Book Report: Each Kindness

19. Jacqueline Woodson, Each Kindness, with illustrations by E. B. Lewis (2012) (9/30/19)

The other day I stumbled on Jacqueline Woodson, in a review of her most recent book, Red at the Bone, a work of adult fiction. She is best known, though, for her children's books (many Newbery Awards) and YA fiction (2014 National Book Award in Young People's Literature for Brown Girl Dreaming, among other honors).  

Each Kindness, which won a Coretta Scott King Award honor, is about a lesson learned too late. It concerns a new girl, Maya, coming to Chloe's elementary school class. Maya does her best to join in and be accepted, but cruelly, Chloe and her friends turn away or make fun of her. And then one day, Maya doesn't come to school. On that same day, the teacher, Ms. Albert, brings a big bowl of water and small stones to class and asks the children to describe one act of kindness they'd performed, then drop a stone into the bowl. "This is what kindness does, Mrs. Albert said. Each little thing we do goes out, like a ripple, into the world." The students take their turns, but when it comes time for Chloe to mention an act—"Even small things count, Ms. Albert said gently"—she can't think of anything. A few days later, Ms. Albert announces that Maya won't be returning to school. "That afternoon, I walked home alone. When I reached the pond, my throat filled with all the things I wished I would have said to Maya. Each kindness I had never shown." She throws small stones into the water, watching the ripples and letting the lost opportunity sink in, as "the chance of a kindness with Maya became more and more forever gone."

That's the story—but the book is much more than just the words. The illustrations add a softer perspective. Here are a few.

Here is Woodson in conversation with Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Lethem about writing about adolescence. And here she is talking about how reading can help young people create the hope and change they want to see in the world.

Chiura Obata

Yesterday we drove to Sacramento and back to see an exhibition of works by the Japanese American artist Chiura Obata (1885–1975). What a pleasure! His paintings are varied in subject matter and technique, but all of them—from teenage years on—are so accomplished. I've known about him for a while because he painted many beautiful images of Yosemite and the high Sierra. But in studying about the Japanese internment during WWII I learned that he, too, at age 57, was sent first to Tanforan Assembly Center and then to Topaz Incarceration Camp, in central Utah, where he lived for a couple of years before being released and heading to Missouri for the duration. He eventually was able to return to California, where he resumed his career as a professor of art at UC Berkeley.

His attitudes about art making and about racism were quite Buddhist. For example (both from a 1965 interview):

If you drag the brush you can't paint. I still tell my friends that when you paint, concentrate your power: make your posture correct, keep your mind very calm, imagine in your mind what you want to paint. . . . If you breathe out in the middle, your brush will die halfway; it will be like the tail of a dog recovering from an illness.

Since I came to the United States in 1903, I saw, faced, and heard many struggles among our Japanese Issei. The sudden burst of Pearl Harbor was as if the mother earth on which we stood was swept by the terrific force of a big wave of resentment of the American people. Our dignity and our hopes were crushed. In such times I heard the gentle but strong whisper of the Sequoia gigantean [sic]: "Hear me, you poor man. I've stood here more than three thousand and seven hundred years in rain, snow, storm, and even mountain fire still keeping my thankful attitude strongly with nature—do not cry, do not spend your time and energy worrying. You have children following. Keep up your unity; come with me." So, in the past, all such troubles moved like a cool fog. In deep respect I present my painting to our Nisei and the future generation.

Here are some of the works we saw yesterday, mostly on paper, some on silk. The first bunch are from the Sierras; the second are from Topaz. And we finish with a lazy cat. Click on the images to view them large on black.

Setting Sun of Sacramento Valley (1922)

Evening Moon, 1930

Small Kindnesses (a poem)

by Danusha Laméris

"Kindness" by Michael Leunig

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat," "Go ahead—you first," "I like your hat."

Two More Recipes: Nigella Lawson

The other day on Facebook I saw a photo of cookbook author Nigella Lawson in her amazing library. It made me want to visit her there and talk about books. And the comments on the photo doubled that desire, since they all spoke about what a good writer she is, how kind she seems, how energetic and just plain likable. But, I'd never run into a recipe of hers. So I sought some out. Here are two I tried, and both were scrumptious. I will definitely be making them again.

About the first she says (an example of her winning writing style), "Quick, simple, and—much as I hate the word—tasty. I know no self-respecting Italian would let tomato seeds sully the sauce, but I do so very happily, and it's the gloop inside the halved cherry tomatoes that adds cohesion to the spicy, tangy creaminess."

