Reading is addictive

I've lost myself in reading lately, and not even the mysteries that I constantly consume. But I have so many books I want to read that I'm ignoring other things I should be doing--like working on my new novel. It started with a book I am to review for the Dallas Morning News, titled 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Families in One Tenement. Set in the lower East Side of New York City, it spans the 1860s through the Depression. I won't be a spoiler for the review, except to say that it chronicles the way various cultures--German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian--contributed to American foodways and in turn, the habits they assimilatede from American culture. I read it avidly and had the review ready a month before it was due.
Then I became probably the last person I know to read Katherine Stockton's The Help, about the relationships between white women and their black maids in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s. It's hard for me to believe some of the white women, and I thought perhaps they were caricatures, but friends who lived in the South assure me it's true. Stockton, who grew up in Jackson, turned the material into a riveting novel, and although I ached for the black women, the one who gave me the most pain was a little girl named Mae Mobley who thought her nanny was her real mother because the mother never gave her any love or attention. When the maid is fired, for becoming part of an imaginary tell-all book, she walks away hearing Mae Mobley's anguished screams. It's a book you can't read without being moved, and I spent almost all of last weekend reading it.
The Help made me think of GeeGee, the black nanny we had in Chicago when I was a toddler. Relations between her and my mother were much more cordial, though I can remember Mom recalling her amazement (and disapproval) when GeeGee let me eat four eggs for breakfast one morning (maybe that's why I didn't like them for years!). I asked my brother the other day when GeeGee left and how old I was, but he just shook his head and said he didn't now. "They're so many questions I didn't ask and now wish I had," he said. I remember GeeGee coming back once for a visit and how happy we were to see her. In retrospect, I wonder if the death of my younger sister at six months (probably SIDS, though I was told she had a heart defect) didn't contribute to GeeGee's leaving.
Now, I'm reading an advance copy of Spilling the Beans, by Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of BBC's Two Fat Ladies who wheeled about the countryside in a motorcycle and sidecar cooking at various locations and gatherings. If you ever watched the show--and millions did--the picture on the cover will be familiar: a dumpy, slightly rumpled English woman in a  funny hat with a big smile on her face. The inside of the book reveals a far different and intriguing story. I'm reviewing this one for the Story Circle Network, so don't want to be a spoiler there either.
Speaking of the Story Circle Network, Beth Knudson and I are going to coordinate a class on Writing Your Life Story, based on the principles of the Story Circle Network beginning in early May, You don't have to join the network to be part of the class, but there is a fee. And we're going to ask everyone to participate in pot-luck snacks and wine. If you'd like more information, e-mail me at j.alter@tcu.edu. And if you're interested, you might search for Story Circle Network on Google. It's an international organization designed to help women tell their life stories. I've taught the class twice for the TCU community class program.
A food note: I've had a delicious day and still come out ahead on points. For lunch I had a tuna salad plate at a place I rarely go--it was really good, came with a quarter hard boiled egg, a bit of tomato, one thin slice of avocado, and a fruit cup. Tonight Betty and I went to Nonna Tata (I was prepared and took a bottle of wine and two plastic wine glasses), and I had braseola (the Italian cured beef version of prosciutto) dressed in lemon and olive oil, with grana cheese, and a vinegar based German salad. One of my favorite meals.
Okay, back to Spilling the Beans.

Weighty matters

Thursday is my usual day to weigh, and this morning started off really badly, because I had gained almost two lbs. It was, to say the least, depressing, and the cloud has hung over me all day. I reviewed the week in my mind to see what bad things I'd eaten--two pirogues, scalloped potatoes, 2  bites of chicken Kiev, 2 good-sized pieces of Black Forest cake (not all at once--in three meals), one egg over easy, one piece of wheat toast with a tiny bit of butter and jam. That's not two lbs.! I would stop paying attention to the whole thing if I could just stop gaining weight and stabilize, but I envision myself becoming a fat old lady--not an attractive picture. People say to me "Why worry about five pounds?" But now the question should be "Why worry about eight pounds?" and I think that's good reason.
But in a way I blame Weight Watchers. In the good old days, before friends (?) led me to the program, I ate carefully but well and didn't seem to gain weight. For breakfast out, with that egg, I'd have had hash browns and bacon; if I wanted chocolate I ate it. No more Every point adds up. I am measuring and weighing my food, and I wonder if I'm not thinking too much about it. Betty suggested tonight that she has a book about hypnotizing yourself into weight loss, and Jordan is to bring me the South Beach Diet book tomorrow night. Maybe I'll just quit weighing so religiously, entering points nightly, and try to eat sensibly and see what happens. I'll give it one more week, but I am reminded of the book, Life is Too Short: Eat Dessert First.
Even though I like to cook, I'm careful about what I cook and the portions I eat--I do think small portions are a big part of it. But today I was delighted to receive from the Dallas Morning News a book to revieew entitled 97 Orchard. It chronicles the food of five families, immigrants from nothern Europe, who lived in the same tenement in New York City over a thirty- or forty-year span covering the turn of the twentieth century. I can't wait to dig into it tonight.
If we have another freeze--perish the thought--I'm done for, but my front porch is full of greenery. With Greg's help, it boasts hanging baskets (ferns, sweet potatoes, and wandering jew--I don't get enough sun for flowers), there are sweet potato plants in pretty pots on either side of the front steps, and newly planted herbs in my wonderful old concrete planter boxes--I bet they've been here since the house was built in the 1920s. Last year during the spring and summer I was wrestling with the retirement questions, and I don't think I ever paid attention much to my porch--just let things that had wintered through come up as they would. This year I'm paying attention. Porch parties in the near future!