Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

This prequel to the New York Times bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog tells the story of another occupant of the posh apartment building in Paris: the great food critic Pierre Arthens. As his life draws to a close, he reflects back on its many flavors, and on a singular sublime something, once sampled and never forgotten.

A fine example of a well written book…. but not necessarily the book for me.

Sheila

I have found myself drawn to books about food lately.  I have dabbled a bit  with food critics (Garlic and Sapphire), and a little with food magicians (Cake Boss ) as well as books with delicious recipes in them that makes even a non baker (the villagers have voted and the answer was “no”) like myself wants to don an apron and a wooden spoon and try my hand at some of the mouth-watering treasures….

Total run on (or run away) sentence.

My point being…. that while in Honduras I was browsing through the one book store opportunity I had and was refusing to leave without having made a bookish purchase.

After much pacing and admiring of some of favorite titles in Spanish, I walked out of the store having spent 385 Limperas on this book.  (About 20 Limperas to the dollar so I paid a little over $18  for this book. )

While I found the writing richly worded in a style that I savored… I found that I tended to drift and skim pages as I found the main character, the Maitre’, more and more unlikable.  He was not very found of his wife and admitted to not liking his children.  While on his death-bed he scoffs at his wife’s loyalty and sadness and even states that he will not miss her.   In fact I believe the only thing this sniveling of a man (and I use the term loosely) seemed to appreciate was his palate for food.

(At this point, I remind myself there was two reasons I wanted to read this book:  1)  I had heard good things about this author with ‘The Elegance Of The Hedgehog’ which I have yet to read, and 2) it’s a foodie book… and I found I am interested in this topic.

So… I read on…

And to please the foodie in me, I can say I did enjoy the  mouth watering pictures that came to mind as Muriel Barbery describes the freshness of a chunky orange sorbet, grilled sardines, and Greek loukamades (hot donuts trickled with honey).

While I puzzled my way through the different narrators that lend a voice to this book I still marveled at the descriptive writing, even if I did occasionally get lost in the words.  Overall, I appreciated the writing but found the storyline hard to follow.  I enjoyed reading about the food, yet found myself skimming the pages for more foodish topics….

bottom line, it just did not hold my attention.

I do still look forward to Muriel Barbery’s ‘Elegance Of The Hedgehog’ and am curious now how it will compare to this read.

Amazon Rating

Purchased in Tegucigalpa Honduras

Morning Meanderings… Sawyer On LOST really cracks me up

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Good morning.

*yawns.  stretches.  Reaches for coffee cup.*

The craziness of life is back on.  I went from work to the gym to a meeting to dinner with Chance last night…. ending my day with my feet up in the recliner watching episodes from season 2 of LOST.  The more I watch the more Sawyer cracks me up…. he is the king (THE KING!) of nicknames.

Oh but don’t take my word for it….

These episodes have been fun to watch during a little down time in the evenings…. however I still need to get in my reading time.  😀

Today is my last day of work for the week and I am HAPPY about that!  After another full day here, tomorrow I have a day to myself….. uhhhh….. BLISS!!

The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)25 Comments

Despite his single mother’s financial hardships, 12-year-old Eddie is certain this Christmas he will receive his much-desired Huffy bike. To his dismay, what he finds under the tree is “a stupid, handmade, ugly sweater” that his mother carefully modeled after those she can’t afford at Sears (one of four places she keeps part-time jobs). Eddie tosses the sweater and insults his mother before the two go visit his grandparents at their farmhouse. On the drive home, though, Eddie’s exhausted mother falls asleep at the wheel and crashes, dying instantly. Sent to live with his grandparents, an increasingly bitter and angry Eddie lashes out at his accommodating guardians, trying to make sense of a world he is not sure he wants to be a part of.

This was our Bookies Book Club read for December.

Honesty check.  I find it hard to review Christmas themed books.  For the most part, the ones I have read seem to have a pleasant hum to them but really no sparks to fuel the fire of a good discussion.  As I tried to develop good discussion questions for our book review, I fell short.  The characters were minimal and surface developed, the plot was really non-existent, and the ending was, well…. as expected.

It’s not that I did not enjoy this book…. I did.  It was a wonderful read for Christmas, but to me it was more a book you read, you enjoy, and you move on.  How can I say this….

it didn’t hold a lot to be discussion worthy.

Overall, as a group we gave this book an average rating.  It has a wonderful message in it and the fact that it is a true story mixed in with a dab of fiction here and there still made it an enjoyable read.  After all, isn’t that what makes Historical Fiction such an awesome genre?  I sure think so!

There is an opportunity in this book to ask a couple hard questions…. I could have asked if we could share a time when we had done something that we wished with all our might we could take back, however – when it came down to it, I just did not want to open up that emotional discussion at our Christmas review.  Instead, I opted for a better version….. we discussed gifts that were just …. awkward, and how we handled receiving that gift.

