Snapshot Saturday 11/17

At Home with Books hosts Saturday Snapshot.

We are seeing a last burst of fall color here, as the late bloomers light up the neighborhood with bright yellows, reds, and oranges.  This is my favorite tree in the neighborhood, a giant maple that is one of the last ones to change color in the fall:

I smile everytime I drive by this tree.  I will be sorry to see the last of the fall colors disappear in a few weeks.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.

It's Monday 11/12! What Are You Reading?

It was a long, tiring week but a lot of fun!  After voting Tuesday morning, I drove to Connecticut to take care of my mom.  She had hip surgery three weeks ago and still can't do much for herself.  So, I was there to help, but it was also the first time she and I have had so much time alone together since...well, since my kids were born!  We watched movies, read, talked for hours, and ate some delicious food together (see my Weekend Cooking post).  We really enjoyed each other's company, in spite of the crazy weather last week.

I came home to a busy catch-up weekend, planning meals, getting groceries, picking up the house, etc.  Yesterday we had friends over for dinner.  More fun, but today is definitely a recovery day.

Despite the very busy week, I squeezed in some reading time:

• I am still working my way through Middlemarch by George Eliot.  Whew, it is slow going!  This classic novel is growing on me, and I am enjoying it, but I'm only on page 177 (of 799!!).  Not likely I will finish in time for my book group meeting on Thursday.  Yesterday, I began listening to it on audio when I am not able to read (free audio versions of classic books are available at LibriVox).
• All that driving time gave me lots of opportunity to listen to audio books!  I finished The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, a middle-grade novel about a girl in 1960 Louisiana who goes back in time to meet her own ancestors in pre-War 1860.  I loved this book, and its historical details were fascinating - it made the miles fly by!
• On the way home, I started The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg, a middle-grade novel.  It's good so far but different than I expected, using a 6th grade academic quiz bowl as the foundation to delve into the lives of four very different students.
• My husband, Ken, is reading Everfound by Neal Schusterman, a teen/YA supernatural novel that I recently finished and reviewed.
• Jamie, 18, doesn't have a lot of time for reading in college, but he is making his way through City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare for the 3rd time!

With such a busy week, I only had time to write one review, of The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka which my book group loved. And I posted my weekly Weekend Cooking summary.

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kids/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)

Weekend Cooking 11/11

 Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking.  This is perfect for me since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!

It was an unusual cooking week for me - and lots of fun!  I drove to Connecticut to take care of my mom.  She had hip surgery three weeks ago and can not yet do much for herself.  We enjoyed watching movies and chatting, but I was also excited to cook for her because she and I like the same kinds of foods.  Also, it gave me an opportunity to cook some more exotic type dishes that my kids probably wouldn't like!

My mom is a partial vegetarian (she eats fish, seafood, and poultry), so we added that criteria to my restrictions of no dairy and limited gluten.  No problem.  As is typical, all of the recipes came from Cooking Light, and we had some delicious meals!

The first night I was there, I went for a super quick and easy old favorite that I have made several times before for my husband or friends when the kids aren't around (they're not too fond of either asparagus or coconut milk), Spicy Thai Coconut Shrimp.  This goes together in about 15 minutes and is sooo tasty!  My mom loved it so much that she told her visiting physical therapist about it, and she took the recipe home and made it that night!

Wednesday I had to get groceries before the (snow!) storm hit, so I went with another simple recipe, Miso-Glazed Salmon with Wilted Spinach.  You can see from the photo here that I over-wilted the spinach a bit, but it was still delicious!  On the side, I made a simple salad with all of my favorite ingredients:  Bibb lettuce with ripe pear sliced on top, dried cranberries, a sprinkle of blue cheese, and sugar-spiced pecans, with a balsamic vinagrette (I used Newman's Own light).  The pecans are also very simple:

• Heat a small frying pan or sauce pan over medium-high heat and spray with cooking spray.
• Add halved pecans (it only takes a tablespoon or two for each serving).
• Sprinkle with a half teaspoon of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper and stir constantly to prevent burning.
• When pecans are toasted but not burned (watch carefully!), add to salad.

Both the main course and the salad were yummy!

I went all out on my last night there.  My mom and I both love Indian food, but I have found eating in an Indian restaurant upsets my stomach severely since I became dairy-intolerant because they usually add yogurt and/or cream to many of their dishes.  So, instead of take-out, I made our own dairy-free Indian dinner.  I made Red Dal and served it with brown Basmati rice (a favorite from Trader Joe's) with peas.  Although it isn't actually Indian, I also made Curried Cauliflower with Capers.  We both loved it!  I had never roasted cauliflower before; it was delicious, and I will definitely make it again here at home.  I wish I had taken a picture of the meal, but I was too excited to eat it and forgot!

