Book Review - My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)

My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)

 

Luisa Weiss

Category: nonfiction, memoir, Germany, Berlin, food, cooking

Synopsis: Weiss, the daughter of an American father and Italian mother, raised in Germany and America, finds her place in the world when she falls in love with a German and settles down in Berlin.

Date finished: 21 March 2013

Rating: ***½

Comments: While I enjoyed this book, it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I’ve been following Weiss’s website for several months now, and while the recipes don’t usually appeal to me, there’s something that keeps me coming back. I suppose it’s her writing, her way of telling a story, or maybe, I realize now, it’s her larger worldview. What I didn’t really realize until I read this book was that she’s not a very chipper person—not a depressive, but not entirely cheerful. That’s the tone of this book, somewhat somber. It’s interesting to read a romance story told in this voice.

     What I found so interesting about this book (aside from the fact that I’m still unsure if the subtitle “A Love Story” refers to her relationship with her boyfriend-turned-husband, or her relationship with Berlin) was how the book was about something I’m not even positive Weiss intended. For me, the romance was secondary. The primary storyline here was “home.” What constitutes home? Where is home? Especially, where is home when your father is American, your mother is Italian, and you were raised in Brookline, Massachusetts and Berlin, Germany. The better part of the book was about Weiss finding the place she truly belonged. I’d never thought about this before. I was born and raised just an hour from where I now live. Home to me has always been a farm or a dorm room or student rental or apartment or a little ranch-style house on a corner lot. Home was never a question of which state or which country or which continent I found myself.

     I think this sense of dislocation, of not fitting in—or of fitting in too many places—was what lends the somber tone to Weiss’s story. Every time she settles somewhere, another of her homes beckons her back. In the end, though, she decides her home is Berlin.

     All in all, this was a well-written, even charming story. It suffered from poor editing (I found a half dozen errors within ten pages), which was too bad. It also offered a good introduction to German food (or at least Berliner food—if it differs from German food overall, I’m unsure). I found her recipes rather fussy and bossy, and chuckled to find she realized she was a bossy recipe writer, when she labels herself that on page 104.

     Here’s my favorite moment in the book, and it gives you an idea of the writing. A few minutes before midnight, she and her fiancé decided to ditch a New Year’s Eve party they were on their way to. On their way home they come upon folks celebrating in the street.

It was a stunning couple of minutes. I felt so lucky to have had them. They were like a gift, like someone drawing open a heavy velvet curtain on the secret machinery of humanity and letting me have a few minutes to watch it all unfold. Thank you, I thought, sending my gratitude upward and outward to whoever was responsible for all that had happened to me in that impossibly hard and wonderful year. I could see it all now, the heartbreak included, as part of a continuum.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Probably. Would appeal most to foodies, expats, and globetrotters.

Book Review - Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way

Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way

 

Mayim Bialik

Category: nonfiction, parenting, Attachment Parenting, families, celebrity

Synopsis: Bialik explains what Attachment Parenting is, its benefits, and what it looks like in her family.

Date finished: 19 March 2013

Rating: ***½ 

Comments: Having read books in the past about attachment parenting (though I’m not sure it was called such), I knew that it wasn’t likely the parenting style that I’d choose in my life. Regardless, I wanted to read this book with an open mind, without judgment, and not dismiss any part of what she says out of hand. After all, Bialik assures us in her first chapter that “this is not a judgmental book. This is not a book in which I explain to you why what you have done or want to do is wrong…”

     Well, both of us failed in our attempts (read chapter 7 on “Elimination Communication” and perhaps you won’t blame me). But I think we both get points for effort.

     Briefly, attachment parenting is based on the following principles:

•      birth should be natural with as little assistance from the medical world as possible
•      babies should be breastfed
•      parents should be sensitive to a child’s needs
•      bonding happens through touch (baby wearing, breastfeeding, etc.)
•      families should co-sleep (everyone in the same bed)
•      parents should be the primary (preferably, only) caregiver
•      discipline should be gentle (reasoning vs. spanking)
•      your needs and your child’s needs should be balanced

While I think critiquing a mother’s parenting philosophy is dangerous territory, there are some things that I had to wonder about. Although Bialik presented her philosophy with candor, intelligence, and sincerity, there were times I just wanted to shake her. We all use what we want to back up our parenting philosophy. Some use the Bible, some subscribe to a certain pediatrician or book, and some, like Bialik, use scientific research. This seems the most wishy-washy of the options considering you can find studies to back up any position—even harmful ones—you want to hold. For instance, as I understand it, attachment theory is based on the idea that if all of a child’s needs are met quickly and sensitively from infancy on a child will form a strong bond with its parent/s, thus making his future independence easier and seamless. In other words, baby sets the schedule, and parents facilitate it.

