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dramallamadingdang · 5 years

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It’s the time of the sea-ea-son for....replies.

OK, so that doesn’t fit the song lyrics at all, does it? Or is the song so old that you have no idea what I mean? Or... Ah, whatever...

These be for @bouncersimmer, @penig, @lilleputtu, @mortia, @tamtam-go92, @dunne-ias, @mysterious-inspired, and @glabeglarn...

bouncersimmer replied to your post “I don't play a historical game but in my Bacc Teens don't go to...”

Thanks for sharing this! Helped give me some ideas on a new town I'm making!

I’m glad! The transport mirror is a handy thing to have! It opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities if you use it creatively.

penig replied to your photoset “Rain, rain, rain… My rule is that if it’s raining, nothing outdoors...”

Hey, if it's raining when your crops need tending, you go out and you get wet. And fishing is better in the rain.

Well, yeah, in the real world, but I’m trying to make things harder here! *laugh* ‘Cuz really? These folks have a super-easy life. Which is OK because it’s a total fantasy and all and I’m not trying to be “realistic,” but I don’t want to get bored and stuff.

lilleputtu replied to your photo “Over to Gabrielle Thompson’s place. She grows hay which, really, is...”

okay, the floating background sheep just gave me a good giggle :D

Aren’t they awesome? I want to photoshop little capes onto them or something... “Look! Up in the sky! It’s SuperRam!”

lilleputtu replied to your photo “But eventually things cleared up enough for Zara (and the cat) to take...”

Fresh Meat is making this sound like a Cannibal settlement D:

Well, you know, if the crops ever fail.... ;) The newest one would be the first on the BBQ, right? :)

mortia replied to your photoset “The Stowes at work…and at not-work.”

Oooh that lake/river is gorgeous!

Thanks! That was just a quickie lot I threw together because I wanted to see how that windmill worked. (It generates flour sacks that can be used to bake desserts.) I decided to put water on it so that visitors could fish, too. It did turn out to be a pretty place to take pics. :)

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “Hey, I am having a strange issue with wants in my game. When my...”

No all toddlers roll wants to learn their basic skills! I had a toddler in my bacc whose parents split up shortly after her growing up, and she would only roll wants to interact with her parents and to gain specific skills points but she wouldn't roll a want to learn to talk until her final day time nap before growing up...

No, it’s true. I’ve had toddlers who never rolled a want for any of the skills and in those cases...Well, they DO get potty-trained because that’s part of my toddler-care schedule, but they didn’t get taught to walk or talk. And that doesn’t bother me because it’s not like there’s a penalty if they don’t learn those things. But MOST toddlers roll up a want for at least one of the skills. Most of mine seem to roll wants for all three plus the nursery rhyme, but not always.

I think it might be personality-linked. Like, my really outgoing ones will seem to roll up wanting to learn to talk first, while the really active ones will want to learn to walk first and the really neat ones will roll up potty-training first. But maybe that’s just coincidence, I dunno. It is a trend I’ve noticed over the years. But maybe if a toddler is shy, lazy, AND slobby, they’ll never roll wants to learn any of the skills...

dunne-ias replied to your post “Hey, I am having a strange issue with wants in my game. When my...”

the question really is, what kind of wants are they getting instead? for example, Hobby wants are kind of borked and just keep rerolling leaving not much room for other wants (unless you edit it or avoid hobbies)

Yeah, wants can be weird. But there does seem to be something going on with their game, since I just got a follow-up ask. :) But there’s also the issue that wants can be “trained,” in that if you constantly fill one, they’ll be more likely to roll that one. The problem, of course, is that if you play by wants, you naturally fill the wants they roll, if you can...which then “trains” them to roll those particular wants more often. So, you get in these ruts. I actually don’t mind the hobby wants because they’re generally easy to fill and once filled they’ll usually roll something non-hobby-related at least until the next day, since in my game, at least, the hobby wants seem to appear mostly on the Sim’s initial want-roll when they wake up.

mysterious-inspired replied to your photoset “The cat got into a war…with a wolf. Things didn’t go so well…for the...”

