THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

THE BOOKBINDER OF LOST STORIES

The Bookbinder of Lost Stories is the book I read, again thanks to Monica.

 

Speaking of friendship, Sas Bellas Mariposas  and Mamaglia are skilled fan of the author: Cristina Caboni, so maybe they would like to tell us something about her.

In the meantime I would like to chat more about how I especially liked the parts that describe the binding process in the early 19th century.

Nowadays how long does it take to create a book?
There are several 24-hour delivery options on the web.

And each time we find ourselves with the usual question: have we gained or lost?

Recently with my husband we have been looking for someone who was still in a profession related to the traditions of the past, but here in the area unfortunately we do not have old style jobs anymore.

It is very sad to be aware that the precious chain of passing on knowledge and teaching patience and time needed to acquire skills has been interrupted.

By interrupting the oral tradition, we will deprive ourselves of the privilege of being able to know stories because there will be no one left to tell them.

So I would very much like to take up the concept of “binding” lost stories to unite them and to keep them living with us.

I spent a lot of time listening to one of my grandmothers telling about her childhood in a peasant family, talking to me about a seemingly distant era, about an essential lifestyle, about objects that we will never use.

My other grandmother, had less life to live but equally her tales remain indelible to me, as well as the memory her rice-fields worker  knees.

My great-grandfather, on the other hand, was a carter, and his traveling for work gave him the opportunity to meet and to marry my great-grandmother: German, in spite of the saying “wife and oxen in your own country …” jokes aside, theirs was a rather unconventional marriage considering historical period and social conditions.

But tell me please! I would love to “listen to you.”

If you have a craft to tell, if you want a story not to be lost, if you wish to pass on a tale, a thought, a concept, a proverb, an experience or even just a comment, I will be grateful and add it to the lost stories to be bound.

DON’T CALL THEM CHIPS

DON’T CALL THEM CHIPS

Don’t call them chips because they don’t contain potatoes, and that’s not even news: the term potato chips has become part of our language to imply slice of potato, usually fried: a package of potato chips as stated in Garzanti

The Georgofili Academy attributes its invention to George Speck, also known as George Crum based on the legend that wealthy financier Cornelius Vanderbilt one day sent back a plate of fries three times dissatisfied with the cooking. So Crum cuts the potatoes into wafer-thin slices and fries them until they are so crisp that they cannot be eaten with a fork, and seasons them with lots of salt.

Later George Crum opened his own restaurant and began marketing the fries, which, in 1920 would be packaged in pouches.

As children we knew them in the classic Pai bags and then in slang we continued to call chips other kinds of bagged snacks although they were composed of corn, cheese or other ingredients.

Similarly, when we were children, saying flour corresponded to referring to the product of grinding wheat

Instead, we now talk more about pseudo-grains and have come to the “new” protein flours, if we can call them that.

Various sites can be found that as an alternative to high-protein flours such as legume flour, for example, market flours made from dried grubs.

These are not urban legends, or even generalizations, it should be specified, but ingredients that are specifically stated in the labeling.

With one of these flours, “chips” have been produced, but perhaps they should be called something else, don’t call them chips.

What would be an appropriate name in your opinion?

Do you think you will eat any kind of food with these flours?

Is the feeling of annoyance that I personally feel only a psychological question?

According to a survey by Coldiretti dated May 2021 following approval by of Europe to the marketing of insect-based foods, 54% of Italians consider insects foreign to their food culture.

Are you in favor?
Is this just a protein like any other to you?

BEFORE YOUR MEMORY FADES

BEFORE YOUR MEMORY FADES

Before your memory fades … but the Italian title is The first coffee of the day… could I not read it?

Actually no, and that’s why my husband decided to give it to me.

Before your memory fades is the new book by Toshikazu Kawaguchi 川口 俊 和 published in Italy by Garzanti.

Do you know him?

I was very impressed to discover how Toshikazu Kawaguchi here in Italy has established himself thanks to the word of mouth that has been unleashed since March 2020, when his book Before the Coffee Gets Cold debuted and finished in the bestseller list within a week.

In fact, going backwards, about Toshikazu Kawaguchi

March 2012: the Grand Prize of the Suginami Theater Festival for the stage “Before the Coffee Gets Cold”

December 2015: the novel “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” published

April 2017: the Grand Prize Bookshop nomination

September 2018: cinema adaptation of “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” with Kasumi Arimura

February 2019: 100,000 copies of “In front of cold weather” exceeded in Taiwan

February 2020: the UK version of “Before the coffee gets cold” is 10th in the Bookseller ranking

March 2020: the British version wins the first place in the best-selling literary books in Singapore

until May 2020: his biography mentions a 3rd place as a novel translated in Italy in the ranking of the Corriere della Sera that I have not been able to recover

January 2021: Tales from the Cafe.

Autumn 2021: the project for a TV series  produced by SK Global and developed by The Jackal Group

And January 2022: Before your memory fades.

I don’t want to anticipate the focal point of these coffees nor what happens while the coffee is hot, in case you don’t know the story yet, but surely the idea of these special encounters over a cup of coffee is the key concept here on the blog too.

Unfortunately, without the magic and the Japanese delicacy, and with very different cooling times, but with the same intent to try, very modestly, to give small trips.

And about the first coffee of the day would you like to tell yours?

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