Reading Fast and Slow

 

I read this book fast because I didn’t understand it.

The reputation of Thomas Pynchon is extremely good, and I’ve always meant to read a book by him. I chose The Crying of Lot 49 — originally published in 1966, so it’s a very long-held intention. Maybe the humor in the book didn’t hold up for the long term. I understood all (most of?) the puns and jokes in the names of the characters, and I get the humor but it doesn’t really appeal to me. Maybe it’s past its sell-by date. Mea Culpa.

I tried reading the New York Times review that was published in 1966 when the novel was new. It started with a list of authors that could be compared to the clearly eccentric Pynchon. The list includes Melville, Conrad, Joyce, Faulkner, Nathanael West, Nabokov, John Barth, and Joseph Heller. Whew! 

The review was incredibly long and self-absorbed, expressing more about its own author than about Pyncheon, so I didn’t finish reading it. I take this as a lesson in Pynchon’s essential weirdness. Wikipedia calls the book postmodernism. I don’t think I’ll read any more Pynchon.

A Serious Book

This is the second book by Ocean Vuong that I’ve read.
I’m partway through and will review it soon.
I reviewed the earlier one here.

A Lighter Book: A Mystery set in India

Harini Nagendra: A Nest of Vipers (published 2024)

The woman detective at the center of the books in this series is a very young wife in 1920s India, and the book is full of local color, including descriptions of the city, of the clothing that people of various socio-economic levels wear, and of the relationships of the local native Indian people with the occupying British people. The plot is somewhat over-complicated plot, and at times seems repetitive and too long. However, there’s lots of food:

 

“She prepared a simple lunch for herself – coconut rice with toasted sesame seeds and fried curry leaves, along with a simple red pumpkin raita” (p. 63)

“The unseasonal heat of the afternoon had receded, leaving them dehydrated and on edge. She added a pinch of black salt and a spoon of grated ginger to the jaggery water, garnishing their glasses with sprigs of mint. The drink gave them fresh energy, the sweetness easing the last remnants of Kaveri’s headache.” (p. 174)

The first book in the series: I reviewed it here.
I liked it better than A Nest of Vipers.

Connected: A New York Times Article about Saris

Constantly, the author describes the saris that the central character wears, including very elaborate and expensive ones that indicate her husband’s high status as an Indian doctor, and also sometimes very poor quality, worn-out saris that she borrows to hide her identity when detecting. A few days ago, in a New York Times article, I read;

“Not for nothing are so many English words connected with weaving — chintz, calico, shawl, pyjamas, khaki, dungarees, cummerbund, taffetas — of Indian origin.” (Source)

Reviews by mae sander © 2025. 

Shared with Deb at Readerbuzz .

Junk Food: A History

I just read an mpressive article on junk food in the New York Times: “How America Got Hooked on Ultraprocessed Foods.’ Beginning with the 19th century and early 20th century introductions of products like Jello, Coke, and Crisco, the article uses reproductions of advertisements from food manufacturers to show how the American diet was revolutionized. A few screen shots:

It’s a very informative article, but more importantly it’s fun to read!

… and in other news: Return of a Favorite Flavor

We just love junk food!

Food: Fast and Slow

 Fast: Breakfast

Pastry from the freezer. Breakfast in 5 minutes.

Another instant breakfast. Once in the cereal aisle of the grocery store we were making a choice. I said “I’m tired of Life.” A passer-by heard me and was alarmed until I explained that we were talking about the product, not the process.

  

Fast: Lunch

PB&J is very fast!

Great to have one more chance to eat outside under the trees.

Slow: Dinner

Stock cooks for a few hours. On Sunday when I cooked this, my goal was not only to have stock, but to get the odds an ends out of the freezer. We strained out the over-cooked veggies, added some white beans, and called it soup.

The Crock-Pot is slow by definition. I cooked the meatballs along with the red sauce.
Saturday: I slow-cooked this and we ate meatball sandwiches.
Monday: I added red and white beans along with some salsa, and it was chilli. 
Some time in the future: there’s a box of the leftovers in the freezer.

Pretty fast: Trader Joe’s falafel. A jar of olives.
Not too fast: home made yogurt sauce, sliced cucumber, and baba ganoush.

Fast: Dessert

Sara Lee Cake with premium ice cream from a local dairy.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Civilization?

More and more Halloween displays in my neighborhood. Coming soon: another post dedicated to them.

Halloween critters for Eileen.

A Beautifully Illustrated Cookbook

José Andrés: Zaytinya.
I haven’t tried many recipes yet, but I hope I will do more.
I have enjoyed dining at the author’s restaurants in Washington, DC.

Fattoush salad from Zaytinya. Tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese, croutons, radishes, bell peppers,
red onions, and herbs from our garden. Olive oil, pomegranate, and lemon dressing. (I omitted sumac because I didn’t have any.)

In 2023: our family at one of the Andres restaurants in 
Washington DC.

Two Historical Novels

I originally reviewed this book by John Shen. Yen Nee and SJ Rozan last year:
https://maefood.blogspot.com/2024/07/two-exotic-mystery-tales.html
Reading next: a newly-published sequel about the same characters.

Next book: the sequel, also featuring Judge Dee.
The Railway Conspiracy by John Shen Yen Nee and S.J.Rozan.

