Family Book Review: The Seekers

The Seekers by Hari and Deepti (Hari Panicker and Deepti Nair) is one of the beautiful books our family has been enjoying recently. This story of Mio and Nao and their adventure is told through words, yes, but more important are the gorgeous papercut illustrations.

The people have long told the story of the silver fox and the fire wolf. Nao believes the legend, and he is right, and the people restore balance in the end. This book is about the illustrations: the turquoise of the silver fox, the focus on purples on one page and golden on another, the layering and the precision of the tree roots, the fish in the water, the gloom, the luminescent beauty. The stylized paper cut illustrations match the story and tell it well. 

This is a story of storytelling and the destructive consequences of exploitation, clearly but not (for me at least) overwhelmingly. Part of what makes this work is that the elusive idea of balance underlies the moral. It’s no more moralistic than any other fable or in fact your average children’s story. 

This is obviously for those who want to enjoy the art. It is a story suited for reading aloud to young children and complex enough in its themes for older children, probably with guidance. It’s also a great (meta) illustration of the power of storytelling in a culture and leads easily to questions about the power of stories in raising children and in passing along knowledge and values. 

Unfinished Book Review: Ducks Newburyport

I am the perfect reader of Ducks, Newburyport. During early childhood I lived in Newburyport and fed the ducks. Back then, feeding the ducks wasn’t thought of as an environmental mistake. It was an activity kids did, gleefully breaking up white bread full of refined ingredients, mashing the soft crustless middles of squishy slices, eating some ourselves, crumbling the stale ends, saved for the purpose. The ducks of Newburyport, and elsewhere, were happy, the kids of the era were happy, all innocent of the consequences of such unhealthy sustenance for the ducks.

Newburyport is my father’s hometown, though since I didn’t finish the book, maybe she’s talking about a different Newburyport or for that matter different ducks, but anyway, maybe the place in the title is possibly my first hometown, which sounds redundant, but what with one thing and another, there is no town that for me constitutes a hometown, at least not in the way that people seem to mean it, not that I’m complaining or bragging (unlike noting that I get the literary allusion in the title, which is a kind of bragging), and not that it has to do in any obvious way with Ducks, Newburyport, but in our geographically unmoored world, which I realize sounds negative, but it isn’t fully so and anyway how could I, a person not only without a hometown but also without any dramatic story about immigration or even moving to exciting places—I’ve lived nowhere that would be considered by anyone interesting, unless you count staying somewhere for weeks or months living there, which I don’t, though this may say more about me than I realize, this requirement that I seem to have that living somewhere must mean actually living there, not studying there or teaching for a while from a hotel room where I rinsed my clothes in the sink there, or a piece with this sense that to have a hometown must mean really being from somewhere in a way that is largely outdated—though I’m married to an immigrant from a different country, a different continent even, from somewhere else always, in a much more significant way, but there it is, and here we are, neither of us from anywhere, a contemporary couple from nowhere, but amazingly and appropriately,we live in Ohio (duller and more everyday than Newburyport today, but Newburyport wasn’t like that when I lived there), and living in Ohio is the second fact that makes me the ideal audience for Ducks Newburyport, whose narrator is at least in Ohio, probably her hometown is even in Ohio, if she has one.

The third fact that makes me the perfect reader for Ducks, Newburyport is my recently demonstrated appreciation for long sentences. This massive book is essentially one interminable steam of consciousness sentence.

The fourth fact that makes me the perfect audience for Ducks, Newburyport is that I, like the aforementioned Ohio narrator, am a mother overwhelmed by the chaos of motherhood.

The fifth fact is that, I, again like the aforementioned Ohio narrator, am a person filled with thoughts and observations about the world around me. And that is why I am unlikely to be finishing this book any time soon. I spent, according to my app, 33 minutes reading, and it felt like weeks. I have my own stream of consciousness to manage, and, for the moment, that is enough.

Book Review: The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

Ann Marie Fleming was curious. She wanted to know more about her great-grandfather Long Tack Sam. Her grand mother and great aunt had, as children, visited him and their grandmother Poldi in their NYC apartment for Christmas one year. Or every Christmas. Memory being what it is, this point, and many others in the story, are not settled. The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam is “an illustrated memoir” after all, and it is about memory and story as much as it is about the most famous magician you’ve never heard of—for all of the reasons.

Magic is out of fashion. As a Chinese performer in the West, Long Tack Sam was constantly marginalized. When Hollywood wanted to cast Chinese actors as laundry workers and bad guys, Long Tack Sam, who seems to have eschewed politics as a showman, refused on the grounds that it was racist and would harm his people. His daughters, who with their white Austrian mother were biracial, were deemed “too beautiful” to play Chinese parts. The family rejected Hollywood, which had become the way forward for performers. They were subsequently to a large extent written out of history, a point Fleming does not belabor but one that her work seeks to remedy. Long Tack Sam mentored Orson Wells. Long Tack Sam brought Chinese magic to the West. Long Tack Sam performed alongside the greats of the day.

