by

In Which I Step Out Of My Literary Comfort Zone

Ask me what kind of books I prefer to read, and I’ll tell you in no uncertain terms: I prefer historical classics, especially English literature, new literary fiction and travel memoirs.  Ask me what books I have no interest in, and I’ll be equally emphatic: bodice-ripping romances and graphic novels hold zero appeal for me.  Ask me about other genres and I might waffle a bit more.

There are two genres in particular that I’m equivocal about: dystopia and fantasy.  Sure, I’ll tell you that I don’t particularly care for them, and that’s true.  I’ll tell you that they won’t be my first choice, and that’s also true.  But I’d be stretching the truth if I said there was nothing in either genre that I have read and liked.

Take dystopia, for instance.  The plots always intrigue me, but then when I finish the books I often feel disappointed for some unidentifiable reason.  Perhaps I’m just not at home in a post-apocalyptic world?  Still, I have read and liked certain dystopic novels.  For instance, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, was disturbing but engaging at the same time.  When I closed the book, I wished I had checked it out of the library because I never wanted to look at it again, but lately I’ve been contemplating a re-read.  It’s not topping the list at the moment – too many things that I haven’t yet read and want to get to first – but I think I may like it more on a second go-round.  And that’s not to say I didn’t like it the first time; it was very good and I was glued to the book.  But giving it time to settle definitely improved my outlook on the book and made me more willing to re-read it in the future.

Oh, and then there’s The Hunger Games trilogy.  Young adult… and dystopia… two things that I generally don’t go for.  But I absolutely couldn’t put the books down.  I was obsessed, obsessed to a degree I haven’t experienced since the end of the Age of Potter.  I talked my bestie R into reading them because I needed someone to screech at when the first movie trailer came out, and I wanted a foil for “Gale vs. Peeta” debates.  (She was Team Gale, I was Team Peeta.)  Despite not being a dystopia kind of girl, I literally cannot get enough Hunger Games.  (Nor can R, now – she might be more obsessed than me.  I created a monster.)  I could talk all day about the many fascinating messages crammed into these insanely exciting books… but I’ll let you read and discover for yourself.

Then there’s fantasy.  Again, not something I’m typically attracted to.  Oh, I read The Mists of Avalon in high school, sure.  But it’s generally just not something I “go for.”  I haven’t even read The Lord of the Rings and its progeny.  (I plan to, but they never seem to cycle to the top of my list.  I’ll get to them, though, I swear.)  But there are some fantasy books that I’ve read that made me stop and think, maybe I should give this genre a fair shake.  For instance, I recently discovered Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy.  I liked the first book, The Magicians – I wasn’t completely sold, but I did find it amusing, particularly when the characters made fun of Harry Potter.  But the second book, The Magician King, absolutely blew me away and I’m now anxiously awaiting the final installment.  The Magicians trilogy spoofs on The Chronicles of Narnia, which I’ve read many, many times and loved – but I find it hard to consider Narnia fantasy.  To me, Narnia is a classic and a stand-alone masterpiece.

And I guess I can’t claim to be “not a fantasy reader” given my boundless levels of Harry Potter dorkdom.  My Pottermania affliction is widely known.  I’ve dressed up as a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team (Alicia Spinnet, to be exact – and now you know just what a nerd I am) for a midnight release party.  I just can’t help it.  The Harry Potter books have everything I look for – great characters, humor, an exciting and engaging plot, and good writing (okay, I realize opinions differ on that last point, but I think Rowling’s writing is very good, especially later on in the series).  I can’t help it.  I just love to dive into the world of Hogwarts.  Now, imagine if I never pushed myself outside of my comedy-of-manners comfort zone!  I’d never have found Harry, Ron and Hermione.  And I shudder to think just how boring life would be without those three.

What is your literary comfort zone, and have you ever read and loved a book that pushed you outside of it?  Any dystopia or fantasy novels you’d recommend to me?

by

Green

I was flipping through old magazines a few nights ago, and – I don’t know what brought this to mind, but – I started to wonder what my favorite color says about me.

I love cool colors.  Blues, purples, greens.  When I was younger I wore red or pink every day, but eventually (age brings wisdom) I realized it looked terrible on me, and that I wasn’t made to wear warm colors in general. (A friend bought one of those “What’s your season?” books and told me that with my skin tone I couldn’t be anything but a spring, and I really took it to heart.)  I started wearing more and more cool colors, and I fell in love with them – especially green.  I have green eyes, and I like that wearing green brings out my eye color.  But I also love green because to me it means nature – fresh grass, lush trees in mid-summer, and vibrant hills.  There’s nothing that brings me greater peace than being outside surrounded by the silence of the trees and the deep green grass.  Green is the color I associate with hiking on a hot summer’s day – one of my favorite things.  I love blue and purple, too – purple was my favorite color as a child and I still like it, and I am attracted to the peace and serenity of blue.  But there’s no color for me like green, with its connotations of nature and summer.

