My Ideal Hot Buttered Rum: The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I have searched for years for the perfect Hot Buttered Run recipe and I think I have found it. Hesser’s recipe, from the 1984 article “Spirits: Rum For All Seasons” was amazing. It was easy to make and smelled so good. Plus I had a reason to use up all of those whole spices I bought last year for one single recipe. Thank you Amanda!

I made this last Friday night after a long, long week and took it to bed with a good mystery. If you can tell me a better way to spend a Friday night I would be surprised.

This is the last recipe I made (for now) from the drinks section, and I think this book is probably worth buying based on this chapter alone. I can’t wait to move on to the next one!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Mint Juleps Are Not For Me

I thought I knew better than everyone else who told me not to plant mint in my yard because it would spread. Guess what? The mint spread. Oh well, there are worse problems to have, particularly when you like to cook.

I tried to solve my mint “problem” by making mint juleps from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, but truthfully all the mint in the world isn’t going to hide the taste of bourbon. Sorry Amanda Hesser and the state of Kentucky.

On to the next recipe!

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Judge All You Want Amanda Hesser, I Love Smoothies

“And then we discovered the smoothie, and artfully - and often deliciously, repackaged shake.”

— The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser

This quote by Amanda Hesser cracked me up. It is true that we were all drinking smoothies for a while like they were the key to good health and slimness. Still, when your kid has an 8 am soccer game and you want to bring your breakfast with you is there anything better? Hesser featured an honey-orange banana smoothie from an article on hangover cures in the Essential Cookbook, and it was perfect. I didn’t have a hangover on the day of my daughter’s 8 am soccer game, but when you’re in your 40’s aren’t they really the same thing? Anyway, disguised milkshake or not I highly recommend this easy to make smoothie for the sidelines, when you have a hangover, or just any old time really.

Note: This recipe is part of a long look at Amanda Hesser’s 2010 The Essential New York Times Cookbook. See all posts here. Links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Drinks, Cocktails, Punches, and Glogg - The New York Times Essential Cookbook

I love a cookbook that acknowledges that drinks are part of the meal, and, of course, Hesser does not disappoint. This is a very thorough drinks section. My only complaint? So many of the recipes involved alcohol mixed with milk or cream, something that makes me shudder.

There are fun things in here too though. The onset of the smoothie. Iced coffee obsession. Gourmet hot chocolate. Possible solutions to the mint problem I have going on in my garden.

This week I’ll share what I made!

Acknowledgements and Introduction - The Essential New York Times Cookbook

I’ve read a few books by Amanda Hesser and I’ve always enjoyed her style. So, I loved this section about the process of creating a collection of recipes that spanned 150 years. In it she dishes about her husband’s irrational hate of biscotti (he despises its unfriendly crunch) and what it was like to test thousands of recipes while pregnant with twins.

My favorite part was the amazing timeline. It was interspersed throughout the section and it contained mind blowing tidbits about food history in the US. (I am so happy I live in a time when I can get Florida strawberries.)

Today I learned: meats cook 2 times as fast as they did 100 years ago because the way we raise them now makes them more tender. Sorry vegetarians for grossing you out; I found that fascinating.

This is going to be fun!

The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser

I grew up near Boston in a home where you could be forgiven for anything except rooting for a New York sports team. I’ve stayed true to my father’s wishes even though I probably still follow Max Scherzer’s career more than he would like. Dad never told me not read read The New York Times though, and over the years I’ve developed a real love for their food section.

Until all of their recipes went behind a paywall.

I was so, so very happy when I found out Amanda Hesser published a doorstop of a cookbook in 2010 that contains the most noteworthy recipes from the 1850’s to the early 2000’s. And my library had it! For free! Take that New York Times paywall. (Yes I know I should be willing to pay for good content. I’m just in a mood. So many subscriptions taking tiny chunks of my paycheck every week. I’ve had enough.)

You guys, I love this book. I know it’s been around for 22 years now, but it’s new to me, and it’s fabulous.

I’ve been reading a bit of it each night, and even though time and budget constraints keep me from cooking everything in this book, I’ve enjoyed reading the story behind each and every recipe. For the month of May I’m going to be all about this book, so expect to see a lot of it here!

Food and Lit: Greece

Last month I fell in love with beef stew. Beef Stifado is going on my regular cooking list for the rest of my life. Honestly, it’s been a long winter, but if it stays just a little longer the silver lining would be another chance to make this delicious stew. It was so tender and flavorful. I might need to make some more tonight. Delicious. I love #FoodAndLit

I read Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy. This was a good book, but probably not the best window into Greek culture. Sometimes it the lit that wows you and sometimes it’s the food. You never know.

