. . . the fact that you lose a family member in a shooting and the other shooters in the country pile on and threaten you with death, the fact tha
. . . the fact that you lose a family member in a shooting and the other shooters in the country pile on and threaten you with death, the fact that everybody hates on you, just for mentioning your loved one got shot, and for not immediately shooting the shooter back, the fact that it’s almost like we’re in a war or something, the fact that everybody just seems to bear a big grudge about something or other that they’re read to kill and die for, the fact that what ever happened to gentleness, kindliness, the fact that does life have to be like this, so black and white, lemon meringue pie, landfill, radioactive waste, Aurora shooting, aurora borealis, Littleton, Orlando, Pulse nightclub, Fort Hood, Texas, Carthage, Virginia Tech . . .
Lucy Ellmann is not the first person to write a stream-of-consciousness novel, but she has definitely achieved something original, striking and relentless in this 1000 page run-on sentence bullseye of contemporary American culture. The narrator is a 40 ish year old mother of four who lives in Ohio and bakes pies and cakes for a living. She is a bundle of anxieties, some of them probably universal and some of them quite specific. The author plays with the idea of ‘apple pie’ American domestic life, of motherhood in particular, and then muddies the stream (of consciousness) with a barrage of commodities, brand names, film plots, novelistic references and historical events mixed in with the narrator’s own personal history and a slender thread of a plot-line. After more than 900 pages, something dramatic does actually happen - so don’t just read 650 pages or so and feel like you have absorbed all the novel has to offer you.
Alongside the narrator’s mental flow is a parallel narrative involving a lioness (a mountain cougar, an endangered animal) and her cubs. The idea of ‘Mommy’ - the importance of maternal love - is absolutely central to the story. In contrast to the idea of the mother - to mother’s milk - is a barrage of information about the environment and the gun culture of the US. It’s the gun culture, specifically, which makes this an unmistakably American novel.
Once you accustom yourself to the unique style, it’s not ‘hard’ to make sense of the narrative; it is, however, despite its humour and flashes of brilliance, rather exhausting to read. I had to read it in small bits, sometimes in only 5 page bits. It was both entirely appropriate, and rather too close to the bone for the Trump-and-coronavirus dominated shitstorm that was 2020. I started it in February and finished it on the 5th of December. Definitely an unforgettable reading experience. ...more
The idea of recreating food that one has drooled over in books is not completely ‘novel’, but Kate Young takes this very appealing concept and makes iThe idea of recreating food that one has drooled over in books is not completely ‘novel’, but Kate Young takes this very appealing concept and makes it her own in The Little Library Cookbook. Although each recipe is inspired by a reference in a beloved book - and Young’s personal library takes in everything from children’s classics (Paddington’s marmalade, Mary Lennox’s porridge) to contemporary and international novels (Adichie’s Jollof Rice and Banana Yoshimoto’s ramen) - this is a work of memoir, too. Young liberally mixes in food memories from her childhood in Australia and her coming-of-age years in London and other cities. There is a direct line between reading for comfort and cooking and eating for comfort, and all three are totally bound up in the author’s identity and sense of her own ‘story’. Nostalgia, and the idea of home and home-making, reappear throughout the text, but are most beautifully described in the recipe for ‘Bread, Butter & Honey’ inspired by one of Young’s (and my) comfort reads: I Capture the Castle. In her words: Bread and butter, in my most homesick moments, ground me and remind me that I have made my own home.
Although I’ve read the book from cover to cover I must admit that I’ve never cooked anything from it - and so lack that ‘proof’ that can only be found in the pudding. I’m a pretty experienced cook and baker myself, and some of Young’s methods and flavour combinations are unusual (ie, suspicious) to me. I should probably revise or at least add to this review after I have tried out at least a half dozen of them. The truth is, though, that this is very much the kind of cookbook (I would even describe it as a food memoir) that can (and probably will) be just as often enjoyed as a good read....more
Pastry is pure pleasure to give and to receive. It is almost always a celebration, even if it’s just a small one. * Puddings aren’t sustenance. PuddinPastry is pure pleasure to give and to receive. It is almost always a celebration, even if it’s just a small one. * Puddings aren’t sustenance. Puddings are joy. * Puddings are emotional. They are bound up in memory and nostalgia.
The subtitle of A Half-Baked Idea immediately gives the reader a sense of its contents: How grief, love and cake took me from the courtroom to Le Cordon Bleu. Author Olivia Potts plunges straight into the heart of the matter: at age 25, and in the final year of her pupillage to become a barrister, she must cope with the sudden and horrendous loss of her mother. I’m not sure that baking actually helps her to cope with her overwhelming grief - although the ‘plot’ seems to suggest it - but it is clear that the criminal court system does not provide the sort of emotional succour that she is needing.
This book is very much about Olivia’s grief process - and she is very specific in the details of how her mother’s death affects her. There is the early stage of trying to cope by being super-competent - for instance, she volunteers to take over the ‘boring admin’ that accompanies death. Then there is her long stage of what she describes, darkly but entertainingly, as ‘Grief Top Trumps’. And finally, there is the actual therapeutic stage of really acknowledging and coping with her grief - and no doubt writing this book was as therapeutic as exploring her feelings with a therapist.
The first half of this book is very much about her mother, her own mourning process, and frankly, perhaps rather too many details about the Old Bailey, wigs, commuting and the British court system. The second half of the book deals mostly with the intensive pastry course ‘Diplome de Patisserie’ at the Cordon Bleu cooking school. The device which links them is recipes, which are sprinkled throughout. I don’t know if Nora Ephron was the first to do this, in her classic Heartburn, but Ephron’s ‘roman a clef’ definitely comes to mind.
Olivia Potts is at pains to tell her readers that she does not come from a particularly ‘foodie’ background, nor does she have a mother who cared overmuch for cooking. The early recipes (a banana cake with Rolos in it) and her mother’s recipe for Shepherd’s Pie (which includes baked beans, to my horror) definitely come under the category of ‘home cooking’ - and that with a Northern slant. (I did like the way that Potts talks about her Northern background without the need to make a joke of it or be defensive of it in any way.) As the book evolves, and as Potts becomes moulded by the rigours of the Cordon Bleu way of baking, the recipes change and become far more sophisticated and adventurous. And rigid. And ridiculously complex.
Let me now insert myself into this book, as readers tend to do. I, unlike Potts, have always loved baking - and grew up in a house with a mother who loved baking. In the back of my mind, I’ve always had a fascination with the idea of doing just this sort of baking course. In fact, that is probably why I couldn’t wait to get my hot little hands on this book. The reality check was huge, though. The key is probably in this sentence: ”Patisserie is about precision. It’s all about control.” Although Potts plays up her clumsiness and lack of natural baking ability, it’s very clear that she is an ambitious woman with a hell of a lot of drive. I’m not sure that pastry was as much about ‘joy’ for her as it was about control. Frankly, the patisserie course sounded horribly joyless to me - unless, perhaps, for the incredible sense of accomplishment in learning all of these fiddly (and sometimes ridiculous) skills. Give me an apple pie or gingerbread cake any day; the decadent desserts that she learns to create aren’t really something I would want to eat. Not that eating is the point. Anyway, I was surprised at my own response, but I found the detailed descriptions of her culinary adventure probably the least interesting bit of this book. Let me qualify that: they were interesting, but also oddly offputting.
3.75 stars
**
Thanks very much to Olivia at Penguin/Randomhouse for a copy of this book. It was packaged so enticingly with recipe cards and some of the ingredients (Rollos, Biscoff spread and Henderson’s Relish) used in the author’s recipes....more
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