Growing (and not growing!) things

This year, at the end of March, right when the quarantine was about to kick in, it occurred to me that we wouldn't be going anywhere for the near future and that tending a garden would feel therapeutic rather than like I was letting something (else) down.

A vegetable garden at my home is not an option. We live on a tiny lot: our back yard is 20 feet deep and 10 feet of that is a deck, while the rest is for our darling Molly to use as a dog run. Our house faces north so our tiny front yard is almost all shade, except for a rain garden that I love dearly. I used to have a vegetable garden that was located in my mother-in-law's back yard which I had mixed success with. She only lives a few blocks from us but I still had trouble getting over there often enough to be a responsible plant-steward. Sometimes I got a crop of something I planted and sometimes I didn't. By the second or third year, it was clear that the fast-growing tree in her neighbor's yard wasn't going to be pruned and it cast shade over much of the garden. So I haven't had a real garden in about 10 years. Since then, I have filled my gap of longing for fresh produce with CSA shares from Tantre and Homer Farms (pretty well documented here on the blog; click the labels on the right if you want to go re-live those days), trips to the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market (which is now open for pre-order pick ups) and Argus Farm Stop and, frankly, by being pathetically grateful when people bestow their extra garden produce on me. One of Brian's friends who has a huge garden told him he'd never seen someone get so excited by a bag of vegetables after he surprised us with his extras. I wasn't faking it: I really do get that excited by free zucchini (and then I make massive double batches of my favorite Turkish zucchini pancakes!)

Last year, a dear friend signed up for a plot at one of our town's community gardens and it occurred to me that this year, I could join her. I checked on March 28 and there was still a half-plot available and I jumped on it.

I am not a terrific gardener and my lack of the perfectionist-gene is pretty obvious if you survey the 11 plots at the garden. Some people have been creating beautifully laid out beds, little paths between their plantings and even geometric patterns. I weed, I loosen the soil and dig crooked rows, scatter some seeds and hope for the best! So far, something has eaten half of the pea seeds I planted and a bug has started decimating my kale leaves. Or maybe those are radish leaves? I didn't label the rows so we'll see. Anyway, I don't really care because anything I get out of this garden will be a plus and it will still be the best $80 I spent in a loooong time to rent the plot for the growing season. Now I have about 375 square feet in which to plan and feel hopeful and (very important) play with worms. Oh, and it also gives me a destination to get the hell away from my family when they are driving me crazy.

I also got really lucky in that the plot I was assigned has a ridiculous number of self-seeded lettuces growing on it. Here are a couple of views of all the bounty that I inherited from last year's gardeners and am happy to enjoy:

Yesterday, I thinned these out (there are still a ton left) and brought home a big bag of baby lettuces.

Which last night became this addition to our dinner table:

I cut up and marinated a few store-bought tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and chopped up basil and chives and then tossed them with olive-oil dressed greens and topped it all with a torn up ball of burrata cheese. It was fantastic.

And about that basil: there's a story behind it. It may surprise no-one that I am not the easiest person for whom to purchase a gift. Most of the time I suggest to the people I love that we do something together rather than having them make purchases and which I genuinely enjoy more than accumulating stuff. But Brian really loves giving gifts at Christmas and this year I found this thing under the tree:

When I unwrapped it I thought it was the dumbest piece of garbage. If it worked (a big "if" in my head) it would just provide green stuff for our cats to consume and puke all over the goddamn house (the only houseplants we have are succulents which the cats leave alone. Every other time we've tried to have plants in the house the little furry fuckers have made us regret it). So I saw what was intended as a lovely gift as a sign that I'd soon be cleaning up even more colorful puke than usual. I tried to convince Brian to return it. He did not, just tucked it away in a closet. And we forgot about it.

And then he received the directive to work at home. It was just around the same time as I was looking at the community garden plots when Brian pulled this gadget out, set it up in his office (the door is closed most of the time so the cats don't get in there very often) and soon little things were starting to sprout. It was really sweet to see him so excited about his little seedlings, but I was still sure that it would prove to be a disappointment.

