Tender morsels

I work on a 24-hour-a-day clock (unfortunately) but the world around me seems to be going double-time today. Thus, I only have time for some happy linkage:

• Check out Diablo Cody's "In Praise of Judy Blume" article in EW. As if we didn't already know how awesome she is (Diablo and Judy...)! Thanks to my Child_lit listserv for the link.
• Deborah Wiles has a lovely account of Coleen Salley's funeral in New Orleans. What a fitting celebration for such a good-hearted, spunky woman! The world needs more people like Coleen. Thanks to Educating Alice for the info.
• Dear god, Gwyneth Paltrow apparently is starting her own lifestyle website? To "nourish the inner aspect"? And she claims that her life is good because she is "not passive about it"? This comes second-hand from Thursday Night Smackdown - the website isn't up yet - but I'm already feeling all cringey about it. And I love Gwyneth. But this could be going too far. Especially with everything going on economically, socially, and politically. So not the time for self-promotion and flaunted privilege. If she starts a magazine, I'm losing ALL respect. (Here's more info from US Magazine. I felt betrayed reading this because I do love her. But ugh.)
• Alison at Shelf Talker has a spectacular rant about Urban Outfitters and their blatant sexism (my words, not Alison's) in the literary t-shirt department. Come on, UO! Get a friggin CLUE!
• Last but not least, the real-life And Tango Makes Three penguins have broken up. Apparently Silo has left Roy for a female penguin...and Roy sits in a corner alone, staring at the wall. The best part is the end quote by one of the authors of the book: "We wrote the book to help parents teach children about same-sex parent families. It's no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks." Hee-hee! If only it were that easy, no?

Eat, drink, and celebrate banned books week!

UPDATE: Oh, you're all going to wish I had got my information right when you see this, but I did not. Gwyneth Paltrow's site is actually up and running. I present you with GOOP. Indeed...

My Last 12 Hours in NYC

Adam over at Amateur Gourmet started this: what would you do in your last 12 hours of whatever city you’re living in?  In his case, he posted about his last 12 hours in NYC if he had to leave it and never come back.  Clotilde posted about her last 12 hours in Paris.  While the very idea of leaving NYC and never coming back fills me with sadness, I still think this is a fun way to appreciate the place you live.  So here are my last 12 hours in NYC:

9:00 a.m. Coffee and a lemon poppy seed muffin at Guy & Gallard, the one on Lexington and 34^th.  It’s certainly not the best place in the city by any means, but it has enormous sentimental value for me – Adam and I went there on our very first trip to NYC and believed it to be quintessentially New York.  Now I understand that isn’t necessarily the case…but still…

10:00 a.m.  Because in my version I have an endless capacity to eat and enjoy, I would head over to Chelsea Market and grab an Americano at Ninth Street…now that is real coffee.  Then I’ll take my coffee into 202 for breakfast (where the wait staff always makes you pour it into one of their coffee cups so you’re not advertising someone else’s coffee in their restaurant).  I’ll order their French toast with bacon and syrup…some of the best I’ve had.  I’ll spend some time after breakfast browsing the ridiculously beautiful, expensive clothes.  Before I leave that neighborhood, I’ll stock up on some cupcakes at Billy’s Bakery to have with my lunch.

11:30 a.m.  After walking all the way down to the NYU area, I’ll be prepared to try on some clothes.  My last 12 hours would not be complete (for me, anyway) without a stop to Purdy Girl, one of my favorite clothing boutiques in the city.  While in that neighborhood, I’ll collect the fixings for a picnic lunch: a stop at Murray’s Cheese and Amy’s Bread.  Some olive oil at O & Co.  I’ll bypass Magnolia (you would be wise to do so as well) since I stocked up on Billy’s earlier (the only cupcakes worth having).  I don’t have a favorite wine shop in that part of the city so I’ll just pop into any old place and get a pinot noir (of course!) to have with lunch.

1:00 p.m.  Picnic in Central Park, one of my favorite things to do ever, in any city.  I like to position myself near a walking path so I can people-watch while I nibble and sip.  And lots of the musicians set up near the paths – last time I picnicked in the Park, there was a young woman playing the violin beautifully while we dined.  There really isn’t anything more perfect in the world, I think.

3:00 p.m.  Strolling through the park until dinner.  Bethesda Fountain, the Mall, Sheep’s Meadow.  I’d walk and enjoy all my favorite places.

4:00 p.m. Before dinner I’d head to Ginger Man, my favorite place in the city to have a beer (or two).  I’d have the Franziskaner Hefe, like I always do, along with their stellar soft pretzel accompanied with spicy honey mustard. 

