Tasha Tudor

Just this week, I check an old favorite out of the library.  It was one of the beautiful books that are about Tasha Tudor.  For those of you who don't know, Tasha Tudor was an eccentric old New Englander who wrote and illustrated beautiful children's books.  She was sort of the American Beatrix Potter.  But books were just the tip of her skills.  She was known for her gorgeous gardens, delicious food, old-fashioned dress, and generally picturesque lifestyle.  She lived all alone in a farmhouse with her many animals (she was best known for her collection of corgis).

Throughout the years, people came to interview her and photograph her life.  This book, The Private World of Tasha Tudor, is organized by season.  There are gorgeous pictures of Tudor's fascinating life and the words in the book are her own.  The author took multiple recordings of her talking about things in her life and then he organized them into this book.

The pictures are really the main point.  Sure, having Tudor's charming voice on paper is nice, but the beautiful pictures are what I love so much about the Tasha Tudor books.  The sweeping dresses in Civil War prints, the bank of lilies, the charmingly clutter-y kitchen are captured so beautifully.

This book is wonderful and not just in a coffee-table book way.  I find Tasha Tudor's books to be kind of like looking at Pinterest-interesting and inspiring for me.  There are quite a few books about Tudor from a garden book to crafting book.  But I think that The Private World is probably the best of them because it's written in Tudor's own words and the photography is by far the best.   I really enjoyed this book.

Library Loot 5/26

Whew!  Well, I've finally got my Library Loot post together for the week.  I've got a good selection of books this week, mostly from the library.  The other new thing that I've got this week is several nonfiction things!  I just happened to find a bunch of great nonfiction books in the archives of this blog that I thought I must read.  So here goes:

1. What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio and Peter Menzel- This book came out quite awhile ago and I heard fantastic things about it, then promptly forgot it.  So now, I'm going to finally get around to reading this.

2. Unpunished- This dagblamed book is getting on my nerves.  It's been in my library loot pile for three weeks and I still can't get around to reading it.  This will be the week that I finally read it!

3. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray- Recommended by the blog mentioned above.  I just thought this looked mildly interesting.  We'll see how it is.

4. Evelina by Fanny Burney- An interesting-looking book that I look forward to reading.  It's a funny 18th century novel.

5. Dear Enemy by Jean Webster- By the author who wrote the slightly more famous Daddy Long-Legs (which I need to read), this is the story of a woman who takes the role of superintendent of an orphanage.

6. The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson- I just recently finished the Sherlock TV show and loved it and then read the original Sherlock Holmes books.  I'm excited to see how this book turns out.

I feel like I got a good haul this week.  I'm excited to see how the books are!  And yet again, my interlibrary loan limit was exceeded.  Sigh.

Sewing and a Book Review

Today, I have been busy with projects and flaxing around (apparently flaxing isn't a word...autocorrect suggests "flapping" or "flexing", neither of which I was doing...in my book, it means "flying around, getting lots of things done").  One of the things I did was start work on a fabulous late 40s/early 50s wrap dress.  I seem to have a bit of a thing with wrap dresses this summer.  I made a flowery short 60s dress that is for fairly nice occasions and this dress is completely different.  It's long and swishy and will be for really hot August days at home.  I actually took the time to stop and take pictures, so I've included a few.

That blue thing is the bias tape that I'm using as facing
in the place of a regular facing.  The pattern I'm
using was missing any facing pieces.

This actually has a little bit to do with a book I just read.  Well, "read" is a little too serious.  It was more like, "skimmed some parts and read some parts admired the pretty pictures".  The book, written in the 90s, is called Life, Loss, and What I Wore.  I picked it up simply because I had a few minutes and I didn't want to be engrossed in something really good and burn the rhubarb sauce all over the stove (I did that anyway).  This book is a very small memoir of a woman's life, as lived through her clothes.  So, the story starts out with a dress that her mother made and wore in the 30s and moves through her life.  Each page is a small anecdote and its facing page is an illustration of the dress.  Each chapter is a decade and ends in the 90s, with the author's granddaughter playing dress-up in one of her old dresses. And there were some gorgeous vintage dresses mentioned.  I especially loved the description and picture of the author's elegant 50s ball dress.   Reading this description, this sounds like a charming and interesting read.  And it was, to some extent.  However, I didn't love it.  The writing style sounded extremely dated (in a bad way), but it wasn't just that.  It was extremely self-involved and navel-gazey.  I found myself saying, "Oh please," more than once.  So, I don't recommend this unless you just happen to own the book and haven't read it or you really want to know about it and get it from the library.  It's not worth purchasing, in my humble opinion.

