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.
“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 with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite for the written word.
My love of books is no secret~ factor in birds in a Christmas setting and this is a recipe for happy holiday reading. For me, a bird book in the hand, is worth a few bird dishes~ so that was the perfect excuse to fly over to Pottery Barn recently for this set of four assorted salad plates. . .
. . . so I’m also joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday as part of this Edible Review.
Receiving a diagnosis from his doctor Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold climate of Chicago to spend what he believes to be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River, Alabama. Lost River is just that. . .a sleepy little community that time seems to have forgotten. A place full of unforgettable characters, among whom are a postman who delivers mail by boat; the store owner who nurses a broken heart; the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society who do clandestine good works; and Patsy Casey~ an abandoned young girl.
Last but not least, a little Redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas.
Food is abundant in Lost River. . .on Oswald’s first day after a huge breakfast, he eats a lunch of baked chicken, a bowl of fat lima beans, mashed potatoes, three pieces of cornbread with honey & butter, and two pieces of red velvet cake. I made Red Velvet Whoopie Pies for Food for Thought. . .
I couldn’t resist adding a little Red Bird Peppermint Candy to the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies~
I think you’ll find this book warm & comforting~ like a cup of Hot Chocolate sprinkled with Red Bird peppermints~
“Isn’t it amazing how one little bird changed so many lives?”
“Flagg is a gifted storyteller who knows how to tug at readers’ heartstrings, winding up her satisfying holiday tale with the requisite Christmas miracle.”
May your Christmas be one of Magic & Miracles ~
Thank you for your visit & thanks to my hostesses:
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.
“Mark your calendar. It’s the Christmas Cookie Club! Every year on the first Monday of the December, Marnie & twelve of her closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Everyone has to bring a dish, a bottle of wine, and their stories.”
I spied this at the bookstore right before Thanksgiving. I thought, “What fun~ light holiday reading to set the mood for baking cookies” while I was preparing for an upcoming cookie exchange. The concept for this book was promising, with each chapter beginning with a recipe and short history of the main ingredient used in the cookie.
Instead of sweet & light, it turned out to be a baker’s dozen of drama~ the completely wrong recipe for me for happy holiday reading. A death of a son (with details that were almost more than I could stomach), financial woes, infidelity, miscarriages, drug use & spousal abuse were not the ingredients I was looking for~
Reading this over Thanksgiving weekend after a cozy family holiday was not the way I wanted to kick off the Christmas season, so my rating is slightly lower than the average on Amazon. Some of us like nuts in our cookies & some of us don’t. . . As my mother-in-law says, “It’s a good thing we all don’t like the same thing, there wouldn’t be enough to go around.”
Despite a disappointing read for me, the seven of us had an evening of food & fun at our cookie exhange~ with two attending making more than one kind of cookie, so I want to thank everyone for helping me ‘cook my book’ for this edible review. (Is that considered cheating on your homework? :-)
I made one of my husband’s favorites~ Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies with White Chocolate, recipe courtesy Southern Living, here.
Marnie has rules for her cookie club~ one of which is the containers have to make an attractive gift and can be reused. I found these adorable vintage-inspired buckets at World Market.
“I love this part of the evening, when my friends arrive bustling with excitement and armed with goodies. They bring warmth in spite of the cold and convey the season’s thrill. Once again we feel a child’s for Christmas. I’ve set the stage, but they fill it with action, the emotion, the event that is by its very nature best because of serendipity. Well, and the love we all have for one another. And our shared history. Every year, I can hardly wait for them to arrive, thrilled to see each one.”
We met at my gracious friend, Annie’s lovely home~ with the Halls all decked out in Christmas finery~
We filled her beautiful cookie jars with greenery for centerpieces~
Party favors of a Christmas Cookie Deck, silicone whisk, decorative spatula, candy canes & a miniature gingerbread house, wrapped in a cello bag. . .
