Reading Nora Ephron’s “I feel Bad about my Neck” was the perfect summer read – I read it sitting on my porch on a lovely summer afternoon – laughing out loud, shaking my head and thinking about how lucky I was to be in that exact spot at that exact time.
Like Nora, Laura was a thoughtful host and prepared a wonderful meal using Nora’s recipes and we were all encouraged to wear a scarf and come prepared to play one of Nora’s “parlour” games:
“We have a game we play when we’re waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was [in my twenties], I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy.”
From Karen:
A wonderful evening Laura – a definite highlight of my summer. The meal was DELICIOUS and offering us a glass of good French champagne was such a treat. Champagne is synonymous with celebration. And anytime we get together is cause for celebration! (I wish my retirement budget allowed me to bring a bottle to every one of our gatherings). Thanks also for giving us a well-researched and interesting lecture on Nora’s life. I think the only thing missing from last night was Nora herself. She would have enjoyed our conversation and would have fit right in.
From Jill:
Many thanks Laura, a truly enjoyable evening of great conversation, game fun, and a delicious meal! Recipes please! I love champagne!
As I lay awake last night, ( it seems to occur more as one ages..I hesitate to say in our old age:), and mulling over our conversations of how our lives unfolded and how we dealt with our circumstances, the word inspired came to me. When I think back over the years, I realize how many people have inspired me, helped me to think, to become and be a better person.
The other word is motherhood. As a woman, it was the greatest miracle and brought me such joy to bring a little human being into the world.
Thank you again Laura for choosing this book, and to Nora Ephron for writing it, and to give us much food for thought that enables us to give voice to our own vulnerability, awareness and destiny.
From Moira:
wonderful evening spent in the company of wonderful women- who could ask for more?! Many thanks Laura, for choosing the book and giving us such insight into Nora the person, wife, mother, screenwriter …. extraordinaire. Loved BOTH the meals, and the scrumpdilyicious key lime pie. Please put up the recipes- I might actually attempt one of them, haha.
PS I love the picture of Josee – reading her list 🙂
Eight members of our group were able to get together for an impromptu lunch at Paradiso Restaurant in Downtown Burlington for a lunch – Great opportunity to catch up on everyone’s adventures and garden successes. See everyone at Laura’s in August.
A foggy night up on the escarpment – A very evocative setting at Jeanne’s discussing Trevor Noah’s funny and tragic story of his life growing up in South Africa. Everyone enjoyed the book and seeing his remarkable mother and grandmother interviews.
Thank you Jeanne for the authentic and delicious South African food including bobotie and the extra bonus of going home with heirloom tomato plants.
From Jill: Jeanne, many thanks. A true authentic African Bobotie dish…and all the other delicious dishes!
I so admire how Trevor Noah overcame all odds with his background, to become the interesting, caring and humorous person he is today.
A great utube showing of his ‘chat’ with his grandmother, what a strong and self possessed woman. She, and those of her generation are to be admired. I enjoyed our interesting discussion.
Thank you also for the tomato plant. I’m looking forward to sweet tomatoes!
From Bev: A wonderful evening Jeanne. Great food, thoughtful preparation for discussing the book, and as always good conversation.
From Erin: Agreed! A delicious evening all round! I loved the opportunity to meet Trevor Noah’s mother and grandmother… true forces to be reckoned with! And… I look forward to the tomatoes from your seedlings Jeanne.
Thank you Moira! I so enjoyed the absorbing information you shared about the background of Russian history and how it coincided with A Gentleman In Moscow. A truly fascinating story. Just out of interest, I was just googling the website and found the Book Food Club, and the recipe for the delicious Latvian stew. Wouldn’t it be cool if the Book Club Cookbook would offer recipes for all our chosen books:) I also read that Kenneth Branagh is set to star and produce a tv adaption of A Gentleman in Moscow. That should be well worth watching. I’m so glad you had extra borscht over as I’m going to really enjoy it for my lunch! It’s always so special to get together with you all. Jill
Thanks Moira for taking the time to present us with a sample meal from the Hotel Metropol. It was a delicious dinner that will be a highlight on our book club blog. I will definitely try to make both the soup and the stew next fall. Yummy comfort food.A Gentleman in Moscow was a charming story and one I wouldn’t have expected given it takes place in a very turbulent time in Russia’s history. It is quite the contrast to The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes which we read last year at Bev’s. By the way, I found this video tour of the Hotel Metropol on YouTube. You might be interested to see the grand hotel now that it has been restored. Karen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFHVzUoBMH4
It was a great evening. Michelle is to me the epitome of grace, intelligence and fortitude. Truly a model for all women. Several years ago I watched a documentary-movie called Southside which tells the story of her early years until she meets Barack. Nice watch and available from the library. Bev
From Karen: This is the excerpt I was referring to last night when Michelle spoke of leaving the White House. I found this in an interview with Oprah Winfrey:
“But one of the show’s most memorable moments happened while the former First Lady opened up about how she prepared to exit the White House in early 2017. Specifically, she told Oprah that she burst into tears after leaving Washington, D.C. following President Donald Trump’s Inauguration. “When I got on the plane, I sobbed for 30 minutes,” Mrs. Obama said, according to the Associated Press. “I think it was just the release of eight years trying to do everything perfectly.” “I said to Barack, ‘That was so hard, what we just did. That was so hard.’”
