In The Mykonos Mob, the tenth book of the Greece-based
mystery-thriller series written by New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Siger,
Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis finds himself face-to-face with the nation’s top
crime bosses, all of whom are as perplexed as he is about who’s responsible for
the murder of a corrupt former police colonel who ran the island’s protection
rackets. In the meantime, Kaldis’ s wife, Lila, is trying to find an identity
for herself beyond wife and mother and teams up with an ex-pat with a shady
side. The two decide to mentor exploited young island girls, a charitable act
that unknowingly negatively intersects with her husband’s investigation.
Siger,
who left a lucrative career as a partner in a Wall Street law firm to write mysteries,
says that Greece provides an inexhaustible source of material for the two
central elements of his series–the serious, modern-day issues his characters need
to confront and overcome, and a perspective on those issues found in the
ancient past.
“There is no place on earth more
closely linked to the ancient world than Greece,” he says. “It is the
birthplace of the gods, the cradle of European civilization, the bridge between
East and West. Spartan courage, Athenian democracy, Olympic achievement, Trojan
intrigue—all sprung from this wondrous land.”
It’s also a place he knows very
well.
“Each year I live on Mykonos longer
than any other place on earth, and have for about a dozen years,” says Siger,
noting that he first visited the island 35 years ago at a friend’s suggestion who
thought he’d love Greece. “She was right. From the moment I stepped onto the
tarmac at the Mykonos airport, I felt as if I were home. That very first day I
happened to pass by a jewelry shop on my way into town from my hotel, though I
forget how the proprietor lured me inside. Unbeknownst to me, I’d stumbled upon
the most loved man on Mykonos. A
consummate gentleman and fervent booster of the island, he had an extraordinary
circle of local, national and international friends, all of whom made a point
of regularly stopping by to say hello to him.”
Becoming an insider almost
immediately has helped him craft stories about the workings of the islands both
from a political and social viewpoint.
“My ideas come from the strangest
sources, often unexpected,” says Siger. “More bizarre than where they come from
is how often my fictional plots have an unnerving tendency to come true. For
example, my second novel in the series, Assassins
of Athens featured a character in the mold of Greece’s current Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras years before his rise to power; my third book, Prey on Patmos, anticipated by seven
years the current turmoil involving Mt. Athos, the Russian government, and the
Patriarch in Constantinople, and many of the details surrounding the fictional
assassination serving as the backstory latest book, were just reported by the
Greek press as key details of an actual assassination that occurred long after The Mykonos Mob was written.”
For more about Jeff Siger and his books, visit jeffreysiger.com/
Taking us on a road trip that meanders from northern to southern California, James Beard award winner Janet Fletcher shows us how diverse the state’s growers and growing regions are in her latest book, The Wine Country Table: With Recipes that Celebrate California’s Sustainable Harvest. Accompanied by lush photographs by Robert Holmes and Sara Remington, the book was commissioned by the Wine Institute — a California wine advocacy group that received a grant to promote California’s specialty crops.
“What
really came home to me was that there are so many different climates here in
California,” says Fletcher who not only visited a plethora of wineries but also
cherry orchards and avocado farms. She also learned about the sustainable
practices that growers are incorporating in a state previously hit with a
long-running drought.
Her
recipes include suggested pairings with different wines and shows you how to
recreate this type of casual but delicious dining at home.
Golden Beet, Pomegranate, and Feta Salad
SERVES 4
WINE SUGGESTION: California Gewurztraminer or Pinot
Gris/Grigio
4 golden beets, about 1 1⁄2 pounds (750 g) total, greens
removed
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar 6 fresh thyme sprigs
3 allspice berries
1 whole clove
1 clove garlic, halved
DRESSING:
11⁄2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon finely minced shallot
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil Kosher or sea salt
1⁄4 head radicchio, 3 ounces, thinly sliced 1⁄2 cup chopped
toasted walnuts
12 fresh mint leaves, torn into smaller pieces
2 to 3 ounces Greek or French feta
1⁄3 cup pomegranate arils (seeds)
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Put the beets in a small baking dish and add water to a
depth of 1∕4 inch. Add the vinegar, thyme, allspice, clove, and garlic. Cover
and bake until the beets are tender when pierced, about 1 hour, depending on
size. Remove from the oven and peel when cool enough to handle. Let cool
completely, then slice thinly with a
sharp knife.
