The Slaw and the Slow Cooked

My husband and his colleague Edited this book that is a collection of "stories" about BBQ in the Mid-South. They worked on it for a number of years. Finally last December we received our final copies in the mail. It was a really exciting moment when I got to see my best friend realize one of his dreams.

If you are interested in reading about various BBQ traditions and how big a part they play in the lives of folks in the Mid-South I think you'll find this book a great read. It's available directly from the publisher which is Vanderbilt press and is currently featured on the front page.

http://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/

Enjoy!

The Road

This past week I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. If you're looking for an intense emotional ride this story will provide it. Well, at least it did for me. It is a post apocalytip tale of a father and son on a journey to find other survivors who are not savages or "bad guys". They take care of each other and count on each other almost as equally. The geographic setting is not completely clear but going by the description I would guess it's somewhere in the eastern us, possibly including Appalachia, going on the plant life described (ginseng, rhododendrons, morels) as well as waterfalls near mountain gaps and then ending on the coast.

While reading this story it was difficult for me not to imagine my husband and son as the characters making even more heartbreaking. I wonder if folks who do not have children are affected the same way. When asked about the ending, I found that I was both sad and hopeful at the same time.

The writing style was at times distracting and yet it was exactly perfect for the point of view.

I would reccomend this book and now I am looking to watch the film. Interestingly, the film version has actress Molly Parker in it who just finished up on the set of the Playroom, the film my son is currently working on.

I am going to try and post book reviews more regularly so stay tuned to see what my opinions are.

Kimchi = yum

After many years of admiring Sandor Katz, I finally got his fantastic book Wild Fermentation.
If you like to ferment foods and you do not have this book, you are completely missing out. It is well worth the price and will provide really good information as well as instruction. If you want to see more of what Sandor is up to you can check out his website
http://www.wildfermentation.com/

Over the past decade I have been present at many of his fermentation workshops. There have been times when I have made sauerkraut and pickles (although I haven't had the best luck with pickles) as well as kombucha, and I love to eat good fermented foods. For years now I've talked about adding fermenting into my life in a more regular and permanent way. However, life moves along swiftly sometimes and intentions get stuck in brambles on the banks.

Finally last week I felt like it was time to really get going. So I pulled the cabbage and carrots out of the fridge, the garlic and ginger from the shelf, and the wakame and dried peppers (which is all I had) from the cabinet and set to work following in the wise words of Sandor Ellix Katz.

The vegetables soaking in brine.

onion being grated for the spice paste

grated ginger for the spice paste

viola! the finished product packed tight into this wonderful lidded jar we received many years ago from some old friends.

We loved the finished product. It wasn't too spicy, but had a little kick and that was just right for us. In fact we like dit so much that it is now gone and a new batch is in the works. I couldn't believe how easy it was to produce this delicious treat that will surely become a staple of our diet.

side note*** If you like to ferment foods and have to grate things like onions and ginger a lot for pastes, I would highly recommend investing in a Japanese ginger grater. They are very affordable and they do a great job of completely breaking down whatever your grating.

Botany of Desire

A little review of my most recent intellectual read.

For those of you with an interest in plants and people and a curiousity is their relationship this book is one that will hold your attention. Author Michael Pollan takes four plants that have influenced people in differing ways and explores the way that the four main human desires have affected those plants over time. Apples:Sweetness, Tulips: Beauty, Marijuana:Intoxication, Potatoes:Power.

Each plant/desire is given a full chapter and I think he does a brilliant job showing the connection between each. Plus it is packed full of interesting historical facts.

I highly recommend it to all.

Also for those of you who like to have a visual, PBS will be airing a special next month called, "Botany of Desire" based on this book. I think the airing date is either the 18th or 28th.

Twilight (the saga)

I thought I would take a minute or two just share my thoughts about this particular book saga.

The truth is, when I first heard about the movie and the books I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be interested in it at all. Considering with the fact that my main vampire interest days seemed to have peaked somewhere about 1995 or so with the onslaught of the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles. However, I like to watch movies and this one intrigued me, just because. When J- was out of town I got it from Netflix (I knew he would not want to watch it, never really having gone through any sort of vamp stage). After my little one was settled into bed for the night and I was ready to just relax I put it on to give it a try. Truthfully I had not followed all the hype and had no idea how good or bad it was proclaimed in the media, I simply knew it was in the media.

I really enjoyed the movie. Well it was more the actual story I loved. I'm a romantic at heart and if truth be told I like happy endings that are somewhat sappy and probably not that realistic. However they make me smile and I do love that warm fuzzy feeling inside.

So, since I like, ok well I'll just say it, loved it, I thought I might like to read the books too. So I went on the hunt to find the series to borrow. In the library here there was llike a two month waiting list. I wasn't committed enough to buy them. Finally a friend helped me connect with a set to borrow.

Let me tell you that for me these books were like crack. I could not put them down. I think it was just becasue I allowed myself to both sympathize and empathize with the main themes of deep love, loss and hurt, growth and change, rebirth into our next stage of life. I read the books twice in less than a week. The first time I devoured them reading so quickly and so caught up that at the end I was so sad for them to be done. So I read them again at a slower rate, which for me is still fairly quick.

Now I won't go so far as to these books are a Literary Masterpiece. They are simple for an adult to read being geared to a teenage audience and all. However, I would recommend them to others that simply just an't get enough of a good love story with a lot of twists and turns.

So, that's my two cents. Take it or leave it.