The book

But back to my dress.   I can't wait to see how it turns out.  I love this era of pattern and I think it's going to be a very nice, practical dress.  Here's the pattern, so you can see what the end product will look like.  I'm doing the shorter version because, honestly, can't you just imagine tripping over that long skirt every time you walked?

My Latest Reading Project

I have a new reading project.   I sat down with some lovely sharp pencils and notepaper and made lists. I love making lists and planning, so this was a lot of fun.  For the next several months every evening, I'm going to be reading Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States (written along with Anthony Arnove).  So far, I've read the first chapter in both books.  Each chapter in each book corresponds.  The Voices book is several writings from several viewpoints in different points in American history in each chapter.  The People's History is Zinn's take on the time period with plenty of primary sources cited.  For instance, the first chapter of the Voices book has an excerpt from Columbus's diary, an excerpt from the diary of a man who was on the ship with Columbus and came to realize the evils of what they were doing, and an essay written by a Native American man in the 1980s re-imagining Columbus's arrival.  Then, Zinn offers his thoughts about the arrival of Columbus, all written in a captivating and lyrical prose.

I think this is an important book for everybody to read.  American history (particularly school textbook history) has become badly distorted in a variety of ways.   Firstly, for many years, the viewpoint of the white, European-origin male has reigned supreme and the school system seems to not have quite gotten the message yet that this is only relevant to one segment of the population.  Second, the wars, exchanges of money, and foreign policies have been the "important" parts of history for a long time.  What counts is not what the Virginia slave women were making for their meals, but what law Jefferson was passing.  Howard Zinn has set out to completely change the way we view history and I think he's done a wonderful job of it.

One thing I am enjoying about this book is the calm recognition that, yes, this history that Zinn is writing is biased.  So often, history is presented as pure gospel, like the Pythagorean Theorem, that can never be wrong.  Even though the facts themselves may be true, every historian picks and chooses when writing something and it's refreshing to have that acknowledged.  The other thing I love about this book is how truly interesting it is.  That history is boring is something that many 5th graders repeat.  And really, if you're talking about textbooks, they're right.  This book succeeds in sounding serious and intelligent, while still being fascinating.

I thought I would give you two quotes that I especially love from Zinn's books.  The first one is from A People's History, the second is from Voices.

"My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia.  It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality.  But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us.  One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a max of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth.  We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks.  This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences.  It is therefore more deadly."

"To omit or minimize [the] voices of resistance is to create the idea that power only rests with those who have the guns, who possess the wealth, who own the newspapers and the television stations.  I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women- once they organize and protest and create movements- have a voice no government can suppress."

I strongly recommend that you read these books.  They are actually surprisingly cheap for how big they are and they are books that are worth buying and adding to your home library.  However, they are at my public library, so you could definitely check them out of the library first, read a bit, and then decide what you think.

 

Please Don't Eat the Daisies

Please Don't Eat the Daisies was a re-read for me.  It is the comedic essays of a New York theater woman in the 50s.  Jean Kerr was, apparently, married to a famous drama critic and was known for her humor in the 50s and 60s.  This was her first foray into writing.  Each essay is hilarious and covers such topics as "How to be a Collector's Item" and "Dogs I Have Known" (my absolute favorite).  This book is interesting because, although it covers such dated topics and ideas, there is something so recognizable about the experiences and thoughts covered.  And I think that's why this book is still so amusing today.  Added to this already great book are the funny pencil drawings done by Carl Rose.

Here's a excerpt from the book:
"It's not just our own dogs that bother me.  The dogs I meet at parties are even worse.  I don't know what I've got that attracts them; it just doesn't bear thought.  My husband swears I rub chopped meat on my ankles.  But at every party it's the same thing.  I'm sitting in happy conviviality with a group in front of the fire when all of a sudden the large mutt of mine host appears in the archway.  Then, without a single bark of warning, he hurls himself upon me. It always makes me think of that line from A Streetcar Named Desire-'Baby, we've had this date right from the beginning.'  My martini flies into space and my stokcings are torn before he finally settles down peacefully in the lap of my new black faille.  I blow out such quantities of hair as I haven't swallowed and glance at my host, expecting to be rescued.  He murmurs, "Isn't that wonderful?  You know, Brucie is usually so distant with strangers."

Illustration found from some Ebay listing.  I had the worst time trying
to find an illustration for you (I was being lazy and didn't feel like getting
up to get my camera).