Thank you to Annie, Ann, Carolyn, Lynne, Pam & Nasrin for making such pretty & tasty cookies and helping me with my homework :-)
Here’s hoping your cookies are just the way you like them this Christmas season~ with or without nuts :-)
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~
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.
Based on “The Night before Christmas”, this Pop-Up Winter Wonderland depicts eight different animals species preparing for Christmas at the zoo, complete with animal-themed decorations. While compact in size, it is elephantine in its appeal~ sure to engage young readers with its vivid, bold colors and impressive cut-outs.
Preparing for a visit from Santa, the animals are busy decorating, making cookies, and hanging stockings. The fanciful animal habitats combined with festive pop-ups, make for a delightful Christmas visit to the zoo.
We visited a drive through animal park and zoo of sorts, Lazy 5 Ranch this fall. I thought I would include some of the photos I took of some of the 750 animals, both domestic & exotic, that can be found there, on the gently sloping pasturelands and in the exhibits.
Since this week’s letter assignment is L in Mrs. Matlock’s class, I’m sharing this for Alphabe-Thursday and for Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer.
You can drive your car at the Lazy 5 Ranch, winding along the 3 1/2 mile trail, or even better, you make a reservation for a ride on one of their horse-drawn open-air wagons.
I found zoo shaped dried pasta at World Market for Food for Thought. . .
Pasta Salad with sundried tomatoes, feta cheese, olives & artichoke hearts~
The animals at Lazy 5 Ranch are having a Christmas celebration this weekend that you & your family are invited to attend~ with a Live Nativity Scene, Santa, Horse Drawn Wagon Rides, Caroling, Hot Chocolate & Cookies.
I pulled out some vintage Christmas items and set a table to display them. . .
Cardboard Christmas village houses & churches, known as Putz houses, most old mixed with some new. . .
I’ve used this quilt on my table before~ it’s currently nestled underneath my tree at the lake serving as a tree skirt.
Christmas Greetings are sprinkled on the table, most of these are postmarked from Pennsylvania, the one below from 1910~
I love the messages on these postcards:
“May Christmas with its magic spell, Make all things happy, all thing well.”
The practice of sending Christmas cards grew out of the Victorian use of decorated calling cards and of printed note paper and envelopes for New Year’s greetings. The card business was really made possible by the advent of the postage stamp and ‘Penny Post’ in England in 1840. Prior to this innovation, postage was based on mileage and paid by the receiver when mail was delivered. Now the sender could bear the postage with a single rate.
The first commercially printed Christmas card is attributed to Sir Henry Cole, the first Director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
By the 1850s improved printing techniques allowed the expansion of the card business and cards could be trimmed with a wide variety of cut and embossed papers.
My chalkware figures are not vintage, but have a vintage charm. . .
Christmas Collectibles is a fact-filled guide to Christmas collectibles and offers information and full-color photographs of Yuletide items from the Victorian era to the present. Fun to peruse, it is both a catalog of delightful objects and a fascinating investigation of every aspect of Christmas~ from the origins of traditions and festivities, to the technological innovations that affected the manufacture of favorite ornaments.
“One of the first Christmas window decorations was a lighted candle in a window. The candles were placed there to guide ‘special’ travelers, who vary in different countries and cultures, from The Holy Couple, Mary and Joseph, to The Christmas Stranger, or The Christmas Visitor. In time, the reason was forgotten, but the candles had become part of the holiday. Eventually the candles were electrified, allowing greens to be used safely in the windows. Although various arrangements appeared in windows, the most enduring was the wreath made of evergreens and trimmed with pine cones, berries and ribbon. The first artificial wreaths were made of chenille or cellophane and for some reason were mostly red instead of green.”
I love the nostalgia these vintage items evoke~ memories of Christmases of yesteryear. . . a few pieces from my collection of vintage Christmas items~ lights, children’s records, Shiny Brite ornaments, Sparkle Snow. . .
These children’s records were personalized Santa-Grams, with Santa’s 10 Rules for Good Little Boys & Girls. . .
