Browsing Archives for Books & Letters

Has anyone been watching The Pillars of the Earth mini-series on Starz or Netflix or some other network?  I’ve been keeping up with the latest installments via my best friend Netflix and with each episode I grow more and more dissatisfied.

I loved the book and the subsequent World Without End and wrote a post about both books.  I was really looking forward to watching the movie adaptation.  I remember the book was filled with plenty of debauchery and debasement with an extraordinarily evil villian (William),  but I also remember absolutely loving Jack and feeling like he was the very heart of the story.  In the film version – William is a quavering boy who operates at his mother’s beck and call and Jack is a distant, mute figure whose artistic endeavors seem leaden and uninspired.  I think the film was made off of an outline of the book rather than a true understanding of the characters.

And quite honestly – after Tom Builder was killed (played so gorgeously by Rufus Sewell) I have had a hard time staying interested.

And how exactly can one mention Rufus Sewell without referring to the greatest movie ever made?

Cold Comfort Farm.

Now, whoever made that film, based on the superb book by Stella Gibbons – got it absolutely right.

Pillars of the Earth however, is much better as a book – at least in my opinion.  What do you think?

Over the past few weeks, I have been involved in something of a reading frenzy.  Especially last week where I managed to swallow three books whole and that was in the midst of a heat wave at the Garden Center that melted my brain to the sides of my ribs.  All I can tell you is that books have always been my balm, my healer, my personal shaman medicine man and after our insane trip to Yellowstone, I needed a hefty dose of book therapy.   I read like some people empty bottles of booze into their bellies.  I read like a crack addict, like a person stranded in the desert for seven days and the book is my last cold bucket of water.  I also watch movies when I am freaking out.  Movies and books… and I purchase unnecessary items at Target – like throw pillows and hand towels and hair clips and experimental snack food with clever packaging that never turns out to be very good and new kinds of soap that are always disappointing, but look cute sitting on the sink.

This is how I deal…

This is one of my recent recovery books…

I love to read stories about home renovations/building/projects. I am pretty sure that if they offered a PhD in the subject about either ‘country life books’ or ‘books about people building or renovating a house’ I could earn it without ever setting foot onto a university campus. Because I have read all of them twice – except for this one, The House on First Street by Julia Reed.  I found it in one of my favorite sections of the library a few weeks ago and I sucked it down like a drunk just out of jail after two days in the tank.

In this book, Julia Reed, a journalist who writes for Vogue and Newsweek among other well known magazines tackles the renovation of a 6,000 square foot Greek Revival in the fabulous Garden District of New Orleans, but right in the middle of her project, Hurricane Katrina arrives and the entire book shifts course and charges into the muck and mire of post Katrina New Orleans telling the story of the storm from a very unique perspective.

Because Julia is a journalist, she was allowed back into New Orleans (after the city is evacuated) to cover the story.  She paints a picture of the aftermath of Katrina that is warm and heroic but punctuated with just enough crime and crack and bureaucratic ineptitude to keep it real.  I think if there is one word to describe this book it would be – unflinching -  because Julia describes the events that occur around her multi-million dollar house project unabashedly in the midst of a scale of human upheaval and loss that just doesn’t happen in America.  So while the poor folks in New Orleans have lost everything, are camping out at the Super Dome and being shipped to Texas to live in FEMA apartments and while the working class, the waiters, the bus boys, and the dishwashers at all of Julia’s favorite upscale restaurants are trying to find a school to enroll their kids in and find out if there is anything left of their homes, Julia is sitting high and dry in the Garden District, throwing back lobster and champagne, pissed off that her contractor failed to fix the roof on the sun room of her mansion which has now leaked all over her custom made sisal rug.

But Julia recognizes her situation for what it is.  She diligently jumps in to help the city, tell the story to the American public, feed the workforce that is cleaning up and maintaining order in the city, as well as making sure everyone who ever worked for her, cooked for her and cleaned for her is taken care of – even if it means hiring a lawyer to bail them out of jail over and over again.  Julia is a good person who just happens to be extremely rich and if her book is anything close to the truth (and who really knows with an autobiography) it is very difficult not to wish you knew her personally by the end of it.

Thanks to Nanne for leaving the link to Julia’s house.  You can see photos of her home at Visual Vamp.

I recently finished the book Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. When I first saw this book, I immediately assumed that it would be awful. I imagined a schmaltzy story where a former career woman comes back to her Mennonite roots and rediscovers love in a pasture. But that was not the story at all. Instead it is a non-fiction account of one woman who returns home to her Mennonite community after decades of living with an atheist husband who leaves her for a man named Bob from GayDotCom which is directly followed by being involved in a crippling car accident. She goes home to heal her body and her mind and in doing so manages to WRITE A HILARIOUS ACCOUNT of everything that she has been though. She stares down the religious life of her parents and the floating debris of her own life and comes up with a story that is warm, hysterical and uplifting.

