JUNE: MFK Fisher's, "The Gastronomical Me"
June 20 TH 6:30 p.m. at Catherine's house.
Be there or be square.

May Pick: Licking the Spoon

A head's up that Rachel will be hosting a discussion of Licking the Spoon next Thursday, the 16th. Several copies are in circulations as well as available at Back of Beyond.

If, like me, you're a fan of the memoir/cookbook mash up, here are some of my favorites:

 I'm a huge fan of Nora Ephron, and Heartburn was the first book of hers I ever read. I love it too much to discuss. Someday I'll make that keylime pie from my favorite scene.

Cookbook fans will enjoy her retrospective essay, Serial Monogomy, about her favorite cookbooks over the years. The link takes you to the article at The New Yorker, but it is also in her essay collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck.

There's a blurb on the cover of Licking the Spoon from a previous book-club-pick author, Gretchen Rubin, liking this book to Heartburn and another of my favorites, Home Cooking by Laurie Calvin, but for the life of me (I still have the last quarter of the book to finish), other than the fact that they all include recipes, I don't see any similarities.

A Homemade Life, the memoir of a much younger author, with recipes, is another favorite. She is the writer of the blog Orangette. It made me wish I lived in Paris and ate bread & chocolate daily (oh, wait, that last one I do).

I'll end with Kingsolver, whose didactic and sometimes condescending tone I can forgive because the recipes in here are really good. Her pizza crust recipe has become a staple. And she's right about almost everything, but I just wish she wasn't so sure of it.

I love Ruth Reichl, but have never read any MFK Fisher. Please share your favorite food-writers! And let me know if you'd be interested in borrowing any of the above---I think I have all but Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which was a library check-out.

April Pick: Forty Rules of Love

Christy hosted a fun gathering in April to discuss Elif Shafak's Forty Rules of Love. It was my favorite kind of discussion, where half the group were nays (Christy and me), half were yays (Rachel and Catherine), and Liz's take was in the middle (from what I remember). Rachel shared some of her favorite quotes, which I found more profound than any of the "rules", and we shared some of our favorite bad lines.

There's a TED talk by Elif Shafak that you can watch here: http://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html

Also, there's a group discussion with Isabel Allende TODAY on goodreads.com:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/101912-ask-isabel-allende---wednesday-may-8th
For those who enjoyed Eva Luna, they'll be discussing Allende's newest novel, Maya's Notebook.