Review: "The Book of Hours" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Every aspiring writer, at some point in their studies, will get Letters To A Young Poet quoted at them. This is a fact and a certainty, much like the sun rising in the east or the line at Starbucks Coffee. For most, that is the only contact ever made with German writer Rainer Maria Rilke.

A month ago, I stumbled across Stephen Crane's magnificent poetry and realized that I have never once read The Red Badge of Courage. It turned out that I preferred his poetry. But this got me reading other war novels: All Quiet on the Western Front, City of Thieves, Code Name Verity... and since I have the brain of a ptarmigan hen (to quote the latter), I mistook Erich Maria Remarque for Rainer Maria Rilke and added The Book of Hours to my library list.

This progression--from poetry to war novels and back to poetry--may have been accidental. But, like falling into a pit and discovering an ancient king's tomb, it led to glorious things.

It is difficult to recommend a collection of poetry, and impossible to summarize. Preferences of subject matter and style are more personal and specific in poetry than in fiction. One cannot say with any confidence "You will like this, because you enjoyed this other thing." So I do not know, dear reader, whether you will relish Rilke's odd, fluid, spiritual poetry as I did. I only know that to not offer it to you would be a failure on my part.

Your first word of all was light,and time began. Then for long you were silent. 

Your second word was man, and fear began,
which grips us still. 

Are you about to speak again?
I don't want your third word. 

Sometimes I pray: Please don't talk.
Let all your doing be by gesture only.
Go on writing in faces and stone
what your silence means. 

Be our refuge from the wrath
that drove us out of Paradise.
Be our shepherd, but never call us--
we can't bear to know what's head.

The Book of Hours is composed of three sets of poems, each written over a series of few days, many years apart. They are short and conversational. They read best altogether, each set at a time, since the poems are often continuations of an earlier "thought" rather than a discrete creation. Word choices and structure call back and forth between the pages.

For someone with ambivalent feelings toward faith and spiritual things, Rilke's poetry is staggering. The subtitle of the collection, "Love Poems to God," is more accurate than can be conceived. In Rilke's poetry, dogma and ritual have no place. It is like a kaleidoscope, transforming familiar images into radiant new shapes. It asks deep, strange questions about what the relationship must look like between a creator and a creation.

The collection has an infectious passion about it. It changes how one sees the very idea of God, and of oneself. After reading just the first set of poems, I was left thinking: we expect so little, and we understand nothing at all.

This all starts to sound rather "churchy" as I read over it, so let me pause: there is no "church" to be found in The Book of Hours. There is, instead, a strange and moving portrait of someone infinite and lonely. Rilke's ideas are unique and daring. He envisions his deity as a son rather than a father, for "it is sons who inherit, while fathers die;" he worries about his immortal beloved as a figure almost of pity, who is left abandoned when the poet himself dies.

I keep using the word "strange," because to fully express how this poetry reads to me would require a full orchestra and a light show. It is lyrical, emotional, transformative. It is affirming in a way I have rarely found in spiritual poetry.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night, 

These are the words we dimly hear: 

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me. 

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in. 

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me. 

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness. 

Give me your hand.

I look forward to owning a copy of the poems. I look forward even more to memorizing them. I would dearly love to know if they have the same effect upon you, dear reader. Take my accidental stumbling into The Book of Hours as a favor to yourself and seek out these poems purposefully. Let me know what you think.

(The particular translation I have, published in 2005 by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, includes the original German text alongside the English verse. I know just enough German to be occasionally vexed by their decisions, but it ultimately deepens the experience.)

Review: "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle

The unicorn has dwelled in her quiet woods for centuries, untouched by the passage of time and unconcerned with the world. She is disturbed when passing hunters mention that all other unicorns have gone--if they ever existed. Reluctantly, the last unicorn leaves her woods to find her kin. She promises to return quickly, but already the leaves begin to fall from the eternally blossoming trees.

Unicorns are not questing beasts, and the world no longer recognizes her. Those who do know a unicorn when they see one aren't young and innocent at heart, but hungry and desperate. The only magical beasts remaining are monsters. But despite the Red Bull, King Haggard, and the Midnight Carnival, the greatest threat to the unicorn come from the people who want to love her.

***

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (1968)

5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: fail
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: none that I can think of
Overall Response: The prettiest book in the English language and a must-read for any lover of fairy tales.