Next month we eat and read from Cuba!

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Bookish Silver Linings

A cozy cat snoozing by an open book.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. I’ve been busy at work and haven’t been feeling well. It’s cold outside. And my kids are each playing two sports. I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Still I hate to let this little blog fall silent.

Then I started thinking that even though the weather is terrible at least I have had extra time to spend reading under blankets with a cat or two. Even though I’ve spent all my free time driving kids places or waiting for them to come out of places where I was to pick them up I’ve had plenty of time for audiobooks and reading in the car. Work has needed me to come back to the office, but that has given me time on the train to read even more. There’s always a silver lining, and for me that usually involves a book.

Show Us Your Books March 2022

The vibe I’m going for doesn’t exactly resemble real life!

Two days in a row I’ve overslept and I’m running behind on everything. Here’s my slap dash Show Us Your Books post for the month of March!

Five Stars:

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng -- I stayed up way too late reading this book. It was heartbreaking in all the best ways, and completely changed how I reacted to one one my kids’ less than stellar report cards.

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn -- I really loved this WW2 code breaking novel. The ending was perfect. This was the first book I read last month, and a great way to get things started.

Four Stars:

Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson -- A book about a woman who wrote a book about a woman writing a book. This was just so clever and unexpected. I really enjoyed it.

A Blizzard of Polar Bears by Alice Henderson -- I‘m really loving this series about vegetarian biologist badass Alex and her adventures defending wildlife. I can‘t wait for the next one.

And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts -- This book about the AIDS epidemic was a powerful read in its own right, but absolutely infuriating when read against the backdrop of everything we‘ve gone through in the past two years. I was under the gun to get this finished for a work book club- I will come back to it in a few years for a more careful read.

Three Stars:

I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell -- This book was a little uneven, but the first and last chapters took my breath away.

Watching You by Lisa Jewell -- This got mixed reviews from my book group. I thought it was fast paced and it kept me guessing even if there wasn’t much to talk about with the group.

This post is linked to Show Us Your Books and Quick Lit.

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Food And Lit: Cooking and Reading From Argentina

Empanadas and salad

Last month on Litsy we cooked and ate from Argentina. I didn’t cook as much as usual last month, but did get a chance to try air frying some empanadas. They weren’t as good as at a restaurant, but they were still good. The kids liked them.

The real star of the month was the YA novel Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez. My daughter’s love of soccer has me reading anything I can about it, and I really liked this story about a young woman in Argentina trying to break free of her family’s expectations.

Next month we head to Greece!

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Thrilling Books That Take Place In The Great Outdoors

I love thrillers where the characters are fighting against each other but also natural elements. It adds such tension when someone has to fight their enemy and mother nature at the same time.

Do you like these books too? Here are a few of my favorites.

The Alex Carter series by Alice Henderson features a badass heroine who saves the earth while fighting the bad guys. I’ve really enjoyed both books in this series so far, and am looking forward to the next one.

The River by Peter Heller had my heart in my throat the whole time. A book about buddies on an easy paddle in Canada quickly turns to life and death as they flee wildfires and killers.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King — Baseball can’t solve all your problems, but it sure can help a lot as Trisha found out when she had the bad luck to get lost in the woods.

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Two Books Inspired By The Dionne Quintuplets

In 1930’s rural Canada five babies were born at once and captured the curiosity of the world. The Dionne Quintuplets were a reality show before there was such a thing as reality shows. They starred in movies and were visited by celebrities like Shirley Temple and Amelia Earhart. A viewing platform was built so that the public could watch them play outside. Their fame brought in huge amounts of money, a lot of which couldn’t be accounted for later. Then they grew up and people forgot about them.

I had never heard of them until I read Louise Penny’s book How The Light Gets In. This is my favorite book in my favorite series, but it took me a few reads to catch on that Penny’s Ouellet quintuplets were based on a true story. When I saw the cover for The Quintland Sisters by Shelley Wood I knew I had to read it based on my love of Penny’s book. This is another worthwhile read. The main character got on my nerves a little, but the back story is just so darn fascinating.

If you’re looking for a fiction rabbit hole to fall down you can’t go wrong with these two. I promise you many hours of wikipedia research will follow!

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Show Us Your Books February 2022

This year I finally gave in to reading glasses.

Given that I had two week reading slump in January it is amazing to me that I read so many great books. Like really good, cry all night, book of the year type books.

