In These Hills: July 2010

Book Week: Food Lit

>> Friday, July 30, 2010 – Books, cooking

My Mother had A Homemade Life sitting on her coffee table when I went for a visit this week. To be honest, I had tried to read this book last year and didn't like it. This time around I enjoyed it, particularly the recipes. I like how she describes cooking various dishes--rarely with recipes--but then writes them down with actual measurements. I would like to cook more the way she does by throwing a bit of this and that into a pan. She always seemed to have a bit of really good cheese and fresh tomatoes ready to go.

I have liked food memoirs and food lit since I first discovered Laurie Colwin just after college. Her book Home Cooking was my first such book. I then went on to read all her columns in Gourmet.

Garlic and Sapphires is the very funny account of Ruth Reichl as she goes undercover in NYC as a food critic. I loved this inside look at the New York restaurant world.

In The School of Essential Ingredients a group of individuals gathers each Monday night for cooking class. The students are transformed by the dishes they create each week as is Lillian the teacher and master chef.

In Bread Alone, Wyn, estranged from her husband, builds a new life in a bakery where she builds on the skills she had gained while apprenticed to a bread baker in France. Breadmaking tips are sprinkled throughout.

Five Quarters of the Orange, by the same author as Chocolat, takes place during and after occupied France and is a scrapbook of recipes and memories. It is a slow, delicious read.

Heat brought me right into a New York restaurant kitchen. The author signs on as an unpaid servant to one of New York's big chefs in an effort to understand more about the restaurant business. I liked the behind the scenes aspect of this book and also enjoyed this...um....swashbuckling male author. He is very funny.

Probably my all-time favorite foodie book is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle . I think I can safely say that Barbara Kingsolver changed our family's ways. (I'm also a devotee of Michael Pollan. His bit of advice not to eat anything your grandmother couldn't have made is fab.)

The Cookbook Collector now awaits me. Can't wait!

That was a fun journey down memory lane. I hadn't realized how much food lit I had actually read. It makes me want to scour the farmer's market tomorrow for some really yummy cheese, a baguette or two, and some fresh garlic!

My thanks to all of you who commented yesterday on read aloud books. I have had fun going through Amazon and looking at your recommendations. Have I missed any really great food lit?

Book Week: Finding a Summer Read Aloud

>> Wednesday, July 28, 2010 – Books, Summer

I am on the hunt for a good read aloud for vacation. We love to sit about and work on puzzles while someone reads. Some of the books I'm considering are:

I will admit that we tried Swallow and Amazons a few years ago and it did not go over well. Time to try again! Past successful read alouds have included: Little Women, Little Men, Jack and Jill, Alice in Wonderland, The Little Princess, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and The Burgess Bird Book. I tend to go for the classics when reading to the girls as I know they won't necessarily choose them on their own.

I chose these because they all take place by the sea--the house we have rented for our vacation is an old fisherman's cape located on an isolated spit of water in Nova Scotia.

I am always on the hunt for good books to suggest to Lou. She doesn't dive into books as readily as her sister. Any title suggestions would be appreciated. She is at a tricky age--she wants more sophisticated material, but the YA books are too mature for her. The last time I asked for suggestions was two years ago when she was nine. Wow did we gain a lot of good ideas and many were perfect for a 9 year old. All those recommendations are at the top of the blog. Can't wait to see what some of you with older children suggest.

Book Week: My Summer Reads

>> Monday, July 26, 2010 – Books

This is book week for me! Friday and Saturday bring "Bookstock" to our community with book sales, poetry readings, author signings, etc. I'm also collecting books for vacation. So, today's post is about some books I've read this summer, books I'm hoping to read, and asks for recommendations from you. Later this week--what the girls are reading, read aloud suggestions from you, and who knows what else....

Right now I'm reading My Name is Memory about a young man and woman who keep encountering each other's souls through time. I haven't finished it, but it is beautiful.

This weekend I read A Vintage Affair which is about a woman in London who leaves her job at Sotheby's to open her own vintage fashion shop. The women she meets and the dresses she buys have stories to tell. It was a light weekend read and very fun.

The Kitchen House tells the story of a white indentured servant living on a plantation in Virginia. Lucinda has to negotiate a complicated world of race, class, and gender. A great read.

My Name is Mary Sutter is all about a young midwife who wishes to become a surgeon. Unable to get anybody to train her, she heads off to Washington to work in a Civil War hospital. I enjoyed this book, however, the descriptions of war wounds and 19th century medicine were a bit gruesome!

Soon....we are headed off for a week of rest and relaxation in a little cottage by the sea in Nova Scotia. I'm trying to gather a good pile of books. Here are a couple that are on my list:

I'll read anything by or about Louisa May Alcott. This one takes place in NH, not far from where I live.

I heard about this tragic story on NPR.

I seem to be reading a lot of books about slavery, race, and gender these days. This one takes place in Haiti and New Orleans.

I am looking forward to this story as I was just on Elizabeth Street in NYC last week! About a midwife who comes to NYC.

