Confessions of a Serial Book Quitter

/ 21 Comments

It’s Andy here today. Ann is over in OurLittleCorner with some “moving” poetry.

One thing I dread about dinner parties and other small social gatherings is the inevitable question, “Read any good books lately?” The question is a problem for me because, to be honest, I frequently don’t finish the books I start (which often seem to be the books everyone else around the table is raving about). This is a double whammy for my self concept: not only does this make me feel like a quitter, it raises questions about my literary sophistication — and who doesn’t want to come off as “well read?”

An all too relevant New Yorker cartoon.

Part of the issue may be that most of my book reading takes place on my Kindle when I’m settled in bed for the night and I typically get through only a few pages before sleep calls. This incremental reading routine likely contributes to my penchant for abandoning books (at least the ones that don’t quickly capture my fancy). To make matters worse, my Kindle keeps a record of the percent I’ve completed of each of my downloaded books — an ever-present digital reminder of my dismal literary track record.

This is the first page from the books downloaded to my Kindle (with the percentage completed). I have no record of unfinished books prior to using the Kindle, but I’m guessing the numbers would be about the same.

But there may be a silver lining to my book-quitting dark cloud. I’ve discovered that DNF —what folks in online book communities use for”did not finish” — has been getting some positive press lately. For example, the NY Times just reviewed a new book by Erik Piepeburg (How DNF Became A-OK) which makes the case that bailing on books may not be as bad as it seems. To spare the irony of adding Piepeburg’s book to my Kindle DNR list I decided not to download it — nor read it.

Image source: SarasBookshelves.com

But I did come across a blog about DFN posted by someone named Kimberly (on her website Thiswriterreads.com) which, IMHO, is spot on and should be required reading for all guilt-ridden book quitters. She titled it “Why Readers Struggle to DNF a Book—and Why It’s Okay to Quit.“

Kimberly begins by addressing the question of why the decision to DNF a book can be so”troubling.” Several of her points were particularly on target for how I feel about setting aside an unfinished book:

Anti-Quitting Conditioning :
We are taught as little kids that quitting is bad… Since not finishing a book is essentially quitting it, DNFing can make the reader feel like a failure, even though it ends up being a smart choice.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO):
…it must get better further along… Readers worry they’ll miss a brilliant twist or emotional payoff if they stop too soon.

There Must Be Something Wrong with Me, Not the Book
Readers who see others rave about a book they couldn’t get into can make them question their taste or feel like they’re missing something.

But what I appreciated most (or needed most?) were the reasons she gives for why we shouldn’t feel bad about DNFing books:

Taste Is Personal:
Just because a book is highly rated doesn’t mean it’s for you. Also, just because a book isn’t for you doesn’t mean it’s a bad book.

Reading is a Hobby, Not a Chore:
You’re reading to relax, have fun, or learn stuff. Reading for personal pleasure shouldn’t feel like a job or homework.

You’re Not Alone:
Thousands of readers DNF books. It’s a normal, healthy part of being a reader.

She concludes by pointing out that we’re not letting anyone down (including ourselves) when we DNF a book: “No one cares that you DNFed the book, and neither should you. It’s okay to put it down and move on. Really.”

So with a newfound sense of self worth, I plan to move on. Really. No longer will I feel like crawling under the table when at a social gathering the “Read any good books lately?” question pops up. In fact, I’ll be proud of my DNF record and may even pass around my Kindle to show off all of the good books I have abandoned (with an appropriate air of modesty, of course).

On second thought, maybe I should take the initiative and ask a preemptive “DNFed any good books lately?” That should generate some lively discussion around the table.

This Peanuts strip was originally published on January 17, 1958, in honor of National Read a Book Day. Evidently Charlie Brown was not a DNFer! (From the Charles Schulz Museum Facebook site).

We’re Better Together – A Mediterranean Food Odyssey

/ 2 Comments

It’s Ann here today. Andy is over in OurLittleCorner looking for a free lunch.

If you’ve read how important it is during these weird and crazy times to maintain social contacts…to actually be with people on a casual basis…and you’ve read that dinner parties are great ways to be together, let me offer some help. We have a little dinner group that meets 5-6 times a year. We meet at our house and Andy and I usually provide the main dish. Everyone else brings a side or appetizer or dessert. And I help out by providing the recipes. Our last dinner party was “a Mediterranean Food Odyssey” (with a little Aegean connection thrown in for good measure).

