Summer Reading Project, BookLikes Satellite

Tonight, I had Italian wedding soup as a dinner course. Italian wedding soup is a broth with kale and meatballs and onion. As I slurped, I reflected on the last chapter of Jane Ziegelman's 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. Each of the five chapters discusses a different ethnic group: Germans, the Irish, German Jews, Russian Jews, and Italians. The Italians, Ziegelman writes, were often criticized for their food, particularly their habit of eating "weeds." Those weeds, in this case kale, were in my bowl tonight. And they were delicious. Italian food, of all kinds, is one of America's most beloved imported cuisines. Tonight, I got to taste a bit of immigrant life with my wedding soup and my gnocchi. It was the perfect finish for reading 97 Orchard...

Read the rest of my review at Summer Reading Project.