Weekend Cooking: Farmer's Market

Farmers' market season in central New York is underway at last. Every Saturday, shoppers in villages across the area stroll the green, talk with farmers, vendors, and friends, and stock up on the freshest goods available. When the season is in full swing, music and the aroma of a chicken barbecue often fill the air. There isn't much in the way of local produce yet, but a wide variety of organic vegetables, meats, baked goods, plants and crafts were available.

This morning we bought basil and cilantro plants, tomatoes, cucumbers, and some locally made pasta. A recipe for lemon parsley mafaldine with plum tomatoes and feta was included with the pasta. I'll adapt it slightly for dinner tonight. My favorite free-range organic chicken will be available in early July. I'm counting the days...

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone with a food-related post to share: Book reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button, head over to Beth Fish Reads, and link up anytime over the weekend.

Wordless Wednesday: May 11

My flowers are in ruins.
At least they eat the dandelions, too...

"The Night We All Had Grippe" by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) is not generally associated with humor. "The Lottery", her most famous story, is nothing short of gruesome, and funny isn't an adjective I'd choose to describe We Have Always Lived In The Castle either.  "The Night We All Had Grippe" introduces a side of Shirley Jackson I had never imagined.

We begin with a family that is 'very fond of puzzles'. The mother, our narrator, explains The Great Grippe Mystery and asks the reader's help in trying to figure out what has become of a blanket (as they are 'very short of blankets').

A detailed description of the floor-plan, bedroom furniture arrangement, bedtime drink preferences, color of bedding and ambient temperature in each room follows. It reads like a word problem from grade school math - the kind that's filled with confusing, extraneous information. I'm already smiling at this point.

The entire family becomes sick at the same time (an all to familiar occurrence, at least around here).

"In our family, we take ill in different manners; my husband is extremely annoyed at the whole procedure, and is convinced that his being sick is someone else's fault, Laurie tends to become a little lightheaded and strew handkerchiefs around his room, Jannie coughs and coughs, the baby turns bright red, and I suffer in stoical silence, so long as everyone knows clearly that I am sick. We are each of us privately convinced that our own ailment is far more severe than anyone else's."

A night of musical beds ensues as blankets, pillows, and nightstand supplies move from room to room with their owner. This section had me literally laughing out loud.

The story ends with a summation of the problem:

"The puzzle, is, of course, what became of the blanket from Baby's bed? I took it off her crib and put it on the bottom half of the double-decker, but the dog did not have it when when he woke up, and neither did any of the other beds. It was a blue-patterned patchwork blanket, and has not been seen since, and I would most particularly like to know where it got to. As I say, we are very short of blankets."

"The Night We All Had Grippe" was originally published in Harper's in 1952 and collected in Come Along With Me in 1968. It is this week's featured story from Library of America and can be read in its entirety here.

Short Story Monday is hosted by John Mutford at The Book Mine Set.

TSS: One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four... and Five

Happy Mother's Day! Our day is packed with activities, and since there's no time for a normal Sunday Salon post, I'll borrow the meme Simon shared on Friday.

1. The book(s) I'm currently reading:

I've been on a Richard Yates kick lately and this biography by Blake Bailey is fantastic. I started Little Boy Lost yesterday, too.

2. The last book I finished:

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane - my review is here.


3. The next book I want to read:
This is the hard one... will it be one from my London pile,

 or a classic,

 or perhaps one from the shelf?

4. The last book(s) I bought:

The library in Sanibel has an on-going book sale room.  I purchased these two for three dollars.

5. The last book I was given:
See number two above... it came from a fellow book blogger (thanks again, Lynne!).

Let me know if you decide to play along with One Book, Two Book. Simon is collecting links, too.

Weekend Cooking: A Food Poem

The Health-Food Diner
     by Maya Angelou

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I'm dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run

to

Loins of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

National Poetry Month may be over, but this turned up on Better Recipe's facebook page a few days ago and it made me laugh out loud. A quick search uncovered the story behind the poem. (I knew there had to be one!)

Sometime during the 1980's,  Angelou entered a vegetarian restaurant where smoking was prohibited. There were no visible “No Smoking” signs and upon lighting up she was scolded by a waitress for endangering the health of the other patrons. She has since quit smoking, but I'm not sure of her current position on vegetarian meals...
*photo credit

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone with a food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button, head over to Beth Fish Reads, and link up anytime over the weekend.

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

"But talking to him was like talking to any young person about the war years: they spoke from a background of black-and-white pictures, while your memories were very much in color. They asked about food rationing, while you saw the coupons. They spoke about the public morale, while what you remembered were the faces. Try as they might, they heard only a chord or two, while the whole symphony still roared in your head." page 139

The Report
by Jessica Francis Kane
Graywolf Press, 2010
235 pages

source: personal copy, from another book blogger

In a nutshell:
In March 1943, on a night no bombs were dropped, one hundred seventy-three people died in a crush at an air-raid shelter in London's Bethnal Green tube station. Thirty years later, the production of a television documentary causes both survivors and government officials to re-examine their actions. Both timelines are woven together in The Report.

My thoughts:
Reading fiction has expanded my knowledge of World War II again. Last year, I learned of the 1942 Vel d'Hiv roundup in Paris through Sarah's Key. Now, reading The Report, I've been made aware of the 1943 Bethnal Green tube station disaster.

After a horrific crush in a tube station air-raid shelter, local magistrate Laurence Dunne is assigned the task of conducting an inquiry and filing a report. There were no bombs dropped that night, and his interviews turn up surprising evidence pointing to truths that could prove damaging. Should they be included in the report? Is is better to give people all the answers, or just what he thinks they need? How would assigning blame, or not, change the course of lives?

Hundreds of Londoners are forever altered by the events of that one fateful night yet, despite the subject matter, the book is not depressing.

"Surviving some disasters, she sensed, you don't get to be happy again. You simply change, and then you decide if you can live with the change." (p.225)

Thirty years later, Dunne is approached by a young man producing a television documentary to commemorate the anniversary. Dunne eventually warms up to him and agrees to cooperate with the project. In doing so, he holds his actions up for re-examination. Old wounds are also reopened for survivors.

Kane flawlessly weaves the two time periods together into an unforgettable narrative.

My rating:

Bottom line:
A fascinating fictional look at a very real disaster and its aftermath, The Report would make an excellent book club selection. Very highly recommended.

Wordless Wednesday

Sanibel, Florida