Book Review: Cooked by Michael Pollan

Title: Cooked
Author: Michael Pollan
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: April 23, 2013
Source: borrowed from the good ol' public library

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer.

Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. A North Carolina barbecue pit master tutors him in the primal magic of fire; a Chez Panisse trained cook schools him in the art of braising; a celebrated baker teaches him how air transforms grain and water into a fragrant loaf of bread; and finally, several mad-genius "fermentos” (a tribe that includes brewers, cheese makers, and all kinds of picklers) reveal how fungi and bacteria can perform the most amazing alchemies of all. The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us.

The effects of not cooking are similarly far reaching. Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

My Review:

You've all heard me wax poetic about Michael Pollan in the past.  I find his nonfiction works about food to be endlessly fascinating.  If you've never read any of his stuff, probably his two most well-known books (other than this one) are The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food.  The Omnivore's Dilemma takes a close look at where our modern-day food comes from: everything from our organic (or is it?) produce, to the Cheetos in Aisle 5.  It's eye-opening (and somewhat disturbing) for sure.  On the flip side, In Defense of Food is about how we decide what to eat.  What does the American diet consist of, and is it really good for us?

I highly recommend reading those two books before jumping into Cooked.  Cooked is a great follow-up because as Pollan states in the intro, it bridges the gap between those other two subjects: he already wrote about where food comes from, and what we choose to eat, but what about the way that food gets to the table?  How do we prepare it...and why?  That's what Cooked attempts to examine.

The book is divided into 4 chapters: Fire (grilling/barbecue), Water (braising/pot meals), Air (bread making), and Earth (fermentation, such as pickling and beer brewing).  Pollan argues that lot of our meals these days are ready-made by corporations: frozen dinners, boxed cereals, instant mashed potatoes, etc.  What people define as "cooking" these days is iffy at best...and I'll admit it, I say that I "cooked" dinner on a night when I boiled up a pot of pasta and threw a glop of Ragu on top.  Is that really cooking though?  Wouldn't cooking be a more apt description if I made the noodles, or crushed up the tomatoes for the sauce?  Pollan attempts to get back to the basics with these four methods of cooking--methods that a lot of us have outsourced to the food service industry in the last 50-ish years.

I was enthralled by every chapter, but unexpectedly, the one that got most of my attention was the last  (Earth, or fermentation).  I honestly thought this one would drag a little bit for me.  I'm not particularly interested in pickling, and I'm familiar with brewing already because my husband has done it, so I figured I wouldn't glean much from that section.  However, Pollan includes a deep discussion about how "fermentos" (a subculture of fermenters that believe in using natural (ie not sanitized) fermentation processes to make things like sauerkraut, pickles, cheese, etc) are adamant about the health benefits of their products.  In the world of antibacterial hand soap and throwing out any cheese with the smallest dot of blue fuzz on it, many of us have lost the "good" bacteria in our GI tracts that we need in order to digest things well and ward off infections.  He makes some really great, well-researched points, and I found myself reading half the chapter aloud to my husband ("listen to THIS part, OMG you will thank me later for enlightening you!").

The book as a whole will make you feel smarter, while also providing some entertainment.  Pollan found a person (or several people) in each chapter to help him try his hand at their cooking techniques, often with unexpected results.  (And often with delicious results...prepare to feel voracious after reading.)  His personal experiences, paired with the historical and scientific information he has gathered, makes for an excellent read.

Have I hooked you yet?  Cooked is an awesome nonfiction pick for anyone interested in the food they prepare.  At the very least, it will inspire you to look at your oven in a whole new way.  You do have to be prepared for some history lessons, as well as some food science, but they're mixed so seamlessly into the rest of the narrative that I doubt you'll be bothered.

Now then...off to perfect my braising technique.

Have you read any of Pollan's books?  What did you think?

Wondrous Words Wednesday (32)

Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost.  All definitions from Dictionary.com.