And although she does not embrace the beliefs of her devout Mennonite parents (her father is a minister) she also does not completely reject them. They seem to agree on a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy although her brothers are condescending and judgemental towards her career girl mindset, her parents remain warm and supportive.

There are some echoes of Crazy for God in how her parents take a hands off approach towards their daughter’s much more free spirited outlook on life.  It’s almost as if they long ago acknolwedged the limitiations of their own faith and view their daughter’s escape from devout religion with a sigh of relief.  At the same time, the author does hedge a bit in her description of her parent’s faith – especially when it comes to her father.  And in the end, even though her religious beliefs seem to directly contribute to much of the pain she suffered as she forgave a craphole of a spouse over and over again (because isn’t that what Jesus would want?) she fails to see the connection between her faith and her relationship struggles.

The book offers not only one woman’s tragedy served up on a warm platter of humorous hindsight, but it also gives the reader a fabulous glimpse into life as a Mennonite in America. The religious tidbits are also fascinating and fun to read.

It’s an easy breezy read.  Goes with beer, beachwear, or a hammock in the breeze.  A fun summer story with a tasty side of growth and insight. The perfect compliment to a lazy summer day.

Crazy For God by Frank Schaffer is a hilarious, often scandalous, frequently compelling and highly entertaining look at the curly innards of evangelical extremism.  Frank was raised by two highly renowned evangelicals – Francis and Edith Schaeffer in a Christian compound in Swiss Alps called L’Abri which means ‘the shelter’.  Francis and Edith regarded themselves as appointed by God to purify Christianity and bring it back to it’s bible based roots, but at the same time both of Frank’s parents were passionate about art and culture and longed their whole lives to be a part of the artistically literate realms.

I cannot recommend this book enough.  Even if you have zero interest in Christian evangelicalism, even if you could care less about a splinter group of whacked out religious extremists, because this book is much larger than religious boonwhackery.  It is about one man’s discovery of the limitations of his own beliefs.  It is about one person slowly realizing that maintaining his dogmatic views requires a healthy dose of deception.  It is about a devout Christian family that is passionate about art, music, history and culture and is constantly embattled by this love affair as it frequently conflicts with their faith.  Francis and Edith Schaeffer are truly fascinating, complex, compassionate, caring, cruel, and bizarre human beings.  Their son Frank’s honest portrayal of them is horrifying, mystifying and wonderful.  I guarantee you will enjoy this book.

As a person who is in the midst of separating herself from a lifetime to devout belief, I enjoyed this book greatly because of it’s piercing look at the inner workings of the powers that be in American evangelicalism.  As the author, Frank worked on various Christian film projects throughout his career, he came into the close and intimate orbit of James Dobson, Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.  He has stories about all of them that display their bigotry, hatred, purposefully contrived theatrics, and most of all, their lust for power and control of the American Christian church.  I have to admit that every time Frank Schaeffer knocked James Dobson down by proclaiming him to be the most power hungry man in American evangelicalism, my heart did a little happy dance. I have long abhorred James Dobson and his ‘Focus on the Family Fucked-uppedness’.  I vividly remember listening to his show several years ago when he announced that ‘no one should ever let a teenage boy babysit their children’.  Dobson was convinced that all teenage boys are so incredibly deranged, that any private opportunity to sexually assault a female child would just be too hard for them to resist and they would most likely be just as likely to sexually assault little boys as well.  As the mother of four sons, I was sickened by these comments.  The idea that one of my boys would harm a little kid (especially sexually) while they were babysitting infuriated me.  Not to mention the fact, that my son’s favorite babysitter was a teenage boy!  He brought over extra video game controllers and taught my boys all the ‘sneaks’ in their favorite games.  He was funny and goofy and my boys loved him.  A few years later, we found out that their favorite babysitter was gay!  Yet somehow, this wonderful young man managed to heroically hold himself back  from ever harming one of my kids (stated very sarcastically folks and without one ounce of ever believing that he would have considered it anymore than one of my own kids would).  After I heard Dobson issue these dire warnings against hiring a teenage boy to babysit, I snapped off his show and never turned it on again. So every single time that Frank demonized Dobson in this book – I was unable to stop myself from dancing around the house in utter joyful abandon.  Kind of like when David danced naked before God – except I kept my clothes on.  (Is this where Dobson got the idea of all young males being sexually deranged?… Or was it something from Dobson’s own deranged past?)