Is that cat Kim? I have one in my neighborhood that's a menace ��

Yep, it’s Kim. She’s quite the spitfire. When she’s not battling wolves, she’s killing things and demanding tribute from her human slaves. Because, you know, she’s a cat. :)

penig replied to your photoset “Meanwhile, the Basset house was being invaded by…practically everyone....”

Those are some huge plums.

I know! I wish real plums were that big! They’re one of my favorite fruits...

penig replied to your photoset “The cat got into a war…with a wolf. Things didn’t go so well…for the...”

She's a smart cat and went for the nose.

She must’ve. She’s a fluffy badass.

glabeglarn replied to your post “Oh, for the love of God, Norbert! This was the fourth time in a row!...”

He loves the sensation of the green tingling itch!

He must! Either that or he’s a masochist or it’s guilt-ridden self-flagellation or something. Because if you “accidentally” get poison ivy four days in a row, then I call that not an accident. Unless you’re, like, really really stupid. But Norbert actually seems to be not-stupid. I mean, at least he doesn’t blatantly cheat on his wife in front of his wife like most of the males in this neighborhood. *eyeroll* Plus, Knowledge Sim, right? He might crave an initial experience of something -- like they roll wants to get struck by lightning, of all things -- but four times? That seems a bit excessive. So I guess the boy’s just not quite right in the head.

lilleputtu replied to your photoset “And then Hawksley Sprog #4 was born. It is, alas, another boy....”

I am not looking forward to toddler mayhem in edona's glade. You're just dealing with SO MANY. how do you do it? Is it strong alcohol? because it sounds like strong alcohol may be needed. I already struggle with one toddler sometimes D:

*laugh* Alcohol might help, but since I’m not allowed it (because I have a damaged liver), it can’t help me! :) But there’s always weed, since I live in Pot-arado. :)

Pretty much, when there’s more than one toddler, I resign myself to the fact that most of what the adults are going to do is childcare and let everything else fall by the wayside for the time that their kids are toddlers. It DOES help that the cellar fridge is now bottle-enabled, so I can feed toddlers bottles from it, which is quicker (and, oddly, fills them up longer, which I totally don’t understand but I go with it) than feeding them solid food. But basically, I resign myself to the fact that childcare is going to take up all the adults’ time, pretty much, and I get the toddlers operating on a schedule, with feeding times slightly staggered so that they don’t all need to be fed at the same time. I also use a “toddlers sleep through the night” mod which helps to maintain a schedule. They all get up at the same time, and they all take a nap in the afternoon (to give the parents time to tend to their own needs, basically), and ideally they all go to sleep at night at the same time, although that doesn’t always happen. *laugh* Other than that, I make it so that one needs to be fed upon waking, one needs to be fed right before they go down for their nap, and the other gets fed before bed at night. And now that I have bottles, I can fill in if needed here and there. On rare occasions -- like if there’s twins -- I’ll have four, sometimes even five toddlers at once, and then it gets pretty chaotic, but I still try to stick to a schedule as much as possible. It’s really the only way to do it without going insane.

Well, OK, maybe not the ONLY way. Some people feed their toddlers pet food and/or have a never-ending bottle and they let them put themselves to bed as they will on pet beds and such, so that the parents pretty much never have to interact with them to take care of their basic needs, but I don’t like to play that way. It feels neglectful. I know they’re just pixels, but it still makes me feel icky. :)

penig replied to your post “Every time I think I’m going to get back on track with keeping up with...”

Bonk the guilt on the head. Following someone is not the same as promising to view all the content. Anybody you're particularly interested in, you can go to the individual blog sometime when you're in the mood. You never get to do all the things you want to do and that's life. Don't turn your leisure into work.