Gemelli with Anchovies, Tomatoes, and Mascarpone

Serves 2; prep time 30 minutes; cooking time 10–30 mins; total time up to an hour

• 6 oz gemelli pasta
• 1 Tb olive oil
• 6 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
• 6 oz cherry tomatoes, halved across the equator
• 4 Tb dry white vermouth
• 2 Tb mascarpone
• 1 Tb finely grated Parmesan plus extra to serve
• 2 Tb finely chopped Italian parsley, plus extra to serve
• salt

Method

1. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions, but start checking a good 2 minutes before you're told it should be ready.
2. Meanwhile, put the oil and anchovies in a heavy-based wok and cook, stirring, over medium heat for about 1 minute, or until the anchovies have mostly dissolved in the oil. Stir in the garlic and chili flakes, then turn up the heat a little and add the tomatoes, stirring gently for 2 minutes, or until they begin to soften.
3. Pour in the vermouth, let it bubble up, then stir and push the tomatoes about in the pan for 2 minutes until they have broken down a little in the thickened, reduced sauce. Take the pan off the heat, stir in the mascarpone, and, when it's all melted, stir in the Parmesan and parsley.
4. Before you drain the pasta, lower in a cup to remove some of the cooking water. Add a tablespoon or so of the cooking water fo the pasta sauce; this will help the sauce coat the pasta. Drain the pasta, add it to the sauce, and toss well to mix, adding more of the pasta cooking water if needed. Sprinkle with a little parseey and serve with Parmesan.

Note: Gemelli—which means "twins" in Italian—are a robust short pasta shape, made out of a single rope of pasta, doubled back on itself like a helicoidal twist. If you can't find them (though they are worth seeking out), substitute fusilli.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

She introduces the second recipe like this: "Much as I love to have a pan bubbling away on the stove, I often feel that the most stress-free way to feed people is by taking the oven route. When I'm frazzled, I firmly believe that the tray-bake is the safest way to go. Enjoy the easefulness of the oven: you just bung everything in, and you're done. I think I'd go to the supreme effort of laying on a green salad as well but, other than that, you may kick up your flamenco heels and enjoy the fiesta."

 

Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes

Serves 6 (she says: I think maybe 12); prep time 15 minutes; cooking time 1 hour

Photo by Lis Parsons

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 12 chicken thighs with skin and bone still on
• 26 oz Spanish chorizo (or linguica), cut into 1½ inch chunks
• 2 lbs new potatoes (halved) (can use half sweet potatoes)
• 2 red onions (peeled and roughly chopped)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• grated zest of 1 orange

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Put the oil in the bottom of 2 shallow roasting pans, 1 tablespoon in each. Rub the skin of the chicken in the oil, then turn skin-side up, 6 pieces in each pan.
2. Divide the sausages and the new potatoes between the two pans. Sprinkle the onion and the oregano over, then grate the orange zest over the contents of the two pans.
3. Cook for 1 hour, but after 30 minutes, swap the top tray with the bottom tray in the oven and baste the contents with the orange-colored juices.

Book Report: A Fire Story

18. Brian Fies, A Fire Story: A Graphic Memoir (2019) (9/16/19)

I first stumbled on graphic artist Brian Fies's memoir about the Tubbs Fire of October 8–9, 2017, on Facebook. As he recounts in the epilogue to this book, the very day after he and his wife were forced to evacuate, at 1:30 a.m.—and after they learned their house had been destroyed—he bought some crude drawing supplies (a pad of low-quality pulp newsprint, a permanent marker, a fine-tip black felt pen, and four highlighters) and started drawing. He posted those drawings online, and they went viral—and subsequently were picked up by newspapers and radio nationwide. The initial story was also made into a short film.

This book takes the story even further, recounting both the Fieses' experience and the experience of some of their neighbors. It describes the emotional impact, what it feels like to suffer the loss of, well, everything; what it's like to flee with no notice, to find a new place to live, to sift through the debris, to find contractors and architects in order to rebuild. It describes the thoughtfulness of family, friends, and strangers, and the feeling of community that arises from disaster.

