Culinary Adventures with Camilla

  This month for our online Lit Happens book group, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm picked The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell. This isn't a cook-from-the-book kinda group, but most everything I read or watch sends me into the kitchen anyway. This book was no exception. In fact, since the protagonist is the butler as well as the de facto chauffeur and cook, there is quite a lot of food in the book.  The Wizard's Butler  tells the story of former Army medic Roger Mulligan who is hired to be the butler for a man who believes himself a wizard. For five thousand dollars and a million dollar bonus if Joseph Perry Shackleford survives the year, Roger doesn't really care if Shackleford is a wizard. And, in fact, Shackleford is a wizard and has pixies who clean his house and fairies who tend the garden! To me, the most interesting part of the book isn't the magic, really, it's the growth and transformation that Roger undergoes as he embraces his new role and ...

After some heavy reads that I will get to soon, I picked up The Car Share by Zoe Brisby. This was a quick, breezy read though the characters themselves were not particularly fluffy. Alex (male) picks up Max (female) as part of a ride share. I indicated genders there, because both thought they were meeting the same gender as themselves! In any case, Alex is depressed and is looking for something to take his mind off of his troubled life while Max is headed to a country that allows assisted suicide. And so their car share adventures begin. Maxine is a hoot. She doesn't understand how to order coffee at a fancy cafe. "'I’d like a coffee.' The barista looked puzzled and waited for the rest. Seeing that nothing more was forthcoming, he was obliged to ask, 'What sort of coffee? A latte? Mochaccino? Cappuccino? Frappuccino? Macchiato? With caramel? Vanilla? Soymilk?' Maxine turned to Alex. 'When did it become so complicated to order coffee? What’s all this gibber...

   This is another book that was devoured, cooked from, but never posted last year -  Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream by Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Ngyuen, and Michelle Bernstein. Amazon certainly knows how to suggest what I like. Seriously. Food. Immigrants. Food. I'm all in. On the Page Not being from Miami - in fact, never having visited Miami - I was completely unaware of the legendary restaurant that is Hy Vong. This is the story of Tung and Kathy - their friendship, partnership, and family - and the American immigrant experience. It is also a tale of the ripples of war as Tung came to American with all of the emotional scars of the Vietnam War. This memoir is told in alternating perspectives from Tung, Kathy, and Tung's daughter, Lyn. One of my best friends from high school was adopted from Vietnam and, after she returned and found her birth mother, I remember her telling me the story of bringing her here...

As March nears its end, I am logging my first selection for the month. It's not that I haven't been reading, it's just that most of my books this month didn't have a foodie element. I know, that's almost unheard of for me. So, I'm trying to do some catching up in the  Foodie Reads Challenge  while we're on Spring Break. I grabbed my copy of  Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World  by Dan Koeppel* and, while Jake stayed in the house, I took the boys to the pool and breezed through the second half of the book. I had just started it in the morning. On the Page... Bananas are not my favorite fruit, but I'm always interested to learn more about a food's history and biology. After reading this book, I know more about the banana than I ever imagined knowing. Who knew how politically charged the banana industry was?!? A few fun facts that I just learned: the banana tree is actually the world's largest herb; most of us ...

As February moves past its half-way mark, I am forging ahead with my renewed  Foodie Reads Challenge . I picked up a copy of Envy of Angels  by Matt Wallace* after I saw it mentioned in last month's Foodie Reads collection. On the Page... 'Delightfully demented.' Those are not two words I would typically string together, but they seem an appropriate label for this book. Readers follow two cooks down a rabbit hole in this kitchen fantasy that feels like a dark, twisted carnival. It's good fun. Lena and Darren are recruited as the two newest line cooks for Sin du Jour, a catering company who only has one client. "'Sin du Jour has a single client. That client is a branch of the United States government. However, it ain't any branch  you'll ever hear about on CNN or read about on Twitter or whatever-the-hell. It's a branch that deals with...it's like  diplomatic service, except it works with things...folks...like you saw today.' ...

As February begins, I am forging ahead with my renewed  Foodie Reads Challenge . A friend loaned me her copy of  Love in a Dish...and Other Culinary Delights  by M.F.K. Fisher.* I was only one chapter in when I hopped on Amazon and ordered a copy for myself; this is definitely one of those books I want to have on my bookshelf! On the Page... I have long been a fan of Fisher's writing. And I had never heard of this book which is a curated collection of Fisher's writing, selected and edited by Anne Zimmerman. Fisher writes about potatoes... "Baked slowly, with its skin rubbed first in a buttery hand...with a fat jug of rich cool milk or a chunk of fresh Gruyère, it fills the stomach and the soul with a satisfaction not too easy to attain. ...Although few realize it, to be complementary is in itself a compliment." She writes about eggs... "Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken. ...It is a poor figure of a ma...

As January continues, I am forging ahead with my renewed  Foodie Reads Challenge . My copy of  The Vegetarian  by Han Kang* was next on my nightstand. So, over the course of a few evenings, I read it. On the Page... While the book was provocative, I can't say that I really enjoyed it. Honestly, I almost put it down. Marital rape, a father force-feeding a grown daughter, attempted suicide...and that was only in the first part of the novella. This book is comprised of three parts. Part one is told from the standpoint of the husband of the vegetarian; part two is narrated by the brother-in-law of the vegetarian; and part three follows the sister of the vegetarian. And all of them were uncomfortable. I will not say too much more - just that the people in her life are baffled by Yeong-hye's abrupt decision to give up meat. This was one passage from a dinner party to which Mr. Cheong brought Yeong-hye. "People mainly used to turn vegetarian because they subscribe...

Let me start by admitting: This is not a foodie read per se . A scientist pal of mine recommended  Lab Girl   by Hope Jahren*  and I was happy to dig into a book that was outside of my usual genre. However, Jahren does write about food throughout the book and there were several foodie passages that either taught me something or had me chuckling. So, I decided to share the book with  Foodie Reads Challenge ..  On the Page... Jahren alternates between autobiographical chapters and chapters about the lives of the trees and other plants she studies. Her prose expertly balances candor and humor. I'll be honest, I was a fan the first time she wrote: "female scientist" (yes, gender designator as an adjective not a noun!). Square Salt "Each grain of salt in a saltshaker is a perfect cube when viewed up close. Grind one grain into a fine powder and you have shattered it into millions of tiny, perfect cubes. The inescapable cube shape of salt persists bec...

As January continues, I am forging ahead with my new  Foodie Reads Challenge . I don't know where I picked up a copy of How Carrots Won the Trojan War  by Rebecca Rupp*, but I'm so glad I had it on my nightstand this weekend. While the storms raged outside, I hunkered down with this book and a cup of tea...many cups of tea. On the Page... This is a fun, breezy read and it's all about vegetables! I love learning veggie fun facts. Did you know that in the 1990s, the US government subsidized the Peruvian asparagus crop to coerce farmers to stop growing coca, the material from which cocaine is produced?  Did you know that Pliny the Elder touted bean-based remedies - "beans parched in vinegar are good for 'gripings of the bowels;' beans boiled with garlic are good for coughs; and even the ashes of beanstalks are useful for soothing sciatica"? Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was a cabbage lover and requested corned beef and cabbage...