BOOKS vs E-BOOKS

As some of you know, I am still not a convert to e-books. I hold on to paper books and only occasionally have I read books using an e-reader. The Hundred Foot Journey is one of them, but I must confess I had my notebook and pen close to my borrowed Kindle :) I still need to take notes and to have a visual, touchable map of what I'm reading.

That is the reason why I like this Ikea campaign to promote their paper catalogue. Having set foot in one of their stores only once, and unable to buy anything at all, I am still a fan of their advertising campaigns :)

THE HUNDRED "FOOD" JOURNEY

So, this is the first book we are reading for book club this year, and ain't it interesting? The first part of the book takes us to India. You can feel the pungent smells, the spicy scent of cinammon, curry and cardamom...

The expeditions to the markets with Hassan's mom and dad (and how different those trips are). I thoroughly enjoyed this first part, and it is also a fast historical overview of the British Empire losing grip of India.

I must say this first part made me think of a Hindi movie I watched some time ago, The Lunchbox, mostly at the beginning when they talk about the dabbawala business. The Lunchbox is an epistolary romantic movie, but I think it also taps into many different issues in Indian society, such as loneliness, unhappy marriages or women's emancipation.

I have only just started the second part, which moves to London.

I am actually quite enjoying the book, especially the graphic images Morais uses, like the one about the octopus which appears at the beginning of the second part. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get to it :) or if you have already read it, I am sure it's made an impression on you too.

I certainly hope you book clubbers are also having a good time whilst reading the book. In Ribeira we will be meeting on DECEMBER 9th to discuss just half of the book so that will certainly be exciting. Can't wait!

UPCOMING MEETING: 2014 Food Book Club starting!

Can't wait to start this year's book club! Remember to vote for your favorite books on the right after you've read the info on the previous post.

Our first meetings will take place in Ordes 29th October and in Ribeira November 4th (THIS DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED, REMEMBER!) both days at 8pm. Looking forward to seeing you!

Book Club Selection 2014-2015: Cuisine

Goodread Reviews

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 106,953 ratings · 6,014 reviews 

A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute cuisine—now with all-new, never-before-published material. 

Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table by Ruth Reichl 

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 12,782 ratings · 748 reviews 

In this delightful sequel to her bestseller Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl returns with more tales of love, life, and marvelous meals. Comfort Me with Apples picks up Reichl's story in 1978, when she puts down her chef's toque and embarks on a career as a restaurant critic. Her pursuit of good food and good company leads her to New York and China, France and Los Angeles, and her stories of cooking and dining with world-famous chefs range from the madcap to the sublime. Throughout it all, Reichl makes each and every course a hilarious and instructive occasion for novices and experts alike. She shares some of her favorite recipes, while also sharing the intimacies of her personal life in a style so honest and warm that readers will feel they are enjoying a conversation over a meal with a friend. 

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 19,310 ratings · 1,657 reviews 

The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet - a novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story. When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous Mirabelle Dartigen - the woman they still hold responsible for a terrible tragedy that took place during the German occupation decades before. Althrough Framboise hopes for a new beginning. She quickly discovers that past and present are inextricably intertwined. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than in the scrap book of recipes she has inherited from her dead mother. With this book, Framboise re-creates her mother's dishes, which she serves in her small creperie. And yet as she studies the scrapbook - searching for clues to unlock the contradiction between her mother's sensuous love of food and often cruel demeanor - she begins to recognize a deeper meaning behind Mirabelle's cryptic scribbles. Whithin the journal's tattered pages lies the key to what actually transpired the summer Framboise was nine years old. Rich and dark. Five Quarters of the Orange is a novel of mothers and daughters of the past and the present, of resisting, and succumbling, and an extraordinary work by a masterful writer. 

Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton 

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 19,668 ratings · 2,759 reviews 

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a prickly marriage that nonetheless yields lasting dividends. By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. 

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong 

3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 2,951 ratings · 462 reviews 

Binh, a Vietnamese cook, flees Saigon in 1929, disgracing his family to serve as galley hand at sea. The taunts of his now-deceased father ringing in his ears, Binh answers an ad for a live-in cook at a Parisian household, and soon finds himself employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Toklas and Stein hold court in their literary salon, for which the devoted yet acerbic Binh serves as chef, and as a keen observer of his "Mesdames" and their distinguished guests. But when the enigmatic literary ladies decide to journey back to America, Binh is faced with a monumental choice: will he, the self-imposed "exile," accompany them to yet another new country, return to his native Vietnam, or make Paris his home? -Barnes and Noble Spring 2003 Selection 

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 7,315 ratings · 885 reviews 

A cross-cultural tale of two women brought together by the intersections of television and industrial agriculture, fertility and motherhood, life and love—the breakout hit by the celebrated author of A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki’s mesmerizing debut novel has captivated readers and reviewers worldwide. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by an American meat-exporting business, she uncovers some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a dangerous hormone called DES. Soon she will also cross paths with Akiko Ueno, a beleaguered Japanese housewife struggling to escape her overbearing husband. Hailed by USA Today as “rare and provocative” and awarded the Kirayama Prize for Literature of the Pacific Rim, My Year of Meats is a modern-day take on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle for fans of Michael Pollan, Margaret Atwood, and Barbara Kingsolver. 

