November 17, 2016 Lunch – Vietnamese Noodle Soup Dinner - Book Club
I made Vietnamese Noodle soup with the last ½ lb. of PPI rib steak and three beef balls plus, a ducked zucchini, a handful of chard leaves from the garden, a finely diced shallot, three mushrooms, a pho seasoning cube, a generous T. of white miso. A chopped stalk of celery bean thread and rice stick noodles, and three green onions. I cooked the soup for about twenty minutes and then added fresh basil leaves and hoisin sauce.
I was hosting out Last Thursday Book Club meeting, so during the last few days we had made Martha Stewart’s recipe for Spicy Pecans with 5 cups of almonds and Pecans and coated them with a mixture of mixed 1 T. of smoked paprika, ½ T. of cayenne, 2/3 cup of sugar, 2T. of salt in two whipped egg whites and then baked them in one layer in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes and then a 200 degree oven for twenty minutes.
Bob’s Chocolate Dessert
I also had made my chocolate dessert by melting over low heat ½ lb. of butter in 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips plus 2 T. of cocoa. After the chocolate melted and cooled a bit I added 1 cup of sugar and 1 tsp. of Grand Marnier to the mixture. In a separate bowl I mixed 1 T. of flour with 7 egg yolks and when the mixture took on a slightly lighter color combined it with the chocolate mixture. Then I whipped the 7 egg whites into rather stiff peaks and Suzette folded the chocolate and egg mixture into the egg whites and we then poured the entire mixture into a steel bowl coated with butter and then sugar on the inside and then baked the bowl of chocolate in a larger pot of hot water (Bain Marie) in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees until fully cooked.
On Wednesday I went to Sprouts Market and bought double dipped chocolate covered peanuts and four nice medium avocados.
I stopped working at 5:00 on Thursday and made Guacamole salad with the avocados, salt, lime juice, Cholola hot sauce, and the pulp of a couple of cloves of garlic that I put in a dip and chip monkey pod wood bowl of Suzette’s.
I the diced Comte and cheddar cheese and some Lebanon Bologna we had bought in Elizabethtown. PA on October 16 and made a mixture of German deli mustard and mayonnaise to serve with the cubed cheese and bologna.
Suzette had made Turkey Salad with some PPI turkey from the freezer and some of the fresh green tomato chutney she made a week ago, which I served with crackers.
I put these things on the coffee table and Credenza in the living room with glass plates and forks.
I also chilled a bottle of Toulouse Gewertztraimer, and a bottle I'd Leeds-Fitch Sauvignon Blanc and fetched bottles of 2010 Edna Valley Pinot Noir and a 2010 Wellington Victory, which is a Bordeaux style blend. I started by serving the last half bottle of a Portuguese Dao red wine to the early arrivals.
The book I selected for this month was Kit Carson’s Autobiography and Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder for extra credit. The unspoken sub-text was to see if one had a different reaction to the original period first person account than a contemporary academic history rendering of the same facts.
Here are the comments of the attending members and my footnote about my selections.
Book club Comments November 2016 Kit Carson’s Autobiography
Tom G – Unique; nothing like it. An interesting read after I stopped reading the footnotes. I got a real feel for his life and history of the time and places. It seemed to be an introduction to lots of other history. Grade - B
Ron B. – I found Carson’s Autobiography interesting because it dealt with so much familiar territory, especially Taos. I am thinking of reading other accounts of this history.
One of the things I found interesting is how old historical accounts such as this book express a different point of view of their world than a contemporarily written history describing that same time and events. This Autobiography provided insight into the minds of the people who populated that time, an especially interesting period of American history.
He lived in almost constant danger among Indians. What an amazing series of adventures! I was impressed by the several trips he made as courier of dispatches several times from California to Washington, D.C. and back in the late 1840’s because that was the fastest form of communication.
There is no way to judge the writing. Fascinated by the events in the book and it good information about our area. Grade – B
Charles P. – An Important historical account and document.
I am amazed how Carson could sustain such a life of action as a hero for 40 years. His actions exceed by far the lives of most persons.