     Opponents to attachment theory would say that the kind of dependence where a child is never left to his own devises, is never left to cry or play alone, will grow up to be narcissistic and needy, unable to meet his own needs because he hasn’t the tools to. To illustrate this: Bialik’s children were both well over one year old when they learned to walk (at least one walked at 17 months, page 166); both were over three years old when they stopped breast-feeding (weaning was child-led, not parent-led); and both of her children were over three years old when they learned to talk. She explains this—I think it’s fair to say—delayed development, away as just slow developing. What would be cause for alarm in some circles is “just the way he is” in others. But I have to posit that all of us non-attachment readers are thinking, “Maybe your kids aren’t walking because they’ve always been carried. Maybe your kids aren’t talking because they’ve never had to ask for anything.” (Or more crassly, “because they’ve always had a breast in their mouth.”) Of course, this is not child abuse, and her children are sure to catch up to other children their age, but the point is, she doesn’t think they necessarily should be like other kids their age, and she doesn’t think her parenting has any effect on delayed development. They are simply slower than other children. Perhaps yes, but I can’t quite bring myself to believe that.

     With her PhD in neuroscience, she often bases her defense of attachment parenting on hormones and evolution. Evolution is another slippery slope, though, because she’ll use it to back up one opinion but ignore it when backing up another. So, while she’ll tell you that breastfeeding and co-sleeping have been done throughout human history up until very recently, making an argument that we are hardwired to do these things, she does not discuss the notion that perhaps humans are “evolving” beyond the need for it. Isn’t it possible that we’ve evolved beyond the need for co-sleeping? Isn’t it possible that our ancestors co-slept because they needed to keep baby safe, and warm, and now that we no longer have to ward off predators and have reliable heating in our homes, we don’t need to co-sleep? Isn’t it possible it was never about human bonding and only about human preservation? 

     I found it odd that someone with her education couldn’t better anticipate her reader’s questions and head them off at the pass. Perhaps she didn’t want to, but I came away feeling that my questions weren’t addressed, and therefore, weren’t valid. Now, I know it’s not her job to validate my parenting beliefs nor defend hers, but in the pricklier parts of the book, I think some of this was necessary, and it was likely a missed opportunity for her.

     She spent a long time talking about teaching children to share and how she thinks this is a silly idea. She doesn’t think her child should have to give up a toy because another child wants it. She doesn’t think she should have to tell him to share and he should obey simply because that’s the way it’s done in polite society. And she has a point. I’ve heard this debate before. Many times. It’s a big thing out there, in case you didn’t know. What I think parents on both sides are missing is that the problem isn’t with the child who has the toy and doesn’t want to give it up when another child fixates on it. No. They problem is with the child who thinks someone should give up a toy because he wants it. There’s where your behavior modification needs to come in, people! That’s the kid who should be told to “share!” if anyone is. But I digress…

     One more thing. Shortly after the book came out, Bialik and her husband announced they were divorcing. The newscaster or writer (I forget where I heard or read this) said it was not due to attachment parenting. I remember thinking that was a strange statement at the time, but now I can understand how this kind of parenting could wreak havoc in a marriage. Although Bialik wrote quite a bit about how she and her husband were in agreement on their parenting, and how attachment parents need to keep their marriages strong, I now wonder if this was a factor in the breakup. Any marriage that puts the children ahead of the union will navigate rocky seas and be more likely to wreck upon the rocks.

     So, in conclusion, this was a well-written account of how one family uses attachment parenting to raise its children. It offered much food for thought, and there were areas where I agreed with her wholeheartedly, such as physical punishment being unnecessary and illogical. In the end, we all just want to have respectful, intelligent, and happy children. Each family must get there on their own, listening to and following their intuition.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Only if they are looking for information on this type of parenting or for variations on parenting theories.

Book Review - The End of Your Life Book Club

The End of Your Life Book Club

 

Will Schwalbe

Category: nonfiction, memoir, books, reading, families

Synopsis: While his mother undergoes cancer treatment, Schwalbe and his mother, Mary Anne, form a two-person book club.

