Summer Mystery Reading

"After all, much of what was being said was lies, or at least evasions and interpretations. The business of the law was not the discovery of the truth, anyway, but the imposition of the power of the state upon its citizens." -- Donna Leon. A Question of Belief, p. 173

Throughout the Inspector Brunetti series, one theme is always the corruption and ineffectiveness of the government, both in Venice and in Italy in general. Brunetti's thoughts vary but he usually feels crushed by the impossibility of actual justice. However, he keeps on finding who is guilty in the many acts of criminal and antisocial behavior that he's forced to investigate. And meanwhile, he stops for coffee, little sandwiches called tramezzini, and the delicious Venetian cuisine made by his wife Paola.

In A Question of Belief, it's brutally hot summer in a Venice with almost no air conditioning, and Brunetti hopes to escape to the cool mountains. However, a murder interrupts the train voyage to his vacation, while Paola and his children continue to their destination. Thus he's on his own for food much of the time. Paola only makes one meal for him, and it sounds great: "prosciutto and figs and then pasta with fresh peppers and shrimp." (p. 65). 

Even the take-out pizza Brunetti gets while she is gone sounds pretty good -- "pizza with hot sausage, ruccola, hot pepper, onion and artichokes." He took it home "and sat on the terrace and ate it while drinking two beers and reading Tacitus, the bleakness of whose vision of politics was the only thing he could tolerate in his current state." (p. 201).  

Brunetti mysteries make good summer reading, though it's quite cool and pleasant here in Michigan this week. The descriptions of the sweltering heat in Venice made me feel hot anyway. 

My other summer reading has been some historical fiction by Sujata Massey: several stories collected under the title India Gray.  I admire this author's ability to create vivid characters in very remote conditions. Here, the character Perveen Mistry makes her first appearance as a student at Oxford just after World War I. She's called on to find a missing person, and enlists the support of her friend Alice, who also later appears in the other books in the series that are mainly set in India.

Another story in the collection is set in the 1920s during the British occupation of India, this one about an Ayah who cares for British children and contrasts their life with the painful plight of her own family. A story set during the end of World War II sees the situation from the point of view of an Anglo-Indian woman married to a British agent; it highlights the motives of the Indians who went over to the Japanese side because they thought it would hasten the liberation of India. Finally a very short story is a kind of fantasy about a very young woman who finds a way to defeat a tyrannical Taliban war lord.

I enjoyed these stories, especially the character Perveen Mistry's view of food in Oxford such as "the almond and jam confection known as a Bakewell tart" and "a large pink-and-white-checked Battenberg cake, as well as a similarly sized Victoria sponge," (p. 31, 34) There's also "mulligatawny, the uniquely British concoction of chicken, flour, apples and curry powder," which she liked "better than the mutton soup that was served at least once a week." (pp. 51-52). 

The stories in India Gray presented a little bit of history of several places from a point of view that I have never really thought about, especially the view of the colonial British from the point of view of Indian people. The stories aren't just local color, though, they are well-plotted and the characters are developed in an interesting way. I think I'll be continuing with more Sujata Massey's books, of which I've read several before.

Review © 2021 mae sander.

An Excellent Dish Towel!

In my kitchen: a gift from Evelyn, commemorations the year of Brood X cicadas, which are especially numerous in Fairfax where she lives — what a wonderful dish towel. We really enjoyed our recent visit with Evelyn and her family, celebrating Alice’s graduation. Seeing and hearing the cicadas all around us was especially wonderful. With their red eyes and long wings, they are quite beautiful if you aren’t prejudiced against insects! 
 

Postcards

From our recent trip to Arizona.

Driving the Ohio Turnpike on the way to
Virginia this week.

The Great Lakes are all around us.
Lake Ontario is the farthest from Michigan.

A delightful alphabet from Iris Flavia's hometown Braunschweig.
My favorite letter is G for Carl Friedrich Gauss, the great mathematician,
born in Braunschweig (called Brunswick in English) in 1777.

Braunschwieg Burgplatz, with the statue of Henry the Lion,
Iris Flavia's iconic alter-ego. This lion is a copy of the antique original,
which is indoors for protection against air pollution.
I am grateful that she sent me some cards of her city.

Some people say it's hard to find postcards now. It's true that they are available in fewer places than in the past, but if you watch for them, there are quite a few around, especially the currently popular Art Deco types like my "Lake Ontario" (from a local Ann Arbor framing shop) and "Ohio" (from a rest stop on the turnpike). The demise of postcards is an ongoing reason for writers to wring their hands -- see this post: "Are Postcards Endangered?" which I wrote in 2008.

Barbecue for a Graduate

Crab cakes, corn, and capreze salad — a great start to our outdoor dinner in honor of Alice’s graduation.

