Reading Envy 171: Foodie Recommendations with Jen Nathan Orris

Jenny reached out to the host of her favorite foodie podcast to see if she would be interested in collaborating on a recommendations episode - just in time for the holidays! We cover a range of types of books - cookbooks, essays, memoir - and have a few titles from the backlist to recommend as well. The second season of the Skillet podcast goes live the same day this episode, so I hope you'll give both a listen!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 171: Foodie Recommendations with Jen Nathan Orris

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Books discussed:



Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver 
The Nordic Baking Book by Magnus Nilsson
Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African-American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin
Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi 
Nothing Fancy: Unfussy Food for Having People Over by Alison Roman
Women on Food ed. by Charlotte Druckman
Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs by Julia Turshen
The Modern Cook's Year by Anna Jones
Mixtape Potluck Cookbook by Questlove
South: Essential Recipes and New Explorations by Sean Brock
The Jewish Cookbook by Leah Koenig
The Best American Food Writing 2019 edited by Samin Nosrat

Other mentions:

ASAP's Farm Tour (Western North Carolina)
Chef's Table - Magnus Nilsson (tv show)
Nilsson - Thick Oven-Baked Pancake with Apple on JennyBakes
The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty
Top Chef Season 13
Kith and Kin
Where I Come From by Aaron Sanchez
Alison Roman on Instagram
Feed the Resistance by Julia Turshen
Dorie Greenspan
Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan and Julia Child
Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan
Keep Calm and Cook On podcast
Jones - Whole-wheat spelt, date, and molasses scones on JennyBakes
Jones - Cauliflower rice with fried eggs and green chutney on JennyBakes
Chef's Table episode with Sean Brock
Heritage by Sean Brock
Brock - Peanut Butter Chess Pie on JennyBakes
Best American Food Writing 2018 edited by Ruth Reichl
The Bitter Southerner

Related Episodes (and Posts):

Episode 064 - Reading Down the Rabbit Hole with guest Tracy Landrith
Episode 143 - Reading the Pain with Kala
Recommended Reads in Biography and Memoir: Foodie (July 2017)


Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Skilletpodcast.com
Jen is @skilletpodcast on Instagram
Jen is @skilletpod on Twitter


Some of these links are Amazon affiliate links, where I do get a minor kickback when people click on them. Since I never beg for donations, I don't feel too bad about it.

Reading Envy Podcast 073: Buried Under the Beets

Jason Roland is back, this time in person, and we discuss some of our best recent reads. Also southern wisdom and natural disasters, which always seem to happen around the time we record an episode. Is it the books?

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 073: Buried Under the Beets.


Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
Or listen on Google Play
Listen via Stitcher

Books discussed:



Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
My Struggle, Book One by Karl Ove Knaussgard
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner
Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South by Vivian Howard
Twilight by William Gay

Other mentions:

The Risen by Ron Rash
The Hottest State by Ethan Hawke
Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke
Before Sunrise (film)
Magnificent Seven (film)
Indeh by Ethan Hawke and Greg Ruth
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
VICE - Knaussgard interview
Autumn by Ali Smith

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A Chef's Life (PBS show)
The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
Sean Brock
Anson Mills
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Barkskins by Annie Proulx

Related podcast episodes:
Reading Envy Episode 014: Flannery O'Connor with Zombies
Reading Envy Episode 025: Mule and Plow
Reading Envy Episode 042 - It Begins with Rain
Reading Envy Episode 046 - Books for Your Kitty Party (The Best of 2015) 
Reading Envy Episode 054 - Retired Pirates

Stalk us online:
Jason on Twitter
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter

Library Books April 2016

Vacation, Bailey's Prize shortlist, and other random reasons to get books from the library!

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
The Meursault Investigation  by Kamel Daoud
The Past by Tessa Hadley
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild
Koreatown: the Cookbook by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard

When we went on vacation a few weeks ago, I went impulse book picking at the library. I brought home the Straub (which I read in the low country) and the Hoffman (which I didn't.) The Daoud was a pick earlier in the year of one of my book groups, but it took a while for my library hold to come in and I had to read The Stranger first. I checked out the McCarry on a whim, after reading a review for a book later in the series.

The Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced earlier this week. I had already read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and The Green Road by Anne Enright. At the library I found two more (which I probably ordered) - the Bond and the Rothschild. Koreatown was just sitting there begging to come home with me, and the Rankin I requested from interlibrary loan (also ordered a copy for our library to have later.)

The Hadley is the first group read of a new reading group I joined in Goodreads, which focuses entirely on super recent (as in published this year or last year) literary fiction. I'm looking forward to it!

Library Books August 2015

Five Good Minutes in the Evening: 100 Mindful Practices to Help You Unwind from the Day and Make the Most of Your Night by Jeffrey Brantley
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
The Garden Angel by Mindy Friddle
Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine: Poems by Jesse Graves
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda
Indonesian Cooking: Satays, Sambals and More by Dina Yuen
A Field of Greens: African Gourmet Slow Cooker Soups and Stews by Ivy Newton
The Herbfarm Cookbook by Jerry Traunfeld
The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Baranbaum
Radically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease by Rozanne Gold

This looks like a giant list but I have reasons for all of these! Actually one day I was looking at my bookshelves in Goodreads, namely my to-read shelf, and noticed I had quite a few cookbooks on there.  I decided to go ahead and get a handful from the library so I could take a look and get them off my to-read list. I have made one noodle dish from the Indonesian cookbook and one dinner from the Gold, but haven't even peeked inside the others yet.

Only one of these books is for a book club, although two started out that way. The Graves is one of the picks in my Southern Literary Trail group and since I was not going to read Go Set a Watchman I thought I could at least read some poems. I was pondering joining a local book club about classics, which is why I got the Dirda, for research! I ultimately decided I didn't really have the capacity to join another monthly book club, and also I wasn't overly excited by the classics idea. I think I just like book clubs. I may finish skimming that book but may return it unfinished.  I like Michael Dirda and recently enjoyed a review copy of his upcoming book, Browsings, a compilation of his book columns (not reviews) from the Washington Post.

Many many friends have waxed eloquently about the MacDonald so I want to give it a try, despite feeling no particular interest in hawks. Heck, I read an entire David Foster Wallace novel about the IRS, so I clearly will read about anything.  I checked out the Friddle because she is a graduate from the university where I teach, and will be on campus as an adjunct this semester. It looks to be similar to Sarah Addison Allen and Sarah Hoffman, which I enjoy from time to time.

The Chodron and the Brantley are all connected to my newly forming interest in mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy. The Brantley is hands on and the Chodron is a bit overly steeped in Buddhist jargon for me, but still has such great moments! That's one I'll end up buying so I can have it on hand.

A professor here recommended the Schumacher to me, and as she guessed, I laughed my head off; the Murakami I decided to read after listening to the audio and not quite getting to it - definitely not my favorite from that author. The Powers I got in anticipation of a podcast discussion (posting mid-September, recorded Thursday night) but I was overly optimistic about the amount of time I would have to read.

Have you discovered anything interesting at the library lately?