Hartwood

You think it is hard to get reviews for your new restaurant in Manhattan, think about how hard it is to get great reviews in Tulum.

Where is Tulum?

Exactly.

Heartwood embodies one of those tales that people talk of, but rarely do we see them come to fruition. So...once upon a time...2009, to be exact, Eric Werner and Mya Henery were headed back to New York after a brief vacation in Tulum, Mexico.  That's where Tulum is,  the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It was place Henry's family visited for years. But in 2009, they thought, why are we going back to the cold to cook food, make no money, spend most of it for rent, have no time nor money for kids when we could open a restaurant on the beach, cook great food, have no money but live on the beach.  It sounded too good to be true.

Truth is, for most people, cooking with François Payard and Wylie Dufresne would satisfy most people. They would talk a good game, but never save up the money to head to Mexico and open a restaurant. But Werner and Henery weren't most people.

And off they went. Before you think it was all surf and sand and rainbows, think again.  On the beach means slightly off the beach in the jungle.  It means no laundry delivery, no electricity, and no real roof. So cooking on an open fire, getting rained on, getting bitten by spiders are all in a days work. 

After many of those days, people started talking about Hartwood. It was worth the excursion and more and more and more people made it to this jungle hideaway. The food was simple but exploding with flavor, even if you might get rained on. The more people ventured out, the more they talked about the food.

Now you, too, can talk about the food and cook some of it right in your own kitchen.  Hartwood by Eric Werner and Mya Henry tells tales of their adventure and offers up recipes that can be replicated in lowly kitchen with its roof and electricity. While there is much fish and pork, this recipe, for one our favorite vegetables caught our eye.

Roasted Beets with Avocado Habanero Crema

BEETS 

4 large beets, scrubbed 

One 6-inch piece sugarcane, split in half (optional)

8 basil sprigs

Olive oil for drizzling

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Ground allspice  

 

AVOCADO-HABANERO CREMA 

 

1 ripe Hass avocado, halved, pitted, and peeled 

1/2 habanero, seeded (leave the seeds in if you want a hotter sauce)

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste 

 

 Chile Lime Salt (for garnish) 

 

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Put the beets, sugarcane, if using, and basil in a baking dish and fill about one-third full with water. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until a knife pierces all the way through a beet easily. Remove the beets from the liquid and let cool slightly. Increase the oven temperature to 425 F.

Meanwhile, make the avocado-habanero crema: Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend on high for about 10 seconds. Turn off the blender and scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula to make sure everything gets a turn. Repeat until a smooth cream forms—this will take more than a few tries. Season to taste if necessary. Transfer to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes, or until ready to serve.

Cut the beets in half and place in a large cast-iron skillet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until the beets are hot all the way though and the ends have started to crisp up.

Serve the beets topped with the crema, dusted with allspice and chile lime salt.

CHILE  LIME SALT

 

4 dried árbol chiles 

2 tablespoons kosher salt

Grated zest of 3 limes

Toast the chiles in a dry cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Let cool. Pulse the chiles in a spice grinder to a fine powder. Mix with the salt and lime zest. Store in a tightly sealed jar in a cool place. Makes about 2 tablespoons.

Don't get caught up in what seems like a lot of ingredients.  Read it over and and it won't seem as intimidating.

After the food, get caught up in the adventure. You know you want to open a restaurant in Mexico...and it is snowing outside, so go ahead and dream.

A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook

In the Christmas pile was this gem. I saw a brief reference to this book, but I didn't investigate much further. As one might imagine, I keep a pretty extensive "Wishlist" on Amazon to keep track of book out there that I am interested in. My friend Ann knows of this list and often uses it as a guideline for book purchasing.  She carefully examines the cookbooks, decides what she might like to eat and purchases books accordingly. 

Every year, however, she goes off script for a particular book.  There was a book about hand pies that she chose, because she likes pies.  The was a very popular cocktail book that she bought, because she thought it was offal book. This year she heard about A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook on NPR. She knows I lived in NOLA, that I like Southern food and Southern authors and she bought it immediately. Another excellent choice, Ann.

