Reading, Writing, and Sourdough

Sheets  tells a traditional story. A recently motherless girl just entering high school must survive the torments of adolescence, a grieving and largely absentee father, and caring for a younger brother. As if this were not enough to depress the spirit of young Marjorie Glatt she must also single handedly run her mother's former laundry business. Think Cinderella. There is, of course, an evil, no-goodnik, bad guy deviously trying to run her out of business so he can acquire the property to raise in its place a multi-story, money-grabbing, yoga spa. Only now appreciate the strength of a graphic novel whose drawings symbiotically elevate the story. Add in a ghost not quite ready to leave the earth of the living who might just come to the rescue of a laundry about to run its last load. If only Marjorie can get over her fear of ghosts.

Milo Weaver was a CIA employee, commissioned as a "Tourist" responding to orders to track and kill enemy agents. Weaver manages to kill bad guys efficiently, without explanation or rationale from his superiors. The so-called Bureau of Tourism within the CIA, as well as its mission, is so secretive that its "Travel Agents" apparently work without oversight and Tourists act without portfolios. As much as Milo had hoped to retire from Tourism, and is now married and father of an 8-year-old daughter, no Tourist ever leaves his past behind. In short order, Milo finds himself ensnared in deadly conflicts with spies and Tourists from France, Russia, the United Nations, and though he cannot be certain, his bosses within the CIA. Olen Steinhauer is hoping his readers are completely entranced by a quick moving plot with hairpin turns and will forgive the fact that his writing is all rather meme-ish, especially with regard to his portrayal of female characters. Though n

This fall I am teaching a class called, You Are What You Eat , for incoming Freshmen.  For our first meeting I baked a large sourdough bread for them to taste. Their first assignment was to write a bread review. Did they like the crust? Was the flavor appealing? How did the interior appear to them? Ten of the fifteen students didn't really like the bread. The crumb had too many holes. The flour on the crust really annoyed them. So did the crust, which required too much work to chew and was not the color they were accustomed to. Mostly, they complained about the sour flavor, which several reported did not taste like "normal" bread. A few like it adding the compliment that it tasted like what you could get in a restaurant and one thought it would make a decent Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. I think I'm learning something about what incoming Freshmen consider "normal" food.

Admittedly, any book with an image of black and white cookies on its cover is going to grab my interest. This book about Jewish foods traditional to Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe, early 20th century immigrants to New York City, North African Sephardim, and foods the editor suggests should be traditional are included. Each item receives about a page of description and 60 of the 100 are accompanied by recipes. As both the subtitle and introduction make clear, the  100 Most Jewish Foods is highly debatable. Chicken soup, matzoh balls, tsimmes, bagels are all obvious, but every reader can only imagine how many impassioned discussions took place before Entenmann's made the book, but Fruit Cocktail did not. Pickles, lox, brisket, tuna fish, and margarine made the cut, but not Cool Whip or Cel-Ray. And Oy, the arguments that must have ensued over recipes? How many different recipes for chicken soup do you think could be gathered from a roomful of Jewish mothers? Which one to includ