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Across the Walnuts and the Wine
May 23, 2010
I am gleefully anticipating the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Not because I am off work an extra day, though that is always welcome. Not because I have *huge* plans but because I don’t. Not because I am planning a massive family-and-friends barbecue because I’m not. Rather, it’s because I plan to expand my annual Great Thanksgiving Weekend Read and make my reading weekend a biannual treat by adding what I have now named the Great Memorial Weekend Read.
Creating this spring weekend is a new idea, coming to me only last week but already I am caught up in planning it. Because it will take place in an entirely different season that means both the books and the food will be different than they are in November. I am leaning toward al fresco dining, grilling, and cold soups. My books are also suited to the warmer weather. They’re not of the “beach reading” variety but they include a nice selection of food, travel, history, politics, and personal essays. So far here is what I have:
Friday dinner menu and book:
Starting the long weekend with a food-oriented focus that is fun and genuinely American feels so right. I’m not particularly patriotic, but I do love aspects of American culture, and what could be more “American” than this meal and a book that celebrates American food in all its simple glory.
Saturday breakfast menu and book:
Since I anticipate having finished my Friday evening book before I go to sleep—it’s a quickie—I have already picked out my “breakfast book.” Probably my lunch book too unless I plan to immerse myself in it to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. My reading pick is one I am looking forward to because it spans political choices, travel and dialogue, something quite appealing in the increasingly antagonistic atmosphere of political divides that turns me off. So what better to accompany it than a meal that includes an international dish, a vegetarian option, and a local fruit?
- Çilbur (a Turkish recipe of poached eggs on a bed of garlic-flavored yogurt)
- Soy bacon
- Half a white grapefruit
- Nonfat milk with soy protein powder and freshly ground nutmeg, blended to frothiness
- Red Highways: A Liberal’s Journey into the Heartland by Rose Aguilar
Saturday lunch menu and book:
I enjoy the pleasure of reading, and I’m not out to finish a race or to meet any quotas. So whether I will finish Red Highways before lunchtime is unknown. My menu, therefore, must be suitable for either that book or the next one on my list. Whichever one it is, I want to finish so I have a “new” book with which to start my evening reading so I have chosen a book I’ve read before, a simple collection of columns from a small-town newspaper, the Gilroy Dispatch. Yes, Gilroy of garlic fame. It was printed by a local publisher in 1992, and it is delightful, the kind of thing that allows readers to see and feel the real town as its residents do.
Saturday dinner menu and book:
Ah, a relaxing day and two more to go. Because this is a special evening with friends, it is the time to go all out without causing myself any anxiety thanks to weekday preparation. But since post-dinner evening reading leads to bedtime reading, the book I choose for this meal needs to be one that won’t keep me up (no scary mysteries) but that seduces me into being its constant companion until I fall asleep. To that end I have chosen a book that appears as if it will have the ability to do just that, a book so weighty with history and famous figures that it will require undivided attention (as well as two hands).
Sunday breakfast menu and book:
It’s this time of this day that always seems to have a special feeling. For those of us who grew up on them the Sunday morning newspapers are like nothing else. Pages of articles and essays on darn near anything meant you were guaranteed to learn more than you ever knew existed. This was prior to the Internet, of course, but even today the Sunday paper holds a mystical element. And for that reason my morning reading will take a detour from the world of books into the world of newsprint.
- Soft-boiled eggs
- Sautéed potatoes, mushrooms, and onions
- Half a white grapefruit
- Nonfat milk with soy protein powder and freshly ground nutmeg, blended to frothiness
- The Sunday New York Times
Sunday lunch menu and book:
Still, books are my main focus this long weekend and so after the newspaper indulgence I will return to the book I began on Saturday night since I have no doubt that I will still be reading it at least through lunch today. Therefore, the menu remains easy, in fact, it is the same as the day before since I cooked several turkey tenderloins.
Sunday dinner menu and book:
I suspect I will still be on the same book, though hopefully nearing the end. Therefore I have picked out a book that will, if necessary work for both the Sunday night dinner and Monday’s breakfast. (And in answer to your question, I never tire of gazpacho, especially my recipe.)
