crazysalad

Elizabeth Bishop Birthday Centennial

Today marks the 100^th birthday of poet Elizabeth Bishop, born in Worcester, Massachusetts on February 8, 1911.  

Bishop is one of America’s leading poets.  Among her best-known poems are “The Filing Station” (click on the audio link to hear Bishop read it), “In the Waiting Room,” and “The Fish” (click here for the poem with Bishop’s audio reading and here for Bishop’s correspondence with poet Marianne Moore on the poem).

Bishop’s traveled widely, lived for a while in Key West, Florida, and then moved to Brazil, where she lived for a number of years with her lover, the architect Lota de Macedo Soares.  Bishop returned to the U.S. in 1970, taught at Harvard, and died in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1979 at the age of 68. 

This past weekend, at the AWP conference in Washington, D.C., I attended a the Elizabeth Bishop Birthday Celebration, a panel led by editors, critics, and poets who knew Bishop and offered stories, readings of letters, and assessments of her work.

For those of you (sorry, Susan!) who were not able to attend, what follows is a synopsis of my notes from the panel.  

Poet and writer Joelle Biele discussed Bishop’s long (over forty-years) relationship with The New Yorker, chronicled in the book, Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence, edited by Biele and published just last week by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Next came Lloyd Schwartz, editor of the Library of America’s collection of Bishop’s poems, prose, and letters.

Schwartz: “If I were delivering a formal paper, I would call it, A Creature Divided.”  This refers to an obliquely autobiographical line in Bishop’s “Sonnet,” that was published posthumously.  (Click here for Schwartz’s commentary on that poem.  (The audio links, unfortunately, are broken).

Schwartz tried to show what a complicated person Bishop was.  She devoted her life to art and works of art, for example, yet she wrote to Robert Lowell that “art wasn’t worth that much” and criticized him for not being accurate in his transcription of letters of Elizabeth Hardwick (Lowell’s wife).”

Bishop was a many-faceted creature.  Her correspondence reveals her, as her friends knew her, as “Elizabeth.”  Yet, there was also the proper, fastidious “Miss Bishop.”  An image she went along with but, in large part, was created by the New Yorker, Schwartz noted.  Her writing is wilder and stranger than they let her be.  The New Yorker tried to tame her, change her. 

Sometimes Bishop resisted, although that doesn’t mean she didn’t allow them to make the changes they pushed for in her work.  But often she was uncertain about elements in her work, especially punctuation.  In a letter to Howard Moss, Bishop asked about when it was correct to use “which” vs. “that.”  “I can’t ever remember,” she said.  “Don’t tell anyone.”

The back cover of Biele’s book shows the changes The New Yorker made to Bishop’s “North Haven,” Schwartz said.  It shows how they “wrecked her poem.”  In Bishop’s version of the poem, she had capitalized all the names of the flowers.  The magazine changed it to make it conform to house style.

You can see some examples of letters between Bishop and editor Howard Moss on the poem, “Crusoe in England." Perhaps the funniest line is where Maxwell refers to the Wordsworth quote (from “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”) that Bishop has included in her poem:

                        ...The books

I’d read were full of blanks;

the poems—well, I tried

reciting to my iris-beds,

“They flash upon that inward eye,

which is the bliss…” The bliss of what?

One of the first things that I did

when I got back was look it up.

 

Maxwell writes: “the whole quote is an anachronism.  Is that ok?”

(By the way, I looked it up when I got back, too. The line ends: the bliss of solitude.  Italics mine.) 

Another case of altering her poems involved a lower case “g” that a New Yorker style editor had indicated needed changing because it “would go against English and looks monstrous.”  Editor William Maxwell, at least conscious of the magazine’s inflexible attitude, jokingly wrote in a letter to Bishop that allowing a lower case “g” would “rock the magazine to its foundations,” and, so, asked her to please let them change it. 

Bishop also liked 18^th and 19^th century punctuation and had a habit of beginning a line with a dash, but The New Yorker would not tolerate that.  (Much as Emily Dickinson’s unique punctuation was tamed upon initial publication, Bishop’s lively, expressive, original punctuation was changed, too.) 

One of the most famous examples is in her poem, “One Art.” In every one of her drafts, Schwartz pointed out, Bishop ends the first line with a colon:

            The art of losing isn’t hard to master:

What follows in the poem is a list of lost items (keys, places, names, watch, years, etc.). The New Yorker changed Bishop's colon to a semi-colon and in later drafts, Bishop didn’t push to change it back.  Why, Schwartz asked.  Was it insecurity on Bishop’s part?

