I’m ending 2011 on the same note as 2010. . .Tuckered out and ready for a nap or the very least, curling up in a chair with a good book (or twelve :) for a month. . .
I posted this edible review for Food for Thought last December after our White Christmas. Here it is again~ and I’m offering a chance to win this Chloe & Gracie-approved tail :) along with some canine treats to wrap up the Holiday Season!
I’m happy to report that Food for Thought is starting back in January with pre-selected books to review throughout the year! If you’d like to join in the fun, you can email Jain or me for a list of books to review and dates.
It will be fun reading with a playful purpose again :)
“It is the winter of 1962, and Kansas is hit with one of the worst blizzards in its history. It is during this cruel season that twelve-year-old George is called upon to endure more than even most grown men could withstand—the death of his father and the upkeep of the family that his legacy. When his mother and sisters leave for Minnesota, George has only his grandparents and the companionship of Tucker, an Irish setter, to help him persevere through these most difficult challenges. Can he find the strength to walk the road that leads to healing, find his true self, and ultimately become a man? A coming-of-age story for readers of all ages, Christmas with Tucker is a classic Christmas tale about a young man’s love for his dog, his family, and his farm.”
Young George has a lot on his plate with his responsibilities helping out on his grandparents’ farm. Snow days may mean a break from school, but there is no rest for the weary on a dairy farm. . .
Dairy cows require lots of water, with each cow consuming 25 – 50 gallons of water a day depending on the weather. When the electricity goes out and their stock tanks freeze, their next available source of water is a pond that needs to be ice-free so they aren’t trapped by the ice in their search for water & drown.
I hung my glittery snowflakes on the tree for a snowy effect for this review. . . not dreaming we would be gifted with a White Christmas, the first one here since 1947.
Our snow started Christmas Day and continued through the following day~ quickly melting~ but not before providing me with an opportunity to photograph some snowy barn scenes. . .
“There was this vague but growing conclusion settling in my young mind that life does not always bestow upon us everything we want or think we should have. We are forced to move away from hoping others will give up what we want, to a new place where we must discover how to find happiness on our own. Santa was the last vestige of youth where all our wants are magically delivered by some other.”
“It was like being in the middle of a really great Zane Grey novel, and when I got to page 100, just as I victoriously led my mare over the top of the windswept hill after outwitting the bad guys, someone switched in fifty pages of the bleakest scenes by Charles Dickens and messed up my perfectly good life.”
“Farm boys operate machinery, big machinery, by the time they were thirteen, and I was no exception. I’d learned to drive a tractor as soon as I was tall enough to reach the pedals.”
“He kept the harness and the old horse-drawn blade stored in the implement shed along with other McCray prized possessions: an International Harvester and a Massy Ferguson tractor, plows, cultivators, seed drills, rotary and sickle-bar mowers, hay rakes and balers.”
“My guess was he kept the horses and old blades around for a reason. If the maintainer ever broke, he was prepared to clear the roads with the horses, though by 1962 they were far too old to do the job. If the horses couldn’t pull the blades, he owned countless shovels and we would get at it one scoop at a time.”
George’s grandmother bakes chocolate chip cookies to fortify him for his wintry weather chores~
“He backed a few feet away from me and started barking, demanding that I play with him. I started to run away, hoping he would chase after me, but he was so excited that he set out circling the house at full speed, his big, floppy, red ears going up and down as he bounded by me. I wondered if doggie Christmas had arrived early for this pooch.”
“His warm body helped me feel safe and secure. I pulled him close to me, buried my face in his coat, and realized that all I could do was hunker down and get through the winter. I would have to accept that things did not always turn out the way they should. Maybe that was the new rule.”
The author, Greg Kincaid is a pet-adoption advocate who lives on a farm in eastern Kansas with his wife, two cats, and two dogs, including Rudy adopted from a local shelter. My searches for adoptable dogs on Petfinder not only pulled at my heartstrings, but led me to search for dogs named Tucker that ultimately landed me on Dogster.
Dogster lets you create a profile for your dog, upload a photo and show off your pooch. The most popular pet-based social network with nearly half a million visitors each month, you can find advice on dogs, connect with other dog owners, find a breeding partner and even adopt a new dog. Shhhh, don’t tell Chloe & Gracie there’s a place in cyberspace to receive virtual bones & make friends :-)
My search led me to 1,201 dogs named Tucker on Dogster. . .let me introduce you to a few of them~
Blazes of Glory Tuckers~
The Toy Group~
Tuckered out Tuckers. . .
The Sporting Group . . .
I’m dreaming of a White Tucker. . .
To find adoptable pets near you, visit Petfinder.com.
Just mention in a comment if you’d like a chance to win a copy of Christmas with Tucker.
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the secrets are thicker than the fog from the town’s famous waterfalls, and the stuff of superstition is just as real as you want it to be.”
I’m long overdue in sharing this book that I read back in April~
I always look forward to Sarah Addison Allen’s books~ I had pre-ordered it, anxious for its arrival. It was waiting for me like a nice, juicy peach ready for me to sink my teeth into, when I returned from vacation. I took these photos and cooked this book back when the azaleas were blooming, and although I had shelvedthis review, I didn’t shelvethis book until after I read it cover-to-cover in two days. . . one day if I hadn’t had to unpack & bathe :-)
My intention was to take a little road trip to tie in to this review, and visit Transylvania County in Western North Carolina ~ the area that the town of Walls of Water is based on, and home to over 250 waterfalls. It became apparent that was not going to happen and though it’s still on my list to visit, it looks more like it will be the fall when the weather is not in the triple digits.
The long-buried secrets and mysteries of The Peach Keeper continued to haunt me to return to it & Walls of Water ever since~ most recently by an article in Our State Magazine.
Full of North Carolina native, Sarah Addison Allen’s trademarks~ magic, small town charm, and FOOD~ The Peach Keeper is easy to devour in one sitting~ and is a great book to tuck in your beach bag or keep by your night stand.
In keeping with this book, I set a simple table where peaches are the stars. Peach blossom-inspired napkin rings from Pier 1, napkins from Stein Mart, Napoleon Bee flatware for the buzzing of the bees & a tablecloth from Kohl’s~
“A cool breeze floated eerily by, smelling of peaches.”
“If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there’s more to what’s written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don’t see.”
“There was a slight hint of peaches in the air, but it didn’t scare her.”
Tucker Devlin:
“What I know, what I’m best at, is peaches. Peach juice swims in my veins. When I bleed, it’s sweet. Honeybees fly right to me.”
“He looked like the world was a ripe peach and he was ready to bite it.”
There was plenty totempt my palate between these pages~ Oatmeal Cookies with Coffee Icing, Double Chocolate Espresso Brownies, Lemon-Chicken Salad, Lemon and Broccoli Mini-Quiches, Angel Food Cake, Honeymoon Pie. . .but it just seemed criminal not to use peaches in this edible review~
“Cups of lemon crème layered with hazelnut shortbread crumbles, pansies, lavender, and lemon verbena.”
I layered peaches, store-bought hazelnut shortbread cookies, lemon curd & whipped cream~ and garnished with edible violas for an individual, easy trifle~
“Lunch was then served, beautiful food garnished with edible roses and tasting of lavender and mint and lust. People closed their eyes with each bite, and the air turned sweet and cool. The quartet played ravishing melodies that were strange and exotic. There was a curious sense of longing in the air, and everyone felt it. People began to think of old loves and missed opportunities. Unlike most of these functions, no one wanted to leave. Lunch lingered for hours.”
“So it was with Claire Waverley, a beautiful, mysterious caterer who it was rumored could make your rivals jealous, your love life better, your senses stronger, all with the food she created. Her specialty was edible flowers, and once it got out that she had something no one else had, everyone wanted her.”
I highly recommend sipping on a Peach Bellini on a Saturday or Sunday morning as you read this book :-)
Paxton:
“ ‘Can you really make people feel differently with the food you cook, with the drinks you prepare?’ ”
A savory recipe for your peaches~ A Stacked Peach & Mozzarella Salad~
Served with baby spinach and a cilantro-lime vinaigrette~ Delicious & definitely a Keeper recipe :-)
“Just as they turned to walk back up the steps, the scent of peaches permeated the air for a moment, thick and cloying, before it faded into the night, crossing the moon in a wisp of smoke, then disappearing.”
“Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.”
“North Carolina novelist Sarah Addison Allen brings the full flavor of her southern upbringing to bear on her fiction — a captivating blend of fairy tale magic, heartwarming romance, and small-town sensibility.”
Thank you for your visit, I’m happy to be joining :
I’m sharing my Edible Book Review, inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word.
“After centuries of being hidden from human sight, the Flower Fairies allowed Cicely Mary Barker a glimpse into their enchanted fairy world in Fairyopolis. Now you can continue the adventure with this spectacular new novelty book where every page unlocks the secrets behind the magical places the fairies call home.”
Enchanted with the Flower Fairies, I created a table, this time, By the Wayside ~ with fantasy more than function in mind~ for this edible review.
You can see my fall forest floor version here if you like.
Suspend your disbelief and enter the Flower Fairies’ magical realm. . . after all, only true believers are able to see the fairies. . .
I started with a foundation of burlap and soaked some moss to rehydrate it and make it easier to piece and form a blanket~ Sprigs of ivy, violas, and butterflies dot the mossy carpet where fairies love to hold their feasts & banquets :-)
My Portmeirion Botanic Garden flatware is stamped with flowers & butterflies and make the fairies feel at home~ along with Lennox Butterfly Meadow Cloud plates~
“After much painstaking searching, I have discovered that there are five special places where fairies make their homes. Look within the pages of this book, and you will find these magical places; the tree tops, the forest floor, the garden, the wayside and the marshes.”
“When you are passing along the wayside, see if you can spot large numbers of butterflies fluttering around. Hedgerow fairies often fly amongst butterflies; they provide an excellent means of concealment when travelling.”
This pair of mushrooms was hiding in plain sight, waiting for me at HomeGoods for my table~
I filled some peat pots with ferns, since some fairies prefer the security of being on the ground :-)
Snail napkin rings hold fern print napkins, both from Pottery Barn.
“Be alert to the presence of fairies whenever you are in a garden. Even a snail trail may not be quite what it seems. Fairies use sprinklings of fairy dust to mimic these trails when they are travelling on the ground!”
