December 2011
Here's To Hoppin' John And A Very Lucky New Year
Don’t you just love holiday traditions that revolve around food?
One of my favorites is the practice of serving the rice and beans dish known as Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day in the hope that it’ll bring you good luck in the coming year. It’s said to have originated among slaves, who had used black-eyed peas to represent coins, which were meant to impart future...
Forecasting A Few Food Trends For 2012
While poring over a recent post on the James Beard Foundation Web site predicting which foods will be hot/hot/hot in the coming year, I couldn’t help wondering what these pronouncements were based on. Was it a kind of chicken-or-the-egg scenerio?
Does a dish or a culinary technique become big because it’s riding some imaginary wave of popularity? Or does the simple act of forecasting...
Three Movie Deals for SF/Fantasy by Lauren Beukes,...
As recently reported by the SF/Fantasy pop culture site io9.com (here and here) and others, three great novels are being developed for the big screen: Lauren Beukes’ Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Zoo City, Cherie Priest’s Hugo-nominated Boneshaker, and Charles Yu’s critically acclaimed How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
This is in part a coincidental series of events, as the...
Happy Boxing Day! Who's Up For Curry?
For our neighbors to the North, the day after Christmas looks a lot like our Black Friday, a time for competitive bargain hunting. But this “bank holiday” goes way back to pre-retailing times.
Thanks to Wikipedia for filling us in on the nitty gritty: As long ago as the 17th century, this day was traditionally recognized as a time for the upper crust to be charitable and generous to...
Exclusive Interview with Christopher Paolini
It’s been a heck of a year for Christopher Paolini. In November he released Inheritance, the fourth and final book in the best-selling fantasy series he started writing at the age of fifteen. Inheritance was an instant hit, and in less than a month became our tenth best-selling book of the year.
In between packed tour stops at schools, bookstores, and libraries, Christopher made time to visit...
Holiday Gift Books for Cooks
The ways people cook are as varied as the people doing the cooking. Aside from wanting to prepare a great meal, we cook for a variety of reasons: sometimes to rekindle family dinner memories, and other times to to discover something new and wholly different. If you’re from the south, or admire that region’s culinary charm, you might want to take a look at Paula Deen’s Southern...
Holiday Gift Books for the Genius in Your Life
People who read books tend to be pretty smart, so there are a lot of good books out there for (and by) smart people. Take Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. He won the Nobel Prize in 2002, and now he’s a best-selling author. I’d say his book was selling like hotcakes if hotcakes filled you with knowledge instead of carbohydrates— so maybe you could say it’s...
Why We Picked Them - #86 - #90
We continue with an explanation of why we picked the books we picked for the 2011 Best Books of the Year list.
#90 – Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
There’s no question that Alexandra Fuller is a wonderful memoirist. Her first book Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is a vivid portrayal of her white family’s life in Rhodesia while the pillars of colonialism...
YA Wednesday: Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler on...
What if you could get a glimpse of your future through Facebook? Sounds pretty cool, right? Then imagine seeing that future while you’re a teenager—even better! Now here’s the real kicker: imagine this is all happening in 1996, when the Internet came through a phone line, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used it. Authors Jay Asher (Thirteen...
Media Monday - The Holidays and Work Go Together...
The holidays are looming over us like the tree I saw at Rockefeller Center last week: big, bright, twinkly, and able to cause the more pressing aspects of life to temporarily fade out of view. I’ll admit that the upcoming holidays already have me under their spell. It looks to me like others are enchanted as well. Along with mailing some presents, I’m not so sure that some of the...
The Restorative Powers of Cooking
The worst thing about having a broken arm is that I’ve been virtually banished from the kitchen. It’s amazing how many tasks require two hands! And, as much as I’ve tried to stay positive, that change in my daily routine has been making me cranky.
Last week, though, while watching an old episode of The French Chef on Amazon’s Instant Video, the one where she walks us...
December 12 Weekly Open Thread
The weather outside may be frightful, but here in the back of the garage it’s so delightful—a perfect climate-controlled 72 degrees Farenheit. C’mon in and join the conversation.
The Car Lust Global Operations Center mailbox, carlustinfo@amazon.com, like any publicly-posted e-mail contact, gets its share of spam. We got one last week that was amusing because the spammer’s...
Media Monday - 'Tis the Season for Best-of Lists
Once Black Friday hits, the best books of the year lists start emerging like cicadas. I’m tempted to write something about their sudden, overwhelming numbers and the piercing noise these lists create, and how they both fascinate and repulse me (as real cicadas do), but the truth is I really like best of the year lists. Having read my fair share of books through the year, I find BOTY lists...
Spending Some Quality Time With The French Chef
So, after busting my arm, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the couch, trying to hold still. Which is a challenge for somebody who’s used to being overscheduled.
The best discovery I’ve made during my recovery is a treasure trove of vintage cooking shows on Amazon’s Instant Video, with 10 seasons of The French Chef rising to the top. (Available for free to Amazon Prime...
Your best friend calls you and tells you he/she's...
We at Amazon had the pleasure of receiving this exclusive video from Patricia Cornwell, author of the popular Scarpetta series—which, as a a body of work has won just about every award available to mystery/thriller writers, as well as being a cult favorite among fans. In anticipation of the latest Kay Scarpetta installation, Red Mist, Cornwell offers a meta-perspective of her...