Weekend Cooking 12/7

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!

With my college son home sick with mono and the weather cold, I made a lot of favorite comfort foods this week, including Chicken Pot Pie and Mini Meat Loaves.

I made two of our old favorites from Cooking Light. Sunday night, we had Beef Bourguignionne over noodles (yes, we broke our Paleo diet and splurged on egg noodles!). My high school son's girlfriend was here for dinner that night, and the five of us ate so much that my planned leftover meal for the next night disappeared! We got two small lunches out of the leftovers. It's a delicious recipe, meant for making in a pressure cooker, but I just follow the directions, then double the cooking time in a standard Dutch oven (unfortunately, this recipe isn't online - it was from the April 2000 issue).

Tuscan Chicken & Beans

Tuesday night, we had Tuscan Chicken and Beans. I made this dish once before according to the recipe instructions, using a whole cut-up chicken, and it turned out a bit greasy (might have been the store-brand chicken we used). This time, I used skinless, boneless thighs, and it turned out perfect! There were no leftovers at all from that one. Everyone gobbled it up and went back for seconds.

And on Wednesday, I made Roasted Polish Sausage and Winter Vegetables, using rutabaga, sweet potato, onion, red potatoes, and chunks of cabbage. The smell and flavor of cabbage and Polish sausage together remind me of my Ukrainian heritage! I often make various roasted dinners this way. It's so easy and versatile that I almost didn't write up the recipe...but I did. It's included below, with the basic instructions and some of our favorite combinations. This is a perfect quick weeknight meal, with little clean-up (bonus!). If you also like to make roast meals like this, I'd love to hear about your favorite combinations.

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Roasted Sausage & Vegetable Dinner

(Serves 4)

A simple and versatile dinner perfect for weeknights

Sausage, cut into large chunks (nitrate-free)

1 large sweet onion, cut into large chunks

Assorted vegetables, cut into large chunks

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Chop sausage and vegetables and add to large bowl.
3. Toss sausage and vegetable pieces in olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Add mixture to a cookie sheet covered with cooking spray (we cover ours with foil for easy clean-up). For larger meals, split mixture between two cookie sheets to prevent over-crowding.
5. Roast in oven for about 20-30 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring once halfway (if using two cookie sheets, rotate them at the halfway point so they each take a turn on the lower oven rack).
6. Divide mixture among plates and enjoy!

NOTES:

Two mixtures we like are:

1 – Italian chicken sausage with red potatoes, onion, and bell peppers.

2 – Nitrate-free Polish sausage (kielbasa) with assorted root vegetables and cabbage (perfect for fall and winter!)

© Suzan L. Jackson 2014

(Do not reprint or publish without written permission from the author)

Saturday Snapshot 12/6

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

Nothing very artistic or beautiful today - just a few photos from our crazy Thanksgiving week. My college son came home with mono, and my husband got the flu, so we had to cancel our plans to travel to be with family. Instead, we had a quiet holiday at home and watched a LOT of movies all week! A few highlights:

Monday 11/24 - Sunny and 72 F

Wednesday 11/26 - Snow! Crazy....

My first-ever apple pie - it was delicious!

My husband and I on Thanksgiving (he made it to the table!)

My sons are now 16 and 20 but I love seeing their old artwork!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend!

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Haunters

After reading two long nonfiction books for adults, I was ready for something quick and light! I picked up Haunters by Thomas Taylor, a middle-grade/teen novel (recommended for ages 10 – 14 by the publisher) about time travel. It was just what I needed at the time – fast-paced and exciting.

David, a fourteen-year old in present-day England, has been having strange dreams, different from any kind of dream he’s ever had before. These dreams feel real and revolve around a recurring theme with the same boy, Eddie. In fact, the dreams feel so real that David now feels like Eddie is a good friend, after a year of visiting him in his dreams. David wakes from particularly bad and very realistic nightmare, heart pounding and head aching, wondering if he’s losing his mind.

