cookbooks

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays

2 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites /

I wasn’t in the mood to start a new book on Sunday morning (which turned out to be a good thing since we ended up at the ER) and The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays was due back at the library soon so I figured I’d just relax with that for awhile til I was ready to start something else. Very good choice since it was the perfect thing to enjoy last night after the ER exhaustion.

The thing about Ree’s books … they always make me want to cook, which is ridiculous since I never want to cook. I also tend to say things like “mmmmm, I want to eat that right now” which leads TW to say “but you don’t like…” and I have to say “yes I do” which leads us to argue about the foods I do and don’t like.

Anyway. That’s what happened here. I want black-eyed peas salsa and alllllllll of the potato skins and allllllll of the different french toast casseroles and I want the red velvet pancakes even though TW hates that idea and I want grilled corn in eleventy different ways.

Yum.

PS. The photos in the book are also awesome. Gosh the kids are getting so big. How did that happen (which is what we said when we saw them in person earlier this year. Kids should not grow so quickly, should they?)

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ROOTS: Where Food Comes From and Where It Takes Us

3 Comments / 2013, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Kindle, Non-Fiction, short stories /

The ROOTS Anthology is a BlogHer book — I am employed by BlogHer but I purchased the book myself. I was not asked to write about the book. The opinions expressed here are my own and I readily admit I’m probably a little biased.

OK a lot biased.

I know a good many of the people whose stories are featured in this anthology. I’ve spent time with them in person. I’ve read their blogs for years. I hang out with them on Chatter/Twitter and Facebook. It’s hard not to love this book because, well, these people are MY people.

It was fun to hear several of them read their stories at BlogHer Food — a little foodie community-like keynote. So fun. It was just as fun to read their stories again last week. I might even have felt tempted to make some of the recipes. (OK Fine. I might have been tempted to ask TW to make some of their recipes. Happy now?)

I loved this book. Yea, I’m biased.

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Girl Hunter

2012, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Non-Fiction, Women /

I added Girl Hunter to my TBR list when Sassymonkey showed me the book trailer for it. It was one of the first book trailers that I did not hate. That seemed like a good sign. But months went by and I never reserved the book. It just happened to be sitting on the shelf a few months ago so I grabbed it. TW read it quickly and didn’t have a lot to say about it. I picked it up day before yesterday because it was short and I’ve got a ton of books due back that can’t be renewed – I’m reading as many as possible, so short or quick reads are a must right now. Girl Hunter seemed like both.

And it was.

It was also very well written.

What it wasn’t was… passionate.

It was interesting. Kind of. In a hunting sort of way. The men she hunted with were very interesting. Even the asshole in North Dakota or Montana or wherever it was that she tried to go Elk Hunting.

What was missing was Georgia Pellegrinni’s passion and emotion. Even when they were chasing hogs through Arkansas on 4 wheelers, tracking dogs with gps collars, the emotion died down fast. The adrenaline was just not there – and while I’ve never been hunting, I can’t imagine that there isn’t any when you’re hunting HUGE hogs and stabbing them with knives and stuff.

Cold. Interesting, but cold. That’s what Girl Hunter was.

I didn’t hate it. I’m not sorry I read it. I’m just kind of let down by it.

Oh well. You can’t win ‘em all.

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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A Non-Fiction and a Cookbook

2012, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I thought Eating with Uncle Sam might be interesting for TW, retro food blog and all that. She was sort of ho hum about it but I liked it. There sure were a lot of recipes from Nixon and Bush. And General Eisenhower’s recipe for chicken soup was fabulous, not that I like soup or anything.

And then there’s Where Children Sleep, a book I kept thinking I would buy but never did. I just happened to walk down the last row of shelves of new arrivals (a row I never really walk past) and it caught my eye. I figured what the heck, I’ll get it. I’m glad I did and I still think I want to buy it. As Elly said just now – that book is really depressing. But it’s interesting and it makes you think.

