Farm-to-table and flatbed trucks

She laughed out loud when she first heard the term "farm-to-table." They had it in her day, too; they called it a flatbed truck. She knows her food is not the healthiest, yet her people live long, long lives, those not killed by gunfire, moonshine or machines. She has never tasted ceviche or pate, but can do more with field-dressed quail, fresh-caught perch, or a humble pullet than anyone I know. With a morsel of pork no bigger than a matchbox, salt, a pod of pepper, and a sprinkle of cane sugar, she can turn collards, turnips, cabbage, green beans, and more into something finer than the mere ingredients should allow. With bacon grease and two tablespoons of mayonnaise, she turns simple cornmeal into something more like cake. I watched two magazine photographers eat it up standing in her kitchen, with slabs of butter. I do not believe they were merely being polite. "They even eat the crumbs," she said. "They were nice boys."

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

That study is certainly unlawful ...

If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Since we've got the Lord Byron, Lake Geneva, Frankenstein thing going today.

Lake Geneva

Lake Geneva, By Schnäggli - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Geneva, where Lord Byron spent a memorable weekend with his doctor, John Polidori, and friends Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, and Claire Clairmont (Mary's stepsister and a special friend of Byron's — and that's all that we'll say about that.) A vampire novel and Frankenstein were the result to the lasting benefit for all of us who enjoy horror stories.

Made me laugh: I was first struck by his normality ...

I was full of curiosity to meet Lord Marchmain. When I did so I was first struck by his normality, which, as I saw more of him, I found to be studied. It was as though he were conscious of a Byronic aura, which he considered to be in bad taste and was at pains to suppress.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Lord Byron in Albanian Dress

Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, Thomas Phillips

Today's quote made me go looking for portraits of Lord Byron. He must have been one of those really charismatic people whose attraction doesn't come out in portraits. Except for this one. Wowie! Albanian dress would do wonders for a lot of us today.

Wish I Was There: Primary Parasols

Primary Parasols, Belinda DelPesco

I have left behind illusion ...

"I have left behind illusion," I said to myself. "Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions — with the aid of my five senses.

I have since learned that there is no such world, but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

SFFaudio and Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Jesse, Maissa, and I discussed Rudyard Kipling's classic Kim. Get it here!

What I'm Reading: Grave Peril, Brideshead Revisited, Why Evil Exists, This is Murder, Best Cook in the World

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.

Our next book club selection — and one I've tried to read several times in the past. Because it is "assigned" I've been forced to get past the first two chapters that always turned me off before. Now, about halfway through the book, I'm enjoying it more as I go along. Partly that is because I have been listening to the Close Reads podcast episodes* on it, which helped open up themes. Partly it is because I recently realized how very much I do not care about Sebastian (who was the main focus for a lot of the beginning.) I won't go so far as yet, since I'm not finished, to say I dislike Sebastian, but it is the way I'm leaning. Anyway, I'm just so happy not to dread picking this book up every day — that in itself is a win.

*(Close Reads is also on iTunes. Their Brideshead Revisited episodes aired during the summer of 2017.)

Wizard and private detective Harry Dresden has squared off against a multitude of supernatural bad guys. You might think nothing could spook him. You would be wrong.

Something is stirring up angry apparitions all over town. Something that can break all the laws of supernatural physics. Something that doesnt like Harry. His closest friends are being targeted. The net is closing in. Harry must find a solution soon or find this is one Nightmare from which he will never waken.

I read this series avidly when the books came out, until Changes (#12) which I didn't care for at all. I'd had enough of Harry and felt I knew the books well enough from rereading, so I gave mine to my daughter in one of my regular bookshelf purges.

Recently I read Melanie Bettinelli's interesting posts on Harry's character development after the point where I quit reading. My interest was piqued, but it took an in-person conversation with a couple of people about how those last books were insightful about faith and religion to make me want to revisit the series.

I thought I could just look over the Wikipedia book summaries but ... my goodness the series got complicated early on! Luckily the library has James Marsters' excellent audio of the book so I've begun my slow way into the series from close to the beginning. And, I can't deny, it is a nice light counterbalance to working my way through Brideshead Revisited.

