Writing about Food Memories

On 2/4/10 I posted about some of my favorite books on food and restaurants. Almost everyone -- not just food professionals -- has wonderful food memories evoking important times and connections in her or his life. I was recently reminded of this when I asked students in a writing class to write about a meal or dish that was significant in their lives. I asked them to describe the food itself (good practice in focusing on details) and what the meal meant to them (good practice in making larger connections). It was a topic they could all relate to, and they did some of the very best writing they had done all semester. Most of the stories had to do with family meals or specific dishes -- from dumplings to pickled vegetables to paella -- cooked by mothers, fathers, and grandparents, and symbolizing the importance and warmth of family gatherings and family ties. A couple of them had to do with meals created in students' newly independent days away from their families, as they formed their new communities with college friends. For many of the writers, these meals and dishes clearly symbolized love, caring, and connection. In all cases, the writers not only told but also showed the reader how and why these meals or dishes were important to them, and how the associated memories reverberated through the years.

Hi-Lo Books

Having a new teenaged family connection from a different country who is still working on her English, I decided to investigate hi-lo books that might interest her. Hi-lo stands for high interest, low reading level. These books are for readers who, for various reasons, read below grade level. They may also be "reluctant readers." The idea is to get kids to read books that they are interested in and that they can handle. Such books are written for various ages from middle school through high school. A typical book for teenagers would be for age 12+ but at a reading level of grades 2-4. Hi-lo books are short -- 400-1200 words -- with many illustrations. Successful hi-lo books have engaging characters; interesting, fast-moving plots; short, simple sentences; limited vocabulary; and straightforward stories with no complications such as flashbacks. Readers should be able to relate to the characters and stories. The covers, layouts, and typefaces should be clear, yet not appear childish or "different" from regular books, something young people are very wary of. These books are not literary masterpieces, and lack complexity and nuance, but they do get young people to read, and the hope is that as they read more, they will eventually read more complex books. I am in favor of anything that gets kids to read more, so I salute the writers and publishers of hi-lo books.

Literature about AIDS

Yesterday, December 1, was World AIDS Day, which made me think about the important contribution that literature about AIDS has made. Here I list some of the most well-known such novels, poetry, plays, and memoirs.

-Doty, Mark. Heaven's Coast (memoir)
-Gunn, Thom. The Man with Night Sweats (some of the poems in this collection)
-Gurganus, Allan. Plays Well with Others (novel)
-Hoffman, Amy. Hospital Time (memoir)
-Kramer, Larry. Angels in America (play); The Normal Heart (play)
-Maupin, Armistead. Tales of the City (which I blogged about on 11/30/10) (some of the later novels in the series)
-Monette, Paul. Borrowed Time (memoir); Afterlife (novel); Halfway Home (novel); Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog (poetry)
-Schulman, Sarah. People in Trouble (novel)
-White, Edmund. The Farewell Symphony (novel); The Married Man (novel)

Give Books for the Holidays!

Now that we have enjoyed Thanksgiving, the holiday shopping season has begun. As you are planning gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or other holidays, please consider buying books for many or most of those on your gift list. We need to support book publishing! And there are books for everyone with every interest. Further, please buy those books from independent bookstores. We really need to support those wonderful bookstores (see my 2/11/10 post for several reasons why). Your holiday spending could make a difference in the survival of these great cultural and literary resources, these bookstores that are suffering from large chains moving in and undercutting them, as well as suffering from the current economic problems. So, make an afternoon of it: go to your favorite independent bookstore with your gift list, browse, ask the knowledgeable salespeople for suggestions, get your books gift wrapped, and you are all set! And maybe pick something up for yourself while you are there...