According to Care2… “The color of harmony and balance, Green symbolizes hope, renewal and peace, and is usually liked by the gentle and sincere. Greens are generally frank, community-minded people, fairly sociable but preferring peace at any price. Green people can be too self-effacing, modest and patient, so they may get exploited by others. They are usually refined, civilized and reputable.”

I’ll take it.  Actually, it seems about right.  I’m a Libra, so I put great stock into harmony and balance… I do value peace and serenity… and I can get walked on at times.  But no matter what, I’ll always love green.  I’ll always catch my breath at the sight of a carpet of vibrant green grass.  I’ll never feel more at-peace than when staring up into the branches of a tree in full green garb.  Yes, I do love green.

What’s your favorite color?  What does your color say about you?

by

Avebury and Stonehenge

In Bath, we immersed ourselves in history as far back as Roman times.  Then we left town and traveled even further back in time – back to the ancient peoples of Britain – mysterious societies who erected massive circles of standing stones that we may never fully understand.

Our first stop was Avebury, called “the connoisseur’s stone circle” by some.  Avebury Stone Circle is an impressive construction of standing stones, a quarter mile wide, encircling a small hamlet that grew up in between the stones. 

The stones were massive, and some of them appeared to be balanced quite precariously – but they were all standing very solidly.  Avebury is not nearly as well-known as its close neighbor, Stonehenge, but it was fascinating – not least because visitors were permitted to wander at their leisure amongst the stones and even touch them (unlike Stonehenge, which is fenced off from crowds for its own protection).  The people of Avebury have taken care of their stones – except for the time when they pulled them all down in a spurt of religious enthusiasm.  We took our time meandering around the circle.

You can get a good sense of the size of the stones – hubby is six feet tall, and this stone (which wasn’t even the largest) dwarfed him.  Pretty impressive! 

From Avebury we headed a short drive to Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is a wildly popular protected site.  Unlike Avebury, it’s touristy, expensive, and roped off.  But it’s completely worth a trip.  We wandered around the circle, snapping pictures from every angle and debating that age-old question: who put these stones here, and why?

Come back next Friday for the next stop on our tour of southern England!

by

Creamsicle Smoothie

Ah, the Creamsicle.  I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s one of my favorite guilty pleasures.  I hardly ever have them, but whenever I do I’m always astonished at the genius behind the marvelous Creamsicle.  I mean, a vanilla ice cream pop coated in orange sherbet popsicle?  Who thought of that?  Seriously, who?  I want to give that brainiac twenty dollars.

Okay, seriously though, because I’m not five years old and I try to eat healthy, I rarely if ever eat Creamsicles.  That doesn’t mean I don’t crave them, dream about them, chew the “orange cream pop” flavor of Extra Dessert Delights sugarfree gum (totally tastes like Creamsicle, it’s amazing) or brainstorm ways to eat Creamsicles without feeling guilty.  Especially that last one.  And by George, I think I’ve got it. 

Creamsicle.  Smoothie.  That’s right, you heard me.  Oh baby, this is maybe the perfect smoothie (well, it lacks spinach – stop gagging, Mom – but otherwise perfect).  I sa-wear it tastes just like Creamsicle, but it’s healthy.  Clementines, pineapple and banana, whipped together into a guiltless frothy concoction with milk and yogurt.  You can thank me later.  I’d be glad to accept payment in Creamiscles.  Or smoothies.

Creamsicle Smoothie

1 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy)
1 cup vanilla yogurt (Greek or regular, either is fine)
1 small banana, peeled
1 cup frozen pineapple chunks
4 clementines, peeled and separated into segments

  • Add all ingredients to blender in the order presented above.
  • Whirr.

Yield: Serves two as a meal or four as a snack

Source: Covered In Flour

by

Thrifty Challenge Recap

Earlier this fall, I posted about a goal I set to save money on groceries.  I had become very discontented with the amount of money that we seemed to drop every week at the market and wanted to do something drastic.  I decided to try to cut my grocery costs in half from Halloween until New Year’s.  Over time I’d noticed that I seemed to spend within a range of $A and $B, so I set a goal of keeping my grocery costs between half $A and half $B for the rest of the year, in hopes of starting some new thrifty habits that would last me into 2012.

