I listened to author Miyram Sivan talk about her newest release the novel, Make It Concrete, and I developed a great appreciation for the story. I think discussing this with a group would also be a wonderful way to really bring out all the nuances and deeper meaning of the plot, the title and connect readers to the characters. I have long been consumed with an appreciation and interest in reading Holocaust fiction and memoirs. Though I have not found myself feeling oppressed by these stories, I can see where it could eventually take a toll emotionally on an author or even a reader.
This is a novel with many layers to uncover. To read it on the surface is to miss the complexity involved. On the surface this is the story of a woman searching for happiness and meaning in her life. She is a divorced mother of three children living in Israel. Isabel Toledo is a descendant of Spanish Jewry. Even though she makes Aliyah, moving to Israel to marry her Israeli husband and raise her children there, she would not give up her name and connection to her past. Her father's family can trace its lineage back to the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Her mother, Suri, is a Polish Holocaust survivor who does not want to talk about her experience during the war.
Though Isabel asks her mother questions about her past, Suri always puts off the discussion, which has left Isabel frustrated and unfulfilled for years. "Isabel, sweetheart, life is beautiful, live it, and leave the dead alone. Suri took a delicate sip of wine. Her eyes looked up from the rim of her wine glass and met Isabel's. They told her flat out to mind her own business. The same message she had been receiving for the past thirty years." These pent up, confusing feelings have led her to leave the United States to live in Israel and work with Holocaust survivors, preserving their stories.
Now living with her youngest child, a seven year old son and her oldest daughter home from the army, she is struggling still with feeling like an outsider in Israel, never a true Sabra always an American ex-pat. Her middle daughter, serving in the Army now, tells her mother she is being transferred. When Isabel expresses her concern the girls laugh. Isabel realizes she will never fit in. "Times like these reminded Isabel of how little she knew of this country. And its army. Even after all these years she got it wrong. Even after all these years she was an American outsider."
Telling the stories of Holocaust survivors, Isabel as the ghostwriter, telling other peoples stories, one after the other for a demanding publisher in NY. She has written many books for him but this current book is becoming hard to finish. Isabel tells Emanuel, "Jaim Benjamins's book is just hard. Feels like iron chains are attached to the sentences." The survivor, Jaim Benjamin is a Greek Jew of Sephardic heritage like her father and it is disconcerting to her. This story seems to be more personal than the others, reminding her that her own mother has never told her story. It becomes harder and harder for Isabel to finish this manuscript. Taking on the burden of listening and sharing the Holocaust memoirs is getting more and more difficult. She is starting to see demons wherever she looks.
To try and find some peace, Isabel has multiple relationships. There is the serious boyfriend, who is pushing to make the relationship more permanent. But Isabel cannot commit yet because she also has a young lover who she visits at construction sites and another man, on the side, she visits when in Prague. This was the one area of the book I found a bit unrealistic, at least based on my own feelings and relationships. I found it hard to believe a woman would be so sexually active, without commitment. Isabel is looking for a way to avoid the demons in her head, but even with these affairs she cannot get rid of them.
Isabel loves to watch the concrete pours at construction sites. "Isabel purred with excitement. The masonry crew stepped forward to meet the mixers. After twenty minutes of prep, concrete began to flow from the drums. A metal pipe held high by a brontosaurus-like crane swallowed it and channeled it to a thick rubber hose. Isabel rocked with anticipation. The head of the crew seized the hose and used all the weight and force of his body to control the heavy surge of grey lava that rushed out of the bucking black hose."
Each of her relationships is similar to concrete, it starts off as a liquid and pours into a foundation that then becomes either strong and permanent or the cracks and defects appear and start to break it apart. There is even a sensuality to the descriptions of the concrete pours and how concrete is described in the book. Isabel is afraid to commit to Emanuel, who wants to marry her and offers permanence and stability. She is unsure about her young construction worker, because he is younger than she is and deserves to find true love and start his own family. She also picks up men while traveling for one night stands. But the cracks are developing and the weakness of the concrete is starting to show.
The reader will enjoy Sivan's wonderful prose and descriptions of Israeli locations as they follow the characters and encourage the ones you have become attached to to succeed.
