Erin's pick for May

"Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" by Alice Munro, her 10th collection of short stories.

From Publisher's Weekly: "All of the stories share Munro's characteristic style, looping gracefully from the present to the past, interpolating vignettes that seem extraneous and bringing the strands together in a deceptively gentle windup whose impact takes the breath away. Munro has few peers in her understanding of the bargains women make with life and the measureless price they pay."

I suggest that we begin discussion on June 1. Because it is a story collection, we may be able to read along as we discuss, as we are with Christy's pick.

"F is for family"

One of my favorite quotes from the series:

"The cold truth is that family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters."

"E is for Exquisite"

Fisher writes: "In my private lexicon of gastronomy, I continue to see the word 'exquisite' ringed with subtle vapors of perversion."

What is the difference between exquisite and debauchery in the sense of eating? Or entertaining?

Also, does exquisite eating, as Fisher suggests, require the outlay of a lot of money?

Have you eaten an exquisite meal you can recall? Or what would be on the menu?

"D": Dining out

It's not my favorite essay, but I liked what Fisher had in this segment. She continues to link dining with celebration and sensual pleasure, and she frowns upon those who see "dining out" as a chore or routine habit.

"Dining out" is usually special to me just because it's too costly. I wonder how it would be different to work in an industry with regular business lunches and dinners. Just combining work and business etiquette with eating would, I think, steal away the sense of anything special.

She goes on to recount how she entertained a bigwig by choosing just the right restaurant, ordering the meal and arranging for the bill and tips in advance.

I found this a trifle braggy and wondered what everyone else thought. I suppose she was seen as a leading figure in entertaining, and so her personal anecdotes were welcome advice. And ordering for others in a dining-out scenario seemed archaic.

On the other hand, as a woman, she may have been displaying her own power, as the host who could commandeer the best table, service, pick the food and wine -- traditional men's roles in the time she speaks of.

"C" correct vs. careless

Fisher also uses “C” to point out that cook with the right books and references, whose sauces follow a reputable recipe to a science, and assigns them the dubious title of “Cautious.” Don’t you think that’s applicable to people in a lot of arts and skills? They take a mechanical approach to learning about art or music or another subject like they’re studying for a final exam where there are only some “right” answers, which don’t take their own tastes into account.

Or you have people who profess an interest in a subject but learn nothing about it. Did anybody see Woody Allen’s “Hannah and her Sisters” and remember the artist who was irate that some rock musician wanted to buy something to complement his furniture?

Ben is a great example of how not to be either. He knows a tremendous amount about music but will tell people exactly what he likes or doesn’t like without worrying about what they think, because he’s confident in his own taste. I could envision him critiquing Beethoven or Bach when most people would be too cowed by what they’re told is “good” to speak up. And if he didn’t know much about another subject, he would just say so rather than bluff his way through a conversation.

I’m getting away from the book, here, but think it’s applicable -- a “correct” host just isn’t as much fun. They have their own party but don't trust their own tastes to please friends.

"C": enthusiasm

I also like how Fisher critiques hosts for their enthusiasm over taste or skill.

She describes a host: “... with no innate good taste, whose meals are incredibly and coarsely and vulgurly overlaborate and rich, but present them with such high spirits that they are unfailingly delightful.”

"C is for cautious"

This essay explores the idea of how much ambience contributes to a meal -- as important as the main dish.

A host's caution can be charming, but usually it's contagious, like a tangy vinaigrette that's been indiscriminately squirted all over a meal. It makes a guest nervous for the host, unless you're impervious to the mood. (Sometimes I wish I were one of those people -- people who talk loudly and crack their gum and walk around work barefoot -- they must be happy to be so indifferent to everyone around them.)

Fisher calls it them "the inescapable vapors of timidity and insecurity," and I think they manifest themselves most strongly at bridal and baby showers. This may be because nobody ever really wants to go to one of these things, and the nervous hostess must rally the troops anyway. The women choke down frosted cakes and Sugary, Vile Punch (I contributed a Sugary, Vile Punch to the last shower I attended, on mistaken faith in my mom's recipe), but the sweet cannot overcome the sour mood stemming from the need to break into insincere applause every time the guest of honor opens another Diaper Genie.

Still, at that shower, the hostess did a great job because she was in her element -- her natural thoughtfulness, graciousness and good taste didn't make the handmade, pink and baby-blue mints seem pretentious. Yet other friends who would carouse about Westport in our younger days would, upon taking a hostess turn, turn into automotons and hand me a glass of weak sangria and dash off to the kitchen to reheat the mini-quiches. It's not growing up, it's conforming to a vague idea of what a proper hostess will do.

Maybe the difference is the motive of the hostess: Whether she wants everybody to have fun, or whether she wants everybody to approve.

"B" and men cooking

As in the quote from the last post, Fisher regards men's cooking as synonymous with seduction and not from the pleasures of gastronomy. The idea of a man making a home-cooked meal sounds charming and antiquated to me, but that could be the company I've kept in the past.