He soon finds out he is perfectly sane but possesses the ability to dreamwalk, to travel through time and space in his dreams and appear as a ghost to real-life people. He discovers a whole group of young people like himself who are all dreamwalkers and learns that there are other dreamwalkers with nefarious goals. Haunters are willing to change history itself for the chance to gain wealth and valuable antiquities, and Adam is the worst offender. David’s new group of friends is battling to stop Adam and the other Haunters and preserve history…and somehow, David’s friend Eddie is at the heart of this complicated puzzle.

David and the other dreamwalkers travel back and forth from the present day to 1940’s London during the Blitz, intent on stopping Adam and his fellow Haunters from doing irreparable damage to both the past and the present. They must figure out a way to save Eddie while preserving history.

Haunters is not an outstanding book and I noticed a few plot inconsistencies, but it’s an engaging story filled with action and intrigue. I especially liked the historical background and trips back in time. It’s certainly a unique concept – traveling back in time through dreams – and easily kept my interest. Haunters is fast-paced fun for kids and teens who enjoy science fiction and especially time travel.

327 pages, Chicken House (Scholastic)

NOTE: I recommend NOT reading the blurb on the book flap or on Amazon. I felt that those descriptions gave away too much, and it’s more fun to let the story unfold on its own. No spoilers in my review!

If you like time travel stories with a dose of history, here are some other middle-grade books you’ll enjoy:  

The Infinity Ring series by various authors (lots of action and a cool link to online games)

The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, with a trip back in time to 1860 Louisiana

 George Washington's Socks and other books by Elvira Woodruff 

 The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix (action-packed)

Memoir Review: Brown Girl Dreaming

Although Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson recently won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and its publisher says it is for ages 10 and up, I chose not to categorize it that way in this review because it is a beautiful, lyrical memoir in verse that will be enjoyed by all ages, especially adults. Let me say up front that I am not normally a fan of poetry in any form, but this was one of the best books I’ve read (listened to) all year.

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir, told in short verses, of its author’s childhood, from birth through the start of adolescence, following her from Ohio to South Carolina to Brooklyn. Each titled poem highlights one particular aspect of Jacqueline’s life, and through these brief snapshots in time, a whole, colorful, compelling picture emerges. What makes this unique memoir even more interesting is the way that Woodson weaves details of what’s going on in the world into the verses, so that as we watch little Jackie grow up, we are also witnessing our country growing and maturing.

Here’s the start of the first verse, about her birth:

february 12, 1963

I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital

Columbus, Ohio,

USA –

a country caught

between Black and White

I am born not long from the time

or far from the place

where

my great-great grandparents

worked the deep rich land

unfree

dawn till dusk

unpaid

drank cool water from scooped-out gourds

looked up and followed

the sky’s mirrored constellation

to freedom.

You can see just in that short example how Woodson can take an event as ordinary as the birth of a new baby against the backdrop of history and make it sound graceful and beautiful. As a writer myself, I was amazed by the way she told a complete story through such small and brief details. In fact, her writing inspired me to try the same sort of approach in my own personal essay writing. The story unfolds in this way, as we watch her grow from a tiny baby to an energetic little girl to a budding writer, with the details of the time and places highlighted along the way.

That first verse is a page and a half long. Others are just a few lines, like this one:

how to listen #1

Somewhere in my brain

each laugh, tear and lullaby

becomes memory.

I listened to this book on audio, read by the author, and was entranced by her lovely voice reading the details of her life in such a lyrical way. However, I was also eager to see the verses on the page, to see how they were laid out, and to copy down some beautiful quotes that I wanted to remember, so I also requested a hard copy from the library and pored over that as well. It is a quick read, but you will want to linger over it and savor every word (plus, there are some family photos in the back!).

Don’t miss this book. Its National Book Award was well deserved, and it’s on the top of my list of favorites from recent years. Brown Girl Dreaming is the unique and engaging story of both a girl and a nation, and I highly recommend both the audio version and the book itself. I can’t wait to read more of Jacqueline Woodson’s work.

