Three Book Reviews, A Recipe and an Interview!

37 CommentsMonday • July 9, 2007 • by Ari

Although I read a lot of books, as far as I can remember I’ve only read two memoirs: “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert and “The Late Bloomer’s Revolution” by Amy Cohen. The first caught my eye because the title drew an implicit connection between food, spirituality and passion (and I am so down with that). The second came to my attention when a book publicist shot an email my way, which said, essentially, “I have a great book to share with you. It’s a memoir about a woman who lost her writing job, then her mother (to cancer), then her boyfriend (who was almost her fiance), then her face (to a hideous rash).” Whoa, I thought. That sounds pretty heavy… not sure if I want to spend my leisure hours with a book like that. But then the publicist continued. “It’s filled with observations that are at times sweet, then bittersweet, and often laugh-out-loud funny,” and it was here that she caught my attention. How could a book about so many difficult experiences be funny? Do I even want a book about such serious topics to be amusing? I decided there was only one way to find out.

The first paragraph of Chapter 1 begins: “I grew up thinking my mother had the answer to everything. Watch any black-and-white film and she always knew some obscure fact about an actor with one line. ‘See the fishmonger behind the ox, the one who’s yelling, “Slay the hunchback!” she’d say. ‘His name was Skids Monroe. He came out of the Yiddish theater and was tragically maimed in a Ferris wheel accident.”‘ From a reader’s point of view, I like paragraphs like this because you start in one place (in front of a household television) and end up somewhere completely unexpected (the scene of a Ferris wheel ride gone awry). This particular example may be a touch morbid, but you have to admit, it’s also interesting. Thankfully, Amy’s mom knew others things as well, like words. “‘The term “steatopygous” means characterized by fat around the hips,’” Amy recalls her mother saying in paragraph two. “It was once considered not cellulite, but a highly desirable benchmark of fertility! Remember that the next time you say you look hideous in a bathing suit.”

“The Late Bloomer’s Revolution” is filled with chuckle-worthy moments like this, which makes it all the more heart wrenching when, for instance, Amy’s mother finally succumbs to her illness. I would lament the end of a relationship in one moment, then laugh at Cohen’s ability to bring humor to a bad situation in the next. For instance, one day she went to the dry cleaners only to have the service woman greet her with “Oh God! What that on your face? You burn in grease fire?” – which is how Amy discovered the onset of a serious rash that marred her face and kept her homebound for almost a year. Yet despite such upheavals Amy’s humor shines through, turning what could have been a “look at all the awful things that have happened to me” memoir into a poignant, thought-provoking account of one woman’s search for love in New York city.

Overall I was delighted with “The Late Bloomer’s Revolution,” so when Amy’s publicist suggested that I include Amy in my author interview series I was happy to comply. (Amy is actually making quite a few blog appearances this month, so I wouldn’t be surprised if her ‘blog tour’ pops up elsewhere while you’re surfing the internet.) To tie everything in to the food side of this blog I asked Amy about her favorite comfort food dishes, one of which was macaroni and cheese. Hence, the recipe featured in this post.

In your book you have a humorous take on everything that has happened to you. Is this how you have always dealt with difficult situations or did the humor develop in retrospect?
I think for years I didn’t think of myself as particularly funny, it was more of a survival mechanism I wasn’t actually aware of. I thought I was a little weird. At age eight, my favorite book was by the photographer, Diane Arbus. I was partial to her Transvestite Series in particular. And later I considered myself difficult, for things like bringing a ham and cheese sandwich to a Yom Kippur service, but never necessarily funny. My Mom was sick so often when I was growing up, I think I just always felt the need to lighten the atmosphere. But yes, I would say now humor is my way of dealing with difficult things. My whole family is like that.

What advice would you give women who want to be in a relationship but haven’t yet found a meaningful one?
Live your life and do not, under any circumstances, wait, because I really do think meeting someone, the right someone, is a matter of luck. Don’t listen to friends who say you want it too much or you don’t want it enough. Don’t let anyone convince you the reason you haven’t met the right one has anything to do with you.

Especially don’t let yourself wonder “What’s wrong with me?” (which I wondered for years) No one could have done more to meet someone than I did and I really do believe meeting the right one is all luck.

Travel to places you’ve always wanted to go and if you’re afraid to travel alone, go with groups or friends; enjoy going into a crowded movie alone and getting a great seat because there’s only one left; eat those weird dinners you can only have when you’re single, the kind where you can have dessert first and then have some tortilla chips and some chicken and then go back to the chocolate cake in the fridge.

