Speed-Dating Books: Check Your Shelf Pt. 1

I have a totally stupid number of material possessions, the most insane of which, out of all, is my Unread Books Shelf. In total, these standing shelves boast a total of almost 199 books to sort through, because I am incorrigible and absolutely prone to fits of book purchasing at a rate that greatly exceeds the amount of time I spend reading them. (And no, that's number is not including my Kindle, either.)

Back when I instituted my first book-buying ban as a 2015 resolution, I had about 80 books on my TBR shelves. At the top of my 2017 Resolution, I had over 100. I complained in my yearly wrap-up for 2019 that last January, my physical TBR shelves alone were at 147... so clearly this problem is not getting any better.

Seriously, I read about 60 books a year - at least in the past few recent years - and even if I read only books that I already own right now off my shelves for the next three years, I still wouldn't have tackled all of them. And that's incredibly disheartening, from both a personal reading rate perspective, and a monetary perspective... I'm a huge mood reader, so that sort of pace likely wouldn't be sustainable for me, anyways, and what would likely happen, is that I'd get bored. I also do a lot of rereading during a calendar year, so those numbers would also likely be much lower.

This is important, because this egregious surplus was one of the reason I began instituting one the greatest practices I utilize in the scope of my reading hobby.

You might remember it from a past year's Valentine's-adjacent post: the year I decided to not care as much about not having a date for Cupid's chosen holiday, and learn to love a book from my shelf instead. By "speed dating" a selection of titles from my TBR, I was able to better organize my shelves and make decisions about future reads, in a quick, fun kind of self-motivated way.

Well, I can't say it's made up a ton of my blogging content since then, but it's done wonders for my own personal bookish habits. Flipping through the past year plus' worth of book journal pages, I think I've invoked this particular exercise around six or seven times, usually before vacations as a means of weeding out what really deserves a place in the suitcase. It's honestly helped me determine what I want to read next, and for someone who is a total mood reader, that can be a really big deal. In fact, the presence of a book in the lineup for "speed dating," makes me much more likely to pick it up even further down the road... there have been books I've casually allocated for "Summer" or for "Maybe Later" that have ended up getting read before those that have been on my shelves for much less time.

Here's a refresher: 

1. First, you pick a stack of books you want to read from your shelves, usually around 8 or 9. 
2. You gather the rest of your materials: a notebook and something to write with, a timer (or your cell phone), and maybe a snack or something. 
3. Assemble the books in a stack, and set your timer to approximately five minutes. 
4. When you start the timer, you pick up your first book, and read for the complete duration, until your timer goes off. 
5. Then, quickly jot down a couple of notes on how you think it went! Did you enjoy the style, the voice, the action? Would it be a stretch read, or an easy one? 
6. At the end of your notes, write down whether you want to read it "Now," "Soon," or "Later." If "Later," try to specify when. 
7. When you feel satisfied with your notes, start the timer again, pick up your next read, and repeat the process until the stack is finished! 

personal disclaimer 

Something important to note, though: this entire post and project has taken on an entirely different meaning than when I first started trying to write it, back in February. Back then, it was a decision made to honor the season of Lent in the Catholic calendar... that me giving up buying books or checking them out from the library, leaving me to only read the books down from my own TBR shelves, was a gentle sort of elected sacrifice. One that was still going to be difficult for me - I add, on average, a little over ten books to my shelves a month, whether from purchase or rental - but would hopefully do me a lot of good: I'd finally get those unruly stacks into some order, and could maybe donate what I didn't think needed a place there when I was done, while finding a regular daily reason to reflect on my faith.

However, in the weeks since that point, libraries have closed their doors indefinitely. Non-essential retail workers - like those at bookstores - have been sent home, to prevent the spread of Covid-19. While big chain stores like Amazon have switched over their models to prioritize the distribution of essential goods, particularly medical supplies, others, like independent bookstores have shifted their business model to online-only, as they try to keep their businesses afloat remotely.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, I'm left with plenty of books. And as I mentioned in my last post, I'm having a really hard time reading them.

So, while this project was originally a means of keeping my shelves in order, now I'm learning to appreciate the books I have all the more. I am very lucky to have become such a heinous book hoarder in the past few years, and now, I have the opportunity to reap the benefits.

