Stirring The Pot

Many women are stuck in their day-to-day routine with so much noise overwhelming them - who they should be, what they should be doing, and how they should be doing it. They don't realize that they are superheroes in disguise, donning invisible capes and capable of fulfilling their goals and ambitions. In Stirring the Pot, author Traci Mitchell takes a closer look at successful, accomplished women who are living their lives on purpose, and what it takes to be an inspiration to oneself and those around you. You'll hear lessons learned from well-known women including: Oprah Winfrey Ariana Grande Winnie Mandela Learn more about your inner strengths and gifts. See just how phenomenal you can truly be. Traci Mitchell's Stirring the Pot provides all the info you need for self-empowerment and purpose. Women are capable of making what may seem impossible, possible. It's as simple as believing in yourself and finding others to walk with you.

At Summer Terrace flats in hot and humid Durban, the friendships between the women are as intricate as the curling patterns of henna tattoos. Meet old Aunty Ruki, who lives with her domestic worker, Joyce, an arrangement that ruffles many feathers. There’s Zaina, who has her sights on becoming an architect, and her mother Rabia, a florist, and yes, she’s divorced. Zaina hides a secret that could cause a rift in their relationship: his name is Imraan, and dating him simply isn’t allowed. Dive into this swirl of madams and maids, women and their husbands, children, grandchildren, and in-laws, a world bristling with life and vitality, amid judgements and forgiveness, secrets and lies, expectations and disappointments. Prepare for a wedding, a theft, Ramadaan, and a passing, while delicious recipes for traditional cuisine add local spice to life at Summer Terrace.

Africa’s art of cooking is a key part of its history. All too often Africa is associated with famine, but in Stirring the Pot, James C. McCann describes how the ingredients, the practices, and the varied tastes of African cuisine comprise a body of historically gendered knowledge practiced and perfected in households across diverse human and ecological landscape. McCann reveals how tastes and culinary practices are integral to the understanding of history and more generally to the new literature on food as social history. Stirring the Pot offers a chronology of African cuisine beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing from Africa’s original edible endowments to its globalization. McCann traces cooks’ use of new crops, spices, and tastes, including New World imports like maize, hot peppers, cassava, potatoes, tomatoes, and peanuts, as well as plantain, sugarcane, spices, Asian rice, and other ingredients from the Indian Ocean world. He analyzes recipes, not as fixed ahistorical documents,but as lively and living records of historical change in women’s knowledge and farmers’ experiments. A final chapter describes in sensuous detail the direct connections of African cooking to New Orleans jambalaya, Cuban rice and beans, and the cooking of African Americans’ “soul food.” Stirring the Pot breaks new ground and makes clear the relationship between food and the culture, history, and national identity of Africans.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The View host and New York Times bestselling author Jenny McCarthy is like your favorite friend: honest, open, and oh-so-funny. She also speaks her mind and says what the rest of us are thinking, a characteristic that has won her millions of fans no matter how much she “stirs the pot.” Combining the secrets of her hard-won wisdom, witty observations, revealing notes to herself (including ridiculously wishful wish lists), and tales of both her best and most embarrassing moments, Stirring the Pot is McCarthy’s recipe for getting what you want out of life. From her wacky experiences in show business to her screwball forays into healing “therapies,” from her frontline reporting of single motherhood in midlife to a goofy attempt to reclaim her last name from Joe McCarthy, here are outrageous musings from the roller coaster life of everyone’s favorite professional blonde. With a winning mix of storytelling, sisterly advice, sex appeal, and self-deprecation, Stirring the Pot shows us how a pinch of conviction (aka hardheadedness), a dollop of flexibility (being okay with Plan B or even C), and endless faith (in yourself, in your wildest fantasies, and in the general goodness of others) can mix to create the life of your dreams. Advance praise for Stirring the Pot “Whether she’s talking about work or play, family or friendships, her sex life or the lack of it, Jenny McCarthy never fails to make me laugh out loud. Who knew she could dish out advice so well, too?”—Andy Cohen, host of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live

