Month: November 2016

Yeah, so – Thanksgiving *sigh* Such a colossal waste of time. Doing something I hate – cooking – food I don’t care to eat – turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy – for some arbitrary reason I don’t understand.  (Oh yay, let’s celebrate the beginning of a genocide.)

Once a year I make my husband mashed potatoes with gravy, you know the Anglo kind of gravy – brown.  I don’t touch the stuff. I truly dislike mashed potatoes, and gravy. Which is not to say the mashed potatoes and gravy I make is unpalatable; on the contrary it’s quite good. Throughout most of my adult life I’ve heard people talk about how difficult it is to make smooth tasty gravy.  The first time I made some it came out terrific – make a roux, add liquid, seasonings, simmer, stir and voilà – gravy. How is this difficult? Nevermind.

Growing up Italian-American, Thanksgiving was just another excuse to eat a whole lot of really good foods, turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy not being among them.  Oh, yes, there probably was turkey, somewhere in the kitchen but it rarely, okay, never, made it to the dining room. I remember one year, someone called to wish the family a ‘Happy Thanksgiving” and asked my mother if her turkey was in the oven yet, it was around Noon, and she screamed “Oh my god, it’s still in the freezer. I forgot to defrost it.” No big deal, even when it was ready on time we never ate it.

We did have stuffing tho – my mother made a killer stuffing that was baked in a separate pan. I wish I knew exactly what went in it, there’s no exact recipe, but I recall sausage meat, grated carrots, peppers, probably garlic,  – who knows what all else, what I do remember is it was delicious. So – yes to stuffing, no to turkey.

It will just be my husband and I since we have no friends to invite us to dinner. Which is okay because I don’t like eating other people’s cooking; I don’t like eating in restaurants either. I’ve reached a point in my life that I’m not overly fond of eating at all. 70 years of eating, I’m kinda over it.

With that attitude you would think I would be rail thin but just because I don’t care to eat that doesn’t mean my body doesn’t demand food. So I eat the easiest, fastest thing I can get my hands on – and that isn’t always the healthiest stuff to eat. Whatever.

So when do I take this stupid turkey thing out of the freezer?

1. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume – This is one of her ‘adult’ books (rather than a children or young adult book). This is the only book of hers I have ever read and it is wonderful. Check it out of your local library, you will enjoy it.

2. The Widow by Fiona Barton – I find the format a bit disconcerting, it goes back and forth in time BUT I also could not put it down. It is told from 3 viewpoints – the widow, the reporter and the detective, and that’s okay, that didn’t bother me at all. The time thing – meh. But still – a good read, you will stay engaged. I’m not too sure I found the end quite satisfying, I would have liked something happier. I like my endings tied up neatly and happy.

3. Diane Arbus by Arthur Lubow – dull as dishwater. Badly written. How anyone could make a person as intriguing as Diane Arbus boring is beyond me but the author succeeded. I did not finish the book.

4. Wedding Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke – a bit of fluff. I’ve read quite a few of these, the best part is the recipes. If you like to bake you might just be better off buying the “Lake Eden CookBook”

5. Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham – Most excellent. This is the second in a series, and my library does not stock the first. I keep hoping they will. It seems there is a third out now. Very well written, characters you care about, good story, NOT a fluffy murder/detective novel, this has meat to it.

6. Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich – Crap. The first 5 or so books in this series were laugh-out-loud funny and then – enough already. Move on. Same old, Same old. No longer funny.

7. In the Woods by Tana French – I liked it. I thought it was well written, liked the characters; good mystery. Yeah, so why not – pick it up.

8. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paul Coelho – Don’t bother; short book, waste of time.

Currently on my iPad: –

1. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen – An autobiography. A bit purple prose-y. I’m on page 27, probably won’t read any more.

2.  Would you believe I actually had another Maria Semple book on hold?  This One is Mine is her first novel. I will start it but probably like her other 2 books I started, I probably will not finish it. I found her books interesting and amusing for maybe the first third to half and then – enough was enough; I no longer cared and was losing the will to live.

3. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin – This is my next read. I know there is a new movie made from this book. I haven’t seen the movie and probably won’t. But I will give this book a whirl.

(Links are either reviews, which I hope are still available. or the author’s web site.)