Bookstock

I went to Bookstock yesterday, for the very first time.

I've tried to get there each year, but something always seems to come up to keep me from it.  But not this year!  This year I perused through thousands of used books, piled 'em up in my arms 'til I couldn't hold any more, and wished all the while that I lived closer so I could meander over each day for the week that this fest is being held, just to see what new goodies arrive as it all progresses.

Here's how Bookstock describes itself:


Bookstock, Used Book & Media Sale, is a community service project through which donations of books and media continue to provide enjoyment and knowledge. Proceeds from the sale support education and literacy projects in the Detroit metropolitan area and beyond.


The entire process of collecting and sorting gently used books and media, organizing and staffing the sale is 100% volunteer driven. This approach to recycling used books and media in order to raise money for education and literacy is what makes Bookstock a win-win endeavor for the community. All leftover books from Bookstock are donated to non-profits and charities in our community.

Now, one might think that I'm a bit limited to have bought 7 cookbooks, most of them about Jewish cuisine!  But not only are these books I didn't already have, some of them are also theoretically work-related.  I write about food, and I often write about Jewish food; I'm also writing regularly now for the Washtenaw Jewish News about holidays ... and food!  So to collect a few of the basics among the pantheon of Jewish cookbooks - The 92nd Street Y's International Kosher Cookbook, The World of Jewish Entertaining, and Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen ... well, how could I resist???

There's also Love and Knishes by Sara Kasdan, which is very cute and chatty, with lots of traditional recipes and generous sprinklings of Yiddish, which I wish I could speak - you can't say anything in other languages as expressively as you can in Yiddish!  My favorite part, though, is the chapter on Yom Kippur Cookery, which totals 4 sentences: "Ah ha!  You looked.  Shame on you!  You should be fasting."  Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the one day on the Jewish calendar on which no food or water are permitted ... :)

But I also indulged in other interests beyond Jewish food, and bought a cookbook devoted solely to my beloved shortbread, one by Paul Prudhomme and his family, and one devoted to menus inspired by artists such as Brueghel, Rousseau, Mattisse and Monet.  Regular readers have followed along as I've written numerous posts about shortbread, both sweet and savory; about New Orleans and its food; and about art exhibits.  I may be obsessive and single-minded in buying cookbooks almost exclusively, but I'm a happy single-minded obsessive!

And I also have to share with you my moment of amusement.  I once wrote a post about finding copies of In the Kitchen with Rosie: Oprah's Favorite Recipes in every single thrift shop I meander through.  So to find one at Bookstock (and then, in looking at the picture, finding another copy tucked into the pile to the right-hand side of the one I photographed) made me chuckle ....

Teaser Tuesdays: I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

I haven't joined in on the "Teaser Tuesdays" party for awhile; but since I'm reading a food-related book right now, it seems appropriate to bring a contribution to the potluck.

"Teaser Tuesdays" is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

•Grab your current read

•Open to a random page

•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I happen to be reading the very well-timed I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti by Giulia Melucci. I'd heard of the book when it was first published, and then happened to just blunder into it at the library last week ... the universe offers us what we need at the right time, if we're paying attention.

Given that I've recently ended a relationship, and given that I'm living alone now and cooking all sorts of things I haven't been able to in recent years (due to the dietary and health quirks of many of my loved ones), this seemed like the perfect "sit on the sunny porch after dinner and read" kinda book.

It's filled with tales of hope and heartbreak, as well as stories of faith and foolishness ... and lots and lots of recipes. Giulia's parents were both Italian -- her father born in Italy, her mother raised by Sicilian immigrants -- so her love of food and her talent for creating sublime dishes are both exquisite!

Here are my two teaser sentences from page 13:

"He seemed truly smitten with me, and that kind of thing just didn't happen. I can count on my breasts the number of times I have missed a meal, but for several days after that date I ate next to nothing."

In contrast, I usually go into starvation mode when my heart feels as though it's been shattered into thousands of shards, and eat very enthusiastically when I'm happy and contented. To each her own coping mechanisms ....

I'm doing quite well and eating heartily, since the time was right (though it's still a sad situation) for my new-found freedom. And here, just 'cause they're so perfect, are two more quotes from the book that sum things up perfectly:

"But still, cooking was mine. It relaxed me .... It was a way to make sense out of my internal chaos. There is logic and order to cooking. What you put into it has everything to do with what you get out of it. With love, it's not so cut-and-dried."

"Because cooking and eating well are my raison d'être, I don't stop when there's no one else to feed."

