A collection of recipes that are as fresh and delicious as vegetables pulled directly from the garden.
Thompson, a certified integrative nutrition health coach and stay-at-home mom, offers a garden-to-table cookbook that celebrates the art of the homemade meal.
The author notes that, long ago, her Italian grandparents would send her father outside to pick dandelions for dinner; similarly, she involves her own children in the growing, harvesting, and cooking of their family meals. In this vibrant cookbook, she shares tried and true family recipes that focus on herbs and vegetables from her garden. After she discovered that most members of her family suffered from gluten intolerances, she started to explore cuisines from other cultures; as a result, all of the recipes here may be made gluten free. Readers should note, however, that some don’t include serving sizes, as the author says that she’s accustomed to adjusting the ingredients based on the size of the group for which she’s cooking. It’s obvious when reading the recipes how she got her nickname, the “Pepper Queen,” as she has a clear penchant for hot peppers, and readers who enjoy spicy food will get a lot out of this book. It also features tips that even advanced cooks may find helpful; for example, she shares her personal salt-mix recipe (three parts gray sea salt and one part Himalayan pink salt) as well as a simple note to store rice in the refrigerator. Her recipes focus on the quality of their fresh ingredients rather than on their quantity, and although she mentions many specific brands, she notes that she hasn’t received compensation from any of them; they’re simply her favorites. High-quality color photographs by the author accompany the text, including images of vegetable blossoms. Thompson also includes a list of resources that include where to procure some of the more obscure brands in the text.
A collection of recipes that are as fresh and delicious as vegetables pulled directly from the garden.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982228-66-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heady musical and philosophical stuff.
A welcome peek into the mind of the great jazz musician.
Reese, author of Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature and Loneliness, delves into the tenor saxophonist’s substantial archives in the New York Public Library, unearthing these fascinating notebooks. Divided into four chronological sections covering nearly 50 years, they capture how Rollins’ thinking about a wide range of subjects evolved. With entries starting in 1959, after two incarcerations, kicking his heroin addiction, and the beginning of his years-long practice sessions on the Williamsburg Bridge, these slight, diary-like bits and pieces reveal an incredibly curious and philosophical musician—“What I am is jazz phrasing”—with a strong work ethic. He’s very concerned with physical and breathing exercises, his health, practicing fingering and other technical aspects involved in playing the sax, his “proclivity for impatience,” his belief that “jazz is a free planet where everything is happiness and love,” and a passion for lists. “I must try to desist from lusting after women,” he adds. All of these ideas are in service of making him a better person and musician. Rollins sees himself in harmony with the music, and the sax “can achieve any color within the orchestra.” The entries seem well thought out, as if he hoped they would eventually be read by others, especially music students. He occasionally brings up social matters: “‘Race’ is synonymous to color! I am of the gold race.” On jazz’s “essence,” creative improvisation, he writes, “This then is man in his finest hour—portraying nature.” Rollins is devoted to yoga and avoids eating bitter candy, which affects his breathing. He consistently praises his instrument—“It is yesterday, today, and tomorrow all in one form—the almighty saxophone”—and he bemoans the “wasteful exploitation of energy resources.” The last entry, from 2010: “No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.”
Heady musical and philosophical stuff.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781681378268
Page Count: 172
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.
An essayist and novelist turns her attention to the heartache of a friend’s suicide.
Crosley’s memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague’s recent suicide. “All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way,” she begins, in reference to the thief who stole the jewelry from her New York apartment in 2019. Among the stolen items was her grandmother’s “green dome cocktail ring with tiers of tourmaline (think kryptonite, think dish soap).” She wrote those words two months after the burglary and “one month since the violent death of my dearest friend.” That friend was Russell Perreault, referred to only by his first name, her boss when she was a publicist at Vintage Books. Russell, who loved “cheap trinkets” from flea markets, had “the timeless charm of a movie star, the competitive edge of a Spartan,” and—one of many marvelous details—a “thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, seemingly scalped from the roof of an English country house.” Over the years, the two became more than boss and subordinate, teasing one another at work, sharing dinners, enjoying “idyllic scenes” at his Connecticut country home, “a modest farmhouse with peeling paint and fragile plumbing…the house that Windex forgot.” It was in the barn at that house that Russell took his own life. Despite the obvious difference in the severity of robbery and suicide, Crosley fashions a sharp narrative that finds commonality in the dislocation brought on by these events. The book is no hagiography—she notes harassment complaints against Russell for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the “deeply antiquated and often backward” publishing industry—but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.
A marvelously tender memoir on suicide and loss.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780374609849
Page Count: 208
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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