Boy, was I wrong.

Not only do we have basil, Thai basil, thyme, dill and mint growing like crazy (the only thing that didn't germinate was the parsley), but we have also been able to move it out of his office and into the kitchen where I can actually use it easily and the cats are leaving it alone! I've tried to have indoor basil before and it was always mauled and masticated but they give this thing a wide berth.  I have no idea why: maybe the LED lights scare them off?

I've already done some pretty significant harvesting of all the herbs and it has been wonderful to be able to pinch off some basil or dill to toss in an omelet or some sauce or a blended salad dressing or to make a Thai tofu vegetable curry with a ton of Thai basil in it. The thyme might need some more aggressive pruning because my demand is not aligned with its over-zealous supply (ideas for using lots of thyme welcome!)

The other really nice thing about this gadget is that Brian has taken ownership of it: he checks the water level and the root-health and pays attention when to add the liquid plant food. I just get to use the glorious stuff which, like the lettuces in my garden plot where I reap the bounty of someone else's efforts, is the best of all possible worlds. Whether I succeed this year in growing anything doesn't really matter.

I (almost) finished something!

Last night, while watching Little Miss Sunshine (my pick for a perfect mother's day movie), I finished knitting the final sleeve on my SiMPLE SOMETHiNG sweater. 

Ta da! 

This was a really fun knit: the construction is simple but the use of doubled sock yarn means that you get to make lots of choices about which color to bring in and when to change colors or add a little pop. If you are at all interested in making this sweater, I urge you to go to Ravelry to check out the original and the many unique color choices that people have come up with. There are so many stunning versions. Mine is on the subdued side, with gray and cream and pink as the main colors (I used this as a stashbuster and had the most of these colors already) and I striped it rather than attempting an ombre shading; I am really tempted to try to make one with darker and bolder colors someday.

The sweater is shaped a lot like my favorite sweatshirt and because it uses primarily superwash wool sock yarn, it should be about as soft and comfortable. It'll also be pretty low-maintenance in the care/washing department. I have plenty of sweaters made of more delicate fibers, so it's kind of a relief to have a sweater that can take a little abuse now and then and not fall apart or look like crap.

Of course, all those color changes means there are lots of ends to weave in, so it'll probably be properly finished and blocked in, say, a week if I cue up the podcasts and just make myself do it.

This is the wrong side of the sweater and you can see, I have my work cut out for me. Luckily I don't mind weaving in ends; I'm just a little impatient because we're having a cold snap right now and this would be very cozy to wear.

Of course, I still have plenty of sock yarn left so I'm thinking that maybe the next way to use some of it up should be with this Tin Can Knits Snap Hat pattern that uses FOUR strands of sock yarn at a time!

Crackers? Crackers!

Crackers are not something that I thought I'd ever get excited about. They mostly serve as a way of getting something else delicious, cheese or spread or dip, to your mouth without filling you up as much as bread. But I am now excited about crackers.

When growing a sourdough culture there's a decent quantity of what's called "discard," the bubbly starter that you remove before you feed the remainder and maybe, in times of plenty, people threw the stuff away. But when flour is in short supply and gluten free flours are absurdly expensive, you better believe that that stuff is not going in the trash. There are all kinds of recipes out there to use up sourdough discard; pancakes are by far the most popular way to use it up but people chuck it in everything: muffins, crumpets, even cakes. My favorite thing to do with it is make crackers.

I might not be quite so motivated if I was eating wheat right now because there's a good selection of high quality, affordable, wheat-based crackers, even in stores where the shelves of beans and pasta have been wiped out. There's really only one type of gluten-free cracker that I like (thankfully it's one of my favorite crackers with or without wheat). These babies:

But they are expensive and lots of regular supermarkets don't carry them. So my motivation was high to try and make my own crackers and the results make me almost as pleased as the almond flour chocolate chip cookie recipe I recently shared.