This book is perfect distraction reading.  My recovery from the oral surgery has been longer than expected and this was the perfect antidote.  This book would also make great on-the-fly reading because each essay is fairly short and the essays could be read in any sequence and still make perfect sense.  I recommend this book for anybody that likes humorous reading and a little slice of late 50s American life.

The Doris Day movie.  This movie was not that great.
I think I didn't like it in large part because I had just read the
book.  There's just no way a movie can capture a funny voice
and a collection of essays without messing everything up.
I think that this might have been a tolerable movie, had
I not just read the book.

I've linked to both the book (there's several used copies on amazon) and the instant-watch movie, should you be curious about either.

Growing Up Plain

This was one of those books that just kind of appeared in my house.  I have no idea what it's origins are, but it was a great book.  Growing Up Plain is the ramble-y reminiscences of a woman who grew up in a Conservative Mennonite (I was amazed that Wikipedia had a page on Conservative Mennonites! Dear Wikipedia, you know everything) home in the 50s.  Each chapter is just a string of stories, following Shirley Kurtz through her childhood all the way to college.  The book was really short-only about 75 pages- and I sped through it.

Now for my analysis of the book.  Kurtz is an extremely gifted writer.  She has a funny voice that comes through clearly in all of her books and the ability to make you understand a very niche viewpoint.  That said, the book was quite skimpy.  It felt almost like a book of memories that you would write down for your children to read and remember instead of a published book.  Kurtz occasionally went off on little tangents, analyzing a boy at school or the way the bishops behaved when she was a girl.  The wasn't necessary and I think that the book could have been made a little more concise if those parts had been left out.  I also think that this book would make a lot more sense if you at least have some understanding of Conservative Mennonite culture.  This is not a book for somebody who has never even heard of these people.  However, if you have read something before this or perhaps even know a Conservative Mennonite, this is going to be a very interesting and funny read.  Kurtz's stories are interesting and understandable to those who know about where she came from.

If you want to read this book (and I recommend that you do), but have no prior knowledge of Conservative Mennonites, start by reading An Introduction to Old Order and Conservative Mennonite Groups.  This will be good place to get started and then you'll really enjoy Growing Up Plain.
           

Ps.  I'm experimenting with using amazon affiliates program.  This means that if any of my readers follow this link and buy the product I linked to, I will get a small commission. I promise that all the opinions on this blog are still my own and amazon has not paid me anything to review a book one way or the other.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Growing Up Born Again

I have no idea where this book came from.  It just kind of appeared in my library and when I saw it, I knew at once that I had to read it.  The cute 50s family on the front was enough to convince me.

I picked up the book, wondering what I was in for.  It turns out, this book is a charming, funny, whimsical look at what growing up in in evangelical Christian, 1950s American family was like and all that that entailed.  I think what most impressed me was the way that the five authors could laugh at that background, but not turn it into ridiculing their childhoods.  I did not grow up in this kind of church, but the story still resonated with me in so many ways.  I think it was in large part because I love reading about this era in America and also because little subsets of people fascinate me.

This book is a very light, quick read and it was perfect for this weekend.  The chapters have titles like, "Holy Bible, Book Divine" (a look at the Born Again family's view of the Bible), "If You're Saved and You Know It", and "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus".  The book is chock full of 1950s and 60s illustrations of church-related subjects.  There are funny pop-quizzes (I'll have you know I scored very high on them) and advice for what to bring to a church supper (jello salad or tuna noodle casserole with potato chips on top).  There is a sample bulletin with notes showing when it is acceptable to shuffle your feet or run to the bathroom and musings on going to church camp.

This book comes highly recommended.  Even if you aren't (or weren't) a BA Christian or even a Christian, this book is extremely funny.  Of course, a few of the references make a little more sense if you have had some experiences like these, but for the most part the book can be enjoyed by anybody.  When I looked online, this book appears to be fairly easy to find, although it looks like it isn't printed anymore.  I found several used copies on amazon and you might be able to find one at your library.  If you know me and want to read this book, I'll be more than happy to loan it to you.  You're sure to enjoy this wonderful book.

A Cookbook Series

I don't have any book reviews at the moment because I am about 30 pages into three different books.  I hope to get a lot of reading done today.  However, I am still reading, thinking about, and cooking from cookbooks!  I thought I would review one of my favorite cookbook series.  They're not well-known out of my specific culture, but they are worth seeking out.  I am a Mennonite  (a whole other topic for a whole other place and time).  However, among many things, Mennonites value cooking.  Back in the 70s, two Mennonite women decided to write a cookbook about cooking food that was sustainable and was chock-full of recipes submitted by people all over the globe. This cookbook was called More-With-Less.  Several years later, in the 90s, two other women added to the series and wrote Extending the Table- a cookbook about eating world food.  The series was completed in 2005 and was about eating in-season, sustainable food.  I grew up with these cookbooks and they still have a special place on my list of favorite cookbooks.