Monday, June 29, 2020
Sunday, June 28, 2020
The Bishop's Bedroom / by Piero Chiara ; translated from the Italian by Jill Foulston.
The Bishop's Bedroom, was a short but interesting book.
We meet a young sailor as disembarks from his sailboat at the dock. An older gentleman is waiting on the pier for him and strikes up a conversation, inviting the young man for drinks. They find out that they have both returned from war and are at loose ends trying to get their lives back in order.
The young man has been sailing up and down the lake visiting woman along the way before he decides to get a job and settle down. The older man invites him to his home up the hill where he lives with his wife and beautiful widowed sister-in-law. The young man is intrigued with the tranquility of the lake side mansion and gets caught up in the mysteries that surround the owners and their servants.
As a friendship seems to develop the two men take to sailing expeditions around the lake. When they are at the house, the young man sleeps int he bishop's room, a relative of the wife. Things start to become more mysterious as a tragedy strikes and the young man begins to realize how little he really knows about his hosts.
This is a physiological thriller with exquisite taste, a study of desire, greed and deception.
We meet a young sailor as disembarks from his sailboat at the dock. An older gentleman is waiting on the pier for him and strikes up a conversation, inviting the young man for drinks. They find out that they have both returned from war and are at loose ends trying to get their lives back in order.
The young man has been sailing up and down the lake visiting woman along the way before he decides to get a job and settle down. The older man invites him to his home up the hill where he lives with his wife and beautiful widowed sister-in-law. The young man is intrigued with the tranquility of the lake side mansion and gets caught up in the mysteries that surround the owners and their servants.
As a friendship seems to develop the two men take to sailing expeditions around the lake. When they are at the house, the young man sleeps int he bishop's room, a relative of the wife. Things start to become more mysterious as a tragedy strikes and the young man begins to realize how little he really knows about his hosts.
This is a physiological thriller with exquisite taste, a study of desire, greed and deception.
AC
AC, short for Atlantic City, is a mystery novel written by Alan Lieberman. The author is a friend of a very good friend of mine, so when he recommended the book I jumped right in. But I must say that because of the current situation with Black Lives Matter and all the recognition of inherent racism in this country I had trouble enjoying this book and I find it hard to recommend it to others.
I understand totally that the author is trying to write with a flavor that reflects the time period he is writing about. I understand completely that that may have been the way people of a certain social and economic group spoke in the '60s and '70s and that he is setting an atmosphere and creating the characters that would be realistic to that situation, but it is still very uncomfortable to read now.
I grew up in Northern New Jersey, we visited relatives in Atlantic City every spring and summer.
I loved driving to Atlantic City and the smell of brackish water as you came over the last bridge that said you had arrived at your destination. We would walk along the boardwalk and visit Mr Peanut, James Salt Water Taffy, Nathans and the Steel Pier. We would watch the rolling chairs and rent bicycles to ride. We would see the Jitneys and visit the Knife and Fork and Hackneys, our favorite restaurants.
As yo can see I have wonderful fond memories of Atlantic City and was very sad to see it change into the casino capitol of NJ. So I guess was Alan Lieberman. This book is all about growing up on the boards and on the streets made famous by the game of Monopoly and what happened when the crime families and other greedy politicians took over and ruined a beautiful seaside city with racketeering .
This is a mystery about a young man named Jake Harris who falls in love with the sister of the gang leader, Michelle. Her brother Joey Nardo is the leader of the pack of guys they spend their summer nights with. As they all grow up and follow different paths, with Joey now in jail and Jake a local police detective, and other members of the gang part of the corruption that is happening to Atlantic City. When an old murder is uncovered while excavating for a new hotel, Jake starts to uncover some the secrets from his last summer before going to college.
This is a coming of age story about true love and also about who has your back and who you need to protect. So if you can get past some of the rough speech and want a trip down memory lane or want to learn a little about what happened to Atlantic City... read this book.
I understand totally that the author is trying to write with a flavor that reflects the time period he is writing about. I understand completely that that may have been the way people of a certain social and economic group spoke in the '60s and '70s and that he is setting an atmosphere and creating the characters that would be realistic to that situation, but it is still very uncomfortable to read now.
