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Escaping the Pandemic: Reading & Eating

November 22, 2020November 22, 2020 JWF Leave a comment

Covid-19 has limited activities for most everyone to some extent. Those of us who are more vulnerable are spending more time at home, not dining out, and not going to concerts or plays. What do we do? If you’re an avid reader like me, then you might tackle several of those tomes you’ve always been meaning to read—or delve into a thriller chiller. This week I did the latter. And if you like to eat, then you may be spending more time cooking for yourself and your spouse. The Chief Penguin and I have trotted out old favorites like Pierre Franey’s emince de veau a la crème (veal in cream sauce with ham), only this time replacing the veal with strips of chicken. And we’ve tried new recipes like a hearty lentil soup and the pizzas described below.

ESCAPING IN A BOOK

Atomic Love by Jennie Fields

This novel about a female scientist set in 1950 is a wonderful change of pace from the corona virus. Rosalind Porter was a lone woman among the many men who worked on the Manhattan Project. Beset by doubts after the dropping of the bomb, she is now working the jewelry counter in Marshall Field’s in Chicago. An FBI agent approaches her and asks her to get back involved with Thomas Weaver, her former lover and a scientist suspected of passing secrets to the Russians.

Agent Charlie is persistent, and Rosalind becomes immersed in a game of tell me, don’t tell me, surveillance, and even danger. Mixed in are loner Roz’s complicated relationship with Louisa, her much older sister, and her devotion to her niece Ava. Roz and Charlie have both been damaged by the war, physically and mentally, and come to recognize each other as kindred spirits. A page-turner of an historical novel!

Fields is also the author of a novel about Edith Wharton entitled The Age of Desire, which I enjoyed several years ago.

IN THE KITCHEN

But, not with Dinah. With the Chief Penguin, who also happens to be an experienced baker. Multi-grain and oatmeal breads, bran muffins, and now—pizza! He’s made pizzas from scratch before, but recently he purchased a bag of Italian 00 flour. It’s the preferred superfine flour for thin crust pizzas. Now he’s in his element. First experiments were traditional margherita pizzas (tomato, mozzarella, and fresh basil).

The other evening, first out of the oven was a pizza of chicken on barbecue sauce with red onion. Next was a pizza with the luscious combination of gorgonzola (thank you, Publix!), caramelized onions, and walnuts, topped with arugula leaves. Yum!

After that, who would need dessert? Not a serious question since it’s fall, and apple crisp is perfect. His apple crisp was made with Granny Smith apples and maple syrup instead of brown sugar. Double yum!

THANKFULNESS

Next week brings Thanksgiving Day. In this strange time of staying at a distance, I am especially thankful for continued good health, great friends, and a loving family! May your Thanksgiving holiday be a safe and healthy one however you may spend it.

Note: All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Diversions: Reading & Viewing

November 15, 2020November 15, 2020 JWF 1 Comment

ETA

This is the hurricane season that just doesn’t want to quit. It was a wild week with tropical storm Eta bearing down on Florida’s southwest coast. In our area, we experienced torrential rain (8 inches total) and wind gusts up to 50 miles an hour. At high tide, the surge brought brought water and debris through our mangrove hedges closer to our homes than anyone had ever seen. Some folks had roof leaks, but other than that, we were very fortunate. Thankfully, we were spared hurricane force winds.

GENDER DYNAMICS AND FAMILY LIFE

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

First a confession, I started this book last year. It didn’t captivate me, and I did a lot of skimming before setting it aside. This year it’s a book group selection so I picked it up with more serious intent. And this time, I became immersed. Oh, it did take a few chapters to become accustomed to what seems like Frankel’s scatter shot or kitchen sink approach to sentences. Put in as many words and related phrases as possible and string it out into a fairly long sentence.

I got past that, and I made the effort to learn the four older children and keep them straight. The bedtime fairy tale that writer/father Penn spins for them featuring Prince Grumwald and Princess Stephanie, plays an important role which I was impatient with previously.

This is a novel of family life. Anyone who’s been a parent, particularly a parent of more than one child, will relate to issues of schedules, schoolyard fights, and the general messiness of kids. More importantly, it’s about a child born Claude who wants to dress like a girl and be called Poppy. How these parents, ER doctor Rosie and author Penn, and his/her siblings keep Poppy’s big secret, and what the ramifications are, make for a poignant, heartwarming, and ultimately life-affirming novel. Recommended!