I think that my favorite is Simply in Season.  More-with-Less's extreme obsession with calories and low-fat seems quite dated and Extending the Table sometimes calls for ingredients that we don't keep on hand all the time.  But Simply in Season, with its contemporary but delicious recipes is pretty much perfect.  I also like occasionally coming across a familiar name in the contributions.  There is a chapter for each season, with recipes like Gazpacho in the Summer and Maple Glazed Parsnips in the Winter.  I turn to this cookbook quite a bit in the summer.  This cookbook also has the added bonus of having an ingredient index.  So, if you're being bombarded with spinach, you can look up spinach recipes in the back.

While I don't use it frequently, Extending the Table has introduced me to some delicious recipes.  The kimchi is one of my favorites and Shanghai Ham is also wonderful.  This cookbook is a great way to learn a little bit about different countries and it's a good place to turn to to replicate restaurant dishes.

I think that I have the most memories and associations tied to More-With-Less.  There are some basic recipes like mayonnaise and french dressing that are perfect.  And, while low-fat is stressed, there is nothing nasty or flavorless about the food.  Even the recipe for Wheat Germ Balls is delicious!

I was surprised and glad that these cookbooks can be found on amazon.  I recommend them for anybody who likes to cook and wants a little taste of another culture.

The Egg and I by Betty McDonald

Oh, this book.  I loved it so much.  When I checked it out of the library on the advice of my mother (who has excellent book taste, by the way) I was pretty sure I was going to love it.  After all, Betty McDonald wrote my all-time favorite children's books, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series.  But before she became a famous author, Betty grew up with an interesting and amusing family, then married a man who wanted to be a chicken farmer.  Following the advice of her mother, she let her husband, Bob, decide where they would live and what they would do.  They end up on a dilapidated, isolated chicken ranch in the northwest Pacific, surrounded by trees and a few neighbors, all of whom Betty looks down on.

I am so impressed by authors that can write about any situation and make it extremely funny.  It appears that Bob, whom she later divorced, was no picnic to live with.  There are stories of him flirting with a Native American women, making fun of Betty, and scolding Betty for not keeping the house perfect as well as helping him with all of the farm work.  Of course, the story is one-sided, but even so, to make that funny is no small feat.  Betty and her husband were without running water, electricity, and had a wood stove that barely functioned.  People cheerfully traipsed through her house and stayed for meals and lengthy visits.  The one part that bothered me was the frequent racism throughout the whole book.  There were many Native Americans living near the McDonalds and many of them appear to have been alcoholics.  She writes unkindly about a snowflake dance that some Native American children did in a school play, noting nastily, "They only thing snowflake-like about their appearance was the whites of their eyes."  Sheesh, Betty!  In the preface written by Betty's daughters, there is a vague excuse about Betty being very frightened by the Native Americans, and so writing in a "lighthearted" way about them.  They finish by saying, "We are sure that if Betty were alive today, she would address the plight of the American Indian in a much different manner."  Maybe.

The 1940s movie.  I am very tempted by this.
On the other hand, I'm worried that it's going to be nothing like the book...

After reading this book, I turned to Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's Farm.  I was fascinated by the fathers in the book.  Every. Single. One of them was just like Betty's husband Bob.  I was amazed!  Was this really the 1950s norm, or was Betty just writing the man that she knew the best?  I was also amazed that, as a child, this went right over my head.  Reading The Egg and I put the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories in a whole new light.

However, despite the blatant racism and the fact that Betty's husband got on my nerves frequently, this unforgettable autobiography was good.  Many of the characters were funny, the plot speed was perfect, and I am sure that this story will stay in my memory for a long time.  I highly recommend this book to anybody that has or has not read anything by Betty McDonald.  You will love it.

Chocolate Eclairs and Mad Hungry

All the ingredients laid out.  This recipe was perfect because it used
14 eggs!  Our hens have gone into laying overdrive.

Today I have a cookbook recommendation and some food pictures for you.

Just a bit of the mess that ensued.

