Not Cookbooks

Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden
French Country Cooking by Mimi Thorisson
Gather by Gill Meller

It is not entirely true to say these are not cookbooks, but they could be also be considered inspirational reading and viewing for cooks or diners. What I like most in any cookbook is photographs, and these three are spectacular. The subtitle of Joshua McFadden's book is: A New Way with Vegetables, and "new way" is the essence of all three of these. Sometimes, a cook is looking for a different way of seeing the same produce.

Generally speaking, the meat, vegetables, spices and condiments, and staples that we use vary only slightly. Because of clever packaging and marketing, it sometimes seems as though there is an infinite list of foodstuffs, but mostly the same things are prepared, packaged, and marketed in myriad ways. Because these three books all focus on the artistic aspects of food, the beauty of a food on its own rather than as an ingredient is an eye opener.

It is often said that we eat with our eyes first. These are books that show us that we should perhaps be taking a little longer to eat with our eyes and focus less on the fast food, 3o minute, quick, and instant approaches to eating. One way to monitor our intake of food is to slow down and really appreciate the things we eat. (If you missed Slow Food and Why French Women Don't Get Fat, it's not too late. they are both still in print!)

Cooks who savor the appearance and quality of food enjoy cooking more. If we want mechanization that can churn out formulaic foodstuffs in 30 minutes or less, we have that in abundance. The problems associated with that approach is well documented, but once we recognize the flaws in the factory food world, we need a place to turn in order to start over.

Even if you are not a cook, browsing these volumes will help you to eat with new eyes, and your tastebuds won't complain either!

A Pretty Fair Explanation

I cannot say that Win Bigly was the one of most satisfying books I've read, but I do think it might be one of the most important. Many people have struggled to explain or understand the results of the 2016 presidential election, including PJ O'Rourke in How the Hell Did This Happen? 

The complete title, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, is a very telling indicator of the underpinning of Scott Adams' analysis. Many people know and love Scott Adams from his Dilbert cartoons. He is a true libertarian and his personal views are what I would call socially liberal, but economically brutal. He favors the "bootstraps" approach to economic problems, whether or not people have boots.

Nevertheless, he is able to talk about the persuasive ability of our current president with a clarity that is convincing, if not especially palatable. Scott Adams paints a pretty good picture of what the scene looked like from the angle of someone who did not have a very strong allegiance to either outcome. He seems a trifle too invested in what I would have called a false narrative about Hillary Clinton, but as his title points out, facts don't matter. If the narrative grew legs, the origins were not going to be questioned by a sizeable majority - or if not a majority, a big enough contingent to make a difference.

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt shares an overarching discussion about why and how people draw conclusions and make political and moral decisions. It is most certainly germane to our current politics, but Adams' book is much more specific to the personality of Donald J Trump.

If you are liberal, you might not like what this book has to say, but you will not be able to dismiss it. And you may find that it brings a little bit of the peace of mind that comes with at least knowing the answer to to PJ O'Rourke's big question. If you are a fan of our current president, you might find that Adams has articulated something that you knew intuitively, but might not have known how to explain.

Whether or not you like the current White House leadership, nearly everyone would have to agree that something important happened with the recent rise of nationalism and the triumph of celebrity politics. Looking at the situation from as many angles as possible is probably the only way to get enough of a handle on what happened to make a difference in the future.

The Righteous Mind

I have read this book twice already and I will read it again. It was written in 2012 and it seems to be more relevant every day. I have also heard Jonathan Haidt interviewed on a couple of occasions. He has been able to see and evaluate current affairs from a fairly wide and long perspective and it is a useful tool for saving one's sanity.

If you find yourself perplexed or even enraged over current events, this philosophical look at people and how they think will, at least, explain how we can seem so different from each other. In a nutshell, we all arrive at our conclusions by means of emotional cues, and then try to come up with reasons for why we think and feel the way we do. We like to think of ourselves as rational, fact based creatures, so we go out and search for evidence that we are correct about the things that we have already concluded to be true. In so doing, of course, we skip over a great deal of information that doesn't square with our already formed conclusions.

The biggest question is whether there is hope for us getting along better, and the answer is: Some. In the meantime, if we understand that our neighbors, our family and our friends are not so different from us, we feel a bit more sanguine about our differences.

Sometimes it seems like current events move along so quickly that any political theory has an extremely short shelf life. By Friday, a show aired on Tuesday is hopelessly irrelevant. The ideas in this now five year old book have become more rather than less relevant. It is definitely worth a look, or even a second look.

Zero Hour is Approaching

For those of us who have been following Sue Grafton since A is for Alibi, the approaching end of the alphabet is a little bit sad. If you have not read anything in her series, I envy you. You have 26 marvelous stories and many hours of relaxation ahead of you. I think of the protagonist in these books (Kinsey Millhone)  as a kind of girlish Clint Eastwood. She does not, however, take herself very seriously, so she is a little more palatable than her male counterparts.

