The Culinary Bibliophile is Back!

It 's been more than seven months since I last posted on this blog. I'm not sure what happened. My guess is that it was summer and we were outside enjoying the gorgeous weather. Then school started. Then the holiday season was in full swing. In any event I'm back. Why? Because I found that I actually missed writing. I surprised myself by enjoying writing this blog for the sake of writing it, whether or not anyone reads it (although I hope someone does!) So here I am. And here's a sprinkling of what's been going on for the past seven-ish months and lessons I've learned:

Ben turned five and is now officially registered for Kindergarten for the Fall. Time flies!

My Beef Brisket and Chicken Pot Pie are great things to make to deliver to a friend in need.

I have taken of the roll of Fellowship Chair at church. Basically this means I plan the social events like the Easter breakfast, holiday party, Lego night and various potlucks. I'm not sure how this happened , especially since I've lamented about how I take on too much, but being Fellowship Chair has fulfilled me in ways I couldn't have anticipated. I'm glad I said "yes" when asked.

That said, I've learned to say "no" more often. I don't go to every single meeting of the preschool parents association. I don't sign up to volunteer for every event at Jake's school (but I do still help out at our favorites.) I have put hanging out with friends and family as a priority - more often than not I say "yes" to these invites. My life is less stressed and much richer as a result.

The Scotsman has been traveling a lot more for work. I'm trying to be grateful that he has a good job rather than stressed about childcare and household logistics while he's away.

Jake is into soccer big time (both playing and watching). He's joined two leagues and loves to watch games on TV. The Scotsman even set him up with his own fantasy league for the English Premiership. It's been fun to watch him grow in and embrace the sport!

The Americans on FX is a great show. The Scotsman and I can't wait for the new season to start at the end of the month!

Sleep is the cure for whatever ails you. I am finally getting a good nights sleep fairly regularly and I feel so much better because of this. Who knew!?!?

Books I have read (by the way, these are not affiliate links - I'm just trying to make it a little easier for you to browse. You can also see what I've been reading on my Goodreads profile): What Alice Forgot, The Man Who Ate Everything, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, and Reconstructing Amelia, among others.

The Scotsman can't hate pasta as much as he says he does. He's been regularly requesting my Turkey Sausage and Goat Cheese lasagna, as recently as last night. There is hope! And I promise to post the recipe soon.

A snow storm, great neighbors and a bottle of wine are a fabulous combination.

I'm learning to embrace my slow cooker.

Doing everything the night before (making lunches, laying out clothes, etc) is the key to a better day.

So that's what's going on with me - what's been going on with you?

Reading Challenge: Success or Not Challenging Enough?

Library books are like buses. You wait and wait and not a single one comes along. Then three come at once. I’ve been on the waiting list for three ebooks at my library for well over a month. I received an email yesterday letting me know that all three were mine for the next twenty one days. I’m going to do my best to squish them all in as it makes me sad to return a library book without finishing it.

I worried about how the heck I was going to read three book in three books and then I noticed something odd on my Goodreads profile. It turns out that I’ve reached my “2013 Reading Challenge” goal of 25 books already. Given that I only joined the challenge in late January and didn’t record any of the books I read earlier that month, I must be averaging 1.3 books a week. Who knew? Certainly not me! Obviously I’m not challenging myself enough. I like a good challenge so I’m deciding what to do next. Up my Goodreads challenge to 75 books? Broaden my horizons by reading a genre I’ve never been crazy about (but what would be the fun in that?) Do something totally different?

Below is a list of the 25 books I read as part of the challenge with the star ratings I gave them on Goodreads. We have a quiet weekend ahead of us so I plan to spend lots of time in the kitchen. Recipes to come!

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen – 4 stars

Inferno by Dan Brown – 3.5 stars

Plenty: One Man, One Woman And A Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith – 4 stars

The Sacred Cipher by Terry Brennan – I chose not to rate this one.

