Monthly Archives: February 2017

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Wednesdays @ West: Cooking up some hygge

If the weather of the last week hasn’t gotten you thinking about hygge, then nothing will!  Did you spend any time during the last snowstorms, cozied up on your couch with a cup of tea, a warm blanket, a good book and your loved ones?  Did you binge watch your favorite TV shows?  Did you go out and play in the snow?  If so, congratulate yourself for your hyggelige efforts.

There’s another thing I bet many of our dear readers did to weather the storms: cook.  And if hygge points exist (they don’t), then cooking and baking would earn you lots of bonus points.  Personally, I made some rather tasty chocolate chip, oatmeal bars that were gobbled up rather quickly.

Skibberlabskovs

Hyggelige foods, you see, tend to not be exactly diet friendly.   They are most likely what we would refer to as “comfort food.”  Also very hyggelige is slow food.  Fast food would probably not qualify.  Turning once more to The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking, we will see that he has considerately included some recipes for a few Danish favorites guaranteed to help you get your hygge on.  If you want your hygge cooking to be as authentically Danish as possible, his recipes sound like a yummy place to start.  Skibberlabskovs or skipper stew, braised pork cheeks in dark beer with potato-celeriac mash, boller (Danish meatballs in curry), Glogg (mulled wine) and Snobrod (twist bread) can give you a feel for the type of dishes Danes whip up on cold, snowy days.

If you’re looking for even more comfort food (personally, I don’t think there’s such a thing as too much comfort food) or you’d like to stick with some good ole’ American cuisine, the cookbook section at the library is a bottomless well of inspiration.  Here are a few to check out.

Mario Batali big American cookbook : 250 favorite recipes from across the USA.  With words like state fairs, rotary clubs, cobbler, and BBQ in the book description, it’s pretty easy to tell that this one could quickly become a go-to cookbook for comfort food.

Purely pumpkin : more than 100 wholesome recipes to share, savor, and warm your kitchen by Allison Day.  Call it my New England bias, but to me anything pumpkin screams “comfort food.”  Allison Day’s cookbook can fulfill all your cravings for pumpkin with beverages, soups, stews, side dishes, entrees and desserts.

How to Bake Everything by Mark Bittman.  Bread and desserts are pretty much the ultimate in hygge cooking in my opinion.  And even though I’m not Danish, you may be happy to hear that Meik Wiking agrees with me: “confectionery, cake and pastries are hyggelige.”  Which means that Mark Bittman, who compiles cookbooks so large that it would take to a lifetime to try out every recipe, is pretty much the King of Hygge.

Cook it In Cast Iron.  According to Cook’s Country magazine, 85% of us own a cast iron skillet.  Who knew?   That means many, many of us could right now be whipping up their recipes for cornbread, roasts, apple pie, cinnamon swirl bread.  The only question is why aren’t we?

Of course, your hyggelig culinary attempts will need to be paired with equally delicious and comforting beverages.  For these needs, I would suggest the following books:

Tea: history, terroirs, varieties by Kevin Gascoyne, François Marchand, Jasmin Desharnais and Hugo Américi.  This book is a tea lover’s dream.  I purchased it for the West Branch’s collection and I also have a copy at home.  Everything you ever needed or wanted to know about the different types of tea, where they are grown, their history, varieties and health benefits.

The World’s Best Drinks: where to find them and how to make them by Victoria Moore.  If you’d like a bit of global flair with your comforting drinks, this is the book for you.  Containing both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options, the recipes in this Lonely Planet guide will have you whipping up Chilean Terremoto, Italian Negroni, Canadian Caesars, Turkish Aryran, Indian Mango lassi and old fashioned American egg creams.

With a number of weeks left in the winter (I’m wise enough not to speculate how many), you may want to plan ahead so you’re not caught off guard without the perfect hyggelige recipes to get you through another Nor’easter.  A quick trip to the cookbook section at the PIL should be perfect to get you cooking, baking and concocting.