Yeah, this I know in my head. Although I suppose it’s not really “guilt” so much as there’s so many people’s work that I want to keep up with or catch up with...but at the same time, I want to do a lot of other things, including actually play my game. So when I plop myself in front of the computer for a stretch of time, I end up doing other things on it besides catching up with things I want to catch up with. And I can’t even say that more hours would help because I’d likely just spend those hours not doing the catching-up I want to do, too. *laugh* I’m just bad that way.

#bouncersimmer #penig #lilleputtu #mortia #tamtam-go92 #dunne-ias #mysterious-inspired #glabeglarn #taylors-simblr #replies

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mlleedom · 4 years

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White Frights - The Villains and the Fall Guys

February 2002

I don't know what it is, but every time I see a white guy walking towards me, I tense up. My heart starts racing, and I immediately begin to look for an escape route and a means to defend myself. I kick myself for even being in this part of town after dark. Didn't I notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every street corner, drinking Starbucks and wearing their gang colors of Gap turquoise or J Crew mauve? What an idiot! Now the white person is coming closer, closer - and then - whew! He walks by without harming me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

White people scare the crap out of me. This may be hard for you to understand - considering that I am white - but then again, my colour gives me a certain insight. For instance, I find myself pretty scary a lot of the time, so I know what I'm talking about. You can take my word for it: if you find yourself suddenly surrounded by white people, you better watch out. Anything can happen. As white people, we've been lulled into thinking it's safe to be around other white people. We've been taught since birth that it's the people of that other colour we need to fear. They're the ones who'll slit your throat!

Yet as I look back on my life, a strange but unmistakable pattern seems to emerge. Every person who has ever harmed me in my lifetime - the boss who fired me, the teacher who flunked me, the principal who punished me, the kid who hit me in the eye with a rock, the executive who didn't renew TV Nation, the guy who was stalking me for three years, the accountant who double-paid my taxes, the drunk who smashed into me, the burglar who stole my stereo, the contractor who overcharged me, the girlfriend who left me, the next girlfriend who left even sooner, the person in the office who stole cheques from my chequebook and wrote them out to himself for a total of $16,000 - every one of these individuals has been a white person. Coincidence? I think not.

I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord, never had a meeting at a Hollywood studio with a black executive in charge, never had a black person deny my child the college of her choice, never been puked on by a black teenager at a Mötley Crüe concert, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, and I've never heard a black person say, "We're going to eliminate 10,000 jobs here - have a nice day!"

I don't think that I'm the only white guy who can make these claims. Every mean word, every cruel act, every bit of pain and suffering in my life has had a Caucasian face attached to it.

So, um, why is it exactly that I should be afraid of black people?

I look around at the world I live in - and, I hate to tell tales out of school, but it's not the African-Americans who have made this planet such a pitiful, scary place. Recently, a headline on the front of the Science section of the New York Times asked Who Built The H-Bomb? The article went on to discuss a dispute between the men who claim credit for making the first bomb. Frankly, I could have cared less - because I already know the only pertinent answer: "It was a white guy!" No black guy ever built or used a bomb designed to wipe out hordes of innocent people, whether in Oklahoma City, Columbine or Hiroshima. No, friends, it's always the white guy. Let's go to the tote board:

· Who gave us the black plague? A white guy.

· Who invented PBC, PVC, PBB, and a host of chemicals that are killing us? White guys.

· Who has started every war America has been in? White men.

· Who invented the punchcard ballot? A white man.

· Whose idea was it to pollute the world with the internal combustion engine? Whitey, that's who.

· The Holocaust? That guy really gave white people a bad name.

· The genocide of Native Americans? White man.

· Slavery? Whitey!

· US companies laid off more than 700,000 people in 2001. Who ordered the lay-offs? White CEOs.

You name the problem, the disease, the human suffering, or the abject misery visited upon millions, and I'll bet you 10 bucks I can put a white face on it faster than you can name the members of 'NSync.

