Point Mettier, Alaska is no one’s idea of paradise. Its inhabitants—all 205 of them—live in the same high-rise apartment building and the only access to town is by a tunnel or the sea.
But Point Mettier is perfect for many of those who live there. It’s a chance to invent new names, identities, and lives. For some, it’s a safe harbor such as an escape from an abusive spouse. For others, the reasons for disappearing into the void of a place like Point Mettier are darker. And so when a severed hand and foot wash up on shore and Cara Kennedy, a police detective arrives from Anchorage, she finds the inhabitants to be aloof and evasive. Everyone, it seems, has something to hide.
“City Under One Roof” (Berkley) is the first novel written by Iris Yamashita, a screenwriter nominated for an Academy Award for the movie “Letters from Iwo Jima.” The inspiration, she says, comes from a documentary about Whittier, Alaska she watched more than 20 years ago. At the time, Whittier only was accessible by boat or through a 2.5-mile long tunnel.
“Jumping off point for me was the tunnel,” says Yamashita, who has been working in Hollywood for 15 years developing material for both film and streaming, “I had the feeling I was going down into the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland. Cara is like Alice, she too fell down the rabbit hole.”
And there Cara meets a wide range of quirky characters including Lonnie, who has a moose she has rescued as a pet, and Amy, a teenager who delivers the Asian food her mother makes to the building’s residents.
Cara has her own burdens, her family died in a tragic, terrifying way. And working with local policeman, Joe Barkowski, stirs feelings she has thought were gone forever.
But even as their feelings for each other grow, the two have to contend with another crisis. A storm closes the tunnel and the residents of Point Mettier—and Cara—are trapped. But though help from the mainland is days away, mayhem is close by when a gang from further north arrives to terrorize the community and that’s when everyone’s secrets start to come out.
Yamashita has always loved writing and for a while, it was a hobby. She has a degree in mechanical engineering and says her “Asian parents always told her ‘you can’t make a living as a writer.’”
“And so I worked at my day job until I had a contract in my hand and then I quit,” she says. “Now I’m working on my next book.”
Nancy Singleton Hachisu dives deep into the Japanese food scene, having married a Japanese farmer and learning the intricacies of cooking various vegetables and other ingredients that most of us aren’t familiar with.
For those who want to learn, Hachisu’s recipes require attention to detail and buying foods we may have trouble sourcing. But the results, for those who like a kitchen challenge, are well worth it and as someone who has been following Hachisu and using her cookbooks for years, I can assure you it gets much easier.
It’s a fascinating take on Japanese cuisine from Hachisu, a native Californian who moved to Japan to stay there just for a year and immersed herself in Japanese food culture. Love intervened and after meeting an organic farmer, she married and moved to the rural Saitama Prefecture.
That was more than 30 years ago, time enough for Hachisu to raise a family in an 85-year-old traditional Japanese farmhouse and become proficient in both culture and cooking.
The book is so very niche that it’s almost like being in her kitchen and on her farm, giving us an amazing insight into a tiny slice of Japanese farm culture.
CHILLED UME-TOFU SQUARES IN DASHI
Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus 2-3 hours pressing and chilling
Cooking times: 10-15 minutes
Serves: 4 squares
Vegan, Dairy-free, Nut-free
Junsai, harvested from ponds from May to September, are baby water lily buds called “water shield” in English. They have a natural gelatinous covering so add a cool, slippery element to summer dishes. They might be available at Japanese markets, otherwise, just omit or substitute with blanched julienned green beans or cooked edamame. Salted sour “plums” have been prepared in Japan for a millennium, since the Heian period (794–1185), and are purported to have many health-improving qualities, including aiding digestion and combatting summer fatigue during the rainy season. The combination here makes a subtle, but lovely little bite.