***

More Thoughts: Dear reader, are you familiar with the original novel of The Princess Bride by William Golden? It begins with the line "This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it." That is how I feel about Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.

Of course, I have read the book, and dog-eared every corner, and written a fourteen-page thesis about it for my own amusement, and, most recently, read the entire thing aloud to my audiobook-loving former roommate in a 48-hour timespan. (Pro tip: The attempt to pull off a proper "King Haggard" voice may result in permanent damage to one's vocal cords.)

Even so, every time I read The Last Unicorn, it feels like the first, most wonderful time.

Review: "We Have Always Lived In The Castle" by Shirley Jackson

Five years ago, an arsenic-filled sugarbowl claimed the lives of the Blackwood family. The three survivors have found peace in their shared isolation: Constance, acquitted of the murder by the courts but not in the minds of the neighbors; her imaginative and slightly feral sister Mary Katherine, called Merricat; and their uncle Julian, crippled in mind and body by the poison that killed the others.

Merricat, a creature of habit and ritual, views herself as the guardian of her troubled family and the groundskeeper of the Blackwood estate. Change is a threat, and any visitor an invader. When a long-estranged Blackwood cousin makes himself at home, and Constance begins to talk of rejoining society, Merricat determines to restore order and expel the intruder by any means necessary. But Constance may no longer be her ally.

***

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: character deaths

Overall Response: I say this very rarely, so listen up: this is a perfect book.

***

More Thoughts: I've mentioned this before: when someone recommends a book, nine times out of ten, I will put it on hold at the library without even pausing to read the synopsis. (I only write summaries for you, dear reader; on my own, I would go straight into opinionating.) Some long-ago Wikipedia binge left the impression that  We Have Always Lived In The Castle was about murder, but no more than that. When a friend praised Shirley Jackson's writing, it reminded me that I had never followed up on the book. That was all the preface that I had.

From the first page, I was hooked.

Review: "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell

Astronomers studying the Alpha Centauri system pick up a broadcast of unearthly music, finally putting the existence of alien civilizations beyond down. While government and scientists debate, private organizations take action. The first mission to contact an alien race is led by representatives of the Jesuit Order.

Years later, the sole survivor of the mission to Rakhat is retrieved from an alien brothel: bizarrely mutilated and, by his own admission, a murderer.

Father Emilio Sandoz's survival is as miraculous as it is inconvenient. The media demands answers of the Jesuits, outraged by the behavior of their representatives and the civil war they sparked among the peaceful alien society they discovered. To preserve the reputation of their disgraced order, the Father General of the Society of Jesus must force Sandoz to speak. No one, least of all Sandoz, is prepared for his confession.

***

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (1996)

5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 4/5
Quality of Writing: 5/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 4/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 5/5
Bechdel Test: pass?
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: character deaths, rape, reference to child prostitution, cannibalism, suicidal thinking

Overall Response: I am devastated and become something new.

***

More Thoughts: I don't have a category for The Sparrow. It defies classification and shatters my petty little rating system. Mary Doria Russell doesn't just write a successful story--she succeeds on a level I didn't know was possible. 

Review: "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn

Police reporter Camille Preaker would rather die than return to her troubled mother's house. But a string of murders in little Wind Gap has caught the attention of the struggling Chicago paper where she works. Her boss is convinced this will be the big break Camille--and his paper--needs. Against her better judgment, she follows the story home to a house that hasn't been on speaking terms with the truth for a long, long time.

Everyone says that Wind Gap is a tranquil, pleasant place. Camille, with scars on her arms and a dead sister of her own in the ground, remembers differently. Likewise, everyone says that the two missing children were innocent angels taken before their time. The ugly truth will shatter the polite, agreed-upon fictions of the town--if Camille doesn't self-destruct before putting the words on paper.

***

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006)

5 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 4/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: fail
Content Warning: murder, drug use, child sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, medical abuse, graphic imagery

Overall Response: I wonder if Gillian Flynn stole Jodi Picoult's ability to write an ending, because Flynn's are good enough for two novelists.

***

More Thoughts: Blockbuster hit Gone Girl isn't author Gillian Flynn's only triumph. Sharp Objects, her 2006 debut, is a masterpiece all its own. Forgive me if I refer back to the former frequently as I review the latter.