This history did not live on in Fleming’s family, a family scattered around the world, descendants living in many the places where their ancestor once performed. Still, it was easy enough for Fleming to determine that Long Tack Sam and Poldi had been hit by a car and moved back to Austria, where Poldi was from and where they had a villa, to recuperate. That is where they died. She finds that he was born in 1885 into a time of famine in Northern China, and from there, the details of how he learned magic diverge, a point illustrated delightfully in the graphic novel by a series of classic comic tales of Long Tack Sam. Fleming, a film maker, has fun with the graphic form creating a collage montage of photographs and clippings and illustrations in different styles. If it all sounds confusing, don’t worry, she includes a character of herself, Stick Girl, to guide you through. A time-line of events runs through the book, adding context from what is happening in WWII to what is happening in entertainment.

In pursuing her grandfather’s story, she ends up in the world of magic, from Chinese acrobatics to Vaudeville, from China to Australia to Austria to Canada. Fleming traveled everywhere, talking to magicians, searching personal archives of magic, talking to her relatives. She created a film and then a graphic novel, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam to share the story—the stories, some contradictory—of Long Tack Sam.

I imagine that this would be a great read for people with a prior interest in magic. It’s definitely well worth reading for those interested history and graphic memoir, in the way peoples’ lives are threaded through world events, in the challenges of being an international family, in who is remembered.

Genoise cake and the pursuit of perfection

I started making Genoise cakes when I was in high school. I had one recipe in one book. I didn’t have a baker’s scale or an instant read thermometer. Such tools are now commonly found in the kitchens of amateur bakers. At the time, we didn’t know what we were missing.

Instead of precision, I had practice. My intuition developed with each attempt at scooping and filling a measuring cup, with each double boiler of eggs and sugar. I stirred with my hand so that I didn’t overcook the mixture. My fingers learned when to turn off the burner. I can still feel the dissolving sugar and slightly thickening eggs, the heat of the bottom of the pan, even though now I use a thermometer and therefor use a whisk.

When you’re making a Genoise, one of the most efficient and spectacular ways to make a disaster is to let this mixture get too hot. I did this once, and only on the edge of the pan, and from then on, my fingers knew something, knew what just too far past 149 degrees felt like. I wasn’t making sweet scrambled eggs. I was making the dry, ethereal masterpiece that is a 2 plus inch Genoise.

Many aspects of the Genoise Cake experience remain the same: the fear of some element of the alchemy going awry is not eliminated by the new tools. My very worst Genoise came into its disappointing existence not long ago. I was possessed of a desire to try a different method of combining the whipped eggs and sugar, the flour (and cornstarch—I’m a proponent, 8 grams, maybe?), and the butter (How much can you get away with? How much do you even want to get away with?). The cookbook author was so enthusiastic about Genoise, and he directed that the butter be added directly to the whipped eggs and sugar, all at once, before the flour. I’m sure this method has worked for some people before, but it will never work for me because there is no way that I will volunteer to risk having to watch the massive deflation that took place as the butter went in.

Knowing that such a disaster is always possible is half of what makes this cake so appealing. Usually, though—fortunately—the disaster is simply a sinking middle during cooling that results in a still tasty cake than can be easily split in two layers.

The unique quality of a successful Genoise is the other half. What a cake! It is not moist but, equally, it is not dry. It absorbs soaking solutions and syrups while maintaining its integrity. It’s not too rich or too sweet to be eaten daily, plain with coffee or tea. It is delicious with jam, if you must. The fact that its detractors characterize it as dry, bland, and boring simply adds to the appeal.

I just took a lemon Genoise out of the oven, and it sank a bit in the middle, and it will be delicious anyway. I’m disappointed but resolved to enjoy it fully and try again another day. I’m honest enough to admit that if I could get it to work every time, I would make far fewer Genoise cakes.

Playing with Ink

I’ve finally been playing around with dipped ink. It’s a lot of fun to explore, but it’s frustrating. I definitely need to get some more appropriate paper if I’m going to do enough to get better.

Strawberry Season

When local strawberries are ripe, it’s a brief opportunity to indulge in everything strawberry. I’ve had strawberries plain countless times. I’ve made strawberry shortcake (old fashioned, with biscuits, but not my usual buttermilk biscuit recipe), and strawberries and cream with genoise (this is such a difficult yet simple cake that I’m kind of obsessed with it).

I’m making one batch of no-cook strawberry syrup now, and I’m planning a few more strawberry endeavors.

Here is Strawberry Syrup 1:

I used local soft, ripe strawberries, an abundance of which is the reason I made this syrup.

1 cup strawberries, hulled and halved or quartered

1/2 cup sugar

Put strawberries and sugar in jar. Put the lid on and shake well. Refrigerate until you get a nice syrup. You can shake periodically while you wait for the syrup to develop. If you leave it for about a day, you can then just give it a shake for a minute or so and be done.

If you’re in a hurry, don’t refrigerate and shake often. If you have really ripe, soft, juicy strawberries, you’ll get something in 30-60 minutes.

Strain, probably twice to remove all solids

The key to this recipe, for me, is that it is based on fresh berries, berries potentially even just beyond ripe ones. It will work more quickly that way, and takes advantage of the way strawberries suddenly come in at once and then disappear. You can preserve that freshness for a while.