I really hope these books are available at the library by the time I am ready to go. Do you have any recommendations for a good summer vacation read? I've never read any Wendell Berry novels. Any recommendations out there?

Reconnecting

>> Friday, July 23, 2010 – cooking, Summer

This past weekend, after all the travel, we needed to reconnect....

with the countryside

with each other

with good, local food

with the trusting ways of our rural neighborhood

We picked 20 pounds of blueberries, most of which I have frozen for the winter. My goal this summer is to pick as much local fruit as I can for the coming winter.

Travelogue: Nous avons visité Helen à Québec

>> Thursday, July 22, 2010 – Summer

Soon after I returned from the South, we journeyed up to Quebec City to see Helen perform with her group, Village Harmony. She was on a three-week singing tour which took her across Canada from Toronto to Quebec. Here she is on the far right at a concert in Quebec City. Their conductor is seated on the right, clogging. Note--this is actually a video which takes a few minutes to load.

Nels, Lou, and I also had fun exploring the city. Here we met a luthier who made beautiful violins covered in Irish carvings. Lou got to try her hand at fiddling on it. She wanted this violin very badly!

We also hiked the ramparts, met these guards at the Citadelle, and explored other nooks and crannies of this wonderful city. We can't wait to go back.

Here is Helen in her Village Harmony t-shirt at an outdoor concert. It was a very special three weeks. Our girl really grew up!

Travelogue: New York City up close and personal

>> Wednesday, July 21, 2010 – History, Summer

Last week Lou joined me on a trip to New York City where we joined a group of teachers to study immigration.

We came a half day early and went to the Pl...aw....zaa....to see Eloise....

....and the Metropolitan to see the Sphinx and other highlights from 5th grade Egypt lessons
(ok...we also went to Saks, Tiffany, and other fancy shmanzy spots)

The next day we got up early with all the teachers and went to the Statue of Liberty

and on to Ellis Island. Lou wasn't too excited about Ellis Island until we found that her great-great grandfather had migrated through from Sweden. That was pretty exciting!

We were able to use a research station to discover that he had come over on this ship:

We finished up a very big day with a workshop on Chinese immigration. It turned out to be the favorite for everybody. Lou got to research a Chinese family and teach about it to all the teachers!

On our final morning we had an All-of-a-Kind Family morning. We went to the Tenement Museum and learned all about what it was like to live on the Lower East Side of New York.

We looked at incredible "before" photographs of spots where the family might have lived.....

.....and took our own "after shots" from the exact same spot. History can be fun!

We came home exhausted, but we learned a lot. Lou had a lot of fun on her first big city experience.

Travelogue: Civil Rights Tour

>> Tuesday, July 20, 2010 – History

This is the first travelogue for a summer that has been just filled with travel. During the last week of June I took a group of teachers on a Civil Rights tour of the South.

This is Laura Plantation, just north of New Orleans. It was a Creole sugar plantation filled with stories from its owner who wrote a fascinating memoir of life on the plantation.

One of the interesting things about Laura Plantation is that some of the original slave cabins still exist. They were lived in until the 1970s. There were THREE MILES of such cabins stretching back behind the main house. This is also where the first Brer Rabbit stories were recorded.

We put on some Zydeco tunes, bought some boiled peanuts on the side of the road, and drove up to Monroeville, Alabama, home of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Here is the courthouse. We met some residents who were living in town when the book was published. It was interesting to talk with them and hear how the town responded to the book.

We switched our tunes over to O Brother, Where Art Thou and finished our drive in Birmingham, AL.
There we began a five day intense study of the Civil Rights Movement. We met Fred Gray (Rosa Parks' & MLK's lawyer), Dorothy Cotton (MLK's education coordinator), and numerous foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. We walked over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, retracing the Voting Rights March.

We had many moving moments throughout the trip, including hearing one of the first freedom choirs perform songs from the movement and putting our hands in the soothing waters of the Maya Lin memorial.

We left just overwhelmed with admiration at the strength and dedication to justice of these people who were so significant in changing the world.

The Symphony

>> Tuesday, July 6, 2010 – Summer

I arrived home from my big Civil Rights field study just in time to attend the Vermont Symphony with Nels and Lou. It was Lou's first symphony experience and a grand way to really launch summer.

It was a hot, steamy evening but the crowd still filled the field with elaborate picnics and very elaborate hats. I wish I had started taking pictures earlier, but just caught the back of this hat filled with peonies and ribbons.

The men also had fun hats.
Next year I'm going to do a hat photo shoot!

The crowd settled as the conductor came on stage. It was a fun program called "The Birds and the Bees" filled with music from The Sting, Flight of the Bumblebee, and Overture to The Wasps. Lou really loved the music.

We brought a fun picnic--fried chicken, beet salad, cold green beans, cheeses, wine & spritzers.

We saved the best for intermission --elaborate pastries and chilled moscato wine

Lou wasn't prepared for the 1812 Overture --it was her first time hearing it and she loved it. But then....the big surprise....as the Overture ended and the Sousa marches began, came glorious fireworks. Lou has declared that the only way to really enjoy fireworks is when they are accompanied by a symphony orchestra!