From the grill: salmon, tuna, halloumi cheese, and corn.

Home-made ice cream for dessert with a few cubes of cake and a bit of fruit. We drank wine, of course.

Blog post © 2021 mae sander..

Congratulations, Graduate!

Alice in her cap & gown when it wasn't raining.
Her high school graduation took place in quite a lot of rain.

Graduation started at 2 PM today, June 11.
Grads march in at the Jiffy Lube Live Concert Venue.

The beginning of the ceremony: Color Guard and a few of the 650 graduates onstage.

We could watch on the big screens at either side of the stage.

The Robinson Singers. This is 2021, so the performance was taped.
Some grads wore masks with their caps and gowns.

One of the few, brief speeches in the 2-hour ceremony.

Finally, Alice walks onstage in the line to receive diplomas.

Alice and Zach.

Alice and Miriam.

Evelyn, Alice, and Tom.

Blog post © 2021 mae sander. 

Burke Lake near Fairfax, VA

Last year, our tiny inflatable kayak was a great way to spend recreation time during the pandemic. Now that we aren’t so locked down, we’ve taken it to Fairfax for more fun. Alice took these photos of Evelyn and Len in the kayak:

Welcome to Virginia.

On the way to Fairfax: a mural in the Oakmont-Plum Rest Area, Pennsylvania Turnpike.
We drove here yesterday.

Brood X Cicadas in Evelyn’s Yard

The cicadas here are at a more advanced step in their elaborate life-cycle than those in Michigan.

Soon they will lay their eggs and die, while the new generation go underground for another 17 years.

Blogpost and photos © 2021 mae sander.

"High on the Hog" -- Book and Netflix Series

High on the Hog, published 2011.

Jessica B. Harris has written several books on the cuisine of the African diaspora. Her most famous, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America has now inspired a Netflix documentary series titled "High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America." 

Journalist Stephen Satterfield is the host of series, which begins with a visit to the country of Benin in Africa and an exploration of markets and restaurants there. This episode is titled "Roots," and the next three episodes are "The Rice Kingdom," "Our Founding Chefs," and "Freedom."

Before beginning to watch the series, I reread the book, which was a very well-liked selection of my culinary book club a couple of years ago (blogged here). The book documents the many ways that American cuisine was influenced by the enslaved Africans who brought foods and cooking techniques to America. Okra, rice, watermelon, black-eyed peas, and a few other cultivated plants were brought directly from the countries of origin of the enslaved African people being forcibly taken to America. A very important fact stressed in the book is that many of the enslaved people had valuable skills in food preparation and farming, especially in the cultivation of rice, covered in the second episode. 

Harris, in her book, writes about the important foods of the pre-slavery era in Africa:

"A wide band below the Sahara spanned from Sudan in the east to Senegal in the west and developed around the cultivation of sorghum and several varieties of millet. A coastal area and the Niger Delta region, including what is today Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, depended on rice and fonio, a native cereal grass that produces a small mustard-like seed. A third area, also on the coast, ran from today’s Côte d’Ivoire through Cameroon and cultivated yams. These three crucibles—cereals, rice, and yams—also marked three distinct areas from which enslaved Africans were brought to the United States. Each had its own traditional dishes centered on the starch that was its preference. Those from the rice crucible were among some of the earliest transported by the Transatlantic Slave Trade to what would become the United States. They brought with them their knowledge of rice cultivation and their memories of a rice-based cuisine, like that of today’s Senegal, where wags say that the Lord’s Prayer should be rewritten to say, 'Give us this day our daily rice'!"  (pp. 9-10). 

High on the Hog Episode 2, "The Rice Kingdom" begins in Charelston, South Carolina, which was the port of entry for a large percent of the enslaved Africans being brought to the colonies that became the US. It continues with the remote sea islands where the Gullah Geechee people -- descendants of the slaves of the region -- were extremely isolated. As a result, their culture has preserved more African folkways and foodways than most other communities. 

Rice grew in fields in the South Carolina lowlands. These had been cleared by the labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants, and continued to be cultivated there, especially Carolina Gold, the special rice of the region. After the Civil War, the absence of slave labor nearly put an end to the highly profitable rice-growing industry, but rice cuisine survives in African-American communities as explored by Satterfield and several local food personalities. I found this episode to be a really interesting extension of  Harris's book, not a repeat of her material. The interviews and communal dinners shown are especially appealing and informative.

Jessica B. Harris and Stephen Satterfield in Episode 1.

One of many residents of Benin interviewed.

Cooking a rice and okra soup on an open fire: Episode 2.

Pre-Civil-War rice cultivation by enslaved people. This and the previous illustrations are screen shots from the Netflix series.

