'Tis cookie season

Warning! This post has nothing to do with books or reading.

So let me start out by saying it is cookie season.  I am not a baker so baking cookies is a challenge for me.

I bake cookies once a year during the holidays. I try to find the easiest recipes I can find.  I almost always bake drop cookies.  Just to be clear drop cookies are the ones that you mix up in a bowl and drop them by the spoonful onto the cookie sheet. There is no rolling or shaping involved.  Basically the cookies form their shape as they bake.

Even though this sounds easy it does take a little bit of skill.  There are several factors that can ruin your cookies.  I have discovered them all.  I follow a recipe.  I cream the butter and then add the dry ingredients but some times the butter and dry ingredients just don't seem to want to cooperate with each other and I have in the past pulled out the cookie sheet only to find that the cookies have melded together to make one thin crispy cookie.  It tasted fine but it was not the look or the cookie I was going for.

This year I seem to be doing ok.  I prepared the dough in advance and placed it all in the refrigerator.  Once all the various types of dough were made I started the baking process.

Which brings up my next challenge.  Do I under cook them or let them get brown and crispy on the bottom.  Each of my family members like them a different way.  So I decided to do a little bit of both.  Thankfully I seem to be learning the precise time to take them out of the oven so that they are slightly under cooked and therefore they are soft but not gooey.  On the flip side the ones I left in the oven to get brown were not so crispy that they were almost burnt.

All in all I think it was a successful baking adventure.  I baked four kinds and yes I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies so don't judge me.  They are still one of the favorite cookies in my house. You can always count on the toll house recipe.  So I have 12 dozen cookies that I will be bringing to friends and office mates.

My work is done until next cookie season.

Wake up Call for a Cab Driver at Christmas (Holiday Romance)

It snowed on the East Coast on Thursday.  It doesn't generally snow in November but of course we have had early snow before.  This snow was a little unusual because instead of that light powdery snow it was a wet heavy snow and on top of that it snowed all day. It was accumulating snow.  There are still remnants of it on the lawns.

It looks like winter is early. Thanksgiving is next Thursday which means the holiday season is starting.  I was driving yesterday and turned on one of my usual stations and lo and behold they are playing holiday music. Personally, I think starting to play Christmas carols before Thanksgiving is over is a little early.  Don't get me wrong I love the music.  I just would prefer to hear it after Thanksgiving.  I love the Thanksgiving holiday and I like to savor the time dedicated to it.

Hearing the music  motivated me to pick up another holiday novel Catching Christmas.  If Hallmark is reading this (Ha!) this would make a great movie.  I will just give a very brief teaser.  A cab driver gets a dispatch call.  Yes I said cab driver.  He refuses to become an Uber driver.  He has his reasons.
I  get it.

He picks up an elderly woman.  The minute she enters his cab his whole life changes.  She is not an Angel, she is an ordinary mere mortal.  But because of her he ends up having an epiphany.  I will not say any more except the book is 274 pages and I read it in a couple of hours.  Fast reading. It's a feel good novel. Tap on the picture of the book.

The Christmas Sisters

The Hallmark channel is starting to show Christmas movies which of course I watch.  The great thing about these movies is that at the end everything works out and people are happy.  So not true in real life but who cares.

It is also my signal to read holiday themed novels and this is the first one I read this season.

 My husband and I decided to take a long weekend off and drive to Lancaster county.  We stayed at the Historic Smithton Inn which I highly recommend.  It was absolutely perfect.

It was a cold and rainy evening so after eating dinner at the White Swan, we decided to come back to the Inn and chill.  I cracked open The Christmas Sisters and read till I finished the book.

The book is about three sisters who lost their parents at a very young age.  They were adopted by their Mom's best friend. While they were close growing up, but as they grew and pursued careers and families they hardly saw each other.  This year they all gathered at their adopted home in Scotland for Christmas and worked on their relationships. Their stories were good so enjoy!

 

Social Media, What a Beast---An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

It was a cold, rainy Friday night and I was oncall for the weekend. So literally my phone was attached to my hip.  Now being oncall does not necessarily mean I am housebound but everyone knows Murphy's law if I am out having a nice dinner or at a movie I will be called.

