Here's a yummy salad Myles came up with for the 4th.
spinach
candied pecans
bleu cheese
poppyseed dressing
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Red, White, and Bleu
Here's a yummy salad Myles came up with for the 4th.
spinach
candied pecans
bleu cheese
poppyseed dressing
Cafe Rio Salad Dressing
If you're lucky enough to have tomatillos growin' in your garden like Heidi or just love Cafe Rio like the rest of us, then here's a yummy recipe for you!
3 tomatillos
1 1/3 c. Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (You can make your own from a packet or just buy it).
1 c. cilantro
2 cloves of garlic
dash of tabasco
Blend, refrigerate, and enjoy!
3 tomatillos
1 1/3 c. Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (You can make your own from a packet or just buy it).
1 c. cilantro
2 cloves of garlic
dash of tabasco
Blend, refrigerate, and enjoy!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Free Books
Kids in 1st grade and up can record books they've read and then get a free one at Barnes and Noble. (I'm not sure who was more excited about this, me or Robyn)! You can pick up a sheet at the store or maybe print one from online. Every kid can earn up to 2 books this summer!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I'm Winning! I'm Winning!
I know we haven't read this yet, but we all have to enter this contest to win a 4 day/3night trip to the island!! One entry allowed per email per day until July 31st!
Here's the link to the Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society book club sweepstakes ~I am sure we will win... and then we will bully them into letting all of us go, since it's supposed to be just five.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Some Light Reading, Heavy Boots
One Suitable Boy is one suitable workout. (If you've checked it out, you'll know what I mean). I no longer have to feel bad about not exercising, if I just take it with me where ever I go. Whenever people come over and see it on the coffee table, Robyn has them estimate the # of pages. (Maybe we should start offering a prize for the closest guess).
Don't worry; it's worth the lugging. Just thought I'd give you heads up, so you could start reading! (Although, if too many of you request it from the library, I won't be able to renew it when my 3 wks. runs out!)
Also, the other day, I got an unusual phone call.
Caller: I know this is a long shot, but I'm looking for a Lonnie Watson. Do you happen to know him?
I immediately thought of Oskar, was sad I couldn't help him, and wished him good luck.
Don't worry; it's worth the lugging. Just thought I'd give you heads up, so you could start reading! (Although, if too many of you request it from the library, I won't be able to renew it when my 3 wks. runs out!)
Also, the other day, I got an unusual phone call.
Caller: I know this is a long shot, but I'm looking for a Lonnie Watson. Do you happen to know him?
I immediately thought of Oskar, was sad I couldn't help him, and wished him good luck.
Friday, June 5, 2009
And the Winners Are....
AUGUST -- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Hosted by Robyn
Reviewed by Heidi
SEPTEMBER -- The Essential Tales of Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
Hosted by Shauna
Review by Kara
OCTOBER -- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Hosted by Christie
Review by Bethany
NOVEMBER -- The Woman in White by Wilkie Colins
Hosted by Bethany
Reviewed by Rebecca
DECEMBER -- Christmas Party
Hosted by Brenda
Hosted by Bethany
Reviewed by Rebecca
DECEMBER -- Christmas Party
Hosted by Brenda
JANUARY -- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskill
Hosted by Kara
Reviewed by Britney
Hosted by Kara
Reviewed by Britney
FEBRUARY -- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Hosted by Shannon
Reviewed by Brenda
Hosted by Shannon
Reviewed by Brenda
So get your books ordered!
Other nominated books
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A few more books to think about
This is a love story. It seeped into my soul with it's intensity. It's not a light book.Here's a line or two from the book:
At last he was rid of his crime. He had killed Camille. It was a matter that was settled, and would be spoken of no more. He was now going to lead a tranquil existence, until he could take possession of Therese. The thought of the murder had at times half choked him, but now that it was accomplished, he felt a weight removed from his chest, and breathed at ease, cured of the suffering that hesitation and fear had given him.
I have wanted to read 'The Essential Tales of Chekhov' as well. These short stories are supposed to be beautiful and writen by arguably the best short story writer who ever lived.Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Kara's choices
Here are the two books Kara mentioned -- so you don't have to search for them
I have heard wonderful things about Chekhov short stories. It seems like this is one of the best collections. Here's a summary:
"Anton Chekhov is best known as a playwright, the author of such classics as Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters, but he was also an accomplished short-story writer. The Essential Tales of Chekhov does not pretend to be a comprehensive collection of all his fiction, but it does lay claim to be the best. Reading these stories, one immediately notices how modern they feel. As Richard Ford writes in his introduction, "His meticulous anatomies of complicated human impulse and response, his view of what's funny and poignant, his clear-eyed observance of life as lived--all somehow matches our experience." Chekhov is a master of the telling detail, the acute psychological insight. In "After the Theatre" he captures perfectly the morbid, romantic imagination of a 16-year-old girl: "To be unloved and unhappy--how interesting that was." In "An Anonymous Story" he quickly limns the sum of one of his characters in a single image: "He was a man with the manners of a lizard. He did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed his teeth." We will see much more of this character, but we've already learned everything essential about him.
Garrison Keillor is the consummate storyteller, gifted with the rare ability--both in print and in performance--to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of ordinary people whose lives contain extraordinary moments of humor, tenderness, and grace. This exclusive recording of Garrison Keillor reading a carefully edited abridgement of the book and includes a few segments taken from live performances recorded during a fundraising tour for public radio stations in 1985.
