Perfection Salad by Laura Shapiro

 

Perfection Salad - Laura Shapiro

Book Club read recommended by a member

Part of a throng of research projects that emerged in the early seventies when women began doing doctoral research.  The book highlights key women of influence in the United States (particularly New England) who led the charge in creating cooking schools, industrializing and streamlining the kitchen, established standards of measurement, as well as promoting quality control, safety, and nutritional awareness. 

The book discusses different waves of the movement from the mid 1800s up until the early to mid 1900s.  

She also talks about trends and public perceptions that influenced women. For example it was very popular in the 1800s for women to be "dainty." This led to women believing that they should eat very little, and when they did it should be in the form of "dainty" carb like things ie toast, wafers, tiny sandwiches etc. Meat and hearty dishes were considered more appropriate for men. This led to many women being undernourished and having anemia even. 

She also discusses the spiritualization of homemaking that transpired in the United States during the Victorian era. This was the idea that the woman was the spiritual heart and spiritual leader of the home. By maintaining order and creating domestic tranquility, training up the children etc. this was considered to be an end unto itself - a lofty goal and task that only a woman could achieve.  Through throwing herself into this work, she was truly a missionary in her home and then this could seep out beyond to include the community at large. Cooking and cleaning were thus glorified to fulfill a high and noble calling and it was approached with due seriousness. 

In our book club meeting we talked about feminism, its waves, and also the counter revolutions that followed. We see this today -with women identifying with traditional ideas of wife/motherhood. We talked about our own ancestors and the ways in which they viewed cooking and domesticity. Was it something to be accomplished in order to get on to something else or was it more? 

Views of food: In my family there was a saying "Eat to live, not live to eat." I think it's a very industrialized notion of food as a source of energy so you can go out and do more work. I noted that this is a a very different approach from the Italian family I married into. In Italian culture, how you prepare food, the ingredients you use, when you eat, in what order, at what time are all very important to them. (Not to mention the relative tastiness of the food.) 

I always enjoy pondering food processes of other times and places because they were so labor intensive. People at the turn of the century celebrated the newfangled notion of "processed foods." Our relationship with processed foods has become increasingly complex and I think most people rely on them but view the relationship dubiously. Our connection to the sources of food (for most US dwellers) is pretty remote. Most of our food travels through multiple entities before it reaches our plates or greasy paper bags. 

This book offers interesting insights into the evolution of that process and how industrialization affected the way cook, eat, and think about food and those who prepare it. 

My Girl Liz

 Liz Gilbert captured me with her famous memoir Eat Pray Love which I read years ago when I was living in London. I've written about two of her other books on this blog: Big Magic, and The Last American Man. It's safe to say I'm a gushy fangirl. In fact, I think I've read all of her books. She's brilliant, funny, authentic, candid, confident yet vulnerable. 

Stern Men was first published in 2000, so an earlier work in her book career. I tend to like her nonfiction more than fiction. This story is inspired by actual lobster fishing communities but is an entirely fictional narrative. It was definitely enjoyable and having grown up in a resource based industry (agriculture) I'm always fascinated to delve into other types of livelihoods imaginatively that source an existence from the earth itself. 

One of my takeaways was just really internalizing how difficult life can be and how that difficulty can bring or bear with it a deal of harshness. Those who have to physically work very hard to earn a livelihood particularly as independent business people carve a mold that is very familiar to me. Collaboration and dependence are viewed with unease. Competition can be fierce. Bullshit is not tolerated. Nepotism and succession matters weave a complex web into the mix. Creativity gives an edge over sheer muscle. It's a journey into a microcosm that casts light on the entirety of the human story. 

I got the kindle app again! I had it then I didn't. I'm not sure why I thought it no longer existed for a time. I dunno. Anyway, I was waiting for this one to come out. All right; I confess, I was curious to hear about Liz's lesbian affair. I'm being honest. I think most of us are a little prone to morbid curiosity, the kind that makes you prick up your ears and lean in when someone mentions some juicy gossip. 

But I knew it would be so much - so much more than just a let me tell my story, because it's Liz! I knew it would be hard packed with spirituality, in-depth processing, discovery, humor, anecdotes, and Liz does not disappoint in All the Way to the River. 

I would definitely put it in the mid life re-alignment zone. Perfect for any anonymous people who may be in that zone. Near that zone, having had been in that zone, probably will continue to be in that zone, forever - another decade?