320 pages, Nancy Paulsen Books (imprint of Penguin Group)

Listening Library

Video of Jacqueline Woodson accepting the National Book Award:

You can also listen to an audio excerpt at the Amazon link below:

 

It's Monday 12/1! What Are You Reading?

Happy Cyber Monday! I need to get my Monday blog post done early, so I can start my online shopping.

We had a quiet holiday week, with my college son home with mono and my husband down with a nasty respiratory virus. We had to cancel our travel plans to visit family, but we made the best of it. We ended up watching a LOT of TV and movies together, with those two feeling so horrible - I think even trying to read was difficult for both of them. Still, we always manage to read at least a little. Here's what we're reading now:

• I finished the next book group pick for my online family book group, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. I'd wanted to read it for years, and it was excellent, an in-depth portrayal of a mother and her large family, told through short vignettes of her children's lives throughout the years. There was a lot of tragedy in this story, but it ended with a sense of hope. Since I missed seeing all my cousins and aunts this weekend, I am looking forward to "discussing" the book with them online!
•  I finished listening to The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi, a teen/YA thriller on audio. The first half was very good - mysterious and fast-paced - but the second half really dragged and got preachy and tedious.
• I am now reading Hild by Nicola Griffith for my neighborhood book group. It's interesting so far but moving very slowly. It's set in seventh century Britain and includes both a map and a family tree filled with unpronounceable names at the front, plus it uses a lot of Old English words (there's a brief glossary at the back). So, reading is going slowly, as I flip to the front and back every sentence to decipher it! The story, however, is interesting so far.
• I just started a new audio last night, Us by David Nicholls, the story of a marriage falling apart amidst a family vacation across Europe. I've only just started it, but it's already excellent - interesting and compelling, with a sprinkling of laugh-out-loud moments (my family probably thought I was crazy, laughing to myself while I made dinner last night!).
• I'm also reading a teen/YA graphic novel, Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gullidge, when I need something light to break up my heavy novel. It's excellent so far - creative, warm, and engaging.
• My husband, Ken, is reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This is one of our son's all-time favorites, though I think it's been slow going this past week, since it's a complex story, and the virus has slowed him down.
• I believe Jamie, 20, is still reading Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburn. His concentration has been poor, too.

Several posts last week on the blog:

Review of One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson, nonfiction

Review of The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata, an outstanding middle-grade novel

Weekend Cooking: Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, a great use for that leftover turkey

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 Unleashing Readers.    

A quiet Thanksgiving at home

Weekend Cooking 11/30: Turkey & Wild Rice Soup

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!

My college son got mono last weekend, so we had to cancel our plans to travel to spend Thanksgiving with family. By Wednesday, my husband was also sick with a bad respiratory virus. So, we had a very quiet Thanksgiving at home, with just my father-in-law as a guest. I cooked all the traditional foods, but the smallest turkey I could find was 11 pounds...for 5 of us!

We enjoyed the feast, as well as a dinner of left-overs on Friday, but by then my family was getting sick of the same old stuff, so I used our left-over turkey to make a nourishing soup for my sick family. I based it on the way my mother used to make homemade chicken noodle soup when I was a kid (I still have the basic instructions scribbled down in a strange short-hand in the back of an old recipe book!). Since we are eating a Paleo diet for medical reasons, I subbed wild rice (which is actually a grass, not a grain) for noodles, which turned out delicious. Here's the recipe...in case you were wondering what to do with all that left-over turkey!

Turkey & Wild Rice Soup

(Serves 8)

This is a great way to use left-over turkey after the holidays when you tire of basic left-overs!