INGREDIENTS
• 101⁄2 oz (300 g) cotton tofu or Japanese-style soft block tofu • 1 tablespoon hon kuzu • 2 medium umeboshi • Canola (rapeseed) oil, for greasing the pan • Generous 3/4 cup (63/4 fl oz/200 ml) Konbu Dashi • 1⁄2 tablespoon shoyu • A pinch of flaky sea salt • Scant 1⁄2 cup (31⁄2 fl oz/100 ml) baby water lily buds • Boiling water
DIRECTIONS
Place the tofu on a dinner plate and weight with a small cutting board for 1 hour.
Smash the kuzu to a fine powder in a Japanese grinding bowl (suribachi, see page 354). Squeeze the tofu by handfuls to express excess moisture and drop into the suribachi. Mash into the kuzu until well incorporated.
Cut out the umeboshi pits (stones) and discard. Finely chop the umeboshi and fold into the smashed tofu.
Dampen a folded-up piece of paper towel with the oil and grease the bottom and sides of a 5 1⁄2 × 4 1⁄2 × 2-inch (14 × 11 × 4.5 cm) nagashikan mold (see page 353) or a 4 3⁄8 × 8 1⁄2-inch (11.5 × 21 cm) loaf pan (bottom lined with parchment paper). Scrape the ume-tofu mixture into the pan and rap smartly on the counter to eliminate air pockets and make sure the tofu is evenly distributed into the pan.
Set a bamboo steamer over a large wok filled one-third of the way with water and bring to a boil. Place the pan in the steamer, cover, and steam over high heat for about 10 minutes until set. Remove from the steamer, blot off accumulated moisture, and lay a piece of plastic wrap (cling film) on the surface. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to chill.
In a small saucepan, stir the dashi, shoyu, and salt together over medium heat to dissolve the salt. Transfer to a small bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour to chill.
Place the junsai in a wire-mesh sieve and pour boiling water over for 10 seconds. Refresh by running the sieve under cold water. Shake off excess water and set the sieve over a bowl to drain. Store in the fridge for 1 hour to chill.
Unmold the umedofu, cut into 4 squares, and place each on a small shallow individual dish. Stir the junsai into the cold dashi and spoon around the umedofu. Serve immediately as a light, palate-cleansing bite.
It’s an archaeological dig so finding human remains shouldn’t be a surprise, but Dr. Molly Moore immediately recognizes that the skeleton they’ve unearthed is much more recent than what you’d find on a site dating back 12,000 years. Indeed, the body is that of a young Black reporter who disappeared just decades ago when covering the racial unrest in Cairo, Illinois.
The loss of his mother has left a large void in the life of Chicago Police Detective Randal Jenkins, and he travels back to Cairo, where he lived as a young boy, to learn more about the case. But it soon becomes clear that this is more than just the murder of an investigative reporter during a tumultuous time. Moore finds herself pressured by her long-time mentor and supporter, retired military general and contractor William Alexander to complete the dig and minimize her discovery. As Moore and Jenkins, each with their own family issues to deal with, work at discovering answers they realize that the General is trying to disrupt the process of a disarmament agreement being developed at a global peace summit taking place in Chicago. The stakes are so high that not only are their lives in jeopardy, but the world may be hurling towards a nuclear disaster.
Disturbing the Bones (Melville House 2024) is the first joint effort by director and screenwriter Andrew Davis, a native of Chicago’s southside and Jeff Biggers, an American Book Award-winning historian, journalist, playwright, and monologist.
In writing the book, Biggers, whose work has appeared in American and foreign newspapers and magazines as well as numerous anthologies, relied upon his knowledge of archaeology, the environment, culture, and history as well as his abilities as a researcher. He is the author of such books as Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartlandand The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture, and Enlightenment to America.
“I’ve been around a lot of archaeological digs,” he said in a joint conversation with Davis and this writer.
It’s also a timely story in that there’s a presidential election going on as Jenkins and Moore race to solve the mystery.
“It’s the only novel with a woman running for the presidency but in the book she’s from Chicago,” says Davis, noting that, as in the book, he sees this election as a turning point in our history. “The story is a blending of art and action, and it asks provocative questions which I think any good book should do.”
