Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton
This memoir made a lot of "best of" lists last year and after reading it, I felt it was way over-hyped. Hamilton's a good writer, no doubt, but she leaves a lot of questions unanswered; her character (as in, her constitution) doesn't evolve much. She's still crass, angry, and weirdly naive about what family means (and their loyalties). And sweet baby Buddha, woman needs a therapist, for many, many things, but also mainly to figure out why she, as a self-identified out and about lesbian, marries a man, has his child, and latches on to his family. There are so many confounding issues here, none of which are about food, at all. I need everybody to stop using these food-related memoirs as vehicles to write about their screwed up childhood. I'm sort of tired of reading the "I-work-in-the-kitchen-to-be-physical-and-to-show-the-world-what-I'm-capable-of-even-though-I-have-a-college-degree-and-am-really-intelligent" book. Stop being so possessedly self-aware of your hyper-intelligence and writing about it. Turns out you guys are no fun.
Eating in the Raw by Carol Alt
Have I mentioned I've been having a food-related morals crisis lately? In particular, reading this blog (Raw Foods SOS) shook me up, from everything about eating cooked foods to practicing veganism. Denise, from Raw Foods SOS, is really detailed in her notes, particularly in her response to the oft-cited pro-vegetarian book "The China Study" which makes me tend to agree that veganism is an ethical choice, not necessarily beneficial to health. There's a lot of interesting analysis going on in that article, especially looking at the context of what was studied and measured. Talk about having a moral crisis for this vegan. But anyway, I've been reading a lot of raw cookbooks lately, and I actually really enjoyed this one, which is mostly about Carol Alt's transition into raw foods. There are a few easy to prepare recipes in the back, unlike the other cookbooks I had borrowed that relied too much on fancy equipment. I've also used some of Ani Phyo recipes before, but the waiting list for her books are outrageously long. Ah, who are these midwest hippies that borrow all the books I borrow but whom I never seem to meet?!!! Where do you hide?! Will you be my friend?
No Reservations by Anthony Bourdain
So.... this turned out to be a picture book. I'm not even kidding. I can't call it a coffee table book because the quality of the pictures are shit, and it's not physically big enough to look like it commands any sort of artistic ground. It feels like Anthony had another contract to fulfill and he didn't feel like putting together a cohesive storyboard so he went out and released a book entirely composed of half-assed vignettes with even crappier photos. I'm not saying the little he does write isn't compelling, though - a lot of it is, simply by virtue of Boudain's acute observations. Read the one about Beirut! A seriously compelling story, where Anthony and his crew get caught in Beirut at the start of the 2006 Lebanon War. There is some really riveting reflection about fear and war. Oftentimes when I read Bourdain, I'm struck by how sensitive he is to issues of marginalized communities and his ability to, at the same time, make sweeping generalizations of a country. I'm very rarely offended, though, because I think he acknowledges that these are his experiences and his opinions and at the end of the day, who cares? He's just a traveler. These are his notes.
xo,
t
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