Jean’s Pick of the Week (watch video): War Stories and Recipes: I’m in prophecy mode right now, but if Food Friday with Anna Badhken this afternoon comes close to what I’m anticipating, she’s got my vote. I’ve always been deeply connected to food – after all, I come from an Italian family – but it took the memoir of a war correspondent to get me to truly understand why. When everything else fails food, and especially the sharing of food, is what reminds us what it really means to be a human being.
Monday: Finding Utopia: Will utopia ever exist? JC Hallman travelled the world’s intentional communities to study our quest for a better perfect. He came back thinking that even when perfect fails, there’s something human about reaching for it.
Tuesday: Operation Peter Pan and Beyond Robert Wright in a recent NY Times op-ed discusses whether the significant rise of tolerance for gays in the US over the last generation is a road map for Muslims.
Wednesday: Inside Islam: The Butterfly Mosque: WWhy do so many women convert to Islam? You might think it’s because they fall in love with Muslim men, but in Willow Wilson’s case, conversion came first followed by romance.
Thursday: The Storyteller of Marrakesh: Earlier this fall, travel writer Raphael Kadushin whetted our appetite for the exotic in describing his trip to the Djamaa, the fabled medina of Marrakesh. Now, Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, an Indian novelist, takes us deeper in his novel based on the ancient art of storytelling as it’s still practiced by Hassan, the storyteller, as he gathers his listeners in the Djamaa.
Friday:Cooking with Italian Grandmothers: Just as I was about to concede that grandmothers – especially the Italian variety – are an endangered species along comes this glorious cookbook which, I admit, made me cry. The book is the result of a year chef Jessica Theroux spent cooking, foraging, and eating with Italian grandmothers from Milan to Sicily, learning their secrets and listening to their stories. Bless you, Jessica.
Happy Shopping/Happy Baking!
Jean
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