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 16,259 ratings · 789 reviews 

Ever since her engagement, the strangest thing has been happening to Marian McAlpin: she can't eat. First meat. Then eggs, vegetables, cake, pumpkin seeds--everything! Worse yet, she has the crazy feeling that she's being eaten. Marian ought to feel consumed with passion, but she really just feels...consumed. A brilliant and powerful work rich in irony and metaphor, The Edible Woman is an unforgettable masterpiece by a true master of contemporary literary fiction 

The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman

3.22 of 5 stars 3.22 · rating details · 2,368 ratings · 537 reviews 

Mark your calendar. It's the Christmas Cookie Club! Every year on the first Monday of December, Marnie and her twelve closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Everyone has to bring a dish, a bottle of wine, and their stories. This year, the stories are especially important. Marnie's oldest daughter has a risky pregnancy. Will she find out tonight how that story might end? Jeannie's father is having an affair with her best friend. Who else knew about the betrayal, and how can that be forgiven or forgotten, even among old friends such as these? Rosie's husband doesn't want children, and she has to decide, very soon, whether or not that's a deal breaker for the marriage. Taylor's life is in financial freefall. Each woman, each friend has a story to tell, and they are all interwoven, just as their lives are. On this evening, at least, they can feel as a group the impulses of sisterly love and conflict, the passion and hopefulness of a new romance, the betrayal and disillusionment some relationships bring, the joys and fears of motherhood, the agony of losing a child, and above all, the love they have for one another. As Marnie says, the Christmas Cookie Club, if it's anything, is a reminder of delight. 

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living by Julie Powell 

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 94,743 ratings · 6,674 reviews 

Powell needs something to break the monotony of her life. So, she invents a deranged assignment: She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and cook all 524 recipes in the span of just one year.

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 9,395 ratings · 1,810 reviews 

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Helen Mirren and Om Puri, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, and produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Juliet Blake, DreamWorks Studios, and Participant Media. "That skinny Indian teenager has that mysterious something that comes along once a generation. He is one of those rare chefs who is simply born. He is an artist." And so begins the rise of Hassan Haji, the unlikely gourmand who recounts his life's journey in Richard Morais' charming novel, The Hundred-Foot Journey. Lively and brimming with the colors, flavors, and scents of the kitchen, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a succulent treat about family, nationality, and the mysteries of good taste. Born above his grandfather's modest restaurant in Mumbai, Hassan first experienced life through intoxicating whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to the local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother. But when tragedy pushes the family out of India, they console themselves by eating their way around the world, eventually settling in Lumière, a small village in the French Alps. The boisterous Haji family takes Lumière by storm. They open an inexpensive Indian restaurant opposite an esteemed French relais (that of the famous chef Madame Mallory) and infuse the sleepy town with the spices of India, transforming the lives of its eccentric villagers and infuriating their celebrated neighbor. Only after Madame Mallory wages culinary war with the immigrant family, does she finally agree to mentor young Hassan, leading him to Paris, the launch of his own restaurant, and a slew of new adventures. The Hundred-Foot Journey is about how the hundred-foot distance between a new Indian kitchen and a traditional French one can represent the gulf between different cultures and desires. A testament to the inevitability of destiny, this is a fable for the ages; charming, endearing, and compulsively readable.

SALMAN RUSHDIE on García Márquez

I did not want to make the previous entry too long, but this is a really good essay by Rushdie paying homage to Gabriel García Márquez, "Gabo". I love the parallelism he establishes with Faulkner too.

"The trouble with the term “magic realism,” el realismo mágico, is that when people say or hear it they are really hearing or saying only half of it, “magic,” without paying attention to the other half, “realism.” But if magic realism were just magic, it wouldn’t matter. It would be mere whimsy — writing in which, because anything can happen, nothing has effect. It’s because the magic in magic realism has deep roots in the real, because it grows out of the real and illuminates it in beautiful and unexpected ways, that it works. "

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: A Life in Pictures

The Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who has died aged 87, helped to ignite the worldwide boom in Spanish literature with novels such as 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. Here The Guardian celebrates his life with a selection of images charting his journey from childhood in northern Colombia to global literary titan.