Review: "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" by Catherynne M. Valente

Like so many bored and lonely children before her, September doesn't take a backward glance when offered an escape from her humdrum world into Fairyland. She takes the Green Wind's hand and steps into a brilliant and unpredictable place, where cities are fashioned out of cloth and the sea pounds a constant circuit around beaches strewn with gold.

But Fairyland needs September even more than she needs it. Good Queen Mallow, she who stitched Pandemonium together with her needle, has been replaced by a vicious Marquess. Chains of iron and bureaucracy weigh down what once was magical. Everyone September meets asks her to set things right... even the terrible Marquess herself.

***

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (2011)

5 out of 5 stars

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 4/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: character deaths, some unsettling imagery, reference to child abuse

Overall Response: distressed whale noises

***

More Thoughts: Now that is how you catch a reader's attention. The title simultaneously demands explanation and promises an original, character-driven plotline.

Review: "House of Echoes" by Brendan Duffy

Turning The Crofts into a bed-and-breakfast is supposed to be a break for the Tierneys. Ben plans to work on his new novel in the rural stillness, while Caroline buries her struggles with bipolar disorder in renovating the historic estate and developing her culinary repertoire. Their older son, Charlie, spends hours roaming the woods of upstate New York, where there are no urban bullies to torment him.

But the promise of a new start eludes them at every turn. So does the hope of peace. 

The Crofts has too many dead animals to be explained away by coyote activity, and the village of Swannhaven has an unreal number of disasters in its few centuries of history. While Ben abandons his book in favor of a new project--researching Swannhaven--Caroline's paranoia convinces her that her own husband is a stranger. And Charlie claims he isn't alone when he plays in the woods all day. 

*** 

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Anthology Review: "Alternate Realities" by C.J. Cherryh

I have always found it tricky to recommend the novels of C.J. Cherryh to other people.

Previously, I've given high marks to her western frontier/sci-fantasy/horror duology Rider At The Gate and Cloud's Rider. On the other hand, I've mentioned her problem with fuzzy climactic moments (see the review of Peter S. Beagle's The Innkeeper's Song.)

Cherryh's most famous work, the "Foreigner" series, is my favorite "culture clash" tale...  and a very hard read for people who expect a little more blazing guns and a little less diplomacy in their sci-fi.

But Cherryh's anthology Alternate Realities is an absolute gift to the science fiction genre.

I cannot speak as to the quality of the anthology's third story, "Wave Without A Shore." Every time I try to read it, my eyes slowly close and the book slides from my uninspired fingers. (I suppose that's a comment on quality after all.) However, the first two--"Port Eternity" and "Voyager in Night"--are the most delicious sci-fi novellas ever put to paper. The stories are so rich, so complex. They play in my brain like half-remembered movie clips when I'm awake too late at night.

Now, 66% success is still a failing grade by the reckoning of most American school systems. For fiction, however, that's two amazing books for the price of one, plus a bonus paperweight.

My usual "summary followed by critique" format doesn't work quite as well for anthologies as for novels, when I have only a single plot to describe. Instead, I'll break both stories down beneath the cut.

Review: "The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing" by Mira Jacob

The second version of the cover is jaw-droppingly
beautiful, like the book itself.

Amina Eapen tries not to go home too often. She finds her immigrant parents difficult--too much at odds with her own American dreams, too eager to set her up with nice young men from other Indian families, too hobbled by the memory of her brother's death.

When she hears that her father is hallucinating ghosts, however, Amina knows she has to go.

Amina's trip home raises a flurry of her own memories. Of her family's last fateful visit to India, when her grandmother's angry love for her emigrant son drives him into exile; of the bizarre narcolepsy her genius brother experienced in his teenage years that led to his death; of photograph of the bridge-jumper which both made Amina's career and drove her away from photojournalism forever, afraid of her own instinct for witnessing ruin.

This unwilling homecoming digs up all the buried wounds which the Eapens have kept hidden for years. But while her father's condition worsens, there remains the hope that they may lay these ghosts to rest at last.

***

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Curse of Chalion" by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the least artistically
insulting cover I can find.

Facebook visitors: this is the book I was yelling about last month.

I almost didn't bother with this book because the cover was uninspired and the title was insipid. (Bujold has a problem with lackluster titles, though all the books of hers I have read were more than competent.) Dear reader, do yourself a favor and take this book on faith, as I did. I hadn't read the synopsis. I didn't know what I was getting into. All I had was the recommendation of a few friends I trusted.

By the fifth page of The Curse of Chalion, I had almost given up.

