Miss Bibliophile.

Friday Fancies

2012-02-10T08:00:00.055-05:00

I'm not in any way complaining about the mild winter we've been having this year, but it has proven a challenge when getting dressed in the morning. I find myself either feeling chilly because I've dressed for the mild temperatures to come later in the day or feeling overheated during my walk to work because I've bundled up for the frosty morning air. The dusting of snow we got earlier this week reminded me of how, last winter, I based every outfit around items that would work with my wellies. I guess consistency is the one upside of endless snow.

On to my favorites from the week, including a couple of treats that would be the perfect complement to wintry weather.

(image via here)

I'll definitely be try out this sweet twist on tea this weekend.

If that's not enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, I can spruce up a hot chocolate with some frozen whipped cream.

This grouping of framed lyrics just might be my favorite Valentine's craft that I've seen so far.

I think my To Read list may grow after I check out this book.

And would you ever wear snake motif jewelry? I would have said no, but I can picture some of these pieces as a surprising touch with a simple outfit, like a striped shirt and jeans.

What caught your eye this week?

Glaciers

2012-02-09T08:00:00.001-05:00

I just read the loveliest debut novel, Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith. Short and with ample margins, it's really more of a novella that can be read cover to cover in one sitting, a reading experience I'd highly recommend.

Covering the span of a single day in the life of Isobel, a twenty-something librarian with a penchant for all things vintage, the story weaves scenes of her past childhood in rural Alaska and glimpses of her hopes for the future with the action of the present, in which her daily routine is punctuated by a bittersweet romantic encounter and culminates in a dreamy, melancholy party she attends with her best friend. The writing is spare, the themes wistful, the characters realistic, and the story memorable.

I originally checked this book out of the library, but just ordered myself a copy to own. That's how much I liked it.

What the Dickens!

2012-02-08T08:00:00.009-05:00

In case the explosion of Dickens related material around the web yesterday didn't tip you off, our friend Charles turned the big 2-0-0. If you don't have time to celebrate by rereading one of his novels, you can check out some of these Dickensian items.

Google's doodle in honor of the occasion:

A couple of Penguin Classics editions to add to my Must Collect list:

And although I know that we're all trying not to think about the sad day when Downton Abbey is over for this season, there are a few new Dickens adaptations coming up on Masterpiece. Great Expectations, The Old Curiosity Shop, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood all look like they'll be worth a watch.

What's your favorite Dickens?

Austenland

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

I generally stay far, far away from Jane Austen spin offs and fake sequels. I'm much rather re-read the original novels than read about the adventures of Elizabeth and Darcy's children or, worse yet, read a version where the characters are recast as vampires or warlocks or something.

The exceptions to this personal rule are two books by Shannon Hale, Austenland, which I read a few years back, and Midnight in Austenland, which I came across at the library and read over the weekend. Both novels are set in a modern-day British manor house that serves as a complete Austen immersion experience, where vacationing guests dress in period costumes and meet actors posing as Regency-era characters. Varying degrees of romance and mystery ensue when the feisty heroine of each book arrives for a stay.

From the reviews I've seen, there are a lot of fans and a lot of haters of these books. The latter group probably has some valid points mixed in with their complaints, but I've found myself thoroughly enjoying both novels. They're light and fun and the premise of a Jane Austen theme park is just tongue-in-cheek enough to make you feel like you and the author are in on the joke together, which goes a long way in negating the some of the cheesier, potentially cringe-inducing scenes.

And even better than the books is the fact that the first one is being made into a movie. Starring Felicity! And Bret! Definitely looking forward to seeing that!

Jittery Hearts

2012-02-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

I had a minor dream come true last week. On a whim I stopped in a coffee shop I had never been to before and happily discovered that the baristas there serve up their lattes with fancy foam art on top.

My latte, which was actually one of the best I've ever had, was dressed up with a stacked heart design that lasted all the way to the final sip.

I've always wanted to try one of these, and now I have a place where I can get them on a regular basis!

Friday Fancies

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

Today's post sets a new record as my biggest roundup of Friday Fancies yet. There were just too many great finds this week to even try to edit them down.

(image via here)

I'd love to recreate this day trip to Bainbridge Island in Washington.

Remember these book collections? Here's a tutorial on how you can make your own.

I discovered that the Nancy Mitford archive has a nice little website. I didn't necessarily learn anything new or earth shattering about her, but it's definitely worth a quick look for Mitford fans.

I was interested to see this roundup of some of Francoise Gilot's art. Not only has she had a interesting life, but it reminded me of going to hear her speak at a lecture during the first few weeks of my freshman year of college. (I remember feeling like it was my first real cultural, intellectual college event!)

And sticking with the art theme, these are some cool pieces that hint at the hidden interior lives of people on the streets of Paris.

I'd love to own one of these amazing handmade books, although I'd never be able to bring myself to write in them.

Here's a fun look at outfits inspired by Murakami covers.

And if all of that still isn't enough for you, check out this blog devoted to book photography. I sense a lot of Pinterest material here!

Children's Classics

2012-02-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

For Christmas I received quite a few new books to add to my ever-growing collection of pretty, unique editions of classic titles. These included some children's (or just child-like) books, like the Puffin Classics edition of Peter Pan, the Penguin Threads editions of Black Beauty and The Secret Garden, and the Penguin Classics edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Not only will these be decorative additions for my shelves, but they'll be a fun chance to rediscover these well known stories for the first time, as I've never actually read most of them in their original book forms.

I've started meandering through Peter Pan, reading a little bit here and there a few nights before bed. So far I'm amazed at what an odd little book it is! Peter is a much more annoying character than he is in the movie adaptations of the story, and Tinkerbell is portrayed as mean (and kind of a hussy!). Some of the writing is pretty lyrical, though, so I can see how it would be good read aloud in the way it's meant to be, as a betime story for children.
I'm also amazed at how I can't help but picture Johnny Depp as the narrator after seeing him play J.M. Barrie in this movie.

My New Favorite Cookbook (And I Mean It This Time)

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

I think I'm in danger of getting a reputation as the girl who cried wolf when it comes to cookbooks. I've declared a new favorite at least three different times now. First there was this one. Then there was this one, and then this one (which, to be fair, could technically be classified as my favorite baking book). While I still enjoy all of those, I think I may have found my favorite favorite: Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl (granddaughter of Roald).

The book itself it gorgeously designed. Just reading it makes you feel like you too can sip something out of a pretty China cup while wearing wellies, tights, and a bohemian sweater coat. The recipes themselves, organized into breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes for each season, are simultaneously unique and simple. Memoirs about the role food has played in Dahl's life accompany each season and are perfect for reading while risotto simmers or while you're waiting for an egg to poach.

In the span of a week, I've made poached eggs over portobello mushrooms with goat cheese:

...brown rice risotto with pumpkin and marscapone:

...and Eton mess, a British dessert made by combining the most delicious, light-as-air, crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside meringues with whipped cream and raspberry compote:

I can't recommend this book highly enough. (Although I reserve the right to crown a new favorite when her new book comes out in April.)

Rules of Civility

2012-01-30T08:00:00.001-05:00

Rules of Civility was one of the books from the past year that I've been most looking forward to reading. The widely praised debut novel by Amor Towles tells the story of a working class girl who is thrust into the upper class sphere in 1930's Manhattan and was heralded as being written in the style of a modern-day Fitzgerald. I was predisposed to like this novel and, happily, I did. The Fitzgerald influence is apparent, particularly in some of the more elegiac moments at the beginning and end of the novel, the working girl in the city storyline hearkened back to The Best of Everything, and there's a slight twist at the end that's so subtly well done that it caused me to smile at myself for not catching it earlier. But on top of all of that, the real and surprising standout of the novel is its smart narrator, Katey Kontent.

As the story begins, Katey is working as a legal secretary and sharing a boardinghouse room with her friend Eve. A chance encounter on New Year's Eve catapults both of them into wealthy New York society life. Katey navigates both sides of the line, mixing more and more with the upper class while maintaining her fifth story walk-up lifestyle. Widely read and well versed in Dickens, Wharton, Thoreau, Chekhov (in the original Russian), and, yes, Agatha Christie, she's one of the most literate characters I've encountered. She judges all facets of New York society with a wry, confident attitude that initially gave me pause. At first I found myself thinking that her voice seemed less like that of a twenty-something girl and more like that of the middle-aged male author who created her. As the details of her background emerged, I became more and more convinced that her attitude was believable, and would be the natural product of her tough, scrappy, Brooklyn upbringing as the first generation daughter of Russian immigrants. On her own from the age of nineteen, she's not the naive, wide-eyed girl I had expected when I started the novel. Instead, she's one of the smartest, most engaging heroines I've read in a long time.

Friday Fancies

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

This week I have a question in addition to some favorite things. The other day I alluded to having read this book. Because of something that one of the characters reads in the course of the story (and notwithstanding what I previously said about mystery novels), I want to try reading something by Agatha Christie. Have you ever read anything by her? Do you have a recommendation for one of her books that I should start with? I'd love to hear about it if you do.

Now, on to the things that caught my eye this week.

(image via here)

Some sweet little illustrations.

These book collections--a splurge indeed.

A fun look at (and quiz about) some Liberty fabric prints.

And this apartment, for its interesting mix of vintage, Victorian, modern, and shabby chic styles.

Many Are Called

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, which I'll say more about another day. For now I want to talk about how reading it led me to discover some interesting photos by Walker Evans. The Prologue of the book opens in the 1950's, years after the main story takes place, with the protagonist at a museum opening for Many Are Called, an exhibit of candid photos from the late 1930's (right around the same time as these pictures). Taken with a hidden camera (!) they depict unsuspecting New York City subway riders.

(Images from here, here, here, here, and here)

I'm not sure which is the most intriguing: the vintage clothing and newspaper, the blank stares and world weary attitudes....or those two chatty ladies!

Maisie Dobbs

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not that much of a mystery reader. I have nothing against the genre, but for whatever reason, I only seem to dip into it once in a while. What's more is that I've even passed up books in the past, thinking, "Oh, I don't know if I feel like a mystery...". That was the reaction I had whenever I would come across Maisie Dobbs in the bookstore. I was drawn to its post-WWI England setting (I promise I'll move on to a new fictional time and place soon), but always put it down, not quite in the mood to follow Maisie, a maid-turned-battlefield nurse-turned-detective, track down her latest case. I recently read a couple of glowing reviews of it, though, so I finally decided to give it a try.