So, those were my culinary adventures for this week!  Back at home, I returned to more basic cooking: grilled pork chops with roasted butternut squash, my son's favorite pasta dish.  We are having friends over for dinner tonight and keeping it very simple to save my energy for socializing - make-your-own soft tacos/burritos.  We will just grill some chicken breasts, slice them up and set those out with tortillas and a variety of other fillings like lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, refried beans, gaucamole, etc.  It's a great, easy meal for a crowd (especially one with a wide variety of food intolerances like tonight's group!).

Hope you also enjoyed some great food and cooking this week!

Saturday Snapshot 11/10

At Home with Books hosts Saturday Snapshot.

It has been a week of contrasts!

I drove to Connecticut on Tuesday to help take care of my mom who had hip surgery three weeks ago.  She and I had a wonderful week together (check back tomorrow for Weekend Cooking to see all the great food we cooked and ate), but the weather's been crazy!

The nor'easter that hit Wednesday brought lots of wet snow that looked beautiful Thursday morning (since we could admire it out the window and didn't have to go anywhere!)

The storm brought snow to CT.

By Friday morning when I drove home, the roads were clear and so was the lovely blue sky.  Though the trees near NYC were mostly bare already, just 100 miles further south, I admired the colors remaining in the trees along the southern end of the NJ Turnpike.

The last of the fall colors along the NJ Turnpike.

And now it's supposed to be in the 60's this weekend in Delaware and above 70 by Monday!  We've had a taste of 3 different seasons all in one week.

Hope you are enjoying this lovely weather this weekend.

Fiction Review: The Buddha in the Attic

My neighborhood book group met recently to discuss The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka, a tiny but powerful novel about the experience of Japanese girls who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900’s as “picture brides.”  We gave the book one of our highest ratings ever, since every single person enjoyed it (a rare occurrence!).

Otsuka’s unusual novel tells the story of an entire  - though diverse - group of women who all traveled by ship from Japan to the United States in the early part of the century toward an unknown future, knowing nothing about their waiting husbands except for a single photo or letter they had received.  The author uses a very unusual technique, writing the entire story from a plural first-person, as shown in this first paragraph:

On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we’d been wearing for years – faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a brother or a father to the sea, or a fiancé, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and now it was time for us, too, to move on.

You can see that, in addition to the use of the pronoun “we” throughout the novel, she also writes in a very spare, almost poetic prose that helps to tell the stories of an entire generation of women in a scant 129 pages.  The novel follows the women from their arrival in California to their dispersal to a wide variety of husbands and through the next twenty years, until the bombing of Pearl Harbor when they were all rushed off to internment camps where their entire culture and population disappeared from the west coast for several years.

The women were dispersed into a wide range of situations with their new husbands: some as very poor migrant farmers who were even worse off here than they’d been in Japan, some as domestic servants to wealthy white people, and some as small business owners in large cities.  The novel follows the arc of their lives, through the difficult adjustment to a new culture (some never did adjust), through the early years of marriage (where some found love and some found misery) and the later years of raising children while still working in the fields or the house or the noodle shop or the cleaners.

The author very skillfully shows the common threads of experience through all of these disparate stories, and my book group was all fascinated by the unique perspective.  It’s a population none of us knew much about, and we were intrigued to learn how similar some of their experiences in this new world were one to another and to other immigrant populations, despite their very different circumstances.  My only minor complaint was that the book felt like it ended abruptly to me, and I would have liked to know more about these women’s lives in the camps and after the war.  However, I think, again, that this was an intentional and very clever choice on the part of the author, to show with that abrupt ending how an entire group of people suddenly disappeared from our culture and how the camps served as the end of an era for an entire immigrant population. All in all, we agreed that this very unique and powerful novel was well-written and engaging – highly recommended.

129 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

 

It's Monday 11/5! What Are You Reading?

Wow, what a week we had last week!  We were stuck in the house, with school cancelled, for several days due to Hurricane Sandy (though we suffered no damage), then we had Halloween.  Life finally began to return to normal on Thursday and then it was the weekend!  So, I didn't get much work done; I am way behind on reviews!

However, the storm gave us lots of time for Spooky Halloween Reading!  I was almost wishing we lost power for a few hours so the kids would have to set aside the video games and TV and read, but we didn't and they didn't!  Here's what we read last week:

• I finished Everfound by Neal Schusterman at the beginning of the week.  I loved this exciting conclusion to the imaginative teen/YA Skinjacking trilogy...and I even made sure to post a review right away, in time for Halloween!
• Next, I read a fabulously creepy book, Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian.  This one exceeded my expectations with edge-of-your-seat suspense that kept me reading much later than I should have every single night with a mixture of both supernatural thrills and too-real human-type chills.  I just finished it yesterday, so I will post a review this week.
• And now, I have FINALLY started Middlemarch by George Eliot, the November selection for one of my book groups.  The problem?  We meet on November 15, and there is no way I can finish its 800 pages of densely-packed print in time!  I just couldn't bear to set Night Strangers aside...
• My husband, Ken, took full advantage of being stuck inside by the storm and zipped through the hefty The Twelve by Justin Cronin in a mere week!  I can't wait to read this long-awaited sequel to The Passage!
• Now Ken is reading Everfound by Neal Schusterman - we just pass books around in our house until everyone has read them!
• Jamie, 18, came home for the storm (college was closed for several days) but forgot City of Ashes, book #2 in Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series (which he is re-reading) in his dorm room.  Despite piles of new books all over the house, he refused to start anything else and instead played video games with his brother!

