Kitchen Experiments for Lessons in Chemistry

 

Our latest book selection for Cook the Books Club has been Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, hosted this round by Debra of 
Eliot's Eats.   From the Publisher:

"Meet Elizabeth Zott: “a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention” (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show."

 I found the book somewhat enjoyable, occasionally interesting and sometimes annoying.  Interesting historically in a sad way, with a look at how professional women have been treated in the past.   Annoying, hypocritical really, in the sense that "scientists" as well as authors, artists, engineers, etc. understandably, very much dislike having their work and inventions, or designs appropriated by others.  As happened in the novel.  Actually it's a criminal offense.  Yet they can look at the beauty, purpose and design all around us and assign it to random chance. Ha.  Also, I found it highly unlikely that her cooking show would have become popular in the early1960s.  What did become popular then was Julia Child's cooking show. 

There is a lot of hypocrisy in the world and always has been, not just in the arena of women's rights.  At least Garmus' novel was thought provoking and even occasionally humorous, despite the improbable and sometimes fantastical side.  I loved Elizabeth's dog, 6:30.  When Calvin died, "he sensed her death wish, and because of it, had been on suicide watch all week." Like her daughter, the dog is rendered almost magically intelligent and gifted.

Blood, Bones & Butter Review With a Negroni!

We at Cook the Books Club are closing out this segment with our latest book selection, Blood, Bones & Butter, a memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton, and I'm just getting my post in under the wire.  I loved this book, found it a truly enjoyable read!  There's an old saying, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" and does it ever apply here. Gabrielle not only stands it, she actually revels in it, the overwhelming, awesome heat of a small restaurant kitchen with 10 burners going.  She says: "I am the only one I know who likes it.....I feel like we are two small-time boxers---me and the heat---meeting in the center of the ring to tap gloves..."

Though I hadn't thought about heat too much in terms of restaurant work,  I do know that my own little kitchen often heats up beyond my tolerance and I just have to get out.  Go sit in front of a fan on the deck until I'm cooled down enough.  Not possible for anyone on a restaurant job.

What a trip! Gabrielle carries us along with her, from the beginning of her interest and contact with food prep, watching her French mother,  through years of camp cooking and catering, to the opening of her own unique little restaurant in New York City.   Her stint with various catering companies would certainly put one off ordering from them, by the way.  "The Inadvertent Education" adventures are narrated in a writing style that kept my interest to the end.   She is a truly talented, evocative raconteur and cook, her MFA in fiction writing clearly shows. 

A Dill Straw for Your Bloody Mary

I'm recommending another good mystery series here, and though this one, Murder on the Ile Sordou, is fourth in the progression by M.L. Longworth, you might want to start with an earlier book, perhaps Murder in the Rue Dumas.  The first in her series, Death at the Chateau Bremont didn't get as good a review, though I did enjoy it enough to get the next one.

I especially loved her evocative descriptions of a stunningly beautiful island off the coast of Marseilles.  The whole ambiance made me want to book a trip and stay in the hotel described, sadly though I know it doesn't exist. But maybe one like it??

Some privileged guests, among them a French film star have come for the grand opening.  The plot proceeds to thicken, with Longworth's investigative duo, Judge Antoine Verlaque and his lady love, law professor Marine Bonnet along for the ride.  They are on what is supposed to be an idyllic, relaxing vacation.

All the characters are very well fleshed out, and original.  As well, the food and wine descriptions are just too tasty.  On this remote island in the Mediterranean Sea, Hoteliers, Maxime and Catherine Le Bon have spent their life savings beautifully restoring the hotel.  They have also secured an ambitious young chef, Emile, for their kitchen, one who goes foraging for local wild herbs and plants.  And the varied, inspired menus have us wanting to try his wonderful creations.  He served the guests a starter that would be great with my drink: A Goat Cheese Crème Brûlée with Caramelized Onions.  Oh yes!

Oatmeal Lace Cookies and President Roosevelt's Martini

I don't know about you, but if there's a particular sort of novel I especially appreciate, it's one with a competent female protagonist.  Two books I've recently finished illustrate this type. The Dead Cat Bounce, is a mystery series debut featuring Jacobia (Jake) Tiptree, recently retired from the stressful field of financial management in New York, and currently restoring a rambling old fixer-upper on an island in Maine.  She is a money whiz and home repair do-it-yourselfer (with occasional help).   And, just so you know, cat lovers out there, the dead cat bounce is a stock market term.  Her books have the added allure of being funny.Right from the first page:

 "...on that bright April morning when, after living cheerfully and peacefully in the house for over a year, I found a body in the storeroom. Coming upon a body is an experience, like childbirth or a head-on collision, that takes the breath out of a person. I went back through the passageway between the kitchen and the small, unheated room where in spring I kept dog food and dahlia bulbs, and where apparently I now stored corpses."  And, on page 3:

 "People in Eastport do not think the telephone grows naturally out of the tympanic membrane, and some of them will actually decide whether to answer it or not based on what sort of news they are expecting." and further down: "I think Ellie added, 'we should make sure the man is really dead.'  This struck me as pointless, since an ice pick in the cranium promised little in the way of future prospects.  But Ellie was determined; it was part of her down east Maine heritage, like being able to navigate in the fog or knowing how to dress out a deer."

