Spring Snacks

Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain

I've been watching Anthony Bourdain's TV show "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel for a long time and have been amused that a once-semi-famous, previously heroin abusing, now-washed-up chef created a show that intertwines travel, local food and some pretty crafty cultural observations.  His literary snippets throughout the show hinted to me that he might be a good writer.  When "Medium Raw" was published this winter, I went for it.  It is definitely entertaining, with quite a few shock value stories, but it lacks a central thread.  Besides food.  It meanders from anecdote to anecdote, though his sarcasm and hilariously self-aggrandizing sentences will keep you turning the pages.  When I finished it, I was sufficiently impressed to get his first book, "Kitchen Confidential" from the library.  It came out 10 years ago and was a sensation at the time.  I thought Bourdain has a more authentic voice in "Kitchen Confidential" and liked it better. (My fiance prefers "Medium Raw").  They're not for the faint of heart; both have gritty and profane prose and some gruesome details of life in the innards of famous NYC kitchens.  Both are enjoyable, but read them in order and not backwards like I did.


The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

This thick and ambitiously titled Biography of Cancer was more readable than I anticipated.  Mukherjee's brilliance is in his layering of interesting historical tidbits, patient stories, and observations on how cancer has shaped culture.  Otherwise, this massive topic, with it's biochemical intricacies would be overwhelming and boring.  As someone who suffered through medical school biochemistry with zero idea why we were learning tedious genetic mutations like bcr/abl and the drug subsequently invented to fix the cancer it creates, this book gave me some lightbulb moments.  All of those befuddling DNA/RNA/protein product pathways we had to learn were very recently discovered and have advanced medicine light years since then.  I would recommend this book to people who have an interest in cancer's insidious ways, or medical people who hated biochemistry as much as I did.


Late for Tea at the Deer Palace by Tamara Chalabi

This is the story of a prominent Iraqi family, beginning in the late 1800's and continuing to current day Iraq.  The family was an influential Shi'a (the religious minority in Iraq) family that weathered the fall of the Ottoman Empire, British occupation post WWI, and the unstable governments following.  The family was forced into exile in London and Lebanon in the 1970's, and the author was born in Beirut.  Her family's longing for their home country informed the author's cultural identity, and just before the Americans took over Baghdad, she went 'home' to the country she never knew.  An interesting look at the beautiful history of a dynamic population; the kind of peoples' history that textbooks tend to forget in favor of white-washed atrocities and American heroism.


The Spice Necklace: My Adventures in Caribbean Cooking, Eating and Island Life by Ann Vanderhoof

These are the kind of books I gravitate towards- well written mind vacations that take me away from the persistent rain of Seattle.  In her first book, "An Embarrassment of Mangoes," Vanderhoof tells the story of how she and her husband become disillusioned with their publishing jobs in cold Toronto (am I torturing myself with these stories?), and sell everything, buy a sailboat, and sail down the intercoastal waterway to the Caribbean, where they voyage in a mostly-happily-ever-after manner.  In this follow-up, the couple, after a second Canadian epiphany, return to the Caribbean and delight in island life once more.  I appreciate her descriptions of the differences between the islands and the lingering flavors of French, Spanish and Portuguese spices on their sandy shores.  I also appreciate that their boat is named Receta (recipe), and their dinghy is called Snack.  Throughout the book are many recipes, quite a few of which feature rum and/or coconut.  Cue trip to the refrigerator.