Behold, the sourdough discard cracker:

This batch was made with a sourdough starter which was primarily brown rice flour and I added some nigella seeds for their mild, onion flavor. 

The next batch of crackers happened a week or so later, and by then I'd switched to feeding my sourdough starter quinoa and teff flour (which it loooooves: bubbles right up and almost coos with happiness) so the resulting cracker is more multi-grain and toasty tasting. I mixed in nigella seeds again (of which I am inordinately fond: you can buy them here) and some black pepper.

Sturdy enough to make an excellent hummus delivery device

These are so good that I'm going to be feeding my sourdough more often than it really needs it just so I have an excuse to scoop out a 1/2 C of "discard" to keep myself supplied with crackers.

Sourdough discard crackers

1/2 C sourdough discard (regular or GF)
1/2 C flour (AP or a GF flour mix that has some xanthan gum, or use a different gf flour and add about 1/4 t xanthan gum for each 1/2 C of flour)
1.5 T olive oil
1/4 t salt
(optional) 2 t seeds of your choice (sesame, nigella, poppy, caraway, cumin or a mix)
(optional) 1/4 t dried herbs or spices of your choice (rosemary, black pepper, herbs de provence)

Mix everything together until it forms a ball, add additional flour or water by the tablespoon to get the right roll-able consistency (some starters are very wet and others are drier so start with equal quantities of starter and flour and then adjust accordingly.)

Wrap dough in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350.

Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces.

Put down a sheet of parchment paper and dust lightly with AP or rice flour, roll out two pieces of dough directly on the parchment, getting it as thin as you can/as thin as you like. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet. Get out another piece of parchment and do the same thing with the last two pieces of dough.

You can score the dough lightly with a knife or pizza cutter if you want the pieces to break apart evenly, or leave them un-scored for rustic crackers.

Brush the dough with water and a little sprinkle of flaky sea salt, if you have it. Regular salt is fine too, just use a light hand, or leave it off.

Bake for about 15 minutes--time will vary depending on how thin you rolled your crackers and how toasty you like them. Flip and bake the other side for about 5 minutes (unless they are done enough for you already). If they are still a little doughy, put back in for another 5 minutes.

Break into pieces and when cool, store in an airtight bag or container.

Book Give Away: Round 3 (with a kitty!)

I have lots of books in lots of genres to give away so have a good scroll down and see if anything catches your fancy. As a plus, all the photos feature our scaredy cat, Mooney. This is the cat who many people who have been to our home for years have never laid eyes upon because he is terrified of the world (I think some friends suspect that the second cat we keep mentioning is actually a figment our our collective imagination, so here's proof for the doubters). I was veeerrrry careful to make sure not to startle him while taking these photos and was successful until the very last photo (when he woke up, gave me a glare, and was out of there in a flash.)

There are comments on some of these, not on all but that doesn't mean they aren't good books (it just means I don't have anything clever to say.) You know the drill, if you are local and want one or more books, say so in the comments or use the contact me feature in the side bar. If a title has been crossed off, it has been claimed.

Graphic Novels

Angel Catbird, Vol 1 by Margaret Atwood and Johnnie Christmas: yes, Margaret Atwood can do anything, even graphic novels.

March, Book 1 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell: you can watch a video here of their talk that took place at Hill Auditorium in 2017 as a part of the Penny Stamps Speaker Series. It was a lovely event for a wonderful book.

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg

Classics

(some of these might have a little underlining in them)

The Annotated Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (annotations by Alfred Appel Jr for whom I was a TA at Northwestern and whose son was a writer and producer of The Simpsons--there's your useless trivia tidbit for the day.)

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Sula by Toni Morrison

The Odyssey by Homer (Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.V. Rieu): a prose translation

The Odyssey of Homer translated by Richmond Lattimore: a poetry translation  

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 

A Little Non-Fiction

Jane Austen by Claire Tomalin: one of the best literary biographies I've ever read

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery: a big time cephalopod love fest

Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg: I dare you not to want an African Grey Parrot after reading this. Maybe don't give it to your kid whose birthday is coming up unless you want them to beg for a pet that they'll have until they are 80.

