Life: It Goes On - February 4

credit Max Lyrata

It snowed last night. When I went to bed it was snowing heavily and blowing. I expected to walk up to a beautifully white landscape. Perfect for a Sunday when we don't have to go anywhere.

We got a half inch of snow.

That's how this winter has been going. Because I have to get out on the roads five days a week, I'm mostly ok with this; I hate risking my life to get to and from work. But when I used to stay home with my kids, I loved the days when we got 5, 6, 9 inches of snow and we got to stay home. My job on those days was to make sure there were replacement dry hats and gloves ready, to keep the cocoa coming, and to sit at the window, sipping on coffee, enjoying the view and loving watching my kids have fun. I miss those days.

This Week I'm:

Listening To: Because I always felt like it was a book I "should" read, I picked up an audio copy of Frankenstein, or A Modern Prometheus a few months ago. I didn't even realize until I started listening to it this week that it's read by Simon Vance. Those of you who are familiar with Vance already know how much better he can make any book.

Watching: We finished the final season of Longmire the other night and we are so sad to be done with those characters but I can't say that I loved the finale.

Reading: Ack! I finally took a moment and checked the archive dates of books I've downloaded from Netgalley. Which means that, while my sidebar shows I'm reading In Every Moment We Are Still Alive, right now I'm actually racing through An American Marriage by Tayari Jones before I can't access it any more.

Making: Fajitas, breakfast for dinner, meatball pizza, salad, steak and smashed potatoes. It's been kind of a lazy week in the kitchen.

Planning: A quick girls trip to Missouri next weekend, weather permitting. We need a Miss E fix!

Thinking About: Making some soup for this week.

Enjoying: Movies. The Big Guy and I went to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri last night (wow, what incredible acting!), Mini-him and I are going to see a one-night showing of Moulin Rouge tomorrow night (he's my kid that "gets" movie musicals), and Miss H and I are hoping to grab a friend and see Pitch Perfect 3 sometime this week.

Feeling: Tired in more ways than one.

Looking forward to: Hoping to catch dinner with a friend this week that I haven't seen in a while.

Question of the week: What's the best movie you've seen this year?

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Published February 2008 by Hatchette Books
Source: my audiobook copy purchased at my local library book sale

Publisher's Summary:
"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass."

So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel spanning two centuries: part a contemporary story of a girl's search for her father, part historical novel, and part ghost story. In the wake of a disastrous love affair with her older, married archaeology professor at Stanford, brilliant Wilhelmina Cooper arrives back at the doorstep of her hippie mother-turned-born-again-Christian's house in Templeton, NY, a storybook town her ancestors founded that sits on the shores of Lake Glimmerglass. Upon her arrival, a prehistoric monster surfaces in the lake bringing a feeding frenzy to the quiet town, and Willie learns she has a mystery father her mother kept secret Willie's entire life.

The beautiful, broody Willie is told that the key to her biological father's identity lies somewhere in her family's history, so she buries herself in the research of her twisted family tree and finds more than she bargained for as a chorus of voices from the town's past—some sinister, all fascinating—rise up around her to tell their side of the story. In the end, dark secrets come to light, past and present day are blurred, and old mysteries are finally put to rest.

My Thoughts:
Because I loved Groff's Fates and Furies, when I found this audiobook at my library's book sale, I was excited to explore her backlist. Once I started listening, however, I was less enthused.

Groff, grew up in Cooperstown, New York. You know who else did? James Fenimore Cooper, whose father founded Cooperstown. In his novels, Fenimore Cooper renamed his hometown Templeton and his father Marmaduke Temple. Groff grafts her novel and characters onto Fenimore Cooper's novels and characters and I had to admire her ambition.

Unfortunately, the execution didn't exactly work for me. The voices from the past weren't always voices that Willie was hearing. So, while they were interesting asides for readers and gave us a glimpse into the real monsters for Templeton, they didn't contribute anything to Willie's search and they really took me out of what was, I thought, the main story of the book. They weren't the only things; there were a number of lesser stories that didn't amount to much and could easily have been left out of the book and not missed.