1. louvers. "Instead of glass windows there were plastic horizontal louvers, plus security wire."   
noun
1. any of a series of narrow openings framed at their longer edges with slanting, overlapping fins or slats, adjustable for admitting light and air while shutting out rain.
2. a fin or slat framing such an opening.
3. a ventilating turret or lantern, as on the roof of a medieval building.
4. any of a system of slits formed in the hood of an automobile, the door of a metal locker, etc., used especially for ventilation.
5. a door, window, or the like, having adjustable louvers.

The definition that included the bit about metal lockers illustrated this well for me.  Sounds like a fancy French word!

2. favelas. "In this environment, the odd mixture of Robinson Crusoe-like isolation combined with the favelas of Rio, good eating was hard to find." 
noun
a shantytown in or near a city, especially in Brazil; slum area.

Favelas sounds like a more...fun word to me.  Guess I was wrong about that!

3. obstreperous. "'The I-Kiribati said okeydokey, possibly because Davis immediately banned trade in guns and alcohol, and soon went so far as to banish the more obstreperous missionaries..." 

adjective

1. resisting control or restraint in a difficult manner; unruly.
2. noisy, clamorous, or boisterous: obstreperous children.

This is one of those words I would love to throw into random conversation with my coworkers, and see who understands it.

What are your new words this week?

Audiobook Review: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Title: The Round House
Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: Harper Audio
Publication Date: October 2, 2012
Source: borrowed from the good ol' public library

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

In the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe sets out to get some answers of his own. The quest takes him first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning. Louise Erdrich's novel embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

My Review:

If you pay attention to the world of "very important book awards", you know that The Round House was the winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction.  That's a big deal, y'all.  As soon as I heard that Erdrich's novel had won, I knew I had to read it.  I adored one of the other finalists (This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz) so if a novel was beating that in competition?  My interest was piqued.

The beginning of the book definitely drew me in.  Joe's peaceful life on the reservation is rocked very suddenly when his mother arrives home late one Sunday, severely beaten and bloodied.  She is mute as to what happened, and Joe and his father are immediately compelled to find out who did this to her.  If that's not enough to throw you into a good mystery, I don't know what is.  Erdrich unveils this tragic occurrence while also carefully detailing the ways of life on the Ojibwe reservation, something that I knew very little about.  This combination of gruesome, mysterious attack and compelling detail makes for a great intro.

However, I can't say I loved the rest of the novel.  The pace slows down (a lot), and the identity of Geraldine's attacker becomes clear very early on.  This isn't a case of an author mishandling a mystery--no, it becomes obvious that the identity of the attacker is not the point of this story.  Instead, the novel attempts to expound more upon the struggles of Native American life on a reservation, their historical and familial roots, different laws and struggles they face vs. non-reservation residents, etc.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing.  If you go into the novel expecting and wanting this, you'll probably love it.  However, based on the description (and the hype), I was expecting a plot that moved faster and had more elements that would surprise me along the way.  That?  I didn't get.  But I did get an artistically written picture of injustice and Native American life, which wasn't a totally unwelcome alternative.

It's so hard to review a National Book Award winner.  How can you say anything bad about a book that the Literary Elite has deemed Amazing?  But I wouldn't call this bad--that's kind of a strong word.  I think I went into it with the wrong expectations.  This isn't a book that focuses on one particular character or event.  It's much larger in scope, and written with the words "cultural epic" in mind.  I think it just wasn't totally for me, given the direction and tone that it eventually took.

As for the audio version--I was at first unsure of the narrator, Gary Farmer, who has a very measured (and occasionally monotone) voice.  However, I quickly grew to enjoy his narration, because it's entirely fitting of the tone of the novel.  The only downside to the audio is that some parts of the novel don't seem to lend themselves well to that format.  There are long sections of Native American folklore that felt rather boring and tangential when listened to.  I probably would have gotten more from them if I was reading in print.  But otherwise, a very good narrator, fitting for the story at hand.

Have you ever felt lukewarm about a critically acclaimed novel?

Total Suckage at Armchair BEA

Readers, my apologies.  Especially those of you that just recently "met" me during my Armchair BEA introduction post last week.  I totally fell off the Armchair BEA map after that, thereby labeling myself as the equivalent of a juvenile delinquent in the book blogger world.  I wanted to participate more--cross my heart and hope to die.  But life got in the way, and...that's all I got by way of excuses.