 Maybe these will work for your family...(because they did jack shit for mine)
The Joy of Mathematics by Theoni Pappas: Lots of great visuals in here that should get kids interested in how math applies to life. Note my use of the word "should."
Math Doesn't Suck  by Danica McKellar: pitched at middle school girls, the period of time when many girls decide they hate math. The tone would probably appeal to kids who are a little more mainstream. It is written in a very accessible tone and I appreciated some of the frank talk about stopping negative self-talk when it comes to math. My kids didn't relate to it because they are pretty quirky.
Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma: the subtitle of this book is "A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement." While I can't say that I got that outcome in our house (still plenty of youth entitlement to go around!) it does present good info and ideas on how to teach all the crap you think your kids should know how to do but that (bafflingly!) they don't.
Barron's Strategies and Practice for the NEW PSAT/NMSQT: one of my kids did about 2 of the exercises in this book, the other refused to crack the cover. With Khan Academy SAT prep (that I've heard is very good though neither of my kids cared to avail themselves of it) I'm guessing that books like this are not in demand, but if you have a kid who prefers paper to screen, this book is almost unused.

Blank Books

Two pristine blank books, one lined, the other not. Great for journals. (My resident artist rejected the unlined one for drawing because the paper is sort of rustic/not smooth like a sketchbook.) Let me know if you want the Cat book or the Leaf book.

Visual stuff
3-D Planet: The World as Seen Through Stereograms by Hiroshi Kunoh and Eji Takaoki
Magic Eye: A New Way of Looking at the World by N.E.Thing Enterprises: both this book and the one above might entertain a bored kid or (if you suffer from a lazy eye) are good for training binocular vision
Metropolitan Cats from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Mooney approves)

Humor(?): Maybe these will make you, or a kid in your life, laugh?

I Could Pee on This and other poems by cats by Francesco Marciuliano (Mooney does NOT approve of this title. He prefers the title which is much more applicable to his daily life:  I Could Puke on This)

Zombies Hate Stuff by Greg Stones

 

Stand alone: PLEASE NOTE, MOONEY IS AWAKE AND AWARE THAT HE HAS BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED AND IS NOT PLEASED (there was a gray streak as he fled seconds after I snapped this)

I forgot to include this copy of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle in my previous YA book give away, so here it is. It's the edition they released after the recent film so there are some photos from the movie in the middle of the book, if that makes a difference to you.

Finishing

I finished a lot of things today.

I finished painting my office and moved my desk back in.

My office will never be this tidy again.

I finished the knitting on this sweater which will take up residence in Kerrytown once Spun reopens.

I still need to weave in the ends and block it. 

And I finished spending time with Thomas Cromwell.

I held my breath while reading the last pages and then immediately re-read them. 

Normally I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when I finish things, but these are strange days we're living through and I'm left thinking that a more aware person would have staggered their projects and made sure they didn't all end on the same day.

I was aware of a reluctance to finish all of these things while I was doing them: I'm not the fastest knitter but I avoided this sweater for the past few weeks because finishing it would make not being at Spun (which is an utterly delightful place to work) feel more real. I am a fast reader, but I intentionally did not let myself gobble down this book because I didn't want the trilogy to end. At the end of a section, I set it aside for a few days and thought about it and once I started the next section, I only allowed myself a chapter a day. And I took way more time than I normally would in painting my office, from the sorting and culling of the bookshelves (there are more books to give away coming soon) to how carefully I taped off the woodwork and cut in the corners, because I didn't have to notice how weird the world has become if I was worrying about paint drips.

Tonight, to comfort myself and distract from these melancholy thoughts, I'm going to pour a glass of Irish whisky and finish one more thing:

The last slice of a gf chocolate cake I made earlier in the week, topped with raspberry jam and whipped cream. At least this finish will be sweet.

Take a bite

These are the best gluten-free cookies I've tasted and are the second-best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made, only surpassed by the Cook's Illustrated "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe that they published in 2009 and that I haven't yet tried to reproduce with gluten-free flour. 