I posted just one review last week, of Everfound, a teen/YA novel by Neal Schusterman.  I also wrote some fun posts: my October Book Summary and a new Weekend Cooking post.

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kids/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)

Our son and his friend dressed as old men for Halloween, so Ken and I dressed as toddlers!

Weekend Cooking 11/4

Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking.  I started to participate two weeks ago, since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!

My meal planning was a bit different this week because our CSA season is over which means I am no longer planning meals around whatever fresh veggies I pick up at the farm on Monday.  So, I went with some old favorites and easy stuff.

Once the roads re-opened after Hurricane Sandy, my son's friend was finally able to go home, and we were back to just the four of us (my college son was home for an extended time since there were no classes for 3 days).  I made an old favorite we all love, Chipotle Tamale Pie, another Cooking Light recipe that I turn to again and again.  I just subbed coconut milk for 1% milk and gluten-free flour for regular flour.  Yum!

The next night was Halloween, and I wasn't sure if we'd have 3 people for dinner or 6 (my son had invited friends over but wasn't sure who could make it), so I made a big batch of Pork Fried Rice, using my own recipe.  It's really easy and very flexible:

You just stir fry thin strips of pork (or chicken), then remove them from the pan.  Stir fry a bunch of veggies - I usually use bok choy (I had some baby bok choy left from the farm), scallions, mushrooms, and frozen peas.  Make a space in the center of the stir fry pan and scramble 2-3 eggs (I mix in a teaspoon or so of sesame oil).  When the eggs are cooked, add the meat back in, stir it all together, add in cooked, cooled rice (we use brown rice), and season to taste with soy sauce and ground pepper.  Very tasty and great for left-overs.

By then, we were getting down to the bottom of the veggie bin (still hadn't been shopping since before the storm), but I managed to scrape together enough ingredients for a basic Chicken Stew.  I thought I'd add in some dumplings as a special treat for my husband and son, but they turned out like little concrete balls!  ha ha  I have been baking gluten-free for several months now, and I guess the whole wheat baking mix in the cupboard might have been a bit old.  The stew was still good, though!

Friday night, my son talked me into putting the pork chops back in the freezer and ordering Chinese take-out - it didn't take much convincing!

And I made a double batch of Traditional Chili yesterday to take to a friend's house for a potluck.  I got the recipe from my college roommate's mom - it's been scribbled in the back of a notebook since 1985!  It's a very basic, traditional chili, but it's still my family's favorite.  I am looking forward to having some left-overs for lunch today!

And tonight, I am making Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo, another of our favorite recipes that I created based on our years in Louisiana.  That one hasn't been published, though, so I don't have a link.  Hmmm....maybe I should start reprinting some of my recipes here each weekend.  And I definitely need to start taking some photos when I cook.  This is fun!

Hope you have had a great week and a weekend filled with good food!

Saturday Snapshot 11/3

At Home with Books hosts Saturday Snapshot.

Well, last week's Saturday Snapshot was the pre-hurricane view, as we prepared for the superstorm, so I figured I should show a post-hurricane view.  My husband and I took a walk around our neighborhood on Monday, after most of the storm had passed and were surprised to find no damage at all!  The only obvious effects of the storm here (where, unbelievably, the storm center passed through) were some leaves down, as predicted, but even then, some trees still have plenty of leaves left:

Hurricane Sandy dumped a lot of leaves on the ground but still left some in the trees.

And, although I feared that the storm would remove all of our fall color, it turned out that it just transferred it from the trees to the ground:

A rainbow of color was left on the ground after the storm.

We were even able to enjoy a fun Halloween:

Happy Halloween 2012!

 We were very, very fortunate not to suffer any damage from this horrible storm - we never even lost power - and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who are still suffering.

Books Read in October

I hope you had a Happy Halloween and haven't been too badly affected by the storm.  Its center came right through our area, but we were fortunate not to lose power or sustain any damage at all.  So, we were able to enjoy a fun Halloween yesterday.  I thought I'd try being proactive for once and not procrastinating on my month-end summary until it is almost the next month!


It was a very good reading month for me, with a great variety of good books read, including several Spooky Halloween Reads.  I don't usually "theme read" like that, but I really enjoyed it.  Here's what I finished in October:

• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for Banned Book Week (started in September!)
• Rule Number Two, a memoir by Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft, read for my library's book discussion
• Young Fredle, a middle-grade audio book by Cynthia Voight
• Magisterium, a magical teen/YA novel by Jeff Hirsch
• The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka, a novel for my neighborhood book group
• Everfound by Neal Schusterman, the conclusion to the Skinjacker trilogy that began with Everlost.

