Sharp Knives, Boiling Oil (Weekend Reads)

Cooking with my kids is something I do almost daily. I started when they were toddlers, more or less as soon as they could stand beside me in the kitchen. We've included knives from the beginning, and so much more. I thought I was pretty great, cooking with them. I wrote about it many times, I spouted off advice to anyone who would listen. I thought I was a bit of a rock-star mom. Then I read Sharp Knives, Boiling Oil by Kim Foster.

If I am a rock star mom then Kim is the royal family, the Queen Mum. She makes potato chips from scratch and then volunteered to teach a preschool class in a Harlem public school how to cook. Then she lived to write about it.

And by teaching these kids to cook I don't mean she set about to mix up some chocolate chip cookies or press the button on the food processor to make hummus. She made dumplings and spring rolls, pastry, cheese, stocks for soups, and all this after starting with meatballs. She is equal parts brave and insane.

I love her so much.

Sharp Knives, Boiling Oil is her self-published e-book documenting her year with the kids in the Harlem public school. But it also about documenting her changing relationship with her oldest daughter and her own relationship with cooking and enjoying food.

Kim is honest, funny to the point of downright hysterical, and speaks what the rest of us only think when it comes to personal criticism and relationships. I would kill to drink wine with her if only to hear her voice. And get all the stories that didn't make the book.

This book also includes recipes and some intensely personal admissions. I literally laughed and cried - what a cliche - through the book. But I did and so will you. And then you will want to make Chocolate Kumquat Spring Rolls and sit around the table with your family and a roast chicken. Because that is what Kim does, she makes cooking and people real, so real that you need to become a part of it too. Just like the kids she worked with did.

Charley Harper Board Books (Weekend Reads)

When I picked up the first of these books with a fabric order from Purl Soho I held on to them, keeping them away from the kids. Too precious, I thought. Then I picked up the third in an airport bookstore last month and brought them out. And now - no word of a lie - they are my little man's favourite books. He crawls around with them, eats them, hands them to me or his sisters to read... What can I say? The boy has great taste.

Side by Side (Weekend Reads)

With March Break in full swing here I've been looking for creative ways to spend time with the girls. I've also been looking for a way to prioritize my time with them, while still fulfilling my creative needs. I was hoping that this book would provide a bit of inspiration.

Side by Side from Tsia Carson is not your typical craft book. She pitches it as projects that you can do with your resident crafter. Not so much about setting them up or doing all the dirty work for them. That's the goal.

To be honest, I'm not sure she really succeeded in that. There are definitely projects that work very well when parent and kid work as a team. And some that show great parallel activities so that both get something interesting and appropriate for the skill level. But it didn't really read any different than most craft books to me, other than some language about working with your kidlets.

And the projects? Well, many are things I've seen before - with some notable exceptions. I'm trying to convince my husband to do some guerilla gardening in the park across the street for the Living Willow Tree Teepee. And my kids loved the Giant Newspaper Snowflake. But pom poms, making stuffies from your kids drawings, and hand sewn pillows I've seen many times over.

My other issue with the book is the inconsistency in project instructions. In some cases they are so basic. And that's fine, if you know what you are doing. In others they are nicely detailed. It reads like a reflection of the author's own skills. If she knew how to do it, she assumed others did. If she had to research and figure it out, she spelled it out for readers. There is, however, a detailed technical section at the back of the book for the skills needed for the projects, like crochet stitches. It's pretty handy.

Carson's website is Supernaturale. I love the site for tidbits of inspiration and ideas. The book,  I suppose, is the same. Tidbits that are good for picking.

I do think this is a good addition to my library, despite my criticisms. It serves as a good reminder to be with and work with my kids a bit more. And I'm positive that once the kids devour it I will be pulling out pom pom makers and fabric paint and staplers to craft with them, at their insistence, not mine.

Under This Unbroken Sky (Weekend Reads)

About the only time I read is right before bed. I snuggle under the quilts, a cup of warm almond milk with honey in hand and the book that generally lives beside the bed. Some nights I manage to make it through more than 2 pages before falling asleep. But if I don't grab those two pages I usually can't sleep. The next night I inevitably need to read one of those pages over to remind myself what happened.

You can see why it takes me a while to get through a book, at least since having my baby boy. Either through some miracle or because of good books, I've managed to get through two novels already this year! Two! The latest finish is Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell.

A friend loaned me this book solely on the premise that the story is about Ukrainian immigrants settling on the Prairies. Why, that's my background! No, I wasn't a settler, but my Dad was, after WWII. The setting, the descriptions of the home, the land, the people hit quite close to home for me. I saw my Baba in the women of the novel, both my Dad and my Dido in the men. I imagined the joy of a heart shaped rock in the children in the one room school house located uphill in both directions. I felt the dirt of the frozen floor.

I wonder if it was Mitchell's writing or my own experiences clouding the read. I mean, I've been on the farm my Dad's family settled and the quiet, tiny, drafty "cabin" they lived in. It was nestled on the edge of some trees, with a view to a massive stack of wood (for the stove), a slough, and the start of the farmland. Oh, how I hated going to that farm as a kid. So backwards, so scary. Now, however, I totally appreciate the labour, the hardship, the opportunity that cabin and farm provided. It only took me 25 years to get there.

This is also a story that goes beyond the hardship of settlement and tackles the struggles of family - abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and sibling relationships. Or maybe that is still the story of settlement? There are painful, cringeworthy and heartbreaking scenes in the book that literally make you gasp and hold your stomach. There are joyous and beautiful moments of love that make you want to get up and dance.

Mitchell's writing is haunting. She captures turns of phrases familiar to this Ukrainian, she describes the farm in a way that has you digging out the dirt under your fingernails. And she captures the emotions of the characters so well too - one day you love one, the next day you want to smack the petulant child, and the day after that you desperately want to correct his confusion.

I'm a sucker for good storytelling, and this novel is it. Is it any wonder I managed to finish it in less that a month with my bedtime routine?