I’ll Take What She Has by Samantha Wilde – 3 stars (read for one of my two in-person book clubs)

The Girls Guide To Love And Supper Clubs by Dana Bate – 4 stars (really cute with lots of yummy food)

The Racketeer by John Grisham – 3 stars (read for Goodreads bookclub)

The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb – 4 stars (the perfect grown-up ghost story)

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple – 4 stars

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks – 3 stars

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg – 4 stars

The Red Velvet Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke – 3 stars (sometimes I like a little fluff but this was not one of Fluke’s best)

Gods Lions: The Dark Ruin by John Lyman – 3 stars

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson – 5 stars

The Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke – 3 stars (ok, I’ve been reading a lot of fluff lately)

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen – 4 stars (my new favorite author)

Dead Anyway by Chris Knopf – 3 stars

The Devil’s Grin by Annelie Wendeberg – 3 stars

MWF Seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche – 4 stars (read it for a Goodreads bookclub thinking I would hate it. I ended up rally liking it.)

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling – 3 stars (read for in-person bookclub called The Gratuitous Bookclub)

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg – 4 stars

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin – 3 stars

Deadly Pedigree by Jimmy Fox – 3 stars (won in a LibraryThing giveway)

Finding Camlann by Sean Pidgeon – 4 stars

Proof of Heave: A Neurosurgeons Journey Into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander – 4 stars

Book Review: Caleb's Crossing, A Recipe and Other Random Things

I am now over last week which I have named The Week of Great Insanity. It is (thankfully) over and I am back to normal after Wednesdays mini-meltdown. And my mom is coming this weekend which means lot of time cooking and doing crafty things with the boys. Yay!

As I mentioned in my last post, I did manage to get a little reading done during The Week of Great Insanity. I finished Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. I have been doing a lot of hemming and hawing about whether or not to review this book for ya’ll as my intention when I started this blog was only to review books I liked. My thinking was that it would be silly to waste space on the interwebs (not to mention your time) writing about books I was not fond of that I don’t recommend that you read. And my mom always told me not to say anything at all if I don’t have anything nice to say about something or someone, and that advice has kept me in good stead for the past 33 years.

Which leads me to the Caleb’s Crossing Conundrum. On one hand I really liked this book. On the other hand, I really didn’t like this book. I know it’s odd to have two very opposite feelings about the same book, but that’s just the way it is.  So, I thought I’d separate this review into the things I liked about this book and the things I didn’t like about this book and let you decide for yourself. I’m going to start with the things I liked because I’m a positive, glass-is-half-full kind of girl.

But first a very brief synopsis:  Bethia Mayfield lives in a small community of Puritans on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1660s. As a pre-teen she meets Caleb, the son of a Wampanoag Chieftain and develops a deep and enduring friendship with him that spans decades, geography and the cultural divide.

Things I liked:

Bethia. I loved, loved, loved Bethia. She is spunky and smart and not afraid to stand up for herself in an era when women were encouraged to do just the opposite. She is also compassionate, nurturing and kind hearted. Bethia rocks!

The fact that the story is rooted in history. There really was a Caleb Chessahahteaumuck of Martha’s Vineyard who was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.  Very little is known about him and Brooks filled in the many pieces of his life with well-written and meticulously researched fiction. And Bethia’s last name of Mayfield is very similar to the surname of one of the first Puritan settlers of MV – Mayhew. I have a degree in history so this appealed my inner history buff (but a degree in history does not get you a job so I went to grad school for a more marketable skill, but that’s a story for another day.) That degree in history also means I am very critical of historical fiction, but I have no issues with what Brooks has done with Caleb’s Crossing.

The setting of Martha’s Vineyard and Cambridge, Massachusetts. I am always drawn to books that are set in a place I know and love. I lived one town over from Cambridge for seven years. I currently work one town over from Cambridge. My children were born in Cambridge and The Scotsman and I used to hang around in Cambridge a lot before the kids were born. As for Martha’s Vineyard, we visited this beautiful island for the first time three years ago. Despite the fact that I had never been there before, immediately after stepping off the ferry I felt completely at peace and had a sense that I’d “come home”. Odd and cheesy, I know, but that’s the way I felt and still feel every time I visit. We are fortunate to spend 10 days on MV every summer and if The Scotsman and I every win the lottery we’d like to buy our own house there and live there year round instead of renting someone else’s house for a tiny portion of the summer. Although I don’t think there are many techie jobs for The Scotsman on an island miles from anything, but if we won the lottery would that matter? But I digress…..