See?  A nice variety - several teen/YA novels, a middle-grade novel, a memoir, and a grown-up novel.  I enjoyed them all, but I guess Everfound was probably my top pick for the month (Schusterman is a favorite author!), though Young Fredle is a close second.  Ooh, and I see I am really behind on reviews of grown-up books; I was sick much of this month, so I hope to catch up on those soon.

I made a little progress on my 2012 Reading Challenges this month.  I only added one location to my my 2012 Where Are You Reading Challenge: Rule Number Two takes place in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, The Chocolate War and Young Fredle both take place in unspecified states, and I had already checked off the states for the other books I read.  So, with only 2 months to go in the year, I have read books set in 22 states and 6 countries (with plenty of duplicates).

Magisterium brings my total of dystopian novels read this year up to seven!  The Hunger Games has obviously created a trend in teen publishing!  I didn't read a single book from my TBR shelves this month (very bad!) but got my books from the library and new releases from publishers.  I added 1 memoir to my Memorable Memoirs Challenge.

What books did you most enjoy in October?

It's Monday 10/29! What Are You Reading?

An unusual Monday here, as we wait out Hurricane Sandy aka Frankenstorm.  It is a HUGE storm, with another storm front coming down from the north to meet it, and it is heading straight for us in northern Delaware.  We are a bit inland so don't have to worry about coastal flooding, but the heavy rain and high winds are supposed to last for a few days, at least.  Roads are closed.  Schools were closed for Monday and Tuesday back on Saturday, so we have both kids at home (plus an extra one!).

On the plus side, if we lose power, I will have an excuse for more reading time!  Here's what we have been reading here:

• I spent the week engrossed in a spooky read by one of my favorite teen/YA authors: Everfound by Neal Schusterman, the conclusion to the Skinjacking trilogy that started with Everlost, about kids caught in a sort of limbo (aka Everlost) in between the worlds of the living and the dead.  Our whole family has loved this series, and the final book is just as good - I just have a few pages to go!
• Next up for today is another Halloween read, Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian.
• I am really enjoying the audio book, The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, about a girl in 1960's Louisiana who time travels back 100 years.  It is excellent so far, though I won't be listening much with the whole family stuck on the house with me this week!
• My husband, Ken, finished In the Woods by Tana French, and wants to read more of her novels.
• Next, he read another Neal Schusterman teen/YA novel, Unwholly, the sequel to Unwind, another spooky novel that we all loved!  It's a dystopian series about a future world where parents can choose to "unwind" their children between ages 13 and 18 (but it is considered ethically acceptable because every bit of them is used and transplanted).  Yeah, very creepy!  The first book was about a few teens who managed to escape on their way to being unwound.  Can't wait to read this one - Ken said it was great!
• Last night, Ken started The Twelve by Justin Cronin, sequel to The Passage.  Both of us are excited to read this one!
• Jamie, 18, finished City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (for the 3rd time!), but he left book #2 in his dorm room when he came home for the storm!  So, he will have to switch to another series while he is here - that shouldn't be a problem as we just received a bunch of teen/YA books from a publisher.

I didn't write or post much last week because I was sick all week, but I managed two posts late in the week: some exciting news on the adaptation of The Book Thief for stage and screen and a Weekend Cooking Post.

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kids/teen version hosted at Teach Mentor Texts.)

Weekend Cooking 10/27

Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking.  I started to participate two weeks ago, since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!

It was another sick week here - everyone else was doing better and back to school, but I was in pretty bad shape all week.  So, I stuck to mostly easy cooking and old favorites.  Looking back, I see that we had kind of a maple syrup theme going on!

This was our last weekly pick-up of fresh veggies from our local CSA farm on Monday this week - so sad to see the local growing season end!  So, I did try to incorporate our farm-fresh veggies into our meals this week.

We got some gorgeous Brussels sprouts still on the stalk.  My husband and I love them, but my son doesn't, so I prepared them with bacon and maple syrup (and onion) - I figure you can cook just about anything with bacon and maple syrup and it'll be good, right?  My husband and I loved them, but my son was still not impressed!  With it, I made an old favorite, Maple-Glazed Salmon, my family's favorite salmon recipe (yes, more maple syrup!).

Another night, I roasted a whole chicken (I stuff it with cut-up lemons and cloves of garlic) and prepared another delicious farm-fresh veggie with it: rutabaga (what they called swede in the UK).  I have never cooked or eaten rutabaga before, so I figured I better go with another kid-friendly preparation - yes, you guessed it! - Maple-Glazed Rutabaga.  I also chopped up some carrot and Yukon Gold potatoes to give it more kid appeal.  I absolutely loved it - roasting it caramelized the maple syrup, leaving a yummy glaze on all the veggies.  My husband and son weren't quite as impressed but they ate it.  More for me!

I used the left-over chicken to make Arroz con Pollo, one of my own recipes, and another easy family favorite.

