Book Review - A Walk Across the Sun

Yet another absolutely fabulous book club selection and dinner!!! My friend Maura had recommended this book and said it was a great read, she was not kidding. I loved that for this month, it was easy to pick what type of food we would go out for, Indian food. I've probably had Indian food twice in my life, and it was close to a decade ago, and it was not the best experience. I went with my Mom and Bridget and I seem to recall not enjoying it and picking things that were too spicy and not to our liking and I've never had Indian food since. It's certainly not Mike's thing so the two of us have never been. But I was really excited to try it again and experience something new, hoping that this would be a better experience and it was!

After the original restaurant we picked to meet at we found out was closed for renovations we headed over to this small little place, Tandoori Chef, not far away. We decided it would be fun to split a couple of different items from the menu. For our dinner we had:

• Vegetable Samosa - Crisp deep-fried turnovers filled with seasoned potatoes and green peas
• Samosa Chat - Samosa topped with chickpeas, yogurt, and onions
• Chicken Tikka Masala - Boneless marinated chicken broiled in the tandoor clay oven and then smothered in creamy tomato sauce with onions and peppers
• Chana Masala - Chickpeas, onions, and ginger cooked in with Indian spices and tomato sauce.
• Basmati Rice 
• Garlic Naan - White flour bread topped with fresh garlic
• Kulfi - Homemade pistachio ice cream with saffron and cardamom

I have to say I loved all of it. It was so different from what I was used to but everything was delicious. I really enjoyed the vegetarian chick pea dishes and the vegetable samosa's were awesome, and you definitely can't go wrong with the garlic naan. Maybe I can go back with my Mom and Bridget again and give it another shot since it's been 10 years since our last try. I was so excited to get to try all this new food along with the great company!

Book Title: A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison

Book Summary (From Amazon): When a tsunami rages through their coastal town in India, 17-year-old Ahalya Ghai and her 15-year-old sister Sita are left orphaned and homeless. With almost everyone they know suddenly erased from the face of the earth, the girls set out for the convent where they attend school. They are abducted almost immediately and sold to a Mumbai brothel owner, beginning a hellish descent into the bowels of the sex trade.

Halfway across the world, Washington, D.C., attorney Thomas Clarke faces his own personal and professional crisis-and makes the fateful decision to pursue a pro bono sabbatical working in India for an NGO that prosecutes the subcontinent's human traffickers. There, his conscience awakens as he sees firsthand the horrors of the trade in human flesh, and the corrupt judicial system that fosters it. Learning of the fate of Ahalya and Sita, Clarke makes it his personal mission to rescue them, setting the stage for a riveting showdown with an international network of ruthless criminals.

Book Review: Wow, what a powerful book, this book had so many emotions and layers to it. At times I was so angry for what these girls went through and to think that this actually goes on. The terrible things that these innocent children were put through. It was amazing to just learn about this topic and know that this is going on in the world today. The chapters were so short I just kept reading on, I found it took no time at all to read this book. I wanted to read on to make sure these girls were ok. The author also did a good job of weaving in the other story line of the Lawyer that was helping with the case and trying to find the girls, of describing his own hardship and the story of him and his wife. The book was very well written and made you feel for all of the characters in the story. Although it is not a light hearted read, it was a very good read, educational to say the least!

Easter at The Manor

This year for Easter we went back to The Manor again. We went three years ago before our wedding for Easter with my family. It was an easy choice to pick to go back to again this year, since it was going to be a small holiday. Mike's parents were away on their first European Adventure (to London & Paris), and it meant no one would have to cook or clean. We had a wonderful time and definitely enjoyed the delicious spread they put out. I think my favorite still has to be the mushroom soup, I love that soup.

Here's a couple pictures of us before dinner (although not the best quality since I stole them from Mom's shutterfly - Mom if you're reading this can you send me the actual attachments? k, thanks!) 

Book Review - Beautiful Creatures

I must admit when I saw the first movie trailer for this book last year I had no desire to see it, let alone read it. Yet here I am reviewing the book. What can I say, it came up an Amazon Daily Deal for $1.99 and I couldn't resist. It now has close to 3,000 reviews on Amazon at 4 1/2 stars. I think it must have been my President's Day off that I spent reading the whole book. It was a quick read, I'll give it that much. Think of it as Twilight meets Discovery of Witches, I don't mind that sort of thing.

