Cake and Cumin

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

By Mark Bittman

As you can see form this blog, I love cooking. I also love cookbooks (even if I alter most recipes). Cookbooks can be pretty difficult though. We have a kosher kitchen and now mostly cook vegetarian. Almost every recipe I find has to be altered creatively in some way. And there is nothing more frustrating than buying a cookbook and realizing you can’t use at least a quarter of the recipes. That’s why I love this cookbook. I can use almost every recipe in this cookbook. The recipes are delicious and flavorful. They are healthy and wonderful. Finally, the thing I like most about this cookbook is that they give alternatives to every recipe. So, for example, they will provide a recipe for tacos and then give 15 different taco filler combinations. The possibilities you can cook through this cookbook are endless and you definitely get your money’s worth.

The Back of the Napkin: Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures by Dan Roam

Anyone who has been in my office knows that I am a visual thinker. I have 2 whiteboards and over a dozen large white pieces of paper with post-it notes all over them. OK, to be really honest, this book was not as useful or fun as I thought it would be but it was a good read that provides a different perspective for thinking out problems and finding solutions.

Matched

By Ally Condle

So, you know how everyone is raving about Hunger Games? Throw in a bit more romance and a few additional “society of the future” twists and you have Matched. It is definitely a semi-predictable book for teenagers but that being said it is an interesting, fantastic quick read. Think girl meets boy, girl in happy society has decided they should be together as well, then girl starts questioning society and the idea of rules.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

By David Sedaris

This book is awesome. If you’re looking for slightly screwed up stories with ironic twists, this is your book. Similar to Etgar Keret’s style, this book is fun and funny for those with a bit of a twisted sense of humor.

Committed: A Love Story

By Elizabeth Gilbert

I LOVED Eat. Pray. Love. I mean, let’s be honest, who didn’t? So I was excited when I heard she was writing another book based on the idea of marriage. I have to be honest, I did not enjoy this book. The background story was interesting (the book is based on the idea of examining the construct of marriage in different cultures based on Elizabeth’s relationship with her long-term boyfriend). I thought I would enjoy and appreciate the sociological angle of looking at marriage in different cultures but the story dragged. The cultural pieces weren’t cultural or sociological for me and the personal anecdotes didn’t really connect everything quite enough… or maybe it was just that whole completely, happy ending thing tends to ruin a book for me.

The Attack

By Yasmina Khadra

The Israeli –Palestinian conflict is a complicated one with many moving pieces. This story focuses around a well-known Arab-Israeli doctor at a hospital in Tel Aviv. His wife, Sihem, is killed in a suicide bombing. The resulting investigation leads to all sorts of questions about the doctor, his role in society, his wife, and the many issues within society there. The book is amazing. Read it.

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization

By Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross, and Bryan Smith

To me, having a learning organization is an important component of organizational success. You can’t get stale, you can’t sit on status quo, and you can’t stop moving forward. When I was looking for non-profit resources, I searched through a variety of books looking for suggestions, methodologies, and options that were not boring or ones that were so obvious. Then I found this guidebook. It’s big and thick but it is wonderful. The book has a variety of margin icons that help guide you through the book (and also help find activities you may be interested in. For example, one icon is a solo exercise. If you want to try a few of them out, you can go through the book only looking for those icons to try out some solo exercises). Icons also include team exercises, systems stories, tool kits, and infrastructure. Each chapter guides you through a thought, tells a related story, offers helpful charts and graphs, as well as questions to think about along the way. This book has really enhanced my knowledge base and gave me additional resources to utilize afterwards. Strongly recommended for those who manage peoples, teams, or lots of strategy.

Great House

By Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss also wrote The History of Love which was a absolutely amazing book. Again, I love those tragic romances. Great house follows a few different story lines. In the beginning it seems they are all stories of love, but not connected at all. As the story goes on, the reader sees how different people, ideas, items, and places are intertwined. It is a touching book that shows the importance of the little things and how without realizing it, so many people can be connected.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

By Anthony Bourdain

As you may know from this post, I loved working in kitchens and while I never did it professionally, kitchen culture is so interesting. Anthony Bourdain’s book details his culinary journey, both high and lows, and describes different kitchen atmospheres in amazing details. They are down and dirty, no bull places where you work hard now and play hard later. This book is perfect for anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen, wanted to work in a kitchen, or wanted to know what it may be like to work in a kitchen.

Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice

By Nancy G. Siraisi

One of the most amazing courses I took in college was Epidemics throughout History. The class, taught by a professor from the history department and an epidemiologist, examined various epidemics throughout history (hence the name). Each epidemic studied would review the medical components of the disease but then would also look at how that disease affected society, culture, economics, and politics of the area. The class had a tremendous amount of reading, but it was the most interesting materials ever. This book was one of our initial reads. It goes through early concepts of medicine, medical practices, and how it was influenced by society.