So many gluten-free recipes fail in the texture department, but not these babies: they are chewy and gooey and wonderful. These are cookies I would make even if I wasn't avoiding gluten. And they are way easier and faster to make than my #1 recipe which involves brown butter and lots of steps. 

These cookies are made with 100% almond flour--no obscure superfine brown rice flour that can only be purchased online or xanthan gum required. And if your grocery store is out of wheat flour during the pandemic, they might just have plenty of almond flour!

A few things I have learned making these:

1. Monitor the color near the end of the cooking time closely. Nuts can go from golden to burnt very quickly so I set the timer for a few minutes less than I think they'll need and then check them every minute or so (usually rotating the pan so that any hot spots in the oven don't make them brown unevenly) until they are golden.

2. These are easier to make if you use weight rather than volume to measure your ingredients (this goes for a lot of gluten-free recipes because weight is much more specific if you are making substitutions). If you don't have a digital scale, this is a good and affordable one. I put volume estimates in the recipe for people who don't have a scale.

3. Shaping and freezing the dough balls leads to a better texture than baking right after you make the dough. If you do bake them right after you make the dough, they'll spread a lot more and won't be as chewy, more of a crumbly-crispy cookie and if that's your ideal, then go for it; just be sure to reduce the baking time by a few minutes. I prefer chocolate chip cookies with a little gooeyness in the center. Freezing the dough means adding a few minutes of cooking time but I think it's worth it and it means that you will probably have a supply of ready-to-go dough if you are having a crummy day and need a little pick me up. Reach in the freezer and grab three dough balls and in about 20 minutes (5 minutes to preheat the oven, 15 minutes baking time) your day is a little better:

Ahhh. Cookie-therapy on a tray.

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from a recipe by Erin Jeanne McDowell

300 grams almond flour (about 2 3/4 C)

3/4 t kosher salt

1/2 t baking soda

140 grams butter at room temp (10 T or 1.25 sticks)

110 grams light brown sugar (about 1/2 C)

100 grams white sugar (about 1/2 C)

1 large egg

2 t vanilla extract

300 grams (10 oz) chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips (I prefer hand chopped because then you get the little flecks of chocolate throughout the cookie, but I've also made them with commercial chips and they are fine.) The volume varies widely with these because it depends on your chip/chunk size. 10 oz of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips, which are a little bigger than standard chips, is about 1 1/2 C

flaky sea salt. 

In a bowl, combine the almond flour, salt and baking soda. 

Cream the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix. Scrape down the bowl if needed.

Add the almond flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined. Add the chocolate chunks/chips until evenly distributed. 

Scoop about 2T sized balls (I used a heaping tablespoon as a scoop), roll in your hands to make a ball and then flatten to about 1/2" thick. Place on parchment and then freeze.

When it's time to bake, preheat your oven to 350, set the desired number of dough balls on a parchment or silpat lined sheet, sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, and bake for about 15 minutes. I set the timer for 10 minutes and then check (somewhat obsessively) for the last few minutes to rotate pans for even browning and to make sure the almond flour doesn't burn. You might need to add a few minutes depending on your dough ball size. One time I was a little generous making them and they took about 18 minutes total, another time they were more modestly sized and were done at about 14 minutes.

Sourdough antics

Quarantine-brain and the fact that I stopped wearing a watch about 3 weeks ago means I really don't remember how long ago I began "building" my gluten free sourdough starter, but earlier this week I was able to give it a try and made one batch (two loaves) of gluten free sourdough bread from Aran Goyoaga's lovely cookbook, Canelle et Vanille. 

Ta Da! Pretty decent for a first attempt.

The recipe uses the technique of Jim Lahey's famous no-knead bread (baking in a pre-heated cast iron dutch oven) with a gf starter Goyoaga teaches you how to build day by day, and dough ingredients that she has tweaked to get gf bread that does a decent job of replicating the flavor and texture of regular bread. 

