The Quarter of the Subtitle

I can tell I read a lot of non-fiction this quarter because good heavens, there are many long titles on this list. My wrists are a little stiff from all that typing (Ruby Oliver, your ridiculously long titles didn't help matters either).

• The Beach Trees by Karen White
This book was really quite fantastic until the last twenty pages. When you write a mystery novel, the resolution of the mystery shouldn't make you want to throw the book. At least, if I was writing a mystery novel, I wouldn't want that to happen.

• Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese
This is one of my favorite food books I've read. Hilariously funny guide to which foods are worth making from scratch and which ones you should just buy at the store. Look for a review next month.

• The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs, and Me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Look, it's no Frankie Landau-Banks, but I found myself quite delighted with these books. Quick, fun reads.

• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
I love it every time.

• Between by Jessica Warman
I was surprised by how much I LIKED this book about a girl who dies mysteriously and is sent back to observe her life and figure out what happened. I didn't see the twist coming at all, because I am slow like that.

• The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them by E. Lockhart
There really is very little to say about these - for the first time, I'm regretting reading the whole quartet, simply because now there are four of them to talk about on this list. 

• The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon - and me, Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Ditto.

• Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley
  
This WWII book about the flag raisers of Iwo Jima got me back into historical non-fiction. Such a great read. 

• Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys
This book about Lithuanian labor camps during WWII has been raved about and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it picks up some awards from ALA come January. I liked it. I just didn't LOVE it.

• Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver by E. Lockhart
Oh dear. I just. . . have  nothing more to say about these books. They were fun! I liked them! The end!

• Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 by Rafe Esquith
These books were very inspiring. I think I'll re-read them in a couple of years.

• Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes by Paula Szuchman
BAH, HUMBUG. This book had a great premise (and a long title), but it kind of fell flat for me. I'll just have to fail at love, marriage, and dirty dishes.

• Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World by Rafe Esquith
By far my least favorite of his three books. Go directly to one of the other two.

• There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith
The best of the three.

• Divergent by Veronica Roth
The most memorable part about this book is how I downloaded the audio and somehow missed part 7 of 8, which was deeply irritating. Not really the dystopian novel for me (words I never expected to say).

• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
This story about NYC in the twenties and thirties was a fun read, but now I can hardly remember it.

• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Absolutely in my top five books this year. 

• The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
This book meandered all over the place. Also, the jacket copy was terrible - totally misrepresented the book.

• Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming
I need to read more by Candace Fleming - she is such a rockstar writer.

• Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy
A fantastic

• Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
I got this audiobook for free. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. So dumb.

• What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Every once in a while, someone writes a fantastic chick-lit novel. This is one of them. 

• Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Another complete loser of a book.

• The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman by Meg Wolitzer
I desperately wanted this book to be like The View from Saturday. Needless to say, it was not. 

• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
I read this for a bookclub I used to belong to. It was quite good, about two women from vastly different social classes in modern India.

• Wish You Well by David Baldacci
I am ashamed how long it took me to finally finish this book from Tell Me What to Read. Once I FINALLY got around to it, I liked it quite well.

• Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness by Dominique Browning
A nice little memoir. The kind of thing to read on a quiet afternoon.

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
I can't believe I'd never read this before.

• The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker
  
Such typical trite YA. Every cliche in the book. Luke was really the only redeeming part of this book and I felt bad for HIM for even being in the book.

• Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay
It was truly unfair to this book to listen to it while I was reading Falling for Hamlet. This story was so crazy; Romeo and Juliet have spent the last seven hundred years inhabiting other bodies and trying to save (or in Romeo's case, destroy) true love. Bizarre.

• The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle
Read this for book club - we had a great discussion about death, family, and old age. I need to read more L'Engle books.

• Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray
Still thinking about this awesome retelling. Oh, Hamlet.

• A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
After Across the Universe and Divergent, I had low expectations. And, behold, it was pretty good!

• Lunch Wars: How to Start a School Food Revolution and Win the Battle for Our Children's Health by Amy Kalafa
Fascinating. Makes me think of all those times the horrible smell of boiling hot dogs wafted up from the cafeteria to the library in Boston. Bleck.

Lunch Wars by Amy Kalafa

You have a book about food? You have a book I would like to read.

I've read a bunch of food books over the last year or so (Animal, Miracle, Vegetable, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Matters, In Defense of Food, the upcoming Make the Bread, Buy the Butter), and I'm not losing steam yet. Bart probably wishes I would, so that I'd stop forcing him to stop whatever he's doing and listen to me read off a bunch of stats. But too bad for him. 

Lunch Wars is specifically about the food culture in schools and how to get changes made so that your child isn't getting a daily dose of mechanically separated chicken part nuggets (mmmm!) and Pop Tarts. 

Amy Kalafa made a documentary called Two Angry Moms about this same topic and this book is part follow-up, part how-to manual. 