From Laura, re above passage: Some written passages are so powerful. This one calls up perfectly the pressure cooker they must have existed in, and in one moment helps us to be in her shoes – the absolute care taken over 8 years to ensure they left an indelible impression on all of America, that black culture is still rooted in the values of honesty, dignity, integrity, and respect for family, ancestors, and community leaders – so missing in the current zeitgeist. It must have been hard!
Thanks Erin, it was a lovely evening, lovely dinner and great discussion!!
Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together. Michelle Obama
You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own. Michelle Obama
Serves 8 ( I doubled up on the onions, garlic, carrots and celery) I cup dried green or brown lentils. I used both. 1 19 oz can kidney beans. 1 19 oz can chickpeas. 1 19 oz can chopped tomatoes with juice. 2 cups tomato sauce. 2 cups vegetable stock. 3 potatoes diced. I large onion chopped. 2 carrots chopped. I celery stalk chopped. I red or green pepper chopped. 2 garlic cloves, crushed. 2 tablespoons Chili powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon dried basil. 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. 1/2 cup plain yogurt, optional.
Wash lentils. Drain and rinse chickpeas and kidney beans. Combine all ingredients, except yogurt, in a heavy saucepan, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so, until lentils are tender. Dish into serving bowls and garnish with a dollop of yogurt if desired. Serve with crunchy bread or just on its own.
hFrom Erin: Thank you Jill for another lovely book club gathering… I think we all agreed JM Coetzee is a philosopher who communicates complex dilemmas / questions via seemingly uncomplicated prose and plot. It was interesting to discuss what he was trying to represent by the various characters and situations, but surely we agreed he has a ‘mother’ quest theme….
Follow up from Jill: I had no idea when I first read the book and suggested it for our bookclub, then researching the facts, how in depth the philosophies, the allegories, opinions, political and otherwise were! I found it all quite overwhelming but fascinating. I needed to hear all your opinions to help me sort out my own confusion. One question you asked Laura. Why was the story of Don Quixote chosen? We didn’t discuss that, and I had the same question in my mind through the story but didn’t research it. Here is a part answer of sorts. Coetzee invites us to consider philosophies of fiction. Why is Spanish the language spoken in his invented world? Because it is the language of Don Quixote, the Ur-novel, one of the first to pose the question of what realism is and what fiction is for. Which is more “real” more useful in navigating our existence: Quixote’s reckless romancing or Sancho Panza’s stolid pragmatism?In the Childhood of Jesus it becomes the springboard for an exchange between David and Simon about the nature of fiction. ” You can move your lips and make up stories in your head, but that is not reading” warns Simon. I had another question we didn’t discuss, I should have checked my notes better. David’s imagination about the barbed wire surrounding the Punta Arena special school that it was recommended he attend. As we read there was none, according to the teacher from the school. Was it to just get the attention of his ‘parents’ so he wouldn’t need to go, or, was he being just a willful naughty boy just to see what their reaction would be, or, was there in the depths of his mind a feeling of entrapment and injustice from the safe world Inez had suffocatingly cloistered him in? I know, I must put this book to rest! How I’d love to meet the author to hear his views. Apparently he’s a very quiet and solitary man who doesn’t deal well with public appearances, and usually tries to avoid interviews.
Coetzee won the Nobel prize for literature in 2003, at the age of 63. He was given the prestigious award for his ability to write stories that in innumerable guises portray the surprising involvement of the outsider.
Quote: “The absence of consistent logic forces one into all kinds of contemplation on serious issues”.