Any enjoyable book should, as it tells a story, also open another world for us. The authors do that here as we learn about archaeology, what happens on a dig, and the social upheaval the country went through during the Civil Rights movement. It also explores the psychology of Jenkins and Moore whose personal lives affect their profession and the decisions they make.
This was the first collaboration between Biggers and Davis, but it won’t be their last. The two are also working on a screenplay for the book. Davis has an extensive background in this area, having worked on a myriad of films such as “Holes”, “Under Siege”, “Code of Silence”, “A Perfect Murder”, and “The Guardian.” Known for directing intellectual thrillers, his film “The Fugitive,” was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Biggers, who served as the Climate Narrative Playwright-in-Residence at Indiana University Northwest several times and lived in Miller Beach during his time there, enjoyed the collaborative process.
“I’ve written a lot of books on my own,” he says, “but this was, in ways, the best of both worlds as we went back and forth and exchanged ideas and shared thoughts.”
This fascinating book, featuring profiles of 50 notable figures in the Kalamazoo area history, will be released by The History Press in January 2025.
Since its founding in the early 1800s, Kalamazoo has welcomed a variety of notable individuals who have shaped the community’s legacy in their own special way. From founding fathers to early innovators, groundbreakers to entrepreneurs, artists to authors and athletes to entertainers, author Dianna Higgs Stampfler celebrates 50 figures in her book Kalamazoo County Characters to be released from The History Press in January 2025 (ISBN: 9781467155922 | IMAGES: 53 | PAGES: 144 | DIMENSIONS: 6 x 9 (h)).
Dianna and her brother with Santa & Mrs. Claus, Darwin & Opal Brown.
Individuals like Orville Gibson and Derek Jeter are nationally recognized, while others, such as Sue Hubbell or Donald Bonevich, may be less well known. Abraham Lincoln and Flora Temple briefly passed through town, and Mary Jackson and Gwen Frostic were among those who came here to attend college. Others, like Darwin and Opal Brown (aka Santa and Mrs. Claus) or Gene Rhodes (aka Gene the Pumpkin Man), were lifetime residents who have entertained families for generations.
Stampfler is shown here with her father, stepmom, and kids with the Eagles backstage at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids in 2018. Her father helped launch the band to stardom – as a DJ playing a song that became their first #1 hit. You can google Jim Higgs and Eagles for the full story.
“Selecting the 50 individuals for Kalamazoo County Characters was a challenge as I had over 125 to choose from” notes Stampfler, who worked on the book with her father, Jim Higgs, a local genealogist, historian and notable Kalamazoo figure in his own right. The book is dedicated to her father, who passed away in May 2024 at the age of 79. “I was diligent in featuring people from different walks of life, with unique stories to share. Some I have personal connections to, as I spent a lot of time in Kalamazoo growing up in nearby Plainwell, but others I discovered through various other channels or by recommendation of fellow historians and authors.”
This 1987 photo shows Dianna as Miss Plainwell and Narada Michael Walden, who was the grand marshal of the Wine & Harvest Festival Parade in Kalamazoo.
Beginning in January, Stampfler will present Notable Figures in Kalamazoo Area History(Kalamazoo County Characters) at libraries, bookstores, museums, conferences and events. The official book launch will be on Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 6:30pm at the Kalamazoo Public Library downtown branch.
“I expect each presentation to be a little bit different, as I’ll be able to hand-pick the individuals to feature based on the venue,” Stampfler continued. “Plus, I am able to include some of those people who may not have made it in the book, but who also have compelling stories to share! Each profile in the book features just one photograph, and the presentations will also allow me to share more historical images and visual documents.”
Additional events will be posted on the Promote Michigan Speaker’s Bureau online. Information about booking presentations for this and other themes can also be found on the Speaker’s Bureau page.
Autographed copies of Kalamazoo County Characters are available for $24.99 (plus shipping/handling and tax) at PromoteMichigan.com. Shipping will take place by mid-January.
