Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Little Bee is wonderful.
I agree with the jacket copy in that the magic is not in what happens, but in how the story unfolds. How the story unfolds is in beautiful language, in beauty and horror and everyday meanness and the kindness of strangers. The lives of a Nigerian refugee/illegal immigrant and a middle-class British magazine editor intersect. The book could be about the plundering of natural resources, about the state of deportation centers in Britain, about adultery, about first world/third world relations. In the hands of a lesser writer, the book could be about these things.
But like all good novels (good stories), the book is about what it is to be human. I love Little Bee's voice, it reminds me of Richard Llewellyn's achievement in How Green Was My Valley, how translation becomes poetry in humor and tragedy alike.
Little Bee is wonderful.

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Dead Bird/Heaven

This dawnlight awakened
by the thunk
of a bird hitting the bedroom window

how often I too
break my neck
flying toward the reflected trees
of heaven

when all the while
the great wide warm welcome
waits around me

Forking Fantastic Book Review

Forking Fantastic is forking fantastic!
When a book says, "Put the party back in dinner party," I expect great and funny things, and the authors do not disappoint.

Perhaps the book is best read with a glass of wine to hand (and mouth). I read the book in smorgasbord format, delving in here, diving in there, pausing in slight consternation (over the lamb, I don't do lamb--but hey, I might try it for a party. One could certainly use two meats at a big enough party!). I read the Intro, then jumped in; only now as I write this review did I discover the first chapter, "Pep Talk," in which the secret powers of cooking for others are revealed: Sex! Art! Power! But I am the cook in my household; I knew that.

Quotes: "Spatchcock: Another word we put in just because we like saying it." (It's Britspeak for butterflying.) "Raw chicken=napalm." From the recipe for Passion Fruit Curd: "Contrary to all cooking logic, more jam does not make it better--believe us, we've tried." "...give a few shakes, just to the point where you start getting embarrassed about the jiggling in your upper arms." Is this too many for reviews? "If only 'Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown' were just an awesome song by the Rolling Stones (re: entertaining.)" I have two favorites, one that is too long to retype but involves sausage gravy and a kindly farm wife--and: "... this is probably the secret of entertaining in a truly grand style: Jump in blindly. Julia would have approved. (Though be warned about the F-word, there's lots of it.)

The authors write both to cooking and entertaining novices and those with experience. They provide wine advice, definitions, and the lovely "learn from our mistakes" asides. There are lots of asides in this book, but I like that. There are also tips on "horde management" and kitchen equipment. I enjoy the relaxed style, as if one of your neighbors were there in your kitchen with you. The design of the book is great as well, allowing you to pay attention to the recipes only or to divert to other matters. Especially great is the fried chicken recipe, formatted for a few friends (1 chicken) or thirty (8 chickens) under the heading, ARE YOU INSANE?

My top recipes to try: Spanish Tortilla with Saffron (amazingly, this is not a flat substitute for bread, but a riff on a frittata!). Overnight Chuck Roast. Fish with pomegranate molasses (okay, the recipe's not in the book, but the suggestion is. I can wing it.). Baci di Ricotta.

Step by step recipes, step by step party set-up, this book revives my dreams of the international cooking club I started with my friends in middle school. Please, please please, Tamara & Zora, come over to my house & play! I, too, keep Jiffy Cornbread mix in my pantry. Behind the wine. And please bring Dapper Dan.

I have recommended the book to my local library system and friends, but I will not be loaning it to anyone. It's mine, all mine.
Disclosure: I won the book on goodreads.com. Yay!
Thanks!

Morning Poem

Job Hunting

Every few years

I come to a point

where I'm floundering:

a rudderless ship,

a leaf on the wind,

cuckoo's child in a strange nest.

What should I do? I ask.

What should I be?

Funnily enough the answer is always the same...

This is my job:

to get up singing

so that the sun will rise

in its glory;

to add my soul's small

gasp of delight

to the chirring chorus

of the waking world;

to stretch like a tree

with my arms held wide;

to capture the wind

and soak in light like water

pouring out of the sky.

I am a cloud child: water, light, salt.

This is my job:

to cradle each heart I touch

tenderly

for it will bloom into beauty;

to dream dreams

extravagant as fish

colored hummingbird-bright

swimming deep in the dark ocean

so that time will turn

like a kaleidescope

and stars will bloom

like bright hearts

in the smiling universe.

