Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire

I like my reading to match my cooking, that is, it should be seasonally appropriate. Sure, you can splurge and buy a $6 pint of strawberries mid-winter but you'll eat a grainy and tasteless strawberry shortcake. And somehow an oven roasted acorn squash tastes completely out of place mid-July. Likewise, why would you read Dr. Zhivago in the summer? It's cold weather reading! You have to be under a blanket with a cup of hot tea.

Hot House Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin was just in season for this summer. It was cool and rainy early summer, just like the New York March weather when Lila Nova buys her first tropical flower from David Exley at the Union Square Green Market. She soon notices a mystical laundromat owned by Armand, who is also a collector of tropical flowers. Entering the laundromat is like entering a tropical paradise, and soon Lila is intoxicated by rare plants and sexy vendors.

Just as the Boston heat and humidity set in, Lila headed off with a one way ticket to the Yucatan jungle to find the mythical nine plants of desire and, yes, herself (this is summer reading, after all!).

This book was smart and contemporary and offered just enough escapism to (nearly) make me forget that it was 63 F and drizzly. 5/5 netflix stars.

Recommended eating: tropical fruit salad, even if the fruit's not grown locally.

Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Everyone has some experience eating alone. Perhaps you were a BU student and sat in the G.S.U. during a break in your afternoon classes and ate a BK chicken sandwich. Or perhaps you travel for business and order room service. Maybe you just moved to a new city and go out to eat regardless if you have friends yet who will join you.

In Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant, Jenni Ferrari-Adler compiles essays by such noted writers as M.F.K. Fischer, Amanda Hesser, Steve Almond, Ann Patchett and Laurie Colwin, about cooking and dining alone (or in one case, the desire to cook and dine alone!). Each essay provides a glimpse into a personal life and often, a recipe.

I picked up this book book because most evenings I eat alone so I wanted to find out how other people did it. Did they overcook like I tend to? Do they snack their way through a box of crackers and a bottle of wine? Did they forego any pretense of nutrition and instead devour a pint of ice cream?

Far from being a sad book on lonliness, nearly all the contributors looked upon their eating alone days as some of the best in their lives. Each essay made me smile and at least half had me laughing out loud.

What do I eat when I eat alone? I'm not a take-out kind of girl and prefer my own lunches to those of the hospital cafeteria where I work. So I cook on Sundays-- lots of quiches and gratins, soups, stews and things that can last a week or live awhile in the freezer. And the nice thing about eating alone IS that I can eat when and what I want. A few summers back I craved a BLT made with one of the juicy heirlooms I'd just picked up from the farmer's market. But rather than buy bread, I decided to make my own. Nearing midnight, my bread hot out of the oven, I made myself the best BLT I've ever had. And reading this book reminded me why, in part, that was. We are our own best company.

Netflix stars 5/5.