Carolina Comments: Watching, Reading, Eating

VIEWING:  HISTORY MADE VIVID

The American Revolution (PBS)

Battle of Princeton, 1777 (npr.org)

Ken Burns has done it again!  The American Revolution, his latest series, is fascinating, compelling, and a rich viewing experience.  The Chief Penguin and I just completed the second episode (each is two hours, so we watch half at a time), but we are finding it eye-opening.  Burns has assembled a wide cast of historians and writers who provide additional commentary.  This group is impressive for its diversity: women, men, Black and white, Native American and other.  

We also hear the words of past poets and statesmen like Phyllis Wheatley and Washington, Franklin, and John Adams, voiced by the likes of Amanda Gorman, Claire Danes, and Mandy Pantinkin.  Anyone who has watched previous series will also immediately recognize the distinctive voice, deep with a slight rasp, of overall narrator Peter Coyote.  

Burns brings to life the contributions of ordinary farmers and highlights the unique role Blacks played. Some enslaved Blacks joined the British soldiers lured by the promise of freedom afterward. Black free men petitioned to join the Patriots and, after some debate, were allowed into the Massachusetts militia, an unusual circumstance.  

It’s a complicated time, and we are learning aspects of history we had not known. The pace is measured and deliberate containing many small stories and incidents within the larger sweep of history. There are six episodes totaling 12 hours of viewing.  Highly recommended!

A personal footnote:  In 2006, Ken Burns was the commencement speaker at Lehigh University.  The night before, we entertained him and the other honorary degree recipients at a small dinner at our home.  I had the pleasure of having him seated on my right and enjoyed conversing throughout the meal.  As expected, he was personable and delightful. 

DINING:  CELEBRATING AT THE MAYTON

In honor of our upcoming anniversary, we went downtown to the Mayton for dinner at Peck and Plume.  We hadn’t been there in a while, and they have a relatively new chef.  We requested seating in the library opposite the dining room and bar and were pleased with our quiet cozy table.  

I had a lovely cobia crudo to begin.  The thin slices of fish were layered on tapioca with dollops of avocado mousse around the plate along with kohlrabi and fresh basil.  Light and delicious.  The Chief Penguin enjoyed the starter of roasted Brussels sprouts and then had the sea bass, market fish of the day.  

Chicken Ballotine

I went for the chicken ballotine, a row of round chicken slices backed by a stripe of broccolini and another stripe of mounded polenta.  I loved the chicken but felt the polenta needed something more to pep it up.  As a dessert treat, our waitress brought us a trio of macarons on a bed of chocolate gravel.  Overall, it was an enjoyable outing!

READING: DEADLY PLANTS

In July, I reviewed an advance copy of a new mystery for BookBrowse. It has now been published so I’m sharing my review of it here.

The Botanist’s Assistant by Peggy Townsend

Author Townsend (amazon.com)

Margaret is a research assistant and lab manager for the eminent Dr. Weaver.  She thinks highly of her boss, almost adores him, and he is one of the few individuals who appreciates her and the quality of her work. When Margaret finds him dead in a disheveled state, she assumes he has been murdered.  The police don’t share her suspicions, but she starts investigating and enlists the help of Joe, a news journalist turned janitor.  

This is a mystery, but a slowly unfolding one.  Margaret is a quirky character, direct in her speech, and ungainly in appearance.  She leads a tidy life with meals and activities timed and done in precisely the same order every time.  While putting up with the eccentricities of her colleague Calvin, she barges forth, sneaking around, and collecting data on those she deems suspects.  Aided by Joe and adopted by a cat, Margaret is sometimes forced to loosen up her approach to life and friendship as together they seek to identify the culprit. 

