Great food books I read in 2008

Since I like lists, I thought it would be fun to do a few year-end type lists. Since it's already December 30, this will probably spill over into January. Oops. Let's be postmodern about this and acknowledge that the new year is just an arbitrary calendar date. This list is of food books (not cooking) I read and recommend this year.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver.
Kingsolver, a wonderful novelist (check out The Poisonwood Bible), chronicles her decision to move to a farm and dedicate a year to eating only food grown locally. There are meal plans, with recipes, by the seasons, along with essays from her 19 year-old daughter about her experience, and more background info about eating locally provided by Kingsolver's husband.

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances. Laura Schenone.
Schenone uses food as a framework with which to look at American history, women, and culture by looking at how people ate and women cooked. She begins with Native Americans, then follows through different periods chronologically: the pilgrims, immigrants from the old world, slavery, and through to the present day phenomenon of being too busy to cook.

Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. Alisa Smith and J. B. Mackinnon.
It seems like the same premise as "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" of eating locally for one year, but Alisa Smith and J. B. Mackinnon, a young couple, decide to define local as only things within a strict 100-mile radius. It's also a much more intimate account than the one offered by "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle."

The Language of Baklava. Diana Abu-Jaber.
A nice food memoir with wonderful recipes. Abu-Jaber is Jordanian-American and she recounts her life growing up between the two countries and cultures, while sharing the recipes for the food she ate along the way. I want to read more memoirs like this. Check out some of the recipes I tried here, here, and here.

The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family. Laura Schenone.
This book chronicles Schenone's effort to recover her family's authentic ravioli recipe. It got me thinking about our connections to the food we eat, definitely made me want to make ravioli, and inspired me to pick up her earlier book, A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove (also on this list). (This book also prompted my "home food" post.)

Still reading:

Culinary Artistry. Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page.
This book is changing the way I think about food. It seems more directed towards a high-end chef, but it's still fascinating reading. It discusses whether cooking can ever be an art, has charts for which ingredients go well together, and discusses how important presentation really is to a dish - turns out a lot of chefs think that sprig of rosemary stuck in the middle of your pasta is silly. The cool thing is the authors interview a bunch of different chefs, so you're exposed to a variety of opinions on each topic.

It Must've Been Something I Ate. Jeffery Steingart.
This is a funny collection of essays by Vogue food critic and his continual quest for great-tasting food, like hitting a dozen boulangeries in Paris for perfect baguettes. He's obsessed, and teaches you a few things along the way.

One more I didn't read this year but still recommend: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It traces the journey of your food from farm to table. I posted a review of it here.

Finally, the following is a list I found of "farm to fork must reads" in this newspaper pamphlet-thing about a Seattle harvest festival. I'm planning to read a few more on this list.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Barbara Kingsolver. 2007.
Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. Mark Winne. 2008.
Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe. 2003.
Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. 2005.
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Michael Pollan. 2008.
Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food. Warren Belasco. 2006.
Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew. Samuel Fromartz. 2007.
Omnivore’s Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals. Michael Pollan. 2007.
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. Alisa Smith, J.B. MacKinnon. 2007.
Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair. Carlo Petrini. 2007.
What to Eat. Marion Nestle. 2007.

PS: You can find a cool list of food memoirs to read here at the NPR website.

Things I am putting off

So, if you scroll down slightly & peek at the left-hand column, you'll find I've gone through my archives and labeled a bunch of old posts, to make my archives more accessible for all (ok, mostly me). I have to say, I like looking through old blog stuff. Currently the mr. is working very hard - he has been for hours.

Here are a bunch of things I "want" to do but...:
1- study for my US driving license test. I've read through the entire pamphlet at this point, now I just need to commit it to memory.
2- read the rest of Naked Lunch. I had a quota of 20 pages a day to just get through it and have it done before it's due date at the library, but I've skipped for the past 3 or 4 days (ok, I only followed it for 2 days...)
3- work on my painting! i went and got a little lamp specially, and came close about an hour ago, but somehow I wound up here working on the blog.

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Image: Stolen coaster! Background: the still life I am procrastinating on. Reflection in window: main living area of our flat.

Writing Link; Paper Chinaman

I made this happy-looking Chinaman with my origami class yesterday.

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Good link for the writerly-inclined: How to Become a Famous Writer. An excerpt from a book of the same title at the No Media Kings website, where she advises to publish as much as you can, however you can. One suggestion: "Print poetry on stickers and post them around town and in train bathrooms." Ariel Gore, the author, also has a cool blog.

Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

by Michael Pollan.

I'm an omnivore by [genetic] inheritance, and vegan by diet of my own choosing. Still, despite the potential for exclusion, I wanted to read this book, probably because of all the buzz it seemed to generate online. (I don't remember where specifically, but probably Salon* and Amazon).

