Yours 'til Niagara Falls

Reading Voraciously

One of my perpetual New Year's resolutions is to read one good book per month.  This year I am off to a good start.  So far this year I have read:

• Home by Bill Bryson - The history of domesticity.  I liked it a lot.  It led me to read #2 on my list 
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• Into the Woods by Bill Bryson -  Very interesting.  Slightly off-put by the utterly obnoxious true-life character introduced in the early part of the book.  She is a blow hard know-it-all who is mocked for the duration of the author's trip along the Appalachian trail.  Her name?  Mary Ellen, natch.
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• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan.  I liked this book on a lot of levels.  It was published in 1963 (before Kennedy's assasanation) when I was a mere babe of three.  It was an interesting counterpoint to The Women's Room, a book I recently re-read.  I was fascinated by the things that have changed for women and the things that have not.
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• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.  I bought a copy of the book when my girlfriend Oprah suggested it for her book club.  I read a couple chapters and then put it aside.  Then I started watching the mini-series on the Canadian Broadcasting System. ( I'm lucky - I get to view Canadian TV channels - a lot of good programming). I picked up the book again and read and read and read until I finished.  I loved it.  Now watching the final installments of the TV series is a pale, watered-down version of the novel, bordering on a spoof.
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• The Hunger Game by Suzanne Collins.  I had heard strong recommendations from people I trust.  My resistance stemmed from my dislike of science fiction.  I was oh-so-wrong.  I read this tale of a dytopic society cover to cover in one day.  I will be reading the other two installments of this trilogy in the very near future.
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• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is what I have currently fired up on my Kindle.  It was described to me as a very dark novel, but I am not finding it so.  It makes me sad that the author did not live to see his own success.  It also wants me to go to Scandinavia to see the setting of the story.

I am open to suggestions for my next book...

Gingerbread - My Favorite

 “Had I but a penny in the world,
     thou shouldst have it for gingerbread.”
     —William Shakespeare

I love gingerbread. I haven't baked it in a while.  I find the history of gingerbread fascinating.  It is an ancient food.  It  was toted along by pilgrims as they went on the Crusades.  That idea makes me want to re-read Canterbury Tales.

Oddly enough, I don't have a favorite recipe.  Instead, everytime I have a yen for the stuff, I try a different recipe.  This was made with the directions from All About Home Baking. This slim volume was published in 1933 by General Food.  The plaid cover only adds to its charm. There are a lot of fine recipes and menu ideas.  Are the Ladies coming over for a morning of bridge?  You are going to serve them Frozen Cheese Salad, Apricot Muffins and Spice Drops.  An August morning calls for breakfast served on the porch.  You will enjoy Frizzled Beef and Currant Coffee Rolls.  This era involved a great deal of thriftiness.  My heart skipped a beat at the picture of the beautifully organized Hoosier cabinet with the caption "The stage all set to make a butter cake".

Abruptly changing topics:  I find this time of year a little funny.  I consider Valentine's Day to be the end of winter, but at the same time, for me, Spring does not start until St. Patrick's Day. Kind of a grey, blustery no man's land time of year, I guess.

N.B. I looked up "frizzled beef".  It is creamed chipped beef.  Veterans refer to it as s**t on a shingle.  My own late father, a veteran of the Korean War, called it DVOT - Dog Vomit on Toast.  I'll skip it, thank you.

It's in the Cards

I must confess, I purchase items from those shop-at-home television networks.  My latest purchase was a big hit.  A little while ago I bought a card-making craft kit from a talented paper artist named Anna Griffith. My mother, my aunt and my cousin Bridget got together last Saturday afternoon for a wonderful afternoon of crafting

The afternoon started with a tea party.  The menu was the standard tea party fare.  The scones were a big hit. I used the "Joy of Cooking" recipe.  They were greatly enhanced by - don't let the name put you off - mock clotted cream.  The recipe was in the New York Times food column last Wednesday.  All it is is mascarpone cheese thinned down slightly with heavy whipping cream.  Imported clotted cream is well past my grocery store flinch point, about $8.00 for a half pint.  Trust me, this recipe is delicious.  Every bit as yummy as the real deal.  The madeleines were also a box mix shortcut.  

We also threw back some sherry to get into the tea party mood.

After our victuals, we started making the cards.  Not too many minutes into it, we made a soboring discovery.  We are not a warm and fuzzy group.  The kit came with pre-printed sentiments.  Some were a little saccharine for us  - "Thinking of you is one of my favorite things to do" for example.  But, we got past that and proceeded to create some lovely cards.  The Victorian motifs were very pretty.  It was kind of a surprise to me.  I don't usually favor florals or a pastel color palette.  I have, however, heard that one good exercise to jump start one's creativity is to use different colors or media than you generally prefer for a project.  I think it worked because I was more than happy with the cards when I finished.

Another pleasant thing that happened was something we had not anticipated.  Making the cards gave us a chance to reflect on some nice events that are happening in the near future - a baby due in May, a graduation in June.

I used my current favorite dishes, by the way.  They are Friendly Village by Johnston Brothers.  I love the snowy scene.  I wanted a set for ages and finally trated myself last year.  I love the snowy old-timey scenes.

In other news:  I have bonded with my Kindle.  I just finished reading "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Freidan. (N.B. I fully realize book titles should be underlined, but I don't want to confuse people by making them think I am giving a link, so I use quote marks.  I hope punctuation purists don't judge me too harshly).  Anyhoo... I enjoyed the book.  It was written in early 1963.  many things have changed and gotten better for women, but many things have not.  It was good companion book to "Then Women's Room" (again with the mis-placed quotes!) which I re-read last year.  

I also returned to the gym for the first time in ages. I am feeling better than I have since I can remember.  I am on the way to recovery from a very bad case of anemia.  All it took was three units of blood to improve things.  I can't describe how different life is without the hellish level of fatigue I was experiencing.