Frank’s book is an honest look at the inner workings of American evangelicalism and how he played a pivotal role in creating the religious right.  At one time, he was the central peg from which this movement hung.  He and his father breakfasted with presidents and partied with powerful politicians.  They basically formed the ‘pro-life movement’ and helped to villify abortion for American women.  Frank is still pro-life to this day, but no longer believes that abortion should be illegal.  The book takes you from a childhood in the Swiss alps to his education in the UK, to his wild hippy teenage years at the crossroads of the counter culture and Christianity, to his young adulthood as a teenage father (he managed to have lots and lots of sex during his years at the conservative Christian mission, L’Abris right under his parent’s holy noses.)  to the pinnacle of power among the religious right and finally to spiralling down and out of the ultra right wing movement, stealing pork chops in a Hollywood grocery store while struggling to find a new career outside of the faith he could no longer stomach. (Years later, he returned and paid for those stolen porkchops).

Frank tells his story deftly, with massive amounts of humor and a decidedly jaundiced eye towards his past.  A great book.  Go read it now.

You can find a great interview on NPR with Frank here.

His website is here.

Frank on the huffpo.

A few weeks ago, while going about my regular duties of hiding all the Pioneer Woman cookbooks in my local bookstore, I stumbled upon this particular tome of fine cookery – White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler.

How exactly could I not purchase this volume?

Mein Gott!  It’s almost the exact opposite of the Pioneer Woman Cookbook!

Wait!

No!

IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKBOOK!

Look at these photos!

They are beautiful and yet not a single eyeball glows with anime!

Not a single flower has been misted beyond recognition.

Not a single child has been plastered with a sheen of marbley perfection.

Some people are perfect just the way they are.

“crepes (go buy a package of flour tortillas).”

I love this book.

It’s my new bible.

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In other news…

I have toyed with the idea of posting my half of the e-mail conversations that Ree Drummond and I exchanged over the years. I would publish both sides of our conversation, but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right and I doubt that Ree would give me permission to publish her letters even if I asked her.

But I guess…

I could try…

So I wrote a letter to Ree.

It went like this…

________________________________________________________________

Dear Ree,

Hi!

Remember me!

It’s Rechelle…

Rechelle!

RECHELLE!!!!!

Remember?!?

I went to your ranch once?

You thought I had a baby?

No?

This isn’t ringing a bell for you?

I was the one with the head lice.

Yes!

That was me!

Sorry about that.

So anyway!

I had this great idea!  I thought that I would publish some of the emails that you and I have sent to each other over the past few years!  You know?  In the interest of posterity?  Would that be okay?  I know this may seem a little odd coming from me as I have been uh… rather um… just a teensy bit critical of your site and um… well -  maybe even of you personally lately.  You might have even considered publishing a step by step recipe blog where you fry my liver over an open flame and serve it with a side of my french fried fingers! No – actually you probably haven’t thought of that have you Ree.  But can I suggest it?  Because honestly Ree that would be hilarious…  and such a nice departure for you.  Lots of people would really love to see a new side of you.  Something that doesn’t involve your yoga pants or your husband’s uh… ‘tailgate’.  You know… the bitter side.  Because everyone has a bitter side Ree.  Even people like you, whose skulls are full of butterflies.  In fact, I think if you published a cooking blog that suggested any kind of cannibalism it would be a refreshing change from all those insanely vivid photos of freshly spritzed food items with the fuzzy backgrounds.  But then again, I am not a world famous blogger so what do I know?  Still – I don’t see why we can’t let bygones be bygones!  All is fair in love and the blogosphere right?

Right?

Right Ree?

So can I publish the e-mails Ree?

You don’t even have to write me back.

Just circle yes or no!

_______________

Yes

No

Go straight to hell.

_________________

PS – That last one is just a joke Ree!  A JOKE!  Can’t wait to hear back from you!

Love ya more ‘n my luggage!

Rechelle

_______________________________________________________________

I’ll let you know if she gives me permission.  Until then – I am going to go get some tortillas so I can make some of those crepes a la creola le beau!

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

It’s great.
Truly great.
At least I thought so.

Here is the author’s web site if you’d like to read a synopsis.  The novel is set on the knife’s edge of the Civil Right’s movement in Jackson, Mississippi.  The story revolves around two black house maids and the women for whom they work.  Reading it is like sitting at the table with your best girlfriends and trading the most scandalous gossip you can imagine. Secrets slowly unfold.  Oppressed people find a way to fight back.  Lives are destroyed. Lives are saved.  Minny makes a chocolate pie…

I don’t know if I will ever be able to eat another piece of chocolate pie as long as I live.

The whole time I was reading it, I just kept thinking – this book has got to be made into a film.  I want to watch this story unfold on screen. I want to see these characters, hear them talk, peek inside their houses and see what everyone is wearing.  Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks is making the film.  So I guess I will get to see Skeeter turn into a hippy and Hilly dress better than everyone else.

The casting will be interesting for this story.  There are so many vivid characters.  Who should play Minny?  What about Skeeter?  And who gets to play mean old Hilly?  Maybe January Jones!  I think she could do a very good socialite villian!  I would love to see Whoopi Goldberg play Abilene.