The book certainly didn't disappoint; it totally surpassed my expectations. I thought it would be a simple rehashing of animal abuse cases involved in producing the meat and dairy we consume; news to some, but not me (there's a reason I became vegan).

But it was much more: Dubbing itself as a look at the journey of food from field to table, the book indeed does that, looking at traditional industrial agriculture, organic, and even hunter-gatherer.

Pollan reveals that traditional industrial agriculture - probably the source of most of our food - is based on corn. Forget everything you learned in third grade science (where the sun is the primary source of energy allowing the grass to grow which the animals then eat), because the reality is really different. Corn is grown in huge quantities (intermingling of government subsidies and corn's ability to grow in different environments) and then, because it is so cheap, put in just about everything we eat. Most animals we eat and get our milk from are fed corn as well, even though their digestive systems can't really handle it, and the majority are factory farmed, where they never get to see the light of day crowded together.

Even organic food, we learn, is divided into industrial organic and 'beyond organic.' Industrial organic mimics traditional industrial food, the difference being organic alternatives are used instead of traditional pesticides for crops and antibiotics for animals. For example factory farm chickens aren't given antibiotics, but extreme measures are taken to ensure that they don't contract infectious diseases - in such close quarters and without antibiotics there's a huge risk of infection outbreaks.

Beyond organic, or what we would assume all organic farming looks like, shows us a (rare agricultural example) where the energy depends on the sun and is grass(not corn)-based. Everything is a cycle, or a series of cycles, very much like what we learn in third grade science: sun nourishes grass, animals eat grass (and their manure fertilizes the soil), and humans eat animals. It's much more complex than that, but that is the basic idea, which adapts natural ecosystem to a farm.

Finally Pollan sets out on a mission to create a meal composed exclusively of his own hunting and gathering efforts, a meal where he not only knows where all his food comes from, but faces the ethical responsibility associated with consuming it.

Pollan succeeds in breaking down the science simply even for non-science folk like myself, always employing an engaging tone, and very often relating the information to himself. He also includes his own struggle to make sense of whether eating meat is ethical, and managed to make me rethink my own views. Although I don't know how much of this applies outside the US, it's definitely a fascinating account of where the empire's food comes from.

Also check out this funny and informative clip on Amazon where Michael Pollan discusses the book with Bill Maher.

* Check out a Salon interview with him here, and an excerpt from the book here.

Films, Book, Nano update

• Things I am trying to do: Go to the film festival and go to the newly discovered independent film festival (not the same). Unfortunately can't find a link to the latter right now. But will keep you posted. Clicking on the Conference Schedules tab will link you to the when what where of the movies.
  
• This is a really good article I read a long time ago about agribusiness... potatoes, genetic engineering, McDonalds. Okay, so this article inspired a woman called Ruth Ozeki to write a really good book called All Over Creation, which is a novel that deals with these same themes (plus has a good plot). The article is Playing God in the Garden and it's by Michael Pollan and it was published originally in the New York Times Sunday Magazine back in 1998, but you can now read it online for free. To educate you about what's up with GM food. Incidentally, Ozeki also has a blog that is worth checking out but sadly it seems like it's been ages since she last posted.
• I just wanted to add the thing I forgot in the last post: that I finished nano. I wrote 50,000 words (+) in November by hook or by crook. And I will start editing in January I think (I need a little break before I look back). I think it will probably successfully whittle down to a twenty-page story or so.
  

High Speed Car Chase

I forgot to add yesterday that I found the knuckle tattoos website featured at 52 projects. You can read more about the project here. Nathan Black, who created the project, explains why he started it.

And this is old news, but this article at BBC finally gave me a proper explanation of what happened downtown in Eid.

Reading: I am actually reading again. The reading fast is over, thank God. It was very beneficial (and so recommended) but also highly irritating. So I'm reading officially now The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (a novel). Pretty nice so far but haven't gotten very far.

I was going to say I wish I had more exciting things to say, but I realize I do: I witnessed briefly a real high speed car chase while driving home tonight that looked really really dangerous. Very don't try this at home, kids. Who knows what was going on, but this guy was driving like a maniac (not stopping at all while driving at a very high speed through an intersection), followed by another car backing up quickly, stopping to pick up a passenger, then driving back down super fast. It sounds boring but it was exciting I swear! Oh well you had to be there; I was in awe.

Dog Drag

Look what the dog dragged in. No, really.

Reading: Miss Wyoming by Coupland.

Researching: graduate schools .. ekh

Fill this town

Artistically blocked again these days I guess. So more old new photos to post. Today I read another great "graphic novel": Three Incestuous Sisters, which is nowhere near as risque as it sounds (but not sadly since it's wonderful anyway). By Audrey Niffenegger, who incidentally refers to her book as a 'visual novel.' The illustrations are amazing.

Young Daboor

That's young Daboor over there on the left. He stuck himself under the car today and was squealing for all he was worth, but emerged unscathed.

In other news, if you want to see cool cartoons, head on over to allenec's livejournal thingie.