Award-winning Professor Charles Mathewes of the University of Virginia offers a  dynamic inquiry into Western civilization's greatest thinking and insight on this critical subject, the question of evil.

I loved Charles Mathewes course on Augustine's City of God so much that I picked up his only other course on Audible. I'm not necessarily attracted to the topic, but the reviews were so uniformly good and, as I said, I like the teacher so much that I opted on for the 36 classes ... so it's gonna take a while. In the first four lessons, Mathewes has been riveting and really good at delineating how various ancient cultures viewed evil, as well as relating these points of view to their modern equivalents. I'm really enjoying it.

And now I realize I never told you about that first course, here's a brief review:

Books that Matter: The City of God

This class did what I never thought possible - make me want to read The City of God.

Professor Mathewes is insightful, giving this ancient work an understandable context and connecting it to modern life. He's got an accessible lecturing style and an elegant turn of phrase that helps open up the material. What is more he makes a compelling case for why The City of God is relevant for understanding not only the ancient, but our modern world. Highest recommendation.

Because, you know, when you've been reading Brideshead Revisited and listening to courses about Evil, you want something less taxing for bedtime reading.

Advertising man Sam Moraine wants to tag along when his poker game is broken up by a call for his buddy D.A. Phil Duncan to look into a kidnapping case. Duncan agrees and Sam soon finds himself taking cash to trade for the victim. But all is not what it seems (no surprises there) and Sam soon is conducting his own amateur investigation. And that puts him at odds with both the law and the bad guys. This is a stand-alone and I am really enjoying it. It's just perfect for reading right before lights out.

A delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and, especially, to his mother.

Margaret Bragg measures in "dabs" and "smidgens" and "tads" and "you know, hon, just some." Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. The irresistible stories in this audiobook are of long memory -- many of them pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next.

I'm really loving this which is much more memoir than recipe book. There is plenty of personality, old customs, and living through hard times in Rick Bragg's family tree. I am not one who likes stories of dysfunctional families and I appreciate that the dysfunctions are smoothed out or merely hinted at because the emphasis is on how the recipe came into the family or how someone learned to cook. By wrapping the stories around the kitchen we can take the good with the bad, especially when it comes with a helping of Axhead Soup or Chicken and Dressing.

The Birth of Mary and domestic life in Florence

The Birth of Mary, Tornabuoni Chapel (1485-90),
appears to represent a domestic scene from the life of contemporary Florentine nobility.  Domenico Ghirlandaio

Conversion to the baroque

This was my conversion to the baroque. Here under that high and insolent dome, under those tricky ceilings; here, as I passed through those arches and broken pediments to the pillared shade beyond and sat, hour by hour, before the fountain, probing its shadows, tracing its lingering echoes, rejoicing in all its clustered feats of daring and invention, I felt a whole new system of nerves alive within me, as though the water that spurted and bubbled among its stones was indeed a life-giving spring.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

This makes me want to hear it read aloud. I may have to get the audio from the library at some point.

"I wish I liked Catholics more."

"I wish I liked Catholics more."

"They seem just like other people."

"My dear Charles, that's exactly what they're not—particularly in this country, where they're so few. It's not just that they're a clique—as a matter of fact, they're about four cliques all blackguarding each other half the time—but they've got an entirely different outlook on life; everything they think important is different from other people. They try and hide it as much as they can, but it comes out all the time. It's quite natural, really, that they should."

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

As a point of context, the conversation is begun by Sebastian who is himself Catholic and said to Charles who is, at best, agnostic.

I am reading this for my Catholic women's book club. I've tried several times to get into the book but never liked it. It turns out that I needed to be forced past the first two chapters, after which I'm enjoying it more as I go.

I read this bit to Tom and he listened with a grin growing on his face. "So it was the same back then!" he said triumphantly.

The Summer House

The Summer House, Edward B. Gordon

It's going to be 106° today ... or is it 108°? Either way, too darned hot! This looks like a cool, refreshing place to be instead.