However, I will be gracing you with 2 pieces of news in the next few weeks, which should somewhat explain my recent ineptitude in the blogosphere.  In the meantime, please feel free to speculate on what these pieces of news might be.  Winner's crown goes to the commenter who can come up with the most insane explanation.  Am I opening a gecko farm in Malaysia with Prince Harry?  THAT'S FOR YOU TO FIND OUT.

Anyway, I will continue posting my reviews and such like usual, and I have a special vacation-style series of guest posts coming up soon, so I promise I still have a lot to offer!  PLEASE CONTINUE TO LOVE ME, AS I LOVE YOU.

See you soon, lovahs.

Book Review: Mama's Child by Joan Steinau Lester

Title: Mama's Child
Author: Joan Steinau Lester
Publisher: Atria
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Source: copy received for honest review through JKS Communications

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

A stunning tale about the deeply entrenched conflicts between a white mother and her biracial daughter.

Mama’s Child is story of an idealistic young white woman who traveled to the American South as a civil rights worker, fell in love with an African American man, and started a family in San Francisco, where the more liberal city embraced them—except when it didn’t. They raise a son and daughter, but the tensions surrounding them have a negative impact on their marriage, and they divorce when their children are still young. For their biracial daughter, this split further destabilizes her already challenged sense of self—“Am I black or white?” she must ask herself, “Where do I belong?” Is she her father’s daughter alone?

As the years pass, the chasm between them widens, even as the mother attempts to hold on to the emotional chord that binds them. It isn’t until the daughter, Ruby, herself becomes a wife and mother that she begins to develop compassion and understanding for the many ways that her own mother’s love transcended race and questions of identity.

My Review:

Holy cow, peeps.  You could write a dissertation covering all of the tough racial and familial issues that Lester brings to light here in Mama's Child.  As the description above implies, the primary focus of the novel is on Elizabeth, a white mother, and Ruby, her biracial daughter.  The story alternates being told from their two perspectives...and believe me, their perspectives are VERY different.  However, together they do an impressive job of illustrating the racial turbulence of the 70's, the evolution of civil rights, and the personal journeys that so many people undergo as they come to understand their own racial identities.

I was especially enamored with the way Ruby's character developed.  You get to watch her evolve from a relatively secure and happy eleven-year-old, all the way until she is nearly forty and struggling with how to connect with her mother.  Lester does a great job slowly unfolding her story, and delving into all of the emotional highs and lows she encounters as she tries to find her place in the world.  Even at times when Ruby was being especially stubborn or obstinate, I still found myself rooting for her along the way.  Her unique, rich perspective alone is a great reason to jump into this novel.

Elizabeth, though, was another story for me.  I never felt any sympathy for her, and in fact I was highly annoyed by her character from page one.  She has got to be one of the more selfish and obtuse characters I've ever encountered.  I don't think the reader was meant to always enjoy her, but I could tell that by the end, the author was trying to help me connect with her--it just couldn't happen.  I think part of the issue for me was that the "whys" of her actions were never as well-developed as Ruby's.  I didn't see a clear connection between her radical revolutionary ways and her childhood (or any other event in her background).  She also does a lot of things very abruptly (gets divorced, jumps into a lesbian relationship, etc.) which again, would not seem as strange or sudden in the text if I was given more of an understanding of why she was the way she was.  She needed more emotional development.

There was also a lot of disjointedness between Elizabeth and Ruby's perspectives at times.  For example, they each relayed a completely different version of how Elizabeth first told Ruby that she was in a lesbian relationship.  At first, I thought this was done to show the potential inaccuracies of both POVs, but after a while it just started to feel unintentionally confusing.  I wanted more smoothness between their narratives.

Okay readers, you know me--I get picky about details.  But I'm done with my issues, promise.  Going back to my initial comments, this novel has an epic scope: both in the number of issues it brings forth, and in the amount of time it covers.  If you have an interest in the civil rights movement and racial identity, I doubt you will find a better fictional work that covers them.  The narrative did lack some emotional development and detail at times, but if you're ready to tackle some tough issues with a fascinating cast of characters, Mama's Child is a good bet.

