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Seasonal Fruit Parfait with Honey Vanilla Yogurt

HOLY YUM.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let me tell you how this dessert came about.  I had R and her sister S in the house.  R was on her way back overseas for work (but she’s coming home for good soon!) and S stopped by for an overnight in part to see her sister and in part to break up a trip of her own.  Hubby, knowing what levels of silliness were likely to transpire (he’s spent time with me, R and S before) wisely decided to spend the day parked in front of a video game and ignoring us.  Meanwhile, we debated how we should spend the day we had together.  Yoga class?  Farmers market?  Long walk before it got too hot?  Beg hubby to make us lavender foot baths and take over the living room?  (That’s what R and I did on her last visit.  Hubby is a good sport.)

As appealing as that last one sounded, we decided to go to the farmers market and bring back ingredients for a fresh seasonal lunch, then cook it together.  R and S were in charge of lunch – they made a delicious heirloom tomato and purple basil salad with burrata (pasteurized – no worries) and fresh mushroom ravioli (bought at the market) with a sauce made from corn and tomatoes, sauteed and then simmered in a bit of broth and yogurt.  Divine.  And I was in charge of dessert.  While at the market we decided on a fruit parfait.  R wanted peach and blackberry, but the white nectarines at my favorite fruit and veg stand were so fantastic that S and I formed a voting bloc and outvoted her.  For the creamy element to the parfait, I whipped up a simple, sweet Greek yogurt cream and layered it with the diced nectarines and blackberries.  Perfect summer dessert, but not so decadent that it couldn’t double as a light (!) breakfast.  Dessert for breakfast?  That’s my favorite.

Seasonal Fruit Parfait with Honey Vanilla Yogurt

2 white nectarines or peaches
1 pint blackberries
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
seeds of one vanilla pod

  • Prepare the fruit: wash the berries and wash and chop the nectarines into bite-sized pieces approximately the same size as the berries.
  • Whisk together the yogurt, honey and vanilla bean seeds.
  • Layer parfaits: spoon yogurt on bottom, then add a few berries and nectarine pieces, spoon yogurt on top, and continue with more layers as desired.  Finish with a dollop of yogurt on top.

Nota Baker: You don’t have to use nectarines and blackberries here just because I’ve called for them.  Use whatever fruit is in season in your area.  I recommend a combination of two fruits, but in any event no more than three.

Yield: Serves 4 as a small dessert or 2 as a good-sized breakfast.

Source: Covered In Flour

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A GOOD AMERICAN

A Good American by Alex George

A Good American is my new gold standard for family sagas.  All family stories now have to live up to this book… and that’s going to be a tall order.

This is the story of the Meisenheimer family and their life in America.  A Good American begins not in America, but in Hanover, Germany in the early days of the 20th century, where Frederick Meisenheimer is secretly in love with a young woman, Jette.  Frederick wins Jette’s heart by hiding in the bushes as she goes about her weekly Sunday stroll in the park, serenading her with his clear tenor.  But unfortunately, as easy as it was for Frederick to win Jette’s love, it’s just that difficult – no, impossible – to get her disapproving family on board.  It’s not long before Jette is pregnant, and the young couple steals away to a new life in the still young United States.  When they can’t get a boat to New York, they head for New Orleans instead (what’s the difference?  they’re both New, as Jette points out) and travel north to Missouri.  Their journey ends abruptly in the small town of Beatrice, Missouri, where Jette goes into labor, and their family decamps in Beatrice for the long haul.  Frederick and Jette make their lives together in Missouri as Frederick tries to be what a helpful stranger encouraged him to be: a good American.  As their progeny grow up, America grows up with them.  There are friends, laughter, tragedy, frustration, love, and all the ties that bind a family together across the generations – including secrets, the biggest of which the book’s narrator, Frederick and Jette’s grandson James, finally unearths in a surprising twist.

I can’t say enough good things about A Good American.  It’s a book that made me well up and laugh in the same chapter – sometimes on the same page.  I was torn between wanting to read slowly and savor the lovely, atmospheric writing, and to feverishly turn pages so I would finally know everything that happened to the family.  Now that I’m done, I’m sorry it’s over.  In fact, that’s my only complaint: this book could have been twice as long and it still wouldn’t have been long enough for me.  I could have read it forever.  Five stars, and applause.

Get the book!  A Good American, by Alex George (not an affiliate link)

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Preserving Vacation Memories

Unfortunately, vacations only last so long.  A week or two – more if you’re lucky – but at some point we all have to go back to reality.  I suppose that’s a good thing.  After all, if vacations lasted forever, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate them fully, now would we?  (Don’t answer that.)

