Book Journey

Weekend Cooking – Literacy and Food

Published on May 17, 2014May 17, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

The bookies Book Club read and review Moloka’i by Alan Brennert this past week. ,One of things I love about reading for book club is the opportunity to make something I probably never would have tried. Miloka’i based in the late 1800’s Hawaii. I made two things for this review, Sweet Potato Casserole and Poi.

For this weeks Weekend Cooking I will post both recipes.

Sweet Potato Casserole

4-5 large sweet potatoes halved

4-5 bananas peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch slices

16 oz. crushed pineapple in own juice

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tablespoon cold butter

2 tsp. salt

1 cup pineapple juice (saved off the crushed pineapple)

1 tsp. Lemon Juice

2 Tablespoons honey

Heat over to 350 degrees. lightly butter bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Stir together brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

Place the potatoes into a pan of water that covers the potatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook 15 to 20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Drain and let steam dry until you are able to touch, then peal the skin off the potatoes, rough chop and place in the 9 x 13 pan.

Dot with the cold butter over the potatoes.

Sprinkle the salt over the potatoes.

Arrange the bananas over the potatoes.

Sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar and cinnamon combo.

Top with crushed pineapple.

Whisk together the pineapple juice, lemon juice, and honey until honey is dissolved. Pour over the top of casserole.

Cook at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

*This was pretty tasty. The banana’s seemed odd but actually complimented the dish. I thought it would be extremely sweet but it was not over the top. I would make this again for a unique potluck dish. ~Sheila

Poi

You asked for the recipe… I am giving it but there is really not much to it. 🙂

2 pounds Taro Root (surprisingly I found this at my local grocery store)

water

Bring taro root to a boil in 2 quarts of water. Cook for about 40 minutes. Drain, cool, and peal the root. Rough chop taro into a bowl. Blend in blender with 1 cup of water until smooth. (There are more traditional ways to do this that involve a grass skirt, a smooth rock and a hollowed out piece of wood but I went “new school” and “got ‘er done”!) 🙂

A couple things about Poi. There is one finger, two finger, and three finger poi. This is because traditionally you scoop it up with your fingers. The thicker the poi, the less fingers used. I am happy to say, I made a one finger poi:

Poi tasted like bland potatoes. I was surprised when looking on line I could not find any variations of this recipe to jazz it up a bit. I would have liked to have made three cheese poi, or fully loaded poi with garlic and sour cream and bacon… just saying 😉

And finally why is my poi white when traditionally it is purple? I have no idea. I was disappointing as I was looking forward to the bright purple I seen in pictures. I Googled this question but came up with no answers.

Literacy Events and Plenty Of Cake

Published on May 17, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)18 Comments

Happy Saturday! Really! The sun is shining in central Minnesota and I think I will actually be able to mow today which I LOVE! (Mowing = audio time) 😀

If you read my morning post yesterday I listed some bookish things I was doing with my day. My friend Gail and I went to help out a struggling lending library that was lacking books. It was a fun little road trip with coffee and scones (thanks Gail!) The owner had put out an s.o.s. on Facebook and he said the post received over 4,000 hits! Our community passed the word and he said books had been coming in. Between Gail and I, I believe we brought them another 40-50 books.

1aaa — **The books I gave to the lending library**

20130910_163823 — **This is on the side of the lending library that sits outside Zaiser’s in NIsswa.**

Then yesterday afternoon The Friends Of The Brainerd Public Library were part of a Literacy Award for our Community College where the author Jon Hassler, once taught. Jon wrote many books from adult fiction and non fiction to children’s stories. He is most known for Staggerford, which was also Jon’s first book, about a week in the life of a teacher in a fictional small town in Minnesota. His books have been said to be filled with a lot of action or major happenings, but more like the Mittford series by Jan Karon or the Debbie MaComber series.