I don't know, I just wanted to add in this note as a sort of proof that I've been reflecting on the sheer dumb luck of my circumstances. And kind of give a rationale for why I'm going to be doing a lot more of this sort of thing in the coming weeks... provided I can turn off the news, turn off my brain, and get back into reading a lot more in April.

the exercise  

Here's the list of books I picked up, in the order that I read them, and what my general thoughts were on each after a few minutes of perusing...

Scythe (Arc of a Scythe), Neal Schusterman
In a world where death has been eliminated, the human population has been kept in check by an organization of designated killers, called "scythes." After two teenagers are taken on as apprentices, they must decide whether to join their ranks...
Wow. Genuinely unexpected... I thought I'd think it would be too cheesy, but it's actually feeling a lot more science fiction-y than anticipated. I haven't read a YA Sci-Fi pick in a while.

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1), Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next - an intrepid Literary Detective for SpecOps Division #27 - is sucked back into battle against an old adversary, as the boundaries between reality and fiction bend. When a priceless copy of Martin Chuzzlewit is stolen, and Jane Eyre's Rochester seems to make a foray into the real world, can Next set it right?
This book is a frequent reread and personal favorite for a reason, and I've been looking for a reason to jump back into the series one more time, in the hopes that my brother will read it before he leaves for school in the Fall.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton
At a deadly party, the night will end in murder... unless you're able to stop it. You've got more than one try, but there's a catch: should you fail, you wake up again the next morning in the body of another member of the party. When everyone's trying to catch a killer, you need to stay one step ahead of the house's other inhabitants, or else you might just end up a victim yourself.
At first blush, not as good as I'd hoped it would be right out the gate. I bought a copy for my best friend for her Christmas present, and I was hoping that I could read it alongside her, and we could kind of book club it. Unfortunately, I'm not interested enough, as of yet.

Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomlinson
A densely-packed and comprehensive biography of the life of one of British literature's preeminent female voices.
It's kind of funny: last time I undertook this project and attempted to get into this read, I picked up this book, and also reached page 6. Nothing like consistency, right? I think, however, it doesn't impress much on me more than that, as I recognized rereading very little of its contents. However, after reading through all of Romantic Outlaws last year, I might be ready to make this my big biography read of 2020.

The Hours, Michael Cunningham
A Pulitzer-winning interpretation of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway across the fictionalized lives of three women: Woolf herself, a '90s socialite, and a '40s housewife. 
I haven't read Mrs. Dalloway since college, and now I'm really wishing I had paid more attention. I think that same course is where I was first informed of this book, too. If I read this one, I'll be able to watch the movie as well, which has Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore. I'd enjoy to do both, and soon, I think.

Wine, All the Time, Marissa Ross
A comedy writer-turned-wine blogger tackles the subject at a beginner's level, serving as an introductory course to varietals, regions, methods, and more. 
The subtitle is "A Casual Guide to Confident Drinking," and it really is. I didn't think this would be making it into my "read soon" pile, but damn! Not to be snotty, but I thought it might be a little dumb for a comprehensive book... it really does give off that coffee-table-at-Anthropologie kind of vibe. However, Ross does a great job navigating the subject with an approachable yet authoritative tone. And she writes for Bon Appetit!

Beartown, Frederick Backman
A small town prepares for a major hockey game, but is shaken to its roots when the daughter of the coach is sexually assaulted by one of their star players. 
No matter how many times I attempt to read this one, no matter how many people vehemently tell me to do so, I don't think I'll ever actually bring myself to reading this one. I kept giving excuses about how it wasn't the right time of the year to read it, or that I wasn't in the right headspace, and I've kept it on my shelf for two years, but honestly? I am utterly uninterested in reading about the rape of a 15 year old girl, no matter the ending. There are better things to do.

My Life with the Saints, Fr. James Martin
A preeminent Jesuit author reflects on the saintly figures who have thematically impacted his life and faith journey. 
Well, that decision took very little time: by the sixth page, I was scrambling for a pencil with which to make annotations, much like I did with my Lenten read of his last year, A Jesuit's Guide to Everything. I love the way he speaks so frankly and personally about Catholicism, without judgement, guilt, or pretense.

The Nest, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
A high-society family is rocked when the bad behavior of one sibling, jeopardizes the inheritances of the remaining three. 
A fun, bubbly, scandalous sibling story, starring a cast of affluent and affectionately big-headed characters... or at least, that's how it seems form the first chapter or so. Simply due to the drama factor and glittering cast, I can already tell I'm relegating this to a vacation stack.