Listen to your Mommy & Daddy
Mind your teacher
Be neat & clean
Go to bed early
Be kind to animals (my favorite one :-)
Brush teeth twice a day
Be careful crossing streets
Don’t be selfish
Be courteous
Go to church
My vintage Santa punch bowl & mugs are accompanying a plate of Linzer cookies I made for Food for Thought.
A vintage choice for a cookie :-) based on the same recipe as Linzer torte, created in Linz, Austria in the 17th century. Linzer torte is the oldest known torte recipe and a holiday classic in Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss, German traditions, often eaten at Christmas.
Christmas Collectibles will evoke memories of your own childhood and give you a glimpse of how other generations and other people have celebrated Christmas over the years.
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:
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ forthe written word. . .and food.
Spectacular Wineries of NV invites you take a journey of 46 world-class wineries within its pages. We visited Napa back in April and I purchased this book as a keepsake. With so LITTLE time & so MUCH wine to sample along with the breathtaking scenery to take in, I would love to visit some of the wineries featured within these pages that we did not have the chance to visit. (I’m keeping my fingers crossed and dreaming of a return trip next spring :-) Whether you are a wine enthusiast or interested in the architecture and stories behind the wine growers’ visions, this book will make you long for a trip to Napa. For now I’ll have to satisfy myself with sipping a glass of wine~ savoring the scenery in these pages.
From the Publisher:
“You can’t help falling in love with the Napa Valley. It has a personality all its own. The colors are like a painter’s palette—always changing with the season—from the bright yellows of mustard plants in the spring, the greens of summer grape leaves, to the fall harvest colors of burgundy and rust, followed by the quiet shades of brown and black in winter. The morning fog, afternoon sun, moderate temperatures and the talents of vintners and growers combine to produce world-class wines. All share a common goal of respecting the land and nurturing the fruit that each distinct terroir produces.”
“This small slice of heaven on earth is only 30 miles long and five miles wide, enticing the public to view the life of wine making and incredible cuisine all while enjoying the relaxed and laid back lifestyle of small-town living. People are happy here and they show it. A passerby says good morning, cars pause while drivers wave you to cross the street, everything moves at a slow and kind pace. You find that you are smiling for a reason. It is truly a magical setting.”
“Much like the wines of Napa Valley, the valley’s winery architecture is rich and varied– sometimes a reflection of intended wine brand imagery; and other times, a manifestation of the dreams, vision or passions of their respective founders and owners. As such, with every twist and turn through the county’s meandering thoroughfares, the visitor may be greeted by a surprising array of invitations to their senses that may compel them to gaze, wonder, admire, or as many wineries would have it, stop by for wine tasting, tours, casual conversation and shopping.”
Napa Valley has flourished from a fledgling farm county to a world-renowned cultural region~ possessing both a rustic and refined charm~ a blending of agriculture with an appreciation for wine, food and the arts. Of the 46 wineries included in this book, we were fortunate to have visited three of them. I thought I would include some photos of our visit to Beringer Vineyards~ the most memorable of the three, resplendent with its Victorian architecture and the oldest continuously operating winery in the valley.
Beringer Vineyards, the oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley was founded by brothers Jacob and Frederick Beringer. Arriving from Germany, they were delighted to find that the well-drained, rocky soils resembled their native Rhine Valley. In 1875~ 215 acres were purchased for $14,500~ the heart of Beringer Vineyards’ Napa Valley Estate.
In 1883, Frederick began construction on the 17-room mansion. Restored in 1971, the Rhine House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is today the focal point of the Beringer Estate.
Surviving Prohibition from 1920 to 1933 by selling sacramental wines, the winery became the first to offer public tours & sales.
When building his 17-room mansion, Frederick wanted to create a California villa that was reminiscent of the family’s impressive old German home at Mainz-on-the-Rhine. Built at a cost of about $28,000, with the 40 panels of stained glass accounting for nearly a quarter of total construction costs, the Rhine House is a classic example of ornate Victorian architecture with its many gables, turrets and ornaments.