So how’d I do?  Not bad!  With only a couple of exceptions, I managed to stay within the budget I had set for myself.  Even the weeks that I went over-budget, I still spent less than I otherwise might have.  The weeks I fell short of my goal?  Hubby’s birthday week (the dinner I prepared for him involved an expensive ingredient, but it was worth it to make him so happy); one random week that I can’t really explain, except to say that we were low on a lot of staples that week; and the week leading up to New Year’s, when I was preparing to host guests.  Those “over-budget” weeks balanced out with a number of weeks that I came in well under-budget, and a few weeks that I didn’t buy anything at all because we were traveling.  So, overall, I’m calling the experiment a success.

Here’s what I did well: I was generally very good at sticking to my list and saying “no” to treats.  I managed to save a lot by making my own hummus – we eat a lot of it in this house and it’s significantly cheaper for me to buy the chickpeas (I always have tahini and lemons on hand) than it is to buy prepared hummus.  I was particularly proud that I managed to rein myself in when it came to produce – we even ran out of fruit and salad greens at the end of the week a couple of times – that’s a good thing; it meant we didn’t throw anything away!  I also did a good job of checking the crisper drawers on market days to see how much produce I had left over from the previous week and making recipes that used those items first.

Here’s what I can still improve on: I didn’t always make my own hummus from scratch; there were weeks when I caved to the convenience of having hummus already made for me.  And while I clipped coupons a few times – and noticed some real savings when I did – I went without coupons for the majority of weeks.  I will definitely try to improve upon that in 2012 and hope to see more grocery savings as I do better at creating a habit of using coupons.  (Again, and as I mentioned in my post setting the challenge, I only use coupons on items that I buy anyway – like Greek yogurt, legumes and low-sodium veggie broth.  While I may stock up on lentils when I don’t really need them because I have a coupon, they keep and we eat them.  I don’t use coupons as an excuse to buy chips – that’s not saving money or calories.)

So, overall, I’m happy with the results of my thrifty challenge and am planning to continue mindful marketing in 2012, in the hopes of saving even more money!  Stay tuned next week for some tips on saving money at the grocery store, based on my experiences of the past three months.

by

I Might Have Overdone It

…Just a little bit.  Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.  It’s a particular character flaw of mine: I get carried away in libraries.  I don’t think there’s a cure.  It happens in tea shops too, but usually not to this extent.  (That involves spending money, which tempers me a little bit.  Darn free public library.)  The seeds for this particular binge were sown a few weeks ago.  I had two books on the Holds shelf at the library, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time.  On the one hand, I’m excited to read the books I get from the Holds shelf.  That’s why I put them on hold.  But I can’t just go in there and get a couple of books and then leave.  I have to make a loop through the stacks.  So I did.  Mistake 1.  Then, while I was wandering the stacks, I whipped out my Blackberry and checked my Goodreads app to see if there was anything calling my name from my to-read list.  Why yes, there was.  Mistake 2.  45 minutes later, I was struggling through the back door of the house, juggling a stack of five books – including two chunksters – while hubby stared at me in abject horror.

“What…” he gaped, “did you DO?”  He gently took the books out of my arms, steered me to the couch, and sat me down.  “I’m going to make you some tea,” he said.  “You’ve got a lot of reading to do.  Which book do you want first?”

Love that guy.

But that was weeks ago.  Why am I telling you this?  Well, I really thought I had hit rock bottom with this little book-borrowing problem of mine.  I knew I wouldn’t finish all of the books before I had to return them.  I had to prioritize – read the new releases first and make my peace with the fact that I would have to… gasp… renew a book.  And I did.  East of Eden has been sitting on my kitchen counter for three weeks now.

Fast-forward to this weekend.  Saturday, January 7, 2012.  The books were due back, and I had more books waiting on the holds shelf – five more, to be exact.  And even though I knew I should return East of Eden, I renewed it online, then loaded the rest of the books into my Strand bookbag and headed for the  mothership  library.

I won’t take anything out except what’s on the Holds shelf, I promised myself.  Counting East of Eden, that’s still six books.  That’s a lot.  So just the books on hold.  But it can’t hurt to take a little spin through the mystery section.  I just want to see if Maisie Dobbs is there.  For another time.  Another, less busy time when I don’t have books on the Holds shelf.  Really.

Do I need to tell you that Maisie Dobbs came home with me too?  Plus everything I had on hold?  I didn’t need to tell you that.  I know I didn’t.

