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Victoria Carey reviews a selection of the latest fiction and non-fiction.
WORDS VICTORIA CAREY
Milk by Matthew Evans
On the day Matthew Evan’s book Milk — the latest in a long line of publications — hit the shelves, a new heifer calf was born on his farm in Tasmania’s Huon Valley.
Possibly a good luck sign for the success of his 15th book? Evans, originally a chef, once ate out around 500 times a year in his role as restaurant reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald. He moved to the Apple Isle in 2008 and soon gained an even bigger following after the launch of SBS’s Gourmet Farmer, documenting his adventures on Puggle Farm and then Fat Pig Farm.
Milk is his exploration of this superfood that is one of the most basic building blocks of many diets. Informative, packed with surprising pieces of information — who knew that a Tasmanian devil spends its first 100 days doing little else but drinking its mother’s milk? — it’s an enlightening read.
Tipo 00: The Pasta Cookbook by Andreas Papadakis
I haven’t made it yet — either to the restaurant this book is named for or to making pasta from scratch — but I’ve promised myself that I will. (Another pasta book author, Lizzie Hewson, swears by the far-reaching benefits of pasta making in Saturday Night Pasta — including how good it is for the abs — but that remains to be seen for me!)
But back to Tipo 00. The master pasta dough recipe is comprehensive and the book is packed with tips: most home cooks make their dough too wet, and the quality of the flour is incredibly important. I don’t need to tell you what flour Papadakis uses: he named his restaurant and then his book after it.
Another thing many of us are doing wrong is cooking our pasta in big batches. Huge mistake, says the author, who can easily eat two bowls of pasta a day! To cook pasta properly, you should really only be cooking one serve at a time. But I will leave that for him to explain to you in the book.
Whenever You’re Ready by Trish Bolton
This debut author started thinking about her first book, which took her seven years to write, with the question: “Why do so few books feature women in their sixties and seventies and beyond?” It’s a very good question. Bolton goes on to say that these women are the “beating social and cultural heart of our communities”. It’s an accurate summary of the friends who feature in the pages of Whenever You’re Ready. Bookended by death, it’s no surprise to discover that ageing and ageism are major themes. The lost of a young child, an unfaithful husband, financial hardship and illness all test their friendships but the inner lives of Claire, Alice and Lizzie certainly make for absorbing reading in this well-paced narrative.
“Older women are hungry for stories about themselves: they don’t see themselves on the page… particularly women in starring roles,” Bolton told the ABC’s Alice Zaslavsky. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for her next book.
Milking Time by Rachael Treasure
It has been over 20 years since Rachael Treasure’s first novel, Jillaroo, hit the bestseller lists. Her latest release — her eighth book — written after a very challenging time in her life when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, has a trademark Treasure heroine: feisty, strong and independent.
This time round the her name is Connie Mulligan, and she’s the daughter of a fourth-generation Tasmanian dairy farmer. The novel starts with Connie back on the family farm after university. She’s keen to help them run things in a more progressive way but her parents aren’t receptive. Her mother thinks antidepressants are the answer for her challenging daughter and soon Connie finds herself being ‘let go’. (She does point out she was never officially employed…)
Treasure, who has worked as a journalist, jillaroo and farm manager, among other things, clearly has a deft hand and it’s an easy read while sending home a strong regenerative ag message.
Blossom by Adriana Picker
Little did artist Adriana Picker know that those countless hours spent looking at flowers as a child would equip her so well for her current occupation: botanical illustration. While this beautiful book houses depictions of vibrantly coloured flowers virtually leaping off the page, it’s far more than just pages of pretty pictures. Interesting and quirky pieces of information can also be found within. Pickled magnolia petals anyone?
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