The reflection of the window in my tasting glass :-)
Lovely grounds on the estate~
The ancient valley oak, affectionately named “The Leaning Oak,” well over 200 years old and a touchstone for the natural beauty of the property, sadly fell. The tree was designated a Bicentennial Tree because it was alive at the time of the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
I’m joining Jain with my Edible Book Review at Food for Thought, a delicious blog for readers with an appetite~ forthe written word. . .and food.
Rose-Ellen “Zell” Roy is a young widow that has been unable to move on with her life after her husband Nick dies tragically, during a post-Katrina relief mission in New Orleans. Zell, who works out of her home, is in seclusion from Nick’s well-meaning friends, with only her dog, Captain Ahab, and Gladys Knight & the Pips for company. A year after Nick’s death, Zell is still unable to enter her attic, full of memories or turn on her oven since cooking was Nick’s domain. When she learns of celebrity chef Polly Pinch’s first annual Desserts that Warm the Soul baking contest, with a $20,000 grand prize~ the exact amount Nick was hoping to raise for Katrina survivors, she decides fate has handed her a way to honor Nick’s memory.
Fate appears to intercede again when, motherless nine-year-old Ingrid Knox moves in next door. Ingrid spends her days when she’s not in school watching & worshipping Polly Pinch~ whose persona and face are everywhere, from cracker boxes to TV commercials. An unlikely camaraderie develops between Ingrid & Zell that has them brainstorming, bonding & baking together in an effort to win the Desserts that Warm the Soul contest. Toss in some kitchen disasters, some endearing, memorable characters, and a bit of chaos~ the end result is a story that satisfies the sweet tooth & warms the soul.
“I flick the oven light switch, but the bulb’s dead. All I can make out through the little window is a dark object on the top rack. It shouldn’t be there; that much I know. Maybe I was supposed to check for foreign objects before preheating.”
“An alarm screeches. A smoke alarm. A fire alarm. A saucy-wench-trying-to-bake alarm.”
“The object in the oven is officially on fire. Its azure and orange wings shoot up as if inflated, as if ready for takeoff.”
“In Chief Kent’s huge hands is the object from the oven: a charred box the size of a human head, apparently made of hard plastic. The cube is deformed from the heat. It looks like hardened lava coated with residue from the fire extinguisher. Its lid is sealed shut.”
Nick’s closest friend EJ, owns a Muffinry, who Zell has studiously avoided as he was on the trip with Nick when he died. EJ “The Muffin Man” Murtonen’s muffins are delicious, cakey, moist & huge. . .
“I knot Nick’s camouflage apron under my boobs, unable to remember the last time I wore a bra, or preheated the oven. That’s my widow style.”
In one of Nick’s emails to Zell, he mentions his love for muffalettas. . .
Zell begins her baking for the contest:
“Gladys Knight and the Pips: check. Camouflage apron: check. Empty oven preheated: check. Ahab leaning against the legs of a kitchen stool, winking his eye-patch: check.”
“The odors of smoke and fire extinguisher linger, but the room doesn’t look any different than it did before the fire, except maybe a bit cleaner, somehow.”
Ingrid imparts her nine-year-old wisdom and encourages Zell to have a back up plan:
“Stir, stir, stir. Slap some grease on a baking sheet. Drop heavy dough in haphazard columns. Set timer.”
“The timer dings: real time, real place. Still on the floor, I reach over and open the oven. Zell’s Banana Cocoa Milky Way Cookies form one giant gray spongy puff, like the brain of a large mammal. Some brain drips onto the floor of the oven and sizzles.”
“And I am neither a kitchen Nazi nor a televison chef with tight skin and perfect tanned boobs. I am Rose-Ellen Roy, nee Carmichael, the soggy omelet trying to win a twenty-thousand-dollar baking contest. If not with Flourless Peanut Butter Treats, if not with Oatmeal Brownie Upside-Down Cake, then with Something Else Outstanding.”