I don't think my starter is particularly robust which may be due to the fact that it is early spring here and my house is cold. I finally figured out that I should be leaving it in the oven with the light on after feeding it, and that caused the bubbling to become a little more energetic. But, like me these days, my starter is maybe a little sluggish, a little sleepy, a little what-the-fuck-do-you-want-from-me surly. That's ok; it still worked out and got me a good-enough rise and produced a loaf with a good-enough crumb (we are all about good-enough, these days). The crust of this bread is truly spectacular: crackling and deeply flavorful.

 

Why yes, that is the correct ratio of Irish butter to bread, thank you for asking.

There were a number of ingredients that I had to track down to make this. Thankfully, the general panic to purchase regular wheat flour that has emptied supermarket shelves has not spread to the GF baking section so (for locals, at Arbor Farms) I was able to get my hands on the sorghum flour, psyllium husk and potato starch that I didn't have in the house. I couldn't find gf oat flour so I ended up dumping some gf oats in the food processor and blitzing them to a chunky powder. The resulting oat flour probably wasn't as fine as the commercial stuff or a flour made in a high powered Vitamix, but I think it worked well enough and the oat flavor is really nice. I find stuff made with just brown or white rice flour to be pretty flavorless so the oats (and probably the sorghum?) give the resulting bread a depth and "toasty-ness" that is lacking in a lot of gf recipes.

Next time I make this I'll do the following things differently: 

1. I'll only make a half a batch. I only own one cast iron dutch oven (do people really have two of these heavy behemoths in their kitchens?) and the second loaf that I made in a covered ceramic pot wasn't quite as nice. Maybe I'll go back to two at a time in the summer when I'll want to limit how often I turn on the oven for a long bake. But for now, I'd rather have one really good loaf at a time.

2. I might invest in a banneton proofing basket. I used a metal colander lined with a rice-flour dusted tea towel and it worked ok, but the bottom of the colander is kind of flat and I think contributed to the top of my bread not doming quite as much. 

3. I'll probably try and bake it for another 10-15 minutes, to make sure that the moisture in the interior has a little more time to dry out. Lots of gf bread recipes end up a little "gummy" on the inside and that can be because they haven't been baked long enough (apparently over-proofing can also contribute to this). I don't know if you can tell from the above photo, but right in the center of the bread the crumb is a little too sticky.

All in all, I'm pleased with the results and I am enjoying having bread (and particularly toast) as a part of my life again.

Just some really lovely things

Today I don't have enough to say about any one thing, so I'm sharing a few lovely things that I've discovered.

I loved reading this (edited) twitter thread about a hypothetical Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan murder mystery series. I would watch this in a heartbeat.

If you or someone you live with is feeling crafty and restless, check out the tutorials on Creativebug. If you have an AADL library card, you can get free access to the whole site via this link. I had fun reviving old embroidery skills on a pair of jeans that needed some mending (and now have decorative mending!) using videos from the woman who does the dropcloth samplers that I've long admired. I might dabble around a little with some watercolors later.

I've found a new podcast that I adore: Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. Booker Prize winning author Marlon James and his editor, Jake Morrissey, have wonderful conversations about books by dead people. No living authors are included because they are brutally honest in their opinions and criticism. It is heaven for English majors, or really, anyone who loves books. They just finished the first season so you can binge listen (and then maybe get a digital copy of some of the books.)

Yes, like everyone else cooped up at home with a bag of flour, I am planning to make sourdough. I'm using brown rice flour and instructions from this lovely gluten free cookbook that I ordered from Bookbound at the start of this confinement. I'm on day 4 of building my starter and I think that baking day will be day 7 or thereabouts.

Go little yeasties! Go!

This Thursday evening you will find me on my couch streaming the National Theater Live production of One Man, Two Govnors starting James Cordon which they are airing on YouTube. I saw it when it was playing in the theater and it is the perfect choice for these times: deeply ridiculous and farcical with one of the best-natured stars you can hope to watch. It will only be available for one week starting on April 2 (there will be a different play available the following week) so set aside the time to watch it and laugh.