I was hoping to love this book, if only for its upstairs/ downstairs theme. I think I only managed to like it, however. Although Maisie is logically a very likable character, I didn't feel any strong connection to her. The case she's trying to solve is framed around a large flashback to Maisie's own personal history, which is the more compelling part of the story. As the first book in a series, it's clear that the author was trying to fully introduce Maisie and set her up for future adventures, but the mystery plot seemed to suffer as a result, seeming to be relegated to left field and lacking any real sense of drama or tension. I came away with the sense that it was a pleasant story, but not one that I felt personally invested in. I may read another in the series sometime, but I'm not running out right this minute to do so. Which is probably just as well. I don't exactly need more fuel for my Downton- era obsession.

What's your take on mysteries? Do you like to read them? Do you have any favorite authors?

Friday Fancies

2012-01-19T19:38:00.004-05:00

I'm afraid that this was another one of those weeks where I found myself skimming through more blog posts than I would have liked in an effort to keep up with everything. (Google Reader, you are both a blessing and a curse!) So with that in mind, just a few favorites for this week.

(image via here)

I was charmed by these sweet and wintry sketches by Krisatomic.

I was intrigued by this interesting DIY for glowing paper lanterns.

And I was glad that Leslie shared this video, showing 2011 in one second per day.

Window Shopping on Etsy

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

I love Etsy, but I tend to run a bit hot and cold with it. I have a tendency to forget about it for a month or two, only to swing back into obsessively searching it for new shops. I thought I'd share some of my recent finds, starting with a few that sell quirky and whimsical art pieces.

For some reason, I've been really drawn to watercolors lately. The ones from JessicaIllustration have an especially bold, graphic quality to them. My British alter ego may want to pick up some of these UK inspired prints.

Based in the Netherlands, IsabellasArt creates intricate shadow puppets based on literary characters, like Mary Poppins and Pippi Longstocking. These would be so fun to incorporate into a children's room.

And on another literary note, if I ever find myself in need of a doll version of an author, UneekDollDesigns seems like it would be the place to look. Isn't the resemblance pretty uncanny on these Shel Silverstein and Joyce Carol Oates dolls?

Have you discovered any interesting Etsy shops?

The Sense of an Ending

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

I had never read anything by Julian Barnes until my book club chose his short novel The Sense of an Ending as our current selection. The thing that struck me most about his writing was its ease. The narration, which seems to combine the autobiographic quality of Philip Roth with a certain British refinement that reminded me of Ian McEwan's work, hit just the right note for the story and had a natural feel and flow to it from the very first page. That's not necessarily an easy feat, either, when the plot involves memories, and discrepancies of memory, from a character's past.

The novel's narrator, Tony Webster, is completely upfront with the reader about the possible unreliable nature of his memories. The first part of the book is a series of scenes that paint a picture of the close knit group of friends of his youth. Drawn to different universities and girlfriends, they drift apart and are ultimately hit with the tragic death of one of their own. Years later, a chain of events forces Tony, now a sixty-something divorced grandfather, to revisit these memories. Through a series of twists and turns, he learns that he may have misinterpreted the facts of his past.

I found the twists that Tony uncovers to be truly surprising. I shared his bewilderment at certain points in the story and thought I'd just about figured things out when I suddenly realize that things weren't exactly what I (or he) had been expecting. Looking back now, I can't decide if I really think the ultimate plot twist was truly believable or not. That's almost irrelevant, though, since I think the most interesting takeaway from the book is its portrayal of a narrator who is very self-aware, even about his own lack of awareness in certain areas, yet who is forced to completely reappraise himself and revise his view of his own past.

Hot Chocolate Scones

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

There's a little coffee shop near me that I love. They serve good coffee, they have a nice neighborhood feel, they're dog-friendly, and it didn't take them long to learn my regular order. All of that makes them pretty great, but what really sets them over the top is that they make some of the best scones I've ever had. They're moist and buttery and are served sliced in half, filled with berry jam. I usually stop and pick one up as a Friday morning breakfast treat for myself. Last Friday, I noticed that a new flavor scone had arrived on the scene- hot chocolate. Obviously, I ordered one.

I thought it might just be a fancy name for a chocolate chip scone, but I was thrilled to find out that I was wrong. The scone itself had a slight chocolate flavor and was spread with a layer of practically molten chocolate, with a few gooey marshmallows added in. I had to go back on Sunday to get the one you see here (strictly for blog documentation purposes, of course).

It's going to be very hard to keep my Friday morning treat from becoming a Monday morning, or Wednesday morning, or any morning treat.

Three by Henry Green

2012-01-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

Henry Green is an early twentieth-century British novelist who completely slipped under my radar. I went from knowing nothing about him to suddenly, within the past few months, hearing him mentioned and praised by a variety of completely separate sources. I was a little bit intrigued, and ultimately motivated to pick up a collection of three of his novels, Loving, Living, Party Going, because it held the promise of covering that upstairs/ downstairs, high class/ low class territory that I've been so obsessed with lately.

At the risk of sounding a little like a teacher's pet, I'll say that I found these to be challenging but rewarding novels. The majority of the writing is dialogue, with very little exposition. This effect, in combination with some heavy regional dialects, was a little disorienting and hard to get into at first. Once I fell into its rhythm, though, I was quickly pulled into the intertwined storylines of the characters. I kept coming back to the idea that these were stories being told through the streams of consciousness of entire groups of people.

The group in the Irish country house setting of Loving is made up of upper class homeowners and their servants. They go about their lives, complete with love affairs, family squabbles, and domestic disputes, and deal with rising tensions as they anxiously watch WWII from afar. Living (which, truth be told, was my least favorite of the three) centers around a Birmingham, England factory and follows the conflicting interests of the wealthy owners, aging workers looking to maintain their status quo, and young men dreaming of escaping the factory for a better life. And in Party Going, perhaps the easiest of the three, a group of friends deals with various major and minor crises that arise when they become stranded in a railway station on their way to a holiday abroad.

In all three, there's something strangely compelling about the way Green's writing style showcases his subject matter. The hopes and fears of his characters are are set against the backdrop minor daily events and petty interactions with others. They're striking novels that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that definitely made a strong impression on me.

Friday Fancies

2012-01-13T08:00:00.001-05:00

I'm more than ready for the three day holiday weekend. This week has felt impossibly long. Was it because it was the first full week back to work? Possibly, but it may have more to do with the long wait between episodes of Downton Abbey! Because of that, you may notice a bit of a trend among some of my favorite things from the week.

(image via here)

Have you seen Slaughterhouse 90210, the Tumblr site that combines literary quotes with pop culture or tabloid photos? A couple with Downton Abbey themes have especially made me smile.

And speaking of Downton Abbey...Living In It? Yes, Please!

For some reason, the second of these two Madewell outfits is making me feel nostalgic for the Doc Martens I had freshman year of high school. I loved those boots!

On the other end of the style spectrum, a look back at some of Kate Middleton's top outfits, in honor of her 30th birthday.

And I wonder which kind of latte art is harder to do, this or this?

Dressing Up to Sleep In

2012-01-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

The post-holiday, mid-winter months are when I probably feel the least in the mood to shop, with stores showing spring clothes won't be used for anything other than populated the closet for a few more months of bleak, cold weather. That's why, when I got the latest Anthropologie catalog, I was struck by their genius move of devoting a lot of space to sleep and lounge wear that's both pretty and perfect for hibernating all winter long.

I don't know about you, but now I'm in the mood to expand my pajama wardrobe and add to my supply of bed linens.

The Apothecary

2012-01-11T20:04:00.003-05:00

One of the books I got for Christmas was The Apothecary by Maile Meloy. I didn't know anything about it, but it automatically gained some points in its favor when I learned that it's a YA novel that was one of Ann Patchett's favorite book picks from last year.

Set in the 1950's, the story follows Janie Scott, an American teenager who moves to London after her Hollywood screenwriter parents are blacklisted by the House Un-American Acvitivies Committee. Once in London, she meets the local apothecary who, like a Herbology professor straight out of Hogwarts, has the secret ability to use rare plants to create potions with magical effects, like making time stand still or turning people into birds. When the apothecary is abducted by Russian spies, Janie and the apothecary's son embark on a mission to rescue him.

There were one or two things in the book that made me scratch my head a bit. I don't think the 50's-era setting was captured as well as it could have been, and I'm not sure that the Cold War backdrop was the best choice for the book to begin with. I was only aware of those qualms when I took a step back from the story, though. Most of the time, I was completely engaged by the magical elements, fast-paced plot, and sympathetic characters. Don't think my complaints were anything more than minor ones. It's a fun, entertaining book that makes me wish I knew more actual young adults to recommend it to.

In the Club

2012-01-09T21:35:00.004-05:00

Everything is said to have been more of an event in the old days. Air travel was an event. Seeing a movie was an event. Even going out was more of an event. Not too long ago, I came across some old pictures of my grandma that prove it.

When asked about these pictures, my grandma first gave a vague answer, something to the effect of, "Oh, that was my club...". Turns out that what she was calling her club was her group of friends that would go for nights out in Manhattan together, to the kind of supper clubs you see in movies like White Christmas, where Bing Crosby walks into a room filled with tables of people dressed to the nines, sitting around having cocktails and watching a floor show.

These were all taken from around the late 1930's to 1940, when my grandma (second from the left in the picture below) and her friends were barely even twenty years old!

To make these outings even more of an occasion, all of the pictures were in little commemorative folders, designed to be souvenirs from the different clubs.

Can you imagine going out back in those days? It was such a different time, yet there's something so timeless about a group of laughing friends posing for a picture during a fun night out.

Friday Fancies

2012-01-06T12:21:00.003-05:00

Now that the holidays are over, who wouldn't like to just curl up with some blankets for a long winter's nap?

Here's what caught my eye during this first back-to-reality week.

(image via Pinterest)

This short (under 10 minute) documentary about Jane Austen. (I actually saw the exhibit this was made for when it was at the Morgan Library and, ironically, I was kind of underwhelmed by it. I like this little film much better.)

I think these simple water color sayings would look so pretty hanging on a wall. I'm tempted to try making some myself as a little DIY for my bedroom.

I'm intrigued by this Century of Books challenge. I don't think I'll intentionally do this myself, but I may try to see how many years I inadvertently hit during the course of my reading this year.

I was so impressed when I saw this thrifted and altered dress. It looks like something Kate Middleton would wear.

And have you discovered which Downton Abbey character you are yet? Apparently I'm most like....Bates, the valet?!? Let me know who you are.

The Pioneer Woman

2012-01-05T20:26:00.003-05:00

Do any of you follow The Pioneer Woman's blog? I look at it from time to time, and over the holidays I discovered that she also has a show on the Food Network. I watched a couple of episodes, and between a few yummy looking recipes, Ree Drummond's bubbly personality (she reminds me a little bit of a Midwestern version of Nigella, with some of Paula Deen's liberal butter usage thrown in), and the interesting peeks into life on a ranch, I found myself in the mood to read her memoir, The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.