Here are some of the fun responses:

  • Was given a pair of extremely ugly gray boots for Christmas by husband that had fake gray fur around the top, a pointy toe and a large plastic gray heal.  Wore them once to husbands grandmother’s house and never wore again.
  • Husband’s parents give gifts they pick up at garage sales…. sometimes they are ok, sometimes broken.  Have learned to just smile and move on…
  • Husband purchased a Salad Shooter at a thrift store.  When book club member opened it on Christmas it had chunks of dried up lettuce and salad dressing stuck inside it.  Husband cleaned up Salad Shooter and all was well.
  • Mother would purchase the long boxes of individually wrapped soaps and separate them… giving one soap to each child.
  • One Bookie said her aunt received a gun for Christmas from her husband.  She responded by the next year giving him a microwave.  From now on, the hubby gives her gift cards to her favorite stores.
  • Given an electric razor for Christmas by her parents when she was old enough to shave.  Her brothers laughed and picked at her so much she never used it.
  • One Bookie wanted a stereo really bad for Christmas.  Come Christmas day, her sister opens up a huge stereo!  Book club member received a clock radio.

Ok… we laughed at our stories, they are fun memories!

Anyone have any gift giving gone wrong stories?

Al and I: Ugly Sweater Party Dec. 2009 (I feel like an extra from Lion King)

Morning Meanderings… A Bookie Style Christmas Gathering

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)18 Comments

Who loves their book club?

*waves arms madly back and forth while hopping up and down*

“I do!!!!”

Last night was our December Bookies book club meeting, closing the door on our ninth year of bookish reviews, tons of laughter and even a few tears through the 112 meetings we have had together.


We always have a Christmas potluck and a gift exchange along with our book review in December.  If possible we theme the food around the book, and had great success with this two years ago when we read and reviewed A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  I actually made Smoking Bishop and another girl in the group made Figgy Pudding.  Unfortunately, the last two Christmas reads we have reviewed have not had much food mentioned in them….

Oh well…. we still had a wonderful mix of good eats!

After our eats and then our review of The Christmas Sweater (review up later today), we play a game where we each pick a gift out of the pile in the center of the room.  (We each bring a gift valued around $10).  This is a lot of fun as you can take from someone else and when we are all done, each person has a gift.

This year I received a box of chocolate santa’s (say good-bye to my yummy friends!) and a darling Bookies tree ornament.  I LOVE ornaments that have meaning behind them so this is totally SSSQQQQUUUEEEEE worthy.


Next months book club read will be The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.  YES!  One that is sitting on the TBR!

A Darcy Christmas – A Holiday Tribute to Jane Austen

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

Jane Austen springs to life again in this book of three Darcy Tales revolving around the wonderful characters of Pride and Prejudice.

Sheila

 

In the first story, ‘Mr. Darcy’s Christmas’; Darcy is visited by the ghosts (of yes, you guessed it!) Christmas past, present, and future.  A fun twist together of two wonderful classics that I found to be an imaginative if not a bit predictable mix.

The second tale is ‘A Christmas Present’, where we find a very anxious Mr. Darcy fretting over Lizzy who is about to give birth.  This middle story really set a picture in my mind of what the Darcy family could have been like.  This center story really was my favorite.

The third and final installment of the book is ‘A Darcy Christmas’, takes us through the Darcy Christmas’s one by one, some of joy, and some that let’s just say having the Kleenex close by is not ill advice.   I enjoyed these peeks into the Darcy Christmas’s – it was like looking into a family photo album.


 

For someone (errrrrr me……) who has avoided all of the spin offs with vampires, zombies, and sea monsters… this book came as a pleasant surprise.  I enjoyed the stories centered around the Darcy’s and the fact that this book holds the three stories as a collection was perfect for the time of year when my mind tends to travel towards a sort of book a.d.d. and I skip from one thing to the next.

Amazon Rating

Thank you to Source Books for allowing me to review this book

Morning Meanderings… Blog reading Can Be Dangerous

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)30 Comments

Good morning! I am starting to get back into the norm of things around here now that I am back. This will be my second day back to work and I am looking forward to the tasks I have.

I have made it half way through the Monday What Are You Reading Posts as well as several of the book blogs I enjoy checking in on. In my travels thus far, here is what I have found that I am interested in knowing more about:

 

At Bookworm With A View this book is mentioned as part of a “Pay It Forward” plan and while Mari picked up this title from another blogger, I picked it up from her.  🙂

In her words, she describes the book like this:

Synopsis:  One day in 2005, shortly after her father’s death, an episode of Oprah changed everything. The show about women in the Congo depicted atrocities too horrible to comprehend: millions dead, women gang-raped and tortured, children starving and dying in shocking numbers. That day Lisa woke up to her dissatisfaction with the “good” life and to her role as an activist and a sister.

