Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick

Robert Goolrick is a masterful storyteller. He tells stories the old fashioned way: long and languidly, and full of description. Love, especially a great love, never goes out of style. Goolrick delivers. He writes of a big love story in a small town. Everyone is involved, right from the first Annual Oyster Fest deep in midsummer, when Charlie shows his physical prowess and Sylvan wears her dark glasses and her red lipstick.

Sylvan Glass. And Sylvan herself—she was just as pretty as her name:

“She had a country face, young, probably not much more than twenty, if that…Her lips were a crimson slash, her hair pulled up in gleaming blonde waves on top of her head, held with tortoise-shell combs studded with rhinestones. She wore dark sunglasses, a thing no other woman in town even thought to own…She had a perfect figure, rounded, soft and fleshy for a young girl, although she seemed willowy next to her bulky husband…”

We sense even right at the start that a storm is on the horizon, but I don’t think any of us are prepared for the finale. But by then he has led us long and well, and we react like his town folk, good people all. We feel helpless in the face of such a love, and wish we’d never known it.

But I have to mention my favorite character, though I doubt I would have ever gotten close to her, had I lived in Brownsburg. Claudie is like none other, with long, thin fingers “like the tines of a fork” and blessed with a special skill to sew like no one else. She created clothes for the townspeople, especially for the lovely Sylvan who wanted those dresses she saw in films and magazines and had a figure to match the finery. I nearly wept with admiration and joy to read of Claudie arriving in front of the town at the end:

Next came Claudie Wiley, dressed, fantastically, as though for a Negro Baptist wedding in New York City, brigiht in fuschia, cut from a pattern she had found in the back of Vogue magazine, and adapted to suit her figure, with a hat to match, and a veil, and shoes, all the same intense color, the color of sunset, the last burst of color before darkness falls.

She was some kind of character, with a life and a mind of her own. She is worthy of a book in her own right.

(view spoiler)[I lavish praise on Goolrick for his skills, so perhaps you won’t mind if I say that the crisis, when it came, did not ring entirely true to me. The key may have been that Charlie was Sylvan’s Hollywood, and therefore may have seemed unreachable and unreal and ultimately unknowable. But I felt we were led to believe in this love, only to have it shattered in front of us for a poor excuse of a husband and his ridiculous marriage contract, none of which would sway someone under the influence of a great love. And the ending did not suit me—it seemed too dramatic for the reality. But perhaps, in the eyes of a Hollywood star, it was just the right kind of ending. (hide spoiler)]



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Burma: Rivers of Flavor by Naomi Duguid

This astonishing compendium of Burmese country foods is a travel guide as well as a cookbook. Duguid has long experience in South Asia, and has worked hard to translate foodstuffs and measurements into something Western cooks can create in their own homes. She tells stories, too, of where she gets the recipes and how she’s seen ingredients used. She tells of places she’s visited and people she’s met—after a couple hours with this gorgeously photographed book one feels as though one had spent a week away. It is positively transporting.

Any aspiring visitor to Burma should have a look at this to get a sense of what one will encounter. Duguid makes one comfortable with local greens, and discusses how, despite Burma’s long coastline, river fish are most prized. Contrary to the expectations of many, not all dishes contain red-hot chilies—often these are condiments that one can add to one’s dish after cooking, along with a series of herbs or pastes, so that one may moderate one’s intake.

Interestingly, Duguid explains that Burma may be a vegetarian haven, for many dishes are meatless or can be modified for meatless cooking, using a fermented soybean paste dried into a cracker “tua nao” for flavoring instead of fish sauce or shrimp paste. She introduced me to “Shan Tofu,” a chickpea-flour tofu that she calls “one of the great unsung treasures of Southeast Asia.” Besan, or chickpea flour, is whisked into salted water and heated on a stove until shiny and thick, then poured into a shallow dish to cool. It resembles a cooling polenta in texture, but holds together in soups or salads, and it can be sliced or cubed, eaten plain or fried. I made a brilliant vegan Ma-Po Tofu** with it and I’m going to try it “savory baked” as well.

Another intriguing dish I’d like to try immediately is a porridge made of jasmine rice and peanuts which resembles oatmeal but which is spiced with chili oil and blanched greens, fried shallots and crushed roasted peanuts. It is a blank canvas on which to riff one’s highly flavored specialties. Duguid suggests this sauce can be amended to become a sort of white pasta sauce to serve over rice noodles…adding ingredients until one has a meal-sized mixture of food held together with a spiced rice paste. Very intriguing.

Every library should have a copy of this book. It is a beautiful, recent introduction to life in Burma and it is indispensable for a traveler.

** from Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero


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