Waiting for pickup

For some reason, I’ve found that I haven’t been doing much new reading in the past few months. Instead, I did a lot of rereading of old favourites, and quite frankly, I spent a lot of time reading online when I was really in the mood to be reading something on paper, just because I didn’t have any new books on hand. The solution? Place some holds at the library. And because my my local library uses the lovely and convenient Bibliocommons catalogue system, it was ridiculously easy to find some new books, and to put them on hold.

So here I am, sitting at home on a cosy grey day, waiting for the email message that the following books are ready for pickup:

Slipstream, a Memoir by Elizabeth Jane Howard – Looking forward to curling up under a blanket and reading some juicy gossip in this one!

Aran Knitting and Fisherman’s Sweatersby Alice Starmore – I’m knitting a simple Aran sweater for myself right now, and I think I’m ready to kick it up a notch with something even more complicated.

Roadfood by Jane and Michael Stern – I found Roadfood Sandwiches to be excellent (and hunger-inducing) Saturday-afternoon reading, so I’m looking forward to more of the same

The Mind’s Eye by Oliver Sacks – I didn’t even know he had a new book until I saw this mentioned on Martin Levin’s list of 10 books you have to read in Fall 2010. This one’s about six people with vision problems and changes, including Sacks, who suffered a tumour in his eye.

And now, I just wait!!

Wolf Hall, a second time

I have been rereading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and I think I’m enjoying it even more a second time. I have to admit, there are aspects of the plot I am still not fully grasping, particularly the episode of the Holy Maid towards the end of the book. Instead, I have been paying more attention to the parts of the book which I think make it special: the detailed descriptions of Cromwell’s home life, contrasted with the “big-picture” explanations of how he conducts his business (and Wolsey’s and the King’s) within a web of economic and personal relationships across Europe. That might sound pretentious, but Mantel’s ability to show (accurately or not, I don’t know) exactly how things were working behind the scenes was what made this book fascinating for me, rather than the scandalous nature of the main Henry-Katherine-Anne plot.

I was left with one question, why did Mantel choose to call it Wolf Hall if the incestuous drama of the Seymour family is only a small sub-plot? I have some ideas, but I would be interested in hearing yours. Maybe I am missing something . . .

summertime, and the books are hefty

I don’t know about the rest of you, but in summer my reading tends to be of two types:

1. short, fluffy reading that can be digested in between other more pressing activities such as eating strawberries and swimming.

2. long weighty tomes that can be read while travelling, on lazy weekend afternoons, and at at the cottage.

This post is about a book that definitely falls into the second category: Vol. 1 of Janet Browne’s new(ish) biography of Charles Darwin.

When I mentioned to a friend that I was reading this book, her response was “but wasn’t his life kind of boring?.” And the answer to that is, kind of, except when it was not. Several extremely unboring things happen in this volume:

- Darwin goes to medical school at the University of Edinburgh during a period when professors did anatomy demonstrations using cadavers obtained through distinctly sketchy methods. He has a personal crisis, but not because of the cadavers

- Darwin travels around the world on the Beagle. Browne devotes a large portion of this volume to the trip, and describes life aboard the ship, and Darwin’s travels on land, in great detail. Turns out Darwin was seasick most of the time, and had to periodically “take the horizontal” while writing up his notes on the ship.

- During this voyage, Darwin shares the ship with three “Fuegians” that the captain, Robert Fitzroy, had captured in Tierra del Fuego on a previous voyage and brought back to England to be “civilized.” Browne’s description of what happened when they returned to Tierra del Fuego, along with a missionary intending to set up a mission, is really fascinating, and the whole episode, including the names given to the Fuegians, is just so bizarre. No wonder it shook up Darwin’s view of humanity.

- Darwin returns to England and marries his first cousin. Browne makes it quite clear that this was considered normal in his family, but I still think it’s weird.

- Darwin’s daughter Annie dies, possibly of tuberculosis.

Of course, I wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t mention that quite a lot of boring events (or lack thereof) happen in this book as well. Browne, a historian of science who worked on his published correspondence, is focused on what is happening inside Darwin’s brain as the events of his life unfold. The reader receives Darwin’s education in anatomy, geology and physiology along with him, and puzzles through his ideas and theories as he reaches later life.

Browne does run into a problem that I suspect must be common to intellectual biographers: how do you deal with all that time spent in the library? Or, in Darwin’s case, in the reading room of his London club? Matters are not helped by the fact that just as Darwin’s evolutionary ideas start to get exciting, he takes an EIGHT YEAR time-out to study barnacle sex . Necessary, but a bit of a bummer on the narrative front. However, the pace of the biography picks up a bit towards the end of the first volume, and the reader is left hanging: what will happen when Darwin finally publishes???

