The strange land of babies

Author: Anne Enright

The author goes to literature (Kafka's cockroach man) and painting (Rouault) in her freakish moments of trying to absorb the motherhood quirks.

Pelvis as chalice.

Waiting for the water to break she feels like a Burco boiler  with the tap left open.

The author when slipping into sleeps describes it as 'I have untied my little boat and gone floating downstream'. How relaxing is that. All those days when sleep is hard to arrive, we might be stuck in the dock with many other boats around. This morning during the shower, I imagined myself being in a green forest at that moment.

Kidney dish

The author questions the part played by evolution in the beauty adaptation. His inspiration for the book - a commonality in the song of two different species encourages us to keep scrutinising things that interest us.
The shape of a shell. Even when I imagine it, it seems so luscious.
According to him abstract act opens up art and the possibility of its occurrence in things around us even more like how removing the strict rules of form on poetry unshackles it.

Origins of classic foods

Author: Ann_treistman (also author of 73 Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep. Wow everyone has their 2 cents about how to help a baby sleep.) The link has a slideshow for other foods like sundae, mayo (this is what I like best on MacD's)
This is the kind of question one is likely to ask of deviled eggs. What with the egg white solidifying to form nice little saucers of their whipped up yellows. McDonalds fries start from frozen fries for quality control.
For a long time I had Froffles until at a hotel I used a machine to make waffles. Have you used  pancake machines? The elevator button pressing kids have fun punching in a big number to see the assembly line in action. As much fun it is watching a machine do something for a first time, its fun to watch a person make pretzels. While industrialization has made chicken popular, pretzel making machines and bagel making machines 
put stores selling hand crafted goods out of business.
Popcorn and cotton candy machines at fair. With cotton candy, it is funny to know that they were once made by hand, a laborious process.
With chicken fried steak, a cook mistook the order and made it.
Thomas Jefferson has had an influence on American food thinking of mixing hot with cold (baked Alaska), made waffles popular by bringing a machine from France. So did WWII participants bringing with them all the foods hey liked.
Cereals and their intended audience.
If Key lime pie is so easy to make, why havent I made it yet. Besides anything that involves condensed milk can never go wrong.
When I read of Puda as Indian, I asked my husband if he knew about as I never heard of it. He said its an abbreviation Punjab urban development authority like Huda (Hyderabad ...) (All those boards next to big digs) but now it has merged into HMDA. M is for Metropolitan. Back to edible Puda, from the ingredients, it just seems another name for chile.

Comparing meatloaf in essence to Kofta gives me a new angle to look at the meatloaf recipes with and see if they can work for Koftas.
Imagine the times when sugar was scarce.

cake decoration: More than art

Ever wonder how a tiered cake is made. Its supported with dowels. The piping styles of shell, flower and their repetition on the page reminds me of the time I was learning different type of stitches on a piece of cloth. Its amazing to see how with just the basic shells and some creativity how different effects can be brought about.  Interestingly embroidery styles are also used for decorating cakes. Laces you have seen. Eyelets, have you? Smocking??

Making rose buds, translating a 2D projection into a raised 3D calls for more skills than texturing a painting.

Marzipan shaping into fruits is sculpture and painting at work.

The take your breath away skill is 'bridge and extension work and hailspotting'.

Dont change your mind

After the stove is on. Today I burnt the seasoning for susheela. Reason: My plan was to make poha. While I took out the packet of poha, I realized it was thin poha which is better served fried. So y the time I put that back in the packet and took the puffed rice and soaked it, the seasoning in a hurry got burnt.
Mise en place atleast at a macro level.

