This Challenge has now ended.

This Challenge has now ended. Sadly I was not able to finish my own challenge. Too much homework from college I think. That and also the fact that I could never find any interesting book about food to read. The coffee book I was planning to read, turned out to be not so interesting. Oh well.

Review: Julie and Julia

Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen
by Julie Powell

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Pub. Date: September 2006
ISBN-13: 9780316013260
Pages: 320

Julie and Julia is a product of an almost-thirty government drone worker who decided to find her way in life by cooking every dish in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and simultaneously blogging about it. Her blog, which tracked her successes and failures, was a hit in the emerging blogosphere and Julie was subsequently featured in various newspapers, magazines, and new shows that culminated with this book.

This book is an interesting combination of Julie's quest, her marriage, her friendships, and her fictionalized take on Julia Child. It's Julie's honest voice that makes the story work. It is her ability to admit her faults with grace (and sometimes without) and her humor that drives the narrative of the book. Boiled down, it's a simple story of a woman trying to make sense of her life by doing something a little nuts (and a little ballsy--I put up boiling calf hooves as evidence).

I enjoyed her imaginings of Julia and Paul's relationship. That love story pairs nicely with Julia and Eric's more modern marriage. What didn't work was when the narrative strayed to Julie's friends. I'm sure they are all amazing people, and some characterization is necessary as they do feature in the story, but I really don't need the nitty gritty details of her girlfriends sex lives. I just really don't. Knowing that they are good friends is enough to understand the sacrifice they make in the name of friendship when they eat Julie's aspic creations.

Overall, its a quick and enjoyable read. It makes me want to get up and do something crazy--like cook all of Rachel Ray's 30-minute meals (not really, but I'm trying). It also makes me want a husband like Eric. I give it a 4 out of 5.

2 Books to Complete the Challenge

I am squeezing in two short book reviews to complete the Books About Food reading challenge today. Interestingly, both books are centered around green beverages: green tea and absinthe. The first book, "Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto", by Victoria Abbott Riccardi (NY: Broadway Books, 2003), recounts the author's year spent in Kyoto, Japan, learning about the art of kaiseki. Kaiseki is the traditional and highly ritualized series of foods to accompany green tea ceremonies and involves a series of small dishes of exquisitely prepared and garnished foods.

Riccardi lands in Kyoto without much knowledge of Japanese culture or language, but is fortunate to have some friends of friends to stay with until she finds other lodging, enrolls in language classes and snags a coveted spot in a prestigious tea kaiseki school where there is an American ex-pat to help her navigate the new culinary and language challenges she faces.

The kaiseki banquets she studies sound exquisite; they evolved from Buddhist monastery traditions into highly formal social dining banquets in which tastings of thick and thin whipped green tea are interspersed with samples of the freshest, seasonal dishes, exquisitely garnished. She also provides interesting glimpses of Japanese home cooking and ordinary restaurant fare, and includes many recipes easily adapted to Western kitchens.

Though this book is but a glimpse into a highly complex Japanese culinary tradition, it was a mouthwatering introduction and I will be referring back to it when attempting my own forays into Japanese cooking.



The concluding book for this Books About Food reading challenge is actually about a distilled spirit, and one which not only does not provide any nourishment butwas historically considered quite deadly in large doses. The spirit in question is Absinthe, that green spirit made from wormwood and the favorite tipple of many an artist, writer and dreamer in 19th century Europe, including Toulouse-Lautrec, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.

The fascinating history of this often-outlawed beverage is fleshed out in "Absinthe: Sip of Seduction: A Contemporary Guide", by Betina J. Wittels and Robert Hermesch (Golden, CO: Speck Press, 2008). This revised edition is an entertaining look at the rituals of drinking this bitter spirit, which involve diluting it with water and straining it through an absinthe spoon and sugar cube to produce an opalescent, cloudy cocktail. Absinthe was perhaps the most vilified alcoholic beverage during the temperance movement that swept the West over the last century, associated as it was with the excesses of the bohemian lifestyle, but it has since become legal to imbibe in the United States and Europe again.

