"Kitchens of the Great Midwest"

[fiefoe]

I needed something trauma free after the last couple of books, and J. Ryan Stradal's portrait of a goddess chef as a young girl almost fits the bill. Am glad that the Lutheran lady from the "bars" chapter made out ok. Braque almost steals the show.

• Braque felt it was good for her soul to intimidate coaches who preached loving kindness and mindfulness;
• “Nope,” Braque said. “I want some dude’s hairy knuckles up inside me, ripping that thing out for real.” She looked over her silent teammates. “Anyone know a cheap clinic off the Red Line?”
• Braque stopped a too-handsome jock-looking guy wearing a pink polo shirt and board shorts. These confident types were usually straightforward in a pinch.
• Eva didn’t see it, but Fiona and Jarl were so happy while they watched their daughter unwrap the grow light they’d bought for her.
• Eva picked up the four wings in turn, and with the beautiful focus of a woodpecker boring a hole, she completely cleaned them back to front in just over a minute,
• and evacuate a full eight ounces of undigested green slime onto the floor. What a scene! People backed away groaning and shouting. Someone called for a janitor. In the midst of it all, glowing with rude joy and shining with vomit, Braque at last grabbed her little cousin’s hand, and raised it to the sky.
• “I love spicy stuff. I put Tabasco sauce on almost everything. I put it on yogurt, even.” For some reason, she looked at him the way a mom might look at a teenager who had just bragged about being able to dress himself.
• the song “In the Aeroplane over the Sea,” by Neutral Milk Hotel. Ever since he first heard this song, he wanted someone to think of when he heard it, and now he had her, he had the beautiful face he had found in this place, and he turned off the lights and put the song on repeat, a more complete man than he was that morning,
• Ken was the fifth child of five, and the last one at home, and his parents, Arnie and May, seemed eager to have his friends around. They were generous in the way of people running a garage sale who give things away to the folks who come at the end.
• It was something to watch Eva’s hands on his mom’s old rod, doing the same things he’d only seen one other woman before, impaling a feisty nightcrawler twice through.
• He went home and turned off the lights in his room and put on the song “Why,” by Annie Lennox, the MTV Unplugged version, the one he got on a mix CD from one of his ex-girlfriends, and put it on repeat, he felt that fucking sad.
• He got hugged at the end of a second date! Hugged! I wouldn’t wish that on anybody! Seriously, you’d rather get slapped in the face than hugged!”
• She reminded Octavia of a Greek statue in progress, before all the extra marble had been chipped away.
• She was upbeat and harmless as an educational toy,
• succotash
• It made her nervous, like she was holding on to the edge of an inner tube in a current, and the slightest shock might suck her down into this standard of living, with these people. Now she realized why even though poor people had the numbers, they could never start a revolution; they feared and despised the people one step below them, and for good reason.
• Jordy continued to cut and stopped at the deer’s nipples. “Aw, fuck, her milk sacs are full.” “Well, that’s some sad stuff,” Hobie said,
• it didn’t matter how expensive or opulent the room was, checkout was still always at eleven, and when she walked out the hotel doors, she was still herself, and the thread count and concierge service and private pools were no longer real; they were borrowed like bodies in a dream.
• 1. Mom’s Chicken Wild Rice Casserole (recipe below) 1 small package wild rice 2 cups cooked chicken (diced) 1 can cream of mushroom soup ½ can milk Salt and pepper ¼ cup green pepper, chopped