By page 24, I was head-over-heels in love with the story and making little screeching noises of glee.

With that out of the way, let me proceed with the usual synopsis + grump.

***

When Cazaril is freed from the slave galleys of his enemies, the old soldier wants nothing more than to rest, far from war and the political machinations that betrayed him.

Homeless, friendless, and broken, he throws himself on the mercy of the old Provincara in whose house he served as a young man. By the grace of the gods, the Provincara has a place for him. Her granddaughter stands in line for the throne of Chalion--and will need every advantage she can get to survive the treacherous Chalionese court, which drove her own royal mother mad. Cazaril's varied and ugly experiences as soldier, diplomat, spy, and prisoner makes him an ideal tutor, if not an eager one.

As Iselle's tutor, Cazaril means to teach her to avoid the snares that ruined her predecessors. He believes that Iselle has the chance to turn the bizarre chain of bad luck which has plagued the royalty of Chalion for generations. But the responsibility comes with risks. Protecting Iselle means following her to the court, where certain old friends are less than pleased to find Cazaril back from the galleys, living proof of their treachery.

***

  5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" by Joanne Greenberg

Against their better judgment, a wealthy Jewish family delivers their schizophrenic sixteen-year-old daughter to a mental institution for treatment. Where the Blau family sees terror and depravity, Deborah herself sees a refuge--proof at last that she is as sick as she has always known herself to be, and the freedom to tell the truth.

Dr. Fried, Deborah's psychologist, is not scared by Deborah's caustic wit or the bizarre symptoms which frightened her family into committing her. She believes that Deborah has the strength to secure her own rescue from her illness.

But Deborah is fighting an enemy the doctors cannot see: the imaginary world of Yr, which used to be her refuge from cruel reality and is now her prison. The cruel gods of Yr are unwilling to let their captive go free, and every step Deborah takes toward health is countered by their punishments, erasing the real world she is not entirely convinced she wants to rejoin at all.

***

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Seven Daughters and Seven Sons" by Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy

Buran is the fourth of her father's seven daughters, and the apple of his eye--but her village of Baghdad doesn't see it that way. While her uncle's seven sons venture off to make their fortunes, Buran and her sisters can do nothing to save their impoverished family. As women, they are forbidden to leave the house to work, and no one will marry such poor brides.

With her father's reluctant blessing, Buran disguises herself as a man and joins a caravan bound for Tyre. She plots to match the success of her uncle's sons, providing for her sisters and giving her father a reason to hold his head up high. But her cleverness might prove her undoing, when it brings her to the attention of the prince himself.

*** 

  5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Wolf Hunt" by Gillian Bradshaw

When her brother is killed fighting in the Crusades, Marie Penthievre becomes the heir of the family manor: a rich prize fought over by Normandy and Brittany for generations. Now Marie herself is the prize. Before her Norman overlord can act, Marie is kidnapped from her convent and smuggled into Brittany.

Alone in the Breton court, Marie defends her honor and her right to refuse a husband from among her enemies. Tiarnan of Talensac, a knight in Duke Hoel's service, serves as her champion. But Tiarnan, a married man, has his own crisis of honor to endure: whether his new bride will still love him when she learns that he is a werewolf, an abomination in the sight of God.

When Tiarnan disappears, Duke Hoel's court grieves their favorite while Marie mourns for her first friend. But Tiarnan is not dead--only trapped in his monstrous form by his faithless wife and her former lover. Now the duke he once served hunts for him, and the forests of Brittany become a battleground.

*** 

5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

"I am a coward," the wireless operator writes on the first page of her confession. In exchange for gentler treatment and a delay of her execution, she has agreed to tell her Nazi jailers everything she knows.

But the pages she fills with words have very little to do with the locations of British airfields, or the types of planes they are sending into the war. Instead, she writes about her dearest friend, Maddie Brodatt--clever Maddie who never gets lost; courageous Maddie who became a licensed pilot just before the war broke out; faithful Maddie who flew the the wireless operator to occupied France, where she was captured.

For page after page she draws out Maddie's story (punctuated with just enough details of airfields and planes to keep her captors interested.) She masks her treason inside memories of their friendship. As time runs short, the prisoner's scheme takes shape: to reach Maddie, if she is still alive, to fulfill their duty, and to take their revenge on the cruel regime that has darkened all of Europe.