The author of the cookbook, Cynthia LeJeune Nobles, is a write and editor. Her previous cookbook collected recipes from the famed Delta Queen. When she became a cookbook editor at the Louisiana State University Press one of her first duties was to recommend someone to write the "Confederacy of Dunces" cookbook.  It wasn't a difficult question. The answer for Nobles was -- me!  Nobles said. "When I first read the novel, the most captivating thing to me was it had all this food in the book."

Nobles set out on a year long journey to follow the food of Ignatius J. Reilly through the backstreets and byways of New Orleans.  The book is filled with the lively characters of John Kennedy Toole. Nobles didn't just skim the novel, find a food item mentioned, and slap in a recipe.  She did extensive research into where, what, and how the food impacted the novel.

When Mrs. Riley eats canned food, Nobles finds a way to make it from scratch.

With the help of an old friend of Toole's, she was able to find the inspiration for the bakery, German's, home of Ignatius' donuts.

Alas, one can no longer find the almondy Dr. Nut, Ignatius's drink of choice, but she does have a photo of the squirrelly bottle.

There is even a chapter on "that whirlpool of despair,"as Toole would call Baton Rouge. 
This recipe is one of those. As Nobles tells us.

"When Ignatius was in Baton Rouge, which he famously called the "whirlpool of despair," he could have stopped for a meal at Bob and Jake's restaurant on Gov­ernment Street and sampled the hottest salad in town, Jake Staples' Sensation Salad. Created in the 1950s, this cheesy, garlicky salad grew to be so popular it became a regular menu item throughout South Louisiana, and it's still a fixture in many restaurants. Back in the 1950s–60s, iceberg lettuce was, of course, pretty much the only thing around. But go ahead and give iceberg a try; the salad needs this lettuce's crunch and heft to complement the bold dressing."

Sensation Salad

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup canola oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon mashed or minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 large head iceberg lettuce, chopped
2/3 cup freshly grated Romano cheese

Combine olive oil, canola oil, lemon juice, vinegar, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper in a pint jar, and shake well. For best flavor, refrigerate 24 hours. When ready to serve, toss let­tuce with dressing and cheese.

As a fan of iceberg lettuce, I highly approve. If you have spent many an hour with Ignatius Reilly, or have explored the literary side of New Orleans, A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook is a must have.

Cassoulet: A French Obsession

Today is National Cassoulet Day. You probably didn't even know there was such a thing and now you do.  Yes, it is too late to whip up a big batch cassoulet unless, perhaps, you live in D'Artagnan's basement.  Even then, you won't have enough time, but maybe there is a French restaurant near by.

I have always wondered, since cassoulet is so near and dear to the French countryside, why there was no book on cassoulet.  Thanks to Kate Hill, now there is. Cassoulet: A French Obsession gives a history of the dish, its ingredients, and how to assemble it. 

Kate Hill knows of what she speaks as she has been teaching people the mysteries of the cassoulet for many years at her cooking school Kitchen at  Camont.

So you missed National Cassoulet Day.  That doesn't mean you have to miss cassoulet.  Gear up and make your own.

Here is our recipe for the perfect cassoulet.

Cassoulet

1. Brush up on your history and get a good recipe.  We recommend Kate Hill's Cassoulet, available at Blurb.

2. Get yourself a cassole. A proper cooking vessel for a cassoulet. The only place we know in the USA to get a proper cassole is from Clay Coyote Pottery.

3. Gather all the ingredients. Fine and dandy if you live in New York or Los Angeles, but what about those of us in the hollers of West Virginia?  D'Artagnan's has put together a cassoulet kit that can fill all your needs. It is one-stop cassoulet shopping.

4. Made a cassoulet, but are still obsessed?  Check out Kite Hill's Kitchen at Camont.

5. Be sure and invite me over!

Now here is wishing you and yours a very happy National Cassoulet Day.

The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning

For 28 years all manner of junk had washed up in Antarctica, so a small band of Canadians and Russians decide to give up their summer and clean it up. How hard can that be?  A parka, some trash bags, a Starbucks gift card...

Turns out, you need a bit more than that.