Date finished: 18 March 2013

Rating: ****

Comments: All through this book I kept thinking: why has this book resonated with so many people? Not that is shouldn’t have, but there’s no denying that this book has done what few books about books do. I suppose it owes a lot of its success to the death component of the book, the part I enjoyed least (I kept wishing for more “book club” and less “end of life”), but I also think that there were many things going on here, that many different people in different phases of life could react to. There was the end of life aspect and the avid reader aspect, of course, but there was also the mother/child relationship, the activist, the gay son, health, and politics. A lot to relate to.

     Oddly, it took me awhile to truly care for the narrator or his mother, but I found myself enjoying them—if not really relating to them—by the book’s end. Though I disagree with his mother’s politics, I understand her reason for them, and by the end of the book I fully respected them as well as the woman who held them. It took a while, but Schwalbe succeeded in creating a fleshed-out mother, with her years of work in Afghanistan and literacy; her disdain for silliness; her pride and positivity; her spiritual prayer life.

     I’m glad he didn’t spend much time on her actual death. It was all wrapped up in a few pages (almost abruptly considering all the lead up).

     What I found myself enjoying most was the talk of books. Although most (all?) of the books discussed were fiction, and therefor books I’d never read, they were all books I’d heard of, and they were discussed in a very understated, yet intelligent, way. I’ve read many books about readers reading, but this book was the most successful. I actually enjoyed reading about the books they discussed, regardless of the fact that I’d likely never read them myself. This is because, as Schwalbe says, “All readers have reading in common.” (page 314)

     One of my favorite exchanges between mother and son was on page 151:

     “It’s cruelty that gets to me. Still, it’s important to read about cruelty.”

     “Why is it important?”

     “Because when you read about it, it’s easier to recognize….”

     I also thoroughly enjoyed his description of the reader’s voice many writers put on when reading their work in public (page 205). It made me nod and laugh out loud with its accuracy.

     All in all, this was a well-written tribute to mothers, books, and what endures.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, especially to those who love books about books.

Book Review - Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

 

Cheryl Strayed

Category: nonfiction, memoir, hiking, Pacific Coast Trail

Synopsis: In order to change her life and shake the grief of losing her mother to cancer, Strayed plans to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) alone, from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington.

Date finished: 13 March 2013

Rating: ****

Comments: All along I was thinking: how am I going to rate this book? It seems like whenever I read a book that’s become hugely successful, I feel swayed by the reviews that came with it. On the one hand, this is a wonderfully engaging read. It was the kind of book you have a hard time putting down. Strayed is a successful storyteller, capturing and holding your attention. I felt like I was taking that hike with her. It was fascinating.

     On the other hand, though, I found her immature and self-destructive behaviors (drug use, indiscriminate sex, etc.) something I wanted to, at best, pity, and at worst, run from. Almost worse was her absolute unpreparedness for the trek she’d embarked on. She hadn’t read a book, asked other hikers what to expect, considered the weight of her pack, nothing. It was like watching a kid run away from home with only a bag of candy and a comb. Yikes.

     There were a few times during her everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong tales when I wondered if I was being had. Was I being moved along by a true story, or had she embellished for effect? While this is a risk with all memoirs, it’s especially risky in a memoir about an event that takes place in virtual solitude. No one could corroborate or deny her story. It seemed almost too good (or bad) to be true. I hate to be this cynical, but the thought did occur to me, so it seems fair to mention it here.

     In the end, we’re left to believe that the trail cured her. Cured her of her grief over losing her mother years before, cured her of her drug abuse, cured her of her lascivious appetites, cured her of the desire to destroy the good things in her life, cured her of her naiveté. I’m not sure I bought it. Yet, while she was wildly immature, her story was told with a depth of maturity that I can only attribute to her years spent after the trail. So maybe the trail did “cure” her. Certainly an experience like that would change a person.

     I appreciate how her last page or two mentioned the fact that she married and had children. I had worried that when it was all over, when she reached her destination, and we all got off the trail with her, she wouldn’t give any indication of where she ended up. I’m glad to know.

     I’ll leave off with one of my favorite passages that, to me, encapsulated the feeling I got while imagining myself on the trail—in her hiking boots—so to speak:

Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was. The radical aloneness of the PCT had altered that sense. Alone wasn’t a room anymore, but the whole wide world, and now I was alone in that world, occupying it in a way I never had before. (page 119)

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, but with the warning of drugs, sex, and other behaviors that may turn some folks off.

