“Food prepared with a light heart and in a happy frame of mind is often the best food. Preparing the special foods that are favorites of those you love…making just a little effort to garnish the salad with a sprig of parsley, a bit of grated cheese, or a wild strawberry from the nearby meadow….
Flipping through a new cookbook, just glancing at the pictures can make your mouth start to water. But before you pay for the cookbook based on salivary appeal alone, take a second look, and see if you can actually make the recipes included. Is it so gourmet that it calls for ingredients that aren’t in…
“I need say nothing of household economy, in which the mothers of our country are generally skilled, and generally careful to instruct their daughters. We all know its value, and that diligence and dexterity in all its processes are inestimable treasures. The order and economy of a house are as honorable to the mistress as…
One of the wonderful things about owning an antique store is it gives you an excuse to go book shopping–and an outlet to sell books to make more room on your bookshelves. Often I’ll pick up a book at a sale because it looks interesting, but after reading it decide it’s not one I want…
When Merritt brought home a flier about our library’s summer reading program, neither he nor I thought I would have any problem reading five books over the summer. I had been a veritable bookworm during the slow spring days at the store. But then summer came–and there was never a spare moment for reading at…
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton This is one of the few stories for which I am glad I saw the movie first. For then, as I read this short little book, I could picture the grey-whiskered little man of the 1939 movie. And the scenes that had touched me so in the movie, gripped…
Sometimes, one has to get reacquainted with old friends. And if you are not privileged to know Bill, Poetry, Dragonfly, Circus, Big Jim, and Little Jim, may I recommend that you spend a pleasant hour getting to know The Sugar Creek Gang. The last few evenings have found me too tired to do much housework…
Uncle Bill must have every single book Louis L’amour ever wrote. He loves to tell me the plots of the latest cowboy book he’s been reading. But usually cowboy books aren’t the first thing I pick up when I want a relaxing bit of fiction. When Uncle Bill loaned Merritt the Fortunes of the Black…
“[There is] no furniture so charming as books, even if you never open them, or read a single word.” -Sydney Smith, in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by Lady Holland, 1855 I can spend hours looking at books. Absorbing the clever titles (My Lady of the Fog, mysterious, Their Yesterdays, intriguing), unique bindings…
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald This tale from 1945 proved to be a hilarious read-aloud for these newlywed farmers. The Egg and I is the author’s own experience as a newlywed chicken farmer on the coast of Washington. I’d seen the movie starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray long ago, as my grandma…
I hadn’t been to a book sale since the weekend before I was married. Not that it had stopped Merritt and me from adding to our book collection. The bookshelves we bought the week before his accident have been filled to overflowing in the seven months since. From garage sales, to all-too-frequent visits to GoodWill…
Thanksgiving is still a month away, but for some reason as the strains of Classical music came from the radio early the other morning, I thought of the CD with Thanksgiving hymns my grandmother had given my family last autumn. The CD accompanied Barbara Rainey’s book Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, and had a delightful…
The End.
The End.