Dinner follows menu

Yesterday when I was looking for cilantro, I realized there was spinach in the fridge. Today afternoon, I was all up for making the best of weekend, to make rotis. That spinach image from yesterday subconsciously got married with roti and I said
"We are having palak paratha for dinner".
I have never had it before. Getting a general idea from the recipe, I sauteed the spinach. It finally ended up with so much water, that I didn't have to add any extra. In fact, I kept adding dough to get it to a thicker consistency. While rolling out the parathas, I was amazed at how thin they would roll out and match the pan size. It reminded me of all the gimmicks we used as kids to make soft rotis. Hot water, oil. Like true North Indian style, we had them with thick curds.
The spinach worked into the dough consistently. It was funny in the beginning, a mush feel when my hands encountered soft spinach during the dough preparation.
I am reminded of onion paratha, I used to have 10 years ago (bought from a home kitchen) when I had no kitchen and stayed as a paying guest. Bread and Kissan jam were the go tos.

Never in a Chef's jacket

Author: Alyssa Shelasky

The author of ‘Apron Anxiety’ is a writer. The way she lands writing assignments is interesting. She is one of those people who seem to be in the right place to find people and things to write about. Almost till half into the book, the author paints a stark picture of her self as an absolute food illiterate, happy making the same kind of sandwiches months together. Her boyfriends turn out to be ‘more imaginative eater’ than her. With one such love a ‘Pioneer Woman’ story where the author relocates for love not to the boondocks but a city nowhere vibrant like New York. She puts herself into the kingdom of food, which is what exactly her fiancé is tied to more than to her. Her foray into the cooking scene with her blog fame involves a brush with ‘foodie mafia’. She finds herself content as a homecook with an apron. In the day of foodie mania where the food world is wowed with foams she sticks to simple delicious food.

Her culinary journey starts with a desire to feed her loved one. As her kitchen confidence increases, so does her audience. Friends and neighbours and so do the emotional ties with them. She is no longer a kitchen-phobe when she cooks for the chefs who work at her fiance’s restaurant. She is open to positive criticism about her cooking. While sharing the stories of her life, she also shares the recipes that let her celebrate or tough out life - a down day with a pizza made from store bought dough (not a purist) to a Rainy Day Rigatoni. She’s an optimist always appreciating how good the place smells after she has cooked something, like that itself was the end result of the kitchen labor.

Once she realizes the power of food, she starts wielding it. The author finds joy in conceptualizing and creating menus. That’s a long way from a person with just a ‘like’ for food to a someone who executes meals with desired colors in mind.

Her realization that ‘everyone hurts and everyone is hungry’ is a credo that makes her want to cook for others to brighten up some lives.

The writing flows smoothly like a batter without any lumps. The author managed to meld the people, food and recipes without overdoing any of them.

Athletic Ali G

Author: Mark Titus

A general storyline of sports memoirs - a person shows athletic promise, a coach/mentor recognizes the talent and motivates the athlete.
This memoir has none of it. Still the author was part of a team that played in NCAA and NIT basketball games. That's not all of it. The author wrote a successful blog `Club Trillion' and had thousands of fans cheering him wearing his log logo T-shirts towards the end of his 4-year stint at OSU as a bench warmer.
When I picked this book, I even needed help understanding the title, visually I thought he meant more like `don't write me off'. Basketball lingo -Layup, walkon is new to me.

Mark Titus describes in slow detail when he is about to take a shot in the last 15 seconds and plays mind games with the readers about how he did the shot and its outcome.
If the book is not a detailed account of turning points of the games he played during his OSU walk-on time, how moments of glory have been stolen from him, it is 'prank time' where he does not mind pulling one on anyone - coaches, teammates.
From this book, you will take home a different side of athlete unlike the industrious, practicing kind. The author descries how he fit in with the team and how he didn't. Whenever he bemoans a great loss to the team, something wrong has happened to him.

The author notes on his blog that the book is meant for 18-35 age males. Not being a part of that demographic didn't hurt the book but the writing style is not what I usually read. For all the inspiration that the sports athletes are, I now wonder about the writing style of them each.

His story of how he started the `Club Trillion' is interesting. Once he begins explaining the rules of the club membership like a pro, he knows he has arrived. His book romanticises the `truant style' of life (even if just in sports), that will work out for one in a million. Still he has a following, not just from fellow bench warmers, but from people from all walks of life - mechanics.

