New Books

I picked up a Wed NYTimes at lunch and am glad I did.In arts is a writeup on a new Tony Horwitz book "A Voyage Long and Strange" about offbeat American History you never heard of.I fell in love with Horwitz's style when I read his wonderful"Confederates in the Attic" about the present day South and his hanging out with very hardcore re-enactors.But it was the front page of The Dining Out section that really caught my eye.There is a review on one of those strange offbeat books I just have to buy.What caught my eye was a picture of a Northern Flying Squirrel with the headline"An Unlikely Way To Save a Species:Serve It for Dinner".Well that got me going and the book is"Renewing America's Food Traditions:Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods" by Gary Paul Nabhan,editor.Nabhan spent over four years compiling a list of endangered vegetables and animals.The flying squirrel it turns out was popular in stews but one look at it and I think moonshine played a part in someone thinking that looked like good eatin.There is a Stars and Moon Watermelon pic that shows a purple watermelon with what look like stars spread across the skin with a yellow splotchy moon in one spot.Grapes,taters,grasses etc are all in the book and I think my fave is The Tennessee fainting goat, which keels over when startled.It goes on to say the goat was popular for grilling on a fire.If the goat keels over when startled I'd sure as hell like to see what is does when someone lights a fire nearby.So I stopped at B&N with the article and the dude helping me was from Tennessee but he'd never heard of the goat.It looks like the book won't be out for another two weeks though so I'll bide my time.I can't wait to read it on my patio reading the squirrel parts out loud so my nut hiding plant wrecking local squirrels can here me reading off the main ingredient.P.S. when I looked at pics online for the melon they all showed dark green melons for Stars and Moon but the NYTimes was purple so when I googled purple watermelon I came up with it right away.So there must be two shades of skin.