You could try this using commercial strawberries. You won’t get as much syrup and it’s kind of missing the point, but I’ll share some ideas anyway: You could add a pinch of salt and a bit of lemon or even cook your berries and sugar a bit if you have really firm berries. Cooking the berries will change the flavor the most. The syrup will quickly become jammy. I would not bother.

What I would do if I were really interested in this whole idea and had no access to the ideal fresh berries for the job is use frozen berries. If they’re good enough frozen berries, your syrup will taste like a strawberry field on a warm day.

That is definitely cheating, but I support you.

.

A Prompt and a Catalogue

Sometimes you need a prompt, right? As I know from teaching, a good prompt sets the stage and evokes something’s making it easier to find a creative path. I recently received a collage card from a friend. Her creativity was a delightful prompt for my own. I would not have thought to make a collage at all, and I opted to reply in kind: she made a stylized flower garden and I replied in kind.

I went my own way, too. I developed the prompt for myself by limiting my materials to orange construction paper and a catalogue called Cuddledown: Devoted to your luxurious comfort and style. I am not kidding.

This catalogue is filled with pastel sheets with high thread counts, cozy robes, richly patterned bedspreads. The blue rosettes with cream, the modernized paisley in magenta, chartreuse and ecru (it’s not as outrageous as it sounds!), the watercoloresque impressionistic meadows made the project almost too easy. Sometimes that is the point.

It made for a fun card collage, and now suddenly my white on white sheets and comforter (in my gray bedroom no less!) seems unspeakably boring.

Re-reading A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book

One of the great decisions readers must make, often by default, is whether to re-read books. Perhaps thanks to Ann Fadiman, the carnal vs courtly lover of books controversy is widely recognized. You may already guess my approach to that controversy by my interest in the question of re-reading: Is re-reading a waste of time? 

I’m not referring to re-reading a book for study, which is necessary and obviously a done thing. No. I’m thinking here about rereading as a luxury. 

Our inevitable mortality, as Wordsworth doesn’t quite put it (which I remember because a couple of lines from his Ode: Intimations of Immortality popped into my head three days ago, so I re-read the poem) makes unjustified re-reading a luxury. Or that’s how I’ve come to think about it. Maybe it’s some kind of guilt at being unproductive. Even being high-minded and abstract enough to see reading as worthwhile and reading for a job as meaningful is not, apparently, enough to justify reading a book for pleasure alone when there are endless new books to be read for pleasure. 

And why did Wordsworth’d aforementioned ode come to mind? I could answer that several ways, and I’m not sure which is the most complete, but here’s one thing I am sure of: I thought of that quintessential Romantic poem not because I read it once, but because I’ve read it many times, here and there, for one reason or another. For this class or that, or for fun, or when I want to re-remember Romanticism, or when it’s referenced elsewhere and I take another look. That’s one of the answers here: I’m re-reading AS Byatt’s The Children’s book for several obscure reasons and one straightforward one: that book captures beautifully the feeling of decadence and then disaster that seems inevitable in retrospect because it’s a narrative we relate to but don’t, somehow, quite expect to crash around us. Or we do expect it, with a sense of its inevitability. Either way, there is nothing we can do, nothing that could have been done. Boom. The economic corruption and inequity and instability preceding WWI, the sense of changing times, the mines in the North as a specter, the World’s Fair in Paris, art nouveau, suffrage, the end of the Victorian Era—this is what, among other things, the Children’s Book is made of. And one of those other things is poetry and Romanticism, which while not openly critiqued in this nothing if not pretending to be even-handed compendium, is certainly not as appreciated as nature itself. 

In short, I’m re-reading this particular book because it’s cataloguing and contrast and time period and sense of narrative and detachment appealed at the moment. My usual re-reads are shorter and give me either a plot with some action or characters I want to hang out with.  This one does not.

What it managed to do is stick in my head as an unusual read, in let because it is in its way unusual and in let because I tend to feel frustrated and alienated by epic novels detached from character and plot and stuffed beyond the gills with an excess of description and fact and lecture. So for me, to finish such a book (yes—I’ll quit a book. More on that another time) makes it memorable. For example, I have checked out Pachinko from the virtual library three times and read a bit each time, and I’d say it’s 50/50 whether I’ll check it out again or whether I’ll ever finish. 

What re-reading this sort of book has done, as re-reading always does in some way, is serve as a mirror for my interests and mood at the moment. One aspect of this re-reading is that I’m enjoying the overwhelming amount of descriptive detail more than usual. It feels like reading Walt Whitman. Which I should maybe re-read. 

Blueberry Syrup

Blueberry Syrup

This blueberry syrup is extremely easy to make and perfect for drinks, thin and ready to disperse. It is not a pancake syrup.

1 part sugar

1 part water

2 parts blueberries

Cook, stirring, over medium high heat just until sugar has dissolved. If using fresh berries, they will still be whole. Crush the berries and stir thoroughly. Strain syrup.

Ideally, strain first through a standard mesh sieve and then a second time through a very fine mesh OR strain through a fine cloth.