When we get home, and get back into the swing of ordinary life, there is so much to do that thoughts of vacation often fly right out of our minds.  We have to take steps to keep those memories intact.  If you’re like me – camera-happy – and you’ve taken hundreds or even thousands of pictures over the course of your trip, organizing those photos and turning them into a keepsake can be a fabulous way to relive the vacation – and bonus, you’ll have them to look back on after every rainy day or crushing work deadline.

My favorite way to preserve my vacation pictures is in a hardbound photo book.  I make mine on Shutterfly, simply because I’ve been storing my pictures there for years and I find it to be one of the more user-friendly sites (at least, it seems to make sense in my brain). There are many other photo processing websites to explore, though – Kodak, Snapfish, MyPublisher and others all allow users to store and display their pictures in many ways.

I made a Shutterfly book after my trip to France in 2010 and was thrilled with the result.  The process was simple (and I imagine it’s much the same on other photo-processing sites).  First I uploaded the photos I wanted to use from my computer onto Shutterfly.  I then chose which pictures I wanted to go on each page of the book, as well as the front and back covers.  The site allowed me to play with the layout of each page until the pictures were set out exactly as I wanted them.  I was able to choose from several color themes for the book, each of which came with a number of background page options.

 

When the pages were laid out, I typed in my own custom captions for each page, describing the pictures and my experiences in detail.

I loved my France book so much that I made another one for my 2011 trip to England:

The books arrive a few weeks after you create them, and – I can’t speak for every photo site, but at least the Shutterfly versions – they’re gorgeous.  The covers are excellent quality and the pages are glossy and professionally printed.  I love to sit on my couch and flip through these books for hours, tasting the flaky croissants and cafe au lait from France or the scones and tea I had in England all over again.

Making books is my favorite way of preserving vacation memories, but there are others:

  • Blog about your trip!  Take your readers on the journey with you.
  • Make a video slideshow, and set it to music.  (My parents and brother do this.  It’s on my agenda to figure out how to do it with my own computer software.)
  • Keep a trip journal while you’re away, writing down your impressions as you go, and turn it into a scrapbook with ephemera you pick up at each stop.
  • Print your photos and hang them on your walls or display them around your house.
  • Make a traditional photo album with 4×6 prints.
  • Collect small souvenirs along the way and turn them into a shadowbox when you get home.  (I’d love to try this sometime!)

(Please note, this post has not been paid for or perked by Shutterfly.  Use whatever photo site you durn well please, or don’t use any of them.  I no curr.  That’s just who I use, and I like them.)

How do you preserve vacation memories when you get home?

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Evolution of a Blog

Since I finally loosened up and allowed my blog focus to change from strictly-food to books-travel-life-decorating-crafts-food-anything-and-everything, I’ve been having so much more fun with this space.  For a long time, I felt uninspired.  Blogging was a chore, when it should have been something I did for fun.  Coupled with some personal upheaval, that made for a very unhappy, dissatisfied blogger.  Letting myself relax a bit and write about what interested me, instead of trying to force myself into a “food blogger” mold that no longer fit me, has been the best thing I could have done for myself and this little blog.  It’s fun again, and it’s been that way for awhile.  And one thing I’ve promised myself is that I’ll always be open to my blog evolving further if I want/need it to – whether that means adding different types of posts, cutting out something that no longer interests me, or changing my posting days.  Along those lines, I’ve been  thinking about a couple of areas where the blog is going to be evolving in the near future, whether I like it (baby on the way) or not (the England recaps coming to an end – wish they could have gone on forever).

FRIDAY TRAVEL POSTS

As I’ve re-lived hubby’s and my England vacation from last fall (and had so much fun, by the way – thanks for joining me on the ride) I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with the blog on Fridays now that I’ve finished posting my trip recaps.  My first inclination was to tell hubby that we must take another epic vacation IMMEDIATELY, so I would have something to recap.

Wouldn’t that be great?  Sadly, I don’t think my employers would be as thrilled as hubby would have been if I had floated that idea.

Okay, but seriously now, I was planning to just post on Fridays as I do on other days of the week – with a mixture of book reviews, literary thoughts, home decorating or crafting posts, or the occasional weekend recap.  But then, I thought, I don’t stop having fun just because I’m at home for most of the year.  Hubby and I do our fair share of hiking, museum visits, and fun days out.  And with all of the exciting changes coming our way in the future, we’re even more focused on getting our family time in – both now and when the Peanut makes her big entrance in October.

