The Orchardist

This month we had a great discussion (and even greater feast) around The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin.  We hoped at a minimum we could make a meal around apples and apricots, but the book proved to be full of all kinds of inspiring food.

Overall people seemed to enjoy reading the book, but found it a bit depressing. It was hard to read all the passages with child abuse (there was true worry the baby would be made into a sex slave), and sad that Della never bonded with the baby.  And it was strange when she checked herself into jail, we concluded between the abuse and the near-hanging, she had sustained both emotional and brain damage.  Most of all people were frustrated that we never found out what happened to his sister...while it was agreed this did make the book all the more realistic and tragic, and did explain his actions in defense of lost Della, it made it feel like a presented mystery had no resolution. 

But there were also many moments of lightness and beauty, such as this delightful quote Katie S. shared with us:

There was lots to love in this book.  The trip to the The Peninsula was lovely. Some of us appreciated how as a cobbled together family, everyone in the book had so much space. We really loved the writing, and the  melancholy tone. The pacing was nice and steady, though slow.   Being Washingtonians, we really enjoyed the references to local towns, and the setting in general.  The descriptions of the orchard were so vivid and full of life.  And we drooled over the crab chowder description, and that of the Christmas dinner with rabbit and chestnut dressing.

 Random quote of the evening: "Cell phones don't protect you from bears."


 The food was SO good this month.  Really one of our best feasts!


Barbara – Autumn Apple Salad with Creamy Maple Dressing

Bobbi - Apple, onion, gruyere puffs

Dawn – Watermelon, pickles, lemon drops, cider

 Heather McN – seafood chowder/bisque and nectarine honey tapioca

Julie - Crab (no photos...but tasty!) and chicken and rice 

Katie S. – raisin buns

Vanessa - Artichoke crab dip and mini carmel "apples" (grapes), bacon wrapped chicken fingers

 Madeline - Pork loin with apples and apricots

 Katie W. – plum cake

 Laura – Cornbread and apple pie and honey butter 

Next month's book is The Dinner by Herman Koch. 

It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse -- the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.

Can't wait to see what you all think of it...and what you cook!

Gulp

Looks like I missed a fun discussion last night!   Happily Katie took notes:
 

For our September meeting we read Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach. Ah yes, just another meeting of prim ladies enjoying a potluck while discussing super colons, fecal transplants, and fart capturing bloomers.

Actually, we decided to feast and then talk – but with such ample discussion material it was difficult. We were ultimately unable to control ourselves, broke our own rule, and talked about the book while we ate. It turns out there is tons of information inspired by and in Gulp that is perfectly acceptable dinner conversation. Like how sad we all are to hear The Erotic Bakery in Wallingford is closing after 28 years, and the cleaning/healing powers of saliva.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the book. A couple people thought she sometimes got a little too deep into the science of particular topics, while a couple others loved the detailed explanations.  Many of us are excited to read the author’s other books, and we all want to attend a dinner party with her. We’d like to know more about her, what her degree is in and how she came to write the types of books she does. We all appreciated her writing style, and how she told the story in a way that was easy to read.

We were charmed by the description of the dog smelling his way through The Napa Valley with its head out the car window.  It was a surprise to learn the behavior is about smells, not just the joy of wind in your face. It makes me want to bump the documentary Why Dogs Smile and Chimpanzees Cry up in my Netflix queue, to see what else I’ve misinterpreted.

There was a fairly lengthy discussion on prison food, and the prison system in general. I am extra happy to report that Bobbie’s “Nutraloaf” was not a literal interpretation of the dish, but actually delicious meatloaf balls in hash brown nests.  Julie just finished Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman and reported the food described within was indeed grim. (Which doesn’t explain the Orange is the New Black cookbook that turned up in my Amazon search.) We moved on from the food to the general hopelessness of the US prison system and each have different ideas about how to break the cycle of poverty and imprisonment.

It was a surprised to learn how early in life you learn your life-long eating habits. It was fun to reminisce as a group about our childhoods, and the way our mothers and families taught us about food.  It is interesting to note how different our stories and histories are, yet we have come together as a group and forged friendships over our shared zeal for food and reading.

Which brings me to the food. Once again, we had a marvelous feast.

Julie brought chicken skewers, fresh off the grill, with a tasty peanut sauce. And wine!