Now, we are hunkering down for Hurricane Sandy aka Frankenstorm which should be starting to reach our area this afternoon.  School has already been cancelled for Monday and Tuesday, so college son is home for the duration (and we may pick up some extra kids along the way today!)  So, tonight I am planning to make a big triple batch of Red Beans and Rice, a very old favorite of ours from our time in New Orleans.  I created this recipe based on a bunch of authentic recipes from Louisiana, lightening it a bit and making it a shorter preparation for busy weeknights.  When my son left for a local college, he said, "Mom, make sure you let me know anytime you make red beans and rice, so I can come home for dinner!"

Hope you are all safe from the storm and enjoying some good weekend cooking of your own!

Saturday Snapshot 10/27

At Home with Books hosts Saturday Snapshot.

Well, the weekend here in the mid-Atlantic is all about preparing for Hurricane Sandy aka Frankenstorm.  The schools - and even my older son's college - have already cancelled classes for Monday, and our phone has been ringing constantly, with messages from the power company, the high school, the college, etc. warning us about the size and severity of this storm.  I'm sure we will be fine here where we are - not too close to the coast and on high ground - but this one sounds like it will be a rough one.

Our neighborhood and back yard have finally been transformed by gorgeous fall colors...and I realized this morning, that all those beautiful leaves will be on the ground by Monday!  So, I will enjoy it while I can...and hope that the storm is fully past by Halloween!

A rainbow of fall colors in our backyard - need to enjoy it while it lasts!

It's Monday 10/22! What Are You Reading?

Ah...Monday morning...quiet house.  I've had kind of a rough week here.  My college son was home sick much of last week, then I caught his cold.  Even a simple virus like this triggers a severe flare-up of our chronic illness (an immune disorder), so it's a double-whammy.  On the plus side, I've had a little more time for reading than usual!  Here's what we read last week:

• I finished my first spooky read for the month, the teen/YA novel Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch, which combines a post-apocalyptic/dystopian setting with a magical plot.  Its engrossing suspense was a great distraction from how I was feeling!
• Last night, I finished my neighborhood book group's selection for this week's meeting: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka.  It is a unique novel, written from the perspective of a group of women, rather than individual characters, about so-called picture brides who immigrated to the United States from Japan in the early 1900's, following them for the next 20 years.  It should be fodder for some excellent discussions Wednesday evening!
• I started a new audio book, The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, a middle-grade novel about a young girl in Louisiana in 1960 who is transported back in time to 1860.  It is excellent and engaging so far!
• My husband, Ken, is reading In the Woods by Tana French and enjoying it very much.  He says it is a good mystery with plenty of suspense but also very well-written.
• Jamie, 18, was home sick from college for 4 days this week.  After catching up on all his favorite TV shows in the first 2 days, he picked up a book and remembered how much he has missed reading since he started college!  He read Relic Master (The Dark City #1) by Catherine Fisher and loved it (Fisher's Incarceron was a family favorite here).
• City of Lost Souls, Book Five of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, arrived at our house last week while Jamie was home sick.  Since this is one of his favorite series, Jamie decided to re-read the entire series...for the third time!  So, he is currently reading Book 1, City of Bones, though he is back at school with plenty of make-up work, so I don't know how much reading time he has!

I posted two new reviews last week: Caleb's Crossing, a wonderful historical novel by the talented Geraldine Brooks and Magisterium, a great spooky teen/YA novel by Jeff Hirsch. I also posted my plans for Spooky Halloween Reads this month, and another Weekend Cooking post yesterday.

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kids/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)

Weekend Cooking 10/21

Each weekend, Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking.  I started to participate last week, since I love food and cooking almost as much as I love books!

We got another lovely variety of veggies from our local CSA farm on Monday.  But, with my husband out of town most of the week, and my college-age son home sick, I mostly stuck with old favorites this week rather than experimenting with things like kale or eggplant!  My son, Jamie, said that he enjoyed all the home cooking while he was recuperating.

Well, I did sneak some broccoli rabe in early this week, but I knew everyone would enjoy this soup because I made it last year. I mentioned last week that many of my recipes come from Cooking Light magazine, but this one is a rare exception, from Rachel Ray's magazine.  I don't use a lot of Rachel Ray recipes (far too much cheese, pasta, and bread for someone on a restricted diet!), but this one for Rabe and White Bean Stoup is a favorite at our house.  Jamie loved it, and said the soups at school suck!  I subbed a gluten-free pasta and cooked it separately so it wouldn't get mushy which worked out very well.

In another effort to provide comfort food this week, I baked the boys a small ham and served it with cauliflower from the farm and a sweet potato casserole (we have LOTS of sweet potatoes from the farm).  It's funny - my sons say they don't like sweet potatoes if I just bake them or even make sweet potato fries, but they love this recipe (from Cooking Light, of course)!  I substituted coconut milk for the milk and gluten-free flour for the flour, and it was delicious.  We had the left-overs the next night.