So I started thinking: why not reserve Friday posts for chronicling our fun adventures, whether those are in our own northern Virginia backyard, on weekend getaways, or over the course of longer vacations?  Fridays would be a great time to share a peek into some of the ways we enjoy each other’s company as a family of two (and eventually three), or with our extended families and friends.  I won’t be posting along these lines every Friday, necessarily, but I’d like to make our fun adventures a frequent Friday topic.

POSTS ON PREGNANCY AND MOMMYHOOD

Here’s one way the blog is not going to evolve: this is NOT going to be a mommy blog, or a pregnancy blog for that matter.  I have good reasons for keeping the volume of pregnancy posts down.  Some are personal.  On the public side, I have never intended to be a mommy blogger; I respect that blog community but I don’t see myself there.  And I like blogging about books and travel and this-n-that too much to give it up, let alone risk alienating readers who come here for literary chatter, recipes and other non-kid-focused fun.  Plus, book blogging is one of my (many) hobbies, and I firmly believe moms need hobbies of their own.

That said… my life is obviously changing in a big way, and I recognize that it would be unreasonable for me to expect that my blog will stay exactly the same when the rest of my world is being turned upside-down.  So talk about my pregnancy and, eventually, my kid is bound to creep in – for instance, I’ll DEFINITELY be sharing nursery-decor posts with you, since I talk about decorating the rest of my house.  And when the kid arrives, she will be taking a central part in our family adventures, which I’ve already said I plan to blog about regularly.  Finally, I would love to share some of the children’s books that hubby and I read with the Peanut with all of you.  I’ve always loved children’s literature and I’m looking forward to watching the Peanut grow as a reader, from board books to picture books and beyond.  So while I’ll still be sharing the grown-up books I read, I’m also planning to book blog for the Peanut.  (I might even do a  regular or semi-regular feature, but I’ll have to wait to meet the Peanut before I really figure out what form those posts will take.)

So while this isn’t going to be a pregnancy/mom blog, do expect the Peanut to pop up now and again, in family posts and in topics about kids’ books and the occasional kid-friendly home and travel posts I hope to write (when I’ve got enough experience for my tips to be worth something, that is).  And I’ll definitely share the big moments with you – like the big arrival.  But if that kind of stuff isn’t your bag, baby, rest assured that there will be no shortage of grown-up posts too; baby-focused posting will be sporadic around here.  That said…

RESURRECTING “HAPPY TRAILS”

If you’re my father-in-law, you probably remember that back in 2010 I started a “family blog” called “Happy Trails.”  (I say “if you’re my father-in-law” because I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who ever read it.)  The blog was extremely short-lived for a number of reasons, which I’m not going to get into right now.  I left it up, but I didn’t post anything after about September of 2010.

Well, until now… maybe.  I’m considering resurrecting “Happy Trails.”  The idea behind the blog was to document our lives and share the things our family and friends would be interested in reading about.  Well, with a baby on the way, I’ve got no shortage of material, and no shortage of people who want regular updates on the pregnancy (and will be even more anxious for updates after Peanut arrives, no doubt).  So I’m thinking about bringing “Happy Trails” back, either now or once we get into the swing of parenthood.

However.  And this is a big however.  With a baby on the way I’m concerned about privacy.  I use real names on “Happy Trails,” which I generally don’t do here unless the person in question has an online presence of their own volition.  I’m a lot freer with sharing details about my life and my family on “Happy Trails,” and as a result, I don’t want just anyone looking at it.  So I’ve privatized it.  That means that you can ONLY see “Happy Trails” if I’ve specifically invited you.  If I do bring back the blog, I’ll be sending invites to our family and close friends, and then I’ll make an announcement here that it’s up and running again.  If you see that announcement and you haven’t gotten an invitation, let me know and I’ll send you one if I know you.

What do I mean by “if I know you,” you wonder?  If you’re a friend – for example, one of my sorority sisters or other college friends who reads here – and you’d like to be included, send me an email or a Facebook message, or leave me a blog comment.  If you’re a blogging friend or a regular blog reader/commenter here, such that I would recognize your name and email address, leave me a blog comment saying you’d like an invite, and you’ll get one.  I promise I’m not trying to be mean or difficult, but if I’m going to blog about pregnancy and my family, I need to have a comfort level with the people who are reading the blog – and this is how I will get that comfort level.  I promise that, if I know who you are, you’re not going to be excluded (unless you’re the girl who stole my prom date, ‘cuz that’s just uncool).  I just want to make sure that I do actually know who you are, either because I actually have met you in person or  because we have a regular blog interaction.  I think that’s pretty liberal, and definitely fair.