Book Review - Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes

 

Shauna Niequist

 

Category: nonfiction, memoir, food, faith, family

Synopsis: Niequist explores the importance of gathering loved ones around the table.

Date finished: 6 March 2013

Rating: ****

Comments: I’ve looked forward to this book for a long time, and it did not disappoint. There are just a couple authors whose book releases I actually put on the calendar; Shauna Niequist is one of those authors. The only thing I don’t like about her books is that they’re never long enough! Her essays are always like going home to me; her words are like long-lost friends. I smile, laugh, cry, and nod all the way through, and this book was no different. I found myself almost swallowing it whole, and admonishing myself to “save some for later!” It’s hard for me to imagine Shauna Niequist ever writing an unsuccessful book. Anything written as honestly as her work just can’t fail.

     Her books make me feel we’re friends. And in fact, we do have a lot in common. We’ve both Midwestern Christian women of the same age who love to cook and eat and who write about family and faith. But I don’t think these commonalities have to be in place for you to relate to her books on a deep level. I think she writes with a universality that resonates with women of all ages, faiths, and backgrounds.

     It’s difficult when an author writes multiple books about the same topics—in this case, family, food, faith, and home—to not compare the newest book to the ones that came before it. I think it’s important to look at this book separately from its sister-books, Cold Tangerines, and Bittersweet. In this, her third book of essays, she focuses on life around the table—feeding family and breaking bread with friends. It includes many recipes. I think her previous books may have had more writing on faith and this one has more on family. I recognized some essays from her wonderful blog.

     I’m not an entertainer. I’m not a sit-around-the-table kind of person. I’m shy. Quiet. Social interaction tires me, and the thought of cooking for anyone but immediate family with their myriad dietary restrictions and likes and dislikes makes me itch. Still, this book made me wonder if I was missing out on something essential, like community, like connectedness and intimacy, like thankfulness and sacrifice.

     I was pleasantly surprised by the recipes. I know from following her blog that she has a much more adventurous palate than I do, and I know she tries to prepare gluten-free foods wherever possible. I’m one of the last hold-outs on meat, dairy, gluten, carbs, etc. I eat it all. Since I’m not a butternut squash, feta cheese, almond milk kind of girl, I anticipated skipping over most of the recipes, but I ended up reading all of them with interest. There are a couple things I’d like to try, specifically Jim Lahey’s Sullivan Street Bakery bread (I've been reading about this recipe all over) and her friend Brannon’s Caesar Salad.

     So, all in all, a sweet read that I’ll return to for its warmth and depth and breadth.

     I’ll leave off with a couple of the passages that really struck a chord with me.

    

In her essay “Hungry,” she writes about battling weight issues:

     And through all that, I’ve made friends and fallen in love, gotten married and become a mother. I’ve written and traveled and stayed up late with people I love. I’ve walked on the beach and on glittering city streets. I’ve kissed my baby’s cheeks and danced with my husband and laughed till I cried with my best friends, and through all that it didn’t really matter that I was heavier than I wanted to be.

In her essay “Enough,” she writes about infertility, but reminds us all to expect good, and to be grateful for everything:

     I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for something more.

     Read about the inception of Bread & Wine here, here, here, and here.

     This book will be released on April 9.

     Thank you to Zondervan for the advance reader copy.

Book Review - Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, Bob Spitz

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child

 

Bob Spitz

Category: nonfiction, biography, Julia Child, food, cooking, France, celebrity

Synopsis: An account of the culinary star who brought French cooking to America.

Date finished: 2 March 2013

Rating: ***½

Comments: Like most people, I’ve always enjoyed Julia Child. I now regard her even more highly. She’s a national treasure, tireless in her quest to bring good (French) food to the American palate. Before reading the book, though, most of what I knew about her was her 1999 Emmy Award-winning PBS series with Jacque Pepin. They disagreed on everything, sometimes playfully, sometimes vehemently. She was advanced in years, and she didn’t look well, was physically unstable, but still full of, to use my grandmother’s expression, “vim and vigor.” Not knowing much about her long, illustrious career, I thought Jacque was there to teach her about French cooking. I laugh to think of this now.