Heather brought her European sweet & sour pork with decadent mashed potatoes. And yes, those were frankfurters in the bottom of the potato dish.

Bobbie brought a notably delicious interpretation of Neutraloaf – meatloaf balls in hash brown nests.

Mad brought Paul’s famous for a reason potato salad, and Almond Roca. The Almond Roca was a great stand-in for the chocolate covered bananas. You all know why, I don’t have to say it.

Katie brought Franny’s citrus salad with pistachios castelvetrano olives and chilies on a bed of arugula.

Recipes:

Julie’s Asian Peanut Sauce:

Combine equal parts (like ½ a cup each) in a pan and heat. Delicious with grilled chicken!

miso
soy sauce
peanut butter
beer
brown sugar
optionally add crushed red pepper or sriracha to taste.

Heather’s European Sweet & Sour Pork:

1lb 12oz can sauerkraut
1 c chopped onion
1lb 12oz can diced tomatoes
¾ c packed brown sugar
3lbs country style pork spareribs

Layer in a casserole dish as listed, do not stir, cover and bake at 325 for 2hrs 15 minutes. Remove cover and bake for 45 additional minutes.

Franny’s citrus salad with pistachios castelvetrano olives and chilies is from the book Franny’s Simple Seasonal Italian by Andrew Feinberg, Francine Stephens, and Melissa Clark

Additional reading suggestions:

All of Mary Roach’s books – Stiff, Bonk, Packing for Mars, Spook
The Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
Orange is the New Black Presents: The Cookbook by Jenji Kohan
Lucky Peach Magazine issue 11 “All You Can Eat” Westville Indiana Prison foodarticle

Awesome notes Katie!  You might have a new job ;)

Next month we will be discussing The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin. I expect lots of apple and apricot dishes!

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

 For August, we went with our usual light summer reading, but this year instead of a children's book we read a delightful and yummy graphic novel by Lucy Knisley called Relish: My Life in the Kitchen.

The group was overall pleasantly surprised by this book.  Not everyone had read a graphic novel before, but happily liked it more than they expected. Some thought from the cover it was going to be a kids book.  But everyone really seemed to like it, especially Lucy's tone, and her great talent for combining her writing and illustration abilities. 

Favorite bits: 

• picture of her drinking vinegar with her dad.
• the relationship she has with her folks, and their friendly divorced relationship.
• A light and easy read.
• Wanted it to last longer.
• Loved how the recipes were illustrated. 
• Travels to Japan and trying out interesting foods. 
•  Wish all cookbooks had this many illustrations. 
•  Great humor...little details. Such as Mexico. Drew's little sister - quite the lady.
•  Hereditary cheese lovin' 

The only thing folks seemed to actually dislike, was that there weren't more recipes! 

Katie S. recommended picking up Lucy's travelog French Milk, about a trip she took to Paris with her mom.

As usual, we ate very well at our meeting:

Barbara – croissants and wine 

Katie S. – Kuma's Corner's Judas Priest burger, homemade apricot jam

Bobbie - caprice kabobs and feta stuffed figs 

 Dawn – cheese and tomatoes and crackers

Katie W. – tres leches cake 

Vanessa - masubi  

Madeline was off at Twilight Camp with her Scouts (no vampires, I presume) and Sonja was on vacation in San Diego (fun!)

Next month's discussion will be around Gulp : Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach.   This book is lots of fun and focuses a little bit on food, but a lot more on digestion.  Katie S. will be leading the group, as Dawn has a work conflict.

Kitchen House

This month we shared The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, a historical fiction about an Irish orphan raised with the slaves in a plantation kitchen house in the old South.

Overall the group loved the book.  It was a real page turner with lots of action, drama, and emotional content.   But what a terrible time and place to be a woman!   Even the wealthiest white women had a serious lack of choices and power in this story.   It reminded everyone how hard change is to actually get into action...that for the dis-empowered, standing up to institutions can be mortally dangerous. 

A suggested companion read for this book is the time-travel story Kindred by Octavia Butler, which is a good reminder of how even with contemporary attitudes and education, a woman brought back to this time would be in a hard place indeed.

Some of us also felt that Kitchen House was a reminder that we are losing the art of letter-writing, and the personal documentation that goes with this.  Without such letters Lady from Savannah (the Juliet Lowe story, recommended by Madeline), could never have been written.

