gerikatz

I withheld disbelief as long as I could, and enjoyed most of the book, but the ending felt rushed and totally improbable. I wanted to like it more than I did.

Meh. Entertaining enough that I wanted to finish it to find out how it ended, but i hated all of the characters and found the whole premise ridiculous.

I love that this cookbook walks you through every ingredient, every step, every layer of the dish you're making. I felt like I had a friend walking me through the Asian supermarket, helping me pick out ingredients. Then she taught me to make homemade broth, toppings and sides to go with the ramen. We had the spicy miso ramen with tofu tonight, with marinated bean sprouts and pickled cucumbers on the side and the whole family loved it!

Pleasantly surprised by the way the characters developed throughout the story.

Entertaining, but I never got over a rich white woman trying to speak for black maids in the 60s. There were moments when I felt she captured the terror African Americans must have felt during the era, but for the most part it just felt like a nostalgic look back on her childhood. The detailed descriptions of all the domestic tasks left me wishing I had a full time maid, but that was about the only lasting impression.

Probably my least favorite of Vowell's books. Perhaps I am just less familiar with the subject matter than I was with the themes of her other books, but I just had a hard time getting into this one.