It discusses in-depth why food matters for children, how the government regulations and big food providers work together to provide food for schools, how to get people involved in advocating for better school food, putting food education back in the classroom, keeping food (especially junk food) from being a reward used by teachers, and the economics of free and reduced school lunches and breakfasts. Basically, if it has anything to do with school food? It's in this book.

The fact that this is, in part, a manual means that there are some parts that are rather lengthy and not that relevant for people like me who are not actually looking to change the school food, but rather just generally interested (just typing that sentence makes me feel guilty - should I be down advocating at my local elementary school?). I didn't really need to see tons of examples of surveys to give to parents to determine how they feel about school food.

And it could have been edited down quite a bit - I think I could have very clearly gotten the picture with about 100 less pages. 

But there was so much else that just fascinated me. I loved the stories about parents who made things happen, who got rid of soda and prepackaged food in their schools and brought in organic milk and real produce. I loved hearing how schools successfully phased out terrible foods and brought in better products and simultaneously improved the cafeteria's bottom line, while reducing food and packaging waste (I know. I'm such a nerd).

I particularly enjoyed the section about the things that administrators and school boards are likely to say to shoot down efforts to improve food, and how to respond to them (for instance, "Kids need choices so they can learn to make good choices." Her response? "Offering children unhealthy foods and drinks at school contradicts what they are taught about good nutrition and sends a mixed message. Why shouldn't all the choices be good choices?").

And because I am always interested in how money plays into the whole thing, I absolutely couldn't get enough of how big food industries like Coke try to get their brand in the schools and create mini consumers. Or how schools lose money on the actual lunches, so they sell junk food in order to make up the difference. Or how getting a free or reduced lunch has such a stigma that by the high school level, less than 35% of eligible kids take their lunch, preferring to go hungry, even if that's the majority of their food supply. And how, if the school lunches are terrible, kids who don't get the lunch free aren't going to buy it, making it very obvious which kids are too poor to pay themselves.

The studies about how food impacts children are just astounding. In one school that got rid of all soda saw a 50% decrease in suspensions from one year to the next (the superintendent thought better counseling was in part responsible, but credited the removal of caffeine as well). Schools that moved recess before lunch saw much more positive behavior in the classroom. Kids who originally only wanted to eat hot dogs learned to appreciate and enjoy diverse, healthy foods (it wasn't overnight, but it happened). 

Even if your child isn't in school or doesn't eat a school lunch (or even if you aren't feeding a child), this book is so useful, so fascinating, and so inspiring. (Amy Kalafa thought it didn't really apply to her because her child didn't eat lunch at school, but she discovered that the money she put on a lunch card for the occasional forgotten lunch emergency was being used on an almost DAILY basis by her daughter to buy french fries and soda).

I could bore you forever with anecdotes and statitistics from this book. I won't (you're welcome), but if you have any interest in food, this is a book worth taking a look at. 

I read this book for the BlogHer Book Club and you can read other reviews and discussion at BlogHer.

I am paid for my participation in the BlogHer Book Club, but I choose which books to read and my reviews are strictly my own opinions. If I think a book is terrible, I'll say so. If I rave about a book, it's because it's one I'd give to Kayla or my mom.

Groupon-ing

I like saving money and getting bargains. (Is this a surprise to anyone who knows me? No).

So you might think that I'm really really into sites like Groupon. (If you've been somehow living in an underground bunker for the last couple of years, Groupon and the many many knock-offs of Groupon let you buy gift certificates for outings, restaurants, hotels, etc at a large discount - usually around 50% off).

And I've bought a few Groupons here and there (one just recently for this little food truck called MamboBerry in Austin - the menu will make you want to die of happiness), mainly because somehow some people signed up long ago through my link and I got some credit. And so by "bought" I mean, "not bought, but rather got for free." 

Also, I have a little stash of credit to the more local Morgan's Deals because they kept giving out coupon codes for $10 off, so I'd "buy" something for $10 and then tell other people about it and THEY'D get free stuff too and I got credit for that, etc. Bart and I went on a couple of nice little dates for free ice cream, pizza, and cupcakes (including one memorable night at Baskin Robbins where Bart barely got through his double scoop and I put away, almost effortlessly, a triple scoop (and each scoop was the size of a tennis ball). He was impressed. I was a little horrified. Also full.).

Additionally, I have some Mamapedia credit which I will likely never spend because they never have anything I'm interested in.

And, Juice in the City just recently launched in Austin and by signing up early I got some credit there which I've already spent because they've actually had some interesting deals (although you don't get referral credit on their extra-good deals which makes SHARING their good deals less tempting, which is, I think, a mistake on their just-launched part. But what do I know?).

(By the way, I don't get emails from any of these places - I've filtered them all straight to my trash folder, so I just look at the sites when I remember to).

So yes, I like the concept of getting big discounts to restaurants and things.