Make the dressing: In a small bowl, combine the wine vinegar
and shallot. Whisk in the olive oil. Season with salt and let stand for 15
minutes to allow the shallot flavor to mellow.
In a bowl, toss the beets and radicchio gently with enough
of the dressing to coat lightly; you may not need it all. Taste for salt and
vinegar and adjust as needed. Add the walnuts and half the mint leaves and toss
gently. Transfer to a wide serving platter. Crumble the feta on top, then
scatter the pomegranate arils and remaining mint leaves overall. Serve
immediately.
Little Gem Lettuces with Olive Oil–Poached Tuna
This dish requires a lot of olive oil for poaching, but you
won’t waste a drop. Use some of the flavorful poaching oil in the salad
dressing; strain and refrigerate the remainder for cooking greens or for
dressing future salads. The strained oil will keep for a month.
WINE SUGGESTION: California rose or Sauvignon Blanc
1 albacore tuna steak, about 10 ounces) and 3⁄4 to 1 inch
thick
3⁄4 teaspoon ground fennel seed
3⁄4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1 large fresh thyme sprig
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic, halved
6 black peppercorns
1 3⁄4 to 2 cups extra virgin olive oil
DRESSING:
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (from the tuna baking
dish)
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
11⁄2 cups cooked chickpeas (drain and rinse if canned)
1⁄2 pound Little Gem lettuce or romaine hearts 1⁄4 pound
radicchio
1⁄2 red onion, shaved or very thinly sliced
3⁄4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Preheat the oven to 200°F. Remove the tuna from the
refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.
Season the tuna on both sides with the fennel seed and salt.
Put the tuna in a deep ovenproof baking dish just large enough to hold it. Add
the thyme, bay leaf, garlic, and peppercorns. Pour in enough olive oil just to
cover the tuna.
Bake until a few white dots (coagulated protein) appear on
the surface of the fish and the flesh just begins to flake when probed with a
fork, 30 to 40 minutes. The tuna should still be slightly rosy inside. Remove
from the oven and let cool to room temperature in the oil.
Make the dressing: In a bowl, whisk together the olive oil,
vinegar, capers, oregano, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the
chickpeas and let them marinate for 30 minutes.
With a slotted spatula, lift the tuna out of the olive oil
and onto a plate.
Put the lettuce in a large salad bowl. Tear the larger outer
leaves in half, if desired, but leave the pretty inner leaves whole. Tear the
radicchio into bite-size pieces and add to the bowl along with the onion,
tomatoes, and parsley.
Using a slotted spoon, add the chickpeas, then add enough of
the dressing from the chickpea bowl to coat the salad lightly. By hand, flake the
tuna into the bowl. Toss, taste for salt and vinegar, and serve.
Seared Duck Breasts with Port and Cherry Sauce
SERVES 4
Cooking duck breasts slowly, skin side down, helps eliminate
almost every speck of fat. After about 20 minutes, the skin will be crisp and
the flesh as rosy and tender as a fine steak. Serve with wild rice.
Duck breasts vary tremendously in size; scale up the spice
rub if the breasts you buy are considerably larger.
WINE SUGGESTION: California Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot
SEASONING RUB:
8 juniper berries
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme 2 teaspoons kosher or sea
salt
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
4 boneless duck breasts, about 1⁄2 pound each
SAUCE:
1 cup Zinfandel Port or ruby port
1 shallot, minced
3 fresh thyme sprigs
1 strip orange zest, removed with a vegetable peeler 1
tablespoon balsamic vinegar
24 cherries, pitted and halved
1⁄2 cup strong chicken broth, reduced from 1 cup
1⁄2 teaspoon sugar
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1
tablespoon unsalted butter
Make the seasoning rub: Put the juniper berries, thyme,
salt, and peppercorns in a mortar or spice grinder and grind to a powder.
Slash the skin of each breast in a crosshatch pattern,
stopping short of the flesh. (The slashes help render the fat.) Sprinkle the
seasoning rub evenly onto both sides of each breast. Put the breasts on a flat
rack and set the rack inside a tray. Refrigerate uncovered for 24 to 36 hours.
Bring to room temperature before cooking.
Choose a heavy frying pan large enough to accommodate all
the duck breasts comfortably. (If necessary, to avoid crowding, use two frying
pans.) Put the breasts, skin side down, in the unheated frying pan and set over
medium- low heat. Cook until the skin is well browned and crisp, about 15
minutes, frequently pouring off the fat until the skin no longer renders much.