Thanksgiving Drink to Cure the Shudders

This debut novel by Ellen Byron, Plantation Shudders, refers to the sense of deja vu or impending doom, either one or the other, which may attack a person of sensitive spirits.  Apparently this is common in the South (and in Celtic countries). I can't speak from experience.  Several characters were getting those shudders at the beginning of the book, so we had a definite feeling that something gruesome would be occurring shortly.  Well, it's a "Cajun Country Mystery", so what you would expect. Murder and mayhem. More from the Publishers:

"Check in for some Southern hospitality in Plantation Shudders, the Cajun Country series debut from Ellen Byron.
It's the end of the summer and Prodigal Daughter Maggie Crozat has returned home to her family's plantation-turned-bed-and-breakfast in Louisiana. The Crozats have an inn full of guests for the local food festival--elderly honeymooners, the Cajun Cuties, a mysterious stranger from Texas, a couple of hipster lovebirds, and a trio of Georgia frat boys. But when the elderly couple keels over dead within minutes of each other--one from very unnatural causes-- Maggie and the others suddenly become suspects in a murder.

The Language of Bees and a Drink to That!

There are a number of authors I go back to again and again, but have never posted about.  We need to remedy that situation. Immediately.  A favorite of mine has been Laurie R. King, with her Mary Russell series, a woman in partnership with Sherlock Holmes (yes:)), solving mysteries and raising bees.  This one I've just finished, The Language of Bees, is ninth in King's series.  I do recommend beginning at the beginning with the first, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen. Also a totally excellent read.

From the Publishers, on The Language of Bees:: 
"For Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, returning to the Sussex coast after seven months abroad was especially sweet. There was even a mystery to solve—the unexplained disappearance of an entire colony of bees from one of Holmes’s beloved hives.But the anticipated sweetness of their homecoming is quickly tempered by a galling memory from the past. Mary had met Damian Adler only once before, when the surrealist painter had been charged with—and exonerated from—murder. Now the troubled young man is enlisting the Holmeses’ help again, this time in a desperate search for his missing wife and child.
Mary has often observed that there are many kinds of madness, and before this case yields its shattering solution she’ll come into dangerous contact with a fair number of them. From suicides at Stonehenge to the dark secrets of a young woman’s past on the streets of Shanghai, Mary will find herself on the trail of a killer more dangerous than any she’s ever faced—a killer Sherlock Holmes himself may be protecting for reasons near and dear to his heart."

A Cinco de Mayo Kumquat Margarita

Happy Cinco de Mayo, which we all know is just an excuse :)  and after all our earthquakes and volcanic eruptions yesterday, I figure we're due for one.  I do love kumquats, just to eat out of hand, and they're also good for chutney, and lots of other things, like this:

The Discovery of Chocolate, Taste of Mexico Stew

Our current Cook the Books Club selection, hosted by Simona of Briciole, is The Discovery of Chocolate, by James Runcie.

In this fantastical tale, chocolate is indeed discovered, by Europeans anyway. Based on historical events, this is the very inventive, and frequently implausibly fleshed-out, tale of one, Diego de Godoy, a young Spaniard who joins up with a ship bound from Spain for the exploration and plunder of the New World with Hernan Cortes. Diego embarks on the journey, to impress and hopefully, win the right to marry his young and rather superficial Spanish sweetheart, despite his low class. She will wait for him to return with a treasure from the New World, something fabulous and worthy of her beauty and love.

Though Diego’s treasure turns out to be chocolate, he also finds true love when he meets Ignacia, a native woman in Mexico. This meeting leads him on an incredible, five hundred year journey, due to an "elixir of life" she mixes into his cocoa drink.

Mango-Lime Margarita - Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

This was meant to be a Curtis Stone Pineapple-Lime Margarita, for the IHCC Wet your Whistle theme, but all our pineapples are half-size at the moment and totally unripe.  However, and that's a ginormous however, I had one perfectly ripe and delicious mango.

Actually, had to stop myself from eating the entire thing whilst slicing it into the blender.  First of the season and sooooo good.  I love mangoes.  Plus which, with the lime and natural acidity of a pineapple, just my personal opinion, mango is much better in this drink. A really delicious concoction, garnished with kaffir lime leaves and nasturtium flower.  Only one other slight change to the recipe - no straining.  The little bits of fruit were a plus here.  Really.  It's not pure laziness, as this was not a fibrous fruit.

I enjoyed mine while trying to find a Mexican recipe that would use ingredients we have on hand.  Not always an easy thing.  Do visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and see all the lovely drinks being served up this week from Curtis Stone, our current chef in residence.

Ranting with Iced Coffee

What we have here is a lovely bit of fluff, perfect for poolside or beach.  On What Grounds, by Cleo Coyle, is a cozy mystery revolving around and in a New York coffee house.  Up until page 105 anyway, where drinks orders are being taken in the coffee house.  We came to a shrieking halt right there.  And, I quote:

"Double tall cap, get the lead out!"
Sixteen-ounce cappuccino with decaf.
Decaf.
A shudder ran through me as I glanced up and saw the wane, (Typo note: do you think she means wan?? Wane being a verb?) pale, overanxious face of the man ordering the decaf.
Okay, I'm sorry, but decaf drinkers annoy me.
Expectant mothers I can understand, but lifelong decaf drinkers give me the creeps.  They're usually the sort who have a half-dozen imagined allergies, eat macrobiotic patties, and pop Rolaids like M&Ms when their acid reflux kicks in from anxiety over the Chinese restaurant's delivering white instead of brown rice."