Things I didn’t like:

Certain attitudes were  shoved down my throat. I am well aware of the fact that men were considered to be better than woman in the 1660s and that the way Native Americans were treated was horrible, wrong, narrow-minded, etc. But I don’t need to be reminded of it on every single page. You know, in case I didn’t get it the first time it was explained.

Caleb was a very flat character. There was lot of room to develop him more.

There wasn’t much plot. The story just kind of plodded along. I said the same thing about The Peach Keeper, but the authors wonderful writing style kept me interested in the story and I gave it 4 stars without hesitation. The same thing can’t be said about Caleb’s Crossing. Yet I kept reading. Which makes me question how big a deal the lack of plot really was. Hmmm…..

Martha’s Vineyard is a beautiful island with a unique landscape. I feel the book would have benefited from making the island more of a “character” in the book. Or maybe I’m just biased because I love MV so much.

Spoiler Alert: a lot of characters you grow to like die. It’s a bit of a bummer.

So…..

I really don’t know how to rate this on Goodreads. I’d like to give it a 3.5 but Goodreads doesn’t allow you to give half stars so it going to have to be either a 3 or a 4. Until I decide it is marked as “Currently Reading” on my Goodreads profile. Is anyone as miffed as I am that amazon has purchased Goodreads? We’ve just become one giant focus group for amazon.

A few years ago I read another book by Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book. I liked that one much better.

Random Things That Have Little or Nothing To Do With The Book:

I discovered this blog by Susan Branch. Martha’s Vineyard is very much a character in this blog which is what drew me to it. But if MV isn’t your thing, this blog is full of wonderful craft ideas, yummy recipes and whimsical illustrations by Branch. Love it! I am also sure that her husband (who is pictured on her blog) is the guy on page 39 of The Black Dog Summer On the Vineyard Cookbook but I’m not sure how to leave a comment to that affect on her blog without seeming stalker-ish.

If anyone is looking for something to get me for Mothers Day (ahem, The Scotsman), I’d like this.

Did you know that Roald Dahl wrote a cookbook? I loved his books when I was a child and am in the midst of introducing them to Jake. And I love all things food and cooking. So how perfect is a cookbook by Roald Dahl?

And Finally, A Recipe…..

I’m the culinary bibliophile, right? So here’s one of my faves from The Black Dog Summer On the Vineyard Cookbook. It’s called Quahog Chowder in deference to the variety of clams abundant in New England, but any type of clams will do. This recipe is true to the chowder they serve in The Black Dog Tavern, which I am completely obsessed with. I will eat this steaming hot in 90 degree heat because it is that good. Hope you all have a great weekend and Happy Patriots Day (for those of you who live in Massachusetts and Maine)!

B.D. Quahog Chowder – Serves 8-10 (or just 2 if you’re making this for me and The Scotsman)

From The Black Dog Summer On The Vineyard Cookbook by Joseph Hall and Elaine Sullivan

2 oz salt pork, rind removed (I slice up 3 strips of normal bacon)

2 cups diced onion

1 cup diced celery

3 cups diced potato (I use Yukon Gold)

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp black pepper

4 cups shelled quahogs (or any type of clam) with juice (about 6 lbs in the shell)

½ cup salted butter

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ quarts light cream

Dice the salt pork (or slice the bacon) and sauté in a large pot until translucent.

Add the onions and celery and sauté for 5 minutes

Pour in about 1 ½ cups of juice from the clams and add the potatoes and seasonings.

Simmer the mixture until the potatoes are tender. This should take about 10 minutes.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. When it’s bubbling, add the flour and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Roughly chop the quahogs/clams, reserving any liquid.

