"Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee

Got this for christmas. This is more like a reference book - read bits from time to time, then put it aside for another session. The book is broken down into food ingredient types, for example: dairy, eggs, cereal grains, legumes, fruit, vegetables, meats, alcohol, sugars & confectionary etc.

I have started reading the first chapter about milk & dairy. It starts off talking about the evolution of milk in Mammals, then how and when humans started using milk (with archeaological evidence cited), and how selective breeding and herding started to take place and where (not just cows - buffalo, yak, camel, sheep and goat also). From there it discusses health benefits and shortfalls, lactose intolerance and dairy allergies. Then how the animal produces milk and its components, unfermented products, fermented produces (yoghurt etc) then finally, cheeses. You get the idea.

This is a very detailed book with info on the above type of stuff plus origins of food words from ancient languages and dialects. I have had a flip through the chapter on doughs and batters, and there is detail there on the gluten molecule, how it forms and how it gives rise to dough elasticity for example, and how cooking changes the chemistry and texture of a dough or batter. There is also discussion on how humans might have developed grinding and later milling to produce flour, and how flatbreads would have changed the way grains were eaten, and later evolved to all the other types of breads on the planet today. Haven't even got to noodles and pasta yet. I find this facinating, and suspect this book might stay on the coffee table for many years yet. There aren't any recipes that I can see (maybe a few basics such as custards), but reading it will make you more aware of how not to treat certain ingredients and how our customs for eating things evolved over the past thousands of years.

Good book to request/buy for foodies on that special birthday coming up.

Zorro - Comienza de la leyenda, Isabelle Allende

I'm only up to page 28 but just wanted to make a quick comment on trying to read in my (hopefully one day) second language. First up, its a giant pain in the arse. But of course, rewarding like most things that require effort. I bought a nice glossy print of the "South American" edition in a frenzied, over-ambitious attempt at immersion in Spanish. Also the shop attendant cornered me immediately after the very sexy poster had caught my eye in Buenos Aires' main shopping mall, and I had a limited repetoir of responses.

Anyway, I'm taking it super slow with of course a companion dictionary to hand. Luckily the edition has nice wide margins as the first 15 pages are covered in scrawled english translations. To begin with I managed 1.5 - 2 pages per night, with perfect quiet and a nice comfortable spot in our apartment. Its an interesting exercise that is a good reminder of what it must be like for kids to learn to read. At first its just a mass of jumbled data, and the effort to unscramble just one paragraph which turns out to be a description of some landscape and layout of a 18th Century mission hardly seems breaking into a sweat over. So I got very disheartened and left it for a month. Now I've tried again in our wintery mountain hostel, and have got to the point where I'm keen to find out the next twist of the story (Allende is good for that), so am encouraged to go again. Having put the pencil away and using a mix of guessing, looking up, asking Chris, and skiping the occaisonal hard sentence, I'm gradually getting faster.

And the most pleasant surprise, being the point of this post, is that the author's voice still rings lound and clear through the text, just like I know and love. Of course, Allende writes her original manuscript in Spanish. Having become familiar with her flights of imagination, her earthy, off-handed descriptions of the foibles of human personalities, rich sensuality often quickly followed by a sharp bit of sature, in English, I am now incredibly impressed with the act of translation in which brings all this through from the original. In this case, its the kind of book I could knock off in English in about a full day and a half of reading (with meals breaks), as it seems to have the rollicking pace of a cheeky adventure story. Also, in plodding along at a snails pace, the mechanics of the writing shows more than usual, because I've got to take the sentences apart to even work out what tense they are in, if they are someone's thoughts, a description, or part of the plot.

So as not to spoil the story.. so far the scene's been set in one of the more humanist missions in California, run by a Spanish monk, an attack by a coalition of the surrounding tribes, defended by the dashing Alejandro de la Vega, and an intruiging surprise.. ! Its exciting and I'm looking forward to the next few hundred pages. At this rate I've calcualted being finished by about August 2007.

Hey! A friend from Adelaide came and stayed the other week and it turns out he's just starting to get into reading fiction. I was so excited I was like a librarian, I fossicked in my book shelves and leant him 5 *must reads* (he refused to take any more due to potential OH&S issues with lugging any more around). Made me wonder... what are the must reads?? Which 5 authors would you say were indespensable? And what about wonderful books - any that you think people would be seriously missing out on if they haven't read?

