Book: If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende

This was a marvelous book. Heather and her husband Chip grew up on the East Coast, and after college they went to Alaska on their honeymoon, and stayed. They now live in Haines (90 miles north of Juneau) and have five kids. Not counting the rather uninspired title, this is a beautifully written book. She writes of her neighbors, her family, and the stunning, majestic Alaskan landscape. The common thread in all of her stories is that people are much more important than material possessions, fame or money.

She is the obituary writer for the local newspaper; she runs daily; she cooks huge meals for dozens of people on all sorts of occasions; she smokes salmon. I wanted to go live there while reading this book. At one point, she decides she wants to learn how to pray the rosary even though she isn't Catholic, so she does. She and Chip adopt a child from Bulgaria. She forces herself to go hunting with her husband. She is a liberal activist but works hard at trying to understand the views of others. She writes gracefully, with honesty, compassion and wit.

One day, they go iceskating on Chilkoot Lake: "Dark spruce trees and white mountains reflect on ice as hard and shiny as a marble floor....The ice is absolutely smooth and clear and the air so cold that my breath makes frost on my eyelashes, scarf, and on the edges of my wool hat."

The next day, a friend falls through the ice on this lake. He grabs at the ice edge which breaks several times before he finally crawls out. He survives and gets home, telling his family, "I had a bad experience." Others are not as fortunate: they drown; they fall to their death; they are killed in car accidents or plane crashes. The author tells us their stories and so a part of them remains.

I found this book soothing as it reiterates what is important for us humans as we make our way though this life.

Book: Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Jeannette's grandmother was Lily Casey Smith and this is mostly her story. Lily grew up early in the 20th century in Arizona and New Mexico. This is a "true life novel" according to the author, and she does an wonderful job of portraying her feisty, intelligent, hard-working, slightly wild grandmother, Lily.

Lily's life is full of incredible stories: For example, at age 15, rode her horse Patches for 28 days, "out in the sun and sleeping in the open" to the town of Red Lake, a small town south of the Grand Canyon to become a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. She slept on the floor.

She broke horses, carried a pistol in her purse, learned to fly a plane, taught school off and on and eventually graduated from college herself. She worked a few years in Chicago, but then came back to the Southwest and married Jim Smith. They had 2 kids, Rosemary (the author's Mother) and Jim.

Lily discretely sold liquor during Prohibition to supplement the family's income, hiding the bottles under her baby's skirted crib; she played poker and often won; she dabbled in politics, and she and her husband managed a huge cattle ranch for some wealthy Englishmen...a 180,000 acre ranch.

Of course, she periodically got in trouble, one time for trying to enlighten her Mormon girl students about the larger world and their larger choices than "being broodmares dressed in feed sacks."

On one trip, she guided two social workers to the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon so they could see if the kids met "hygiene standards" and to "investigate the living conditions of the children..." Her daughter, Rosemary, thought she had entered the Garden of Eden down there and wanted to stay.

The family often traveled Route 66 before and after it was paved, and they often just drove cross-country. They survived flash floods, tornados, drought and bankruptcy.... all those dreadful pioneer troubles. In return they had the sky, stars, mountains, wildflowers, horses, weather and canyons. They eventually moved to Phoenix when their dream of buying part of the ranch fell apart in the aftermath of WWII. But soon they felt "penned up" and moved to Horse Mesa where Lily again did what she most loved: taught the kids of the 13 families who lived there. Just to get to Horse Mesa meant surviving a road known as Agnes Weeps, named "after the town's first schoolteacher, who had burst into tears when she saw how plunging and twisting the road was and realized how remote the town must be."

It was fine to read about our country...Wallace Stegner country, Ed Abbey country, country not far from where I was born.... in this fond remembrance of a remarkable, spirited woman.

Jeweled Rice Salad

I think Eunice asked me, when I told her about this recipe, if it had jewelweed in it. It doesn't; it does have brown rice, green and red grapes, pecans, parsley, chickpeas, scallions and a garlic-lemon-honey dressing. I am loving these grainy-fruity salads. They last about a week in the frig and are crunchy and clean-tasting, nourishing and satisfying.

(For this recipe, I would add the toasted pecans just before eating so they wouldn't get soggy.)

I am moving a block away in a couple of days, so won't mess up the kitchen, which I cleaned yesterday, with the next recipe (Yogurt Scones) until sometime next week.