Corn and Bacon Pasta

I admit this recipe sounded a bit far-fetched but it turned out to be really wonderful. Get it at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Green Goddess Chicken

From Cook's Country, this is an easy roast chicken dish that has a really fresh taste and makes a nice summery meal. It's posted at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Through a Web

Through a Web, Remo Savisaar

Would we serve Jesus with a chipped dish?

If everyone were holy and handsome, with “alter Christus” shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone. If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as St. John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God’s way for her nor is it Christ’s way for Himself now when He is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth.

To see how far one realizes this, it is a good thing to ask honestly what you would do, or have done, when a beggar asked at your house for food. Would you–or did you–give it on an old cracked plate, thinking that was good enough? Do you think that Martha and Mary thought that the old and chipped dish was good for their guest?

Dorothy Day, Room For Christ, The Catholic Worker, December 1945, 2

Listen Up, Nerds! Henry VI, Le Morte d'Arthur

I've linked to websites below but both of these are readily available on iTunes or various other podcast providers.

The Chop Bard podcast passionately picks apart the plays of William Shakespeare, scene by scene, line by line, in search of entertainment and understanding, in order to lift the plays off the page and onto their feet. With passionate insight and fearless examination, we offer the works of William Shakespeare in the spirit for which they were originally intended: As entertainment for a diverse and current audience.

Ehren Ziegler truly is the cure for boring Shakespeare. He loves the history plays and is launching another one for us to explore — Henry VI, part 1. You are in plenty of time to join in since only the introduction has posted.

Starting in July 2018, Mythgard Academy will present a free seminar on Le Morte d’Arthur, the classic cycle of Arthurian tales retold by Sir Thomas Malory. The tales have been the source of many later retellings of the Arthur mythos, including, for example, The Once and Future King by T. H. White and the 1981 cinematic feature, Excalibur.

Our Catholic women's book club read this book years ago. I admit that I had enough trouble with the text that I resorted to a children's version to get through the story. So I'm delighted to have one of my favorite teachers diving deeper into the tale.

The first episode was wonderful, opening my eyes to several points about the story I'd never have noticed on my own. (As is Corey Olsen's way.)

Well Said: Whistling Dixie and the Truth

If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from telling the truth, you may assume he's a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.

Andrew Klavan, The Killer Christian
collected in The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

Endless Water, Starless Sky by Rosamund Hodge

Romeo had looked at a Catresou girl and loved her. He had believed that Juliet was more than a weapon, and that it was worthwhile to love her, however little time they might have. He had died believing it.

Juliet had believed that once too.

She couldn't free her people. She couldn't free herself. And she couldn't save the city from its doom.

But she could be like Romeo, and learn to love her enemies. She could protect these people around her for whatever time they had left.

It wasn't exactly hope, but maybe it could be enough.

This is the second half of the tale begun in Bright Smoke, Cold Fire which I reviewed here. It will come out on July 24.

The city walls are not holding despite increasingly large blood sacrifices. The dead continue to rise, mindlessly hungry. (Yep. Zombies and the end of the world.)

The Juliet has been trapped into protecting Romeo's family at great cost to her own. Meanwhile, Romeo is attempting redemption by protecting Juliet's family. (Oh the irony! And the romantic gestures!)

Paris is still dead but alive enough to obey the necromancer's spell. Runajo is still trying to find a way to protect her city while tortured by her betrayal of her friend Juliet.

So we've got the perfect setup for the conclusion of Rosamund Hodge's riff on Shakespeare.

The story is complex enough that I'd forgotten important details from the first part and had to reread it before I could launch properly into Endless Water, Starless Sky. We still have all the big themes and literary devices that gave the first part depth and complexity. Here the story has everyone running as fast as they can to try to avert disaster, both of civilization and of their personal lives. There is a lot of fighting and a lot of talking in the first half — we did mention this is a riff on Romeo and Juliet, right? But it all works.

As engrossing as most of the book was, it really entered new territory in the last fourth where it becomes an otherworldly, Dante-esque journey. This part was wildly inventive and yet delicately balanced to guide the reader to the ultimately satisfying conclusion.

I really loved it and will definitely be rereading it, sooner rather than later. If you liked the first half, you'll like this. If you haven't read either, then you've got a treat in store.