(Reserve the fat for frying potatoes, if you like.)
Turn the duck breasts and continue cooking flesh side down,
turning the breasts with tongs to sear all the exposed flesh, until the
internal temperature registers 125°F on an instant-read thermometer, about
3 minutes longer. Transfer the breasts to a cutting board
and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
While the duck cooks, make the sauce: In a small sauce- pan,
combine the port, shallot, thyme, orange zest, vinegar, and half of the
cherries. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and simmer until reduced to 3∕4
cup. Add the broth and sugar and simmer until the liquid has again reduced to
3∕4 cup Remove from the heat and, with tongs, lift out the thyme sprigs and
orange zest and discard.
Puree the sauce in a blender. Set a very fine-mesh sieve
over the saucepan and pass the sauce through the sieve, pressing on the solids
with a rubber spatula. Return to medium heat, season with salt and pepper, and
simmer until reduced to 1∕2 cup. Stir in the remaining cherries and remove from
the heat. Add the butter and swirl the saucepan until the butter melts.
Slice the duck on the diagonal. Spoon some of the sauce on
each of four dinner plates, dividing it evenly. Top with the sliced duck. Serve
immediately.
The above recipes are Wine Country Table: With Recipes that Celebrate California’s Sustainable Harvest by Janet Fletcher in cooperation with the Wine Institute, Rizzoli, 2019.
Jane Ammeson can be
contacted via email at janeammeson@gmail.com or by writing to Focus, The Herald
Palladium, P.O. Box 128, St. Joseph, MI 49085.
“Domestic violence is not a large part of our conversation,” says Rachel Louise Snyder, author of the recently released
“Domestic
violence is not a large part of our conversation,” says Rachel Louise Snyder,
author of the recently released No
Visible Bruises, her exploration of this country’s domestic violence epidemic
and what it means regarding other types of violence as well as what to do about
it. “I want to bring these conversations
to the forefront.”
Snyder,
a journalist who won the J. Anthony Lukas Word-in-Progress Award for this
project, uses the individual stories of women to show how complicated and
overwhelming the subject is—and how pervasive. And while we might think of
domestic violence as being an issue, if not of the past, as one more under
control than when O.J. Simpson was tried for murdering his wife and women’s
safety more assured by the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act. But
that isn’t true.
“Domestic
homicides are rising about 25%–it used to be about three women a day three women were killed
now it’s four, “says Snyder, who went to college in Naperville and lived all over
Chicago including Oak Park, has traveled to more than 50 countries and lived in
London for three year and in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for six. She also put herself through her first year of
college by booking Dimensions, a Highland, Indiana band, for their gigs.
“People
don’t always want to read a book like this,” says Snyder. “I wanted to write a
book that people couldn’t pull away from.”
And,
indeed, she did. As awful as the situations she describes—women trying to leave
abusers but unable or not able to get out in time, the toll it takes on their
families. Wanting her book to read like a
novel, Snyder includes true facts that would be hard to believe in a novel—one husband
keeps a pet rattlesnake and drops it in the shower when his wife is in there or
slips it under the covers when she’s sleeping.
“It
is an exploration of what it means to live under stress under every moment or
every day,” says Snyder, an associate professor in the Department of Literature
at American University in Washington D.C.
It’s
also an exploration of agencies and police as they try to step in and stop the
progression—sometimes with success and sometimes with heartbreak. Snyder lived
all this, visiting shelters, talking to police and talking to women.
“I think domestic terrorism is a closer
reality to what is going on than domestic abuse,” she says.
In
her two decades of reporting, both in the U.S. and oversees, Snyder has seen
many instances of domestic terrorism, sometimes central to her stories
sometimes on the edges. When she started researching and writing No Visible Bruises, which took her nine
years to finish–she even wrote her novel What
We’ve Lost Is Nothing which is set in Oak Park, Illinois during the process–she
never lost interest in telling the story.
“I
wanted to have the conversation about this that we have around poverty,
economics, other issues and to really understand it,” she says.
She
also wanted to show how violence can lead to more violence, noting that choking
a partner is a predictor of an homicide attempt amd there’s a link to mass
murders as we saw in the First Baptist Church
in Sutherland Spring where Devin Patrick Kelley, a convicted domestic terrorism
while serving in the Air Force killed his wife and 25 other worshippers.