What started as a solo 30-mile run has now grown into a national organization in connection with Women for Women International. Run for Congo Women holds fundraising runs in four countries and ten states, and continues to raise money and awareness. In A Thousand Sisters, Lisa shares firsthand accounts of her experiences visiting the Congo, the women she’s helped, and the relationships she’s formed. With compelling stories of why she remains committed to this cause, Lisa inspires her audience to reach out and help as well, forming a sisterhood that transcends geographic boundaries.

That to me sounds like a must read and I have requested it at my Library.

 

Lydia over at The Lost Entwife had this one on her reading list this week.

In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan is under doctor’s orders to remain immobile. Bored and restless, reduced to watching the world go by outside her window, she takes small comfort in the mundane events she observes . . . like the young woman in a green raincoat who walks her dog at the same time every day. Then one day the dog is running free and its owner is nowhere to be seen. Certain that something is terribly wrong, and incapable of leaving well enough alone, Tess is determined to get to the bottom of the dog walker’s abrupt disappearance, even if she must do so from her own bedroom. But her inquisitiveness is about to fling open a dangerous Pandora’s box of past crimes and troubling deaths . . . and she’s not only putting her own life in jeopardy but also her unborn child’s.

I have become a fan of Laura Lippman just this past six months and this one sounds interesting to me too.  Another one I have requested from the library.

 

Operation Paperback

And last but certainly not least, At Coffee And A Book Chick I discovered this wonderful cause.  Click on the picture and go to her post which contains a list of books that troops from around the world have requested as books they would like to read.

 

Tonight is our Christmas Bookies Book Club meeting.  Last year in December we celebrated our 100th Bookies meeting.  This year we are at 112.  We do a gift exchange, have a potluck, and will be reviewing A Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck.  I am finding this book hard to come up with review questions for.  If you have read this, I would be interested in any discussion question ideas.  😀

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)59 Comments

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading, is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

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.  I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment.  You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

Two weeks ago winner:

Teddyree from Eclectic Reader


Congratulations!  Please choose an item out of the PRIZE BOX and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com


I came home from Honduras early (real early) Saturday morning.  I have been having a great time catching up on blog reading and prepping a few posts for this upcoming week.  I did post a couple meanderings from Honduras while I was away:

A Couple pictures from my bedroom window

Baby cows and me

Same little boy – different year (seeing Samir)

A giveaway from Honduras

Chicken Tortilla Lasagna (recipe from Honduras)

I did finish a couple of books while I was away but have yet to write reviews for them.


This week here is what is on the agenda:


Despite his single mother’s financial hardships, 12-year-old Eddie is certain this Christmas he will receive his much-desired Huffy bike. To his dismay, what he finds under the tree is “a stupid, handmade, ugly sweater” that his mother carefully modeled after those she can’t afford at Sears (one of four places she keeps part-time jobs). Eddie tosses the sweater and insults his mother before the two go visit his grandparents at their farmhouse. On the drive home, though, Eddie’s exhausted mother falls asleep at the wheel and crashes, dying instantly. Sent to live with his grandparents, an increasingly bitter and angry Eddie lashes out at his accommodating guardians, engages in typical teenage angst and grapples with belief in God.

This is our current book club read and our meeting and Christmas party potluck is this Tuesday.


Top student Erin has her sights on one of the five slots for her AP art history class’s summer trip to Italy. Her best friend, Lindsay, just wants Megan, the class bully, to leave her alone. Stylish, outgoing Samantha is fiercely loyal to both Erin and Lindsay. Their friendship takes a turn for the paranormal when Erin receives a pink crystal ball and a set of cryptic instructions after her aunt’s death. Erin’s questions to the ball about school and boys start to come true, but not quite in the ways she hoped. Too late, she figures out that the ball’s magic is limited, but by then she’s made a mess of school and her personal relationships… Academic success remains at the forefront of Erin’s mind, but as the pink crystal ball works its magic, she grows as a student and a friend, becoming more self-reliant.

Sounds like an adventure to me!


Proust’s infamous madeleine cannot hold a candle to the lush, winsome memories of meals past that you’ll find in Muriel Barbery’s Gourmet Rhapsody. M. Pierre Arthens is France’s premier restaurant critic—so premier in fact that he’s simply called the Maître—and we meet him as he lies in bed, waiting to die. Fervently he mines years of gastronomic delights and discoveries in search of one single flavor, one that he says is “the only true thing ever accomplished.” What unfolds—in vignettes narrated by him and by a chorus of his familiars (most human, some quite comically not)—is a portrait of a man in thrall to the very ingredient that makes French cuisine so inescapably, ecstatically, seductive: It’s not cream, nor cognac, but the cook who defines those glorious tastes. “The only true work of art, in the end,” he says, “is another person’s feast.”