Brittanica’s Interactive Map – link is below

For our Mediterranean Food Odyssey: 

We know that Odysseus actually started his journey home from Troy (located in what is now Turkey) on the Aegean Sea.  If you click here you’ll find the coolest interactive map from Britannica, showing you the wild places he supposedly stopped – and how many of his men got killed or lost or changed at each spot!  Be sure to scroll down a bit to get to the map which is called “Interactive Voyage,” and then click on “start journey.”

We began our dinner with Muhammara  – a red pepper and walnut dip from Turkey – which we served with pita chips. This is something we all “gobbled up.”  (Get it?)

Our main dish was Pasta e Fagioli, served with focaccia; both come from Italy.   That’s where Odysseus ran into the Laestrygonians and the Sirens and lost 11 of his 12 ships and 557 of his 600 men.   These Italian dishes are to die for.

Our salad was from Greece.  When Odysseus finally arrives in Ithaca, his home, located on the Ionian Islands of Western Greece, he kills all of his wife’s lovers. Mind you, he’s been gone 10 years and lived with Calypso for 7 years!  Why wouldn’t Penelope, his wife, have a few lovers?

“In the darkness of night, [Odysseus] would begrudgingly sleep with Calypso in her grotto-palace, but in the light of day, he would sit alone on the beach and sob for all he had lost.”
Begrudgingly? Right! 🙂 

Our dessert was Pistachio Harisa (not harissa), also called basbousa or namoura; it’s a cake popular throughout that whole region, including Tunisia, where the Lotus Eaters enticed Odysseus’ crew members with their psychedelic  lotus blossoms.  The cake is made with a flavored, sugary syrup, pistachios, and semolina.   Who needs lotus blossoms when you’ve got cake (and can eat it too!)?

For our next dinner party we may just follow the path of Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s “pirate queen.” FYI there’s a new novel just out about O’Malley, entitled The Pirate Queen. Here’s what the NYTimes has to say about the novel, which was written by Ariel Lawhon.

What food will we serve? Since historians believe O’Malley not only took her ships around the coastal areas of Ireland but also to Scotland and Spain, I’m thinking Warmed Potato Pancakes with Scottish Smoked Salmon or perhaps Cullen Skink, Irish Leek and Potato Soup, and for dessert a Tarta de Santiago, which comes from the Galicia region of Spain. But Colcannon Mash also sounds like a must! This will be fun and a challenge – and great food.

So keep your dinner party simple and casual: everyone contributes a dish, no more than 6-8 total guests and 4-5 dishes. Get together often so that everyone becomes very comfortable. Be brave and try new dishes – and don’t be embarrassed by a few missteps. For this dinner party, every dish was an adventure (not unlike The Odyssey) since none of the recipes had been tested by us before hand. I overcooked the pasta; my friend Sophie was afraid her cake was too dense, Jane thought there was too much dressing in her salad, and Lynne had trouble roasting and peeling the red peppers. But our adventure was so rewarding!

Photographs (provided by our guests) of our (vegetarian-friendly) dinner:

Muhammara and pita chips
Pasta e Fagioli
Focaccia
Horiatiki
Pistachio Harisa

  • Muhammara and pita chips – Turkish Red Pepper and Walnut Spread (simplify things by using roasted red bell peppers in a jar)
  • Pasta e Fagioli – Italian Pasta and Beans (revise the recipe slightly by cooking the pasta separately and adding it at the last minute)
  • Focaccia – Flat Italian Bread (better to serve at once – and not re-warm)
  • Horiatiki – Greek Tomato and Cucumber salad (don’t drown the salad with too much dressing)
  • Pistachio Harisa  – Tunisian Semolina Cake. The link is a video of Sami Tamimi making the cake; the ingredients in his Falastin cookbook are slightly different than the video; today’s recipe is based on the cookbook (don’t expect this to be fluffy and cake-like; it’s quite dense)

Pistachio Harisa - Semolina Cake

Adapted from Sami Tamimi’s Falastin cookbook

Syrup

  • 1 1/3 c water
  • 2 1/2 c sugar
  • 3 T lemon juice

Put the water and sugar into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Cake

  • 1 1/2 c shelled pistachios, divided into 1c and 1/2 c
  • 1/2 c + 2 T sugar
  • 7 T butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
  • 1/2 c sunflower oil
  • 2/3 c Greek-style yogurt
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp Diamond kosher salt
  • 2 3/4 c fine semolina
  • 3/4 c unsweetened, shredded coconut
  • 1 T lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter a 9″x13″ pan.

In a food processor blend 1 cup of pistachios until they are very finely ground. Set aside.

Place the remaining 1/2 c of pistachios into the processor and coarsely chop them. Set aside.

