Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes

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While there is a formality to things—napkin in your lap, no milk bottles on the table, don’t eat over the sink—the table is also the easiest place to be. No rushing. No shortcuts. Every meal counts. The rapidly evolving story can be broken down into three phases: the emergence of the threat, the government’s focus on keeping it out of the United States, and finally, its efforts to contain the spread.

In a Fox News interview, Trump deflects criticism to his response by saying the Obama administration (including the vice president, Joe Biden) “didn’t do anything about” swine flu. We rated the claim False.

under control

The thing about memoirs (at least if the subject is living) is that they’re yet unfinished. We look at Grant’s story as she tells it, and she assures us that “everything is under control.” Because Food. Tastefully prepared, thoughtfully consumed, it is the healing balm Grant offers. The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Phyllis] Grant is really good. Her book is more than special and unlike any memoir I’ve ever read—an epic, pulsing poem/diaristic memoir about restaurant work, cooking, motherhood, and more. Skip Netflix one night and read Grant’s spare, dark vignettes. Then read her again." -- Hunter Lewis, editor-in-chief, Food & Wine The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing.” Surveillance may well be needed to cope with covid-19. Rules with sunset clauses and scrutiny built in can help stop it at that. But the main defence against the overmighty state, in tech and the economy, will be citizens themselves. They must remember that a pandemic government is not fit for everyday life. ■ It's not often that I take a chance on a memoir from an unknown author. Forging a connection deep enough to invest fully into a random person's life story can be hard for me to achieve, personally. So, imagine my surprise when I slipped so deep, right into emotional investment with Phyllis's relationship with food and motherhood.As I invert it onto a cake plate, I splash hot caramel all over my hands, the table, the floor, my son’s shoes. Phyllis Grant has the voice of a poet and the sensuality of a cook. This very brave book makes you want to experience the world with equal intensity. As for the recipes ... completely irresistible.” —Ruth Reichl, author of Save Me the Plums I think this book could be very much appreciated by mothers because it portrays all the joys and struggles of giving birth and caring for a newborn in detail. As someone who is already terrified of becoming a mother in the future, it just made my fear more pronounced. But, I guess, it also prepared me a bit in what to expect both in emotional and physical terms.

Phyllis Grant writes sentences that send jolts through your body. This book is poetry. This book is truth. In structure and tone it's like nothing I have ever encountered. It's about the reality of how we live our lives. I devoured it in a few hours and when I was done, I was crying on the train home." — Jeff Gordinier, author of Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World More worrying is the spread of bad habits. Governments may retreat into autarky. Some fear running out of the ingredients for medicines, many of which are made in China. Russia has imposed a temporary ban on exporting grain. Industrialists and politicians have lost trust in supply chains. It is but a small step from there to long-term state support for the national champions that will have just been bailed out by taxpayers. Trade’s prospects are already dim (see article); all this would further cloud them—and the recovery. And in the long term, a vast and lasting expansion of the state together with dramatically higher public debt (see article) is likely to lead to a lumbering, less dynamic kind of capitalism. The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.”We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.” Everything Is Under Control is a beautiful paradox—the book moves expansively, generously across the decades, in prose as clean and economical as a chef's knife dicing an onion. The result is addictively readable and ultimately wise, true, and real.” — Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses