Saturday, December 31, 2022

Southern Living 2022 Annual Recipes

 


 I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Title: Southern Living 2022 Annual Recipes
Author: Southern Living 
Publisher: ABRAMS
Release Date12.6.22

Publisher’s Summary 
Southern Living graciously invites you to enjoy the latest annual compilation of top-rated recipes from the editors of Southern Living magazine—now in full colorFor decades, Southern Living Annual Recipes has collected every recipe from an entire year’s worth of Southern Living magazine in a single complete volume, creating an indispensable companion for devoted readers and an inspiring discovery for all who know and trust the authority that Southern Living magazine brings to great Southern cooking. Inside, the editors at Southern Living magazine share beautifully photographed, step-by-step recipes for regionally inspired dishes, from quick and easy meals to family favorites, as well as special-occasion treats. Along with the go-to Southern recipes cooks crave—delicious Sunday suppers, mouthwatering desserts, regional favorites, and traditional holiday meals—readers will find helpful tips and creative menus from the legendary Southern Living Test Kitchen. A special bonus section presents a surprise selection of reader-favorite recipes that cannot be found anywhere else.

My Review
This "best of" compilation features an average of a dozen recipes divided into 12 monthly chapters with a bonus section for casseroles. I especially liked the "Cooking School" pages at the end of each month with tips for draining zucchini or secrets to a great potato gratin. 

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Saturday, December 17, 2022

Bliss on Toast



  I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Title: Bliss on Toast: 75 Simple Recipes
AuthorPrue Leith
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date11.1.22

Publisher’s Summary 
There is nothing more comforting and delicious than toast. And when you top it with a few cleverly paired ingredients, it becomes a full meal—not to mention pure bliss. In Bliss on Toast, Great British Baking Show judge Prue Leith toasts sourdoughs, focaccias, baguettes, flatbreads and more, then pairs them with everything from seasonal vegetables to meat and fish. The collection spans healthy, hearty, salty, and sometimes sweet. Ideal for a busy home cook who loves a full and balanced plate, the recipes are incredibly versatile and perfect for any time of the day: tomatoes, shallots, and oregano on black olive toast; grilled chicken tikka with yogurt on naan; smoked salmon, wasabi, and avocado on multigrain bread; and bananas and ice cream with brandy syrup on panettone. Bliss on Toast is as much a toolkit for quick fridge-raids as it is inspiration for seasonal delights. With 82 years’ experience of good eating and 60 years of cooking, writing about and judging food, there is no one who better knows what makes a meal bliss than Prue Leith.

My Review
I've survived 45 years believing bliss on toast was grilled white bread with Kraft American cheese singles but luckily Prue Leith has come along with Bliss on Toast to help me up my game. I mean, let's face it...just about ANYTHING on toast is delicious but some of these concoctions are exactly what I need for those days when I don't want the same old turkey sandwich or grilled cheese. I think my favorite is the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Avocado, & Zhoug on Rye. I had no idea what zhoug even was before I read this recipe. FYI, it's cilantro, garlic, cardamom, cumin, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and salt. Delicious, right? 
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Thursday, December 15, 2022

My Place at the Table

  



Title: My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris
AuthorAlexander Lobrano
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Release Date6.1.21

Publisher’s Summary 
In this debut memoir, a James Beard Award–winning writer, whose childhood idea of fine dining was Howard Johnson’s, tells how he became one of Paris’s most influential food critics

Until Alec Lobrano landed a job in the glamorous Paris office of Women’s Wear Daily, his main experience of French cuisine was the occasional supermarket éclair. An interview with the owner of a renowned cheese shop for his first article nearly proves a disaster because he speaks no French. As he goes on to cover celebrities and couturiers and improves his mastery of the language, he gradually learns what it means to be truly French. He attends a cocktail party with Yves St. Laurent and has dinner with Giorgio Armani. Over a superb lunch, it’s his landlady who ultimately provides him with a lasting touchstone for how to judge food: “you must understand the intentions of the cook.” At the city’s brasseries and bistros, he discovers real French cooking. Through a series of vivid encounters with culinary figures from Paul Bocuse to Julia Child to Ruth Reichl, Lobrano hones his palate and finds his voice. Soon the timid boy from Connecticut is at the epicenter of the Parisian dining revolution and the restaurant critic of one of the largest newspapers in France.

