Kitchen Confidential

On 08.19.10, In Book Blather, By Natalie

As my summer winds to a close and hectic, long school days loom on the horizon, I’ve been thinking about putting together weekly menus with easy, new-to-me recipes–Molly is my inspiration!  I already own several Martha Stewart and other more traditional cookbooks, but the recipes are labor intensive and too fancy-schmancy for our everyday use.  Today I trundled off to the library and came home with virtually every cookbook my local branch had to offer.  (I judiciously left Blue Ribbon Casseroles and Mastering Microwave Cooking on the shelf.)

Armed and dangerous!

I work at a non-traditional private high school school that runs from 8:30-4:50pm.  I usually get home after 6:30, and after a day in the trenches the last thing I want to do is think about cooking a meal.

My goal for September is to prepare four fresh meals each week–Monday through Thursday–and leave the weekends for eating out or leftovers.  Honestly, I’ll even settle for three home cooked meals each week and one night of soup and sandwiches or breakfast for dinner.  Sunday night preparation will probably work best for me.  I will assemble meals and refrigerate or freeze them until they are needed.  If I can make it through September, I’ll up the ante and try this again in October.

Right now my repertoire may be limited to tacos, fajitas, tomato sauce, Shepherd’s pie, turkey chili, and baked chicken (hence the reason we eat out three or four nights a week), but these cookbooks will hopefully offer up a few more standbys to add to my arsenal.  I’m on the lookout for simple recipes* that don’t require exotic ingredients and/or several hours of prep and cooking.

Closeup of cookbooks

*I am a neophobe and have the palate of a 7-year-old.  I just recently started using pepper on select foods.  We eat arresting quantities of chicken and turkey during the year but have been known to throw burgers on the grill every once in a while.  No seafood, pork**, or tofu for me.

**Personally, I don’t consider bacon a pork product and relish it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 
15 Comments
Leave A Response

My Audio Book Boyfriends

On 08.16.10, In Book Blather, By Natalie

My library has such a paltry selection of audio books that in desperation, I’ve checked out books I wouldn’t normally read.  Jonathan Kellerman and Clive Cussler pen some of these books, and after listening to John Rubinstein and Scott Brick narrate them, I’m smitten.

Meet Scott, one of my audio book boyfriends.

I’m telling you that these two narrators elevate these books–most of which are just run-of-the-mill thrillers–to new levels and leave me salivating for more.  As far back as I can remember, I loved being read to and suppose that this is just an extension of that.

But Scott Brick! His commanding voice brings on the vapors.  I find myself making excuses to run errands just to spend a few more minutes listening to him.  I take the long way home from work, and weekly rides back and forth to my sister’s house (180 miles round trip) are made impossibly short when listening to him.

Right now, I have a Clive Cussler novel on my nightstand that I can’t get into because Scott’s not reading it to me.  The man has ruined me for Cussler novels.  Scott, I love your voice!  Sing me to sleep!  Record the message on my answering machine!

I never spent much time considering audio books until a few years ago; today I can’t drive without one.  I lay in a surplus because the thought of being trapped in the car without something to listen to is intolerable.  I’ve blogged about audio books in the past and there was a recent spate of audio book posts around the blogs, but this is more of a tribute to the heroes of audio books–the narrators.

Lucky for me Scott Brick has narrated over 400 audio books so I won’t be running out of his material any time soon!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • •
 
12 Comments
Leave A Response

BL&S HQ Gets a Face Lift

On 08.12.10, In Mad Ramblings, By Natalie

I’ve been trawling flea markets, garage sales, and antique shops with greater frequency because I’m redecorating my home office, headquarters of Book, Line, and Sinker.  The room is an 11×11 foot square with hardwood floors, two windows, a double-door closet, and tons of sunlight.

I would like to add a cozy armchair for reading, a bookshelf/wall unit, and new bamboo shades on my windows.  On the wall above my armchair, I’m going to hang enlargements of the macro photos I took of pages from my favorite books.

I used iVilliage’s trusty design-a-room tool and came up with some ideas based on the scale of the space I have.  This will hopefully prevent me from buying furniture that is too large for my space, something I do with alarming frequency.

I filled the my mock-up with some pricey furniture and will use what I can find at tag sales to stand in for the more expensive pieces.   The desk is actually pretty reasonable–a Liatorp from Ikea–and I have matching pieces in my living room.

The mock-up is more formal than my room will be, and I think the wall unit is a bit overpowering for my little room, but the color scheme, furniture shape, and layout are what I’m aiming for.

I’ve got a few other DIY projects going on (taking up an old slate floor in our foyer!) in the rest of the house and am trying to focus a few hours a day on back-to-school prep.  18 days until school starts…hope I can get everything done in time!

Are you working on any home improvements?  Does your workspace need a bit of a face lift?

Tagged with: • • • • • • • •
 
12 Comments
Leave A Response

Review: Dracula in Love by Karen Essex

On 08.10.10, In Book Blather, By Natalie

Title: Dracula In Love

Author: Karen Essex

Genre/Pages: Fiction/ 384

Publisher: Doubleday; August 10, 2010

Rating: 2.5 Bookmarks

Source: Publisher

Nat’s One-Sentence Synopsis:  Part re-imagining and part re-telling, Karen Essex puts a new spin on Bram Stoker’s classic.

Before I started reading Dracula In Love, I took a short refresher course in Dracula by re-reading sections of the original and discussing the differences between it and the 1931 Bela Lugosi film with my husband, a horror film buff.

Dracula In Love is told from Mina Murray’s point of view, but Essex takes Stoker’s pure and innocent Mina and gives voice to a sensual and sexual side of her that was never broached in the original novel.  This was disconcerting for me.  I’m not a Puritan by any standards, but Mina’s frank erotic experiences were a bit much.  I went into this book looking for something a bit different.  I know that the original novel was rife with sexual themes, but this novel was too overt for my taste.

If you can get past the Mina’s  sexuality and descriptive sex scenes, there is a creative and well-written re-imagining of Dracula within the pages.  Essex knows her stuff and her attention to detail creates an authentic feeling in the story.  Maybe she is trying to give a modern voice and another dimension to the women who were so sexually oppressed  in the Victorian era.

Female sexuality, and the threat of the ‘modern woman’ were themes in the original novel, and even though Lucy Westenra is given over to her wanton and lustful desires after her transformation,  I thought that Lucy and Mina were almost cheapened by their behavior in Dracula In Love.

The author took liberties, as authors who write stories like this do, but I think this novel would have been even better if Essex would have dialed down the erotic dreams and actions.  There really was more to Essex’s novel than sex, but I admit to getting hung up on it because I didn’t expect it to be so graphic.  Readers who don’t mind a re-interpretation of a classic could enjoy this novel and the more modern sensibilities that the female characters have.

Do overtly erotic novels offend your sensibilities too, or am I just old-school? Would you be willing to give this novel a go?

Tagged with: • • • • • •
 
14 Comments
Leave A Response
« Previous Entries Next Entries »
© N.A.M., 2009-2010. Please don't steal. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to me. Thank you.