And yet, when I turn on the news each night, what do I see again and again? Black men alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing, gang banging, looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having too many babies, fatherless, motherless, Godless, penniless. "The suspect is described as a black male... the suspect is described as a black male... THE SUSPECT IS DESCRIBED AS A BLACK MALE..." No matter what city I'm in, the news is always the same, the suspect always the same unidentified black male. I'm in Atlanta tonight, and I swear the police sketch of the black male suspect on TV looks just like the black male suspect I saw on the news last night in Denver and the night before in LA. In every sketch he's frowning, he's menacing - and he's wearing the same knit cap! Is it possible that it's the same black guy committing every crime in America?

I believe we've become so used to this image of the black man as predator that we are forever ruined by this brainwashing. In my first film, Roger & Me, a white woman on social security clubs a rabbit to death so that she can sell him as "meat" instead of as a pet. I wish I had a nickel for every time in the past 10 years that someone has come up to me and told me how "horrified" they were when they saw that "poor little cute bunny" bonked on the head. The scene, they say, made them physically sick. The Motion Picture Association of America gave Roger & Me an R [18] rating in response to that rabbit killing. Teachers write to me and say they have to edit that part out of the film, if they want to show it to their students.

But less than two minutes after the bunny lady does her deed, I included footage of a scene in which police in Flint, Michigan, shot a black man who was wearing a Superman cape and holding a plastic toy gun. Not once - not ever - has anyone said to me, "I can't believe you showed a black man being shot in your movie! How horrible! How disgusting! I couldn't sleep for weeks." After all, he was just a black man, not a cute, cuddly bunny. The ratings board saw absolutely nothing wrong with that scene. Why? Because it's normal, natural. We've become so accustomed to seeing black men killed - in the movies and on the evening news - that we now accept it as standard operating procedure. No big deal! That's what blacks do - kill and die. Ho-hum. Pass the butter.

It's odd that, despite the fact that most crimes are committed by whites, black faces are usually attached to what we think of as "crime". Ask any white person who they fear might break into their home or harm them on the street and, if they're honest, they'll admit that the person they have in mind doesn't look much like them. The imaginary criminal in their heads looks like Mookie or Hakim or Kareem, not little freckle-faced Jimmy.

No matter how many times their fellow whites make it clear that the white man is the one to fear, it simply fails to register. Every time you turn on the TV to news of another school shooting, it's always a white kid who's conducting the massacre. Every time they catch a serial killer, it's a crazy white guy. Every time a terrorist blows up a federal building, or a madman gets 400 people to drink Kool-Aid, or a Beach Boys songwriter casts a spell causing half a dozen nymphets to murder "all the piggies" in the Hollywood Hills, you know it's a member of the white race up to his old tricks.

So why don't we run like hell when we see whitey coming toward us? Why don't we ever greet the Caucasian job applicant with, "Gee, uh, I'm sorry, there aren't any positions available right now"? Why aren't we worried sick about our daughters marrying white guys? And why isn't Congress trying to ban the scary and offensive lyrics of Johnny Cash ("I shot a man in Reno/just to watch him die"), the Dixie Chicks ("Earl had to die"), or Bruce Springsteen ("I killed everything in my path/I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done").

Why the focus on rap lyrics? Why doesn't the media print lyrics such as the following, and tell the truth? "I sold bottles of sorrow, then chose poems and novels" (Wu-Tang Clan); "People use yo' brain to gain" (Ice Cube); "A poor single mother on welfare... tell me how ya did it" (Tupac Shakur); "I'm trying to change my life, see I don't wanna die a sinner" (Master P).

African-Americans have been on the lowest rung of the economic ladder since the day they were dragged here in chains. Every other immigrant group has been able to advance from the bottom to the higher levels of our society. Even Native Americans, who are among the poorest of the poor, have fewer children living in poverty than African-Americans.