Domestic terrorism also is the direct cause of over 50% of women who find
themselves in homeless shelters.
Is
there reason to hope? I ask her.
She
believes there is, but that it’s important to know that domestic abuse is still
happening, and we need to be empathetic and that it’s good women are getting
angry.
Ifyougo:
What: Rachel Snyder has two events in
Chicago.
When & Where: Wednesday, May 15 at
7 p.m. Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL; 773.769.9299;
womenandchildrenfirst.com
When & Where: Thursday, May 16 at
7 p.m. Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL; 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com
, her exploration of this country’s domestic violence epidemic and what it means regarding other types of violence as well as what to do about it. “I want to bring these conversations to the forefront.”
Snyder,
a journalist who won the J. Anthony Lukas Word-in-Progress Award for this
project, uses the individual stories of women to show how complicated and
overwhelming the subject is—and how pervasive. And while we might think of
domestic violence as being an issue, if not of the past, as one more under
control than when O.J. Simpson was tried for murdering his wife and women’s
safety more assured by the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act. But
that isn’t true.
“Domestic
homicides are rising about 25%–it used to be about three women a day three women were killed
now it’s four, “says Snyder, who went to college in Naperville and lived all over
Chicago including Oak Park, has traveled to more than 50 countries and lived in
London for three year and in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for six. She also put herself through her first year of
college by booking Dimensions, a Highland, Indiana band, for their gigs.
“People
don’t always want to read a book like this,” says Snyder. “I wanted to write a
book that people couldn’t pull away from.”
And,
indeed, she did. As awful as the situations she describes—women trying to leave
abusers but unable or not able to get out in time, the toll it takes on their
families. Wanting her book to read like a
novel, Snyder includes true facts that would be hard to believe in a novel—one husband
keeps a pet rattlesnake and drops it in the shower when his wife is in there or
slips it under the covers when she’s sleeping.
“It
is an exploration of what it means to live under stress under every moment or
every day,” says Snyder, an associate professor in the Department of Literature
at American University in Washington D.C.
It’s
also an exploration of agencies and police as they try to step in and stop the
progression—sometimes with success and sometimes with heartbreak. Snyder lived
all this, visiting shelters, talking to police and talking to women.
“I think domestic terrorism is a closer
reality to what is going on than domestic abuse,” she says.
In
her two decades of reporting, both in the U.S. and oversees, Snyder has seen
many instances of domestic terrorism, sometimes central to her stories
sometimes on the edges. When she started researching and writing No Visible Bruises, which took her nine
years to finish–she even wrote her novel What
We’ve Lost Is Nothing which is set in Oak Park, Illinois during the process–she
never lost interest in telling the story.
“I
wanted to have the conversation about this that we have around poverty,
economics, other issues and to really understand it,” she says.
She
also wanted to show how violence can lead to more violence, noting that choking
a partner is a predictor of an homicide attempt amd there’s a link to mass
murders as we saw in the First Baptist Church
in Sutherland Spring where Devin Patrick Kelley, a convicted domestic terrorism
while serving in the Air Force killed his wife and 25 other worshippers.
Domestic terrorism also is the direct cause of over 50% of women who find
themselves in homeless shelters.
Is
there reason to hope? I ask her.
She
believes there is, but that it’s important to know that domestic abuse is still
happening, and we need to be empathetic and that it’s good women are getting
angry.
Ifyougo:
What: Rachel Snyder has two events in
Chicago.
When & Where: Wednesday, May 15 at
7 p.m. Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL; 773.769.9299;
womenandchildrenfirst.com
When & Where: Thursday, May 16 at
7 p.m. Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL; 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com
“I
didn’t decide to write this book, it was already written,” says Jessica
Hopper, a Chicago based music critic with a career encompassing over the last
two decades, a time when she not only wrote for New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Buzz Feed and Bookforum, was
an editor at Pitchfork and Rookie and editorial director at MTV
News and still managed to keep extensive notes about those times.
“I
was a very prodigious chronicler of my life,” says Hopper, who started
writing when she was 15 and is the author of the recently released Night Moves, a book that curates scenes
from her career as a writer in the music business.
Though
she didn’t have formal training at that time, her parents were both journalists
and Hopper says her impetus was that you learn by doing.