I grew up in Northern New Jersey, we visited relatives in Atlantic City every spring and summer.
I loved driving to Atlantic City and the smell of brackish water as you came over the last bridge that said you had arrived at your destination. We would walk along the boardwalk and visit Mr Peanut, James Salt Water Taffy, Nathans and the Steel Pier. We would watch the rolling chairs and rent bicycles to ride. We would see the Jitneys and visit the Knife and Fork and Hackneys, our favorite restaurants.
As yo can see I have wonderful fond memories of Atlantic City and was very sad to see it change into the casino capitol of NJ. So I guess was Alan Lieberman. This book is all about growing up on the boards and on the streets made famous by the game of Monopoly and what happened when the crime families and other greedy politicians took over and ruined a beautiful seaside city with racketeering .
This is a mystery about a young man named Jake Harris who falls in love with the sister of the gang leader, Michelle. Her brother Joey Nardo is the leader of the pack of guys they spend their summer nights with. As they all grow up and follow different paths, with Joey now in jail and Jake a local police detective, and other members of the gang part of the corruption that is happening to Atlantic City. When an old murder is uncovered while excavating for a new hotel, Jake starts to uncover some the secrets from his last summer before going to college.
This is a coming of age story about true love and also about who has your back and who you need to protect. So if you can get past some of the rough speech and want a trip down memory lane or want to learn a little about what happened to Atlantic City... read this book.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, as any good book will do, has opened my eyes yet again to a subject I had never even heard of. The book brings to life all the prejudice that people have about things they just don't understand. It never has to make sense or have any basis in reality, people seem to just be afraid of things without explanation.
It is a delightful novel on its own merits, but coming out at this point with everything that is happening in the United States, it is so much more poignant. It is also fascinating that there really were people living in Kentucky with blue skin color, that was inherited from generation to generation and it turned out to be a medical phenomenon.
The story line follows a young woman named Cussy Mary, who lives with her father in the rural mountains of Kentucky. Their family has been living there for generations and in each generation there are people who skin is colored blue. Cussy Mary, also nicknamed Bluet, has been told she is the last in long line of blue skinned people in her family. They are miners by trade, and discriminated against just as are the people with black skin color. But Cussy Mary knows how to read and write which gives her a chance to step out of the life she was born into. She is finds a way to get an impressive position as a traveling librarian, so now she becomes known around the county as Book Woman. She travels by mule throughout the area, miles a day, delivery books and magazines to people to read. She creates friendships and helps people as she goes from farmstead to home along her very rustic route. The book describes the area and the people beautifully. It also creates the atmosphere and the feelings of the people vividly.
This novel really makes you think about what you have and do not. All of us have probably wished for something we see in other people and envied. In the end if we have received it, the thing or the new look does not usually give us the satisfaction we would have thought. In a way, that is what Cussy finds, happiness though fragile is about living your best life, being your best self.
It is a delightful novel on its own merits, but coming out at this point with everything that is happening in the United States, it is so much more poignant. It is also fascinating that there really were people living in Kentucky with blue skin color, that was inherited from generation to generation and it turned out to be a medical phenomenon.
The story line follows a young woman named Cussy Mary, who lives with her father in the rural mountains of Kentucky. Their family has been living there for generations and in each generation there are people who skin is colored blue. Cussy Mary, also nicknamed Bluet, has been told she is the last in long line of blue skinned people in her family. They are miners by trade, and discriminated against just as are the people with black skin color. But Cussy Mary knows how to read and write which gives her a chance to step out of the life she was born into. She is finds a way to get an impressive position as a traveling librarian, so now she becomes known around the county as Book Woman. She travels by mule throughout the area, miles a day, delivery books and magazines to people to read. She creates friendships and helps people as she goes from farmstead to home along her very rustic route. The book describes the area and the people beautifully. It also creates the atmosphere and the feelings of the people vividly.
This novel really makes you think about what you have and do not. All of us have probably wished for something we see in other people and envied. In the end if we have received it, the thing or the new look does not usually give us the satisfaction we would have thought. In a way, that is what Cussy finds, happiness though fragile is about living your best life, being your best self.