Another speaker on the panel, Jane Shore, poet and professor at George Washington University, was a student of Bishop’s at Radcliffe, and eventually her colleague at Harvard.  In 1979, Ploughshares published an article by Shore titled “Elizabeth Bishop: The Art of Changing Your Mind.”  (Unfortunately, the full article is not available online, only the first page.)  

But Shore summarized some of the essay during her talk.  She noted that because Bishop used the present tense in her poems, it is like eavesdropping on her thoughts.  There are lots of examples where Bishop changes an image or thought mid-stream in a poem.  Often she does this by asking a question, using a conjugation, or correcting herself with “rather” or “that is.”

Often Bishop gives the impression of a person who seems ambivalent, because she gives an image, then takes it away.  But the clever result is that you are left with both images.  In “Santarem,” for example, she gives a series of oppositions with slashes in between:

            life/death, right/wrong, male/female

In her essay, Shore quoted from the poems and noted that Bishop deflates religion, politics, and art, and describes “moral owls.” 

Looking back, Shore laughingly said, “I don’t know why, at the time, I thought Bishop wouldn’t see this article.  It was published in Ploughshares and available at the bookstore in Cambridge!” 

Sure enough, she received a letter from Bishop, dated May 10, 1979, and written on light blue stationery.  “Dear Jane:  I was both surprise and pleased” to see the article in Ploughshares.  Bishop noted how one develops patterns in one’s writing without being aware of it.  “I think I shall try to avoid such either- and or-ing in the future.”

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

 

 

 

Banned Books Week 2009

September 26-October 3, 2009 is Banned Books Week.  Celebrate your freedom to read by picking a book that makes you cringe, cry, squirm, angry, sad, uncomfortable, happy.  Challenge yourself.  Challenge your beliefs.  Think.  Be thankful you still can.  Breathe.  Love.  Read. 

It's interesting looking over this list of books and the reasons why they were challenged.  As a mother, I have certainly felt some of the same concerns about the books my three daughters read (or the TV programs or videogames they watch and play).  And I have withheld certain materials from my girls because I felt they were inappropriate.  To me that's good parenting.  But that ban didn't extend to my friend's or neighbors kids or the entire school district. 

Now that my kids are older and I have less control over their world, I will occasionally find them reading or looking at something online or listening to music with lyrics that surprise me.  Having been raised Catholic, my first reaction is, oh, they shouldn't be reading that!  Old habits die hard.  It's easier to control someone if they don't ask questions.   It's easier to forbid something than to examine or discuss it.  Heaven forbid you might actually change your mind.  Your belief system.

The funny thing is when I do look a little deeper into what my kids are reading, listening to, and thinking, it has generated some great discussions with them.  Brought me closer to them.  Introduced me to lots of new music and books I never would have picked up on my own. LIke Richard Siken's Crush, collection of poems about longing, love and pain.  I can't wait to read it.

American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008 (out of 513 challenges as reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom--love that name!):

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
   Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
   Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence.  Retained by the publicly funded Dufferin-Peel Catholic School District in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada in 2008 with a sticker on the inside cover telling readers "representations of the church in this novel are purely fictional and are not reflective of the real Roman Catholic Church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
   Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence
5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence. Banned from the Orestimba High School's English classes in Newman, California in 2008 by the superintendent after complaints that the book is profane and anti-Catholic.  Teachers claimed that the superintendent circumvented the district's policies on book challenges and set a dangerous precedent.  The book is about a boy maturing, asking questions about evil, justice, and the nature of God.  
6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
   Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group
9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
   Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
    Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

I Did It!

This month, I did something I have been wanting to do my whole life.

I wrote a book. 

A novel.

In one month.

I wrote a novel in one month!

I just finished less than an hour ago and now I am sitting here unable to leave my desk, not really believing it's true. 

But here it is right in front of me.  The Dream Thieves.  It's a ghost story (or a "gross story," as one person misheard).  It's a story about a war and the clash of cultures and generations.  It's a story about mothers and daughters and the memories that haunt us and redeem us.  And food, of course!  How food defines us, nourishes us, and holds us together.

Some people have compared writing a novel to giving birth.  Having given birth to three beautiful, healthy babies, the loves of my life, I can tell you, it's not even close.  Or maybe it's just that I know from experience, that conception and giving birth is the easy part.  The hard part is raising them and then sending your babies out into the world. 

That comes next.

But for now I am happy to just sit here stunned by my accomplishment, the fulfillment of a long overdue promise to myself. 

I'm am so, so grateful to my real-life daughters for believing in me and supporting my dream. 

