What are you getting for Mother's Day?

Do you give gifts for Mother’s Day? My children use to buy something from the Mother’s Day stall at school for me but now my older two like to buy something from the shops. We try to make it small so, for me, a book is my ideal gift as I can’t think of anything I would rather do than while a way a few hours reading a book. Hopefully I might get breakfast in bed as well!

I was thinking – what books would I like this Mother’s Day? I looked at a book store catalogue of a major chain that arrived in my post box this week and I thought the selections were very stereotypical.  In the catalogue were:

• Jodi Picoult. I don’t mind her books but I’m not sure that that’s what I want to read on my special day;

• Family meal type cook books. While I love cookbooks, unless it’s got some kind of story woven in, a book about slow cooking or family meals in a flash is like giving me electric appliances for my birthday which my husband knows is a “no no” if he wants to stay in my good books.

• Chick lit. We might choose these books for ourselves to read, but our better halves and children should beware that they’re not implying we’ve lost all our brain cells raising said children;

• Biographies about inspiring women. I’m not sure Susan Boyle is my idea of a role model, and some of the others just make me feel inadequate as I look at my daily routine of taxi driver for the kids, cook and housekeeper for everyone.

• Travel to far away places – not for me this year. My son is going on a more exotic trip with his school than I will have this year.

• Body and diet. These made me really laugh.  I'm not sure that it's a good idea for a man to give The Feel Good Body by Jennifer Fleming and Anna Louise Bouvier, for example, to his partner on behalf of the children and I not sure how I would feel if my teenage sons gave it to me or how my mother would feel if I gave it to her.

What I’d like to get for Mother’s Day:

For my foodie passions: Sunday’s Kitchen by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan.

Those living in Melbourne may be familiar with Heide, the home of John and Sunday Reed, and sanctuary at various times to many Melbourne artists and writers such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and Charles Blackman. This is part history book, part cookbook and sounds fascinating. A review of the book can be found here.

For the fiction reader: The Second-Last Woman in England by Maggie Joel

This book intrigued me after I read about it in a blog called Bookbath which I follow (you can read the review here). Set after World War II, the story starts with a murder. It is not the murder that is focus of the book though, as apparently the perpetrator is know at the outset. It is the relationships between the main characters during the year prior that are important.

A biography to make us think how fortunate we are: Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox.

I, like many of my age group, loved the Back to the Future movies and TV shows that Michael has appeared in during the 1980’s. When he wrote his first book, Lucky Man, on living with Parkinson’s disease after being diagnosed at the young age of 30, I meant to read it but have never got around to it. I now have it beside my bed to tackle soon. I think he is such an inspiring person, and I’m sure his approach to life is very different these days from when he was at the pinnacle of his acting career. It’s good to be reminded sometimes as to how lucky we are.

"Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen" by Julie Powell

On Saturday night I was home alone – my husband in Bendigo, my younger children in bed, and my oldest son out at a party. I poured a glass of wine and popped in that DVD that I’m sure my husband wouldn’t be interested in watching – Julie & Julia. I was dying to watch it as I missed it at the cinema and I had read Julie Powell’s book, on which the movie is based, last year.

The book tells the story behind the blog, “The Julie/Julia Project”, that Julie Powell wrote in 2002/3. At the time of starting the blog, Julie is working in a government job answering calls from people affected by the 9-11 Twin Towers collapse, approaching the big “3-0” milestone, and feeling she has nothing to show for it. What she needs is a challenge!  Using her mother’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, published in 1961 by pioneering American TV chef Julia Child, Julie decides to cook every recipe in the book in 12 months, and to write about it in a blog. Surprisingly, the blog caught on, and Julie’s fan base grew.

You can still read Julie’s blog online and I had a look today. Why was the blog such a success? Maybe it was something to do with the newness of blogs. Since the advent of TV we have become obsessed with celebrities, and anyone can become a celebrity by posting their life on the internet. Blogs were embraced then, much as today’s younger generation have taken Twitter to heart today. Maybe it was the style of the blog – it was witty and funny, and written in a style that made you think you were having a conversation with a friend. Maybe it was the subject matter. I’m sure that many of us can identify with Julie’s ups and downs as we try to cook new dishes. The triumph of doing something complicated well, and the despair when things don’t turn out to look as the picture in the cookbook does.

The movie is slightly different than the book as it runs as two parallel stories – the one written by Julie Powell, but also that of Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep), an American diplomat’s wife based in Paris after the WWII, looking for something to do with her time. I was fascinated with Julia’s story and would love to read the book based on it, My Life in France, by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme.

Writers at the Convent - #1 Paris

I had a lovely afternoon on Saturday listening to a range of people talk about the books they had written.  I realised how much I like knowing what was in the author's head when they were writing the book or getting a feel for the type of person the author is.  It was the first time I had been to Melbourne's Abbotsford Convent and the surroundings are beautiful.  There are a few places to eat with umbrellas and tables outside and I was greatly tempted at 5 p.m. to sit down and order a glass of wine, open up one of the books I had bought and take in the view - but my husband and I are having an alcohol free month for February after the excesses of Christmas holiday period. Never mind, maybe next time.

My first session was with Shannon Bennett and Elizabeth Bard featuring food and Paris.  Shannon's book, "Shannon Bennett's Paris" is a mine of information about dining, accommodation, and foodie places to go in Paris, with a focus on Michelin starred restaurants, luxury accommodation, markets, bistros, and patisseries for the sweet treat.  For those of us not contemplating a trip in the near future, there are Parisian recipes to try at home.  Now you might think that you will never dine at a Michelin starred restaurant, but many of the empty nesters in the audience had not only dined at Shannon's Vue de Monde restaurant in Melbourne, but were looking for tips as to where to go in Paris for a similar experience.  Shannon made the comment that with the advent of celebrity chefs and sophisticated cooking shows on TV, we have become more aware of fine dining as a source of entertainment, not just food and thus are prepared to spend more when we go out.  He impressed the audience to think of going to a restaurant in Paris as going to the theatre, where the surroundings and the presentation of the meal at the table are as important as the food.