I Want This...

Ok...this is the most amazing pepper grinder ever and I want it.  Look at the color.  It is red...lovely delightfully Valentiney red.  Every fun appliance I own is red.  This is a fun appliance and I need it.  Really I do...I can stir with one hand and add pepper with the other...this will make me even more efficient.  I have been a terror in the kitchen lately...I am organizing and discarding and cleansing and making my life brilliantly efficient and highly organized.

Back to this eclectic electric pepper grinder...I wonder if there is a matching salt grinder?  Yes, there is...I think I may need that, too!!!
Here is the link for this beautiful salt grinder.

A Lovely Offer From Amazon...

Amazon Daily is a bookish blog from Amazon.  It is totally free and I subscribe to it in an email as well as on my Kindle.  One of my favorites is Omnivoracious.

Amazon is holding a contest that has as its prize all of the above books.  Click on the link to quickly comment and enter if you want...I hope you win!!!

I am always feeling lucky...how about you?

Sunday Chillaxing...Lucy Makes Three!!!

This is our Sunday afternoon ...each of us has our own special spot...I am on the big comfy sofa...with pillows and a furry coverlet.  Dennis is sitting in the overstuffed big red chair with feet propped up on the ottoman...Lucy is on the antique mission rocker...but she is on top of a tiny little heating pad and a soft baby blanket...there is a stuffed handmade Christmas snowman on the chair with her...she seems to like him...so far...if she decides she doesn't like him...I will find him face down on the floor.  I am not quite sure what is on Lucy's mind in this photo.  She seemed to be fondly looking at the mantel.  For something...to damage...she suddenly loves chewing on anything that looks like pine...time to put away Christmas.

It snowed yesterday...big soft flakes and tiny furious flakes.  After a quick trip to mail some things...we stayed in...we snuggled up to a fire and had Slow Cooker Taco Soup for dinner.  You must try this...easy and amazing.  From Allrecipes...here is the recipe...actually just click on the link above.  I did not have a packet of taco seasoning.  I usually do not use this but add instead cumin and chili seasoning...it worked perfectly.  We always have ours with taco chips and sour cream and avocado slices on top.  I also throw in frozen corn and any bean I have.  I think what I am saying is you can reasonably alter this recipe and it still tastes like tacos.  I did not add canned tomato sauce but rather fresh frozen from our garden.  It cooks all day and is superlatively wonderful for dinner.  Truly wonderful...like a messy taco only you can eat it neatly with a spoon.

Keeping her distance from Frosty.

Risotto Anyone? A Review...

This is the name of the island in Maine where this story takes place…Blue Crab Island. It is connected to Portland by a lovely bridge. This puts Holly…the main character… close to amazing stores and small artisanal shops and farmer’s markets. The island itself is only a mile or two long and perhaps three miles wide. The houses are quaint and cottagey…Maine colors abound…bright blues and yellows and lovely greens. You can walk to the beach. You can escape to Portland. You can find peace.

Enter Holly Macguire. She is broken hearted and believes she will never find the love of her life. She has lived everywhere…sort of following her heart. Her grandmother lives on Blue Crab Island. Her grandmother is Italian, makes amazing foods and teaches cooking classes. Holly has spent lots of time with her grandmother throughout her life so this is where she goes to heal her once again broken heart. Holly is there a few weeks when her grandmother just does not wake up one morning. Holly is left with her grandmother’s recipes; her grandmother’s house and her grandmother’s cat…none of these are taking well to Holly. Her grandmother also has a reputation for telling fortunes. So…Holly also inherits the three smooth stones that her grandmother used to do this.

Holly has some truly awful days on Blue Crab Island. She is not the cook her grandmother was. She spends all of her days trying to learn to cook her grandmother’s recipes in order to keep the house, have a career and stay on the island. Holly’s grandmother’s recipes always have something special in them…such as a sad wish or a happy moment or something that you are yearning for. Holly has heard these all of her life but never really was truly mindful of them until this time in her life. As Holly grows her grandmother’s words begin to have true meaning for her.

The evening of the first cooking class finally comes and Holly finds herself teaching a tween who hates her father’s girlfriend, a single woman trying to find love, a divorced dad trying to deal with his young daughter and an old friend who is so sad that she can’t even speak to anyone.

Through out the course of the book each issue is dealt with. We see friendships form and relationships get destroyed or blossom and grow. Of course this is all dealt with in a totally entertaining way by the author. Mean girls and mean women are everywhere. Relationships are fun and lively. My interest was keen and I read this book really quickly…it was that good.

My mother was Italian…so I loved all of the recipes and sayings and Italianesque things all throughout the story. I was so hungry for pasta during this book that I had to make pasta for dinner last night. You will also be hungry for fresh cheeses and great Italian breads and olive oils and wines and Italian Espresso. And…there are even recipes at the end. Yum…

Overall…I enjoyed this book…it was fun and interesting.

The Radley's...A Review...

Where in the world do I start with this one? And before I start…this was not a YA book nor was it an intentionally humorous book but it was full of lots of sort of tongue in cheek humor. It was sort of a serious book about the vampires who live among us…or rather in the case of The Radley’s…they live in Bishopthorpe... which is in England. Peter and Helen Radley appear to be quite normal…Peter is the village doctor and Helen belongs to a book club and keeps her house lovely and full of food (MEAT) and raises her son Rowan and her daughter Clara. And Helen paints apple trees with apples…over and over and over again.

Rowan doesn’t get why he has to wear a 60 sun block and Clara doesn’t get why being a vegetarian is so appalling to her parents…until…hmm…I will get to that in a moment. The Radley’s…Peter and Helen are abstainers. They follow an Abstainers Handbook and have not tasted blood for years…but they do eat a lot of meat…deli meat.

Clara is at a party with her friend Eve…she and Rowan are in high school and Clara is sort of nondescript…in other words…she is not a hottie. While at the party…Clara is sort of attacked by a classmate and …let’s just say that Clara will not be a vegetarian anymore.

Thus begins the unraveling of The Radley’s and it is fascinating to watch. Clara and Rowan are both shocked to realize what their parents have been hiding from them for all of their lives…

Then…due to Clara’s mishap with that classmate... Uncle Will is called to town to help them solve their dilemma. He can “bloodmind” people into doing his will and this is what Helen needs him to do to the police to get Clara out of trouble. Uncle Will is an old fashioned sort of vampire with tons of bottles of blood in his camper and a penchant for neck biting both vampires and unbloods. (non vampires )

Clara and Rowan sip some blood and become healthier and more beautiful and stronger. Clara is afraid that Rowan will not be able to stop himself from becoming the kind of vampire that Uncle Will is…this discussion occurs as they are walking to school and Rowan is contemplating asking out Eve, a classmate. He has a bottle of vampire blood in his backpack to

give him courage. I love his response to his sister… which is…We are middleclass and we live in England...repression runs in our veins.

However…it sort of doesn’t. There is actually a very cool surprise ending in this very clever book.

I can’t compare it to anything. It is fresh and new and funny…not out loud funny but rather sort of tongue in cheek funny. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh...and everyone in The Radleys has a story.  Peter and Helen are having marital issues, Rowan is being bullyied...but that is taken care of rather nicely...Clara is in trouble with the police...Uncle Will is totally messed up...and yet...it sort of all comes together in this amazing way.