Reading Romance: February Reads

Admittedly, my 2020 Valentine's Day plans were less than ideal: mainly, I spent it chasing after my energetic and somewhat ambitiously-minded younger sister, for whom the day spelled her 20th birthday. In between driving an hour (!!!) for vegan barbecue, and whipping up a film-accurate rendition of Ratatouille (from the synonymous Disney movie), I was barely able to turn a single page.

Thankfully, I'd done my due diligence to Cupid beforehand: I absolutely piled my library digital holds with romance novels back in January, so by the time the 14th rolled around, I was well-stocked!

So, yes, I decided to pick up some Romance Novels this February, even if it their reviewing didn't exactly fall on Valentine's Day. I read them while eating boxes of Sees candies, like Marie Antoinette intended, and then I cleaned a ton of the same kind of novels off of my TBR shelves that I was never going to actually read, like Marie Kondo intended. No one wanted to marry me this year, so I decided to Marie myself.

(The puns and lukewarm attempts at humor might have led to this single status, but I'm not putting too much thought into it. Valentine's Day lesson #1: it only matters that you think you're funny.)

Here are my reviews for the four romance novels I've read in the past month, as well as some lessons I think we should all take away from each: 

A Kiss at Midnight, Eloisa James

Forced to masquerade at a ball - in the place of her expected-slash-*ahem*-expecting half-sister's attendance - at the behest of her tyrannical stepmother, Kate meets a prince, and decides that she's not interested in finding out much more about the recalcitrant royal. Unfortunately for her, Fate is on the prince's side. The two engage in a battle of polite take downs, in the midst of an extravagant celebration of the prince's impending engagement to a Russian princess. However, Kate's finding out that it's a lot easier to pretend to be someone else, than it is to pretend that her feelings aren't at risk.

I had never read an Eloisa James before, but I recognized the name as being a heavy-hitter in the Romance community. I actually was a little hesitant to pick up this Fairy Tale Retelling - it was a major genre of my youth, and therefore, isn't so much of a favorite as an adult - but honestly, the outcome is that I actually wish high-school Savannah had read adult Romance novels. It took tropes of its narrative, and danced around them in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, that felt really fresh and playful for the genre (the sister is kind and kind of an idiot, the godmother is less "fairy" and more "legal guardian", the court is really welcoming and lovable, and fireworks erupt overhead well after the nighttime tryst in the garden has occurred), while still being easily recognizable as a "Cinderella" story. Additionally, there was a lot of unexpected comedy to be found in just how rampantly horny every character was at all times. Didn't stretch my perceptions of the genre at all, but felt like a fond return and a good time.

Lesson: Sometimes it's nice to give others a second chance... but strive for something new!

Well Met, Jen DeLuca

Emily rushes to help - and get away from the smoldering wreckage of a relationship gone wrong - after a car accident lands her older sister with a seriously broken leg. However, taking on the care and keeping of her sister and niece, also requires active participation in their small town's Renaissance Faire for the summer. While Emily isn't jumping to get into a corset, she's willing to take tavern-wenching in stride, if it means making her family happy... even when the guy who manages the event turns out to be a total jerk. But when Simon turns up week one of the Faire boasting some seriously masculine eyeliner and black leather, Emily has to admit that there's more to him than button-ups and creased denim... and he's going to have to understand that her easy smile and compassion for others is hiding a lot of hurt, too. It's hard enough talking with a British accent, but these two are going to have to learn how to talk about their feelings if this fling is going to last the summer!

As someone who attends Ren Faire every year, the first thing I did when I saw there was a Faire-set romance out last Fall, was add it to my library queue. It was everything I wanted: this contemporary romance was cute, fast-paced, and flirty, and really got me rooting for our main characters. Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that kept this book from being too perfect: I thought that some of the characters were not really consistent in their actions or general demeanor, and that our enemies-to-lovers relationships actually started out a little too mean! And I know that this is the first in a series - and thank goodness for that, because if it wasn't, I would have cried at what only might have been - but I did feel like things were a little too neatly wrapped up towards the end, like we had to pack up and shuffle along towards the next narrative. I would have liked a little more answers to various questions.

I loved some of the in-jokes involving English Majors and Renaissance Faire attendees alike, and thought a lot of the depictions of the Faire itself were really on-target, and it made me think a little more critically about getting out of my comfort zone, and volunteering. Being that DeLuca herself is a regular Faire attendee in her own home state, I'm sure she'd appreciate the sway she holds with her readers!

The only misgiving I have, is that the town of Willow Creek felt a little early-Gilmore Girls Stars-Hollow-y; in particular, the overall makeup of the town was not specified as being very diverse (please enjoy these articles from Bustle and The Verge to get what I'm talking about). Also, maybe this is just a PNW Faire thing, but I feel like we have a particularly visible LGBT+ population every summer, so to not have any characters mentioned in that crowd felt like a lack of representation, as well. I guess I'm just used to my contemporaries being a little more realistically populated?

