Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant

Do you eat alone? Are you planning gourmet meals for yourself? Or are you regulated to frozen dinners for one? Or are you secretly eating something others might consider a bit wacky? Come join the discussion in the book, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler.

This is a great study of being alone vs being lonely and preparing food for one's self. Some of the writers long for the days they can be alone, some remember times when they were alone, but others rejoice in the simple meals that they make for themselves. And the meals range from normal, to cravings, to obsessions, to grabbing whatever is in the pantry. One of my favorite essays is the one where the author decides to eat asparagus every day during the fresh season - which is two months! She becomes her own asparagus superhero. Personally I hate the vegetable, but I admire her obsession with it - I get that way for zucchini and fresh ripe summer tomatoes - and her desire to experience it at it's peak.

What is also interesting - is how many of these foods are or become comfort foods. Are our taste buds truly formed by our childhood foods? Or are there memories intertwined with these dishes? This book will definitely provoke some thinking about your own comfort foods and the times and the people behind them. An excellent read.

Some favorite bits...

"Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce or spaghetti with butter and grape jam." - Laurie Colwin

"Eating after all, is a matter of taste, and taste cannot always be good taste. The very thought of maintaining high standards meal after meal is exhausting. It discounts all the peanut butter that is available in the world." - Ann Patchett

A Year Without "Made in China"

A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy by Sara Bongiorni is the story of how a simple concept that started as a New Year's resolution grew into a family journey and book. The author, an avid label reader, was struck by the amount of items under the Christmas tree that were made in China. As a journalist, she had read some of the upcoming articles of China's economic machine, but it had never struck so close to home. She decided with her husband (who she starts out calling "the weakest link"), to try a family resolution of not purchasing anything new that was "made in China."

Their decision brings up all sorts of issues. What if they get a gift that is Chinese made? Are there items the Chinese have a monopoly on? (Apparently seasonal decorations, cheap sunglasses and reasonably priced children's shoes and toys.) Would they be able to replace their coffee maker at all? What about the components that are made in China? Does that count? Bongiorni finds that it is a struggle and can be - depending on the item you're searching for - take a lot of time and energy.

She does a great job of telling of the little struggles that her family has. What to do about birthday gifts for small children? (Some Legos) And what about her kids? Are they suffering with the loss of these goods? (No) She finds out that it probably is easier to do this now when her kids are small, and to her surprise, that her husband offers her some good support, and that they are saving some money from not buying or replacing their doodads and junk.

This is a fun and easily accessible book about one's consumer dollar. Bongiorni makes it an entertaining family story and allows the armchair reader to wonder "what if..." A great fast read.

Think Globally - Act Locally

Wanda Urbanska and her husband, Frank Levering, wrote a book called Simple Living: One Couple's Search for a Better Life, when they moved from L.A. to Virginia. They had a hand in starting the current "simplicity" movement. They now have an orchard in North Carolina and have a show called Simple Living on PBS. Their latest book, Nothing's Too Small to Make a Difference continues their message of keeping thing simple and worrying about their impact on the environment.

This book may be a re-run to others who have previously read other books on simple living, but I felt it was a great reminder and inspiration to those of us who are trying to do what little we can. Wanda points out that - yes - little things do add up - when she talks about taking a travel cup to get her coffee from the local shop versus the plastic cup. She sat down one day and added up all the cups she would have used and it was quite a lot. Sometimes I think that we need the reminder that choosing to make a smaller footprint on the earth, create less garbage, buy less junk, create more beauty IS worth it. This book is a positive introduction to that, it has some first-rate tips, and it is a good update on the couple that helped the "movement" along.