We ran a wire story (I wish I could find the full version) on the food industry taking an interest in men who viewed cooking beyond what you could slap on the grill with a Pabst in hand. Here's the article, but note the sex element still comes into play:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/mar/21/food_industry_reaching_out_men/

'B is for Bachelors'

Fisher writes of bachelors .... "Their approach to gastronomy is basically sexual, since few of those under 79 will bother to produce a good meal unless it is for a pretty woman."

This was one of the most enjoyable essays in the series and represents of the reasons I like Fisher so much; she's not only knowledgeable about food, she understands the motivations that lie beneath the sum of a meal.

I love her rules for conduct in this piece, too, that she considers it her honest duty to ascertain said bachelor's "direct or indirect" approach and then let him know ahead of time of his chances at bedding her. It makes her a frankly appealing woman of the world, not the type to toy with a man's feelings through a three- or five-course courtship and then leave him cold.

(As in "A," she notes her ability to hold her liquor in a self-conscious manner. Did she drink a great deal in the context of a gourmet diner? Is it a postwar cocktail-hour kind of norm? Or did you get the feeling she wrestled with the bottle on a personal level?)

'A' continued

"It took me several years of such periods of being alone to learn how to care for myself, at least at table."

Fisher seems to come full circle with dining alone to realize that she's worth more than a meal of soup and crackers if nobody has "chosen" her as a dinner companion. Again, this may be more of an issue for women, but it seems like the norm for adults is to put their life on hold until somebody agrees to complete them. They don't buy houses, don't take vacations, don't have children, like the things that give them satisfaction and/or stability require the sanction of another human being who agrees to go along the same path.

I am guilty on all counts mentioned there, and I think my interest in cooking that began at age 31 was finally that exact sense of "care of myself, at least at table." I was worth more than a plastic Lean Cuisine entree or McValue meal even if I was eating alone. Mine may have been a case of arrested development, but it reminds me of a co-worker asking whether I'd been on a cruise before (prior to the one I took last week with my mother). And I just answered no, but thought, "Right, why would I? My friends go with their husbands, and nobody else has asked me." And that's the beginning of something new -- to strike out on new ground without somebody's invitation.

Is it harder to take care of ourselves, at table or elsewhere, without someone by our side?

I'm moving on to "B" but dont' mean to narrow the discussion to these two posts. I'm interested in what else you got from this telling first chapter.

'A' is for Dining Alone

One of the admirable aspects of this series of essays is how much M.F.K Fisher is willing to share with her audience right off the bat -- and her loneliness and self-consciousness are vital parts to her first essay.

In the time period she spoke of in this chapter, the author seemed to be at a crossroads -- not wealthy, but successful enough with her writing that her fame also isolated her, at least from traditional social gatherings that involved food. She writes: "But, for the most part, to the lasting shame of my female vanity, they have shied away from any suggestion that we might dally, gastronomically speaking." And so her unsuspecting acquaintances send her home to a can of tomato soup and box of crackers.

So she wills herself to begin eating out alone with a complicated and self-conscious set of rules -- where she can eat, how to befriend the wait staff, how to head off misperceptions about her willingness for company or her ability to handle her liquor, to a point where she realizes her outings are more a test of self-endurance than an enjoyable treat.

Has this changed much today? Why is it difficult to go places alone, and is it tougher for women? I have experienced varying degrees of discomfort trying to go it alone, though it's lessened as I've become older.

In the news

Emmett Till's family gets autopsy report

By CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO — A 464-page FBI report released Friday contains gruesome details from the autopsy of Emmett Till, but it is so highly redacted that it doesn't shed much light on the teen's killing, which helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

The report found that Till, killed in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman, died of a gunshot wound to the head and that he had broken wrist bones and skull and leg fractures.

When the 14-year-old's body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River in the summer of 1955, the report said, "the crown of his head was just crushed out ... and a piece of his skull just fell out."

The FBI report is part of an 8,000-page file investigators amassed during its three-year investigation into the killing, opened at the request of the district attorney in Greenwood, Miss. The local prosecutor recently announced that a grand jury had declined to return an indictment in the case.

Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who are deceased, were acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury. They later confessed in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.

Nearly 100,000 people visited Till's open casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago. A graphic photo of his face appeared in Jet magazine, sparking national outrage.

One of Till's cousins, Wheeler Parker Jr., said the family had hoped more people involved in the crime would acknowledge their roles during the investigation. Parker said he was not surprised, however, that no charges were filed.

"Most of the people are dead, so I guess they did the best they could," Parker said of the FBI.

Names, photos and other identifying information about living people were redacted from the report "out of privacy considerations," according to FBI spokeswoman Denise Ballew. Autopsy photos also were redacted "to protect the privacy interests of the surviving family members," Ballew said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The report, available online, says investigators found no evidence of Ku Klux Klan involvement in the crime.

Federal investigators reviewed the report with the family Thursday. Parker, who was there when Till whistled at Carolyn Bryant and also when he was kidnapped, said a report of a confession by Leslie Milam, a relative of Bryant and Milam, was the most satisfying part of the newly released documents.

"I was pleased to hear that one of the gentlemen confessed on his deathbed to his pastor ... that's kind of what I wanted to hear," Parker said.