Dianna Higgs Stampfler
About the Author
Dianna Higgs Stampfler has worked in Michigan’s tourism industry for nearly thirty years and is the founder of Promote Michigan, a public relations consulting company specializing in tourism and historical destinations of the Great Lakes region. Her articles have appeared in Michigan Blue Magazine, Lakeland Boating, Michigan Meetings + Events, West Michigan Carefree Travel, and Lake Michigan Circle Tour & Lighthouse Guide, among others.
Stampfler holds a bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis in Community Journalism and Communications with an emphasis in radio broadcasting from Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo. She is a member of the Historical Society of Michigan, West Michigan Tourist Association, Michigan Hemingway Society, Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, and Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society among other historical organizations.
Only a master storyteller like Erik Larson could turn the five tumultuous months leading up to the Civil War into “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroes at the Dawn of the Civil War” (Crown), a compelling, page-turning read, chock full of anecdotes, psychological profiles and obscure but compelling tidbits of history all set against a relentless march towards a conflict that would kill over 620,000 soldiers and devastate a nation.
Larson, the author of six New York Times bestsellers whose previous works include “The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America,” about a mass murderer and the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair, writes in a novelistic style that makes history come alive. He does so through his ability to weave together the familiar facts of history with information that can only be gleaned through relentless and extensive research.
Yes, most of us know that the Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter, which was located in Charleston Harbor and under the command of U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson. But did you know that Anderson had owned enslaved people and was a defender of slavery? That Lincoln often misspelled Sumter as Sumpter? Or, more importantly, South Carolina did not have to succeed because of Lincoln’s election, as he had no intention of outlawing slavery in the Southern states?
“When I started out doing this, one concern I had was that the Civil War has not exactly been underwritten,” Larson told me during a phone conversation earlier this week, noting that a quick Google indicated around 65,000. “I had vowed over the years never ever to write about the Civil War.”
That changed when, as he was looking for the topic of his next book and watching the events of the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, he began to consider the deep divide and unrest of our own times.
Faced with what he describes as an intimidating world of previous scholarship, Larson says “What I really wanted to do was to provide a rich sense, on an intimate level, of what the forces were and the motivations for the start of the Civil War.”
The magic of his writing is that he accomplishes this by immersing the reader in details, descriptions, and personalities mostly unknown to many of us, including “eight typical characters” such as Charleston society doyenne Mary Boykin Chestnut, who kept a detailed diary, and James Henry Hammond, a Charleston planter who was a leader of the secessionist movement and who later became a U.S. senator despite public knowledge of his sexual relationships with four nieces ages 13 to 19.
The Southern mindset among the owners of enslaved people of the time is best summed up in a letter written to President James Buchanan, president before Lincoln, by Arthur Peronneau Hayne, a U.S. senator from Charleston. In it, he writes that without slavery “our every comfort would be taken from us. Our wives, our children, made unhappy — education, the light of knowledge — all lost and our people ruined forever. “
“White southerners had persuaded themselves that slavery was a good thing for all concerned, especially for the enslaved blacks,” said Larson. He also notes that many of these same men were devoted readers of writers like Sir Walter Scott, author of “Ivanhoe,” and believed fervently in honor and the code of chivalry.
As outrageous and hypocritical as that seems today, Larson says when writing about a different era it’s important to consider the point of view of those times to accurately reflect how events unfolded.
“It gives a better sense of what the forces were that did lead to states like South Carolina succeeding from the Union and the Civil War,” he said, noting that understanding is not condoning, but historic context provides a lesson for the present and future as we struggle with political division today.
“The people who live on tropical islands are among the toughest, scrappiest, most resilient people of the planet,” writes author Von Diaz, an Emmy Award-winning documentarian, food historian, and author of Coconuts to Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South (University Press of Florida) . “Storms have always been unpredictable, and generations of islanders have cultivated ancestral knowledge around how to survive and, importantly, how to feed themselves despite it all. With limited ingredients, they cook in ways that are soul-nourishing and emphasize flavor. Making magic out of what’s available.”
