Book Review: One Perfect Day

One Perfect Day: the Selling of the American Wedding, by Rebecca Mead

A survey conducted by the wedding website The Knot in 2008 found that the average wedding cost about $28,000. With something like 2.3 million weddings in America each year, this amounts to an absurd amount of cash changing hands - $160 billion annually as of 2006 (when Mead was writing). Each year, more articles on the attendant craziness and "bridezilla" culture appear - brides who spend $5,000 on a Vera Wang wedding gown, who ask their bridesmaids to get botox, plastic surgery, or worse. And each year, the rate of divorce seems to go up.

How did we get here? What prompts this sort of behavior and why is it culturally acceptable? In fact, in a world where women make as much as men and are as likely to keep working afterwards, where we enjoy the ability to live with our significant others before marriage, why get married at all?

These are the questions that Rebecca Mead sets out to answer in One Perfect Day. And what she finds is very interesting to anyone who has been to a wedding or had thoughts of getting married herself.

The story Mead puts together is one of a fairly secular public with no particular institutions to turn to for guidance in putting together a wedding - with the exception of the bridal industry. Where traditional practices have been rejected for disallowing the sort of personalization that those about to be married demand for their ceremonies, the "traditionalesque" has sprung up to replace it, replete with bits of ceremony stripped from other religions, or even from TV shows or films that sound good. Huge industries have sprung up to allow the bride to find exactly the right meringue, which is then sewn for her by four hundred Chinese laborers making $0.50 per hour, or to remind her that her invitations match her shoes.

If family and culture dictate tradition, Mead says, traditionalesque is dictated by industry and driven by profit. Even the idea of a diamond engagement ring is a relatively new one, developed by the DeBeers company in 1938.

So does this hollowing of tradition lead inevitably to the hollowing of a culturally significant turning point in a person's life? Not necessarily. Mead attends numerous weddings over the course of the book, some of which seem especially poignant (for example, a wedding by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas) and some of which seem perfunctory or disappointing (including a tiny wedding in a church in Hebron, WI). In a world with no set bodies to prescribe what is meaningful, meaning is where you make it.

The one complaint I have about this book is that gay weddings and the question of "Why marry?" are addressed only in the epilogue. She does have some poignant things to say about the former (for example, addressing the way that every gay marriage seems like a triumph), but though she raises the latter, even asking a handful of brides, she never offers a good explanation. Perhaps, like the rest of a wedding, the reason must be created by the couple to suit themselves.

Rye Bread

From this recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 tsp yeast
  
• 2 1/2 c. warm water
• 2/3 c. molasses
• 5 c. bread flour
• 2 c. rye flour
• 2 T. wheat gluten
  
• 1 T. salt
• 1/4 c. vegetable oil
• 1/4 c. cocoa powder

Methodology

1. Mix yeast, water, and molasses. You can pour molasses easier if you rub the cup with a little oil first. Also, make sure the measuring cup is big enough for all the liquid or it will get everywhere and be yuck.
2. Put yeast/water/molasses mixture in a bowl (I used glass) and add salt, oil, cocoa powder, 2 c. rye flour, 2 c. regular flour, and the wheat gluten. Mix it up, it will look like cookie batter.
3. Add more flour, a cup at a time, until it is all added. Towards the end it will look like there's extra flour, so just knead it in, then turn the stuff out and knead for about five more minutes, until it looks like bread dough. You know.
4. Microwave some water for a few minutes, then stick the bread in an oiled bowl, cover it with cling film, and stick it in the microwave. Go edit something for 90 minutes or so.
5. When it has risen, punch it down, divide it in half, and put each half in a loaf pan. Put the pans (covered) back in the microwave to rise another 45 minutes.
6. After about 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. At the 45 minute mark, it should be ready to go. Slash the top of the bread with your knife and stick it in the oven.
7. Bake 40-50 minutes, until it sounds hollow when you tap it.
   

Notes
*Awesome crust.
*If your oven heats unevenly at all you may want to be very careful in judging them both baked at the same time.
*I think I would like to put some toasted seeds (like sunflower seeds) on top of the next one or perhaps oatmeal. Maybe make it with raisins. Something sweet. Anyway this went well with some cherry jam.

Jam Thumbprint Cookies

Aren't they pretty?

The white filling is leftover almond-chocolate chip filling from hamentashen we made earlier in the week. You can use whatever jam you want, though (the red ones are cherry). Don't overfill them, or the jam will run out when it boils in the oven.

Ingredients

• 3/4 c. butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 c. flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• jam or other filling
  

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Cream butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, and salt together. Add almond extract.
3. Add flour slowly until dough forms. If it's too soft, put it in the fridge for 10-20 min.
   
4. Roll into 1" balls and put on a greased cookie sheet. Push your thumb into them, then fill the indentation with jam or what have you.
5. Bake 8-12 min. Bryan's oven runs cool, so they probably could have gone even longer, but I was getting impatient.

Notes
The original recipe (found here) suggests there will be 36 cookies. In reality, this made a lot more. Also they are delicious.

If I were doing them to be super artsy, I'd use loads of colors of jams. I don't even usually like cookies that are not chocolate based, but these are great.