I’ll let you know as soon as I finish the second volume. And while I know that nineteenth-century science doesn’t make for everybody’s idea of riveting beach reading, I’d really recommend this book!

read, sleep, knit, sleep, read

This was my regimen for the last week or so – I’ve been sick with a mysterious sleepy flu. Just for kicks, I thought I’d make a list of what I’ve read while sick:

Globe and Mail

the new Canadian Living – good recipes for summer noodle salads, incomprehensible instructions for Maple Leaf quilt squares

Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves – I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, ever since I inherited my grandparents’ nice edition of it (bought to replace a sadly lost first edition that belonged to my grandfather). Starts a bit slowly with its account of English public school life, until you realise with a sickening jolt that a huge proportion of those public-school boys will be dead by 1918. A very good book, but maybe not the best choice when you’re feeling a bit down already.

Little Women – classic comfort food for the soul

The True Story of the Trapp Family Singers – see above

Mediterranean Street Food, by Anissa Helou – why do I read cookbooks when I have no appetite and no energy to cook or do dishes?

The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs – I was reminded of this by a conversation about dietary taboos with my friends on the weekend (rock out nerds!), so I reread it. Still good and interesting.

Why Toronto is cooler than Ottawa

(or, my last stop at Doors Open Toronto, 2010 edition)

Reason 1:

There is a new, totally awesome green roof and public garden at City Hall:

Reason 2: The public garden is equipped with these excellent bins, with space for recycling and organic waste!

Here in Ottawa, I’m still waiting for organics pick-up at my apartment building . . .

An evening of tightwaddery, or, working the second shift

Following a happy (and slightly obsessive) week of reading Amy Dacyzyn’s Complete Tightwad Gazette, I decided to have an evening of tightwaddery. As you will be able to see from the retro nature of my kitchen decor, I don’t live high off the hog by any means, but I figured it would be fun to give some new things a try. My cupboards were bare, so I focused on frugal food.

Oh, and before we embark on this timeline, you’ll find more on the “second shift” here. Sigh.

5:30. I got home from the first shift, my full time job. I tidied up from breakfast a little, got changed, grabbed my pannier bags and headed out on my bike to the grocery store. I brought along a notebook, half planning to see what it’s like to make a price book. The price book is the cornerstone of the Tightwad Gazette approach to buying groceries, which can be boiled down to:

1. The “pantry principle” – buy food only when it is cheapest to do so, and plan your meals based on what you already have in the pantry (pages 474-6)
2. Keep track of the cheapest grocery prices in a price book, which lists the prices for staples at all stores in your local area. Plan shopping trips accordingly (pages 33-34).
3. Avoid processed food and eat foods in season (sprinkled throughout the book).

5:30-6:15 – grocery shopping

I already practice #3 on the above list (being a good reader of Animal Vegetable Miracle and the daughter of a man obsessed with root vegetables), and I keep a fairly well-stocked pantry as well. On this trip, however, I paid a bit more attention to stocking the pantry rather than meal planning, and bought multiples of several canned items that were on sale, potatoes, plantains (cheap!) and little else.

This was cheap. And REALLY REALLY HEAVY.

6:15 – 6:30 – Make bread, Part 1

Even without the influence of the Tightwad Gazette, I tend to bake bread rather than buy it. I find that I can easily make a batch three loaves of bread every two weeks or so. The bread tastes way better, so I look forward to breakfast in the morning, and I prefer to bake rather than go to the bakery. Some people think I’m crazy for doing this, and I admit that I was stupid for doing it while going to grad school and working part time. But now, thanks to the joys of 9-5, I’ve gotten back into the habit. The Tightwad Gazette, of course, advocates baking your own bread, and even includes a detailed analysis of the cost-breakdown of the bread machine versus the old-school method (pages 455-458).

This week, however, I did things a bit differently, and supplemented my normal recipe with some cold cooked oatmeal leftovers that I had in my fridge. Following the basic recipe for whole wheat bread in the Joy of Cooking, I proofed the yeast, and then added the oatmeal to soak a little:

6:30-7 p.m.

While the bread dough was soaking, I made some breaded chicken thighs (making your own convenience food – pages 422-5) and put on a pot of potatoes (pages 187-88) to boil.

Then I added the flour to the oatmeal mixture:

and set the dough to rise:

It was a bit softer than normal, and seemed to rise more quickly.

7 to 7:30 – I finished cooking my chicken, mashed potatoes and asparagus, ate it, and put the rest away to eat for lunch at work the next day (of course, the Tightwad would approve – see pages 133-6). By this point, the kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off, and I did two sinks’ worth of dishes (for an analysis of the cost savings of handwashing versus dishwashers, see pages 404-6).

7:30 – 8:30 – I punched down the bread and put it in loaf pans to rise. In light of the Tightwad Gazette approach to processed food (and feeling slightly self-punishing?), I had decided not to buy crackers at the grocery store. Instead, I decided to make homemade cream crackers, using some cream that I had in the fridge that was on the edge of going off. Since moving into an apartment with an extremely tiny fridge, I’ve found that I waste far less food than I used to. This article on food waste in the Toronto Star is pretty alarming.

I used the recipe for Cream Crackers in How to Cook Everything. The dough was easy to make, but pretty difficult to handle, and it was hard to roll the crackers out thin enough:

While the crackers were baking, I did another load of dishes and tidied up the living room.