20130910_174722 — **The friends handled the reception of the event with trays of goodies and cake and coffee**

This is the 5th Literary Landmark for Minnesota – YAY! The others are:

Boyhood home of Sinclair Lewis, Sauk Centre, Minn. Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) spent his formative years in this home. He was an American novelist, short story writer, and playwright who became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His works are known for their insightful and critical views of American society and capitalist values, as well as for their strong characterizations of working women. Partners: Minnesota Association of Library Friends, Sinclair Lewis Foundation. Dedicated July 16, 2013.
Betsy’s House, Mankato, Minn. The childhood home of Maud Hart Lovelace was dedicated along with the childhood home of her best friend, Frances “Bick” Kenney. Lovelace’s series of Betsy-Tacy books was based on her and Bick’s adventures growing up in Mankato. Dedicated May 20, 2010. Partner: Betsy-Tacy Society.
Tacy’s House, Mankato, Minn. The childhood home of Frances “Bick” Kenney was dedicated along with the childhood home of her best friend, Maud Hart Lovelace. Lovelace’s series of Betsy-Tacy books was based on her and Bick’s adventures growing up in Mankato. Dedicated May 20, 2010. Partner: Betsy-Tacy Society.
481 Laurel Avenue, the birthplace on September 24, 1896 of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is internationally renowned for such works as The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and This Side of Paradise. Saint Paul, MN. Dedicated September 24, 2004. Partner: The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library

*as seen on the United For Libraries page, Literary Landmarks by State.

It was awesome to be a part of this event. I was there along with a few hard-working Friends of Our Library – Gail, Laura, and Jolene from our Library in Brainerd.

I have posted this to Saturday Snapshots. Pop over and see what other photos are being posted around the world today 🙂

Morning Meanderings… Lending Library Road Trip

Published on May 16, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

Good morning bookish people! Whaz up? It is Friday! FRIDAY! I feel there should be dancing in the streets – not only is it Friday… but it is a fairly low-key weekend which is awesome… I don’t see another one of those for a while 🙂

This morning my friend and fellow Library Advocate are road tripping to Nisswa Minnesota to support a Lending Library; about a 20 minute drive. Zaiser’s is a shoe store in Nisswa that has put a lending library outside of the store. It is a cool one too, made out of a hundred year old tree that had fallen. Their opportunity is that the books are going out faster than they are coming in. They put a little blurb on Facebook about this (brilliant idea!) and now Gail and I are taking books there this morning and then having coffee to celebrate.

So what books did I pull off my shelves for them?

I chose an assortment of books for kids and adults. I picked a few favorites I have duplicates of as well as a few that would make good summer reading or hopefully cause a person to want to read more by a certain author. As you may see in the middle, there is a copy of Summer House and Return to Summer House by Jude Deveroux, two books that speak to me (especially Summer House).

Later today is the Jon Hassler event at the Brainerd College… it is going to be a bookish day 😀

Creativity INC. Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

Published on May 15, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

Ed Catmull, Co-Founder of Pixar Animations (along with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) tells about creating winning teams and taking your team to the next level. Ed takes us behind the scenes of Pixar and shares the inner workings of how they created movies (such as Toy Story 2) by trusting in their teams, striving towards excellence every time but also bringing their teams to a point of trust and support that is unheard of in most companies.

Pixar has been the name to strive for in animated movies due to this attitude by their lead team of being real with the employees, not separating yourself as a leader as “better” or “above” others and making themselves accessible for ideas lie “braintrust” the team that takes each movie as it begins and breaks it down to what they like and what they do not and repeats this process over and over with the creative team.

From the wins, to the expensive fails, Et Catmull gives advice from his own experiences and shares ideas to build work teams that become as one, and treats them with the respect that creates long-term relationships.

I read this (listened to it actually) because I love to work on winning teams. That may sound like a weird thing to say, but it is true. If you have worked with a group of people for a job or career, you know what I mean. There are great teams to work with that feel safe to bounce ideas off each other without being shut down and then there are not so great teams that you feel “thumbed over” watched every move – and creativity….

fails. There is no room for it.

