Homemade Life report

This month's book was the delightful A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg.

First impressions:
Most of us wanted to start cooking from this book immediately. Even a newbie who admitted to not having a great relationship with food was inspired by the author's love of food and how excited she was about it. We loved how comfortable this book felt, not so much like an formal bestseller, but a cozy invite into the author's kitchen.

Things we loved:
The back stories for the recipes were appreciated, described by one person as "sidekicks", as was the openness about the inspiration for the recipes and the non-secretive attitude. Folks like the little tips, such as how long things should sit for optimum flavor. Creative use of materials was also appreciated (such as the yummy pickled grapes). And people loved that it really felt like you could cook any of these recipes.

Negatives:
"Not one thing". A few were struck by the lack of plot, but for a book made from blog posts it really did have a nice arc. One person felt it was a bit heavy on desserts, but others felt this was a bonus ;)

Her blog Orangette is very similar to the book, but as one person said, "with far more pictures!" It is well worth checking out, and you can sign up to get it delivered by email.

For food, we had quite the feast this month:

Katie G. - Winning Hearts and Minds or Wedding Cake
Lynn T. - Jimmy's Pink cookies

Katie S. - baguette slices with grilled apricots wrapped in prosciutto and goat cheese and Burg's potato salad

Karen T. - pickled grapes and corncakes with bacon and tomatoes

Heather C. - slow roasted tomato pesto with baguette slices
Karen W. - Bouchons Au Thonhttp

Katie W. - French-Style Yogurt Cake with Lemon
Madeline – Italian Grotto Eggs

Dawn – Red Cabbage Salad with Lemon and Black Pepper
Julie – Roasted Cauliflower with salsa verde


It was all ever so tasty! There was some talk of trying to get together a group outing to Molly and Brandon's restaurant Delancey, but it would be challenging to get a table for so many of us.

Next month we are reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. Unfortunately we are already out of copies...but if you go to half.com you can get it for as little as 75 cents (plus shipping). Our meeting will be Monday October 10th at the Mountlake Terrace Library from 6:30-8:30.