Tuesday, July 18, 2006

going away

I'm going away to Lake Tahoe for a week, so maybe I'll get to see what eating locally is like in another location. In the meantime, I wanted to recommend Molly O'Neill's book, Mostly True. Its subtitle is "a memoir of family, food, and baseball"; and when I heard a piece about it on the radio, it sounded like it was mostly about food. O'Neill is a food writer and has been a chef, so I was expecting it to be something like Ruth Reichl's books (which I loved). But although there is food aplenty in here, it's really centered on O'Neill's amazing family--her father, mother, and 5 brothers. Very funny and readable.
Here's a quote to tempt you:
Many families have an inspirational text, a book that both mirrors their hopes and ambitions and acts as a spiritual how-to guide--the Bible, for instance.... Ours was Go, Dog. Go!.... a story about dogs... dogs on bikes and scooters, dogs in the water, in trees, and in cars. ... mostly about boy dogs....
There is one girl in Go, Dog. Go! She is a French poodle and a redhead and she spends all her time trying to get one big goofy-looking hound to notice that she's alive. ... "Do you like my hat?" she asks... "I do not," replies the hound....
In fact, I looked more like a St. Bernard than a poodle, and I had little interest in building hats. But my appetite for recognition was greater than any dogs', and in the spring of my eleventh year, I courted it with a red pogo stick.
I hadn't heard of O'Neill before reading this, but I'm determined to search out whatever else she's written.

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