Edna Lewis, one of the original matriarchs of cooking with fresh, seasonal food, was only writing from the heart when she penned this cookbook thirty years ago. Her childhood on a farm in a Virginia community founded by freed slaves was the basis upon which she eventually built a career in espousing the virtues of eating high-quality ingredients in a seasonal way.

I love cookbooks that are readable, which cloak their recipes in context and make you feel like you are inheriting a story more than a bunch of measurements and times. Lewis’ writing, spare and heartfelt, offers memories of how the seasonal recipes she presents fit into the larger scheme of the community and cyclical rhythm upon which her young life beat out its time.

Its a beautiful book, too, in the recipes. Some are heirloom-like recipes, but the nature of the cooking is so that no recipe seems out of your capability. A few tasty ingredients make for surprisingly rich and satisfying meals. A good example was her suggestion on cooking scallions in a hit of butter, steaming them just in the moisture which clings to them from rinsing. Three or four minutes in foaming butter in a hot pan, and they were done, and were absolutely delicious! No salt or pepper needed. A perfect example of how this cookbook will have you reconsidering the way that you cook even the ingredients which you have in your home on a regular basis.

Inspirational reading at its best. Highly highly suggested read.

This novel is about as close as I have come to reading a romance novel. I wasn’t appalled by it, and I didn’t love it. Some observations:

1. There are alot of knowing glances lobbed around in this book. In the world I live in, most people are so myopic they have no idea that anyone else is even looking at them, let alone shooting them a gaze full of deep longing tinged with whispers of solitude and regret.

2. The scene really makes this novel. Big sky country vs. NYC, redemption vs. exasperation, salvation vs. death and decay. It’s in our national blood, all this romanticization, go-west-young-country type stuff, so it probably HAD to be a popular novel, at least as far as the US is concerned. That it was written by a British man is interesting, to say the least.

3. The sex scenes, I didn’t like. Way too much mucky, hazy-lens language trying to describe some pretty graphic sexual encounters. Why not just take it the extra mile? I bet he did… initially… then the publishers got ahold of him. Either that, or the uncensored version is floating around Europe and I’m stuck reading about someone touching someone’s “life” in a bed where humping has devolved into “laying forward.”

4. The metaphors in this novel kick you in the head like a horse. I suppose that’s the big metaphor/simile… this novel has subtlelty like a big, iron-clad horse hoof.

Despite all these things, I read the book and kind of liked it. In a summer reading, not really thinking too much about it kind of way.

Suggested for summer reading, otherwise skip it.

A beautifully written journal/memoir/contemplation of Sicilian culture, history and society from an American expat who married a Sicilian and settled in the Palermo province. The book explores this large island within the context of the cycle of seasons, and Simeti ties her modern knowledge and experience of Sicily in with the remains of the island’s varied history, remanants found both in stone ruins and in the complex relationship between the Sicilians and their land.

Simeti is a talented writer, who shifts easily from moments of didactic education about classical history to moments of personal insight and intimate experiences. There are some awkward moments where her confused identity as a cultural outsider/informed insider kind of hazes her narrative authority, but those moments also remind us that this is a personal book, one that won’t ignore the humanity of the narrator in the search for an unobtainably objective view (the book stands in remarkable contrast, on this point, to the excerpts of British Victorian accounts of Sicily which she includes at various points). Rather, the journal is an earthy, sensual exploration of the experience of Sicily, from a woman who seems to love and fear it all at the same time.

The book is well worth the time (and great for the summertime). A highly suggested read.

Not the finest nor the highest level of writing, but there is some good storytelling in this book. Overall it is a very sentimental (perhaps sometimes TOO sentimental) but approachable portrayal of the complexities of the relationships between mothers and daughters.

The mother in this book, Vivi, reminds me so much of my own mother that I find the book particularly touching, but any girl who has stopped to contemplate the awesome power of her relationship with her mother will find something to identify with here.

Suggested with reservations.