It tells the story of how Ree's life unexpectedly changes when, during a stop in her Oklahoma home town while moving from LA to Chicago, she meets her future husband, a cattle rancher on a rural farm. The writing is funny, approachable, and self-deprecating--exactly what you'd expect from reading a few of her blog posts. The one strike against it was the non-stop descriptions of how she swooned over her husband while they were dating. I'm not one to mind a little gushing, but it gets a little repetitive when she goes weak in the knees in every chapter. Overall, though, it's lighthearted and fun, and if you like her blog, you'll probably like this book.

Two Desserts

2012-01-04T20:18:00.003-05:00

I made two desserts for my family's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations--one new, and one a trusted standby.

The new one was a nutmeg spice cake with rum buttercream frosting from Flour, which has become my go-to baking book. The cake had a very nice, almost Chai-like flavor, and the frosting was very rum-y. This was my first ever attempt at making a multi-layer cake and I found it fairly easy. It may not have looked perfect, but I was pretty pleased with the end result.

The second dessert, the trusted standby, was Giada's panna cotta recipe. I go back to this creamy custard again and again because it's so simple to make (literally just stirring the ingredients in a saucepan for about ten minutes), but the end result seems like something kind of elegant and special. I usually use glass dessert dishes, but this year I filled up some festive mugs to make it easier to enjoy while sitting around the Christmas tree.

Did you try any new desserts this holiday?

Scenes from the Holiday

2012-01-03T22:00:00.006-05:00

Anyone feel like staying in holiday mode just a little bit longer? Good, because so do I. Here are some random shots from the past couple of weeks (with a strong emphasis on cute pups).

Tomorrow I'll share a couple of final holiday treats that I made and then, reluctantly, accept that it's time to take down the decorations.

The Family Fang

2012-01-02T21:20:00.003-05:00

And my first book of 2012 is...drum roll...The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. It might sound like something about a vampire family, but it's actually closer to The Royal Tenenbaums than Twilight.

Annie and Buster Fang are the adult children of two performance artists. Their childhood was spent traveling to malls to play various parts in the random acts of chaos staged by their parents. As an actress and an author, both siblings are artistic in their own right, but have tried to make a break from their family. Shortly after they both arrive home for the first time in years, their parents disappear. While the police suspect foul play, Annie and Buster are convinced that it's another one of their staged acts and struggle to track down their parents without getting drawn back into their "artistic" web.

With a quirky and interesting premise, darkly funny characters, and some surprising plot twists, I think my reading for the year is off to a good start.

Friday Fancies, and To All a Good Night!

2011-12-23T15:45:00.004-05:00

Just a few fancies this week, before signing off for the holiday.

(image via here)

If my gifts weren't already wrapped, I'd definitely try some of these ideas. I'll be filing away the tiny wreath idea for next year.

These Disney World cinemagraphs might make you dream of a winter vacation to the happiest place on Earth.

And tonight I'll have my annual viewing of White Christmas. 'Til then, here's an idea of what it would be like to live inside that movie.

Happy Holidays to all! Now I'm off to make some rum buttercream frosting for a nutmeg spice cake!

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

2011-12-22T13:25:00.003-05:00

Cold Comfort Farm was one of the first books I ever blogged about, waaay back when this blog was only a few months old. Recently I was in the mood to read something with a holiday theme, so when I found out that Stella Gibbons had written a Christmas companion to her hilarious novel, I knew I had to read it.

Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is actually a collection of nicely varied short stories by Gibbons, only a few of which revolve around Christmas. Many touch on themes of social conventions and the fallout that occurs from awkward interactions between mismatched sets of characters. There's also a sort of detective story with a great twist in "The Murder Mark" and a sweet, holiday tale in "The Little Christmas Tree". The title story itself actually serves as a prelude to Cold Comfort Farm and offers a peak into the Starkadder clan's Christmas before the era of Flora Poste. Not as blatantly clever as the original novel, it's the kind of piece that's probably only interesting if you're already familiar with the oddball characters.

I don't think this will ever be a widespread Christmas classic, but I do think it's a fun holiday read for anyone who's a fan of Gibbons' other work.

Picture Frame Ornaments

2011-12-21T19:02:00.004-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've been a little bit scarce around here since my holiday vacation started. It's not because I'm rushing around trying to get last minute things done before Christmas. The stockings aren't quite hung by the chimney with care, but all of my gifts are bought and wrapped, my cards have been sent, and I only have a couple of things left that I still want to bake. My absence has actually been due to the fact that the lure of cozy nights with tea and Christmas movies set against the backdrop of twinkling tree lights keeps winning out over the urge to blog.

That being said, I thought I'd pop in to quickly share one of the several little trees my mom has around the house. Over the past 5-10 years, she started accumulating picture frame Christmas ornaments, and eventually collected enough to have a small tree filled entirely with pictures of our family.

It's a nice way to enjoy family pictures from years past and to pay a little holiday tribute to relatives near and far.

Friday Fancies

2011-12-16T12:42:00.003-05:00

As of 4:30 today, I'll officially be on a whopping 17 day break from work! To say I'm looking forward to it would be an understatement. And of course, there's an argument to be made for tonight being the best day of it all, with the entire vacation still stretching out in front of me.

Here's what caught my eye this week, in the midst of all my holiday excitement.

(image via here)

My mom has an extensive Santa collection, so I was interested in getting this peek into someone else's.

A cute DIY for Christmas surprise crackers. (Not that I'll be making them any time soon. There was a past family mishap involving one of these, a shattered piece of china, and a months-long search for a replacement.)

I liked this shiny, glittery ensemble....mostly because it was inspired by a Fitzgerald cover.

I love all of the Black Apple's art. This free paper doll download would be a cute extra to tuck in with a little girl's gift.

And this article, in which some big name authors sound off against Amazon's tactics against independent bookstores, may just make you want to do your last minute holiday shopping somewhere else this year.

The Fortnight in September

2011-12-15T22:26:00.003-05:00

Between posting about beachy, wavy hair and a book about a British family's end of summer holiday, I seem to be a bit out of sync with the season this week.

It ended up taking me a fortnight in December to read The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff, another Persephone classic. It's a really lovely novel that quietly and delicately chronicles the Stevens family's annual two week vacation at the English seaside. As each day of the fortnight passes, we get to see the holiday through the perspective of a different member of the family and observe their individual dramas as they go through the minor daily events of a family on holiday. So many of their experiences resonated with me. I can't remember another novel that had me thinking, "Yes! I know exactly how that feels!" so often.

Besides just reading this in the first place, I'd recommend two other things. First, take time to read the Introduction in the Persephone edition. It's taken from the author's journal and is a very sweet account of his experience in writing the book. Second, wait until a bit after the holidays to pick this up. I think the reason it took me weeks to get through this is because Christmas is the one time of year when I'm not really in the mood for summer vacation escapism. This book would be much more appropriate for a time when there aren't cookies to bake or holiday movies to watch.

Christmas Sparkles

2011-12-14T22:18:00.003-05:00

I kept the Christmas decorations in my apartment pretty much the same as they were last year, with just a few additional sparkly touches added in, like a new glittery wreath on the mirror and a vintage-looking garland on the tree. Combined with the lights on my tree, mantle, and windows, make my living room twinkly and festive at night.

Next year I'll have to work on bringing the sparkle into a few other rooms, too.

Magic Hair Potion

2011-12-13T21:38:00.003-05:00

That's what I've started calling my new favorite beauty product, A Perfect Mess by Charlotte Ronson.

I normally don't rave about hair products, largely because I'm lazy when it comes to styling. My hair is naturally slightly wavy and I've always had to blow dry it straight to get it to look presentable. I end up letting it air dry and pulling it back way more often than I'd like. If I use a product, I want it to magically work on its own with little effort on my part. After trying it out for a couple of weeks, I think A Perfect Mess might be that magic product.

I've tried other products before that are meant to create messy waves, but find this works a hundred times better.I spray it through damp or dry hair, then pin my hair into three low buns (this style, to be exact). Even after just ten minutes or so, I can take it out and end up with waves that look more intentional than messy, last all day, and have a slightly beachy vibe (or how about a snow-swept vibe, since it is December?) without being overly stiff or crunchy.

I won't go so far as to say it's a miracle product, but I will say that it's let me start wearing my hair down in it's natural, un-blown dry, state for the first time since, oh, maybe elementary school.

What about you? What's your favorite beauty product? Bonus points if it's one that yields great results with zero effort.

Friday Fancies

2011-12-09T14:30:00.002-05:00

My biggest Friday Fancy today is simply the fact that it's finally the weekend! This week felt very hectic and too often I found myself just skimming over some of my favorite blogs to avoid a Google Reader backlog. A few things did manage to catch my eye in the midst of all that skimming.

(image via Pinterest)

An easy recipe for a sweet breakfast, perfect for a chilly morning.

Some interesting life advice from Hugh Jackman.

I'm still not 100% sure what exactly this is, but I think I want to get some next time I'm at Trader Joe's.

And with my own post from yesterday as proof, it's official- gift guides are popping up everywhere. This is one of my favorites so far, offering twenty pairings of books and related objects to give as gifts.

Gifts for Bibliophiles

2011-12-08T18:45:00.006-05:00

I absolutely love getting books as gifts. That being said, I can see why some people might be hesitant to give someone a book for Christmas. Even if the recipient is a book lover, there can be a lot of variables at play. What if something isn't really their taste? Or what if they've already read it? Luckily, book-related gifts can be great, too. Here are a few of my favorites that I've gotten over the years.

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is a big, hefty volume covering top book picks from the 1600s through the early 2000s. Really fun to browse through, it includes all of the classics you'd expect plus some surprising and obscure choices. I was given this a few Christmases ago and still flip through it a few times a year to get new ideas for my To Read list.

I know e-readers have become hugely popular gifts, but for those who still love the printed page, it's nice to give a gift that helps turn print books into objects of desire. A personalized embosser does just that. One that's made up with someone's monogram and "from the library of..." is a nice way to customize a book collection.

Though I don't actually own one myself, I'm pretty sure that any bibliophile would be smitten with one of Paddywax's author candles. The scents are meant to evoke a sense of authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Edgar Allen Poe (I'd burn his candle on Halloween night, wouldn't you?).

This last idea isn't really a gift in itself, but more of a way to add an extra little personal touch to a book you might be giving. By snipping off the corner of an envelope, you can create a little bookmark that sits right over the top of a page. You can use decorative craft scissors to create a pretty edge and stamp on a monogram or festive image.

Or feel free to get really fancy if you want:

Santa's Little Visitor

2011-12-07T18:26:00.003-05:00

On a much lighter dog-related note than yesterday's post, over the weekend Millie had her picture taken with Santa!

