• “Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness,” by Qing Li (Viking, 301 pages): If you saw last week’s “Check It Out” column, you know that I highlighted Earth Day, suggesting books with decidedly Earth-friendly themes. Well, here’s another book, and it’s just special enough that I felt the need to spend a bit more time describing its contents.
Forest-bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is a Japanese practice that means “bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses.” Dr. Qing Li, chairman of the Japanese Society for Forest Medicine, says that shinrin-yoku is not about “exercise, hiking, or jogging.” Instead it is a way to center oneself by “simply being in nature, connecting with it through our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.” To practice forest-bathing, first of all leave your electronic devices behind: this is about nature not email, texting or Twitter. Then find a spot — full of trees — and engage your five senses. Even a small amount of time interacting with trees will benefit your health, including reducing blood pressure, lowering stress, and improving energy.
Filled with beautiful photographs of forests from around the world, this quiet, unassuming book guides the reader through the art and practice of shinrin-yoku, encouraging our overworked, plugged-in world to make room for moments of solitude and peace through the healing properties of trees.
• “Something Old, Something New: Classic Recipes Revised,” by Tamar Adler (Scribner, 267 pages): I love to look through old cookbooks because they provide a glimpse into the past. Often the ingredients and instructions sound very old-fashioned to 21st century ears, which for me is part of the fun of reading recipes from an earlier time. Writer and cook Tamar Adler also enjoys recipes from our culinary past, so much so that she has collected more than 100 recipes from older cookbooks and reinvented them for contemporary cooks in her delightful book “Something Old, Something New.” According to Adler, she wrote the book because she knew she could create delicious, healthier versions of now-forgotten dishes, and she “also found intelligence, grace, and common sense in the wording of much older culinary advice as it was.” Examples of bygone dishes include “Cream of Lettuce Soup”; “Alligator Pear Salad” (which has neither alligator nor pear — “alligator pear” is an old name for avocado); “Cod a la Pil Pil” (“pil pil” meaning soft bubbling); and “Tipsy Cake” (a simple dessert with four ingredients including — and this is still relevant and important for today’s cooks — stale pound or sponge cake).