It's about her love story with Rayya, but it's also about addiction and recovery. I have a second hand relationship with recovery. Not because I probably don't need the rooms. I believe we all do on some spectrum or another. I have a friend who has told me all about recovery. I can't speak about it for myself, but I'm familiar with the language and the concepts and I deeply admire the work that is done for and with people and the support they receive. 

Reading Liz's nonfiction is like speaking with a friend. She oozes familiarity and ease in her tone and I get super drawn in and not bored. Def recommend for anyone who wants to hear a powerful story and is interested in the topics of intimacy, co-dependency, and recovery. 

One thing that surprised me was how much she talks about God. "Is the Universe good, bad, or indifferent?" While she doesn't attempt to directly answer this question, she implies that she believes there is a God or force who cares and can be appealed to, spoken to, and who offers direction. 

This led me to ponder where I'm at with this. Over the past few years I had arrived at an experimental plateau of neutrality about this topic. I definitely believe all religions are invented by humans, but as to God.... not sure. Is there a God, are they a distant or personal God, are they malicious, benign, or loving. (if loving, I concluded they don't love the creatures on earth to have a comfortable physical existence.) Liz witnessed her friend go through unspeakable pain, yet she walked away with an openness to embracing the God of her understanding. 

My intellect allows me to experiment with prayer, because why not? It feels good to pray for people. (even if I think of it more as loving meditation and imparting positive energy). It feels great to surrender my fears to a higher power. It feels comfortable to ask for a sign or a sense of direction (as long as I'm not putting my logic, common sense, and instincts in the trunk of the car.) I think I needed Liz's book to remind me that there is potential richness in embracing the God of my understanding (or at least experimenting with it.)

If some fundie tells me that "the god of my understanding is not valid" here's what I would say: "If God wants to impart to me a clear picture of who they are and what I should think about them or do for them" it needs to be very clear and that should be easy for GOD. And by easy I don't mean an ancient manuscript written in another language. 

ooh I squeezed in a mini rant.

Pathological Skimmer soothed by meditative audio book where every word is read

Anne Hillerman -Bestselling Mystery Author

(one of her books below that I recently audio read) 

 https://www.annehillerman.com/

I recently discovered the new free library app "Libby." I used something similar years ago called "Overdrive." I didn't really think I liked mysteries all that much. I thought I left them behind with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys which I did read my fair share of back in the halls of Maricopa Elementary School.  

Through exploring what genres work for me to listen to in short bits (commute of 15 mins and 30 min lunch breaks, while folding laundry, working in kitchen) I've been finding that these mysteries are ideal. 

I previously mentioned that I had watched the new series Dark Winds so when I happened upon this book series which is the basis for the storyline of the show, it was perfect. I'm obsessed with the four corners region and the author sprinkles in plenty of landscape lore (just for me I presume.)

Anne Hillerman created a spin-off series from her Dad Tony Hillerman's detective novels set in the Navajo nation.

Have I shared in these rooms that I'm a pathological skimmer? It's an atrocious habit that became deeply cemented during my English Majorhood at college where I took too many classes at once, and opted for insane History  and Bible classes as electives because I'm an unabashed geek.  (also extremely religious back then which only added to my general lack of frivolity.)

I arrogantly presume to be equipped to extract the succulent marrow of a work without taking the time to read each word. (I often miss really juicy bits this way.) One might reasonably ask how does a skimmer select which words to actually read and which to skip? I'm not entirely sure on this count. It's an intuitive process that cannot be explained, nor shall I try. But if I get bored I start to skim... And I get bored very easily - and it gets worse as I get older, not better. 

 Or I value my time more, not sure. Sidenote - I tried to wrap some gifts for Christmas last night. I tried to force myself to cut the wrapping paper in a straight line, to actually care about how the package looked. I'm telling you, it was extraordinarily difficult. It felt like a major waste of time and it wasn't like I had anything else pressing to do. But suddenly, I was giving myself some kind of a pep talk about why this was important. Why was it important you might ask? Because my daughter asked me to wrap gifts in actual paper, instead of jamming them into used creased Christmas bags like I usually do. (However, she said nothing about appearance of said gifts!) And I love my daughter so there. 