“Flower Fairies wear outfits fashioned from fallen petals—by dressing to impersonate the flowers that surround them, the fairies may flutter by unseen!”
Cicely Mary Barker was born in West Croydon, Surrey, a small town near London, England in 1895. As a child she suffered from epilepsy and as a result was physically frail and unable to attend school. Cicely’s father, an artist himself, encouraged her artistic talent, enrolling her at Croydon Art Society when she was thirteen years old and paying for a correspondence course, which she continued until 1919.
At the age of sixteen, she had her first work accepted for publication as a set of postcards, which prompted her to devote her career to painting.
Cicely was influenced by the popular interest in fairies which developed from the Victorian enthusiasm for fairy stories and the immense popularity of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in the early part of the 20th century. Published in 1923, her first book, Flower Fairies of the Spring, was well received by a post-industrial, war-weary public who were charmed by her vision of hope and innocence.
She preferred to use real-life child models for her fairy paintings~ most models coming from the kindergarten her sister Dorothy ran in the back room of the home where they lived. She would have the child pose with the particular blossom, twig, or flower to accurately depict the texture and form of the plant, enlarging the flower to make it the same size at the child.
Always botanically accurate, Cicely’s flowers were painted from nature. If she could not find a flower close at hand, she enlisted the help of staff at Kew Gardens, who would often visit with specimens for her to paint.
I was alerted to the presence of Flower Fairies on this delightful tin of confections, on one of my HomeGoods excursions~
“A fairy ring is a place where fairies meet to dance. To find such a ring, venture into a shady glade in a quiet part of the woods. Look for a circle of fungi growing. But remember that the fairies only dance by moonlight…”
These little chocolate mushrooms danced right into my cart at World Market~
“Fairies appreciate the following: Sweet delicacies such as fruit, jam and cake. . .”
A cake fairies can appreciate~ an angel food cake, cut in thirds, layered with lemon curd, whipped cream, berries & chocolate mushrooms :-)
“Flower beds are a perfumed paradise for fairies that desire beauty above all else.”
“Every flower has its own fairy to care for it, which explains why most of my own fairy encounters have taken place in the garden.”
You can see Cicely Mary Barker’s beautifully illustrated fairies here.
“Tread softly and speak quietly when you set foot in the fairies’ world. Who knows—perhaps you too will be allowed a glimpse into their magical kingdom?”
Beautifully illustrated, the paper engineering with its lift-the-flaps, booklets, maps, holograms, and other ephemera, hold surprises waiting to be discovered, and are sure to delight both young readers and the young-at-heart alike :-)
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“Plants, like words in poetry, observe Eck and Winterrowd, are both beautiful in themselves and also for the associations they trail behind, the histories they have in the world and in one’s own life.”
Cofounders of the garden design firm North Hill, the authors, Eck and Winterrowd share the history of their Vermont garden, writing about “the plants they have lived with, nurtured and nourished, in a sort of inverse family memoir, where the parent remembers the children—the trouble-free, the troubling and the troubled.”
Each chapter begins with a pen & ink drawing by Bobbi Angell, botanical illustrator and artist. Her work continues to win awards, including the prestigious Jill Smythies Award from The Linnean Society of London, The American Society of Botanical Artists’ Award for Excellence in the Service of Science, and Center for Plant Conservation’s Star Award.
My life in gardens is limited to the table~ I wish I had one to rival North Hill or my Portmeirion Botanic Garden~
*sigh*
Instead, I’m gardening vicariously with dishes . . . enjoying the buzzing of the bees and fluttering of butterflies among the flowers.
I can dream about flowers as I mentally traipse through the authors’ Vermont garden and enjoy their bits of wisdom as they share their passion. . .
. . .and gather bits of knowledge, nostalgia & new plants to cultivate while enjoying essays that range alphabetically from ~
Agapanthus: “we fear you must resort to shoving and hauling, smashing and splintering, to a cold bedroom full of nasty, yellowing foliage, always anticipating the pure bliss that will come,”
to
Xanthorrhoea Quadrangulata: “it is painful to say that plants are very scarce and that ours is not likely to produce any progeny we can share.”
“From a chance encounter, gardeners, like lovers, often form lifelong relationships of great intensity. You see a plant, your eyes widen, your pulse accelerates, and huskily you ask even complete strangers its name, importunately tugging at coat sleeves.”
Much like what happens to me when I spy a new botanical image or design of Portmeirion at Home Goods or wherever I stumble on it :-)
Since its creation in 1972, over 70 botanical images have been added to this collection. To see this exuberant botanic garden with all the blooming motifs, look here.
“Buried in every gardener’s memory are plants he has seen or read about and vows to grow, or wishes he could grow, if only he had the right conditions.”
“Dame’s Rocket can make its gentle way at the edges of woods or in partly shaded ditches, competing with weeds and making them glorious in mid-June, with three-foot-tall branched candelabra of little four-petaled flowers in beautiful shades of purple, pink, and white, blended together like the colors of an old, much-bleached housedress. The smell is that of fresh laundry, a rich, spicy, powders sweetness elusive to Chanel or any other parfumier.”
. . . even without a picture in a catalog, it is hard to resist ordering plants with such names, for as with roses, their beauty begins there. Add a picture, and the gardener is sunk, the plant budget spent, and the vegetables unordered.”
Annuals: “Though they are often very beautiful themselves, their charm resides to a large degree precisely in their naïveté, their simple sense of ease and well-being, just in themselves, just in what they are. It is true that their colors are often bold and unsubtle, usually in the part of the color wheel called ‘hot,’ which includes the hardest yellows, crimsons, and reds—but they are beloved by children and to any adult they offer the same kind of lift to the heart that occurs when walking through FAO Schwarz at Christmastime.”
Hybrids: “Crossing species madly ending up with a diverse swarm rather like a barnyard of mixed bantam chickens.”
Seed: “There is something deeply touching about any flower that blooms so late, and we wonder how it has time to make seed. It seems forgetful of that necessity, and even therefore, faintly tragic, or at least melancholic.”
“Within the group of plants classed as biennial are some of the most treasured in gardens, not for their rarity, certainly, but for their homely, simple charm. Usually, they are considered ‘cottage flowers,’ and their ranks include hollyhocks, forget-me-nots, dame’s rocket, Sweet William, Saint Barbara’s weed, and foxgloves. Like all cottage flowers, they seem to carry resonances far beyond their individual beauty, suggesting fine June country mornings and casement windows flung open to the bright sun and the sound of bees at work. Somewhere near them there will always be an old, well-waxed table spread with good, fresh things, and the chance to linger in the garden, to work perhaps or just to sit and stare.”
“Early each spring, we wonder whether we would love snowdrops if they bloomed in June, rather than at the end of a long, cold winter. Certainly they are beautiful enough to love at any time of the year: silken pearls in bud and winged when open to the warmth of an early spring day. They dangle on delicate, threadlike pedicels, dancing in the slightest breeze.”
“What makes lilacs treasured is not the years they can accumulate, however, but the beauty of their flowers, which come just as the last memory of winter and its ice and snow and barrenness are passing away in the May sun. They flower exuberantly then, hundreds of cobs of bloom appearing over gaunt, gray trunks. That conjunction is itself an emblem of the renewal of the year, but we wonder whether without the fragrance peculiar to lilacs they would matter so much.”
I played with violas, sugaring them for Food for Thought to embellish cupcakes~
Ideas and directions for crystallizing edible flowers, courtesy of Martha Stewart here
Dishes: Portmeirion Botanic Garden
Napoleon Bee Flatware: Horchow
Napkins: Pier 1
Napkin Rings: Home Goods
Rattan Chargers: World Market
“For more than thirty years, Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd have been gardening with extraordinary, indeed legendary, results. Part memoir, part omnium-gatherum of horticultural wisdom and practical advice, Our Life in Gardens is at once literate, learned, sensible, and, often, sheer luscious poetry. There are delights to be sampled on every page. From a cultivated life, they have brought forth, once again a cultivated book.” ~Phillip Gambone
“Any gardener may find its specific (and sometime technical) advice helpful, but walkers among gardens and those who dream of gardening will find special pleasure in plant lore and history and in the lucid descriptions that render them visible.”
Sadly, Wayne Winterrowd passed away last September~ his work with Joe lives on, not only in their books, but in their beautiful garden, North Hill.
Thanks for your visit & to my hostesses, I’m joining:
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“From Hollywood to Marseille with delicious stops in between, Peter Mayle’s latest novel is filled with the culinary delights and entertaining characters that make him our treasured chronicler of French food and life.
The story begins high above Los Angeles at the impressive wine cellar of lawyer Danny Roth. Unfortunately, after inviting the Los Angeles Times to write an extensive profile extolling the liquid treasures of his collection, Roth finds himself the victim of a world-class wine heist. Enter Sam Levitt, former lawyer and wine connoisseur, who follows leads to Bordeaux and Provence. The unraveling of the ingenious crime is threaded through with Mayle’s seductive rendering of France’s sensory delights—even the most sophisticated of oenophiles will learn a thing or two from this vintage work by a beloved author.”
What a fun caper through France, reading this book! To be honest, I know nothing about French wines and just enough to be dangerous when it comes to California wines. I’m more of an enthusiast in the vein of the Peter Mayle where I found this quote in the Q&A section of Amazon saying:
“I’ll never make a serious wine connoisseur. Taking small and reverent sips is not for me; I like to drink a wine rather than worship it. Give me a well-filled glass and a second bottle waiting in the wings and I’m happy.”
Vanity and arrogance has Danny Roth bringing about his own demise, acting on two conclusions: “first, that inconspicuous consumption was for wimps; and second, that his wine collection deserved a wider audience.”
“Only last night, a visiting couple from Malibu had been given the grand tour of the cellar—three million dollars’ worth of wine!—and they hadn’t even bothered to remove their sunglasses. Worse still, they had then declined the Opus One served with dinner and demanded iced tea. No appreciation, no respect. It was the kind of everything that could make a serious collector weep.”
“Five hundred bottles spirited away with the efficiency of a military operation. One thing was for sure: those stolen bottles weren’t going to turn up on eBay. It had to be a robbery-to-order, a commission job planned and funded by God knows whom, probably another collector.”