Left-over turkey pieces and/or carcass, skin removed *

Tops of celery with leaves

1 small onion, cut into quarters

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

2 teaspoons minced or crushed garlic

1 lb. carrots, sliced

32 oz. (2 cans or 1 carton) chicken broth **

2 cups cooked wild rice

1 teaspoon of sea salt (or to taste)

Fresh ground pepper, to taste

1. Remove skin from turkey pieces and put in a large stockpot. Add the celery tops and quartered onion to the pot. Add cold water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.
2. Drain contents of pot through a colander over a large bowl. Set broth aside and allow the meat in the colander to cool.
3. When cool (it will be just right if you chop your veggies while waiting), sort through the meat in the colander. Discard bones, cartilage, and any other inedible pieces, as well as celery and onion. Chop the turkey meat.
4. Sauté onion and celery in oil in stockpot over medium-high heat until soft.  Add garlic toward end of sauté.
5. Add homemade broth, canned broth **, carrots, chopped turkey, wild rice, and seasoning.
6. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

NOTES:

* The amount of turkey we had left-over included 2 wings, back, 1 leg, plus a few slices of white and dark meat. I removed the skin to reduce fat.

** Because I started with already-cooked turkey, my broth was a bit light on flavor, so I added the additional carton of store-bought chicken broth. If you start with uncooked turkey and cook the stock for a bit longer, then you probably won’t need the extra broth.

© Suzan L. Jackson 2014

(Do not reprint or publish without written permission from the author)

Middle-Grade Review: The Thing About Luck

National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata sat on my shelf for about a year. I chose it because our family had enjoyed another Kadohata novel, A Million Shades of Gray, on audio a few years back. I’m sorry I waited so long to read this one – it’s a warm, funny story about growing up among the clash of two cultures and about learning to make your own luck.

Twelve-year old narrator Summer begins the novel by telling us about the year her family had nothing but bad luck. She got a rare case of malaria, her grandmother’s back pain worsened considerably, her younger brother, Jaz (who seems to be autistic), lost his only friend, and their parents had to travel to Japan for the summer to care for elderly relatives who were dying. That left Summer and Jaz in the care of their grandparents, Obaachan and Jiichan. Their sixty-seven year old grandparents preferred a more Japanese/less American approach to life, so changes were made as soon as they got back from the airport.

Summer’s Kansas family worked every summer as custom harvesters, traveling from Texas north to the Dakotas, following the wheat harvest. With her parents away, her grandparents had to come out of retirement so that the bills would still get paid. The plan was for Jiichan (her grandfather) to drive a combine, while Obaachan would get hired as the cook for the harvesting crew, with Summer as her helper. The kids had gone on harvest with their parents before, but this year would be different.

I absolutely loved this book – its National Book Award was well deserved. It’s set against a fascinating background, as Summer explains how custom harvesting works (something I’d never even heard of before) and narrates their adventures that summer. Summer is a wonderful pre-teen narrator, struggling to find her way in her world and help her brother make friends. The highlight of the book, though, is Summer’s grandparents, whose broken English and insistent ways often made me laugh out loud. Here’s a passage from the beginning of the novel, on the day Summer’s parents left, as her grandparents put into action their plan for finding Jaz some new friends:

“We having meeting-party,” she announced regally. “We invite boys we will consider for friendship with Jaz.” She turned to me. “Make list with him. I no interfere.”

“A list of people to invite?” I asked. My Doberman, Thunder, tried to push himself between me and the table. I pushed back, and we just sat there, leaning hard into each other.

“No! A list!” she snapped at me.

Wasn’t that what I had just said? I finally got up and moved to a different side of the table. Still unsure what she wanted, I got a pen and paper.

“Pencil! You may need to erase.”

I got a pencil and readied myself. “Should I number the list? I asked.

My grandfather nodded sagely. “Agenda,” he said. “List for boys we invite, agenda for party.”

“No interfere!” Obaachan said to Jiichan.

“You interfere first!”

This warm, humorous tone permeates the entire novel, even when things get difficult for Summer. Eventually, she will have to make some difficult decisions and take responsibility for making her own luck. It is an absolutely delightful novel, realistically rendered, about the challenges of growing up, while taking care of yourself and the people you care about. Highly recommended.

270 pages, Atheneum

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  

 

Or you can order The Thing About Luck from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: One Summer: America, 1927

We are big fans of Bill Bryson at our house. His memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, was outstanding – informative, warm, and hilariously funny. So, when I heard about his latest book, One Summer: America, 1927, I was looking forward to reading it. I was glad when one of my book groups chose it for our November selection. Turns out, though, that I had a strange like-hate relationship with this book!