Sightwitch, Susan Dennard
A prequel installment in Dennard's popular Truthwitch series, this novella follows Ryber, as she mounts a desperate attempt to rescue her Sight sisters from beneath the mountain. 
I've honestly been wanting to read this one for a while. It's a novella, it's a prequel, it's one in a series I share with my brother, etc... but the style is so different that I was a little daunted by it. Still, it feels pretty approachable, now that I know what's going on. Maybe on vacation?

the outcome 

By the end of the exercise, I finally felt like I had not only a better hold on my shelves, but also had come up with a stack of books I was ready and excited to read!

First of all, the "Now" category - like last time - ended up finding two different reads I wanted to pursue next: Neal Schusterman's Scythe, and Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. Both seemed like fast-paced, high action reads, and felt pretty approachable, with one being YA, and the other a reread. I can't wait to get to both of these soon!

I then set up my category for "Soon," with a stack of books I hoped to get to by the end of the month. That TBR lineup included Claire Tomlinson's Jane Austen: A Life, Michael Cunningham's The Hours (and by extension, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway), Marissa Ross' Wine, All the Time, and Fr. James Martin's Life with the Saints. 

The "Later" pile isn't so much one stack, as it is a hypothetical determination as to when I might want to be picking these reads up again in the future. For instance, I might keep Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest on deck for a future easy vacation read, while Susan Dennard's Sightwitch I might be getting around to sooner, so I can share it with my brother for his Spring Break vacation next week. Stuart Turton's Evelyn Hardcastle, however, I might keep on ice until something like October... I think it would be a thrilling Fall read, don't you?

One of the biggest surprises from this experience, though, came courtesy of Frederick Backman's Beartown. I didn't decide to read it at all; instead, I'm giving myself some grace and freeing up space on my shelves by making the decision to donate it. Life is too short to force yourself to read books that don't make you happy to read them... especially not these days.

Would you ever be tempted to do a round of speed-dating with books like this? Have you done so before? Let me know, in the comment below!

Covid-19, Self Care, and the Frustrating Privilege of Reading Through A Pandemic

It would be a gross, unconscionable understatement about the state of the world at large, to say that none of us are really having a great time right now. That Coronavirus sucks. That we wish things would just get back to normal. But it also feels like the only way to approach something capable of generating such all-encompassing chaos and frustration, is by purposefully devaluing it, at least by a few hyperbolic levels. Some days, it feels like the only way to make it tolerable. 

Otherwise, there'd be little to stop me from running around the block, screaming my head off, every morning as soon as I wake up.

We've lost out on a lot... and that's including us lucky ones. There are levels to the variety of suffering occurring around the world. People are dying; more people than that are left mourning. People have lost their jobs, and are scared of losing a place to live. On the other hand, people have had to cancel weddings, to give up work opportunities, to say goodbye to important members of their personal circles for a few weeks while they practice social distancing.

All of these things are sad. Every single one of them. Even those of us who haven't been forced into a no-blinking contest with the impossible, still gaze into a future with a lot of uncertainty left in it.

Even in the midst of my panicking, though, I confront - on a daily basis - how astoundingly privileged I am to be facing a national emergency in a comfortable home, with my family, with a full pantry and freezer. I have a cat who's fond of sitting on my lap (occasionally, when she feels like it). The screen of my laptop may be incrementally splintering from its frame, but I've still got one, plus WiFi service. I have my own room, where I can retreat when the action of sharing a house with three other self-isolating people gets to be too much. Every single second of my day is affected by multiple facets of privilege.

I'm blessed with so much, that it's one of the reasons why, in the midst of such tragedy, it feels like it's so impossible to do much of anything.

When it comes to my typical self-care and coping activities that would sustain me through something uncomfortable, there's now a barrier there. A kind of guilt that creeps in... why should I be lucky enough to get that escape? Why do I deserve something to help me cope? Why should be able to exercise forms of self-care, when there are so many other people than me that need much more vital, direct kinds of soothing?

How am I supposed to be able to pick up a book at a time like this?

I'm plagued by at least six different kinds of guilt before breakfast, to arbitrarily defile a Lewis Carroll quote. At any moment, I could be questioning why I'm not doing more, why I'm not building face masks and volunteering at a testing site, why I didn't grow up smarter so that I could have become a doctor, too. I can't just turn around from that, and pick up a romance novel, and pretend that the world isn't on fire when I'm not looking. 