I’m not saying it’s not going to be hard. I know as well as anyone how painful it can be to go to wedding after wedding, and then the first birthday parties and feel like “Why isn’t it me?” But it will be even worse if you haven’t enjoyed your freedom, which has so many wonderful advantages that should be savored.

When you write, do you have a writing ritual? For instance, do you go to a particular place or listen to a certain kind of music?

Good question. I write in my apartment. I work in a small office that’s painted a shocking, hot pink. I can’t listen to music. I’m barely a single-tasker so I can’t multitask.

I need silence. And I typically work from 7 am to 2 pm. And every day is Shabbat, meaning I turn off the phone and don’t watch tv. But I do have lights. And my computer. And shrimp in the freezer (for when I make Fra Diavolo with linguine). Okay, so it’s my version of Shabbat.

What is your all-time favorite book?

Tough. Oooooh. I know it’s unfair of me to choose more than one, but the all time favorite shifts occasionally as years pass. At different times of my life it’s been each of these books: Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (Richard Yates); Nine Stories (J.D Salinger); Lolita (Nabokov); The Collected Stories of John Cheever; Naked by David Sedaris.

If you could invite any living person to dinner, who would you invite and what would you serve?

I’d love to have Elizabeth Edwards. She and my sister were diagnosed with breast cancer the same day and I’d like to have a little celebratory dinner for the three of us and the many other breast cancer survivors we’ve gotten to know in the last few years.

Since it would be a celebration, I’d go all out.

I would start with a baked artichoke dip, served alongside a bowl of sweet and spicy cashews; a Caesar salad with homemade dressing, croutons and pancetta; sweet sausage and spinach lasagna; garlic bread with basil; and for dessert, an Apple Cake. And I’d serve Prosecco, too, because I love it and when I was at Graceland I got some Elvis champagne flutes.

To you, comfort food means…
Fried Chicken, we had this every Friday night growing up. I sat so close the TV, my eyeballs got tan and ate fried chicken.

Tuna Casserole (not because I like it, but I love seeing and thinking about tuna casseroles, because it was the one dish my mother made, literally THE ONE, she made it with sweet, Italian sausages and Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup — and it always reminds me of her.)

Macaroni and Cheese – elbow noodle, American cheese, Fontina and Parmesan. Any take on this yummy classic.

Amy Cohen lives and writes in New York City. You can visit her online at www.byamycohen.com and, if you live in the NYC Metro area, you can meet her this Tuesday, July 10th, at 7pm. Location: Barnes & Noble 675 6th Ave. (21street).

Macaroni & Cheese (My Recipe)

• 1 lb short pasta (cavatappi, rotini, macaroni, whatever you like best. I used whole wheat pasta in the Mac N’Cheese pictured above)
• 5 tablespoons of butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 cups milk
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (you can use dry ground nutmeg too, but fresh is better)
• 3 cups of cheese (You can use whatever combination of cheeses you like so long as the cheese melts well. In the photo above I used 1 1/2 cups of sharp cheddar and 1 1/2 cups of Monterrey Jack. Other good options include: Parmesean, mozzarella, Muenster, Swiss, Gruyere and Pecorino Romano. You can add up to 1 additional cup of cheese if you like for a total of 4 cups of cheese.)
• 1 1/2 cups coarse breadcrumbs
• Kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta 1 to 2 minutes less than the package instructions indicate. Lightly butter a large casserole dish and add the drained pasta. Set aside.

Heat 4 tablespoons of butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the flour and cook, whisking constantly, for about 1 minute. Add the milk, nutmeg, cayenne, and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt. Bring to a simmer, whisking continuously, and continue to cook until the sauce is thick enough to lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. Add the cheese, 1 cup at a time, whisking between additions. Continue to stir until all the cheese has melted and the sauce is smooth.

Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta (which should be in the baking dish), mix well to coat.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Put the breadcrumbs in a small dish then add the melted butter, mix well. Sprinkle this mixture over the pasta. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. For a golden color you can remove the foil near the end of the baking time and cook the mac n’cheese uncovered for 5 minutes.