“Returning to Paris after a long absence, there is always a temptation to plunge in and taste everything. Call it greed, or the result of deprivation, but food in Paris is so varied, so seductive, so artfully presented that it seems a shame not to have a dozen of Brittany’s best oysters, some herb-flavored lamb from Sisteron, and two or three cheeses before attacking dessert.”
My “two or three cheeses” are served on a French cheese board for Food for Thought.
Sam stops and enjoys a bottle of rosé and a jambon beurre, or ham & butter sandwich for lunch.
The jambon buerre is the national sandwich of France, which according to statistics from 2009, 2.2 million of these forearm-length sandwiches were sold & eaten daily. Made with a fresh, crackly crusted baguette, salty ham and spread with creamy butter~ no lettuce leaf or heaven forbid, a slice of tomato, to compete with the star ingredients.
“After a morning spent mingling with wine aristocracy, it made a refreshing change to drink something simple, humble, but good—no long pedigree, no historic vintage, no complications, no wildly inflated price tag.”
“Wine and food aficionados will find much to savor. . . Light, funny, and packed with a menu’s worth of scrumptious descriptions of exceptional dinners and drinks.” –USA Today
Pour yourself a glass of wine & enjoy this light-hearted romp~ guaranteed to charm and inform even the most sophisticated palates.
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“From the moment she’s struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is different. Though poor and uneducated, she discovers on the windswept beaches of the English coast that she has a unique gift: “the eye” to spot fossils no one else can see. When Mary uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious fathers on edge, the townspeople to gossip—and the scientific world alight. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is barred from the academic community; as a young woman with uncommon interest, she is suspected of sinful behavior. Nature is a threat, throwing bitter cold, storms, and landslips at her. And when she falls in love, it is with an impossible man.”
“Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster recently exiled from London, who shares her passion for scouring the beaches. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty, mutual appreciation, and barely suppressed envy. Ultimately, in the struggle to be recognized in the wider world, Mary and Elizabeth discover that friendship is their greatest ally.”
I learned about this book last year, when Jain shared her excellent review ~ I was intrigued and it has been on my very LONG list to read ever since. I downloaded the audio version from Audible to listen to in the car, when I read a review of the audio performance~ the narration and accents were excellent, which made the story highly enjoyable and even more compelling.
I find myself combing the aisles for treasures at Home Goods like a fossil hunter on a weekly basis, which I like to blame on the five mile proximity to my house. I admit I feel the same “little jolt” as Mary Anning does, whenever I discover something there I can’t leave without :-)
My scouring led me to glass shell dishes on a recent visit, so instead of the windswept beaches off the English coast, I am lakeside with a tabletop shell strewn beach for this review.
“Lightning has struck me all my life.
Just once it was real.”
“I feel an echo of the lightning each time I find a fossil, a little jolt that says, ‘Yes, Mary Anning, you are different from all the rocks on the beach.’ That is why I am a hunter: to feel that bolt of lightning and that difference every day.”
“To me, looking for curies is like looking for a four-leaf clover: It’s not how hard you look, but how something will appear different. My eyes will brush over a patch of clover, and I’ll see 3, 3. 3. 3. 4, 3, 3. The four leaves just pop out at me. Same with curies: I’ll wander here and there along the beach, letting my eyes drift over stones without thinking, and out will jump the straight lines of a bellie, or the stripy marks and curve of an ammo, or the grain of bone against the smooth flint. Its pattern stands out when everything else is a jumble.”
“As I stepped between two stones, I noticed and odd pebble decorated with a striped pattern. I bent over and picked it up—the first of thousands of times I would do so in my life. It was spiral-shaped with ridges at even intervals around the spine, and it looked like a snake curled in on itself, the tip of the tail in the center. Its regular patter was so pleasing to the eye that I felt I must keep it, thought I had no idea what it was. I only knew that it could not be a pebble.”
I felt another “little jolt” when I found this recipe for Fossil Cookies for Food for Thought, in a back issue of Martha Stewart Living, when I was going through it one last time before recycling it ~
My Fossil Cookies are on served a beach of brown sugar in a watery blue bowl.
A recipe to satisfy hungry paleontologists can be found here :-)
I could not find the “food safe” plastic insects recommended linked in the recipe. I used creatures I found from Dollar Tree that I washed well & dusted with flour, before leaving their skeletal impressions in my cookie dough :-)
“It made me feel like I was peering through a window into a deep past where such creatures lurked.”
“My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating.”
“So we continued, arm in arm along the beach, talking until at last we had no more to say, like a storm that blows itself out, and our eyes dropped to the ground, where the curies were waiting for us to find them.”
“Remarkable Creatures is an inspiring novel of how one woman’s gift transcends class and social prejudice to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all, it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.”
Recycled Glass Dishes, Square Chargers & Shell Dishes~ Home Goods
Napkins~ Pottery Barn
Napkin Rings~ Kohl’s
Beaded Placemats & Goblets~ Target
Flatware~ World Market
Thanks for your visit & to my hostesses, I’m joining:
An Edible Book Review inspired by Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“Meet the Roncalli and Angelini families, a vibrant cast of colorful characters who navigate tricky family dynamics with hilarity and brio, from magical Manhattan to the picturesque hills of bella Italia. Very Valentine is the first novel in a trilogy and is sure to be the new favorite of Trigiani’s millions of fans around the world.”
“In this luscious, contemporary family saga, the Angelini Shoe Company, makers of exquisite wedding shoes since 1903, is one of the last family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village. The company is on the verge of financial collapse. It falls to thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli, the talented and determined apprentice to her grandmother, the master artisan Teodora Angelini, to bring the family’s old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century and save the company from ruin.”
“While juggling a budding romance with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge presented by a prestigious department store, Valentine returns to Italy with her grandmother to learn new techniques and seek one-of-a-kind materials for building a pair of glorious shoes to beat their rivals. There, in Tuscany, Naples, and on the Isle of Capri, a family secret is revealed as Valentine discovers her artistic voice and much more, turning her life and the family business upside down in ways she never expected.”
This was a fun, quick read, the first book of a trilogy (you can also read book number two which is out now).
You have to love a character described as: “I’m not the pretty sister. I’m not the smart sister either. I am the funny one.”
It was also fun & timely as a theme of a tablescape, using my components from a Christmas table, adding in some shoes, chocolate, rose petals, Valentine votives & some new napkin rings.
“We’ve changed though, the Young Italian Americans. As my generation marries outside our group, our children don’t look as Italian as we do, our Roman noses shorten, the Neapolitan jaws soften, the jet black hair fades to brown, and often directly to blond. We assimilate, thanks to the occasional Irish husband and Clairol. As the muse of southern Italian women, Donatella Versace, went platinum blond, so went the Brooklyn girls. But there are still a few of us left, the old-fashioned paisanas who wait for curly hair to come back in style, can our own tomatoes, and eat Sunday dinner together after church. We find joy in th same things our grandparents did, a night out over a plate of homemade pasta, hot bread, and sweet wine, which ends with a conversation over cannolis at Ferrara’s.”
“We are very proud of the components we use to make shoes. Gram travels to Italy every year to buy supplies. When you cook, it’s all about quality ingredients, and the same is true for making shoes. Sumptuous fabrics, fine leathers, and hand-tooled embellishments make all the difference and define our brand. Loyalty plays into Gram’s work ethic also. She buys our leather and suede from the Vechialrelli family of Arezzo, Italy, the descendants of the same tanner my great-grandfather used.”
Food is abundant in this book, which no doubt will continue in this delicious trilogy. . . delicate crab cakes, tiny potatoes with buttons of sour cream and caviar, clams casino, baby lamb chops, roast pork. . .
The requisite bowls of pasta, manicotti, ravioli & lasagna. . . which according to Valentine’s mother’s rule of etiquette, dictates that it must be presented whole, like a welcome home gift~ not with a square missing as to be seen as a leftover :-)
Wine is flowing, olive oil is drizzling, bread is baking. . .
Scents of butter, sage, & warm burgundy wine are just a few that waft from these pages. . .
Instead of cooking any of a dozen meals, I took liberties with this description of Valentine’s father in the book for Food for Thought:
“This is a man who would sprinkle grated cheese on cake if he could.”
So I am serving a cheesecake sampler, with a well-heeled server in honor of the Angelini Shoe Company (and my husband’s birthday :-)
“Very Valentine is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani’s trademark heart and humor.”
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
“A pampered Long Island princess hits the road in a converted bus with her wilderness-loving husband, travels the country for one year, and brings it all hilariously to life in this offbeat and romantic memoir.”
“Doreen and Tim are married psychiatrists with a twist: She’s a self-proclaimed Long Island princess, grouchy couch potato, and shoe addict. He’s an affable, though driven, outdoorsman. When Tim suggests ‘chucking it all’ to travel cross-country in a converted bus, Doreen asks, ‘Why can’t you be like a normal husband in a midlife crisis and have an affair or buy a Corvette?’ But she soon shocks them both, agreeing to set forth with their sixty-pound dog, two querulous cats—and no agenda—in a 340-square-foot bus.”
“Queen of the Road is Doreen’s offbeat and romantic tale about refusing to settle; about choosing the unconventional road with all the misadventures it brings (fire, flood, armed robbery, and finding themselves in a nudist RV park, to name just a few). The marvelous places they visit and delightful people they encounter have a life-changing effect on all the travelers, as Doreen grows to appreciate the simple life, Tim mellows, and even the pets pull together. Best of all, readers get to go along for the ride through forty-seven states in this often hilarious and always entertaining memoir, in which a boisterous marriage of polar opposites becomes stronger than ever.”
What a hoot this book was…a quick, entertaining read~ I learned about this book from Jain in her fun review last year and added it on my very long list of books to read. The author, whose idea of ‘roughing it’ is staying at the Holiday Inn, is less than thrilled at being promoted from ‘Princess from the Island of Long’ to ‘Queen of the Long Narrow Aisle’ . Their journey in their 40 foot, 40,000-pound, 179-gallon diesel tank bus, is fueled with more than a few funny disasters, and acknowledged with a commemorative cocktail at the beginning of each chapter.
