Much to be Thankful For!

ABSOLUTELY!! Looking back at the highlights of our week, to be posted on the Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz. Did you know that Wednesday, the 20th was National Absurdity Day? Well, I happen to have one of those calendars that let you know all the important days! We had a fun drive to Waimea on Wednesday, ate at my favorite restaurant and shopped at my favorite (one of them) dress shops, while Bob took care of some Real Estate.

A Thanksgiving Lunch

Going into the week approaching Thanksgiving we do have much to be thankful for, and to celebrate!  Since my grandson and family are going to be away on the Mainland, for the holiday visiting the other grandparents, he took us out to lunch.  The kids were adorable and amusing!  Bob is taking the picture and mom got lopped off.

Here we are perusing the menu:) He's looking for the pizza!

From the Garden:

Mac nuts, guava and calamondins

Half a breadfruit, so you can see the inside.  And passionfruit, which we call lillikoi.  With the lillikoi I decided to attempt kombucha, just for the heck of it and so we could try it with our own fruit flavoring, in the second fermentation.  The guavas went into a guava chutney, along with some of the calamondin juice.

Here's the kombucha, doing its ferment.  The SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) is in there at the bottom.  Thanks Jenny, I'm finally using that dispenser jug you gave me.  I think it's a mite too cold at present for optimum fermenting, so I've ordered a special kombucha heat mat.  We'll see if that helps.

Then there's books!  I read:

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers.  Rather disappointing and dispiriting.  Oh well.

And, delightfully, The Cranefly Orchid Murders, by Cynthia Riggs, a fun mystery solved by a nonagenarian and rather intrepid, honorary "police deputy".  She investigates more in this series set on Martha's Vineyard.  Something to look forward to!

Presently reading Land of Milk and Honey.  Previously remarked upon, and fitting in well with Sci-Fi month.

And, finally, thanks Bob for the flowers, and everything else!

Onward and Upward All!

 A delightful week, altogether!  

Here we are, at Sunday Salon again, and in the universe!  Yes!  I too choose love!!  We are celebrating!  With Champagne even, or at least Prosecco.  This is some art my husband Bob posted recently (Sean is his younger brother) and I was reminded of it by Deb at Readerbuzz, the stalwart hostess of Sunday Salon, as last week she posted this cover of Bob's Saucer Repair, which is now on my reading list for Sci-Fi month.

Sunday Salon - Another Week in Review

 

A Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz,  Recap of my week, wherein I try to remember what all went on.  Some Gardening, collecting produce, reading, and cooking.  Oh and a bit of working at our office.  It does help to pay the bills.

Sometimes Eating Helps - For Crying in H Mart

She certainly did quite a bit of both.  Crying and eating in this memoir, which is our Cook the Books Club pick for October/November.  Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner, and hosted by Simona of Briciole, with lots of interesting, some deliciously so, Korean food.  I struggled at times getting through the story of her upbringing.  Some parents can be so overbearing even in their love, wanting to direct every aspect of their children's lives.  Of course, in my case, there were 7 of us, and a different nationality, so not too comparable to an only child in a Korean American home.

From the Publishers:  "#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her..."

Another Wild Week? Maybe Not.

 A Week in Review

 Hello everyone at Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb Nance at Readerbuzz, Heather at the October Foodies Read, and Marge, hostess at Weekend Cooking, along with anyone else out there.

First off, it's time for bacon!  Yes, we've got a pork belly curing.  Today is Day 1 of a 10 day cure.   Sorry all you vegans and vegetarians!  But, I do love my bacon.  No pictures though.  Who wants to see a slab of pork belly?  Instead, maybe a recipe or two later. 

Favorite Beverage of the Year! 

The Week of New Stuff

Well, hello all you folks out there in the Sunday Salon, Foodies Read, and elsewhere in the cosmos!  It's been an interesting week!  Wanting to get over various skin issues, I got into a bit of fasting, beginning with  a few intermittent ones and then a 3 day water fast.  This book, Eat, Fast, Feast, was an excellent guide, and very helpful.  Skin things are a bit better and a few more fasts may even finish the job!

The Zookeeper's Wife and That's Not All!

 What an amazing book!  And, yes a true story, based on diaries and historical sources, The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman.  It's an unusual combination of horrendous war crimes, and humor with all the fascinating human and animal characters.  I was absolutely mesmerized, saddened and amused alternately.  

From the Publishers:

"A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “Guests”―Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis’ young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it’s small wonder the zoo’s codename became “The House Under a Crazy Star.”

Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet."

The Secret Life of Bees and Some Cake Too!

 

We at Cook the Books Club are currently reading The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, hosted this round by Debra of Eliot's Eats.  This is a novel I had totally missed out on, though it's been around for over 20 years now. Quite an original and fascinating tale. I especially loved the account of 14 year old Lily springing her nanny from the hospital lockdown, after she was beaten up for daring to attempt voting!  

Getting Into Jang! By Kang - A Whole New Cuisine

 

I just discovered, Jang, The Soul of Korean Cooking, by Mingoo Kang.  Well, it's a new trip for me anyway.  The Jang journey!  And a truly fascinating one.  How they're made, and how to apply to my usual (or should I say unusual) cooking.  I said discovered, but to give proper credit it was due to the Eater post: The 17 Best Cookbooks of Spring 2024, which I've totally enjoyed, checking out many of them from the library and sampling recipes!  In between finding out which type of galangal I'm growing and how to use our Blue Turmeric.  For the ever blooming road of growing and researching plants and their uses is never ending. Anyway, this book is now due at the library, and I need to decide whether to buy it Yikes!  There are so many more recipes I want to try.

The Publishers say:

"Like butter in French cooking or olive oil in Italian, jangs are the soul of Korean cuisine. These soy-based umami sauces—gochujang, doenjang, ganjang—are found in every meal, from soups and stews, to salads, marinades, and even desserts, adding depth and complexity to every dish.

Few chefs understand these ingredients better than Michelin star winner Mingoo Kang, who has dedicated his Seoul restaurant, Mingles, to the exploration of jangs. In his first cookbook, Kang expertly weaves jangs’ history and methods into 60 accessible recipes to bring the sauces to life. Through artisan profiles, sidebars, and step-by-step photographs, Kang uncovers one of the culinary world’s best-hidden secrets... while showing how they can be used to make both Korean and Western dishes more delicious."