"Up the Duff" by Kaz Cooke

An hilarious - yet informative - week by week breakdown of pregnancy. Completely lacking in assumptions about the circumstances of the reader - you could be single, married, have a same-sex partner, or whatever, and you shouldn't feel too excluded reading this book (tell me if I'm wrong here, if you have found otherwise). Not like some of the more traditional pregnancy books/mags full of pictures of hetero couples in bike pants rehearsing birthing positions as if they are on a higher plane and coping perfectly well with the totally freaky set of circumstances they find themselves in. (Despite being a hetero-married-up-the-duff woman, that is not the sort of pregnancy book I want to read).

Each week you get a run down of what is happening inside, and amusing fictional diary of a pregnant character to make you laugh, then a factual section that summarises useful info and where you can go to get more information. I got as far as week 36 before the info on giving birth, epidurals and pain was getting a bit much for me - now I'll just wait until I'm ready to read those bits - but the book has a whole lot of helpful prompts... hints that you should organise an appointment something for 4-5 weeks time, that you should think about how you feel about testing for downs syndrome etc, or that you really need to have somewhere sorted for giving birth to the baby soon.

A fun and informative read.

Reading the Chuck novel Mrrmaid and it rocks! Should be studying of course.. but this is more fun. If fun is the word?

'Sea Change: Australians in pursuit of the good life'
Cindy Dowling 2004

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventuallly get to be boss and work twelve hours a day
- Robert Frost

Just skim read this to return to the library by the due date. Quite liked it.
An overview of trends about work modes in Australia (rise in part-time positions) and social scene-setting, followed by a bunch of case studies about 'downshifting ' (sounds a little like a nightclub in haymarket?) / 'downsizing' (sounds like cosmetic surgery?) and 'voluntary simplicity' movement/s. These case studies were nice - shortish summaries of the why, where and how of major life change that working Australians had taken - often with partner and family - to reduce stress, increase self-sufficiency, increase satisfaction, increase health and reduce impacts on the planet by changing the way they live. The case studies showed a diversity of approaches to this change - different cottage industries and part time work, intentional communities, working from home, volunteer work, growing their own food, learning to mend things, and 'portfolio careers' (bits and pieces of paid and unpaid activities to suit people's interests).

Examples of thoughts from the case studies:
'I would encourage people to follow their dream, for they will not fail. It may take many twists and turns but there is no failure in life, just the journey and the adventure of living. Do no harm to any and walk a moral ground and have respect for your walk and yourself. Like who you are and do not apologise for your dreams.'
(Catherine Johns, left teaching in the city to live off the land and run a pagan retreat for women)

What he avoids is work that he feels is of no benefit to the community or that will dominate his time at the expense of other pursuits..
(About Bob Rich, featured in another case study)

An overarching theme amongst the different stories was learning to live better with less - valuing lifestyle over income. A lot of the people interviewed felt that they were doing something positive not only for themselves and their relationships but also modelling a better life and instilling a better set of values (than had they stayed in full time work in the city) for their children. In that way the movement rejects the notion that self-less people work as hard as they can and make as much money as they can and that selfish, self indulgant, lazy types work less. I am of course especially interested in this from my own perspective of choosing part-time paid work this year. Interesting to look at the costs of full time employment on our bodies, relationships, families and communities versus the benefits we offer through having time available to share with other endeavours.

None of this is new thinking, of course, people have been reflecting on these issues in the west for decades, many people have chosen non-conventional working lives and opted for more sustainable lives. Nonetheless for many of us the currents of convention pulling our attentions and concerns into career and earning potential is quite strong - it takes courage to withstand this and reaffirm different values. The book was a nice reminder of the many different ways we can live out those values.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

.....and, they even talk! check em out. i am like a kid all over again (ok, maybe i never stopped being one).

Finished two books in the last two days - both of them thanks to mrrmaid gal (book swapping - one of lifes sweetest pleasures??). One I finished reading up too late in a nun's bath - sounds debauched, really not - she was away on holidays I was being accomodated in Bathurst before a course. That book was 'leaving the saints' by Martha Beck - a book written by a woman brought up in the Church of the latter Day Saints (ie Mormons) who ends up leaving the church - in short because of the stifling power structure of the church as she experiences it (blocking freedom of speech for academics, threatening the livelihoods of those who are excommunicated or seen as dissidents), because of its complete lack of support for women and children survivors of sexual abuse (both due to the patriachal set up of the church which seems to support men over women in general, and because of the extra complication of using religious dogma such as forgiveness and banding together to protect the church to silence victims), and the very shaky and illogical precepts on which the church is built. It was an interesting story of her own spiritual journey, her emotional healing after her abusive childhood, her confusion about what aspects of her background to abandon and what to keep. It gave me a new perspective on life in Utah! Well worth a read - an easy read, lots of interesting historical asides, upbeat and funny in many sections despite the subject material which might sound completely depressing.