At one spot early on he talks about being denied access to his home site, although plenty of other people were allowed in:

Firefighters, police, and the national guard all got to go in. FEMA and the EPA got to go in. Reporters, photographers, and TV crews got to go in.
 So did the public works department, the electric and gas utilities, the water company, the cable company, the phone company, and the dogcatcher.
 It seemed like everyone got to go in but us.
 "It's our property! Why are they treating us like children? I'll accept the risk!" [says Brian to his wife, Karen].
 "They don't want to be here any longer than they have to, you know . . ." [Karen replies].
 I later learned that, on the very day I was at my most indignant, search and rescue teams were going house to house checking bedsprings for human bones.

I was one of those SAR workers. Our team searched about a dozen homes, and yes, we did find a couple of bones, but more often we learned that people were safe and clear—the best news. Here's one of the happy stories.

I really enjoyed Fies's storytelling abilities, as well as his vulnerability and honesty, and his humanity. He has a big heart and understands what's truly precious in life. Yes, some of the things they lost are irreplaceable, and he's sad to have lost them. But he's learned new lessons about memory, hope, and promise. This book is a moving testament to that.

P.S. Here is a nice little update to the story, published in October 2019 in the Press Democrat. 

Book Report: A Rule against Murder

17. Louise Penny, A Rule against Murder (2008) (9/15/19)

This fourth in the series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache murder mysteries is set not in the idyllic (yet for all that, seemingly murder-prone) village of Three Pines, but at a fairly nearby auberge, a fancy hotel on a lake, where a family of means gathers—and then loses one of its own, when a statue of the pater tumbles down on her.

Inspector Gamache happens to be there too at the time, to celebrate his anniversary.

The solution to the mystery involves sugar and bees, but mostly it involves big money and lousy upbringing: yes love, but no ability to convey that love. Not that uncommon a story. Though usually it doesn't end in murder.

Then again, the murder wasn't about love. It was about robbery. And maybe the family wasn't involved.

One thing Penny is especially good at is food: mouth-water food, usually shared. It may not have anything to do with the story, but it's a pleasure to read and imagine. For a minor example:

Lunch.
 "Hello, Elliott," said the chief as the lithe young waiter gave him a barbecued steak sandwich with sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions on top.
 "Bonjour, Patron," the young man smiled, then beamed at Lacoste, who looked quite pleased.
 He put a lobster salad in front of her. And beauvoir got a hamburger and string fries. For the last twenty minutes they'd smelled the charcoals warming up in the huge barbecue in the garden, with the unmistakable summer scents of hot coals and lighter fluid. Beauvoir hadn't stopped salivating. Between that and the sweating he thought he should order a cold beer. Just to prevent dehydration. The chief that sounded good, as did Lacoste, and before long each had a beer in a tall frosted glass.
 As he looked out of the French doors he saw the maître d' walk by with a platter of steak and shrimp from the barbecue, presumably for the Morrows.
 "You were saying?" 

I enjoyed the story, I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the place the story was set. I enjoyed the evolving character of Inspector Gamache (his father and son both make an appearance here). I have made a note about the actual hotel on which Manoir Bellechasse was modeled, thinking, maybe a vacation not too long from now?

But hopefully no murders while I'm there.

Book Report: Tidal Flats

16. Cynthia Newberry Martin, Tidal Flats (20019) (9/4/19) 

This is a spare book: about feelings, yearnings, giving and taking, ultimately forgiveness. It reminded me of a play, because its cast of characters is small: Cass, the protagonist, who wants her husband, Ethan, to come home and stay home; Cass's librarian friend Vee, who thrives on fear; a bartender, Singer; a neighbor, Katie, with a new baby and her husband; Ethan's journalist friend Wheeler; the Three Fates, old women in Cass's care. The setting is also small: Atlanta—with threads to Provincetown, Mass., and Afghanistan.

The story is about a pact, which is broken. Or is it? Ethan is a photographer who spends a lot of time in Afghanistan; he's well known for a portrait he shot of a young woman with amber eyes. He's currently involved in a project to distribute cameras to Afghans so that they can document their own lives. He met Cass three years earlier, they fell in love, and he promised he'd come home for good by their third anniversary (the pact), but in the meantime he needs to keep returning to Afghanistan. Events intervene as the third anniversary looms.

The story is basically about Cass's own doubts and worry, and struggle with what she wants and needs. There are episodes in her past that keep her from wanting children, which Ethan does want. Vee and the Three Fates offer tangential advice, simply by being who they are. Singer offers superficial comfort. She is also anxious over Ethan's absence in Afghanistan. Separation is hard. And then he is kidnapped

Everything works out in the end, but with a twist. A big one.