And on that note, I thought I'd make one of the comforting recipes featured in this book about lost loves -- Sauteed Summer Peppers.

I just happened to have every one of the ingredients on hand, and even threw in some mushrooms that I needed to use up; then I served the dish over polenta, rather than with the recommended grilled sausages.

It was hearty, it was delicious ... it was absolutely sublime for a sunny Spring evening on the front porch ... :)

Sauteed Summer Peppers

Vegetables:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red onion, ends removed, sliced lengthwise into semicircular chunks
pinch dried oregano
3 bell peppers (1 red, 1 orange, 1 yellow), cored, seeds and pith removed, cut into strips
6 ounces sliced mushrooms
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large tomatoes (or 4 plum tomatoes), seeded and cut into chunks
1/4 cup torn basil leaves
freshly ground pepper

Heat olive oil in large saute pan or Dutch oven over medium heat and saute garlic and onion with the oregano until the onion is soft and translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add peppers, mushrooms and 1 teaspoon salt and cook partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes. Add tomatoes and 1/4 teaspoon salt; continue to cook another 10 to 15 minutes until the peppers are very soft. Test for seasoning and serve with torn basil leaves and freshly ground pepper.

Polenta:

6 cups water
pinch of salt
1 cup cornmeal
freshly grated parmesan, for serving

Bring water and salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Slowly whisk in cornmeal, and cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes until thickened.

Place polenta into a serving dish and place peppers over it. Top with parmesan.

Serves 4.

Modernist Cuisine

I read a review in The New York Times last week of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking by Nathan Myhrvold, the former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. It's a massive -- literally! -- work dedicated to the most avant garde cooking techniques in the style that was originally labelled "Molecular Gastronomy."

Virtually no home cook can follow the recipes/steps/instructions, as the requisite equipment is expensive and the techniques are complicated and would fit quite comfortably in a scientific lab; but I find it all fascinating nonetheless. I'm hoping that the Ann Arbor Public Library will eventually purchase a set for me to peruse; I don't have an extra $450-600 (depending on where you shop) to buy it for myself!

Ferran Adria, the famed Spanish chef, is credited with initiating this wildly innovative cuisine. He creates such intriguing, fantastical dishes as:

an "egg" which is really a hollow, frozen shell made from Gorgonzola cheese

foams made with a primary ingredient combined with a gelling agent, then placed into a canister to be sprayed (as though it were whipped cream)

an "olive" which is actually an essence of olive flavor that has been sealed in a membrane to then melt on the tongue

Chicago's Grant Achatz is the most noted chef/practitioner of Modernist Cuisine in the United States. Food & Wine magazine once wrote about him: Any ingredient that strays into his kitchen is examined, poked, prodded, stretched, reshaped, transubstantiated. Herbs are turned into gas, fruit is turned into paper, pizza is stripped of crunch and chew until it's nothing but pure flavor .... Achatz had figured out how to blow bubbles out of mozzarella and trap tomato foam inside them.

Of course, this is as much avant garde art as it is avant garde food. I imagine that eating these delicacies would be a nearly indescribable experience challenging each of the senses, as one's traditional expectations of the foods would be completely shattered and then pieced back together bit by bit. Curiosity would turn into puzzlement, followed by recognition and then astonishment.

So, now there is a consummate reference work to inform us all about Modernist Cuisine, since it's not the sort of cooking one can do a recipe search for in order to satisfy a craving for dinner on any given night. You can't just run to the cookware sections at Target or K-Mart or even William-Sonoma for the equipment you'd need, after all! But you can experience it all vicariously, at least.

The New York Times describes the set of books this way:

As scientific as it is gastronomic, it is virtually an encyclopedia of cooking, a visual roller coaster through the world of food and cooking tools, as well as a compendium of 1,500 recipes.

The book builds from an overview of food history, microbiology and nutrition in Volume 1; to traditional and modern techniques in Volume 2, the science of cooking meat and plants in Volume 3, and the use of thickeners, gels and foams in Volume 4 (which also has a detailed chapter each on wine and coffee). Volume 5 is devoted to recipes for finished dishes, wherein all these chemicals and tools come together to create elaborate modernist meals.

Andreas Viestad of The Washington Post writes: At the center of "Modernist Cuisine" is the revolution in cooking that has taken place in the past couple of decades .... Cooking has moved from the age of fire to the space age.

So it is abundantly clear that I will not be producing any of these scientific/culinary creations myself any time soon and featuring them on ye olde blog! But if you'd like to see some extraordinary examples of this amazing cuisine, look at this slideshow to illustrate its complexity and beauty. It is astounding, even if it is out of the reach of the average person -- like me -- who just wants to feed her loved ones ....