Our church was having a bake sale.  I volunteered to make chocolate eclairs and, boy, were they tedious to make...I mean, good.  First, you make a cream puff dough, made of melted butter, water, flour, and salt.  Then you squeeze the dough through a pastry bag and end up covering every surface and large sections of your hair in dough.  Then you pause, disgusted, and start just spooning the dough onto the cookie sheets.  After the puffs are baked, they are sliced and left to cool while you go make a custard that for some aggravating reason gets filled with little cooked egg lumps.  After straining the custard, you cool it for an hour, while you pull out your double boiler and cook a chocolate ganache.  After the chocolate ganache comes within seconds of burning and sticking because you are too busy reading a hilarious autobiography, you take that off and let it cool.  Now it's time to fill those eclairs.  First you fill one half heaping full with that lovely custard that turned out gorgeously, then put the top cap on and drizzle chocolate ganache over all.

The gorgeous eclairs...all 22 of them.

After I took a bite of that perfectly airy, elegant eclair, it was all worth it and I found myself forgetting all the work and the fact that every single dish in the kitchen was dirty as I smiled and licked my fingers.

Yes, the subtitle is Feeding Men and Boys.
I have no idea why.  However, the recipes are for anybody.

These delicious eclairs came from the fabulous book Mad Hungry.  It's written by Lucinda Scala Quinn and it's a book on cooking hearty family food instead of eating out, but really anybody.  Her recipes are well-written, look delicious, and taste delicious (at least the ones I've had).  The photographs are pretty and aid in making me even hungrier for the delicious recipes.  If you're a voracious cookbook reader, you most definitely need to buy this book.  If you're not, then please just go to the library and check the book out.  You might surprise yourself and end up purchasing a copy...

Yum.

And every. single. chocolate. eclair. sold.  I'm actually a little sad about that.  I was hoping for a little treat this afternoon...

Reading Cookbooks

It's odd, I know.  But it's a whole other kind of reading.  Not the kind of reading with a beginning, middle, and end, with a plot and an overall message, but I still love it.

The 1964 edition.  This book is almost too tome-ish
to read for fun.  But, seriously, it has pretty much any recipe
that you can think of.

It's the kind of reading you do when you're feeling tired or in need of some inspiration.  Reading cookbooks is perfect for those days when you're all out of books, or don't feel up to sitting down and giving your full attention to a story.

A very amusing read.

I particularly like vintage cookbooks.  They all seem to tell a story about what people were doing in a certain era.  It's fascinating how much you can learn about people through their food.  I wonder what people will say in 50 years when they look at cookbooks from our era.

Cookbooks are fun to read on several levels.  First, they can be read in light of a history book, if you're reading a vintage cookbook.  Seriously?  Tuna jelled in a mold with lime jello and cabbage?!  (I am not making that up.)  They can also be read as a sort of current events book, if you're reading a modern cookbook.  For instance, think about reading a paleo cookbook or a celebrity cookbook.  Then of course, there's the inspiration that comes from reading cookbooks.  I love going through the vintage cake sections and reading about new kinds of cooking.

Just a little contrast between the above vintage
cookbooks and a modern cookbook.
The recipes in this cookbook are delicious, by the way.

And finally, I love the thought of people from all different time periods writing cookbooks so that the concept of how we eat food could be changed just a little for the better.

A picture of cookbook from which my pretzel recipe came.

On Reading Classics and The Well-Educated Mind

Here's another thinking-about-books post.  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for classics and wish that they would be read more for interest and less "just because it's a classic".  There are some pretty obvious exceptions (600 pages of the Greek, The Histories by Herodotus, anyone?), but there are many classics that are quite enjoyable just for themselves.

If you don't know where to start in reading classics, I highly recommend Susan Wise Bauer's book, The Well-Educated Mind.  She breaks down classics into several categories: Novels, Poetry, Plays, etc., covering one section in each chapter.  Then, in each category, she lists the most well-known classics and gives a summary, ISBN number, and her favorite edition.  She also includes a set of discussion questions for each category.  The discussion questions are in three sets: Grammar Stage (simply reading through and making notes on what the book is about), then Logic Stage (answering questions about things like structure and style), and finally Rhetoric Stage (what do I think about this book?).

My next read

I have really enjoyed reading the books that she recommends.  I am going through by historical periods, starting by reading all of the ancient writings and now working through the medieval/renaissance books.  I have read everything from Oedipus Rex to The Koran to Dante's The Divine Comedy.  I have learned so much about reading and about history through these wonderful classics.  Not everything is wonderful, but I've been surprised by some very good writing, like the time I read The Birds and laughed my head off.  I have also learned that, with very old writings, translation can make or break a book.  By using Wise Bauer's recommended editions, I've been able to better comprehend and enjoy the writings.

My most recent read

I think that The Well-Educated Mind deserves a place in every home library.  It's a fascinating read if you just want to sit down and read through the whole thing like a novel.  Or, if you have a goal of reading some great books, this book is the first step to reaching that goal.