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Yours, With Love

And a very Happy Valentine’s Day, dear readers!  Whether you are the type of person who buys heart-shaped confetti and cuts out little silhouettes of cupids, or…not, I thought today would be an ideal one to share with you a little something I learned this weekend.

Did you know that February is InCoWriMo?

InCoWriMo stands for International Correspondence Writing Month, a month-long celebration of “vintage social media”, or letter-writing.  The goal, as stated on the InCoWriMo website, is to “Hand-write and mail/deliver one letter, card, note or postcard every day during the month of February.”  The goal of the project is to celebrate the beauty of hand-writing letters, and the wonderfully personal bonds that are built through the process of letter-writing.

Now, I only found out about InCoWriMo a few days ago when a friend of mine, who is a participant, told me about in (in a letter, as a matter of fact).  And I love it.  As a dedicated letter-writer myself, I find that sitting down and crafting a letter to someone is something that benefits us both.  In a communication-heavy world, we tend to say things quickly, more eager to get the information to another person.  But letter-writing gives you the time to think about how you want to say something, and why it is important to say something.  Also, I really like thinking about the person to whom I am writing–it makes me feel a lot closer to them than shooting off a text.

Unfortunately, I only learned about this great project halfway through the shortest month of the year, but that is no reason not to get started anyway.  And today, I would encourage you to send a letter to someone you love, as well.  The strict rules of InCoWriMo state that letters have to be hand-written, but I know that’s not easy for everyone.  So if you’d like to type, or dictate, or even sketch, we won’t tell.  And if you are looking for someone to whom to send a letter, InCoWriMo has also collected a list, which includes pen manufacturers, CEO’s, J.K. Rowling, and Michael Phelps, who are all eager to receive a letter from you.  So why not give it a try.  Today, of all days, is a good one to tell someone you think they’re worthy of a letter.  So is tomorrow, as a matter of fact.  As Heloise, a scholar, Abbess, and stellar letter-writer of the Middle Ages wrote to her love, Peter Abelard, “…what cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions, they can raise them as much as if the persons themselves were present; they have all the tenderness and the delicacy of speech, and sometimes even a boldness of expression beyond it…We may write to each other; so innocent a pleasure is not denied us.”

And if you need some ideas, here are a few letters from history.   It’s become a little Free For All tradition to share famous love letters on this day, but this time around, I tried to stick to the informal, or the unconventional, to show that “love letters” can take any kind of form you might like or need:

Here is a cartoon written by E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye to his wife, Myrtle, while he was traveling for business, entitled “Gee!!  I wish Myrt was here”:

This short, but perfectly-worded note from Mark Twain to his wife, Olivia Louise Langdon:

Letter via Blogs.Courant.com & Mark Twain House

The text of the letter: Livy Darling, I am grateful–grate-fuller than ever before–that you were born, & that your love is mine & our two lives woven & melded together!  –SLC (Samuel Longhorn Clemens)

And, finally, this birthday note from Johnny Cash to June Carter Cash on her 65th birthday, in 1994 (which was voted the greatest love letter of all time in a 2005 poll):

http://www.indy100.com/article/the-10-greatest-love-letters-of-all-time–x1sKxgmB3g

 

June 23 1994

Odense, Denmark.

Happy Birthday Princess,

We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted.

But once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much.

Happy Birthday Princess.

John

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Making Magic: The View from Here

*This post is part of Free for All’s “Making Magic” series, which will focus on Kelley’s exploration of the opportunities in the library’s Creativity Lab as well as musings about art, creativity and imagination.

During a recent fly tying class at the library, I was reminded of the power of looking at things in new ways. In this case, the instructor was talking about making your own flies for fly fishing, and how to spot inexpensive materials that make good representations of insects to attract fish.  For instance, do you think you could make a simple feather and some chenille look like a fly? Fly tying is an art that involves fine detail and a good eye for an accurate representation. Until this library program, I never really thought about fishing as creative. Well, to be fair, being a vegan I generally don’t think about fishing at all, but nevertheless, I received an important reminder from this class.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Dead Poets Society, you know it’s impossible to forget the scene where Professor Keating asks his students to stand on their desks in order to look at the world in a new way. (If you haven’t seen the movie Dead Poets Society, I beg of you, stop reading this post and go watch it now!) Whether you’re a creative looking for inspiration, or someone who would like to renew your joy for the day to day, taking a moment to see the world, and the people and things within it, with fresh eyes can enrich enrich your life immeasurably. So this week, I’m asking you, not necessarily to stand on your desk, but to step outside of your routine and really look around. Then, in the wise words of Neil Gaiman, use your experience to “write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

