University of Nebraska Press

Off the Shelf: Corkscrewed by Robert V. Camuto

Today we're highlighting one of the books featured in our cooking sale. Read from "As the Corkscrew Turns" in Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country byRobert V. Camuto:

"It was a perfect day to lose faith in wine. By midmorning on June 21, 2005, the heat and humidity were conspiring to make it another in a series of stifling hot days in Bordeaux. I’d set out from Saint-Émilion in my tiny Citroën rental car—windows rolled down to make up for the lack of air conditioning—en route to Vinexpo, the world’s largest wine convention held once every two years in the sprawling convention site north of the city.

In time for Thanksgiving, cooking titles on sale

Halloween, to me, signals the arrival of an annual event I think of as The Official Two Months of Eating Well. It begins with apple cider and popcorn balls, moves into apple cake and pumpkin bread territory, before arriving in full-fledged Thanksgivingland, then giving way to peanut brittle, fancy holiday breads with raisins, currants and nuts, and, of course, cookies.

Being The Official Two Months of Eating Well are rooted in tradition, the potential for falling into a rut (albeit a savory rut) runs high. But the University of Nebraska Press is here to help. On sale through November are twelve cookbooks, featuring recipes from Eastern Europe and Russia, traditional Jewish fare, recipes by none other than Julia Child, vegetarian dishes and more. There’s a book of spices on sale and, last but not least, a book devoted entirely to wine (which the author considers more of a food than a drink, anyway).

Sale details are available on the sales page of our Web site. Happy eating (and cooking, too). 

The real Penhallow Bakery

The Penhallow Bakery is almost a character in itself in Sherrie Flick’s Reconsidering Happiness. It’s where the two main characters, Vivette and Margaret, spend late nights and early mornings baking scones, cookies, cakes, loaves of bread. It’s where they meet friends and lovers, where they go to celebrate and to mourn. It’s what ties the women to their community, and its recipes are something they take with them when they ultimately move away.

And it’s also based on a real bakery where Flick once worked – The Ceres Bakery (on Penhallow Street) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Clara Silverstein wrote about the Ceres Bakery, as well as Flick’s recreation of it, in Wednesday’s Boston Globe. The mere mention of treats like rhubarb-raspberry tarts made me wish it was 5 p.m. and time to go home and bake.

Have a great weekend

Julie & Julia (and two University of Nebraska cookbooks)

Julie and Julia, a movie based on a memoir based on a blog about a woman who attempts to cook every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, opens tomorrow. I read the book when it was published a few years ago, and loved a lot of things about it, including that if Julie, on her sort of broken stove in her tiny apartment kitchen in a city where grocery shopping is inconvenient and time-consuming, could cook every single recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, then I was probably capable of making one or two.

I expect a lot of people will feel the same way after seeing the movie this weekend, and therefore, I recommend the following UNP titles for those who feel inspired to tackle some adventurous cooking projects afterwards.

In How to Cook a Tapir, author Joan Fry recounts her days as a 20-year-old bride living in a hut in the jungle of Belize. There, Fry learns to cook dishes she had never heard of before out of unfamiliar ingredients over a makeshift stove. She starts small (instant oatmeal) and moves up to more and more complicated recipes (soups, candy, wild boar).  Recipes follow each chapter, and Fry, aware that not all of her readers have access to wild boar, makes sure to offer suggestions for substitutions.

In Masters of American Cookery, author Betty Fussell explains the unique and invaluable contributions to the American way of cooking and eating made by Julia Child and several other chefs. Fussell includes more than 200 recipes, accompanied by both instructions and history lessons.

Bon appétit.

Wine, Twitter and Nebraska

This Thursday brings more wine news (something there’s been a lot of on the University of Nebraska Press blog lately): Robert Camuto, author of Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country,  is featured in a new video on chow.com. This is the first of several chow.com videos in which Robert will discuss French wine. We’re proud of our resident French wine expert.

For our Lincoln readers, the founder of Twitter will be on University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus tomorrow. Twitter, for the uninitiated, is sort of the opposite of a book – users post extremely short updates on what they’re doing throughout the day – but it’s writing-related nonetheless, and therefore worthy of mention on this blog. In addition, Twitter’s founder, Evan Williams, is from Clarks, Neb. Nebraska pride!