Contrary to her placid demeanor, she actually wasn't too happy about it. She first started to get agitated when a PetSmart volunteer (aka, a stranger) picked her up to bring her over to the big man. She was wiggling and squirming like crazy while she was on his lap and even managed to pull Santa's beard off at one point! I just hope she didn't ruin the myth for any young puppies that might have been in the store at the time.

The Dogs of Babel

2011-12-06T19:26:00.003-05:00

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst was another "find" from the free book shelf at work. I started reading it with a bit of trepidation. I remember it being pretty popular a few years back, but saw enough scathing reviews of it online to make me unsure about what to expect.

I actually found myself feeling really unsettled as I was reading it, but not because of anything that had to do with the quality of the writing. If anything, I thought the author managed to take what could be perceived as a somewhat gimmicky plot-- a grieving linguist loses his wife in a mysterious accident witnessed only by his dog, and subsequently tries to teach said dog to talk-- and treat it with enough sensitivity and depth to make it feel believable. Instead, I guess you could say that the dramatic irony had my stomach in knots, dreading what was next for the characters as they walked into trouble I could see coming from a mile away.

I last felt this way while reading Swamplandia!, but this time it was even worse, since the situations I found myself dreading involved horribly cruel treatment of dogs. The worst that I was imagining ultimately didn't happen, but that almost doesn't even matter. Though an interesting book, I can't honestly say that I enjoyed the reading experience.

Has a book ever made you feel unsettled like this?

A Snack

2011-12-05T17:40:00.003-05:00

I recently discovered the Power Foods cookbook, by the editors of Martha Stewart's Whole Living Magazine. It's filled with recipes built around healthy, natural ingredients, which are perfect for a little detox time between the indulgences of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It's in this book that I found my current favorite snack: a toasted slice of whole wheat bread, spread with a thin layer of goat cheese and topped with fresh, slightly crushed raspberries and a thin drizzle of honey.

I made this as an after-dinner treat every night last week. It would be great as a decadent but healthy breakfast, too.

Friday Fancies

2011-12-02T12:53:00.003-05:00

Look at me, keeping up with these Friday posts three weeks in a row! Here's what caught my eye this week.

Rifle Paper Company seems to be everywhere lately. I think these notecards are some of the most charming designs I've seen from them yet.

Christmas wreaths are starting to pop up! I always love when boxwood is incorporated into holiday greenery, and these succulent wreaths are really pretty and unique. (I know, some of you are probably amazed that I'm talking about plants, huh?)

Some dog gift guides (like this one and this one) have me thinking about what I'll stuff in Millie's stocking this year.

On the flip side, here's what happens when dogs go shopping for human gifts.

And I really enjoyed seeing this Felicity-inspired fashion roundup. It made me nostalgic for that show! Anyone agree that the freshman year Thanksgiving episode was one of the best of the series?

SoHo with Leslie and Diana

2011-12-01T20:23:00.006-05:00

Today I took the afternoon off from work and spent it lunching and shopping with my friend Leslie, who's in town this weekend. Besides eating a delicious beet salad at Balthazar and scoring two JCrew skirts at amazing sale prices, I also snapped a few pictures using the new Diana lens I got for my birthday. It's a plastic lens meant to replicate the light leaking effect of vintage Diana cameras. I first learned about Diana cameras when Leslie got one, so it was only fitting that I tried it out on our outing.

Two points if you can spot me in this picture:

Street vendors have finally figured out how to tempt me:

The little streaks of light in this picture are actually bubbles that someone was blowing.

Maynard & Jennica

2011-11-30T19:19:00.004-05:00

Picking up Maynard & Jennica was a no brainer when I found it at a library book sale earlier this year. Its one that had frequently caught my eye at the book store, mostly because something about it seemed to give off a vaguely Salinger-esque vibe, as if the characters could have been modern day descendants of the Glass family.

The Salinger comparison didn't exactly pan out, but that's okay. What I discovered instead was a quirky and interesting book. There are so many intricate plot devices and convoluted devices that I can't even try to explain them all, other than to say that its told from the viewpoints of literally dozens of characters (including a few inanimate objects), spans just pre- and just post-9/11 New York, and revolves around the relationship between the eccentric title characters, Maynard and Jennica.
I felt lukewarm about both of them right up until the moment in the middle of the novel when they finally get together as a couple. In just a few pages, the author does such a good job of conveying the way they appear to each other through lovestruck eyes that I suddenly felt like I could suddenly see all of their good traits, too. That section of the book alone was probably the high point for me, good enough to make me just about love the book.

Scenes of Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T21:13:00.009-05:00

After a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, my family spent Friday shopping- but not at any Black Friday craziness. Instead, we celebrated Small Business Saturday early and spent the day strolling around the quaint main street of a nearby town, browsing in little boutiques and antique shops. I spent the rest of the weekend getting a jump on some Christmas decorating and now, after some online shopping tonight, I'm feeling thoroughly in need of a rest before any more festivities start.

What's next on your holiday agenda now that the Christmas season is about to being in earnest?

Wednesday Fancies

2011-11-23T09:33:00.002-05:00

Before I head off for Thanksgiving, here are a few things that caught my fancy this (half) week.

(image)

Chic gloves from Target.

An interesting book blogger conversation about One Day.

Anthology's winter gift guide put me in a festive mood.

So did this London skating outing. Wouldn't you love to drink hot chocolate from a blue Tiffany's cup?

And once I've recovered from Thursday's feast, I might like a slice of Kale, Pancetta, and Grape pizza.

What are you fancying this week? A special Thanksgiving dish? A Black Friday sale?

Going Out

2011-11-21T20:47:00.003-05:00

You'd think that the free, "leave a book, take a book" shelf at a publishing company would be pretty great, right? That's not quite the case at my office, where our communal shelf seems to have an endless supply of romance novels or old, paperback westerns, and not much else. I consider anything that doesn't fall into either of those categories to be a good find, which is why I picked up Going Out without really knowing anything about it.

It turns out that the author, Scarlett Thomas, seems to have something of a cult following and, from what I read on Goodreads, Going Out is one of her early, hard to find novels. Set in Britain, it's the story of Luke, who's allergic to everything under the sun (including the sun itself) and lives a nocturnal existence shut up in his room, and his best friend Julie, who could be living a normal life but is paralyzed by a fear of almost everything. Joined by a ragtag group of friends, they break Luke out of his house and head out on a road trip to visit a healer who claims he can help Luke.

I liked this book well enough. The characters are sympathetic and their dialogue is so sharply written that it read like a movie script playing in my head. The journey they take puts a modern day spin on The Wizard of Oz, with a few Murakami-esque elements thrown in. The morals of the story (not letting your fears imprison you, etc., etc.) tend to be treated a little heavy-handedly, but for the most part I found that endearing rather than annoying. I'd definitely consider trying something else by the author in the future.

Old Fashioned Music

2011-11-20T20:44:00.002-05:00

I can't get over the latest fantasy splurge I spotted in the Anthropologie catalog: ipod speakers designed to look like old victrolas.

How fun would it be to play your music collection on these? Or maybe some 1920's jazz for a Gatsby theme party?

Friday Fancies

2011-11-18T08:10:00.005-05:00

I just can't help jumping on the bandwagon and doing a Friday roundup post. Here are some things that caught my fancy this week.

(image via Matchbook)

This interesting, behind the scenes video of The Sartorialist at work, shooting on the streets of Tokyo.

These whimsical macaron and French cruller rings could satisfy a sweet craving through jewelry.

I want to try this recipe (it looks like the spicier, Latin cousin of one that Leslie blogged about recently).

I've added this children's book to my To Read list after getting a peek at its lush, magical looking illustrations. (And interesting note- it's written by the lead singer of The Decemberists.)

And even though it was my birthday on Wednesday (thanks for all of the nice wishes!), seeing this picture put me in the mood to hold a dog birthday party.

What caught your fancy this week?

Oh, By the Way

2011-11-16T09:09:00.005-05:00

Did I forget to mention...

It's my birthday today!!

(image via Pinterest)

Russian Winter

2011-11-15T20:40:00.003-05:00

In Russian Winter, Daphne Kalotay combines a bit of historical fiction, a bit of mystery, and two of my favorite things- ballet and Boston. The novel weaves together three narratives: that of Nina, an elderly, former ballerina, now living in Boston, who danced with the Bolshoi Ballet and defected from Soviet Russia; Grigori, a Russian scholar who believes he has a connection to Nina; and Drew, a woman working for an auction house that's selling a collection of Nina's jewelry. The three narratives become intertwined when a mystery emerges surrounding an amber necklace and Nina's past life.

With the world of the ballet and the Boston setting so prominently featured, I had hoped to like this book more than I did. The mystery is well crafted, if a little predictable, and the depiction Soviet Russia is interesting, but I just wasn't able to connect with the characters. Something about the writing seemed to keep all three narrators at arm's length, which left me feeling a bit cool towards them. At a certain point, I realized that I wasn't so much wrapped up in the story as I was interested in just getting through the book.

Out of Print Totes

2011-11-14T17:31:00.003-05:00

Out of Print Clothing now has canvas tote bags to go along with their cute t-shirts. I got a sneak peek at these at BEA last spring and it looks like they're finally available.

I just love the Pride and Prejudice design and even though The Great Gatsby design has never been my favorite of book covers, I actually think it has some nice graphic impact when used on the tote.

These would be perfect bags for carrying your library books, don't you think?

The Borrower

2011-11-13T20:35:00.003-05:00

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai has an intriguing premise that grabbed my attention right away: Lucy, a disenchanted, twenty-something children's librarian, inadvertently kidnaps one of her favorite patrons when she finds him hiding in the library after he runs away from home. Instead of returning him to his strict, overbearing mother, she allows herself to be cajoled into taking him on what ends up being a cross country road trip.

There's a lot to like about this book, from its quirky characters to its many literary references. Something kept me from loving it, though, and I'm finding it hard to put my finger on exactly what. There were times when I felt like the author was a little too heavy handed with the way she treated certain things, like Lucy's Russian immigrant father who, though humorously and vividly drawn, veers headfirst into a Russian mafia cliche, or the way in which Lucy's conflicting feelings about her actions seem to repeat the same cycle throughout the story, to the point where I felt like I was being hit over the head with her inner conflict. Since the plot itself is a bit outlandish to begin with, I thought it could have been better balanced by more subtle treatment of certain characters and themes.

Overall, an interesting, worthwhile read (especially for library lovers), but not a favorite.

Roasted Tomatoes

2011-11-10T21:39:00.003-05:00

So I'm not a vegetarian, but I play one in real life. Meaning that I briefly went vegetarian when I was in high school, gradually added chicken and fish back into my diet, and eventually ended up at the point I'm at now, where the red meat I eat is limited to bacon and the occasional hamburger.

