While he wasn't keen on spending excessive time with his mom, he dreamed of becoming a chef. Ultimately, it was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.On their journey, Jan and Sam live and cook with locals, seeing first-hand how globalization is changing food, families, and cultures. In southeast France, they move in with a family sheltering undocumented migrants. From Bernadette, the housekeeper, they learn classic French family fare such as blanquette de veau. In a hamlet in the heart of Italy's Slow Food country, the villagers teach them without fuss or fanfare how to make authentic spaghetti alle vongole and a proper risotto with leeks. In Shanghai, they home-cook firecracker chicken and scallion pancakes with the nouveaux riches and their migrant maids, who comprise one of the biggest demographic shift in world history. Along the way, mother and son explore their sometimes-fraught relationship, uniting -- and occasionally clashing -- over their mutual love of cooking.A memoir about family, an exploration of the globalization of food cultures, and a meditation on the complicated relationships between mothers and sons, Apron Strings is complex, unpredictable, and unexpectedly hilarious.

    <br><br>Part Tuscan idyll and part cautionary tale, Wendy Laird’s latest Kindle Single tells the flip-side story of expat existence, what it takes to make it happen, and how a life on a well-mapped trajectory can veer off course in the process. Laird’s beautiful prose and acerbic wit keep the book, if not her own agenda, on the right track.

    Some of the situations are heartbreaking, others are head-scratching, and all of them are tales Disney would rather you not hear.Walt Disney, the company bearing his name, and their theme parks have been analyzed and chronicled almost ad nauseam. The word Disney conjures up different feelings for different people. For many, the Walt Disney Company stands for all things wholesome, family-centric, moral and entertaining, but every now and then scandalous and salacious behavior seeps into the utopian world of Disney. Disney Declassified isn’t about the analysis of the Disney Company at a deep or philosophical level—actually it’s quite the contrary; it is a collection of true stories with Disney being the setting or the catalyst in situations that are very un-Disney-like. In some of these instances, not every Disney story ends happily ever after;•The shocking time a baby was born and abandoned in a Magic Kingdom toilet. •When an eight-year-old girl was randomly shot in the back while riding aboard the Disneyland Railroad.•The controversial story of a handicapped woman having her Disneyland annual pass suspended for speeding and running into other guests with her motorized scooter.•What do a priest accused of molesting multiple children and the founder of a Ponzi scheme have in common? They both fled their situations and went to work at Walt Disney World.•The diabolical tale of a woman who sold her newborn baby for $15,000 to take her other children on a trip to Walt Disney World. •The role a former Nazi SS member played in the construction of Walt Disney World.•Two hostage situations at Walt Disney World, with one at EPCOT tragically ending in suicide.•How a peeping Tom set up an elaborate system to spy on female cast members as they changed for work inside Cinderella’s Castle.•Ever hear of something called “Sphinctering?” If you were one of the unlucky guys working for the fire company on Walt Disney World property, you may have been subjected to this form of male-on-male sexual harassment. •Find out how the public helped to identify and track down a despicable child pornographer based on the Disney resort in the background images the police released from his reprehensible videos. The Disney docket doesn’t end with cases of ride accidents, sex, crimes, death and violence. There are multiple stories of people faking cancer to score a free trip to Disney World, interesting copyright infringement and Americans with Disability Act lawsuits and a touching story of how a young boy with autism utilizes Disney characters to communicate with his family. However you feel about Disney, lover or hater, explore these stories and many more, when the real world collides with Disney and their world. Chances are you may never view Disney the same way again!

    There is no such place as a lamb house or a pork house, but even a small town can have a steak house." So begins Mark Schatzker's ultimate carnivorous quest. Fed up with one too many mediocre steaks, the intrepid journalist set out to track down, define, and eat the perfect specimen. His journey takes him to all the legendary sites of steak excellence-Texas, France, Scotland, Italy, Japan, Argentina, and Idaho's Pahsimeroi Valley-where he discovers the lunatic lengths steak lovers will go to consume the perfect cut. After contemplating the merits of Black Angus, Kobe, Chianina, and the prehistoric aurochs-a breed revived by the Nazis after four hundred years of extinction-Schatzker adopts his own heifer, fattens her on fruit, acorns, and Persian walnuts, and then grapples with ambivalence when this near-pet appears on his plate. Reminiscent of both Bill Bryson's and Bill Buford's writing, Steak is a warm, humorous, and wide-ranging read that introduces a wonderful new travel and food writer to the common table.

    

    Cooper"... For every instance rationalized away, there is another that defies explanation...

