Two Really Good Cookbooks For Cooking Vietnamese Food At Home

Last month’s #FoodAndLit challenge on Litsy was to cook and read from Vietnam. Vietnamese food is one of my favorite things to eat, but I had never cooked much of it at home before. My first stop was the library to pick up some cookbooks. They supplied me with two good ones: Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen and Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan.

I started small with Vietnamese Iced Coffee, but quickly expanded to dinner. We loved Hoisin Chicken and Sweet Potatoes from Vietnamese Food Any Day, and had fun spending two days making Pho from Vietnamese Home Cooking. Both recipes were easy to follow, and the results were delicious. I highly recommend both of them.

Of course while I was cooking I was also listening to an audiobook about Vietnam. I chose The Sympathizer by Viet Thahn Ngoyen. This book was illuminating and darkly funny, and I could see why it won the Pulitzer.

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My 2020 Mid Way Reading Favorites

My favorite book of 2020 so far

I’ve read some great books in 2020 so far, but the one that I liked the best, the one that reminded me why Iove/need to read was Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. This book is truly unforgettable.

Best Re-read of 2020

I started The Stand on the beach last July, and finished it in February of this year, just before everything fell apart. It was a pretty weird experience to feel like I was living the Stephen King book I just read.

My favorite audiobook so far

This is another book from early this year. I really hope that after this mess is over we consider how our low wage workers are being treated, and how much we need them.

A great 2020 non-fiction read

This spring and summer it’s been all the books from and about the 60’s and 70’s that have appealed to me. Travels With Charley is one of those. I’s amazing to me how many battles we’re still fighting now that our parents were fighting then.

I’m nervous to see what the rest of this year brings, but I’m interested to see what turns my reading life will take. I wonder if any of these will be on my best of 2020 lists?

June Show Us Your Books

25 year old beach chairs in heavy rotation here now that it’s summer.

In May I finally got my reading mojo back. I’ve been reading a lot this year, but because I felt like I should, not because I was particularly interested in anything. In May I got interested again.

I’ve been watching a lot more TV than usual as well, trying to make sense of what’s going on in the world. Local (Washington, DC) news had become something of a joke, but now seeing the reporters filming scenes live and broadcasting them has totally changed my opinion on them. There are so many awful and sad images coming out, but also images of hope and change. It’s been leading me to read a lot of books from and about the 1960’s.

Note: I’m trying to move away from using amazon.com affiliate links, and using bookshop.org instead. This is my first experiment. I miss the little pictures amazon gives you, but am having fun taking my own. Here’s my shop if anyone is interested. Definitely a work in progress.

The Best of May (And Maybe The Year)

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes - This novel about the Bravo Company, a unit of young Marines during the Vietnam War, is unforgettable. Karl Marlantes is a veteran himself, and the details he incorporated into this book were visceral and captivating.

Books About Travel and Other Means of Escape

All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth Church

The Good House by Ann Leary - Someone described this to me as unreliable narrator without all the murder which is a good and accurate description. I listened to this on audio and loved the pitch perfect Massachusetts accent.

All The Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth Church - Vegas show girls in the late 1960’s- loved it. Loved the descriptions of the costumes and the behind the scenes drama. (Trigger warning sexual and physical abuse)

Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck - In 1960 John Steinbeck took his dog Charley around the country in a motor home to reconnect with the American people. This book was surprisingly relevant: living life as the only Democrat in a family of Republicans, racial tensions, and good found in surprising places. A short book that was worth reading.

Mosquitoland by David Arnold - Mim Malone runs away from home in order to save her mother in Cleveland. I hated the father in this book, but loved the main character Mim and her little band of helpers she meets along the way.

Kids Books I Read To Keep My Mind Calm

My Daily Routine According To My Daughter

Anne of the Island by LM Mongomery - I’m reading one of these a month for a book club I’m in. This one I thought started out slow, but I loved the ending.

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend - I started listening to this with my kids, and when they bailed I kept going. I quite enjoyed Morrigan and her adventures. Typical of books like this none of the grown ups ever tell the kids anything so they have to figure it out on their own.

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes - A sweet old-fashioned book reminiscent of The Five Little Peppers or The Railway Children.

Old Dog, New Reading Tricks

Last month I took part in my first ever Buddy Read. Basically it’s like school where the read leader chops a book up into sections, and tells you how much you should read each week. By the end of the month you will have finished the book, and you can discuss it with other readers. By sticking to the schedule you all finish right around the same time, and no one spoils anything for anyone else.

At the same time my 6th grader came home with a notice about his first ever book report. My son is not one to sit down with a good book and read the day away, so I helped him create a reading schedule to hit all of the milestones he needs to, just like with the buddy read.

After that it occurred to me that I have a huge stack of books I’m having trouble finishing, either because they’re long and all of my other books get jealous when I spend so much time away from them, or because the subject matter is heavy and I can’t take them in large doses. I realized that since the buddy read technique worked well for me, I could try it with some of these books.

My first test will be Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. It’s a novel about the Vietnam War, so it’s both full of heavy subject matter and very long. I started yesterday, and will be sure to report back on how it goes!

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