A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano’s “little black book,” an insider’s guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.

My Review
A feel-good foodie memoir is exactly the type of book I needed at this time of year. Sometimes you need a book that you can just read a chapter of each night at the end of a long day, making this the perfect addition to your nightstand during the holiday season. 
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Wednesday, December 14, 2022

SPOTLIGHT: Midcentury Cocktails



  I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Title: Midcentury Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America's Atomic Age
AuthorCecelia Tichi
Publisher: NYU Press
Release Date11.1.22

Publisher’s Summary 
A delightful history of cocktails from the era of new interstate highways, sprouting suburbs, and atomic engineering

America at midcentury was a nation on the move, taking to wings and wheels along the new interstate highways and in passenger jets that soared to thirty thousand feet. Anxieties rippled, but this new Atomic Age promised cheap power and future wonders, while the hallmark of the era was the pleasure of an evening imbibing in cocktails in mixed company, a middle-class idea of sophisticated leisure.

This new age, stretching from the post-World War-II baby boom years through the presidency of General Dwight Eisenhower into the increasingly volatile mid-1960s, promised affordable homes for those who had never dreamed of owning property and an array of gleaming appliances to fill them. For many, this was America at its best - innovation, style, and the freedom to enjoy oneself and the spirit of this time is reflected in the whimsical cocktails that rose to prominence: tiki drinks, Moscow mules, Sea Breezes, Pina Coladas, Pink Squirrels, and Sloe Gin Fizzes.

Of course, not everyone was invited to the party. Though the drinks were getting sweeter, the racial divide was getting more bitter? Black Americans in search of a drink, entertainment, or a hotel room had to depend on the Green Book for advice on places where they would be welcome and safe. And the Cold War and Space Race proceeded ominously throughout this period, as technological advances alternately thrilled and terrified.

The third installment in Cecelia Tichi's tour of the cocktails enjoyed in various historical eras, Midcentury Cocktails brings a time of limitless possibilities to life through the cocktails created, named, and consumed.



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Monday, December 12, 2022

Top 15 Books of 2022

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Thursday, December 8, 2022

Spotlight Feature: The Explorer's Library

 





THE EXPLORER’S LIBRARY (Workman Publishing; November 15, 2022; $85) on your radar. Combining the two New York Times bestselling guides from Atlas Obscura®—Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura and packaged in a slipcase that evokes the timeless allure of travel, it’s a gorgeous gift that’s perfect for the person who is alive to the world in all its possibilities.

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Description automatically generatedThe #1 New York Times bestseller Atlas Obscura is a “wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper” (New York Times). In its pages you’ll find anAmsterdam zoo devoted to creatures (molds, yeast, bacteria, viruses) invisible to the naked eye, the “Door to Hell,” a fire that has been burning in the Turkmenistan desert for over 45 years, and an Alabama museum that displays finds from unclaimed airline baggage, including a 3,500-year-old Egyptian burial mask. Throughout its hundreds of unexpected entries that cover all corners of the image004.pngglobe, Atlas Obscuraproves the world is vast and there are marvelous treasures behind every corner—if you just know where to look.

A feast of wonder, the New York Times bestselling Gastro Obscura is the definitive compendium of the astonishing and delicious. Travel to the rainforests of southern Nigeria, where you’ll find a berry that’s more than a thousand times sweeter than table sugar, sip beer made from the fog of the Chilean Atacama Desert, or discover the quirks of Victorian table etiquette and the illustrious history of butter-carving competitions in the United States. Far more than an immersive cabinet of culinary curiosities, Gastro Obscura is a passport to a multitude of flavors, stories, histories, and cultures. It’s a book for anyone who eats, who dreams of eating, or who longs to explore.

