I’m a huge fan of short stories, which gave this book a head start with me. It’s a collection of short stories, involving ethnically Indian families living in Massachusetts. Unfortunately for Rishi Reddi this is already a well-explored genre (think Jhumpa Lahiri), and I found many of the stories a little lacking; a bit generic, really.

I’m really not sure what to make of this book. I found the first couple of chapters a bit trite and stilted, but it has improved as it’s gone along, although it occasionally slips into the truly bizarre, and I’m finding the narrators digressions from the story a little long-winded (it’s a slim book, and perhaps they felt they needed to make it a longer?) and unnecessary. But perhaps it will all tie into the plot in the end?

Christina organized a screening of Napoleon Dynamite this evening, and I went along. I’d never seen Napoleon Dynamite before – mainly because I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see it – but felt that I was out of the loop (it seems like everyone I know – admittedly a bunch of nerds – has seen it). I spent a childhood being out of the loop with TV and movies, it’s not necessarily something that I want to continue into my adulthood!

To my surprise, I really enjoyed it – something about the triumph of the unpopular, I think. I mean, these are my people (it’s not a co-incidence that I received an email today regarding a casting call for Beauty and the Geek. And they weren’t looking for Beauties. If I’m being honest, they weren’t looking for women at all.)

I’ve owned Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven for a while now – it was a gift from Gemma, who, in turn, had received a copy from her mother. I’m generally a fan of the book, although I suspect Mollie (am I the only person who addresses cook book authors by first name while their in the kitchen?) has trouble imagining what it would be like to cook in a less-than-well-equipped kitchen. In my early apartment days in Boston, when I really didn’t own much in the way of cooking supplies, and I’d get frustrated with some of the instructions. Mollie seemed to think I had multiple mixing bowls (in a range of sizes), multiple cutting boards, elegant serving platters…

I haven’t loved everything that I’ve made from this book, and I found some of it overly fussy, but a lot of it is excellent, and some of the recipes have become standbys for me: the cozy orzo, the pasta with sundried tomatoes and leeks, the fruit salsa, ... It has an excellent index, too. If you’ve got some kind of seasonal ingredient in mind, it’s easy to find a recipe that uses it. It’s also probably the first purely vegetarian cookbook I’ve owned and loved; in that sense it’s revolutionized how I cook for myself.

Up to page 208.

I checked out Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave from the library recently. I have to tell you, the book’s a winner. I don’t want to knit everything in the book, but there are probably only five patterns that I’m really not excited about. I may even have to buy it for myself!

Up to CD #3/16.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Anne Tyler; I find her books a bit hit and miss. I’m enjoying this one so far, though. Based on what I’ve heard so far, and the back cover blurb, the novel’s about what it means to “belong” in a country, even when you’ve lived in it for a long time. Particularly pertinent for me, having lived in the US for almost 7 years (although not continuously; I’ve been in Boston for 5 years now). For the most part I feel like this is my home; in many ways I’m more comfortable here than in Australia (and just the other day, someone mentioned that they just don’t think of me as an international student, presumably because English is my first language), but I’m also regularly reminded that this isn’t the place I grew up. It’s mainly small frustrations: having strangers understand what I’m trying to communicate, remembering to use American-English vocabulary (I’ve no idea what will happen to me if I ever go back to Australia on a permanent basis, and there’s a whole lot of words that I’ve forgotten which is the Australian-English version, and which is the American-English), having a good intuition of how people think, tentatively checking if things that are acceptable in Australia are acceptable here. Of course, this is what makes the world interesting, and Boston is international enough that I’m not reallythat much of a novelty.

I worked late (for me) last night, and today found myself alternating between sleeping, reading The New Yorker, and listening to The Lay of the Land while working on a cardigan for my newest cousin, who will be arriving early in the new year (more on this later). We’re well and truly out of summer and into autumn in Boston, and much of today was rainy, so this wasn’t an entirely terrible way to spend a day.
This evening, I made a bag of microwave popcorn, hooked up my computer to the TV, and watched Idlewild (which I picked up from the library on my way to work yesterday). While the plot was nothing special, and full of clichés, I really enjoyed this movie; more for its singing and dancing than for anything else. It was fun, and an ideal way to end a lazy Saturday.

I’m a scientist who loves food, so it made sense for me to snap up Hervé This’s Molecular Gastronomy when I saw it on the remainders table at my favorite bookstore. A little bit of background: I’m not a food scientist, but the general area of science that I work in is applicable to food science, and I’ll occasionally go to food science talks, which I generally understand (the most recent one I went to was about the rheology, or response to applied stresses and strains, of bread dough). A lot of the scientific principles weren’t new to me, although their application was. The books is really a series of “vignettes”, each two to three pages long where This examines a certain phenomena and explains some of the science behind it, and then suggests future applications or research areas. The vignettes at the end of the book explore where new understanding of food science might lead scientists.
In general, I was disappointed by Molecular Gastronomy. It’s not that I didn’t learn anything – I did – but I thought it was a very poor book for the general public. There are no illustrations in the book, when often a simple diagram would present an idea clearly and concisely. The science terms used are often with explanation, and often aren’t even common in the scientific literature (I’ve never heard of “tensioactive” molecules before, and I use surfactants – which, so far as I can tell, are tensioactive molecules – on a daily basis). The language is often dense and technical. I imagine it would be difficult for a lay person to follow (at times I found it difficult to follow). It may be the fault of the translator (the book was originally written in French), who, so far as I can tell, isn’t a scientist, and may have been working in the dark. Regardless, I’m sure they could have had the book read by some English speaking lay people before they published. I was most disappointed with this book, because it offers a real opportunity to introduce people to my field of science in a very applied and relevant way, and it seems like it missed it’s mark. I’m planning on reading McGee’s On Food and Cooking in the future. I hope it does a better job.