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The 9 Best Cookbooks of 2014

by JillianSnelling Posted on December 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Another year, another spate of brilliant cookbooks. Here are the ones that made the biggest impression on me, in no particular order.

Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor, with Recipes, by Jennifer McLagan. In 2005, nearly a decade before “bone broth” emerged as a craze, McLagan came out with Bones, a delicious defense of a culinary resource people normally discard. Three years later, when people like me were still mostly shunning the lard jar, she produced the equally excellent Fat, which she called an “appreciation of the misunderstood ingredient.” McLagan, perhaps the most idiosyncratic and underrated cookbook author of our time, has now trained her powers on the stuff that makes you grimace the first time it hits your palate: radicchio, dandelion greens, hops, brassicas, chicory, citrus zest, coffee, etc. “Without bitterness we lose a way to balance sweetness,” she instructs. “Food without bitterness lacks depth and complexity.” Bitter brims with luminous mini-essays on the science and philosophy of taste, and delivers dozens of straight-ahead recipes that teach us to tame and celebrate the most challenging of the five basic flavors.

Great gift for: People with adventurous palates.
Killer dish: Dandelion salad with hot bacon and mustard dressing.
Dish I’m dying to try: Pork chop (bone-in, fat lined) in coffee and black currant sauce.

Bar Tartine: Techniques & Recipes, by Nick Balla and Cortney Burns. Based on a single meal several years ago, I’ve always assumed San Francisco’s Bar Tartine—sister to the justly venerated Tartine Bakery—specialized in simple bistro food. So I wasn’t overly excited when this substantial, beautifully produced tome arrived. But rather than deliver yet more versions of steak frites or coq au vin, the book reads like a manifesto written by radical gourmet homesteaders—one of the weirdest and most compelling cookbooks I’ve picked up in years. I got lost in the rabbit warrens of the opening “projects kitchen” section, where the authors lay out in detail all the stuff they make from scratch. “Our dairy program began humbly—with yogurt, sour cream, and kefir—and evolved to include all the products we currently use: blue cheese, pepper Jack, gouda, triple creams, feta, and fresh cheeses such as mozzarella, goat cheese, and farmers cheese,” the authors declare. Whoa. Ever wondered how to make your own kefir butter? Balla and Burns have you covered. I had never heard of “black garlic” before. Turns out, “holding garlic at 130 F for two to three weeks renders the cloves as black as tar.” Is that a good thing? “All of the characteristic sharpness disappears and is replaced with a molasses-like sweetness and an aroma reminiscent of licorice.” Then there’s the spice mixes. Forget, say, homemade curry powder. Think “charred eggplant spice,” a powder that “tastes like the pure flavor of earth and smoke” (other elements: charred, dehydrated chile peppers, huitlachoche—a corn fungus—and green onions.) Surprisingly simple (but never obvious) recipes follow the opening section’s wild innovations. I predict this book will be seducing and flummoxing me for years. Also, I’ve got to get myself back to Bar Tartine.

Great gift for: Anyone with radical gourmet homesteader tendencies; and jaded home cooks in search of inspiration.
Killer dish: Chilled beet soup with coriander & yogurt.
Dish I’m dying to try: Someday? Smoked potatoes in black garlic vinaigrette with ramp mayonnaise.

Plenty More: Vibrant Vegetable Cooking from London’s Ottolenghi, by Yotam Ottolenghi. Have we reached peak Ottolenghi? That was my question when I cracked the latest from the ubiquitous London chef, whose classics Plenty and Jerusalem seem to grace the shelves of most everyone I know, and won a spot in my 2012 best-of list. Known for his colorful, vibrant, vegetable-centered Mediterranean fare, the London-based, Israeli-born chef has been profiled in The New Yorker and interviewed on every foodie podcast. Does he have anything more to say? Hell, yes. Plenty More ventures farther afield from the author’s native Mediterranean region than his other works, copping techniques and ingredients from Thailand, Iran, India, and more. It draws you in with the delectable photography, and keeps you hooked with irresistible combinations: oranges and dates; beets with avocado and peas; leeks with goat cheese and currants; and so on. Ottolenghi isn’t a vegetarian, but he’s a wizard of vegetables, and a master at conjuring up hearty meals by combining them with grains and legumes.