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Monday, December 5, 2022

The Opportunist (Review & Excerpt)


 

 I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Title: The Opportunist
Author: Elyse Friedman 
Publisher: MIRA
Release Date12.6.22

Publisher’s Summary 
A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family.

When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who wields power in the world.

My Review
Hold on to your hats...I'm giving a mystery/thriller 5 stars! Plus, I think this is going to hold the spot as my #1 mystery/thriller for 2022! 

First of all, I rarely read in this genre anymore because most current releases are formulaic to a fault, rely on the now annoyingly overused trope of the unreliable female narrator, or have a "twist" that is meant to shock but is usually just eye-rollingly cringey. But when I read the summary on the blog tour request form I was intrigued and decided to give it a shot. Now I am so thankful I did! The Opportunist shocked and delighted me from the very first page. Don't believe me, check out this excerpt: 

Excerpt


When the calls started up again, Alana ignored them. Ditto the texts and emails, including ones with red exclamation points attached. She had a part-time job that felt full-time and a daughter who required around-the-clock care. She had neither the hours nor the inclination to delve into family drama. And she already knew why her brothers were so desperate to reach her. The younger of the two, Martin, had been messaging sporadically for months about the “skank” their father had taken up with—a nurse, hired by the eldest, Teddy, to tend to the old man’s needs as he grew increasingly infirm and cranky. Nurse Kelly, a woman forty-eight years their father’s junior, a gold digger, obviously, and a clever one according to Martin. Pretty sure she had him at the first sponge bath. Alana was more amused than disturbed. She told her brothers she couldn’t care less. She had more important things to worry about. Eventually, they stopped contacting her.

Then a few weeks ago an oversize envelope had arrived in Alana’s mailbox. Thick creamy paper, her name embossed in swirling gold script—an invitation to the wedding of Edward Shropshire Sr. and Kelly McNutt. Ha! Clever indeed. She felt a fizz of satisfaction, even as she braced for the onslaught from her siblings, who would be outraged at the prospect of losing any portion of their massive inheritance. Alana hated her father and felt nothing but disdain for her brothers. She had no interest in “protecting the family investments” or “presenting a united front” or “having Dad’s back” or any of the increasingly urgent drivel that trickled in from her greedy siblings. She had been estranged from her father for decades and had no stake in this game. It was frankly a shock that she had been invited to the wedding. It must have been Kelly McNutt who insisted on that. The calls, texts and emails started up again with renewed fervor. When Alana finally concluded that her brothers would not leave her in peace until she responded, she composed a simple three-word text, not exactly a family joke, but something they would recognize and understand: BEYOND OUR CONTROL. She added a laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji and sent it to Teddy and Martin.

She stopped hearing from them after that.

It was a rough night. Lily’s BiPAP alarm had gone off twice. She could breathe without the machine, but not as well, and Alana was programmed to leap into action from the deepest slumber. The first time it sounded, around 1:00 a.m., it was a mask-fit alarm. A quick adjustment and back 

to bed. The second was more annoying: a leak alarm at 4:28 that took forever to rectify—no matter how much she fiddled, the alarm kept sounding. She finally got it fixed and Lily was able to get back to sleep, but Alana couldn’t. She lay in bed, her brain churning. At 5:40 she got up, made coffee, and bolted two cinnamon buns in quick succession, an act she immediately regretted, even as she was scraping the last bits of hard white icing from the aluminum pan into her mouth.

It was a workday, so she woke Lily early, helped her dress, and did her hair in French braids. Ramona was coming for the day and Lily liked to look nice for her favorite support worker. Unlike Alana, Ramona was big into girlie stuff: hair, nails, fashion. She would give Lily mani-pedis, and they would flip through Harper’s Bazaar and Teen Vogue and critique the outfits. Ramona had been with them since Lily was three years old, and Alana trusted her completely. She was hugely competent and a ton of fun. Lily was an earnest child, but when Ramona was around, she let herself be silly and boisterous. It would not be unusual for Alana to come home and find them both with teased-up hair and full-on glitter makeup, binge-watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. Ramona was what Lily called “chill.” Pretty much the opposite of Alana, who was always stressed out and exhausted.

