Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Once upon a time, back when my sister lived in New Jersey, I borrowed a few books from her house.  (This was at least five years ago, and yes, I did ask.)  I read two of them in a somewhat timely fashion, but two more have been sitting on my shelf, waiting to be read, ever since.  Fast forward to a month or two ago and my oldest niece is looking at my bookshelf.  I sheepishly point out the books I borrowed from her mom years ago, and, taking a closer look, she says–“I think I bought that one myself, with birthday money or something; that explains why I never got around to reading it!”

Oh, the guilt.  I basically stole my poor niece’s book when she was only a tween (or thereabouts)!  And so, in a belated attempt to put it right, I moved Cameron Dokey’s The Storyteller’s Daughter up to the very top of my reading list, and I finished it over lunch today.  When my parents head out to Colorado to visit my sister, I’ll send it with them; maybe Macy will even have time to read it before she leaves on her mission!  That’s something, right?

Yeah, still with the guilt.  Anyway.  I don’t read as many fairy tale re-tellings as I used to, and I have to say, The Storyteller’s Daughter made me wonder why.  (Okay, it’s probably because I read more non-fiction, but still.)  Cameron Dokey weaves a web of words that beautifully showcase her chosen tale; her writing style is perfect for a series entitled “Once upon a Time.”  I didn’t know much about “The Arabian Nights,” but no matter.  All that I needed to know was there.  Shahrazad (the Persian spelling of Scheherazade), the storyteller whose life depends upon her skill, is a quietly strong heroine, and the king she marries is successfully portrayed as an emotionally wounded man who must be healed for the sake of his kingdom.  The stories Shahrazad tells remind me stylistically of the fairy tales I read in my childhood; they entertain in and of themselves while furthering the story of their teller.  In the end, it’s almost hard to label the book’s genre–fairy tale?  Folk tale?  Fable?  Love story?  I’m honestly not quite sure.  What I am sure of, however, is that this is a book to be read and relished by fans of all of them.

As much as I love history, I usually hate reading about the Civil War.  I don’t know if it’s because of the level of slaughter, or the animosity within a nation, or the antiquated ideas about medicine; what I do know is that I usually avoid literature about the Civil War at all costs.  I enjoyed the first of Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales enough, however, that I wanted to read the sequel before passing it on to my daughter, and to my surprise, I enjoyed Big Bad Ironclad immensely–its topic notwithstanding.

In Ironclad, Nathan Hale is back at the gallows, telling stories about the future to delay his hanging.  His chosen topic? Ironclads in the Civil War, which I didn’t know existed.  I did know that the North blockaded the South, and that blockade runners were the result, but ships with iron plating–nope.  The book does a fabulous job of telling their story and tying in some of the exploits of Will Cushing, a larger-than-life figure about which I’d actually like to read more.  Hale’s illustrations make me smile and his text makes me me giggle, and in a book about ANY aspect of the Civil War, that is an impressive feat indeed.

To be perfectly honest, most of my family didn’t love this Creamy Spinach Tomato Tortellini as much as I did.  My oldest has issues with the cheese filling (she’s the sole anti-Provolone member of the family, and she’s iffy with stronger cheeses in general), my next is the pickiest, and the boy said he enjoyed it but ate slowly.  (To be fair, he may have just been not so hungry.)  The baby-who-is-really-a-toddler-now enjoyed it, though, and my hubby isn’t much of a pasta person, so I wasn’t counting on him loving it anyway.

Here’s the thing, though.  It’d be nice if everyone had loved it, but even if not all of them did, easy recipes are still lovely.  I’ve been keeping frozen tortellini from Costco on hand, and we usually have spinach for my hubby’s smoothies, and everything else is something I can grab from the pantry.  (Well, okay, Parmesan is a fridge ingredient, but it’s ALWAYS in my fridge.  I subbed evaporated milk for the half and half, though, so that was pantry all the way.)  And I liked it!  The basil could have used a bit more time in with the tomatoes to taste a little less, well, pantry-ish, but sometimes speed is just as much of a selling point as anything else.  I enjoyed this enough to make it again, and since I do the vast majority of the cooking, well…

Oh, I did one-and-a-half the recipe to work with the size of the Costco package of tortellini, by the way.