POSTING SCHEDULE CHANGE

When I originally changed my blog format, like I said above, I promised myself that if it ever got to be too much to handle, I’d ease up.  For the past year, approximately, I’ve been blogging Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Thursday being food or recipe day.  As life has gotten busier, keeping to that schedule has become extremely challenging, especially on Thursdays.  There have been many weeks where I’ve been so busy that I haven’t developed a fun new recipe to share with you and I’ve had to fall back on old recipes pulled from my archives – which are fun to see again, but that’s not a sustainable way to food blog.  After agonizing over the situation, I’ve concluded that I just don’t have the time and energy, between a 50-hour-per-week job, a long commute, a house, a husband, a baby on the way, and other blogging priorities, to blog regularly about recipes right now, or to keep to a four-days-per-week posting schedule for that matter.

What does that mean?  It means that I’m going to change my posting days to Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the foreseeable future, and that there won’t be a specific day dedicated to posting a recipe.  I think three days per week is doable for me right now, without stressing me out unduly (after all, this is supposed to be fun).  And I’m not saying there will not be recipes on the blog anymore – there will be, when I have good ones to share.  (Which I will – in fact, look for a fun healthy dessert that doubles as a breakfast coming up next week.)  So if you’ve figured out my posting schedule, please keep checking back here, but make it Monday, Wednesday and Friday instead.  If things change again, of course I’ll let you know – but I think this is going to be the most I can do for awhile, what with a baby coming in October.  And I’m okay with that. 

So there you have it!  Those are the ways I see Covered In Flour continuing to evolve and reflect my life and my interests.  And I’m always open to suggestion, so if there’s a topic you’d like to see addressed here – or even just a book you think I should read – lemme know!  I can’t promise to take up every suggestion, but I’m definitely interested in your input.

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Savoring Summer

I can be guilty of wishing time away.  I just love to look forward to things, so no sooner than one exciting event or milestone passes am I on to the next.  Right now I’m having a great deal of difficulty focusing on the here and now, since all I can think about is meeting our baby in October.  October, October, October!  When will it GET HERE ALREADY???

But the thing is, there’s a whole summer and early fall to get through before the little miss will be ready to come out and greet the world.  And it’s also the last few months hubby and I will have in the time B.C. (meaning “Before Children,” as my parents used to say).  I don’t want to wish that time away – I want to savor it and enjoy it and make the most of it.  So in that spirit, here’s what I’m looking forward to enjoying this summer:

~New York City!  Twice!  One day trip up while hubby meets up with his dad for a Yankees game and I entertain myself (I’m thinking NY Public Library and the Strand for sure), and then a babymoon, perhaps around the time of our anniversary.  We’ll see a Broadway show (but what to see? I’m torn between my old standby – “The Phantom of the Opera,” which I’ve seen at least five times – and something new, like maybe “Wicked”).  And there will be afternoon tea, breakfast at Sarabeth’s, more shopping at the Strand, wandering Central Park, dinners out…

~Browsing for used books at Second Story and The Book Bank, and carrying home a steal or twelve.

~A visit from the beautiful and talented Katie and her husband.  I can’t wait to show them around my favorite DC haunts, and to take a few days off work to play tourist.

~Tart yogurt with my coworkers, a welcome break on hot afternoons.

~Wandering the trails in Rock Creek Park and at Great Falls – once this current heat wave evaporates, that is.

~Grown-up dinners out with hubby.  We’ve made a pact to eat out at least once or twice every week this summer, which is something we don’t usually do.  But there’s not much time left before frequent dining out in nice restaurants will be a rarity, and goshdarnit, we’re taking advantage of this time.

~Summer reading.  Of course!  Sometimes that means a big chunkster, and sometimes it means lots of light fare.  This summer, I think it means revisiting my favorite childhood classics, like the Anne and Emily books by L.M. Montgomery, and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  And further denting of the TBR list, naturally.  And along with this one goes: having time to read, period.  I don’t know how much time I’ll have come fall, so I want to get in a few more lazy afternoons of lounging with a book in before the little miss shakes things up.

~Peanutty preparations.  We’ve got a nursery to get ready!  You all know what that means: SHOPPING.  I don’t love shopping for myself (well, sometimes I do – definitely for books) but shopping for adorable baby decor and tiny dresses?  I’m so there.  (Oh, it also means childbirth and infant care classes.  I’m excited about the infant care classes, but approaching the childbirth classes with considerable trepidation.)