 

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Saturdays @ the South: Take Me to the Tropics

I’m not a particular fan of the snow, largely because I don’t enjoy being cold and wet and snow provides both of those sensations simultaneously. After 11 inches of snow in one day, my window has almost as much snow stuck to the outside screen:

My cat is not happy that she can’t keep up her window-vigil with her usual diligence.

Because of this, I’m pretty much planning to re-erect my blanket fort from hermitage month and seriously considering making winter hermitage season. In the meantime, I’m looking for books that take me away, bonus if they can make me laugh. So here are books designed to do just that:

Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore

Tucker Case is a  “cool guy,” who discovers he’s a lot more hapless and clueless than he realized when he crashes his employer’s plane into a tiny island in Micronesia. Because it’s Christopher Moore, hilarity and intrigue ensue. Also, because it’s Christopher Moore, there’s a talking fruit bat named Roberto.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut is a master of deadpan comedy and this classic, oddball book possibly his most well-known work after Slaughterhouse-Five. Dr. Felix Hoenikker has left the world a deadly legacy in the form of ice-nine which could bring about global destruction. One of Hoenikker’s children try to keep their family legacy under wraps by following a trail down to the Caribbean where they encounter a dictator and a religion called Bokonon. This book is for those who like a thought-provoking Armageddon with their tropical humor.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost

For a little non-fiction in the mist, Troost follows his then-girlfriend (now his wife) to a tiny island in the South Pacific called Tarawa, where they encounter incompetent government officials, a self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (who has never written a poem in his life), and an endless loop of La Macarena playing everywhere. If you’re looking for something that will take you away, make you laugh out loud and make you thankful for indoor plumbing, coffee and regular news feeds, this book will do just that.

I hope I’ve offered you a few options for one of the best reasons for reading: escape. Till next week, dear readers, stay warm and safe!

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Five Book Friday!

Due to some weather-related difficulties, we weren’t able to post yesterday’s stunningly glorious post, dear readers, and for that, our apologies.  But have no fear, we are safe, the Library is open, and, though we are all a bit stuff from shoveling, we are ready to go with today’s selection of new books!

The Freedom Broker: Readers looking for a fast-paced, action-packed adventure have a new author to add to their list…K.J. Howe’s debut novel introduces us to Thea Paris, an elite agent with Quantum Security International, a black-ops corporation that deals with highly sensitive rescue missions .  Abducted herself as a child, Thea thought she knew all about kidnapping–until her oil-tycoon father is kidnapped right before her eyes, right before the biggest deal of his career.  Now, thrown into the most important mission of her life, Thea is baffled by the lack of evidence before her.  There is no ransom note, no demands…only obscure and foreboding texts written in Latin sent from burner phones.  Enlisting the help of everyone at Quantum, Thea goes after the case with everything she has–but will it be enough to keep her family from devastation?  Howe defies conventions by providing readers with a smart, highly capable female lead in this series, and doesn’t skimp on tension or twists.  RT Book Reviews agrees, noting “Howe gives readers a handily twisted plotline, rife with tension and intrigue, that is sure to keep the pages turning. Overall, this is a strong start to a series that will appeal to fans of Stephanie Pintoff’s Eve Rossi and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.”