Book Give Away: Round 2

Round two of the great shelf clean-off continues with two of my favorite categories, Contemporary Fiction and Fantasy/Speculative Fiction. This time I got kind of excited and put little annotations next to the titles below the photos because I have loved all these books at one time or another and don't really want to shut up about them even though I want the shelf space back. 

Locals, let me know if you want any of these and we'll work out how to get them to you. If a title has been crossed off, it has been claimed.

Contemporary Fiction
Top to bottom:
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley: a Scandanavian-style epic written in clean, clear prose; you can lose yourself in this world
Hard Laughter by Anne Lamott: I think this was Lamott's first novel, semi-autobiographical, definitely before she was sober/found Jesus
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson: possibly one of the most beautiful books I've read about a father
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields; a compelling story of one woman's life from 1905-the late 1980s with surprising lightness and bursts of humor
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich; the book where so many of Erdrich's recurring cast of amazing characters were introduced, on the North Dakota reservation where many of her books are set
Postcards by E. Annie Proulx; a sad but exquisite story of two brothers in New England
The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro; a collection by one of the best short-story writers, most set in Canada
The Hill Bachelors by William Trevor; a collection by one of the other best short-story writers, most set in Ireland or UK
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter; a retelling of Midsummer Night's Dream set in Ann Arbor
Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith; not fiction, but essays by the whip-smart novelist, and many of the essays are about fiction

Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Top to bottom:
Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor: probably technically YA, fierce fairies and talking crows, together battling an invading evil darkness
Foundling by D.M. Cornish: Fantastic world-building, the first book in a series, the kind of book that has an 100+ page "explicarium" with a dictionary of terms, maps, and drawings which you either love or hate; I love that kind of stuff
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell: Mitchell's first book with linked narratives; if you liked Cloud Atlas, you will probably like this
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell: a little more intimate (one character, rather than linked stories) but still weird in a beautiful Mitchell way
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell: a head-spinning plot, both witty and strange
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie: a fantasy novel by one of my favorite Science Fiction authors, excellent world building

Book Give Away: Round 1

With the libraries closed and plenty of people I know facing financial stress, I'm starting the book re-distribution project. Today we have some food-related books and YA fiction. All of these were good enough to take up residence on a shelf in my home for a period of time, but I don't plan to reread them.

Here's the deal: if you are local, let me know if you want a book or books, either in the comments or via the contact me in the right side bar. I will try to update this post with the books that have been claimed crossed off so you know what is still available. Anything no one wants will go into a bin to be delivered to the Friends of the AADL Bookshop once it is safe to donate again.

No, I won't mail these to you. I walk (a lot; don't assume you live too far away. I once decided to walk home to Evanston from the Art Institute of Chicago which is something like 13+ miles. It was a great walk) and can drop them off at your residence and then you should either set them somewhere for 3+ days or wipe them down with disinfectant. If you want a lot of books (fine with me, I want to liberate my space for more new books) then I'll find a time when I'm driving to run an errand and am in your vicinity and will drop them off. If I know you and am comfortable giving out my address to you, I can leave them on my porch for you to pick up.

And if you are feeling really guilty about getting books for free (don't. There's enough shit to feel bad about right now, free books should not be one of them) and have the means, please support one of our local bookstores by buying yourself a gift certificate to use at a later date. Here's the link to Literati and here's the link for Bookbound. See, you're giving yourself something to look forward to!

Food Related Books

From top to bottom:
The Michigan Gardner's Companion by Rita C. Henehan
The Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden by David Hirsch
Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads by Bernard Clayton, Jr.
Field of Greens by Annie Somerville
Put 'Em Up: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook by Sherri Brooks Vinton
A Well-Seasoned Appetite by Molly O'Neill
Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day by Roy Finamore

YA Fiction:

From top to bottom:
Let it Snow (3 novellas) by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Paper Towns by John Green
Chime by Franny Billingsley
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Blood Red Road by Moira Young