Then again, what can I do? How can I help? Is there any way to not sit around and feel useless all the time, especially in the face of such wide-reaching catastrophe?

As you can tell, I'm working hard through some difficult emotions... we all are. As someone who already experiences a lot of guilt, fear, and frustration in her daily life, trying to function in exaggeratedly bad circumstances has made even the simplest of to-do lists feel insurmountable, and that includes things like reading, or writing for the blog. But I'm working on it.

I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons to put on pants, wash my hair, or move from one location over the course of a day, but I'm working on it.

In the midst of a hurricane, the eye forms a point of seeming normalcy, and it's hard not to look around at my sedate immediate surroundings and feel like disaster doesn't wait just beyond the boundaries of shelter here. But that's no way to live through a time of uncertainty. Things are bad, and scary, and calling them "bad and scary" feels like such a fractional, naive way to describe it... but we have to keep going. Sometimes, the most we can do is just live.

Trying to focus on everything I have is helping me hold onto my sense of perspective and gratitude during this uncertain time. So yes, it's difficult to check out and read right now, to put on a skincare mask and do my nails and try to breathe normally. There's so little I can do to help, but antagonizing myself with a self-inflicted barrage of guilt about that fact certainly isn't helping make anyone's lives better, either.

The most we can all do right now, is try our best, and that includes trying to be a little kinder to yourself. The world is in pain, but that doesn't mean you have to carry more of it than you can bear.

I hope you are able to do this as well, and have at least a few good books to read in the meantime.


Perhaps we can all take a few moments to think of ways to provide for those in more dire straits than us, too. I'm sure you've heard a lot of these - if not all - before, from better sources than me, but it's a nice reminder anyways:

• Donate extra pantry items you may have panic-bought, but won't necessarily be using, to a local food bank.
• Use your newfound free time at home to spring clean your closet and cabinets. Look for items like unused socks and toothbrushes, and clean blankets, which might be accepted by local shelters. 
• Reorganize your bookshelves, and donate them to a Little Free Library in your neighborhood. 
• Sew emergency face and surgical masks for your local hospitals. Some craft supply chains like Joann Fabrics have a special program running right now that can make the process easier to follow, so definitely check in with your local store. 
• Reach out to a friend or two you haven't talked to in a while, and see how they're doing. This especially goes for elderly friends or relatives in nursing homes, or those with school-age children, whose caregivers might need a little break. 
• If you can't make it to your favorite local haunts, try ordering out, or buying a gift card from them, so that they'll have the capital they need to reopen later. 

Here's some of what I've been reading and watching online, to help try and make sense of all the madness. Some of these include really helpful resources for the self-isolating lifestyle, and I hope you find them helpful, too.

A viral video was recently released by The Atlantic, documenting a group of Italian citizens giving messages to their past selves, the version that lived ten days before the pandemic started to directly affect them. My favorite takeaway on crisis management: "Be light in your feelings, but not in your gestures."

I especially loved Bookishly Boisterous' perspective on current developments, given as both a mom and a teacher.

A longtime (re: over-a-decade-long) favorite blogger - Emily from Cupcakes and Cashmere - discusses how she talks to her daughter about "scary things" in times of crisis.  Emily also talks about how to best set yourself up for success when working from home. While not all of us are able to actively work remotely through this crisis, building an effective work model for yourself might be key in helping you and your household manage the change. And finally, Cupcakes and Cashmere came up with a few means of supporting your favorite local businesses and nonprofits through the crisis. 

So did Bon Appetit, with a special focus on how to support your favorite local restaurants... and their staff, who may now be out of a job. They've also got info on how a variety of American foodie businesses and restaurants are having to adapt their practices, staffing, and more as a result of coronavirus closures. 

The staff of The Financial Diet - a millennial-oriented finance website - recommends some of their advice for making the best of staying at home, and what they've made parts of their "crisis kits." They also  give their best advice on how not to let the news overflow get to you. "Scheduling a time to check the news" is a game changer, though not advice I'm necessarily good at following.

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books - in a break from their normal, lovely Romance genre-centered content - gives entirely too many great workout-at-home resources for one post, from YouTubers like Yoga with Adrienne and Blogilates, to bellydancing and "Baby Shark"-themed workouts.