Sunday, June 21, 2020
The Murder List
The Murder List is a new book out by Hank Phillippi Ryan. Ryan is a long time news reporter in the Boston market and has written many mystery novels and won many awards both for her TV career and for her writing.
I have read some of her books in the past, but must admit I never became a big fan of her characters or her mystery novels. But I was asked to read this new stand alone book for a discussion group.
It is a fun entertaining plot, with all the good details of this new mystery genre, the psychological thriller twist. Like the first in this genre, Gone Girl, you are led down the garden path, thinking you are headed in the correct direction to figure out who killed the young girl from the office, but you always wonder, "are you being led astray?" Now there have been so many that I began to realize that there was going to be a twist at the end and I knew we were heading the direction of The Girl on the Train or The Silent Patient. All books that follow this new formula.
This is the story that is based on the kind of experiences Ryan knows first hand, set in the Boston State House, situated in the neighborhoods and streets of Back Bay, Boston.
Rachel has left her job at the State House and gone back to law school. She is married to a top Boston, defense attorney, Jack Kirkland and is going to intern for his arch nemesis, Martha Gardiner, the top prosecutor for the state. The story starts as Rachel is working during the summer as Martha's intern and the case they are assigned to is an old unsolved case that may have new evidence coming to light. As we watch the current story unfolds Rachel and Jack also have some chapters of flashback experiences, that lead us up to and converge with present day events.
Well told and creative, Ryan does keep you in suspense until the end. Though I thought I knew what was coming there was a satisfying ending to the book. Those in the book group who had not read other books like this were completely surprised at the end. I enjoyed this Hank Phillippi Ryan novel.
I have read some of her books in the past, but must admit I never became a big fan of her characters or her mystery novels. But I was asked to read this new stand alone book for a discussion group.
It is a fun entertaining plot, with all the good details of this new mystery genre, the psychological thriller twist. Like the first in this genre, Gone Girl, you are led down the garden path, thinking you are headed in the correct direction to figure out who killed the young girl from the office, but you always wonder, "are you being led astray?" Now there have been so many that I began to realize that there was going to be a twist at the end and I knew we were heading the direction of The Girl on the Train or The Silent Patient. All books that follow this new formula.
This is the story that is based on the kind of experiences Ryan knows first hand, set in the Boston State House, situated in the neighborhoods and streets of Back Bay, Boston.
Rachel has left her job at the State House and gone back to law school. She is married to a top Boston, defense attorney, Jack Kirkland and is going to intern for his arch nemesis, Martha Gardiner, the top prosecutor for the state. The story starts as Rachel is working during the summer as Martha's intern and the case they are assigned to is an old unsolved case that may have new evidence coming to light. As we watch the current story unfolds Rachel and Jack also have some chapters of flashback experiences, that lead us up to and converge with present day events.
Well told and creative, Ryan does keep you in suspense until the end. Though I thought I knew what was coming there was a satisfying ending to the book. Those in the book group who had not read other books like this were completely surprised at the end. I enjoyed this Hank Phillippi Ryan novel.
Monday, June 8, 2020
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells evokes such a clear, powerful image. The thought of an off white ceiling above you with many tiny cracks, that is so fragile and thin the light seeps through. When it was whole it protected the egg inside, but also was easily penetrated. All these thoughts run through your mind even before you have cracked the binding of this new book by the wonderful author, Gail Carson Levine.
Levine who brought us so many pre-teen fiction favorites like The Princess Tales series and Ella Enchanted and Dave At Night, now looks to the Spanish Inquisition and using historical accuracy weaves a tale of life in Spain for Jews leading up to the Expulsion in 1492.
Paloma is the main character in this book and we see the world through her eyes. She is a young girl living in the juderia of Alcala de Henares, Spain. Loma as she is known in her large family is only 12 years old when her beloved grandmother dies and as she reminds her grandfather of his lost wife, she becomes his favorite. Belo, grandfather, or Don Joseph as he is known to the many people he collects taxes from and to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella , who he works to befriend when he delivers the taxes, brings Loma along with him as he travels. Don Joseph along with a few other important men in the Jewish quarter are working to keep the Jewish people safe. They offer bribes and placate the royal family to protect the families around them.