The second book I finished last night - listening to it on CD! Yes the Kombi kids have rediscovered audio books and I think I am the most recent recruit! Great idea - I have been listening to stories and painting these last few nights - much cooler than watching the teve I reckon. Aumstead Maupin's 'Night Listener'. It is a bit of a story within a story - a story of him writing the story of him writing the story kind of thing - circularish and interesting in how it plays with which aspects of a writeres life might get included in fiction, which bits might be made up and how fans can get confused by this and think that they know an author just through their character's. It is also a bit of an 'is this a hoax or not?' story as the author gets in contact with a young fan with an awful background who has written his own book. The plot thickens as our author bonds with the boy and then has questions arise about his authenticity. I wont say more, but it is a bit like Peter Carey's 'My life as a Fake' (see below) in the way it kind of develops along two paths - it could be real, it could be made up, you get just enough to keep both ideas seem plausible.. for a while. So in that way it is also about suspension of disbelief - why we sometimes want to believe despite the evidence.

I am about to send both of these books off to a few other people to read before they head back up north - hope that's ok grrls!!

Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince - JK Rowling
Got through this on in a weekend. The 6th part of the Harry Potter saga doesn't disappoint, and like the targeted age group for this book, Harry is a teenager facing typical teenage issues, with evil wizard posses thrown in to the mix. And like many of us in the west, the wizarding community is being bombarded with flyers telling them to be alert, and report any strange magical events to the Ministry.
Like all of the Potter books, they are an easy, entertaining read, and the Author, to my memory, seems to have captured the sorts of issues that kids face and twisted them into a magical setting in a most interesting way. The ending was unexpected, and the uncertainty regarding the goodness or evilness of a key character was laid to rest once and for all....

Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
I really enjoyed this book. It's funny, sad, beautiful, honest and innovatively written. It's written with several interweaving narration styles, which in itself isn't original, but the premise behind these interconnected characters is that the book is written as if the (Jewish American) Author is researching a novel on a Ukrainian Jewish village from which his grandfather had survived in WW2, although you never get a direct narration from the Author. The Author engages a local tour guide to help him find the locations and hunt for a woman in a photograph who was credited with saving his Grandfather's life. The tour guide's Grandfather also comes along for the journey, and it brings his war time memories flooding back. What the reader is presented with is the writing that resulted from the trip:
- sections of the story written in narrative style from the tour guide (a young Ukrainian man, with adequate english, but dangerously armed with a thesaurus, sustituting inappropriate words from time to time!).
- folktale-style stories from the Narrator, going back to the late 18th Century. Beautifully depicts a village with its own peculiarities and customs, living in relative harmony (bar the odd Pogrom inflicted by the Russians) up until the Germans invade in 1942, focusing on the Author's supposed ancestors.
- Colloquial style letters from the tour guide to the Author, critiquing the Authors made-up folktales along the way, as chapters are sent East across the Atlantic.

Dramas unravel regarding the Authors family history up until and just after the war; the woman in the picture; the tourguide's (non-jewish) family's parallel experiences during the war; and finally the legacy that the war left in both the Author's and the Tourguide's families in the 2 following generations.

Well worth a read.

Hi y'all , the booklub has been going off. (I'm sure I posted on here once before...)

I've manged recently to plough through Jared Diamond "Guns Germs and Steel", so am feeling quite righteous and a "big picture" sciencey, non-fiction reader. Jared wrote it in 1997 and its a big favourite of enviro-nerds so I'm a late starter with this one. He has a very strong main thrust is that the reason some well established societies were totally overrun and engulfed others this last few centuries century was not because they were inhenently inferior. The title refers to his summary that the reasons for the decimation of poulations of Aztecs, Indigenous Americans and Australian Aboriginies (to name just a few) was mostly to do with the possesion of firearms, endemdic diseases, technology, and writing by the invaders. For 425 pages he tracks back to find the sources of all these things, and says they are all linked to the first instance of domestic food production and animal husbandry, and that stepping back again these things were a bit like a lucky dip. Some continents happened to have plants and animals that could be farmed and some didn't. And some continents have geography that allows people to move ideas and new innovations around and some don't.

I really enjoyed it but did tend to skim over some of the more in depth methodology parts that science writers love so much. One of his big themes was using some of the observation and deduction methods of "science" to look at broad trends in what is usually classed as "history". Mm, meaty. On reading this kind of chunky treatise, I perveresly wonder what it would take to crunch the ideas down into the scale of say a picture book or comic book. I think with a lot of maps and drawing you could say so much about the picture he paints of the world over the last 13,000 years. It was a fortunate that we are minding many of a neighbour's books at the moment, and this was one of them.