Since The Childhood of Jesus is still fresh in my mind, I am curious to read The Schooldays of Jesus to see how the life of this unruly but interesting child continues, and whether Simon and Inez still play a major part in his life. There is something about the writings of this author that plays on my mind:)
In The Childhood of Jesus, Nobel Laureate and two-time Booker Prize–winning J. M. Coetzee returns to the allegorical style of his acclaimed 1980 novel, Waiting for the Barbarians. A middle-aged man named Simón and a six-year-old boy named David arrive at the town of Novilla in an unspecified, Spanish-speaking country. They have come from a camp, by boat, and appear to be refugees, though from what is unclear. Strangers in a strange land, they hope to start a new life in Novilla and to find David’s mother.
Simón arrives with one unshakable conviction: that he will know the boy’s mother when he sees her—a conviction based entirely on intuition. He has never seen David’s mother, has no photographs of her, does not know her name or anything about her. Nevertheless, he has no doubts that he will recognize her.
Shortly after arriving in Novilla, Simón takes a grueling job as a stevedore, unloading the sacks of grain that will be used to make the bread on which the town relies, almost exclusively, for its nourishment—as if to refute Jesus’ assertion that man cannot live by bread alone. Indeed, Simón finds the blandness of life in Novilla exasperating. He engages in one argument after another: with his boss and fellow stevedores; with Elena, the mother of David’s friend Fidel; and virtually everyone else he meets in Novilla. His suggestion that the dock workers use a crane to liberate themselves from brute labor and allow them to do more meaningful work is met with bafflement, just as his need for sex and what Elena calls “the something-more that is missing” is dismissed as a hopeless illusion, impossible to satisfy and foolish to pursue.
While out for a walk, Simón and David encounter a woman playing tennis and Simón instantly “knows” her to be David’s mother. Though she has never seen David, Inés reluctantly agrees to take over the care of the child. Absurdity slides into reality, as Inés fully assumes the role of mother, becoming as fiercely overprotective as if she had borne and raised the child herself.
Then there is the question of David’s education, both formal and informal. At home, Simón tries to answer David’s many dogged existential questions: How are people different from “poo”? What are dead bodies? What is value? At school, David infuriates his teacher, Señor Leon, with various acts of “insubordination”: refusing (or pretending not to know how) to read or count, and disturbing his classmates. The school psychologist wants to separate David from his “parents” and place him in a special school, far from home, a plan which Inés and Simón vehemently oppose.
Novilla—the word contains echoes of villa, village, and novel—is a strange and unsettling place, or rather a no-place, a stripped-down stage set on which the characters carry out their Beckett-like philosophical debates. The inhabitants have been “washed clean” of their former lives as well as all desire for something more. They are content with things as they are, no questions asked. They are, as Simón notes, a passionless people, incapable of either irony or strong emotion. “No one swears or gets angry. No one gets drunk. No one even raises his voice” (p. 30). They do not suffer from the need for meaning, purpose, sexual and spiritual fulfillment that afflicts Simón. But have they transcended such desires or merely accepted a diminished version of full human potential?
Much in The Childhood of Jesus remains ambiguous, including the title itself. Is David a Christ figure? His “mother,” Inés, is a virgin. When his teacher tells him to write “I must tell the truth” on the blackboard, he writes “I am the truth” instead. Biblical references abound, but don’t seem to point to a coherent allegorical design. Or do they?
Coetzee’s magical and austere novel invites readers to investigate the many existential questions raised within its pages, as well as the larger question of the purpose and meaning of the novel itself. ABOUT J. M. COETZEE
J. M. Coetzeewon the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 and is the author of twenty-one books, which have been translated into many languages. He was the first author to twice win the Booker Prize. A native of South Africa, he now lives in Adelaide, Australia.
Potato Chili. Serves 8. ( I doubled up on the onions, garlic, carrots and celery) I cup dried green or brown lentils. I used both. 1 19 oz can kidney beans. 1 19 oz can chickpeas. 1 19 oz can chopped tomatoes with juice. 2 cups tomato sauce. 2 cups vegetable stock. 3 potatoes diced. I large onion chopped. 2 carrots chopped. I celery stalk chopped. I red or green pepper chopped. 2 garlic cloves, crushed. 2 tablespoons Chili powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon dried basil. 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper. 1/2 cup plain yogurt, optional.
Wow, an evening of amazing food and a really great discussion of China and its people, politics and cultures! Jane and Moira shared reflections and experiences from their recent visits to China. The book was fascinating and eye opening for events that happened in our lifetime in China from a family’s perspective.
