Mmmmm... cookbooks

I just read a post from my current favorite web site, The Toast, with reviews of cookbooks. Yes, please! I love cookbooks! Like comic books (the old kind, not graphic novels) you can pick them up, read a page or two and put them down -- that's a great feature.

So anyway, this post got me to thinking about my go-to cookbooks. Joy of Cooking, for sure; Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book; Feeding the Whole Family, by Cynthia Lair -- all great for everyday cooking and even for special occasions. Great Food without Fuss is a terrific compilation of recipes from cooks and chefs, but sometimes I want something even more special...

For the past year I've been drooling over the stories, pictures, and the dishes I've made from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table. Her roast chicken Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux* has become my company standard.  Here's its essence: butter or oil a Dutch oven**; put a sturdy piece of bread in the bottom of the pan; stuff some herbs and garlic, maybe a lemon wedge in the chicken's cavity; and put it in a 450 oven. Pour yourself some wine and put your feet up for 90 minutes. Okay, if you really want to impress people you can throw some olive oil-glistened veggies in about half way through. After 90 minutes the skin will be all crispy and roasted, the meat will be tender and flavorful. Once you lift it out of the Dutch oven and put it on your cutting board or serving platter, you can snack on the gloriously dripping-saturated piece of bread while you are in the kitchen putting together the meal's last details. "Oh no, honey. Thanks, I've got it all covered."***

Sure, Greenspan's recipe has more specific directions, ingredients and amounts, but one of the things I love about her cookbook is that her recipes really are more guidelines than formulas. I love that! That's how I cook! I also love the stories in Around My French Table. Her anecdotes about living, shopping and cooking in France are transporting.

The school year has started; I can't go to Paris this week, but I can be there with Dorie, hearing about how two trips to the cheese shop made her "Janine's American customer" and how her husband achieved celebrity-status on a flight when he opened his black truffle sandwich en route. Gather your most essential French treats, settle in with Dorie Greenspan, and have a great trip!


*Lazy People's Roast Chicken -- sounds tres better in French, no?
**This is one brilliant step that makes this perfect for us lazy cooks -- those high sides? No more splatters all over the inside of your oven!!!
***You really don't want to share this.

The Start of a New School Year

Wednesday was the first day of school here at The Bush School, and once again we took part in what is my favorite school ritual, convocation. The whole community -- students, faculty, staff, board trustees, parents and special friends -- gathers in the inner courtyard to welcome new families and mark the start of another year. It's so invigorating to see all the excited new faces, friends we haven't seen for months, and of course our new pupils, young and old, looking anxious and hopeful all at once.

School is such a big part of kids' lives and obviously it features in many, many stories. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dead Poets Society, School of Rock, Matilda -- there are scores of movies and shows set in schools. I read a few delightful novels in the past few months with school tie-ins too.

Secrets of Truth and Beauty, by Megan Frazier, was one. It's a great story about an overweight girl coming to terms with her parents' limitations and her own beauty and strength. At 7, Dara is crowned Little Miss Maine; at 9 she discovers that she has a sister her parents have never mentioned; at 17, a misunderstood school project leads her to leave home and connect with her sister. She finds a well of anger she didn't know she had until now, as well as people able to see and appreciate the real Dara. This is appropriate for roughly 8th grade and up.

Other young adult titles with school settings that I've loved recently are Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell (whose Fangirl is due out next week and is set in another kind of school -- college); Cameron and the Girls, by Edward Averett; and Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver. E&P and Cameron are both about outsiders, while Before I Fall puts you right in the middle of a mean-girl, popular clique. All three books are also about finding one's way through some hard reality.

For younger readers, Almost Home, Caddy's World and Operation Yes are three school stories that caught my attention in the past few months. 

In Joan Bauer's Almost Home, Sugar Mae Cole will need all of the life lessons she's learned, from her mom Reba, from her grandfather, and from her sixth grade English teacher, to sort out her situation after she and her mom lose their home to foreclosure and end up with Sugar in foster care and Reba in a psychiatric hospital. With the help of the most adorable (and frightened) dog ever and some other caring adults, she does.

Caddy's World, by Hilary McKay, is a prequel to Saffy's Angel, and we meet the Casson family when Caddy is 12 and just learning that change (something she has had entirely too much of, thank you very much) can be good and that loving your friends and family requires courage. Luckily Caddy is bravest of the brave.

Set in an aging school near a military base, Sara Lewis Holmes's Operation Yes is populated by a group of folks not often in kids' fiction. Bo's dad is an Air Force colonel, his cousin's mom is in the Reserve and stationed in Iraq. The dangers these families face is clear but only occasionally front and center. 6th grade, new teacher -- Bo hopes he can stay out of trouble and at first it looks like he will. Miss Loupe teaches them improv theater techniques along with the curriculum and Bo is her most enthusiastic student. That is until his cousin comes to stay and then he finds out is dad is likely to be transferred again. What's the use in trying, if he has to leave anyway?

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? As long as we are all back at school, pick up a school story just for fun.