You probably thought things had got better for blacks in this country. After all, considering the advances we've made eliminating racism in our society, one would think our black citizens might have seen their standard of living rise. A survey published in the Washington Post in July 2001 showed that 40%-60% of white people thought the average black person had it as good or better than the average white person.

Think again. According to a study conducted by the economists Richard Vedder, Lowell Gallaway and David C Clingaman, the average income for a black American is 61% less per year than the average white income. That is the same percentage difference as it was in 1880. Not a damned thing has changed in more than 120 years.

Want more proof? Consider the following:

· Black heart attack patients are far less likely than whites to undergo cardiac catheterisation, regardless of the race of their doctors.

· Whites are five times more likely than blacks to receive emergency clot-busting treatment after suffering a stroke.

· Black women are four times more likely than white women to die while giving birth.

· Black levels of unemployment have been roughly twice those of whites since 1954.

So how have we white people been able to get away with this? Caucasian ingenuity! You see, we used to be real dumb. Like idiots, we wore our racism on our sleeve. We did really obvious things, like putting up signs on rest-room doors that said WHITES ONLY. We made black people sit at the back of the bus. We prevented them from attending our schools or living in our neighbourhoods. They got the crappiest jobs (those advertised for NEGROES ONLY), and we made it clear that, if you weren't white, you were going to be paid a lower wage.

Well, this overt, over-the-top segregation got us into a heap of trouble. A bunch of uppity lawyers went to court. They pointed out that the 14th Amendment doesn't allow for anyone to be treated differently because of their race. Eventually, after a long procession of court losses, demonstrations and riots, we got the message: if you're going to be a successful racist, better find a way to do it with a smile on your face.

We even got magnanimous enough to say, "Sure, you can live here in our neighborhood; your kids can go to our kids' school. Why the hell not? We were just leaving, anyway." We smiled, gave black America a pat on the back - and then ran like the devil to the suburbs.

At work, we whites still get the plum jobs, double the pay, and a seat in the front of the bus to happiness and success. We've rigged the system from birth, guaranteeing that black people will go to the worst schools, thus preventing them from admission to the best colleges, and paving their way to a fulfilling life making our caffe lattes, servicing our BMWs, and picking up our trash. Oh, sure, a few slip by - but they pay an extra tariff for the privilege: the black doctor driving his BMW gets pulled over continually by the cops; the black Broadway actress can't get a cab after the standing ovation; the black broker is the first to be laid off because of "seniority".

We whites really deserve some kind of genius award for this. We talk the talk of inclusion, we celebrate the birthday of Dr King, we frown upon racist jokes. We never fail to drop a mention of "my friend - he's black..." We make sure we put our lone black employee up at the front reception desk so we can say, "See - we don't discriminate. We hire black people."

Yes, we are a very crafty, cagey race - and damn if we haven't got away with it!

I wonder how long we will have to live with the legacy of slavery. That's right. I brought it up. SLAVERY. You can almost hear the groans of white America whenever you bring up the fact that we still suffer from the impact of the slave system. Well, I'm sorry, but the roots of most of our social ills can be traced straight back to this sick chapter of our history. African-Americans never got a chance to have the same fair start that the rest of us got. Their families were willfully destroyed, their language and culture and religion stripped from them. Their poverty was institutionalized so that our cotton could get picked, our wars could be fought, our convenience stores could remain open all night. The America we've come to know would never have come to pass if not for the millions of slaves who built it and created its booming economy - and for the millions of their descendants who do the same dirty work for whites today.

It's not as if we're talking ancient Rome here. My grandfather was born just three years after the Civil War. That's right, my grandfather. My great-uncle was born before the Civil War. And I'm only in my 40s. Sure, people in my family seem to marry late, but the truth remains: I'm just two generations from slave times. That, my friends, is not a "long time ago". In the vast breadth of human history, it was only yesterday. Until we realize that, and accept that we do have a responsibility to correct an immoral act that still has repercussions today, we will never remove the single greatest stain on the soul of our country

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/mar/30/features.weekend

I read this excerpt from Moore’s book at an open mic night at a coffee shop shortly after the book release in 2002. Moore has been labeled contentious and divisive. He was at the cutting edge in helping those impacted by the water crisis in Flint, MI. I can relate to this piece as I have never been harmed by a black person and what I have seen in the media throughout my 4+ decades has been a complete disconnect.