Her cookbook is about preserving the wisdom and values of island people who live in what Diaz describes as the most volatile and vulnerable places on the planet. She follows their histories and how the grapple with their new realities, combining legacy, adaptability, culture, and fortitude.
She tells and shows us cooking techniques and recipes from faraway places such as Santo, Vanuatu’s largest island. Here we meet Primrose Siri who shares such recipes as Laplap, the national dish with its alternative layers of starch such as cassava or yam, seafood or chicken, herbs, spices, and fresh coconut milk cooked oven an earth oven heated with hot rock. Closer to home, there’s Pasteles de Masa, a Puerto Rican Christmas traditional dessert.
Even those who may never cook Arroz Negro Con Pulpo y Calamares (Black Rice with Octopus and Squid) with its rice blackened with squid ink, will be intrigued by this Puerto Rican dish that is definitely eye-catching.
Keshi Yena’s history dates back to the first Dutch colonial period in Curaçao, a bustling island some 30 miles off the coast of Venezuela. It is the food of enslaved people, as Curaçao was a slave port, who out of necessity took the rinds of cheeses such as Gouda that were discarded by their masters and stuffing it with meat scraps and other scavenged ingredients.
Some recipes are simple and easy to make at home without a lot of extra ingredients such as Ensalada Talong (Grilled Eggplant and Vegetable Salad) from the Philippines. Others, such as Monfongo Con Guiso, a common dish of green plantains and chicharron or fried pork skins in Puerto Rico are more time consuming but within reach of any cook who wants to give it a try.
The book is arranged by the chapters including the island’s cooking techniques: Marinating, Pickling + Fermentation, Braising + Stewing, Steaming + In-Ground Cooking, Frying, Grilling, Roasting + Smoking, as well as pantry staples, and sauces, spice blends, and condiments that can easily be made.
Whatever you cook or don’t cook, this book is a trip to the islands or islas of the world.
The cuisine of Iran, with origins dating back centuries, is arguably one of the most sophisticated in the world, offering an incredible array of dishes. This cuisine hails from the lands of ancient Persia and has evolved through the ages to what comprises the myriad and distinct regional cuisines in present-day Iran. Also shaping this cuisine is the variety of climates in Iran, the country’s terrain, and geography, with rich soil and plentiful sunshine, as well as the ethnocultural diversity of the country. From Persian Feasts(Phaidon 2024 by Leila Heller).
A beauty of a cookbook with its lush food photos set on backgrounds of Middle Eastern designs, Persian Feasts celebrates centuries of culinary and cultural history of a land that during the first Persian Empire stretched from the Balkans in Eastern Europe in the west to the Indus valley in the east. Now known as Iran, the cuisine is complex with each region having a distinct imprint upon the ingredients and how it is prepared.
Drilling down even further, according to author Leila Heller, each Iranian household holds itself to a high standard and has strong beliefs when it comes to Persian food. That said, anyone first attempting to cook these dishes at home should be assured by Heller’s statement that there is no wrong way or right way of making Persian food,
“The personal preferences do impact Persian recipes,” she writes. “For instance, some prefer sweetness over tartness, buttery over dry, and many will adjust seasoning spices and herbs accordingly.”
Making it even more accessible, most of the recipes in her book can be recreated at home from ingredients readily available in both neighborhood supermarkets and gourmet food stores. The more unique items—sumac, dried barberries dried, Persian limes, and prunes—are available at Middle Eastern or Indian food stores as well as online.
Heller, president of the Leila Heller Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in New York and Dubai. She holds a bachelor of art degree from Brown University, a master’s degree in art from Sotheby’s Institute in London, and a second master’s degree in art history and museum management from George Washington University. She lives in both New York and Dubai, bridging the gap between East and West through art, culture, and food. This book is another way for her to share her knowledge in these areas. Besides recipes, we learn about celebrations, festivities, and events and the foods involved in each.