Book Title: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

Book Summary (From Amazon): Ethan Wate, a high school sophomore, plans to escape his small Southern town as soon as he can. Life has been difficult since his mother died; his father, a writer, has withdrawn into his study. Then Lena Duchannes arrives, and this strange new girl is the very one who has been occupying his dreams. She and her kin are Casters, beings who have supernatural powers. Getting to know her exposes Ethan to time travel, mortal danger, and love. The teens can hardly bear to be apart, but Lena's 16th birthday, when she will be Claimed for dark or light, is only 6 months away. To save her, they fight supernatural powers and the prejudice of closed-minded people. Yet, good and evil are not clearly delineated, nor are they necessarily at odds. In the Gothic tradition of Anne Rice, the authors evoke a dark, supernatural world in a seemingly simple town obsessed with Civil War reenactments and deeply loyal to its Confederate past. The intensity of Ethan and Lena's need to be together is palpable, the detailed descriptions create a vivid, authentic world, and the allure of this story is the power of love.

Book Review: So I liked the book, but I hated the ending, that overshadowed it for me. It was clearly written to have a sequel to it, but the way it ended was just so flat to me. I felt like so much had been left out of what could have been. There was all this build up for 500 pages and then it just went dull, I had to reread it to see if I missed something (which I'll admit I do sometimes).

Overall, I thought it was a good story premise, but I did feel like there was even more they could have done with parts and added to it even more. Don't get me wrong what was written I really enjoyed and found myself wanting to continually read on to see what was going to happen next. When I finished it after I got over the, "that's all," I didn't find myself going to buy the next installment (in fact I still haven't), so that is kind of telling to me. If you're into the Young Adult books with the forbidden love story then this book will be right up your alley.

I definitely plan to see the movie when it comes out on DVD. Although I'm sure it won't be the same as the book, which in this case may be a good thing, maybe the movie will have a little bit more at the end. I'll be curious to see. If nothing else I think the scenery will be great to see on film!

5 Years Already

Five years, that's how long it's been now since we bought our house. I just looked back on here and I have a post from our second anniversary in our house, crazy to think that was three years ago already. It's funny to see how much has changed in our lives since we moved into our house. I would not have pictured us here this long and also now with our little furry buddy.

The more interesting topic of being in this house for five years now becomes where and when do we want to go from here? Although I have no interest in moving in the immediate future, we have no long term plans to stay here. We are getting closer to talking about, more in just the hypothetical, of where we want to move to, because honestly we have no idea, which is really the harder part. As long as Mike is at his current job we couldn't consider moving further south in Jersey since he needs to be able to commute to Westchester. So that again puts us in the position of not moving yet, which is ok too.

I'd like for us to move closer to one set of parents. Realistically I don't see us moving to Long Island, so that means Jersey. We really don't know much about towns further south of us in more central Jersey. I have no idea of where we would even start from. Plus I would wan't to be any further away from my Mom either, so no more than an hour from my Mom and then ideally no more than 1/2 hour from Mike's parents so we could be closer there. I have no idea where that criteria puts us geographically. And forget about adding in searching for good school districts, taxes that aren't another mortgage payment, and a decent house we could actually afford, and the idea of moving just becomes even more daunting.

I am happy with our actual house, and the up keep and maintenance involved. We have everything we could possibly need at this stage in our lives, but that's not going to be the case forever. We also don't want to be moving to our 'forever' house 10 years from now and starting all over there. I'm really not into the maintenance and work involved with moving into a new house right now. I know how much work will be involved with starting all over again and in a more long term house. As much as I wanted to put in new countertops here in this house, I know now that it's not worth it for the amount of time we plan to stay here and also for resale, especially since our house has lost so much of it's value (we won't even go there right now).

If I had my way I would sell our house in a year and move to Manhattan for just a year, and then settle down buy a house and start a family. But who knows if that is even feasible, it certainly isn't practical, but life experiences aren't always practicalities! And we'd never have that opportunity again. Of course moving to Manhattan and then ultimately trying to find and buy a house a year after that probably isn't the easiest thing to do either, we'd probably end up spending all our weekends house hunting the whole time we were living in the city. I get the impression finding our next house is not going to be an easy quest!