But I can't stop wondering how good of a deal this is for the businesses themselves.

I understand, of course, that the idea is for people to try out somewhere new and be so enthralled that they go back again and again. And that they're only paying for customers who actually come in, rather than, say, advertising on a billboard where they pay up front, regardless of how much traffic it drives.

But it's a high cost for businesses, since you pay about 50% of the regular cost and then they only get half of THAT. So they're generally getting around 25% of your meal food, comping the other 75%.

(Also, I recognize that lots of restaurants expect you to buy some beverages of the adult variety when you go out to eat, and since we don't drink, well, that doesn't work out for the restaurant's bottom line very well).

I'm conflicted on the whole thing - not so conflicted that I won't use my free credits, of course - but I'm not really wild about supporting Groupon and the like either, since they've basically just put themselves between the business and the consumer (which is why I like the free credit because then Groupon isn't paid; the discount comes entirely out of their pocket. I think).

Of course, in a crowded marketplace, businesses need SOME way to get their name out there.

On the other hand, as deal sites pop up like crazy (one of the Austin blogs I read listed FORTY ONE local deal sites recently), I wonder if people are just more likely to hop from one Groupon-ed meal to another, trying tons of new restaurants and outings, instead of, as the restaurant probably hopes, developing a deep and long-lasting loyalty to a particular place, where they will return month after month to spend scores of real money.

I try to ease my guilt by leaving really good tips when we go out, but still, I always feel badly about paying by Groupon (except that one time we went with Landen and Adam to this cupcake and ice cream place that was so terrible I would have been angry for days if I'd paid real money for it. The ice cream appears to have been made with flavored Crisco. All four cupcakes with sub-par).

Am I the only one who is way over thinking this?  (And of course, if you sign up through my links and I get credit, I won't be complaining about that either. So maybe I'm just a raging hypocrite).

Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray

I love the idea of retellings of classic stories. But then I read the much-hyped Jane and. . . .people. I could not get behind it. It was a retelling of Jane Eyre (one of my favorite classics) and it was so ludicrous, I couldn't stand it. It had no personality of its own - it was like lifting Jane Eyre and sticking it right in modern times (and making Mr. Rochester a rock star. I cringe even writing those words).

Also, when a man in 2011 keeps his wife locked in the attic instead of divorcing her? You don't feel bad for a man caught in horrible circumstances. You feel more like he is a completely crazy loon.

Whoops, I may have forgotten which book I was reviewing here. The point of this is to say that I was a little worried that this Hamlet retelling might be more of the same.

Happily, it was not.

I've been waiting for Falling for Hamlet since I saw a display copy of it at TLA in April, but when I finally got a copy of it, I kept thinking I ought to read the real version of Hamlet before jumping into this one (especially since I am trying to meet my goal of reading four classics this year).

I ended up listening to the 1948 radio version of it, which was quite good (also, I restrained myself from listening to it at double speed). And I think having just heard the original made it much more fun to read Falling for Hamlet.

Falling for Hamlet does just what I want a retelling to do - stay true to the original, while putting a new, interesting spin on it.

This one takes place in modern times in Denmark. Hamlet is the prince (the names of the characters are consistent with Shakespeare, which was nice) and Ophelia is his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Her dad, Polonius, is an adviser to the king, which means he lives in the palace, as does his family. Ophelia and Hamlet have been friends for years, before their romantic relationship begins.

Their relationship (which Polonius deeply disapproves of) makes Ophelia the subject of much media fodder and she can't help but think about what it will mean for her life if she continues to date Hamlet. After all, someday he will be the king. Does she want to be queen? Does she want all the media attention that will bring? She's seen the cost to her own family of living in the public spotlight because of her dad's job, and she knows it's nothing compared to what being the royal family would be.

One of the biggest changes from the original story is that Ophelia doesn't die. She fakes her own death to escape the madness that is enveloping the palace. Of course, after everyone else ends up dead and she reappears, you can imagine the media storm that envelops her and also how suspicious the government is about one person on the inside still being alive while everyone else is getting buried.

Speaking of which, Ophelia is such a fantastic character. She's smart, but she also does foolish things, sometimes knowing it's dumb and sometimes realizing after the fact when she's made a mistake. She loves Hamlet, but she also is horrified by how quickly he's dissolved into a depressed, ghost-seeing guy. She thinks their relationship needs to come to an end, but she also keeps wanting to go back to him. She acts the way you'd imagine a high school senior would, when presented with this set of circumstances.

I think this book does a great job with the media aspect of the story - you can just imagine how nuts the media would be if the royal family started behaving the way (and how paranoid the people in the middle of the whole debacle would be about word of this getting out). It didn't feel over the top - not if you've ever looked at a tabloid magazine or seen a talk show - and I thought it added a nice dimension to the story (although I could see it bothering some readers. I just wasn't one of them).