Wendy Trusler and Carol Devine lay out exactly how much more one might need for such and undertaking in The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning.  Rather than just gather up a bunch of recipes which might have been quite entertaining, the pair embraced the the truly unique adventure and treated it as such.

Carol Devine was always fascinated with Antarctica. So much so that she helped found VIEW Foundation for Volunteer International Environmental Work.  The Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE) offered to host a VIEW clean-up crew with the following caveat -- BYOC --Bring Your Own Cook. Carol called Wendy Trusler, whose resume included her work as a visual artist as well as  her experience catering in out of the way locations. It was a match made in heaven, if heaven was 40 below and covered in ice.

The pair brought modern ideas to their book but they couched it in the long admired tradition of the adventure narrative. The very beginning of the book juxtaposes Ernest Shackleton's  1914 ad for Men Wanted.  He offered a hazardous journey, low wages, bitter cold, months of darkness, a good chance of never returning, BUT some recognition if one were to return.

By 1995, VIEW offered a 12 day trip to clean up a research station, some sightseeing, putting debris in bags, lectures and cocktails. What a difference a few decades make!

While the actual details of the adventure were noticeably different, The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning retains the feel and style of adventurous travel writings from the late nineteenth century. In addition to really nifty recipes, there are photos, both vintage and modern, diaries, maps, observations, and a drink or two.  One thing the VIEW gang had to deal with that Shackleton never thought of was feeding vegetarians. Trusler noted:

"Vladimir the Russian cook made his borscht using a meat stock. My version kept the vegetarian volunteers in camp happy and even got the thumbs up from the Russians. To make vegan Rosemary Maple Borscht just substitute olive oil for butter and hold back on the dollop of crème fraiche or sour cream."

Rosemary Maple Borscht

2 pounds beets (around 5 medium) // 3 medium potatoes // 2 tablespoons butter // olive oil // 2 onions // 2 cloves of garlic // 1 celery stalk // 2 large carrots // 1 small cabbage(about 5 cups chopped) // 1 tablespoon caraway seeds // 8 cups water // 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar // 3 tablespoons maple syrup // 1 can crushed tomatoes (28 ounces) // 1 tablespoons sea salt // pepper // fresh rosemary

Peel and cube the beets and potatoes and put them aside. Heat the butter in a large pot set over medium heat and add the beets and potatoes, tossing to coat them with butter. Reduce the heat and sauté, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon and being careful not to bruise or break the cubes. After about 5 minutes add enough water to cover the vegetables and gently simmer until tender, around 10 minutes.

While the beets and potatoes are cooking, mince the garlic and onions and chop the remaining vegetables. Put the caraway seeds into a large Dutch oven or stock pot and toast them over low heat, pushing them around the pan from time to tie so they don’t burn. When you begin to smell the aroma of the caraway add enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom of the pot. Stir in the onions, garlic and celery, sprinkle with salt and cook over medium heat until the vegetables are soft and translucent. Next mix in the carrots and cabbage and sauté for about 5 minutes before adding the remaining water. Bring briefly to a boil and reduce the heat before making the final additions.

Add the beets and potatoes in their cooking liquid, along with the vinegar, maple syrup, crushed tomatoes and a large sprig of fresh rosemary. Cover and simmer for at least 40 minutes to bring the flavors together. Season to taste and make adjustments to the thickness of the soup by adding water as you see fit. Garnish with rosemary and a dollop of crème fraiche or sour cream and sere with freshly baked bread.

Makes enough for ten to twelve people.

Cooking for small teams of volunteers on King George Island meant I had to scale back my recipes from my bush cook days, but only so far. I love that I can get a few meals from this soup. It keeps for five days and freezes well even if you aren’t in Antarctica.

The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning is a wonderful mix of art, science and food. Now you, too, can cook like an adventurer, but without the ice and garbage!

Field Peas to Foie Gras

If you have read this blog foe even a short time, you will know that we love French cookbooks and we love Southern cookbooks. When we get the opportunity to have them meld together, we are plum ecstatic! That was the way we felt when we saw Jennifer Booker's Field Peas to Foie Gras. Take a Southern girl with serious cooking chops, send her to a fancy French cooking school and you get a book like Field Peas to Foie Gras, comforting and homey with all the technical know-how to elevate the most simple ingredients.