To Tyler, who inspired me and is writing her third novel!
To Kelsey and Siena, who helped with dinners and the dishes and fed the cats so their mother could go out to her office and bang her head against the keyboard day after day:  I love you more than all the words in the whole "entier" universe!

And tomorrow I will answer all the email and pay all the bills and return all the phone calls and buy some groceries.  I promise.

Love,
your Mom, the writer

"Those who discourage your dreams likely have abandoned their own."

Sweet Dreams...

The Real Enemy

Do you believe one person can change the world?

When that question was posed at a recent book club meeting, nearly every hand in the room went up in agreement.

Now, do you believe YOU are that person?

We all looked around.  We were in a room full of at least forty people, mostly older women, in the La Jolla Library.  We shifted in our seats.  One brave woman finally raised her hand.

I believe it. I believe that each person on this earth is capable of changing it. 

So why didn’t I raise my hand?

Was it modesty?  Was I afraid of what people would think of me?   

What were the others thinking?  (Who am I?  How can I make a difference?  Why should I bother recycling when most people don’t?  Why bother voting?  My one vote won’t change anything.  Why should I worry about someone else’s problems?  I’ve got my own problems to take care of.)

Or was it peer pressure that silenced me?  No one else had their hand up so I wasn’t going to be the first to stick mine out.  I didn’t want that kind of public scrutiny.

Why not?

How can I believe I can change the world if I can’t even take that first step?

If I can’t even raise my hand to speak for myself, how can I expect others to do so?  As Isabel Allende has said, with all of the privileges we have in this country, we have an obligation to help others, especially other women, who have less than we do--less money, less education, less power.

That takes courage.

No, more than that.  It takes audaciousness:

1.    A willingness to defy the status quo, the restrictions put upon us by society in the form of laws, religion, manners or tradition.

2.    A sense of adventure.

3.    A spirited fearless daring.

That’s what it takes.

Are we so wrapped up in our own world (work, relationship, TV) that we can’t be bothered to step outside our comfortable little boxes?

Well, one person can make a difference.

One person has.

The book in question at that discussion was Three Cups of Tea, the selection for the One Book, One San Diego program this year. The idea behind the program is to get everyone in the city to read the same book.  (Talk about audaciousness.  Getting everyone in the city to read a book would be a miracle.  The same book?  That would be a revolution.)

"How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?"  Pakistani Brigadier General Bashir Baz is quoted in the book, as he and Greg Mortenson watch a live CNN feed from Baghdad in the fall of 2003 of wailing Iraqi women carrying children's bodies out of a bombed building.  "Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years."

"...Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America.  Thanks to America, Osama is in every home.  As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard.  You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength.  In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else.  The enemy is ignorance."

Greg Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote, volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He has established over 61 schools, which provide education where few education opportunities existed before.

Mortenson has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.

When the porcelain bowls of scalding butter tea steamed in their hands, Haji Ali spoke.  “It you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways,” Haji Ali said, blowing on his bowl.  “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger.  The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest.  The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die,” he said, laying his hand warmly on Mortenson’s own.  “Doctor Greg, you must make time to share three cups of tea.  We may be uneducated.  But we are not stupid.  We have lived and survived here for a long time.”

“That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life,” Mortenson says.  “We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly.  We’re the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their ‘shock and awe’ campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started.  Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.  He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”

If you want a truly amazing story of how one person can make a difference, read the book.  Even better, go hear Greg Mortenson himself.  He will be in San Diego this week, speaking at various places around town. 

I want to go to Camp Pendleton.  For one, in all my 18 years in San Diego, I have never once stepped foot on a military base.  Second, I want to hear what Mortenson has to say, especially to a room full of Marines.  Finally, I want to hear the questions that the audience has for him.  I have a lot of questions myself.  And this time, I will be there, with my hand up in the air. 

That’s the first step.

Off the Shelf

“What’s that?”

My daughter, Siena, age 9, pointed to a small grey blob.  I  paused in our bedtime reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to examine the stain in the right margin of page 56.  “A tiny spider? Silverfish?"

“No, looks more like chocolate,” I guessed. 

She, the youngest in a household of readers, nodded in understanding.  While dinners are strictly social (cherished family conversation time, no TV or books), most solo eating in our house is done in the company of books. 

Mornings Siena props a Katie Kazoo behind her cereal bowl and steadies it with her left hand.  Head bent forward, her right hand travels a slow, circular path from milk to mouth, stopping only to rest the spoon in the bowl as she turns the page, her eyes never leaving the book.

Crumbs, stains, and watermark are an inevitable part of our library--and not just in the cookbook section.   So I am grateful for the latest Center for Ecoliteracy newsletter alerting me to a link combining two of my favorite things: Books and Food! 

