December/January Selection: Land of Milk and Honey

Can you believe it, Mid Winter already, with Christmas fast approaching!  I picked this novel, Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang, as our next selection for Cook the Books Club, without having read it, which, amounts to a disclaimer, just so you know.  From the reviews it sounded so very intriguing. They were all overwhelmingly raves!  

Just to illustrate: 

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
Finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, HARPER'S BAZAAR, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, ESQUIRE, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN AND MORE! 

I will leave you all to make up your own minds and am looking forward to hearing your discussions about the novel, and what recipes you come up with, as there were a ton of food references here.  Basically a Sci-Fi, dystopian look at life on planet earth after an overwhelming global catastrophe!

From the Publisher's Weekly: Zhang's exquisite and seductive second novel (after How Much of These Hills Is Gold) centers on an unnamed chef, 29, who is trying to survive in the wake of an environmental catastrophe that wreaked havoc on the earth's biodiversity. Raised in Los Angeles by a single immigrant mother, the chef chased complex flavors and busy kitchens since she was 19. But when the disaster decimated kitchen ingredients and shuttered borders, she was left cooking with years-old fish and bioengineered flour: "Chef had lost its meaning... like fresh." In a desperate attempt to change her surroundings, she takes a head chef position at a secretive food research community on the mountainous Italian-French border, which holds a surprising storeroom with the world's last strawberries, Parmigiano, and boar meat. Her transition to cooking for investors she cannot meet is difficult--she has no access to the outside world and she can't stomach the rich food. But she becomes preoccupied with Aida, the boss's mischievous 20-year-old daughter, who shows up to test her cooking. Aida and her father see their facility as the planet's last hope, and the chef soon learns that her role extends beyond food to enabling a world that caters to their ambition. Wrestling with her desire for both excitement and stability, the chef must squash the inner voice that asks, "Hadn't I meant to feed anyone else?" ...

The deadline for posting your thoughts and inspired recipes will be Friday, January 31st, 2025.  If you are new to the game, and have questions, check out our Guidelines  page here.  I hope you'll read the book and join in.  Basically what we do is read the current book, then make a food preparation inspired by it, and post to your blog.  Leave a comment below with your post link.  Open to all! 

Aloha,

Claudia

Honey from Rock

Crying in H Mart: The Roundup

It's time for the roundup of Cook the Books' Club October-November edition for which we read Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. 

As I've done in the past, I will present our club members' contributions as a menu organized in courses. For each dish, I will give you the official information (author, blog name and post title) and a quote from it, a taste: follow the link and read the author's take of the book and how the reading inspired the cooking. 

Cook the Books Club's Crying in H Mart-Inspired Menu 

Soup:

Dak Gomtang (Korean Chicken Soup)

Main:

Makgalbi-jjim (Korean Braised Short Ribs)

Kimchi-jjgae (Korean Stew)

Korean Style Short Ribs (à la Chongmi)

Midnight Kimchi Fried Rice

Side dish:

Green cabbage with honeynut squash and chestnuts 

Make yourself comfortable and enjoy the menu.

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Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm prepared Dak Gomtang (Korean Chicken Soup)

"This Korean Chicken soup is flavored with garlic, onions, and ginger creating a flavorful broth served over freshly steamed rice... This soup appealed to me because I was having 10 people for dinner and this soup could be made ahead of time. I boiled my chicken and made the broth the day before dinner. I steamed the rice the morning of the dinner but did not refrigerate it. I did enjoy the food descriptions and it made me long for a trip to the Asian Market, an hour's drive from my house, to enjoy food at the little cafe in the corner." 

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Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures cooked Makgalbi-jjim (Korean Braised Short Ribs) 

"Lots of great foodie moments and I think many who lose loved ones, especially at a young age can find this memoir relatable. As she writes, the author mentions tons of Korean foods her (sometimes overbearing) mother made for her in childhood and beyond, so there was lots of inspiration... I decided to poke around the inspiration blog [Maangchi] and see what I could find, which were these fantastic short ribs! Flavorful and delicious, this recipe will satisfy the whole family!"