Similar to college dropout successes and lottery winners, his is a too good to be true story(even if for a little while), but not reproducible. But like them he amassed great funds for charity.

Very interesting read

The content i.e details of Bernini's sculpture is very interesting to know.

The author makes us look at the sculptures in an expert way by mentioning things like - one sculpture having an inaccurate centre of gravity. The concept of one medium used to look like the other being immoral was new to me.

And just one sentence that I needed to know, about how Bernini viewed his work -' he considered most of his works far inferior to the Beauty that he knew and conceived in his mind'. Bernini's work and his interest in it seems like 'progressive improvement'. So It was interesting to know that he was inspired in a way that didnt stop at one work or with the greater beauty that he saw, he never seems to have been at loss for inspiration.

My favourite is Cornaro Chapel.


Oct 5, 2006, 5/5

Excellent novel

Author: Khaled Hosseini

'The Kite Runner' by Khalid Hosseini is a great novel with exactly all the story and style, all perfect.


If you write like Hosseini, you will never have to think twice before giving your works for anyone to review.


In his official site, Hosseini calls 'Amir', the protagonist. But while reading the book, you would like to call it the story of Amir or that of the Kite Runner or Amir's father and of all the characters in the book. Rarely do you come across a book where each character has been so well etched.


There's so much to say and wonder about his writing style. He introduces you to the world of his characters by use of certain phrases and next time you come across them , since they are no longer new to you , you comfortably get under the skin of his characters.


'Rich' is the word that springs up to your mind when you see lots of words at work describing scenes. This surely is not the kind of description readers have been fed years on, the one which you need to read over again to see whats been told. Writing dialogues comes so natural to him.


In short, Hosseini has learnt the art of using words to work for him in a very infectious way each adding cumulatively to the effect of the next and the previous.


Sep 3, 2005, 5/5

Untroubled

Author: Ana Castillo

Just a little background of New Mexico's history and you will be ready to understand why the connection of the people to the land is different from those of other Native Indians. 'So far from God' shows how having moved away from the land of their ancestors, people fail to connect to it in the same way as their predecessors.
Although it deals with serious issues, it does not fail to make you laugh out loud when weird things happen to Sofi's children and she's still one piece. And all this when you thought you were beginning to feel pity for Sofi beset with troubles for children.

Aug 4, 2007, 5/5

read for a class.

Culture and more

Author: Amy Tan

This book is a yarn spun by four women , Chinese Americans and their mothers who have seen dificult times. It is a good mix of else where and now.

The book of is an easy read. The flow of the book will not let you put it down.

I liked reading about the various practices in China. Their belief in fortune, trying to beget favorable conditions, even when everything is not so right, is fascinating.

Different voices in the book form a bridge between short story and novel forms. Although the distinctness of the voices is not preserved, the matter of the stories are still conveyed in a very interesting manner.


May 19, 2005, 5/5

Broaden

Author: Pico Iyer

Travel is no longer just adventure.

The Accidental Explorer's Guide to Patagonia - Putting it in a very trite way, its about an unbelievably beautiful place.

Canadian Gothic - Adds the dimension of local people(famous and everyday) to place known for its locale.

Travel can be by people driven with an agenda to understand a place, its people's struggles, even if the very first step is trouble.

Peter Hessler - Chasing the Wall - best
Mark Jenkins- The Ghost Road - best

A Fleet One - I would never guess, something on trucks could make it to this list.

Travel to places where story of a person at the same time reveals the nation's plight

Elizabeth Rubin - The Road to Herat
Kira Salak - Places of Darkness - saving mountain gorillas
Paul Salopek - Shattered Sudan


Jul 20, 2009, 4/5

Parents for kids

How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between)

Author: Mei-ling Hopgood

The author researches into how different nations deal differently regarding the main worries of new parents – how/when to put the baby to sleep, how to get them to eat their veggies, how much of the baby depot should I hoard at home, when to potty train them, when to intervene in kids fights and so on and so forth.

The author uses studies, statistics and others expertise to understand what she finds around the world.

