I glean book titles the way other people collect actual books. Instead of buying books, I keep a running list of titles I want to read and then request them from the public library. I love the ritual of walking to the Rosemount library, picking up my order, browsing through the DVDs and the fiction and the cookbooks.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a fat, old paperback that the library keeps in multiple copies. And now that I'm reading it every night in the bath, I can hardly remember life without Francie, the story's main character, who loves her father more than anything in the world, reads like the Dickens, and seems to think about eating quite a lot.
Francie's family is poorer than dirt, but still, the book manages descriptions of gorgeous meals of thickly sliced 'tongue,' sweet rye bread, and hot, strong coffee. Francie herself spends every Saturday afternoon reading on the fire-escape, drinking iced water (when there is ice in the ice box) and eating a bowlful of pink and white peppermint wafers, which she purchases with the money she earns from selling found junk. To me, the foods Francie subsists on sound fairly stunning, and yeah, it's easy to romanticise from my position, but, at the same time, food can be a refuge when you feel like you've got nothing else.
That said...it's dinner time!