To balance that out one of the trash books in the recently read pile was a 2004 terry pratchett... nerdgrl, signing off.

Recently read "B is for Burglar" by Sue Grafton. Thanks for the tip-off, Miss J - this was a thrilling over-the-weekend read. Loved the main characters jaded attitute and sarcastic sense of humour, and the attention to detail about the characters in the book.

Now reading:
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
"Wrong about Japan" by Peter Carey (non-fiction)
"Raw Spirit - in Search of the Perfect Dram" by Iain Banks (also non-fiction, about an author being put in the enviable position of being asked by his publishers to tour Scotland tasting all the different whiskys and writing about them. I read this when I am having a Scotch!!).

Next in queue:
"My life as a fake" (see below)
and then I think it's time for another book by Haruki Murakami - have read "The Wind up Bird Chronicle" and "Norwegian Wood", but we have more in our collection that I haven't read yet.
Then "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

More than enough to keep my occupied....

Just read
'My Life as a Fake' by Peter Carey. What do we think of Peter Carey? I have never been a huge fan, and this one probably didn't do much to tip me over the line. I like the paper they used for the cover - that's a bad sign right? Think rah rah Brits in the poetry scene who have an adventure in Malaya and everyone's grubby and tortured or bristling with indignation and drinking tea and upset about their parents and worried about their patrons. As you do. Liked some bits of it - main character not as objectionable as she could be, some nice quotes from other poems. The whole actual premise of the story dragged on a bit though. Wont say more as I know I have just lent it to you Merryrisa!

Lined up next
Murakami 'kafka on the shore"
Chuck Palahniuk "diary"
Patrick Suskind "perfume" (No, I've never read it!)

The reason for my black circles

I sat up and read one of my 6 new/old books last night - Working Parts by Lucy Jane Bledsoe. It's a book about a dyke in her early 30's who's a bicycle mechanic and best friends with her colleague (also a mechanic). He wants to open a bike shop with her using his compensation money from a car accident and she initially refuses, not because she doesn't want to but because she's illiterate. So they strike a deal - she'll learn to read if he has his first kiss.

I've always felt really grateful for the ability to read fluently and be able to string 2 or more words together on the written page. I'm someone who skipped over a lot of small childrens books to get into short novels by the age of 7. I remember my favourite activity as a child was reading in the glass section in my dad's tractor behind his seat, nestled in a pile of cushions going around and around the paddocks. And I would sit up till all hours with a torch under my blankets to finish a story cause I just couldn't help myself, reading till after midnight when I was only 10. And not much has changed! If I get really into a book now I'll just read it straight through even if I've got an early shift in the morning, throwing a scarf over the bedside lamp to make it duller for Little Mister.

So I just loved the really visceral description in this book of how it feels to learn to read, the freedom and pride it gives someone who's never had the opportunity and what it means in their life. It's a bit of a tear jerker in a way! I really recommend it to anyone who has someone in their life who has difficulties with literacy, cause I really think it explains so well how they feel and the coping mechanisms they develop to get through life without reading.

I'm reading (for the 4th time) Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk. I just love Chucks freaky little mind and this book has it all. Cult religion, valium addicted goldfish, mass suicide, inappropriate love interest PLUS housekeeping tips! Who knew that shaved ice will fix those carpet divots from heavy furniture? And that talcum powder lifts those pesky blood stains right out of piano keys? My next book will be a little more academic as I've joined the Sapphic readers club, so be prepared for something a little more D&M dear friends....

Quick update of my reading de jour:
- Ok so it's not exactly a book but does reading state of the environment reports count? Air quality indoors - it's the next big thing man...
- Just whizzed through a Book on Chakras! Bless the mountainy bookshops and their love of all things energetic and esoteric. Chakras for the week - throat and heart.
- still going on Nausea - bloody Sartre, funny as all get out but bleak and stark raving mad at times. May be my plodding book of this half of the year
- R is for Ricochet Sue Grafton rocking my world with another schlocky Kinsey Millhone Mystery. Thanks mum for getting me onto true bath reading escapism that doesn't entirely insult your intelligence. Tip for new players - start with A is for Alibi or something down that end of the alphabet for true delightful sparse Californian bad eighties context...
- honky personal development book on inner child work. 'You're saying I have to sit in a chair and role play with myself?? Out loud? For real?' ahem, yeah maybe later. I have learnt that my inner child (oh sorry, 'child within') still throws tantrums and sulks, but generally she rocks. Book not actually as bad as it sounds, useful tool for identifying old inner dialogue that needs spring cleaning. More details on request...
- Birthday book (thanks Aunty B) on bedside table. Next on list.