Now every time I walk through my kitchen, there they are – staring at me.  Read me, they beg.  You addict, you.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie
Maisie Dobbs, by Jacqueline Winspear
The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown
The Coffins of Little Hope, by Timothy Schaffert
We, the Drowned, by Carston Jensen
The Dean’s December, by Saul Bellow
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

Due back January 28, 2012.  Game ON.

by

Bath

Finally, finally I’ve got my pictures uploaded and sorted, and I’m ready to share all the details of hubby’s and my epic road trip through southern England this October!  It was a blast, and I took almost 2,000 pictures, so I’m planning to break this up into a series of posts and put up one recap a week from now until eternity.  (Just kidding about the eternity part.  I hope.) 

We started our trip in Bath, which was the perfect way to begin the journey if you ask me!  To begin with, it’s incredibly easy to get there.  Hubby and I landed at Heathrow Airport and took a bus directly from the airport to the center of Bath.  It was about as effortless and foolproof a way to get out of the airport zone and into the heart of England as I can imagine.  Bath was also a great, friendly place to sleep off a bit of jet lag and acclimate to the journey ahead of us.  It was a stunningly beautiful city, but also walkable and welcoming.  The friendly locals and the picturesque architecture charmed the bejeezes out of us.

Here’s the Circus, one of the more beautiful and exclusive sets of “Georgian condos,” as Rick Steves calls them.  We visited it twice – once on our own independent wanderings and once on the excellent free walking tour that Bath residents put on multiple times daily.

This building – now a workaday dentist’s office – was once the residence of one of Bath’s most famous temporary residents: Jane Austen!  I’m a diehard “Janeite” and obviously I had to see where my literary idol lived.  Jane actually had several residences in Bath, because she lived there a few times during her life, but this might be the most famous.  Just down the street is the Jane Austen Centre, which displays artifacts from Jane’s time (although not many of her own possessions) and large placards describing life in Regency Bath.  I dragged hubby there and he was a remarkably good sport.

The lovely Royal Crescent, possibly the most exclusive address in a city full of exclusive addresses!  It was a bit chilly, but I imagined strolling over the vast expanse of green and relaxing near the “ha-ha fence” on a bright summer’s day.

Stunning flowerbeds in the Royal Victoria Park.  Fun fact, courtesy of our tour guide: Queen Victoria detested Bath.  She visited once, when she was young “Princess Victoria,” and never again.  Local legend holds that when the Queen-to-be was descending from her train, someone pointed at her and laughed, “Look at the little girl with the fat funny ankles!” and she was so insulted that she held a grudge against the entire city for the rest of her life.  Whether that’s true or not is up for debate, but Queen Victoria wouldn’t even look at Bath for the rest of her life – when the royal train passed by, she would order all of her courtiers to draw down the shades of their cars!

The beautiful Bath Abbey Church, nicknamed the “Lantern of the West,” was graceful and welcoming.  The stained glass windows inside were incredibly colorful – it certainly is an apt nickname.

Bath was full of Roman history, and it was all centered upon the Roman Baths.  The site was fascinating, with plenty of information and artifacts galore.  We imagined the ancient Romans walking along the time-worn stones and debated whether we would ever be willing to step into the murky green waters of the baths.  (Answer: no.)

Next up: tea at the famous Pump Room!  We enjoyed a pot of the Pump Room Blend tea with afternoon treats – scones, tea sandwiches and pastries.  (I can personally take or leave pastries, but I love the sandwiches and especially the scones.)  After tea, we tried a glass of the famous spa water.  I was expecting it to taste absolutely horrible, since I’d heard that it was “good for you” but tasted like poison.  But I was pleasantly surprised – it tasted fine to me! 

Thanks for a relaxing couple of days, Bath!  It was the perfect way to start our trip.  Come by next Friday for our next stop on the southern England tour!

by

Simple Green Salad with Almonds

I guess it must be January, right?  I eat salad all year round but I seem to post more salads in the winter, especially in January.  Part of that “New Year New You” craze, maybe.  Or maybe I just like salad.

I served this very simple, fresh romaine salad for New Year’s Eve to hubby, my mother-in-law, and her sister.  I made Molly Wizenberg’s cheese souffle as the main course and needed something green to go alongside.  (Okay, the rest of my dinner guests would probably disagree that we needed something green.  But my casa, my rules.)  It was the perfect salad to accompany a rich main course – light and lemony, with great crunch from the sliced almonds.  And as good as it was alongside cheese souffle, I’ll bet it’s just as good alongside countless other dishes.  I’m planning to find out just how many.