So far, I am loving this project. I discovered that eating the leftover chickpeas tasted almost as good as Pringles...(yeah, pathetic, I know).

Book: Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Eunice and Tom read this and both loved it..thought it was a great novel, and I agree. It is just over 500 pages, chock full of life, mostly on Cape Breton Island in the early part of the 20th century. It is the story of the Piper family and their tribulations, misfortunes and daily lives, the bonds of sisterhood, WWI, the coal mines, religious fervor, racial tensions...If you're interested in an old-fashioned, compelling story, read this. There is so much in this book where shades of gray ultimately are the colors, not black and white. It would be interesting to discuss this book in a book club. Almost every character is complex enough to defend or denigrate. It is a bit fantastical at times, but most of the narrative is compelling, often sweet, sometimes perfect.

Light Tomato Soup

The problem here in Michigan is that tomato season it is not. But, I didn't want to come back to this recipe, so I splurged at the health food store and got organic tomatoes from Mexico. They really didn't have the hot summer tomato look or taste but were better than the current supermarket offerings.

All you do, is cut up 3 pounds of tomatoes, add a stalk of fresh basil and a bunch of chopped garlic, cook about 15 to 20 minutes, cool, puree, strain, add brown sugar, salt and pepper. Garnish with fresh parsley or dill. This is a luscious rich tomato soup. I will definitely make it a couple more times this summer when our local farmers bring their home-grown tomatoes to market.

I love having this delicious food in my refrigerator and am finding that the time spent cutting up veggies or fruits or cooking grains or finding fresh herbs is well worth it.

Book: Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

This is a captivating modern tale as the threads of three seemingly unrelated life stories become entwined. I thought the characters were superb. Only a masterful writer can do this well. Miles is hunting all over the country for his twin brother; Lucy is a bright high-school girl on the cusp of life; and Ryan finds himself with a druggie ex-hippie who tells him he is his biological father. The author uses identity theft and mental illness to craft his story and draws the reader into the odd but somehow believable situations that evolve. It was hard to not just sit down and read this in one sitting.

"Breathtaking book..." (Ann Packer) and "...breathtaking..." (Kirkus Reviews)

Indigo Bunting

Maria and I were bird watching; in particular, we were hoping to see a dozen or more warbler species. It was May 15, sunny and warm, and we were at Bowman's Bridge on the Pere Marquette river in upper Michigan. Gnats were glad we had arrived and soon were our new best friends. We tried to stay in the open which helped a little. Maria spotted the American redstarts which Pete Dunne calls "flash dancers" since they flit about the woods, the males flashing orange and black, the females more subdued but also flashing the yellow in their tales. Soon, we saw several pairs and the next day even discovered one of their nests.

The river is lovely here as it makes a broad 90-degree turn around the area we were birding with the sun glinting off the water, huge old snags disrupting the flow, fresh green foliage, adjacent wet bottomlands, the bright blue sky, birds calling all around, soaring Turkey vultures and Bald eagles.

I was walking back to the car and Maria frantically motioned me over. She had spotted an Indigo bunting! It stayed around a bit longer and I got to see it. Really, it was utterly lovely, foraging on the forest floor, just off the parking lot, not in the shadows but highlighted by sunshine and looking out of place somehow, since this bird is all blue...as Maria said, an "electric blue," bluer than the sky, a richer blue than bluejays or bluebirds.

Seeing this small brilliant blue-soaked bit of a bird in the brown leaf litter and lush new spring greenery of a Michigan woods was perfection. The afterglow of such encounters lingers...

We didn't see our dozen warblers, only the Redstarts and a Magnolia warbler, so the bunting sighting was our day's best bird, if we don't count the Solitary sandpiper which was seriously feeding along the shoreline at Townsend most of the day and was a life bird for Maria.

Book: Surviving Auschhwitz: Children of the Shoah by Milton Nieuwsma

These are remembrances--stories of surviving Auschwitz--by three young Polish girls, Tova, Frieda and Rachel. They were 6, 10 and 7 respectively when the Soviets liberated Auschwitz in 1945. Less than 1o% of the 7000 Auschwitz survivors were children under the age of 18. The girls are now women in their 70s and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Montreal, Quebec and New Jersey with families of their own.