5:00 p.m. Four hours left!  This is a tough one: do I pick a restaurant I’ve been dying to go to but have never been?  Or a tried-and-true?  I think I’d have to go to either Union Square Café or Gramercy Tavern – I’ve never been to either, and I don’t know if I could feel complete leaving the city without at least eating at one of them.  So I think I’d pick Union Square Café because Ina Garten says in one of her cookbooks that it’s her favorite restaurant in the city…and we all know she has impeccable taste.

8:00 p.m. Post-dinner drinks at The Campbell Apartment.  Naturally, I’d walk through Grand Central to get there, one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.  I’d have their Prohibition Punch – it’s wicked….and so delicious.

9:00 p.m. I’d leave the city via the ferry so that I could get one last look at one of, if not the, most famous skylines in the world.  And oh, how I would cry!

Eat, drink, and love where you live

Note: I picked up the picture from Google images (www.nyctrip.com, according to Google)

I favor The Individualist or The Loyalist

Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg have outdone themselves in their recent Washington Post column: "Picks with Personality".  The idea, of course, is that wines can be understood better if we attribute personalities with each of them. 

This isn't really a new idea...at the risk of revealing that I have the geekiest taste in movies, I remember that scene in French Kiss where Meg Ryan describes a

wine as being "bold with a hint of sophistication but lacking in pretension."  Then she sheepishly tells the always-delicious Kevin Kline that she was actually just describing herself.  Kevin Kline's character then tells her that she's not wrong, that wine is like people and it takes from its surroundings, absorbs it, and grows in complexity.

So the whole wine-as-people thing is clearly already in my head.  But Dornenburg and Page infused it with such fun in this article, not to mention that they have wine recommendations to go with it.  My favorite is #3: The Achiever.  Not surprisingly, it's chardonnay.  "Still to sparkling, dry to sweet, steely to oak"...it will "do anything to entertain and hold your attention."  This is an interesting comparison to me because, while I love this about chardonnay, it is also what I find really frustrating about it.  You think you can trust it...then you choose the wrong one...and it bites you (and your meal) in the rear.  I feel like chardonnay is The Charlatan: it can't always be trusted.

This struck me today because, last night, the Husband and I had chicken satay for dinner after the Kiddo went to bed.  Alongside I served jasmine rice with ginger, garlic, and cilantro.  So I used my handy-dandy What to Drink with What You Eat and discovered I needed an oaky chardonnay STAT to accompany the dinner.  The Husband, being a good sport, immediately ran out to get me some...and brought back a Clos Du Bois Chardonnay, otherwise known as The Oakiest Wine EVER.  And it went perfect.  The Achiever rocked last night's dinner.

Eat, drink, and figure out which personality type best fits Viognier...

REVIEW: My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

You know how sometimes you read a book at a certain time in your life and it just…clicks? It’s the exact book you needed to read (you were meant to read) at that exact moment? That was My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath for me.

This is the story of Jane Fielding, a 12-year-old girl who lives with her single mother and her siblings in a house on the beach. Through the course of a summer, she goes through that change. You know the one. Where she slowly begins to create a life outside of her family. Where she realizes that the adults in her life are fallible. Where at the same time she is realizing her parent has secrets, she is gathering secrets of her own. It’s the classic coming-of-age story.

I appreciated the way in which Horvath shapes this story. She portrays that age as confusing, saddening, and heartbreaking…yet there’s magic, light, and beauty found in the midst of the sadness. As the reader, you’re both intimately involved with Jane’s adventures…yet it also seems as if you’re floating above her watching it all happen, slightly detached. How can you be both? I don’t know, but somehow Horvath does it.

This book reminded me of Richard Peck’s A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder: Adventures is written in vignettes with kooky unforgettable characters. This differs, though, in that there is a pensiveness to it, a certain naïveté and depth to the characters that I just didn’t get from Peck’s books. It’s all so bittersweet – you know the growing up must happen. Even Jane knows that the process of growing up has brought her so many adventures, and that is a wondrous thing. But there’s still sorrow about that with a side dish of worrying. There’s a bit of the adult perspective here, perhaps: as an adult reading this, I know where Jane is going in the growing-up process, and I’m reading this feeling nostalgic and sad for my own lost youth, feeling heartache for Jane because she is forever changed. A child reading this book will, no doubt, have an entirely different perspective. This is one of the most personal books I’ve read in a long time.