~Welcoming R home from her faraway job.  I can’t wait until she’s safely back Stateside for good.

~Evening walks with hubby around our hilly neighborhood, where we hold hands and smell the fragrant summer blooms and carry on two separate conversations simultaneously.  (I babble about all things pregnancy and baby, and he critiques the neighbors’ lawns.)

~Visiting the farmers’ market regularly.  And eating delicious fresh fruit, as much as I can.  Especially cherries and peaches.  And watermelon.  And strawberries.

~Spotting fireflies in my backyard.  They’re my favorite bugs.  I can watch their little glowing butts for hours.

What are you planning to savor about summer?

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Surprise Mail

After a fun but exhausting weekend away, followed by an evening flight and a late drive home from the airport, I arrived to find two cards in my mailbox (among magazines and junk mail).  This was one of them.  I didn’t recognize the handwriting on the envelope, so I hadn’t a clue who it could be from.  It was a gigantic surprise to open the envelope and find a card from my mom’s hairstylist.

C has been cutting and styling my mom’s hair since before I can remember.  She does my mom’s friends’ hair too, and she used to do mine before I moved away.  I always loved her beauty shop – pink and girly, and smelling wonderful from the delicious products she used.  The best part of any haircut from C was when she would play with my hair after cutting it.  I never looked better than on a day when C had her hands in my hair.  (Of course, I went steeply downhill the next day, but that was due to my own laziness.  And C’s haircuts kept better than most.)

In the card, C shared her memory of the first day when I came into her beauty shop, a barely walking baby, and “proceeded to read her a story from one of my favorite books.”  Yep, that sounds like me.  I certainly got a fair amount of reading done while waiting for my mom to get her hair done.

Getting this card put a huge smile on my face.  I had no idea that C still thought of me so fondly – although it makes sense that my mom would fill her in on the things that are going on in my life during their regular appointments.  I’ve read the card over and over and it feels like a big hug from someone special.  Best kind of surprise a girl can find in her mailbox.

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Author Spotlight: Eudora Welty

I’d be hard-pressed to name a favorite author, but Eudora Welty is up there.  I first discovered Welty in ninth grade.  My English teacher told my mother during a parent-teacher night that she simply must buy me a copy of One Writer’s Beginnings, Welty’s memoir-slash-writing-meditation.  My mom dutifully rushed out to Barnes & Noble and brought me back a copy of the slim volume, which I devoured.  The story of Welty’s idyllic southern childhood and how she found her voice as a writer captivated me.  It didn’t take me long to seek out copies of some of Welty’s short stories and novels, and I found them every bit as enthralling as One Writer’s Beginnings.  Welty’s writing style is clean yet folksy, and in her works everyday events seem to be cloaked in golden light.  She is both a master of the short story form and a brilliant novelist, something most writers can’t say for themselves.  Every time I pick up one of Welty’s books or stories, I am thrown back into a simpler yet no less dramatic time, and I’m grateful to that teacher for making sure I knew about this magnificent author.  Here are some of my favorite Welty works:

One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora WeltyOne Writer’s Beginnings – While many readers find their introduction to Eudora Welty through her short stories, it all starts here for me.  Welty recounts her childhood and how she learned to write in three chapters: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding My Voice.  Welty’s life was not particularly dramatic.  She didn’t go through the “school of hard knocks” the way many people believe a writer must in order to be great.  I think this is her strength; she lived an ordinary life, surrounded by a loving and supportive family, and from that she learned to find great beauty and drama in everyday things.

A Curtain of Green: and Other Stories by…A Curtain of Green – This was Welty’s first of many collections of short stories.  The book explores race relations in Mississippi, but in a subtle and kind light.  And race isn’t the driving force behind Welty’s writing; rather, she focuses on the people who live in her South and the beauty and challenges they face in their lives.

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora WeltyThe Optimist’s Daughter – This novel won Welty the Pulitzer Prize, and it’s probably her masterpiece.  Laurel Hand travels to the bedside of her father, an aging Judge who is about to undergo eye surgery.  As she attends her father, Laurel must also deal with the Judge’s much-younger second wife, Fay.  When the Judge dies, Laurel and Fay travel back to Laurel’s childhood home, where Fay antagonizes the neighbors and Laurel learns that Fay lied about her family.  Laurel must learn to view Fay with compassion, and to confront her own memories as she cleans out the house.  It’s a soft book, gentle, but searing.