There is a section towards the end where Ed talks about his working relationship for Steve Jobs. I loved this as Steve Jobs, while clearly having his faults was a brilliant mind. Ed said Steve would walk into a meeting, listen, and say something like, “I am not a movie maker, but what if….” and whatever he said would be brilliant advice and then he would walk out and let the team work their magic.

I really enjoyed this listen and this is one I will look for in book format as well. What Ed describes here with his working relationship with the teams as well as the co-founders of Pixar is the way to find the right people for the job and how to treat them.

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

“If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.” ― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.

Honestly, I strive for this kind of work environment. I am a creative person and when I am placed with great teams that share ideas and lift each other up instead of pulling them down- I thrive. In a way I think I feed off their energy and excitement; it is like fuel to my soul. I find that when I looking for creative outlets I am drawn to the ones that allow me the most freedom to be who I am and create in ways that will inspire others to join in. I want the teams I work with to do an amazing job and have fun along the way by doing it.

Creative minds, people in management or Leadership positions that want to build winning teams, this is a great read for you.

Moloka’i by Alan Brennert (Bookies Book Club Review)

Published on May 14, 2014May 14, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

Small synopsis: Hawaii in the late 1800’s was a beautiful place but a potentially frightening one as well. With the outbreak of Leprosy everyone was on the look out for anyone who may have this contagious disease. When little Rachel “Aouli” Kalama found a sore on the back of her leg that would not heal. She is eventually taken away from her family to live in Kaulapapa, an are off the island of Moloka’i for those with Leprosy. Here is where Rachel lives her life.

In May of 2014, 15 of the Bookies Book Club showed up for a review of Moloka’i. We sampled Hawaiian culture foods and discussed this read of a time in Hawaii most of us were unfamiliar with.

Using the questions provided int he back of the book, we discussed Leprosy compared to the AIDS scare if the 80’s, and what that must have felt like at the time to those who were in fear for their lives and the lives of their families. As in Rachel’s case, being taken away from her family had to be devastating on both sides; and Rachel’s diagnosis put a huge label on her family and even though they did not have it themselves they were shunned by their community.

Rachel herself makes for a great protagonist. Learning at a young age that she was pretty much on her own, she has a strong will, but also a sensible one. While she may stretch the boarders, she does have a wonderful sense of right and wrong and it shows throughout the storyline.

The Bookies overall enjoyed the book. A few found it a bit drug out, certainly not a fast read at almost 400 pages, but filled with deep historical facts that made for a good read.

What makes this a good book club read?

Moloka’i does make a good book group discussion due to it’s historical nature. There is plenty to discuss around the subject of Leprosy and what we can compare that to today. The characters of this book and how they respond to Rachel is also discussion-worthy. Once you label a person, how does that change us?

The questions in the back of the book are great for the discussion. There is also a section in the back of more detailed facts behind the fiction that makes for interesting follow up. A group could bring items of Hawaiian culture or information off the websites marked in the back pages to add to this discussion.

The natural deepness of this read also makes you feel like you read something important. Deeper reads deepen your book discussions.

Morning Meanderings…. Bookies Night In! (w/Poi results!)

Published on May 14, 2014May 14, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

Good morning! Cup number two of coffee here…. deserved though… yesterday was pretty great. 😀

I had yesterday off work to catch up on my house which lacked some attention in the past few weeks. Then I spent the late afternoon preparing for book club which was to be at my home… Hawaiian Style after reading Moloka’i. Bookies – true to form brought this book to the next level with food like Chocolate Mochi, Hawaiian roast, Sweet Potato Casserole, seafood salad, pineapple… more on that later. 😉

As I mentioned yesterday I was going to try my hand at Poi; and I did. It was not purple like I seen in the pictures on-line (still have not figured out why). Warm, it tasted a little like a sticky potato product. One of the girls said they heard it was better for you than potatoes.

It was not super hard to make but of course I did not sit in the lawn in a grass skirt and pound it with a rock and a board… no, I used my handy blender. Aloha!