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Claudia of Honey from Rock prepared Kimchi-jjigae

"Some parents can be so overbearing even in their love, wanting to direct every aspect of their children's lives... The inspirations for cooking were just too many to list.  All Korean food!  And I had only recently posted on that. Getting Into Jang, by Mingoo Kong, A Whole New Cuisine.  Anyway, I fixed a traditional Korean favorite, and one of mine as well: Kimchi-jjgae. Which is a stew in which you put some aged kimchi [spicy pickled cabbage], pork, tofu, and various seasonings."

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Debra of Eliot's Eats cooked Korean Style Short Ribs (à la Chongmi)

"Zauner and her mother [Chongmi] do seem to bond over food. Korean-Chinese food was the first thing they would seek out when they arrived in Seoul for their scheduled family trips. Some of Chongmi’s more gentle lessons seemed to revolve around cuisine... It might have been food that actually kept Zauner sane... I kept coming back to Chongmi’s marinated short ribs. I pieced together a recipe that included green onions, 7-Up, soy sauce, and sesame oil... I put together a couple of recipes and then used the tips from the book on how her mom made them." 

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Marg of The Intrepid Reader prepared Midnight Kimchi Fried Rice

"One of the things that I enjoyed was when Michelle Zauner started trying to learn to cook more Korean food by watching Youtube videos from a person called Maangchi... I chose to take inspiration from a very popular Korean dish, Kimchi, to make a version of fried rice... did have a Korean workmate who suggested that this recipe was overly complicating things and all you really needed was some rice, some kimchi and some tuna and you had a delicious lunch, but we definitely enjoyed this when we made it, and it is an easy mid-week meal."

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Simona of briciole (your host) prepared
Green Cabbage with Honeynut Squash & Chestnuts

"The book inspired me to look at a food from my upbringing, something not only Italian, but from my family traditions. When I was in Italy last month, the smell of roasted chestnuts... reminded me of my mother. Every October, she would buy a large amount of chestnuts from someone in Casperia, the village in central Italy where she grew up. Then, in the following weeks, we would eat them often, as dessert at the end of dinner, alternatively roasted and boiled... The side dish is earthy and sweet (almost dessert-like) and it's vegan."

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A great Thank you! to everyone who joined in this edition of Cook the Books.

I believe all the submissions I have received are presented in the roundup. If you find anything missing or in need of amendment anywhere in the roundup, please do let me know.

And now, I’ll pass the baton to Claudia of Honey from Rock who is hosting the December 2024-January 2025 edition in which we are reading the novel Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang.

Arrivederci a presto!

Simona, of briciole

Announcement: Our Next Four Selections

It's that time of our virtual book club's cycle when we unveil the next four books selected by the co-hosts. This time, however, there is a twist: read on and you'll know more.
As always, we hope the reading will delight and inspire you. Ready? Let's go!

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Claudia (Honey from Rock) opens the series: for the December 2024 / January 2025 edition, she chose C Pam Zhang’s novel Land of Milk and Honey (September 2023)

I had almost gone with another selection when I read some reviews on this book. Though outside of my usual reading choices, dystopian/ sci-fi, it just provoked such curiosity and interest, that I thought you all might want to give it a try as well! This is not a pandemic novel per se, but it did grow out of the pandemic. Unfolding in a near future. 

From the Publishers: 

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world's troubles. There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body. In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef's boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Claudia, Honey From Rock

Deadline for contributing your post is Friday, January 31, 2025

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For the February / March 2025 edition, Debra (Eliot's Eats) has chosen the memoir Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten (October 2024)

I really hadn’t thought of Ina Garten much these past few years and then this summer I reviewed Cooking in Real Life by Lidey Heuck. (Lidey was an assistant for Ina for many years.) Then I heard a recent interview with Ina on Fresh Air promoting her upcoming memoir. I pre-ordered it. I had no idea that she had worked in the White House, that she spontaneously bought a specialty food shop in the Hamptons, and that she was a very reluctant FoodNetwork Star. I guess I wasn’t much of a fan girl back in the days of The Barefoot Contessa. Long story short… my selection is Ina’s most recent book. From the publisher:

Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose. From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.