It was fun, guys. Like Ren Faire. Don't overthink it; just eat the giant turkey leg, and feel joy. I can't wait until DeLuca's next installment comes out at the end of September.

Lesson: Don't be afraid to be yourself... but if that's hard for you, be a sexy pirate instead.

Normal People, Sally Rooney

(Review forthcoming! Don't blame me for procrastinating; there's a BBC/Hulu version coming out soon that I want to watch before I say anything else about it.)

Lesson: For the love of all things, people. It's 2020, stop smoking. I don't care if you're British.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown, Talia Hibbert 

A cute, diversely-populated, fast-paced romance, following a chronically-ill heroine down the road to a self-motivated, fear-overcoming future by way of her "Get a Life" list. Chloe Brown is content to live in the background of her active, dynamic family, due to her fibromyalgia diagnosis, until a near-death experience shakes her out of her rut. After she checks off one of her items - moving into her own place - she encounters the smiling superintendent of her building, Redford Morgan, whose big, tattooed muscles hide a deeply artistic soul, one still smarting from a past heartbreak. As it turns out, there's a lot Red can do to help Chloe reach the other goals on her list - ride a motorcycle, go camping - and even a few that weren't necessarily on there before... not just falling in love, but keeping Red, too. But are these two able to look beyond their own carefully-drawn boundaries, and let in someone new?

Major A+ for realistic and narrative-focused diversity rep! There's a really emotional relationship between Chloe and her diagnosis demonstrated throughout the story, not only in the daily efforts to mitigate her pain, but also in moments of self-doubt, frustrations with the difficulty of getting diagnosed in the first place, and the impossibility of being a "model patient." Her health status is vital to her relationship with Red, and no "magical cure" is presented by the end of the book: Chloe's fibromyalgia is intrinsically tied to her life in a way that is realistic and not at all reductive. Well done!

I also loved Chloe's relationship to her family and sisters, who are widely varied personality types across all sorts of spectrum. So cute! No wonder this book sets up a series; I think not getting the chance to explore more of the members of her vibrant and exciting home sphere would be a total bummer.

However, I did walk away with one major issue: so much of what makes a romance is tied to personal preference... and through this read, I learned that language factors a great deal into what I find sexy. Repeated uses of words that made me uncomfortable, and even made me gag outright, are written into the sex scenes, that I disengaged completely and even started skipping them. Maybe it's a cultural difference between us and England? After all, Hibbert herself is also British. Still, it's a factor I'll consider when looking at more of her books in the future.

Lesson: Watch your language... and make room in your life for the unexpected! 

What did you read this February? Got any good Romance recommendations? Let me know, in the comments below!

My 2020 Tastee-Reads Resolution: Christina Tosi's Milk Bar Life

If you're a long-time reader of my blog - in which case, how are you still here? and also why the hell haven't you said anything this whole time? - you might remember an older series I used to write on this blog, called "Tastee-Reads," in which I would give general reviews to cookbooks I'd read and enjoyed.

Here's the deal, though: while I love reading cookbooks all the time, I'm a lot worse at actually remembering to use them. I'm a champion of frantic, last-minute Pinterest searching for an easy recipe or a quick fix for something in my fridge, but when it comes to actually referring to these stacks of printed marvels scattered across my room, I'm not exactly at the top of my game.

So, towards the end of 2020, when I was setting more than a few cooking-related resolutions for the year - "learn how to bake bread," "get better at tasting wine," "figure out salad dressing," "find a signature no-fail way to roast chicken" - I also decided to embark on a bit of a project: for the next twelve months, I'd focus on one cookbook for the whole of the month. I would read it cover to cover, including all of the appendixes, intros, and other various parts I don't always read, and most importantly, I would use it to cook, at a bare minimum, three different recipes contained therein.

To recap: 1. Choose one cookbook per month. 2. Read the whole cookbook. 3. Use it to test at least three different recipes. Doesn't sound too difficult, right? All it would take from me is a little bit of effort, a little bit of grocery planning, and some maybe outside-my-wheelhouse techniques or ingredients.

Without a lot of thought, I embarked into my first month of the Resolution, with one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, Christina Tosi's Milk Bar Life.


reviewing the cookbook 

(Psst! I've actually reviewed Milk Bar Life on the blog before, as a part of the aforementioned Tastee-Reads series. I even made one of the recipes from the cookbook, for her mom's signature "Greta Cookie Bars." But that doesn't really mean I've fully verbalized my affection for this book.) 

I was first drawn to Christina Tosi's Milk Bar Life cookbook, when I first plucked it from the shelves of my local library, shortly after its publication in 2015. The cover - filled with Fruity Pebbles, potato chips, pretzels, and Ritz crackers, and a shocking neon pink title - was more than enough to thrill me... back when I had never heard of Tosi before.

