The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama - Monday April 22, 2024

Michèle was our host for this April meeting.  She provided veggies with a dip, cheese and cocktail meatballs.  We also had a wonderful Persian Love Cake. The recipe is below.  

We discussed Marg's book choice The Light We Carry  by Michelle Obama.  This book is a follow-up to her  book Becoming that we read in September 2021.  Michelle Obama, as we all surely know,  was the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2015.

While we all enjoyed her first book, most of us were dissappointed with this follow-up book.  Becoming is an excellent autobiography, and very well written.  This book The Light We Carry is more of a book on how to improve your life, with anecdotes from her life repeated from the first book.   

For young women, certainly some of the anecdotes and suggestions on how to approach life may be useful but for women of a certain age, it is not much us.  

Thank you Marg for the book choice.  All of us were anxious to read it after Becoming.  

Recipe for the Persian Love Cake

Almond Cake With Cardamom and Pistachio

(Persian Love Cake)

 

This moist and springy Persian almond cake is generously spiced with ground cardamom (two full teaspoons). We like it with fresh berries. If you want to serve it for Passover, be sure to use kosher for Passover confectioners' sugar.

INGREDIENTS

Yield:One 9-inch cake (10 to 12 servings)

• ½cup vegetable oil, plus additional for pan
• 7 large eggs, separated
• 1cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon almond extract
• 3½cups /420 grams almond flour (see tip)
• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1 to 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
• 3 to 4 tablespoons finely chopped pistachio nuts, for garnish

 

1.      Step 1

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 9-inch round or square pan and set aside. Using a stand mixer, whisk egg whites until stiff but not dry, and set aside.

2.      Step 2

In a medium bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar, and whisk to blend. Whisk in almond extract and oil. Add almond flour and cardamom. Gently stir a third of the whites into the batter, then gently fold in the rest until just incorporated.

3.      Step 3

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and finish cooling on a rack. To decorate, dust with confectioners’ sugar and chopped pistachios.

TIP

• If you want to grind your own almond flour, start with 3 cups nuts. Using a large food processor, pulse almonds until very finely ground, stirring once or twice to prevent them from turning into a paste.

 

·       If you found the recipe online, you will see that it calls for 4.5 cups of almond flour. However, if you measure by weight, 420 grams is only 3.5 cups and that is what I used.  The batter will be very stiff and not as moist  if you use 4.5 cups. 

 

 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman - April 24th 2023

Michèle was our host this month.  Present were Beth, Betty, Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle, Shirley and coming back to the fold, an original member of the BookClub Marilyn.  Michèle served a smoked salmon mousse on cucumber slices, a garlic dip with veggies and devilled eggs. A chocolate, strawberry cream dessert was served.  Of course wine was available and tea. 

We discussed Marg's book choice The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.  Mr. Osman is a television and radio personality who in 2020 published his first crime fiction novel.  It became an instant success selling over a million copies in the U.K. alone. It has become a series and three more novels with the Thursday Murder Club members have been published.  According to Wikipedia, Steven Spielberg has acquired the book's film rights.

The Thursday Murder Club is a group of 4 retirees living in a well-to-do retirement village in Kent.  They meet every Thursday to go over clues of a crime to try to solve it.  They find themselves involved in a real crime when a developer of a retirement villages is murdered.  

Most of our members enjoyed the book, found the storyline well developed though somewhat confusing near the end.  The characters, the members of the Murder Club, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron are well described as are the two detectives Chris and Donna.  There is a fair amount of humour injected in the story and the plot moves well in short chapters. 

Members found the book to be light reading and enjoyable.  They liked the short chapters, that the characters were seniors who were active and into modern trends, all having cell phones and texting each other often.  They seemed well connected and often had sources and clues that had the detectives "running" to catch up to them in trying to solve the two murders.  Members liked that there were surprises at the end as to who were the murderers and why.  

Thank you Marg for offering us an enjoyable read. 

American Dirt - Jeannine Cummins - April 25, 2022

Present were Beth, Betty, Carla, Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle and Shirley.  We met at Colette's home and she provided us with an excellent variety of goodies, a lot Mexican,  taco torte, guacamole, both spicy and not, a nice variety of cheese and French chocolates.  Wine, coffee and tea was of course, also served.  

We discussed Marg's book choice, American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins.  This book was initially highly recommended by Oprah Winfrey.  It became very controversial when some Mexican-American authors criticized Ms. Cummins and the publication business of cultural appropriation, of creating Mexican stereotypes and using inaccurate Spanish phrases in the book.  The cover of the book with barbed wire was also severely criticized and has since been changed. Marg described the original cover with bluebirds that are free to fly anywhere including over borders and the barbed wire as cages that could limit. Both version appear above.