I hope you’re inspired by one of her personal tales like “1000 Baguettes” or “It’s Always Cocktail Hour in a Crisis." Perhaps you’ll choose a recipe from one of her thirteen cookbooks! Regardless, I think this will be a fun and interesting read.

Debra, Eliot's Eats

Deadline for contributing your post is Monday, March 31, 2025

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For the April / May 2025 edition Simona (briciole) chose the novel The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (May 2024)

Recently, upon returning a book to the library via the Libby app, I was offered the option to "skip the line" and borrow a sought-after novel with a long, intriguing title. I accepted the offer and soon I found myself drawn to the story and even more so to its historical background: the period post-WWI and the challenges it posed to women, war veterans and the UK at large.

From the publisher:

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel... 

But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked. 

While the novel is not food-oriented, it includes a number of references to foods. I hope it will provide inspiration and above all an interesting reading. 

Simona, briciole

Deadline for contributing your post: Saturday, May 31, 2025.

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To round up the list of selections, for June / July 2025 we have a book we are calling The Mystery Selection by "details to be revealed in due time."

?

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Remember that membership in our book club is open to anyone and we hope you will join us by reading these selections and creating inspired recipes. For more information about participating, click here.  

As always, specific announcement posts can be found at Cook the Books at the beginning of each two-month period and the current selection is always shown on the right side of the homepage.

To recap:

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December 2024 / January 2025: Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (hosted by Claudia at Honey from Rock)

February / March 2025: Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten (hosted by Debra at Eliot's Eats)

April / May 2025: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson (hosted by Simona at briciole)

June / July 2025: The Mystery Selection by "details to be revealed in due time"

Happy reading and cooking!

 

Secret Life of Bees Round Up

Thanks to all that participated in this crossover event with Movies & Munchies. While The Secret Life of Bees is bittersweet, the recipes were definitely on the sweet side this round.

Here's what our creative crew posted:

Amy's Cooking Adventure was first up with Honey Cookies. Amy rated the book four stars and thought, "The movie followed the novel fairly well, but I felt the book was more nuanced and the movie was rushed and skipped key character development." Because honey played a vital role, she wanted to make something with honey.

Amy says, "These cookies are soft, chewy, and have a distinct honey flavor, offering a delightful twist on the classic sugar cookie."

Claudia from Honey From Rock enjoyed the novel and wondered how she had missed it. She also did some apian research on the "suicidal life" of male bees. Check it out. Fascinating. As she had lots of bananas (and May was obsessed with bananas), she mad this lovely Banana Almond Cake. 

Claudia enjoyed the book and "especially loved the account of 14 year old Lily springing her nanny from the hospital lockdown, after she was beaten up for daring to attempt voting!"

Wendy, from A Day in the Life on the Farm, participated in both events with one recipe. (Aside:  she was really busy hiking the AT!)  This was the third time for Wendy to read the novel and she enjoyed it "each and every time." It was her second time to watch the film. She knew she wanted to do something with honey and shared a classic recipe for Honeycomb Candy.

Marg from The Intrepid Reader & Baker gives an insightful synopsis of the book. It had been on her TBR list for some time: "I know that I bought this book off the 3 for 2 table at Borders (remember them?) which tells you how long ago it was." She sums up the importance of the novel by writing: "This is a book that shines a light on important events, but it is also filled with heart, and I am glad to finally have read it!" After much deliberation, Marg shared a recipe for Honey Sponge Roll. 

Culinary Cam thought the novel was a breeze to read BUT: 

The premise, I'll be honest, felt more than a little hackneyed - a motherless girl with a bigoted, abusive father on a peach farm in South Carolina. The book's saving grace: Kidd's prose. Her writing - the voice, the pacing, the diction - is all captivating. So even if the story was predictable and you literally cringe from the teenage angst and racial clichés, it was a joy to read. On the run with her black housekeeper, Rosaleen, Lily's story reminded me of something Mark Twain would have written except with female protagonists.

