A massive wealth of knowledge for dedicated cheese-making students.
Winstein’s (Your Fertility Signals, 1991) two-volume work will teach readers how to make the cheeses they know and love—and probably some they’ve never heard of.
The author first experienced fine cheese while traveling to Denmark as a teenager but didn’t try making it until many years later. In 1993, she took a one-day cheese-making class and was frustrated when she couldn’t replicate the strong tastes that she remembered. She began taking more advanced classes in Massachusetts and Vermont with a number of master cheese makers. In these volumes, Winstein hopes to convey the tips that she picked up from them in addition to her own knowledge from years of trial and error. Cheeses are helpfully grouped by order of complication to allow beginners to start small and then challenge themselves as they gain more experience. The photos in the book are in black and white; the author explains that monochromatic images show better detail about texture, that the ink will fade less over time, and that, in her opinion, the style is more aesthetically pleasing. The design is sparse and simple, with large pictures of each step. The recipes are very wordy, however, and color photos might have been preferable for readers who absorb information more readily from images or have poor vision. It’s possible that a reader may look at these texts and think that they contain much more information than they want about cheese making; however, the perspective of this book indicates that cheese is a precise undertaking and that if a person is truly hoping to make quality product, they’ll need to know everything here. In addition to recipes and an index of terms, there’s information about milk choice, starter cultures, rennet, cleanliness, safe cooking procedures, and equipment. It’s clear that the book is meant for people who are serious about taking on cheese making as a hobby or as a small business venture. Potential readers should also note that they may need to find a local source of raw milk, as Winstein explains that supermarket milk has limited functionality for cheese creation.
A massive wealth of knowledge for dedicated cheese-making students.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9985959-5-5
Page Count: 670
Publisher: Smooth Stone Press
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.
An Ohio-based poet, columnist, and music critic takes the pulse of the nation while absorbing some of today’s most eclectic beats.
At first glance, discovering deep meaning in the performance of top-40 songstress Carly Rae Jepsen might seem like a tough assignment. However, Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, 2016) does more than just manage it; he dives in fully, uncovering aspects of love and adoration that are as illuminating and earnest as they are powerful and profound. If he can do that with Jepsen's pop, imagine what the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Nina Simone might stir in him. But as iconic as those artists may be, the subjects found in these essays often serve to invoke deeper forays into the worlds surrounding the artists as much as the artists themselves. Although the author is interested in the success and appeal of The Weeknd or Chance the Rapper, he is also equally—if not more—intrigued with the sociopolitical and existential issues that they each managed to evoke in present-day America. In witnessing Zoe Saldana’s 2016 portrayal of Simone, for instance, Abdurraqib thinks back to his own childhood playing on the floor of his family home absorbing the powerful emotions caused by his mother’s 1964 recording of “Nina Simone in Concert”—and remembering the relentlessly stigmatized soul who, unlike Saldana, could not wash off her blackness at the end of the day. In listening to Springsteen, the author is reminded of the death of Michael Brown and how “the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal is coming from.” In all of Abdurraqib’s poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral.
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937512-65-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.
A brisk study of 20 of the Bard’s plays, focused on stripping off four centuries of overcooked analysis and tangled reinterpretations.
“I don’t really care what he might have meant, nor should you,” writes Smith (Shakespeare Studies/Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book, 2016, etc.) in the introduction to this collection. Noting the “gappy” quality of many of his plays—i.e., the dearth of stage directions, the odd tonal and plot twists—the author strives to fill those gaps not with psychological analyses but rather historical context for the ambiguities. She’s less concerned, for instance, with whether Hamlet represents the first flower of the modern mind and instead keys into how the melancholy Dane and his father share a name, making it a study of “cumulative nostalgia” and our difficulty in escaping our pasts. Falstaff’s repeated appearances in multiple plays speak to Shakespeare’s crowd-pleasing tendencies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bawdier and darker exploration of marriage than its teen-friendly interpretations suggest. Smith’s strict-constructionist analyses of the plays can be illuminating: Her understanding of British mores and theater culture in the Elizabethan era explains why Richard III only half-heartedly abandons its charismatic title character, and she is insightful in her discussion of how Twelfth Night labors to return to heterosexual convention after introducing a host of queer tropes. Smith's Shakespeare is eminently fallible, collaborative, and innovative, deliberately warping play structures and then sorting out how much he needs to un-warp them. Yet the book is neither scholarly nor as patiently introductory as works by experts like Stephen Greenblatt. Attempts to goose the language with hipper references—Much Ado About Nothing highlights the “ ‘bros before hoes’ ethic of the military,” and Falstaff is likened to Homer Simpson—mostly fall flat.
A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4854-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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