*** 

  5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Series Review: "The Orphan's Tales" by Catherynne M. Valente

The first half of The Orphan's Tales,
subtitled "In The Night Garden"

In the gardens of his father's palace, a lonely prince discovers an orphan girl whose eyelids are dyed black with the density of mystic writing upon them. One by one, she tells him the stories written there. She begins with a Prince much like her listener, one whose youthful adventure ends--and begins--when he kills a goose, only to learn that it was the transformed daughter of a barbarian Witch.

The wrathful Witch accuses the Prince with the secret history of her people, killed by his own father. Her tale winds back through generations, to the realm of the Stars, and then finds its way back to the Prince's own beautiful mother. Stricken by his father's sins, the Prince sets off on a quest to make amends and revive the dead goose-girl. 

Soon his own quest is entangled with a score of others: of astrologer bears from the frozen North turned human and feeble, of the vengeance taken for the murdered Snake Star, of the tree that grew ships for fruit, of the saint who nursed the last griffin ever hatched. There is always another story, another legend, another thrilling tale. With each story told, another line of text disappears from the orphan's eyelids.

***   5 out of 5 stars (grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Old-School Comfort Food" by Alex Guarnaschelli

I've said before that no one will ever love me as much as I love food.

I love eating food. I love preparing food. I love shopping for groceries to make food. I love copying out recipes for exciting new food I haven't tried to make before. I love watching shows about people who have way more skills than I do making (and then eating) food.

My favorite food show is Chopped, in which pro and semi-pro chefs are handed a basket of mystery ingredients and challenged to whip up an appetizer, entree, or dessert before time runs out. Invariably, the basket contains something weird and terrible like squid brains or a bag of gummy bears.  I've learned a lot about cooking from watching these chefs tear through the kitchen, turning disaster into deliciousness.

(If you haven't ever been forced to watch Chopped with me, dear reader, you can watch a few full episodes here to get the idea.)

On this my favorite show, I have a favorite judge: celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli. Alex (to use the familiar form of address) is a little grouchy and a little ridiculous. She likes her food to be "whimsical" and has a very disconcerting habit of staring unblinkingly at a contestant while she lifts a forkful of food to her mouth. (She also apparently has a 'thing' for burly firemen, but one must watch a lot of Chopped before that become clear.) As the executive chef at two top New York restaurants, and the daughter of another famous cookbook editor, she released her own cookbook earlier this year--entitled Old-School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned To Cook.

On Christmas Eve I read this cookbook cover to cover. I texted my favorite lines to fellow Chopped lover Traci of Traci J. Brooks Photography, who had given me the book as a present. I snapped phone photos of the food and of Alex's goofy illustrations, which I suppose is the foodie equivalent of sexting. And I cried a little bit, but that might have just been the Christmas Eve talking.

Food is love, isn't it? I bet every chef has talked about food being love (and love being food) at some point in their life--whether in their kitchen or in their cookbook, in an interview or on a TV show about stealing blenders, or in a dim booth in some late-night dive over one too many glasses of whatever fancy-schmancy wine chefs are supposed to drink.

(As I type this, I'm imagining some outraged chef, red-faced and spittle-flecked, pounding the table and insisting that food is food and nothing else, and also that love is a lie. Then my imaginary outraged chef begins crying into a beurre blanc, whatever that is. It's Christmas Eve for him inside my head, too.)

But I digress.

Yes, food is love. If you take the much-discussed Five Love Languages, you'll find that they are about food, too. Food is time; food is a gift; food is an act of service. Food is about touch, intimately so: the sizzling touch of meat to a hot pan, the delicate touch of a knife blade against the fragile skin of a tomato, the seductive touch of caramel melting over the tongue.

And food is definitely about words. From "I'll have the soup of the day" and "What's the recipe for this" to "Brown already, the guests are almost here" and "Please don't be burned, please don't be--AUGH" and lastly, the three most sublime words in the English language: "om nom nom."

Even in solitude, food is love.

While I'm cooking alone, it's an act of generosity to myself. I want to take care of the body that putters around all day. I want to treat my palate to the flavors it likes best. (Sometimes that's nothing more than ramen noodles with eggs stirred in. Other times, I'll go for broke and make cider vinegar steak with roasted asparagus and goat cheese-stuffed mushrooms on the side. This love is unconditional.)