Camilla skipped the honey slant and was inspired by some of the savory meals, specifically the funeral meal. She posted Smoked Paprika Deviled Eggs. 

Terri from A Good Life posted a pretty extensive article about cooking with honey and whipped up a lovely honey-cornbread. 

Terri writes:

I first read the book with my book club group, and then when the movie came out we saw the movie together, too. We cried so much in our discussion. Our discussion centered around racism, love and the acceptance of people for who they are.  The movie is so beautifully acted by Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Alicia Keyes, Jennifer Hudson, and others (May!) and there were many tears shed during the show.  We all loved the book, and we all loved the movie, even though there were differences.  

She also quotes August Boatwright: "Love can't exist in a hateful time."  This sentiment is one to be remembered always.

A huge apology to Simone because I missed her post. Remedying that NOW: Simone from briciole posted a savory meal for us. Her Bean, Tomato, Sweet Pepper and Corn Salad 

is a great late summer meal. 

Simona's thoughts on the movie and the novel are below:

I can see how the novel became a bestseller (and a movie): individual lives play out in a small corner of the American south against the backdrop of the civil rights' movement. Rosaleen gets assaulted at the beginning of the novel for wanting to register to vote, following the passing of the Civil Rights Act. It's a bit slow-moving at times, like poured honey.

She also segues and gives us a tour of Tiburon, CA. (Tiburon, SC was the setting for the novel and movie.)  Check it out. 

I'm rounding out the posts with another honey based cookie: Honey Cornbread Cookies. 

I wanted to do something with honey, of course, and I originally decided to do a honey cornbread. But after some consideration for The Hubs (who wanted cookies) and a couple of internet searches, I landed on Honey-Cornbread Cookies. I adapted a Crumbl cookie copycat recipe. I’m not sure that I’ve had those specific Crumbl cookies, but this rendition is pretty darn good. My recipe is adapted and I used all butter (no shortening), added cinnamon, and sprinkled turbinado sugar on top. I also adapted the instructions a bit.

Thanks to all who participated in either of these two-fers (Movies & Munchies AND Cook the Books).  The October/November Cook the Books selection is the memoir Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (April 2021). Simona of  briciole is hosting. 

Happy Fall Ya'all!

October/November selection: Crying in H Mart

For the October / November 2024 edition I chose the memoir Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (April 2021)

In August 2018, the author had an essay published on The New Yorker with the same title. It starts thus:

Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart. For those of you who don’t know, H Mart is a supermarket chain that specializes in Asian food. The “H” stands for han ah reum, a Korean phrase that roughly translates to “one arm full of groceries.” H Mart is where parachute kids go to get the exact brand of instant noodles that reminds them of home. It’s where Korean families buy rice cakes to make tteokguk, a beef soup that brings in the new year. It’s the only place where you can find a giant vat of peeled garlic, because it’s the only place that truly understands how much garlic you’ll need for the kind of food your people eat. H Mart is freedom from the single-aisle “ethnic” section in regular grocery stores.

From the book review on NPR:

[Crying in H Mart] powerfully maps a complicated mother-daughter relationship cut much too short. Stories of Korean food serve as the backbone of the book, as Zauner plumbs the connections between food and identity. That search takes on new urgency after her mother's death — in losing her mother, she also lost her strongest tether to Korean culture.

I'm looking forward to learning more about Korean cuisine. 

Simona, briciole

Deadline for contributing your post: Saturday, November 30, 2024.

 

Leave a comment below with a link to your post or email me at simosite AT mac DOT com

Note: I borrowed the book from the library. Both the ebook and the audio version had long waiting lists. If you also plan to borrow the book, I recommend you check your library soon.

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Remember that membership in our book club is open to anyone and we hope you will join us by reading these selections and creating inspired recipes. New participants are always welcome and so are returning ones. For more information about participating, click here.  