- Gazpacho
- Green salad
- Grilled Portobello mushrooms
- Cold roasted chicken legs
- Ice cream with fresh blueberries
- Pinot Grigio wine
- Sea and Sardinia by D.H. Lawrence
Monday breakfast menu and book:
Sadly, it’s the last day but that doesn’t mean I am going to let it go to waste. On the contrary, I will likely still be engaged with Lawrence—a book I am looking forward to reading, especially in the 1921 first edition I own. It’s a precious book to me even without the dust jacket. I wouldn’t want to risk staining it so the menu is simple.
- Scrambled egg and tofu
- Cold steamed artichoke
- Sourdough toast
- Sea and Sardinia by D.H. Lawrence (continued)
Monday lunch menu and book:
Since this weekend has been such a pleasure—in the planning, execution, and enjoyment of it—I thought I’d officially finish up the Great Memorial Weekend Read with a simple, charming short book that celebrates indulgences.
Is it tempting? Want to join me? Please do! You’d be more than welcome to come over and share the porch but if you can’t physically make it then I encourage you to make your own reading weekend. While you may have already committed yourself to a weekend at a campsite or the beach, or be flying in to visit family or spend time in a distant city doesn’t matter. It’s not necessary that you devote the entire weekend or even a full day to a commitment, but what about deciding that you will start (or finish) that book on your nightstand that you’ve been wanting to get to. You can add a single element of the Read to your plans by making conscious and exciting choices for the long weekend. Think about what you’d like to feel, know, understand, or learn and choose the books and food that gives you that. Because I’d like to think that Alfred Lord Tennyson, when he spoke the words “across the walnuts and the wine,” could have been speaking not just to after-dinner talk as he was but also to the conversations between the author and the reader that take place when reading and eating are one.
Upcoming Book Festivals:
Unfortunately, there are no festivals coming up this week or next weekend.
The Pub House:
Silver Dolphin Press publishes wonderful activity, novelty and educational nonfiction books for preschoolers to twelve-year-olds. These tend to be books that engage and educate at the same time. I found Animal Camouflage and Insects (part of their Learning in Action series) to be particularly wonderful for showing young children the wonders of nature. Rockets is great for inspiring a love of space technology. For those aged ten and older, the Journal of Inventions: Leonardo da Vinci pop-up book is spectacular, offering elaborate 3-D pop-ups and detailed illustrations based on the personal notebooks and sketches of da Vinci. (It may just intrigue adults enough to buy it for themselves too.)
Win This Book!
This week’s giveaway book is Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher, which looks at the role of attention in human motivation and the power of focus. To enter, all you need to do is send us an e-mail with “Win This Book” in the subject line and the title of the book in the body of the e-mail. We will collect names and draw one on Friday, May 28. (Winners are limited to one book a month.) We apologize to our international readers but postal costs prohibit our mailing books outside the United States.
Imaging Books & Reading:
Yup, everyone’s reading.
Of Interest:
It’s early but not too early to begin planning a trip to Monroeville, Alabama, for the 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend where several days of events will highlight the important American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird and honor its author. Celebration events include panel discussions, a special barbecue lunch, a silent auction, a marathon reading of the novel, Maycomb tours, games, a showing of the film, a “Taste of Maycomb” party, preview of the documentary, Our Mockingbird, an “Evening in Maycomb” party, a birthday party with celebrity chefs, and more. Some events are free, others require tickets, which can be purchased through the museum.
This Week . . .
I think I recommended this once before but because it is so wonderful and making me laugh so hard I am going to do it again. The Newberry Book Fair News blog is going at it, talking about:
- the boxes in which they receive books (“if it’s too big for you to lift into the car without help, what do you expect me to do with it?”)
- people who hate booksellers and their pricing (“Some do have suspicions that I may share the sins of those people who let mere money stand between books and the people who love them.”)
- quotable quotations (“When it makes me throw up, the price isn’t very high.”)
- sex instruction manuals (“… those wild and crazy sixties! How frank can you get?”)
- Cottage Collections (“… carried out to the cottage for reading in case of rain and just left behind because no one found them interesting enough to bother taking back into town.”)
The blogger is a chatty, utterly delightful commentator who finds joy in sharing the craziness of working with donated books and the vagaries of a fundraising book fair. (Having done that myself for about six years, I know what of she speaks. But even if you haven’t experienced it, you’ll definitely get a good feel for what it’s like reading this.
Until next week, read well, read often and read on!
Lauren
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