We also got turnips and cabbage from the farm this week, so tonight we are having an old family favorite:  New England Boiled Dinner, a Cooking Light recipe so old (from 1995) that it isn't available online!  It's a basic corned beef and boiled veggies dinner, only at the end, you remove the corned beef, coat with with real maple syrup and finish it in the oven which gives it a nice sweet glaze on top.  We often only have this once a year, on St. Patty's Day, so this will be a treat tonight!

Oh, and we also treated ourselves this morning...to homemade donuts and fresh cider from our favorite pumpkin farm.  These donuts are amazing - the highlight of the season for us!

What are you cooking this week?

Saturday Snapshot 10/20

At Home with Books hosts Saturday Snapshot.

Another crazy week here.  Our younger son finally got back to school Monday after his knee surgery three weeks ago...but our older son came home from college sick on Sunday and spent a few days resting at home.  Now, he is back at school, still coughing a bit but feeling better, but my husband, younger son, and I now all have the same sore throat and congestion that started this whole thing for our college son.  It could be a rough weekend here!

I didn't get outside as much as I wanted to this week, but it is finally looking like fall here, my favorite time of the year!  I love the way the late afternoon sunlight filters through the red and yellow leaves in our backyard:

And we are finally starting to see a few leaves drop, too:

 

 Hope you are enjoying this lovely fall weekend!

Fiction Review: Caleb’s Crossing

I have loved every single novel that Geraldine Brooks has written, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning March to Year of Wonders and the brilliant The People of the Book.  Her latest novel, Caleb’s Crossing, is no exception.  She takes her usual approach of starting with historical facts and building a fictional story to fill in the blanks, and the result is just as engrossing as her previous novels.

The amazing bit of truth that Brooks starts with in this case is that Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in 1665, one of only 465 graduates in the entire seventeenth century.  Caleb (his English name) was born in 1646 among the Wôpanâak people on the small island that we now call Martha’s Vineyard, which was purchased by a Puritan businessman named Thomas Mayhew in 1641.

From there, Brooks uses her imagination to recreate Caleb’s adolescence and the circumstances that led to his attending and graduating from Harvard.  The narrator of the novel is Bethia, granddaughter of the buyer of the island, who meets Caleb when she is twelve years old.  The two become fast friends and learn a lot from each other but keep their forbidden friendship secret from their families.

Bethia is a spirited young girl, eager to read and learn but stymied by the mores of that time that dictated that only young men were educated beyond the basics women needed to know to run their households.  Here, Bethia’s loving father addresses her yearning for knowledge:

“Bethia, why do you strive so hard to quit the place in which God has set you?” His voice was gentle not angry.  “Your path is not your brother’s, it cannot be.  Women are not made like men. You risk addling your brain by thinking on scholarly matters that need not concern you. I care only for your present health and your future happiness. It is not seemly for a wife to know more than her husband…”

(I know, can you believe it?  It’s a good thing I wasn’t born in the 1600’s – my brain definitely would have been addled!)

Her father, the local minister, believes that the new white settlers should live peaceably and fairly with the Native Americans on the island (though of course, he wants to convert them to Christianity), but not everyone on the island agrees with him.  Conflicts with Caleb’s people lead to he and Bethia being separated for a period of time, though they are reunited as young adults (still not letting on that they knew each other before).

Bethia and Caleb – and their families – are fully drawn, likable characters, and the novel follows the joys and sorrows of both their lives.  And there are plenty of sorrows here – it is, after all, the seventeenth century, with all of its inherent dangers and lack of modern conveniences.  However, I never found the book depressing or maudlin, probably because the story is told from Bethia’s diary, and she is a remarkable, optimistic young woman who is capable of surmounting many challenges.  The story and the characters pulled me fully into their world, and I never wanted it to end.  Everyone in my book club enjoyed it, too.

300 pages, Viking

Penguin Audio

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Spooky Halloween Reads!

One of my favorite book blogs, Girl xoxo written by Tanya, is featuring A Month of Monstrosities for October.  Here's her latest update on her spooky reads this month.  While I'm not all that into vampires and werewolves and zombies, I did think it was a great idea to do some theme reading this month and dive into some spooky reads!

BookPage had more ideas with their list of Top Ten Must-Read Thrillers.  All of these sound enticing!  I just got my husband The Twelve (sequel to The Passage) by Justin Cronin, Into the Woods by Tana French, and Defending Jacob by William Landay.  I can't wait to read all of these thrillers, but I suppose it's only fair to let him read his birthday gifts first!

So, though I've been focused on reading a few books for book groups, I am moving onto some spooky Halloween reads starting this week:

• Today, I finished Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch, a unique dystopian novel with a (dark) magical twist.
• I just picked up Chris Bohjalian's Night Strangers from the library today.  This spooky novel was last Halloween's favorite creepy read, so I am looking forward to it.
• And a long-overdue shipment of kid/teen review books arrived today from Simon & Schuster, including two from Neal Schusterman (a family favorite) - Everfound, the final book in the Skinjacker trilogy and The Dark Side of Nowhere (just the title sounds spooky, doesn't it?).  Plus, I have a stack of older review books waiting to be read, but I think Everfound may win as my next teen Halloween read because I love this trilogy...and what's more appropriate for this month than a good ghost story?

