My other suggestion...

The School of Essential Ingredients

256 pages

I heard this was an uplifting, sweet, quick and easy read. Plus, it's about the food! Yip! Yip! Perfect for all of our food meetings -- I mean book club meetings. :)

Book Summary
The School of Essential Ingredients follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students’ lives. One by one the students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of Lillian’s food, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love and a peppery heirloom tomato sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.

My suggestion...

The Elegance of the Hedgehog
336 pages

Originally written in French and then translated into english. The author is a novelist and a professor of philosophy. It was a highly acclaimed book all throughout Europe in 2007.

BOOK SUMMARY

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

Another suggestion...

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban's backyard. Anyone who despairs of the individual's power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan's treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools especially for girls that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson's quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.  352 pages

Nominate A Book

Next month we will be voting on what we want to read next. So please post a book or two you would like to throw in the mix and we'll select our next six.


Here are three that we mentioned either earlier on the blog or last night.

Jane Eyre 
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a richer life than that traditionally allowed women in Victorian society.  576 pages

The Hunger Games

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Katniss' sister is chosen by lottery, she steps up to go in her place.  374 pages

The Help

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

January Book Club

We had such a great time last night at Shauna's house!  We reviewed North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  The general consensus was that we liked the book particularly the love story but felt that the some of the political and labor parts were a bit long (and boring).

Shauna prepared the most delicious meal for us.  

A divine vegetable soup, homemade beer bread, artichoke dip and crackers.

We also had ice cream with homemade hot fudge sauce & pistachios. I didn't manage to get a picture of the ice cream because we all downed it to fast.  I really wish you could have heard all the mmmmm's in the room!

  

These clementines ended up being the perfect play thing!

And here are the gals...

Mariana & Brenda Sue

Robyn & Shannon

Kristie & Shauna

Christie & Bethany

Shannon & Heidi

Britney & Rebecca

Stephanie & Kara

And now a special message from Britney...

"Make sure you read Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie for next month...

or else!"

(Oh & you can pick the accent)

Thanks again Shauna!

See you next month!

Our Christmas Party

We had a great time - Thanks Brenda for hosting!

Brenda & Heidi

Brenda & Britney cooking up a storm in the kitchen.  The lettuce wraps were super tasty!

Britney & Shannon

Kara & Shauny

Christie, Mariana & Bethany

Here is a sampling of our spread.  There was so much good food!

I hope that recipes will follow soon!

 Let the games begin!

 Who doesn't want an electrified fly swatter?

 Beans, Gas-X and air freshener - a perfect gift for Brenda! (And for Bethany who stole it from her!)

 In case you were wondering what Christie found hidden in her house 6 months ago and saved for the white elephant exchange --  it was money from a ward auction held 100 years ago!  Too funny!! The bills all had members of the former bishopric on them.  Britney tried to use them at Allen's.

 Ahhh and now we get to the Snuggie -- the most stolen item.

I hear that shannon used this festive serving set Christmas Eve.

I know I am so very tardy in this post - sorry!  But I had a great time and can't wait for a new year and new books!

Voting for New Books

Will we be voting in Feb.?

Has anyone read The Hunger Games? I've heard it's good. I noticed in the Goodreads newsletter today that its sequel, Catching Fire, won first pick for 2009.

January Twenty Ten Bookclub

(Shauna) I'm a bit behind "the times" I suppose but I thought
our bookclub night was still on the 2nd Thursday of the month.
Apparently not, it is now the 1st Thursday. Anyway, I planned on Thursday January 14th (which is the 2nd Thursday) and I'm hoping that will be okay with everyone???
If so, we will meet to discuss
'North and South' by Elizabeth Gaskell on January 14th, 7 p.m. @Shauna's house.
I think you all have been to my house but if you need directions
let me know. If anyone cares to RSVP here I'd really appreciate the
heads up so that I can plan for food. Just leave your name in the comments section.
Hope to see you for a little R and R

Party!

RSVP for book club and let us know what you are bringing below... see you Thursday!
Brenda will be e-mailing her address & directions soon.

Menu details...

After much discussion and deliberation, I've decided that our evening will be utterly fabulous if we attend to some minor menu details first!

Our own Mrs. Watson has delighted us once with her Pear Crostini and has decided to bring that for us once again. I, your happy hostess, have chosen to go with more of a main dish/appetizer goodie that I know you will all love. P. F. Chang's uses my recipe for these scrumptious little darlings I like to call Lettuce Wraps!

So, that brings us to the rest of you ladies and what you may decide to bring...


I think we should try to bring 4 sweet treats and 4 or so savory treats to compliment our night. In the comments please reveal to us your plans for your unique addition to our menu. Keep an eye on what others are planning so we have a good variety...thanks ladies! See you all Thursday night!

Christmas Party...

Since Christie has displayed just how on-the-ball she is with the post below, I decided to provide a heads-up to let all you gals know that we plan to post a sign-up sheet by weekend so that we have an idea of what everyone plans to bring! (How was that for a run-on sentence?) Christie is bringing the yumdiddlyicious pear delight she served when she hosted last. Looking forward to lots of good eats and conversation! Plus some even better laughs when we open our "white elephant" gifts! Love to you ladies...can't wait to see you all!

Christmas Par-tay Food

Just to help coordinate with the food menu, I was thinking about making the pears hors d'oevres with the blue cheese and walnuts that I made last time I hosted.