San Diego

Oh, how beautiful is Little Italy neighborhood in San Diego! Caprese sandwich! Crisp lovely Italian bread, tomato, fresh mozarella, balsamic vinegar. Yet another taste that is Heaven on Earth.
I say this after ceating a beautiful Thai/Indian dinner, marinating chicken breasts in fresh dried lemongrass--yes, i grew it myself! Adding garlic, some Tikka Masala spice, extra turmeric, my very own garlic/chili rub, sesame oil, teryaki sauce, peanut/sugar/chili. Marinating chicken for 12 hours--like to do it for 3 days--also did not do coconut milk but next time. Stir fry, adding onion to acheive the caramelization (say that word slowly, it's like sex). Set aside. Rice with red chili, gulangal, coconut milk. Stir frying peapods, broccoli, carrots. Mix chicken & onion, serve with rice. Heaven on a plate. I would eat Thai or Vietnamese every day. Or Caprese italiano. Or Mexican. Or steak, lobster, crab, asparagus, potatoes, leeks, green beans, corn...fruit salad. Food is good, I say definitively.
Celebrate life, my children, and yes, the pleasures of the senses. What else is incarnation for?
Peace out.

Nuclear Rap Blues

OK. Spent today making a video. Started meditating yesterday and saw the whole thing, so had to do it. Wrote the intro text in about 2 minutes, finished meditating, wrote the rest of the text/poem in about 15 minutes, spent today learning IMovie & doing the video. It was fun!
So you know I had to be balanced after writing the Atomic Cocktail Party. It's all there in the video, it's useless to blame about the past, we have to build the future in the now. Click on the title, natch, to see the piece on YouTube.
Cheers until later.

Good Friday Dreams

Actually, I didn't think about the date until now. I dreamt that I was "climbing the stairway to Heaven," only it was a building, a tower whose rooms were open to the elements and some of which had no interior access. Each room had a purpose, and people were living in quite a few of them. There were also quite a few of us climbing upwards. It required a lot of agility and acrobatics, especially when you had to leap up to the next level! I was coached & cheered on by the Dalai Lama (I didn't know this in the dream, I just recognized his face when I woke up). I woke up right before reaching the pinnacle.
The next night I dreamt I was in an underground mall of pleasures and vices. I walked very quickly past the room where they were eating tigers and as I was passing the brothel next door a Himalayan snow leopard accosted me--in a friendly wrestly way. We became companions and I didn't remember much of that one.
Obviously Tibet is trying to talk to me! As I write I remember Bardo and in Wiki find that some of it is about the Peaceful & Wrathful ones--pleasures and vices.
The Eternal Now is always the moment of becoming, living and dying are both transitional states.

You ask, do I take this (and myself) too seriously? I take it so seriously I go through to the other side and laugh!
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Justice and Mercy

Last three weeks was the trial of my distant cousin Mat for killing his grandmother, my grandmother's niece Dot, who we traveled with a few times. He killed her in February 2008 but reported her as missing and then confessed in March.
It went to the jury Friday and they returned the guilty verdict (guilty of murder and elder abuse, 25 years to life) at the end of the day Wednesday.

It never seemed that he was remorseful, but sometimes it's difficult to see inside another person's psyche. For me, I realized I'd been carrying around this great anger along with grief.

So I have been wrestling so with the concept of forgiveness and I think I understand more about justice, mercy, forgiveness & grace. At least to explain it to my Baptist-raised self.

Justice and injustice are what we receive when we live in the world of the Old Covenant; the 10 commandments are not God's whims, but the expression of the metaphysics of the created world, actions & consequences. When we repent (turning around) there is an actual movement in our lives & experience to live in the world of the New Covenant, Jesus' covenant, where the law is love and the consequence of love is mercy, i.e., forgiveness.

In the grace of God we experience that movement from one world to another; we are gifted with a new life, new hearts & minds, that we may experience the world of the Holy Spirit where miracles abound. This world of praise and wonder, gratitude and love, is the Kingdom of Heaven, at hand to us in each moment that we let go and let God be God.

When we are full of God's love is the only time that we can look on sinners (including ourselves) with compassion & mercy in our hearts...

If I look at Mat or anyone from this kingdom of love in God's heart, I can't hold on to judgement and anger; I can't say I don't have to forgive because that person hasn't repented.