The grocery stores are a bit of a fraught location right now, but hopefully you've been able to bulk up your long-term food storage. If you're in need of recipe inspiration, here's some really great ones from Jeanine and Jack at Love and Lemons, on "pantry recipes," made with mostly shelf-stable ingredients. If you did manage to pick up more produce than you know how to work with on your last shopping trip, they also had a great post about storing and keeping produce long-term, as well as a second post on how to freeze vegetables appropriately!  And furthermore, what, exactly, you can do with the mountain of canned and/or dried beans you impulse-bought from the store while grocery prepping.

Feeling restricted by the contents of your fridge and pantry, or what's left on the shelves of your picked-over local market? Here's a really great list of substitutions that can help you make something new for dinner tonight, courtesy of Mark Bittman, even when it might not fit quite right with the recipe.

Best of luck, to all of us. Please, please take care of yourself. 
Are you doing okay? Let me know, in the comments below:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I'm Ready to Read for Spring 2020

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Okay, gang! We're three months into 2020, and so far, the world has survived a giant portion of it being on fire, the death of a global celebrity, and now, a country-spanning pandemic that - if left unchecked - could bring us to the brink of medical catastrophe. How's everyone doing?

I know. Me too. And I'm sorry. Let's just try to read through it all, together.

Here are some of the books I'll be attempting to ride out self-isolation with this Spring:

currently reading 

1. Wine All the Time, Marissa Ross
Ross was a comedy writer and assistant to Mindy Kaling when she started keeping a blog of all of the terrible wines she used to drink in her spare time. Over the years, her taste in wine got better, as did her ability to translate those notes into a popular, millenial-drawing blog, Wine, All the Time, and even brought her to the desk of the Wine Editor for Bon Appetit magazine, a title she currently holds. Now dispensing all the advice, and dishing all the insider know-how, this book has not only been truly informative, but really compelling to read, especially for a novice.

2. The Hours, Michael Cunningham 
A Pulitzer Prize-winning celebration of the lit lover, which follows separate narratives through the fictitious lives of three women: opening with Virginia Woolf on the morning she attempts suicide, then pivoting to a '90s socialite named Clarissa as she prepares for a party, and a '49 housewife reading Mrs. Dalloway, while planning her husband's birthday.

I first heard about this book while, appropriately enough, reading Mrs. Dalloway for a Modern Literature class in college. I'd picked it up on a whim while browsing a bookstore earlier this year, and haven't been able to get it out of my head, so I decided to pick it up... and so far, it's making me want to reread Mrs. Dalloway again, too. (Should I have added it to this list?)

next on the docket

3. The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1), Jasper Fforde 
An old favorite reread, and a series for which I own and have read all seven novels, that has really been begging for a retread recently. I don't know what it is about the slightly insane, absurdist British humor that runs throughout this novel, but it makes me feel like I'm back in high school, drinking tea out of a giant mug at our kitchen table. I think that's the vibe I need right now, while we're all hunkering down in quarantine.

4. My Life with the Saints, Fr. James Martin
Well, I may not be able to go to church anymore - after the Archdiocese of Seattle decided that all masses should be cancelled / switched to an online platform due to the Covid-19 crisis - but that certainly doesn't mean Lent itself is cancelled. So maybe my life is due for a little more theological edification now, more than ever? For the record, Rachel Hurd Evans will be reappearing in my reading lists in the near future, too.

5. Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomlinson
This is going to be, I think, my big author biography of the Spring, if not the 2020 (Last year's was Charlotte Gordon's Romantic Outlaws, a 600-plus-page behemoth detailing the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley). My two previous attempts for getting into this densely-packed history only made it about a chapter in, but I think that has to do so much with what time of year it is... Spring just sets itself up so much better for reading Austen, don't you think? Maybe I should try picking up Persuasion, when I'm done?

hoping to pick up soon 

6. Food Grown Right, in Your Backyard!, Brad Halm and Colin McCrate
I don't know how the hell it got to be March, but it feels like just yesterday my family returned from a two-week vacation at the end of August to find that my tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash had been abysmally mistreated in my absence. This book was one of my favorites for planning out my first garden last year - more on that in a later blog post - and I'm excited that I now have a copy of it of my own with which to plot my plots to my green thumb's content.

7. Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows #2), Leigh Bardugo
If you follow me on Goodreads, you might have noticed that I recently finishing reading Neal Schusterman's Scythe. This is because my baby brother has made the selfish and cruel decision to go to college in September, and leave me behind forever... which means that I'm on a hard deadline to finish all of the books he's recommended to me before he goes. I loved Six of Crows last year, and I need to finish up the sequel in the duology before the television show premieres!