Anyway, for now we celebrate another milestone in this house, five years. It was supposed to be the 3-5 year house, but that clearly doesn't exist in this economy that's for sure. Let's just hope it isn't the 10 year house!!!

Fun in the Snow

At least the spring weather finally seems to be arriving. Before we completely forget about the snow I have a couple pictures of the little furball to post from one of the storms we had this winter. At least someone really enjoys the snow. He has such a blast jumping around in the snow, it's so funny to watch him hopping all over the place! It's one of the best parts of when it snows just watching him have fun. Yes we really got all that snow!

Our Irish Tradition

For my second Irish feast we went over to Mom's on St Patricks Day for our annual tradition. It's something we have come to look forward to every year, our own special little tradition. It's nice that it is an "off" Holiday so something and less pressure than the other major Holidays throughout the year. We did our usual ruben sandwiches which were great.

And of course I made my car-bomb cupcakes as well. Those are the most labor intensive cupcakes ever, they take a good 3 hours or so to make, but I think I really got them down this year, after last year's icing adventure with Bridget. They turned out pretty good and I was able to do the icing quasi decently and I used my St. Patty's Day cupcake liners. I also enjoy them once a year.

Finally, here is our little Irish puppy and his leprechaun friend (who seems to lose more stuffing every year). This year they weren't hitting the booze though.....

St Patty's Day Feasts

I had two big corned beef and cabbage celebrations this year. The first was for our Dinner Diva's theme at Janet's house and the second was our annual celebration at Mom's. We were supposed to meet in February and do a Valentine's Day theme but inclement wether had other plans for us so we pushed it out to March instead. Since a Valentine's Day theme no longer made sense we decided to do St. Patrick's Day food in its place.

This was Janet's first time making (and I think also having) corned beef and cabbage. I have to say she did an incredible job! It was absolutely delicious, so good in fact I told my mom she needs to use this recipe for going forward for the corned beef we make on the stove. It simmered for 6 hours in Guinness and beef broth and it gave it such flavor. She also chopped and sauteed the cabbage with onions which I loved as well!

For the rest of our St. Patty's day dinner, I brought a Guinness and Cheddar dip for the appetizer. I had thought about bringing like a hot ruben dip, which did look really good, but since we were having more corned beef for dinner, I opted against it. The next best thing I could come up with was a Guinness dip. It was tasty, I don't know that I would rush out to go make it again, but it was festive and worked for the occasion. Finally for dessert Michele brought a potato cake. Have you ever heard of potato in a cake before? Well I certainly hadn't! I was expecting something savory versus sweet, but turns out you mash the potato finely into grounds and use it almost as flour. It actually tasted very good and you never would have known it was made from potatoes in a cake!

If you ever find yourself in need of a corned beef & cabbage recipe, I highly recommend the one Janet used. I know we'll be using this one next year when Mom makes it!

Corned Beef & Cabbage by Melissa D'Arabian 
Source: Food Network

5 pounds corned beef
5 garlic cloves, lightly smashed
10 peppercorns
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
12 ounces stout (recommended: Guinness)
1 cup beef broth or stock
Water, for simmering
4 yellow onions, cut into wedges, plus 1 medium yellow or sweet onion, sliced
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
6 medium red potatoes, scrubbed
1 medium head green cabbage, cut into quarters, core removed
4 tablespoons butter

Rinse the corned beef and put it into a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot. Make a bouquet garni with the garlic, peppercorns, thyme and bay leaves and add to the pot. Stir in the stout, stock and enough water to cover the beef by 2 inches. Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook for 4 hours, covered, stirring occasionally.

After 4 hours, add the onion wedges, parsnips, and carrots, and cook for a 1/2 hour. Add the potatoes and the cabbage wedges and continue cooking until the cabbage is tender, but not limp, about 20 minutes. Remove the cabbage to a plate and allow the corned beef and other vegetables to continue cooking until the meat is tender.

In a separate large saute pan, heat 4 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add the sliced onion, and a pinch of salt and saute until tender and beginning to brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the cabbage thinly, gently pressing with a paper towel to remove excess water. Add the cabbage to the onion mixture and toss to coat well with the butter. Cook over medium heat until the cabbage begins to brown.