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thefearlessgastronomist · 6 years

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FEARLESS READS

Book Discussion: My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme

Publisher: Knopf Pages: 333 Genres: Non-Fiction, Autobiography/Biography, Memoir, Food & Drink, Cultural

Related Reading: The French Chef in America by Alex Prud’homme As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis de Voto, Edited by Joan Reardon Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes 1 and 2 by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck From Julia Child’s Kitchen by Julia and Paul Child Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell

I’ve talked about Julia Child multiple times before, but I promise it’s for good reason. Although I did not grow up in the time of her reign, it goes without saying (since I’ve said it everywhere else) that her story and career have effected me in some way, shape, or form. I’m not even entirely sure where to start with discussing it.

My Life in France was first published in 2006 by Knopf, the same publishing house that helped bring Julia’s magnum opus, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, into the world. Written in collaboration with her grand-nephew Alex Prud’homme (her husband Paul’s twin brother’s son), My Life in France describes in detail Julia’s years in the country, starting from her very first steps in La Havre, 1948. Alongside her adoring husband, Paul – whom Julia also describes this book as a “love letter” to – each new adventure, each new experience, each new dish consumed and cooked is documented ad nauseam from their 13 years in Europe thanks in part to saved letters written between family, journals, and so much more that have been revisited for this purpose. The book also does graciously include personal photographs (taken mostly by Paul) that give My Life in France and Julia’s story much more charm, as many have not been seen elsewhere.

Let me just start by saying this: I have very split reactions about this book.

On the downside... I discovered that, although she is a marvelous cook and charismatic television personality, Julia Child is incredibly intense. The way she approaches all that she sets her mind out to do (like writing a cookbook or two) are done so with extreme determination, voracious research, and to the utmost degree of completion. While these are, of course, qualities to be admired in others, when it is those aspects discussed in novel form... it is just too much. Too much to read over and over for three-hundred-plus pages. Although it is a different part of her life each time, you can only read so much about how a morsel of food tastes, the steps in development or preparation of a recipe, or other such culinary ventures that Julia took part in. I know as a chef (and as myself a chef of sorts) that all of this is very much a part of her life and her legacy. But at times I just had to put the book down and walk away for a while – which explains why it took me so long to read it. Her madness over the perfection and other such details when cooking, especially so when developing recipes with Simca and Louisette for Mastering the Art of French Cooking, combined with every single smidgen of every memory recalled while in France, it is really enough to drive a person crazy.

Positively, despite this, I will say that I gained a much greater appreciation for Julia Child as a culinary master and as a human being; I believe this to be the perfect book to spearhead my own culinary endeavors. Most importantly, I realized how much she and I are alike – primarily as chefs and in relation to food, but also a few instances as to who we are as people. We were both late bloomers upon entering the culinary world; we both marvel at delicious, well-crafted food and enjoy eating it equally as much; and we both are quite fond of learning new things in this life, especially as it relates to cooking. Funny enough, we both even suffer(ed) from stomach problems. As I made my way through My Life in France, I often smiled to myself when reading passages wherein I saw so much of myself in Julia Child, our shared sense of optimism and adventure especially. Knowing that I share something more personal with Julia gives the book just enough redemption to not only help me finish reading it (though I never leave a started book unfinished), but also enough to say I think I did enjoy reading it. Plus: she had a niece named Rachel and that sort of coincidence is always fun.