Delta Wedding by Eudora WeltyDelta Wedding – This is a lesser-known novel, and The Optimist’s Daughter tends to steal all the glory, but Delta Wedding is my favorite Welty novel.  The story is told through the eyes of nine-year-old Laura, who is traveling back to the Mississippi Delta to visit a family plantation on the eve of her cousin Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.  It’s not a plot-driven novel, but one focused on characters and setting, which is right up my alley.  I find myself thinking of the Fairchilds, who loved to linger at the table long after dinner, whenever conversation at my own table stretches on through tea and coffee and beyond.

Eudora Welty was a prolific writer who published many, many short stories and six novels – these few are just my own personal favorites.  Her works are timeless, yet grounded in the particular era in which she wrote.  I’ve read and re-read them, and I’ll be reading them for the rest of my life.

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Reading Round-Up: June 2012

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for June, 2012…

An Incomplete Revenge (Maisie Dobbs #5), by Jacqueline Winspear – I really enjoyed the fifth installment of Maisie’s adventures.  James Compton, the son of Maisie’s former employer, Lady Rowan Compton, is back in England and taking a more active role in the running of the family business.  James is looking to acquire some property in a small village in Kent, but the village has been troubled by acts of vandalism during the hop-picking season for some years now.  James asks Maisie to find out what is going on, and Maisie sets up residence in the village along with a tribe of gypsies and droves of hop-pickers, including the Beale family, as she investigates the village’s troubled legacy since the Great War.

The Spellman Files (The Spellmans #1), by Lisa Lutz – The Spellmans put the “fun” in “dysfunctional.”  There’s Mom and Dad, who run the family’s private investigations business; irritatingly perfect lawyer son David; wayward 13-year-old Rae; drunk Uncle Ray; and Isabel, who decides she’s had enough.  Isabel demands an out, but before Mom and Dad will let her quit the business, they demand she take on one last case.  When a family member disappears, Isabel thinks there might be a connection.  This was a fun, silly romp.  Fully reviewed here.

My Name is Memory, by Ann Brashares – This novel about a man who remembers all of his past lives, and his soulmate who remembers none, had great potential.  It was cheesy but held my attention for the one day it took to read.  I’ll probably seek out the sequel, if/when it ever comes out, just to know what happened… but it wasn’t my favorite book ever.

Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6), by Jacqueline Winspear – Maisie and Billy are walking down the street on Christmas Eve, 1931, when they witness a man commit suicide.  Not long after, Scotland Yard contacts Maisie, telling her that a threatening letter has been received from a man who claims he will devastate London if certain demands aren’t met, and mentions Maisie by name.  Maisie jumps into a search for the terrorist, while Billy’s wife Doreen is going off the rails, having never recovered from the death of their youngest child.  This was probably my least favorite Maisie novel – I found it rather creepy and not particularly compelling.  It’s still a Maisie book, though, so it was still good.

Bossypants, by Tina Fey – I love Tina Fey and had been meaning to get to Bossypants for at least a year.  (My copy was given to me by R, with instructions to “pass on the Tina” when I was done, and I had to finish it quickly so she wouldn’t spot it on my shelf during a visit this month.)  Written in a more traditional memoir style, Tina recounts her childhood, her adventures in comedy writing, and her time playing Sarah Palin on SNL (my favorite part of the book, as I loved those sketches in 2008).  Fun and fascinating.  Fully reviewed here.

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch, by Sally Bedell Smith – I had started this fascinating biography a few months ago and had to put it down to pick up other (more urgent, non-returnable library) books.  Finally got around to finishing it this month and I learned SO much about the Royal Family, British history and rituals, and racehorses.  My only complaint was that the book was very anti-Diana and I firmly believe there were two sides to that story; Bedell Smith simply writes Diana off as an unbalanced “problem child” who caused trouble for the Royal Family from Day One.  Otherwise, though, I found it to be a thoroughly researched and really interesting read.

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, by John Steinbeck – I’d been wanting to read this book since I visited Monterey as a 12-year-old.  Steinbeck re-writes Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in modern English.  For whatever reason, though, he wandered away from finishing it, and his Acts are a fairly rough draft.  The stories of Gawain, Ewain and Marhalt and The Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot of the Lake were the most complete and polished, and were excellent.  (Especially Gawain, Ewain and Marhalt, which was very, very funny.)  Still a worthwhile read, although it could have been SO much better if Steinbeck had seen the project through to the end.