“What time will you be home?” Lily asked.

“If all goes well, five thirty.”

“When does all ever go well?”

Alana laughed. “It’s rare, but it has been known to happen. I was home on time twice last week.”

“True.”

“And you have Ramona.” 


“OK. But try.”

“I always try, lovey. But if someone shows up out of the blue at four thirty, I can’t just leave. I have to help them.”

“I know.”

Alana worked part-time at the RedTree Shelter, which offered emergency housing for victims of domestic abuse. It was a foolish job for her to have: low-paying and high stress. Not what she needed in practically her only hours away from managing Lily’s health. She should have taken employment that was easy on the soul, like flower arranging—some vaguely pleasant, not overly cerebral activity that would give her time to refresh and restore. She often fantasized about becoming a professional dog walker or making perfect heart shapes in foamy coffees all day, but she stayed with RedTree. It was important work that made her feel a little better about herself. She sometimes wondered if her motivations were selfish at root.


When Ramona arrived, Alana kissed Lily goodbye and left for work. On her third try she managed to get her Stone Age Honda Odyssey to start and was backing out of the drive when a Lexus pulled in behind her, blocking her way. She tapped the horn—a polite “I’m actually leaving here” signal. Nothing. The car just sat there. She honked again, harder, wondering why it always seemed to be a Lexus or a Mercedes or a BMW that cut her off in traffic, or jumped its turn at a four-way stop, or blocked her driveway when she was trying to get to work, for fuck’s sake. She curbed an impulse to ram her SUV into the shiny roadster, and instead left the Honda running while she strode toward the offending vehicle, getting ready to unleash years of pent-up luxury-car-inspired fury on the entitled asshole behind the wheel. But before she could bang her fist on the tinted window, it slid down smoothly, revealing her brother Martin talking on a cell phone. He had it resting flat on an upturned palm held in front of his face. “OK,” he said. “I know. I’ll take care of it.”

“What the hell, Martin? I have to go to work.” It had been years since she had seen him, but he looked pretty much the same—a slightly higher hairline, maybe a few extra pounds. He was still conventionally handsome, fair and blue-eyed with their father’s chiseled chin, but he now had the slightly puffy face of a drinker, the lightning-bolt blood vessels on the side of his nose. He smelled faintly of good cologne with a top note of leather from the luxury rental car’s seats.

He gave Alana the “I’ll-just-be-one-second” finger. “Listen, Damian, I gotta go. I’ll call you in an hour.” Martin pocketed the phone and smiled at his sister. “Sorry about that.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t get my texts? I need to speak to you. You have a minute?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“I flew across the country to talk to you. You can’t give me two minutes of your time?”

“I have to go to work, Martin. If you want to ride with me, you’re welcome to. Just let me out, then you can park in the drive and Uber back.”

Martin eyed the dented Odyssey that was belching out exhaust. “Why don’t I drive you and give you cash to cab home?”

“No, thanks.”


He smiled tightly. “Fine.”

Alana returned to the SUV to wait for her brother. When Martin climbed in, he was carrying a stiff white envelope with a button-and-string closure and an airport gift-shop bag.

“Here, I got this for…your daughter.”

“Her name is Lily.”

“I know that. Of course…you named her after Lillian.”

A demented-looking doll with stiff blond ringlets stuck out of the tissue paper.

“Thanks,” said Alana. “She’s a little old for dolls though.”

“Oh. How old is she now?”

“Eleven.”

“Wow. Time flies. But I thought…”

“What?”

“You know… I figured she’d still be into dolls.”

“She’s not slow, Martin. Her brain is fine.”

“Oh. So…?”

“She has a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Well, rare for girls, common for boys.”

“Right.”

“She’s inside, by the way. You want to meet your niece?”

Her brother looked confused and pained, as if she’d asked if he wanted to donate a kidney or breastfeed a cat. “I thought you were in a hurry?”