Philip H. Howard, an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, has compiled this searchable online bibliography of books and films related to community, food, and agriculture.   A quick search revealed that several of my recent favorites like Full Moon Feast and Food Not Lawns haven’t made the list yet, but several older classics and must-reads like Fast Food Nation, Fatal Harvest, and Wendell Berry did. 

Professor Howard created the database as a resource for his Community, Food and Agricultural Systems course.  So far the list only has 200 items, but Howard plans to keep updating the site, so kudos to him creating it and making it available online.  Great start!

Be sure to check out the rest of the site as well, especially his graphs on the consolidation of the organic food industry.  (One that surprised me was learning that Hershey’s owns Dagoba chocolate.)

Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper site is another great resource for finding out who the major players in agribusiness (Cargill, Monsanto, ADM) and the food industry (Nestlè) are and what they are up to. 

As consumers, we have a lot of power.  The choices that we make every day determine the world we live in.  This year we will elect a new president.  But we don't have to wait 4 years to vote.  As Michael Pollan has said: "you can simply stop participating in a system that abuses animals or poisons the water or squanders jet fuel flying asparagus around the world. You can vote with your fork, in other words, and you can do it three times a day."

And here's who is behind the names on my shelf (in the picture at the top of this entry):
Muir Glen, Bearitos & Spectrum: Heinz
Seeds of Change: M&M Mars
Annie's: Solera Capital

Rain in San Diego

As the rain began to fall this morning, I was reading Ko Un.  I couldn't help but notice this pine tree outside my window.

One day
there was no one I could ask the way
so I set off
where a long pine branch was pointing

and found that the right direction

*

A thousand drops
hanging from a dead branch

The rain did not fall for nothing

--Ko Un
from Flowers of a Moment

City of Books

It has the best bookstore in the country.

It’s progressive, yet retains its history and interesting architecture.

It boasts an impressive public transportation system, including free trolley rides in the downtown area.  Bike-friendly.  (Oops, with one exception—watch out for the tracks!)

For food lovers, it offers an abundance of food supplied by local farms, dairies, and rivers, not to mention great coffee, wine, and beer to go with it.

If it weren’t for the weather, I would move there in a minute.

I’m talking about Portland, Oregon.

I recently spent a weekend there with my sister and my cousin, who lives in the city.   It’s probably just as well that I picked one of the coldest weeks in the past 10 years to visit, or else I might not have come back home to San Diego (where the temperature averaged 66 degrees this past week in January). 

Day 1

Less than an hour after arriving in town, I had dropped my bags at my hotel and walked over to Powell's.   Besides food, books are my other true passion and I had been looking forward to coming here for years.

They don’t call it the City of Books for nothing. From the looks of it, the original store started out in one small corner building and slowly annexed all the adjacent structures until it occupied the entire city block. 

As I stood in the front entrance waiting for my nose to thaw out (did I mention it was bitterly cold that weekend?), gawking at the huge floorplan sign hanging from the ceiling, I felt a little like tourist in Times Square holding a map of New York.  I’m not kidding, if you’re new, they will give you a map and even a walking tour to help you find your way in and back out again.

There are dozens of rooms (denoted by color) on many levels, connected by staircases and doorways and ramps.  New and used books are shelved together, enabling you to find not only an author’s latest book, but often their entire backstock, as well as many out of print works. In case you do get lost and can’t find your way out, you won’t starve--there is a Coffee Room with wireless Internet, sandwiches, and plenty of World Cup (locally roasted, fair-trade) coffee.

And like any big city, it’s impossible to see everything in one day.  So I came back the next day.  And the next.  And the morning before I flew out.  Well, I had to do something between meals, didn’t I?

Day 2

Maybe it was the walk across town in 20 degree weather.  Or the fact that they were playing The Clash’s Greatest Hits album.  But as soon as I walked into Ken’s Artisan Bakery—greeted by a blast of warm air and the smell of sweet bread—I felt immediately at home. 

The staff was friendly and easy-going.  A toddler crawled across my feet as I poured cream in my coffee.  “Sorry.  That’s George. I call him Curious George,” an exasperated mother told me as she pulled him out of the bus tubs beneath the condiments table.  No problem.  I’m happy to be in a place that welcomes kids. 

I felt like I had walked into a neighborhood block party.  The bakery was packed.  People of all ages greeted each other, shared tables.  I managed to secure a small table near a window in the back and stayed for several hours, reading the poetry books I had bought at Powell's and watching customers both inside and out. 