Today I read this really great graphic novel called I Never Liked You: A Comic-Strip Narrative by Chester Brown. I guess graphic novels are not that easy to come by, but this was great, and I think in general graphic novels are great. I finished reading it in half an hour! So then I read it again immediately.
Also, if you're interested in independent media (and you should be), check out Meat Magazine, which is a self-billed "arts magazine," but it also has writing. I got the print version, which is intended to be the best of it's online stuff. You can also contribute to it if so inclined.

Finally, if you checked out Chris' blog today, you will know that 1) he is contemplating killing his blog, and 2) that he made an interesting remark about prison systems sucking. I commented on the post, and would just like to take the opportunity here to link to the blog I was unable to link to there: Jim Gilligan's blog post "Are prisons immoral? ... or is it just Americans?". The gyst of it is that in some nations, e.g. Finland, the penal system is approached quite differently. It's only a paragraph, so you might as well follow the link and see what the guy has to say.

Take care then.

Heads

Hello out there in blog world. As you may or may not know, I'm in a transition phase of life, which is kind of rough at the moment. I also just returned from a trip to London, hence the two week absence. I came back to find a small dog who may or may not be my savior. His name is Daboor. I will not be releasing his pictures to the public at present (much like Suri Cruise). In fact I haven't pictured young Suri - sorry, Daboor, yet.

I just finished reading JPod by Douglas Coupland, the semi-sequel to Microserfs. There's actually an official website for the book which is worth checking out, you can also read an excerpt there. Plus an interview with Mr. Coupland about the book, but I think you should read that after you finish the book.

Interesting thing I found on the back of the stall of a toilet in the Tate:

It certainly was not what I was expecting
I had never eaten glue before today.
I just took a bite of a pritt stick. I felt this best. It is stuck in my teeth now.
I wasn't expecting that

Take care. Til later.

Dino Comics; il kobry

Good news: I have a great link for today! Rejoice, comic lovers and also comic not-minders. It is Dinosaur Comics. It predictably features dinosaurs, and I found it featured on the good Jim Munroe's website, No Media Kings. So double link then, because both sites are worth checking out, dudes.

Featured in the photos: On the left, a sign that says Obeying Traffic Lights is a Civilized Behavior, and below, a lovely view of the billboards on a certain bridge we all know and love. (Guess which?).

Til later, cheers.

P.S. The creator of Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North, appears to have a pretty cool livejournal thingie that should also be checked out, especially the third post that now appears there.

Speaking of that post (check out the post already so you get what I'm about to say), a word to the wise, using Google as a divining source, especially Google image search, doesn't really work out that well. Still, it's a fun exercise. To try: insert relevant phrase into the google image search and interpret the picture that appears. If you try it with the names of your friends, you'll see what I mean. You could always try Bible dipping, as outlined by Augusten Burroughs in Running with Scissors, his most excellent memoirs. (Bible dipping involves asking a question, flipping through the Bible [feel free I guess to replace with holy text of choice], flipping pages and stabbing your finger at a random word for the answer).

Free hint from me: If you're trying to be a writer sometimes, you can modify the Bible dipping for a cool writing exercise in which you use any book to stab a word then write about it for a certain amount of time (timed writing). It's great.

a collage

Reading: Some of Kafka's short short stories (one paragraph to two pages long) from Kafka's
Metamorphosis and Other Stories.
Definitely worth checking out, especially if you're in a summer reading slump and have a short attention span right now as a result (like me), particularly for literary endeavors. These short short stories are stuck under a category entitled "Meditations," and incidentally, this collection of stories is the only one that Kafka chose to publish in his lifetime. All the other stuff (The Trial, most notably) he told his good buddy Max to destroy but Max kubar and decided to publish them anyway after Franz died. In case anyone is inspired to read some Kafka now, my favorite "Meditation" so far is "The Rejection."

The photo: another collage, put together two days ago like the last one.

Joys of Cardboard (links)

Interesting link on a site I like (Supernaturale) about the joys of cardboard. I like design things that re-use waste material... you know, save the earth. Poor victim earth in need of your saving. There, don't you feel special now? So anyway especially cool in this article is this cardboard chair that you use to build into your lawn and have grass grow over... Well go over and check it out so you can see a photo of it and get what I'm trying to explain.

Reading: Poetry by Emily Dickinson. I tried reading Emily's poetry before but didn't really like it, prefering mostly the poets Nikki Giovanni and Kenneth Patchen instead, but I think since I started writing more I was able to connect more with Emily's poetry.

Some things that stay there be,-
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.
(excerpt from Some things that fly there be)

and also reading: Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

I'm not usually into the self-help thing, but you've got to be open minded, right? Experimental? Anyway I'm about half the way through and it's not bad at all. I'm just worried if I turn into a healthy person I'll be boring. I won't have anything to write and I won't be able to paint. How's that for a fear huh?