    Do you love Unexplained, cryptic, and intriguing & mysteries? Why was a man found in the same spot he disappeared, but 4 years later, with a hole in his head that no surgeons could explain, and what did this have to do with a séance, doppelgangers, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? Why did a man write the Fibonacci sequence as a clue and tell a stranger he was “Looking for the Beast,” before he disappeared in the barren plains of a desert? Why did five boys run from their car into the snowy wilderness, to certain death, yet not try to save themselves, at all? They found food but did not eat it. What were they running from? And why? Who are Hecate? And what did they have to do with people disappearing in the countryside of England? How did an introverted lady die on the top of an ancient fairy mound, on a remote island: her face locked in an expression of terror? Why did a man die of fright atop a coal pile after disappearing for days, and why could no scientists identify the strange ointment found on his body? Where had he been? And what had happened to him? How could a man be found after a plane crash, lying on a moor, with no injuries at all; yet his body had not been there when the plane had crashed and searchers had combed the area multiple times looking for him. Also featuring an in-depth investigation into the strange death of Elisa Lam, found dead in a water tower on the top of a hotel roof in LA. Who were the two men who came to see her, and what was in the mystery box they gave her?  Steph Young has appeared on national radio shows and podcast including the UK's The Unexplained, and Coast to Coast Am, talking about many of these mysteries of the Unexplained, which are her passion... These stories are some of the most intriguing, enigmatic, and ultimately unfathomable & unexplained true tales I have ever come across and they continue to fascinate and completely puzzle me. Join me for some true tales of Unexplained mysteries of the most cryptic kind. In this book are strange and baffling true stories of unexplained mysteries, and the cast of characters who star in them. Stories of unexplained mysteries that yearn to be solved. All of these strange and curious stories, I have written about over the last six years, across a number of my previous books. They continue to intrigue me, and while some of my readers may be familiar with some of these cryptic tales, there are many who are not, and I present them once more, in longer and far more extended format, with deeper delving into the strange and mysterious events and the central characters who feature in them, caught in the whirlwind of these strange unexplained mysteries… which still have yet to be solved.

    From catch wrestling masters Strangler Lewis and Billy Robinson to pro-wrestling icons like Frank Gotch and Lou Thesz, from Olympic heroes Danny Hodge and Kurt Angle to the Japanese wrestler who trained the famous Gracie family and gave birth to the global phenomenon of MMA, Shooters takes you from the shadowy carnival tent and the dingy training hall to the bright lights of the squared circle and the Las Vegas glitz of the Octagon. This volume takes fans of pro wrestling and MMA from Billy Riley’s legendary Wigan Snake Pit to the rigorous UWF Dojo in Tokyo, and draws on meticulous research and original interviews with today’s tough guys.

    So the next time the fates collide and you're reminded of what a small world it can be, you'll realize we're all victims of coincidence ...

    Everest. This intimate and inspiring book tells the full story of Sir Edmund Hillary's extraordinary life, from his expeditions to remote corners of the world to his humanitarian activities serving the Sherpa people. Drawing on Sir Ed's personal archives, it is a portrait of a revered yet modest man who lived life to the full—surviving personal tragedies as well as achieving historic triumphs, earning worldwide fame and displaying tireless philanthropy. Ranging from the roof of the world to the frozen extremes of the South Pole, Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life is a fitting and revealing tribute to a great man.

    I’m an average guy who learned how to “ask more” to “get more” out of life. The strategies and techniques I outline in this book can help you get just about anything—a better job, a new house, or a great vacation—faster and more consistently if you’re willing to follow my advice.

    This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.

    This is a book about the business of managing your screenwriting career, from advice on choosing an agent to tips on juggling three deal-making breakfasts a day. Prescriptive and useful, Breakfast with Sharks is a real guide to navigating the murky waters of the Hollywood system.Unlike most of the screenwriting books available, here’s one that tells you what to do after you’ve finished your surefire-hit screenplay. Written from the perspective of Michael Lent, an in-the-trenches working screenwriter in Hollywood, this is a real-world look into the script-to-screen business as it is practiced today.Breakfast with Sharks is filled with useful advice on everything from the ins and outs of moving to Los Angeles to understanding terms like “spec,” “option,” and “assignment.” Here you’ll learn what to expect from agents and managers and who does what in the studio hierarchy. And most important, Breakfast with Sharks will help you nail your pitch so the studio exec can’t say no.Rounded out with a Q&A section and resource lists of script competitions, film festivals, trade associations, industry publications, and more, Breakfast with Sharks is chock-full of “take this and use it right now” information for screenwriters at any stage of their careers.

    But just as this was no ordinary home, theirs was no ordinary family. Lynn Knight tells the remarkable story of the three adoptions within it: of her great-grandfather, a fairground boy given away when his parents left for America in 1865; of her great-aunt, rescued from an Industrial School in 1909; and of her mother, adopted as a baby in 1930 and brought to Chesterfield from London."--Front flyleaf of book jacket.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.