A few interesting suggestions in terms of how to handle the inevitable conflicts that arise in primary relationships. However the book seems, to me, to cover way too much ground in too shallow a manner to be worthwhile.

Of course, that may just be part and parcel of the manner of the advice: be considerate, be thoughtful, etc.; such admonitions are pretty common sense, and are applicable to most situations. How many times you can repeat them in one book without being repetitive is the big question.

The other thing that bothered me about this book is that Mr. Post is the icon of WASPiness. Flying to Maine to get lobster? Finding a soulmate in a joke about your wife’s water breaking in the BMW and being worried about your leather seat? Watching the Red Sox with bated breath? Ack.

This novel (almost a novella, as it’s pretty short) by A. A. Milne of Pooh the Bear fame was a great read, just perfect for summertime. A mix between a send-up and a loveletter to the traditional British detective novel, this book is a perfect read for those who have spent many an hour with mystery novels. Milne’s mystery, while not the most suspenseful, is written with a great light touch that carries you easily through the story and makes the novel most enjoyable. A suggested read.

Really an interesting work. For some reason I had always had it in my head, from hearing about this book in history classes over the years, that it was a nonfiction expose work on food sanitation.

Of course, the meatpacking aspect of the novel is really what got all of the attention in this book, but embedded in this fictional-based-on-reality novel is a very determined treatise, which plays on both emotion and reason in order to attempt a persuasive argument for the enactment of Socialist values in a corrupt Capitalist culture.

Following the main character, Jurgis, through the course of his arrival, devastation, corruption and conversion in the Packingtown district of Chicago was a very emotional experience. (Just when you think things can’t get any worse, there comes something ten times more horrible.) I think the drama of Jurgis’ story may be enough to turn some people off (the events seem quite over-the-top at times, with every imaginable horror happening to this one man), as it feels a little propogandist at times. Of course, as I mention above, this is a treatise, and Sinclair makes full use of the story to drive his political points home.

Ultimately, the story is really one about humanity as much as about politics, and Sinclair’s journalistic style of writing is clear, clean and often quite evocative. I’ve read many many books, but this was one of the first books that ever made me cry (an achingly tender scene around Christmas involving a cheap Valentine card).

If you open yourself up to the story, it can be a very moving experience, since at some level, there is much truth to the story of daily life that Sinclair paints, and the struggles of recent immigrants to survive and thrive in an alien environment (which often fails to even recognize their humanity) were/are very real. It’s an interesting perspective on the history of our country, as well as a very good story.

A suggested read.

After all the Burger King tie-in promotion and all the comic-book, fight-scene, wet t-shirt promotional blitz, I was determined NOT to see this movie.

I finally rented it at the behest of someone who understood my concerns, but assured me that this was actually a GOOD movie. They were right! It wasn’t the piece of enhanced-graphics fluff that I feared it would be. It was smart, and funny, and a good watch.

I didn’t like this movie nearly as much as I wanted to.

Firstly, it was hard for me to get past the television series. Sad, perhaps, but true. I mean, I grew up with MASH reruns on television every day around 4 PM. I had no idea until recently that the television series came from a movie which came from a book. Everywhere I looked in the movie I expected to see Alan Alda’s nose. It was nowhere to be found. It was kind of distracting, in a weird way.

Secondly, the whole woman-sexism thing bothered me. Not a whole lot, but about as much as it bothers me in many comedies/horror movies. Of course, it was obvious in the movie that everyone was sexualizing everyone in that environment, but then it was still just the men who got to vocalize, and, of course, they terrorize the one woman who has any power or standing in the camp at all.

The movie was funny, and I enjoyed the tempo of the conversations, how the dialogue was very textured, from the outset. And of course the writing was often very witty and even profound in its humor. It was also a very interesting movie to watch… the shots, the editing. But I just didn’t like it as much as I wanted to, or, rather, was hoping to.

Let yourself over to the humor, and you shall be free.