Two More Reviews:
Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant
I love reading essays about food, especially when they are authored by talented writers like Laurie Colwin, M.F.K. Fisher, Ann Patchett and Nora Ephron. So when I opened this book and discovered that the first chapter was a story by Laurie Colwin my curiosity was immediately piqued. “For eight years I lived in a one bedroom apartment a little larger than the Columbia Encyclopedia,” Colwin begins, “… I had enough space for a twin-sized bed, a very small night table, and a desk… Instead of a kitchen, this minute apartment featured a metal counter… on top of which was what I called the stove but which was only two electric burners – in short, a hot plate.” With the scene set Colwin then proceeds to share with her readers some of the meals she cooked for herself, and others, in her tiny abode. One of her favorite things to cook when dining alone was eggplant, and hence it is from this portion of the story that Colwin’s essay, and this book, get their title: “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.”

Indeed, eating alone, whether at a restaurant or at home, is the theme of this book, in which the author attempts to answer the question: how do we feed ourselves when we’re alone, when there are no one else’s needs to take into consideration? Each writer interprets this question in their own way, with some lauding the versatility of beans and others reminiscing about spaghetti. Amanda Hesser shares her thoughts on “single cuisine,” by which she means the simple, yet satisfying, meals she and her friends enjoy during their solitary nights at home: truffled egg toast, single girl salmon, and an enticing pasta dish made with garlic, olive oil, fried eggs, pepper and freshly grated cheese. This latter dish belongs to Hesser’s sister who, once all her ingredients are assembled, tosses them with pasta water, causing the egg yolks to crack open in the process. The yolks then dress the strands of pasta turning an ordinary dish into “a rustic, simple carbonara, minus the bacon.” Delicious descriptions like this made my mouth water and in an act of profound thoughtfulness many essays are accompanied by recipes. In the end I couldn’t help but devour this book.

A Slice of Organic Life
“A Slice of Organic Life” introduces readers to the various ways they can incorporate organic living into their routines, regardless of where they live or how much time they have on their hands. Chapter one, titled “No Need for a Yard,” has a variety of easy tips that can be adopted by someone living in a small apartment, from shopping ethically and growing strawberries in a hanging basket, to growing herbs indoors and then drying those herbs for storage. Each topic is 2 to 4 pages long and gives the reader a brief, yet helpful, introduction to the subject. Recipes are included where appropriate, for instance, in the section about how to make & freeze baby foods, where the authors share recipes for baby meals like herb mash, carrot soup, and fruit smoothies. The second chapter of this book is meant, as the title indicates, for people who live in an apartment or house with a “Roof terrace, Patio, or Tiny Yard.” Here how-to topics include growing an apple tree in a pot, gardening without pesticides and collecting rainwater to water your plants. The third chapter, titled “Yard, Community Garden, or Field,” takes organic living to its utmost manifestation and includes sections such as how to preserve fruit, create a wildlife pond, make apple juice, milk a cow and make freshly churned butter. Every page includes eye-catching color photographs and much food for thought. Indeed, if I had a large yard the section on keeping chickens would have left me seriously considering building a coop.

In general the chapters in this book are well-conceived and enjoyable, but on a couple occasions the authors took their enthusiasm for organic living a bit too far. For instance, on page 102 they counsel readers to forage for mushrooms in the wild, which is dangerous advice if only because several lethal mushrooms resemble their edible cousins. Though the authors share photos of four poisonous mushrooms and council newbie foragers to tag along with experienced foragers in the beginning, only an expert should attempt to gather mushrooms for consumption. Every year approximately 9,000 people in the US accidentally poison themselves with mushrooms, and though one could easily talk around this point by noting how a majority of the people poisoned are curious children with an appetite for fungi, in my book it counts for something that even food expert Alton Brown has said he wouldn’t presume to pick mushrooms in the wild. Nevertheless, on the whole, this book is an excellent introduction to organic living, giving readers the opportunity to thumb through a user-friendly manual on how to make their lives more environmentally friendly without abandoning metropolitan life or giving up creature comforts. “A Slice of Organic Life” will make you rethink how you approach even the most mundane aspects of your life.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

• Mistress of the Revolution (Interview)
• Feast-Worthy Buttermilk Biscuits (Plus, 30 Thanksgiving Recipe Ideas)
• Pulla & An Apple Charlotte
• Celebration Coconut Layer Cake (Plus Book Giveaway)
• Sugared Challah – An Oldie But A Goodie
• Pumpkin-Apple Muffins (Plus Book Giveaway)
• Work Lunch: Cold Sesame Noodle Salad with Ginger and Chili
• Fire Island

Posted in: Books, Interviews, My Recipes, Savory Recipes

Tagged with: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, Amy Cohen, interview, mac n cheese, macaroni and cheese, Slice of Organic Life