Just so you know.

My mother and I don’t always eat alike, but we are both nuts about lemon.  We like it strong, we like it sweet OR savory–really, we love it, and we love it with just about anything.  Now, since I left for Women’s Conference ON her birthday, I managed a cake for her but not a dinner (I was too busy getting ready to go–and getting the kids ready to have me gone!).  Last night, however, I made up for that.  It was my parents’ last night in Utah and they ate here with us and my nephew and his girlfriend; we had pork chops with rhubarb stuffing, watermelon, English cucumber, and lemon basil carrots, which my mother and I LOVE.  No one else at my house enjoys them, so I reveled in the dual opportunity to a)spoil my mother and b)eat them myself. What’s not to love about that?

Sadly, if the recipe is available online, I have no idea where; thankfully, it’s a short recipe to type!

Lemon Basil Carrots

1 lb carrots, peeled and chopped

2 T butter

1 T lemon juice

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t basil

Cover carrots with salted water in a saucepan and cook until tender; drain them and add the rest of the ingredients.  Heat through until butter is melted and all ingredients are combined.

Easy, right?  And I’ve always used dried basil and bottled lemon juice, because that’s what we used growing up and they taste divine that way.  (I love a recipe that uses pantry ingredients.)  Make these for the lemon lover in your life!

I’ve known I was going to be out of town the last few days for over a month, and do you think I managed to get to an “I’m going to be gone” post?  Nope!  That’s what four kiddos and not enough sleep will do to you.  These past few days, however, I DID get the amazing opportunity to attend BYU Women’s Conference with my mother-in-law and one of my sisters-in-law, and it was wonderful.  I recharged, I relaxed–I ate too much at Cafe Rio–and I was inspired.  The best kind of trip, right?

Here’s the thing.  At the Thursday night concert we were asked to cheer if we were there with our mothers or our sisters, and I didn’t–but not because I don’t love my in-laws to pieces.  (I am truly blessed in that department, and they are fabulous company.)  I didn’t cheer, however, because my first thought when they asked about mothers was guilt that I was there and my own mother was being kept up by my 14-month-old back at my house, and my first thought when they asked about sisters was more guilt that I was there while my big sister was home dealing with children’s dental problems, having JUST found out she didn’t have to show up for jury duty.  I was there with one of my mothers and one of my sisters, however, and so here’s my shout-out for them.  It’s a little late, but I honestly don’t think anyone in the world could have better in-laws than I do.  May you all be so lucky some day!

Remember me saying I was reading Buckle and Squash:  The Perilous Princess Plot on the treadmill?  I finished it last night. And OH MY GOSH.

It’s a fast read–my dad read it all last night, actually–and an illustrated one, but most importantly, it is bizarrely hilarious. Eliza and Lavender are about as different as two sisters can be, which is why when Lavender sets out to get herself found by a prince, Eliza sets out after her to rescue her from whatever trouble she’s bound to get herself into.  Add in a kidnapping wizard, a witch in need of knees, a tiny giant, and the symptoms of the Black Death–not to mention a moat monster or two–and you’ve got a laugh-out-loud, entirely non-traditional and completely fabulous fairy tale adventure.

Now, it’s listed for ages 5-9; it’s longer than, say, the Magic Tree House books or Princess Posey, but it’s shorter than most of what my 9-year-old chooses.  The writing and the plot, however, are going to make it a hit with her as well (hey, I got a huge kick out of it!).  Bottom line?  Get this one, read it yourself, and then pass it along to your kiddos.

You’ll be glad you did.

I should begin by saying that I’ve pretty much always been a “more than one book at a time” person.  I recognize that many people aren’t, but I tend to have my main book plus another book or three on the side.  The quantities shift, and my focus shifts, but I rarely have only one bookmark in use.  Keeping that in mind, then, here’s a peek into my “currently reading” list on Goodreads…

1)President Monson’s biography, To the Rescue.  I’ve been reading this on Sundays on and off for years; I’m not in a stage of life to concentrate on biographies very frequently, but I always enjoy it when I pick it up.