Great gift for: Anyone who thinks vegetarian food is boring; anyone who likes to cook and eat.
Killer dish: Pea and mint croquettes.
Dish I’m dying to try: Fried umpa (an Indian semolina porridge) with poached eggs

Honorable mentions

• In Afro-Vegan: Farm Fresh African, Caribbean & Southern Flavors Remixed, the Bay Area writer/chef/activist Bryan Terry pulls off a mean feat: He uses stylish, spicy vegan fare—light on tofu and heavy on grains, greens, and legumes—to lure readers into recognizing the “centrality of African-diasporic people in defining the tastes, ingredients, and classic dishes of the original modern global fusion cuisine—Southern food.” Terry’s argument is unassailable—as convincing as his gorgeous peanut stew with winter vegetable and cornmeal dumplings.

• Despite the ongoing gluten-free fad, bread is having its day, as are books on baking. No home baker will want to miss In Search of the Perfect Loaf, in which the food politics writer and editor Sam Fromartz visits the epicenters of the global baking renaissance—Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, etc.—talking to its main characters and committing an epic and appealing nerd-out (with recipes) in service of home-cooked leavened dough. In Josey Baker Bread, San Francisco’s most celebrated young baker (yes, his name and vocation are identical) shows us how the pros do it.

• San Francisco’s The Slanted Door is a fancy restaurant that applies Vietnamese techniques and condiments to Northern California’s bounty. The Slanted Door, by chef-owner Charles Phan, is a surprisingly unfussy guide to working the restaurant’s magic at home.

• For the drinkers on your list, American Spirit is a spirited guide to what author James Rodewald calls the nascent “craft distilling revolution.” At the center of Rodwald’s book is a scandal. Because of loose labeling laws, most of the “artisanal” liquor on the market involves clever businesspeople “rebottling something that had been made at a larger distiller and calling it their own.” Rodewald profiles the (still relatively few) mavericks who actually are producing their own hooch—and teases out the considerable challenges of making great whiskey and other spirits on a small scale in an industry dominated by liquor giants and false marketing.

• After reading Rodewald, you’ll want to sip something stiff. Death & Co.—a sumptuous cocktail manual from the instant-legend East Village speakeasy of the same name—delivers dozens upon dozens of ideas for taking the edge off in high style. I can’t imagine a more comprehensive snapshot of the mixology craze.

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The 9 Best Cookbooks of 2014

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Rumain Brisbon Is Just the Latest to Be Shot Dead by a Cop Over a Phantom Gun

by JacksonMackinla Posted on December 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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A student at a “die-in” protest at the University of Michigan on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. The Ann Arbor News, Patrick Record/AP

Last week, 34-year-old father of four Rumain Brisbon was shot and killed by a police officer at an apartment complex in north Phoenix. The officer, 30-year-old Mark Rine, approached Brisbon’s SUV while investigating a suspected drug deal. According to police officials, after Brisbon stepped out of his car and Rine ordered him to show his hands, Brisbon reached for his waistband. Then Rine drew his gun, and Brisbon fled. After a short chase the two engaged in a struggle, with Rine firing two shots into Brisbon’s torso. Rine later said that he thought he’d felt a gun in Brisbon’s pocket, but it turned out to be a vial of Oxycodone, a pain reliever. Rine has since been placed on desk duty pending an internal investigation.

Brisbon’s death is just the latest example of police killing suspects—often black men—over guns that aren’t actually there. And scientific research has shown that unconscious racial bias can be a factor in these situations. As Chris Mooney wrote recently, in an experiment testing whether an object such as a wallet or a soda can be mistaken for a gun, “police are considerably slower to press the ‘don’t shoot’ button for an unarmed black man than they are for an unarmed white man—and faster to shoot an armed black man than an armed white man.”

Below are 10 other cases since 2006 in which an officer shot a suspect after mistaking some other object for a gun. Two of the victims in this list (which is hardly comprehensive) were white, one was Latino, and seven were black. As is common with police shootings, few of the officers faced charges, and none were convicted of a crime.

Date: February 25, 2014
Location: Clover, South Carolina
Race of victim: White
What happened: Terrance Knox, a county deputy sheriff, stopped Bobby Canipe, a 70-year-old white man, for driving with an expired license tag on a highway north of Clover. Officials said that Canipe stepped out of his car and began walking toward Knox while holding a cane, which Knox said he thought was a gun. Knox fired six shots, one of which hit Canipe in the chest, injuring him. Prosecutors declined to charge Knox in August 2014, saying that the shooting was “without question accidental.”

Date: February 14, 2014
Location: Euharlee, Georgia
Race of victim: White
What happened: Officer Beth Gatny and another officer were serving a search warrant for the father of Christopher Roupe, for a probation violation. When the officers knocked on the door of the family’s home, Gatny said she thought she heard “the action of a firearm” before the door opened, and drew her weapon. When Roupe, 17, opened the door, Gatny opened fire, killing him, later saying that she thought she’d seen him holding a pistol. Roupe’s family members said he was holding a Nintendo Wii game controller. A Bartow County grand jury declined to indict Gatny in July.