“If
you wanted to be something, you just did it,” she says. “I didn’t
know anything about music but what I liked and didn’t like. I wanted to be
real. If it didn’t go to the heart, that wasn’t what I wanted for my writing. I
work really hard and I’ve always worked really hard, that’s how I work, I keep
my head down and just keep writing.”
Describing
Night Moves as being shots of
memories and feeling, Hopper drew from diaries and remembrances of those times
as well as her published works.
“Some
of the pieces in my book are ephemeral,” she says, adding that when she
started reviewing her past journaling and published pieces there were parts
that she didn’t remember at all. “There are definitely things that I was surprised
to re-encounter in my young life.”
For as
long as she’s been in the business, Hopper says she doesn’t think of the big
picture when she’s doing something.
“I
just do my best and put it out there.”
Ifyougo:
What: Jessica
Hopper has several Chicago book events.
When
& Where:
Thursday,
May 9 at 7 p.m., Wilmette Public Library, 1242 Wilmette Ave., Wilmette, IL.
Sponsored by The Book Stall, 847-446-8880; thebookstall.com
Friday, May 10 at 7 p.m. Author Conversation with singer-songwriter and social activist Ani DiFranco & Jessica Hopper. Wilson Abbey, 935 W. Wilson Ave., Chicago, IL. Sponsored by Women & Children First, 773-769-9299; womenandchildrenfirst.com
In the 300-room Sagar Mahal, or the Ocean
Palace built by her great times four grandfather on the Arabian Sea, 13-year-old
Trisha Raje is coached by her father not to be overwhelmed by the sorrow she
saw at a school of the blind that day but instead find a solution so she doesn’t
feel badly. And so, she does. Before long Trisha had created a global charity
that performed eye surgeries on the needy and then became San Francisco’s
premiere neurosurgeon, a woman with immense skill but so lacking in social
graces that many in her family are not talking to her as she once inadvertently
jeopardized her older brother’s fast track political career.
But that isn’t Trisha’s only difficulty in Sonali Dev’s newest book, Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors (William Morrow 2019; $15.99), a Bollywood take on Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. Dev switches up roles between Trisha and DJ Caine, a rising star chef whose cancer-stricken sister is a patient of Trisha’s. She a descendant of Indian Royalty is Mr. Darcy and Caine, a Rwandan/Anglo-Indian—meaning he belongs to a much lower social class, is Emma.
To paraphrase Jane Austen, Dev writes “It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep” and the book is classic Austen with its subtle ironic humor and the structured setting required in any well-to-do aristocratic English or Indian milieu. Trisha has broken the three ironclad rules of their family: Never trust an outsider, never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations and never, ever, defy your family. Desperate to redeem herself in ways that her brilliancy and scoring a $10 million dollar grant for her medical department—their largest ever—is unable to do, Trisha must cope with falling in love with Caine, saving his sister and ensuring that she will not somehow disgrace her family again.
Dev,
who is married with two teenagers and lives in Naperville, says is Mr. Darcy/Trisha
and that’s she’s been entranced with Jane Austen’s book since watching the Indian
TV adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” called “Trishna” in the 1980s when she was
a middle schooler,
“I went straight to the library and checked out
Pride and Prejudice and read it over
and over,” she says.
As for writing, Dev says she wrote
before she could even read, making up stories and characters,” she says, noting
she wrote and acted in her first play when she was eight. “Writing has always
been with me.”
She grew up in Mumbai though the
family traveled a lot as her father was in the military.
“I was always the new kid on the block
with a book,” she says.
She continues to read and write at an amazing
speed.
“I am in fact waiting to get the edits
back for my new book,” she says, noting that writing is an escape, a way of
putting yourself in the shoes of someone not like you.
What:
Sonali Dev Book Launch Party
When:
Monday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
Where:
Andersons Bookshop, 123 W Jefferson Ave, Naperville, IL
FYI: The event is free and open to the public. To join the signing line, please purchase the author’s latest book, Pride Prejudice and Other Flavors, from Anderson’s Bookshop. To purchase contact Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville, 630-355-2665; andersonsbookshop.com
Bestselling novelist Louis Bayard, author of the literary historical novel Courting Mr. Lincoln, has written about a fascinating story about the relationships between the future President and the two people who knew him best: his handsome and charming confidant (and roommate) Joshua Speed , the rich scion of the a wealthy hemp growing family in Louisville and sassy Lexington belle Mary Todd.
