The Sweet Life in Paris

Kent bought me The Sweet Life in Paris for Christmas.  It was a yummy read.  Lebovitz lived in San Francisco, was a chef and cookbook author, but decided he wanted a change and moved to Paris.  I would like a change like that.  In this book, he shares what he has learned about Paris and Parisiens, and how to adapt to living in a glorious but perplexing city.  His writing style is very readable and funny and because he has experienced everything first-hand, I got a real sense of the city seen through the eyes of an actual inhabitant.  It was amusing to see how Lebovitz made his way.  I felt he showed the good and bad of Paris, but always tempered with a real love of the city and its dwellers.  

In addition to the narrative, the book contains over 50 recipes.  He includes everything from soup to nuts (literally); appetizers, desserts, entrées, bread.  I haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet, but several sound yummy.  I'm going to try the chocolate mousse, the bacon and blue cheese cake, the chocolate chip cream puffs, and the orange sorbet.  In my defence, bacon and blue cheese cake is actually savory, so not everything is sweet.  Maybe I'll look at over savory recipes.

As a side note, unimportant to the enjoyment of the book, Lebovitz is gay.  I've decided, after reading this book, I'm gay too.  I really like men.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I have been working with Brandt as he is trying to master the toilet.  To encourage him to poop, I will read out loud to him.  For Christmas, I bought the collected works of Roald Dahl thinking that I would read them to Brandt.  Kent thought I was a bit pre-mature.  Brandt is only four and these books don't have very many pictures, and Kent believed that they wouldn't hold Brandt's attention.  Little did he know how captivating Dahl’s writing really is. 

I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Brandt in two days.  This is a 200 page book with very few pictures, but Brandt did not want me to stop.  He loved it!  We had just seen the movie two weeks before as we were on our way to Las Vegas.  The movie version with Johnny Depp playing Mr. Wonka follows the book very closely, much more closely than the Gene Wilder version.  I think the movie was playing in Brandt’s head as we read making it easier for him to follow along, so that might have played a part in his captivated interest.  But even so, he was with me as I read. 

Roald Dahl is creative, funny, and entertaining.  We are nearly done reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the sequel to Chocolate Factory, and I am delighted that we have over a dozen more Dahl books waiting to be read.  Although these books are meant for children, they are engaging for adults too.  I am looking forward to future reads.

The Birth of Blue Satan

I like to consult lists when I am considering what to read.  I find it tremendously satisfying to be able to cross something off my "to-do" list, or to line out another book read.  The Birth of Blue Satan came from a friend's book club list, and it looked interesting.  This is a historical novel, part adventure, part romance, part mystery.  Set in 1715, in the early-Georgian period, I learned much about the political discord of the period.  I was also entertained by the story.  Patricia Wynn, the author, writes romance novels, and this book has that feel without any bodice ripping scenes typical of a historical romance.

A young and dashing Viscount (heir to an earldom), Gideon St. Mars, is wrongly accused of murdering his father.  He is wooing a beautiful (though stupid) woman and finds his hopes of marrying her vanish as he tries to discover who really did kill his father.  He finds an ally in the cousin of the woman he wishes to marry, Hester Kean.  She is true to him, believes in his innocence, and his intellectually his equal.  She is in love with him.  He should be in love with her, but is blinded by the other woman's beauty.  

Some of the plot elements and questions are resolved by the end of the book, but others are not.  I was left wanting answers, which I think was a deliberate choice by Wynn.  This is the first of now three books, so leaving situations unresolved will insure that those who read this first book will want to read the second, and beyond.  I liked the book well enough to buy a used copy of book two, The Spider's Touch, though I only paid a penny for it.

Parents

Do you remember the moment you realized your parents were people?  You know what I mean?  That sudden realization I suppose most of us have that our parents had a life before they were parents, and that they probably still have a life apart from parenting?  I don't remember when it hit me, but it struck me again this week as I reflected on Grandma Hare's life.

Grandma had a tough start, losing her father when she was two and watching her mom struggle to support their family.  She was a young person with hopes and dreams, some of which I imagine were realized, and some I'm sure were not.  She was a young mother with a husband who was shot down during the war and wondered if he would ever come home.  She worked, divorced, traveled, met interesting people, and eventually moved to Utah to be with family.  I only ever knew her as Grandma, but I know she was so much more.

And with her loss, I think about my own mom who has just lost her mom.  While it is a blessing that Grandma was able to finally leave her frail body and return to the presence of Heavenly Father, there is a finality in her passing.  My mom no longer has access to her mom.  We all need our moms.  I know my mom feels a loss as I do, but hers is certainly deeper.  I have felt for her more deeply too.  I'm certainly not explaining this very eloquently, but I suppose I am again realizing my mom is a person, and right now, she is a person who is mourning.

Coming to parenthood late as I did, I sometimes palpably feel the loss of my pre-parent life.  My time was my own, my life was my own, and I liked it.  I was happy being with my husband and enjoyed many activities I have had to either curtail or give up entirely because they don't fit into my parenting life.  I guess that is one of the many sacrifices we make when we decide to parent, and I suppose it is a sacrifice that brings with it many blessings that wouldn't be apparent and available to us without parenting.  At the same time, I want to be more than Brandt and Blythe's mom; I still want to be Katherine.  I'm working on being a parent and being a person.

The Sound and The Fury

I have a goal to read more intellectual stuff this year, and in that vein, I pulled a copy of The Sound and The Fury off the shelf yesterday and began to read it.  I didn't get more than five or six pages into it before leaving it on the back of the toilet.

Later in the evening, Kent said to me, "Are you reading The Sound and The Fury?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Why?" he questioned.
I explained my desire to be more intellectual, and the said, "But why The Sound and The Fury?  Why wade through all of that?  Just so you can brag you've read it?"
This is a book that Kent brought to our marriage and which we have moved at least four times during that time.  So I asked why keep it if it isn't worth reading, even for bragging rights.
"Being a humanities or English major (me humanities, him English), you should have a library, a collection of fine books at hand."
Apparently, however, one need not read them all.  I put it back and will continue to wade through The Brothers Karamazov which I am reading for book group.  Fortunately, I have until July to finish it.  715 pages.  I'm on page 42.