8. Nothing Fancy, Alison Roman 
Okay, yes, yes, this is a cookbook. But in case you haven't noticed, I've kind of got a good thing going with those around here. To be totally honest, March's installment in my cookbook-reading resolution hasn't exactly been going so well - I blame the difficulty in shoe-horning in recipe components to an emergency prep grocery list - but with Roman's humor and candor, I've got good feelings about the book I've planned out for April.

9. The Kissing Quotient, Helen Hoang
As if I'm going to make it through being confined to a house with my two younger siblings, university course-planning Dad, and hospital emergency management (I know, yikes) Mom, for the foreseeable future, and not drown my sorrows in the cooling stream of Cupid's chosen genre? The dating apps may be down, but if anyone's willing to court me via email, Facetime, or carrier pigeon, I'm open to it. In the meantime, I'll be picking up this critically-lauded romance novel.

10. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey
Spring is a great time of year for cleaning out your closets and cabinets, and brain. Time for my biannual reread of this, my favorite self-help book of all time. Sometimes, it's just nice to have a check-in with yourself, and figure out what sorts of things you can be improving on in your life. And the good news is, I'll have plenty of time to practice my good habits at home before real life returns and waylays them again.

What's in your Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!

2020 Tastee-Reads Resolution: Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon's Commander's Kitchen

Last month, I told you about one of my reading resolutions for 2020: to fully read one cookbook, cover to cover, and cook at least three recipes from it, every single month. January's trip down taste memory lane with Christina Tosi's Milk Bar Life went pretty well, but that was with a cookbook I've read before.

It makes sense that in the month that included both Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras, I read Commander's Kitchen, and I fell in love. Hard.

Here's how it all went down:

reviewing the cookbook

At the end of January, I started looking for a cookbook to embrace for the coming month, but after searching the local library branches for a decent selection, I eventually just threw up my hands, and asked my mom if she had any ideas, instead. She directed me towards the cabinet, and told me to grab the "teal one": Commander's Kitchen.

As soon as I picked it off the shelf, a few loose leaf pages slipped out of the cover, onto the floor - a printed recipe for "Louisiana Pecan-Crusted Fish," typed out on Commander's Palace letterhead - and when I went to put them back in their place, I noticed that the front endpages were all scrawled over with Sharpie, courtesy of the manager, captain, and two chefs on staff. "Here's to good food!" one signer wrote.

"Mom, what is this?" I asked her.

"The product of one of the greatest restaurants in the world," she replied.

As it turns out, what had started as an act of desperation - there was no way I was celebrating the month of Mardi Gras (a perennial big deal in my family) without Gumbo, Etouffee, or Jambalaya alongside my Zapp's chips and King's Cake on the table - had turned into the ultimate discovery. Not only had I found a focus for my monthly challenge... but a real conduit for some kitchen magic.

What I found in its pages was a full who's-who of the Brennan family tree, instruction on kitchen organization and staffing, details on housekeeping and hosting, and profiles on some of the kitchen's most prolific chefs. Imbued with not only welcoming homeyness and southern hospitality, but an old school flair and charm, reading every recipe - and those intercessions in between, "lagniappes", that gave additional cultural content - felt like gaining entrance into a new way of thinking.

Commander's Kitchens' philosophy - cook only using fresh, local ingredients, and revitalize old favorites by playing by new rules - may feel a little more expected in the culinary sphere now, but it was achieved at Commander's Palace by Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse before every major city had it's own go-to "farm to table" restaurant. Utilizing local star seafood and produce to breathe new life into classic dishes was a fresh take, and the recipes still feel an exciting and new because of it.

Whereas last month, I tackled about 5 recipes, this month, it was 10... and I couldn't stop making them! I returned my mom's cookbook with the addition of approximately 20 page flags of things I still want to try later on.

You can bet that this cookbook will be one I'll find plenty of space for in my future culinary endeavors. Unfortunately for me, the month has ended, and it's on to a new cookbook... for now.

the recipes

Due to the extraordinary amount of inspiration I took from this remarkable cookbook, I was very deliberate when it came to actually figuring out how to work all of these recipes into my schedule...  including entire themed dinners, about once a week. I still didn't tackle all the ones I wanted to try!