The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs #7), by Jacqueline Winspear – After the disappointments of Among the Mad, Maisie was back at the top of her form as she searched for the lost love of an American cartographer who was killed in the war.  What seems like a simple case turns out to be much more than Maisie and Billy bargained for, and this is one of the best Maisie novels thus far.  (I can’t decide which I like better: this or An Incomplete Revenge.  Both great.)

Heaven to Betsy (Betsy-Tacy #5), by Maud Hart Lovelace – Library books caused me to stall out on the Betsy-Tacy books for awhile, but I was looking forward to getting back into them.  In this installment, Betsy starts high school and becomes a bit of a twit.  She gets caught up – as do most of us, at some point in our lives – in a whirlwind social life and becomes rather boy-crazy.  I was a bit worried for a time that Tacy would get lost in the shuffle, but I didn’t give Betsy enough credit – no one could ever replace Tacy.  Although I loved seeing Betsy have fun and reading about the exploits of “the Crowd,” I know she has quite a bit of growing up to do in the next few books.

A Lesson in Secrets (Maisie Dobbs #8), by Jacqueline Winspear – Maisie takes on another assignment for Special Services, going undercover to pose as a junior philosophy lecturer at a college in Cambridge and report on activities not in the interests of the crown.  While Special Services is really looking for Bolshevik activities, Maisie finds the growing fasicination with Hitler’s Nazi party more troubling.  But when the college founder is found dead, Maisie can’t help but look into that too.  A good Maisie romp, and interesting to see a few turning points in the series come up, as Maisie has to stand on her own and begins to confront the growing shadows of what will become World War II.

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I guess I could call June my “month of Maisie,” since I read four out of nine of the Maisie adventures this month.  Which made for a fun month, to be sure!  I’m glad the Maisie books aren’t complete fluff, because my June wasn’t the most intellectually taxing month (although The Acts of King Arthur and the Elizabeth II biography were each challenging reads in their own way, so I’m glad they were mixed in there).  I’m not sure how much time I have to read in July, but I’m hoping to add some more substance.

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2012: Six Months In

I can’t believe 2012 is six months old!  In early January I posted about my disappointment in 2011 (it was a horrible year for me) and my goals for 2012.  I tried to set small, achievable goals.  Here’s how they’re going so far:

BLOG

Goal: Clean up categories and redesign blog to look less like a strictly-food blog and more like the creative space I envision when I write here.

Progress: Very nearly done!  I edited down my categories and added new ones in that reflected my new blogging priorities.  I also changed around the tag cloud so that anyone looking for a recipe for a particular ingredient can find it easily.  And I slipped in a Goodreads widget on the sidebar, so you can see how I liked my recent reads.  I’d still like to change my banner to something new (I’ve had the same banner since I started the blog in 2009) and I’m considering changing my posting schedule.  Details to come if I do go that way.

HOME

Goal: Finish painting!  And plant a gigantic vegetable garden.

Progress: HA! on the painting.  We haven’t done a single room all year.  I’m hoping to get the living room done this summer (if I find a free weekend somewhere) and the baby’s room will be getting a coat or two of zero-VOC paint, but beyond those two rooms, I’m under no illusions that this part of my goal is destined for success.  As for the vegetable garden – well, I have one!  Thanks almost entirely to hubby.  He did an amazing job researching vegetable gardening and did most of the backbreaking work on it while I lay on the couch nursing allergies and napping away my first trimester.  And now the veggies are starting to come in – in fact, we’ll be enjoying our own home-grown peas for dinner tonight.  Thanks, hubby!

FITNESS

Goal: I’d love to run another half marathon, if circumstances are right.

Progress: Not gonna happen this year, for obvious reasons.  I know there are pregnant ladies out there who run half and full marathons, but I’m just not one of them.  I’m focusing on yoga, walking and strength training instead and just trying to stay active up until October.  I might revisit this goal for 2013 – we’ll see.

READING

Goal: Plow through my to-read list and make some headway on reading the books I already own.

Progress: I’m doing relatively well with the to-read list, although I tend to get sidetracked by shiny new releases.  I hope to work more on that in the second half of the year.  As for reading books I already own… nope.  I got sucked into a vortex of book-borrowing at the library.  But I’m still calling it a win, because the intention behind the goal was to save some money, and library books are free (unless you return them late, of course).

LIFE

Goal: Wake up smiling and live each day with exuberance.

Progress: Life’s a journey, and nothing happens overnight.  But in general I’m a much happier, sunnier person this year than I was last year.  I have my good days and my bad days, like everyone.  But I love my life!  And that helps to keep the smiles coming.