VIEWING: SWEDEN AFTER THE WAR

***The Restaurant*, or the translated Swedish title, Our Time is Now** (Amazon Prime, Season 1; Seasons 2-4, Sundance for $)

Lowander Family with some of the wait staff (netflix.com)

This Swedish series has been compared to Downton Abbey in its popularity in that country. We too can become immersed in a post-war world seen through the lens of a family-owned restaurant. It opens in 1945 Stockholm at the Djurgardskalleren, a very formal dining room serving traditional fare. The Lowander family: matriarch Helga, sons Gustaf (restaurant manager) and Peter (initially a budding lawyer), and pampered daughter Nina (creator of the DK Club) will soon be celebrating the restaurant’s 50th anniversary. Business is at a low ebb. Chef Backe is a fixture. He both admires and feels threatened by rising chef Calle’s talents.

But times are changing. The wait staff, especially Maggan, seek better working conditions through union membership. Women like Nina feel stifled by dated expectations of a woman’s role. As the 50’s lead into the 60’s, new music emerges, new cuisine is introduced to restaurant patrons, and society loosens up.

The four seasons unfold through the decades into the 1970’s. It’s an absorbing story of loves and longing, failed and successful marriages, and sibling rivalries over who has the most power. All against the backdrop of the social issues of the time. Highly recommended!

CULTURE THIS WEEK

PIANO RECITAL—Jeremy Denk

Thanks to our friend, Patricia, we’ve discovered the rich offerings from the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Their first concert was presented live to a small audience and available online for viewing for 72 hours. Pianist Jeremy Denk gave an exquisite performance of pieces by Robert and Clara Schumann, Bolts of Loving Thunder by contemporary composer Missy Mazzoli, and Brahms’ Four Piano Pieces. The Mazzoli piece was commissioned for Emmanuel Ax in 2013 and inspired by some of Brahms’ early work.

Thanks to my resident tech whiz, we were able to watch on our big screen! Unlike some organizations that set a fixed price for each streamed performance, the PCMS takes a pay-what-you-want approach. This recital was 50 minutes, a perfect length for at-home viewing.

SERENADE FOR STRINGS—Sarasota Orchestra

If you’re local, you’ll be pleased to know that the Sarasota Orchestra has put together its own series of concerts. They are presented live for a small audience in Holley Hall and then later streamed. Live tickets sell out quickly, but the streaming versions are only $10.

The orchestra’s first program, featuring thirteen musicians, consists of works by Tchaikovsky and the 18^thcentury composer, Joseph Bologne. We have yet to watch this concert, but our streaming ticket allows five days from the date the link is sent out.

Covid-19 has forced cultural organizations to adapt and be creative in new ways. I foresee a future where you’ll have multiple subscription options. Like magazines that you can receive in print or online or both, there may well be these kinds of paid combo packages for concerts, opera and dance.

Note: Header photo is out a window showing tropical storm Eta in action. ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Reading & Viewing: Marriage, Race, & Religion

November 8, 2020November 9, 2020 JWF Leave a comment

MOMENTOUS WEEK

Sunday, November 8, 2020

The 2020 presidential election is one for the history books. For many women, it was an especially momentous one. After the long wait all week, the afternoon was suddenly brighter. Watching Kamala Harris deliver her first speech as Vice President-elect last evening was simply marvelous. Then, after President-elect Joe Biden’s stirring call for unity, the sky was lit with their names midst a smashing array of red, white and blue fireworks. With all of that, putting Harris’ image at the top of this post seemed just right.

RECENT NOVELS—MARRIAGE & RACE

Monogamy by Sue Miller

In this novel, bookseller Graham co-owns a store in Cambridge, Mass. He’s a big man with big appetites. Appetites for reading and meeting literati, for food, and for women. He’s a gregarious guy, enveloping and dominating those around him. This is his second marriage as well as Annie’s. Annie, a professional photographer and his wife of thirty-odd years, is more reserved and inward looking than he. Between them, there are two adult children: Lucas, son of his first wife Frieda, and Sarah, his and Annie’s daughter. Comparing herself to Graham, Annie laments her own lack of feeling, sensing a sort of coldness at her core.