So I got into my nice plush warm and cozy bathrobe and cracked open  An Absolutely Remarkable Thing,  I bet you thought I was going to say I cracked open a great bottle of wine.  Remember I am on call and need clarity of thought. I read late into the night because I found the book both Bizarre and Fascinating.

A woman (April) is a design consultant in New York working for a startup that has her working all the time.  She worked late and was about to jump on the subway when she realizes she has forgotten her subway card and has no money in her wallet.

She decides to walk back to her office and stumbles upon this hugh statue the likes of which she has never seen. This statue had just appeared from thin air because it had not been there before. She immediately calls her videographer friend and hauls him out of bed to meet her at the statue.  They create a video and it goes viral.  The book then tells you the story of April and the statue, a story that becomes larger than life.

The book clearly makes a statement on how social media creates media sensations   The internet has created a beast that needs to be feed more and more information and everyone wants to be the one to get the story out first or get their five minutes of fame.  Read the book and tell me what you think.

 

The Brutal Telling

I listened to this book.  I had a lot of driving this week so it was nice to reduce the boredom of driving on the interstates. 

Once again, I chose a Louise Penny Book.  I so love the characters in her books.  In my opinion her best books are the Three Pines series.  The Brutal Telling is number 5 in the series.

Even though it is not necessary, I am trying to read them in order.  In the first book, Still Life you are of course introduced to the many characters. Every subsequent book adds depth and dimension to each of these characters.  I feel that if I was to stumble into the Bistro in Three Pines I would immediately recognize Olivier and his partner Gabre. Oh and who could miss Ruth Zardo the anti-social famous poet. I can imagine walking up to her and telling her how much I admire her work and her telling me to piss off. 

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Quebec is the man sent to this sleepy village when there is a murder.  Surprisingly there are many murders in this small town so Gamache is there frequently. He is a great character.  Everything you would want in a person investigating murders.

In this book a man is found dead in the bistro and Olivier is devastated and a prime suspect.  It's a good book.  Read it! or Listen to it.  If you don't have Audible consider trying it by tapping on the banner below.

The Fallen

I am swinging into my summer reading mode which means, mysteries, thrillers and of course romance novels.  I am starting off with my go to guy David Baldacci.  He has written another book, The Fallen ,with Amos Decker back again and I loved it!

It always seems like I read so much more in the summer which is kind of ironic since my amount of free time does not change from season to season.  I think it is the fact that the days are longer and I find it harder to fall asleep so I stay up and read. Please weigh in on this if you have your own theory.

The book opens up with a one two punch, a double murder.  Amos and his partner Alex were taking a much deserved vacation. They went to visit Alex's sister who lives in Baronville, Pa.

Baronville is a dying town.  The businesses owned and operated by the Baron family have all been closed and the people in the town are struggling.  Many have turned to drugs and alcohol and drugs to ease their pain.  Others are just trying to do their best.

Baronville is not the only thing dying.  Bodies are beginning to pile up and Amos just happens to find two more.  When he discovers the crime scene it just doesn't add up and the more he investigates the more he puts himself in harm's way.

If you like Baldacci and haven't read this book yet, Read It! Also don't forget MemoryMan,  The last Mile and The Fix.

Warm Weather on the way

I belong to a wine club.  Well it started out as a wine club now it is an opportunity to get together, drink and have a good time.  We decided to hold our May wine club at the beach.  One of the members has a home and so we convened at her house lovingly known as "My Happy Place".


Since the weekend consisted of walking the boardwalk, attending Springfest and of course eating and DRINKING, I didn't bring my usual reading material.  Instead I picked a romance novel.  I love romance novels just like I love watching Hallmark movies at Christmas.


Even if the characters face adversity and what would a good romance novel be without adversity, they all end happily ever after. So for this weekend when I needed a break from the drinking and craziness I read  Silver Pine Trail by RaeAnne Thayne.  It is about a librarian who finds love at Christmas.  There is no twisted plot.  It doesn't require a lot of brain power.  It is just a relaxing, nice story. Click on the book or link to get more info.

Little French Bistro

Imagine being so unhappy in your marriage and your life that you decide to jump off a bridge and end it all. You are in Paris crossing over the Seine and off you go.  That is what Marianne decided to do.  

