food

They needed the eggs

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‘Special Cozy and Delicious Weekend Edition‘

So. Those of you who follow my blog (thank you!) know that I’ve been trying to restrain myself. Limit my posts to twice a week. But I’m breaking my self-imposed rule today.

See, the Duchess of Devonshire died. Not that I knew her or anything, but I do think of her around this time of year because that’s when I dust off the le Creuset and make her boeuf bourguignon. Which is absolutely the best BB ever. (Recipe included at the end of this post. So, if you’re bored, feel free to skip ahead.)

But if you’d like to find out what the heck the Duchess of D has to do with Malcolm Forbes, read on.

Malcolm Forbes wasn’t a Duchess (or even a Duke), but he was probably pretty close to what passes for Royalty on our side of the Pond. He was powerful, he knew a lot of famous people. Besides, he had tons of money, certainly more than Debo (as she was known to her friends and fam, but not to commoners like me — or even Malcolm, I bet).

Well, Malcolm was one of the Dude’s Dad’s patients. (The Dude would kill me for mentioning this, Continue reading

Yup, Summer’s officially over

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Toasted cheese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Farewell BLT. Welcome Toasted Cheese’

When I was a kid back in the Midwest the highlight of our summer was the Clinton County Fair. It was hot, it was dusty. It was noisy, it was crowded. But it had carnies and cotton candy and corn dogs. We loved getting sick on the rides and even sicker on the food. (We also used to have a blast arguing over which high school girl was going to be crowned Miss Clinton County Fair, but that’s another story.)

But the Fair always made my Mom sad. She said it was because Fair Time, even though it was right at the height of ‘calendar summer’ — July, for heavens’ sakes — meant, for her, that Summer Time was pretty much over. I never understood this until I got older and summer started lasting ten minutes.

Anyway. According to the calendar, today is the day Summer is officially over, the ‘end’ being September 21 (or is it 22 this year?) But I say ‘calendar schmalendar’. We all have our own, very personal, ways of deciding when Summer is over, or about to be. For some, it’s Labor Day. For others, it’s when Continue reading

Tolstoy is so tasty

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‘Making a meal out of books’

Having just polished off my umpteenth Harlan Coben mystery (‘Tell No One’, ‘Stay Close’, ‘Gone for Good’, etc., etc., etc.), I decided to take a break and share my Food Theory of Books.

Which is that books are a lot like food. There are Dinner Books (‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Canada’, to name just two). These satisfy, but don’t leave you feeling bloated or disgusted with yourself (for me that would be ‘The DaVinci Code’). There are Snack Books, which are lighter but still quite tasty (Muriel Spark). And Junk Food Books (by Lee Child, or the afore-mentioned Harlan Coben), that are filling, cheap, and leave you craving more.

Dessert Books are the ones you set aside special, as a treat. For me, that’s whatever is the latest murder mystery by Sue Grafton I put in my Amazon ‘save for later’ folder (‘later’ being when it comes out in paperback).

Then there is the category I call the Mallomar Book. Continue reading