All this to say, audio books can't really be skimmed. So I actually am "reading" the entire book and by that I mean every word. All the thes and the prepositions and articles. ALL.. Except for the bits that get drowned out by noisy clanking dishes when I'm in the kitchen or if I get interrupted by people whose monologues cannot be skimmed through (politely) anyway. I have found that you can only ask a given person to "cut to the chase" so many times without them completely rejecting your company. I myself am guilty of rambling monologues at times. I am a verbal processor after all. (we noticed.)

A brave, funny, insightful memoir precipitating a ramble - Deborah Jackson Taffa's Whiskey Tender

 

This was a chance encounter. I was browsing on my free library app Libby for available audio books. 

Native American history, literature, culture has been one of my main interests over the past few years. 

In fact, I recently watched Dark Winds and Flybread Face and Me both directed by Billy Luther, a fact which I hadn't realized until after I had watched both.

This memoir fit really well with those shows/movie as much of her early life was spent in Navajo country in Farmington New Mexico although she herself is of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo peoples. She was born on the reservation in Yuma. She currently is the director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe. (rad job btw!)

This memoir explores her journey of identity as a person of "mixed ancestry" living amongst both whites, non natives, and in the midst of the more populous Navajo nation. The story is a gripping tale of her close knit family. One of a series of sisters, their parents worked diligently to give them a life that was not as marked by poverty as their own had been. This path led them away from their place of origin and to a life of walking the line between honoring the past and the traditions of their ancestors and trying to create a comfortable reality in the present which meant at times suppressing cultural identity.

I'm reticent to create any parallels to my own life, but I've been recently reflected on the power of identity. Most people want to feel part of something larger than themselves and as our society has expanded through industrialization and global commerce, I think the cost has been the sense of continuity that humans experienced throughout much of their history with a sense of family/tribe.

People try to re-create it and simulate it through other forms of belonging, but I feel the simulation falls short of what there is a visceral longing for. 

Sometimes we are raised to strongly identify with something and then there comes a point when that identity doesn't serve but actually hinders us from evolving and adapting to the present. I grew up strongly identifying as a rancher, but my life took a turn that didn't involve me being a rancher. I can talk about a strong cultural affiliation, but that is all it is. It doesn't matter than my family heritage extends back on three sides in that subculture all the way to the 1800s, It is not the reality of my present or likely future. So, I can imagine a little tiny bity - the pull of a heritage (referring to the book) that extends back not 100 years but hundreds or thousands and is both cultural and ethnic and how difficult it is to both honor and yet integrate into the ever pressing pull of present exigencies. My family and extended family is extremely tight- knit, supportive, and clannish and I feel so grateful for the security that has afforded me my whole life. 

The story was both interesting and personal. I got the sense that Deborah is an HSP so I definitely related to her on that level. She seems like a natural harmonizer who thought deeply about things and worked at both pleasing and being authentic which speaking from experience is kind of an ordeal.

There was a part that really stood out to me. I jotted part of it down hurriedly in the kitchen one day (Due to my full time work schedule my book listens happen in snatches while I'm cleaning up the kitchen at 6 am, on my commutes, or on my 30 min lunch breaks.) I think she was exploring her tribal history, traditions, rituals, healing medicines, ceremonies etc in order to try to feel connected to her roots and people and to discover her place in the world. At one point it's like she had an epiphany where she realized that that was all well and good but what she needed to internalize were the edicts. This is all I got down "I vowed to focus on their edicts." How I interpreted this and applied to myself is the following: You can't really re-create the past because all of those things that I listed, beautiful as they are, were part of their time- what was needed for the time, made sense, and served. I can do them now, but perhaps it is more important for me to discover the rituals, ceremonies, art and nature connection that will serve me now. Somehow I can honor even preserve ancient traditions, whilst still being open to creating new ones and being part of the constant evolution that is life itself.

I tend to elevate, romanticize, and be nostalgic about the past: my childhood, my ancestors, times gone by when I like to think that life was more natural or vibrant. Sometimes I fall prey to melancholy, wistful longing, and regret for what I have no power to re-incarnate or create. I guess what I'm saying and why I jotted this down is because I don't want to live there any more. I heard her say that she wants to take the spirit of her people and their edicts into her life. I want to do the same. I want to own and speak my values and try to integrate them into my life now. It feels hard to infuse a suburban existence with some color sometimes, but the reality is wherever I lived on the space/time continuum, I have to acknowledge that I might be having the same struggle. Perhaps creating life moment by moment, being awake to the beauty of what is evolving spiritually, emotionally, and our part in the greater cosmos can be as epic as we frame it.