Despite following my own special brand of vegetarianism, I'd say that 80% of the meals I eat are meatless, mostly because I don't like handling meat when I'm cooking at home. I'm always looking for new meatless recipes, so I was thrilled when I learned about Heidi Swanson's cookbook, Super Natural Everyday and blog, 101 Cookbooks. Both are filled with lots of meatless recipes made with fresh, whole ingredients. One of the ones I've tried is a simple recipe that results in the most delicious roasted tomatoes I've ever had.

The cherry tomatoes are tossed with olive oil, salt, and a tablespoon of maple syrup, which I think is the secret ingredient that makes all the difference. They smell amazing as they're roasting and end up tasting nicely sweet. I really can't stop making these. Besides eating them as the book suggests, in a salad with black beans and feta cheese, I've also mixed them in with some simple quinoa.

Eating them by the bowlful wouldn't be too bad, either.

Well Covered Territory

2011-11-09T20:51:00.004-05:00

It's no secret that I have a penchant for pretty or interesting book covers and like to collect different editions of my favorite books. A few new releases have caught my eye, any of which would make great additions to my bookshelf.

Penguin Classics (see here, here, and here for some past examples of me serving in my unofficial capacity their volunteer publicist) has put out a series of cloth editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald novels.

The covers, like on this edition of The Beautiful and the Damned, are all designed with an art deco inspired pattern.

And there are some new Jane Austen editions with illustrations by Audrey Niffenegger. I think this version of Persuasion is pretty great.

But now it's time for full disclosure: This entire post was just a thinly veiled hint. So, for any readers who also happen to be my mom, feel free to use these has holiday gift ideas!

The Priory

2011-11-07T20:42:00.005-05:00

I'm the kind of person who, every once in a while, will go look at the Austen, Bronte, and Gaskell shelves at the bookstore, fruitlessly hoping that an undiscovered novel by one of them will have been secretly published to no fanfare and be sitting there waiting for me. Until that day comes, the closest thing I've found in terms of pure reading enjoyment has been The Priory by Dorothy Whipple.

Another Persephone book, The Priory is set in the pre-WWII English countryside and centers around an aristocratic family of dwindling means living in a run down priory. In an Upstairs, Downstairs fashion, the story follows the doings of both the family and the servants of the house. Each and every character entertains, from the deadbeat master of the house who squanders all of the family's money holding cricket matches to the scheming housemaid who tricks a man into marrying her. The story completely hooked me, and was made even better by the frequent feeling that the author was giving a satirical wink to the reader.

(Image via here, because these Persephone editions don't have illustrated covers.)

Celebrity BFFs

2011-11-03T18:37:00.004-04:00

Here's a non-exhaustive list of celebrities I've seen in my lifetime:

Rick Moranis (right around the peak of the Honey I Shrunk the Kids fame, my dad and I got into the same elevator as him and his kids in the Yacht Club Hotel at Disney World)
Yoko Ono
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Natalie Portman (sitting eating a yogurt in the lobby of a Harvard theater that I happened to be running through, on my way to a play that I was late for because I spent too long shopping at JCrew)
This guy
Brooke Shields

The latest addition to that list is: Mindy Kaling! Last night I went to a reading and signing she did to promote her new book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns). I've been really excited for this book to come out (and the first third of it has lived up to my expectations). She has such a smart, approachable writing style that makes it seem like she could actually be one of my friends in real life.

Now, I always feel a little bit awkward at book signings, fretting over what to say when it's my turn to meet the author. And normally I would never ask for a picture with a celebrity, but since everyone else was doing it....

Notice my awkward half-crouching pose? And the tired, "this is my hundredth picture" look in her eyes? I'm pretty sure those are both signs that we're on our way to becoming best friends!

I should also mention the fact that, between Mindy's Q&A and the signing, the event was hijacked by a woman who suddenly stood up on her chair wearing a clown wig, a painted on mustache, and, oh, by the way, was topless, and started ranting about some play she was in while she snapped pictures of the stunned crowd. She had to be escorted out by police, and was later seen peeking out from behind a newsstand outside of the store. It was quite a night.

Pumpkin Porridge

2011-11-02T22:08:00.003-04:00

I've felt a bit remiss in recent days because I haven't posted about any pumpkin recipes. I feel out of step with the rest of the blog world, so to make up for it, here's my suggestion: Pumpkin Porridge.

It's really less of a true recipe and more of a general idea for adding a bit of pumpkin flavor to your breakfast. I used King Arthur Flour's Pompanoosuc Porridge (a mixture of steel cut oatmeal, bulger, and flax), but it could work with plain oatmeal, too. Once I prepared it according to the package, I stirred in a few tablespoons of canned pumpkin and added liberal sprinklings of cinnamon and nutmeg. Now it's not exactly as good as pumpkin pie, but it does bring a nice, seasonal flavor to a cool morning.

Cutting for Stone

2011-11-01T20:38:00.003-04:00

Before reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, I had heard so many raves about it, sometimes from unexpected quarters. It would come up in, say, a random conversation at work and a colleague who had read it would just start gushing about how amazing it was. After reading it, I can safely say that it did live up to all of the hype. It's epic, engrossing, and vivid, and left me with a lot of ideas to talk about the next time my book club meets. Problem is, I've let a bit of time pass since I finished it, so now I'm left with a bunch of random, possibly disjointed thoughts that I can't seem to wrangle into a concise post. I've decided to embrace the disjointedness and just mention two of the things that struck me the most about the book.

1- Every single character is so well drawn, from the main characters all the way down to the most minor patient who passes through the clinic. Each seems to warrant his or her own separate novel.

2- You often hear about nonfiction that reads as fiction. I can't help but thinking that this is fiction that reads like the best kind of nonfiction. It includes meticulous details about Ethiopian culture and history, as well as intricately depicted, play by play scenes of various surgeries and medical procedures. So vivid, they were sometimes painful to read, though always fascinating.

I'm sure something will come to me later that I'll be sorry for not mentioning. It's one of those books that sticks with you, prompting new thoughts here and there well after the last page.

Ghosts of Halloweens Past

2011-10-31T17:02:00.003-04:00

I'd have a hard time trying to pick one all-time favorite Halloween costume. Every year growing up, my mom would make my costume for me. One of the big events of the beginning of Fall was always going to the fabric store to look through pattern books and pick out that year's costume. There were so many good ones over the years that it's hard to pick a favorite. I can narrow them down to a top few, though, one of which was this pumpkin costume:

I'm about four in this picture and what I remember most about the costume is that it was sooo cozy and warm. I loved wearing it. If it still fit, I'd probably still be putting it on as a lounge around the house on a chilly day outfit.

What was your favorite childhood costume?

Homemade Pretzels

2011-10-25T19:05:00.005-04:00

As much as I enjoy cooking and baking and trying out new recipes, I never in a million years would have thought that I'd ever say I made soft pretzels from scratch. But this weekend, that's exactly what I did. After coming across a simple recipe in this magazine (and after getting over my fear of working with yeast), I decided to be adventurous and give them a try.

The unorthodox "S" shape may not look traditional, but they tasted delicious- exactly like a classic pretzel. Boiling the pretzels for ten seconds before you bake them gives them a really authentic chewy bite.

I made them with whole wheat flour, since I had that on hand. Next time I'll use plain old white flour, which the recipe calls for. Or maybe try mixing in some cinnamon chips for a sweet pretzel.

The Heatley Cliff

2011-10-24T20:02:00.004-04:00

I made a great discovery last week: The Heatley Cliff, a series of podcasts that is so perfectly right up my alley, I'm amazed that I hadn't discovered them before. Which, of course, makes me suspicious that I'm late to the party and everyone already knows about them.

The podcasts, put out in weekly, 30-minute(ish) installments, are an irreverent attempt to create a pop culture salon set in a virtual, fictional English manor house (hence The Heatley Cliff). Kind of like an NPR show that doesn't take itself at all seriously, each episode is a conversation between two Canadian women talking about their current favorites in books, British TV shows, music, and knitting.

Right up my alley, no?

Another Place

2011-10-21T18:37:00.007-04:00

About a year ago, I was excited to see some of Antony Gormley's Event Horizon public art installation appear around Manhattan. The other day I learned (thanks to this post) about another Gormley installation on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, England. Like Event Horizon was, Another Place is a series of 100 life sized, figural sculptures. They're placed at various points along water's edge on the beach and are revealed and submerged to varying degrees as the tide ebbs and flows.

I think these are so haunting and fascinating. Can you imagine what it would be like to stumble upon these on the beach without knowing what they are?

And to keep from being too highbrow and artsy, it looks as though people have had some fun with the sculptures too:

(images via here, here, here, here, and here)

The Violets of March

2011-10-19T21:40:00.004-04:00

The Violets of March is a book that I should have liked. It's full of intriguing plot elements that, in theory, seem to lend themselves to a good story. Things like a lost diary, family secrets, and parallel storylines linking two generations, plus a lovely setting on Bainbridge Island in Washington's Pugeot Sound. The problem, though, was that all of these parts just didn't come together enough for me. A couple of the characters seemed too shallow, there were a few glaring inconsistencies (like a character mentioning that there were five possible options, listing three of them, then saying, "and the last option is..."), and the pacing just seemed too rushed at times.

I think I actually would have enjoyed this more if it had a hundred extra pages to it and could slow down a bit, taking time to develop things more fully.

A Little Tipsy

2011-10-14T12:10:00.002-04:00

Get it? A little tip? About wine? Is a little tipsy!

(Bear with me, you know I love silly puns.)

Not too long ago, I wrote about finally finding some go-to favorite wines. Well, I found a new one- the SeaGlass brand, in one of my favorite varieties, Riesling. I was initially drawn to the pretty sea glass label on the sea-blue bottle, but it turned out to be one of the best Rieslings I've ever tried. I'm sure I'll be picking up a bottle or two to bring to my family's Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Caleb's Crossing

2011-10-13T19:32:00.004-04:00

Caleb's Crossing was one of the books that I'd been most eager to read lately. I had always heard good things about Geraldine Brooks and this historical novel sounded particularly interesting. Set in Martha's Vineyard and Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 17th century, it purportedly told the story of Caleb, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.

It turns out that the story was actually focused around Bethia, the daughter of a Puritan minister and lifelong friend of Caleb. I found this to be letdown, both because I was far more interested in Caleb as a character and because I couldn't help but find Bethia to be an annoying narrator. Her frequent lapses into a Puritanical mindset made it hard to warm up to her. The way she tells her story--in three parts, as written in a journal at three different times in her life--made the pacing feel awkward for me. Just as I was getting into the action, a scene would abruptly end and the next part would begin, with her writing something along the lines of, "Looking back to what I wrote then..."

