"The Arab Table," "Brown Girl In the Ring"

[floriatosca.livejournal.com]

1. The Arab Table by May S. Bsisu
I'm a big fan of cookbooks, because the chattier ones tend to give a lot of cultural context along with the recipes. This book definitely counts as one of the chattier ones. There's an introductory anecdote to go with each recipe, as well as sections on subjects like the culinary traditions of different parts of the Arab world and holiday customs (including a guide to Ramadan etiquette for non-Muslims). The recipes seemed pretty accessible to me, although not all of the ingredients are stuff you can find at your nearest supermarket or even your nearest internationally-leaning health food store (Bsisu does give mail-order sources in the back of the book), and the book includes some vegetarian recipes, which I appreciated.

2. Brown Girl In the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
This was an interesting read, and very different from my previous experiences with urban fantasy (which leaned much more towards elves than orishas.) I really liked the world building in this. Post-apocalyptic Toronto felt like a real, plausible community and not just a place for the plot to happen. The story's supernatural aspects are grounded in Caribbean spirituality, which was an interesting change from the more European or Christian influenced cosmologies of a lot of the fantasy novels I've read. This book also got me interested in "Ti-Jean and His Brothers," which Hopkinson references in her author's notes.