Upon entering its pages, though, I really got to encounter not only these supermarket standbys, but the technical acumen and impressive resume of Tosi herself. I came for the home-baked feelings of her Midwestern upbringing, but stayed for the insider peek at the life of a successful chef and kitchen manager. It wasn't just youthful spark and energy that coursed through its pages, flinging around ingredients like Tang powder and Doritos with unrestrained glee, but the industry savvy and professional know-how that generated chapter divisions for "Family Meals" before shifts, or "Weak Nights," for days when pro-cheffing has run you ragged. She drops important names and brags about how she orders takeout from restaurants with three-hour waiting lists, because she knows the owner. On the other hand, her recipe for "Cinnamon Buns" is proposed in the framing of a morning after a sleepover, the ingredients list portioned under the headers of "Dem Bunz" and "Dat Goo."

Tosi has attained a level of professional success and industry accolades that few are able to obtain, let alone sustain. Now, the overseer of Milk Bars (and their affiliated franchising) across the country, as well as a judge on Master Chef and regular fixture of various forms of food media - one of her now-iconic cakes was used throughout the promotional marketing for the second season of Netflix's Chef's Table - Tosi is a verifiable celebrity chef... one that has never lost her roots.

Maybe that's why I still love this cookbook better than any of her others, and why I still check it out multiple times a year. Funny enough, I haven't actually cooked all that much from this cookbook at all; barring a past foray into the Greta Square cookies, the recipes house here have remained merely inspirational, or, in the case of the "Spaghetti-O and Breakfast Sausage Sandwich," firmly in the realm of entertainment.

Truly, this is a cookbook worth reading in its own right, even if you never pick up a spatula yourself. It remains completely within the correct genre, but communicates its subject as personally and authentically as any memoir. I didn't really learn to cook a lot from Christina Tosi, but I learned a lot about Christina Tosi from her cookbook, and being that so much of food and the restaurant industry is about sharing perspectives, Milk Bar Life can be counted - in my view - as a real credit to the genre.


the recipes 

Despite the fact that I've read this cookbook multiple times over the past five years, I've not really given much thought to what among them I'd cook. Instead, I installed myself on the comfy side of my bed one afternoon with a large stack of sticky notes, and painstakingly made my way through every single recipe, reading every single introduction, ingredients list, and instruction to figure out which would fit within my particular skill set and interests. Here's what I picked out:

Ritz Cookies
Upon exiting the oven, my brother took a bewildered bite, and said, "I'm confused. It's good, but confusing." A crunchy, delicious cookie, partially constructed from crumbled Ritz crackers added to a fairly rudimentary sugar cookie dough. It did force me to confront an unfamiliar cooking ingredient - nonfat powdered milk! - that offered an interesting tang and depth, as well as a really full container left to figure out how to use elsewhere in my life. After a few days sitting in Tupperware, they got a little too dense and chewy, so if you make them, eat them quickly!

Burnt Honey Butter (and Burnt Honey Butter Kale)
Ooh, boy. I'm a little confused about how to describe this one... on one hand, t was pretty cool to do a controlled burn on a quarter cup of honey; on the other hand, I didn't really love the outcome (too bitter, not all that sweet... then again, that might have been my bad, as the end result was entirely too salty!). The butter's best application was probably in kale format, to mitigate some of that fatty feeling. Just make sure you don't overcook it, as the kale will attempt to disintegrate on touch if left in for too long!

Roast Chicken
Like I said, one of my other intentions with this coming cooking year, is to figure out a signature, no-fail way to cook a chicken... and despite this being a strong first attempt, as you can tell from the picture, it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. That all being said, it did result in a really flavorful, moist bird, with a little bit of lemon-y flavor, that yielded plenty of leftovers throughout the week!

Chicken Puffs
The perfect means of utilizing that leftover chicken meat, these Chicken Puffs are a crazy-easy means of making best use of a few recognizable supermarket staples! Just grab yourself a block of cream cheese, a tube of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, and some seasoned bread crumbs, and you've whipped up an easy, warm, handheld dish for these colder months.


the outcome 

Overall, I'm really pleased with how this first foray into following my resolution has gone! Sure, there were some hiccups - for instance, don't leave a whole important monthly resolution thing for the last five days before your non-renewable library copy is due back - but for the most part, I learned a lot, and had a lot of fun.

In particular, so many of these lessons came just from my first attempt at a Roast Chicken. This is one of those resolutions I thought of as really daunting at first, and I totally made more than a few mistakes with this initial undertaking (note to self: learn how to carve a chicken properly before your next attempt!). However, all that's going to do is set me up for more success in the future, as I learn more, and try out new techniques.

And at the end of the day, I'm still crazy in love with this cookbook! Sure, not everything worked out like I wanted it to, and I'm probably going to stay away from caramelizing honey for a little while. I've still got my own favorite cookie recipes, none of which are found in Tosi's lineup. But it is so bright, cheerful, inviting, and inspiring, I feel like it deserves a place of better prominence in not only my bookshelf, but Tosi's catalog, as well. I really just need to suck it up, and buy a copy for myself!

What do you think of my Resoution? Are you a Christina Tosi fan? Let me know, in the comments below!