Date: May 8, 2011
Location: North Little Rock, Arkansas
Race of victim: Black
What happened: North Little Rock police officer Vincent Thornton and two other officers chased Henry Lee Jones, Jr., in the Silver City Courts housing projects, after responding to a domestic violence complaint. “As he charged toward me and put his shoulder down…I saw a light-colored object I believed to be a gun,” in Jones’ hand, Thornton, then a 28-year veteran of the force, later testified. The object was a cell phone; Thornton shot Jones, a black 20-year-old, in the upper back, lodging a bullet between Jones’ lungs, severing his spinal column, and leaving him paralyzed. Jones died two years later. In May 2014, a federal court jury cleared Thornton of charges, deeming his use of force reasonable.

Date: July 5, 2010
Location: Miami, Florida
Race of victim: Black
What happened: Rookie Miami police officer Joseph Marin and his partner pulled over DeCarlos Moore, who they suspected of driving a stolen vehicle. Moore stepped out of his car, and the officers ordered Moore to put his hands on his vehicle, according to a report by a civilian investigative panel. When Moore reached for a shiny object inside his car, Marin shot Moore in the head, killing him. Police investigators discovered that the shiny object was rock cocaine wrapped in tin foil (and that the car was not stolen). The State Attorney’s office declined to prosecute Marin in May 2011, and in 2013, the independent panel also exonerated Marin. Moore was one of seven black men killed by Miami police in an eight-month period, eventually prompting a civil rights investigation by the US Department of Justice.

Date: March 12, 2010
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Race of victim: Black
What happened: Around 11 a.m., Metro Police Canine Officer Joe Shelton was responding to call about a burglary and ended up chasing 40-year-old suspect Reginald Dewayne Wallace. As he caught up to Wallace and grabbed him, the two engaged in a struggle. When Wallace reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny object, Shelton fired three times, thinking it was a weapon. The object turned out to be a silver iPod he allegedly stole from the home. Wallace died of his wounds two hours later at a hospital. Wallace’s family members sued the government of Nashville and the officer for damages and deprivation of civil rights. The Nashville Metro Police told Mother Jones that Shelton is still serving in the department and did not face disciplinary action for Wallace’s death.

Date: July 13, 2009
Location: Los Angeles, California
Race of victim: Black
What happened: Two LA County deputy sheriffs pulled up to the car of Woodrow Player III around 9 p.m., believing he matched the description of a man who had reportedly threatened people with a gun. Player fled, and in the foot chase that ensued pointed a “dark object” at the deputies, which they thought was a gun, according to the sheriff’s office. The deputies shot and killed Player, who was 22. Investigators later found a cell phone next to Player’s body. Player’s family filed a wrongful death suit against the department; in September 2011 a jury exonerated the deputies. The LA County Sheriff’s department told Mother Jones that an internal investigation found the deputies did not violate any department policy, and that both still serve on duty there.

Date: March 1, 2008
Location: Los Angeles, California
Race of victim: Black
What happened: At about 7 p.m., several officers from the city’s South Traffic Division saw a gray truck speeding in the Hyde Park area and crash into a palm tree. According to the police account, when Officer Jose Campos approached the truck on foot, Maurice LeRoy Cox, 38, who was driving truck, reached into the glove compartment and threatened to kill the officers if they didn’t move away. Cox stepped out of his truck and pointed what looked like a gun at the officers before running away, police said. Other officers shot at Cox as the chase led to a bank parking lot. Cox died shortly thereafter of his wounds. Police later recovered a cigarette lighter power adapter on the scene. Cox’s wife filed a $10 million claim against the city of Los Angeles and the LAPD officers for civil rights violations, battery and negligence. In November 2010, a LA Superior Court jury ruled in favor of Campos.

Date: February 27, 2008
Location: Los Angeles, California
Race of victim: Latino
What happened: Around 7 p.m., LAPD motorcycle officers in the Van Nuys neighborhood pulled over Julio Eddy Perez in a 1997 burgundy Saturn for a traffic violation. After the officers approached the car and had a brief conversation with Perez, Perez drove off and a chase ensued. Byron San Jose, a 25-year-old Latino who was riding in the backseat, jumped out of the car as it slowed down. San Jose walked toward the officers holding a “black metal object,” and one officer hit San Jose with the front of his motorcycle. The other officer, Derek Mousseau, fired several shots, killing San Jose. The aspiring rapper had been carrying a 2-foot-long microphone stand. San Jose’s family later sued the LAPD and Officer Mousseau for use of excessive force, asking for $750,000 damage compensation. The family lost the suit in November 2010.

