Delicious Reads: Extra Sauce and Passport to Flavor

14 Apr

Extra Sauce: The Good, the Bad, and the Onions
by Zahra Tangorra
Extra Sauce is the new memoir by chef Zahra Tangorra. Tangorra’s opened the popular New York restaurant Brucie as well as the popup ZaZa Lazagna. The book is filled with adventures in the kitchen that will appeal to fan’s of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. The chapters are defined by a variety of dishes many of whose recipes are shared. Two dishes that I plan to try to recreate are The Brucie Tag[gliatelle] and the almost Tuscan bean recipes from her time in Italy, both of which sound delicious. Although foodies will enjoy her culinary escapades, the emotional depth of the story primarily comes from her complicated relationship with her parents who also at one point had a culinary endeavor of their own. Her father’s recipe for potato salad and her mom’s apple strudel are amongst the family recipes included. Tangorra has a quick fire, quirky delivery which is infused with both humor and heart. The story is also a love letter to New York where Tangorra spent most of her life and therefore will especially resonate those familiar or enamored with the city.

Passport to Flavor: 100 Global Dishes You Can Make Anywhere (An International Cookbook. Delicious Recipes from Around the World)
by Abby Cheshire
Passport to Flavor is a fun cookbook of international recipes from Abby Cheshire who works as a cook on a private yacht and became famous for posting her dishes and adventures on TikTok and Youtube. This cookbook is divided by destination as diverse as cities in Bahamas, Ireland, India, and Vietnam (plus several more). At each destination there are dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as a mixed drink and snack for cocktail hour to give the feeling that you are journeying with her crew by yacht on a world wide voyage and eating locally inspired dishes along the way. Little Chefs, as Cheshire refers to fans of her vlogging will enjoy the colloquial tone of the book. Advice on recipe adjustment is referred to as “throttle control” and substitution is an “alternate course.” I appreciated that she views the recipes as basis that she encourages home cooks to adjust to suit their needs. She includes “rogue waves” to watch out for aka advice on things that could go wrong such as under or over cooking. Dishes I’m planning to try include Charleston’s Bourbon Bread Pudding, Ireland’s Boxty with Smoked Salmon, Italy’s Pollo Al Tarragon, and Germany’s Apple Marzipan Cake.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

Tags: , ,

Horror/Thriller Book Club March Pick: The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling

9 Apr

March’s read for the Hoboken Public Library’s Horror/Thriller book club was part unhinged, grotesque imagery, and unreliable sanity. The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling enticed our group with its synopsis hindering the instinctual defenses to survive at any cost.

Book cover for The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling. The design features a pale, textured background with a classical stone archway. Above the arch is a statue of a woman leaning and with her head tilted. Inside the arch is a red, window opening with a dark silhouette of a person standing. The title appears in large red lettering at the top, and the author’s name is written at the bottom.

When you have perhaps one last thread to save your existence, in this case an experimental medical procedure that destroys your immune system so that it can be rebuilt, how many of us would be tempted not to take the risk? That’s the moral conundrum that ticks on every page. 

When that primal instinct comes in play, for me that’s what truly makes the horror genre great, and Caitlin Starling blends an unreliable narrator mixed with imagery and angst of the COVID-19 pandemic all left to fester in a petri dish of suffering and sly corporate slouthing and conniving. 

Some parts are slow, the protagonist gets too in the weeds with her thoughts and her second guessing sometimes goes over the top. Then again, if walls were coming alive and floors eating people all mixed with the hospital living, breathing, and speaking to me, I’d probably be this way, too. 

Margaret (Meg) Carpenter has a severe  immune disorder that has destroyed her insides, allowing her to do very little and maintain almost no relationships (personal and professional). Her life is falling apart and she’s destitute. She will latch onto anything, including her nurses and the nightly cleaning crew. 

My heart was strung tight for the majority of this book, but it also somehow found a way to be thankful – thankful for what hospital staff and the medical community must endure to keep us safe – the terror of dealing with patients that are so sick or in desperate positions that they morph the world around them. 

In the end, it’s a radical commentary on the blending of medical ethics and extreme treatment that blurs the line of how far we may be willing to go in our loss of agency to save our lives.

Interested in the Horror/Thriller Book Club? Please email reference@hobokenlibrary.org, or register for our next meeting by searching under Events on our website.

Have you read The Graceview Patient? What did you think? Comment below.

You can reserve it in the BCCLS system here, or access the ebook and audiobook on Hoopla.

Hit subscribe to get more Hoboken Public Library Staff Picks delivered to your inbox!

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Tags: ,

← Older Entries