The absolute evil and horror of those years will never be comprehensible but should never be forgotten. These personal histories are not lengthy or sophisticated or anything other than simply told as they relate the nearly unimaginable events that defined their childhood. They grew up never knowing grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins. As Rachel says, "....I'm still left with holes. I am very conscious of not having an extended family...."

There are lovely, poignant black and white photographs of the young girls and the women they are now, smiling, happy, then and now.

Book: The Devil's Punchbowl by Greg Iles

Greg Iles lives in Natchez, Mississippi, which is the setting for this nearly 600-page, latest Penn Gage novel. Penn is the disillusioned mayor of Natchez and is the protagonist. The other good guys are an assortment of law enforcers, one of whom comes in from Afghanistan and is employed by a company called Blackhawk Risk Management (read Blackwater). The bad guys are a Chinese billionaire, two very evil Irish thugs, a less than stalwart district attorney and assorted other minor characters.

There is also the prostitute with a good heart, an old school mate of Penn's who is a recently clean drug addict, Penn's Father who is a Korean War veteran and who calls in a retired Texas Ranger and Penn's ex-girlfriend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. The crimes are dog-fighting, illegal sex, gambling, money-laundering and murders on and off the Magnolia Queen, a riverboat casino. There are bayous, alligators, levees, cemeteries and a hot-air balloon race. Heroes and villains in Natchez....

The teaser in the last few pages of the book ensures that Greg Iles' fans will pick up his next Penn Gage novel.

Goldfinches

It was a dreary morning, rather cold, and I was a bit sullen. I was walking my usual birding trail but was thinking about hot coffee. I heard the Amtrak whistle as I did most mornings, about 0830, perhaps 5 miles to the east. There is a C-shaped pond on this trail with a small deck overlook. I was standing there listening to a rich tangle of bird song from the nearby foliage. Hearing it but not seeing the birds, which is what happens as May progresses. The new leaves start hiding the birds, making visualization harder. The vocalization is tantalizing, and good birders easily identify birds by sound alone. Not me, unfortunately. And more and more breeding and migrating birds arrive every day. May is the birder's month in these latitudes.

A tree had fallen over the pond and wasn't submerged but was nearly horizontal across the water, a few feet above the surface. There were dozens of smaller branches, some of which did actually dip into the water. The pond was covered with mottled green pond scum. I often think that if my binoculars fell into this turtle-infested (and who knows what else) mushy murk, I would never try to retrieve them. I could not imagine setting foot in that primal water.

I listened and listened to the rich bird music, a bit mesmerized. Too often, I get impatient and cannot stand quietly for even 5 minutes which is something I am working on. And all at once, there were two goldfinches perched on the smaller branches of the fallen tree, about a foot above the water, right in front of me. The males are striking little birds, bright yellow with a black skullcap and black wings. As I watched, it was obvious they were after either sips of water or bits of pond scum. They hopped down the small branches until they were within reach and would dip back and forth into the pond, like one of those toy water birds. It was quite a stretch for them and they had to maneuver a bit to stay balanced on the thin twigs. It was the contrast that was so lovely: the tiny bits of yellow and black, the green pond scum, the grey, leafless branches, the cloudy day.

I looked across the pond--to the inside of the C shape--and a green heron with bright orange legs was silently moving in plain sight along the bank right across from me.

And a Northern Waterthrush briefly stepped out into full view as for my own personal bird fashion show, its pale yellow, black-streaked belly very evident, contrasting with its unmarked dark grey back and wings. This bird is another mud-skulker, moving through the wet dank places where water meets land.

Book: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba

This is a wonderful story about a boy living in a primitive village in Malawi. His father grew tobacco and maize and the family survived on maize. So, in 2002 when the rains did not come, the maize withered and a severe famine resulted. Many, many Malawians died of starvation. The author and his family barely survived, eating one measly meal a day. Cholera and malaria also took a toll.

Too poor to stay in school, William wandered about and discovered a small library in a primary school and began to read whatever he could. One book was called Explaining Physics. He didn't understand all of it but he began to imagine the possibilities. He foraged in the local scrap yard and made what he couldn't find and built a windmill and the necessary electrical circuitry to power small light bulbs and radios.