Loma is watching and learning. The reader is also learning along with Loma the very dangers that face the Jewish people living in Spain at this time in history. The Inquisition is gearing up slowly and at first just seems to be a nuisance that can be lived with. But slowly it increases its tentacles and tries to draw in more and more people. There are the Old Cristians and the New Christians and the Jews. There is always pressure and danger. Loma grows up as we follow her traveling with her Belo across Spain and even when she is threatened or in life threatening situations she remains brave and always thinking quickly on her feet.
An interesting, captivating plot that will appeal to all readers who are interested in learning more about the Spanish Inquisition .
Levine who brought us so many pre-teen fiction favorites like The Princess Tales series and Ella Enchanted and Dave At Night, now looks to the Spanish Inquisition and using historical accuracy weaves a tale of life in Spain for Jews leading up to the Expulsion in 1492.
Paloma is the main character in this book and we see the world through her eyes. She is a young girl living in the juderia of Alcala de Henares, Spain. Loma as she is known in her large family is only 12 years old when her beloved grandmother dies and as she reminds her grandfather of his lost wife, she becomes his favorite. Belo, grandfather, or Don Joseph as he is known to the many people he collects taxes from and to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella , who he works to befriend when he delivers the taxes, brings Loma along with him as he travels. Don Joseph along with a few other important men in the Jewish quarter are working to keep the Jewish people safe. They offer bribes and placate the royal family to protect the families around them.
Loma is watching and learning. The reader is also learning along with Loma the very dangers that face the Jewish people living in Spain at this time in history. The Inquisition is gearing up slowly and at first just seems to be a nuisance that can be lived with. But slowly it increases its tentacles and tries to draw in more and more people. There are the Old Cristians and the New Christians and the Jews. There is always pressure and danger. Loma grows up as we follow her traveling with her Belo across Spain and even when she is threatened or in life threatening situations she remains brave and always thinking quickly on her feet.
An interesting, captivating plot that will appeal to all readers who are interested in learning more about the Spanish Inquisition .
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
On Division
Goldie Goldbloom has written a positive and comforting novel about the Chasidic community.
On Division gives the reader a view into this closed Williamsburg community, showing both positive and unpleasant sides. The reader can take away their own view in the end, but this is a book that wants to give the reader a change to appreciate how people who live in these kinds of communities and stay there are feeling.
In most of the books that come out about the very religious Jewish sects, the stories are about how these authors do not fit in and have left their families behind to find a new life in the secular world.
In this novel, that is written by a Chasidic woman who stays and works from within the Jewish religious world, we see a different perspective .
Suri is a mother, grandmother and is about to become a great-grandmother. She has gone through menopause and even is a breast cancer survivor. Her family has been a pillar in the community until the tragic death of her oldest son. Now when her latest daughter got married Suri feels the match was not as prestigious, that their standing the community has been lessened. If people were to find she was pregnant what would happen to their standing int he community then? She is also worried about what her family will think so she starts to keep it a secret from everyone including her husband.
She goes to the midwife and is convinced to start regular weekly visits to the hospital for checkups for health reasons. These she does in secret. She gets more and more involved in working with midwife to help other pregnant women coming to the hospital clinic. As the secret is kept and more secrets are kept, Suri starts to feel the power of having these parts of her that other people do not know about her. She also begins to understand how her son felt, that as a young gay man in a community that was not accepting of homosexuality, he was keeping a secret that hurt.
Suri realizes that she did not help her son enough. She finds a way int he end to come to peace with what happened and know that if she could have it to do over she would do things differently.