The wild mushroom ragout gracing the cover of the cookbook would be at home on any Paris table, but open the book and you will find my favorite, fried chicken gizzards. Very few things in a cookbook make me happier than a recipe for gizzards!

When talking about the similarities between French cooking and Southern cooking one this stands out, seasonality. One gets a strong sense of farming seasons while reading this cookbook. The first section of the book takes us straight to the larder where putting up jams, and pickles is a way to preserve the summer bounty.

Like the title says, you will find recipes for fois gras and filed peas, and you will also find lemon chevre cheesecake and sweet potato pie, braised short ribs and smothered squirrel, and host of recipes that will seem familiar and daring and most of all tasty.  Interspersed with the lively recipes are stories of home and family. Let's be clear, cooking is a family affair and Jennifer Booker is quick to include family stories in her collection of recipes.

I know you, you always say everything is better with bacon, but Booker gives you instructions on how to make it yourself. She says:

Curing meat takes time and the right ingredients, one of which is Pink Curing Salt. This curing salt, also known as Prague Powder #1 and TCM, or tinted curing mix, is not to be confused with table salt. It is a mixture of sodium, nitrates, and nitrites that inhibit the growth of microorganisms that can cause food-borne illness. It is colored pink to help distinguish it from salt or sugar, and to blend better with the meats it’s being used to cure. Curing salts can be ordered on-line or acquired from a butcher. No matter what its name, curing salt should be used sparingly, and due to its high nitrate and nitrite levels, never eaten alone.

Black Pepper Bacon

¼ cup sea salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon ground bay leaf
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
½ teaspoon ground thyme
2 teaspoons Pink Curing Salt, or Prague Powder #1
3 to 4 pounds fresh pork belly

Mix the salt, brown sugar, black pepper, bay leaf, onion, garlic, and thyme together and place in a large flat plastic container with a cover. Taste and adjust the seasoning before you add the Pink Curing Salt. Add the Pink Curing Salt and mix well.

Add the pork belly to the container and spread the cure mix over the entire pork belly, being sure to press the mix into all the cracks and crevices of the belly. Cover and refrigerate for 10 days, turning the pork belly after 5 days.

After day 10, remove the pork from the container and rinse with cold water; removing as much of the cure mix as possible. Discard the mix left in the container.

Pat the pork belly dry, place on a wire rack in a sheet pan, and refrigerate, uncovered, for 24 hours to form a pellicle, or sticky skin.

Preheat the grill or smoker to 300° F using a fire made of hickory wood and ?charcoal. Smoke the cured pork belly for 1 ½ hours per pound at 200° to 215° F, or until the internal temperature reaches 155° F.

Remove and let the bacon rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Refrigerate the bacon before slicing to make it easier to cut.

Fry the bacon slices in a hot cast-iron skillet over medium heat for 5 minutes on each side, or until crisp.

If you are a true fan of bacon, go ahead, make it yourself. Grab a copy of Field Peas to Foie Gras and head into the kitchen with someone you love. I would start by making the Fried Gizzards, but that is just me.

Christmas Haul

Reviews to come. Hope your holidays were happy...and you too, got cookbooks.

The Groundnut Cookbook

When Duval Timothy, Jacob Fodio Todd, and Folayemi Brown found themselves in London and homesick for the foods of their native Africa they did the logical thing -- they got together and cooked. Then they invited friends over, and the friends wanted to invite their friends. In 2012, they acquiesced and began a bi-monthly supper club to bring the African foods their mothers cooked to a wider audience.  Needless to say, it was a hit.


The Groundnut supper club continues to sell out and offer up authentic African food. The project not only brings new converts to the foods of Africa, but for the authors, it has also brought them back to family and tradition.

The Groundnut has a waiting list, so the next best thing to actually being there is to grab a copy of The Groundnut Cookbook.

One of our favorite recipes is a sweet potato cake. We have several recipes in our baking bag. Recently we made a cake from ube sweet potatoes from the Philippines. Now we are on the hunt for Puna yams!