Bayard, who will be appearing at the Book Stall, book is reviewed by staffer Kara Gagliardi’s in the bookstore’s May newsletter:
“Louis Bayard’s new novel transports us by wagon to the soul of our country and lays bare the man who would become our 16th president. It is, in fact, the personal history behind our country’s history. The story starts small. In 1839, Mary Todd arrives in Springfield looking for a husband. Her mother is deceased, her father is remarried. She relies on the kindness (and lodging) of her older sister to launch her into society. She is an intellectual with a sharp wit, pleasing-albeit a little too round-an excellent dancer and dinner companion, a lover of politics. She is running out of time.
“Abe Lincoln, on the other hand, is the definition of rough. Tall and gangly, he doesn’t know how to open doors for women, approach a carriage, make small talk, or accept invitations. In other words, society overwhelms him. He knows heartache from the loss of his mother and stepmother, and compares the work his father inflicted upon him to slavery. He’s also a damn good lawyer with a gift for oratory.
“Central to the book is the character of Joshua Speed, who enables the courtship between Lincoln and Mary Todd and feels betrayed by it. Speed owns the dry goods store in town and rents a room to Lincoln above it. Good-looking and a bit of a womanizer, he takes it upon himself to teach Lincoln how to dress, behave, and move in polite circles. The two become inseparable. When he learns that Lincoln has met with Mary Todd in secret, he feels an emptiness that he cannot identify. Who is he without his best friend? Where does he belong if not by Lincoln’s side? This book portrays a match of dependency and tenderness, intellect and laughter. It will also make you remember when you left your peers for a person you set your future upon. The stakes are high. Love wins.”
Bayard, the author of Roosevelt’s Beast, Lucky Strikes, The Pale Blue Eye and The Black Tower, was described by the New York Times, as an author who “reinvigorates historical fiction,” rendering the past “as if he’d witnessed it firsthand.”
Elizabeth Minchilli, who has lived in Italy for a quarter of a century, has created a way for all of us to experience certain special food events that comprise the country’s heritage in much the same way as their monuments (think The Colosseum, St. Peter’s and the Leaning Tower of Pisa) are must-sees for visitors. She shows us how, in her latest cookbook, The Italian Table: Creating Festive Meals for Family and Friends, to completely replicate such Italian food culture in such chapters as a Sunday Lunch in Email-Romagna, Farm to Sicilian Table, Panini Party in Umbria and A Table by the Sea in Positano. Because Minchilli’s background and interests are not only culinary but also envelope style and architecture, she tells us not only what to drink and eat but also how to create the tablescape as well.
As an example, her Pizza by the Slice in Rome meal calls for “for the authentic pizzeria al taglia vibe, use plastic or—more sustainable—paper.”
Minchilli,
who is from St. Louis, Missouri but moved to Rome with her parents when she was
12, developed such a passion for the all things Italy (she even married an
Italian man) and in her words, had an Italian baby, an Italian house and an
Italian dog.
“That was
after I returned as a graduate student to study Renaissance garden architecture
in Florence,” says Minchilli when I talk to her using Skype as she was at her
home in Rome.
I discover, as we talk, that I already have one of her books, a luscious tome titled Villas on the Lakesthat someone had given me years ago and which I still leaf through to marvel at all the wonderful photos. Minchilli is one of those people who seems to do it all, she’s written nine books including Restoring a Home in Italy, takes all her own photos, writes an award winning website, elizabethminchilli.com, developed her Eat Italy app and offers food tours to behind the scenes culinary destinations as well as posting on You Tube and other social media.
She tells
me that her love for food began when she was given one of those easy-bake ovens
when she was a kid.
“I became
the cook of the family,” she says, though she obviously she’s moved way beyond
a toy where the oven is heated by a light bulb.
The
Italian Table is her ninth book.
“I’m
really happy about it,” says Minchilli. “This is really the book where I can
bring everything together—the food, the people who make the plates, what is
surrounding us, the whole experience.”
She was
motivated to write the book after being questioned countless about how Italian
food and dining. To showcase that, she decided on highlight 12 different
dinners and photograph and write about them in real time—as they were being
planned, cooked and served.
“I wanted
people to know how Italians really eat and I decided to do that by meals in different
areas and then narrowed it down by going deeper into how it all comes
together,” she says. “I set it up so you can go through the cookbook and decide
what you like.”