Their liquor cabinet is stocked with every kind of infused vodka or flavored liqueur imaginable for maximum martini mixing~ the only ingredient they seem to lack is a bottle of Dramamine for the several shots I would need to endure this bus ride :-)
Overnighting in Walmart parking lots, RV parks & Campgrounds, there more than a few mishaps. . .
“With all the disasters we experienced on the road (fire, flood, armed robbery and finding ourselves in a nudist RV park, to name just a few), happy hour, understandably, became somewhat of a necessity. During the few stretches without any mishaps, we continued this new custom (look, the memories still stung, OK?) and the happy hour habit became one of our favorite bus traditions. Even when stationary, we continued to adhere to it rather strictly (some might even say, ‘Obsessively’).”
Bus Phobia commences soon after starting their adventure:
“On the slightest downhill, I’d try to mind-meld with Tim, to get him to put on the engine brake, my foot stomping on air. At every turn, I’d clutch the seat, anticipating a rollover. At every dip in the road, I’d hold my breath, listening for the sound of bending steel, a portent of our imminent, albeit mercifully swift, midsectioning.”
“What was I afraid of? I kept asking myself. The answer was always the same: careening off the road amidst the sound of our belongings crashing.”
Hurlatini
1 part rum
2 parts Midori
1 splash pineapple juice
1 splash sweet ‘n’ sour
1 white-knuckled squeeze of lime
“Pound martini shaker against emergency exit until window breaks or ingredients sufficiently mixed for self-medication.”
“What if someone makes a sudden stop? What if we hit an elk? What if the brakes go out? I keep imagining us careening over the edge of the road. I don’t even imagine the dying part, just the careening. The screeching of tires, the shattering of glass. But most of all, the careening. The CAREENING. I can’t take it anymore!”
Their bus approaches a bridge with a sign posted:
“Limit 13 Tons”. . .
“That was all I needed to turn my reel into a full-fledged centrifuge; I could feel my lunch quickly separating itself from my intestinal tract. ‘WE’RE TWENTY TONS! WE’RE TWENTY TONS!’ I screamed, contorting myself, even as my eyes remained glued to the road.That there are no armrests turns out to be a serious design flaw when the buddy seat is inhabited by a bus phobic.”
Love Me Bender
2 parts passion fruit liqueur
2 parts champagne
1 part raspberry liqueur
“Rest shaker on hip, gyrate, drink. If you can still recall that the love of your life is making you live on a bus, repeat.”
After a scare of an electrical fire on the bus Doreen has an epiphany–surprising herself that she gave no thought to her beloved shoes during her crisis, in spite of her history of “rampant & resplendent consumerism”. And as one would expect mixes up a martini in celebration… a lovely shade of orangey-red:
Fire in the Hole
2 ½ parts Bacardi 151
1 ½ parts orange curacao
Squeeze of lemon
“Hold lit match in one hand, shake in other. Bring together until hair catches fire. Make note to use only 80 proof next time.”
It seemed only fitting that I took a little road trip for Food for Thought, rather than staying at home to cook my book.
While they stop and visit places of interest you’d expect like Mount Rushmore, Graceland, Carlsbad Caverns & Yellowstone National Park, they also sought out local attractions and stopped in at area wineries for wine tastings. That was the perfect excuse to prompt us to get in the car to visit a local vineyard for a tasting that is a short thirty minute drive for us, that we had never taken the time to visit.
“As kids, we used to go to Friendly’s for ice-cream treats, and for really special occasions, we’d preface our desserts with one of their fabulous burgers. Being an East Coast thing, Tim had never heard of it until I squealed with delight when we happened by a Friendly’s in our Jeep.”
“We have to go! We have to go! I exclaimed, channeling my inner twelve-year-old as I bounced in my seat.”
I rediscovered Friendly’s myself since I hadn’t been to one in about*ahem* forty years~ a treat for us when we visited my grandmother.
I received only a few strange looks while we were there, either due the fact that I had my pulled out my little camera to take photos of the menu & meal, or the fact that we were the only kid-free table in the restaurant :-)
“You must understand that at Friendly’s freverything is freenamed. The onion rings are ‘fronions,’ the shakes, ‘fribbles,’ and so on.”
Our ‘fronions’ were as tasty as I remembered them. . .
I recommend you buckle your seat beat, mix yourself a martini (or two :-) and enjoy this bumpy & entertaining ride.
You can see more travelogues on the author’s website here.
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
This week’s letter assignment is O in Mrs. Matlock’s class, so I’m sharing Oogy’s story for Alphabe-Thursday~
“In 2002, Larry Levin and his twin sons, Dan and Noah, took their terminally ill cat to the Ardmore Animal Hospital outside Philadelphia to have the beloved pet put to sleep. What would begin as a terrible day suddenly got brighter as the ugliest dog they had ever seen–one who was missing an ear and had half his face covered in scar tissue–ran up to them and captured their hearts. The dog had been used as bait for fighting dogs when he was just a few months old. He had been thrown in a cage and left to die until the police rescued him and the staff at Ardmore Animal Hospital saved his life. The Levins, whose sons are themselves adopted, were unable to resist Oogy’s charms, and decided to take him home.”
“Oogy”an affectionate derivative of “ugly”, is a heartwarming tail for dog lovers, or for those who simply enjoy pulling for the underdog.
I’m a sucker for dog stories, especially those with a happy ending, which I’m relieved to report is the case for Oogy despite his rocky beginning. I’m always anxious to know before getting emotionally involved & spending hours in a book if the animals or dogs fare well. This was a quick read and one I enjoyed and began with not a little trepidation.
The sad and ugly truth and facts of dog fighting and ‘bait’ for those fights~ any animal and often cats~ that can be found through ‘free to good home’ ads, strays, kidnapping, etc. is simply too horrific & hard for me to wrap my brain around.I think you’ll find, “the dog only a family could love” is one that you will love too.
Oogy spends his mornings keeping the boys & dad company during their routines of getting ready for school & making breakfast. He eats his kibble while the twins enjoy their breakfast of pancakes. . .
“He continued to heal and then began to flourish. His condition and the cruelty he had endured produced a heartfelt, deeply caring reaction among the hospital staff. His happy, affectionate nature was seemingly more pronounced because of the horror he had undergone.”
“The fact that a brutalized, mutilated pup had so immediately and so completely reposed his trust in us made all of us feel that we had been rewarded. He was one of us.”
Besides Pancakes, Food for Thought was plentiful, although not in the traditional sense. . .
“In his first six months with us, in addition to chewing up the futon couch, Oogy gnawed the middle out of the seat cushions of the two camelback sofas in the living room. He bit the eraser off any pencil he could find and would climb onto tables and desks to get at them. The decapitated pencils were left where they had fallen. He at a pair of my glasses. He chewed apart a wooden drawer in the kitchen. He ruined videotapes, countless CDs and CD cases, pens, crayons, and markers. He broke though every screen on every door in the house and scratched the paint off the doors when he wanted to get out. He ate the antennae off every landline telephone in the house and then ate off the replacements.”
My own house has gone to the dogs. . .
“He tore apart insulated galoshes, flip-flops, scarves, sneakers, shoes, plastic fruit, and the head of one of Noah’s lacrosse sticks. He chewed up hard rubber dustpans, flay swatters, and brushes. He ate books, barrettes, and toothbrushes, shredded newspapers, ripped apart magazines, tore chunks out of books.”
“I noticed that Oogy’s bag of food was missing, as was some cheeseand the lunch meat that had been in the cold drawer. The fruits and vegetables had not been touched. The beverages and salad dressings had not been opened. What was left of the missing bags of food was in pieces underneath the dining room table, which is where Oogy likes to take his illicit treasure. He seems to think of it as his little cave, where no one can see him. . .”
“. . .Oogy had figured out how to open the refrigerator.”
“I put a bungee cord across the handles for the freezer and the refrigerator adjacent to it. It was the only way to keep him out.”
“On several occasions since then, though, when the last one of us to use the refrigerator has forgotten to clip the cord in place, Oogy has raided it. I can tell by his demeanor when I walk in the door. If he isn’t greeting me joyously but is skulking, his body low to the ground, head drooped but watching me, I know he is feeling guilty of something, and the first thing I check is the refrigerator. Then I go to the dining room and clean up the debris.”
“. . . what appeals to everyone about Oogy is that he is proof that what we all know is lurking out there– the awful and, yes, inevitable tragic loss, the unexplainable savage attack, the seemingly insurmountable occurrence –can, in fact, be survived with love and grace intact, without bitterness or resentment, and with an appreciation for all that follows. Oogy is, right there in front of everyone he meets, tangible living proof that there can be happiness, love, and hope on the other side of unspeakable and unimaginable horror.”
“This is a story about what can happen when the worst in people meets the best in people and the best wins. In spite of its subject, this is a gentle tale of one man’s love for his dog and the angels along the way who brought Oogy into his life.” -Susan Richards, author of Chosen by a Horse
Thank you for your visit & thank you to my husband who indulges my obsession with Food for Thought by eating like a preschooler :-)
Visit Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday~ for more alphabet fun :-)
“Home decorating guru Mary Carol Garrity compares her techniques for transforming her own 130-year-old Greek revival fixer-upper to that of a bird building its nest- carefully selecting and layering all components twig by twig. In Nell Hill’s Feather Your Nest: It’s All in the Details, each chapter focuses on nest-building basics for different areas of the home, from common spaces like foyers to private spaces like bedrooms. Garrity empowers readers to feather their own nests by developing a sense of personal style, emphasizing minor touches that make a major difference.”
Twig by Twig guidelines and inspiration for adding layers & creating cozy vignettes that are a visual feast~
I spent a little time feathering my nest on my porch this past weekend~
Williamsburg Aviary by Wedgwood~ a plate given to me by my sister and a cup & saucer, a consignment store find~ I would love to feather my nest with a few more plates or pieces this year:-)
A bird wine bottle caddy was a Home Goods purchase several years ago~
Twig by Twig elements for a cozy nook on my porch include plenty of pillows, a throw, easy access to some books & usually a dog on my lap :-)
I filled a bird accented urn with greenery, artichokes & pheasant feathers for more nest feathering. . .