In spite of all this, there was something compelling about the book. Even though much of it fell short of my expectations, I still found myself rushing through, eager to see what would happen next. That has to count for something.

Penny Lane

2011-10-12T20:48:00.003-04:00

My favorite purchase of the fall so far might just be a pair of classic Bass Weejun penny loafers. They're a super comfortable alternative to my standard ballet flats, made even better by the fact that I got my pair for less than half price at the Bass outlet. So far I've been wearing mine with ankle length pants, but plan on pairing them with some skirts and dark tights once the weather gets just a touch cooler.

(Image via pinterest)

Berkeley Square

2011-10-11T21:03:00.003-04:00

If, like me, you were obsessed with Masterpiece's Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, then you may enjoy Berkeley Square, a ten-part BBC miniseries from the late 90's that I found on Netflix.

It's the story of three nannies and the families they work for in Victorian London. It wasn't quite as good as Downton was. Sometimes it got a little too melodramatic (think babies with swapped identities). At other times, it felt like it was trying a little too hard to be heartwarming. That being said, I still really, really enjoyed it, to the point that I was so surprised that it ended the way that it did, I had to do some extensive online searching to make sure that there wasn't a second season I was missing out on.

Give it a try if you're looking for something to get you through to January 8th, when the second season of Downton airs. (Their website already has a countdown clock- only 88 days, 23 hours, and 43 minutes to go.)

Chocolate and Chocolat

2011-10-10T20:27:00.004-04:00

I've probably watched the movie Chocolat about half a dozen times. I never had any real intention of reading the book it's based on, but figured I'd give it a try when I picked up a copy for a few pennies at a library book sale.

I was surprised to find that the book is actually much darker than the movie is. The magical elements that give the movie a fairy tale feel come across as sinister on the page. Certain characters play different roles in the book, and the ending is much more ambiguous, to the point of being a let down. I may be influenced by the fact that I saw the movie before reading the book, but I have to say that this is rare case where I think the screenplay improved upon the original story.

The book did share one thing with the movie- the ability to induce chocolate cravings. The movie has been known to send me scrounging in my cabinets for a packet of hot chocolate. I was more prepared this time around and got my sweet fix by making some quick and easy Nutella cookies that were making the blog rounds last week.

Have you ever cooked along with the theme of a book?

Lunchtime

2011-10-07T13:36:00.002-04:00

I just had such a delicious lunch that all I want to do is spend the afternoon talking about it. Since I don't think my coworkers would really appreciate that, you get to hear all about my meal from the Cinnamon Snail, a vegan food truck that's my current favorite among the many trucks that are always out around town. Today I had Thai basil grilled tofu with greens, curried cashews, scallions, and green coconut chutney. Oh my goodness, it was to die for! I absolutely gobbled it up.

They sell a lot of vegan baked goods to, so I treated myself to a pumpkin pie doughnut. I'm now counting down the minutes until I can justify eating it as an afternoon snack.

So that's my little culinary rave. What did you have for lunch today?

Special Delivery

2011-10-06T19:20:00.005-04:00

If you read this blog regularly, you'll know that there are a few subjects I just can't stop writing about (I'm looking at you, cupcakes. And you too, British period dramas). It seems that Persephone Books has found its way onto that list.

For a couple of weeks last month, they were running a "Fortnight in September" promotion. If you ordered three books, you got a free copy of The Fortnight in September. It was too tempting for me to pass up, and last week I was excited to come home and find my package waiting for me. At first I was a bit surprised to discover that the books were jacketed paperbacks and not cloth editions, but any whiff of disappointment evaporated when I saw their beautiful endpapers and coordinating bookmarks.

The first one I chose to dive into was Every Eye by Isobel English. Of the few Persephone novels I've read so far, this is the first one that I can truly say I loved. The story weaves the present with the past for Hattie, a woman traveling with her husband to Ibiza for a newlywed vacation and looking back on her former life in London, where she spent her teenage years living in the shadow of a manipulative aunt. I found Hattie to be a moving and likable narrator. Her thoughts and emotions lead the way back and forth between the two storylines, which ultimately come together in the last lines of the book for a surprise ending that was unexpected and amazing.

State of Wonder

2011-10-03T21:17:00.003-04:00

After finishing State of Wonder, I can confidently say that the streak continues with yet another book that I loved by Ann Patchett.

The story hearkens back to Conrad's Heart of Darkness with a few dashes of Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible thrown in, but has a unique spin that's Patchett's own. All I could think about while reading this was how amazed I was by the vivid world that she's created. Traveling along with pharmacologist Marina Singh, the novel's protagonist, from the safety of her research lab in Minnesota to the middle of the Amazonian jungle where her former med school mentor is conducting fertility research, I had the same reaction as Marina herself and ended up completely enthralled by a world that I never expected to encounter.

Your Message Here

2011-09-29T20:34:00.003-04:00

My latest apartment accessory is an old chalkboard that belonged to my grandma. She used it for practical reasons, like tracking her monthly doctor's appointments. I decided to use it for more decorative purposes. I liked the way it looked propped against my exposed brick wall, so I turned it into a little grouping with a painted tray and a plant.

Now for the dilemma. I want to write a message on the board, but I can't decide on one. Should I pick an inspirational quote? Something welcoming and homey? Something seasonal? I'm paralyzed by all the possible options. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

I Spy

2011-09-27T18:20:00.003-04:00

I'd never read anything by John Le Carre before, and I probably wouldn't have picked up his latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor, if a free copy hadn't come my way. The story is centered around a young British couple who are drawn into the world of espionage after they are unwittingly selected to be the confidants of a Russian crime family while on vacation in the Caribbean. The first and last thirds of the book were cinematic and suspenseful, but the middle third dragged for me, and felt overly bogged down with details of Russian political corruption that were somehow both too intricate and too vague.

That being said, I still found it entertaining enough to consider trying another Le Carre novel in the future. Maybe this one, so I'll be ready for the upcoming film version with Colin Firth. Or maybe I'll just pick out the one with the most interesting cover (they are published by Penguin, after all).

Laduree

2011-09-26T19:23:00.003-04:00

Late last week, I just happened to have two work meetings in the same neighborhood as the new Manhattan outpost of Laduree, the French bakery known for inventing the macaron sandwich cookie. Obviously I seized the opportunity to treat myself to a visit and try some.

I tried a few flavors: blackberry violet, salted caramel, and rosewater. All were good (and worlds away from these), but the latter two were my favorites. Not only were the flavors unique, but the fillings were different from other macarons that I've had. The rosewater had a traditional creamy filling, but the blackberry violet was filled with a tart jam and the salted caramel was filled with a rich, chewy caramel.

The packaging was just as prettily ornate as the store itself.

While waiting to place my order, I was amused to overhear two girls in front of me (who, as far as I could tell, didn't know each other) strike up a conversation about which flavors they were planning to try that eventually ended up a little something like this:

Girl #1: "But you've been to their store in Paris, right?"

Girl #2: "Oh, yeah."

Only on the tony Upper East Side could two strangers be correct in assuming that a visit to a Parisian bakery was a shared experience.

Watch Me

2011-09-23T13:03:00.008-04:00

I've recently gotten reader requests for more fashion related posts. Okay, it may have only been one reader (who knows who she is), but since I aim to please, I thought I'd start out with something I know she's in the market for- an oversized watch.

I just love this type of watch. I think it's a classic statement piece that will never go out of style. Lately I've seen them worn layered with a wristful of other eclectic bracelets, which is an interesting juxtaposition against the menswear feel of the watch.

(via Pinterest)

(via Pinterest)

I tend to like ones with a multi-dial face. A touch of sparkle can be nice, too. Browsing around for some reasonably priced ones, I found that Fossil has an entire category of boyfriend watches, including this basic silver one:

They also have quite a few that use interesting colors and materials for the strap, like this tortoise one:

And for a really affordable way to try the rose gold trend, Macy's has this option for under $30.

I started my search thinking that I was acting as a virtual personal shopper, but now I'm tempted to pick up one of these for myself. Which would you choose- classic silver, a trendier metal, or an unexpected pattern?

The Fates Will Find Their Way

2011-09-22T21:20:00.004-04:00

Hannah Pittard's novel The Fates Will Find Their Way has a story reminiscent of Virgin Suicides, a narration like Then We Came to the End, and a dash of what I imagine The Lovely Bones to be.

It also has a really deft way of moving back and forth through time, both real and hypothetical, that gives it a fresh feel all its own. The story is told through the collective voice of a group of adolescent boys who grow up together. One Halloween night, a girl from their high school goes missing and is never found again. We see these boy grow to middle age, never able to fully forget the lost girl. As the boys tell their story, the "we" voice alludes to things that happen to various members of the group in the future, and speculates about what really happened on that Halloween night. It creates an interesting effect that makes the reader feel like a member of the group, equally haunted by the mysterious abduction as the characters are.

Macaron Mishap

2011-09-20T20:42:00.004-04:00

Ever since I attended Joanne Chang's baking demo, I've been obsessed with the recipes in her cookbook Flour. So far I've managed to pull off her scones and homemade Oreos, and have made her delicious banana bread several times to rave reviews. When a few of my relatives came over for dinner a few weeks ago, I decided to make her chocolate almond macarons for dessert. I had never made macarons before, and figure that her recipe would be the perfect one to start out with.

Turns out I was wrong.

After mixing all the ingredients together, I was left with a batter that was way too thin and watery to hold any kind of shape on the baking try. Thinking that I may have over mixed it, I scrapped it all and started over from scratch. This time the batter came out a little thicker, so I thought I was in good shape. I popped them into the oven and waited for the timer to ding only to discover that, instead of the round little puffs like in the picture above, my cookies looked a little more like this:

Wah wah :(

I salvaged what I could by cutting this into round-ish shapes and used the chocolate ganache to form them into odd, disfigured sandwiches. All wasn't for nothing, though. As ugly as they looked, they tasted pretty delicious in the end.

A Dose of Goodwill

2011-09-19T21:29:00.003-04:00

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a thrifter. Though I envy other people's finds, I just don't have it in me to really weed through the racks of a thrift store hunting for treasures. It's the same reason why I'm easily overwhelmed at TJ Maxx.

Luckily for me, this weekend a thrift store treasure jumped out right in front of me- an upholstered armchair for $20 at Goodwill! I love its overall shape and just want to get some new fabric to freshen it up. These are the "before" pictures...

..."afters" coming soon. I plan on using this as the key pieces of my second reading nook. This time it will be in my bedroom, to accompany my new bookcase. The shelves were actually the source of some controversy last week. I'm just glad I got mine while they still fit real books.