I found that Margaret grew on me, and I began to enjoy her foibles and to cheer as she accepted Joe’s offers of help and the occasional meal.  For me, the ending was a surprise. Recommended for fans of cozy mysteries and those who like the world of plants.  Is there a sequel for Margaret in the making? (~JWFarrington)

Carolina Comments: Reading

Fall color in early November

READING AND RE-READING

Some people I know are frequent re-readers.  If they have a favorite book, they will read it again several years later and then again.  I, on the other hand, shy away from reading any book a second time.  I make exceptions for great literature like the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, or Henry James.  I have read Jane Eyre several times, Jane Austen’s Persuasion is one of my all-time favorites, and Washington Square, Portrait of a Lady, and The Ambassadors are James novels that stand up well to a second or third reading.  

My current book club selects both new and older works for its monthly discussions.  I have read about half the titles already and, in general, will skim rather than fully re-read the book.  A recent exception to that is the memoir that follows.

WHAT MAKES UP ONE’S IDENTITY?

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro at 60 (oldster.substack.com)

I first read Inheritance in 2021, about two years after it was published, for my Florida book group.  I found it a stunning story then and probably focused most on how Dani Shapiro was going to deal with finding her biological father and whether she would ever get to meet him in person.  I gave it brief mention in a blog post.

This time, I read it more carefully (again for a book group) and more fully appreciated how jarring it was for Ms. Shapiro who had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home with a very observant and religiously devoted father to discover that her roots were also Christian.  She had always felt like something was off in the way that her three-person family interacted, and at various times, relatives or strangers told her she couldn’t be Jewish because she was blond and blue-eyed.  At age 54, her sense of identity wasn’t challenged but fractured by her DNA results. She felt disoriented and adrift.

As a coping mechanism, she reads widely: philosophical works on the soul and selfhood, and medical works on artificial insemination in the 1960’s. She consults family and experts while struggling to unearth the circumstances of her conception and the motivations of her parents.  She aims for facts that might be unobtainable and ultimately, has to accept an incomplete or partial picture of those events. 

Overall, Shapiro’s memoir is candid (written as events unfolded), thoughtful, and probing.  In learning her story, the reader is prompted to think about one’s own identity and how it is shaped by family history, culture, and assumptions. Highly recommended!

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: FRIEND OR FOE: A NOVEL

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

Holsinger (virginia.edu)

Bruce Holsinger is an English professor, a medievalist at the University of Virginia, who also writes fiction.  Several of his earlier works received praise and prizes.  His latest novel, Culpability, is very much a 21st century work with artificial intelligence (AI) a key presence.

Told mostly in the first person by Noah Cassidy, a lawyer, husband to AI genius and university professor Lorelei Shaw, and father of three children, Charlie 17, Alice 13, and Izzie 9, it is a story of a family in crisis.  The family car, thanks to Lorelei’s insistence, is a self-driving minivan with all the latest features.  On the superhighway in Maryland, Charlie is driving, and his father is writing a memo on his laptop, while Lorelei and the girls are in the back seat.  Their vehicle collides with another one in a horrible accident and two people die.  Who is responsible and what will happen to all of them?

Charlie is a star athlete who’s been indulged and cossetted, Izzie ends up with a broken leg, Lorelei has a concussion requiring a neck brace, and Alice, shaken up, seeks refuge in an AI pal.  When the family takes a getaway week at a house on the water, their next door neighbor turns out to be an ultra-rich tech mogul with a gorgeous daughter. Charlie is captivated, but something in the interactions with these folks doesn’t seem quite right. This subplot provides some intriguing twists and turns.

Interspersed between Noah’s account of the family’s life in the year after the crash are fragments of Lorelei’s writings on AI and transcriptions of Alice’s conversations with her new “friend” who may not be as helpful as either one of them believes.

The novel is gripping and thought-provoking and raises questions about how we parent our kids, what secrets we keep, the power of wealth, and the sometimes-ambiguous role of smart computers in daily life.  Who is to blame when a hands-free vehicle crashes?  When, and to what extent, are we as individuals culpable for technological glitches?  Provocative, complex, and highly recommended, Culpability is also an Oprah’s Book Club pick for 2025.  (~JWFarrington)

Note: Autumn photo ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Carolina Comments: Mostly Vacation Books

VACATION READING

Rossio Square, Lisbon

When I’m on a long trip like our most recent one, I usually do some reading, but I don’t attempt any serious long fiction.  Mostly, I read lighter fare, some of it fluff, which is diversion for those scattered bits of downtime.  Here are several of those titles.

