Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
When I decided to start posting reviews of a few books at the same time, I still intended to write the reviews as I go as I did for my math and science reviews the other week. Although I wrote a separate review for the cookbook memoir I read by Emily Franklin, once I read
At first, Baking Cakes in Kigali by Galie Parkin reminded me of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall-Smith. In both novels, an independent woman in an African country runs a business and listens to the gossip of her neighbors, showing the reader a little bit about African locale, but also illustrating the
I needed to sharpen our kitchen knives, so I found a book to help me along, specifically, An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives by Chad Ward. Overall, I liked the information I read. I got excited about my kitchen knives! But when I went to try and sharpen my own
Most mornings, after my son (age 23 months) finishes his breakfast, he jumps out of his chair and runs to the kitchen stool, yelling, “Cook! Cook!” He climbs the stool and pounds the counter, a big smile on his face, for he knows I’ll probably give in and cook something with him. (I normally prepare
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is almost a genre by itself. The traditional Mexican recipes are provided in a novel format as it tells the story of Tita, Tita’s overbearing mother, and Tita’s lover, Pedro, who marries her sister. And yet, it’s not a cook book, and I don’t think it’s not an
I have an unfair bias against memoirs. This may stem from the fact that many memoirs are written by people who are complete strangers, and I find myself wondering why their life should be of interest to me. With this book, at least, that unfair stereotype was certainly proved wrong! Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life
In some respects, I miss the point of Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food. Alice Waters is the original proponent of seasonal, local, and organic foods. But because I grocery shop for a family on a budget, I can never justify going “organic.” I also live in Chicago suburbia, which means that there are
What do you eat in one week? What does a typical American eat? What does a typical Brit eat? What does a family in the Darfur Refugee Camp in Chad eat? What do the people of the world eat? These are the questions that photographer Peter Menzel seeks to answer through his coffee table book
What I Learned from the CIA As I mentioned when I read Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking, I’ve also been reading one of his other books about food, The Making of a Chef. This book is Ruhlman’s behind-the-scenes look at what a “culinary education” entails, particularly what it takes to earn a certificate or
The Chef’s Craft in Every Kitchen? I have mixed feelings about Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen. The Elements of Cooking is one-part opinionated essays about cooking (pages 1-50) and one-part alphabetic encyclopedia of opinionated “essential” elements to cooking. There are things I liked about both parts and
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