There are such beautifully crafted passages in this book; it’s difficult to choose just one to share with you or to extract it from the rest of the text. Nevertheless, I give you this gem:

So for now the house is still ours. But there is no joy. The house
is no longer a sanctuary. It may not always be a member of our
family. It may be taken from us as no family member can be, so what is it,
then? Only a house. I cannot afford to love it anymore.

That is one of the more melancholy passages but illustrates beautifully Jane’s lesson that part of growing up is making choices about what you will love and what you cannot. That sometimes you must close your heart to one thing so that you can give more to others. It’s incredibly poignant and totally believable that a 12-year-old has learned this lesson.

I felt a tight grip on my heart as I read that last page, and I was incredibly sad to have it end. Which is always the sign of a Good Read. And if I didn’t have a gargantuan stack of books waiting for me, I would immediately turn right back to the start of this one and read it all over again.

A must-read.


Other reviews:
Educating Alice
Welcome to my Tweendom
Bookami
And read School Library Journal's review via Amazon. It's spot-on.

DISCLAIMER: I am compelled to add that I'm disappointed with my own review. I use variations of "sad" way too much, giving you the wrong impression about this book. It's uplifting and hopeful, I swear! Connie Tyrrell Burns put it perfectly in her SLJ review: Horvath is a "word alchemist."

He could have been an awesome White Rabbit too

Not surprisingly, Johnny Depp has been tapped to play the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's production of Alice in Wonderland. I couldn't find any other info about the rest of the cast but I'll keep you posted.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp doing Alice? Does anyone else have visions of Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" video? Yeah, me too.

Not so OT: Books for Barack

Novelist Ayelet Waldman has started the organization Books for Barack to raise money for Barack Obama's Presidential campaign (Note: the website actually refers to it as "Books 4 Barack" but I just can't bring myself to use that damn "4"). The idea is that you donate $250 to the campaign and you get a mystery bag of 10 books in a canvas tote with the Books for Barack logo on the bag - though it's been so popular that Waldman has now said she isn't sending out any more bags...and she has raised $40,000 so far! I'm unclear whether all 10 of the books are signed, but the website seems to indicate that they are. Naturally, she is still encouraging people to donate, even if she can't send out any more mystery bags.

Check out the food, children's, and YA authors who have contributed signed books:

Mario Batali

Judy Blume

Jamie Lee Curtis

Elizabeth Gilbert (I totally considered Eat, Pray, Love a foodie book!)

Dan Gutman

Barbara Kingsolver

Ursula LeGuin

Steve Martin

Megan McDonald

Tamora Pierce

Cynthia Rylant

Lemony Snicket

Sara Varon

Judith Viorst

Alice Waters

...to name a few.

Eat, drink, and support grassroots campaigns!

"DWTS": Not as off-topic as you'd think

Any of you watch "Dancing with the Stars"? Anyone? It's okay, you can admit you watch it here - this is a safe space.

Well, I am CRUSHING on Rocco Dispirito*! I only knew him in name before; I had never opened any of his cookbooks, and I think he's on TV...but I don't know which show. But now I know who he is. He's an awful dancer, but he is just so damn sweet and charming...and apparently he can cook!

So I'm going downstairs during my lunch break today to check out one or two of his cookbooks and see what he's about. If I like the cookbooks, I might buy one at my local bookstore.

Which I suppose is why he agreed to be on the show in the first place.

Eat, drink, and crush on celebrity chefs...

* Okay, so I just realized I'm an idiot. A simple Google search has revealed two ESSENTIAL things about Rocco Dispirito: 1.) He grew up in Jamaica, Queens...uh, that's where I'm located right at this very minute as I blog, and 2.) he's the chef and owner of Gramercy Tavern. Kind of important info I missed. Which is why I blog much more about the cooking I do...versus the restaurant scene. I really don't do the restaurant scene - I'm just not cool enough. I should, though, if there are other Rocco Dispiritos involved...

She wha-?!

L.M. Montgomery actually committed suicide. Which I suppose makes sense - out of great joy also comes great sadness, yes? I know I probably won't use the phrase "depths of despair" so flippantly in the future as I have in the past... I could thank Bookshelves of Doom for the info...but doesn't it seem weird to thank someone for passing along news like this?

Speaking of Bookshelves of Doom, I have been reading Great Read III: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens religiously. I suppose one good thing about freeing up some of my time lately is that I can participate in the next Great Read*. Come on, Leila, pick something AWESOME!


* See?! Do you see how I do that?! I drop a couple things to simplify my life...and then I'm already planning the next activity to fill that time slot! ACK!