Books-a-Plenty

Spent a few minutes with Quiet, Please on my break at work. That+Don's review+Martha's review=I won't be reading it after all.

Got The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater from interlibrary loan (ILL) the other day. Love it. Book jacket:

Right food, right place, right time. It is my belief--and the point of this book--that this is the best recipe of all. A crab sandwich by the sea on a June afternoon; a slice of roast goose with apple sauce and roast potatoes on Christmas Day; hot sausages and a chunk of roast pumpkin on a frost-sparkling night in November. These are meals whose success relies not only on the expertise of the cook but on the more basic premise that this is the food of the moment--something eaten at a time when it is most appropriate, when the ingredients are at their peak of perfection, when the food, the cook and the time of year are at one with each other.

Me again:

Beginning on New Year's Day, Slater takes the reader through his year in food. Not every meal of every day. Some days, not even a full meal. In fact, not all 365 days. But his thoughts, feelings and recipes. It is a very cozy book. He takes daily trips to the farmer's market and specialty shops for produce, cheese, bread, and meats. He cooks beautifully and seemingly effortlessly. Slater's kitchen doors open flat against the walls on either side to create a single room of his garden and kitchen, a place I would love to spend an afternoon. He is a cook who appreciates leftovers and tells us about his cobbled together meals eaten standing in front of the fridge. Warm, comforting, and accesible. This would be a great winter read.

Maria and I read some more of The Hobbit last night before bed. We sat together in the rocker under her special blankie, while Oliv played nearby on the floor with her Playmobil guys. We just want to get Bilbo and the dwarves out of that dratted dark forest! New chapter ahead: Barrels out of Bond.

I don't think I've mentioned here that I am reading an excellent piece of historical fiction aloud to Olivia's homeschool ancient history class. It's The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare. It takes place during the life of Jesus, and, perhaps surprisingly, this fisherman/teacher is not the main part of the story. It's really about a Jewish boy whose parents have both been killed by the Romans. He has been part of a band of men who live in the mountains waiting for their moment to attack the occupying troops in their village. It does a great job of painting a picture of life in the Roman Empire, and I think that both devout Christians and respectful agnostics would be pleased with the way that the life of Jesus is handled by Speare.