Snickerdoodle Sandwiches~ quick & easy, NOT from scratch :-) recipe here.
“Floury handprints smudge the cabinets. Sugar dots the counter. Brownish oatmeal sticks to the wall.”
“Inside the pan, the oatmeal mass shifts. A wet spray plops onto the counter.”
“I recount Flourless Peanut Butter Treats, Banana Cocoa Milky Way Cookies, Oatmeal Brownie Upside-Down Cake, and on and on. How every baking disaster made the lips purse, the tongue prickle, or the eyes water; left the mouth oversaturated or dry as dust, left the stomach too empty or too full, left the soul decidely unwarm.”
This was a fun read and while nothing has ever caught on fire in my oven (a few close calls with toast :-), I can SO relate. . .I tend to leave a trail of crumbs and flour in my wake, and leave my signature on every cabinet drawer, door, dishwasher & refrigerator handle. My husband shakes his head in disbelief. I am NOT tidy in the kitchen. I’d LIKE to think I have an excuse, to quote my friend Carolyn, “Creative minds are seldom tidy.” Sounds good anyway. . .
Just for fun:
Zell talks to her dog, Captain Ahab (so named due to his coloration that makes him appear to have an eye patch) in pirate-speak. My sister-in-law shared with me that if you have a Facebook page, just for fun, click on “English” at the bottom of the FB homepage, drop down and click on English (pirate). It will change everything to pirate-speak on the page. ‘Share’ becomes ‘Blabber t’ yer mates’; ‘What’s on your mind?’ becomes ‘What be troublin’ ye?’ If someone ‘likes’ something, it then becomes ‘be eyein’ this with pleasure’ and if someone makes a comment, you’ll be notified that they ‘wagged their scurvy tongue’ :-)
Yes, I am EASILY entertained. . .
Alicia Bessette has created a recipe for a heartwarming story served with humor and hope. With a little bit of flour and a pinch of love~ Zell learns that sometimes with life, you have to simply start from scratch (and it doesn’t hurt to have a fire extinguisher handy :-)
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~ forthe written word.
I. Heart. This. Book.
A Dog’s Purpose is told through the eyes of Toby, a pup born feral; reborn as Bailey, a boy’s beloved Golden Retriever; reborn as Ellie, a search & rescue German Shepherd, and finally as Buddy, a Black Lab. The lessons and memories of each life and incarnation are carried over to the next, until ultimately Buddy learns his true purpose. It does come with a warning though~ Publisher’s Weekly calls this “a tail-wagging three hanky boo-hooer”. I have to say the joyous parts far outweighed the sad, which made for a much happier tail :-) than The Art of Racing in the Rain for me.
I listened to the audio version from Audible, the narration which is done in first-person, or rather first-dog, was delightful. Told simply with the eternal optimism of a dog, there are many laugh-out-loud moments. The end result is a story that speaks of a dog’s capacity to love and protect. If you are a dog lover, you will lap this up.
I’m sharing my chalkware dog collection~ more shabby than chic~ and setting a table and joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday as part of this Edible Review. Since my canines are vintage, I’m joining Suzanne, Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday and visiting the alphabet courtesy Jenny Matlock.
A little dog & book love~ combined with some vintage & food fun :-)
My pack of dogs normally sit and stay (unlike my real life canines :-) on my bookshelves~ their purpose to keep my volumes company.
None of my chalkware dogs have a pedigree, which is more common than not for chalkware. Thought to have originated by the Pennsylvania Dutch in the mid 19th century, it was sold primarily as a less expensive version of the ceramic Staffordshire figurines that adorned the mantels of many middle and upper-class
homes. Chalkware reappeared during the great depression and was used as carnival game prizes and produced through the fifties, until this breakable plaster material was replaced with mass-produced stuffed animals. Chips, nicks, and breaks are common~ the flaking of paint and plaster on the surface is typical, and adds to their time-worn appearance that appeals to me.