Put the sugar, butter, oil and yogurt into a bowl and with an electric mixer beat on high speed until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Whisk the baking powder and salt into the semolina, then add that and the finely ground pistachios, coconut, and lemon zest to the batter. Mix with the beater on low speed until just combined. Don’t over mix.

Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use a spatula to smooth it. Sprinkle the coarsely-chopped pistachios over the top and gently press them a bit into the batter. Let the cake rest for 10 minutes and then bake for 25-30 minutes or until the surface is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes and then pour the cooled sugar syrup evenly over the cake. Let sit for another hour before serving.

Store any leftover cake in an airtight container for 2-3 days – or freeze.

Recipe brought to you by BigLittleMeals.com and Andy and Ann.






Goodby “Hello”— We’ll Miss You

/ 2 Comments

It’s Andy here today. Ann is over in OurLittleCorner cruising a popular grocer’s prepared food aisles.

Ann and I have decided to part ways with our landline phone. According to Numberbarn.com, that puts us among the 40.9 million folks who in the last five years have made the plunge to rely exclusively on cell phones.

The 1950’s phone of my childhood. We didn’t worry about spam calls in those days — and answered all calls with hello.

Even though we had been gradually weaning ourselves from our increasingly dormant landline, dropping the service wasn’t an easy decision. After all, we’d spent nearly eight decades using “real” phones that carry our voices over copper wires. For some reason the thought of chatting with someone through thin air seemed less “personal” (for want of a better term). But technology marches on (as does the increasing number of spam calls), so we reluctantly retired our faithful landline phone.

Our then 7th-grade daughter Sara on our phone in 1984. She most likely used the hello greeting when answering calls.

The massive and dramatic changes in phone technology have been accompanied by more subtle changes in how we conduct ourselves on the phone. One of those subtle changes is the topic of a recent NY Times piece by Alisha Haridasani Gupta entitled The Generation That’s Never Had to Say ‘Hello?’ . She suggests that for younger generations, answering a phone with a hello is becoming as obsolete as is the landline . This is rather disturbing considering that I grew up assuming that uttering hello when answering the phone not only was polite, it was imperative.

I had never really given much thought to why hello rather than some other greeting became the norm; it was just what everyone said. But of course the hello greeting had to come from somewhere. Evidently it didn’t come from Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the phone in 1876; according to Wikipedia he answered his new-fangled invention with a nautical “ahoy ahoy.” Rather, the now taken-for-granted hello came about due to the urging of Thomas Edison who in 1877 recommended to industry leaders that the standard phone greeting protocol should be”hullo” (which later morphed to “hello”).

[Editor’s Note: It’s interesting to contemplate what it would have been like if Edison not stepped in and Bell’s greeting had caught on. I can’t imagine hearing (or saying) “ahoy ahoy” with every phone call — although I can imagine it being grist for a Monty Python skit.}

Postcard c. 1905–1915.
The greeting “Hello” (not “Ahoy ahoy”) became associated with telephones in the late 19th century. (source: wikipedia)

So, if hello is waning, what’s taking its place? Gupta, who is writing mainly about the phone greetings of the Gen Zers who grew up with caller ID, provides examples along the lines of “Hi,” “Yo,” “What’s up?” “Where are you?” or even “Yeah?” And at the extreme, some say nothing and wait for the caller to speak first (which seems kind of creepy to me).

However, based on my own experience I would say that Gen Zers aren’t the only ones abandoning hello. Even those of us who cut our teeth on rotary phones are finding ourselves using the greeting less and less. We may not be as technologically savvy as Gen Zers, but most of us have retained enough grey matter to understand caller id. When we receive calls from folks we know, we know that they know that we know who’s calling, in which case a “Hi Sally” or “What’s up Charlie” may be more appropriate than an impersonal hello.

Furthermore, we elders are able to grasp the fact that calls from unknown numbers are more than likely to be spam and should either be cancelled or left to go to voice mail, thus relieving us of the obligation of uttering any personal greetings at all. Given the volume of potential spam calls I receive, the number of lost opportunities for a hello is not trivial.

Clearly Jeremy belongs to a generation that never had to say “hello.” (Zits 2011 comic strip. Source: comicskingdom.com)

At the end of the day I have to agree that, as with landline phones, there are valid and practical reasons hello is on the endangered species list . But that doesn’t stop me from fondly recalling those days when phones had wires going to the wall and it was of little concern that we didn’t know who was calling until after we offered the hello greeting.

So it’s time to say , “Goodby hello, it was a nice ride while it lasted — we’ll miss you.”

Scroll to Top