Delancey by Molly Wizenberg

I love love loved A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, so of course I requested Delancey.  I was not disappointed!

 

The Blurb:

In this funny, frank, and tender new memoir, the author of the New York Times bestseller A Homemade Life and the blog Orangette recounts how opening a restaurant sparked the f irst crisis of her young marriage.

When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, he was a trained composer with a handful of offbeat interests: espresso machines, wooden boats, violin-building, and ice cream–making. So when Brandon decided to open a pizza restaurant, Molly was supportive—not because she wanted him to do it, but because the idea was so far-fetched that she didn’t think he would. Before she knew it, he’d signed a lease on a space. The restaurant, Delancey, was going to be a reality, and all of Molly’s assumptions about her marriage were about to change.

Together they built Delancey: gutting and renovating the space on a cobbled-together budget, developing a menu, hiring staff, and passing inspections. Delancey became a success, and Molly tried to convince herself that she was happy in their new life until—in the heat and pressure of the restaurant kitchen—she realized that she hadn’t been honest with herself or Brandon.

With evocative photos by Molly and twenty new recipes for the kind of simple, delicious food that chefs eat at home, Delancey is a moving and honest account of two young people learning to give in and let go in order to grow together.

 

The short of it: Wizenberg has a way of writing that makes me feel like we’d totally be friends. I’d love to hang out with her, and I could completely relate to how this all went down.

 

All the rest: You know how sometimes you really want to encourage someone, even when you think that they might not succeed at what they are attempting? Or really even follow through on trying? And so you do that pat-pat go-for-it you’ll-be-great thing? Well that’s pretty much what happens here. Molly and her husband are going along being newlyweds. Molly is writing a book, Brandon is in grad school. It’s all good. Sure, Brandon occasionally gets a wild hair to build a boat or something, but that never actually happens. So when he decides to open a pizza restaurant, Molly is encouraging. She’s neck deep in her first book, and not really paying attention and one day she wakes up to discover that Brandon really is opening a restaurant, that it wasn’t just something he’s going to lose interest in.  Molly realizes that this really isn’t something she wants, but it’s too late to do anything but jump in with both feet.

 

This isn’t really a book about life in a restaurant, and it isn’t really a book about food (Even tho there is plenty recipes in the book). This is really a book about a marriage and about diverging dreams and what that can do to a marriage.  It's about waking up one morning and realizing that the life you have is nothing like the one you imagined that you would have, and then learning to embrace that one instead.

It's really hard for me to put my finger on exactly what it is that I like about Wizenberg's writing, but I really do. I would read everything she writes.  She really captures the details of how her relationship changes without really giving up too much privacy. She's funny, open, honest. I really like her. i didn't finish the book thinking that she left big holes in the story, so if she left anything out she did so seamlessly. Life isn't perfect, and she didn't shy away from admitting her part in the struggle.  I would happily recommend this book (or A Homemade Life) to anyone who enjoys a memoir or a foodie book or even just a well written story.

Delancy will be released on May 6th.

A Good American by Alex George

One of the things that I rarely read are novels that cover the span of a hundred years. I don't mind novels that play with time a little- grandma's history mixed with the present- or perhaps the majority of the life of a single person, but I rarely pick up a book that covers the history of multiple generations. Turns out, I don't enjoy it so much.

The first half of A Good American by Alex George is really interesting. Jette and Frederick immigrate to America around the turn of the century and settle in Beatrice, Missouri. They are German, as is the majority of the town. They have a couple children and then Frederick goes and joins WWI, with predictable results.  The book continues on through American history, with Jette, and her kids and grandkids. The first half, with the immigration experience and a lot of great detail about blues, jazz, and other music of the time is quite enjoyable. I loved seeing them set up a life and the struggles to keep up with the times. I often turned on Songza to a blues or jazz playlist while I read. (Turning Songza on to a blues playlist is incredibly common for me, but I have yet to learn to love jazz.)

Unfortunately, the second half, which begins about when the narrator is born, completely changes. The entire book is narrated by Jette's grandson James, so perhaps the change happens when it starts to talk about the parts of his life that he remembers, but I much preferred to read his history. The small bits of foreshadowing in the first half become and every other page bits of foreshadowing. The believable history of a family in the first half becomes a series of ridiculous people and their actions (and deaths.)  By the end, it felt like a parody of a family history. The focus on music changed, and was not longer about the love of music itself.

