Cleaving

After the huge international success of Julie/Julia project/blog/book/movie/all round phenomenon, Julie Powell makes the somewhat surprising decision to become an unpaid apprentice butcher for 6 months. I guess her new found financial status allowed her certain freedoms, and she can chase her dreams. This still seems an odd dream to chase.

Julie Powell is definitely a card carrying carnivore. She revels in eating meat, and doesn't shy away from the more confronting aspects of her newly chosen career. She begins working at Fleisher's, a wonderful butchers in upstate New York 2 hours from her home. She learns many skills in her time there, and describes them in minute, rather gory detail at times. While I do eat meat, I am becoming more squeamish as I get older. I don't like recognising anatomy in meat, I have trouble dismembering a chicken now, and lamb neck chops look too much like CT slices for comfort. Julie relishes in the anatomy in front of her. Whilst I'm not quite the squeamish, near vegetarian who will only eat skinless, boneless chicken breasts of her disdain, I can understand how someone can get there. 

After her 6 months of hard work, and after her left wrist has caused quite a bit of trouble- an author's carpal tunnel doesn't always take to 6 months of constant physical work, she decides to take up a butcher's tour of sorts. Not quite the world tour I would undertake, but a very interesting travelogue all the same. Buenos Aires to eat steak. The Ukraine to eat sausages. A Masai village in Tanzania to drink cow blood. Apparently cow blood and goat blood taste different. Goat blood is sweet, I expect that to be a knowledge I will never fully grasp myself.  

Cleaving though is about much more than meat. It is about love, marriage and infidelity. Julie has been having a long running affair. I became irritated by her constant ramblings and thoughts about her lover, D. He didn't sound all that nice to be honest, and her obsession with him, to the detriment of her decent, loving husband Eric was sad, and pitiful at times. It is only at the start of disc 5 that she wonders out loud why she isn't thinking or talking of Eric. Still, it's an amazingly frank and honest account of her life.

Julie is also obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are many quotes and references. Too many, I think. Perhaps that is just an overly curmudgeonly view because I totally missed the whole Buffy thing. I have friends who who similarly enraptured, although they don't insist on continuously referencing Buffy 10 years later, mercifully. Her family have a wonderful Christmas tradition of doing a giant jigsaw puzzle wherever they gather, that sounds such a clever, slightly old-fashioned idea for an indoor activity in cold weather that brings people together. It makes me wish that our Christmas was in winter so I could adopt it with my family, but the Australian Christmas has too many summer distractions to make it feasible.

I won this intriguing audio CD from the wonderful Margot for participating in the Foodies Reading Challenge last year. I'm so pleased and grateful that she sent it all the way to Australia for me to enjoy. I would never have come across it otherwise. Cleaving is well written, and the audiobook well read by Julie herself. I slipped the first disc into the player in the car as I left home for an unexpected solo trip. I'd never used an audiobook on a trip before, it was a wonderful driving companion. I don't plan to completely give up my collection of tragic 70s CDs for driving, but an audiobook makes a great change once in a while. I feel somewhat at a loss now that these 9 CDs are finished. 

Black Swans

The Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) is a well known, and even iconic Australian bird. It is rather common here, depending on where you live. Sadly, I don't see them at home, but frequently do on visits to Canberra (and Newcastle). It's always a thrill to see them.

They're common in Tasmania too, which is where I took these next two shots. 

Our black swans have a call and so I was surprised to learn that the European white swan was mute when I went to Ireland in 2010. Interesting to learn on wiki that New Zealand had a subspecies of black swan, but that it was sadly hunted to extinction.


Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books

Wondrous Words 9/5/12

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.  

Both my words this week come from my perusings of the Sydney Morning Herald Saturday edition- usually many weeks after it was published. This first word comes from an interesting profile of writer and potter Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes. 

1. Adamantine.

The kind of adamantine, hard icy core to the creative life is that the work matters.


i) Made of or resembling adamant
ii) Having the hardness or luster of a diamond
iii) Unyielding; inflexible

I thought it was going to be an actual substance, but it appears it's not so. I'm just old enough that I can't get this image out of my head though. 

Picture credit

The second word comes from an fascinating review of a book called Alexander Macleay: From Scotland to Sydney. Macleay was an early figure in Sydney society, although more on the margins than I previously believed it seems. The Macleay Museum at Sydney University (which I walked past pretty much every day for a decade or so, but never entered!) is named after him, and he built Elizabeth Bay House. Fascinating to learn that he loved wisteria and introduced it into Australia, and that his daughter Rosa Onslow probably gave us lantana- now a noxious weed. 

2. Termagant

Relatively little was known of him before he arrived in Sydney, but before long he was being ridiculed: his daughters were said to be well educated but neither pretty nor wealthy, and his wife a termagant. 

A quarrelsome, scolding woman; a shrew. The Free Dictionary

I'm not sure Alexander had all that good a time of it actually. 

Bone China

During the week I noticed a cool reflection on the splash back in the kitchen. It took me a while to work out where it came from. It was from a plate on the bench!