So, that's what I have planned to celebrate Halloween reading-style.  How about you?  Are you planning to read any spooky, creepy selections this month?

If you need more ideas, check out my past Top Ten Halloween Reads list and my Top Ten Kids/Teen/YA Books for Halloween list. 

It's Monday 10/15! What Are You Reading?

Monday already?  Wow, where did the weekend go?  Mine was filled with a lot of work (and cooking) and not much fun or relaxing.  I saw lots of blogs participated in a read-a-thon this weekend.  I've never tried one, but it sounds like a wonderful idea!  Might have to wait until the kids have moved out, though!

After 3 solid weeks of pain and exhaustion following his knee surgery, my youngest son finally returned to school today (I know I said he went back LAST Monday, but that only lasted one day!) - hurray!  However, my oldest son is home from college and in bad shape now!  Looks like he has one of the many viruses floating around at school which has triggered a bad flare-up of his chronic illness.  So, he came home for his usual Sunday visit but felt so bad that he decided to stay (still sleeping - shhh!).

Someday I will be alone again for an hour or two...

In the meantime, as always, books provide a mini escape!  Here's what we've been reading this week:

• I finished Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital by Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft just in time for my library's book discussion on Wednesday.  It is a fascinating and engrossing memoir about a young mother's experiences serving as a Navy Psychologist for a group of Marines in Iraq.  We had a great discussion about the emotional and psychological effects of war.
• After months of listening, I finally finished the middle-grade audio book Young Fredle by Cynthia Voight last week.  My lengthy listen is not due to any fault of the book, just a lack of a CD player in my old car!  It is a warm, wonderful story, wonderfully performed - very deserving of its Odyssey Honor for Excellence in Audiobooks Award.
• Now I am reading an exciting new teen/YA novel, Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch.  It's a very unique story - a blend of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, and magic, all rolled into one!  I could hardly stand to put it down this weekend.
• My husband, Ken, finished and enjoyed 1NF1N1TY by Rachel Ward, the exciting conclusion to her Num8ers trilogy.
• Now Ken is reading one of his birthday gifts from me, Into the Woods by Tana French.  I've been hearing such great things about French's suspense novels for years, so I decided to start him off with the first book in this series.  He's loving it so far and says the writing is excellent - he even read a passage aloud to me!
• Jamie, 18 and an avid reader, is still too busy with his new college life for any reading!  Perhaps he will pick it up again while he is sick this week (though of course, I hope he bounces back quickly and can get back to hanging out with his friends).
• Craig, 14, has his hands full catching up on 3 weeks' of missed school work, but he did enjoy reading the short story, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (a classic!) for his English class.  And, in a burst of inspiration (and an urgent need to get away from the TV!) this week, I set up lounge chairs outside in the sunshine for Craig and I and read aloud to him from Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.  He was in the mood for something Halloweeny, and I think he enjoyed that little return to when we used to read aloud to the boys every night.  I know I enjoyed it!

I only posted one review last week, of Young Fredle, the middle-grade audio book.  But I also managed a couple of other fun posts:  My September Reading Summary and my first-ever post for Weekend Cooking.  Check it out to learn about my passion for food and cooking, and what I made for my family this weekend.

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What are you reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kid/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)

Weekend Cooking 10/14

Besides books and reading, another of my biggest passions is food and cooking, especially cooking extra-tasty and nutritious meals for my family, so I thought I'd try my own Weekend Cooking post, hosted by Beth Fish Reads (though I realize I am more than a little late this weekend!).

I do enjoy making up my own recipes (my Taste of Mardi Gras recipes were published in the February 2012 issue of Family Fun magazine *), but my main source for recipes is usually Cooking Light magazine.  I have been reading the magazine since 1991 and subscribed for many years, so I have over a decade's worth of issues lined up on a shelf in my kitchen!  And the crazy thing is that I refer to them every single day.  I just love their focus on great flavor while also cooking healthy food.  So, I'm really not much of a cookbook person, despite my love of books.

The other thing you should know about me food-wise is that for the past 2 years, we have been participating in our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.  That means that each Monday, from June through the end of October, I drive to a local farm a couple of miles away and pick up our share of freshly harvested, organic veggies for the week.  I love this program!  The produce is so amazingly fresh and delicious.  However, it can be a challenge sometimes to figure out what to do with unusual veggies (like the kohlrabi in last week's pick-up!).  You can find a local CSA in your own area at the Local Harvest website.