Suri comes to the realization that she is apart of the Chasidic life and she can see both the pros and cons of that life, but that it is the place she is comfortable. She invites the midwife to come to her home for a Purim celebration. Val the midwife is uncomfortable with all the noise and chaos. She is upset by the fact that everything in this Jewish home revolves around marriage and children. She wants to know why Suri doesn't want more of life for herself or for her daughters and granddaughters. Suri explains to her, "What else is there? The whole life of a Jew is devoted to family. There is no end to that cycle. Think of Dead Onyo, in another community she would be in a nursing home, alone. No one would know that she makes excellent poppy-seed jam. Instead, here, she is loved. Her great-grandchildren sit in her lap every day. She will never be moved to a nursing home because there will always be someone to rake care of her."
In the end isn't that what all of us want? To be loved and cared for and never alone? There is something to be said in favor of some of the rules that govern the Chasidic and other Orthodox sects of Judaism. This book helps point out that it is not all black and white. There are so many shades of gray, that there are good parts and restrictive parts to every experience in life. We all have to choose where on the spectrum we are most comfortable living.
On Division gives the reader a view into this closed Williamsburg community, showing both positive and unpleasant sides. The reader can take away their own view in the end, but this is a book that wants to give the reader a change to appreciate how people who live in these kinds of communities and stay there are feeling.
In most of the books that come out about the very religious Jewish sects, the stories are about how these authors do not fit in and have left their families behind to find a new life in the secular world.
In this novel, that is written by a Chasidic woman who stays and works from within the Jewish religious world, we see a different perspective .
Suri is a mother, grandmother and is about to become a great-grandmother. She has gone through menopause and even is a breast cancer survivor. Her family has been a pillar in the community until the tragic death of her oldest son. Now when her latest daughter got married Suri feels the match was not as prestigious, that their standing the community has been lessened. If people were to find she was pregnant what would happen to their standing int he community then? She is also worried about what her family will think so she starts to keep it a secret from everyone including her husband.
She goes to the midwife and is convinced to start regular weekly visits to the hospital for checkups for health reasons. These she does in secret. She gets more and more involved in working with midwife to help other pregnant women coming to the hospital clinic. As the secret is kept and more secrets are kept, Suri starts to feel the power of having these parts of her that other people do not know about her. She also begins to understand how her son felt, that as a young gay man in a community that was not accepting of homosexuality, he was keeping a secret that hurt.
Suri realizes that she did not help her son enough. She finds a way int he end to come to peace with what happened and know that if she could have it to do over she would do things differently.
Suri comes to the realization that she is apart of the Chasidic life and she can see both the pros and cons of that life, but that it is the place she is comfortable. She invites the midwife to come to her home for a Purim celebration. Val the midwife is uncomfortable with all the noise and chaos. She is upset by the fact that everything in this Jewish home revolves around marriage and children. She wants to know why Suri doesn't want more of life for herself or for her daughters and granddaughters. Suri explains to her, "What else is there? The whole life of a Jew is devoted to family. There is no end to that cycle. Think of Dead Onyo, in another community she would be in a nursing home, alone. No one would know that she makes excellent poppy-seed jam. Instead, here, she is loved. Her great-grandchildren sit in her lap every day. She will never be moved to a nursing home because there will always be someone to rake care of her."
In the end isn't that what all of us want? To be loved and cared for and never alone? There is something to be said in favor of some of the rules that govern the Chasidic and other Orthodox sects of Judaism. This book helps point out that it is not all black and white. There are so many shades of gray, that there are good parts and restrictive parts to every experience in life. We all have to choose where on the spectrum we are most comfortable living.
The Matzo Ball Heiress
The Matzo Ball Heiress, written by Lauren Gwen Shapiro is a fun light fully story about Heather Greenblotz, the heiress to the Greenblotz family fortune and part owner of the number one selling matzo company, under the family name. She shares the running of the company with her cousins, the third generation of Greenblotz to control the company started by their grandfather Izzy.
Of course Passover is upon us as the story begins and Heather has been recruited to take a news reporter on a tour of the matzo factory. As she guides the reporter, Steve Myers and his crew through the factory she is thinking of how she can impress Steve and Jared the cameraman with her own film experience and whether she finds either of them attractive. This becomes a romantic plot with a bit of tension as Heather first goes on a date with Steve and then finding him narcissistic finds Jared much more likable.