On Fire

2011-09-18T19:42:00.002-04:00

I've never been much for fantasy novels. Aside from maybe the Harry Potter series, I've never really loved anything that I've tried in the genre (like this book, for example). Some people will consider this a sacrilegious thing to say, but I've never felt the need to read or watch the Lord of the Rings series, and even as a kid, I only moderately liked the Narnia series. I was pleasantly surprised, then, when I recently found myself enjoying Fire by Kristen Cashore.

A full-fledged fantasy novel, it's set in a mythical world called The Dells and follows the adventures of a girl named Fire. She's a "monster" girl who has the superhuman ability to read and, if needed, manipulate, other people's thoughts. She warily puts her powers to use on behalf of the King as he wars against rebel factions within the Dells. From that brief summary alone you can probably tell that it's not a book for everyone, but I found myself sucked into the entertaining story. Plus, there's a jacket blurb of praise from the fantastic Junot Diaz, which counts for at least a few bonus points in my book.

Personal Crisp

2011-09-15T20:35:00.005-04:00

Anyone else remember Pizza Hut's Personal Pan Pizzas? How good were they? My elementary school had a program where you read five books in a month and you'd get a free Personal Pan Pizza. Needless to say, that was a laughably easy goal for me and my family went there quite a bit in those days. I applied a similar philosophy to a single-serving dessert I whipped up--a mini blueberry crisp.

I adapted this from a blueberry crisp recipe that I've blogged about in the past. Fun fact: The original recipe came from a microwave cooking class that my mom took back in the 80's, when microwaves were still very futuristic. (Sadly, I don't think she's gotten as much return from that hovercraft driving class.)

To create a personal sized serving, I filled a ramekin about 2/3 full with blueberries. In another bowl I melted one pat of butter, then mixed it with two spoonfuls each of oats, flour, and brown sugar, plus a sprinkle of cinnamon. Spread the crisp over the blueberries and microwave for about a minute. Keep a close eye on it, though. This small amount of blueberries cooks up really fast. A few seconds too long and they'll explode.

It's so cool out tonight (in the 50's!) that I think this will officially be my final summery dessert of the year. It's a great way to say farewell to the season and use up those last blueberries.

Grey Skies

2011-09-13T22:38:00.007-04:00

I'm about a week too late to join the rest of the blog world in doing a "farewell summer" post, but I thought I'd share some pictures I took at the shore over Labor Day weekend. Even then it seemed like the transition to fall had already begun, with breezy weather and grey, overcast skies that hinted of autumn lurking around the corner.

Now my only problem is that, having gotten a tease of fall, I keep feeling surprised when the temperature climbs up to the 80s by the afternoon. I'm ready for the cooler mornings to last all day so that I can start wearing some of my fall clothes.

Taft

2011-09-12T20:22:00.003-04:00

Ann Patchett has never let me down. I've yet to read a novel by her that I haven't liked (or loved, in the cases to Run and Bel Canto). I'm constantly amazed by the diverse breadth of characters and settings that she manages to perfectly depict. I recently picked up her latest but, before diving into that, I decided to go back and catch up on one of her older novels that I'd missed out on.

Taft tells the story of a black man who manages a bar in Memphis. As he tries to come to terms with his role as an absentee father after his son's mother moves across the country, he simultaneously becomes embroiled in the lives of the Taft family, a young, white, fatherless waitress and her troubled younger brother. Patchett touches on frequently covered territory, like race relations and broken families, but does so in a way that feels completely fresh and unique--largely, I think, because of her ability to create believable tensions that realistically build up to moments of great suspense.

September 11th

2011-09-11T11:33:00.002-04:00

I hadn't been planning to write anything special about today's tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There will be a ton of other places online to read tributes and remembrances more worthy of reading than anything I could possibly write. But this morning I came across this short film that I wanted to share. It's a moving account of one of the victims and heroes of that day ten years ago.

The Making of a Marchioness

2011-09-07T21:52:00.003-04:00

The second Persephone Classic book that I purchased and read was The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Unlike her well known children's books The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy, this is a Victorian-era novel written for adults that follows a naive, middle aged, working class woman as she unintentionally wins a marriage proposal from a highly eligible Marquis and steps into a position of wealth and luxury.

The foreword to the book (which, I'll admit, I only skimmed) mentions how this has become a rediscovered classic that's sometimes taught alongside Jane Austen novels. I can see the parallels in terms of the class and society nuances they delve into, but I was reminded more of Wilkie Collins as I read this. The second half of the book takes a somewhat suspenseful turn, complete with sinister murder plots, that seems more akin to The Moonstone than Mansfield Park. But that's not to say it comes across as a dark novel. I found that the action veered into melodrama, and the characters into caricatures, just a bit too much to be taken as anything more seriously than a pleasant read from beginning to end.

Mundane Music Moments

2011-09-01T20:52:00.004-04:00

It's pretty much conventional wisdom that music is tied to memory. I'm sure almost everyone has experienced the uncanny ability of a particular song to evoke a particular event from the past. What I've come to realize is that this is true not only for important moments, but also for really mundane ones. Sure, I can tell you that it was Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" that was playing before one of the last football games of senior year in college while I stood crammed in a huge group, jumping and singing along, simultaneously thinking about the fact that it was one of the last tailgates my friends and I would have. That makes sense...it's kind of poetic, right? But I can tell you in equally vivid detail that REM's "Nightswimming" was playing on the radio one random weeknight when my three roommates and I drove to the Arsenal Mall outside of Boston during a rare car trip for some suburban shopping. I have no idea why that particular moment has stuck with me, but I think of it every time I hear that song.

Even more puzzling is when this happens with a song I don't even particularly like. You know that Kid Rock song from a few years ago? The one that's a take off on "Sweet Home Alabama"? Every time I hear it I'm reminded of one time that I ate at an Applebees with my family. The song came on in the restaurant and I had what probably was a three second conversation (likely disparaging) with my cousin about it. Now I'll forever think of Applebees when I hear that song. Bizarre!

Do you have any random, mundane music associations? I'd love to know.

(image via Pinterest)

Veronica

2011-08-30T21:25:00.003-04:00

Veronica is the first work by Mary Gaitskill that I've read. I'd heard a lot of praise and recommendations for both the novel itself and for Gaitskill as a writer, so it had been on my To Read list for a while.

I had a somewhat strange reaction to the book, because I started out really disliking it. I couldn't shake the feeling that the author was trying too hard to force profound meanings onto incongruous details. I stuck with it, though, and soon became too wrapped up in the interesting structure of the story to pay too much attention to my initial complaint.

The narrative follows Allison, a middle aged woman suffering from hepatitis, as she leaves her house and goes about a mundane day. Different moments in her present trigger memories, during which we get the parallel narrative of her life as a young model in New York during the 1980's. Those flashbacks themselves jump among different time periods, from when Allison first runs away from home as a teenager to when she later develops an unlikely friendship with an older coworker, the Veronica of the title. I never really warmed up to any of the characters, but the story was so interestingly constructed and so skillfully juggled that I couldn't help but admire it.

Have you ever done an about face and changed your opinion in the middle of a book?

Cherry Tomato Crisp

2011-08-27T12:37:00.005-04:00

When I picked up a container of cherry tomatoes from the farmer's market, I decided to use them to make a fresh, summery meal of tomato crisp. In the past I'd tried a similar recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food cookbook, but that version involved making bread crumbs from scratch and baking it in the oven. I decided to improvise a simpler version to make it a more appealing dish for a warm summer evening.

Cut the tomatoes in half and spread them in a small baking dish. In a separate bowl, mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, chopped fresh basil, and a drizzle of olive oil. Spread the mixture over the top of the tomatoes and microwave for two minute intervals. Keep checking it until the tomatoes just start to soften and release their juice (I don't think it took me more than five minutes total).

The Weird Sisters

2011-08-25T19:48:00.004-04:00

Any book that's populated with a family of bibliophiles is bound to win some points with me. The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown is just such a book, with an engaging story to boot.

It tells the tale of three adult sisters, the product of a Shakespearean scholar father and a daydreaming mother who's prone to wandering off with her nose in a book while dinner burns. They simultaneously find themselves all living back at home in the small college town they grew up in, each trying to flee a problem of her own while caring for their ill mother and trading quotes from Hamlet and King Lear. Though the characters are eccentric, the story had a nice, realistic depth to it. One or two scenes stood out as being a little stereotypically drawn, but they faded into the background of the whole. And a passage on pages 70-71 that describes the deal-breaking effect of a dislike of literature is in itself worth the price of admission.

Summer So Far

2011-08-23T20:13:00.006-04:00

Does anyone else feel shocked that the last few weeks of summer are here already? Every year I seem to fall into the same trap. I start out the season with a high level of anticipation, as excited as if I had the entire summer off. Then July 4th comes and goes and in the blink of an eye it's nearly Labor Day, with cooler mornings that hint of the fall to come.

This summer, I had planned to take tons of pictures and share some posts about the real Jersey Shore. Now there's just a couple of weeks left to the season and I still haven't gotten around to that. Maybe I'll have to change my plan and do something about the locals-only, off-season at the shore. In the meantime, here are a few of the pictures I have managed to take while at the shore. (You'll see that I didn't make it far beyond my mom's garden.)

Is there anything left on your summer To Do list?

Vaclav and Lena

2011-08-22T21:59:00.003-04:00

Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner may just be my favorite book of the summer. It's one of those rare finds: literary fiction that kept me racing through it while I was reading it on the beach, and left me sorry to leave the the world of the story when I finally came to the end.

The novel follows two Russian immigrant children- Vaclav, the only son of old fashioned and overprotective parents, and Lena, daughter of an unknown mother and product of a much bleaker upbringing. They grow up together and develop a friendship against the Brooklyn backdrops of Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Lena disappears under mysterious circumstances one day, forcing each to lead separate lives until they are just as suddenly reunited years later. It's really a lovely story that somehow manages to seem like a modern day fairy tale while still taking a thoroughly unsentimental view of its characters.

Swooning Again

2011-08-18T21:00:00.003-04:00

Once again, jcrew has left me smitten. With their entire fall line in general, but more specifically with another collection of art deco inspired jewelrey.

With more reasonable prices than the last collection that had me swooning, I think it's safe to say that I'll end up with one of these in the near future. (I'm talking to you, ivory crystal bangle.)

Swamplandia!

2011-08-17T21:22:00.003-04:00

I went into Swamplandia!, my book club's latest pick, prepared to completely love it. Somehow, it just didn't live up to the expectations I had built up in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with the writing. In fact, there were many moments that were quite lovely. I think my main problem was that I started the book under a misapprehension of what it was about, largely due to all of the hype and glowing reviews I had read about the book. For some reason, blurbs like "wonderfully imaginative" and "a lushly written treat" made me think that it would be a quirky, somewhat magical tale of a young girl's unique family and her adventures through the Florida swamplands. Turns out, it's much, much darker than that.