Much thanks to Sami and JKS Communications for including me on this tour!

Have you read any good fictional work that covers the civil rights movement?

Wondrous Words Wednesday (31)

Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from Indiscretion by Charles Dubow.  All definitions from Dictionary.com.

1. amanuensis. "And what of the third person in this drama? (Naturally I don't include myself.  I am merely the amanuensis.)"   
noun
a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another; secretary.

As in weeks past, I am just SO impressed by Dubow's vocabulary in this novel!!

2. puerile. "One night we go to a Broadway show.  Something puerile and entertaining."  
adjective
1. of or pertaining to a child or to childhood.
2. childishly foolish; immature or trivial: a puerile piece of writing.

I've heard this word spoken in conversation before, but was never totally sure of the meaning.

3. riposte. "'We always have had, darling,' she ripostes." 

noun

1. a quick, sharp return in speech or action; counterstroke: a brilliant riposte to an insult.
2. in fencing: a quick thrust given after parrying a lunge.
verb
3. to make a riposte.
4. to reply or retaliate.

I really like the use of this as a verb here.  Never seen it used that way.

What are your new words this week?

Armchair BEA 2013: Intro!

Happy Tuesday, lovely readers!  I hope you all (or at least the US followers) had a great Memorial Day weekend.  I went kind of MIA around here, as we were busy traveling to my parent's house in CT, playing outside with Small Fry, and eating way too much food.

BUT, I am back this morning with my Armchair BEA intro post.  For my non-blogger readers, Armchair BEA coincides with the Book Expo America convention in NYC--a convention that I DESPERATELY wanted to attend this year, but due to finances and such minutae, was unable to do so.  So, the next best thing is Armchair BEA--an online "convention" for all the book bloggers that couldn't make it to NYC this week.  :)

Today is the Armchair BEA kickoff, and all participants are doing intro posts...so here are five quick questions/answers to tell you a little about me and the bloggy blog:

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? 

Many of you already know this, but: I'm Kelly.  I'm almost-not-quite-30.  I live in Upstate New York with my husband, my almost-2-year-old son (referred to here as Small Fry), and a very hairy dog.  I've been book blogging since August 2012.  I got into it because I already had a pretty long history with personal blogging, BUT I honestly found my personal life to be rather boring fodder for blog posts.  I've been a psychotically devoted reader for as long as I can remember, so I decided that books would be way more fun to write about than the home-buying process, or the trials and tribulations of breastfeeding.  (You're welcome.)

Me, Small Fry, and some actual fries.

2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013?

Currently I'm in the midst of two print books (Mama's Child by Joan Steinau Lester, and Cooked by Michael Pollan) and one audiobook (The Round House by Louise Erdrich).  So far I'm loving Cooked the most, CANNOT put it down.
Best of 2013 so far?  Hard to choose, but it might be Indiscretion by Charles Dubow.

3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you. 

My first year in college, I was a Pathobiology major (which is a fancy way of saying Animal Microbiology, basically).  For one of the intro animal science courses, I had to train a sheep.  Do you know how impossible it is to train a sheep?  I spent weeks just trying to get a leash on my freaking sheep (who I named Eddie, after my younger brother, because it was so stubborn...I know, I'm a jerk).  Then I had to train it to walk in a straight line for an agriculture show.  Not to mention all the hours I spent shearing it beforehand.  Needless to say, by sophomore year I was a Family Studies major.

4. If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why? 

I have a lot of authors that I would love to meet, but they would probably make me so nervous that I'd be a terrible dinner date (I'm looking at you, Stephen King).  However, I am a fanatic for Michael Pollan's books, and he does not seem too intimidating, so I think I'd go with him.  Especially because his books are based on food--so who better to share a meal with?
As for fictional characters, I'd love to meet Lisbeth Salander, even though I'm quite sure she'd want nothing to do with me.

5. What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?  

I wish that Derry, Maine was a real place.  I'd like to visit...for about 10 seconds.

Happy Armchair BEA, peeps!