Reading and Eating
Hello! Once again I have some recent reads and eats to share. I’ve been reading some great books lately, and have been doing some extra cooking. Starting with books… I had an odd experience with A Spell of Winter. One day I got a notice from the library saying the hold I placed on it had come in and the book was ready to be picked up. Wait… what? I could have sworn I never heard of this book before. Apparently I must have read about it somewhere and impulsively placed a hold on it, but I have no memory of that. Oh well! I picked it up from the library. While I was still waiting to read it, I read a short review of it on Engie’s blog describing it as a “weird little book about incest.” WHAT? WHY did I want to read this book??? I almost returned it to the library, but then figured I would just read a few pages and see what it was like. Yes, there were parts of the book that were a little creepy and hard to read. But I LOVED it. I was immediately drawn into the story (and it wasn’t only about incest, thank goodness.) I loved the writing style so much I looked up other books by Helen Dunmore, and it turns out the others sound quite different. Exposure is a suspense novel that takes place during the cold war- I got it out of the library and am going to start it soon. Anthony Horowitz is becoming one of my favorite mystery authors. The Twist of a Knife was one of his “Hawthorne” series, where he (Anthony Horowitz) is an actual character in the book who teams up with a detective, Hawthorne. This is the fourth book in the series and for maximum enjoyment, I think they should be read in order. This one was a quick, fun read. My son asked for Atomic Habits for Christmas and has now passed it along to me. “Atomic” habits refers to little changes that add up to huge results. Clear explains that if you’re having trouble sticking to good habits or breaking bad ones, it’s not because you’re a lazy lump who can’t do anything right, but rather you’re just not implementing habits in the right way. A lot of things in this book I already know (Gretchen Rubin talks about the “strategy of the clean slate” for example) but it was definitely worth a read. Moving on to food! My son is home this week for spring break, and he requires a LOT of food. The first day he was home I made a big brunch: “Just Egg” quiche (Just Egg is a vegan egg substitute made from mung beans), tempeh bacon, hash browns, blueberry muffins and fruit. This was so good! (Quiche recipe from Nora Cooks.) A couple hours after this brunch, my son drank a protein shake and about an hour after that asked for lunch. My stomach was still struggling to digest the brunch! Have I mentioned that my son is 6’5″? He’s always been skinny, but is now lifting weights and bulking up on calories, and he’s really starting to fill out. Later I made an Asian feast for dinner! It was the same Thai Yellow Coconut Curry With Mango from Minimalist Baker that I made a couple weeks ago. Once again, I added tofu and broccoli and it was DELICIOUS. I also made naan from the same website, and vegetable gyoza from Trader Joe’s. This was enough to fill us all up, although my son made a huge smoothie for himself before bed. I KNOW. He drinks a huge smoothie before bed and then sleeps like a rock for eight hours, not even waking up to pee. How is this possible??? My son is talking about spending the summer at home instead of doing a summer program, and while I’m excited at the thought of him being home all summer, I’m not quite sure how we’ll manage to feed him. I may have to get a second job. Coming up… lots more food (of course- my son doesn’t go back to school till Sunday) and some exciting reads! Have you read any of these books? Are you wishing I would take a photography course and stop posting such terrible photos of my food? I know, they don’t do it justice.