Date: November 30, 2006
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Race of victim: Black
What happened: Joseph Fennell and Coby Taylor were walking to work when a San Antonio police officer drove onto the sidewalk, blocking their path. Officer Robert Rosales, who was investigating a string of robberies, ordered them to put their hands in the air and move toward a fence. Police officials later said Rosales stopped Fennell, 24, and Taylor, 20, because they both matched the description of a robbery suspect: a short black man in his twenties. Fennell pulled his hands out of his coat pocket; he was holding a set of keys, which prompted Rosales, who mistook the keys for a gun, to shoot. The bullet grazed Fennell’s forehead. In 2007, a grand jury declined to indict Rosales and the City Council approved an $80,000 settlement for Fennell. An internal probe into the incident did not result in disciplinary action, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Date: June 6, 2006
Location: San Francisco, California
Race of victim: Black
What happened: Three San Francisco police officers, John Keesor, Michelle Alvis, and Paul Morgado entered a town house near Lake Merced after responding to a call about suspected trespassing. After apprehending one man and finding a knife near him, they found another man, Asa B. Sullivan, hiding in a dark attic. Police said that Sullivan had stretched out his arms holding a “cylindrical object” when the officers confronted him and refused to cooperate, prompting the three officers to shoot and kill Sullivan. The object was an eyeglasses case. Sullivan’s family sued the SFPD for entering the building without a warrant and using excessive force. Eight years later, a federal court declined to charge the officers, ruling that they had acted reasonably and did not violate Sullivan’s rights. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in May 2009 that Alvin was placed on desk duty after the shooting incident. SFPD told Mother Jones that the officers were still serving on duty, but declined to disclose whether they’d faced disciplinary action related to the case, saying it was confidential.

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Rumain Brisbon Is Just the Latest to Be Shot Dead by a Cop Over a Phantom Gun

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Yikes! Past 3 years of California drought are “worst in 1,200 years”, new study finds

by Myrna Posted on December 10, 2014

That’s a looooong time… View original: Yikes! Past 3 years of California drought are “worst in 1,200 years”, new study finds ; ; ;

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Yikes! Past 3 years of California drought are “worst in 1,200 years”, new study finds

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How Newt Gingrich’s Language Guru Helped Rebrand the Kochs’ Message

by CarmineGraebner Posted on December 8, 2014

Mother Jones

For the Koch brothers’ donor network, the 2012 elections were a keen disappointment. Not only did they lose what Charles Koch had famously billed as the “mother of all wars” to oust Barack Obama, but they poured some $400 million into electoral and advocacy efforts with, at best, lackluster results in federal and state races, leaving a number of their investors and operatives unhappy.

Fast-forward to 2014, and the Koch network seems to be riding high. Having budgeted nearly $300 million for advocacy and political drives, with a bigger field operation and better data to mobilize conservative voters, the network helped the GOP capture the Senate, expand the House majority, and re-elect Koch-favored politicians like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Three of the new GOP senators—Arkansas’ Tom Cotton, Colorado’s Cory Gardner and Iowa’s Joni Ernst—recently attended Koch policy and fundraising retreats; at the network’s Dana Point, California confab this past June, all three heaped praise on the assembled donors and Koch operatives.

What changed? Of course, the Koch network—and the GOP generally—capitalized on public dissatisfaction with President Obama, the “six year itch” most two-term presidents face, and a bad electoral landscape for Democratic Senate candidates. But the Kochs and their allies also learned from their past mistakes. They’ve used the last two years to adapt, refine, and expand their operations with an eye to sharpening their anti-big government messages to appeal to more voters. The Koch network, one donor told me, has been focused laser-like on “trying to perfect their language.” For help, they have turned to an A list of conservative political consultants including the man best known for selling the nation on Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America: Pollster and spinmeister Frank Luntz.

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How Newt Gingrich’s Language Guru Helped Rebrand the Kochs’ Message

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Meet the Family Behind Latin America’s Version of Planned Parenthood

by MariettS62 Posted on December 4, 2014

Mother Jones

People in the United States have been going to Planned Parenthood for nearly a century, ever since Margaret Sanger opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. But it wasn’t until 1977, after the US had already celebrated Roe v. Wade, that Colombian women had any equivalent organization to turn to. That was the year Dr. Jorge Villarreal started Oriéntame, a women’s reproductive health clinic now credited with inspiring more than 600 outposts across Latin America “and for reshaping abortion politics across the continent,” writes Joshua Lang in a story about the Villarreal family, out today in California Sunday.