A Challenging Theory of Prehistory and Civilization

Luke Kemp: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.
There are so many theories of prehistory! I haven’t finished this book yet.

The early chapters of this book summarize the emergence of violence and war in human societies, which in hunter-gatherer times had tended to be very egalitarian and peaceful. I found this fascinating. Here are a couple of passages that capture the author’s ideas about the disadvantages of civilization:

“In Europe, there are no signs of war during the Palaeolithic. Around 9500 BCE, after the entry into the Holocene, evidence of lethal violence begins to become more common. After around 5500 BCE, as agriculture agriculture spreads across Europe, people settle down, and inequality intensifies; clearer indications of warfare, including fortifications, towns surrounded by ditches, and evidence of massacres, all creep upwards. The Near East follows a similar trajectory. The Natufians killed each other at low rates and didn’t conduct war. For thousands of years we find just a few skeletons with fractured skulls and embedded projectiles. Then in the seventh century BCE, perhaps the first fortification in the world – Tell Maghzaliyah in northern Mesopotamia – was constructed near a node of long-distance obsidian trade.” (p. 68)

The author points out that the increasingly dense cities that emerged not only were more violent, but also began to suffer from contagious diseases. He writes:

“Many of the plagues of the world today, such as influenza, measles, mumps, cholera, smallpox, chicken pox, and, of course, Covid-19, are all recent developments from the past ten thousand years. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors never had to endure the throaty cough of influenza or the painful and disfiguring scabs of chicken pox or smallpox, which emerged only with the advent of urbanism and agriculture. These ‘density-dependent’ diseases require intense interaction between humans and animals, something many of the earliest cities provided in abundance. Such diseases also need a sufficiently large population so they don’t burn themselves out by killing all their hosts.” (p. 89)

This is a challengingly-written and rather long book, and I’m planning to continue reading it around 100 pages at a time.

Related book reviewed in 2017

James C. Scott , Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States.
Reviewed here: https://maefood.blogspot.com/2017/10/against-grain-contrary-book.html

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Shared with Deb’s Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz

A Very Scary Fiction Book About a Library

 

Laura Sims: How Can I Help You?
You wouldn’t think a book that almost entirely takes place in a library could be so suspenseful
and so close to a horror story! Some really chilling character development.

From the New York Times review:

“On the surface, Margo, one of the main characters in Laura Sims’s unnerving HOW CAN I HELP YOU … is a cheerful librarian known for her ready smile and her willingness to perform even the most mundane task. But it’s a facade she can maintain for only so long, because she has a secret: In her previous job, she was a nurse whose hobby was murdering her patients.”

The other main character, Patricia, is also working in the library. However, her real goal in life is to write a novel that will be accepted for publication, her first novel having been roundly rejected. She catches onto Margo’s secret identity and discovers her real name and her past. Patricia constantly watches her co-worker, taking notes all the time, and planning to base a new plot for her novel on Margo, thus producing a much more dramatic novel than her rejected one. From the NYT review: 

“Sims’s great achievement is to present the two main characters almost as sides of the same coin, colluding in a psychological cat-and-mouse game that only one can win.” 

The end of this story, I found, was a clever surprise.

Review © 2025 mae sander

Reading and Other Adventures This Week

Richard Osman, The Impossible Fortune.
I was really looking forward to this new book about the Thursday Murder Club.
Sadly, I did not find it nearly as enjoyable as the earlier ones in the series.

Another episode of the Great British Baking Show — here are some of the participants.

Early October Treats

 

We have never before bought Halloween candy so early! It’s very good and might not last until
the Trick-or-Treaters get here. We will probably have to buy more. I do like Snickers bars.

Spaghetti casserole with lots of cheesy crumb topping.

On the Street

Walking through downtown… bicycle chaos and…

A mural for Sami’s Monday Murals.

Warm sunny weather is lasting into October. No frost so far.

New Plants in my Window

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

September Highlights

Around our house and in my kitchen

The neighbor had a huge old tree taken out because it was too close to her foundation.
We are now getting used to having a lot more sunshine on the side of the house,
especially in the kitchen, dining room, and in the driveway.

Nasturtiums are edible, but I’ve never tried eating one.
Our next-door neighbor has a flourishing patch of them.

New faucet for the kitchen sink. The old one leaked irreperably.
This is my main new kitchen item for Sherry’s In My Kitchen.

My sunny kitchen. In a corner on the counter,
 you can see my newish water boiler.

Outside our porch: our hydrangeas are still beautiful, and our neighbor has pumpkins.

We had quite a few very good dinners during September.

We’ll soon be missing the local tomatoes!

Evelyn and Alice share some treats.

Alice showed us a favorite ice cream spot, Blank Slate Creamery, that she’s discovered in the several weeks
since she moved here to graduate school.

Evelyn spent the past weekend visiting us and also seeing Alice’s new apartment.
We had lunch at a downtown diner. Evelyn and Alice shared a masala omelet, and I had avocado toast.

Alice also had French toast with berries.

Halloween is here!

The elaborate decor on a street near us is being installed already.

We have bought and eaten some Halloween chocolates. Another new food for Sherry!

Reading for our time

Ionesco’s allegory of conformity and fascism corrupting ordinary people seems to apply very well to the moment. If you know this play, you can probably see what I mean. I plan to reread it soon.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander