Personal Librarian served with baked cod and a lemon/pea risotto

 Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray and served with baked cod and a lemon pea risotto 

This one was interesting and also a little flawed.  First, what I really liked was finding out about this remarkable woman in history that I knew nothing about!   Bella da Costa Greene was J.P. Morgan's personal librarian and ultimately one of the most powerful women in NYC during the early 1900's.  She handles his rare manuscripts, books, bibles and artwork and is given the power to buy at will under his name.  She builds out the Pierpont Morgan library  and is J.P. Morgan's constant companion.   I looked her up and all of this is true!   And, she was passing as white her whole life!    This is really the story of  how she got to this place of power, how she dealt with the difficulty emotionally of hiding her true self and  how she got comfortable with who she was.  Plus, she was able to go places and do things that few women could do.  She was fearless and powerful.   The history was fascinating.  Also, I  always like a book about books though at time this felt like it was more about art.  I also like that i've been to the Morgan library in NYC and it is pretty amazing. 

Where i struggled a little bit was with the writing style.  I really had a hard time connecting with Bella.  So much is said in a matter of fact way and the dialogue felt a little stilted.  I just didn't have an emotional reaction to any of it and that had me a bit bored.   I would still give this a solid 3.5 stars and recommend it especially if you are interested in this part of history.  

I could not figure out a food item!  I swear there is no food in this book.  If there is, i totally missed it.  I struggled with what to make.  Nothing really stood out as representing the library.  I knew it needed to by something New York related even though the book does take us to Italy for a brief moment. 

I finally landed on baked cod served on a lemon pea risotto.   Here is why...  i had the opportunity to live in the NY market for 2 years when i was in my 20's.  before that time , my experience with restaurants was minimum- diners or chains but no fine dining.  When  I lived outside of NY and worked in the city, I was exposed to fine dining for the first time.   Super fancy restaurants with foods i had never had before.   Back then it felt like all of the food was served vertical....  piled up on top of each other.   I decided to do a delicious baked cod https://www.kleinworthco.com/air-fryer-cod/.  Super easy in the air fryer .  I make risotto pretty often so this time i added some fresh english peas and some lemon zest.  It felt very spring like!  I would imagine that Bella was served this in a fancy restaurant!  Enjoy!