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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The Love Goddess’ Cooking School

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, cookbooks, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

TW asked me why I was reading The Love Goddess’ Cooking School, like it wasn’t a book I’d like, or something. Weird because there was nothing about it that I didn’t like. I like food stories. I like a nice piece of chick lit. I like stories with good teen characters. I like stories with a little bit of magic tossed in.

TW said this book was like Sarah Addison Allen – she’s right. But I think it might be more like a cross between Sarah Addison Allen and Adriana Trigiani which means – you should read this one.

I wonder what happens next… sequel, please.

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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Two for the Road

2010, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I’m a big fan of “Roadfood” and if I liked food in general just a little bit more… and also travel just a little bit more than that… I’d be envious of Jane and Michael Stern. What better job than to drive across the country, eating at diners and truck stops and hole in the wall restaurants? Thanks to Two for the Road, I can just convince TW to make some of these foods at home and live laugh vicariously through the Sterns’.

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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Julie and Julia

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

It’s weird, I really didn’t have any desire to read Julie and Julia. I don’t know why, the book has everything I like – food blogger, grand ideas, Julia freaking Child. So why didn’t I want to read it? I don’t know, it was probably the hype that turned me off. I only read it because a) I saw it on the shelf, in large print, and thought TW’s mom would like it b) TW’s mom said it was “weird” and it didn’t make sense to her that someone would do such a project c) TW’s mother raised TW who would CERTAINLY think up something like this – and carry it through.

I couldn’t NOT read it after hearing TW’s mom talk about it.

Turns out this was a horrible book for TW’s mom. She doesn’t do the F word and lord, the F word is all over the book. I think had this not been the case, she’d have probably had a different reaction. (TW’s mom would totally be one of those “bleaders” who gave Julie shit for her language.)

I, on the otherhand, loved every word of it. Every single word. Well the killing of the lobsters made me kind of queasy but that’s to be expected. Lots of the recipes made me queasy – that’s a lot of mess, a lot of work, a lot of crazy food that I really do not want to eat. But… the project… pure brilliance. And the writing, fun. Fun, fun, fun.

I’m so glad I read it. (I’m sorry though to hear that Robert, the dog Julie and Eric adopted post-project, passed away a couple of months ago. I was irrationally sad about that when I saw it on her blog last night.)

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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Miriam’s Kitchen

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

I never would have read Miriam’s Kitchen had it not been for Sassymonkey’s post, Miriam’s Kitchen and Mine –  and tweets. And even then, if someone hadn’t nicely nominated it for BlogHer Voice of the Week, I might have skimmed and really missed something good.

I’m not a foodie and I don’t have those family memory food experiences that are always the basis of food memoirs. I’ve read so many Jewish memoirs that I don’t go out of my way to read more – not because they aren’t important or well written or I don’t enjoy them, but because I sometimes feel like those stories are becoming diluted for me and that’s not what should happen. So many words all melded together, I’m losing the individual story and find myself lumping it all into one massive trauma. Anyway, enough of that…

Miriam’s Kitchen is something you should run out right now and buy or reserve at your library. If you don’t – you will be missing something special. It may have been simply that I like food memoirs. Or it could be that I like grandmothers. Or also that I was reading it right around Shavuot and we’d been talking about celebration, spring harvest, dairy (who doesn’t love dairy?) and Ruth – which is an even bigger (WHO DOESN’T LOVE RUTH??)

Whatever it was – it all worked for me. Every story. Every question. Every recipe.

I’d happily own this one – but I would ask TW to just not put raisins in my cheesecake. That – that doesn’t work for me.

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Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, cookbooks, Non-Fiction /

Milk was a total impulse pick from the new nonfiction arrivals at the library. I saw it placed on top of the nonfiction shelves as we made our way to the check out counter and grabbed it.

TW made fun of me.

Because I do not like milk. Except in my quad grande nonfat caramel macchiato.

She’s right. I don’t. But, I thought it might be interesting to read. It was. It also made me glad that I do not like milk. Also glad that I have not bought into the organic milk fad. I would like to try water buffalo milk, though. (By the way, the recipes and the “milk chemistry experiments” were really interesting. The book was worth picking up, just to read through those.)

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