She’s
also included a time table, what to do, depending upon the dinner, two days
before, one day before, two hours before, one hour before and when your guests
arrive. And there are ways to lessen the cooking load for the more intensive
and elaborate dinners.
“Food is
about being social and sharing,” Minchilli tells me. “A lot of people are
scared to have people over and so I wanted to take fear out of the equation. That’s
why I give people a game plan by telling people when to shop, when they should
set the table and also how far ahead to do things so that there’s less to do at
the last minute. It reduces the stress and fear and makes it more
approachable.”
Always a doodler, stand-up
comedian Mo Welch, who’d just broken up with her boyfriend, was eating a
blueberry Pop Tart in her mom’s kitchen
when she began sketching a dozen cartoons about a female character she named
Blair—think a more sarcastic, less sunny but equally funny version Cathy, the
popular cartoon character created by Cathy Guisewite, one of Welch’s favorite
cartoonists.
“My mom always makes Pop Tarts,”
says Welch, who grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. “I was at a crossroad in my life, depressed
and trying to decide what to do and thinking too how depressing and hilarious I
probably looked. So, I got out my Sharpie and started drawing.”
But first she had to finish eating
her Pop Tart, a food group according to Welch that also figures large not only
in her own life but also in the life of Blair.
A simply drawn cartoon, Blair is a 30-something single woman whose
outlook on life is fairly dark. She’s definitely the cup is always half-empty
type, lamenting in one cartoon panel how “My best friend just bought a house
and I’m eating a Pop Tart for dinner.”
Since that day in her mon’s
kitchen, Welch has pursued her career as a stand-up comedian and cartoonist
with considerable success–currently her Blair comics which are on Instagram
@momowelch has over 65,000 followers–and her first book, How to Die Alone: The Foolproof Guide to Not Helping Yourself
(Workman 2019; $12.95) is just being released.
Describing working in the field of
comedy as one filled with rebuffs which for her can mutate into depression,
Welch describes the Blair cartoons as helping her at a time where everything
seemed chaotic.
“I felt rejected in both my love
life and career,” she says. “Drawing my Blair comics every day got me into a routine
and also reminded me how I love comedy. Anytime I get depressed or irritated,
Blair helps me.”
Intensely shy when she was young,
Welch says she couldn’t say her name aloud at an ice breaker or read aloud in
class.
“When I go on TV or do a big show,
I still have that nervousness,” says Welch who has been on Conan several times, appeared in season two of Amazon’s Gortimer
Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street and
season two of Life in Pieces on CBS
and starred in Foul Ball on CBS and
also has worked as a writer for TBS, CBS and Nickelodeon. “But I translate that
into a better way now.”
Even though she’s been successful,
Welch still feels a deep affinity for Blair.
“What I like about her is that I
think everyone can relate to her,” she says.
As for her upcoming Chicago book
signing and presentation, she’s very excited.
“My mom is going to bring all her
friends from her quilting club,” she says. “It’s always nice to know you’ll
have a friendly crowd.”
Getting back to the driver of all the
good things in her life, Welch says, “I thank the entire Pop Tart industry for
the success I’ve had.”
Ifyougo:
What: Mo Welch in conversation with local podcast host and storyteller,
Whitney Capps; book signing
When: Thursday, May 2nd at 7pm
Where: Anderson’s Bookshop, 26 La Grange Rd., La Grange
Cost: This event is free and open to the public. To join the signing
line, please purchase a copy of Welch’s new book from Anderson’s.
Chicago-based author Renee Rosen typically writes novels about historic
periods and people in Chicago such as the age of jazz (Windy City Blues); mid-20th century journalism (White Collar Girl) and the Roaring
Twenties (Dollface). But in Park Avenue Summer, her latest novel
which she describes as “Mad Men the Devil Wears Prada,” she takes us to New
York City during the era of Helen Gurley Brown, first female Editor-in-Chief of
Cosmopolitan Magazine and the author of the scandalous best seller, Sex and the Single Girl.
Like many of us, Rosen read Cosmo
(as it was known) when young.
Rosen remembers quickly flipping
to “Bedside Astrologer” column.
“I was looking for guidance on my
16-year-old love life,” she says, noting that all the time she spent poring over the glossy pages of Cosmo
essentially shaped my view of female sexuality and female empowerment, too.