I guess that's like life, though the twists aren't always big. Well, and things "working out in the end" is sometimes questionable. But . . . life. It happens. But we also have to work at making it happen the way we want. That, perhaps, is the message of this lovely book.

I didn't flag any passages in this book to quote. It's fine writing, and I sat with the last three-quarters of the book reading voraciously, wanting to find out what happens. I was quite satisfied with the end.

Two Recipes

Two recipes today, one that I make from time to time, the other that I fully anticipate making from time to time—and why not keep them handy right here on my blog? With thanks to Minimalist Baker for the first (including the photo), and to halfbaked Harvest for the second (and ditto)—minus the bloggy verbiage and photos.

Veggie–Baked Tofu Stir Fry

Serves 2–3; prep time 15 minutes; cook time 45 minutes; total time 1 hour

Stir Fry

• 1 14-ounce package firm or extra-firm tofu
• 2 cups roughly chopped green beans (or other veggies)
• 1 cup diced carrots or red pepper (ditto)
• 2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil for sauteing

Sauce

• 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar (or less for less sweetness)
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup or honey (or less)
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Dry tofu: Drain, removed from the package, and place between two thick towels folded to the size of the block of tofu. Place a plate on top, and on top of that, something heavy, like a skillet or book. Let stand for about 15 minutes, changing towels if they get too wet.
3. When dry, chop the tofu into roughly 1-inch cubes or rectangles.
4. Arrange tofu on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet to prevent sticking and bake for 25–35 minutes, flipping once halfway through. (For a "meatier" texture, cook 30–35; for a more tender texture, cook 20–25.)
5. Once it's golden grown and firm, remove from oven and set out to dry (45 minutes is ideal) while you prep your vegetables.
6. If serving over rice, start the rice.
7. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients, and set aside.
8. Heat large skillet or wok over medium-high heat and add sesame oil, swirling to coat. Add veggies and toss to coat. Cook 5–7 minutes, stirring often. When the vegetables have softened a bit, add the sauce and stir. It should bubble and thicken. Then add the tofu and stir to coat.
9. Continue cooking for 3–5 minutes, stirring often, until cooked to your preferred doneness. Serve as is or over rice for a more filling meal.

Sweet Potato and Chorizo Tacos with Black Bean Salsa and Roasted Poblano Avocado Crema 

Serves 4; prep time 15 minutes; cook time 25 minutes; total time 40 minutes

Tacos 

• 1 sweet potato, cut into 1-inch chunks (or smaller)
• 1 pound ground Mexican chorizo
• 1 clove garlic, minced or grated
• 4 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 8 corn or flour tortillas, warmed

Black Bean Corn Salsa

• 1 cup cooked black beans (can be canned)
• 2 ears grilled corn
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
• 1 jalapeño, seeds removed, chopped
• 1/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 1 lime, juiced
• kosher salt and pepper to taste

Poblano Avocado Crema

• 1 avocado, skin and pit removed, chopped or sliced
• 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 poblano pepper
• 2 tsp hot sauce
• 2 limes, juiced
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add some olive oil. Add garlic and sweet potatoes, stir, and cook covered for 20 minutes, until sweet potatoes are just softened.
2. Crumble in the chorizo and cook until browned and cooked through, about 8–10 minutes.
3. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, make the roasted poblano crema:
 □ Preheat oven broiler (or you can use a grill).
 □ Remove the core and seeds from the peppers and slice in half.
 □ Lay on a baking sheet and place under the broiler skin side up.
 □ Broil until skins are well charred (about 5 minutes—check every 2–3 minutes and rotate if needed)
 □ Remove peppers from oven using tongs, place in a bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit for 15 minutes.
 □ Once the peppers are cool, remove some of the charred skin and place in the bowl of a food processor together with the avocado, Greek yogurt, lime juice, and hot sauce. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and process until smooth.
4. While the peppers cook, make the salsa: In a medium bowl, combine the black beans, grilled corn, jalapeño, cilantro, green onions, lime juice, and cumin. Season with salt and pepper and toss well.

To assemble, place generous spoonfuls of the sweet potato–chorizo mixture in the warm tortillas. Top with shredded cheese, then black bean and corn salsa, and finally roasted poblano avocado crema.