Steve it turns out is interested in using Greenblotz matzo and the Greenblotz family to further his career. He offers to film the Greenblotz seder asa publicity move for the company and a career move for himself. Of course the family agrees even though all the members of the family have been estranged for years and have not held a family seder in all that time. It is a family secret that threatens to come out and possibly ruin the business. Who wants to buy Passover food from a family that does not know how to throw their own seder.
As the plot thickens characters are developed who interact with Heather and her cousin Jake, who will be called on to participate in a seder. We learn who is Jewish and who is not. Who is religious and who has no knowledge about the religion they were born into. There is fun dialog about Judaism and references to social and religious topics. There are definitely stereotypical statements and misconceptions about Kashrut and other Jewish symbols and people.
In all it is entertaining and humorous ... not offending, but reminiscent of an earlier time...
Of course Passover is upon us as the story begins and Heather has been recruited to take a news reporter on a tour of the matzo factory. As she guides the reporter, Steve Myers and his crew through the factory she is thinking of how she can impress Steve and Jared the cameraman with her own film experience and whether she finds either of them attractive. This becomes a romantic plot with a bit of tension as Heather first goes on a date with Steve and then finding him narcissistic finds Jared much more likable.
Steve it turns out is interested in using Greenblotz matzo and the Greenblotz family to further his career. He offers to film the Greenblotz seder asa publicity move for the company and a career move for himself. Of course the family agrees even though all the members of the family have been estranged for years and have not held a family seder in all that time. It is a family secret that threatens to come out and possibly ruin the business. Who wants to buy Passover food from a family that does not know how to throw their own seder.
As the plot thickens characters are developed who interact with Heather and her cousin Jake, who will be called on to participate in a seder. We learn who is Jewish and who is not. Who is religious and who has no knowledge about the religion they were born into. There is fun dialog about Judaism and references to social and religious topics. There are definitely stereotypical statements and misconceptions about Kashrut and other Jewish symbols and people.
In all it is entertaining and humorous ... not offending, but reminiscent of an earlier time...
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti
I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti , written by Giulia Melucci is a fun entertaining book for a sunny afternoon. Then go into the kitchen and cook up all the recipes in the book.
Wha a fun entertaining book to read and I marked so many fo the recipes that scattered throughout the book.
This is a food memoir. Melucci goes through her adult life chronicling her social life. The men she has dated and the even eventually the single women get togethers. With each boyfriend she talks about their relationship and the role food plays in the relationship. Each date involves at least a dinner. Some of the relationships last for a while and then more meals are described.
The recipes look easy and delicious. It is hard to image any of the relationships not working out when there is so much delicious food being shared. One of the boyfriends that lasts three years she thinks is just based on their common interest in food. Most of their conversations and entertainment revolve around meals, the discussion of menus, the shopping for ingredients, the cooking and eating of the meal. In the end even that connection is not enough for marriage.
I have earmarked many of the pages in the hopes that someday soon I will make some of these recipes. Luckily I know that my husband did not marry me for my cooking, so however they turn out I will still have my husband asleep next to me every night.
Some of the fun recipe titles are; Pear Cake for Friends with Benefits, First Date Butterflies, and Morning After Pumpkin Bread.
Wha a fun entertaining book to read and I marked so many fo the recipes that scattered throughout the book.
This is a food memoir. Melucci goes through her adult life chronicling her social life. The men she has dated and the even eventually the single women get togethers. With each boyfriend she talks about their relationship and the role food plays in the relationship. Each date involves at least a dinner. Some of the relationships last for a while and then more meals are described.
The recipes look easy and delicious. It is hard to image any of the relationships not working out when there is so much delicious food being shared. One of the boyfriends that lasts three years she thinks is just based on their common interest in food. Most of their conversations and entertainment revolve around meals, the discussion of menus, the shopping for ingredients, the cooking and eating of the meal. In the end even that connection is not enough for marriage.
I have earmarked many of the pages in the hopes that someday soon I will make some of these recipes. Luckily I know that my husband did not marry me for my cooking, so however they turn out I will still have my husband asleep next to me every night.
Some of the fun recipe titles are; Pear Cake for Friends with Benefits, First Date Butterflies, and Morning After Pumpkin Bread.
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