Everything looks special under a cloche, so I gathered my various sized bell jars and served up my pack on plates purchased from Home Goods. Placemats & Napkins are reversible and came from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Most of the early figures were painted by hand. In the 1920s they began using the air brush, which produced good detail and resulted in much faster production with more pieces per hour at cheaper cost. Later, to further reduce costs, stencils were used so hourly wage earners could be employed, instead of experienced, air brush craftsmen.
This King Charles Spaniel is designed as an ashtray, popular for the time period, and is serving up dog cookies. Chloe & Gracie said this was their most favorite tablescape ever :-)
Food for Thought was fun~ seeking and finding the food passages like Ellie, the search & rescue German Shepherd :-)
As a feral pup in his first life, Toby and his brothers & sister forage for food, and find among other things, bits of cheese. . .
I couldn’t resist picking up this bottle since the Lab on the label matched the book jacket . . . I thought I’d pair the wine with dog-shaped cheese, and a crescent moon.
My King Charles Spaniel is standing in as a wine coaster. . .
Buddy finds himself feeling blue:
“I was a dog who had learned to live among and serve humans as my sole purpose in life. Now, cut off from them, I was adrift. I had no purpose, no destiny, no hope.”
Bits of doggy wisdom and observations from Bailey:
You can’t get a cat’s attention unless they choose to give it to you.
Dogs have important jobs, like barking when the doorbell rings, but cats have no function in the house whatsoever.
If you’re lucky, you get to go for car rides.
Cats are definitely no fun in the car.
Talking to a horse is a complete waste of time.
Sometimes we all break out in loud barking, for no reason other than the sheer joy of it.
Ducks are dumb creatures.
Bailey has the most food experiences and over the course of his life, has encounters with several farm animals~ a donkey, horse, ducks, and the bane of his existence~ cats.
White Chocolate Popcorn, recipe here, with animal crackers added for Bailey’s benefit :-)
Bailey’s start to a great day: sleeping in, eating toast crusts, licking eggs off the plate~
“People are vastly more complicated than dogs and served a much more important purpose. The job of a good dog was ultimately to be with them, remaining by their sides no matter what course their lives might take.”
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 found this book at Audible, searching for something to listen to that took place in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. I selected it primarily because it was narrated by Kate Fleming, known under the pseudonym of Anna Fields ~ one of my favorite narrators, who tragically died in 2006, and leaves a wealth of recordings. . .
This book chronicles twelve-year-old Emily Parmenter, in a coming of age story, who lives with her father and older brothers on Sweetwater Plantation. Walter Parmenter who “lived far back in his head, in the glory days of the family-oriented plantations”~ is consumed with raising the famous Sweetwater Boykin Spaniels, desired for their hunting abilities. Oblivious when it comes to his daughter, Emily is left to navigate her small comforting world of tidal creeks and magical dolphins, with her dog by her side. Grieving for the loss of her beloved older brother and still coming to terms with being abandoned by her mother, Emily turns to Sweetwater’s Boykins and discovers she has an uncanny ability to communicate and train them. When a Charleston society daughter, Lulu Foxworth~ beautiful but damaged, discovers Sweetwater Creek, and is invited to move in for the summer, Emily sees her a threat to her small safe world while Emily’s father sees Lulu ‘resting & relaxing’ at Sweetwater, as his ticket into Charleston society.
“In the Lowcountry of South Carolina, and only there in the world, a savage and beautiful ballet takes places twice a day. Usually in late summer and early fall, when the tidal creeks of the Lowcountry salt marshes are at their lowest, the fish and crabs who inhabit them cling nervously to the muddy banks, waiting for the tide to return and give them sanctuary in the tall spartina grass. Suddenly the dolphins come.”