“I am. I’m just messing with you.” Alana eased the Odyssey out of the driveway. She knew Martin wouldn’t want to meet Lily. And she didn’t want Martin to meet Lily.

“Can you turn the AC on?” Martin fanned himself with the white envelope. “It’s so freaking humid in this city.”

“Sorry, it’s busted.” Alana opened the rear windows to 

let in more air but felt a perverse pleasure in depriving her brother of climate control.

“So, look, I understand you don’t care about Dad’s wedding—”

“I really don’t and I’m not going.”

“I don’t give a shit if you go or don’t go, but I’m here to tell you that you should care, actually.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this Kelly woman is seriously messing with Dad’s head.”

“His head or his assets?”

“Both. She’s got him wound around her finger. They’re in the process of setting up a charitable foundation.”

“And that’s a bad thing because…?”

“Because guess who’s going to run it and have access to three hundred million dollars?”

“Kelly McNutt?”

“Yes, Kelly McFucking Nutt. It’s a problem. This girl is dangerous.” A harp gliss sounded from Martin’s pocket. He switched his phone to silent mode.

“Well, it’s not my problem. And anyway, how do you know she won’t use the funds charitably and wisely?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious.”

“The same way I know that a twenty-eight-year-old nurse doesn’t fall madly in love with her seventy-six-year-old patient.”

Alana shrugged. “Unlikely, but you never know. I saw his picture in Forbes a few weeks ago. He still looks like Charlton Heston on steroids. Maybe she has daddy issues.” 


“It would have to be more like granddaddy issues. I doubt she gets off on adult diapers.”

“He wears diapers?”

“He’s been incontinent for years.”

“Hmm.”

“You must have seen a pre-stroke picture in Forbes.”

“Dad had a stroke?”

“Yes. I told you that last year, Alana.”

“You did?”

“Jesus. Don’t you read your emails?”

“Sometimes the family stuff slips through.”

“Anyway, between that and the prostate surgery, I doubt he can even get it up for Miss McNutt.”

“OK, you know what? I don’t want to talk about this. I’m sorry you and Teddy are going to lose a chunk of your inheritance. But I’m sure there’s more than enough to go around.”

“Yeah, in a perfect world, we’d all be satisfied with our piece of the pie. He’s had playthings before, right? And wasted money on them. But this is different. This one is setting off alarm bells. She isn’t satisfied with having the run of the house and getting a Ferrari and—”

“He bought her a Ferrari?” Alana laughed.

“An 812 GTS. I don’t even want to tell you what that costs.”

“Like how much?”

“A lot.”

“Like a hundred Gs?”

“Try four times that.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. You think she’d be happy with the lifestyle, right? And some agreed-upon sum in a prenup that would effectively let her retire in high style eight years out of college. But no. Apparently, there isn’t going to be a prenup because he trusts her.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

“I know. This is what I’m saying. Because she makes him exercise and eat his greens, he actually believes she has his best interests at heart. The woman is very savvy, and basically on a mission to alienate us from Dad. She’s been trying to discredit us from the beginning. And she’s subtle about it. She’s supersmart. He’s already given her power of attorney for personal care. How long before she’s in charge of his property too?”



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✨DNF✨ The Passenger


  

I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


Title: The Passenger
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date12.6.22

Publisher’s Summary 
1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit – by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

Traversing the American South, from the garrulous bar rooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.
My Review
The Road had me flipping pages wide-eyed, with the experience setting me off on a post-apocalyptic reading spree for about a decade, so I was so excited when Knopf offered me a review copy of Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger. A diver investigates a crashed jet with nine bodies inside but "missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger." Sounds like a great mystery, right? Then why are the opening pages totally unrelated to this storyline? I'm sure it would all circle back and it's to develop this character but it just made no sense--which I can see is the point to show this character's state of mind. Yet, I trudged on for a couple more chapters (who knows because while there are page breaks to indicate a new chapter, there are no chapter numbers.) I found myself zoning out or my eyes skimming the page even after putting this down and returning to it several times, so I've decided to DNF but I could see myself circling back to this. I'm not totally writing it off.
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