Then the real test was the thickness. There is one finger, two finger three finger poi, depending on how many fingers it takes for you to scoop it up. I am proud to say that I made a one finger poi.

So that’s my night. I need to get ready for work but watch for the Bookies thoughts on Molokai coming up later today. 😀

Any Poi makers out there? Why was mine not purple?

Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

Published on May 13, 2014May 13, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)6 Comments

When a homeroom of New York Sophomores receive their mandatory flu shot they get a little more than a sore arm. Apparently the batch of the flu vaccine was a little off, and now this group has discovered that they can hear each others thoughts.

Super cool right?

They all know now that Mackenzie cheated on Cooper last summer. They now all know what people really think of them. They know now what their teachers are really thinking about while they are taking tests and they know what their parents are thinking about while in their bedrooms.

Ugh. Maybe not so cool….

Nothing. NOTHING is a secret anymore.

Don’t Even Think About It is a fun concept. What if something that was supposed to keep you healthy… actually had a freaky side effect? The results as related in this book are sometimes funny, sometimes hurtful, and definitely something that this group had to come terms with as nothing is sacred.

A fun easy read I think YA readers would enjoy… after all as a teenager, what could be worse than someone knowing everything you think about? While I personally enjoyed the read, I think Young Adults would probably find this even more entertaining.

Morning Meanderings… Oh Boy! Poi!

Published on May 13, 2014May 13, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)2 Comments

Good morning! Happiest of Tuesdays to you! So much AWESOME is going on right now I hardly know where to begin. 😀

Let’s see… the Her Voice Magazine came out this morning and my report on my friends Sky Diving Experience made the cover. SQUEEEEE!!!!

And yesterday afternoon I was offered to speak on a panel at this years Book Expo in New York at the end of this month on “Engaging your Readers, Taking Your Writing To The Next Level”, a subject I am passionate about so I am SUPER Excited!

On Friday of this week our Friends Of The Library group will be a part of a ceremony dedicating a plaque to a Minnesota author Jon Hassler who passed away in 2008, and left an incredible legacy to Central Minnesota. This plaque will be one of 4 that are in the state of Minnesota so this is quite an honor and we are thrilled to be a part of it. I will have pictures of the event on this weekends Saturday Snapshot post.

And then…. tonight is Book Club! YAY!!! We are reviewing Molokai by Alan Brennert which is a fictional story set in Hawaii in the 1890’s and the leprosy outbreak including our main protagonist, an 8-year-old girl. Our theme of course is Hawaii and I am making a side dish of Hawaiian sweet potato casserole and poi. Yes… I am trying my hand at poi.

the resulting product should look like this:

Yes I think it looks nasty… this is more for the “yeah we have had poi” experience then my hopes of it tasting good. I have my bag of taro root and I will be boiling them later today. Yes, I will document the process. 😀

I took the day off of work today. After the big garage sale two weeks ago now and this last weekends graduation of our son I have been running like crazy. Today I will work on loving on my house and prepping for tonight with a little audio in between 😀

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Published on May 12, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)30 Comments

Camille Preaker would have been just fine if she had never stepped foot in her hometown again. Yet working as a reporter comes with its nasty bits.

When two young girls are murdered where Camille grew up, her boss finds this to be a good opportunity to go back and investigate the story, after all these people know her and will open up to her. Camille, knows better.

Back in her neurotic mothers home with her step dad and half-sister, Camille has unpleasant memories rush back. As she investigates the story behind the two little girls, Camille is finding things to be too close to her own demons she carries… and what she is about to find out, may very well be the thing that unravels life as she knows it.

I listened to this audio for several reasons. 1. A friend of mine recommended this book a few years back before Gone Girl ever existed. 2. This is the author of Gone Girl which blew me away. 3. Sharp Objects is going to be a movie and I had to take the time to know the story.

Results? Sharp Objects, if you can believe it – is a darker story than Gone Girl. There are not very many likable qualities in Camille and her actions along the way felt jumbled for me and took away from the story line. I personally feel that this protagonist could have been written in a completely different way and come out better. But, that is just my opinion.

