of monthly inspiration as well as specific times to quilt together--I really couldn't ask for more. She lost her father the year before I lost mine, and she came out of it okay, so I should too. In any case, she is a great role model, and inch by inch, taking baby steps, I am working on getting my creative aura back.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson

I am not familiar with this author, and I cannot remember where I read about this book, but I am so glad that I did. This is a work of historical fiction set in the late 18th century that features a Maine mid-wife, Martha Ballard, who worked for 30 years delivering babies and providing a host of other medical services to her community. Of note, no woman who she was present at the birth lost her life--this is a remarkable achievement and speaks to a number of things about medical providers and their patients--skill comes in many guises and she was exceptional. She kept a diary for her entire career, which is how we know about her, because she has otherwise been lost to history. It's 1789, and in the rural Maine community of Hallowell, a local man turns up dead--frozen face up in the Kennebec River. Many who knew him aren't sad to find that he is no longer a threat in town. He has a history of raping women, including one of Mary's friends, and while no one is sorry to see him die, it does appear that he was murdered. There is a lot of rape in this book--Martha herself was raped as a young woman, and there are two rapes in present day story--was this common in colonial America? The interesting history here about women and the shocking difference in their autonomy compared to men led me to think that it probably was an issue. In addition to the shame that rape still engenders, even with some #MeToo action trying to change that, woman could not testify in court without a male relative in court with her--so how can you accuse someone of rape if you don't have a man to stand by you? Women were not taught to read and write routinely, so they didn't have the ability to leave a paper trail--Martha herself was taught by her husband, but it was not the norm. And finally, I never thought about it, but men in positions of power, who could decide who got land and who lost it, had a lot of influence that might have made it difficult to prosecute them for sexual violence.

Melba, Québec City, Québec

This was the best meal we had in Québec City. I did not know it at the time we went but it is a second restaurant of chef Guillaume St-Pierre (Battuto), who's apparently well known when it comes to fine dining, partnering with Alexandra Roy and Charles Provencher Proulx (Auberge Saint-Antoine, La Bonne Étoile) are in charge of the sweet and savoury menu, accompanied by two other equally dynamic cooks. The work of these talented individuals attests to their good taste in gastronomy, as Melba’s plates are all, at each stage of the meal, of an exquisite delicacy, remarkably elegant presentation, and backed up with memorable flavors. It is located in the slightly funky Saint-Sauveur district and the interior design is lovely and thoughtful.

This is on point with fresh interpretations of French cuisine with Quebecquois ingredients from nearby farms. The minute we walked in we were greeted and seated. After getting a drink the menu was explained in detail and we were advised how to order. Every dish was better than the first we even added to our order after seeing another patrons dish! The service is impeccable and the staff was so friendly. Highly recommend this spot.

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

I read a review that described this book as a tale of political and psychological confusion, and I think that is an excellent one sentence summary of what is both a memoir and a work of nonfiction. As told by the author, it all started when people started to confuse her, Naomi Klein, with Naomi Wolf. This became an increasingly upsetting situation as Wolf went from having political ideas that were similar to the author to a full fledged conspiracy theorist as the COVID pandemic progressed. Along with this came a lot of alone time for people across the globe and not everyone did well with that, the author included. The Klein/Wolf confusion is an entry point to consider wider forms of disorientation that afflict both the right and the left, and the left's loss of its hold on the language of political resistance, and how, in the process, that language has lost its grip on the world. The old story of how at the extreme's the left and the right look alarmingly similar, and how quarantining the globe accelerated a rush to either extreme. Liberals reassure each other that we know when to trust the elites (on vaccine safety or climate science, for example) and when not to (if corporate branding or billionaire-owned media are involved). But this same attitude of studied suspicion is at work among vaccine sceptics and online wellness communities, all of whom pride themselves on doing their “own research”. Both left and right have theories as to how money and power knit modern societies together--not exactly the same, but the author explores all of this in the light of Big Tech and how manipulation of people can become a manipulation of elections.

Cheese Made In Québec

Québec has hundreds of artisan cheese makers who produce small quantities of cheese using raw or pasteurized cow, sheep, or goat milk (or some combination) from local or regional farms. An artisanal cheese is made by hand, sometimes without modern technology in the traditional way but often combining modern equipment but with attention to the terroir, and with an emphasis on traditional cheese-making methods. The result is a diverse range of cheeses with complex flavors, textures, unique appearances, and aromas that set them apart from mass-produced cheeses. Cheese making has a long history in Québec. It was already well established in the time of New France. With the Conquest of 1760, cheese production became focussed on Cheddar, which gave rise to certain well-known products, such as Perron Cheddar in 1885. Cheese making has come a long way since then! Here are some examples of Quebec artisan cheeses: Grey Owl: A soft cheese with a bloomy rind and a slightly sweet taste La Sauvagine: A soft cheese with a washed rind and a creamy texture Alfred Le Fermier: A raw cow's milk cheese from Compton, Quebec with a supple texture and a smooth, washed rind. It has notes of blueberries, malt, bread, and hazelnuts, and won Gold and Bronze at the World Cheese Awards in 2017 You can learn more about Quebec's artisan producers and their cheeses at Fromages du Québec, which has an impressively organized and informative website. And if you get a chance to travel to Québec, bring back some cheese!