Puna Yam Cake

450g fresh puna yam (peeled weight)
2 small eggs
50g golden caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
100ml condensed milk
150ml coconut milk
50g coconut oil (plus extra for oiling)
50g unsweetened desiccated coconut (to garnish)

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

Peel the fresh yam, then finely grate it. Whisk the eggs, then set aside. Melt the coconut oil (if solid). Add the sugar and whisk well together. Combine all the ingredients (except for the desiccated coconut) and mix well.

Thoroughly oil a 450g loaf tin, or a circular tin with 23cm diameter. Add the mixture and then bake on the central shelf for one hour.

Leave the cake to cool, then garnish it with the desiccated coconut. 

Yes,we love French cookbooks, but sometimes one needs to expand their geography.  The Groundnut Cookbook is a great place to start.

Honey & Co. The Baking Book

Every time someone posts a photo of Honey & Co. in London, we just drool. Even crappy photographers can't diminish the warmth and charm of Sarit Packer & Itamar Srulovich's eatery/shop. Their first book, Honey & Co. has become a classic. They followed it up with Honey & Co. The Baking Book, named the Sunday Times Food Book of the Year and the Fortnum & Mason Cookery Book of the Year.  Yes, it is that good.

Drawing on their Israeli backgrounds, the couple offers up cakes and bread full of color and spice. there is plenty of honey and nuts and more than a few cereals. Sweet pastries are just a fraction of the story.

There is a large chapter on jams and preserves that could be expanded into a whole other book. Many of the photos at Honey & Co. feature shelves of preserves, so the sampling in the book is clearly the tip of a sweet and runny iceberg.

The stand outs are the many savory pastries that grace the pages of this book. It is not often that one finds a baking book with so many wonderful pastries that are not sweet.  Case in point. Cauliflower is our favorite vegetable. We have done almost everything one could possibly imagine with this cruciferous bundle of joy.  But this was a new one.

Spiced Cauliflower Muffins

1 small head of cauliflower
700g/ml water
1 tsp table salt

For the muffin batter

175g plain flour
40g caster sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
150g unsalted butter, melted

for topping (if you like)


3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
3 tbsp grated pecorino or Parmesan cheese



Break the cauliflower into florets, making sure there are at least six large "trees". (You will most likely have more than six; cook them all and save the unused flowerets to eat another time.)  Put the water and salt into a large pan and boil the cauliflower until soft (this will take  5-10 minutes). Check to see whether it is done by inserting a knife tip into the stem; it should penetrate without resistance. Drain well and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 190C/ 170C fan/gas mark 5 and butter six muffin moulds. Mix all the dry ingredients for the batter together.  Add the eggs and use a spoon or spatula to mix until combined, then slowly mix in the melted butter and fold in until it has all been incorporated.

Place a spoonful of batter in the center of each mould and then stand a whole floret stem down in each.  Cover with batter to fill the moulds to the top. Mix the pumpkin seeds and cheese, if using, sprinkle on top of the muffins and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from tin and eat while still warm --they are the best this way.

We will never look at cauliflower in the same way. Honey & Co. The Baking Book is a real eye opener.

Brown Sugar

Way back when, we wrote about a guy named Nick Fauchald who decided to do a series of small, single topic cookbooks. The idea was a big hit and we wrote about their very first book, Eggs by Ian Knauer.  Like many good ideas, the daily grind of such endeavors often get the better of the creator (hey, we used to post EVERY day!) but lucky for us Fauchald's Short Stack Series is still growing strong.

Here is one of our favorites, Brown Sugar by Libbie Summers.  We love Summers' books.  Sweet & Vicious is a go to baking book and we don't know why we never wrote about The Whole Hog Cookbook.  (It is a common problem here, we become convinced that we have written about cookbooks that we haven't.  We are working to rectify that oversight.)

Short Stack Editions are small, hand sewn cook booklets printed on electric-colored paper. Brown Sugar has internal pages of shocking pink! It is well balanced in terms of recipes, as most people think of brown sugar as a cookie ingredient, Summers offers up appetizers, vegetables, salads, main dishes and a dessert or two featuring that muddy sugar stuck in the back of the pantry.