The concept for this nonfiction book is unique: Bryson focuses on one summer in American history, 1927, when a lot of interesting, historic, record-breaking things happened within a few months’ time. So far, so good. The chapters of the book run from May through September, each one covering a month’s events (roughly – there’s a lot of overlap), with one particular focus for each:

May: The Kid (Charles Lindbergh)

June: The Babe (Babe Ruth)

July: The President (Calvin Coolidge)

August: The Anarchists

September: Summer’s End 

It was definitely a fascinating time in America. Lindbergh made history by being the first pilot to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Babe Ruth set a record for 60 home runs in a single season. The Mississippi River flooded and sent a wave of destruction across the middle states that still has not been outdone today. The gangster Al Capone controlled Chicago. The first “talking pictures” arrived in movie theaters, forever changing the world of cinema. And the seeds of the upcoming Great Depression were sown.

It’s a lot of ground to cover in a single book, and that is both the attraction and the problem. The book is packed full of fascinating facts, but there is a bit too much there to wade through. His organization of the book – by month – is another problem because events don’t unfold simply like that but are convoluted and develop over time. The result is a book that rambles quite a bit, jumping from one topic to the next at a rapid-fire pace that sometimes makes your head spin. As an example, in the first section, he starts out with Charles Lindbergh aiming to cross the Atlantic. He plans to land in Paris, so that takes Bryson off on a tangent about the American Ambassador to France. He happened to be going to a tennis match the day Lindbergh arrived, so then he goes off on another path, all about the tennis match and the players in it.

My husband laughed at me because I alternated between complaining about the book and reading interesting facts and tidbits out loud to him! So, yes, it’s frustrating and too long, but it’s also fascinating at times. I missed my book group meeting due to illness and had to decide whether or not to finish the book. I waffled back and forth on that – itching for some fast-paced fiction – but ultimately, I did keep reading right until the end of the Epilogue. I definitely learned a lot, but it was a struggle at times.

Our book group mostly felt the same way I did about it – that it was interesting but also too long and jumped around too much. Most people enjoyed the beginning the most and lost patience as they got further into the book. Some skimmed after a while. I find that really hard to do (I suppose it’s the perfectionist in me), but I did start skipping the boxing and baseball sections at some point. The average rating out of 10 in our group was around 6.5. There was one person in the group who rated it a 10 – the only one who’d actually been alive in 1927! She enjoyed reliving her childhood and remembering those momentous events.

458 pages of text and another 50-some of notes at the end, Doubleday

NOTE: If you want to read Bryson at his best, try The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

It's Monday 11/24! What Are You Reading?

 

Our household is in a tizzy, rushing to change our plans for this holiday week. Our college son came home Saturday night with a high fever and severe sore throat. We took him to Urgent Care Sunday, and it turns out he has mono, which is especially difficult and potentially dangerous for him, on top of his chronic immune disorder. We had to cancel our plans to travel to my hometown, Rochester, NY, this week to spend time with our family. We were going to stay with my Dad who is undergoing chemo for stage 4 melanoma, so it's particularly important that we stay clear of him for now (besides the fact that our son is no shape to travel). Living with chronic illnesses, we are used to having to change plans at the last minute, but this is a major Plan B moment!

So, we'll be staying home for Thanksgiving weekend, probably watching a lot of TV and movies to keep our son's spirits up, and of course, reading a lot! Here's what we've been reading this past week:

• I finished Haunters by Thomas Taylor, a teen/YA novel about a group of teens that can time travel via their dreams. It was entertaining but not outstanding.
• Now, I am reading my next book group pick, for my online family book group, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, a book I have wanted to read for years. It's very good so far.
• I am still listening to The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi, a teen/YA thriller. The first half was very good - mysterious and fast-paced - but the second half is dragging and getting a bit preachy. I'm almost finished.
• My husband, Ken, is reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This is one of our son's all-time favorites.
• Jamie, 20, now home sick, finished The Drowning City by Amanda Downum, Necromancer Chronicles Book 1.
• Now, Jamie's reading Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburn. He left his Kindle in his apartment at school, so we'll have to run down to get that for him.

