Cookbook club: Weeknights with Giada

 I don’t really get to cook that often.  My excuses are I’m busy, it’s a hassle to find ingredients, I’m on a diet, and of course, it’s hot in the kitchen. But it seems Giada de Laurentiis shares some of the same concerns about preparing meals for her family, keeping it simple without sacrificing taste since she now wants to spend more time with her husband and four year old daughter Jade whose cute pictures are all over the book.   In her new cookbook, Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner (P1419, National Book Store), she made it a point to put together recipes that can be done in much less than an hour, that would be enjoyed by her whole family.

My husband and I poured over  Weeknights with Giada while sipping coffee in a Starbucks. After all, early in our marriage, Giada’s cookbooks were our go-to resource for preparing dinner. We decided to try Spicy Linguine with Clams and Mussels (without the mussels) so off we went to S&R to buy the clams and the Pinot Grigio.  S&R might not be the cheapest place to buy seafood but they already blanched the clams. Giada suggests submerging them in a bowl of water doused with coarse cornmeal to spit out any sand. Then I found some vegetable broth in Healthy Options. 

I stayed away from clams before, as I thought it would require a high degree of cooking expertise, but this was really easy. The clams were simmered in an aromatic mixture of onions, garlic ,white wine and vegetable broth. After about 5 minutes, the clams opened up and the pasta was ready to serve. 

My take on the Spicy Linguine with Clams. Yum!

I kind of forgot I was not supposed to eat pasta as I tried Giada’s spicy linguine. Flavor was not bad at all although I should probably have tossed in a bit more wine.  Even my daughter ate the spaghetti without the clams. My cousin felt that it lacked a herby flavor so she added some thyme, and the hubby wanted it more spicy and poured on the chili flakes. But the linguine soon vanished and only unopened clams remained. 

We found a lot of other dinner ideas which can last us for months.  Hubby and I want to try Shrimp and Sausage Cioppino, Couscous with Watermelon, Watercress and Feta Cheese, Chicken with Tarragon and White Wine, Balsamic Glazed Salmon. Giada even has an intriguing chapter called “Change of Pace” which to my surprise included multicultural dishes like Chicken Adobo. Her spin on adobo is white wine vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaves, arrowroot and lime juice.  It might be interesting to check out Giada’s cookbook and revamp even our own adobo. 

Lauren Oliver

I recently had the privilege of hosting Lauren Oliver in Powerbooks Greenbelt.  Lauren's first successful book is Before I Fall. Although she did not deliberately write a genre title, Pandemonium and Delirium is has been successfully riding the wave of the Hunger Games phenomenon. She also has a middle grade book, Liesl and Po. I had fun chatting with her her books, her strong heroines, writing in subways on her blackberry and finding love. She loves high heels and she managed to sneak in some shoe shopping between lunch with fans and the event. I was thrilled when we discovered we owned the same Chloe wedges.

Amor Deliria Nervosa: How did you come up with the idea that love is a disease that must be cured?

I wanted to write a book about love in all its forms: romantic, familial, social, between friends. The idea for it came when I was on the treadmill. I seem to get a lot of my good ideas at the shower or the gym.  At the time there was a big fear over swine flu and bird flu before that. In New York, people were going crazy over this, bathing in anti bacterial soap, pulling their kids out of school.  I was struck by how media can drive people in a panic. The two ideas started combining in my head.  When you’re in love, one minute you are ecstatic and devastated the next. With weight fluctuations, sleep disruptions, the inability to focus on anything other than the other, love has a lot in common with psychiatric disorders that would normally be treated by medication. 

How is one cured of love? 

It would be chemically done via pills.  Scientists actually identified the chemical pathways that light up when you are in love.   It might not be too far away to be able to take a pill if you were heartbroken, or suffered from unrequited love. 

How did you create the world of Delirium to make it believable?

The epigraphs quoting from the Book of SHHH were not supposed to be in the book at all.  I wrote them to help me work out what kind of society it was. What kinds of beliefs would they hold socially, politically, religiously?  What kinds of songs would they sing?  By putting epigraphs, I could give the reader a lot of little hints without cluttering the book. 

Lena, the protagonist in Delirium, was buying into the whole deal about getting cured,  but goes through a radical change by the end of the book, and is a completely different character in Pandemonium.  How did you let her character evolve?

My main interest as a writer is character growth and evolution.  I like to think that she really changes and emerges as an adult in Requiem.  When you are a young adult, you go from child to not, and I’d really like to reflect that in literature. 

What can we expect from Requiem?

You can expect me not to say anything about it.  One thing I will say, is that Requiem takes place from 2 different points of view so it’s Lena’s point of you, and somebody else but not Alex.

Ever since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I love stories where an unlikely girl transforms into a kick ass heroine. 

How did you shift between two different points of view in Pandemonium (Then and Now)?

I left Lena in such a bad place after Delirium. She was so broken down and I felt so bad for her that I needed to believe she had a future and she would be ok.  I started writing a future for her six months in advance. Then I realized that piggybacking between "then" and "now" would be a cool way to tell the story of her growth.

What is the message that you want teen girls to take away from Before I Fall?

It is a story of interconnection. Our actions have deep ripples on people around us that in turn ripple back and affect us. It is a book about what ultimately makes meaning in the world. I would have succeeded just to get readers to ask questions, is my behavior bringing good ripples or bad ripples.

Were you speaking out against bullying?

I don’t believe happy people are mean and I don’t believe that mean people can be happy.  I wasn’t a particularly nice girl when I was a teenager. I was also very unhappy and the more mean I was, the more unahappy I became. 

You said that Liesl and Po was your most personal work?

Sometimes it’s my favorite book that I’ve written.   Liesl grieves the death of her father. For much of the book, the world has turned grey. Part of the journey is restoring color to the world world.  In 2009, I lost my best friend  when he was 29 and it was very devastating to me. A lot of the scenes in Pandemonium where Lena is running and grieving came from a very personal place.  I think I am still traumatized by that experience.  I wrote Liesl and Po when I was grieving him and I wanted to write color back into my world. The book is dedicated to his nieces and nephews and brother and sister. It has been very healing. 

What can we expect from you next?

I’m working on realistic fiction for young adults now.  It’s like Before I Fall on the wrong side of the tracks.  It’s a very different world that I’m exploring and it’s called Panic. I’m also working on an adult novel.  I’m glad my publisher is very flexible and let’s me explore different genres.

Are any of these books optioned to be movies?

Both Before I Fall and Delirium have been optioned. A lot needs to happen for both these books to make it onscreen but I have great producers and a studio behind them. I was actually reading the Delirium script on the way here.   I’m hopeful that one day I’ll be wearing a fabulous dress on the red carpet. 

Do you have any advice for any aspiring writers?

I’m going to put more writing challenges and advice on my blog, www.laurenoliverbooks.blogspot.com.  The first thing I always say to people is to write everyday.  I’ve been writing my whole life and it took me years from when I started a novel as a freshman in high school at 13 to when I finished it when I was 21.  Finishing a novel takes time and practice. Write as much as you can until it becomes habit and you are not playing Angry Birds on your phone. If you have a free moment in time, what you do is write. When I wrote Before I Fall, I was going to school, I had a full time job and a part time job and I wrote on the subway.    

Lauren, thanks for coming to National Book Store and Powerbooks and we can't wait until Requiem comes out in November. You left us with such a cliffhanger in Pandemonium.