SWEET NOVEL

A Shoe Story by Jane L. Rosen

Esme’s life is thrown off track when her mother dies, and her father needs constant medical care.  She gives up her boyfriend, her plans to move to New York, and spends seven years in her small hometown.  When her father dies, she finally gets to Manhattan and ends up being a live-in dog walker for a woman with a fabulous collection of designer shoes.  How Esme revisits her past love life, makes new friends, and sorts herself out for the future make for a fun and affecting novel with a satisfying ending. 

GARDENS AND INTRIGUE

The Restoration Garden by Sara Blaydes

Master gardener Julia is hired to restore an English manor garden outside London to its 1940 glory.  Her clients are the owner, Margaret, and her godson Andrew.  With little in the way of drawings or recollections, Julia must ferret out what Margaret wants and what is driving her obsession with this garden.  

The novel fluctuates between the present day and Margaret and half-sister Irene’s life with their scientist father and gentle mother in 1940.  The father is based in part on a real government scientist, while secrets and deception lurk beneath the surface.  A fascinating historical novel!

DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY

These Summer Storms by Sarah McLean

The title, These Summer Storms, is a pun on the raging Storm family.  Estranged from her ultra-wealthy family for five years, Alice returns to their summer home for her father’s funeral.  Demanding and difficult, her father has set up a crazy contest between the five children which will determine what they inherit; all of them must participate.  Alice has developed a career as an artist and must decide whether to stay or go.  This was not a happy book to read, but I was rooting enough for Alice to finish it.

FINDING OR RE-INVENTING YOURSELF 

Her Lisbon Colors by Cynthia Morris

Morris (amazon.com)

When Her Lisbon Colors popped up on a recent book list, I was intrigued mostly because of the Lisbon setting, a city I was going to for the first time.  So, I kept it to read while in Lisbon and very much enjoyed the main character’s explorations of venues I too was discovering.

At 41, Darla is unhappy as a project manager in Boulder.  She doesn’t like her job, doesn’t love Boulder, and when a very close friend dies, she forces herself to get out of her rut and travel.  She is wary about new situations and new people, but she carries a sketchbook everywhere she goes and derives pleasure and satisfaction from sketching the scenes and colors she observes.  A relationship with a rock climber and the development of her art start her on a path to finally becoming her own person.  

I liked many aspects of this novel, which is partly based on the author’s own experiences. (Morris is a visual artist and writer.)  But I was frustrated by Darla’s lack of concern for obtaining the proper documentation for her longer stay, her unfocused approach to the future, and her occasional whininess.  Nonetheless, I cared enough about her delayed maturity to see her through to the end.  Recommended for the setting.

WATCHING

The Diplomat, Season 3 (Netflix)

Kate & Hal Wyler (Netflix.com

In the latest season of The Diplomat, Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell are back as Kate and Hal Wyler, married dueling diplomats.  And they are joined by the inimitable Allison Janney as Vice President Grace Penn.  When the series opens, Kate is U.S. ambassador to the U.K., and Hal is the trailing spouse.  

An ongoing political crisis with the Brits, Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge, in particular, turns everything topsy turvy and the hijinks continue.  As much as this series is about politics, it’s even more about the marriage between Kate and Hal.  The cast overall is superb and, one never knows from where the next curve ball will come.  Recommended!

Spain & Portugal: The Last Bite

I’m milking this travel experience for all it’s worth.  I decided to share additional notes about food and also something about flamenco.

DANCE IN SEVILLE

Flamenco originated in the south of Spain and is particularly associated with Seville.  Performances are usually in small halls seating around 50 people, and there are numerous venues around the city.  We went to one venue that offered several one-hour performances that day.  It was our first real exposure to flamenco.