From Jane: Thank you Bev – it was a really wonderful night – you really helped my brain better understand the book. It was surreal for me to be reading the book while in China. Here is a description of the social points that we were discussing:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
From Laura: Thank you Bev for all of your hard work, those dishes were so tasty! You make it look effortless, but I know a lot of chopping and coordination was going on leading up to our arrival. Great questions about the story from everyone, and so timely to contrast China’s murky history with their growing influence in the world today. It’s difficult to sort out all of the complexities of China when they work so diligently to smooth it all over.
From Bev: I’ve added this news report to add to Jane’s earlier item. Seldom do we get a glimpse into the powerful people involved in the rise of the Chinese economic phenomenon. Although Meng has been arrested in Vancouver, the fraud has to do with US sanctions on Iran and demonstrates the US and China rivalry for world technological dominance.
Spiced Cashew Shrimp 11/2 pounds medium shrimp peeled and deveined Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper 1 Tablespoon cornstarch 2 Tablespoons oyster sauce 2 Tablespoons safflower oil 4 celery stocks, cut on bias 1/4 inch thick (21/2 cups) plus celery leaves for serving 1 teaspoon finely grated garlic (from 2 cloves) 1 tablespoon finely grated ginger (from 2 inch piece) Pinch of red-pepper flakes, plus more for serving 1/2 cup roasted cashews Steamed white rice Pat shrimp dry with paper towels; toss with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch, oyster sauce and 3/4 cup water. Heat large skillet over high heat. Swirl in oil, then add shrimp in a single layer; cook undisturbed for 1 minute. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until almost cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes, add celery, ginger and red pepper flakes; cook stirring, 1 minute. Add cornstarch mixture; stir until sauce thickens and coats shrimp and vegetables. Serve over rice. Sprinkle with cashews, red pepper flakes and additional celery leaves. Total time: 20 minutes serves 4
Lemon Chicken with Green Beans
14/4 pounds boneless chicken breasts cut into small pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup corn starch
11/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons grated lemon breasts, plus 3 tablespoons fresh juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (from a 1 inch piece)1/2 cup safflower oil
12 ounces green beans trimmed and halved on bias
Steamed white rice
Pat chicken dry and season with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; toss with cornstarch.
Combine lemon zest and juice, sesame oil, ginger and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir in sugar until it
dissolves.
In a large skillet, over medium high, heat 1/4 cup safflower oil until shimmering. Add beans and
cook, stirring occasionally, until they blister in places, 3 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel.
Sprinkle with salt.
Add 1/4 cup safflower oil to skillet; heat 1 minute. Add chicken; cook, stirring once, 4 minutes. Transfer to paper towels; discard oil. Add broth mixture, scraping up browned bits with spatula, 1 minute. Return chicken to pot (check to see that you do not have too much broth mixture). Simmer until sauce thickens and coats chicken, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve over rice. Top with blistered beans. Prep time :35 mins. Total time: 45 min. Serves: 4
Broken Wonton Soup 1 teaspoon safflower 1 tablespoon thinly sliced garlic. (2cloves) 1 heaping tablespoon ginger match sticks (thinly sliced from 1 inch piece) 4 cups chicken broth 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves (screams reserved) 2 tablespoons soy sauce 12 ounces uncooked breakfast sausage, casings removed 12 ounces bok choy ( 2 medium or 3 small) roughly chopped 12 wonton wrappers, quartered and chopped diagonally Chilli garlic sauce for serving Heat oil in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat; add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add broth, 2 cups water, cilantro stems, and 1 tablespoon soy sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered for 20 minutes. Remove and discard cilantro. Meanwhile in a medium bowl, combine sausage, remaining 1 tablespoon on soy sauce and cilantro leaves. Roll mixture into 1 inch meat balls. Return broth mixture to a simmer; stir in meat balls. Cover and let stand until meatballs are cooked through, 5 to 6 minutes. * Add bok choy. Drop in wonton wrappers into soup, one at at time and stir to prevent sticking. Divide amount 4 – 6 bowls. Prep: 35 minutes total time: 55 min serves 4-6 *I changed the recipe slightly. I found in the original the bok choy was over cooked. I like bok choy al dente. Wonton noodles are basically the same as lasagna noodles only thinner. Several good sites on the internet with recipes. This soup would also be good with ready made wontons rather than the sausage.
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