Off the Shelf: How to Cook a Tapir: A Memoir of Belize by Joan Fry

Read from Chapter 1, "Hurricane" from How to Cook a Tapir: A Memoir of Belize by Joan Fry:

"When I had announced my wedding plans to my parents, they were appalled. They disapproved of Aaron's politics. They disapproved of the fact that he, an older man—he was a graduate student—was taking me, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, on a "working honeymoon" for a year in the jungle. Like most people, they had no idea where British Honduras was. Africa? An island off the coast of China? Only my German-born grandfather, who had run away to sea at fourteen, knew it was a tiny Central American country the size of Massachusetts, south of Mexico and east and north of Guatemala. Its entire eastern border faced the Caribbean as though the country were sprawled on its side, facing the azure half-moon of the earth's second-largest barrier reef. Along its spine grew some of Central America's most pristine rainforest. That's where Aaron and I were going—where the Maya lived.

Searching for Tamsen Donner in the L.A. Times

One hundred sixty three years ago this May 12, the Donner Party left Independence, Mo., and set out toward California. I imagine that this time of year 163 years ago, the members of the Donner Party were already busily making preparations for the journey they expected would last just four months.

And contrary to popular belief, the Donners were prepared for that trip. They had all the necessary staples – loads of food, good, sturdy transportation, warm clothes. Tamsen Donner, wife of party leader George Donner and the subject of Gabrielle Burton’s new book Searching for Tamsen Donner, also brought the things she would need to set up a girls’ school – things like books and paints.

Those details transform the members of the Donner Party from names in a history book into real human beings. Those details also make the story of the Donner Party even more interesting.

Searching for Tamsen Donner was featured in the L.A. Times this weekend, both in this review, and in this blog. Blogger Carolyn Kellogg sums up the allure of the Donner Party thusly: That perfectly respectable people might be forced into cannibalism to stay alive was a terrifying, cautionary tale (with a lesson: avoid poorly researched shortcuts).

Anyway, we here at the University of Nebraska Press were thrilled that the L.A. Times finds the tale of the Donner Party as captivating as we do.

In other review news, Robert Camuto’s Corkscrewed was featured in a review in the Lincoln Journal Star this weekend. French wine comes to Lincoln!

AAUP winners at the Sheldon, Camuto still on tour, and the NYT says nice things about the new Kindle

If you haven’t been to the Sheldon Museum of Art to check out the AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Show, now’s the time to go. The show, featuring the best examples of design from university presses in the United States and Canada, will be at the Sheldon through Friday. Among the books in the show is the University of Nebraska Press title A Life in Letters.

In other news, Robert Camuto’s tour of Seattle, San Francisco and New York is nearly over. If you haven’t been following the author of Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country on his tour via his blog, I suggest you do so. I’ve learned tons about wine just reading his posts. Judging by the photos, it looks like the events are attracting a sophisticated crowd (undoubtedly made up of people with sophisticated palates). Plus we get to see a bit of Robert’s style (which includes orange pants.)

Last, the New York Times offers this review of the new Kindle. The headline – The Kindle: Good Before, Better Now – pretty much tells you the story.

Camuto on tour, Toor at AWP and one last look at Valentines

University of Nebraska Press fans in Seattle, San Francisco and New York will have a chance to meet a UNP author frequently mentioned on this blog (and in many wine columns) this week. Robert Camuto, author of Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, will be in Seattle tomorrow (Feb. 17), in San Francisco Feb. 18 and 19, and in New York Feb. 21 through 25. For information on where you can see him (and taste some of the wines he describes in his book), visit his web site.

You can read reviews of Corkscrewed in the Seattle Weekly and the SF Weekly.

Moving on, The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) had its conference last week in Chicago. Here’s Rachel Toor, author of Personal Record and upcoming Bison title The Pig and I, in action at the conference.

 

Lastly, did you check out the video posted Friday of Ted Kooser reading from Valentines? If not, check it out now ... the link expires tomorrow.

Happy Presidents' Day everyone!

Extra-credit listening

UNP author Robert Camuto discussed his new book Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, on Texas Public Radio station KERA today. Listen to Robert talk about his move to France, his fascination with French wine, and the way the French wine industry is evolving here.