Food for Thought led me to the kitchen to play with cheese & pesto. . . thyme sprigs surround the cheese to resemble a nest~
Pesto Goat Cheese courtesy Southern Living, recipe here
Flour tortillas + the magic of cookie cutters + the oven = bird shaped crackers :-)
I hope you can join the fun this year, as I co-host Food for Thought with Jain here, Feb. 1st.
You’re invited to nosh your way thru a novel, munch upon a memoir, take a bite out of a biography, digest the pages of a decorating book, or feast upon a favorite cookbook. . .sharing an edible passage or food-inspiration from your book~
Rate your book & link it to Amazon:
***** EXCELLENT!
**** good read
*** average read
** so-so
* just skip it~
For Food for Thought inspiration & a fun format to follow for your edible review, check out a few of my favorite reviews of Jain’s:
In celebration of my one year blogging anniversary, I am giving away a $25 Home Goods gift card to feather your nest along with a $25 Amazon gift card for happy reading to one winner~
To enter, leave a comment on this post for one chance to win; a second comment for another chance telling me your favorite book or book on your nightstand you’re reading now. A winner will be chosen by random number generator on Feb. 2nd.
I’m joining Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word~
During the month of December you are invited to share a holiday book, in whatever manner you chose. . .using your decorations, collectibles or food from the kitchen.
I have been a collector and admirer of Radko ornaments for 20 years~ the happy recipient of ornaments as gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas. I have to confess that I got this book back in 2001 and bought it primarily for the photos and decorating ideas within the pages. My first thought when deciding on Christmas books to share was to go to this book, thinking I had plenty of ‘props’ in the way of ornaments to use.
What I so LOVE about Food for Thought is that in revisiting this book for this review, it opened my eyes to things I had not seen before. There are wonderful passages here within these pages in addition to the eye candy of full-color photographs shot at private homes and at locations such as the Governor’s Mansion in Hartford, Connecticut, and the historic Lyndhurst manor in Tarrytown, New York.
“When it comes to decorating for the holidays, no phrase sums up Christopher Radko’s philosophy better than ‘too much of a good thing is wonderful.’ And each page of the delightful Heart of Christmas celebrates his exuberant take on this special time of year, inviting you to fill your home with the same abundance of spirit and joy that is the hallmark of a Christopher Radko design.”
“Packed with information and lavishly illustrated with more than 200 photographs, Christopher Radko’s Heart of Christmas, will inspire you to bring the most important message of the holidays—one direct from the heart—into your home.”
In 1983, Christopher Radko’s family tree, adorned with more than a thousand cherished ornaments, fell…breaking glass treasures that had been collected by four generations of family members.When his Polish grandmother was devastated, he traveled to Poland to find glassblowers who could replicate the vintage ornaments and his ornament business was born.
“Decorating for the holidays is not just about appearance; it is a doorway to deeper meaning. When fresh greener and cherished decorations are hung with joy, purpose, and a sense of continuity with the past, they transcend simple décor and feed the soul. They make our homes into places that nurture our own hearts and souls and those of the people we love.”
“So turn off your mind for a few minutes and think with your heart. Our minds tell us that Santa doesn’t fly through the sky and squeeze down every chimney in the land, but in our hearts we know his energy is real, that the spirit of giving that he encompasses is real.”
“Christmas offers an open channel to our hearts. The portal may be an ornament passed down by your great-grandmother, a recipe for wassail in your grandmother’s flowery script, candy-striped stockings knitted by your mother, a carol your father loved to sing at the piano, or a crèche built by your grandfather. Each generation adds its own flourishes to traditions so that all the strands are woven together, the fabric becomes still longer and stronger.”
“By entering into holiday preparations in a spirit of celebration rather than of duty, you can avoid the burnout that often accompanies the season. In a very real way, those of us who love the rituals surrounding Christmas are preparing something sacred, and temple for this ceremony is our home. Decorating for the holidays is not just about appearance; it is a doorway to deeper meaning. When fresh greenery and cherished decorations are hung with joy, purpose, and a sense of continuity with the past, they transcend simple décor and feed the soul. They make our homes into places that nurture our own hearts and souls and those of the people we love.”
“Anyone who doubts that food has a spiritual component should think of the association of eggs with Easter, of pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving, of chocolate with Valentine’s Day. Holiday fare is essential to celebrating Christmas, but its presentation can elevate the repast to an art form. When we eat these traditional dishes, we nourish more than our bodies, just as decorating our homes with seasonal produce imbues them with spirit. No holiday is as rich with foods having symbolic meaning as is Christmas. . .”
Another thing I love about Food for Thought is it awakened the food passages for me. Having thumbed through this book countless times, I was oblivious to the numerous foods mentioned. A mention of Panettone had me dashing out to pick up some. I had always seen these beautifully decorated boxes at Home Goods & The Fresh Market (& more recently Trader Joe’s), never having tried this treat before. Having had it described to me as an Italian Fruitcake, I had no desire to try it, but what a WONDERFUL discovery~ it was light, airy & just slightly sweet, nothing at all fruitcake-like. Since trying I have seen numerous Panettone French Toast recipes as well as for Panettone Bread Pudding. I’m so enamored with it, I’m taking some with a bottle of Prosecco & for a hostess gift. . . toss in an orange or two & it’s the perfect morning fare for the Christmas holidays. I would have never made this discovery without Food for Thought!
“The true spirit of the season reminds us to rise about our baser instincts and transform ourselves into the people we know we can be. You can instill in your self-limiting adulthood the childhood belief in infinite possibilities.”
Be sure to visit Food for Thought~ stop in for Happy Holiday reading~
I’m joining Jain at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word~
This story takes place in a little mountain town in North Carolina.
We visited Spruce Pine this past weekend for a taste of small town mountain life, and were greeted with a flurry of large fluffy snowflakes for well over an hour. . . just enough to whet your appetite and evoke a holiday atmosphere~ ideal for the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree :-)
Set in 1918, Armistice has been declared, but Ruthie is still waiting for her father’s return to their little Appalachian town. According to the traditions of Pine Grove, it falls to Ruthie and her mother to bring home the perfect Christmas tree to donate to the town church, which the previous spring Ruthie and her father selected and marked with a red ribbon. By the light of the moon, Ruthie and her mother make the trek to cut it down & haul it home, which becomes the basis of a new town legend. Ruthie, chosen for the role of the heavenly angel in the Christmas nativity play, longs for a new dress with sleeves that look like angel wings as well as a doll with a dress trimmed in ribbon & lace. Her mother miraculously makes Ruthie’s dreams come true, despite the lack of money and cloth to make such a dress.
Author Gloria Houston was born and raised in the Ingalls community, just outside of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Her parents were the owners of a country store for over 50 years, and she often cites her experiences at the store as inspiration for her writing.
During the Christmas season of 2003, Gloria Houston gave a gift to the small town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina~ the rights to her award-winning children’s book, The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree. This gift was a small miracle for this town. . .over the preceding months, Spruce Pine and Mitchell County had suffered serious economic challenges, losing thousands of textile, furniture and other manufacturing jobs to outsourcing.
From that original idea, the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree project was born. With entrepreneurial development as a primary focus, the project has created nearly 100 individual small businesses that have produced quality, handmade products as part of the Home of the Perfect Christmas Tree collection. The project also serves as a scholarship tool, with a portion of royalties received from product sales used to fund a scholarship program is to combat the alarmingly low student retention rate at Mitchell High School, the only high school in the county.
Ruthie waits for her father to return by train:
“The days passed. Ruthie listened for the squeaky whistle of the little train the mountain folk called Tweetsie, as it chugged through the valley and up the mountain side.”
“Finally they saw it. Growing on the edge of a high cliff on Grandfather Mountain.”
Cinnamon Streusel Cake~ with drifts of snowy powdered sugar~
“Its green color was dark and rich. It was the perfect shape and size, its tip-tip-top pointing up to the heaven.”
“Gloria Houston’s The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Barbara Cooney, was published in 1988, and has become a seasonal classic – a touching and joyful story about courage and the power of family.”
by Rick Walton- Author & Paige Miglio- Illustrator
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word and food.
I’m also joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday as part of this Edible Review.
I ran across this book at the library standing in line for early-voting in November, as the line wound around upstairs through the children’s section. If I have to stand in line to vote, there’s no better place than the library for me :-)
Prominently on display, I picked it up to thumb through, and was enamored with the illustrations and sweet story. To share this book, I pulled out my Fitz & Floyd Christmas Bunnies, that still after twenty years, make me as cheery as reading this book did~
Young readers~ pre-school through kindergarten age~ will cotton to this story, as a happy bunny family prepares for a Merry Christmas with all the trimmings. Mom & Dad, brother & sister, along with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents come together for a joyful celebration. All family members share in the holiday preparations that make for a delightful tail ;-) that young readers will enjoy (& 50-year-old ones too!)
My Fitz & Floyd bunnies accompany Paige Miglio’s beautifully detailed illustrations. Paired with Rick Walton’s rhyming text, the two paint a heartwarming holiday portrait of family togetherness.
Bunnies are busy decking the halls. . .decorating a tree with strings of popcorn & candy canes, hanging lights and wreaths. . .
Wreath design hardboard and cork placemats frame my leaf embossed bowls.
I filled my pedestal Santa & Bunny bowl with greenery~ cedar, magnolia, juniper, along with some apples, nandina berries, pinecones and a few camellias that were blooming. . .
The bunnies satisfy their sweet tooth with carrot cake. . .
Visiting with Santa. . .
. . .and helping roll out dough to make sugar cookies~
Like a sugar cookie or slice of carrot cake, this book is a sweet treat to share with a young reader this Christmas~
Hop over to your library or bookstore and jumpstart your holidays~ this tail is guaranteed to make your spirits bright :-)
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera~
And Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday~ this week’s letter assignment is the letter J~
A compendium & all-in-one guide to a Joyous Season, this book covers decorating all through the house, preparing a feast for the senses~ with table settings & centerpieces that are cause for celebration.
More than 340 kitchen-tested recipes
18 complete menus, perfect, for any time of year
Nearly 400 full-color recipes
Over 100 seasonal how-tos and decorating ideas
If you’re looking for inspiration, you can find celebration menus for your family & guests . . . memorable menus with festive updates to traditional favorites~
12 Menus of Christmas for Entertaining with Ease~ with make-ahead options and over 80 recipes. . .
A Beef Tenderloin Repast, Turkey with All the Trimmings, An English Feast, A Roasted Lamb Dinner, A Southern Holiday Supper & A Tuscan Dinner Party to name a few. . .