Chairs at the ready on the stage or low platform

Seating was in 2 rows around three sides of the stage or tabla.  We were in the first row very close to the performers.  Five people in all: a guitarist who played or beat the entire time; two singers, a man and a woman who alternated singing or providing percussive sounds with their hands and feet; and two dancers, male and female.  The show was dramatic, moving, and fascinating.  

Taking bows; the dancer with three of the musicians

The man and woman danced together in one number, and then each danced separately with a lot of fancy footwork and emphatic facial expressions.  She used castanets part of the time, while he swaggered and expressed a full range of emotions. 

Male dancer on the right with part of the troupe

 Like Irish dancing, the footwork is fast and loud.  We didn’t understand the lyrics, of course, but we still caught the mood.

DINING

For Americans, the later times for meals in Spain can be challenging.  Lunch, eaten sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 pm, is the big meal of the day, with dinner at 10:00 or later.  Spaniards will sometimes have a drink or snack in the early evening around 5:00 or 6:00.  

We were pleased when we arrived in Lisbon to discover that even though our hotel didn’t serve breakfast until 8:00 am (late for us), lunch began at 12:00 or 12:30, and many restaurants started serving dinner at 6:30 or 7:00, some even as early as 6 pm.  These times were much more to our liking.

FOOD

In our travels around the world, the Chief Penguin and I have frequently enjoyed food tours with a local guide. They are a great way to sample the particular cuisine of a city or country. In Hanoi, we savored warm bowls of pho in a small cafe on a cold morning; in Rome, we queued for pizza slices at a wildly popular place and ate them perched outside against a wall.  And, as you know from my earlier posts, we had a marvelous pinxtos tour in San Sebastian, a tapas tour in Seville, and finally have ended with another tapas tour in Lisbon.  This army “travels on its stomach.”

With Federico, our engaging guide from Eating Europe, we made stops in several neighborhoods in Lisbon.  It was easily one of the more unusual food tours we’ve done anywhere with a wide variety of tastes.

Chicken skewers with peanut coconut sauce
Firemen’s sardines
Caldo Verde

The chicken skewers were our first stop with white wine to accompany them. We tasted sardines that had been doused in grappa (or the equivalent) and then lit, at a tiny grocery market cum cafe. I tried the local beer with my one sardine.

Our third stop was a rustic bar and restaurant in a church basement. Caldo verde is green soup made from collard greens or kale and onion in water thickened with potatoes and topped with several thin rounds of chorizo. The soup was excellent and, along with it, we had a pork steak sandwich with piri piri pepper sauce. Here, I sampled the local hard cider which had a slightly sour taste.

Our last stop was a fancier restaurant where we each sampled a cod cake and a croquette with some Portuguese white wine. Meanwhile, our guide went out to the pastry shop and brought back their famous pastel de nada or egg tart. It was custard sitting in a croissant-like shell.

Cod cake and Jewish sausage croquette
Egg tart

For the record, I didn’t finish every bite and certainly not every drop of alcohol!

SUNDAY LUNCH

On Sunday, our last full day in Lisbon, we opted to try one of renowned Portuguese chef Jose Avillez’s restaurants.  

Interior, Cantinho do Avillez

Based on reviews, we chose his more casual Cantinho do Avillez, which was a short walk from our hotel and not in the trendy section.  It was a delicious meal with fried green beans and croquettes to start, followed by a lovely shrimp dish topped with cashews for me and codfish cakes and tomato rice for the Chief Penguin.  

Deep fried green beans with truffle tartar sauce

We ended with an everything hazelnut (hazelnut ice cream, foam, and crumbles) dessert that was called “life-changing.”  That with a bit of sherry topped off the experience. 

Toasting at Cantinho do Avillez

We ate very well throughout our entire trip, so much so that I must quickly get back to some vigorous exercise.

Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)