“Pods of bottlenose dolphins, which have hunted these creeks and banks for generations and know every bend and mudflat, burst into the creek and begin to herd the fish, usually silver mullet, against the mudbanks. At a signal, perhaps a whistle or the echoing clicks from the out-riding scouts, the pods erupt, and with sonic blast and perfect herding tactics, run the schools of mullets into a tight ball against the shore. In a thrashing rush that defies human ken, they create a great wave that washes the bait fish out of the water and up onto the mudflats. The dolphins, riding their own wave, follow them out of the water onto the banks, where they gorge on them until they are gone. The dolphins themselves come completely out of the water, lying side by side in a tight row, always turned on their right sides, as synchronized as the Rockettes. These salt-sea creatures come twice a day for two or three months, always to their pods’ ancestral banks, and for a moment become completely creatures of earth and air. It is called strand feeding, and nobody really knows why or how it happens, only that it has probably happened this way since time out of mind. The waters they hunt are not fresh, but sweet in the way that only warm, salt-softened water can be. This story is set on the banks of one of these creeks, and in the fields and woods around it. As long as anyone can remember, this ribbon of tidal water has been called Sweetwater Creek.”
Walter worked hard to establish a reputation for Sweetwater Plantation’s fine Boykins descended from the original stock founded in Boykin, South Carolina:
“The little dog had touches of this and that in his ancestry: Chesapeake Bay retriever, American water spaniel, cocker and springer. It turned out that the new breed was naturally affectionate in the house and joyfully enthusiastic in the fields and marshes. His dense, curly coat protected him from icy waters, his autumn-brown color effectively camouflaged him, and his stub of a tail did not disturb undergrowth and give away the position of the blind-hidden boats. He was equally at home flushing small waterfowl and upland birds: doves, turkeys, and ducks. He was even proficient at flushing deer. By the time Walter Parmenter met the Boykin Spaniel, the dog had become a favorite with sportsmen up and down the eastern seaboard.”
I had no idea when I selected this book that food would be is as prolific and as descriptive as the scenery of the Lowcountry~ the drool factor is HIGH in this book: turkey, corn bread and oyster dressing, pecan pies…fried chicken, collards, cornbread…crabcakes, shrimp & rice, shrimp & grits…beef tenderloin & benne biscuits…brown oyster stew & scalloped oysters…broiled quail & rosy sliced duck breast… And food is not just mentioned like menu items, Siddons SERVES them with the Foxworths’ heirloom silver~ slender stalks of white asparagus are “dripping velvety gold sauce”… breakfast consists of “crisp & airy” peach waffles & “cinnamon-walloped” sweet rolls; eggs are scrambled “endlessly high and golden” served along with “steaming” Sally Lunn doused in ribbon cane syrup ( I had to google, you can read here if Sally Lunn is foreign to you like it was to me :-) Food was SO abundant it hard to choose. . .
Since Boykin Spaniels figure so prominently in this story, I looked for a food to illustrate them, so I chose Cheese Straws.
‘The dog that won’t rock the boat,’ was the dog’s unofficial slogan.
Cheddar Cheese Straws, recipe here~ really easy & good, dog cookie cutter not required :-)
Emily picks out a puppy from the litter on her tenth birthday~ the runt of the litter at only three weeks old, who clumsily sits down on Emily’s foot~ it’s love at first sight. Her older brothers’ snide comments that he was “no hunting spaniel” and more of a hound dog, prompts Emily to name her puppy Elvis :-) Elvis become Emily’s constant companion and confidant.
“Off in the marsh and on to the hummock, live oaks spilled curtains of silvery moss onto the high grass, and the resurrection ferns burned primal green. At the marshes’ edges the spartina danced in a light wind that smelled so densely of the ocean, fishy river and the sea far beyond it that you could get drunk on it. A hundred bird songs haunted the shimmering air. Over it all arched the great tender, washed-blue skies of spring.”
“The marsh was almost totally green now, and alive with its teeming, gliding, scuttling, splashing denizens, and the smaller creeks cutting it ran full. It was nearly high tide. Behind Emily’s closed eyelids the sun made red whorls and pinwheels, and was tender on her face.”