The author's note in the back talks about how she saw a modern version of Hamlet performed and it was the first time she'd felt real sympathy for Hamlet. I loved that about this story - Hamlet's doing some incredibly horrible things, but wow. You can't help but just feel so sorry for him and how quickly his life has fallen apart. And Ophelia? How could you even move on with your life when everyone you love has died in the most heartbreaking ways possible.

Falling for Hamlet emphasized for me how tragic the story of Hamlet really is. It's one thing to have it happen in medieval Denmark. It's another to see it from a first-person perspective in modern times. I just ached for both Hamlet and Ophelia.

I particularly love how the author's goal is to get people to recognize what a marvelous storyteller Shakespeare is. Reading this in connection with the original text was just such a fun reading experience - I haven't enjoyed a YA book so much all summer. I've been thinking about it non-stop. I hope she writes more.


Copy received from publisher

Slow Love by Dominique Browning

This book got billed as a similar memoir to Eat, Pray, Love. I couldn't stand Eat, Pray, Love, though, so I was hopeful that this book would be more  up my alley (or, you know, not drive me to throwing things across the room - I don't ask for much).

Happily, this book was a far better read for me than the book-that-must-not-be-named.

Dominique Browning was the editor of a lifestyle magazine until it folded, leaving her unemployed. Divorced, with grown children, she has to reinvent her life without work to give it meaning and direction.

Her life is drastically different than mine, but the contemplation of how she spends her time, who she associates with, how her possessions figure into her life all are things I've thought about at length in the last months.

A few lines I loved:

• "I have absolutely zero experience in filling my days with activity of my own choosing."
• "I am deciding not only where home is going to be, but also how I am going to live there."  
• "If [a recipe] has the ingredients you like, you will enjoy the combination of them. If some of them are suspect, they will only be made worse in the aggregate."
• "Why, at this time in my life, would I want to be around anyone who does not turn his face to joy and sunlight when there is a choice?"

The book has a leisurely feel to it, but I read it in about two days (the last chapter, though, a whole introspection while boating on a pond? Skim City. I'm just saying). 

I read this as part of the BlogHer bookclub - you can read a few essays by the author and other reviews at BlogHer.

I am paid for participating in the BlogHer bookclub (hello, a dream come true - getting paid to read!), but I choose the books that I want to read and I can write whatever I want. 

Using a CSA

So, I've been getting a CSA box for many months now. And I love it. I didn't realize how much I loved it until we took a few weeks off in the summer because the girl I split it with was gone a few weeks and then I was gone a few weeks, etc.

I make a big effort to waste as little of the food as possible and sometimes that's a little tricky because 1) it's a lot of produce and 2) sometimes it's not stuff we eat on a normal basis. But hey, this week was extremely successful, so I'll share how we used it up.

Here's what we got in the box last week:

Winter Squash
Hot and Sweet Peppers
Eggplant
Zuchinni
Sweet Potato Greens
Bok Choi
Basil
Arugula
Okra
Melon
Onions

And. . . here's how I used it (you care! I know you care!)

• Winter Squash - I cubed the butternut and acorn squash, tossed them in a pan with a little olive oil and taco seasoning and roasted it for a while. Easy side dish.

• Hot and Sweet Peppers - Bart and I both aren't enormous fans of peppers, so it's a little tricky to use them up, but I try and squeeze them in. I made jalapeno dip for a baby shower, I diced them up super tiny for this Citrus Beans dish, and I whirled them in the food processor for this taco meat. 

• Eggplant - I made eggplant parmesan again, but this time I didn't bake it all together in a casserole dish, but instead made ciabatta bread and we had eggplant sandwiches (they were tasty, although Bart and I agreed we should have had tomato sauce on them in addition to slices of tomatoes).

• Zucchini - this zucchini pizza which, I swear, is the best pizza I've ever had. Bart agrees.

• Sweet Potato Greens - I used these instead of spinach in this Hot Spinach Dip.

• Bok Choi - This is not my favorite vegetable, so I made this taco meat with it. Frankly, this wasn't my most favorite taco meat ever, but it wasn't bad. It was quite a bit better the second day as leftovers.

• Basil - I made a big batch of pesto (using half almonds and half pine nuts), froze it in ice cube trays and tossed all the pesto cubes in a ziplock bag. Cheap pesto all winter!

• Arugula - I used half of it on these peach, cherry, brie sandwiches, and the rest in a strawberry goat cheese salad. The salad was the first time I really enjoyed arugula - a good lesson in playing to the flavor of the produce rather than fighting it.

• Okra - I roasted them. Even Ella seemed to like them.

• Melon - sliced up and eaten as a sidedish.

• Onions - If you don't know what to do with an onion, this isn't the blog for you.

Birthday Report

First things first.

The cake, obviously. It was fantastic. Here is SO much more than you wanted to know about it.