The book contains a wealth of illustrations of Art Nouveau posters, postcards, absinthe drinking paraphrenalia and photographs of Absinthe fans from Aleister Crowley to Johnny Depp, so this makes for an entertaining foray into the lore and truths about this infamous beverage.

This concludes my reading for this short but sweet Books About Food Reading Challenge. In addition to the two books reviewed succinctly above, I also enjoyed reading:

The Language of Baklava: A Memoir, by Diana Abu-Jaber

A Bowl of Red:The Classic Natural History of Chili Con Carne with Other Delectable Dishes of the Southwest, with Recipes and a Guide to Paper Napkin Restaurants by Frank X. Tolbert

Stealing Buddha's Dinner, by Bich Minh Nguyen

My original list of Books About Food was changed to suit my mood, but all were enjoyable and recommended reading. Now I am primed to read some more science and classics books. Off to the couch!

Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date: August 2007
ISBN-13: 9780143038580
Pages: 464pp

I started this book back in October of 2008 and I never truly finished it, I gave up in the home stretch. I just knew if I didn't put it down for good, I'd never finish this challenge. It's not that the book was bad, in fact it was really enlightening. I've even changed a lot of the things I eat because of this book. I'm eating much more organic food, albeit industrial organic, and trying to cut back on my intake of reconstituted petroleum products. Nothing grosses me out more than thinking about eating oil.

This book actually went along very nicely with my previous food book on Twinkies. It complemented the discussion on how our food is actually made and processed. This book has a clear bias against industrialized food process, and although I'm not going to go out and fact-check, I'm reasonably certain Pollan has it right. Much of this information gelled with what I read in Fast Food Nation. And despite how it grosses me out, its better to know, then I can start eating actual food instead of processed nonsense. Organic has stopped meaning "yuppie" started meaning "smart".

The Omnivore's Dilemma is split into four parts that delve into the economics of various times of meals: fast food, organic, hunted, and gathered. The most interesting parts are the fast food/industrial and the organic sections. Learning about how animals are processed for food is really enlightening, whether you are an animal activist or not. I personally don't have any moral dilemmas killing animals for food, they are so delicious, and I'm glad that I don't have to do it for myself. But, I also think the way we currently run industrial feedlots, etc., is not only inhumane, but terribly disgusting and inefficient. The way in which the animals are forced to wallow in their own feces is just unspeakable, especially when you consider that you'll be eating that animal. Would you eat from a jar of peanut butter than was sitting in a pile of dog poop? (That analogy isn't the greatest, but it think about it: Could you ever be certain that in cleaning the jar and then eating from it that you didn't miss any disease-ridden microbes? No you can't, just like you can't be certain that animals wallowing in their own feces don't spread disease throughout the factory's supply as they are being cleaned and processed.)

Then the part that discusses industrial organic against local organic and grass-fed is even more helpful. It made me long for the day that I can afford to purchase meat and produce from a self-sustaining grass-fed farm. It's not economically viable for most people (nor is it geographically viable) so industrial organic is your best bet. At least you know that you're consuming foods without pesticides and petroleum additives.

The last part of the book bored me so much I couldn't finish it. It just doesn't have the same attention-holding power because I know that there is no chance I'll be hunting or gathering anything ever.

I gave this book 3 out of 5, mainly because I had such a hard time finishing it. But it is definitely a must read for those interested in food processing or organic foods.

Food for Free

Food for Free by Richard Mabey

Synopsis from Amazon.co.uk:
'Food for Free by Richard Mabey was first published in 1972, since then it has been reprinted 11 times. An all-colour, revised version produced in 1989 has sold over 30,000 copies in the trade. A guide to over 300 types of food that can be gathered in the wild in Britain, Food for Free explores the history and folklore of the foods as well as explaining how we identify them and the best ways to cook and eat them...(it) is designed to inspire us to take more notice of what is around us, how we can make use of it and how we can conserve it for future generations.'