Jorge Villarreal Mejía graduated from medical school in 1952 and soon took the reigns of the obstetrics department at Colombia’s national university. During that time, botched abortions caused nearly 40 percent of the country’s maternal deaths. “Women in slum areas were putting the sonda (catheter) inside of them without any sonography,” his daughter Cristina Villarreal told Lang. “They used ganchas de ropa (coat hangers), anything.” When these women showed up at general hospitals, they were shamed and quickly given basic medical attention at most.

So in 1977, Jorge opened a stand-alone health clinic in Bogotá called Oriéntame. Abortions were illegal, so Oriéntame had to focus on helping women who were already suffering from bad abortion attempts, or “incomplete abortions.” Colombians had to wait another thirty years before their mostly Catholic country legalized abortion, under pressure from a coalition that included Cristina Villarreal. (Abortion is now legal in Colombia when a mother’s physical or emotional health is in danger.) In the meantime, Oriéntame continued its mission to heal and empower women, using a sliding-scale payment model in order to reach poorer clients. In 1994, Cristina assumed leadership of the organization, which had grown to include a second nonprofit to help doctors around Latin America open their own Oriéntame clinics.

Lang’s story, an eye-opening and educational read, details the Villarreals’ persistence in the face of police and priests, health administration raids, legal battles, money troubles, and social stigma. Not unlike the volatile abortion politics in the US, across Latin America, writes Lang, “for every political action, there seems to be an equal but opposite reaction,” making Oriéntame’s success “all the more unlikely.” Today, the organization continues to struggle for funding. But fortunately for the estimated 4.5 million women seeking abortions every year across Latin America, and countless others looking for reproductive guidance, Oriéntame’s network has already laced together a much-needed safety net that will be difficult to undo.

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Meet the Family Behind Latin America’s Version of Planned Parenthood

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Here Are the Places Ferguson Protesters Have Shut Down

by WDCIsmaeltjydj Posted on December 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Since a grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson early last week, thousands have taken to the streets around the country to protest, with some using tactics aimed to disrupt: They’ve marched onto freeways in traffic, chained themselves across commuter train cars, and staged “die-ins” in malls on the busiest shopping day of the year.

In downtown Dallas, Interstate 35 was shut down in both directions for two hours last Tuesday night, after protesters carrying signs that said “Black Lives Matter” climbed in front of traffic. In the St. Louis region, three malls experienced significant disruptions on Black Friday, with one closing three hours early. And in Oakland, a handful of young activists chained themselves in a line across the West Oakland BART station, intending to keep the station closed for four and a half hours, the amount of time Michael Brown’s body laid in the street.

A protester refuses to move in front of the police on Interstate 44 in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday, November 25. Protesters occupied the flyover lanes in both directions for about a half hour until police made several arrests, including this man, and forced the protesters to leave. J.B. Forbes/AP/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Protesters block all lanes of Interstate 75/85 northbound near the state capitol building in Atlanta one day after the grand jury decision. David Tulis/AP

Protesters stage a “die in” inside Chesterfield Mall, on Friday, November 28, in Chesterfield, Missouri. Jeff Roberson/AP

Protesters block Interstate 580 in Oakland, California, on Monday, November 24. Noah Berger/AP

A demonstrator is arrested on Tuesday, November 25, after a large group of protesters attempted to march onto Interstate 93 in Boston. Christopher Evans/AP/Boston Herald

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Here Are the Places Ferguson Protesters Have Shut Down

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"Wild’s" Cheryl Strayed Becomes One With Reese Witherspoon

by Noelia4520 Posted on November 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Her pack was too heavy, her boots too tight. She didn’t know how to read a compass. But that didn’t stop first-time backpacker Cheryl Strayed, then 26, from embarking on a soul-searching 1,100-mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995, from Southern California’s Mojave Desert to the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon.

Yet the physical feat of the hike is not the true star of Strayed’s 2012 memoir about the journey, Wild. Rather, Strayed’s recovery from a near-addiction to heroine, a young divorce, and her mother’s death from cancer take center stage. The story so resonated with readers, they kept it at the number one slot on the New York Times‘ bestseller list for seven weeks straight.

Wild also captivated Reese Witherspoon, who purchased the rights and portrays Strayed in the film version directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), out on December 3. Novelist Nick Hornby signed on to write the screenplay after reading the book and writing Strayed a tender fan letter. The film has garnered early praise, and speculation that it could lead to Oscar nominations for Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, who plays Strayed’s mother in the film. After Wild premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August, the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott wrote: “Ms. Witherspoon is both an entirely believable modern woman, defying conventional categories and expectations, and also, for that reason, an excitingly credible feminist heroine.”