I used, at Natalie's suggestion, Ghiradelli's Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. And I used mini chocolate chips, because when the cake is cold, a full-size chocolate chip is a one-way ticket to the dentist's chair.

The most stressful part of making cookies for me is not overbaking them, so it was very refreshing to have cookies that need to be overbaked and crispy (if they aren't, your cake will be mega mushy). I cooked mine for 11 minutes.

The first batch I made, I used my medium-size cookie scoops and they were too big (I used those cookies for the center of my cake). After that, I did about 3/4 of a tablespoon and those were just about perfect.

It made exactly 48 cookies and, since I was halving the original cake recipe, that was ideal. I did seven cookies on each layer (one of the too-big ones in the middle and six smaller cookies around that) and I ended up with seven layers (on the top layer, I did five of the too-big cookies and called it good).

I didn't buy mascapone cheese because I am cheap, instead I just used this substitute. When you make the whipped cream, it's not very sweet. I was a little worried, but I shouldn't have been.

This is an extremely rich dessert - I cut pretty small slices (the original recipe says it serves 10; I served my half-sized cake to SIXTEEN adults) and we still had a few slices left afterward. Some people couldn't even quite finish their slices, it was that rich.

Bart said it was about what he was expecting and that he'd prefer either cake or cookies, rather than a combo of the two. But the next day, when it had sat an extra night in the fridge and was very cold? He kept going back for another bite. We polished it off after lunch with no problem.

I will totally make this again. I'm tempted to try other combinations (like chocolate cookies with mint whipped cream or gingersnaps with pumpkin whipped cream). Seriously, I loved this dessert.

And, in case you don't care about dessert and cookies and whipped cream (who are you?), here's the dress Merrick made me for my birthday.

A dress I will probably never fit into again after eating that cake (worth it!)

Pirate Nap by Danna Smith, illustrated by Valeria Petrone

When Pirate Nap arrived, I opened it and set it on the counter without reading it. The next day, I came home from running an errand and Bart, who had been home with Ella, said, "This is my new favorite picture book we own."

Well. What more is there to say?

(There's more. Don't get your hopes up).

This book is written in rhyme which I often find so grating I want to shred the book up (but I wouldn't, of course, because that would set a bad example). These rhymes worked like a charm for me - they scan nicely, they aren't stupid, and I didn't feel that nagging sensation that the author was just trying to find a word that rhymed, regardless of how it fit into the storyline. In fact, sometimes I find myself just reciting pages of it out loud (especially embarrassing when Ella isn't even around).

The illustrations have a fun, modern feel to them that I love. And while it's touted as a "Book of Colors," the color aspect is subtle. Each page mentions a different color and the name of that color is printed in the color, but it's not so overt that you can't just enjoy the story. 

Ella is a little young for colors right now, but she loves pointing out the dog and the hat on each page.

It's just such a rollicking, fun little book. I'd definitely give this one as a gift (maybe with a big pirate hat or eye patch, just because what gift isn't improved with an eye patch?).

Copy sent by publisher

Vegetarian Recipe #5: Eggplant Parmesan

One of the things I like about vegetarian meals is that they are generally pretty fast because I don't have to remember to defrost the meat, I don't have a bunch of knives and cutting boards to be careful about reusuing, and I don't have to worry about meat being undercooked.

I can't lie, though. This dish is not a super quick toss together. Every time I make it, I think "Bah, this is a freaking pain." Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's worth it, though, especially when you are just swimming in eggplants. Especially when your heart is not necessarily filled with love for eggplants.

I've also just made the breaded eggplant slices and used them in sandwiches with some mayo, melted mozzarella cheese, and tomato slices (although I should have spread a little tomato sauce on it too). 

Either way, this is a really good, non-soggy eggplant recipe. And I'll keep making it despite the hassle.

Eggplant Parmesan
(adapted very slightly from Annie's Eats)



Ingredients:
1 lb globe eggplant, cut into ¼-inch rounds (I usually use two or three small eggplants)
1½ tsp salt
3 slices of bread
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. pepper, divided
¾ cup flour
3 egg whites or 1 large whole egg
3 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes
¼ cup fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
Salt and ground black pepper

4 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese (about 1 cup)
½ oz. freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about ¼ cup)


Directions:
Toss the sliced eggplant with the salt in a large bowl.  Transfer the salted eggplant to a colander and set the colander in the empty bowl.  Let drain for about 30-45 minutes (your eggplant will probably give off about 1 TB of liquid).  Spread the eggplant slices on a few layers of paper towels and cover with more paper towels. Press firmly to remove excess liquid.

While the eggplant drains, put a rimmed baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 425˚ F.  Pulse the bread in a food processor until it is finely ground.  Add the parmesan cheese and salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and pulse a few more times to combine. Transfer the crumbs to a pie plate or dinner plate.


