a review of a delightful, charming book

Recipes from a Very Small Island
by Linda Greenlaw and Martha Greenlaw

Having read all of Linda Greenlaw's other books and having enjoyed them a great deal, I ordered "Recipes from a Very Small Island" to sort complete the Greenlaw set! Well, not really...at least not totally. But I though "it's just a cook book".

So you might be able to imagine my delight when this book arrived and I started to look through it. First of all, the book is just lovely to look at. The photographs of the food by Joseph Deleo and of Isle au Haut, Linda and her parents by Sara Gray are beautiful.

Second, while I admit I have not tested any of the recipes yet, since it just arrived, they look very promising. Many are classics you might expect from a cookbook from 'a very small Maine island' like blueberry pie, chicken pie with herb biscuits, maple flavored baked beans and her mom Martha's famous lobster casserole. But then there are a number of interesting sounding surprises...crab madeleines, braised lamb shanks with dried apricots, grilled salmon with blueberry corn salsa....beef stifado.. Actually, there is not a recipe in this book that does not sound interesting and worth trying.

Another very nice part of the book is that each recipe is preceded by a brief introduction from either Linda or her mother Martha. Sometimes, it is just a few lines and sometimes it is an amusing little story about some incident with the dish in the past. Every one enhances the recipe that follows.

If you are a fan of Ms. Greenlaw's other books, especially "The Lobster Chronicles: Life on a Very Small Island", I think you will find the ten or so short essays throughout the book, filled with Ms. Greenlaw's ever present dry humor, a lovely addition. The subjects range from "The Beginner's Guide to Clambakes or How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Lobster" to an introduction to "The Pie Lady". Delightful....lol

I am sure this will be a treasured book in my library, not just for the food but for another of Ms. Greenlaw's charming views into life and family on a very small island on the beautiful coast of Maine.

something from the garden....

a review of "Say Goodbye" by Lisa Gardner

well, i do need to post something here, right? so a review...

Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner

If you have been a fan of Lisa Gardner's previous books, I can assure you that Say Goodbye will not disappoint. If this is her first book for you, I can not help but think it will most certainly not be your last.

Kimberly Quincy make another appearance, this time traveling the hills and dales of Georgia, in search of a possible serial killer. And a very scary journey it is that we go along on. Now, I have never had a great fear of spiders, but it will be awhile before I go down in my basement or move a log out in the yard without thinking of some of the scenes in this book.
This is not really a book one should read, alone in your house at 2 a.m., as I discovered.

But it is a lot more than just a scary book. Or maybe a different sort of scary, an even worse sort of scary. Innocent victims....victimizers...the line gets blurry. Are any of us really safe? Are there any happy endings? Gardner writes about a world where terrible things happen. But it is also a world in which people like Kimberly and her co-workers and her family and, in Say Goodbye, one very old woman, as imperfect as they are, give you some hope for a world where love and intelligence and bravery will win.

At least for the moment.....

i need some stuff...

perhaps i will post reviews. or clever quotes from elsewhere. things that i read that i find interesting. after some thought on it, i decided that it might be nice to include some pictures and history and stories from the Jersey shore. so, i will try to get on that.

in the beginning....

i don't really have anything to say...

but everyone should have a blog....right?

hey! i know! i will just steal stuff from other blogs!