july – Page 12 – ~*LunaSea*~

Sandler, Bea. The African Cookbook: Menus and Recipes From Eleven African Countries and the Island of Zanzibar. New York: Citadel Press Book, 1993.

This is a gorgeous cookbook. Not just for the recipes and menus, but also for the art. The illustrations by Diane and Leo Dillon are amazing. My personal favorite introduces the recipes of Tanzania (p. 57).
In the first half of the cookbook the recipes cover all the regions of African cooking. In addition each chapter has a section on the culture of the region, how meals are served (traditionally) and how you, the American cook, can pull off your own Tanzanian, South African or Liberian meal. The second half of the cookbook covers additional recipes. Chapters are gouped by product – fish, poultry, beef, starch, etc.
Something else I find interesting is the nontraditional layout of each recipe. You won’t find a list of ingredients and then preparation instructions. Instead, each ingredient is presented as needed in the preparation instructions. Something I am never good at is reading through the entire recipe before starting and with The African Cookbook that step would be imperative.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Africa: A Reader’s Itinerary” (p4).

Porter, Connie. All-Bright Court. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992.

I adore debut novels. There is something about that leap of faith that a writer must take before anything else can happen. Every writer is a closet published writer. They walk around with the words in their head, barely daring to dreaming of the day those words will be sold in a big bookstore. Opened up for all the world to see.
That’s exactly how I picture Connie Porter, walking around with the words to All-Bright Court in her head, dreaming of the day they’ll be on paper. I can picture the personalities of the All-Bright Court residents starting to take shape. It’s the story of two decades of african american families trying to make their way in a steel mill town near Buffalo, New York. All-Bright Court is the housing project that ties them all together.

“She found herself saving things to say to her, storing them away in her mind, folding them as neatly as sheets.” (p 82).
“These people lived inches away from one another, and much of what was done did not have to be told. They did not look away because they did not want to know. They looked away because they did know, and looking away was the only way to grant the woman dignity, to go on believing, to let her go on believing she was a woman” (p 85).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust and the chapter “African American: She Say” (p 12).