But that wasn't my biggest problem with the story. Willie's been told all of her life that her mother doesn't know who her father is, that he could be one of three men she had sex with while she was a 17-year-old living in a commune. So my first problem with the story was the idea that this was something a mother would tell her child about who her father was. Now jump to current Willie who is finding out from her mother that the story she's been told all of her life is not the truth. What? You didn't want to tell your child the truth and the best alternative you could find was the one where you'd slept with three different men? Also, Vi still doesn't want to name Willie's father; she will only tell her that it's someone from Templeton who also claims to have descended from Marmaduke Temple. Which is what leads Willie off into researching her family history. Vi is perfectly fine with Willie doing this; in fact, she even seems to encourage her instead of just telling Willie the truth. Of course, if she'd done that, there would be no book. But I just couldn't buy that a mother would withhold information that she's perfectly willing to have her daughter find out eventually.

This was Groff's first novel and I could certainly see where she was developing the skills that would, eventually, lead to Fates and Furies. I'm not sure, though, that if I had read this book when it first came out, I would have picked up another of her books. But then, if you read other reviews, but for a few reviewers, I'm definitely not in the majority in my opinion of the book.

Two things I learned about having "read" this book on audio: 1) I'm not alone in thinking that while the reader did a passable job, she didn't really help to bring the book alive, and 2) there were pictures in the book that I had no idea about and would really have enjoyed. If I don't scare you off of this book, then I'd definitely recommend you pick it up in print.

Life: It Goes On - January 28

Clearly not taken recently!

Happy birthday to The Big Guy! The celebration will be low key (we went out last night for pizza and drinks). With three of the kids not here to help eat it, it seems kind of silly to even get a cake. Still, when we are only a few weeks away from the seven year anniversary of the day he found out he had cancer, we won't let the day go by without cake and some celebration of life.

We've had the Nebraska-est of winter weeks this week. Six inches of wet, heavy, blowing snow on Monday morning, 50+ degree days by the end of the week as a reward for those dangerous commutes. We are way behind on snow this year, and I know we need the moisture, but I far prefer the end of the week to the beginning!

This Week I'm:

Listening To: I finished The Monsters of Templeton but I'm not sure what I'll listen to next. I'm not entirely sure what I even have in my car, to be honest. I only hope I like the next one better than Templeton (review tomorrow).

Watching: A group of book club friends went to see Phantom Thread the other night. It is beautifully filmed, the costumes are incredible, the acting is wonderful and it is, by far, the slowest, quietest movie I have ever seen. I'm still thinking about it days later but it's not a movie that's not for everyone.

Reading: Holy crap - I'm reading Julie Heabelin's Paper Ghosts but it is giving me the chilly-willys so bad that I can only really read it during daylight hours if I don't want to risk nightmares.

Making: French bread, chili, bacon macaroni and cheese, and flatbread pizzas. Leftovers, happy hour noshes, and dinner out last night rounded out our meals this week so not a lot of cooking. Miss H's new boyfriend ate with us a couple of nights so I did have to bring out some real food this week!

Planning: Today Miss H and I are diving into her stuff in my office. Everything that doesn't fit in her room lands in my office and it's time to rethink the way we're storing her things so that my office works better as an office.

Thinking About: Elton John tickets. Do we buy tickets when they go on sale for a concert in Omaha that's not for another year or do we buy tickets for a show in another city and see him sooner? These are the kinds of things BG loves to spend time pondering and I'm just along for the ride.

Tier One friends!

Enjoying: Happy hour with dear friends. We jokingly call each other "Tier One" friends which only means that we can tell each other anything, that laughter is guaranteed, and that we will lift each other up. It's always a good evening when the three of us are together.

Feeling: Ready to simplify my life. It's absolutely a first world problem when you have so much stuff that three people are crowded in a house that five people used to have plenty of room in.

Looking forward to: There is absolutely nothing on my calendar for this week that I have to do but a couple of events I may attend assuming I come home from work willing to leave the house again.

Question of the week: It's movie award season. Do you pay attention to these awards? Make a point to see the nominated movies?

Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Originally publishing in 1874 anonymously as a monthly serial (Hardy revised in for publication in 1895 and again in 1901)
Source: bought for my Nook for the Classics Club challenge

Summary:
Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.