A cousin of Till, Simeon Wright, 64, was present when Till was kidnapped and said the investigation proved the family never will have closure.

"There are some things that will never be resolved about the Till case until someone comes forward. Maybe they'll just take it to the grave," Wright said.

BRAVE OR CRAZY

Which was James Meredith?




The first photo is of him being escorted to class by federal marshals at Ole Miss in 1962. The second photo, which won a Pulitzer in 1967, is of him being shot by a sniper on a civil rights march in 1966.

And a separate question: What do you think of there being no photographs besides the one of the sheriffs in the whole book? Assuming the author meant that singularity to support the notion that the book is a meditation on one monumental image, did you like that strategy or did you wish to see more photos — other images from the time, images from the present? Would it have weakened or strengthened the book to have photos of each sheriff — and of Meredith — showing him as a kid, a husband, a father, a grandpa, etc.?

Comment on part one

By no means would I de-emphasize the physical violence that these perpetrators used against civil rights workers, blacks or other victims, and I'm not hardened to it. But sometimes what I found more shocking was the extent of efforts to keep blacks from registering to vote or voting at all, or forming or joining advocacy groups. Maybe I think of violence as the means of dumb brutes but the right to vote as a sanctity that the intelligent would revere and protect. And it's hard to understand that the justice system could essentially imprison you if you showed up to register (as was the case in Jim Middleton's jurisdiction). Withholding these rights required so much complicity through so many branches and levels of government. It required premeditation and planning. How does one consider himself an American or patriot and play the mental hopscotch required to justify these actions?

John Cothran

What do you think of John Cothran, the four-times-married manager at the Home Depot? Are there any clues in the book as to why he has such a problem with anger (we first see him destroying his car with a tire iron)? Is he going to lose his job (he seems to be losing his authority at the end of the chapter about him)? Is he racist (an all-white neighborhood was “a selling point” when he bought his house)? Sexist (one of his employees said so)? Is he any better than his grandfather, the man with his back turned? (His grandfather, John Ed Cothran, was hard to read until he said his county was the best because they didn’t even indict lynchers.)

Cleaning up the county

This topic is related to the previous topic. Could you see any actions of the characters separate from their racism? In other words, were you able to see good in what some of the sheriffs had done even though other things they had done were so bad? If you had been a black person in a segregationalist sheriff’s jurisdiction, would you be able to say that he had cleaned up the county or that he had always treated you fairly (as some of the people in the book said), or would you just see him as the wrong person to be in law enforcement?

Even though I felt somewhat sympathetic toward the sheriffs, I still had trouble thinking that they could do anything in their jobs that would deserve praise, because their racism more than made up for all the good they did.

Sympathetic characters

How did you feel about the people in the book? Could you identify with any of the segregationalists? In my opinion, the author did a good job of bringing out the humanity inherent in each character, even the Grand Dragon and his wife. It was not difficult to feel sorry for some of the characters who I think would have done greater things if they had been raised in a different environment.

The voice

At first, the narrative voice in this book really bothered me. I thought Hendrickson was injecting himself too much into the book. I wanted a book about the people in the photograph, not about the author’s search for them. But as I read, my view softened a bit as I realized how much good there still was in the book, and how strong and personable the author’s voice was.

I still think the book may have been stronger if it had been written in a more detached way, but I realize that this would have required a totally different approach, one that this author may not have been able to pull off.

Do any of you have any thoughts about the narrative voice? Is it just me, or did it bother any of you?

The picture

What did you think of the photograph? Was it worthy of a 300-page book? Was the author’s obsession with it justified, or did he go a little over the top? Do you believe that the men really were as they were portrayed, coincidentally like they were pictured in the photograph (e.g., the man with his back turned), or did the author’s view of the picture color his view of the men?

Christy's pick for April

"An Alphabet for Gourmets," by M.F.K Fisher, an outstanding collection of essays on food that translates into a philosophy about living well, about loved ones and memories.

A review from foliobooks.com:
"An Alphabet for Gourmets , published in 1948, is essentially a book of the most wonderful stories. No 'A is for Apple, B is for Borscht', but, in 'I is for Innocence', the touching tale of a widower's passion for fast food; in 'B is for Bachelors', recollections of the superb meals that the unattached male, bent on seduction, can pull out of his cupboard, and in 'Z is for Zakuski', a hymn to the pleasures of sharing Russian hors d'oeuvres with the famous opera singer Chaliapin. The recipes are just as exuberantly affectionate, ranging from Aunt Gwen's Fried Egg Sandwiches to Raspberries Romanov and the Perfect Martini. With wit, elegance and a sensuous turn of phrase, Fisher considers the alchemy of the perfect meal, and muses upon that eternal mystery, keenly debated by everyone from Galen to Woody Allen: do aphrodisiacs work?"

You may find this as a paperback or in a collection of Fisher's work, called "The Art of Eating." The essays are fairly quick reads and stand alone as content matter.

My plan would be to post comments for the first six essays, A-F, on April 22, and then four letters per day after that for the rest of the week. This may be a selection, then, that you can read very close to the due date, or follow along per day.

Warning: This may put you in a gourmet state of mind ...