He tells his story with co-author Bryan Mealer in a direct, honest fashion with no self-pity or self-aggrandizement. This is very contemporary. William is only in his 20s today. Eventually, this remarkable boy was "discovered" and his extraordinary achievements were acknowledged. He was given education opportunities; he traveled to the US to see the windmills in Palm Springs; he saw Las Vegas, San Diego, Chicago and New York City.

Through his words, we glimpse a village in Africa...the people, the culture, a family, a boy with a dream.

Sora

Maria and I were birding the Stu Visser Trail, and she was looking at a Swamp sparrow, which is a small brown bird that often forages in dark, swampy places, hopping from branch to branch, moving every 2 or 3 seconds. And, while doing this, she spotted a Sora, which skulks about even more than the Swamp sparrow. Soras are plump with thick yellow bills and broad striped sides, near the size of a large robin. She quickly motioned me over and I got a quick glimpse before it disappeared into the dank undergrowth. It's not a bird one sees every day, but mostly because it is so secretive, not because it is uncommon. It was a FOY (first of year) bird for both of us.

It was an absolutely gorgeous morning with blue, blue sky, warm sunshine, cool air, no bugs and lots of colorful birds, the most striking of which was a male Baltimore oriole, easily seen at the top of a small tree right along the trail. The orange and black colors were breath-takingly rich and stunning against the deep blue sky.

Lemon Snaps

A good, old-fashioned, simple cookie made with basic ingredients (flour, sugars, butter) and lemon juice and lemon rind.

(BTW, I DID eat one serving of the horrid green glop (Middle Eastern Spinach Soup) and then scooped the rest into the garbage. It was just barely tolerable, but I feel I must have at least one honest serving of any recipe I make.)

Mediterranean Lentil Salad

Lentils, garlic, lime juice, diced red and yellow peppers, oranges, currants, red onion and herbs.

It is wonderful having good solid nourishing food in the refrigerator. I eat a big bowl of these salads at noon most days lately. While Maria was here, she tried some and wasn't as impressed, but I think eating like this is an acquired taste, and each successive day, it tasted better and better...clean, nutritious, tasty and satisfying.

Having food like this available has been a long-term goal of mine. Once I made up my mind to do this, it wasn't onerous at all. Like this salad took about 30 minutes to prepare...maybe 45 minutes....but I can eat it for several days.

Book: Imperfect Birds by Annie Lamott

Continuing in her unique voice, Annie Lamott's new novel is set in the towns of northern California. It is about a couple and their 17-year-old daughter, who gets increasingly caught up in the drug scene, all the while maintaining her innocence, or at least her minimal involvement. Her parents worry more and more and catch her in lie after lie, and agonize and fret and worry and wonder what to do. Tears, hand-wringing, moments of terror, arguments.... Slowly, their household begins to totally revolve around their daughter and her moods, her emotions and her friends. At one point in writing about the Mother's generalized angst, the author writes: "Desperate she tried to pray, until she remembered she didn't believe in god...." which made me laugh out loud.

Threads of religion, spirituality, friendship, aging and daily life in the beautiful hills north of San Francisco run through this book.

For all the parents who raise teenagers today, this novel will throw light on the darker sides of their world and the whole mucky mess of peer pressures, desires for recognition and acceptance and love, their youthful edginess and energy, their wildness, their kindness and the hopeful poignant moments when they acknowledge to themselves that what they are doing probably isn't all that great. Even good kids...

(I read this in Starbucks today as the wind was blowing so hard at the lake. My car just had $5400 worth of repairs from a hail incident, I didn't want flying debris and tree limbs to fall on it since I don't have a garage.)

Book: Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan

These are stories from Africa, full of the sadness and horror that are components of recent African history. The author was born in Nigeria, is an ordained Jesuit priest and has a MFA from University of Michigan.

The stories are told by kids or young adults and come from Nigeria, Gabon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda. They are told in the patois of modern Africans and shine a harsh light on the chaotic, imperfect, ongoing evolution of older colonial Africa into newer independent countries. The longest story is "Luxurious Hearses" about the anxiety of a young Muslim boy who is fleeing the violence in the north and who is trying to get the oil-rich delta region of southern Nigeria, his natal land, where he believes he will find refuge. The entire story takes place on a bus as various small human dramas play out between the passengers. Through it all, the boy fears discovery by his mostly Christian fellow travelers.

The last story is "My Parent's Bedroom" and is a tale of specifics in the general bloody mayhem between the Hutus and Tutsis.

