It’s rare that paupery can be so much fun and a bracing thumb in the supermarket manager’s eye.
A clever, merry approach to feeding your family while staying on the right side of debtors’ prison.
New Zealanders and ministers of the website SimpleSavings, Lippey and Gower are believers in the artful use of scant means, and they pursue that end with a jaunty, unstoppable enthusiasm. They contend, and then go about demonstrating, that you can feed a family of four for a week with $21 (and if you have anything in the larder, so much the better). This is a challenge for one week, not every week of the year; neither Lippey nor Gower suggests that. But when the cupboard and the checkbook are nearly bare, it’s one problem off your plate to know you can feed a brood on a few bucks. The authors take you step by step through their plan: how to involve your family, how to take stock and inventory, develop shopping lists and meal plans and deal with the “minor hurdles”—“These are the underminer, the guilt tripper, the shopping victim, the sponge, the big kid, the snob and the high D.I. (disposable income).” They provide tips and tricks for meeting your goals and focus on a well-rounded diet, quality foodstuffs and healthy eating of the commonsense sort, with plenty of treats that don’t lead down the road of morbid obesity. And the recipes aren’t what you might expect for a measly $21 for the week: sausage risotto, hotpots, cream pasta, potato cakes and bean pies and stretching a chicken five ways. They address leftover ingredients, such as opened cans of chickpeas and coconut milk, curry paste and chili sauce, gelatin, oats and the dreaded zucchini (BBQ, soup, stir fry), and then step into the breach with substitute ingredients when you can’t find the one you want. When the portions seem small to you—one woman feeds her four on a pound of ground chuck one night, a half a chicken breast the next—just move on.
It’s rare that paupery can be so much fun and a bracing thumb in the supermarket manager’s eye.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466369436
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Simple Savings Intl.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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