Food & Friends - A Feast of a Book

I'm reading a book I picked up on sale at a cool bookstore in Santa Cruz. The first time I went there I took a picture of the shelves full of handwritten notes by the staff. Love that.

That was when I was on our "Woman Time at the Ocean" weekend.

A couple weeks ago Cori and I went to Santa Cruz for the day and spent quite a bit of time in the bookstore. I picked up 6 books on the way from the bathroom back to where Cori was. Bookstores are dangerous locations for me.

Right now I'm reading one of those books. It's called Food & Friends, by Simone Beck. She was the co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Julia Child.

I'm really enjoying this book. I like that it's a feast for the eyes as well as a good read. Look at these details.

Look at these hand drawn illustrations. And the borders around the pages. And the different fonts. And the little decorations between the headings.

See the first letter of the chapter?

Here's one of the many recipes in the book. Pretty to look at, and I like the little personal note, "Orange-flavored chocolate cake, for Jean." (Jean was her husband.)

Even the photos are kind of old-timey and nostalgic.



























Beyond that, I'm enjoying the read. Simone was born in France before World War I. Her father was a soldier in that war. Then she lived through World War II. I'm not finished with it yet. I've read through her description of her childhood, which included recipes of foods she learned from her family's cook, Zulma, and through her first marriage, that includes recipes she learned while living in Paris. Now I'm at the part where she's divorced her first husband and has just married Jean, the love of her life.

I am looking forward to finishing the book, and also trying some of the recipes.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple

Author's website

This book was enjoyable but I wouldn't call it great or compelling. It was kind of weird.

Bernadette is the name of the narrator's mother. The book is a compilation of emails and documents that slowly unveil the story of Bernadette's disappearance. The family -- the daughter/narrator, her father and mother -- live in Seattle. 

The father works at Microsoft and there's a kind of sub-plot of him, his project at Microsoft (mind-controlled robots) and his affair, or really one-night-stand with his administrative assistant. The mother, Bernadette, is an architect who won the MacArthur genius grant before the daughter was born, and now stays at home and seems to be almost agoraphobic, hardly ever venturing outside her house. The daughter, named Bee, goes to a private school and the super-involved parents, especially two mothers, at the school are central figures in the story, too.

A central part of the story is the fact that the family is planning a trip to Antarctica as a reward for Bee's excellent grades. Before they go, though, Bernadette runs away, escapes, actually, and the family does not go on the trip as planned. Later Bee and her father go, after Bernadette has been gone long enough that many consider her dead or lost forever. Bee has not given up hope, though, and continues to look for her mother.

Because the story is revealed through a bunch of different documents, there are many voices and viewpoints. It's not my favorite way to read a story, but it wasn't as frustrating as that device sometimes can be. I still wanted to keep on reading and find out what happened. The characters and plot are interesting, but I guess I didn't think they were that realistic. Kind of cartoony.

Anyway, it's a light read and not bad.

National Poetry Month

I just read something that said it is National Poetry Month so I decided to copy down a few poems I like. Of course, there are lots more but these were either short enough to type or easy to find and copy in. Love to hear any of yours!

Phenomenal Woman
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

worms
by Aaron Belz

Cyclists, as a rule, think bikers are cheating,
because they have engines. Pedestrians, in turn,
think cyclists are cheating; they use wheels.
People in wheelchairs think pedestrians
have a leg up, for obvious reasons,
but pedestrians think the same thing
about people in wheelchairs; they use wheels.
What makes people in wheelchairs unique
is that they also think cyclists and bikers
are cheating. Their disdain is uniform.
The wheelchairists' hypocrisy lies,
however, in their use of automobiles.
Everyone uses automobiles except worms.
Worms think they're better than everyone.
Worms think they're more authentic than everyone.
This is why people say worms are self-righteious.
To worms' credit, however, they aren't hypocritical,
except the ones that glide down the sidewalk
on hundreds of tiny legs, blithely ignoring
their wilted, sun-blackened comrades.
These worms are called millipedes.
Those worms are really bad apples.

The Shirt
by Jane Kenyon

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt--
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Funeral Blues

by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers
by Emily Dickenson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Socrates in the City edited by Eric Metaxas

Review by my brother and a friend

I found this book because my brother, Joel Kok, wrote a review of it with a friend. I thought it was a great read.

Socrates in the City was started by Eric Metaxas "with the simple idea that the philosopher Socrates was quite right when he famously said that the 'unexamined life is not worth living.'" He decided to bring some people who were asking and thinking about the "Big Questions" to New York, invite a few friends and serve some wine and hors d'oevres.

Each section of the book is one of the speeches by these thinkers. It begins with the introduction by Metaxas, then the speech itself, and then a transcription of the question and answer period afterward.

The introductions often make me laugh out loud. I had not actually heard of Eric Metaxas before this but he is a very witty guy. The speeches are wondeful, concise spoken essays about "life, God and other small topics" such as Belief in God in an Age of Science, Making Sense out of Suffering, Can an Atheist be a Good Citizen?, Who Are We? C.S. Lewis and the Question of Man. To name a few. The speakers had to stick to about a 45 minute talk, so they are concise. Each of these topics could be -- and are -- a topic it would take several books to discuss.

I found myself usually reading one and then stopping so I could soak it in and ruminate on it for a while before jumping into the next one. There are so many great quotes it's hard to chose just a few to include. I'll put down a few, though.