I caught up with Strayed to talk about Oprah haters, backpacker backlash, and her Hollywood mind meld.

Mother Jones: The movie version of Wild opens soon. Is Reese Witherspoon the first person you would’ve thought of to portray you?

Cheryl Strayed: It’s funny, it never occurred to me that a movie star would play me. But now that she is playing me, it’s like, of course, it couldn’t be anyone else! I don’t know if you’ve seen pictures of Reese and me and Reese and my daughter Bobbi, who’s named after my mother, and also plays me. There’s a kind of resemblance. What’s interesting is how much more perfect she’s become over time. Watching the movie for me is uncanny, because they have her wearing the clothes I wore. They put her hair in a barrette the same way I put my hair in a barrette. She just became me in a way that’s like, shocking.

MJ: How involved were you in the production?

CS: I was involved from the beginning. Reese was always very concerned that the film would honor my life and the book. And Nick Hornby, who wrote the script, had read Wild before he was involved, and out of the blue had written me the kindest fan letter. That just blew me away. When Jean-Marc Vallée, the director, came on board, it was just this wonderful piece of luck, because we have a similar artistic sensibility. The film was shot in Oregon and California, and I was welcome on the set. If the director had his way, I’d have been there every day. I’d give Reese tons of advice about the character and backpacking, and teaching her how to do this, that, and the other thing. The art department looked at pictures of my family and the prop people took my backpack. The gear I had on the trail—I have most of it still—they re-created for the film. I probably saw seven or eight versions, and I offered feedback, and Jean-Marc listened very seriously. Unlike every bad story you’ve ever heard about Hollywood from writers, with this everything was fun and golden.

Reese Witherspoon on the set of Wild Fox Searchlight

MJ: Were there any scenes you lobbied for or against?

CS: Let me think. I wanted to make sure that the love and respect was there that Cheryl felt for her mother, who’s played by Laura Dern. I weighed in pretty strongly that, even amid some tensions between mother and daughter, there’s a lot of love and tenderness. It mattered to me that they portrayed that accurately.

MJ: Your epic solo walk on the Pacific Coast Trail came more than a decade before Wild. How did you reconstruct it?

CS: I liken it to when you run into an old friend from high school and you get to talking and suddenly you’re remembering things you’d thought you’d forgotten. There are different patches that open up in the brain. I also kept a journal, not just because I was on the hike, but all through my 20s and 30s. When I would meet somebody, I would write the way a fiction writer or a memoirist writes about them. And I did research, the good old-fashioned, “Let’s see, what flowers were growing in that field when I might have passed by that time?” Obviously memoir is subjective truth: It is my memory, my perspective, that’s the beauty. But I still wanted to be as factual as I could.

MJ: You wrote, “I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told.” What had you been told about the wilderness prior to setting out?

CS: I grew up in northern Minnesota on 40 acres of wooded land 20 miles from the nearest town, and so the wilderness was home. It was not an unsafe place. I had that advantage. But there are so many representations of the wilderness being dangerous. You know, depictions of wild animals attacking people. It’s like, “No, we kill those animals in far greater numbers than they kill us.” So on one hand, because the wilderness was familiar to me, it really helped me be brave. But it still was scary sometimes. I had to say to myself: “Chances are, you’re not going to be mauled by a bear.”

MJ: The people who get rescued from wilderness areas often turn out to have been ill-prepared. Do you worry that some people might take your book too literally and set off on a three-month hike with little preparation?

CS: If you want to read anything nasty about me, just go to the backpacker websites. I mean, lots of outdoor people love Wild, but there’s this kind of elitist branch where they really believe that I had no business going backpacking. I get blamed: “Oh, Cheryl Strayed, it’s her fault if somebody needs to be rescued.” First of all, things have gone awry in the wilderness well before Wild was ever published. Laughs. But I actually don’t have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn’t prepared for is the part you can’t prepare for. You can’t replicate walking 94 days through the wilderness by yourself with a really heavy pack until you do it. I had to learn how to do a lot of stuff on the trail, that’s true. But I was the one who suffered the consequences.

MJ: So you’ll be cool with it when your kids announce their plans to hike the Appalachian Trial alone?

CS: That would make me so happy! I would feel like I had parented them well. I would take full credit. Laughs.

MJ: NPR did a segment on a woman who read your book only to realize that you were her half-sister. Have you met her?

