Monthly Archives: October 2022

Fall Cookbooks

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Fall Cookbooks: A Baker’s Dozen

While many of us find inspiration and recipes online, browsing a new cookbook can be a wonderful experience. Here are 11 new cookbooks, 2 baking books featuring cookies, and one review.

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Smitten Kitchen Keepers is another winner from Deb Perelman, the author of Smitten Kitchen Every Day. While not vegetarian, this cookbook is vegetarian friendly. I tried five recipes, and four are definitely keepers at my house: Green Angel Hair Pasta with Garlic Butter (I’ve made this twice!), Breakfast Potato “Chips” with Sheet Pan Eggs, Zucchini Cornbread with Tomato Butter, and Date and Oat Shortbread Cookies, which were a hit with my coworkers at the library. Butterscotch Apple Crisp was good, but not great. There are plenty of suggestions for variations, along with Deb’s usual wonderful and witty headnotes. She has a small kitchen and cooks for a family of four, including one picky eater, who happily ate the pasta pictured above, which has plenty of garlic and spinach. This will be published November 15. 

More Fall Cookbooks

Clark, Melissa. Dinner in One

Flay, Bobby. Sundays with Sophie

Garden, Ina. Go-To Dinners

Karadsheh, Suzy. The Mediterranean Dish

King, Maren Ellingboe. Fresh Midwest

Rosenthal, Phil. Somebody Feed Phil the Book

Sarna, Shannon. Modern Jewish Comfort Food

Tandoh, Ruby. Cook as You Are

Williams, Odette. Simple Pasta

Yeh, Molly. Home is Where the Eggs Are

 

Fall Baking Books

Berenbaum, Rose Levy. The Cookie Bible

Tosi, Christina. All about Cookies

 

Enjoy! 

Brenda

 

November 2022 Book Discussion

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Please join the Tuesday Evening Book Group at 7pm on November 29* for our discussion of Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. In this first novel, Elizabeth Zott is a chemist in the early 1960s who becomes the host of an unexpectedly popular television cooking show. My earlier review is here.

Copies of the book are available for checkout at the Circulation Desk. eBook and eAudiobook copies are available from Media on Demand/Libby. Please register online or at the Computer Help Desk.

*Note different week. We are meeting on the 5th Tuesday, the week after Thanksgiving.

Hope to see you here!

Brenda

Adult Assembly Required

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adult assembly jacket

Adult Assembly Required by Abbi Waxman

Laura Costello moves from New York to Los Angeles for grad school. Before classes begin, she finds herself needing a new place to live, ASAP. Drenched after a rainstorm, Laura ends up in a bookstore with quirky, friendly booksellers (first encountered in the companion novel The Bookish Life of Nina Hill) and is referred to a charming boardinghouse where she meets Polly, Impossibly Handsome Bob, and the other residents. Laura and Bob watch baseball games together and shoot hoops, while Polly and Nina recruit her for their trivia team. Sounds cozy, like a romantic comedy, right?

Yet Laura struggles mightily with anxiety and PTSD after a serious car accident and hasn’t gotten the support she wanted from her family. In the end, her new friends and landlady help Laura face her fears in a comfort read with substance. Besides other titles by Abbi Waxman, readalikes include books by Emily Giffin, Linda Holmes, and Taj McCoy.

Brenda

Breathless

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breathless jacket

Breathless by Amy McCulloch

This debut thriller is like an Agatha Christie mystery set on Manaslu, which at 8163 meters is the 8th highest mountain on Earth, and the 4th most dangerous. Journalist Cecily Wong, a relatively inexperienced climber, is invited to witness Charles McVeigh climb his 14th and final 8000+ meter peak with no supplemental oxygen or fixed ropes. But Cecily only gets the story after she summits Manaslu with the aid of Galden Sherpa. Never having gone above 6000 meters, Cecily is anxious about climbing Manaslu, and thinks there’s a killer on the mountain, though no one seems to take her concerns seriously. At least there are two other women climbing Manaslu, and Cecily, who’s Chinese Canadian and had a Buddhist grandmother, bonds well with the Sherpas. The author really knows her subject and setting, having climbed Manaslu in 2019, becoming the youngest Canadian woman to summit at the age of 32. I thought this was a good thriller that could have been better, but it really kept my interest and I’m looking forward to McCulloch’s next novel, to be set in Antarctica.

Brenda

Mickey7

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mickey7

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

Darkly humorous, this science fiction novel is narrated by Mickey7, an expendable human on Niflheim, a brand new colony. Niflheim is icier than the colonists expected, and crops in their dome aren’t growing very well. Mickey7 is assigned the most dangerous jobs, and after he falls into a deep crevasse where dangerous Creepers live, his friend Berto, a helicopter pilot, reports his death. A bio printer makes Mickey8, who’s missing the last six weeks of Mickey7’s memories. Mickey7 doesn’t die, but he and his double must keep their overlapping lives a secret and share a short food ration. What happens when you meet yourself? Why did Mickey agree to be expendable, and will his girlfriend stand by him, or them? Mickey7, an amateur historian, reads about other colonies and how they thrived or failed. Suspenseful and thought provoking, this story really kept my interest, though I worried about how the book would end. Readalikes include Redshirts by John Scalzi, Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh, and Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Brenda

Maggie Moves On

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Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score

I picked this book up to read a romantic comedy set in a small town about home renovation, but what surprised and delighted me are the well-developed supporting characters, the theme of found family, and the very funny dialogue. Also a goofy dog who adopts two kittens. I find watching home renovation shows on television to be relaxing, but it’s probably not at all relaxing to produce them. Maggie and her best friend Dean renovate houses and have a popular YouTube channel. When they finish a project they move on, usually to another state. Dean would like to settle down in one place, but not Maggie. Then Maggie buys a Victorian mansion in Kinship, Idaho, where she visited as a girl. She has an instant attraction to Silas, a local landscape designer. Silas introduces her to his big, messy family and is interested in more than a summer fling. The town of Kinship is best known for a nearby stagecoach robbery and there are rumors of buried treasure. Laugh out loud funny and a memorable read; I will have to check out some of Lucy Score’s other novels. Readalike authors include Tessa Bailey, Jen DeLuca and Jennifer Crusie.

Brenda