I loved Ken’s chocolate croissants--crackling on the outside, buttery interior stuffed with Valrhona chocolate—and the sweet morning buns with their hint of orange. 

Looking at all the varieties of bread on the shelves, I was a little surprised by how dark the loaves were—they looked almost burned.  But after buying a loaf and trying a slice, I found I liked the contrast between the carmelized crust and the soft crumb.   The levain had a nice, mellow flavor—not sour, but slightly tangy and complex, the result of slow, natural fermentation.   Clearly Ken knows what he is doing.

As good as the breads are, I think I could have eaten just the butter for breakfast.  Sourced from a local dairy, unbelievably light and so sweet, not greasy at all—I think it’s some of the best butter I have tasted.  That on top of their country brown bread (pain de campagne, modeled after pain Poilâne) and a cup of Stumptown coffee and I was ready to move in.

Portland, where the healthy food snob actually ate fast food (and liked it): Burgerville!

America Unchained

Think about where you spend your money. 

It makes a difference. 

When you buy food, books, or toys, do you go to a local merchant or a big box store? 

When you buy from a locally-owned business, that money stays in your community and gets recirculated three-and-a-half times more than if you bought from a chain store.  That means you are helping your friends, your neighbors, your local farmers stay in business and live in your community. 

I like buying locally because I like supporting my local economy, but the best part is that I get to talk to people who care about what they are doing.  At the locally-owned  bookstores where I shop, the clerks there actually read the books they are selling and can recommend something they think I will like.  When I visit my favorite restaurant, I get a hug from the hostess and the chef comes out to say hi to me and my kids.  At the farmers’ market, Barry from La Milpa Organica tells me that he just saw my mom at his stand at an hour ago.  While he scoops up a bag of his salad mix (the best in San Diego), he tells me about the corn harvest festival he hosted at his farm last week.

Today, for at least one day, free yourself from the American corporate chains.  Better yet, this holiday season, give thanks and support to your local independent businesses by buying from them.  (Thanks to Jeff Mariotte for this link.)

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
... I found out I'm just a link in your chain
You got me where you want me
I ain't nothing but your fool
You treated me mean oh you treated me cruel
Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools
© Don Covay (1967)

For more info on the real cost of the mega-retailers, see Stacy Mitchell’s book, Big Box Swindle, and check out the film, Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop.

Angie’s Adventures in Sushi Land

Angie was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her husband on the bed and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped at the computer screen her husband was reading, but it had no pictures of food in it, “and what is the use of a computer,” thought Angie, “without pictures of food?”

So she was considering in her own mind, (as well she could, for the jetlag made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of eating a Japanese breakfast would be worth the trouble of getting up and calling room service, when suddenly a knock came at the door.

“Oh dear, we will be late!” the in-laws said and hurried off.  Burning with curiosity, she ran down the hall and was just in time to see them pop into an elevator. 

In another moment in went Angie after them, never once considering how she was going to get back again. 

Down, down, down, into a taxi and all the way across town.  Would the ride (and the meter) never come to an end?  Let me see, that would be four thousand yen, I think…

I Read Banned Books

This week--September 24-October 1—is Banned Books Week 2005.

What does this have to do with food blogging, you ask?

“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”         --Mark Twain

According to the First Amendment, Americans have the right to say and read what they want—here on the Internet, at the library, on in their own homes. 

But every year, well-meaning folks decide that they know what’s best for all of us and attempt to have books removed from library shelves. Each year, the American Library Association keeps a list of the most frequently challenged books.  To find out why books such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird have been challenged, visit the ALA website.

Or, better yet, visit your local library or independent bookstore and read a banned book.  This year I chose Robert Cormier’s “The Chocolate War” and Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen.”  (See, there is a food connection.) 

Jam on biscuits, jam on toast…

A favorite book to read aloud to my kids is Bread & Jam for Frances.  Actually, I love the Hobans' entire series of Frances books for many reasons, but I especially enjoy the books for their detailed descriptions of food. 

Frances’ family is serious about food.  You can tell by the cheese grater and beautiful chunk of parmigiano depicted on their dinner table.  This might not seem noteworthy now, but remember this book was written in 1964, when most of America (including my family) was sprinkling their spaghetti with grated cheese from a green canister.   

Note also the lunches that Frances packs for school.  No brown-bagged PB & J for her.  Instead, she brings: a thermos bottle filled with cream of tomato soup, a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread, celery, carrot sticks, black olives, a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery, two plums, a tiny basket of cherries, vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles, and a spoon to eat it with.  She arranges all of this on her desk on a paper doily with a tiny vase of violets.