Family Tree: The Round-Up

Well, I have to say that I had forgotten enough of this novel, Family Tree, by Susan Wiggs, our just completed selection from Cook the Books Club, that it was as engrossing on the second go around as when  I read it several years ago. I read a lot of books, and this storyline seemed to me a true original. The experiences Annie goes through, her tremendous losses, a fight to regain memory, the recovery from a coma, etc. On the upside of that, and the positive ending, I really enjoyed learning about all the workings of a maple tree farm and how maple syrup is made.

Here's the Booklist Review:

"Don't mess with success. That is what Annie Rush tells herself. The Key Ingredient, the cooking show she created, which stars her husband, Martin Harlow, is wildly successful. So does it really matter if Martin occasionally strays from the show's original vision? Although Annie would like to have been in front of the camera, she must admit that viewers love Martin's perky cohost, Melissa Barrett. Then Annie arrives on the set of the show with wonderful news to share with Martin and discovers him in a private meeting with Melissa. Annie walks away, then suffers a tragic accident. Now, one year later, she is back home in Switchback, Vermont, wondering if she can reassemble the pieces of her life. Best-selling Wiggs (Starlight on Willow Lake, 2015) writes with a seemingly effortless sense of grace about what breaks families apart as well as what brings them back together. Add this to her gift for crafting exquisitely nuanced characters as well as her flair for perfectly capturing the rhythm of life in a small town, and you have a soul-satisfying story..."

Now, we'll jump right in with The Roundup of posts from everyone who participated. These are just teasers so be sure to click onto them for the reviews and recipes! 

First up we had Marge, The Intrepid Reader and Baker who made a Maple Butter Date Loaf, which sounds absolutely delicious! She said: "This was a very easy to read book, very food forward, and there were a lot of delicious sounding foods. I loved how passionate Annie was from a very young age, and this passion was very clear as we heard the story of how The Key Ingredient came to be the show it was."

Next Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures brought us her own Grandma's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, and said "this was an enjoyable read. It follows Annie through 2 timelines, before and after her accident as she remembers her past and recovers from her accident....Through it all, her family is there for her, especially memories of her grandmother.  It seemed like the perfect recipe to share!"

Then I, Claudia of Honey from Rock brought Frosted Maple Bars to the table, and shared that "Annie Rush, goes through so much loss in her story! Totally unique and devastating experiences, that would wipe most of us out! But, going through them, along with her gave me an insider's glimpse of something I had never thought about, of what it would be like waking from a year long coma, learning again who you are, and what had happened. Basically starting over with a new life.

Wendy, of A Day in the Life on the Farm,  came in next with a yummy batch of Salted Maple Caramel Corn with Nuts.  Wow!  I want some of that fun take on Cracker Jacks.  She said "It is a story of love, determination, and hope. Annie is a cook, first and foremost and many of her recipes feature the Maple Syrup for which her family is known.

Then, next to last, Debra of Eliot's Eats brought us an upscale version of Mac 'n Cheese with White Wine, Cherry Tomatoes and Herbs, saying, "This is a great summer (or fall) read. I really enjoyed the majority of the book but the final section left me wanting. Wanting I don’t know what. It’s a predictable book but the characters kept me interested and going.

And, finally Simona of Briciole prepared us a lovely dish of Shishito Peppers with cheese!  (My favorite pepper)  She mentioned "At the beginning Annie is the producer of a TV cooking show called The Key Ingredient, starring her husband. At the end, she produces and stars in a food webcast called Starting from Scratch. I don't watch television nor webcasts, so have no experience of either genres. Still, I played a game in my mind, imagining what I would do if I were given the chance to host a food-centric show. I decided that I'd probably roam farmers markets and interview farmers and also stop at farm stands and do a live version of the still lifes with produce I've been composing and photographing for some time.

I believe that's everyone, and please let me know if anyone was left out.  Next up we're reading The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, and hosted by Debra of Eliot's Eats. Please join in with us here at Cook the Books.

Aloha, Claudia