Love and Saffron, a Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love by Kim Fay is a sly little book. On the surface it is a light charming tale of two women writing letters and sending recipes to each other. Underneath, heavier issues appear: inappropriate love, impotence, PTSD, and potentially fatal illness.
The beginning forewarns us. The first letter is placid and friendly; the second is written during the 1962 Columbus Day storm, a benchmark for the Pacific NW since then.
Joan, a young woman living in Los Angeles, mails a fan letter to Imogen on Camano Island, Washington. She encloses a small gift of saffron to Imogen, an established writer for a local news magazine. When Imogen answers, they discover a rapport, and a warm friendship develops.
The flavor of the 1960s infuses the story. What fun it was to read about Lawrence Welk and Herb Alpert, and to hear about The Feminine Mystique as something new. The characters anxiously await the mailman or pay $3 for a three-minute long-distance phone call.
But it is their delight in food – the discovery of unknown international flavors – pesto, molé, shish kebab – that makes this a joy to read. The two women share the new techniques and recipes exploding onto the American cooking scene; they watch Julia Child on the new education channel. Joan discovers the Mexican markets of LA and finds someone to share them with.
I was reminded of that old movie Babette’s Feast where a spectacular dinner softens the most dour of hearts and intransient animosity. In our book, the enjoyment of excellent food is a gateway to intimacy and love. When troubles come, and they do, each woman has the support of a best friend.
Those living in the Northwest will enjoy the section on the Seattle Pike Place Market and the 1960s campaign to tear it down and replace it with condos.
Vera, also an outstanding cook, has other talents as well. She is a Chinese mother, expert at ferreting out guilty secrets. In Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto, she is convinced she will do a better job than the incompetent police in discovering the killer of the person murdered in her tea shop.
A widow, just 60, Vera has plenty of zip and energy and not much to do with it. Her run-down shop gets few customers and sitting by herself all day is lonely. But one morning everything changes when she opens the door and finds a dead body sprawled on the floor. Her desire to take charge kicks in. She pries the flash drive out of the dead person’s hand, does a few other helpful things such as outlining the body, and then calls the police.
Vera knows a murderer will return to the scene of the crime so she settles in to wait. But four possibilities show up at her tearoom so how will she choose? Vera would have gotten along well with Joan and Imogen from the above review. She decides to cook – the most delicious Chinese food – and feeds them all. Her mothering, her advice (she has lots), her support are what they need and soon this troubled secretive group responds to the home cooked meals and care. They reciprocate by helping Vera refurbish her dated tearoom and offer the companionship she has missed.
Does Vera identify the murderer? It wasn’t too hard to figure out what happened, although I never would have guessed the details. The best parts of the story are the very likeable characters, each with their own abilities, who bring this mystery to a satisfactory close.
In Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, the air thrums with spring and fecundity. Insects, birds, plants are waking up with reproduction in mind. Reading about the resilience of life isn’t a bad thing on a dreary winter day.
There are three separate stories. In the first, Deanna, a wildlife biologist who is in charge of a section of the Appalachians, encounters a handsome hunter on the trail. In the second, Lusa, an entomologist, starts her life as a new farm wife in the small town nearby. In the last, Garrett, a grumpy old man, can’t get along with his neighbor whose skirts are too short for her age (70) and has so many newfangled ideas about pesticides and weeds. The development of each story is nicely paced and after a while, a name from one of the other two appears in the third. At the end, the three stories join into a satisfactory whole.
Kingsolver is interested in the ecology of the Appalachians and has some definite ideas about predator species and pesticides. Sometimes they intrude too much into the story. As a birder, I was especially impressed with her descriptions of warbler songs. Warblers! There are over a hundred different kinds and identifying even a few by appearance, never mind song, is a big deal. The author lives in rural Appalachia and I’m guessing this is something she, as well as her character, can do.
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