Drag that bag out front! Better still, by a new bag if it was tucked way, way back in the corner. Yes, there are caramelized potatoes, brined salmon, and even cookies, but there is also a really cool drink or two.  Our favorite has a bit of alcohol in it.

The James Brown Sugar

1 1/4 ounce bourbon
3/4 ounce Cointreau
1 teaspoon brown sugar
Juice of 1 orange (about 2 ounces)
Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1 ounce)
Dash Angostura bitters
Dash blood orange bitters
1 orange twist

Fill a pint-sized canning jar with ice and add all the ingredients except the orange twist. Screw on the lid and shake well. Remove the lid and twist the orange peel over a glass and drop into the drink. Add a straw and serve.

Rumor has it, the drink was christened by another name, but after a party-goer had a few and a few more, he began working the event as a business venture. The cocktail was renamed for the hardest working man in show biz!  Actually, a fitting cocktail for the hardest working Libbie Summers.

Looking for a quick gift, look no further that a Short Stack Edition.

The Jemima Code

I love Toni Tipton-Martin. She is a kindred soul, a cookbook collector.  I read that she keeps many of her cookbooks in a gun safe! A true collector would appreciate such care. Frankly, more gun safes should be stuffed with cookbooks...but I digress.

If you are a cookbook collector, and if you collect a lot of old Southern cookbooks, there is one thing that often stands out in older books. The "author" of said cookbook would thank her own cook. Why? Well generally, because the recipes came from the cook, not the author. News flash...if you watch someone make cornbread, ask questions, then write down the recipe, it is not your recipe, it is your transcription.

Toni Tipton-Martin has amassed a huge collection of cookbooks by African American authors. She has made it a calling to highlight the accomplishments of theses often overlooked culinary pioneers.  In The Jemima Code, she highlights many of the books from her collection. While there are several recipes, the book is more of a history than an actual cookbook. Her cookbook is forthcoming! To understand the hypothesis of this book, the best description comes from the author, herself:

"Black codes once defined legal place for former slaves. Historically, the Jemima code was an arrangement of words and images synchronized to classify the character and life’s work of our nation’s black cooks as insignificant. The encoded message assumes that black chefs, cooks and cookbook authors — by virtue of their race and gender — are simply born with good kitchen instincts. It diminishes the knowledge, skills and abilities involved in their work and portrays them as passive and ignorant laborers incapable of creative culinary artistry.

Throughout the 20th century, the Aunt Jemima advertising trademark and the mythical mammy figure in Southern literature provided a shorthand translation for a subtle message: “If slaves can cook, you can, too,” or “Buy this flour and you’ll cook with the same black magic that Jemima put into her pancakes.” In short: a sham."

Here is a simple recipe from Katharin Bell's Mammy.  In the self-published text from 1927, Bell fully credits her cook, Sallie Miller. Bell can see that there is great genius in Miller's recipes and approaches them in a reverent manner.  As one often sees in early Twentieth century cookbooks, the instructions are a bit sketchy.

Shrimp and Tomato Salad

Chop shrimps and tomatoes together with a little celery and mayonnaise and serve on lettuce leaves.

Basically, this is exactly how I make shrimp salad, with the addition of scallions!  Does one need more.

If you care about food, Southern food, history, or cookbooks, Toni Tipton-Martin's The Jemima Code is a must have.

TWO FOOTNOTES

I know we all love online shopping and it has its advantages. When I ordered The Jemima Code, I rather expected a regular, lackluster, university press book.  I was surprised!  It is big, beautiful, and wonderful.  Now, I would have purchased this book no matter what.  But coming across this book in an actual store, seeing it, picking it up, flipping through it...this act holds the potential to sell more books that simply seeing its flat image on a cell phone screen. Bookstores DO matter.

The second thing is purely personal.  Screw you Toni Tipton-Martin!  It is hard enough to locate these books as it is.  Now you just made everyone want to find these old gems and the prices are going to out of control, and I am never going to find reasonable copies of books I have been looking for forever. But I forgive you....