I had heard from a friend that on her trip to Mexico, that she could buy food late into the night. I never thought what that would mean to the sleep of babies when parents feel like getting a late chow on the go. I have read that French children are made to try many foods, so they can widen their palates. The author learnt that the French children are fed the same food that the adults eat. Why train with baby food when they will anyways vie for whats on your plate?

As she learns how things are done differently around the world, the author tries to incorporate them into her life too. Not all of them are feasible, like carrying her baby in a sling like Kenyans, on a flight trip. She finds it like an anti-thesis situation like ‘I like hiking but Er! I am lost, its noon and I’m out of water’.

When she learns of the how, she also looks into the why. The ‘vestibular stimulation’ of babies by carrying them on the mothers is such a great motivator for carrying them so, but how long can we do that?

When it comes to potty training, the author introduces us to the slit pants used in China to facilitate elimination for babies and parents alike, who don’t have to drop everything before the babies soil everything. The author is committed to using the early potty training, customizing the time to the baby’s development unlike, Mayim Bialik who in ‘Beyond the sling’, sings praises of ‘elimination communication’ but never strongly says ’ It worked me, go use it’, instead she cops out that she is not suggesting we follow it.

 Her study also involves the need for parents-child play time, equal involvement of both the parents in the rearing of the child, play time with older kids and no parental guidance,  Structured play Vs free style play.

During high school, I saw a toddler mimic her mom washing clothes, with a mug and a small clothing article of her own. Such partaking of work prepares them for real grown-up life.

The author muses about globalization influencing the said practices. 

Another similar vein book

Do Parents Matter?: Why Japanese Babies Sleep Soundly, Mexican Siblings Don’t Fight, and American Families Should Just Relax

A face to a voice on NPR

Author: Frank Deford

Sports as he knows it

I have heard a couple of NPR commentaries by Frank Deford. Long time ago, I had heard that one of my classmate’s father was a sportswriter, but never learnt how different his life was from a regular writer.

Frank Deford has reservations about bloggers, game score statisticians and the future of sports journalism. He is not one to keep a secret of them. Being in his game of writing for a long time, he chronicles how one day when his contemporary players are ready to retire and coach, it hits him hard that he is out of place and he cant identify with the music in the locker room.

He shows the regard or lack of it for sportswriting in the recognition it receives in the form of awards. He compares how sportswriting was when he started and how it is now. Then the onslaught of TV and now the internet, obliterate the need of a sportswriter. For a ‘not so bright boy’ he did well by reporting about ‘unusual personalities, or athletic exotica, the Americana of sports, out on the fringes’. He takes us to the time when sportswriters gathered in pressboxes to give the public blow by blow accounts of the games. He also compares how earlier he could meet the athletes in the lockerroom for statements while now they do press meets.

This book thrives on rich characterization of real people. Grantland Rice’s profile is written in such a way that lack of familiarity with Rice does not take away the interest from the piece like that on exclusive clubs at Princeton. The success of his writing must be due to his attempt to ‘humanize commisioners’. As you approach a paragraph regarding his nostalgia for sports and sportswriting of the yore, you can pat your back for realising it that for him sports was always about the people. In his words -‘Nowadays sportswriting is too much about predicting games; then, it was more about revealing human nature’. He uses his writing wand as a justice tool to give every athlete and coach their due. Through his writing on women in sports, I learnt of a new game – Roller Derby. I liked the description of ‘three match game’ that the journalists played. Another game that I havent heard of before.

His initial writing has led him to be a judge for beauty contests. He boasts that

‘you are never going to find another expert writer the equal of yours truly with feet in both the tennis and the pulchritude camps’.

He has reported on all kinds of games. The book has many interesting anecdotes from his years of writing from the stands. On tough subjects, he stood up. He called out ‘Commercial racism’.

Writing about the coverage of sports on road, he became the chronicler of Americana of sports. When he says ‘I wasn’t just writing about Americana. I was Americana.’ Somehow he becomes the snake with its tail in its mouth encompassing the world of sports.