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Bezig met laden... Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Timesdoor Suzan Colón
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. A short little read about not just nourishing your body (recipes included) during uncertain economic times, but about nourishing your soul. It's a good reminder that there are many kinds of poverty and poverty of the spirit is the worst kind. The author's grandparents and mother knew how to make do with less and do it with resilience, high spirits and optimism. Their stories were definitely the high point of the book. Harder to relate to were Suzan's "hardships". Stories of how she lost her 6 figure income and had to forego shopping trips to Whole Foods, eating lunch out every day of the week, $600 coats, $250 shoes, $300 haircuts, ultra expensive face creams, massages, etc were difficult to relate to. Perhaps some of those details should have been left out of the book. They seemed frivolous and trite compared to the plight of her ancestors and the plight of many Americans. Even so they were a very small part of the story and didn't detract from the basic message of hope and what really matters in life. A memoir that isn't all about the author and her navel-gazing: instead it's a charming conceit that wraps around three generations of women and some lovely recipes. A quick read, not so much because it's easy to read (it is! Suzan Colon is a wonderful writer!) but because you won't want to put it down. Colon's memoir is a heartening account of a suddenly unemployed writer who draws inspiration to batten down the hatches in hard times from old family recipes. Colon intersperses her memories with anecdotes from her mother, and family histories of her grandmother, who learned to save pennies during the Great Depression. The different women do blur together (two of Colon's relatives are confusingly named Matilda and Matilde) but this is, overall, a light, encouraging read about working with what you've got. Suzan Colon lost her job as a magazine writer. Although her husband is employed and has benefits, she must still watch her pennies. She turns to economizing, rediscovering her grandmother's recipes. She includes moments in her family's story from three generations. Unfortunately the narrative did not flow well and was full of poorly constructed sentences and incomplete sentences. What should have been an enjoyable read for me turned out to be a chore. The best part of the book were the copies of the handwritten or typed recipes. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Cooking & Foo
Essay
Self-Improvemen
Nonfictio
HTML:What is the secret to finding hope in hard times? When Suzan Colón was laid off from her dream job at a magazine during the economic downturn of 2008, she needed to cut her budget way, way back, and that meant home cooking. Her mother suggested, ??Why don??t you look in Nana??s recipe folder?? In the basement, Suzan found the tattered treasure, full of handwritten and meticulously typed recipes, peppered with her grandmother Matilda??s commentary in the margins. Reading it, Suzan realized she had found something more than a collection of recipes??she had found the key to her family??s survival through hard times. Suzan began re-creating Matilda??s ??sturdy food? recipes for baked pork chops and beef stew, and Aunt Nettie??s clam chowder made with clams dug up by Suzan??s grandfather Charlie in Long Island Sound. And she began uncovering the stories of her resilient family??s past. Taking inspiration from stylish, indomitable Matilda, who was the sole support of her family as a teenager during the Great Depression (and who always answered ??How are you?? with ??Fabulous, never better!?), and from dashing, twice-widowed Charlie, Suzan starts to approach her own crisis with a sense of wonder and gratitude. It turns out that the gift to survive and thrive through hard times had been bred in her bones all along. Cherries in Winter is an irresistible gem of a book. It makes you want to cook, it makes you want to know your own family??s stori Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Deelnemer aan LibraryThing Vroege RecensentenSuzan Colón's boek Cherries in Winter was beschikbaar via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Actuele discussiesGeenPopulaire omslagen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)394.120973Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore General Customs Eating, drinking, using drugs Eating and drinking History, Geography, PeoplesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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Colòn goes through her grandmother's recipes, using them to economize even as she bemoans the loss of the ability to shop in an expensive grocery store and to buy whatever struck her fancy without considering the cost and that cost's impact on her weekly bottom line. Buying whatever she wanted was a sign that she'd moved beyond her family's long history of living paycheck to paycheck and the need to stretch their meals as far as possible. So when she lost that ability, it was hard for her to accept. But as she cooked the economical recipes from her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, she learned not only how to make it through but also about the strong, resilient women from whom she came. The dishes she recreates, some not entirely faithfully, come with family stories attached and there is wisdom imparted along with the stories and food. She weaves tales from her own life and from the women who came before her into the almost diary like narrative. It is possible to see Colon's magazine background in the spare, straightforward writing. Each chapter is started with a recipe or a snippet from her grandmother's column that leads her down memory lane as well as into her current situation. She is undoubtedly privileged and far from destitute, which will make her unhappiness with her situation tough for some to stomach (a little pun to lighten the mood), but she's honest about the difficulty she faces and the reason why it takes such an emotional toll on her. This is a very quick read. The family stories are heartfelt and illustrative; it was nice to see Colòn realize what is most important in her life, and it's surely not where she can afford to buy her groceries. ( )