I chose a few recipes from the Christmas Express section where you can be party-ready in minutes~ with recipes featuring make-ahead or time-saving twists.
Peach and Pecan Tapenade with Goat Cheese~
A traditional French condiment with a Southern twist with pecans and dried peaches. Make ahead omitting nuts, cover & store in fridge up to 2 days. Stir in nuts before serving. If you’re not a fan of goat cheese, you can always substitute mascarpone or cream cheese.
Make the tartlets ahead and freeze them in the plastic trays sealed in zip-top freezer bags.
Countdown to Christmas Dinner. . .’Tis the Season for Family Gatherings & Good Food~
Enjoy Crab & Oyster Bisque, Cabbage & Apple Salad with Roasted Onions, Coffee-Crusted Beef Wellingtons, Cast-Iron Herbed Potatoes Anna, Carrots with Country Bacon, Scalloped Greens, Cardamom-Scented Sweet Potato Pie & Chocolate Tiramisu Charlotte~
Prepare the whole menu, or just pick a recipe or two!
Honey-Peppered Goat Cheese with Fig Balsamic Drizzle, recipe here.
Another make ahead appetizer with big flavor, but you’ll also find make ahead recipes for Bourbon BBQ Baby Back Ribs, Boeuf Bourguignon, Twice-Baked Smoky Sweet Potatoes, & Citrus Cheesecake. . .
A sweet ending to your meal that is sure to tempt your tastebuds~ Cheesecake-Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cake~
I’ve not made this but it is on my list for an impressive dessert. . . while it is not make-ahead, it’s express in the sense that it uses cake mix, canned frosting, frozen cheesecake bites & a jar of caramel sauce.
Gifts from the Heart—share the spirit of the season with cleverly packaged gifts from the kitchen. From the Quick-Fix Food Gifts section, Marinated Cheese & Olives~
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word and food.
This book caught my eye bobbing amid the audio selections at my library. Drawn to the title and subject of both boat & corks, which I have my own small collection of (corks, not boats :-), I found this to be a fascinating story and enjoyable listen, despite the politics cast about. John Pollack, a speech writer for former President Clinton, tires of the hypocrisy on Capital Hill and abandons ship to pursue his childhood dream of building a boat that wouldn’t sink~ one built entirely out of wine corks.
In the fall of 1999, starting with corks he had saved for thirty years, he solicits his friends, family, and recruits bars and restaurants to save corks for his project~ aware that the cork-collecting opportunities on the eve of the new millennium were great.
What begins as a dream and a quirky desire, quickly becomes challenging~ requiring perseverance and his gift as a wordsmith~ to conjole and recruit friends and neighbors to join him in long nights of boat building parties, assembling corks into hexagon cell-like honeycombs, that eventually are bound, forming cork logs. His three-year project ultimately ends with a celebratory journey, where he and his boat-building-partner, sail down the Douro River in Portugal, becoming a national sensation.
“Why not build the boat? I had talked about it long enough. And in its playful, goofy absurdity, a cork boat was certainly the antithesis of everything Washington. The more I considered the project, the more it seemed the perfect antidote to my cynicism. Why not let whimsy fill my sails and carry me where it would? Over a period of several weeks, the idea took root. Although I kept my decision a secret, I vowed to leave the Hill by year’s end, and start the twenty-first century a free man, captain of my own ship.”
“. . .I calculated that it would have to be sixty-four corks wide and ninety-six corks long, all corks positioned vertically. So the minimum, conservative, number of corks I would need, per person, was. . .6,144.”
“If I needed 6,144 corks just to float at waterline, I’d need three or four times that to stay dry. And if I hoped to take others aboard. . . the numbers were mounting fast. Estimating conservatively, I’d have to figure on a boat of 60,000 corks.”
“…I turned my attention from boat design to building materials, specifically cork. And I soon discovered that cork had a fascinating history in its own right. Apparently, the pharaohs of ancient Egypt were the first people to use the bark to seal jugs and bottles, and thy recorded their innovation in stone hieroglyphs. Centuries later, Greek traders used cork to close clay amphorae as they plied the stormy seas of the unknown world.”
“But then, with the fall of Rome, a veil of ignorance fell over Europe, and the humble cork was forgotten. Although people still drank wine in great quantities, they sealed their jugs with oily rags, wooden plugs, and other small objects.”
“It was a blind Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon, who rediscovered the cork stopper sometime in the 1660s. A vintner of great devotion, he turned to cork after becoming frustrated by traditional wood stoppers that, wrapped in oiled hemp, kept popping out of his bottles prematurely under pressure from the bubbly.”
While John believed, “Every used cork had a story to tell; bringing those stories together was an inherent source of the boat’s appeal”~ it became apparent they would never collect the number of corks needed for construction. They turned to California-based Cork Supply, USA, which generously donated the corks they needed. Along with the corks, donations of 15,000 rubber bands to hold the hexagons together, were made by Alliance Rubber Company.
“I was suddenly the proud owner of fifteen thousand virgin corks—perfect, cylindrical corks. Buoyant about my newfound wealth, my antipathy toward virgin corks vanished in an instant. Like a fine sherry blended from different vintages, I reasoned, the world’s first cork boat would be a blend of old and new.”
I took my cue for Food for Thought from a passage where they have champagne & sheet cake to celebrate the boat’s completion. I made celebratory cupcakes instead, floating on a sea of corks. . .
165,321 corks. . .1 boat
Cork Supply USA sponsors a trip down the Duoro River in Portugal~ home to the largest cork-oak forests in the world. Despite some rough waters, the Cork Boat ultimately makes the journey down the river. While in Portugal, John enjoys dining on seafood:
“For the past week I had been eating exceptionally well—crispy local sardines, enormous tiger shrimp, tender grilled octopus…”
I opted for Tiger Shrimp instead sardines & octopus :-)
Since the Cork Boat volunteers & recruits ran on adrenaline, coffee & pizza~ I made Shrimp Pesto Pizza with Sun-Dried Tomatoes & Goat Cheese. . .
“Equal parts memoir, adventure story and travelogue, Cork Boat ferries the reader on an unlikely, inspiring journey from the corridors of power to the windswept gorges of northern Portugal, all aboard an absurd yet beautiful vessel. Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of whimsy, adventure, and the power of imagination.”
You can find Cork Boat photos from the author’s website, here.
Be sure to visit Food for Thought, and see what everyone is reading & eating :-)
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word and food.
I picked this book up based on the cover and title, despite some of the reviews I had read. At the center of the story are two main characters who are sisters~Emily and Jess Bach. Motherless, at the ages of ten and five, the sisters are total opposites. Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the pragmatic, responsible, and goal-oriented older sister. A graduate of M.I.T. and CEO of Veritech, a start-up computer data-storage company in Silicon Valley, she is the perfect daughter in her father’s eyes.
At twenty-three, Jess is an idealistic Berkeley graduate student more interested in saving trees than money~ with a habit of rushing heart first into life and love. Jess works part-time at an antiquarian bookstore~ Yorick’s. Yorick’s owner, George, is a jaded Microsoft millionaire, who retired early and now passionately collects~ filling his life with beautiful objects, chief among them books, instead of people.
Set in dot-com era of the fall of 1999~ this book was filled with boom-era & IPO details, that introduced multiple secondary characters that, like a lot of other readers, I failed to care about or have any interest in. I would have preferred more detail and story behind the “cookbook collector” and more emphasis on the rare book business and story behind the passion of collecting rather that the dot-com boom story.
While I didn’t love this book, I loved the food passages found throughout and particularly enjoyed George & Jess~ their bantering and budding relationship.
George: Old money, a Microsoft millionaire returned to Berkeley where he went to school in the 70’s~
“In the eye of the Internet storm, George sought the treasures of the predigital age. He wanted pages he could turn, and records he could spin. Eschewing virtual reality, he collected old typewriters and dictionaries and hand-drawn maps. He began acquiring rare books and opened Yorick’s.”
“Jess often felt her workplace was a secret mine or quarry where she could pry crystals from crevices and sweep precious jewels straight off the floor.”
Jess and George debate about books. . .
George:
“When I read Swift here, I’m reading him in this ink, on this paper, with this book in my hands—and I’m reading him as his contemporaries read him. You think there’s something materialistic about collecting books, but really collectors are the last romantics. We’re the only ones who still love books as objects.”
Jess’s theory about rare books:
“Rare books—any books—start to die without readers. The words grow paler and paler.”
George happens upon the rare book dealers’
Holy Grail~
A large and incredibly unique collection of old cookbooks. . .
“They worked long hours like a sequestered jury, deliberating at the tables with copious evidence before them. They were eighteenth-century German cookbooks with fold-out diagrams of table settings, late and platters arrayed like planets, little dishes orbiting larger courses. There were cookbooks small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, and others gargantuan, so that George used special foam book cradles to hold them open and protect their bindings. To assess these volumes was to consider tastes both delicate and omnivorous…”
Jess begins working on a descriptive catalog of the collection of cookbooks. . .
“The cookbooks weren’t trivial at all. They were, in and of themselves, and entirely new world. She had never felt this way. She dreamed about the books at night. Their collector haunted her. She lived in suspense, speculating about his life, his love, his strange dark handwriting. Sometimes she could hardly bear it—the edge of discovery.”
“On the third day, she smelled the fruit as soon as she came in. She followed the scent to the kitchen, and the peach was radiant, dusky rose and gold, its skin so plush she thought her fingertip might bruise it.”
“An intense tang, the underside of velvet. Then flesh dissolved in a rush of nectar. Juice drenched her hand and wet the inside of her wrist. She had forgotten, if she’d ever known, that what was sweet could also be complicated, that fruit could have a nap, like fabric, soft one way, sleek the other
“His fantasies were nurturing, not predatory. If he could have Jess, he would feed her. Laughable, antique, confusingly paternal, he longed to nourish her with clementines, and pears in season. . .
. . . fresh whole-wheat bread and butter. . .
. . .wild strawberries, comte cheese, fresh figs and oily Marcona almonds, tender yellow beets.