When Graham dies unexpectedly, Annie is initially devastated. She and the children separately struggle to fill the gaping hole he has left. Strangely, Annie and first wife Frieda have been friends for years. They attempt to console each other. When Annie learns more about Graham’s relationships with other women, her grief at first morphs into anger. Marriages in this novel are not all monogamous.

I loved this novel and read it slowly to savor the richness of Miller’s prose and her profound grasp of human emotions. Here’s a passage I particularly liked. Annie has been reflecting on her childhood friendship with Sofie and how they had drifted apart in high school and college.

But the residue of that friendship lingered for Annie, lingered especially in the newly sharp eye with which she regarded her own family—that gift that often comes in adolescence, when you’re suddenly old enough to be conscious of how another family works, of the possibility of other rules, other ways of living, from those you grew up with. That gift can open a window, a door, into the world. Let air in.

Let you out.

As this gift was at work in Annie, she slowly came to understand that what she had been feeling in her family for a long time was I don’t belong here. That had helped to free her, to end her puzzlement about her family and her place in it. It had opened up her life, though she hadn’t known for years what that would mean for her.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

A highly praised new novel, The Vanishing Half is about identity and race and takes place over several decades. Identical twins, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a small Southern town. In their late teens, Desiree convinces her sister to leave home with her. They run away to New Orleans. For a few years, they both work in a laundry, but Stella bolts and Desiree loses contact with her. Later, Desiree flees an abusive spouse with her little girl and retreats back to Mallard. The twins are light-skinned, and the reader sees that Stella has chosen to re-make her life as a white woman.

The book raises questions about how one identifies oneself, and about what is required to present one face to the world while inside living another. Not only does the book concern itself with racial identity, but for several characters the gender assigned at birth is not the one they feel most at home in—or they relish the fluidity of moving back and forth between genders.

I found the first section, set in 1968, a bit slow and it didn’t flow. Subsequent sections, which I’m now reading, are more engaging. A thoughtful novel and one relevant for these times. (~JWFarrington)

VIEWING—TENSIONS IN THE MINISTRY

Greenleaf (Netflix)

Grace backed by father, mother, brother and aunt (tvovermind.com)

We happened upon Greenleaf when browsing streaming options and have now watched eight episodes of Season 1. It’s about a Black mega church in Memphis and the Greenleaf family that runs it. Bishop James Greenleaf is exuberant, manipulative, and rich. His wife, son, brother-in-law, and other family members work for the church too. And the entire family lives together in a sumptuous mansion.

When daughter Grace, also a pastor, and her teenage daughter return, family tensions escalate. Grace has been gone for years, and her mother is not happy having her back. Mae sees Grace as a threat and supplanting favored son Jacob. Grace also puts some credence in the rumors of irregularities in Uncle Mac’s private life.

Add in adultery, lies, and questions about church finances, and you have the makings of a complex drama with many threads. Overall, the series is about religion and relationships peppered with lots of Bible-quoting. At times, I find it uncomfortable to watch, but I am intrigued by Grace’s character. She stands apart from the family as both observer and somewhat reluctant participant.

Greenleaf is an Oprah Winfrey production and Oprah plays Mavis McCready, Grace’s compassionate, non-judgmental aunt. In all, there are five seasons.

Note: Header photo of Kamala Harris courtesy of APnews.com

Potpourri: Viewing & Reading

October 25, 2020October 25, 2020 JWF 1 Comment

VIEWING OPTIONS

From New Zealand to Australia to Spain, I’ve been traveling the world in my recent TV viewing. It’s marvelous to have so many new series from which to choose.

The Sounds (Acorn)

The Sounds is an adventure tale. It’s set in the fiords off New Zealand’s South Island. Doubtful Sound or the better-known Milford Sound are favorite tourist destinations. On a day-long or overnight cruise, one can go deep into a fiord and experience the eeriness of almost complete silence.

If you read the comments on Facebook when considering this 8-part series, you might not watch it. Is it plausible? Is Maggie a convincing character? Nonetheless, the Chief Penguin and I watched it separately and found it consuming enough to keep us on the treadmill.

