zoë’s Comments (group member since Sep 05, 2017)

zoë’s comments from the Fall 2017 - Comida Con Causa group.

This week we all finished reading the book which was Like Water For Chocolate. We all really enjoyed this book and liked the setup of it and how for each new chapter there was a recipe. We also liked how it showed us some new Mexican dishes that we hadn't heard of before. The story was entertaining and had various ups and downs. The story was interesting and never got boring. We were all shocked when Mama Elena hit Tita in the face and broke her nose. We were all happy that Tita found John and married him, he made her really happy and he was the love of her life.

During our discussion, Giselle said, "The book was filled with so much excitement and made me change my views on reading!"

Lauren said, "I usually don't like reading but, this book was filled with multiple plot twists which made this easier and more fun to read."

We all talked about how we were happy that Tita ended up marrying John Brown, and that she ended up happy, because it was sad that her sister Rosaura married Pedro. Pedro was Tita's love and Mama Elena wouldn't let Tita marry him which was sad.

During our discussion, Zoë mentioned, "This book was really fun to read and I wish there was a second one!"

Overall we think that Laura Esquivel did a really good job with this book, and it was really good.

Lauren is on page 100
Zoe is on page 100
Giselle is on page 100

Our group just began reading and we are finding it very interesting and fun. It is a book that is very focused on cooking and it talks a lot about the family's history and what they cook. We noticed that this book has a lot of recipes and it tells you how to make a lot of foods. Lauren commented on this, "This book is interesting because it has so many recipes in it which makes it a more fun to read." It talks about traditional Mexican food that is made for different occasions. "In chapter two Pedro and Rosaura get married and they make a Chabela Wedding cake." - Zoe. We also talked about how this book was released in 1989, so we think that this is the time period the book is set in, but we're not sure. Giselle said, "It didn't mention any dates or times that this book is in, but we think it is set in the time the book was released."

We're all reading the same book so we are all learning and reading the same thing which is helpful for our discussions, but it also could limit the variety of topics we talk about in our book club meetings. I think this book is a fiction book, so we aren't really learning anything new about Mexico's history or about any real people. One thing this book can teach us is the roles that women had during this time period. We have noticed that women are in the kitchen a lot, they don't have jobs, and from a young age they are basically being taught how to cook, clean and basically be a stay at home mom.

We agreed that this book might help our research, if we talk about women and their roles in our research papers, this will be helpful information to have. We also thought we might be able to do something with the recipes that are mentioned in this book. Whether that be to try them out, make a cook book out of them, or just to observe them and see what kinds of food they make in this story.