Combine the flour and ¾ teaspoon pepper in a large ziplock bag and shake to combine.  Beat the egg (or egg whites) in a second pie plate and add 2 TBS of water.  Place the eggplant slices in the bag with the flour; seal and shake to coat (you may have to do this in two batches, depending on how many slices you have).

Remove the slices from the bag, dip in the eggs, shaking to remove excess egg.  Coat the slice in the bread crumb mixture and set the breaded slices on a wire rack.  Repeat until all the slices are breaded.

Remove the preheated baking sheet from the oven an pour the vegetable oil on the sheet, tilting to coat evenly. Lay the eggplant slices on the baking sheet in a single layer.  Bake for 30 minutes total, rotating the baking sheet after 10 minutes and flipping the slices over after 20 minutes (keep an eye on any really small pieces to make sure they don't burn). Leave the oven on. 

While eggplant bakes, prepare tomato sauce. Heat the olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, about 1 minute.  Stir in the tomatoes and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes.  Stir in the basil and season with s & p to taste. Use an immersion blender to break up the tomatoes, leaving it slightly chunky (alternatively, pulse it a few times in a food processor or blender or just mash it a little with a potato masher or fork).

To assemble the dish, spread ½ cup tomato sauce in the bottom of a 2-quart casserole dish.  Layer in half of the eggplant slices, overlapping the slices to fit.  Spread with another ½ cup sauce.  Sprinkle with half of the mozzarella.  Layer in the remaining eggplant and dot with the remaining sauce, leaving the majority of the eggplant exposed so it will remain crisp. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and the remaining mozzarella. Bake until bubbling and the cheese is browned, 13-15 minutes.

I served it with carrot puree (an all-time favorite in our home), and a tomato/avocado/crouton/mushroom salad with ranch dressing. Delish.

One Year Older

Wednesday was my birthday. And it was delightful.

I don't think I'll ever grow out of enjoying my birthday - it doesn't have to be a huge affair, it just makes me happy to be having a birthday.

I went for a run with some friends, Ella slept in until almost eight, we had a nice waffle and cider syrup breakfast before Bart went to work. Kayla wrote this lovely post about me. Have I mentioned how much I LURVE Kayla?

Ella took two two-hour naps, we went out for lunch (free sandwiches from Firehouse and Schlotzky's), and then Landen and Adam came over to babysit while Bart and I went out to do a little shopping (shoe shopping! my favorite!) and to dinner.

Then we came home, opened some lovely gifts (if you think the dress Merrick made ELLA is cute, wait until you see the one she made me - I'll take pictures sometime this weekend), and went to bed.

And the fun isn't over yet - Ralphie's having a little birthday lunch for me today and then this weekend? There will be this:

Image from Martha Stewart

Bart is dubious, but I spit upon his dubiousness. What in the world is there to be dubious about? (Also, the best part of a birthday is I can make whatever dessert I want and not care if he's skeptical). I am deeply indebted to Natalie at Perry's Plate for posting about this cake.

Dallas

A couple of weeks ago, Bart had training for work up in Dallas. Training in a different (but not too far) city means two things: a free hotel room and reimbursement for car mileage.

Obviously, Ella and I went along.

Happily, some dear friends from Boston moved to Dallas this summer, so we went straight to their house on Sunday afternoon (we left Austin directly from church and Ella slept for the first two hours of the drive and then was very pleasant for the last ninety minutes of the trip). We had a terrific dinner and Ella fell all over herself, playing with new toys.

We stayed at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Dallas and it was very nice. The big selling feature for me was the closet that was just wide enough to fit the portable crib inside (truly, if it'd been one inch narrower, the crib wouldn't have opened). It was a lifesaver to stick Ella in bed, crank up the sound machine, and close the door at night and for her naps. Let me tell you, I prayed for a closet like that the whole way up to Dallas, miserably imaging five days of trying make my baby sleep in the bathroom and wondering how I would deal with having no access to said bathroom for 12 hours a night, beginning at seven in the evening.

Closet aside, the Fairmont was very lovely, and you would have thought the staff had never seen a baby before. By the end of the week, nearly every bellhop and concierge knew Ella's name, were pulling out bubbles and other little toys when she came by, and would stop to talk to her. One man, the second morning we were there, rushed by and the stopped and said, "Yesterday afternoon, the entire executive board wouldn't stop talking about how cute your baby is. It took up the first five minutes of our meeting." Oh, Fairmont. You've made me a fan for life.

While Bart was in training all day, Ella and I enjoyed getting to know Dallas a little better. We visited the Arboretum ($1 days in August! Probably because it was so hot - we fortunately went on a day where it'd rained for a bit in the morning, so it was reasonably cool).

We checked out the children's section of the Dallas Public Library which is very very nice.

 

The Fountain Place next door to our hotel provided endless entertainment and shade.

We had picnics on the floor of our hotel room (you may notice that someone didn't want to wait until I was done taking a picture of my nicely arranged tray).