Being on both ends of the spectrum – loving a book while also kind of despising it – I’m not sure I want to read the follow up novel, The French Chef in America: Julia Child’s Second Act, which was written solely by her grand-nephew (published in 2016). I’ve definitely had enough Julia Child to last me for a while. For me, My Life in France was a more important read here, and not just because Julia herself had a hand in writing it. In my eyes, her years in France were what shaped who she was/is and created the inspirational woman we all recognize by name. The fact that it was, in part, a travelogue of France (and a few other parts of Europe) was merely an added bonus. My Life in France was about Julia and Paul, and who they are/were as a couple. It was about Julia’s thirst for something more in her life, and Paul’s undying support for every venture she undertook. The French Chef in America, while I’m sure equally as pertinent to her later life, it is more in regards to coping with her celebrity and her impact on others after reaching post-cookbook fame and in the prime of her television show. I’m sure it is a very good continuation of her story, as it does pick up right where My Life in France left off, but my interests in Julia’s story were much more so about a marvelous French-style chef and how she came to be, not so much her television persona. Through My Life in France, you uncover why people loved her, and why she had so many people she could and did work with. But that was achieved by simply describing her day to day excursions. In reading the beginnings of The French Chef in America online (through Google Books), Prud’homme has naturally changed the narrative to third person and, while he is family, to me it just becomes another biography – though a much more well-informed one – and it doesn’t feel the same. Not to mention, it sounds like it would be very similar to My Life in France in the sense that it would be a book about producing a television show. Different source material, but same problem as the first.

MY OFFICIAL RATING ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

This was the perfect book to have read at the beginning of my own culinary endeavors, but I am also so glad to be done with it. Every detail, every memory, the way she approaches life and her work is both inspiring and crazy. I realized that my affinity for Julia not only stems from our shared love of food and cooking, but also our vast similarities. I found it fascinating all the people Julia was acquainted with – like James Beard, Jacques Pepin – as well as the numerous people in every city she lived that she was able to connect with (at the markets, in restaurants, etc.), and you do realize that she was very much a force to be reckoned with. And an intense inspiration to many people.

In reality, though, this book is not so much about her life in France, but rather more related to how her first cookbook came to be. And unfortunately a book about publishing a book and all that it involves... is pretty damn boring. Take out much of that content and I think I could have enjoyed the book much more. But once writing the cookbook was all that she was doing, my interest waned, and I just wanted to be done with reading it.

ABOUT JULIA CHILD & ALEX PRUD’HOMME (from front of book)

Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II; afterward she lived in Paris, studied at the Cordon Bleu, and taught cooking with Simone (Simca) Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). In 1963, Boston’s WGBH launched The French Chef television series, which made Julia Child a national celebrity,earning her the Peabody Award in 1965 and an Emmy in 1966. Several public television shows and numerous cookbooks followed. She died in 2004.

Alex Prud’homme, Paul Child’s grandnephew, is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, and People. He is the author of The Cell Game and the co-author (with Michael Cherkasky) of Forewarned. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

#book #books #literature #reading #read #fearless reads #book review #review #reviews #julia child #my life in france #my life in france by julia child #memoir

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lukaandthereadingcure-blog · 7 years

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Words From a Mentee

I woke up on the morning of August 24th and the first thing on my mind was, “Did I remember to pack everything?” Later that afternoon, I was due to board a flight to Portugal (via my native UK) for my brother’s wedding this week. It had – only for a moment – slipped my mind that the Pitch Wars announcement had just been made (I’m on the west coast, and slept longer because I can’t on planes).

I grabbed my phone and checked Twitter – something I have been instinctually doing since the beginning of July. One of the greatest things EVERYONE takes away from participating is the sense of community it brings. Seeing your compatriots in the same boat and recognizing the feelings fluttering through the Twittersphere. I was swiping through when I saw Brenda’s announcement that the list was live – and almost fell out of bed as it all hit me.