But the jump did not kill her.  It still was a wake up call and she decides to walk out of the hospital with no particular destination in mind.

She ends up in the South of France and begins a new life and for the first time in years she starts to feel alive.  

I loved this book because the main character had an opportunity to make changes and instead of wallowing in sadness and depression she made positive steps to get herself to a better place.  While she thought she was weak, in reality she was strong.  It was great to read about her journey.

The Little French Bistro

Who Says You Can't Go Home (Now That You Mention It)

Who says you can't go home?  Isn't that a question people ask themselves.  I haven't been back to the place I grew up in on Long Island for almost twenty five years.  

It isn't as if I don't want to go home, I loved growing up where I did.  It is more like there is nothing there for me anymore.  My parents and my brother and his family moved to New Jersey which really blows my mind.  I didn't think people who were born and grew up in New York move to New Jersey and yet they all did.  All my aunts and uncles and cousins no longer live there either.  So truly going back would mean starting over and I could easily do that anywhere.  Why not try something new.

Nora is a Gastroenterologist with a hunky doctor as her boyfriend, at a Boston Hospital that happens.  That is why when she gets struck by a truck and ends up in his ER her life changes.  Through the pain she becomes conscious only to find him flirting with a very pretty intern.

That put an end to their relationship.  No surprise there.  She decides that she will recover by going home to the place where she grew up. But home for Nora means a lot of bad memories. Even so she does go back and while she heals physically she also heals mentally. Oh and yes she finds romance along the way.

The book, Now That You Mention It.

Sourdough (a Book for Bread lovers and Techies)

The book Sourdough did not start out the way I expected. What I had expected was to be thrown into a kitchen setting with a struggling chef or wanna be chef.  Instead the author reveals herself to be a computer geek (a software engineer) in a company in San Francisco that writes the code for robotic arms. These robotic arms are being designed to take over many functions now done by human beings.  What a concept!  

Her work sounds fascinating but stressful, very stressful. While I don't code and I don't work for a big tech company in San Francisco, I do work in Information Technology (IT). I can tell you with great assurance that no matter what you do in IT the stress level is always high and you walk around with a knot in your stomach.  Sadly my top draw holds a bottle of tums that never stays full.  A lack of calcium is not my problem.

One day she comes home from work and finds an advertisement/menu. I am sure you have all seen ones that are  similar. They are usually left in your mailbox by the pizza,  Chinese or Thai take out places.  She decides she will forego her nightly slurry ( liquid nutritional meal replacement)and order in.  When the "double spicy" arrives at her door her life changes. 

Alas all good things must come to an end and the brothers that own this take out place can't renew their visas and close up shop.  She is devastated.  She has lost her sustenance. But before the brothers depart the US they give her a present, their sourdough starter.

I forgot to mention that food is often a stress reducer when you work in IT. When I first started working, my department consisted of five guys and me one female.  What I discovered is that men use food to decompress just like women.  Where to go for lunch is discussed at 8:30 in the morning.  Why because it will be a milestone in our day.  Our only break.   

Once she receives the starter she becomes consumed by the bread she learns to bake.  Soon after her tech world and her foodie world collide.  All I can say about this book is that it is a fun read.  Try it!

The Keeper of Lost Things

Do you ever see a person or persons and in your head make up a story about them.  I remember when my husband and I were first married we were walking hand in hand in New York City.  We found ourselves walking behind this beautiful older couple. They must have been in there late 70's.

They too were holding hands and I turned to my husband and said, "Do you think we will be like them when we are their age?" We hoped we would be.  I then started thinking, how did they meet, did they have children, were they even married or had they just found each other and all these stories about them started forming in my head. We are not their age yet so who knows whether that will be us but I hope so.

This book reminded me of that moment .  One of the characters in the book was given a piece of jewelry by his Fiancée, something that meant a lot to her. Ironically she died the day she gave it to him and he lost it.

From that day forward he picked up and cataloged items he found and  became The Keeper of Lost Things He was an author and so he wrote short stories about the lost items many of which were published.

He always meant to try and return the items but died leaving the job to be done by his assistant.  As it turns out she was one of his "lost things". She makes it her mission to find the owners of the lost things and finds herself along the way.  It is a very nice story.