He would sear red meat, if she would let him, and grill spring lamb. Cut the thorns off artichokes and dip the leaves in fresh aioli, poach her fish—thick Dover sole in wine and shallots—julienne potatoes, and roast a whole chicken with lemon slices under the skin. He would serve a salad of heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and just picked basil. Serve her and watch her savor dinner, pour for her, and watch her drink. That would be enough for him. To find her plums in season, and perfect nectarines, velvet apricots, dark succulent duck. To bring her all these things and watch her eat.”
A cornucopia of foods to choose from~ I decided to roast a chicken with lemon slices under the skin for Food for Thought, since I’m not roasting a turkey for Thanksgiving :-)
“The artichoke is a sexy beast. Thorns to cut you, leaves to peel, lighter and lighter as you strip away the outer layers, until you reach the soft heart’s core.”
“Jess gazed at the apples arranged in all their colors: russet, blushing pink, freckled gold. She cast her eyes over heaps of pumpkins. . .”
Additional Food for Thought on this Thanksgiving Eve~
I have so many things to be thankful for, the obvious~ health, husband, family, food & shelter and husband’s employment immediately come to mind. . .
I’m thankful I’m not roasting a turkey on Thursday. Instead the “men-folk” are frying one, which makes the small oven FREE for all the Thanksgiving SIDES, which to me are the food stars of Thanksgiving. The beauty of frying your turkey is that you can have one ready in a fraction of the time roasting takes. Our 12 pound turkey will fry in 36 minutes, rest for 30. The oil takes around from 30 min to reach the frying temperature of 350 degrees depending on the outdoor temperature.
I am thankful for books & cookbooks, especially ones with beautiful photos. Like George, I enjoy pages I can turn~
I am thankful I was not motherless at the age of 5 or 10 & I still have two mothers around :-)
I am thankful for berries, figs~all fruit in season, as well as artichokes & chicken & BREAD~ and the proximity of grocery stores with food readily available.
And as Food for Thought is defined as “anything that provides mental stimulus for thinking” I am thankful for my two “teachers”. . .
~ for Jain at Food for Thought for providing a way to enjoy my reading even more than I did before I joined her searching for food passages and increasing my appetite for the written word.
~and for Jenny Matlock for making Aphabe-Thursday so much fun each week, where I have the opportunity to visit places & people I would never find my way to otherwise, and where I ALWAYS learn something new, which is good for my aging brain :-)
“The Cookbook Collector is a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living. But above all it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.”
Be sure to visit Food for Thought, and see what everyone is reading & eating :-)
I’m also joining Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday~as part of Thankful for Thanksgiving this week.
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera~
I loved this little book and the journey embarked on with ‘Hope and a Hammer’~
I have a love of found objects or fragments with a history that are repurposed, preserved, and elevated to a new and important status. It gives me the warm fuzzies when something is given a second life and I enjoy wondering about its former life, imagining the stories it could tell.
A Very Modest Cottage is an inspiring little book about the author’s rehab journey restoring a small 1920’s tourist cabin. Where others saw a dilapidated, broken shell of building, with rotting log siding and missing roof shingles, she saw potential. Fueled with optimism, fond memories from her childhood, and a lot of coffee, with the help of her brother & husband~ they relocated it 245 miles from its home of fifty years, where it sat next to grandmother’s house, in a small farming community in Illinois.
Believing “when you have an emotional attachment to something, it can never be too far gone”, the relocating to refurbishing process took three short months. Restored to its modest former glory, the little roadside motorlodge cabin now resides on the edge of the woods overlooking a lake in Wisconsin, where it functions as a guest cottage.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~Thomas Edison
“The risk factor: How many miles could one travel before a 50-mile-per-hour wind force would blow apart an eighty-five-year-old building? Needless to say, it was a long, tedious and worrisome trip.”
“Uneasiness started to set in. Would it slide off the back? Bounce off the trailer? I couldn’t shake from my mind images of chunks of roofing and siding flying onto other travelers’ windshields, wildlife running for cover.”
“Tearing out the old walls is fast, easy, and surprisingly therapeutic. Tools needed: a hammer, a crowbar, safety goggles, and bottle of red wine for when it’s all over.”
Tourist cabins were erected by enterprising farmers and landowners and sprung up in the early 1920’s~ rented by the night for a minimal fees, a step up from pitching a tent, with slightly more privacy. After Tereasa’s renovation, she researched the cabin’s history and found out she had not given her cabin a second life, but rather its fifth.
Summer Agenda:
“Wake up to birdsong. Make some coffee.
Days filled with swimming, boating, fishing, grilling out and being completely and unapologetically lazy.”
“When you only have 121 square feet, it’s nice to have a room with a view.”
To celebrate their rehab journey, they throw a party with all the trimmings~ carving pumpkins, enjoying bonfires, eating s’mores & caramel apples, drinking hot cider. . .
I thought I would do the same at our cottage by the lake for Food for Thought. . .
Mums and Pansies in pots fill the fire pit for seasonal color, they can be relocated for roasting the marshmallows later :-)
My cider is un-spiked, but there is a recipe here if you’re looking for a cider to warm you from the inside out :-)
While our 1 & ½ story, 26 year-old-lake house is a far cry from a 12 x 12 1920’s cabin, it is modest, especially in comparison to the multi-million dollar McMansions on the lake. We spent 20 summers boating, seeking out for sale signs, dreaming & deciding the lake property the house sat on, was more important to us than the house. We did a small cosmetic renovation after being in it for five years~ the most expensive part of which was replacing our old dock, that was threatening to break apart and float away any minute. Regretfully, I did not take before & after pictures, but we managed to obliterate the former owner’s love for ALL things PINK, not the least of which was ceiling fans.
Re-siding, replacing appliances & cabinets and generally removing traces of the 80’s that we could, we were told by several contractors, that it would be simpler to raze it and start over. It is perfect for the two of us to escape to on the weekends~ we are very fortunate and thankful to have a place to ‘wake up to birdsong’ & spend a day being unapologetically lazy :-)
“I would rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”
~ Thomas Jefferson
A Very Modest Cottage is part how-to guide, part scrapbook, and part lesson on how with ambition, duck tape and elbow grease all things are possible.
Be sure to visit Food for Thought, and see what everyone is reading & eating :-)
I’m also joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday~
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word and food.
I enjoyed this spellbinding read about a disturbing yet fascinating time period in American history~ the Salem Witch Trials. From 1692 – 1693, 150 people were imprisoned and charged with witchcraft~ 29 convicted, of which 19 were hanged, one man crushed to death with stones, and five died while in prison.
Harvard graduate student, Connie Goodwin’s plans to spend the summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation are interrupted when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem. In her preparations, she discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written on it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery draws her deeper in the mysteries of her grandmother’s house and launches Connie on a scholarly quest that puts her education as a historian of American Colonial Life to work—to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a ‘physick’ book (also known as ‘medicine’). . . its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.
The action travels back and forth 300 years, where we see bits & pieces of Deliverance’s life and the trials, and back to the current year 1991, in Connie’s life. The 1991 time frame is significant because it was a time that hovered between technologies where historical data were not yet entirely computerized. As a researcher, you were destined to spend hours hunched over card catalogues to find volumes you needed in the library. I thank the internet gods for Google everyday :-)
Connie finds her way to her grandmother’s home which has been vacant for over twenty years:
“Connie recognized most of the herbs standard to a home kitchen garden: thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, a few different mints, fat turnip greens, dandelion leaves, dense soft dill blossoms, short tufts of chives that had not been harvested in years. Connie’s eyes moved over the plants along the far side of the garden, alighting on some obscure flowers that she knew only from horticulture books: monkshood, henbane, foxglove, moonwort. A thick, ropey belladonna clung to the left corner of the house, sinking in its roots deep into the wooden framework.”
“… the hand that was holding the Bible vibrated with a hot, crawling, pricking sensation—something between a limb falling asleep and the painful shock that comes from unplugging a frayed lamp wire.”
“The Bible lay open on the floor, raked by the glowing light from the oil lamp, surrounded by a rising cloud of dust stirred by its fall to the carpet. Kneeling on the floor Connie reached forward to gather up the Bible when she noticed something small and bright protruding from between its leaves.”
“It was a key. Antique, about three inches long…”
“As she warmed the small metal object in her hands, puzzling about what it could mean, she noticed the tiniest shred of paper protruding from the end of the hollow shaft.”
“It was brown and stained, barely as long as her thumb. On it, in watery ink barely legible in the flickering light, were written the words Deliverance Dane.”
Researching, Connie discovers:
“A widespread vernacular divination technique mentioned in several sources, and found to occur as late as the first decade of the nineteenth century, was the so-called ‘key and Bible.’ In this simple process a key would be placed inside a large heavy book, usually a Bible, and the supplicant would ask a question aloud while holding the book. If the book turned over and spilled out the key, then the supplicant could assume the answer to the question was ‘yes.’ ”
“Another widespread vernacular divination technique, similarly crude but available to all regardless of social class, was the so-called ‘sieve and scissors.’ This process consists of balancing a sieve atop an open set of shears and asking a yes or not question.”
“A now-familiar tingling, stinging sensation collected in the palm of the hand that was holding the scissors handle, shooting vibrating, nearly painful energy through her fingers, up her forearm, and down the blades of the scissors. A bluish glow crackled in the empty center of the colander, shooting forth miniature jolts of electricity in the empty center of the colander…”
Despite the serious subject matter & tone set during the Salem witch trials, I thought I would take a few liberties with Food for Thought & interject some fun since we are on the eve of Halloween. There was always a cauldron bubbling in the 17th century. . .
My cauldron is bubbling with a recipe courtesy of Southern Living. Witches’ Chicken Brew Soup~ no eye of newt is boiling in this kettle :-) Primarily chicken and white beans~ this soup can be garnished however you prefer. We ate it with cheese, sour cream, cilantro. A recipe can be found here.
To accompany Witches’ Brew Soup, I’m serving up some Finger Sand-Witches :-), recipe found on Pillsbury’s website here.