“People who live beside moving water have been given the gift of living light, and even if they never come to recognize it as such, any other light, no matter how clear and brilliant, is pale and static to them, leaving them with a sense of loss, of vulnerability, as if they have suddenly found themselves without clothes.”
“It was a Saturday afternoon, and for once the Lowcountry was behaving as it did in the dreams of people who had left it a long time before but never stopped aching for it. The air was soft and sweet with the scent of flowers both close by and borne in from faraway by the river wind. It was cool in the deep shade of the front porch, and not really hot when you went out onto the lawn and down to the river or back toward the kennels and barn. The sucking humidity had lifted temporarily and the sky and reflecting river were so blue they almost hurt the eye. The wind that lifted with the incoming tide made the river, running full, glitter and dance, and off on the faraway hummocks, and even to the woodland beyond, you could see the sharp details of palmettos and soft webs of moss and resurrection ferns, the shivering of the small live oak leaves, the ink black trunks of the forest trees.”
“Every citizen of the water and marsh and sky seemed to put in a courtesy appearance for the Foxworths: mullet jumped in the river, shrimps popped, turtles splashed into the water from the mossy banks, ospreys dived and wheeled in the blue vault of the sky, and even the young eagle who lived across the river, on the edge of wood, swept by, casting a prehistoric shadow. Off the hummocks the ensigns of the white-tailed deer flashed in the deep shadows, and from Sweetwater Creek, the roar of the big bull alligator drifted across the peninsula.”
The Parmenters’ housekeeper, Cleta provides a safe-haven for Emily and makes a Coca-Cola cake. . .
I used the Chocolate Coca-Cola Cake Recipe, here and the icing recipe for the cake below.
Coca-Cola Cake Icing
6 tablespoons Coca-Cola®
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I used dark)
1/2 cup butter
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt butter in saucepan and add cocoa and Coca-Cola. Remove from heat and stir in confectioners’ sugar, chopped nuts, and vanilla. Top cake while hot.
Lulu takes Emily into Charleston:
“They rattled over the cobbles and bricks of the old neighborhoods south of Broad, and Emily could look up at the narrow, beautiful old single houses lining the streets, the colors of soft heat…”
“They drove down yet another street lined with live oaks and palmettos and tall old dowager houses, and Lulu slowed and stopped before the largest of them. It was massive and beautiful, with slender columns. It sat amid smaller but equally graceful outbuildings, like a mother hen with chicks. The faultless green lawn was encircled with a handsome wrought-iron fence…”
Lulu gradually begins to prepare meals for the Parmenters cooking from her great-grandmother’s ‘receipt’ book and prepares among other things, a shrimp pie.
I found a recipe here, for shrimp pies that gave me an excuse to play with my new Williams-Sonoma pocket pie mold :-)
“Each day was so perfect that it seemed there could never be another one, and then there was. The great seas of spartina sweeping away to the line of dark trees at the horizon, ordinarily the color of an old lion’s hide, were still as green in the beneficent sun as the little emerald lizards of the Lowcountry. They rippled gently in the small tidal winds off the sea, smelling of warm salt and sea grapes and flowers from unknown faraway shores. The skies were a tender, cloudless blue, almost indigo at noon, and the small citizens of the marsh and river and creek lingered, splashing and swishing and chirping and rustling. None seemed in a hurry to settle down. The creek banks and low lying branches of the live oaks were festooned with big, drowsy snakes and turtles; whitetails whisked I the far-off hummocks, wood ibises and wood storks and ospreys and an occasional eagle circled lazily, riding the warm thermals. Only the dolphins were gone, cleaving more firmly to their internal imperative than the lure of the still-rich creek water.”
Overall I enjoyed this book, despite the fact that there was a section that was VERY disturbing and I felt, unnecessary. I found the combination of the joy of dolphins, the details of raising & living with dogs, the setting and imagery of the Lowcountry, irresistible. Anna Fields’ audio performance, and ability to “giving herself over to the page” was icing on the coca-cola cake :-) and elevated a 3* read to a 4* listen for me.