Oh, I guess there is another thing you should know.  I have a chronic illness, a serious immune system disorder known by the silly misnomer Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).  That means two things with respect to food and cooking.  Although I love to cook, I can't spend a lot of time on my feet, so most of our meals need to be fairly quick and easy.  And my son (who also has CFS) and I are both trying a gluten-free, dairy-free diet on the advice of a specialist, so that makes cooking even more challenging.  I know I need to avoid dairy forever (or until a cure for CFS is found!) because I am actually intolerant to dairy since getting sick, but the gluten avoidance is more of a trial for now.

So, with that background, here is what I cooked for my family this weekend:

Friday night, after shopping in the morning, I needed something super quick and easy, so I made Sausage, Kale, and Bean Soup, a recipe from Cooking Light that I found in their online database, looking for a way to use our CSA kale that my family would actually eat!  I added chopped onion and carrot to the recipe, and I paired it with a loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread from Whole Foods (my one gluten splurge this week!).  It was a perfect dinner for a cool fall evening.  My husband and son did complain a bit about the kale, but overall, everyone enjoyed the soup.

Saturday, looking to use up some of the large volume of butternut squash we have from our CSA, I made one of my all-time favorite soups, Golden Winter Soup, another excellent recipe from Cooking Light.  I subbed coconut milk (the kind in the carton in the milk section of the grocery store, not in the cans in the Indian section) for the half-and-half called for in the recipe, and it was absolutely delicious - so rich and creamy - mmmm!  Since there's not a lot of protein in that soup, I made grilled ham and  cheese sandwiches for my husband and son (using reduced-fat cheddar and whole wheat bread).  For me, I tried making a faux grilled ham and cheese sandwich with gluten-free bread and soy cheese.  Yeah, it was about as bad as it sounds!  Good thing I included ham, mustard, and tomatoes on mine.  As much as I miss cheese, the fake cheese just isn't worth it.


On Sundays, our college-age son comes home to visit so I can refill his weekly medicine containers and give him his weekly B12 shot.  Well, mostly, he comes home for gluten-free/dairy-free pancakes (banana-chocolate chip today) on Sunday mornings!  So, I usually try to make something for Sunday night dinner that I think he will like (which usually means beef in some form).  Still having a surplus of butternut squash in the fridge, I tried Beef Tangine with Butternut Squash, another recipe from Cooking Light (seeing a pattern here?).  My husband and I thought it was absolutely delicious!  My younger son wasn't thrilled with the squash in it, but I served it over noodles (oops - another gluten cheat!) which won him over.  My younger son tasted the spicy seasoning suspiciously and said, "There's a spice in here I don't like - is it ginger?"  sigh...yes, it was ginger...and also cinnamon, which he doesn't like.  Can't put one past him!  Cooking for kids (even grown-up ones who are taller than me!) is a challenge sometimes.

Well, this was fun - I hope you enjoyed hearing about my cooking adventures this weekend.  Now it's time for our gluten-free brownies (Trader Joe's brand is sooo good!) with ice cream for the dairy eaters and Soy Delicious! coconut milk "ice cream" (which really is amazingly delicious) for me.  Hope you had a good weekend!

* Three of my New Orleans recipes published in Family Fun (which also happen to be three of my family's favorite meals!) are available online:

• Red Beans & Rice
• Jambalaya
• Shrimp Etouffee

Books Read in September

September was absolutely lovely here - perfect weather with temperatures in the 70's and lots of sunshine and blue skies!  I finally got to spend a little time outside.


Lots of good reading in September, too.  I finished:

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King, a genre-crossing novel about a man who goes back in time to try to stop JFK's assassination.
• Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, a historical novel set in the 1660's about a friendship between a native American boy and a Puritan girl (review to come this week).
• 1NF1N1TY by Rachel Ward, book 3 in the teen/YA trilogy Num8ers.
• Brave New World by Aldus Huxley, a classic that is frequently banned.

I also spent a week slogging through The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes for my neighborhood book group but finally gave up about halfway through. 

So, two grown-up historical novels, a teen/YA paranormal thriller, and a classic that defined the genre of dystopian novels.  What a great reading month!  I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these books.  It's hard to choose a favorite (the first two were both excellent), but I guess 11/22/63 would be my top pick for the month, classic King fare - engaging, compelling, and well-written.

 As for My 2012 Challenges, I added a couple of new states to my Where Are You Reading 2012 Challenge:  11/22/63 takes place in both Maine and Texas; and Brave New World takes place mainly in England (600 years in the future), but there are some key scenes that take place in New Mexico, so I counted it because I hadn't read anything set in New Mexico yet this year.  Is that cheating?  No, I don't think so!

I read my 6th dystopian novel for the year (Brave New World); I decided not to categorize 1NF1N1TY as dystopian because there is really no government or society in the book - it is more purely post-apocalyptic (and paranormal).  And I read 2 more books from my overcrowded TBR shelf, 11/22/63 and Caleb's Crossing, toward my 12 in '12 Challenge, bringing my total to 7 - I better focus on that TBR shelf for the last quarter!

All in all, a very good reading month!  What was your favorite book read in September?