Teaser Tuesdays: Tantalizing Tastes

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and, as she states, "Anyone can play along! Just do the following":

Grab your current read.

Dying for Chocolate -- A Culinary Mystery by Diane Mott Davidson. Yeah, it's drivel about a caterer who solves crimes ... but it's food-related drivel at a time when my brain isn't up for much more of an intellectual challenge at the end of long work days.

Open to a random page.

Page 178.

Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)

"The juicy steaks were redolent of a garlic-Burgundy marinade, the flaky baked potatoes oozed melted butter, and every leaf of the green salad was unabashedly coated with thick guacamole dressing."

"Therefore, alongside our strawberry pie we had Schulz's famous chocolate-mint cheesecake."

Sigh ....

"Twitterature"

I found an entertaining? amusing? appalling??? book called Twitterature, by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, at the library the other day. Its claim to fame is that it offers "humorous reworkings of literary classics for the twenty-first century intellect, in digestible portions of 20 tweets or fewer."

Now, I happen to be in possession of a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan, and one of my instructors had encouraged me to pursue graduate studies in semantics and rhetoric. I am quite the fan of books -- the real kind with the scent of ink and paper, with weight, with substance both physical and intellectual. And you can imagine that someone as verbose as I am has some issues with Twitter!

And yet, how could I resist seeing how the greatest works of literature had been deconstructed and decimated into tweets???

Well, it's not quite as erudite as Cliff's Notes. And yet, it does sum up the storylines for those who have the attention span of gnats. I guess with all the time people spend facing some sort of screen -- movies from Netflix, playing games on Wii instead of going out into the sunshine, posting their every move on Facebook, and (guilty as charged!) posting every little thought and whim and batch of cookies on personal blogs -- "... who has time to read those big, long books anymore?" (from the back cover of the book)

And so, I will share with you the twit's version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, one of the ultimate food books with all that eating and drinking and drinking and eating; and who could forget the Mad Tea Party???

@AliceInTheSkyWithDiamonds

Like many book characters, I'm pretty bored. Oh! A white rabbit! Just like in The Matrix. That movie was pretty dope, if you're on drugs.

Down into the rabbit hole I go! Ohh, that's rich. I feel like Neo.

Is it OK to drink from a mysterious bottle that's been opened? What if there are Ruffies in it?

I don't know what's going on, but in a typically feminine manner I'll allow confusion and being flustered to make me cry up a storm.

Am I still the same little girl that I was before? I feel like my 'self' is being deconstructed. And in HD, to boot.

I asked a mouse how to get dry from all my tears. He gave me a dry history lesson. People are purposefully confusing my words.

I'm in the rabbit's house. Here's more mysterious juice. Should I drink it again? Oh what the hell. Hope I won't be sore afterward.

Why are people throwing rocks at me like I'm Mary Magdalene? I'm a little girl, not a biblical prostitute ... er, Christ's wife.

I found a stoner Arab caterpillar. He made fun of me. Oh yeah? At least I'm not three inches tall with a case of the munchies.

At a tea party with a crackhead hat man. He's a schizoid. Insanity is part of his public image. After all, he put 'mad' in his name.

Sound has become distorted.

This land is terrorized by the Queen of Hearts. She's a card. Wouldn't it be funny if I just destroyed her army by shuffling them?

I'm in trouble. I'm not sure what I did. This is the worst day ever. I need a drink. Not from an unmarked bottle, though, no more of that.

Now I'm on trial. Another worst day ever. The queen stole my integrity and made me a felon. If I knew magic, I'd make her disappear.

If only I could grow large and crush them beneath me. Wait. I feel so strangely powerful, I'm huge. This courthouse is going down.

Oh, my sister is here. She's waking me for tea-time. Good, I'm home again.

A grinning cat, a tweeked-out hatter? A sadistic queen and a terrifying baby? This is the kinda ("stuff"-- family-friendly-ish blog here!) that sends people to years of therapy.

God that was just insane. I need another adventure like that like I need a hole in the head.

Hmmmm .... Are you feeling more educated and learned now???

Please note: I do want to take issue with the insult to women that all we do is cry when we're stressed, with the designation of the caterpillar as being an Arab stoner, with the outdated view that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, and especially with the use of the word "schizoid" which is an insult to people with mental illness. A significant number of my loved ones suffer from bipolar disorder and/or anxiety issues, so I am personally offended by such flippant and insulting use of the term ....