There was some brain-rotting with TV (hardly. Ella mainly just LOVED playing in the pillows and throwing the remote on the ground. Happily, she had no idea what the remote was really meant for).

And the three of us went out for dinner every night.

There was also swimming, lots of elevator rides, picking up rocks on the garden level, and petting the stone turtle in the lobby. Really, what more could you ask for in a vacation?

It was a fun week and nice of Bart's job to pay nearly the entire thing (minus seventy five cents to park at the library). And now I've seen more than the freeway in Dallas.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

I have a secret soft spot in my heart for chick-lit (oh, was that your respect I hear crashing down?). I don't read a lot of it, though, because so much of it is just terrible and leaves me completely disappointed.

Every now and again, though, I read something that is just so delightful and so fun that it makes me run to the library and check out about ten more books (all of which end up being lousy and then I give up for another year or so).

What Alice Forgot? One of the ones I loved.

I'm already a sucker for books about memory loss, and so when Angie reviewed this book a couple of weeks, I hadn't even finished reading her post before I was clicking over to request it from my library. The premise is similar to Remember Me? except that Remember Me? is terrible. 

Alice comes to on the floor of the gym, with a bunch of worried friends around her. They aren't the only ones that are worried - Alice is expecting her first baby and she's concerned that the fall might have hurt the baby (she also can't figure out why she's at the gym; she hates the gym).

The surprise of being at the gym, though, takes a quick backseat to the shock Alice receives when she realizes that it's not 1998 like she thought, but instead it's 2008. She's not pregnant - she has three children.

And the happy, new-ish marriage to Nick that she remembers is now on the verge of divorce. It's a lot to take in.

Now Alice is determined to figure how her life has changed so much - why has her marriage fallen apart, and who are these children, and why is her relationship with her sister strained? How has she gone from a quiet and happy twenty-nine year old to a thin, grim, nearly-divorcee at thirty nine? And is her memory going to come back? And if does, what then?

I think the key to success with this book is that it doesn't try to play the amnesia bit for laughs. Never once does it feel gimmicky. The whole premise worked really well for me.

But it's not just the premise that's solid here.

The narration is carried by three different voices. There is Alice, of course, who is not only navigating the present without her memory intact, but also recounting memories of the past - meeting Nick, their early married life together, the beginning of their enormous house remodel.

Then we have Elizabeth, Alice's older sister, who is writing letters to her therapist, recounting her own life problems and trying to deal with Alice's sudden change in behavior. Her life stands in rather stark contrast to Alice's, and the juggle she has between newly-resurrected protective feelings toward Alice and many years of jealousy and misunderstanding is very well-handled.

There's also Frannie, the pseudo-grandmother to Elizabeth and Alice, writing letters to an unidentified someone. Frankly, she could have been cut, but. . . her story isn't terrible. Just rather unnecessary. 

Having all these narrators might be too much, but Moriarty works them quite masterfully. They each have distinct voices and Alice and Elizabeth's stories, in particular, gripped me. One of the things that I hate about most chick-lit or romance novels is that you know what the ending is going to be and it's just a matter of plowing through pages to get there. This is not like that. There was no race to the end - it wasn't the happy (or unhappy ending) I was working for, it was the reading itself I enjoyed.

And the characters are, almost entirely, excellent. Alice is just so likeable. And Nick? I couldn't not love Nick. Their three children are terrific as well - a little crazy, sometimes loveable, sometimes needing a good thumping (um, I don't thump my child, just for the record). Elizabeth and her husband are also stellar, well-rounded, real characters.

There are a few characters that are maybe a bit much, but they aren't the major characters, so I could forgive them.

What I want in a book, also, and which I feel like I so rarely get, are some twists in the plot that I didn't see coming at all, but that work perfectly, rather than feeling contrived. And some of the ones here - they got me. I loved it.

This book made me laugh (when Nick tells Alice something she normally would have said to him in their now-poor relationship, she shoots back, "There's a new Alice in town." I loved her), and it made me tear up. Watching Alice interact with her children whom she doesn't remember at all is very sweet. And her attempts to resuscitate her dying marriage are both heartbreaking and hopeful.

And what I really love is a story where I can't see where it's headed. Some of Emily Giffith's books do this brilliantly, and I felt like this one did as well. Sometimes I felt certain that Alice and Nick would be reunited, sometimes I thought Alice would let the divorce run through and start a new life. Up until the very very end, I just had no idea.

I read a few reviews that said it wrapped up too quickly at the end, but I'm inclined to think that's the point. This book wasn't about the ending - it was about Alice seeing her life through her younger self's eyes and trying to make sense of it. It was about her reexamining relationships and trying to decide where things went wrong and how she might fix them, and if she should even try.

There is a little bit of swearing in the book, but overall, it's quite clean.

I finished this book and immediately emailed my mom to tell her she should read it. And really, there can't be a much higher recommendation than that. 