“She changed the face of women’s magazine.”
Park Avenue Summer tells the story of Alice
(Ali), who moves to New York City after breaking up with her boyfriend and ends
up getting her dream job, working for Cosmo.
Like
she does for all her books, Rosen threw herself into full research mode,
wanting to convey the story through Alice’s eyes.
“I
even went down to the Port Authority to get the feel of what Alice would have
seen and felt when she arrived,” says Rosen.
Because
Rosen had lived on the Upper West side in New York for a year she knew where
Ali, as a single working girl would live—an area in the East 60s called “the
girl’s ghetto.” She walked the streets until she found the exact apartment she
had envisioned for Ali.
All
in the name of research, she visited Tavern on the Green, 21 Club, St. Regis
and the Russian Tearoom, all swank places still in business that were very popular
back then. But best of all, a friend introduced her to Lois Cahall who had
worked for Brown.
“Helen
Gurley Brown was like a second mother to Lois,” says Rosen. “She and I became
good friends and she vetted the book for me. It was like a gift from the gods,
because she knew so much about Brown and Cosmo and that time.”
Rosen
is very much an admirer of Brown and what she accomplished.
“She
really wanted to help women be their best,” she says. “She wanted them to know
that they could get what they want even in what was then a man’s world.”
Ifyougo:
What: Rene Rosen has several book signing
events in the Chicago area.
When & Where:
Tuesday, April 30th
at 7 p.m. Launch party at The Book
Cellar Launch Party, 4736 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL.
When & Where: Wednesday, May 1 at 11:30
a.m., Luncheon at The Deer Path
Inn, 255 East Illinois St., Lake Forest, IL. $55 includes lunch and book.
Seating is limited and reservations are required. Sponsored by Lake Forest
Bookstore. 847-234-4420; lakeforestbookstore.com
When &
Where: Wednesday, May 1 at 6:30 p.m.
The Book Stall, 811 Elm St, Winnetka, IL 847-446-8880; thebookstall.com. In conversation with Susanna Calkins who
is celebrating the release of Murder
Knocks Twice, the start of a new mystery series set in the world of Chicago
speakeasy in the 1920s.
When &
Where: Monday, May 13 at 7 p.m. The Book Table’s Authors on Tap series with
author Jamie Freveletti. Beer Shop 1026 North Blvd., Chicago, IL. 847- 946-4164;
beershophq.com
Take two cultural icons—William Shakespeare, the English
poet, playwright and actor who is considered one of the best writers in the
English language and the movie Mean Girls
which was released 15 years ago and stars Tina Fey, one of my favorite
comedians and you have tales of passion, toxic envy, back-stabbing (both
literal and figurative) and intense power struggles (for kingdoms or, in the
case of Mean Girls, to belong to the
most popular high school clique.
Doescher,
who earned a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale
Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary, has
taken the Bard’s comedic play Much Ado
About Nothing (nothing signifying a great deal of fuss over something of
little importance) and Mean Girls
which tells the story of Cady Heron, a home-schooled child of anthropologists raised
in Africa who enrolls in an American high school.
Written
in iambic pentameter, the style of poetry favored by Shakespeare, the books are
in a play format. If you’re like me and forgot exactly what iambic pentameter
is, Doescher explains that it’s a line of poetry with a very specific syllabic
patter.
“The
iamb has two syllables and pentameter mean they are five iambs in a line,” he
says. “That means that iambic pentameter is a line of ten syllables.”
Think
da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, da-Dum, he says. Or to make it easier, sing
the line from Simon and Garfunkel’s song that goes “I’d rather be a hammer than
a nail.”
At
first reading the books can be daunting but it only takes a short time to get
in the rhyme of the poetry and recognize scenarios and phrases from both Shakespeare
and Mean Girls and enjoy the humor.
A
natural to write these books which also includes William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, Doescher describes himself as having
been the high school nerd who memorized Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquys and
then felt compelled to repeat them for friends, family and even to perform them
while standing on his desk in English class. We have to agree with him about
the nerd thing, particularly after he says that he’s been practicing speaking in
iambic pentameter since high school.
FYI: To join the signing line, please
purchase one of the author’s latest books, William
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls and William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future, from Anderson’s
Bookshop. To purchase please stop into or call Anderson’s Bookshop Naperville
(630) 355-2665 or order online at andersonsbookshop.com
Shelf Life 