Happily, the stories are set in a fictionalized Santa Barbara, California.  Reading the novels is a clever and inexpensive way to live in Santa Barbara for a few hours, creating a kind of delightful flashback for anyone who has been lucky enough to spend time there in real life.

A is for Alibi was published in 1982, and all of the novels are set in the eighties. Grafton's own story is satisfying in a mildly vengeful way. She has been turning the straw of a bitter loss into gold for decades. Ms. Grafton once told an interviewer that after her divorce, she spent so many hours and sleepless nights plotting ways to kill her ex-husband and his new love interest that she decided to turn these fantasies into books. I have no way of knowing just how true this story is, but it has a nice Happy Ending ring to it. Whatever the actual facts are, she is a talented writer and a great contributor to one of literature's most popular genres.

She has stated publicly that the last book in the series will be Z is for Zero. I can't wait. Or maybe I can. Maybe she will do something with numbers, and then I won't have to worry about running out of her books. Is that last title a hint?

Post Script: Sue Grafton died in December of 2017 and Z is for Zero exists only in our imaginations. 

Judge This Book By Its Cover

 

I'm an Abel James fan, and his newest book is part cookbook, part nutrition and fitness advice and mostly just good reminders to look to nature for your food. I am not a collector of print cookbooks any longer, and the few that I do keep around are mainly exquisite picture books, so I am making a bit of an exception for this volume. It does have a few excellent photographs and the meal prep ideas are quite good; Abel and his wife/cohort have kept the layout simple and it's pretty easy to find some new inspiration here.

Everyone who has even the slightest interest in a healthier lifestyle is on the lookout for menus to replace the ones that got us into our current situation. This cheery book will help you add to your repertoire of new food. By wild, he simply means 'real.' It's not a cookbook about eating squirrels or insects, in case you were worried.

I also highly recommend his podcast: Fat Burning Man. He has a terrific on air personality and a really intelligent show. And the best voice anywhere!

Stuart Woods: Stone Barrington, Holly Barker, Will Lee, etc

Stuart Woods is frivolous, totally frivolous. If you take yourself at all seriously, you will not want to read his work and you will certainly not want to admit it in erudite company. However, if you are looking for light reading, he is just the ticket. He has written several series, but they overlap quite a bit. The most voluminous of these is the Stone Barrington series. 
 

Exotic foods, expensive wines, luxurious travel, and extravagantly tailored clothing are part of the fantasy formula for the Woods stories. Hollywood movie stars and wealthy producers also add to the overall embarrassment of riches. Realism plays no visible part in these books, so if you read for escape, Woods’ books are the perfect exit from reality. The women are all athletic, trim and perpetually in their 30's, while the men range into 50's and 60's. The stunningly gorgeous females fling themselves at the middle-aged and elderly men with abandon - possibly the most fantastical feature of the stories.

Woods’ plots are a blend of Boxcar Children, James Bond and Murder, She Wrote with a little sprinkling of West Wing. These books are television for people who would rather read than watch TV. There are no loud commercials and you can get up for a snack or a drink whenever it suits you. They are technically mystery/detective/crime stories, in the same way that Scooby Doo is a mystery/detective/crime series.  

And just when you think you know people, you discover this!

Woods first book was a masterpiece. This book is in the same league with To Kill a Mockingbird, seriously. This portrayal of old Georgia, written in 1981, is a gem. Chiefs is set in three separate time periods: 1920's, post WWII, and early 1960's. It got enough attention to warrant a TV mini-series in 1982.

Frivolity or good literature, take your pick. 

John Sandford Books

Sandford is a prolific author and I have not yet scratched the surface of his many volumes, but I can safely say that I will be reading all of at least two of his series. He reminds me of Hiaasen, and that is a huge compliment. Like Hiaasen, Sandford creates characters with an irreverent and innovative brilliance. If you also like characters who engage in creative cursing and philosophical meanderings, these flawed protagonists will make you happy.

Sandford's good guys have a strong moral compass that has nothing to do with piety or religion and everything to do with living an examined life. The characters and plots are not as wacky and outrageous as Hiaasen's, but that might be an accurate reflection of the difference between Minnesota and Florida. That is not to suggest that there is anything bland about the Sanford stories. On the contrary, the color in both the language and the circumstances is artful and amazing. Not

since Shakespeare have rogues and miscreants been insulted with such

enthusiastic poetry.

These characters do not take themselves too seriously, and that feature is one of several that makes the stories move along in a sort of freewheeling style. Detective novels can be made tedious by too much swashbuckling. Sandford's story telling gets another boost from the fact that there is little to no "filler" in the books. Every sentence moves the plot along briskly and meaningfully - downright cheerfully, to be perfectly honest. There is definitely an upbeat quality to the cast of characters.

There are Prey novels, Flowers novels, Kidd novels, a series called Singular Menace,  and a couple of non-series books. The Prey series is the longest and contains some fairly grisly content. But all of the books are suspenseful and create some tension. Sandford is a good researcher and the tension is often created by his delving into the minds of the truly nefarious. Everyone has heard the phrase, "couldn't put it down." It is a saying that applies to every one of Sandford's books.