As a book it was nothing, simply a repetition of events without any real insight into him or the events of his life. I experienced no enjoyment in reading it. It is not a literary work and I would not recommend it, except to someone interested in the history of the period. Grade – C
Keith G. – For me the Autobiography paints a picture of an American: small in stature, big in ego, following orders, a womanizer, with a Napoleonic complex. An enormous Ego.
Carson is a unique character in American history. Bigger in life than in death. “Uniliberatable?”/ perhaps an illiterate. Each person must judge Carson by their own standard. Grade – A good B
Dick A. – had difficulty getting the book on Kindle, so ordered by post. Then got it on Kindle. So I read both on Kindle and the hard copy. Since the Kindle aggregates all the footnotes at the end of the text, I found reading the hard copy with the accompanying footnotes gave a much better flavor the whole thing but made it a more dry read.
Interesting history and geography, but I would not recommend it to someone unless they love history.
I am glad I read it. I learned a lot.
I noticed that the book was written and Carson lived in a period before attitudes toward Indians changed to our current politically correct views.
I give it a B, especially interesting for exposing that historical period’s attitudes toward Indians, Mexicans, and Washington.
Bob M. – I read it on Kindle, so did not read the footnotes. I found it an interesting account of what it was really like being there.
Now we think of Indians differently, then it was war over horses.
I also found it an interesting juxtaposition to the Zorro stories about life in California at the same time from the Mexican perspective.
It is not a work of literature, but I learned a lot about history. Carson’s Autobiography brought the history of the Southwest to life.
Grade - a B
Ken G. – I tend to agree with Charlie. A little about history that was shocking.
I found the book to be repetitious, boring, and did not cover all of Carson’s life. My research into Carson’s life provided more complete information on his life.
I noticed that there were many conflicts with Indians, but not all Indians were the same. Some were peaceful. I was shocked that the Americans massacred the Klamath Indians for no reason.
The slaughter that occurred in much of the book seemed like Isis, to be without rhyme or reason.
I learned a lot but the book was not well written. Grade – a C
Bob S. – my opinion of the book as literature is the same. It is not a literary work, perhaps because it was the recitation of an illiterate.
But I chose the book because it is an amazing 1st person account of an important era of American and Southwestern history.
I became interested in primary source material when I took William Goetzmann’s American Studies course at UT in the 60’s. Charlie and I attended UT in Austin at the same time and were both exposed to some of America’s great academics because of our special curriculum.
Goetzmann’s idea was that a better sense of history can be gained from the study of primary sources. He created the discipline we call American Studies from this concept, first at Yale and then at UT.
There are several themes I am exploring in this choice. One is whether there is a continuum of literature that has on one end Great literature, such as Mike’s reference to the Great Books curriculum, and on the other end simple historical narratives that merit reading only because they are of historic importance. This book is clearly the latter.
Grade – B
Scrivener’s Footnote – I am amazed that many of the comments expressed by the group seem to confirm the goal of Goetzmann’s unique American Studies approach to American history.
I think Goetzmann would have been pleased by many of the Comments made at tonight’s meeting such as, Whites and Indians were at war over horses. There were lots of conflicts but some Indians were peaceful. And the thought expressed by several that the book exposes a very different perspective about their times than we would get from a historian writing about the same events from a contemporary point of view. The book also gave an insight into how attitudes towards Indians have changed in America from Kit Carson’s time to our times.
I am pleased I selected the book. Many of the thoughts expressed such as the ones I note, seem to me to confirm that Goetzmann’s idea of studying history from the perspective of 1st person accounts and historic literature written in the era being studied gives a different understanding of the historical events than reading a contemporary historian’s account of the same events. That is why I chose both Kit Carson’ 1st person narrative and Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder, so the differing rendering of the same facts could be compared.
For me the original 1st person account is more engaging and transmits a unique perspective and understanding of the historical times that is hard to capture in a work written by even a skilled contemporary historian like Hampton Sides, unless like Ron commented, “It has lots of quotes.
After the discussion I served slices of my chocolate dessert drizzled with the PPI pomegranate crème anglais and cardamom tea.
Bon Appetit