8:30-9:30

In order to conserve the energy from heating up the oven (pages 206-7), I put the bread in to bake directly after the crackers. I did another load of dishes, cleaned the bathroom, put away the remainder of the groceries, and collapsed onto a chair to read for a half hour before going to bed.

Here’s the bread:

By the end of the evening I was feeling,
- utterly and completely exhausted, with legs shaking and a mild feeling of nausea
- totally sick of doing dishes
- mildly satisfied with the results of my baking, but annoyed by the crackers, which took at least twice as much labour as the bread, and didn’t even turn out very well
- reassured that I lived pretty frugally anyways, and didn’t need a book to tell me how to conserve energy, not waste food, and check the unit price when grocery shopping

and most interestingly, I think, I felt frustrated and angry by how tired I was for fairly little return, especially because I knew that I would just have to do all the same housework again soon enough (ok, except the crackers, which I will not be making again). I had just worked the second shift, and I wasn’t feeling very liberated.

and I was too tired to bother making a price book.

More open doors

After my visits to Campbell House and the Canada Life building, I headed to Osgoode Hall.

There was a great self-guided tour of the courtrooms, Great Library, and the formal rooms used by the Law Society of Upper Canada, and I really appreciated the open, friendly atmosphere as people were welcomed into a public space with no apparent concern for security threats. Lawyers and librarians were on hand to explain how the building is used today, and kids and adults were welcome to sit in the seats for judges and QCs and have their picture taken wearing robes.

In the Great Library:

and in one of the courtrooms:

It all felt a little Street Legal and I kept expecting Chuck and Olivia to come around the corner, legal robes flapping in the wind.

Torontonians

In the spirit of my current read, The Complete Tightwad Gazette (more to come on that later, I promise), I headed out for some free fun this past weekend on a visit to Toronto. It was Doors Open weekend!

(I am not sure if I need to explain this, since I am almost certain that everyone who reads this blog knows me, and is therefore likely to know about the greatness that is Doors Open)

The first stop was Campbell House, at Queen and University. I had never been inside, despite the fact that I am a huge Canadian history nerd, and this is one of the oldest houses in Toronto. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos. By far the most interesting part was the basement kitchen, and the explanation of how to cook a roast dinner and bake pies in the big fireplace. There was also a demo of how to make 19th century lemonade, which made me thirsty, since it was about 30 degrees out!

Next, the Canada Life building just next door.

This building has been part of Doors Open Toronto for almost as long as the event has been running, and I would totally recommend a visit here next year. Visitors can ride the elevator to the top floor observation deck, which is very opulently decorated besides having a great view of downtown.

After we emerged from the elevators at ground level, and I recovered from the vertigo-inducing video of a repairman replacing a lightbulb on the building’s weather beacon/planned airship tether, I remembered a bookish connection.

If I remember correctly, a key scene in The Torontonians, by Phyllis Brett Young, takes place in the Canada Life building. The protagonist, a frustrated suburban housewife, has gone downtown to visit a neighbour about a mysterious cheque (wouldn’t want to give more than that away about the plot!). He stands in his office, looking out at the city spread before him, musing on his past in the slums of the The Ward, and looking towards the future at the lands being cleared for the new city hall.

I can’t find the book right now in my messy apartment, but if I could, I’d include a quote to convince you to read it! It’s gripping in a soapy kind of way, and I loved to read the descriptions of Toronto of the early 60s, when the Yonge Street subway (and resultant decrease in traffic) was still novel, and Leaside was considered the ‘burbs.

I do other things besides read

although I am guilty of going to the library after work at the library. . .

Tomorrow I am attending an event put on by Librarians Without Borders at the Ottawa Public Library. I don’t really know anything about the organization, so I am looking forward to learning more!!

and you know, I might pick up a book or two on my way out as well.

the problem with book blogs

is that most of the time, all you are doing is finishing books, and not posting about them! This is a hazard of the genre. I have been absent, but I am reading a great book: The Mirror at Midnight, by Adam Hochschild. Various family members have pressed me to read King Leopold’s Ghost by the same author, and I have not (yet), but I hear it is great too. The Mirror at Midnight is an account of Hochschild’s trip to South Africa in 1988, the 150th anniversary of the The Battle of Blood River. The book has a weird, time-machine quality, because it was written shortly after the trip, when the possibility of change in South Africa seemed distant. I have only just started the book, but it is odd to read a book that was written as a combination of history (the Battle of Blood River) and current affairs reporting (the political situation in South Africa in the 1980s), but the current affairs reporting has itself become an account of historical events. Memory and the selective nature of historical writing also seems to be a major theme. But don’t let that put non-historians off this book! It is very riveting and beautifully written.

Now just to find time to read the rest!

Also, in less serious news, I have been enjoying some knitting reads lately:

Gladys Thompson’s Guernseys, Jerseys and Arans

and

Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears

I hear you can’t make any sweater in the first book without using the shaping and construction directions in the second, so I’ll rely on the words of these two elderly eccentrics to get me through my next knitting project!