I picked this book up in Honduras and started it on the plane home.


Ok that’s the plan.  I am really excited to see what everyone is reading this week!  I feel like I missed my “book jonesing” last week!  😀

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Chicken Tortilla Lasanga

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

This is a recipe I picked up in Honduras last year when I went.  I have made it here at home as well and when they made it again this year I just knew I had to share it.

Sheila

 

Chicken Tortilla Lasagna

 

2 1/2 pounds of skinless chicken breasts

1 large can of cream of mushroom soup

2 cans 8 oz. diced chilies

3 cups of shredded cheddar cheese

2 cups  of sour cream

salsa

2 packages flour tortillas


Cook the chicken breasts in a pan until done and then cut in bite size pieces.   Lightly grease a 13 x 9 cake pan and put in a layer of tortillas .  Mix the chilies and sour cream with the cream of mushroom soup, then add a layer of this mixture over the tortillas.  Sprinkle on a layer of the cheese.  Now place in a layer of the chopped up chicken breast, followed by a light layer of the salsa.  Put a layer of tortillas over the top of this.

Repeat layers.

Cover top layer with tortillas and sprinkle remaining cheese over the top.

 


 

Morning Meanderings… Feeling a little LOST

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)25 Comments

Good morning!  Sipping the coffee this morning, writing a post, and heading out the door by 8 am….

ahhh….. it’s good to be back.

Yesterday I went up town one time… to pick up a few groceries and to the book store to pick up my book club read that is up for discussion on Tuesday, The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck.  The rest of the day I sat in the recliner downstairs with my laptop doing a little blog reading and watching LOST episodes one after another.


When LOST was on TV I never felt caught up.  If I missed an episode I would be wondering why someone who had previously died or been missing, was now walking around the show set like all was right with the world.  The flash forwards, flash backs, and the occasion flash sideways had me feeling….. well….. uhhhhhh……

lost.

So I stopped watching the shows and decided that I would take this winter to go through them all starting right from Season one episode one.  And that is what I am doing.

We had a moment in Honduras when as we trudged through some jungle like territory to view a water system that would bring water to people who previously did not have it, I thought that we were on the set of LOST.

See:

Anyway… today I hope to watch more LOST, do a little laundry and relax some more as tomorrow…. it is full steam ahead.  Later today I hope to share a recipe with you that will make your mouth water and possibly a review as well if I can get my act together.

Any fun Sunday plans?

Morning Meanderings… Back in Minnesota and with a giveaway!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)34 Comments

Good morning!

I am sitting at MY OWN kitchen table this morning with MY OWN coffee cup.

We left Honduras (84 degrees) yesterday at 1:00 pm and arrived back on my doorstep at 1:30 a.m. (17 degrees and snowing) this morning.

Finally… the snow on my blog makes sense again.

I am glad to be home and over the next few days I will share pictures, happenings, and recipes with you surrounding the 10 days I spent traveling around Honduras with 6 friends, exploring options of where we can team up in the future.  It was an amazing trip, but we spent a lot (A LOT) of time in a car traveling here and there, sometimes 4 -5 hours one way so you can imagine that I am excited to start moving (literally) again!

The people who were with us and drove us around were Terry and Colleen Hawk.  Missionaries of Honduras and amazing people.  I have known them for years, but this year was the year these two amazing people went from acquaintances to friends.


Terry’s dad, Don Hawk was the man who came to Honduras on a banana boat in 1968 to start a school for underprivileged boys.  He applied to do this through a mission agency and was turned down – however he felt called to do this anyway, so packed up his wife and his two small sons at the time and to Honduras they went.

Now all these years later, while Don passed away at the age of 59, the school (the farm school I showed pictures of earlier) flourishes, and Terry’s sons and grandchildren are still doing things in Honduras that has really changed the country.  It was an honor to spend time getting to know Terry and Colleen better.

Terry and Colleen Hawk

SO – I tell you all this today because the book, Come What May by Betty Hockett is the story of Dawn Hawk.  I read it several years back but now that I know more of the story, I want to read it again.


The Giveaway

The giveaway I want to do is for a bag of Honduran coffee (which is delicious!).  All I would like is a comment here for letting me know a trip that you have taken that has inspired a book purchase (trip and book title).

One Bonus Entry

If you would like to subscribe to my blog (upper right side bar) and let me know in a separate comment here (or if you already subscribe) and that will count as an extra entry.

Winner will be chosen using random.org on Wednesday morning – December 14th.

 

It’s good to be home!