I have heard wonderful things about Chekhov short stories. It seems like this is one of the best collections. Here's a summary:
"Anton Chekhov is best known as a playwright, the author of such classics as Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters, but he was also an accomplished short-story writer. The Essential Tales of Chekhov does not pretend to be a comprehensive collection of all his fiction, but it does lay claim to be the best. Reading these stories, one immediately notices how modern they feel. As Richard Ford writes in his introduction, "His meticulous anatomies of complicated human impulse and response, his view of what's funny and poignant, his clear-eyed observance of life as lived--all somehow matches our experience." Chekhov is a master of the telling detail, the acute psychological insight. In "After the Theatre" he captures perfectly the morbid, romantic imagination of a 16-year-old girl: "To be unloved and unhappy--how interesting that was." In "An Anonymous Story" he quickly limns the sum of one of his characters in a single image: "He was a man with the manners of a lizard. He did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed his teeth." We will see much more of this character, but we've already learned everything essential about him.
"No two Chekhov stories are alike, but they do share some common traits: though often somber, they are seldom despairing and even his most serious work is leavened by his trademark wit. Only 20 of the more than 220 tales that he wrote are included in this collection, but they provide an excellent introduction to those who have not yet had the pleasure of reading him. And for those who know and love Chekhov, The Essential Tales of Chekhov is a
loving reminder of why."
Garrison Keillor is the consummate storyteller, gifted with the rare ability--both in print and in performance--to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of ordinary people whose lives contain extraordinary moments of humor, tenderness, and grace. This exclusive recording of Garrison Keillor reading a carefully edited abridgement of the book and includes a few segments taken from live performances recorded during a fundraising tour for public radio stations in 1985.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
This very witty, yet also serious, novel is entirely composed of letters. A writer starts receiving these letters in 1946 from members of a book club who formed their society to save themselves during the German Occupation. It's an easy, yet powerful, enjoyable read. I own a copy and would be glad to let anyone borrow it.
I haven't read the following 2, but have heard they're good and noticed that they're both available in book club sets at the Provo library, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying them.
1. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 2 boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take and unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature. 197 pgs.
2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Dangerously ill after failing to climb K2, Greg Mortenson was sheltered and nursed in a remote Pakistan village; he promised to return and build them a school. 338 pgs.
PS Kara, are you going to post your short-story collection suggestion?
This very witty, yet also serious, novel is entirely composed of letters. A writer starts receiving these letters in 1946 from members of a book club who formed their society to save themselves during the German Occupation. It's an easy, yet powerful, enjoyable read. I own a copy and would be glad to let anyone borrow it.
I haven't read the following 2, but have heard they're good and noticed that they're both available in book club sets at the Provo library, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying them.
1. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 2 boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take and unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature. 197 pgs.
2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Dangerously ill after failing to climb K2, Greg Mortenson was sheltered and nursed in a remote Pakistan village; he promised to return and build them a school. 338 pgs.
PS Kara, are you going to post your short-story collection suggestion?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
My Choices
I haven't read the first two books but thought they both looked good. The first is Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. I read about this in Entertainment Weekly -- they gave it a great review and I liked the idea of a 11 year old sleuth.
"In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
-- From Goodreads
The second book is A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I have heard great things about this book too. I think it is a long one though so it may need to be a summer read if we pick it.
"Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence."
-- From Goodreads
Finally I thought I'd suggest Gilliad by Marilynne Robinson. I read this several years ago and loved it.
"The narrator, John Ames, is 76, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man."
-- From Goodreads
"In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”
-- From Goodreads
The second book is A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. I have heard great things about this book too. I think it is a long one though so it may need to be a summer read if we pick it.
"Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence."
-- From Goodreads
Finally I thought I'd suggest Gilliad by Marilynne Robinson. I read this several years ago and loved it.
"The narrator, John Ames, is 76, a preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man."
-- From Goodreads
Monday, May 18, 2009
My first ...suggestion
The first book I'm submitting is...
"The Apothecary's Daughter" by Julie Klassen
I don't know a lot about this book, but....I want to read it. Here is the info on the book.
"While working in her father’s apothecary shop in the small village of Bedsley Priors, Lilly Haswell dreams of one day traveling the world, perhaps even finding her mother, who had left her family three years before and has never been heard from since. When the chance to live with her maternal aunt and uncle is unexpectedly offered to her, Lilly sees the opportunity for a new life. Once in London, she indulges in a bit of romantic flirtation with several different men while also learning more about her mother’s mysterious disappearance. Then, when a crisis forces Lilly to return to Bedsley Priors, she faces the difficult challenge of giving up her fabulous independent life in order to help out the family she has always loved. Filled with fascinating details about the apothecary trade in Regency England, Klassen’s latest superbly crafted inspirational romance is an emotionally compelling and quietly powerful tale about the importance of faith and hope, family and friends, love and loyalty."
"The Apothecary's Daughter" by Julie Klassen
I don't know a lot about this book, but....I want to read it. Here is the info on the book.
"While working in her father’s apothecary shop in the small village of Bedsley Priors, Lilly Haswell dreams of one day traveling the world, perhaps even finding her mother, who had left her family three years before and has never been heard from since. When the chance to live with her maternal aunt and uncle is unexpectedly offered to her, Lilly sees the opportunity for a new life. Once in London, she indulges in a bit of romantic flirtation with several different men while also learning more about her mother’s mysterious disappearance. Then, when a crisis forces Lilly to return to Bedsley Priors, she faces the difficult challenge of giving up her fabulous independent life in order to help out the family she has always loved. Filled with fascinating details about the apothecary trade in Regency England, Klassen’s latest superbly crafted inspirational romance is an emotionally compelling and quietly powerful tale about the importance of faith and hope, family and friends, love and loyalty."
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