Monday, September 27, 2010

Reading for Pleasure, in Miniature

Over the past three weeks, my life has gotten significantly busier. Gone are the summer days of reading on the beach and sneaking in chapters between morning and afternoon sailing classes. Instead, the reading excitement I'm faced with are the joyous works from Journal of Social Service Research and American Journal of Evaluations. These scholarly pursuits may, hopefully, help me to land a job at the end of this long school year, but they make for less than satisfying blog posts.

I've had to adjust my pleasure reading to much shorter doses. Mostly my reading for pleasure has been online blogs, the Sunday Times, and the occasional retail catalog. Novels have all but disappeared from my life. Indeed, the spine I've cracked open most over the past few weeks has been Paula Dean's The Dean Family Cookbook (no matter how much studying, a girl has gotta eat!). I've tried a few new recipes lately. Most notably have been the "Banana Spice Cake with Peanut Butter Icing" (the name says it all -YUM!) and "Shrimp, Tomato, and Feta" (the name leaves out the most essential ingredient - liberal amounts of hot sauce!).

That's all that is new in my literary life. What's up with you madwomen?

Love,

The Pity Party in Boston, aka Miss H

1 comment:

  1. I have been reading in miniature too! Since work started, not to mention the new tv season, I've lacked motivation to pick up a book. I've been reading tons of magazines though: InStyle, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Northern Virginia Magazine...And I've been reading NYTimes.com every day. I'm such a creature of habit! Even though we've been living in DC for months, I still insist on reading the NY Times and not the Washington Post. What's up with that?
    I love cookbooks! Savannah's mom gave me Virginia Hospitality, which is an amazing local cookbook written by the Junior League in the 70s. They have mini-articles on the food history of VA, and some classically dated recipes - Orange Sherbert Salad, anyone? Some of the classics may not have stood the test of time, but the Apple Crisp sure did. We enjoyed it last weekend and it was delicious! Not nearly as out of control as Banana Spice Cake with Peanut Butter Icing, though!
    Some of my favorite cookbooks: Cooking Up a Storm (thanks Savannah and Mr. Savannah), the Lilly Pulitzer Guide to Entertaining, and a Cuban cookbook with the most phenomenal photos and detailed instructions for a pig roast with all the fixins! I'll look up the title when I'm downstairs digging up the YA books for your office, Miss H.
    What cookbooks do the rest of you recommend?

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