"Despite the increased popularity of Cajun foods such as gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and boudin, relatively little is known about the history of this cuisine. Stir the Pot explores its origins, its evolution from a seventeenth-century French settlement in Nova Scotia to the explosion of Cajun food onto the American dining scene over the past few decades. The authors debunk the myths surrounding Cajun food - foremost that its staples are closely guarded relics of the Cajuns' early days in Louisiana - and explain how local dishes and culinary traditions have come to embody Cajun cuisine both at home and throughout the world." -- from the publisher.

In this remarkable work, Rae Katherine Eighmey presents Franklin's delight and experimentation with food throughout his life. At age sixteen, he began dabbling in vegetarianism. In his early twenties, citing the health benefits of water over alcohol, he convinced his printing-press colleagues to abandon their traditional breakfast of beer and bread for "water gruel," a kind of tasty porridge he enjoyed. Franklin is known for his scientific discoveries, including electricity and the lightning rod, and his curiosity and logical mind extended to the kitchen. He even conducted an electrical experiment to try to cook a turkey and installed a state-of-the-art oven for his beloved wife Deborah. Later in life, on his diplomatic missions--he lived fifteen years in England and nine in France--Franklin ate like a local. Eighmey discovers the meals served at his London home-away-from-home and analyzes his account books from Passy, France, for insights to his farm-to-fork diet there. Yet he also longed for American foods; Deborah, sent over favorites including cranberries, which amazed his London kitchen staff. He saw food as key to understanding the developing culture of the United States, penning essays presenting maize as the defining grain of America. Stirring the Pot with Benjamin Franklin conveys all of Franklin's culinary adventures, demonstrating that Franklin's love of food shaped not only his life but also the character of the young nation he helped build.

• A hands-on guide to help readers fall in love with their kitchen again. • Inspiration for home cooks to reach that “light bulb moment.” • Opens with a hardworking front of book: “The Anatomy of a Knife,” “Pots and Pans You Can't Live Without,” “Good, Better, Best” (Tyler rates the latest gadgets and kitchen equipment). • Tyler shares how to navigate the aisles of a grocery store like a pro so readers can create the “Ultimate” pantry. • More than 100 must-master recipes. • Loaded with photos, including one of every recipe.

Cooking with Grease is a powerful, behind-the-scenes memoir of the life and times of a tenacious political organizer and the first African-American woman to head a major presidential campaign. Donna Brazile fought her first political fight at age nine -- campaigning (successfully) for a city council candidate who promised a playground in her neighborhood. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, she committed her heart and her future to political and social activism. By the 2000 presidential election, Brazile had become a major player in American political history -- and she remains one of the most outspoken and forceful political activists of our day. Donna grew up one of nine children in a working-poor family in New Orleans, a place where talking politics comes as naturally as stirring a pot of seafood gumbo -- and where the two often go hand in hand. Growing up, Donna learned how to cook from watching her mother, Jean, stir the pots in their family kitchen. She inherited her love of reading and politics from her grandmother Frances. Her brothers Teddy Man and Chet worked as foot soldiers in her early business schemes and voter registration efforts. Cooking with Grease follows Donna's rise to greater and greater political and personal accomplishments: lobbying for student financial aide, organizing demonstrations to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday and working on the Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns. But each new career success came with its own kind of heartache, especially in her greatest challenge: leading Al Gore's 2000 campaign, making her the first African American to lead a major presidential campaign. Cooking with Grease is an intimate account of Donna's thirty years in politics. Her stories of the leaders and activists who have helped shape America's future are both inspiring and memorable. Donna's witty style and innovative political strategies have garnered her the respect and admiration of colleagues and adversaries alike -- she is as comfortable trading quips with J. C. Watts as she is with her Democratic colleagues. Her story is as warm and nourishing as a bowl of Brazile family gumbo.