And an interview with Isabel Allende where she remembers the life and legacy of late writer Gabriel García Márquez. She reads from his landmark novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and talks about how García Márquez influenced generations of thinkers and writers in Latin America and across the world. "He’s the master of masters," Allende says. "In a way, he conquered readers and conquered the world, and told the world about us, Latin Americans, and told us who we are. In his pages, we saw ourselves in a mirror." Allende describes the first time she read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and how it impacted her. "It was as if someone was telling me my own story," she says. We also air video of García Márquez in his own words and hear Democracy Now! co-host Juan González read from "The General in His Labyrinth."

To Kill a Mockingbird and Censorship

Remember we were talking about this book being censored in some states? Here's a website with some details on the subject.

Even though it has been deemed classic literature, “To Kill a Mockingbird” still finds itself on the banned books list. The racial content, profanity, and references to rape have caused many to challenge the book and have the novel removed from school libraries and classrooms.

Throughout the novel, vulgar language is used causing many to disagree with the use of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in classrooms. Words such as “damn” and “nigger” are used over and over which many find offensive. The fact that the young children characters are the one’s using this profanity causes many to question the novel and don’t want their children using that type of language because children in the book do.

Race is a constant theme in “To Kill a Mockingbird” which parents find as an excellent example to challenge the book. The Tom Robinson rape case shows that even though he is innocent, he is convicted because of his race. It’s stated several times throughout the book a black person will always be convicted if it’s a white person accusing them. Colored women are depicted as the “help” because they cook, clean, and take care of children for the white families. Racial slurs such as “nigger lover” are used which many find offensive and promotes racism and inequality of the races. This term is a main reason for challenging and banning “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

While Lee presents the idea and concept of rape in a mature way, many find the discussion of rape inappropriate for their children to read. The entire second half of the book is dedicated to telling the story of Tom Robinsons’ rape case and the trial which most find unsuitable and use against schools to ban the book.

The Time Keeper and After The Quake

I love reading while traveling, it makes the flights endurable and it adds value to my trips, because it brings together two of my greatest passions, reading and traveling. This was one of those books that I just grabbed because the blurb looked interesting. It is VERY EASY to read - short sequences, direct language, simple plot - so it's a good one to read even if your English level is not that high. I mean, you'll learn English and still enjoy the fun of a good plot.

Here's an extract from a review, whose opinion I share.

The Time Keeper is one of those books that, despite almost farcical sequences, works because of its message. Albom’s style of writing is fluent, simple and with an emphasis on brevity. It explores time from various aspects: its creation, its use and abuse and how its value varies from person to person.

It is not easy to imagine a world without timekeeping and yet, Albom’s right: the more we count time — and there are many ways of counting it — the more misery it creates. “Man alone measures time. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”

Another lovely, easy-to-read book. And a pleasure to read too! Here's an extract from a review too.

Each of these stories, as their collective title suggests, takes place in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake, but because none of them is directly linked to it, they allow Murakami to examine its effects obliquely, from within his own infinitely nuanced metaphysical world.

If an earthquake is what happens beneath the ground, beyond our sight and immediate comprehension, then so too are our individual lives shaped by psychological and emotional tremors that we find hard to grasp, and subject to numerous unpredictable and violent aftershocks.

Where Do People Read More?

5.48 for Spain? So, not even an hour per day, sniff.

SPRITZ: An App Changing The Way We Read?

What is spritzing?
Spritzing is reading text with Spritz Inc.’s patent-pending technology. When you’re spritzing, you’re reading text one word at a time in our “redicle,” a special visual frame we designed for reading.

The time consuming part of reading lies mainly in the actual eye movements from word to word and sentence to sentence. In addition, traditional reading simply takes up a lot of physical space. Spritz solves both of these problems. First, your eyes do not have to move from word to word or around the page that you’re reading. In fact, there’s no longer a page – with Spritz you only need 13 total characters to show all of your content. Fast streaming of text is easier and more comfortable for the reader, especially when reading areas become smaller. Spritz’s patent-pending technology can also be integrated into photos, maps, videos, and websites for more effective communication.

What do you think? Will you give it a try? Why not?

More info here.

AUSTEN… AGAIN

So here we are, new year and old authors revisited. I was surprised to see we open 2014 with a new film revisiting Jane Austen. I don't know whether it will polish or bust the myth, it looks more like the second to me, sorry. 

The film is based on a novel by Shannon Hale (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Hess) and is officially described on the author's site as follows: Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice," is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It's all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?Russell will play the part of Jane with Feild playing a Darcy-impersonator who works for the resort.

On the bright side, the movie has brought back a lot of discussion about Jane Austen and her novels, which makes me really happy.

And you, austenite or not? Will you watch the movie?