Some of the cast members have to be relatively young (2o somethings) and I don’t know the young actresses as well as I uh… know the uh.. sort of um… middle aged actresses, but as much as I would like to see Cate Blanchett play Skeeter – I just don’t know if she can pull off 23.  Maybe Gwyneth?  Or is she too old now too?  Gaw! I only know the extremely elderly actresses these days!

What does that mean!

I imagine that a few stars will be born with this film.

Have you read the book yet?

About a week ago, I received a copy of the book, How To Sew A Button in the mail.  The author, Erin Bried is a friend of Jean Martha who thought that I might like to blog about the book, so Erin had her publisher send a copy to me.  This very sweet, very witty, very useful book is a collection of recipes, how to’s, instructions and advice on how to do many of the tasks that recent generations have lost both the ability and the will to do. To gather the information for her book Erin, who is a senior writer for SELF Magazine interviewed ten grandmothers from across the country.  The grandmothers she interviewed are from very different backgrounds – one grandmother grew up on a farm in Iowa with no electricity or indoor plumbing, while another grandmother was raised one of four children in a two bedroom apartment behind the family barbershop in Brooklyn. The wonderful women that Erin talked to survived the Great Depression, the 1918 flu epidemic and and along the way they figured out a few secrets to a happy life.  Strangely, none of the secrets seem to involve elaborate weekends at a spa, expensive vacations, or designer handbags.  Instead, these women focused on what they could make out of their lives with what they had on hand.  If they had dirt, they made a garden.  If they had a tight budget, they made an elaborate meal chart with a fabulous matching grocery list.  If they had a sink, they made their own cleaning supplies.  If they had clothes, they learned how to patch, darn and sew up a hem.  If they had feet, they learned how to give themselves a pedicure and if they had a face – they made homemade facials.  They were clubby – meeting with friends over bridge and books and they reveled in the details of each other’s lives.  If they had a husband, they learned how to keep their marriages exciting and fun and if they had kids – they learned how to read a good bedtime story.  All of these skills as well as their stories are in How To Sew a Button.  I spent part of yesterday working through a few of the chapters.  Let’s see if I managed to learn anything….  

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How To Make Blueberry Pancakes….

 

Assemble ingredients and falter…

That is a lot of ingredients.

Perhaps a bowl of cereal instead?

Resolve!

Soldier on! 

Experiment!

 

 

Turn over a new leaf!  

 

 

 

Feast!

Can I even begin to tell you how much better these pancakes were than a bowl of cereal?

No, I can’t.

There really are no words to describe it.

Other than maybe….

pure ecstasy.

 

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How To Fold a Fitted Sheet

And since I was now properly fortified with a indescribably great breakfast, I moved on to perhaps the most difficult task in the book.  

Folding a fitted sheet.  

 

Except that I had to fold a fitted sheet while photographing myself folding a fitted sheet and that my friends, is even harder.

I am not even sure that the Great Depression could prepare you for just how difficult it is to fold a fitted sheet while photographing yourself folding a fitted sheet.

 

 

 

 

It borders on the impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

You can’t even see where to point the camera.

 

 

 

 

 

But I thought about those grandmothers and I persevered. 

 

 

 

 

 

Voila!  

Folded fitted sheet!  

Now who needs a drink?

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How to Make a Martini

I turned to the chapters on how to make a Manhattan and how to make a martini.  

Sadly – even though I had a startling variety of booze on hand, I did not have the required bourbon for the Manhattan and I didn’t really feel like drinking a martini alone.  It just doesn’t seem right to drink a martini alone. Even if I photographed myself drinking the martini, I would still have felt pretty pathetic, so since the back of my throat was a bit scratchy and I had a stuffy head, I moved on to….

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

How to Make a Hot Toddy

 

Still – I didn’t have the right booze as Erin’s recipe calls for bourbon as well, but I just substituted brandy.  

Somehow, I don’t think the grandmothers would mind.

 

This little medicinal concoction was very good and my throat felt instantly better.  

Thank you grandmothers!

 

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Initially, I thought I would give away my copy of this book – but clearly – it is far too valuable to me and I am not going to be able to let it go.

Sorry dears.  

You will have to buy your own copy or several copies as it would make an excellent Christmas present.

Now I am off to make another batch of blueberry pancakes, followed by a homemade facial and then I am going to do some Christmas shopping and see if I can summon the courage to put into practice the chapter on ‘how to drive a bargain’.  I may need to take a batch of martinis along with me if I am going to attempt to do that.

Tra la la.

If your name is P.J. or Ang Ank – there is a very strong chance that you won the recent giveaway at Farmhouse Library.  Everyone else – thanks for entering and  for reading this strange little blog.