     I tend to have a healthy distrust of biographies for several reasons. They’re too apt to slant one way or another, and it’s too easy to edit a life to fit the writer’s agenda. So, I admit, I distrusted Spitz just a little bit all the way through. Known for his pop culture biographies of such stars and events as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Woodstock, I wasn’t sure he was invested in his culinary subject. Come to find out that he knew Julia late in her life, so I softened a bit—although that fact didn’t come out until the Sources and Acknowledgments pages way in the back of the book. Throughout (though more in the beginning), he seemed to be bored by his own prose and would add odd puns, bawdy jokes, and ill-fitted swearwords (e.g. “hard-ass” when referring to her father, “shit-faced” [page 69], “balls” [page 522], “more connected than an IBM mainframe” [page 433], and this odd sentence on page 12: “An omelet had to be exciting in the mouth, she purred, making it sound like oral sex.”) Those instances made it seem just a little too much about him and his self-perceived literary prowess, didn’t fit with his tone, and, frankly, annoyed me. I was also annoyed by the gratuitous, random italicization.

     It’s hard for me to grade a biography; what are you grading, really? The biographer’s writing? How much you come to like the subject? You can’t really rate it on how factual it is, since the author is likely more an expert than the reader is. I don’t really know, so I had to go with an overall gut feeling, combining these three. I’m glad I read Julia’s Cats before this biography, since I’m not sure I would have appreciated it for what it was knowing so much more about Julia.

     Would I have liked Julia Child had I met her? Likely, I would have adored her as a star but disliked her political persona and some of her moral decisions. She very much disliked Republicans (likely because her father very much disliked liberals), and she even considered declining the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2003) because it was offered to her by President George W. Bush. While her husband, Paul, was nearing the end of his life in a nursing home, she was dating (though she didn’t call it that) another man. These actions made her human, but diminished her a bit in my eyes. (Though, to be fair, after a brief chat with President Bush, she decided maybe he wasn’t the terrible person she’d always thought.) I will always enjoy her practical nature, her bawdiness, her unusual height (6’3”) and voice. I also appreciate her first three decades (plus) spent utterly rudderless, adrift with no great passion, and how her first Parisian meal of sole gave her entire life purpose and direction. As someone still waiting for her plate of sole, so to speak, this gives me hope. And after reading this book, I especially appreciate the tremendous, painstaking work she did to bring French cuisine (and technique, she would hasten to add) to the states.

     Some of my favorite stories from the book: It was well known that Julia Child was listed in the phone book, and she’d spend her entire Thanksgiving day answering frantic calls from culinary civilians. (Never apologize, dearie!) Another favorite was Julia’s distrust of Meryl Streep for Streep’s campaign to examine the ill effects of a certain chemical used on apples. Julia said Streep was no scientist, and she’d be better off butting out. Meryl Streep, of course, went on to play Child in the 2009 film “Julie & Julia.” (And, she was right about that chemical being hazardous.) My least favorite part of the book: the last few chapters describing Paul’s decline and then Julia’s. Although Spitz handled the telling of them well, they were uncomfortable nonetheless.

     All in all, Dearie was a good chronology of Julia Child’s life (in the U.S., France, and other countries), cookbooks, and television career. I doubt that much was glossed over. Spitz quoted many family members and friends, though I was surprised at how little was in Julia’s own words considering she’d produced a memoir (My Life in France, 2008) and left behind reams and reams of personal papers.

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes.

Book Review - Cheaper by the Dozen

Cheaper by the Dozen

 

Frank B. Gilbreth & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Category: nonfiction, memoir, families, humor

Synopsis: Two of the twelve Gilbreth children tell their family’s story, reared by an efficiency expert father and a psychologist mother, set in the early part of the 20^th century.

Date finished: 16 February 2013

Rating: *****

Comments: What a delightful book! Long a fan of large families, this book really satisfied. It is not often that I can describe a book as “hilarious,” but this was. I actually laughed out loud. I have enjoyed the “Cheaper by the Dozen” remakes starring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt. This Thanksgiving I watched the original movie. Frankly, I don’t know how the remakes got away with calling themselves “Cheaper by the Dozen.” They are nothing alike. Both great in their own way, but nothing alike. While watching the original movie, though, I was sucker-punched when Mr. Gilbreth, very suddenly, died. My jaw actually dropped. Not realizing the movie was based on a book, it seemed like a huge Hollywood blunder. Now I know the book is exactly like that. The last chapter is a quick, cheerless account of the father’s passing. The movie was faithful to the book. At any rate, there’s nothing to say other than “read this book.” You’ll enjoy the quick, humor-filled romp through life with 12 children (actually 11—they don’t really mention that the second child, Mary, died quite young).

Would you recommend this to a friend?

Yes, enthusiastically. And this would be a great book for tween readers (though they may need as much help as I did with the 1900s references).