Tom and Maggie Cabbott are escaping life in Canada and starting a sustainable fishery in the small town of Pelorus. Tom is the black sheep in a wealthy family and goes ahead to set things up. When Maggie arrives, there is immediate disgruntlement from a native woman, and it seems Tom has not filled in all the requisite boxes. The next day he disappears in his kayak and a massive search effort begins.

What are Tom and Maggie really planning? What are police chief Jack’s festering secrets? What is Zoe, Jack’s daughter, up to, and why is Pania so riled up? Past crimes, suspicion, and big money are all intermixed in this complex stew of relationships. I recommend giving The Sounds a try.

Flesh and Blood (PBS Masterpiece)

Mary, Mark, Vivien and her children (radiotimes.com)

Flesh and Blood is full of tangled emotions, secrets, and surprises. When their widowed mother, Vivien, begins seeing Mark, a retired doctor, her three adult children are concerned, puzzled, and then upset. They think the relationship is moving too quickly, and they have questions about Mark’s past. But Vivien’s offspring have relationship issues of their own from infidelity to lack of trust to secret affairs. Add in nosy, but from her view, well-intentioned neighbor Mary, and it gets messy and threatens to explode. Gripping with an unexpected ending! Is it really the end or will there be a season 2?

Mystery Road (Amazon Prime)

This Mystery Road is a spin off from a movie of the same name, both starring Aaron Pederson. Set in the Australian outback, the scenery is stunningly beautiful, a plus for a story that moves slowly. Detective Jay Swan is dispatched to a small town to assist in the search for two missing young men. Marley is an indigenous kid and rising football star while Reese is white and came from elsewhere to work on the cattle station. Heading up the local police team is Emma James (played by Judy Davis), who co-owns the cattle station with her brother Tom. As a Black cop, Jay is considered suspect by both the white and Black communities. A man of extreme reserve, he and Emma work together to some extent, while he sometimes goes off pursuing leads on his own.

This first season is 8 episodes. In the beginning, it was so slow, I debated leaving it. I persisted and then got caught up in the relationships between the various factions in the community. These are at least as important as the crime to be solved. The concluding episodes are tense and exciting and worth the wait. There is a season 2 which I have not watched. Some reviewers bemoan the fact that Judy Davis is no longer in it. (~JWFarrington)

SIBLINGS IN LITERATURE AND LIFE

Book Club Notes—The Dutch House

My local book club had a lively discussion about The Dutch House, Ann Patchett’s latest novel. I had read it back in February and then skimmed it for this meeting. I enjoyed and appreciated it even more on the second round.

The characters are richly developed and the sibling relationship between Danny and his older sister Maeve, the strongest and most critical one for both of them. Maeve is the light around which this story, called a fairy tale by several reviewers, revolves. She is sister, mother, guide and even goad (think medical school) to Danny. They survive and thrive under the attention and care of the two women who ran their father’s household. He was often absent, their mother abandoned them, and their stepmother threw them out. It’s a carefully crafted novel with straightforward prose. Still highly recommended!

The Wright Siblings—Maiden Flight

Recently, I commented here on the new novel about Katharine Wright, younger sister of Wilbur and Orville, entitled The Wright Sister. Reading that work prompted me to read the earlier novel, Maiden Flight, by Harry Haskell. It’s about Katharine’s late life love affair and marriage to Henry Haskell. Author Haskell is the grandson of Henry Haskell and had access to letters and documents housed in several library collections.

His approach is to alternate the relation of events in the voices of Katharine, Orville, and Henry, with the occasional interlude by another friend. The voices are distinct and capture their personalities. And his telling bears out Orville’s estrangement from the sister who was often viewed as a spouse in her care and attention to him. Haskell also reinforces the complex triangle that was Katharine, Orville and Henry, and the delicacy with which Katharine approached each man. This makes the novel worth reading, but it suffers from an excess of detail on some matters. An example is the long drawn out struggle to have the Wright brothers’ plane displayed at the Smithsonian. Perhaps Mr. Haskell felt he had to include every bit of information in his source material.

Like Danny and Maeve in The Dutch House, Orville’s most important relationship was with his sister (and for many years, hers with him). When Katharine married, Orville couldn’t forgive her and never saw her again until her death.

Note: Header photo is Sarasota Bay looking toward the bridge to Lido Key by JWFarrington.

Category: Books

Escaping the Pandemic: Reading & Eating

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