Jeannine Cummins is an American author.  She has published 4 books, 3 novels and a memoir.  She received a 7 figure advance for the book American Dirt.  

The novel is the story of a young middle class mother Lydia and her young son Luca who find themselves plunged into the terrifying life of migrants when her journalist husband and family are all assasinated.   They have no choice but to flee towards the American border.  

All our members enjoyed the book and found the story riveting and well worth reading.  Some found it exhausting but felt compelled to continue, to turn the page to read what situation Lydia and Luca would have to confront.  Ms. Cummins did an excellent job of describing the stress, the panic, the pressure to make instant decisions in difficult situations.  The characters are all well described, those they meet as they make their way to the border and those left behind.  

We had a discussion about the controversy the book caused in America and the publishing world.  Certainly we all agreed that limits cannot be placed on who writes about what story or subject.  However,  admittedly as a group of white middle class women, can we truly assess the impact such a book has on the Latinx authors community and the objectivity of the American publishing community?  

Born a Crime - April 26, 2021

It is Zoom again this month!  Present were Betty, Carla, Colette, Linda, Marg, Michèle and Shirley.  The book discussed this month, Marg's choice, was Born a Crime, Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah.  

Trevor Noah, born in Johannesburg South Africa during Apartheid to a black Xhosa mother and a white German Swiss father. He is considered in South Africa, a coloured person.  He was raised by his mother with little influence from his father.  His mother Patricia raised him with her mother in Soweto where her family lived.  During the first years of his life when Apartheid still existed he was kept mostly indoors to keep away from the eyes of the authorities. Trevor began his education in a private catholic school amongst mainly white children.  He soon realized that the best way to blend in with different groups was to know their language and he taught himself practically every language spoken in South Africa.  In his late teens he began a career in South African radio and television as a comedian and actor.  One of his television appearances was seen by Jon Stewart, previous host of The Daily Show, an American night time show.  He was offered the opportunity to replace Jon Stewart.  He moved to New York City in 2011.  

All members enjoyed the book and learned a lot about life in South Africa both during Apartheid and after  South Africa was liberated from white rule.  Trevor's experiences as he recounts them plunged the reader into the realities of Apartheid, poverty, violence and inequality.  With his mother who believed in grasping all opportunities, post-Apartheid gave them the chance to live more freely and Trevor embraced every opportunity he had.  

All of us admired Trevor's mother who pushed him to have an open mind and see all the opportunities the world offered.   Thank you Marg for a good book choice that allowed us to learn about South Africa. 

And Then There Were Nuns by Jane Christmas - April 27, 2020

Again this month we have met online to discuss this month's book, And Then There Were Nuns by Jane Christmas.  This is Marg's book choice.  Jane Christmas is a Canadian author presently living in Britain.  She has written 6 non-fiction books, mostly about her own experiences in life.  Her latest book,  Open House, discusses her 32 moves in her life, those with her parents and in her adult life throughout her 3 marriages, and as a single parent.

Marg chose this book from a short list given to her by a friend.  Having received an offer of marriage from her boyfriend of several years, Colin, Ms. Christmas decides that before accepting to enter into a third marriage, she must explore her long-time desire to enter into a monastic life as a nun.  Coming from what was then called a "mixed marriage", an Anglican father and Catholic mother, she sets out to visit and explore life in 4 different convents, one in Canada and 3 in Britain.

Most of our members enjoyed the book and thought it was a good read. Though she treats her faith seriously she was not, in her discussions with priests and nuns, always accepting of what others said. She held her own in discussions and this added to the exploration of attitudes and beliefs in the different convents. There was a fair amount of humour and her own self-deprecating descriptions of how she reacted to some situations were funny. Her descriptions of life in the 4 different convents gave us a fair amount of information about life for women who choose a monastic life. It also allowed us to see the difference between Catholics and Anglicans. Certainly she found life as a Catholic nun much more restrictive and confining.

One of our members found the book to be a perfect read during Lent.  She felt that Ms. Christmas described well her experiences, her spiritual hunger and was very honest about exploring her spirituality.

Many of us decided not far into the book, that Ms. Christmas would not at the end of this exploration choose to become a nun. Though the exploration of her faith is serious, her constant comments and thoughts on, for example, attire the nuns wore, whether they be formal habits or not and her difficulty in accepting long periods of silence, were clues to her eventual decision.  It seemed obvious that isolation from usual everyday life was not in the cards for her.

A couple of our members, who did not enjoy the book as much as others, felt that she was whining too much and one member who read What the Psychic told the Pilgrim, found that book similar.

Thank you Marg for an interesting choice.