After watching the first two episodes, I am enthusiastic, and will write more when I’ve seen more of them. This post © 2021 mae sander. Images are from the Netflix series.

"Where the Crawdads Sing"

This is an easy book to like, and it's certainly been popular since its publication a few years ago -- it's also going to be a film. I was as entranced as many other readers including some of my friends. The central character, Kya, is abandoned as a child and learns to take care of herself and live in the wooded marshes of coastal North Carolina. Her shelter is a primitive cabin with very few modern comforts. She discovers how to live self-sufficiently, gathering mussels and other shell fish to sell to a sympathetic shopkeeper in the local town of Barkley Cove for basic food (mainly grits) and for fuel for her boat and her kerosene lamps. She gathers and cultivates vegetables to eat with her grits and shellfish. 

"Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean. Layers of life—squiggly sand crabs, mud-waddling crayfish, waterfowl, fish, shrimp, oysters, fatted deer, and plump geese—were piled on the land or in the water. A man who didn’t mind scrabbling for supper would never starve." (p. 8). 

A big contrast between her life and that of the other local residents is in the food they eat. For example, the town contrasts to her marshland home:

"A full bank of windows, framed by hurricane shutters, covered the front of the Barkley Cove Diner, which overlooked the harbor. Only the narrow street stood between the building, constructed in 1889, and the soggy steps of the village pier. Discarded shrimp baskets and wadded-up fishing nets lined the wall under the windows, and here and there, mollusk shells littered the sidewalk. Everywhere: seabird cries, seabird dung. The aroma of sausage and biscuits, boiled turnip greens, and fried chicken thankfully overtook the high smell of fish barrels lining the dock." (p. 61).

Over time, Kya learns to use the resources of the marsh around her home. She becomes a self-taught naturalist, and the book's descriptions of the natural world of birds, flowers, grasses, mushrooms, and marsh residents are delightful and beautiful. She's wary of other human beings, but not too much. On the surface, it's a beautiful story as it develops, though there are dark forces at work (but no spoilers here).

Kya is very shy of the small town not far from her cabin, but never becomes really comfortable there. She attends school for only one day -- tempted by the offer of a school lunch that included chicken pie:

"Copying the others, she picked up a tray, a green plastic plate, and flatware. A large window with a counter opened into the kitchen, and laid out before her was an enormous enamel pan of chicken pie crisscrossed with thick, crispy pastry, hot gravy bubbling up. A tall black woman, smiling and calling some of the kids by name, plopped a big helping of pie on her plate, then some pink-lady peas in butter and a yeast roll. She got banana pudding and her own small red-and-white carton of milk to put on her tray." (p. 29). 

She's too tense and self-conscious being near the other kids in the cafeteria, who definitely look down on her. Though hungry, she can't eat this appealing meal. She never returns to the school, cleverly eluding the truant officers for the rest of her childhood. The standard food becomes one of the ways she remains different from the other characters in the novel. Eventually she becomes more adept with cooking, as well as some (but not all) the other habits of town people. Near the end, for example, one of her long-lost brothers reappears:

"She cooked a southern supper as Ma would have: black-eyed peas with red onions, fried ham, cornbread with cracklin’, butter beans cooked in butter and milk. Blackberry cobbler with hard cream with some bourbon Jodie brought." (p. 241).  

Overthinking this book is a temptation. It's full of literally dubious events and situations, and the details of Kya's life are all somewhat unrealistic. Too many impossibilities!  It's so enjoyable to read it, though, that I don't really want to do any reality checks, just to regard it as a kind of magical realism. Unfortunately, the main Black characters in the novel, a couple called Jumpin' and Mabel, also have some of the characteristics of the style called "romantic racism" or the stereotype called "the Magical Negro." This is "a supporting. stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers often of a supernatural or quasi-mystical nature, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble." (link)

In sum,  I liked it in spite of myself.

Blog post © 2021 mae sander.

Manet paints beer

Édouard Manet seems to have loved beer.

Or at least loved seeing people drinking beer.

His paintings also include other beverages.

 

I'm home for a while and back to thinking about famous painters and how they depicted various subjects. Somehow my ramblings led me to Manet, and I realized  how he seemed to love to paint café scenes including waitresses, waiters, and people drinking beer. These are some that I've found, which I dedicate to the weekly celebration of beverages at Elizabeth's blog.

At South Lake

 A lovely day in Michigan. Hot but not too hot. Nice to visit the lake for a picnic at Nat’s house.

Lunch.

Carol and Adam on kayaks.

“I caught one!” — A boy was fishing on the dock. His family were nearby. I used to know the people
at South Lake, but I don’t any more.

Photos and blog post © 2021 mae sander.