That said, the book does have some really great moments. I loved watching Frederick learn English, and the romance between Cora and Joseph, James's father. There's a scene in New Orleans at the beginning, where Frederick hears jazz for the first time that is wonderful. There are some memorable characters as well; Lomax, who plays music and cooks soul food; Polk, who works at the bar; Freddy, who has the best story of anyone, except Frederick himself.  There are also quite a few that seem to be there for impact; Morrie, the gentle giant, Rankin Fitch, Mrs. Fitch, the entire sub-plot of Reverend Gresham and Teddy.

I'm sure I won't stop thinking about some of the final revelations for a few days, and I'm going to have to go back and re-read a couple pivotal scenes to look for clues. Overall though, it was just ok, and I don't see myself ever choosing to read or recommend it.

You can join the discussion at BlogHer by clicking this link. The first discussion question has been posted, "What foods are are part of your gastronomic mosaic?", which you can answer here. You can find Alex George online here, and on Twitter.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Weekend Cooking: cornbread, red curry noodles, coffee cake

This week saw me try several new recipes in addition to our old favorites. I made the cornbread out of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese, Bobby Flay's Coconut Red Curry Noodles (as seen on Worst Cooks in America) and this coffee cake.


First, the cornbread. We were having cowboy beans for dinner one night and when I went to mix up the cornbread I discovred we did not have any mix. I usually use Jiffy cornbread mix because it's quick and reliable and CHEAP. I had just read the chapter  about bread, so I opened to the recipe and gave it a shot. It took slightly longer to mix up that the Jiffy mix, but produced a much larger loaf of cornbread. It was very light and fluffy, sweet, and it toasted well the next day at lunch. Reese says cornbread is something to make, not buy, and I have to agree with her. She says making it this way costs about 4 cents more per slice (unless you leave the book in the kitchen where it gets ruined and you have to buy the library a new copy. Then it probably costs more than that.)


Yesterday was Friday and since it's Lent that means meatless. (Or fish, but ew.) Mike and I both really enjoy Worst Cooks in America, and last Sunday they made Asian noodles. We decided that this Friday we'd give Bobby Flay's Coconut Red Curry Sauce and Noodles a try. This one was hit or miss. The boys didn't like it at all. The Princess ate the noodles and some carrots. Mike and I liked the sauce, but wished for a bit more curry, more cabbage, less ginger. Mike thinks it needs beef instead of tofu. I stupidly added cilantro, which I hate, and it ruined the whole dish for me. It was, for us, an expensive meal, but we do have leftover ingredients to try again some time with the modifications.


This morning I had a wild hair and decided to make coffee cake instead of eggs. I did a google search and landed on this recipe at Allrecipes.com and since it had good reviews and I had all the ingredients, I went with it.  I did not take the time to compare and I only looked at one or two comments. This one was terrific. You do have to cut butter in twice, which is a pita with a fork, and I was having doubts, but it turned out really good. If you make it in a 9x13 pan, as she does, it seems that it won't spread all the way out, but it does and turns out terrific. It's not super tall, but you could do it in a 9x9 and cook a bit longer if you wanted. One of the few reviews I did read said that the topping would melt into the cake, so I waited until about half way through the cooking time to add that. I'll be pinning this one.
What new things did you try this week? What would you have done differently for the noodles? Are you a cilantro lover or hater?

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend.

Why Women Need Fat

At the end of last year I read a really great book called The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn. While the entire book was excellent, there was one chapter about eating out of the box, about how mixes have taken over for cooking, even though they don't really save that much time. Food out of a box is full of ingredients and preservatives that we wouldn't be eating if we just made those items from scratch. I had just finished that book and was pondering making a lifestyle/eating change when the BlogHer Book Club offered me the chance to read Why Women Need Fat: How "Healthy" Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever. Since I was already in the mood to read more about food, I accepted the title. It arrived during the craziness of Christmas so I didn't start reading until after the new year.

The content of the book was really fascinating, and (as the writers would hope) I thought their argument had merit. Their science made a lot of sense, and I'm more than willing to try their suggestions.  I did find the writing a bit circular and at times a tad (ok, very) dry and hard to focus on, but I found that if I skimmed those bits and came back they would make more sense. Their basic premise is that the addition of so many processed oils, replacing more natural animal fats, have lowered beneficial Omega-3s and raised the more harmful, more fat inspiring, Omega-6s. They'd have you drop processed food and oils. This jibes well with my thinking from the other food reading I've been doing, so I was willing to go along for their ride.

If you want to join the discussion and learn more about how you can add fat and lose weight, you can click through to the BlogHer Book Club page here. The first topic of discussion is "This means I get to use real butter, right?"  I mean, how can you not follow through on that?

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.