To some extent witchcraft was real, not in the way we think of it today. Cunning folk or wise people sold services ranging from basic divination (of which I only have a vague knowledge of from Harry Potter :-), healing the sick and locating lost articles. Connie is a scholar and not a believer in witches~ spouting facts regarding the origin of witch hats to her friend, Sam:
“The tall pointy part derives from a fifteenth-century headdress called a henin, and the wide brim is a simplified form of the English wimple. Common middle-class women’s headgear in the late Middle Ages, basically. Nothing inherently witchy about it.”
Connie also explains to Sam that Black cats were a stand-in for a familiar, which was “a devil or spirit in the guise of an animal, that did the witches bidding.”
So with witch hats & cats in mind, I made some Linzer cookies~ using some Halloween Linzer cookie cutters I found at Home Goods with the recipe on the back of the box.
And I decided to add a few bats in the spirit of Halloween :-)
“The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials in the 1690s and a modern woman’s story of mystery, intrigue and revelation.”
Be sure to visit Food for Thought and see what everyone is reading & eating :-)
I’m also joining The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays with this Bewitching Book & Halloween Treats~
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, where pages from your book magically mix with the kitchen and your camera~
And Jenny Matlock for Alphabe-Thursday~ this week’s letter assignment is the letter G.
I ran across this book when I had searched for A Dog’s Purpose on Amazon~ it popped up with ‘other readers also purchased this book’. A dangerous suggestion for me :-)
Since I have my own Gracie, I immediately read the reviews & got a copy. I thoroughly enjoyed this sweet, heartwarming tail :-) that was a quick read, written by the founders of Three Dog Bakery.
Gracie, a deaf and partially blind albino Great Dane, comes into Dan & Mark’s life shortly after Dan has lost his beloved dog of eighteen years, Blue. There are lots of humorous anecdotes~ parts of which involving training themselves not to call or yell commands for a deaf dog to “come” :-) There are some teary-sweet, as well as teary-sad moments~ one sweet one in particular involving a deaf boy and Gracie bonding, with their own special way of communicating.
*sniff*
While you don’t have to be a dog owner to love this book, it is definitely a dog lover’s treat.
It only seemed appropriate that Food for Thought involved some doggy treats instead of people ones with this edible review~ straight from Three Dog Bakery Cookbook. Gracie & Chloe give the cookbook a 5 cookie rating :-)
From the Foreward:
“When an energetic eight-week-old albino Great Dane came into our lives one freezing January day, we didn’t realize that our future business advisor and spiritual guide had arrived. She was deaf, and partially blind in one eye. She had a delicate constitution. But her tenacious and generous spirit would soon reshape our ideas, our careers, and our destinies. She would inspire us to believe in ourselves. People know us best for our entrepreneurial success as the founders of Three Dog Bakery; what they don’t know is that we owe it all to a gigantic deaf dog named Gracie. But even though Gracie sowed the seeds of our success, this isn’t a book about ‘making it’. This is the story of a dog who was born with the cards stacked against her, but whose passionate, joyful nature helped her turn what could have been a dog’s life into a victory of the canine spirit—and, in the process, save two guys who thought they were saving her.”
– Mark Beckloff and Dan Dye
“Blue’s passing hadn’t left us entirely dogless, because there were still Sarah and Dottie, aka ‘the girls,’ Mark’s canine contribution to the household. He likes to think he’s their human companion. Reality check: The girls are Mark’s proud owners. Sarah’s a two-year-old black Lab mix who’s always in a good mood, especially when she’s eating something Mark has to wear the next day. Dottie is an uncontrollable force of nature in the deceptive form of a year-old Dalmatian.”
“The other Danes seemed to sense that something wasn’t quite right with her. Maybe it was her color, her floppy un-cropped ears, the way she didn’t respond to the sounds they heard bubbling around them—but they left her alone. All of them—even her own mother. All she had for company was a dirty, gnawed-up tennis shoe and the threadbare terry-cloth belt from an old bathrobe.”
“Like most Great Dane pups she hadn’t begun growing into her skin yet, and it hung on her tiny frame like an oversized velvety jumpsuit. Her ears hung down like the flaps on an old aviator’s cap, making her whole head look heavy with the burden of sad secrets.”
“The second I began petting her though, she came right up and started licking my face, my hand. . .every part of me she could reach. Just as I was wondering if anyone—human or canine—had shown her any affection at all in her short, lonely life, she did something unique in my experience of dogs. She raised her forehead to mine and very deliberately nuzzled my nose. Then she stepped back, looked into my eyes, came forward, and did it again.”
These cookies smelled so good baking, I could have nibbled on them myself, made with yummy ingredients: applesauce, egg, natural peanut butter, vanilla, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, quick oats, chopped peanuts & water.
Gracie was very aware of where those cookies were at all times :-)
Gracie sporting her one-eyed pirate look. . .it’s Amazing she can see :-)
Since we’re approaching Halloween, I baked some Howl-O-Ween Tricking Treats. . .
Made with canned pumpkin, vanilla, water, egg, whole-wheat flour, chopped pecans, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg & oats~
A special treat for a one-eyed pirate :-)
She looks like she’s speaking pirate too :-)
Together or separately, this cookbook and book would make a GREAT gift. Clever recipes like German Shepherd’s Pie, Fleas Navidad Nibblers, Corgi Crumpets, Labrador Lasagna fill this book, along with fun illustrations and photos. Gracie & Chloe subsist on a diet of Iams Kibble~ lack luster in comparison with these recipes. . .
“…be prepared to witness your pooch enter a zombie-like, tail wagging delirium when the aroma of these savory snacks starts wafting out of the kitchen.”
Bone Appetit!
“Equal parts love story, salvation tale, and rags-to-riches saga. You don’t have to be obsessed with dogs to love this story.” ~The Philadelphia Inquirer
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ for the written word and food.
Fairyopolis is the secret fairy journal of Cicely Mary Barker, recorded during a magical summer of 1920 ~ a delightful book for the young at heart. . . complete with illustrations, bits of fairy relics hidden under postcards, photos & fold-outs~ along with a sample of fairy dust :-)
This book inspired me to set a table and join Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday as part of this Edible Review~ recreating a forest floor where fairies might be found.
Arriving at a friends’ summer home in Storrington, Sussex, England~ Cicely plans to paint and garden, surrounded by meadows filled wildflowers. On her arrival, she discovers this tranquil haven is surrounded by flower fairies. Cicely chronicles her discoveries, illustrating and compiling evidence of fairies in her journal. . . from tiny foot prints, to enchanting music; fairy wings~delicate and butterfly-like, to fairy dust. It is a summer that she opens herself up to a whole new world~ unseen but often imagined.
Flower Fairies can be found in your garden, the meadow or forest tree tops & floors where they play and care for flowers and trees. They can only be seen by those who believe in them :-)
I set a table with my brown matelasse coverlet and sprinkled pinecones, acorns, moss & lichen, and various pods for a fairy-like forest floor. Leaf motif plates & napkins along with woven chargers add to the fall forest atmosphere~
Suspend your disbelief and enter the Flower Fairies’ magical realm where you can see Cicely’s beautifully illustrated fairies here.
While Flower Fairies follow a code and hold certain values in high esteem with one another, the more mischievous fairies are known to rain acorns, nuts & berries down on the heads of unsuspecting humans :-)
Tread gently there may be a fairy afoot ~
A sudden twittering of birds, when walking by a tree may be a warning signal to alert the fairies to your presence. Fairies do not like humans venturing too close to their homes and their feathered friends help by alerting them.
Cicely remarks in her journal: “Apparently fairies deplore being investigated by humans; they hate any kind of ‘prying’.”
Cicely Mary Barker was born in West Croydon, Surrey, a small town near London, England in 1895. As a child she suffered from epilepsy and as a result was physically frail and unable to attend school. Cicely’s father, an artist himself, encouraged her artistic talent, enrolling her at Croydon Art Society when she was thirteen years old and paying for a correspondence course, which she continued until 1919.
At the age of sixteen, she had her first work accepted for publication as a set of postcards, which prompted her to devote her career to painting.
Cicely was influenced by the popular interest in fairies which developed from the Victorian enthusiasm for fairy stories and the immense popularity of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in the early part of the 20th century. Published in 1923, her first book, Flower Fairies of the Spring, was well received by a post-industrial, war-weary public who were charmed by her vision of hope and innocence.
She preferred to use real-life child models for her fairy paintings~ most models coming from the kindergarten her sister Dorothy ran in the back room of the home where they lived. She would have the child pose with the particular blossom, twig, or flower to accurately depict the texture and form of the plant, enlarging the flower to make it the same size at the child.
Always botanically accurate, Cicely’s flowers were painted from nature. If she could not find a flower close at hand, she enlisted the help of staff at Kew Gardens, who would often visit with specimens for her to paint.
“Many trees are significant to fairies. In particular Oak, Ash and Thorn.”
Bowls of Fairy Nectar~ Acorn cups brimming with morning dew :-)
“Towards the end of my walk I came upon a mysterious-looking circle of long dark grass, dotted here and there with mushrooms. I believe it to be a fairy ring.”
Fairy Ring Marzipan Mushrooms, along with assorted leaf confections~
I ran across this beautiful box of confections at Home Goods, made in Italy just for the Flower Fairies :-)
“Fairies appreciate the following: Sweet delicacies such as fruit, jam and cake. . .”
So combining fairy love for fruit & cake, I made an Applesauce Pear Cake with Caramel Sauce.
I found a Nordic Ware Harvest Basket Pan recently at Walmart~ on the Nordic Ware website it’s referred to as a Fancy Marianne Pan.
Applesauce Pear Cake
1 fresh pear, peeled, chopped and mashed
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. rum extract
Grease and flour pan; set aside. In large bowl, combine all cake ingredients; blend 2 minutes on medium speed, scraping bowl often. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 40- 45 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven until toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan; invert onto cooling rack.
Caramel Sauce
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 dark brown sugar
1/2 sugar
1 tsp. rum extract
To make caramel sauce: Combine all sauce ingredients in heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking occasionally. cover and continue to boil for 1 minute. Uncover and boil for 3 to 4 more minutes without stirring. Cool slightly before drizzling over warm cake. Serve cake warm with seasonal fruit and whipped cream.
Cicely Mary Barker’s unique blend of accuracy and fantasy establishes a popularity for the Flower Fairies books which endures to this day.
Thank you for your visit & thanks to my hostesses:
