Sunday, September 23, 2012

Pregnant Bookworm Writes Book Review & Nonsensically Follows It With Meatball Review


To Read Pile gets new location.
News rocks neighborhood.

The best kind of reading happens on a gorgeous fall day, outside, while your husband is shampooing the rugs inside.  This actually happened to me while I finished up the Big Thick Book The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.  That’s right, I haven’t given up on reading people – it was a big ‘un.

Blog Reader Valerie recommended this to me after the mishap recommendation fiasco that was Shine Shine Shine.  She wanted to make it up to this blog.  She sorta did.

The Dovekeepers  is good book, but pretty long and pretty slow.  It is a remarkable story – all of which is summarized on the back of the book.  I mistakenly read the back when I was only a few chapters in and it pretty much outlined what was going to happen in the last 20 pages.  Book Fail.  Bookworm Lesson:  Never read the back of a book that you have already committed to by adding it to a towering To Read pile.

Another free Bookworm Lesson to category under “Meatball:”  Make these.  The book gets 3 stars, the meatballs get five.   Mama likes protein!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Slider Memories Lead to Meandering Mention of a Book


Loyal Readers have noted my well-documented love of pickles.  I love them and always have.  Fun fact: a local bar – inexplicably now out of business – had the best pickles in the city on their delicious sliders (available in chicken, beef, BBQ and fish).  Loyal Reader Katherine once secured me a tub of pickles from this bar that was so big I could not physically lift it.  I ate a truly disgusting amount of these pickles, and was never happier.
A convenient photo of a barefoot and pregnant
woman pickling and achieving multiple cliches.

Fast-forward to Labor Day weekend 2012 and the topic of this rambling book blog.  Andrew and I tried our first recipe from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich. 

Romantic soul that I am, I got Andrew a complete pickling kit – including recipe book – for our anniversary.  What better activity to enjoy together than to make my favorite snack?  In all honesty, Andrew started the whole pickling idea.  Eating pickles is one of the main things we have in common.

It was a fun experience, but the recipe book was wrong about the amount of vinegar mixture we needed by 50%.  And when you are working with 12 pounds of cucumbers, that is a lot.  C’mon, Linda!

Now we are in the midst of the hardest part – waiting a month to try our pickled creations.  We are both worried that the cukes won’t stay crispy enough.  And honestly, it is a lot of pressure for this experiment to measure up.  We have talked about our pickles a lot.  It’s a big topic over dinner at our house. Well, that and the fact that the Pirates are totally falling apart (string of swear words here).

A pickling montage, featuring
the guns of pickle-picker-upper extraordinaire Andrew.





Friday, September 7, 2012

Bookworm Scores Free Lunches For Being Kind of a Dork


When I graduated college my Mom gave me $1,000 and wished me good luck in my future endeavors.  This was a nice way of saying “don’t come home, you’ll be miserable.  And probably not the best roommate/tenant.”  So I moved to Chicago with two girlfriends from school with no job and no prospects.

My first goal was to introduce myself fully to the local nightlife.  I knew my Mom’s seed money could only go so far, so I signed up with a temp agency and was quickly placed.  I can’t remember the name of the firm, but it was something like Cary Schiff’s Law Firm and I think we specialized in kicking people out of their apartments if they didn’t pay the rent.  My boss was Tammy, a local Dwarf.  I am not saying that to be mean – she was probably 4’5” and had a limp.  That’s a dwarf right?  I don’t know if she lived under a bridge or not.

Anyway, with virtually no training by Tammy The Very Mean Dwarf, I proceeded to fake-work at this job.  Filing papers anywhere I felt like, occasionally shredding things, and fake typing 250 words/minute.  Surprisingly, Tammy did not think I was doing a very good job.  She was fairly vocal on this point.

Cary Schiff, head of the office and only lawyer on this crack legal team, was a nice guy.  When he first met me, we engaged in some idle chatter about where we were from, schools, etc.  When I heard he went to Emory Law School in Atlanta, and noticed in my shredding that he was an eviction attorney, I had to ask: Had he ever read A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe?  His background reminded me of a character in the novel, which I had just finished the previous week. 

Not only had he read the book, but he know the real person the character was based on.  I was (lamely) star struck.  My question and reaction made me a Person Worth Talking To, much to Tammy The Mean Dwarf’s annoyance.

Cary took me out to lunch – a big deal for a struggling temp like myself – and we chatted about his kids, my family, my goals, etc.  It wasn’t creepy – he would tell me all about his life and family and just thought I had Potential.  I only worked at his firm for 2 weeks before I landed an internship at a PR firm where I ended up working for 3 years without ever shredding a document.

Cary called me last week just to say hello.  We hadn’t chatted in years, and caught up for less than 10 minutes.  He remembered all about me – where my brother went to college, when I had worked for him (likely because of 2 weeks of mysteriously missing documents), etc.  He just wanted to check in and see how I was – he said he always thought I had a special spark.  He promised to call back in another couple of years.  I am sure he will.

My roommates and me on the porch of our first apartment in Chicago.
Two out of three roommates apparently ok with baring stomach.
If done today, Bookworm would scare children and adults.



Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Book Hoarder Demands Hit CD from 1995


Hot on the Bookworm’s To Do List is cleaning out the (formerly) Purple Reading Room (sniff).

Here’s what happens when a hurricane of energy meets dusty bookshelf:


And here is what happens when two Bookworms finally condense all their books:


For years I have accused my brother of stealing my copy of The Fountainhead and my Oasis CD.  I think nesting has proven that perhaps the book accusation was misplaced, but Morning Glory will still remain a family feud.

Now who here is impressed I remember Oasis?