I love murder mysteries & history. Preferably in the same book.
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I was compelled to complete this book. This book describes CSA and is set in the 70s Washington DC but called "Kingdoms" and so feels very mystical and lush. I really enjoyed the sentences peppered throughout the book.
I really enjoyed reading this especially about Bokashi composting which can compost OIL. I have not been making a lot of fried things because I didn't know how to use up the oil that remained. Here is a great in-kitchen process that can do it. All you have to do is to mix it up with some browny material like wood chips, cardboard, paper and soil after to fully let it decompose. Decided to buy myself a copy for reference.
I love how practical this book is. A lot of the recipes share ingredients that make short work of making these as weekly meals and there is enough recommendation for how to save the leftovers for later. Lots of vegetarian dishes as well. There are some assumptions about cooking made so it's not for the very beginner but the eagle eyed can YouTube these actions and make these meals. I loved Avocado pesto, soy veg momos I made so far.
While "Glory Be" is very upper class and fancy, this is more a working class mystery sequel to a non-mystery fiction. I didn't read the first in the series and it was still very interesting. Some homophobia and racism in the book though not sure the homophobia was warranted. It felt very cozy and lovely read.
Love Lev A C Rosen's historical mystery set in SF. I am still upset I had to learn from this book about whites only gay clubs. Here is the Facebook page of one of the whites only clubs that inspired the one in the book. Can you see any indication it was whites only? www.facebook.com/GLBTHistory/posts/jacks-baths-was-one-of-san-franciscos-longest-running-bathhouses-in-operation-fr/10152233415061176/
The mystery is perfect & the romance is not too sappy. Highly recommend for the great atmosphere created of SF in the 50s, the huge presence of Navy & its impact on San Francisco.
Why is it that I have to learn from a murder mystery that there were several "whites only" gay bars in San Francisco? Not a single history I have ready of gay bars in SF mention that fact explicitly.
Since Cynthia Shanmugalingam was a young girl, she has worked to piece together her sense …
I was so looking forward to making some Sri Lankan food but sadly this book does not deliver on that end. For example, the author writes so beautifully of Neer mor which is a yoghurt based spicy drink that you consume in summer and then the recipe that follows is not for Neer mor but for a labneh like dish "similar" to Neer mor. I never knew what was for breakfast/lunch/dinner but also didn't know how these dishes were supposed to be eaten. They looked like plates you get at a 5 star restaurant and not like a filling meal.
Additionally, this book requires fresh grated coconut for almost all its recipes which makes sense but also I wasn't in the vicinity of a store with that which made it really hard to find a recipe to cook with. Oh well.
An irresistible literary murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a …
I don't understand why I do this to myself. I always end up reading a whodunnit that tries to be so smart that it fails miserably. I really wanted to yank the collar of the author by the end (if you get to it, you will know why).
This book even got a NYT author profile!! I cannot even. www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/books/dann-mcdorman-west-heart-kill.html
Divya Manian
boosted
O que é o amor, afinal? Será esta uma pergunta tão subjetiva, tão opaca? Para …
At a fun party, mostly of educated, well-paid professionals, a multi-racial, multigenerational evening, the subject of disciplining kids by hitting was raised… As one man bragged about the aggressive beatings he had received from his mother, sharing that “they had been good for him,” I interrupted and suggested that he might not be the misogynist woman-hater he is today if he had not been brutally beaten by a woman as a child.
— All About Love by bell hooks
Imagine not only getting owned this badly at a party, but also having it recorded in a bestselling book
"The same holds true for Sigiriya…where there once lived a king who…paint[ed] frescoes of his many women, all beautiful, all bare-breasted, and all carp-eyed…Of these paintings, R A L H Gunawardana observes: 'the complexions of the ladies depicted in the paintings vary from a light yellow-brown to a deep blue or black color…the paintings certainly depict members of highest social strata. The variety of physical types that they represent clearly indicates that the dominant social group at the time was not physically homogeneous'"
— Charred Lullabies by E. Valentine Daniel (Page 57)
My conspiracy theory that the obsession with white/fair skin only started with the invasion & colonization by the light skinned people is getting more enmeshed with the quote above.
"While all Tamils proudly lay claim to Tiruvalluvar as their poet…it is the Parayans, the untouchable caste of drummers, who lay special claim to this famous poet. They consider Tiruvalluvar as their very own ancestor. To this day, the priests of Parayans are called Valluvars"
— Charred Lullabies by E. Valentine Daniel (Page 30)
This is fascinating. Also, the author is talking about the caste that is vilified in English as the "P*riahs" so here is another reminder to stop using that word to describe people who are treated as less than human.
Since Cynthia Shanmugalingam was a young girl, she has worked to piece together her sense …
"They agreed with me, but we were all silent, hearing the trash talk about a divorced great-aunt, a gay cousin, a Muslim son-in-law, the 'low-caste' neighbors; hearing the same kind of grotesque everyday hatred that had been directed at Tamil people for so long."
— Rambutan by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (Page 194)
Haven't yet made a single recipe but these stories and the diversity of food selected for this book is making this a must-read for me. Beautiful work.
It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her …
Lovely southern mystery featuring a crotchety old lady who loves thrifting and her daughter who investigate the apparent suicide of a nun. Mystery is predictable but lovely descriptions of Louisiana, the racism that intersects with pollution, and almost no copaganda (except for a brief description of romance with a police officer).
The case in Olivia Matthews's Coconut Drop Dead is going to be a tough nut to crack.
Brooklyn’s annual Caribbean …