Here's house I fared with some of the ones I did attempt:

Cauliflower-Brie Soup
Truly a revelation, and the first clue I got to how different and remarkable this cookbook was going to be. Shockingly light, with an easy mouthfeel and a rich flavor; the perfect accompaniment to a light dinner or lunch, as it doesn't require all that much by way of ingredients or time. Think of it like a Broccoli-Cheddar Soup, but way fancier!

Tangy Shrimp Dip
At first, I was just excited than an appetizer that feels a little more high-end required so few ingredients. However, after realizing that I had barely come up for air after beginning to snack, I recognized that there  more to this dish than what I had originally thought. While it certainly won't win over any true seafood haters, most complaints over its fishy contents disappear sometime around the fifth or sixth Ritz cracker. Will definitely use this as a party recipe in the future.

Chicken Etouffee with Rice
Truly, hands-down, one of my favorite - if not THE favorite - recipe out of the whole month. And my brother's, too! It really doesn't take that many ingredients, just time... time to sear, time to build a roux, time to braise with vegetables and stock until it's practically falling off the bone and into your rice. Thick and hearty, with a vegetable percentage that will surprise you once they've all cooked down melded together into a glorious sauce. Very happy to have added this one to the repertoire!

Remoulade Sauce (with Shrimp Boil)
Okay, so the shrimp boil was Zatarain's, but the sauce was definitely from scratch... and it was all the better because of it! Whereas everything else on the list so far would be a five out of five stars, this one gets docked a point just because it would be unseemly for me to eat a entire bowl of condiments all on its own. But while it didn't attain that degree of accolades, it did a marvelous job making all seafood it touched exponentially better, from boiled shrimp to crab cakes!

Maque Choux
Why anyone would ever want to serve boring old corn with butter is absolutely beyond me... not when you can do what you do here, which is saute it in bacon fat, add in some peppers and onion, and top it with the actual bacon mixed in, too. Oh, and green onions, to top! Truly, the best way to work in your recommended daily servings of veggies.

Cajun-Stuffed Peppers
This particular recipe gained rave reviews from Mom, Dad, and my brother. In a lot of ways, they tasted like your average stuffed pepper recipe, but with the inclusion of extra peppers, jalapeno, and Cajun spices. However, perhaps it was because they were served at the same meal as the Maque Choux and the Boiled Shrimp with Remoulade Sauce, these were far from the most interesting or enchanting thing on my plate that night... as I was too busy shoveling shrimp in my mouth.

Gumbo Ya-Ya
Again, maybe this is comparison busy being the thief of joy over here. But this Gumbo - though highly anticipated - didn't steal the show for me. It was our main course for Mardi Gras, but it was not the star. (Then again, the day I made it, I had been in Seattle at 7 am, only got back to Tacoma by 2 pm, and was also busy whipping up a homemade King's Cake and Crab Cakes at the same time as I was making it.) While I really loved the depth of flavor - thanks to cooking the roux to a "milk chocolate" color before adding any veggies - it allows the chicken to get a little too broken-down for my textural preferences. So stir lightly!

Crab Cakes with Corn and Jalapeno
Okay, so I did have to doctor them a little... as it turns out, this "binder-less" crab cake really benefited from the addition of a cup or so of panko breadcrumbs! What resulted was a crispy, delicious, fishy crab cake, on that really made the grade when paired with the Remoulade sauce. Dad even did away with the ring mold entirely, and just ended up cooking a serving free-form in a small stove top pan!

the outcome

Last month, with Tosi and Milk Bar Life, I spent a lot of time emphasizing a cookbook's ability to translate a personality; this month, Commander's Kitchen, from Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon, translated a place... and it's a place I really want to be! 

Between pouring Dark & Stormys for random Wednesday dinner, to spending hours braising down veggies and stock into deep and flavorful sauces, and even investing a later Monday night picking crab out of its shell for use the next evening, cooking from Commander's Kitchen made even the most sedate of weeknights feel like a special occasion. Due to its focus on local ingredients and fresh cooking, not much was all that expensive, and when it came down to it, even the pieces that cost the most were well worth the price... and still less costly than if we had gone out to eat!

Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon brought not only the spirit of New Orleans into my kitchen, but they made it an easy and happy exploration, too. I'm so glad I took a chance on this cookbook.

What do you think of February's choice? What foods do you think of when you consider New Orleans' culinary legacy? Let me know, in the comments below!