 

SENSE OF WONDER by Rachel Carson

 "A child's world is fresh new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life..."

Source: Book Club

One of the titles on our mutual reading list with my fellow book club member. 

Delightful read! It was originally written as an article. 

I didn't realize how short it was because I checked it out on my library audio app and listened it. When it finished, I was startled, thinking I had accidentally only heard an excerpt, but no! 

Rachel Carson was both a scientist and writer. She was born in 1907 and the book was originally published in 1956. The article is inspired by her forays into nature with her grand nephew whom she eventually adopted. 

I then checked out the actual book from the library which included photographs by Williams Neill. (the photograph above is one of Neill's. I just found out he had made his home at Yosemite. Interesting as I just returned last weekend from a 2 night visit to Yosemite with my sister. It was my second time there.)

So some thoughts... Well, each entry is artfully crafted kind of like a journal but also like a poem. She talks about different experiences in nature throughout the seasons, ever conveying the way in which she experiences such scenes afresh as she introduces her nephew to their glories.

I've always been a parishioner of a sort of nature cult. Not sure if it was my early immersion in nature - for which I'm eternally grateful both due to circumstance and the adults who were willing/able to be guides. I have some scientists and naturalists in my genealogy on my Scot side - the MacMillans - keen observers and documenters of the natural world. 

Anyway nature is a deep rooted value of mine and when we were raising our girls, I considered excursions into nature as one of the highest priorities for their education. 

In book club discussion, we talked about nature experiences from childhood as well as with children. I loved hearing about the various experiences from mossy corners of backyards to Yosemite with grandfathers. It was a very poignant discussion. 

Carson really inspired me to be attune not only to the sights but to what is afforded the other senses. Prior to book club, I had been on a walk at our river preserve and I was especially attentive to the smells and sounds - the tangy river/sage, sound of the quail, honking geese on their journey far above.

One of the things I liked about this is that the setting is the east coast so the descriptions are very different from the world we live in here California and the southwest. We had had a rainless spell lasting multiple months (common for our summers) so reading about wet verdant places was very refreshing. Her entries about a solitary Maine ecosystem reminded me of LM Montgomery's nature passages. 

An offensive blight to romance [Review of Happiness for Beginners]

 I wrote this in 2023 but never published it because it sounds so mean spirited and snarky. It's like looking into my snobby soul but as I was re-reading it it made me laugh - so here you go world. Be advised, don't read this if you're a nice person which I only pretend to be apparently.

You really want Helen with and H to find herself and emerge victorious with a grounded center and vision for her life. You are misled to believe that it will be humorous, poignant, and romantic. wrong wrong wrong.

In the first 3/4 of the film you are mystified with Jake's fascination and obvious pursuit of Helen. Firstly, her oblivion. Jake appears in every scene (mysteriously and rather stalkerishly) staring at her moonstruck. Such oblivion guides natural selection and prunes the race of man. Somewhere along the hike, he gives her a note - which she doesn't even bother to read and forgets about? Until she gets home and discovers that it's a gorgeous love poem. Still after putting some pieces together she passively does nothing until Jake just happens to appear (again) and then as if she's a Victorian woman with zero agency she responds finally to his love and it seems like you should be happy and feel that was the outcome you were looking for instead you are dismayed by their lack of chemistry and left pondering about his interest at all until you put the pieces together.

Helen - just seems like a pent up grouchy wallflower with a pathetic rescue bent so Jake's (charming, smart, charismatic, and handsome) obvious pursuit even when she is downright rude - right away screams "Made by women for grouchy pent up wallflower women." You really want to see past the grouchy dull exterior to the endearing Helen that her brother and Jake seem to see but she really never emerges. 

Helen, who can't escape from being the rescuer and does she learn to do that on her hike? no.

Helen is so annoying on the hike at the beginning. The perfect combination of that person who wants to do everything right, be prepared, and is worried about everything but ignores basic common sense and becomes a burden. 