Remove the meat to a cutting board and slice. Serve at the table with all the vegetables piled onto a serving tray and the sliced meat onto another tray with some of the broth poured over the meat.

Book Review - Love Saves the Day

With the Holidays and then getting back into the swing of things, we missed meeting in January for our little book club. Unfortunately we had also missed December, for the same reasons. We were trying to get the guys to come with us in December to go to dinner and a movie and go see the Hobbit, but it never ended up working out with everyone's schedules. 

We finally got to meet in early February to talk about our latest book and enjoy another great dinner. We try to pick a cuisine that goes with the book, whenever possible but sometimes there's no 'theme' to go along with the book, in that case we just pick a small local joint (our only rule is no chain food restaurants). For this dinner we ended up at La Havana 59, a small Cuban restaurant. Well I must say, sometimes the local hidden gems are the best, because that's exactly what this place was. 

Nicole and I ate at the bar and had a fabulous dinner from start to finish. Starting with the mojito's, which I don't even like rum, they were delicious cocktails. We had a passion fruit mojito which was awesome, and it was something ridiculous like $5 or even cheaper. Let me tell you it was $5 well spent.  We also got some appetizers to start off with which included some fried plantain chips with garlic sauce, they were so good, again for only like $3.50! And we had some delicious empanadas with them as well, no joke they were only $2.50, what a bargin. If that wasn't enough we had the most delicious roja vieja for dinner with a huge mound of white rice, yea that was only $8.50. I think we ended up paying like $20 each with tip for a delicious meal, this is exactly why we go searching for those local gems, we're already talking about going back again for when Joanna can come with us. 

The book was good too :-) Another gem if you will, that I probably never would have found. Joanna and Nicole both have cats so this book was perfect, but even as a dog lover I still appreciated the story being told from the perspective of the cat. It really was cute, but especially perfect for any cat lover out there! 

Book Title: Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper

Book Summary (From Amazon): Humans best understand the truth of things if they come at it indirectly. Like how sometimes the best way to catch a mouse that’s right in front of you is to back up before you pounce. So notes Prudence, the irresistible brown tabby at the center of Gwen Cooper’s tender, joyful, utterly unforgettable novel, which is mostly told through the eyes of this curious (and occasionally cranky) feline.

When five-week-old Prudence meets a woman named Sarah in a deserted construction site on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, she knows she’s found the human she was meant to adopt. For three years their lives are filled with laughter, tuna, catnaps, music, and the unchanging routines Prudence craves. Then one day Sarah doesn’t come home. From Prudence’s perch on the windowsill she sees Laura, the daughter who hardly ever comes to visit Sarah, arrive with her new husband. They’re carrying boxes. Before they even get to the front door, Prudence realizes that her life has changed forever.

Suddenly Prudence finds herself living in a strange apartment with humans she barely knows. It could take years to train them in the feline courtesies and customs (for example, a cat should always be fed before the humans, and at the same exact time every day) that Sarah understood so well. Prudence clings to the hope that Sarah will come back for her while Laura, a rising young corporate attorney, tries to push away memories of her mother and the tumultuous childhood spent in her mother’s dusty downtown record store. But the secret joys, past hurts, and life-changing moments that make every mother-daughter relationship special will come to the surface. With Prudence’s help Laura will learn that the past, like a mother’s love, never dies.

Poignant, insightful, and laugh-out-loud funny in the ways only a cat can be, Love Saves the Day is a story of hope, healing, and how the love of an animal can make all of us better humans. It’s the story of a mother and daughter divided by the turmoil of bohemian New York, and the opinionated, irrepressible feline who will become the bridge between them. It’s a novel for anyone who’s ever lost a loved one, wondered what their cat was really thinking, or fallen asleep with a purring feline nestled in their arms. Prudence, a cat like no other, is sure to steal your heart.

Book Review: The book was so much more than I was originally expecting being told from the perspective of a cat. It worked into the story so perfectly but it was also the story of human bonds, about a mother and a daughter and what they went through, which was based on a true story. That part of the story alone was heartbreaking and upsetting to read about that this actually happened (I don't want to give away too much). Yes the parts told from the perspective of the cat were also cute, like the monster, I mean the vacuum that comes out to get her. This was a really cute book that I would def recommend to even the non cat lovers out there!

