Happy Labor Day!

"Labor is life" is my motto today, since I am traveling to Boise for work today. Not much of a holiday weekend, I'm afraid.

Mailbox Labor Day

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Kristen at BookNAround is hosting in September.  Please visit her terrific blog for reviews of her favorite types of books, mostly contemporary/literary fiction, historical fiction, young adult, narrative non-fiction (travel, cooking, etc.) and memoirs.

I got two books last week, both with Northwest connections:



Pure Beef: An Essential Guide to Artisan Meat with Recipes for Every Cut by Lynne Curry.

I've had my eye on this one because I have a freezer filled with grass fed beef.  It promises to help me cook this entire cow: "With chapters organized by cooking methods and corresponding beef cuts, its 140 recipes are customized for leaner, heat-sensitive grassfed beef and model a healthful and sustainable approach to meat eating."

Lynne Curry is a food writer and former vegetarian who now lives in Joseph, Oregon, in the Wallowa Valley -- one of my favorite places in the world. 



The Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion by Robert Michael Pyle, published by OSU Press.

This is a collection of essays, originally published in Orion and Orion Afield magazines, exploring Charles Darwin’s contention that the elements of a tangled bank, and by extension all the living world, are endlessly interesting and ever evolving. The essays range from hops to independent bookstores to the monarchs of Mexico.

I want to read this mostly because the author's back-cover biography and picture compel me to:

Robert Michael Pyle dwells with his wife, Thea, a botanist and weaver, in an old Swedish farmstead in southwest Washington. His sixteen books include the John Burroughs Medal-winning Wintergreen, The Thunder Tree, Sky Time in Gray’s River, and Mariposa Road. A Guggenheim Fellow and founder of The Xerces Society, he is often associated with butterflies, slugs, and Bigfoot.

 "He is often associated with butterflies, slugs, and Bigfoot."  That is priceless! Especially when accompanied by this photo:

Review: Extra Virginity

 

Extra virgin olive oil is the gateway drug to great food, as many a foodie has discovered. But in Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, Tom Mueller explains that what consumers around the world accept as EVOO usually isn’t.

The standards for what makes olive oil “extra virgin” are both objective and subjective. EVOO is supposed to come from fresh pressed (or centrifuged) olives maintained at relatively low temperatures, without heat or chemical treatment. Various regulations govern the chemical makeup of EVOO. The EU, for example, sets limits on the amount of free fatty acids and peroxides that can be in olive oil and still be called EVOO.

On the subjective side, the flavor of the oil determines whether it is “extra virgin.” EVOO should have a balance of fruity, bitter, and peppery flavors – a combination that can be challenging to those more used to softer, sweeter olive oil. Bitterness and pepperyness indicate the presence of antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and other “minor components” of top-quality olive oil that make it so healthy.

Mueller argues that most of the oil sold in Europe and America does not meet the definition of EVOO, for three main, sometimes interrelated, reasons. The first two are objective – the oil exceeds regulatory standards for free fatty acids, peroxides, or other elements, or the oil had been adulterated. Adulteration has been a problem with EVOO since ancient times. Oil has been labeled and sold as EVOO, even though it has been cut with seed or vegetable oil or with refined olive oil. Refined olive oil is the trickiest because it comes from olives, but has been processed with heat or chemicals that remove bad odors or flavors, but also remove the healthy elements of the oil.

The third reason is harder to pin down because it depends on the flavor of the oil. If the oil does not have the flavor profile described above, it should not be called EVOO. It may have bad flavors, such as moldy, rancid, cooked, greasy, metallic, or cardboard, or it may just lack the bitter and peppery flavors EVOO should have. Mueller makes the case for intentional mislabeling on the part of olive oil distributors trying to tap into a huge and growing market that demands the “extra virgin” label.  That may be a big part of the problem, but flavor issues can also be the result of time. Olive oil is a natural fruit juice, so its flavor and aroma begin to deteriorate within a few months of milling, and quickly go downhill when the container is opened and the oil exposed to oxygen.

One drawback to Mueller’s book is a lack of organization. He combines chapters on the history of olive oil, the science and manufacturing of olive oil, recent olive oil scandals, and the current state of olive oil production in different countries. But he jumps around among these topics seemingly at random. Still, Extra Virginity is fascinating, argumentative, and enlightening. It will change the way you shop for and consume extra virgin olive oil.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it. 

NOTES

Tom Mueller has a great website devoted to olive oil called Truth in Olive Oil where you can find all kinds of information of how to taste, buy, and use good quality EVOO.  

This counts as one of my books for the Foodie Reading Challenge, hosted by Margot at Joyfully Retired, the Non-Fiction, Non-Memoirs Challenge hosted by Julie at My Book Retreat and the Audio-Book Challenge hosted by Teresa at Teresa's Reading Corner.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Fortune's Deadly Descent

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

I close my eyes.

 --  Fortune's Deadly Descent by Audry Braun.  That's a pretty short opening sentence that doesn't tell much. But it immediately gets very interesting because the heroine closes her eyes to be hypnotized by an Interpol investigator trying to help her remember her son's kidnapping. And we're off!

This is the second in a series that started with A Small Fortune.  If this one is even half the rip-roaring fun of the first, it's going to be a hit.

Braun is the pen name of novelist Deborah Reed, author of Carry Yourself Back to Me, a Best Book of 2011 Amazon Editors' Pick.

MORE LINKS

My Rose City Reader review of A Small Fortune
My Rose City Reader review of Carry Yourself Back to Me
My Rose City Reader interview of Audry Braun
The Deborah Reed/Audry Braun website

Teaser Tuesday & GIVEAWAY: Public Trust

She wore a brown and orange wrap, with a South American or tropical design -- he wasn't sure which. In one hand she held a bottle of red wine and a plastic goblet, in the other, a bouquet of maidenhair fern and scarlet and yellow monkey flowers.

-- Public Trust by J. M. Mitchell.  This is mystery with a National Park story-line.  It has a romance going too, as you can see in this scene . . . .  

Thanks go to book publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek for my copy, and copies for a giveaway!

THE GIVEAWAY

This is a "leap-frog" giveaway.  This means that I have three (3!) copies to giveaway to Rose City Reader readers, and each winner will get to host another giveaway for an additional copy.

The contest is for readers in the USA and Canada and is open until Labor Day Monday, September 3, 2012. There are five ways to enter and each one is worth a chance to win.  To enter, do any or all of the following, but you must leave a comment for each one:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include a way to contact you (email or website address in your comment or available in your profile). If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway. Posting the giveaway on your sidebar is also acceptable. Leave a separate comment with a link to your post. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to my rss feed, follow me on blogger, or subscribe via email (or tell me if you already are a subscriber or follower). Leave a separate comment for this. (1 entry)

4. Tweet this post on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment with your twitter user name. (1 entry)

5. Post this on facebook, pin it on Pinterest, Stumble it, digg it, technorati fave it, or otherwise put it out there in the social network. Leave a separate comment with a link or explaination. (1 entry)

There are a lot of ways to enter (maximum of five entries), but you must LEAVE A SEPARATE COMMENT for each one or they will not count. I will use random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is open to entries from the U.S. and Canada only. The deadline for entry is 9:00 PM, Pacific Time, on Labor Day Monday, September 3, 2012. I will draw and post the winner's name in my Teaser Tuesday post for September 4, 2012.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.