The cusp of my annoyance. Finally towards the end of a hike, Helen and Jake have a tender moment and finally Jake's pursuit of Helen makes sense. (to me) He reveals that he has degenerative blindness. Helen is finally kind and sympathetic for the first time. Makes sense (she can fall back into her rescue trope.) In fact, the only time Helen shines in this whole movie is when she has to rescue and help someone (fellow hiker who broke leg) - revealing that Helen's only purpose is her ability to be a guardian and caretake for others. This is the beginning of happiness? Jake could have the cute and fun adventurous twenty something but would she take care of him when he was blind? Maybe not. Helen, on the other hand, middle aged, boring, fish eyed, and predictable - yes! Makes total sense - Jake is a winner on the natural selection tree and Helen perhaps too - not because of any romance between them but just because of his raw innate survival instincts and her inability to resist helping someone. 

I think this is what really bugged me. I really wanted to believe that there would be a romantic something between the protagonists even though it was increasingly difficult to imagine. Then, the writers thought - aha - no natural chemistry - we'll create a scenario where he needs her so much - she can be his older sister/caretaker and that will satisfy our female audience? blech

Here's Helen's story - messy break up with loser husband - rebound to younger brother's friend who needs a caretaker. If you're looking for a romantic escape story, look no further! The sad thing - is that this probably resembles many real life stories and that's exactly what we don't want in a cinematic experience. We don't want to be reminded of the myriad practical reasons why couples end up together that have nothing to do with romance. 

   

Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz

 

This is one of my book club reads nominated by a founding member. This was an awesome read. I love anthropology and sociology because it's looking at a vast cross section of humans and asking questions like, in this case: how can marriage be defined?

The answer is vastly more complex than one would imagine and so varied across time and place that coming up with a cohesive definition is nigh impossible. Here are a couple of attempts she references "commonly stable, mated relationships between males and females" which exists pretty universally except in one instance "the Na" people who raised offspring in extended family groups and apparently didn't or don't have a recognizable marriage institution. Another definition: "the set of legal rules that govern how goods, titles, and social status are handed down from generation to generation."

The author walks us through the centuries - starting out with broad strokes across the globe and then migrating more to decade based deductions from marriage studies (mostly in the US) from the last century. (the book was published in 2005). There are so many fascinating aspects to how marriage is organized and what it has meant. Is it about division of labor, shared resources, influential connections? Or is it the passing on of lands and titles, and resources? ...and all of these are true to a greater degree or another. Also interesting in how involved the extended family or community has been in the selection of spouses and in the actual lives of the couple. In most times and places spouses were integrated into existing extended family households or tribes where the concept of privacy for the nuclear family or couple would have been a foreign notion.

 What is, according to the author, unique to recent history (the past 200 years) is the concept and expectation that marriage should be about companionship, love, and emotional intimacy. An expectation that she argues has led to a greater degree of marital satisfaction and quality than ever before but also has facilitated a greater fragility as people readily discard the institution if it fails to pony up the desired results. 

The industrial revolution, feminism, ready access to birth control and other factors have radically altered the way in which societies are organized and has had deep ramifications for how marriage is viewed and what it means. We're in a particularly interesting time now as marriage (as she points out in the conclusion) at least in this part of the world is usually totally optional and relationships are more customized than ever before to the whims of the individual. That being said, she proposes that marriage still "gives people a positive vocabulary and a public image that set a high standard for the couples behavior and for the respect that outsiders ought to give to their relationship."

I think there may be something to that. Just like everything for many of us, the vast array of options and choices can be exhilarating but also paralyzing. It's tempting to hearken back to a time when expectations, roles, and institutions were more static. I grew up with a higher degree of focus on traditional marriage values, division of labor between genders (apparently than many of my contemporaries), but at the same time was encouraged to be independent and assertive as well. I think it's normal for people to have to navigate mixed messages and try to integrate them into their adult lives. 

It was interesting to reflect on the fact that I entered marriage expecting it to look like "male breadwinner model" - a term Coontz considers to be a modern concept that never existed say for example in the middle ages where most women worked in cottage industries or farms alongside their spouses. I also (like most modern people) had extremely high "romantic" standards of what kind of companionship we would enjoy in our marriage (ie that marriage is the most important and central relationship of your life) - again not something that has been universally true in other times and places. For example, in the middle east where parental and sibling relationships might be much more emphasized in terms of closeness.) The expectation that marriage will be a built in friendship that will satisfy all emotional, sexual, and economic needs puts a huge degree of pressure on the marriage relationship that is definitely not always positive.