Blue Jessamine ((BETTER))

Lightly floral, creamy and gently sweet ice cream with an undertone of jasmine green tea. This flavor is approachable yet unique, and it's naturally blue! Made in small batches with real ingredients including hormone-free dairy sourced from family farms.

blue jessamine

Flouncing out of East Side Manhattan jewellery store Mauboussin, 714 Madison Avenue, at East 63rd Street, Jasmine reveals apprehension to a friend about the impending visit of Ginger and blue-collar husband, Augie.

In this delicate, introspective debut novel, narrator Seema describes her assimilation to America, capturing the distinct flavors of two different cultures while celebrating the unifying force of friendship. The sixth-grader experiences a typical mixture of excitement and anxiety when she learns that her family will be moving from India to Iowa. She is sad to be leaving her extended family and knows she will miss her classmates, especially Mukta, an impoverished student whom Seema befriends shortly before her departure. As she struggles to fit in with the American girls at her new school, Seema comes to understand how Mukta must have felt as an outsider. The girl suffers through the taunts of a classmate who insults Seema for bringing Indian food in her sack lunch and wearing dandelions in her hair. Still, she remains open and curious, absorbing new wonders, such as the hyacinth flower (she calls blue jasmine) that reminds her of home. Sheth deftly traces the stages of her heroine's emotional development and her expanding perspective of the world. By the end of the novel, when Seema returns to India for a visit, she realizes that no matter how many changes she goes through over the years, she will always keep a piece of her past in her heart. Ages 9-12. (July)

Still, likeable or not, Jasmine has every right to be blue. Her fall from grace -- and the resulting push from the penthouse -- isn't even necessarily her fault. At least, not directly. Rather, it has everything to do with her recently dissolved marriage to a Bernie Madoff-styled husband (played by Alec Baldwin). She's only guilty of turning a blind eye to his hijinks, at least until the cops came knocking.

Another reason: the built-in train-wreck factor. After all, when she has to stoop to moving in with her blue-collar -- and, what's worse, common -- kid sister (Sally Hawkins), it's pretty clear that this whole exercise has to end badly. That's only cemented when we learn that among those who have been ripped off by Jasmine's hubby is Hawkins' own ex-husband -- played in a revelatory turn by Andrew "Dice" Clay, putting aside his naughty nursery rhymes to show he's got honest-to-goodness acting skills. 041b061a72