I managed quite a few blog posts last week:

Review of On a Clear Day by Walter Dean Myers, a teen/YA novel

Review of City of Light, City of Dark by Avi and Brian Floca, a middle-grade graphic novel

Summary of Books Read in October

Saturday Snapshot, with the last signs of fall in our neighborhood

Weekend Cooking, with several weeknight meals full of flavor!

 
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 Unleashing Readers.   

Weekend Cooking 11/23

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!

I missed posting last week - weekends tend to be busy with family time here. So, I'll go back two weeks today and just focus on some of our best meals. We have still been using up the last of our CSA veggies, so winter vegetables like bok choy, cauliflower, and cabbage figured prominently in our dinners (until my husband said, "No more cruciferous vegetables - my stomach needs a break!").

If you stopped by here two weeks ago, you may recall that I was having to get creative with bok choy, as there was a glut of it at the end of the season. I discovered another new and delicious recipe, Vietnamese Beef-Noodle Soup with Asian Greens. The recipe is a simple one that goes together in under 30 minutes - perfect for weeknights - but the list of ingredients is long and unusual. I left a few things out - couldn't find bean sprouts or fresh basil in any local store this time of year, left out star anise because I hate the taste of anise, and subbed powdered ginger for the fresh because my husband doesn't like too much ginger (unless it's in cookies or cake! lol). There was still plenty of flavor left! The unusual flavors combine beautifully to make a tasty soup. And don't skip the fresh mint on top - it's delicious.

On a freezing cold night this week, I decided to make a nice hot pot of soup. My son was having a friend over for dinner, so I chose something my son likes that I thought would appeal to teens, Rachel Ray's Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Stoup. I threw the Paleo diet out the window and included the pasta, as directed (though most of mine went into my son's bowl) and subbed chopped baby spinach for the broccoli rabe because my son doesn't like rabe much. It's a delicious soup...however, my son's friend explained that he doesn't like "wet foods"! Huh? We've served a lot of picky eaters here over the years, but that's a a new one! So, we enjoyed the delicious soup, and he picked out pieces of pasta and sausage (then my son finished off his soup).

We had a vegetarian meal this week when it was just my husband and I that is a favorite of mine because it is so packed full of flavor. I combined two side dishes into a full meal. The first was Lentils with Carrots, a simple Cooking Light recipe (of course) with a short list of basic ingredients: sliced carrots, lentils, chopped onion, water, and finished with a tablespoon of butter (that adds so much flavor!). Paired with that, we had Curried Cauliflower with Capers, my favorite roast cauliflower recipe. With capers, lemon, curry powder, and fresh parsley, this dish is just bursting with vibrant flavors. I had left-overs of these two dishes for my next two lunches and enjoyed them just as much!

Last night, we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at a local Malaysian restaurant with friends. The food was delicious. We had four different dishes to share, and each one was unique and wonderful.

The "no wet foods" boys is coming for dinner again tonight, so we are having a very basic (dry!) Sunday dinner, with baked ham, baked sweet potatoes, and green beans.

Hope you are enjoying wonderful food this weekend!

Saturday Snapshot 11/22

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

It was frigid here this week, as it was in most parts of the country, but I did manage to bundle up and take a walk around the neighborhood yesterday. Here are some pics of the last gasping breaths of fall - I hate to see it go! All that gorgeous color is just about gone now, though there are still beautiful sights outdoors:

Last leaves clinging to the maple tree that was bright red last week!

A few leaves still hanging on

My shadow among the fallen leaves (I'm wearing a parka, hence the weird shape!)

Bright red maple leaf among the grass

Bare branches against a blue sky

A few red leaves left on bare branches in our yard

Hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend!