When the potatoes are tender, add the clams to the large pot and simmer for 2 minutes.

Stir in the butter and flour mixture and continue simmering for another 5 minutes, stirring often. This is your chowder base.

In a separate saucepan (yes, you can yell at me about all the dirty dishes this is creating), scald the cream by heating it until small bubbles appear around the edges of the pan. Do not boil.

Stir the hot cream into the chowder base, mix together and remove from the heat.

At The Black Dog they serve it topped with a dollop of butter and oyster crackers or crusty bread. YUM!!

My Goodreads Obsession and The Peach Keeper

If you are an avid reader and have not yet wandered over to Goodreads.com – don’t. You will not be able to tear yourself away. If you are anything like me it will become a huge time-suck, far surpassing any other social media. Even – gasp – Facebook.

I discovered Goodreads last Spring while researching ways to promote The Never King. What I found was a social media network of book lovers like me who do nothing but talk about books. It’s Facebook for bibliophiles! So why I am poking around Goodreads when I should be doing a million other things? I have met (in the virtual sense) so many like-minded people with which to discuss favorite books, what I’m reading and what I should read next. Looking at the virtual bookshelves of friends (real, live ones) gives me interesting insights into their personalities I didn’t have before. It’s also the perfect place to catalog all the books I’d like to read, but haven’t yet. No more emails to myself when I read or hear about a book I’m interested in or taking a photo with my phone of a book cover in Costco so that I can remember to get the ebook either at the library or on amazon (yes, I really did that). Here’s what I’m reading (don’t laugh, we all need a bit of fluff now and then, right?). What are you reading?

One of the many benefits of Goodreads is discovering books you might not have read otherwise. I just read The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen as part of a “pen pals” read for one of the Goodreads groups I belong to. I was paired with a lovely woman from Australia. She chose The Peach Keeper for us. I probably never would have read it if she hadn’t.   

This the first book I've read by Sarah Addison Allen and what a wonderful introduction it was to her! A nice, light, feel good story about coming to terms with ghosts of the past (both figuratively and literally) and finding true happiness. The characters are well developed and you find yourself caring about them and how their various stories end. It’s a good read about the meaning of true friendship

. It’s basically chick lit, and the story and its eventual happy ending aren’t all that original. What makes this book is Allen’s writing – the story flows seamlessly. And of course, because I love being in the kitchen as much as I love reading, this book got me thinking about what I can make with peaches. It may be snowing up here in Boston but I’m thinking of nice, ripe summer peaches!

Berry Peach Cobbler with Sugared Almonds

From Cooking Light

Filling:

3 6-oz packages fresh blueberries (it’s winter – I won’t tell if you use frozen)

3 6-oz packages fresh blackberries (ditto on the frozen)

3 medium peaches, peeled and sliced (I’m jealous if you can find nice, fresh peaches this time of year. I’m using frozen)

2/3 cup sugar

2 ½ TBS cornstarch

3 TBS fresh lemon juice (I will tell if you try and use bottled)

1/8 tsp salt

Topping:

1 cup flour

¼ cup sugar

2 TBS cornstarch

½ tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

6 TBS chilled butter, cut into small pieces

½ cup half and half

1/3 cup sliced almonds

3 TBS turbinado sugar (I have often used plain ‘ol brown sugar in place of this)

1 TBS egg white

Preheat the oven to 350®.

Prepare the filling by combining blueberries, blackberries and peaches in a 13x9 inch baking dish that has been lightly coated with cooking spray.  Sprinkle the 2/3 cup of sugar, 2 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch, lemon juice and 1/9 teaspoon of salt over the fruit; toss gently to combine.

Prepare the topping by combining the flour, ¼ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt, stirring well. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with two knives until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add the half and half and gently knead the dough until just moistened. Drop the dough by spoonfuls evenly over the top of the filling. Combine almonds, turbinado (or brown) sugar and egg white. Sprinkle over the top. Bake at 350® for 50 minutes or until the topping is browned. Serve with ice cream.