It was happening. Was I ready? Did I need to take a breath and collect myself? I was already clicking on the link before I could think… and then the worst happened – the spreadsheet was all jumbled up and I spent ten whole minutes zooming in and out in an attempt to decipher it (see my screenshot below). Eventually, my concentration was steady enough to notice the name of my MS – THE HEART THAT FOLLOWED ME HOME, within the heavily layered text. I fell out of bed…

I gave my phone to my boyfriend and asked him to double check that I wasn’t hallucinating or reading it wrong. He confirmed that it was, indeed, the title of my MS. Not just that, but he also located my name within the layered text, two lines up. But who was my mentor(s)? I still couldn’t see and I almost pulled my hair out.

Then, Twitter blew up. I received tweets from both Helene Dunbar and Beth Hull – the mentoring duo powerhouse I had enthusiastically subbed to after researching the hell out of them in July. Tweets that not only confirmed that they had chosen me (really, they chose me… what?), but had genuinely loved my MS and complimented it so publically. I’m not being dramatic here. This is my first experience with Pitch Wars, as well as having any kind of public admiration for my writing outside of my critique partners. I wasn’t expecting it. In fact, I had lined up a rejection read for the plane in order to curb any disappointment from not making into the 2017 cohort. I swiftly threw that book out of my suitcase and packed my laptop and my MS instead. I had work to do, and I was SO ready for anything they were about to throw at me.

Before I go into what it has been like as a mentee so far, I want to give special thanks to Natalka Burian and Aimee L. Salter, who were kind enough to insist that there is no thanks necessary, but the thing is – there is. I find it difficult to find the words to describe how much it meant to have three mentors request my MS, let alone one (which I know is poor for a writer), but it’s true. Each mentor took the time to get to know me and to share their how much they enjoyed my MS. My thanks is, and always will be, endless.

I feel lucky to be working with both Helene and Beth. They are a dynamic duo who are different, but work so in sync that it is almost flawless watching them give feedback. I see so much of my process and form in Beth. Her eye for plotting and character has already strengthened my MS in areas where it was dipping. Helene has a connection to the subject matter that seemed almost divine in its coincidence. Her own work has explored themes of mental health for young readers and she is able to see areas of my word I have yet to explore authentically.

As a team, they are more than I could have ever asked for and exactly what a mentorship should feel like. With every correspondence I feel as though I have grown some more, and I am a writer who LOVES structure, deadlines and critical feedback. There’s something liberating about tearing one thing up to build something better. I’m taking a break from doing just that in order to write this.

I realize that, in the end, many did not succeed in gaining a mentor for Pitch Wars – and I feel that weight. I have my rejection scars like all aspiring writers, and I genuinely believe that timing can be everything. This isn’t my first MS, and while this IS my first Pitch Wars, I have queried another novel before with no luck. I have been in those PW support groups on Facebook and Twitter before the announcement. I have seen your queries and read the spirit of your stories. You cannot give up – there are other avenues to take your writing journey, and you WILL find the one that is right for you. It may be PW next year, or it may be something entirely different. My approach to working with Helene and Beth is to have no expectations other than the opportunity to learn, grow and develop my MS to its full potential with their experienced and professional help.

I received my edit letter the day after the announcement, when I was suffering with jet lag and seeing family again who I had not seen for two years – since moving to Canada. To say this week has been an emotional rollercoaster already is an understatement. I even had a little cry in one of the rooms at our villa where I could be alone, where everything finally hit me. Aspects of my personal story definitely inspired my manuscript. It is #OwnVoices, and some of the struggles my MC faces echo my own – his battle with a rare form of OCD, his struggle to feel comfortable with his sexuality as a teenager. I didn’t have a novel I could read and relate to at that age, and the possibility that mine could one day be on a bookshelf for someone else means more to me than anything else.

I will post more as my journey with Pitch Wars progresses. I am grateful – beyond words – to be sat here writing this. I’ve even managed to stop falling out of bed. We have to celebrate these small successes.

#pitch wars #pitchwars #mentee #writing #fiction #young adult #YA #amwriting

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