CS: I knew her first name, but she doesn’t have our father’s last name anymore, and I don’t either. Strayed chose her new surname in her early 20s after divorcing her first husband. When I got the email, she didn’t say in the subject line, “Hey, I think we’re related.” It was just like, “Wild,” and it seemed like just a fan email, and I sometimes will sort of skim those. She said what a lot of people say: “Oh, we have so much in common. Your life is so much like mine.” And just when I was about to move on, she says, “You know, I actually think we share a father.”

MJ: Way to bury the lede!

CS: Exactly! In the second or third paragraph, I’m not kidding you! I almost missed it. And I knew the moment she said my father’s name. So I wrote her back, and we bonded. I haven’t met her yet. She lives across the country, and we’ve not had occasion to get together because life is complicated. But yeah, isn’t that crazy?

MJ: Yeah! So let’s talk about Oprah. As someone who had gone through an MFA program and been to writers’ conferences, what was your view of Oprah’s Book Club before she asked to feature you?

CS: Oh, I have always been a great fan. I guess I got kind of politicized about it when that whole Jonathan Franzen thing happened: He was picked for the club, and then in interviews said things that seemed to be disparaging. I was really offended by that. I really hate snobbery, especially in literature. And I do think it’s funny: People get away with criticizing Oprah: “Her book club is low-brow,” or whatever. They forget that many of Toni Morrison’s books, two of Franzen’s books—Faulkner is an Oprah Book Club pick! I’d say 98 percent of the criticism directed at her, what they’re really saying is, “Well, her audience is female. So if women like it, it must not be high art.” Any time you have a group that is primarily women, there’s gonna be a whole bunch of snobs who step in and say, “Oh, that’s beneath me.” Is it such a terrible thing that a bunch of people read novels that no one would’ve read had it not been for her? Wild was a bestseller before she came along, but some books wouldn’t have ever had the audience they got. And it was all because of Oprah. That’s the first thing I said to her. I said, “Thank you so much for being such a supporter of literary fiction.”

MJ: So are you feeling hungry for your next project, or do you just need a break?

CS: Both. To me, a bit of a break would be getting to write again. My life has been so outward—the book is still on the best-seller list and all that stuff. So that’s been busy enough. But now with the film everything’s amped up even more. I am hoping 2015 is all about me going back into the cave and writing.

MJ: What are you working on?

CS: I’m sort of working on a novel and a memoir. I don’t want to talk about it too much. It’s kind of a prequel.

MJ: For a time, you also had a gig as Sugar, the advice columnist for the Rumpus, the online literary magazine. Is Sugar on hiatus, or has she retired?

CS: I don’t know. I really did mean for it to just be a hiatus when I took off with Wild and the book tour and all that stuff, but I’ve never not been busy, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I also started to reach a point where I feel like I’ve spoken my piece. If you read the “Dear Sugar” collection Tiny Beautiful Things, I so universally answer so many questions, there’d be a point where I’d start repeating myself.

MJ: If you were to seek advice from Sugar, what would you ask?

CS: “How do you say no?” It’s so much easier said than done. Because I’m being asked to do so much, and my friends are saying, Cheryl, you just have to say no. I like to be generous; it’s truly part of my personality, so to have to manage that in a way that keeps me sane and healthy has almost been impossible.

MJ: As Sugar, you’re frank and validating without being snarky. How do you avoid the snark trap, given how the internet puts a premium on humor with an attitude?

CS: That’s why I thought I’d be a failure with Sugar: I’m not funny and I’m not going to be able to be glib and all the stuff the kids like these days. I said, if I do this, I’m just going to have to be what I am, which is direct and candid and very sincere and very loving—and not hiding behind a kind of mask of cunning witticisms. Ultimately, Sugar makes you cry more than she makes you laugh. I was so afraid that people wouldn’t like the column because I wasn’t snarky, and it turned out that’s the reason they like it so much. People really were hungry for sincerity. And not just people, but young San Francisco hipsters who read the Rumpus. People who you would think would just roll their eyes. But no. They were like, “Oh Sugar, please help me.”

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"Wild’s" Cheryl Strayed Becomes One With Reese Witherspoon

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Another Side Effect of Climate Change and El Niño Events? Shorter Kids.

by NidiaMathews Posted on November 25, 2014

Mother Jones

The weather pattern known as El Niño could be stunting kids’ growth—even years after the extreme storms abate, a new study finds. Researchers at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, led by assistant professor of medicine and international health William Checkley, say they have conducted the first study on the long-term health consequences of El Niño weather systems. According to the paper published today in BioMed Central, children born around the time of the severe 1997-’98 El Niño living in coastal Peru, one of the regions hardest hit by the weather pattern, are significantly shorter for their age than children born before El Niño hit.

