Giveaway Winners
Congratulations to Rebecca, Belle and Moridin
Each has won a copy of How Music Works by John Powell from Hachette Books.
The winner of the Happy Haul-idays haul of books is CakeSpy.
Chronicle Books thanks everyone for entering the contest. They are now offering 35% off + free shipping through Thursday, December 16th. Use this promo code at checkout: HAULIDAYS
Yummy Oven Fries
In last week’s Random Tuesday Suko featured a recipe for Oven Fries. I made them this weekend and these were the best tasting potatoes I’ve eaten in a long, long time. My husband was eating them so fast I had to hurry to get some on my plate before they were all gone.
Soaking them in water first must make the difference. I used Russet Potatoes but any type will work. Dry them off, add a teaspoon or two of oil, season and cook at 400°F for about 40 minutes. In this picture I’m flipping them so they cook evenly. These are so good and so easy to make I’m wondering why I never tried them before.
Gmail Offers Recipe Advice
No Thanks!
While clearing my gmail spam folder yesterday I noticed that google offered me an ad link for:
Spam Vegetable Strudel – bake 20 min or until golden brown, serve with soy sauce.
Ewwwwwwh. I’m not suggesting anyone try this. I think they need to fine-tune their ad link generator.
Really Random Tuesday is hosted on random Tuesdays by Suko at Suko’s Notebook. It’s a way to post odds and ends–announcements, musings, quotes–any blogging and book-related things you can think of.
Mailbox Monday is touring through blogs. For the month of December it will be hosted by Lady Q at Let Them Read Books. Next month the tour moves to Rose City Reader where it will be hosted for the month of January.
Mailbox Monday was created by The Printed Page. It is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their home last week.
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New books that came into my home last week:
I only received one book last week, an ARC of You Know When The Men Are Gone, by Siobhan Fallon, from LibraryThing for review. I’ve already heard great things about this book so I was excited to receive this copy.
There is an army of women waiting for their men to return in Fort Hood, Texas. Through a series of loosely interconnected stories, Siobhan Fallon takes readers onto the base, inside the homes, into the marriages and families-intimate places not seen in newspaper articles or politicians’ speeches.
A snow storm is predicted for tonight and lasting through tomorrow. I thought I’d get ahead of the weather and post a photo I took last December.
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Photo taken at Cantigny Gardens.
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Saturday Snapshots is hosted by Alyce. Head on over to At Home With Books to see more great photos or add your own.
Wild birds love homemade peanut butter suet dough. It’s a favorite of the woodpeckers and a variety of other birds will eat it too. Bluebirds, titmice, nuthatches, jays, wrens, thrashers, towhees and even sparrows enjoy this energy rich food. Suet can be served year-round, but this home made version is best for cooler weather as it will melt in the summer heat.
In this photo a red-bellied woodpecker and a house sparrow share a meal. (Click for larger, clearer image.)
The basic recipe is simple and only takes a few minutes to make. I’d like to take credit for it, but I found it in Bird Watcher’s Digest. I used vegetable shortening instead of lard; the birds didn’t mind.
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 cup lard or vegetable shortening
- 2 cups plain yellow corn meal
- 2 cups quick oats
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- raisins (optional)
- chopped nuts (optional)
Preparation
Melt peanut putter and shortening or lard in large pan on low heat. Add remainder of ingredients and mix well. Pour into a pan and allow to harden at room temperature.
Chop into chunks or squares and place in a suet cage. I like to re-use the plastic molds that the store bought suet comes in. It can also be served crumbled in a shallow dish.
Store in refrigerator or at room temperature.
Now sit back and watch the birds. They will love you and probably bring their friends. I put the suet cage on the top of a feeder pole with a squirrel deterrent cone on it. Squirrels also love this and will devourer it if they can get to it.
Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Participation is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.
I discovered a new meme today in a post at Suko’s Notebook. It’s called Friday 56 and is hosted by Freda’s Voice.
Rules:
• Grab a book, any book.
• Turn to page 56.
• Find any sentence that grabs you.
• Post it.
• Link it at Freda’s Voice
Looks like fun so I’ll give it a go.
The two books I’m reading now are ARCs so page 56 may not really be page 56 in the finished copy. The previous book I read was an audiobook. No good either. So I grabbed the next book in line to be read, a finished copy of Running The Books by Avi Steinberg, The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian.
“For the first two classes, I had brought in three short readings — poems by Philip Larkin and Amiri Baraka and a passage from Beloved by Toni Morrison.”
I’m looking forward to this book. And, I’ll also mention that I’m hosting a giveaway to win a copy. That’s not why I chose it but I thought I’d mention it.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver
with Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver
Genre: Memoir
Published: 2007 by HarperAudio
Edition:: Unabridged 14.5 Hours
Rating: 5 of 5
Barbara Kingsolver and her family packed up and moved from Tucson to their farm in Appalachia where they became ‘locavores’, eating only what they could grow on their farm or obtain locally for an entire year. This beautifully written book is part memoir and part commentary on the American food industry. I listened to the audio version which was read by the author with her husband, Steven Hopp, reading the sidebars and her daughter, Camille, reading the menus and recipes.
The book chronicled the family’s journey though one year of eating only foods that could be obtained regionally. They planted and harvested their own crops, canned and stored food for the winter and raised poultry on their farm. I had to laugh when the author discussed what to do with too many zucchini, which is a common garden problem. Zucchini are prolific. Neighbors would hide when she tried to bring them a basketful. And the chapter on the turkeys attempting to reproduce was both fascinating and funny. Who knew turkeys didn’t know how? Not me. Recipes are included in the book and can be found on the web site, so even audio book readers can have a copy of them. One was for Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were getting desperate to use them up! I’ll stick with the zucchini bread myself.
We learn that many American no longer know where their food comes from before it arrives at the grocery store. Today, food is imported year-round traveling great distances to reach the store, consuming oil and resources. Each generation is becoming farther removed from food production. In spending the year eating local the author’s goal was “to establish that a normal-ish American family could be content on the fruits of our local foodshed”.
I loved this book. Barbara Kingsolver did a great job with the reading for the audio version. It was informative, well-research and told in an engaging and often humorous style. I did not find it preachy as some have suggested, but that may be because I agree with most of what she is saying. There are a lot of dangers in modern-day industrial farming, the way animals are treated, the health of the animals and the antibiotics they routinely ingest. Organic farming is undoubtably better for people and the environment as are farm raised rather than factory raised animals.
Small confession here: I am a gardener. I love to dig in the dirt and grow things. I grow flowers, vegetables, herbs and houseplants. I would grow more food if I had the time and the space. I have done this all my life and not because I was worried about local farming; I did it because homegrown veggies taste so good and are chemical free. My grandmother taught me the joy of a backyard garden when I was very young. I would even have chickens if my town allowed them. I’m helping the environment, plus family and friends enjoy my organic veggies; a win-win.
The author acknowledges several times that this lifestyle is not for everyone for a variety of reasons, nor is the purpose of the book to convert people to locavores, but rather to raise awareness. However, the material is so well presented, and her enthusiasm for what her family is attempting is so infectious, that unless you are totally uninterested in the subject, you might be motivated to run out and buy a tomato plant or two. (And some varieties of tomato grow nicely in a pot on a patio or balcony.)
One of the overriding themes in the book is that small changes result in huge differences. You can do a little or a lot and every bit will benefit. Early in the book we are treated to this fact:
“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.”
You don’t need a farm or even a garden to do that. A farmer’s market will suffice.
Highly recommended.
Under My Apple Tree 