“Dinner in French: My Recipes By Way of France” by Melissa Clark

A cookbook is definitely not my typical reading fare. But when Sam gave me this cookbook for Mother's Day last May--partly because I was too intimidated to dive right in and actually start cooking any of the recipes in this book, but partly because the pictures are so beautiful and I wanted to get an idea of what I'm in for--I got into the habit of reading a recipe or two most evenings just before bed. And now, can you believe it? I've actually read the whole thing!

Sam bought this cookbook for me because I love Clark’s Dinner: Changing the Game so much. (199 recipes down, 26 to go!) I have never before owned a cookbook from which I believe I will cook every single recipe. To me, most cookbooks are like most short story collections: Two or three standouts, the majority are ho-hum, and there are always several clunkers. (This is not a perfect analogy because I do read all the stories in the collection.) But Dinner is amazing, because of the sheer number of recipes that turn out amazingly delicious and make me feel like a chef. Anyway, as I began to approach my goal of cooking all 225 recipes in Dinner, I started to worry about what I would work on next. Sure, I could start repeating the best ones in the book (of which there are legion!), but I really enjoy trying recipes that are new to me. Hence Dinner in French!

But, yeah, I'm a bit scared of this book. Luckily I can ease my way into it while I whittle away at the original Dinner, but after that . . . wow, a lot of these France-inspired recipes seem long, drawn-out and complicated. Not to mention the fact that where the heck am I supposed to get things like fresh currants? Not where I live, that's for sure. At this point I am not planning to challenge myself to make every single recipe in Dinner in French. But I have already made two of them! (Well, yes, they were the two simplest ones, why do you ask?) One was lavender lemonade, the other was marzipan bonbons (half rose-flavored, half lemon), and everything was pronounced delicious by everyone right down to the ten-year-old. Miam! 

“Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton

Sam read this book recently and loved it. And a few years back I read Catton's The Luminaries and really enjoyed that (although I never did get into the TV series, for some reason). So, with motivation both internal and external, I figured I needed to read this book too. 

Well, I didn’t love it like Sam did, but I'm not really sure why. It is a pretty compelling story, and basically what I think could be considered a literary thriller. It's about a group of young socialist gardeners in New Zealand (they call their group Birnam Wood) and what happens when they align themselves with someone who is basically an Elon Musk-esque American billionaire. 

My favorite thing about this book was the fact that the characters had some really interesting and intelligent conversations. Specifically, my favorite quote was this: Democracy isn't about everyone voting the exact same way, it's about whether you agree to go along with the outcome of the vote even if it turns out you're in the minority. 

Hmmmm, I wonder who that was directed towards??