El Niño weather patterns occur in the equatorial Pacific region, often off the northern coasts of Peru and Ecuador. During El Niño patterns, the region’s warm water, which is usually skimmed away by the wind and pushed towards Asia and Australia, doesn’t circulate like it’s meant to. Instead, it builds up and heats the air above it, creating clouds. The changes in water temperatures and cloud formations lead to higher chances of torrential rains, inhospitably warm fish habitats, and intense flooding in the Americas. This tends to happen every three to seven years, and begins slowly in the summer, peaking in the winter.

Recent findings suggest that climate change will not necessarily disrupt this cycle, but might increase the intensity of the weather events when they do occur. Checkley noted that climate change was not a focus in the study, but confirmed that its impact may worsen future El Niño events.

Which is bad news for children living in coastal areas heavily affected by El Niño weather events. That’s because this extreme weather can make food hard to come by, and increase the likelihood of infection. “Lack of food, food insecurity and increased infections are all likely drivers to a decreased growth in children,” Checkley told me. The study zeroed in on children living in rural villages in coastal Peru, where food insecurity and poverty are at much higher levels than in places like California, where El Niño weather patterns can also settle.

The team measured the height, weight, and fat, and muscle of a random sample of 2,095 children born between 1991 and 2001 in Tumbes, Peru—a city on the northwestern coast. A decade after the extreme ’97 El Niño, in November and December of 2008 and 2009, they found that, on average, the children born during and shortly after El Niño were shorter and had less lean mass, or body weight minus fat, than children born before the event.

The study mentions that in years following the extreme weather patterns, some children were able to gradually recover losses in height, but that children in homes that were heavily flooded were not able to catch up. “Even three years after the initial disaster, it still affected children’s nutritional status,” reads a press release about the study.

Epidemiologists consider stature a “surrogate measure” of chronic malnutrition and disease for certain age groups and genders; stunted growth can be an early predictor of delayed motor skills, cognitive impairment, and higher risk pregnancies later in life. “Just as rings act as indicators of natural disaster experienced by a tree throughout its life, exposure to severe adverse weather events in utero or in early life can leave a long-lasting mark on growth and development in young children,” the study reads.

According to Madeleine Thompson, a scientist specializing in climate and health at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, it is “highly likely” that these results are “indicative of a large scale impact of an El Niño related disaster.” She linked these results to a 2004 study of an El Niño related malaria epidemic in areas of Tanzania, where there was a “very significant impact” on infants’ birth weights as a result of the disease—an immediate health impact of El Niño.

Of course, the results are still too preliminary to indicate that El Niño alone stunted children’s growth. But the authors note that in interviews with focus groups, “community members did not cite other events occurring during the same period as El Niño that had such a destructive impact on their lives.” Checkley told me that his research squares with past studies of the public health consequences of El Niño events, which include increased risk of infection and social and emotional stress. Flooding and higher temperatures often lead to increased risk of contracting infectious diarrheal and respiratory diseases, especially in poor, overcrowded communities. These illnesses could prevent children from developing properly.

The researchers emphasize the need for further study, especially in light of climate change and the possibility of more and more intense El Niño cycles. The researchers believe that these studies can better help aid workers develop prevention strategies and target aid and response during these types of events. “Given El Niño’s cyclical nature this phenomenon may continue to negatively impact future generations,” said Checkley.

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Another Side Effect of Climate Change and El Niño Events? Shorter Kids.

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Valuing the essential element: Water

by Myrna Posted on November 24, 2014

Assessing the role of watershed conservation in major global cities. The Nature Conservancy has created a website to highlight water quality threats and solutions for more than 500 cities. Read this article: Valuing the essential element: Water

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Valuing the essential element: Water

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Is Dianne Feinstein Crafting a Secret Water Deal to Help Big Pistachio?

by RodericSchulze Posted on November 20, 2014

Mother Jones

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is negotiating a behind-closed-doors deal with Republican lawmakers to pass a bill that would ostensibly address California’s drought—an effort that has uncorked a flood of criticism from environmental circles.

Feinstein’s quiet push for a compromise drought bill that’s palatable to Big Ag-aligned House Republicans has been in the works for six months, Kate Poole, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. And it has accelerated recently, as the Senator hopes to pass it by year end, during the “lame duck” period of the outgoing Democratic-controlled Senate.

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Is Dianne Feinstein Crafting a Secret Water Deal to Help Big Pistachio?

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