Speed-Dating Books: Check Your Shelf, Pt. 2

Yup. We're back here again already.

Here's the thing, though: the first installment of this year's new speed-dating project was pretty darn successful. In the time since I wrote it, I've read four of the titles I chose. Not joking! (Look for an update with their reviews, coming within the next week.)

The difference is, that the reasoning behind it last time was to break out of a slump; now, I'm just looking for a little more inspiration to continue reading at such an improved pace since last month's lack of finished titles.

What can I say? It's a really good system!

I'm actually thinking that I might mess around and try and do one once a month for the foreseeable future... at least while we're all still in quarantine / social distancing / shelter-in-place-ing. It will give me a positive focus for my attention, a way to clean off my shelves, and a great reason to continue reading the way I am now.

In case you've forgotten since the last time we were here, here are the rules again:

1. First, you pick a stack of books you want to read from your shelves, usually between 8 and 10. 
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 randomly-sorted 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, like an appropriate season, occasion, etc. 
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! 

(Note to my lovely teacher friends: I know it's hard being away from your kiddos right now, but this might be a great activity to extend to them - in a varied format, of course - to make sure they're still picking up plenty of books while they're away from the daily structure of school. Invite them to gather a couple of titles they're interested in, go through the process, and have them send you a picture of their set-up and notes, if they're able. You'll be able to stay involved in their reading habits, and they'll probably be excited to show you what they've been working on, too!)

the exercise

  
Smoke, Dan Vyleta
In a Fantasy version of Dickensian London, the moral value of a person is determined by the amount of smoke that shrouds them, with the poorest and meanest covered in soot and ash. However, that doesn't mean that those clean of smoke are pure of heart...
It is quite intriguing, and has a really gorgeous central conceit, but I can't help but feel right now is not the correct time to reach for it... it does feel very Victorian, which I normally save for Fall or Winter. Maybe that will be the right time to read something as dense as this hardcover.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver
Noted novelist and writer Kingsolver moves from Arizona to a farm in the East Coast, and decides on a new family project: they will spend a year eating only what they can grow, pick, raise, and cook themselves!
This will be really good, I think, to read in June or July, when my future garden will really be embracing its destiny. What better time would there be to read about someone growing their own food? Besides, it will give me even more reasons to work hard this Spring.

Crazy Rich Asians, Kevin Kwan
The bestselling novel that inspired the critically-acclaimed movie, a young woman follows her boyfriend home to Singapore, only to realize that his family is impossibly wealthy.
Really fun, but bordering on crazy amounts of exposition as I read. Felt a little too bright and frivolous of a read for when Spring is still working out its moods. Maybe I'll revisit it sometime this Summer? That being said, though... I'm not sure that I loved it enough to jump right for it when the weather turns.

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
The timeless tale that also inspired a recent award-nominated film adaptation, this novel follows the lives of the March sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, as they grow up together, and apart.
The selection I read isn't terribly representative, being that I keep on reading for several minutes after the timer had gone off, because I was still trying to sort out some thing in my own head. I did enjoy what I read, but the book is a little long to be jumping into as I'm still climbing out of a slump. Maybe I'll keep reading it and make it into a kind of "project" read?

  

Atonement, Ian McEwan
A young girl - taken to naive flights of fantasy - witnesses the flirtation of her older sister and a family servant, and misinterprets major events in a way that plunges all three of them into a future they can't control.
Beautifully written, and really quite easy to read; however, I know too much about the emotional nature of this book to choose it as a regular sort of thing. Maybe I'll save it for later on in Spring or early Summer, when the sunshine can keep some of the tears at bay... then again, I'm not really sure, having already been aware of the twist, whether I want to read it at all.

Stardust, Neil Gaiman
One of my favorite Fantasy authors delves deep into a fairy tale world, as a unique boy ventures into a magical realm, to claim a fallen star for his lady love. But the star is not what he thinks it is, and he's not the only one searching for it...
A regular favorite. I've been meaning to watch the movie again, but haven't read the book in a while. Including it in my upcoming TBR would give me plenty enough reason to do both!

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry, Kathleen Flinn
A masterful food writer recalls her attendance at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, France, and how her education developed through its tutelage.
Everything about this is so freaking right. I knew it the second I pulled this book from the stack... realistically, I probably didn't need to make it a part of this exercise, but its a great reminder of how much I adore Flinn's work. I can't wait to read this, especially its descriptions of culinary school.

The Liar's Club, Mary Karr
A master memoirist reflects on her explosive family and blue collar childhood, in a small, industrial-focused town in 1960s Texas.
I cannot wait to read this book, though I know I cannot do so right now. This book would be enjoyed so much better in Summer, sitting out on my back deck with a cold beverage in hand and the heat frying up my legs. I can't wait.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
The Pulitzer prize-winning collection of Dillard's reflections on the natural world around her, over the course of a year in Virginia's Roanoke Valley.
I shelved this lyrical and loving portrait of wildlife and flora back in summer, after I tried reading it in Oregon on vacation, but kept losing focus. Maybe now that its the ever-changing Springtime, instead, I'll be able to pay more attention to its varied seasons.

An Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin
The Founding Father, master writer, and diplomat recounts his life and his learning in his own words.
It's not the first time I've tried to read old Franklin's autobio, and each time, I've read a little, ruminated on how accessible it was and how it would probably benefit me to read it, only to decide that it didn't quite fit my mood. This is another one of those times.

the outcome

When it came to deciding what to read right "Now," Kathleen Flinn has never steered me wrong. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry is immediately engrossing and would be a perfect read... even if I wasn't obsessed with someday going to culinary school.

Gaiman's Stardust and Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek both wound up on my list to read "Soon," but I'm not entirely sure when. Probably some time in the next month or so, so I'll add them to my April TBR, next to some of the chosen ones from my last round of speed-dating!

I also liked the idea of getting around to reading Alcott's Little Women soon. There's a bit of a personal history there - one that I'll probably have to talk about on the blog at some point - so I'm excited to finally give it a shot. But it's not exactly the kind of thing I think I'll be able to get done quickly, so maybe I'll break it up into chunks.

There were quite a few titles that ended up in the "Later" column... mainly because none ended up in the "Never" column, which is, I guess, a pretty good thing (though to be completely honest, McEwan's Atonement might eventually make its way there). I moved Ben Franklin's Autobiography to be read some other time, just because I didn't really find it all that compelling right now, while Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians was designated for a sunnier clime. Mary Karr's Liars Club was similarly marked for a dog-days-of-summer kind of environment, and Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral was made for days when my garden is in full bloom, like July. The only one that got significantly bumped down the TBR was Vyleta's Smoke, to November or December, when the world is a little gloomier and more open to Dickensian-inspired Fantasy reads.

What is your quarantine reading looking like right now? What books have you been inspired to pick up? Let me know, in the comments below!

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!

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!