I sound like Demi Moore

Gentle reader*,

As you've probably noted, my bloggy output has been rather minimalistic over the past few weeks.

Two weeks ago I felt *something* start to come on...at first it was fatigue...then it was a stuffy nose...then I was fine...then I got tired again...then a pressure headache or two. A week and a half ago my temps were yo-yoing like well...a yo-yo.

This week it hit my throat.

I awoke sounding like Deirdre Barlow. The next day I sounded more like Kathleen Turner (a vast improvement). Now I sound more like Demi Moore (a step down, I think). Somewhere between Kathleen and Demi the names Alannah Myles and Joss Stone also passed certain lips..along with "976-number" and "woah...the guys are really going to like this."

Yesterday the cough introduced itself...on the road to sounding like a mad, barking seal. Today the snot started...and the fatigue returned.

Needless to say, I'm blessedly tired of this...and I'll be back when a bit more myself.

blah
jasmine

*you know I'm not quite myself when I can't resist that cliché...

Feast: Baby 'bella's 9th birthday party

An ice cream party. Our Baby 'bella wanted an ice cream party to celebrate her ninth party. Fifteen flavours were on the wish list.

Hmmm...my ice cream maker has been disconcertingly silent during the past few months...and I do have two inserts taking up room in my freezer. A quick glance at the list and we divvied up the flavours, combined a few and two weeks of churning and we came up with a dozen flavours between the two of us. Thank goodness I now have a deep freezer to store my five flavours.

Nine little girls in total.

Nine squealing little girls.

Were we ever that squealy when we were that age? I'm sure we carried ourselves with grace and decorum...always walking from one place to the other, never raising our voices and never, ever jumping up and down like jackhammers riding on pistons. Hmmm...maybe age has fuzzed the little grey cells a wee bit.

Being one of the "official adults" on site I was to help keep things going and spot for any troublesome issues. But I received an invitation...which meant I was allowed to be a squealing little girl. I decided to be a squealing adult. Okay. I was squealing on the inside...those girls could squeal for Canada. Really.

Six hours.

Six hours of frenetic kitten cavorting, chinchilla chasing, snake spying and budgie bugging interspersed with games, food and foodish games. Heck. I was the "world famous food expert" who judged the cupcake decorating contest.

As a non-parent it was very interesting watching the dynamics and the personalities within a group of people this age. There was the nurturer, the forty year-old disguised as a nine year old, and...of course, the ever-so-precious-in-only-her-parents'-minds child.

The cake itself was Dorie's Perfect Party Cake (March '08's DB challenge) and I think my friend did a lovely job with the cake. Yes...the blessed thing did not rise but no matter. It's still a delicious cake. Loved the mauve daisies that set off the primrose of the buttercream.

And the ice creams? We had French Vanilla, Lemon, Butterscotch, Chocolate, Strawberry, Coconut-Mango, Ginger-Lime, Chocolate Chip, Banana Cream, Coconut Custard, Pink Peppermint-Oreo and Orange Sherbet. The young guests weren't too enamoured with the more...exotic flavours and left them for the grown ups (and Baby 'bella), and stuck to chocolate chip, chocolate and the Oreo-mint (hmm...all chocolate-based...who knew?)

Umm...yeah. The grown ups had a little extra help to get through the day (in case you were wondering, the wine glass was not part of the place setting...and the grown ups were not walking around the house with glasses of reisling during the party....AFTER the party was a different story).

Okay: yes, I know I should stop referring to her as "Baby 'bella" but I just can't. She'll always be "Baby 'bella" to me.

cheers!
jasmine

On My Rickety Shelves: Animal Vegetable Miracle

Thanks to the good people at Harper Collins Canada for providing me with this month's book.

Animal, Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life
By Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
Harper Perennial
370 pages; $17.50

Transplantation stories—kit and caboodle packed up and moved to strange and alluring surrounds—are a bit of weakness. Tim Parks, Peter Mayle and Georgeanne Brennan have all sucked me into their travels and travails as they navigate new customs, meet the local colour and slowly try and work their ways in to the weft of their new neighbourhood fabric. Amusing, eye-opening and painfully self conscious these books help to satisfy my armchair travel-cum-voyeurism. Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle walks in this genre, but also tramples on socio-political foodism that is de rigueur.

The book’s premise is simple: Kingsolver, her partner and children leave Arizona for an Appalachian farm to grow their own food, eat locally and basically become better people for it. They grew a lot of vegetables, raised chickens and had various “a-ha” moments regarding food production and food consumption.

Multi-authorship is a tricky premise to execute effectively and in my opinion, this is a prime example of too many cooks. Kingsolver is the main narrator, recounts mushroom hunting, travelling to Montréal, market shopping and other slices of life. Interjections about modern food production appear from her partner Steven L. Hopp, including treatises on locavorism, food pricing, and genetically modified foods. Her daughter Camille provides her own insights into the familial adventures along with recipes and menu ideas.

I had a hard time getting into this book. I started it several times, and at each attempt I set it back on the table with great exasperation.

Barbara Kingsolver is a very good writer. Primarily known as a fiction writer, her words engage the reader and bring her new community (and her family) to life. If this book were “only” a story about a family moving out to a farm and their adventures and learnings, it would be a fabulous read. Unfortunately, it’s not. Hopp’s essays contain a degree of earnest, evangelistic scholastic work usually voiced by those who’ve just learned about how food gets to our plates. Readers would be better served by Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dillema or Gina Mallet’s Last Chance to Eat. Camille Kingsolver’s essays are marked by purpled prose indicative of schoolgirl essays; quite honestly, I was quickly disinterested in the younger Kingsolver’s words and barely skimmed most of her passages. I think I’d have rather read Lily Kingsolver’s (Barbara Kingsolver’s youngest daughter) views of the process. Really.

The differences in styles and abilities interfere with the text’s flow, and to me create a chopped and disparate book. The anecdotal recounts of their experiences are fun to read, but I’m not sure if they balance out the food politics presented, nor are they salves to what seem like her daughter’s indulgent passages.

cheers!
jasmine