For those just beginning to experiment with Persian cuisine, several recipes stand out as a straightforward way to get acquainted with techniques and ingredients. For example, all the ingredients needed to make Chicken Saffron Frittata are familiar and the dish can be completed in seven steps. In her description of the dish, Heller helps acquaint us with the background of the frittata locally known as chegehertmeh and hails from the lush province of Gilan in northern Iran that borders on the Caspian Sea.
Smoked Eggplant with Tomato is another dish originating from the Caspian Sea region. Again, the ingredients are readily available, and many are already probably in a home chef’s pantry. The dish has seven short steps but is slightly different in that the eggplant is smoked over an open flame to give it the distinct flavor that makes this dish a winner. A refreshing summer dessert that’s both easy to make and gluten-free, Cardamom & Rose Water Pudding takes only four steps to create a pretty presentation. Yogurt Drink with Mint is even easier—five ingredients mixed in a blender.
Once a home chef has mastered these simple recipes, more complex dishes like Herb & Noodle Potage, Shirazi Rice with Cabbage and Meatballs, and Persian Noodle Rice will seem less daunting, making Persian cooking an easy undertaking.
2 tablespoons butter 2 cups (8 oz/225 g) dried barberries, rinsed 1 tablespoon sugar 2 cups (1 lb/450 g) dried Puy lentils 1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) and 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 cup (6 1/2 oz/185 g) quinoa 1 cup (3 1/2 oz/300 g) finely chopped scallions (spring onions) 1/2 cup (1 oz/30 g) finely chopped cilantro (coriander), plus extra for garnish 1/2 cup (2 oz/55 g) finely chopped chives 1/2 cup (1 oz/30 g) finely chopped parsley 4 tablespoons finely chopped dill 3/4 cup (6 fl oz/175 ml) red wine vinegar or pomegranate molasses 2 tablespoons cumin seeds 1 tablespoon salt 2 teaspoons black pepper 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 1/2 cups (9 3/4 oz/275 g) pomegranate seeds, for garnish (optional)
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, then add the barberries and sugar. Mix for 2-3 minutes, until the sugar has melted.Pick over the Puy lentils to remove any debris.
Rinse the lentils under cold running water. In a medium saucepan, combine the lentils, 4 cups (32 fl oz/950 ml) of water, and 2 tablespoons of oil. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 20-35 minutes, until the lentils are cooked through. Drain, then set aside.
Rinse the quinoa under cold running water, then drain. In a medium saucepan, combine the quinoa and 1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz/350 ml) of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until tender. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, lentils, scallions (spring onions), herbs, and barberries.
In a medium bowl, whisk 1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) of oil, vinegar, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Pour over the salad and toss well. Season to taste, then garnish with pomegranate seeds, if using.
A crumbling castle, an eccentric and slightly mad family, and intricate plotting in a Medival fantasy series about a remote earldom is the perfect antidote to stressful holidays.
Need to escape into a different world after talking politics over the Thanksgiving table–or even harder, avoiding talking politics across the Thanksgiving table? Then it’s time to visit Gormenghast, the ancestral home of the ancient Groan family who lived in a wild and isolated landscape. Written by author and artist Mervyn Peake, the books in the series are Titus Groan, published in 1947, Gormenghast (1950), and Titus Alone (1959). Peake died while writing Titus Awakes, the fourth book. His widow, artist Maeve Gilmore, completed the book sometime in the 1970s but the manuscript wasn’t discovered and published until 2011.
According to its Wikipedia citation, “The series has been included in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels and 100 Must Read Fantasy Novels as one of the greatest fantasy works of the twentieth century. Literary critic Harold Bloom has praised the series as the best fantasy novels of the 20th century and one of the greatest sequences in modern world literature.”
Available on Amazon, find a cozy corner to escape contemporary 21st post-election American angst and whisk yourself away to Castle Gormenghast.
The books are also available on Kindle and Audible.
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Shelf Life 