BIG DREAM

I also mentioned that I had a big goal and a big dream, but I wasn’t ready to share them… although in the comments, I promised to tell what they both were if the dream came true.  In thinking about it, I’m still not ready to tell you about the big goal, because it’s on hold but I’m hoping to revisit it in the future.  But I will tell you the big dream: it was to add to the family.  Obviously we’re not quite there yet (less than four months to go!) but getting the news that we’re expecting our baby girl was amazing.  And while pregnancy is a constant emotional teeter-totter – from overjoyed to worried and back again – it’s been wonderful and I can’t wait to celebrate baby girl’s safe arrival in October.  She’s already a dream come true.

How is 2012 treating you so far?

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Women in Comedy: Two Book Reviews

If you’re a fan of The Office – which I am; I even blog about the show for work – you know Mindy Kaling as the delightfully dippy customer service representative, Kelly Kapoor.  Kelly isn’t one of the main characters, but I’ve always loved her.  Her particular brand of ditzy neediness is all kinds of hilarious and endearing.  And I was even more fascinated by Kelly when I discovered that the actress who portrays her, Mindy Kaling, is a writer and producer on the show.  Kelly may have wasted all of her brain cells on online shopping and celebrity gossip, but Mindy is incredibly smart (Dartmouth grad! almost as good as Cornell! GO BIG RED!) and hysterically funny.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is Mindy’s sort-of memoir, sort-of stream of consciousness ramblings.  She takes the reader from her days as a “timid chubster afraid of her own bike” and self-proclaimed comedy geek, through high school and college, to her early career as a Ben Affleck impersonator in a two-woman off-Broadway production.  (She co-wrote the show with her roommate, Brenda, and they decided to only have two parts, because then they could play the parts and they wouldn’t have to pay anyone.)  From her early days as Ben in Matt&Ben, Mindy jumps feet first into a new show that no one thought was going anywhere – a silly, random little show called The Office.

Between memoir-ing, Kelly – errrr, Mindy – gives you fascinating flashes of insight into her incredibly random brain.  She treats you to musings on topics such as what is the perfect amount of fame to have… why men should not shave their chests… why size 8 is the Hollywood stylist’s Kryptonite… why Amy Poehler rules… and more.  I was laughing until I cried and reading random paragraphs to my long-suffering husband as he tried to drive the car home after a long day at work.  And the next time I watched The Office (Ryan, Kelly finally found a great guy!  LEAVE HER ALONE!) I had new respect for Kelly.  (Like I said, I already knew that Mindy Kaling was a writer/producer on the show – but reading her book just brought home for me how smart and funny the lady really is.  And she’s only 2 years older than me… man, that burns.)  Mindy, if you’re reading this, I can be funny from time to time, in structured indoor scenarios.  Let’s be besties?

Get the book!  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns, by Mindy Kaling (not an affiliate link)

First off, let me say this: I think Tina Fey is a genius.  A warm, witty, on-point, hilarious genius.  Now let me follow that with some sacrilege.  ::whispers:: ithinkilikedmindykaling’sbookbetter.

Bossypants was certainly amusing, and read more like a traditional memoir than Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?.  And, as an expectant parent, I did like the advice Tina gives on “how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free adult virgin.”  Tina brings a darkly funny voice to everything from gay rights to her first post-college job (receptionist at the YMCA, yowsa) to women in comedy to being the “boss” on 30 Rock.  I chuckled appreciatively at regular intervals throughout the book, and basically lived for the chapter in which Tina recounts in detail her experience impersonating Sarah Palin on SNL.  (I watched those sketches over and over and over and over in 2008.  And then again after finishing Bossypants.  They’re still just as awesome.)

But… and Mindy Kaling would kill me for saying this… ::whispers:: ilikedmindykaling’sbookbetter.  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? literally had tears running down my face at times.  I was trying to figure out why this is.  Maybe because Mindy Kaling is a little bit closer to my age?  (Not that Tina Fey is old – she’s not – but Mindy only has a couple of years on me.)  Or that Mindy hasn’t been established for very long, and she still seems to believe that her success must be some kind of mistake?  Or maybe it’s because I actually watch The Office and I don’t watch 30 Rock.  (My husband hates Alec Baldwin with the fire of a thousand suns, so it’s a marriage thing.  I’d probably watch if not for that.)  I dunno why.  I still really, really enjoyed Bossypants and would recommend it to anyone who likes a witty memoir or who is interested in women in comedy.

Get the book!  Bossypants, by Tina Fey (not an affiliate link)

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