This is a fascinating book.
Who knew that there were so many food in the wild, just free for the picking or gathering.
Some of them you will know - like wild berries, mushrooms and nuts.
But others plants, flowers and even sea weeds are eye opening.
The history of these foods is explored, and then there is a season by season guide to collecting and preparing these foods.

Although I'm not sure I'd try all the plants etc. in the book, It has certainly encouraged me to collect some of the more unusual fruits such as rowan berries to make jelly, and rosehips to make syrup.
I'm also going to try out dandelion leaves and wild garlic leaves in salads, as well as making sure I go nut gathering in the autumn.
I'm not sure about the seaweed though!!!

Great, interesting book. One I'm going to buy.

This completes this challenge for me.
The books I read for this challenge were:
1. Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking 17/2/09
2. The Coffee House 8/1/09
3. The Book Of Tea 10/11/08
4.Foods for free by Richard Mabey 7/2/09
5. Her Fork in the Road 27/1/09

Loved this challenge - many thanks for hosting ;0)

American Fried

American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater

Calvin Trillin

HarperCollins, 1974

All of us are eaters. Calvin Trillin claims to be a happy eater. I think he's more than that. Based on this book, I'd say he is an Eater-Extraordinaire. Whether he is on the road, in a neighborhood in his home city of New York or his old hometown of Kansas City, he finds and know the best food around.

His tastes in eating are very American, which means he loves all sorts of cuisine. And, he is tenacious in finding it. Here are some of the things he describes: a search for the perfect Cincinnati chili, a crawfish eating contest in Louisiana, his Sunday stroll for bagels, cream cheese and salmon, and his search for authentic hickory-smoked barbeque in unknown towns.

Although I know that his writing is meant to be humorous (and it is very funny), it seems more like a report of what seriously happened. For instance, Trillin describes a trip he and his friend Fats Goldberg made to their hometown of Kansas City. They spent most of the airplane ride talking about special barbeques and hamburger places that by the time they got off the plane they were very hungry. So, here is what they said:

"Mario's!" Fats said. "What Mario's? When I come into town, I go to Winstead's from the airport."

"My grandfather is waiting. Fats," I said, "He's eighty-eight years old. My sister will scream at me if we're late."

"We could go by the North Kansas City Winstead's branch from here, get a couple to go, and eat them on the way to whatisname's," Fats said. He looked desperate. I realized he had been looking forward to a Winstead's hamburger since his last trip to Kansas City five or six months before -- five or six months he had endured without eating anything worth talking about.

That is how Fats and I came to start the grand [food] tour . . .

It's been over thirty years since this book was written. Many of the places he talks about are gone or have new ownership. That's okay because it's not meant to be a guidebook. It's a commentary, a remembrance of good eating. The book is timeless and I recommend it to fellow readers who love good eating.

This is book number five for the Books About Food Challenge. This completes this challenge for me. I've enjoyed this challenge and really hate see it come to an end. But I'll still keep reading Books About Food. How about you?

Beth's Wrap Up Post

Here is the list of my challenge books, with my rating. Click on the link to read my review.




Salt by Mark Kurlansky (B-)
Heat by Bill Buford (A)
House of Mondavi by Julia Flynn Siler (A)
French Lessons by Peter Mayle (B+)
More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (B)

I liked all five books. Salt took me around the world and back in time, as I learned about salt's role in trade routes and kingdoms. Heat focused on Buford's journey to become a restaurant chef by following in Mario Batali's footsteps. I read about the soap opera life of the Mondavi family and Robert's influence on the American wine industry in House of Mondavi. And I finished up the challenge with two memoirs: Mayle's essays in French Lessons related his experiences at a variety of French food festivals, and Colwin's essays in More Home Cooking had a more personal touch.

Thanks to Historia for hosting this great challenge.