Books Read in October

Wow, October was an amazing reading month for me! With Halloween, I focused on spooky, creepy books, though not exclusively. Here's what I read in October:

• The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (IL), time-travel thriller
• The Other Side of the Dark by Sarah Smith (MA), teen/YA ghost story
• City of Light, City of Dark by Avi and Brian Floca (NY), middle-grade graphic novel

• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (MO), chilling thriller (thought I'd written that review!)
• Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel, middle-grade graphic novel
• Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Switzerland), classic fiction

• Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang (NY), teen/YA audio book fiction
• Nightmares! by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller, middle-grade audio book fiction
• On a Clear Day by Walter Dean Myers (NY), teen/YA audio book fiction

• The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer L. Holm, middle-grade audio book novel
• Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown (WA), nonfiction
• Uncaged: The Singular Menace by John Sanford & Michelle Cook (OR/CA), teen/YA audio book thriller

Wow, 12 books in one month! That is definitely a record for me. There were lots of audios and a couple of quickie graphic novels, so that helped. I usually one read about six books in a month. Lots of variety  here - 3 adult novels, one nonfiction, 4 middle-grade, and 4 teen/YA novels. I listened to a whopping 5 audio books in October! My favorite for the month? Tough one. I think Sharp Objects comes out on top, but it's a close race. I thought I'd almost finished my October reviews, but then I discovered I'd forgotten a couple of books on my list!

Update on 2014 Reading Challenges:

With all those books, I only added 3 new states and 1 new country to my Where Are You Reading Challenge 2014 this month. I read 4 more books from my TBR shelves for my 2014 TBR Pile Reading Challenge but have still only read 12 TBR books this year - they just keep piling up! I listened to five more audio books for my 2014 Audio Book Challenge for a total of 21 so far this year - I am rocking that one! I added one nonfiction book to my Nonfiction Reading Challenge and one book for The Classics Reading Challenge. And for my new Travel the World in Books Challenge, just started in September, I read one more book.

What was your favorite book(s) read in October? 

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: City of Light, City of Dark

As I’ve mentioned here before, I have been exploring graphic novels lately, delving into those in a wide variety of story types. So, I plucked City of Light, City of Dark by Avi and Brian Floca off my shelf, where it had been sitting for a long time. It’s a fantasy story set in the real-life world of New York City.

The book starts out with a fable-like backstory of mysterious beings called Kurbs, who are the owners of both the island of Manhattan and the power to control light and dark. As the story goes, humans are just renting the island from the Kurbs, and in order to maintain power and light, they must perform a ritual once a year, by noon on December 21, to discover a small subway token that holds the power that the Kurbs have hidden. Responsibility for this awesome task was given to a woman and has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Basically, all of this is something of a fable to explain why the light (i.e. length of days) continually decreases from June through December, until December 21 when it begins to grow again.

Every fable and fantasy has its bad guy, and here, that is Thor Underton, a neon sign artist whose creations grow ever bigger, requiring more and more power (yes, here, the quest for power is literal). Underton is desperate to find the Kurb’s source of power so that he can build the biggest neon light creation ever. He is aided by his meek assistant, Theodore Bitner. Having rescued Theo from the streets when he was young, Underton has a lot of control over Theo, who would do anything for his boss. Theo is sent to follow the young woman whom Underton believes to be the current one responsible for searching for the special token, but Theo falls in love with the beautiful Asterel and marries her.

From there, the story continues, with an epic battle between Underton and Asterel, with the power-hungry man trying to get the magic token. By mistake, a young boy named Carlos finds it, and ends up in the middle of this struggle, along with Theo’s daughter, Estella. It’s a classic good vs. evil fantasy tale, with Underton becoming more and more evil and developing special powers, and the reader rooting for the kids to keep away from him and save the day (literally).

It’s a good story, even though fantasy isn’t a favorite genre of mine. It’s creative, with interesting characters, and the black and white illustrations are expertly drawn by Brian Floca. My one quibble with the story was that Theo made some decisions to side with Underton, against the wife whom he loved, which didn’t seem realistic to me. I know – it’s fantasy not romance! But I still like my human characters to act in believable ways. Other than that one small complaint, it’s an action-packed, intriguing story that should be enjoyed by fantasy fans of all ages.

186 pages, Graphix (imprint of Scholastic)