The question of truth is as important to religion as it is to science...Of course, science and religion are looking for different aspects of the truth. Science....restricts itself essentially to asking questions of process, which are the "how questions."....Religion is asking a different set of questions, and in my view, more interesting questions...of meaning and purpose: "Is there something going on in what is happening in the world?"

Those seeking to serve the God of truth should welcome truth from whatever source it comes. 

So, the fact that there is cancer in the world, which is, undoubtedly, an anguishing aspect of the world and a source of grief and anger to us, is, at least, not gratuitous. It is not something that a God who was a little more compassionate or a little more competent could easily have removed. It is the shadow side of the creativity of the world. It is the necessary cost of a creation allowed to make itself.

To live is to suffer. Therefore, if life has meaning, suffering has meaning, too.

God is intimately present in the worst sufferings. Where was God in the Holocaust? He was in the gas chambers.

God doesn't give us a lot of words to answer the problem of suffering...he gives us a single word, and his name is Jesus.

That's just a small sampling from the first few speeches. There was a humorous exchange in one of the introductions that I could relate to as someone who sits in the sound booth often:

Eric Metaxas: Can everyone in this area hear?

Speaker: I am sorry, what should I do?

Eric Metaxas: You should berate one of the sound people.

Speaker: That is cathartic but not very useful.

That cracked me up.

But seriously this book is great. I highly recommend it. I plan to send it to a few people, actually, just to encourage them to read it. I like the shortness and conciseness, so people who don't like to read might actually be okay with it.

There is a website for the group Socrates in the City. I hope to explore it and hear more great thinkers and speakers.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Review, summary, etc.

The sub-title of this book is "A True Life Novel." It's written as if it were a memoir, in the first person, but it's the story of Jeannette Walls' grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, born in 1901. She grew up on a ranch in Arizona and was a woman ahead of her time. She was the oldest of three children and took on a lot of the responsibility of the ranch, working alongside her father from an early age.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's kind of a rip-roaring story. Lily is an incredible character. She was so strong and independent. Although her father seemed to appreciate how hard she worked and how invaluable she was on the ranch, still there was never any question that her brother would receive funding to go to college, not Lily. And even when he did send her to school, he eventually stopped paying for that in order to implement a crazy get rich quick scheme of his own.

But nothing stopped Lily. She made her own way, if none was provided. She rode 500 miles by herself through unsettled country for a teaching job. Later she learned to drive and even to fly. She was really amazing. And when you read the author's introductions and acknowledgements you realize that the book doesn't seem to exaggerate; this really was Lily.

She went through some tough and scary times. The book begins with the story of her survival of a huge flash flood that could have easily killed her, her sister and brother. And that's just the first of many adventures. I woke up one night unable to sleep and ended up reading at least half if not more of this book in one sitting. It's just such a good story. You'll love the book -- and Lily.

Bad Religion by Ross Douthat

Author interview

Last night one of my book clubs discussed this book. I must confess I did not read the entire book. I got about halfway through. As our meeting drew near, the leader of the discussion told us that if we had not finished the book yet, to read the final chapter where the author outlined some of the author's conclusions and suggestions, and I did that.

My dad also read the book and he remarked it had a lot of numbers. He quoted the line, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." True words, but it is pretty evident that church attendance, at least in North America is shrinking.

A big part of our discussion centered on the demise of institutional Christianity, or even more specifically, of denominations. One member, a pastor, said that when he is leading classes for new Christians he includes a discussion of why we should be thankful for the institution of denominations. One reason is that there is someone to appeal to beyond the local church or minister. There won't be a Jim Jones when you're in our denomination. I also am grateful for the ability to do more than a single church could do. Our denomination has a few colleges, a seminary, and many ministries throughout the world.

It was interesting, though, to talk about the future of denominations. Another member said that he had been personally saddened by the, what he feels is, the impending demise of his denomination, not only because of shrinking numbers but also theological divides. He talked about churches doing ministries on a micro-scale, more one-on-one, training each other and holding each other accountable to live out our lives, no matter what we do, as Christians.

In the book, Douthat gives a kind of history of Christianity in the US. He talks about how churches and Christian scholars had authority and influence in the past. He brings up renowned Christians such as C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr and others who were looked at and listened to as people who had some authority and credence, but now we don't really have that kind of thing anymore.

Douthat talked about the "accommodationists," who try to figure out ways to make Christianity more accommodating to the general society. I can see his points but I don't really think that those kinds of changes are what caused people to stop going to church in as large of numbers as they did before.

I have a friend who was brought up in a mainline Christian church, he was active in the church's young people's group and his parents are still  active in church. But my friend married a woman who has no desire to participate in a church and, seemingly, no faith. Their life is taken up with family activities, their kids' sports and work and the feeling I get is they feel that their life is fine and they just don't need church life. My friend and I have not talked a whole lot about our personal beliefs but he doesn't have anything against religion or faith and I think he even prays and feels he does believe in God. I look at them and I have no idea what could cause them to desire to increase their faith and become a member of a church community.

Douthat, at the end of his book, talks fairly optimistically about the future of Christianity. He says:

...Christian witness needs to be public and evangelistic as well as intimate and personal....The future of American religion depends on believers who can demonstrate, in word and deed alike, that the possibilities of the Christian life are not exhausted by TV preachers and self-help gurus, utopians, and demagogues. It depends on public examples of holiness, and public demonstrations of what the imitation of Christ can mean for a fallen world...Only sanctity can justify Christianity's existence; only sanctity can make the case for faith; only sanctity, or the hope thereof, can ultimately redeem the world.

(If you, like me, need a reminder of what sanctity is, the definition is, "The state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.")