Copy checked out from my local library

Baby Face

So you know how I spend my life walking around looking like a teenage mother?

I come by it naturally:

My parents on the right, with my dad holding baby me

(In fact, my dad has been mistaken for the groom at all three of his daughter's weddings).

Another Week of Clothing

Because you all pretended to care about my outfits last time, I'm now going to make you look at another week's worth of clothing (and, yes, apparently in my world, a week is only six days. Lucky me).

Day 1: Layer accessories
Day 2: Monochrome
Day 3: Mix fancy and casual
Day 4: Wear a closet orphan
Day 5: Wear a dress or skirt
Day 6: Jazz up jeans and a tee

I didn't participate in Week 3 because I was out of town (and also the last week was the hardest!), so consider yourself lucky that the fashion road ends here.

Today I'm wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. It's pretty awesome. But there will be no pictures.

Things I Prioritize

A week or so ago, Design Mom wrote a post about work/life balance and one of her suggestions was to prioritize sleep.

I've thought about that a lot and wondered about the things I prioritize. What things do I do, even at the expense of other things?

A few I've come up with off the top of my head:

• Sleep. I do not stay up late. On a LATE night, it's around midnight when we go to bed, but that is rare. We are usually in bed by ten thirty or eleven. I have never once in my life pulled an all-nighter (except maybe as an infant, in which case, Mom, I'm desperately sorry). 
• Food. We eat a pretty balanced diet and we direct a good chunk of our grocery money toward our CSA box each week. I make time to cook dinner virtually every night and it is extremely extremely unusual for us to go out for dinner because I don't feel like cooking. I also am serious about not wasting food so we make big efforts to finish leftovers and use up odds and ends in the fridge (Bart is a saint to be on board with this). 
• Reading. Since Ella has stopped nursing four hours a day, I've had to make much more of an effort to read while she naps or when she plays outside. I try and keep something on my iPhone at all times so that I can listen to it in the car, or when I'm pushing her in the stroller or while I'm doing household chores or cooking. 
• Getting Ready in the Morning. I shower, put on makeup and do my hair every single day. My mom is like this too (even when she's sick), and I've picked up from her that I'll feel better about myself and my life if I'm not wearing ugly pajamas and my hair looks like something died in there. I don't fear the UPS man's knock at four p.m.  I hate to waste a nap time getting ready, but if I have to do it, I do it.
• Being Outside. I think being outside is really important and I like to be away from the computer. If Ella wakes up early, we take her to the dog park and let her run around. Most days, in the afternoon, we sit on the shady side of our building and she plays on the sidewalk and grass.
• Sun safety. Look, I'd love to be nice and tan, but I'd rather not have skin cancer and early wrinkles. I am very serious about wearing sunscreen at the pool and regular lotion with SPF in it. It's September of one of the hottest summers on record in Texas and not one of the three of us have had a sunburn this summer. Huzzah!
• A tidy house. I am not the world's best cleaner and my kitchen floor is usually . . . unfortunate, but I keep most things put away. Our table isn't piled with stuff, the bed is always made, Ella's toys stay put away when she's not playing with them, and the laundry gets put away the same day I wash it. 
• Having people over. We live in a fairly small apartment, we only have one couch, and my bathrooms aren't always sparkling. Ella's stroller sits in the entryway, and my patio has CSA boxes stacked on it. I don't care. We have people over all the time anyway. We invite people for dinner or lunch after church, we host a monthly couples FHE group, we have game nights and birthday parties, we have spur of the moment dessert get-togethers, and many pool parties. I'm unwilling to wait until we have the ideal circumstances to be social. Last General Conference, we had nineteen people for dinner. Most people sat on the floor. We didn't have fancy table settings (unless paper plates are fancy in your book). It was fantastic.

I wish I was better at prioritizing:

• Exercise. It's vital for me to have a partner or group to go with. Otherwise, I am mega hit-or-miss.
• Doing fun things with Bart on weekday evenings. It's easy for us to waste away our evenings after Ella goes to bed, just on the computer, etc. Stupid.
• Deep cleaning. Kayla once told me that she always cleans her baseboards before company comes. I . . . have cleaned my baseboards exactly once in my adult life and that was when we put our house on the market. I can hardly keep my floor mopped - you can bet I'm not dusting my ceiling fans or scrubbing the oven very often.
• Crafty things. I look at the amazing things Merrick does with a sewing machine and I am not good at doing these kinds of projects. I like to do them, but I just. . . don't.
• Staying up on the news. We get the Economist and on a good week, I'll open it. And perhaps read one article. Most weeks are not good weeks. 

Maybe I should prioritize buying some more seating. . . 

And speaking of prioritizing reading, I've just reviewed Rules of Civility for the BlogHer book club. It's historical fiction about the Great Depression in New York City. You can check out my review here.