My Thoughts: 
Years ago I read Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. It was such an overwhelmingly depressing work that I had all but convinced myself to never read another book by Hardy. But when it comes to books, I've learned to "never say never." Some good reviews of Far From The Madding Crowd and a movie adaptation that I'd like to see after I read the book (starring Carey Mulligan) convinced me that I should give Hardy another chance with this book. I'm glad I did.

Hardy sets this novel in a fictional part of England which, on first impression, is the tranquil and peaceful setting one expects in novels set in rural England during this time period. But Hardy quickly makes it clear that things in Weatherbury aren't what they appear. Unpredictable weather that can wipe out a farms profits, violent animal deaths, dangerous terrain all make for the perfect setting for characters who can be unpredictable, violent, and dangerous.

I loved the characters in this book; they were all so well developed and full. Hardy helps readers understand the characters who aren't likable, he makes likable characters do fiendish things. Modern readers will find Bathsheba, on first impression, to be the kind of strong woman all too often missing in books from this time period. But when she finds herself married to a man who doesn't love her, she determines to stand her ground and be cut to pieces rather than leave him.

"A runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself and a byword - all of which make up a heap of misery greater than any that comes by staying at home - though this may include the trifling items of insult, beating, and starvation."

Readers might be excused for not caring much for Bathsheba up until this point. She has, after all, hurt not one but two men who are in love with her. Now, however, she finds herself in the untenable position of having no good choice. And Bathsheba is a young woman who hoped to live her life on her own terms, who hurt one man by making trying to do that and the other because of youthful thoughtlessness. It was impossible for me not to feel sorry for her and hope that she would not find herself, in the end, in the same sorrowful situation that Tess of the D' Urbervilles did.

It turns out I may be a fan of Thomas Hardy after all because, damn, did I ever love the way Hardy built this story up to an eventful finish.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

Kitchens of The Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Published July 2015 by Penguin Publishing Group
Source: purchased for my Nook

Publisher's Summary:
Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a novel about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country’s most coveted dinner reservation.

When Lars Thorvald’s wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine—and a dashing sommelier—he’s left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He’s determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter—starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva’s journey as she becomes the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club, culminating in an opulent and emotional feast that’s a testament to her spirit and resilience.

Each chapter tells the story of a single dish and character, at once capturing the zeitgeist of the Midwest, the rise of foodie culture, and delving into the ways food creates community and a sense of identity.

My Thoughts:
This is one of those books that came onto my radar, got added to my TBR list, and then I completely forgot what it was about. Except, of course, for the obvious title. Even when I chose it for my book club to read, I didn't really delve too much into what it was about (which is risky, I'll admit!). I like to read books that way; it helps me not have any expectations.

As it turns out, that's was a good thing. Kitchens of The Great Midwest made several best-of lists in 2015; had I read it right away, I would have been expected great things. But I can almost guarantee that it will not make my best-of list for 2018. Which doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it; I did and I was perfectly happy with it because I didn't have too high of expectations.

Kitchens of The Great Midwest is not so much a novel as it is a series of interrelated short stories. Every story centers on one character and one food, with Eva playing some role in every story. Even so, in the end I felt like I didn't know Eva as well as I knew all of the other characters we'd met along the way; she remains something of an enigma. On the other hand, some of the secondary characters really came alive, including one of my favorites, Pat Prager, a small-town, church-going second wife who constantly struggles to live the Christian life she espouses.

I read this with my book club and it was a book nearly everyone did finish and enjoy (although not everyone enjoyed the ending). There were stories in the book that reminded us of other books, there were stories that made us cheer (Chocolate Habeneros with its great revenge and girl power!), and stories that made us sad. For a midwest guy, though, Stradal doesn't actually seem to think much of most of the people who live in middle America. Maybe that had more to do with the food stories he wanted to tell than the people he was writing about.

Stradal is a man who understands the power of food and the ways it can bring out both the best and the worst in people. He is an equal opportunity mocker of traditional comfort "church" food and the "foodies" who often treat food as its own religion. He absolutely made me want to get in the kitchen with a little voice in one year telling me to get rid of all of the less than wholesome things in there and another voice telling me to bake some bars immediately. I certainly can't wait for the farmer's markets to arrive again! And that I have already made Pat Prager's bars.