Saturday Snapshot, is a wonderful weekly meme from at home with books

The Naming of Tishkin Silk

I finished The Naming of Tishkin Silk last week. And then I reread it today, on a sick day, spent mostly lounging about in bed. It's a gentle little book. With a great big knot of sadness at it's core. 

The setup is quirky, Griffin, an uncommon boy, born on the 29th of February and his Rainbow sisters- Scarlet, Indigo, Violet, Amber and Saffron have been homeschooled by their mother. Now his mother and baby sister are away, and Griffin is forced to attend to the local school for the first time. 

From the very beginning of the story we are aware that Griffin holds himself responsible for why his mother and sister aren't at home. 

If he were an ordinary boy then maybe Mama wouldn't have gone away. Maybe his secret thoughts wouldn't have changed everything.

It is obvious to the adult reader that whatever Griffin's secret thoughts had been they aren't going to be the reason that his mother and sister aren't there. 

Griffin lives with his Rainbow sisters, his father,grandmother Nell and dog, Blue in the family house, the Kingdom of Silk, up the Silk Road (I love that, it's too funny). The Silk family are hippies I suppose, with their rainbow names, pet crow, and daisy chain making habits. Griffin befriends Princess Layla, a girl from school who also wears daisy chain crowns. 

He understood right away, that a person who believed in the magic of daisies, a person skilled in the art of crown-making was likely to be an uncommon kind of person.

There's some beautiful writing especially in the latter parts of the book:

He felt himself falling, down, down, and then something warm. He opened his eyes. Layla was beside him, still holding his hand. Inside, he felt something swell, like the tiny flare of a match in the darkness. Layla smiled and squeezed his hand and the feeling grew stronger. And though Griffin, didn't realise it, the feeling had a name. It was courage. 

Griffin, named after the mythical beast, finds his courage, and we find the answer to the whereabouts of his mother and sister in a bittersweet ending.

The Naming of Tishkin Silk was published in 2003, and was an Honour Book in the 2004 Childrens Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Younger Readers.  It became the first of six books in the Kingdom of Silk series. I've got #2 Layla, Queen of Hearts on reserve at my library. I'm looking forward to it. 

Wondrous Words Wednesday 2/5/12- and a bit of a rant

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our weekly reading.  

I love that new words can turn up anywhere. Often when you least expect them. This week's word came from following a link on Facebook and reading an article about The 15 Grossest Things You're Eating. I could cope with paint chemicals in salad dressing and cloned cows stomach. But was completely stopped in my tracks by Beaver Anal Gland Juice. It's known as Castoreum. 

Castoreum (Noun)

A peculiar bitter orange-brown substance, with strong, penetrating odour, found in two sacs between the anus and the external genitals of the beaver; castor; used in medicine as an antispsamodic, and by perfumers. The Free Dictionary. 

Castoreum is indeed the secretion from beaver anal glands. Beavers combine it with urine and use it to mark their territories. Humans use it as vanilla or raspberry flavouring in foods! And rather incredibly in perfumes. It can even be labelled as "natural flavouring"in foods as it is a natural product- for beavers. 

There are so many questions! How did anyone ever think of using it for any use? There is apparently a reasonably long history of use such that the FDA classes it as Generally Recognised as Safe, and there have not been any reports of human adverse reactions. 

Still, I've seen what comes out when my vet treats my dog's blocked anal glands. Definitely not appetising. I don't want to spread it on toast, or drink it. 

Jamie Oliver isn't a fan either.

I can only hope that as we don't have beavers in Australia that I'm not at much risk of accidentally ingesting some beaver anal products. I wonder if I ever have? It really doesn't bear thinking about. I think I would be happy if castoreum was banned. 

The Messenger

Like every reader in the English speaking world I too have read The Book Thief. It is certainly an amazing experience. So, I was very interested to check out an earlier work from Markus Zusak, The Messenger. You know you're in for an interesting read when the story starts with an armed robbery. And the first sentence is

The gunman, is useless. 

The premise is fabulous. Ed Kennedy, is our somewhat nerdy, underconfident 19 year old hero and narrator.

My full name's Ed Kennedy. I'm nineteen. I'm an under-age cab driver. I'm typical of many of the young men you see in this suburban outpost of the city- not a whole lot of prospects or possibility. That aside, I read more books than I should, and I'm decidedly crap at sex and doing my taxes. 

But he does have a wonderful, smelly old dog, called the Doorman. I think that's just about the most fabulous name for a dog that I've come across. Well perhaps apart from Taxi.

Not long after the bank robbery Ed starts receiving a series of intriguing playing cards, the first being the ace of diamonds, with 3 addresses and 3 times written on it. This card starts Ed's mysterious quest. What is going on in these houses? Something different in each one as it turns out. Ed needs to bring something to each situation. Particularly moving is his interaction with an old lady, Milla, who lives alone having been widowed many years ago.

I was really interested in, and impressed by the premise of the story, but never fully engaged in the actual reading. I enjoyed the book, but was never fully immersed in the story. And if truth be told, I think I'm still just a bit mystified by the ending.