A Nostalgic Return to Tales of the City

"Mary Ann in Autumn" (Harper, 2010), by Armistead Maupin, is a nostalgic update of the iconic "Tales of the City" novels of the late 1970s and the 1980s, about an eclectic mixture of young characters, gay and straight, in San Francisco. I well remember when the stories were first serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, and what a huge hit they were then. Readers, including this one, would eagerly look forward to each day's installment. The stories were current, eccentric, charming, and refreshingly different. What wonderful characters there were in these stories: the young gay man Michael Tolliver; the wide-eyed recent import to the city Mary Ann Singleton; Anna Madrigal, the pot-smoking landlady of the charming little apartment building, who we later found was transgender; the socialite DeDe who realized she was a lesbian; the sweet straight guy, Brian, whom Mary Ann fell for; and many more. The stories captured the excitement of the city, the sexual freedom, and later, the sadness of the AIDS epidemic. Most of all, they captured the caring and camaraderie among the characters, as they became each other's family. In 2007, Maupin published a novel updating us on Michael's life, "Michael Tolliver Lives." Now in this new book we have a similar update on Mary Ann's life, as she returns to San Francisco after 20 years in New York, running away from some personal disasters in her life, and seeking comfort and support from her old best friend Michael and his young husband Ben, as well as from her dear landlady and friend Anna. Various reunions and events ensue, including some suspenseful although a bit peripheral subplots, but again, the main point is the enduring closeness of the friendships made in the characters' youth. The plot and writing are a bit formulaic and even clunky, but the goodwill and the nostalgic appeal, as well as the easy forward movement of the story, overcome such shortcomings. This new novel, like the older ones, is probably of most interest to those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and who remember the earlier "Tales," but the facts that all the books sold well, and were the basis of a very popular TV mini-series, attest to their much wider appeal. Maupin himself still lives in San Francisco and is a beloved and respected local figure.

Pride in the Acclaimed Writers at USF

David Vann, a faculty member in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco, where I teach, has just won a very prestigious French award, the 2010 Prix Medicis etranger (for foreign writers), often compared to the Pulitzer Prize in the U.S. He won for his novella "Sukwon Island," published in the U.S. as part of the book "Legend of a Suicide." Vann is just one of the USF's faculty's prize-winning, acclaimed writers. In February 2010, poet D. A. Powell, also of the MFA Program, won one of the top awards in poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, which comes with a purse of $100,000, for his poetry collection, "Chronic." Poet and English professor Dean Rader recently won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for his first book of poetry, "Works and Days." Just a couple of months ago, MFA professor Catherine Brady won the 2010 Northern California Book Award in Fiction for "The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories." Other well-published and frequently honored USF writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction include Aaron Shurin, Susan Steinberg, and Lewis Buzbee. I am proud of these very talented USF colleagues.

Taking the Mystery out of Tipping

A couple of years ago, I ran across a blog titled "Waiter Rant," and started reading it semi-regularly. The author was, at the time, anonymous, and thus able to tell engaging stories from his life as a waiter. His voice was humorous, tough, and philosophical, and his observations were detailed and entertaining. It was not a surprise to find that he was a former seminarian and psychiatric worker, and seemingly quite well read. Soon after, he wrote a book based on his blog, also called "Waiter Rant,"and upon its publication, quit his job and "went public" as Steve Dublanica. I enjoyed that book, which was quite successful, even appearing on the New York Times bestseller list, so when his new book, "Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper's Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity" (Ecco, 2010) appeared, I read it as well. The author frames his information on tipping -- its history, social contexts, and appropriate amounts for different situations -- with his "quest" to learn about tipping through interviewing people all over the country: waiters, of course, but also taxi drivers, doormen, hotel workers, beauticians, barbers, valets, pet groomers, deliverymen, movers, and more. The raciest sections of his journey take place in Las Vegas, where he observes and interviews strippers and sex workers. His framing the book through his own journey gives a structure and interest to the book that a simple list of appropriate tips wouldn't have. His stories are often amusing and even occasionally touching, but the humor of this book is a bit more forced, a bit more jocular, even somewhat crudely so at times, than that of his blog and book. Yet Dublanica is obviously also a thoughtful person, despite his efforts to seem "tough" at times. In any case, this book is a quick read, with some entertaining stories and some helpful information and guidelines about tipping. There are also useful appendices about tipping during the holidays and tipping wedding employees, as well as a thoughtful, sensitively written appendix on the fraught topic of tipping and race.