I don't want to give too much away, but in case anyone else has read it, I just have to say:

The Bird Man!?! Oh my goodness. My stomach was tangled up in sour knots of dread for the whole second half of the book, just waiting for the inevitable.

If you've read it, let me know what you think. I can't wait until my book club's meeting to see if anyone else felt the same way.

Classics On Air

2011-08-16T21:43:00.003-04:00

You've probably figured this out by now, but I'm officially the prime marketing target for Penguin Classics. I was browsing their site the other day, on the prowl for new deluxe editions to add to my wish list, when I stumbled across Penguin Classics On Air.

It's an ongoing series of podcasts that feature discussions of literary topics ranging from Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell to the history of vampires in literature and the Swedish equivalent Gone With the Wind (which I immediately added to my To Read list).

Wouldn't one of these be perfect to listen to while cooking dinner? Much more enriching background noise then, say, Access Hollywood. (Or so I've heard. I never turn that on myself, of course.)

Train Reading

2011-08-11T13:20:00.003-04:00

You've heard of Train Reading, right? It's the lesser known, yet actually more important cousin of Beach Reading. I'd much rather be caught bookless on a beach than on a train. Let's face it, most of the time I only get through a page or two on the beach before I give up to nap in the sun instead.

When I got a free copy of The Last Summer (of You and Me), which was touted as a Beach Read by its jacket blurbs, I actually thought it would make a perfect Train Read during by recent trip to Boston. I was right. Set on beachy Fire Island, it's full of family drama, secrets among friends, and a romance (but not as cheesy or melodramatic as you might think). Quick but compelling, it was the perfect book for my train ride.

Self Portrait with Glasses and Dog

2011-08-10T18:18:00.006-04:00

Today I wanted to do a little show and tell post about my glasses. I decided to pull Millie into the shots for some gratuitous cuteness. I should have know better than to try and take them during her antsiest time of day. After much fidgeting and wiggling (on my part alone!), these are the best I could come up with.

First are my newest glasses, which actually aren't new at all--they're a vintage pair that I found on Etsy and had made up with my prescription. They're similar in shape to Ray Bans, but a light golden brown color.

Next is my older pair, which I've had for about a year and still love. They're brown tortoise on top, clear plastic on the bottom. I've gotten quite a surprising number of compliments on them (including once at a jcrew store, which I'm pretty sure is the equivalent of two compliments anywhere else).

I'm really liking having a wardrobe of glasses and may have to start keeping my eyes open for a third pair. A cat's eye shape, perhaps?

In Vino Veritas

2011-08-08T21:48:00.004-04:00

I've never considered myself to be much of a wine fan. Though I'd drink a glass if one materialized in front of me, I never seemed to go out of my way to have some. I'm certainly no connoisseur--I don't know much about the different types of wines or what any good brands are. And to make matters worse, my palate is not exactly a discerning one. I'm pretty much just as happy with some Arbor Mist as I am with a fancier variety. So I was pleasantly surprised when I recently discovered a specific brand that I'm partial to- Cupcake Vineyards (and no, it's not just because it says "cupcake" in the name).

I made my discovery when I ended up with quite a few leftover bottles of wine after I hosted my book club. One of them was Cupcake's Pinot Grigio and, let me tell you, it was delicious. Since the Cupcake wines go for about $10 a bottle and are available at the grocery store, I picked up a few more to try- a pretty good Riesling and a really good red wine that they called "Red Velvet". (Okay, maybe I was swayed by the cupcake reference with that last one.)

I think I've finally found a wine that I can be loyal to. So what if it's only a few rungs up the ladder from Arbor Mist?

Are you a wine fan? Do you have any favorites?

A Long Way Down

2011-08-05T11:51:00.003-04:00

I've always been a fan of Nick Hornby's writing, though I hadn't read anything by him lately. I recently caught up with one of his older novels, A Long Way Down.

The premise is that on New Years Eve, four strangers meet when they find themselves atop a London building, all intent on jumping. With their resolve faltering, they agree to postpone their suicides until Valentine's Day, and a motley group is formed. Hornby does a great job of using cause and effect to move his story along. It seems like it could be a hard task to propel a group of suicidal strangers into enough action to fill a novel when they have little in common and don't even like each other all that much. The plot devices Hornby uses to get around this are somewhat obvious but still work really well, most likely because he simultaneously manages to reveal new bits of information about the characters' pasts. What could have been scenes of superficial action are turned into meaningful, nicely illuminating scenes. I officially remain a fan of his.

I Miss My Dog!

2011-08-04T20:00:00.007-04:00

Millie has been staying with my mom and dad for the past two weeks so that they could watch her while I went on my baking road trip. I'm getting very excited to pick her up this weekend. My week has seemed so dull without her around. No happy greeting when I come home from work, no excuses for going on multiple walks per day...I think it's true what they say- having a pet really does help relieve stress and improve your quality of life.

I've gotten a few photo updates this week and it looks like she's having a good time on her vacation, though, aside from one scary thunderstorm that made her hide under a pillow near my grandma.

Other than that, I think she's been catching up on some reading....

(I swear I didn't stage that last picture. She just fell asleep in that pose. All I did was hold the camera.)

One Pot Wonder

2011-08-03T20:19:00.002-04:00

I always feel proud of myself when I come up with a dish all on my own, no recipe in sight. I'm even prouder when said dish involves an unexpected ingredient and only requires one small saucepan to make (a necessity for me a few weeks ago, when the heat wave we were having coincided with my dishwasher being on the fritz).

Let's call this dish Gnocchi with Peas in a Creamy Pesto Sauce, shall we?

I cooked frozen gnocchi according to package directions, adding a few handfuls of frozen peas into the boiling pasta water for the last few minutes.

I drained the pasta and peas and, back in the same pot, heated a few spoonfuls of pre-made pesto (I used Giada's brand, available at Target). I added in some grated Romano cheese and some skim milk to turn it into a light cream sauce. To thicken the sauce just a bit, I added some spoonfuls of plan Greek yogurt- not the most traditional of pasta ingredients.

I combined it all together, garnished with some fresh basil from my back stoop, and ate!

We Made Bread

2011-08-01T21:48:00.018-04:00

What do you get when you combine two friends, three days, four states, and six loaves of bread? Another action-packed weekend for my friend Lara and me, of course.

After meeting up with Lara in Boston, we headed up to Stonewall Kitchen in York, Maine, where they have a cooking school along side the headquarters of their gourmet food company.

We saw a baking demonstration by Joanne Chang, cookbook author and owner of the Flour bakeries in Boston.

The demo was great. She shared some good tips and personal anecdotes as she demonstrated how to make a few different desserts, all of which we got to taste.

The chocolate cupcake:

The controversial homemade oreo- it was my favorite of the three, but Lara's least favorite.

The homemade pop tart. Delicious- I liked it so much more than I was expecting to.

She made all of the desserts seem fairly simple and not at all intimidating. I'm definitely going to try making these myself.

We hung around Stonewall after the class, spending a little time in their garden and browsing in their store.

Our original plan of hunting down some Maine lobster rolls changed as soon as we saw that the Stonewall cafe had lobster tacos on the menu. So good. (If you notice that this picture looks a little bit different, that's because I had to take it with my phone...after I got yelled at for taking pictures inside the store!)

After lunch, we hit the road, heading across New Hampshire. Next desination: Vermont and the King Arthur Flour baking school.

Since there isn't too much to do in the Vermont countryside on a Saturday night, we found our way back across the border (with very little help from the GPS) to the tiny town of Hanover, New Hampshire, for a look around Dartmouth's pretty campus.

The next day, it was back to baking. Like Stonewall, King Arthur Flour's headquarters encompass a store, a bakery, and a school. The store looks exactly how you would imagine a classic Vermont general store to be, only filled with every kind of baking supply and ingredient you can image. Happily, it was also much more camera friendly.

I may or may not have walked out of there with $70 worth of goodies. Suffice it to say there's a good chance you'll be seeing one or two baking posts from me in the future.

The class we took here, Bread 101, was a hands-on experience. We measured, mixed, and kneaded our way through two loaves of white bread, one loaf of semolina, and a batch of scones. By the time the day was done, I had gotten over my fear of working with yeast. I even bought some to take home with me (part of the aforementioned baking loot) so I can make some more bread on my own.

Back at Lara's house, we admired our handiwork...

...but had to put everything away quickly before the squirrels got to it.

(Hey, it was a long day.)

The Greater Journey

2011-07-28T20:23:00.003-04:00

After finishing The Greater Journey by David McCullough, I feel like I've fulfilled the quota of self-improving, educational books for the summer. Now I can spend August rereading Twilight over and over. (Kidding!) I'm not going to lie- getting through this book was a slog at times-- especially during the middle section that endlessly detailed life in Paris during the Franco Prussian War-- but there were some really interesting parts that made it all worthwhile.

I haven't read any of McCullough's other historical biographies, but I decided to pick this one up because it's about Americans in Paris. Not my favorite 20's-era Paris, though. Spanning the second half of the nineteenth century, this is more Degas and Cassatt than Picasso and Hemingway. The book covers a huge range of Americans who made the trip over there for work or for artistic pursuits. Although I probably picked up a fact or two about a few of them, what I really came away with was a general sense of a particular time and place. It reminded me a little of the scene in Midnight in Paris where Marion Cotillard's character talks about how for the French in the 1920's, the Paris of the Belle Epoch was what they looked back on as their Golden Age. This book made it a little easier to imagine how that could be true.

A Dessert & A Call for Help

2011-07-27T21:03:00.002-04:00

I recently discovered a delicious, decadent, and still pretty healthy dessert (from this cookbook, surprise, surprise). It's incredibly easy to make and perfect for summer. Just make up a little bowl of mixed berries, top with a couple of spoonfuls of ricotta cheese, drizzle with honey, and add a sprinkle of almonds.

I actually found it to be just as rich and refreshing as a bowl of ice cream. And I would never make that kind of statement lightly!

Now on to my plea. I've been a bit slow in posting this week because of some issues I've been having with blogger. Of course, I could just look online for troubleshooting, but I thought I'd take the easy route first and see if any of you readers have a solution for me.

My problem is this: I have a video I took on my iphone that I want to post. Every time I try to upload it, it seems to work and the window for the video appears in the draft of my post. Then, when I try to play the video, I get an error message and am told to try again later. I've posted videos before...what's going wrong now? Any ideas? Please don't say I'm going to have to start using something like Vimeo. (Cue old lady whine about not wanting to set up yet another account on yet another site.)