The creepy dark nature of many of the cast in this book left me with a bit of an uneasy feeling. I didn’t love that feeling. I wanted to know what was going to happen but over all I think if I would have been reading this book instead of listening to it I probably would have given up on it, or at least skimmed through some very strange parts. (I will not even get started on Camille’s 13-year-old half-sister whose actions I felt were far-fetched and unbelievable.)

Sharp Objects has its mind-blowing moments. Especially towards the end of the book I am tossed upside down and Gillian Flynn pulls an amazing flip of what I thought to be true and left me going…. “Holy Smokes”. The woman can write amazing stories… this one just wasn’t for me. Jury is still out if I will see the movie, I think some of the main subject lines will make this one a pass.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on May 11, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)29 Comments

Hey there! Welcome to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. Fair warning… this meme tends to add to your reading list!

I just returned this afternoon from being gone all weekend for our College Sons graduation. It was an excellent time but I am wiped out so I am hopefully going to keep this short and sweet 🙂 Here is what I posted this past week:

The Storied Life of A J Fikry – there is something about this story…

Blogger Recommend for May – are you signed up to receive this awesome monthly guide?

The Accidental Book Club by Jennifer Scott – it had me at “book club”

The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert – fantastic fantastical reading on the power of flowers

Straight Flush by Ben Mezrich – great listen, the movie 21 was made form this true story

Bob Harper Skinny Meals – delicious recipes!

How Do You Receive Advanced books for review?

Not a bad week, thanks to a few reading times I did have a run on books and a couple more yet to review and a couple I should be finishing up in the next few days. The plan for this week is:

For My Ears

From Ed Catmull, co-founder (with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter) of Pixar Animation Studios, comes an incisive book about creativity in business—sure to appeal to readers of Daniel Pink, Tom Peters, and Chip and Dan Heath.

Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”

For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the thirteen movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:

• Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
• If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
• Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change—it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

Twenty years ago, one man’s murderous rampage destroyed his own family . . . and devastated a community. Now the only survivor – his daughter – tells her story at last.

On April 14, 1989, for reasons still debated today, Mexican immigrant RamÓn Salcido went on a violent rampage in the idyllic Sonoma Valley wine country where he lived and worked. In the course of just two hours, he killed his wife, Angela, her two younger sisters, his mother-in-law, and the man with whom he suspected Angela was having an affair. He then slashed the throats of his three young daughters – four-year-old Sophia, three-year-old Carmina, and twenty-two-month-old Teresa – leaving them for dead in the county dump. A little more than a day later, the bodies of his daughters were discovered. Miraculously, tiny Carmina was still alive and able to tell her rescuers, “My daddy cut me.”

In Not Lost Forever, Carmina Salcido explores the events surrounding these headline-making murders with extraordinary clarity and composure. Reaching back to understand the events that traumatized her in childhood – and weaving them together with the recollections of detectives and witnesses – she reconstructs the story of her father’s crimes, and their aftermath, in sobering detail.

Yet Carmina’s story doesn’t end there. Those who remember her as the tiny victim of these murders will also be shocked by what followed: how she was adopted by a Catholic extremist family who tried to change her name and bury her past; how she tried to escape their sheltering influence by joining a Carmelite convent and then a ranch for troubled girls; and how the psychological trials she endured along the way nearly broke her spirit – until, at last, she found peace by turning to the one relative still alive to share her grief: her grandfather.

As a young woman, Carmina returned to California to share her experiences and discover the family that was brutally taken from her. The devout Catholic also returned to look into her father’s eyes on death row and confront the man who took away her entire family. With clear-eyed candor, courage, and grace, this brave young woman takes readers along on her miraculous journey of survival, discovery, and hope.

I dont think I will add any books, I still have last weeks to finish 🙂 What are you reading? Please add your Its Monday What Are You Reading post link below where it says click here.

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