Friends gave me Hungry Planet for my birthday nearly two months ago, and I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and read it. It’s a fantastic book, quite like anything else I’ve ever read: part coffee table book, part recipe book, part commentary on the differences (and similarities) that exist between the developed and the developing world.

The basic idea of the book is this: Photographer Peter Menzel and his partner Faith D’Alusio travel to a variety of countries, all over the world, and document what people eat. Each family they visit is photographed sitting with a week’s worth of food, and the family is interviewed; the reader gets a sense of how food fits into the family’s life and culture.

I’m not sure I’ll make any recipes in the book, but the family photos alone are eye-opening. It’s sobering to compare the weekly food consumed by a family in a first world country with that of a family living in a refugee camp.

This evening, I settled in with Season 2 of The (American) Office. I’ve seen all of the British version, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but it took me a while to warm to the American version. The first few episodes follow the British series very closely, and it was painful to watch. Then, the American version branched out in it’s own direction, and it got considerably better. It’s very different from the British series, but funny in it’s own way.

A series of short stories set in Brazil, all with an element of the supernatural.

This account of one family’s attempt to eat locally has changed the way I buy and cook food.

A beautifully illustrated graphic novel that captures the immigrant’s experience.

The most recent issue of my undergraduate alumni magazine featured an article on Shaun Tan, a West Australian artist. I loved the whimsical illustrations the article featured, and decided to see if my library had any of his books – good news: they do. Shaun describes his books as follows:

They are best described as ‘picture books for older readers’ rather than young children, as they deal with relatively complex visual styles and themes, including colonial imperialism, social apathy, the nature of memory and depression.

I’ve just finished “reading” The Red Tree, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a book about depression – very few (but very effective) words, lush, detailed illustrations, and a note of hopefulness at the very end. I’m not sure I’ve read such a concise and accurate description of depression before. Needless to say, I have every intention of looking at more of Shaun Tan’s books – The Arrival will be next.

up to disc 4

So far as I can tell, this is the same book as “Romantic Style”.

As part of my yearly physical I had my cholesterol tested towards the end of last year. The news was not good. My LDL level – which has always been on the high side, although somewhat compensated by a high HDL level – had become dangerously high. It’s time to do something serious about it!
While I was in Australia, I picked up a copy of the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet – I’d looked over my mother’s copies (almost everyone in Australia owns a copy of this book – it was a phenomenon when it first came out) and decided that at the very least it was a good resource to have on hand. It’s not specifically a cholesterol lowering diet – although research shows that women on this diet have generally experienced lower cholesterol – but it illustrated to me that I really hadn’t been thinking about my food intake at all. As it turns out, the CSIRO diet probably isn’t for me, but it has plenty of generally useful guidlines, and much of the diet and supporting material for it is published online. For me, it has been the first step towards really being aware of what I’m eating and the impact it has on my health.

I learned of Rosa Passos in the New Yorker, and was delighted when my friend, Chris, lent me a couple of her CDs (Rosa and Entre Amigos). Her music has a lovely ethereal sound to it, and I’ve been using it as music to wake up to. It’s a lovely way to ease yourself into the day – much better than the news on the radio or a beeping alarm clock, but probably less immediately effective.