Simple Green Salad with Almonds

2 cups chopped romaine lettuce (or other greens of your choice)
1-2 tablespoons (to taste) basil-infused olive oil (or other extra virgin olive oil)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon sliced almonds
smoked sea salt (or other sea salt)

  • Combine lettuce, oil, lemon juice and 1/3 cup almonds in a large salad bowl and toss to combine well.
  • Scatter 1 tablespoon sliced almonds and a few pinches (to taste) of smoked sea salt over the top of the salad.
  • That’s it!  Easy, right?

Yield: Serves 4

Source: Covered In Flour

by

TIME AND AGAIN

Simon Morley is an illustrator working in the advertising business in 1970s New York. He is recruited to join a top-secret U.S. government project. Scientists, applying a statement of Einstein’s, think they have figured out a way for people to travel back and forth in time. Si is chosen as one of the first time travelers. Although he is initially assigned to travel to San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake, he requests to travel instead to New York in 1882, to watch a man mail a letter. This mysterious letter was the foundation of a nearly 100-year-old mystery in Si’s girlfriend’s family. Si found the mystery compelling of its own accord and wanted to solve it, to finally answer his Katie’s questions about her adoptive parents. As he enters a completely different New York than the one he is used to in the 1970s, Si has to walk a fine line between interacting with the people around him and trying not to influence events.  But the closer Si gets to the heart of the mystery, the more involved he becomes with the people he interacts with along the way.
 I love to read. I read because it’s fun for me. Pretty much anything I read, it’s fun for me.  But I can’t remember the last time I’ve had THIS MUCH fun.  Time and Again was just a great, fun, wonderful book. The descriptive writing was definitely a big part of the book, so if you don’t have patience for that sort of thing, the story might move slower for you than it did for me. Personally, I thought the descriptive paragraphs lent fantastic color to the story and I’m interested in different historical periods, so I can’t say I had any trouble with the book in that regard. For me, this was just an all-around great read.  It was exciting – a page-turner, in fact – and well-written, with wonderful characters and a fast-moving plot.  How often do you get the chance to travel back in time and solve a mystery?  Well, every time you pick up Time And Again, you’ll get that chance.  Reason enough, no?
Time and Again, by Jack Finney (not an affiliate link)
by

2012!

I’ll be honest.  2011 was not my best year.  There were some good times – an amazing trip to England, for one.  (I realize I owe you pictures and recaps.  They’re coming, starting this week.)  And plenty of girl time with my bestie, a full year of living in our house, and plenty of love and fun with my hubby (including celebrating 10 years together).  So it’s not like the year was a complete wash.  But I spent way too much time being discouraged and grouchy.  Some of that was due to reasons outside my control, but I certainly contributed to my own months-long funk.  I need to remember that I may not be able to control my circumstances, or others’ actions, but I sure as heck can control my own responses.

So, yes, I’m happy to see the back of 2011 and I’m hoping for a better year in 2012.  Bye, 2011!  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

If you know me in real life, you may know that I absolutely L.O.V.E. New Year’s.  I’m a sucker for beginnings, what can I say?  I love seeing that fresh expanse of year, stretched in front of me, just waiting to reveal surprises and new experiences and, yes, challenges too.  I have a thing for clean starts.  I also like Mondays.  Yep, I’m completely weird.  And while I know that you don’t need to wait for a particular day on the calendar to change anything you don’t like about your life, I still live for those “New Year, New You” magazine articles this time of year… for shiny new goals… fresh, healthy foods that are piling up in my supermarket to help the resolution crowd eat their greens… That stuff just really revs my engine.

Yeah, to say I’m excited about 2012 would be an understatement.  Between being pretty disappointed in 2011 overall (trip to England notwithstanding, of course) and my general New Year’s perkiness, I’m in an advanced state of goal-making giddiness this year.  And I do have one big goal, and one big dream, and I’m hoping that 2012 will be the year for both.  But… I’m going to do something very uncharacteristic for a blogger and not tell you what they are.  I know, I know.  We bloggers, as a group, like to share.  But my big goal and my big dream (and they are two separate, but related things) are very personal, and very close to my heart, and I’m not in a place where I want to put them out in the world.

How about some smaller goals, though?  I can’t do a New Year’s post without sharing some resolutions!  So here goes, my goals for this year:

BLOG: 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.

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your celebrations as you ring in the new year!  What are your goals for 2012?