The Impossible Fortress: 80’s nostalgia has been a strong current through a lot of recent fiction, and Jason Rekulak is gleefully swimming through it in this love letter to the early age of video games, processed foods, and neon.  For three young friends, self-declared nerds and video-game enthusiasts everyone, Playboy magazine represents all that they do not have–namely, women.  So they devise a plan to steal it, thwarting police, a locked building, guard dogs (really, it’s a Shih Tzu), and alarm systems.  But when each attempt ends in utter failure, they decide to swipe the security code to Zelinsky’s convenience store by seducing the owner’s daughter, Mary Zelinsky. It becomes Billy’s mission to befriend her and get the information by any means necessary. But Mary isn’t your average teenage girl. She’s a computer loving, expert coder, already strides ahead of Billy in ability, with a wry sense of humor and a hidden, big heart. Can Billy go through with the plan, or betray his best friends for the girl of his dreams?  A charming, big-hearted look at first loves that positively drips with vintage nostalgia, Rekulak still delivers a story that, as Booklist notes in its starred review ” the end the plot manages to magically subvert the time period while also paying homage to it. An unexpected retro delight.”

From Bacteria to Bach and Back : The Evolution of Minds: We all know that human beings (and a lot of other animals) have brains…but how did we develop minds?  Minds that could create, explain, rationalize, reason, and invent?  In this slightly ponderous, but significant book, Daniel C. Dennett goes beyond DNA and neurons to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection.   Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett’s legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought.  The result is a study of science, culture, evolution and human nature that will provide readers with as many thought-provoking questions as it answers about our place on the proverbial food-chain, and what we can really do with the eight-or-so pounds of matter in our skulls.  As Publisher’s Weekly notes, Dennet’s work is dense, but is also “Illuminating and insightful. . . . [Dennett] makes a convincing case, based on a rapidly growing body of experimental evidence, that a materialist theory of mind is within reach. . . . His ideas demand serious consideration.”

Amberlough:  Alternative histories!  Spies!  Intrigue!  If any of these words gets your heart fluttering, then be sure to check out this stylistically superb debut adventure from Lara Elena Donnelly.  Covert agent Cyril DePaul thinks he’s good at keeping secrets, especially from Aristide Makricosta. They suit each other: Aristide turns a blind eye to Cyril’s clandestine affairs, and Cyril keeps his lover’s moonlighting job as a smuggler under wraps.  But when Cyril’s newest case ends in disaster, both he and Aristide find themselves on the run, facing mounting government backlash of a professional and personal variety.  Enter streetwise Cordelia Lehane, a top dancer at the Bumble Bee Cabaret and Aristide’s runner, who could be the key to Cyril’s plans―if she can be trusted.  Donnelly has crafted a sensational 1920’s setting for her characters that is as heartbreaking as it is dazzling.  As her leading men deal with the rise of Fascism and the threat that poses not only to their livelihoods but their lives, the real essence of the times becomes clear–not only the freedom and joviality, but the inevitable loss that lends this book its urgency and emotion.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, giving this book a starred review and noting ““Donnelly blends romance and tragedy, evoking gilded-age glamour and the thrill of a spy adventure, in this impressive debut. As heartbreaking as it is satisfying.”

Four Weddings and a Sixpence: Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes an anthology from some of Avon Book’s most beloved authors.  Employing the old rhyme “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and a Lucky Sixpence in Her Shoe”, each author spins a tale four friends from Madame Rochambeaux’s Gentle School for Girls who find an old sixpence in their bedchamber and decide that it will be the lucky coin for each of their weddings.  In these historical romances of loves lost and found, challenged and regained, fans of each author will find plenty of delights in a single-serving size, while those looking for some new names to read would do well to check this book out for future reference.  Booklist agrees, giving this book as a whole a starred review and cheering “Each love story in this superbly crafted anthology is expertly imbued with the distinctive literary DNA of its creator, and the end result is a wonderfully witty, sweep-you- off-your-feet romantic experience for long-time fans as well as readers new to these marvelously gifted writers.”

 

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

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Love is Everywhere!

I have already lost count, dear readers, of how many emails I’ve received from publishers, from Amazon, from various other bookish outlets to which I subscribe, all touting romance novels for Valentine’s Day.  And we still have a week to go (or only a week, I suppose, if Valentine’s Day is your thing…)!  We all know that I really love my romance novels, and we here at the Free For All are always ready to support any reader who would like to explore and enjoy romance novels, as well.  But the overwhelming focus on the genre this week got me thinking about love stories….And the fact that they are everywhere.

