In My Shopping Bag 2011/07/05

I'd like to share with you some books I bought today:

I have the beautiful Phaidon collection of "Nicholas" stories in English, and want a set in the original French for our bookshelf

I love Tina Fey

I haven't purchased a fiction novel for a very long time, and would like to read something just for pleasure

Pink is for Girls

I saw the title of this book and immediately purchased six copies on Amazon.com. Like a number of my friends with young daughters, I was bemused by my three year-old daughter's declarations of love for princesses, fairies, ballerinas and all things pink, especially in light of the fact that she didn't wear a single item of pink clothing until she was old enough to tell me herself that she wanted pink.

I knew the influences had to be from outside the home, because the home learning environment for my elder daughter consisted of gender-neutral toys and story books, and neutral-colored clothes and toys. It may have started with her first favorite TV show, In the Night Garden, with a stereotypically girlie-girl character names Upsy-Daisy. This was followed by party favor bags filled with Disney princess figurines and stickers brought home from girlie-girl themed birthday parties. And finally, in those first months after she started pre-nursery, my elder daughter was obsessed with labeling everyone (and everything) as a boy or a girl, replete with (often times incorrect) proclamations of what boys and girls can and cannot do.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the new Girlie-Girl Culture is written by an investigative journalist and a feminist, and is packed full of interviews with people as varied as academics, Disney marketing executives and mothers of toddler beauty pageant participants. Thankfully, Peggy Orenstein gives a somewhat balanced account because she accepts that, in our society, looks do matter, and she herself is struggling with the same questions as she raises her own young daughter.

I learned a lot from the book; it gave me much food for thought in how to help both my daughters navigate this girlie-girl culture. There is no right or wrong when making those daily decisions on how to help our children grow to be responsible, well-adjusted adults. I believe that just being aware of this culture and understanding it better by reading this book is good for me as a mother.

However, as Peggy Orenstein ironically points out, the parents least likely to be interested in this book -- i.e. those parents who embrace (and view as harmless) daughters who wear nail polish and child-friendly makeup at age 4, dress in midriff-baring crop tops at age 8, go on diets at age 12 because they "feel fat" -- are those who may benefit most from understanding the influences and effects of daughters growing up in this girlie-girl culture.

And by the way, did you know that when nursery colors were introduced in the 20th century, girls wore blue (symbolic of Virgin Mary), and pink was considered masculine because red was associated with strength? Think of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy from Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins' Jane Banks: all were dressed in shades of blue. "Pink is for girls" only came about as recently as the 1980s!

Food and Wine

Food and wine are two subjects that invariably form my dinner conversations, whether dining with my husband or sharing a meal with friends.

This April, my parents came out from Canada to babysit while my husband and I enjoyed a trip to Paris  with our dear friends Mr. & Mrs. VG. After indulging our love of restaurant dining and wine pairings in Paris, my husband and Mr. VG continued on to Bordeaux while Mrs. VG and I returned to our children in Hong Kong. The boys joined a specialty tour to taste first-growth 2010 vintages from the barrel. Upon his return, my husband read The Billionaire's Vinegar.

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With the growing stack of parenting and half-finished books on my bedside table, I was a little resistant when my husband urged me to read this book. My husband has even less time than me to read, so for him to make the effort to start a book, and finish it too, convinced me to set aside the bedside stack and give this book a try.

The book is written in the style of a good Vanity Fair magazine article, so it was no surprise to learn that author Benjamin Wallace writes for GQ magazine, among others. It's a captivating story pack full of interesting facts about wine, wine writers and wine collectors.

My husband believes that this book can be read as a mystery novel without any wine knowledge. I disagree. This story is enjoyable when you have some prior knowledge of or experience with the wine world. I am a neophyte and I couldn't put the book down.

If any of the following mean anything to you, then The Billionaire's Vinegar is the book for you: vertical tastings, Riedel, Broadbent, into the shoulder.