While begging the egg whites to just turn to stiff peaks already before my hand gets a cramp, I'm thinking about the friends to whom I'll be serving those meringues. I think about the time I made them from memory for my grandfather, who passed earlier this year, and the rum balls one of my aunts brought to the same Christmas. As the cookies go into the oven I dwell on the memory of that lovely time.

While meticulously copying out recipes from cookbooks to put into my file, I look for gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free treats I can share with the people who matter most to me, whose allergies make cooking for them a challenge. It's a challenge I want to rise to meet, because cooking for them is--here we go again--a labor of love.

So food is love. Let's take that a step further and say that love is family.

Family is a concept that has a much broader embrace than we usually think. It's grandmothers and grandfathers, parents and children, but it's also that small family of two lovers hand in hand. It's the boss who has your back and the friend who brings you soup when you fall ill. It's the barista who recognizes you and slips you a free drink. It's the online buddy who sends you care packages when your beloved cat dies.

On Chopped, the great majority of the contestants list their family as both the reason they started cooking and the reason they want to win. They tell stories about the girlfriend who postponed grad school in order to support her partner's cooking career. The children whose favorite dish is the very same one the chef has just offered for the judge's critique. The grandmother in Guatemala, whose delectable recipes comprise the chef's earliest memories, never written down and now lost to time.

The memoirs of cooks are never a listing of what dishes they served at which restaurant. Instead, they talk about the great chefs who trained them, and the people who worked on either side of them in the steaming hell of a line kitchen. That is a family of a sort, too: a temporary one, where blood is shared (remember: the worst accidents are caused by a dull knife) even if genes are not. These memoirs are punctuated by the food they ate with this white-hatted family; each dish mentioned has a human story behind it. The food is the memory, and the memory lives on in the food.

Food is love, and love is family. Why not take it full circle to say that family is food? Family, whatever its shape in your life, is what fuels you. It gives you strength to get up out of bed. Family is the flavor that sets your people apart from the faceless crowds of the world. Family is sweet, overpowering, sour, smoke-filled, cold, comforting, full of zest... all in turn and all in time.

Food is love, and love is family. and family is food.

Now, about the cookbook in question: Alex Guarnaschelli wrote a really good cookbook. It's full of funny anecdotes and Alex's little cartoons of food (the sad parsnips were my favorite.) She offers recipes that are delicious without being absurdly complicated, and doesn't have her knickers in a twist about storebought ingredients. Her approach to flavors uses a lot of "brightness," which I like in my own food--bringing the flavors out of a dish with just a touch of acidy citrus, or a dollop of sour cream, or a splash of vinegar. I'm a big fan. It's a good book. The end.

Review: "Duma Key" by Stephen King

Successful entrepreneur, beloved husband and father--Edgar Freemantle had it all. An accident on a construction site robs him of everything, and takes his right arm along the way.

Now crippled, divorced, suffering constant pain and struggling with memory loss, Edgar is a wreck of the man he was. To dissuade him from suicide, his psychologist prescribes a "geographic cure"--a change of scenery. Edgar takes up residence on isolated Duma Key off the coast of Florida, where the sunset bleeding into the Gulf and the shells whispering in the swell of the tide stir a hunger in him. For the first time since childhood, Edgar picks up a paintbrush and begins to create.

But as Edgar's eerie paintings increase in skill and beauty, nightmares stir under the clear waters of the Gulf. A ghost ship against a scarlet sky appears over and over in his art, its bow turning toward the shore. Something which has been sleeping for a century begins to wake, and reaches out to the world once more. 


***   5 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***

Review: “Heat” by Bill Buford

Bill Buford is successful and happy in his career as a reporter when he befriends the famous New York chef Mario Batali. What was meant to be a simple interview spins out of control as Mario invites Bill to work for him. Untrained but eager, Bill begins work as a lowly assistant in the kitchen of Mario’s three-star Italian restaurant.

A classic comedy of errors ensues--but Bill’s perseverance and maniacal need to Understand Food sees him rise in skill and rank through the kitchen. He is sanctified (as it were) by the hellish fires of the grill.

Mario contemplates setting up the onetime reporter with a restaurant of his own, but Bill has caught the cooking fever. New York is no longer enough for him. He wants to go to Italy and learn where Italian food began. There are little old women in the hills with pasta-making secrets no one else remembers. There are butchers whose handling of meat is said to be operatic. Bill trades the typewriter for the filleting knife--perhaps for good.

***

  5 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***