There were some frustrations with the book.  How could Livinia be so naive?  How could she not know more than she did?  It seemed unrealistic.  Marshall's death was surprisingly violent, but at that point the author must have been ready to be well and done with him!  Rankin was so slimy and hateful...more of a caricature of a bad guy, or was he realistic for someone who would take on that job?

We debated if Marshall killed Lavinia's first fiance, who killed Rankin, and how could no one smell the tutor in the outhouse.   Also, would Lavinia have really transitioned from the kitchen house, to schooling, to living in a big house so easily?  It seems like there should have been more struggles in that process.

We really wanted for things to work out for poor Will, and were impressed by how Lucy developed as a character.

The last thing we discussed was how  institutionalization used to be so HUGE in America, with anyone blind, deaf, mentally ill or slow was simply locked away.  Dawn highly recommends The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon to get a feel for this sad era of our history.

As usual, the food was a delightful feast. 

 
Katie brought a delicious green salad with poached eggs, and wonderful fresh cherries.

 



 


Barbara  – cornbread 
 

Dawn – chicken

 
 

 

Newbie Jazmin blew us away with her  Pork Belly with Apples and Parsnips!

  Katie W. –  fresh baked bread
 
Madeline -  Rice salad
 
 

 
Sonja – molasses cake  (thanks for the photo, Sonja!)

 

Next month we are meeting Wednesday August 13 to discuss Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley, a graphic novel with all kinds of great recipes!

Salt: A World History

June's book was Salt: a World History by Mark Kurlansky.  I'm sorry I had to miss the meeting due to tummy trouble, Katie S. was kind enough to take pictures and Heather took notes for our blog post:

"What a nice meeting this one was, even without our fearless leader Ms. Dawn who caught the 24 hour bug from her friend Rachel.  She was the designated last-minute key holder and got stuck in the snarl we call Queen Anne and the corridor.  She came frazzled and apologetic, we kindly dismissed her fears away because we were no fools, we'd been munching on Laura's delicious cheese plate with a cheese I'd never even heard of before, something like Drunken Goat Who Stare at Men or something wasn't it it guys? LOL
The cheese and grape munchers consisted this time of the hard care foodies and we all know who we are: Me Heather M., Katie S. and her co-worker Barb from the print center, and young mom Laura, who loves eating with just all grown-ups once a month. Special ed. teacher Sonja was able to come this time with good news: she transferred to her son's school, where they can commute by walking together every day the 2 blocks each way.

We all trooped in when Rachel arrived with the key and within minutes had plates full of Vietnamese Salt and Pepper wings with a dipping salt you mixed with fresh lime to get the whole experience. To complement that, I had the night before cooked one of my daughter vegetarian mainstays, grains with vegies from T.J.'s.  I cooked it in vegie broth to juice it up a little. We had a delicious salad,( as we know the word came from the Roman word for "salted") pickles, a cured meat tray with 4 offerings and three kinds of yummy crackers. Sonja brought wine and another bottle appeared out of nowhere, I didn't catch who brought it. Desserts were of course, assorted chocolate items with salt!

Six thumbs up for the book "Salt" A World History by Jack Kurlansky who not only is a meticulous researcher/writer he must edit a lot of articles, either that or he single-handedly wrote 26 books. Geesh, does this guy have time for a life?

Only one dedicated reader (Barbara) finished the entire book, of those who hadn't we all said we would. It's chockful of fascinating historical facts, humorous illustrations and well laid out chapters. It's a book one wants to own for reference, just to have on the shelf for solving arguments and such. In fact it was on Laura's shelf, she didn't have to check it out! Our next book will be the Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. Expect a feast of southern food in July, signing off,
Heather McNair."

 

Sonya brought a salad, salted sunflower kernel crunch balls, pickles and wine.

 

Barbara brought cured meats, crackers

salted caramel chocolate cookies (not pictured) and wine.

 

Heather brought some sort of grain (barley?) vegetable dish

 

Laura brought some great cheese and crackers - including an awesome "drunken" goat cheese that we were all crazy about, and some very fancy 34 degree savory thins.

Katie brought Vietnamese salt and pepper wings, with Thai chili salt and lime juice to

dip (sparingly!)

 

Next month we are discussing  The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.  Lots of holds on this one, so be sure to pick up your bookgroup copy at the Mountlake Terrace Library while supplies last!