2)The Jane Austen Handbook.  This belongs to a friend of mine and is a humorous collection of tips, guidelines, and explanations for Regency life; its format makes it ideal for a downstairs bathroom book.  (Because when you have a toddler and a preschooler, sometimes you need a few minutes alone in a room with a book to recharge.)

3)Thomas S. Monson’s Consider the Blessings.  It’s a collection of inspirational occurrences that he was a witness to, and its format makes it ideal to pull out on Sunday nights.

4)The Seasoning of a Chef:  My Journey from Diner to Ducasse and Beyond.  I got this one free at Borders many moons ago; when I started it, I was planning on reading it straight through.  It’s detailed and a little rambling, however, and while it’s interesting enough that I want to finish it, it’s been a perfect upstairs bathroom book for the last two months.  (And, well, ditto.)

5)Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales:  Big Bad Ironclad!  This one is technically for my daughter, but I had enough fun with the first in the series that this one is in my purse, to be read in the odd free moment while I’m out and about.   When I’m done, it goes downstairs on her shelf.

6)The Perilous Princess Plot.  This one is also for my daughter; I’m just previewing it on the treadmill, and it’s fabulously funny.

I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of multiple other bookmarks in multiple other books, of course.  What can I say?  I already told you I had issues!

I’m not often at a loss for words, but I have to say–reading Nine Open Arms was an odd experience.  The description inside the front cover made it sound totally like my thing; a family moves to an isolated house and learns about its previous owners’ history as well as its own.  (Okay, that wasn’t the best description, but it works.)  And it wasn’t exactly not my thing.  It was just, well…a bit different.

Really, I think that most of the difference was cultural, just as the slightly different writing style was the result of being translated from Dutch into English.  The story was interesting and read fairly easily, and while I felt slightly removed from the characters, I was certainly invested in them.  I rather liked the story telling feel of it, and the way the author dealt with the two time periods worked pretty well for me.  My only real issue is that our library shelves the book in juvenile fiction–and Amazon thinks it’s for “Grade 3 and up”, or “Age 9 and  up.”

Seriously?

I am violently opposed to censorship, folks, and I absolutely believe my library should continue to carry this book, but I have a 9-year-old.  There’s an attempted sexual assault in this book; there are also some wildly adult dilemmas and situations.  Why on EARTH this isn’t shelved in Young Adult is beyond me.  I’m not offended by it, I’m not scared of it, I’m not angered by it–it’s a good book.  It is NOT, however, appropriate for a 9-year-old.

Okay, rant over.  And the bottom line?  It’s a little different, but I liked it; I think it’s worth reading.

Just pretend that the listed age range reads “Age 12 and up” instead.

I was totally going to review tonight’s new recipe, but sadly, I haven’t the energy.  We’re getting a new bathtub in our upstairs bathroom, which means everyone is showering/bathing downstairs and I’m best off taking my curious toddler and preschooler out of the house while the work is being done, and said toddler has a nasty nose which is, OF COURSE, negatively impacting her sleep, and my oldest had a church activity tonight from 5-6 which rendered dinner and everything else late for the evening (I’m so not in love with that time), and tomorrow is my son’s preschool field trip…I’m just poopered.  Which means that a)the baked tortellini recipe will just have to wait and b)I’m signing off.  Good night all!

I’ve mentioned that my third pregnancy was the Oreo pregnancy, right?  Before then I could take or leave milk’s favorite cookie. Since then…well, let’s just say that my friend Britt calls me from the store every time she sees a new Oreo flavor.  Do you feel a need to try New Flavor #427?  (Sadly, yes.  Yes, I do.)

I don’t just try new flavors, though–I keep a package of originals hidden in my house pretty much at all times, because you never know when you might want to make, say, Oreo Pudding Dream Bars.  I tried them yesterday–my college student nephew came for dinner–and believe you me, you’re going to want to make them eventually.  Picture a lovely Oreo crust (made of crushed Oreos and melted butter), with layers of cream-cheese-powdered-sugar-whipped-topping, Cookies and Cream pudding, straight whipped topping, and crushed Oreos on top.  What’s not to love, right?  (Nothing.  There’s NOTHING not to love.)  Cool, creamy Oreo goodness on a warm day.

Life is good.