…I just said that.

Romance novels deal very specifically in the act of falling in love; in the realization that love makes life worth living.  But they are by no means the only genre that focuses on love.  In fiction, especially, love often defines the stakes of a plot, whether it be a mystery, a science fiction adventure, or a horror novel.

Love gives a story its high stakes, no matter what that story is.  The only reason Benjamin Mears goes after Barlow in ‘Salem’s Lot is because of his love for Susan Norton.  Hamlet, considered by many to be the greatest drama ever written, pivots on any number of love stories.  Heck, even Richard Kadrey’s Coop Heists, which are officially among the weirdest (and most sublime) books I’ve ever read, feature Coop and his girl Giselle, and that bond is a foundational aspect of this series, and a critical part of Coop’s own development as a character.

And that doesn’t even touch on the other kinds of love stories that can be found in literature.  Whether its a love of cooking or creating to the love we have for our pets, to the love we have for our sports teams, love defines us, gives us purpose, and sets the stakes for whatever journey we’re on.

So let’s not pretend that love is a thing that only lives in romances, or that love stories aren’t critically important aspects of the stories that we read and tell.  In fact, since we’re on the subject, let’s look at a few books that definitely don’t feature “romance” stickers on them…

Security: One of the most haunting, unsettling, fascinating books I’ve read in a very long time, Gina Wohlsdorf’s debut is also a story about love–the things we are distances we go, the chances we take, and the pain we suffer for it.  Though it’s a violent, scary, and super-twisted book about a covert attack on a new building that is billed as the ‘world’s most secure hotel’, it’s the love stories that are revealed in the course of the book that make you care whether anyone survives.  Don’t read this book in the dark, but read it.  I promise you’ll be surprised, and even a little charmed–even if it’s in spite of yourself.

The Kenzie and Gennaro Series: I have read this series, set in the Dorchester of the 1990’s, multiple times.  Dennis Lehane is an absolute master at creating a scene, and sketching characters that are as familiar as your own neighbors.  His plots are clever and twisty and raise detective fiction to something close to classic literature.  But what I always take away from these books is the love between Patrick Kenzie and his partner, Angie Gennaro.  I won’t spoil anything for you by telling you how their story unfolds; read these books for their neo-noir atmosphere; read them for their bitterly prescient discussions of race, class, and power; read them for the thrill of recognizing your home in someone else’s books…but read these books for these two characters, too.  Their journey, together and separately, are what makes these books the classics they are.

All Our Wrong Todays: This book is on it’s way to us right now, and is a pitch-perfect blend of science fiction and love story.  Elan Mastai’s debut focuses on Tom Barron a young man who lives in an alternate, idyllic 2016, where there is no war, no fear, and technological developments aplenty.  But Tom makes a mistake.  A critical, stupid mistake that brings him into our screwed up, messy, angry world.  But when he’s provided with a chance to return to the world he knew, he begins to realize what I’ve been saying this whole time…that it’s not the things we have, but the people who make our futures worth exploring.  That we are defined by love–all kinds of love.  We are made human by love.  And that love can make any journey worthwhile.

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“Come Friends”, by Kamand Kojouri

If you come into the Library–and we certainly hope that you will–you will see this poem as part of our card catalog display.  A Library is a safe house for stories–not only those in the books or the films or the recordings.  They are for your stories, as well.  And we treasure your stories as much as every other we hold.  In that spirit, we invite you in to share your story, and to encounter the stories of other people–those whose experiences are similar to yours, and those whose life is nothing at all like yours.  

“Come Friends”, by Kamand Kojouri

Come, friends.
Come with your grief.
Come with your loss.
Carry all the pieces of your heart
and come sit with us.
Bring your disappointments
and your failures.
Bring your betrayals
and your masks.
We welcome you no matter
where you come from
and what you bring.
Come and join us
at the intersection of
acceptance and forgiveness
where you will find our
house of love.
Bring your empty cups
and we will have a feast.