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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Seeing the world one class at a time, June 29, 2004
This review is from: Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman (Hardcover)
Alice Steinach loves traveling, loves writing, and loves learning. So she wrote her own job description and spent a year taking different classes around the world from French cuisine to Scottish sheepdog handling. The result is "Educating Alice", a trip around our planet without jetlag. There are eight chapters, one for each class. Cookin' at the Ritz: Every woman has dreamed of taking a course in cooking at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. Alice Steinbach actually had the courage to do it. It's absolutely fascinating to be able to see inside the Ritz's kitchens without having to worry that Chef will raise his eyebrows if your mushrooms aren't sliced perfectly. Dancing in Kyoto: The only way to find out why girls really become geishas is to take a dance lesson from one as Steinbach did. Apparently, the geishas aren't too happy about Arthur Golden's ""Memoirs of a Geisha." Here are the real facts of a geisha's life. The Mystery of the Old Florentine Church: Steinbach took as her special project investigating the terrible floods in 1966 that turned the narrow streets of Florence into raging rivers. Steinbach found the human story behind the statistics. Sense and Sensible Shoes: If you're a Jane Austin fan, this chapter is for you. Steinbach visited Chawton House, near Winchester, England - the manor once owned by Jane's brother - along with an all-star guest list of Austin experts. Havana Dreams: There's so much politics talked about Cuba that it was a relief to see the island as ordinary Cubans experience it. I have a new respect for these endlessly cheerful people thanks to Educating Alice. The Secret Gardens: This chapter is for gardeners. Steinbach went on a tour of famous gardens in Provence, France. To the French, gardening is an art form and Provence offers the perfect climate for enthusiastic gardeners. The Unreliable Narrator: This chapter was a new take on a class for writers. Steinbach signed up for a course in Prague, Czechoslovakia. This is another class where you need to be a good sport. Steinbach is one. Lassie Come Home: If you've ever struggled to teach your dog to sit on command, Steinbach has a challenge for you: Take a course learning to control the Border collies that Scottish shepherds use to herd sheep. They are the most amazing dogs.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
With Reservations, September 11, 2005
After having enjoyed Steinbach's previous book, Without Reservations, I was eager to see what she has been up to in the past few years and if she and Naohiro are still an item. In Without Reservations, Steinbach tells the story of how she took a year off from her job, bought an apartment in Paris and fell in love. It is a story of risk and reward. It really happened, but Steinbach tells it like a story.
In Educating Alice, Steinbach has quit her newspaper job for good. The royalties from Without Reservations must be rolling in, because now she can afford to take classes at the Ritz cooking school in Paris, geisha school in Kyoto, and a tour of lovely gardens in Avignon. Not much risk here. There is nothing connecting the classes, other than that Steinbach is interested in the subjects.
The only thread that runs through the entire book besides Steinbach herself, is Naohiro, her lover from Without Reservations. But the relationship is established and both Alice and Naohiro seem content to leave it as it is. So there is no conflict or drama. If I hadn't known Naohiro from the previous book, I'm not sure I would have been interested in their romance, which is conducted in Educating Alice mostly through letters.
I did enjoy reading about Steinbach's adventures at the Ritz in Paris, the first and best chapter of Educating Alice. Her view of the Upstairs, Downstairs nature of the grand hotel and her descriptions of her classmates and the chef are entertaining. Her discovery of the Oltrarno section of Florence is pleasant, and the adventures she has in Havana are the liveliest of the bunch.
Steinbach says of the Prague creative writing workshop she attends in one chapter, that "I thought the use of fiction techniques might improve my work as a nonfiction writer." While the individual chapters of Educating Alice are told as short stories, it would have been rewarding if the chapters had been parts of a larger story, as well. She didn't need the writing workshop at all. She showed in Without Reservations that she has already mastered that technique.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Outstanding Memoir, May 1, 2004
This review is from: Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman (Hardcover)
Alice Steinbach's childhood hero was none other than Nancy Drew --- an inspiration that serves her well as she travels the world on eight adventures that take her from a geisha house in Kyoto to a salsa bar in Old Havana, from Scotland's Border country to a church crypt in Florence, Italy. In Kyoto, Alice recalls speaking with a group of Japanese women she had just met. "What I was looking for," she writes, "were all the details that might offer a glimpse into their lives. It was the way a reporter attempts to catch the shape of a story through a slightly open door. But I had come to Kyoto as a student, not a reporter. Still, old habits die hard." She might be traveling the world as a student, but the skills she honed as a reporter --- which earned her a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing at the Baltimore Sun --- are what make EDUCATING ALICE such an outstanding book. Not content to be a tourist, Alice looks beyond the ordinary in every place she visits --- seizing opportunities, striking up conversations with strangers, and going out of her way to research things that interest her. Alice's education begins in Paris, where she is enrolled for three weeks in the Hotel Ritz's culinary school. She does much more than recount the slicing, dicing, julienning and baking that she performs in class. She relays interesting details about the "Upstairs, Downstairs" aspect of the Ritz; introduces us to her classmates and the imposing Chef Moreau; reveals historical facts about Paris and the Right Bank, where she is staying for the first time after many trips to the city; and sprinkles in personal details, including memories of her grandmother, whose brown sugar candy can't be replicated because the recipe has been lost. By the time you bid au revoir to Paris, you know you're in for a colorful jaunt around the world. Next it's on to Kyoto, where Alice participates in lessons with experts in origami, flower arranging, tea ceremony, antiquities appreciation, traditional dancing and woodblock printmaking. It's also the site of her rendezvous with Naohiro, a Japanese man she introduced in her first book, WITHOUT RESERVATION, and with whom she's having a whirlwind international romance. In Florence, where she is taking an art course at the British Institute, Alice finds that it's outside the classroom --- along the Borgo Pinto to be exact --- where her real education about the city's history takes place. Alice's further adventures take her to England in Jane Austen's footsteps; to Havana, "a city that has a way of turning things upside down," where a trip to study art and architecture becomes a character study of its people; to Provence, where she tours private gardens with renowned author and expert Louisa Jones; to Prague, where a fiction writing workshop with Mary Morris pales in comparison to her discovery of a painting created by a young Jewish artist named Lily; and finally to a thousand-acre sheep farm in Scotland, where she savors her luck at coming across the candy her grandmother used to make ... and even manages to come away with the recipe. Alice's brand of storytelling combines equal parts travelogue, historical narrative, personal diary and witty cultural commentary. By the time you bid her bon voyage, you'll know two things for certain. First, there are only two kinds of travelers --- those who are curious and those who are not. And second, when Alice Steinbach next beckons, you won't be able to resist the allure of her company. --- Reviewed by Shannon McKenna
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