I started logging my books in Storygraph this year. I don’t log everything it wants me to- that would become a job. I’m enjoying it even though I still prefer my good old fashioned handwritten book journal and spreadsheet for logging, and Litsy for sharing reviews. My favorite thing about Storygraph so far is how it assigns moods to each book and I am clearly a emotional and reflective reader.

Five Stars

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl -- I would have never listened to this if so many people on Litsy hadn‘t said how excellent it is. And I agree! This has got to be one of the best audiobooks I‘ve ever listened to. You can really hear the emotions in Grohl‘s voice as he talks. I loved too that he grew up not too far from where I live.

News of the World by Paulette Jiles -- I bailed on this one years ago because it doesn‘t have quotation marks, but a book club brought it to me again. I‘m so glad because it was a beautiful book. This is just a pleasant story, and I’ve heard the movie does it justice. A hug of a book. It made me feel good.

Four Stars

Transcendent Kingdon by Yaa Gyasi -- A lot has been said about this book so I won‘t add my clumsy synopsis, but I will say that I really loved it. I put off reading it for so long because I didn‘t think it would hold up to Homegoing. It was different but still just as heart wrenching in all the best ways.

The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook -- This was another one from the bottom of my TBR list, and it was a good read. It takes place in Germany just after WWII, and is understandably grim. It was very interesting though to examine each person‘s reactions to the terrible conditions and to imagine how I would have fared. A good book to read on a cold, dark January day.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte -- What a wild ride! Not a boring classic!

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman -- Great poetry collection. This almost read like a time capsule from the last two years.

Three Stars

The Quiet Zone by Stephen Kurczy -- I have traveled through this area several times, and was interested in learning about it. This book wasn‘t what I thought, but it was interesting enough to listen to on a long drive.

The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly -- I picked this book based on the cover alone, and I‘m happy to say it worked out! It was told in three timelines but all centered around one English garden. It‘s so super cold here lately. I enjoyed reading about a garden in bloom.

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty -- This one was a bit slow in the middle but wow, what an ending.

This post is linked to Show Us Your Books and Quick Lit.

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Food and Lit: Egypt

In January we ate and read from Egypt. January as a whole was kind of a wash for me, but I did manage to cook one recipe and read two books for this challenge.

I cooked the above pictured Fava Bean Stew from the intriguing Breakfast: The Cookbook. We ate it for dinner, but it was still great. (I really need to get back to this cookbook at a later date because it was huge and all about my favorite meal.)

For reading I started with Death on the Nile. It took a while for this one to get going- no one even died until about halfway through. I love Poirot though so no complaints. Kingdom of Copper is book two in a trilogy set in Egypt and a fantasy world. This one was a bit slow for me but the ending was great, so I will keep going.

Next month we read and eat from Argentina!

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2022 Reading Goals

Or 2022 non-goals? I don’t know. I had meticulously scheduled reading goals in 2021 and I actually met most of them. Figuring that had gone so well I did the same thing for 2022. Yay! But these last few weeks I just haven’t been feeling it. I just want to read novels and what my friends are reading so we can trash talk the characters.

So, new goals.

1) Track reading in story graph, and see what conclusions I can draw from that.

2) Re-read some of the old mysteries that made me first fall in love with reading.

3) Make my TBR more manageable. Right now I have 761 books on there. I’d like to get it down to 500, either through reading, bailing, or just plain deleting.

4) Stop signing up for activities that make reading feel like work.

That’s it!

Show Us Your Books January 2022

Happy new reading year. This year has started with more chaos for me, but I also have a ton of optimism about this coming year. Don’t ask me why. I just feel like we’ve been through this for two years now, and we’re going to start getting good at it eventually. I hope you all have a happy and healthy New Year filled with great reads.

Four Star Reads

We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - This is the second Diffenbaugh book I‘ve read and I really like what she does with her characters. I read this story about a struggling family in Washington state all in one day.

Seek You by Kristen Radtke - An examination of what loneliness looks like in America told through graphic format. A fitting to read for this time of year.

The Windsor Knot by SJ Bennett - The perfect antidote to a week that felt like a month. Queen Elizabeth solves crimes with grace and perfect etiquette.

Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas - This book is an excellent and personal look at immigration issues in the US. I‘m really glad I read it.

Three Stars

Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith - My last book of 2021 had a very fitting title. A melancholy book about a young woman trying to make her way in Brooklyn. It‘s very well written but kind of a bummer.

Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger - This book from the Cork O‘Connor mystery series is a wild ride that starts with a murder on New Year‘s Eve. Another good addition to a series I really like.

Brick Lane by Monica Ali - I enjoyed this book about Bangladeshi immigrants in London. It had some rough spots to be sure, but overall a good internal novel if you like that sort of thing (and I do.)

Road Out Of Winter by Alison Stine - This chilling dystopian novel was perfect for early morning reading while huddled under a blanket. How would you survive if winter never ended?

This post is linked to Show Us Your Books and Quick Lit.

Links to Amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

Food and Lit: the Philippines

December’s country for #FoodandLit was the Philippines. December wasn’t a great month for trying new recipes. The holidays plus my busiest few weeks at work just don’t give me a lot of spare time or days to experiment. I did find a great cookbook at the library though (The Food and Cooking of Indonesia and the Philippines), and tried a delicious mango and lime drink.

I didn’t read a book set in the Philippines, but I did devour Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas. This book brought the immigration process to life like no other book I’ve ever read. This should be required reading.

I’m excited to continue #FoodandLit in 2022. Next up is Egypt!

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Top 21 of 2021

A few things I learned in my reading life in 2021:

1) I almost never regret taking the time to read a chunkster. I put them off, but they consistently end up on my favorites lists. (Big exception: Les Miserables. I read that for 230+ days straight through the Serial Reader app, and just didn’t like it that much. I should have stopped wasting my time.)

2) Audiobooks aren’t the same as curling up with a book, but they’re where I am right now. My audiobook reading has risen sharply since March 2020. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.

3) After refusing to buy a kindle for years and years I finally did, and I like it.

4) Cookbooks can make for good reading.

Overall I had a great reading year. Better than I thought actually once I took the time to make this list. Note: these are books I read in 2021, not necessarily published in 2021. Actually very few were published in 2021. I’m a backlist reader mostly. Also I re-read about 26 titles this year, but I left them off this list.

My favorite read of 2021:

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese - I read this book in March and it’s still with me. It’s sweeping, and beautiful, and so worth the read. It’s the story of orphaned twins growing up in a hospital in Ethiopia, and where their lives take them. If you haven’t read this I highly, highly recommend that you do.

And My Top Twenty Runners Up

I read a lot of great novels, some armchair adventure, a few excellent Jame Austen retellings not set in Britain or the US (it really works), traveled without leaving home by reading and cooking from exotic cookbooks, and realized I don’t dislike poetry after all. Honestly, after I created this image I wanted to hug it. That’s how much I loved these books. They were such a comfort in a year of turmoil.

My kids and I listened to Gone Crazy In Alabama on a long and unexpected drive home from a funeral. I read Brown Girl Dreaming while waiting for my post vaccination fever to go away. The Windsor Knot made me smile during a not entirely welcome holiday season. And so many more just kept me company while drama big and small played out in the background.

Here’s to great books and less drama in 2023. Don’t know if there will be less drama, but 800+ books on my TBR list says there will at least be great books!

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Food And Lit for Thanksgiving: Mexico

I used the 2021 Food And Lit challenge as inspiration when I planned our Thanksgiving dinner. Our country for November was Mexico, and I love Mexican food, so this wasn’t much of a challenge for me.

For inspiration I checked two cookbooks out of the library:

I think it was my favorite Thanksgiving meal ever. The main event was still the turkey, but we used an adobo rub. For sides we enjoyed street corn and pickled onions along with traditional sides. For dessert we had tres leches cake and meringue cookies. Yum, I wish I could go back in time and eat that again!

For the Lit portion of the challenge I read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This one had strong Northanger Abbey vibes and I loved it!

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Show Us Your Books December 2021

In November most of my reading focused on the Nonfiction November challenge, but I did manage to read some fiction too. Here are the highlights.

Five Stars

11/22/63 by Stephen King - This is the third or fourth time I‘ve read this chunkster and I really just am amazed every time. I prefer the print to the audiobook, but audio works when my hands are busy.

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver - Mary Oliver‘s poetry soothes my heart, and I was so glad to curl up with this last month. She was just so good.

Four Stars

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - This book was WILD and I loved every minute it.

November Road by Lou Berney - Great historical fiction set around the time of the Kennedy Assassination. I loved the characters in this one.

Three Stars

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - Now that I‘m done reading this I kind of feel like I need to start again so that I understand what‘s going on. Overall a pick, but I need a closer read.

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer - This was dumb and silly in all the best ways. I really enjoyed it.

This post is linked to Show Us Your Books and Quick Lit.

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