Combing Two Loves

One of the things I missed writing about during my blog hiatus was our Dinner Diva's evenings! When I last left off it was my turn to host for January. I wanted to come up with a creative theme versus just doing a country, or color, or ingredient, something like that. What I came up with was, "Recipes from/or Inspired by a Book." Since I love to read and so many books either have food as the central theme or the setting inspires recipes or themes I thought this would be perfect. Of course I had no particular book or recipes in mind when I selected this theme.

Turns out it was slightly harder to come up with recipe ideas that I originally thought it would be. I read a ton of books, like Slim to None, a cute romantic comedy that had a recipe after most chapters, or Life from Scratch, which centered around a cooking blogger, but nothing really stuck me to make for my big dinner. I tried to look for recipes from books like The Twilight series, Hunger Games, The Help and so many others. After some extensive googling, here is what I ended up coming up with for my menu (from what I remember anyway):

• Italian Green Salad Inspired by Eat, Pray, Love 
• Leek & Potato Tart with Gruyere from Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Southern Style Collard Greens from The Help
• Rosemary Orange Chicken from The Hunger Games
  This is what Katniss eats when she has lunch with Cinna. She describes it with great detail in the book: Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions... I try to imagine assembling this meal myself back home. Chickens are too expensive, but I could make do with a wild turkey. I'd need to shoot a second turkey to trade for an orange. Goat's milk would have to substitute for cream. We can grow peas in the garden. I'd have to get wild onions from the woods. 

I'm so mad, once again I forgot to take pictures of our lovely dinner. I had set the table using books as the centerpiece. It was nothing fancy but still cute for the effect. The Leek & Potato Tart turned out pretty good, it was really easy to make since you used pre-made biscuits as the pie crust. The collard greens were another experiment. We all tried them, they were ok, but really not my thing. The recipe makes an obscene amount and I only made a third of what it called for, I can't even imagine if I made the full recipe, it must feed an entire Baptist Church! Good thing I have a Mother that LOVES collard greens, in the freezer they went and home to Mom who enjoyed them.

The chicken though was another adventure all together. The recipe requires you to sauté the chicken on the stovetop and then put it in the oven. Well, while I was transferring my chicken to the oven part of the juice spilled out into the hot oven and caused it to smoke up, so there went the oven! It stunk and couldn't be used till we did a self cleaning, but at least the chicken turned out ok even without going in the oven.

For the rest of our dinner the girls brought over "I don't want Earl's Baby Pie" from Waitress. Although I thought this was just a movie and not a book, but Gina was stuck for ideas. Technically though I never actually got through reading The Help, I only saw the movie so I cheated there too. For dessert, Janet brought over one of her own creations based on a scene from 50 Shades of Grey. I have yet to read those books, I doubt I ever will, but her and Gina loved them. Aside from spilling the juice from the chicken in the oven it was another great night, maybe next time I'll get it right, I think last time I hosted, I accidentally cooked a knife in the pan with the pork loin!

I'm Back

Well it's been about 2 months to be exact from my last post. This is probably the longest hiatus I've had since I started by blog almost 4 years ago, which is crazy to think about that I have been keeping this blog for the last 4 years documenting so many wonderful things that have happened in our life. A lot of has happened in those last 4 years, got married, got a puppy, taken some great trips, seen so many of our beautiful nieces and nephews born and so much more. Of course there were some downs in there as well but we won't focus on that because honestly life is good right now and I have so much to be thankful for!

I think part of my lack of writing recently has been my new job that I got 5 months ago. Life has been so much busier, and also so much more fulfilling. I haven't taken the time to sit down and write at all. Quite frankly I've had no desire to sit down at my computer when I can be off doing other things, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned my blog (although I had thought about it briefly after some negative things happened last year, but I'm not going to let that stop me). I am going to try and dedicate some more time to keeping up with my writing, I do enjoy writing about all the things going on in our lives. So that means I do have some catching up to do on a couple things that have happened over the last 2 months that I haven't been blogging. Stay tuned for more to come!