These books from Africa, and there are more and more of them, educate in a way that almost nothing else can. They are full of passion, color, spirit, humanity and goodness along with the utter malevolence of raw greed and power ungoverned by any morality.

Hawk

I am trying to get up to speed on hawk ID, so I scan the skies while driving, which, I suppose, is analogous to texting while driving; in fact, I know it is, but.... So, I was driving east on Lakewood late afternoon yesterday and saw a hawk moving in the sky. And then suddenly, it dove straight down at about 100 mph and tried for a bird in a nearby driveway, all of which took 2 seconds. I basically only saw a broad, nearly terminal tail band, but little else. I saw the victim and hawk all aflurry as I drove by, but don't know the outcome or the ID of the hawk. Still, I am learning to look at silhouettes. We all have our different thrill thresholds.

Book: The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai

Betony had a book with her when she was in Michigan and the author's last name was Desai, so the next time I went to the library, I found The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai. But then Maria said the first name of the author of Betony's book was not Anita. As it turned out, Anita is the mother of the author of the book that Betony had.

Anyway, this is one of those novels that one reads and learns a bit of history in doing so. The history here is the story of Cornish miners who came to work in the Sierra Madre copper mines in Mexico early in the 20th century, and whose careers ended with the turbulent times of Pancho Villa and Zapata and the revolution.

Eric is a rather dreamy young American who only has a murky idea of his Cornish ancestry and, almost by default, finds himself in the Mexican village where his grandparents lived while his grandfather worked in the mines.

It is the eve of the Festival of the Dead when Eric arrives. He has unsuccessfully tried to get information from Dona Vera, an eccentric old woman living in a refurbished hacienda nearby. He then tries in unconvincing ways to elicit more information from those he meets. While I liked the descriptive passages, the characters were not all that credible. Eric seems without enough curiosity; Dona Vera seems incapable of doing what she has done, given her shadowy past in Europe.

But I did learn some of Mexican culture and history and the book is well-written.

Middle Eastern Spinach Soup

A bowl of green mush is in my refrigerator. I followed the recipe but fortunately cut it in half. It called for 2 pounds of spinach which was a clue (to me) that this might not be a particular favorite of mine. While I like most foods, I have never been fond of cooked spinach. I am not sure I've ever even eaten cooked spinach. But, when one decides to cook one's way through a cookbook, one does exactly that, spinach or not.

First of all, after it was prepared, it was, in no way, what I would call "soup." It was a cooked spinach side dish. I should have left it like that. At least it had more visual appeal than the mush. Mollie says it can be eaten like that or blended to whatever texture one wishes, adding that a "complete puree can be quite elegant." I like elegant, so I did that, although the blender in this cottage had a brief period of malfunction, and I thought the motor had burned out since tiny black particles starting spewing here and there. I still don't know what that was all about, but it wasn't the motor. I tried pureeing smaller portions and finally got a thick green mush.

I will try at least tasting some tomorrow, but cannot imagine anyone eating this or ordering this or spending the time to clean and chop 2 pounds of spinach for a result that reminds one of something unmentionable.

Or, perhaps it's the cinnamon, which I did not have. No doubt this will make ALL the difference when I add the required "dash" of it tomorrow.

This was recipe #5. The first four were very tasty, and I would prepare them all again.

Book: The Snow Geese by William Fiennes

Inspired by a sense of adventure and memories of a story titled The Snow Goose, the author decides to follow snow geese from their wintering grounds in Texas to their breeding grounds on Baffin Island. He rents a car, rides a Greyhound, takes the train to Churchill, Manitoba, and finally a plane to Iqaluit, Baffin Island. He has wonderful smaller stories about the people he meets who help him on his way, and he ruminates about them, as well as about birds. He notices all the details of his surroundings, wherever he stays, while anticipating the arrival of the geese, and describes the ordinariness so that it is familiar and somehow sweet, thus making this narrative also a travelogue by an Englishman on an American/Canadian journey.

The final stage in his goose quest has him riding on skidoos with an Inuktitut mother and her son as they hunt geese. "I tried not to look at the dead birds, not to think about the dead weight in my hands. But I kept shaking as we tramped back up the valley to the cabin, carrying six geese between us, flocks still passing overhead on the south winds."

And then he returns to England. This is a birding adventure but more. I found it a delightful account of a whimsical journey.