Materials We Have

I don't read as many cookbooks (print or electronic) as I used to now that so many recipes can be browsed and shared online, but, Breakfast for Dinner caught my eye.  The authors have put together an eclectic group of recipes that really do channel the spirit of breakfast through to dinner.  The recipes are inventive and original but not too fussy.  So many niche cookbooks are neat to look at but the recipes themselves are too ingredient intensive or require you to dirty every pot, pan and appliance in the house and spend $40 on saffron.  Not this one.  I made two recipes from the book: the Cornflake-Crusted Chicken Tenders with Buttermilk Ranch Sauce (pretty good, the dipping sauce was fabulous) and the Shakshuka (which was also good).  There were many more I wanted to make, in fact, I have the book open to the Maple Bacon Cupcakes and they are looking pretty good.  There's also a very nice Asparagus Pastry Tart so...I might have to renew this one!

If you want to learn more about Shakshuka there is a great post on Smitten Kitchen with more riffs on ingredients.  The Asparagus Pastry Tart reminded me of a recipe on another cooking blog you might want to check out (be forewarned, this author uses some colorful language).

And if you are like me and find yourself with more recipes from cooking blogs than you can possibly make in a lifetime, how do you organize them?  I have been using Paprika on my iPad and Mac and I absolutely love it, but I know there are other alternatives out there.

Our June meeting at Jimmy's Pub to discuss Into Thin Air was another great discussion with the consensus being none of us want to be that miserable for that long! Summiting Mount Everest takes a lot of money, time and more risks than any of us is willing to take. For more information about Mount Everest and the controversy of the climbing industry, check out these links.

Outside Online - Take a Number

List of people who died climbing Mount Everest

National Geographic - Everest

Everest season ends on a high note

Join us July 9, 6:30pm at Jimmy's Pub to talk about This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper. 

The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family—including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister—have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public. 

Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.

This Is Where I Leave You is Jonathan Tropper's most accomplished work to date, a riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.

Belong to a book group or just looking for a good book to read? Here is a list of the most popular book club books in May from Bookmovement.com. The popularity of the new Great Gatsby movie has pushed that classic to the top of the list!

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
3. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed
4. Unbroken: A World War II Tale of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
6. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
7. Defending Jacob by William Landay
8. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
9. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
10. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Tame Impala’s new, critically acclaimed album Lonerism is worth a listen if you are looking for some new alternative-pop music.  The album captures the psychedelic vibe of the late 60s - early 70s, but adds a new dimension: the use of current production technology.  The echoing reverb, fuzzed-out guitars, and multiple layers of vocal and instrumental harmony- as well as a myriad of other effects- add an interesting feel to the classic psychedelic-pop sound that Tame Impala provides.  Produced and recorded entirely by front-man Kevin Parker, Lonerism might give you a taste of what Pink Floyd and Beatles-era artists might have been able to do in today’s music recording landscape. 

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout is more than the story of a dysfunctional family, it also deals with religion, race and cultural issues in a small town in Maine after a large number of refugees from Somalia relocate there.

The personal and psychological struggles of the main characters stem from childhood traumas. Each gives insight into how their lives were shaped by the things they believed to be true from childhood interpretations; things that are never spoken of as adults. A personal success doesn't necessarily mean that someone is good, or a failure that someone is bad.  The twists and turns will pull you along to the final pages of this story.

If you are at all interested in the possibility of an afterlife, be sure to read Dying to be Me: my journey from cancer, to near death, to true healing by Anita Moorjani.  Anita tells the story of her life at the intersection of many cultures each with its own expectations. As an adult, she developed cancer which progressed to the point of shutting down her vital organs.  Surrounded by her family in the hospital, she had a near death experience which ultimately left her cancer free and spiritually reborn.  The experience also gave her a profound insight into the reason for her cancer. Anita now speaks about her experience and lives a life filled with gratitude and health.  

In our time of old and new Great Gatsby movies, The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty offered another perspective on the 1920's clash between conservative restrictive morality (like corsets) and the crazy free-living ways of the flappers.

One society woman from Wichita, Kansas, who fought for women's suffrage, has reasons to believe that she is free from most prejudices of her time.  She volunteers to chaperone an eccentric rebellious teenager to a month-long competitive dance class in NYC and learns more about the world than she expects, and lots of this she learns from the live-wire child she is trying to protect.

I enjoyed watching the pseudo-liberated woman try to explain the defensive sexual attitudes of her time to the wild-child in her care.  Watching her interact with her more conservative and more eccentric peers in Out-West conservative Wichita was fascinating as fodder for imagining how new ideas slide into mainstream culture.

Perhaps too many prejudice-breaking issues are tied together in this book, but I admired Moriarty's efforts to show some of the many ways our fore-mothers stretched into the freedoms of the new century.

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