My newest piece is a brief review in the
Hadassah Magazine May 2010 web extra:
Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other by Judy Klitsner. (Jewish Publication Society, 173 pp. $35)
Judy Klitsner’s award-winning first book challenges her readers to take a fresh look at familiar biblical characters. Klitsner’s refusal to gloss over the Bible’s complexity and ambiguity lends to rich readings of the text. Her literary approach examines repeated Hebrew roots to unearth hidden meaning, and extensive textual references engage masters and novices alike. Quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel, who says the Bible “speaks in every language and in every age,” Klitsner addresses head-on the challenges of finding modern-day relevance in the Bible, especially in relation to women’s issues. She analyzes without apologizing, leaving the reader with much to consider. --Aliza Libman
Labels: book reviews
Recommended food reading
Yesterday, Christina Katz solicited
Memoir Recommendations from Folks on Facebook and Twitter. I thought I'd share my Passover reading gems, in the form of a book and a blog. Both are about my favorite topic, food. (Somewhere in the background, an anthropomorphic travel avatar is whining, "I thought I was your favorite topic!")
Former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl wrote
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise about her tenure as food critic for the
New York Times. Like other similar books I've reviewed, it has a personal tone that was very engaging and it has recipes interspersed throughout the book. I was floored to hear her review chefs I've seen on Top Chef and get her take on how nastily she was treated when she was in disguise. I've never had the opportunity to dine at truly glitzy restaurants, though Ari and I had lovely times at
Le Marais in NYC and
El Gaucho in Jerusalem. As I recall, the experience of feeling taken care of is the best part. ("The chef sends an amuse bouche? How thoughtful of him! How did he know my mouth was in desperate need of some amusement?) I'm all for anonymous reviewers - I would not wish to dine anywhere that thought they could boost their restaurant's credibility by treating half the guests as second-class citizens.
Shortly before Passover, my sister recommended
Elisha's Double Portion blog. I went to school with Elisha briefly in 2001 so I'm not surprised she came up with an idea for a blog that's so creative, I wish I had thought of it. Elisha blogs weekly about food and the weekly Torah portion, finding foods that match the content of the Torah portion. (I can't wait to see what she does with leprosy next week.) It's not a quick read because her weekly posts are long and full of recipes and photos.
In case you were wondering what I've been reading while I was supposed to be doing something productive, these ladies are it.
Labels: book reviews, recipes
The hallmark of a good book (in my mind) is obvious when reading someone else's copy: finishing it is followed by resolving to own it myself, very soon. In this case, I returned the library's copy of "
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti" by
Giulia Melucci and went to
Booksmith to get my own.
The book is a memoir of a serious food lover, and the men she cooked for. Perhaps I feel guilty being happily married, but Melucci deserves serious kudos for turning personal heartbreak into a page-turner. The book will lead foodie romantics to alternately root for the author to find her own happily-ever-after, and note which food ideas they'd like to replicate. The book intersperses Melucci's story with dozens of recipes. There's a recipe index at the back, which makes the book more user-friendly. Though there's some variety of ingredients, the book is heavy on pastas, fish recipes, and desserts.
For Shavuot, I made a quadruple recipe of "Simple Tomato Sauce and Pasta for Two" (page 18) using whole wheat spaghetti. I mixed it in with a healthy batch of roasted veggies (carrots, red onion, asparagus, zucchini, and peppers, roasted in a 375 degree oven for about an hour with salt, pepper and oil.) Top with Parmesan, and it's fancy enough for the holiday, but healthy enough to eat the leftovers four days in a row.
Labels: book reviews, recipes
Worth reading - October
Three things I read lately that I really liked:
Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture: Taylor Clark: Books Not just knee-jerk liberalism.
Jeff Jacoby on health care
in the Globe:
We thus ended up with a healthcare system in which the vast majority of bills are covered by a third party. With someone else picking up the tab, Americans got used to consuming medical care without regard to price or value. After all, if it was covered by insurance, why not go to the emergency room for a simple sore throat? Why not get the name-brand drug instead of a generic?
Michael Burstein's
new book is coming out. Publication party is November 2. I have not read all of the stories in it, but I especially recommend "75 Years" and "Time Ablaze".
Labels: book reviews
On cooking, reading and BTVS
Most people who know me know that I'm alternately obsessed with many diversions - this week 24, Law and Order and scrapbooking - but two of the most steadfast ones in my life have been Buffy the Vampire Slayer and cooking.
I saw the subtitle of the book below, which included the word recipes, and thought, this sounds good.
The book, "Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
" was first the blog of a very funny woman who loves BtVS, hates Republicans and lives in New York. (Ah, well, one out of three ain't bad.) Her blog eventually garnered enough attention to generate a book deal, and you can still check out the blog itself.
I suppose that much of what I find fun about the book is that it's chicklit, but much brainier. She is funny and sarcastic, but she's talking about something. It's not like Shopaholic or Bridget Jones, in which I find myself wanting to smack all the characters for exhibiting lunatic behaviour and poor decision-making skills. Julie Powell seems like a real person. And airbrushed as the picture may be, in theory she is.
It sounds ridiculous at first - who, when eating a nice dinner of potato leek soup, would decide to cook through an entire 524 recipe cookbook in a year? Without real breaks or exceptions? Who wants to cook mussels and sweetbreads? But the book is nonetheless the clever end result of someone getting a idea that's so crazy, it's brilliant, and then following it through. It almost makes me hate her - her project is the kind of thing I think I might be tempted to try if I had any free time at all.
Anyhow, if you like chicklit, or if you've ever tried to flip an omelette properly, the book is certainly worth a first read. The proverbial test, of course, is whether I would read it again. I'm not sure yet.
But now, I must confess, when I make a hideous mess of my kitchen and find myself shouting really loudly about the improper birth of various kitchen implements (I don't use the F-word as freely as she does) I feel that I am certainly not alone. Somewhere else, someone else is trying to turn ingredients into a lovely, pleasant-smelling and yummy work of art and is likely having as much difficulty as I.
Labels: book reviews, recipes
