The past month has flittered by without me so much as realizing it was gone. Here we are, in early December, with Bing Crosby ringing holiday cheer out of my computer speakers.
Although I have not had the opportunity to do a ton of cooking this month, I have been doing a lot of eating AND a lot of reading. The eating part is significantly less unique than the reading part, which is something I rarely have the time to do. It started on my
Hawaiian vacation with two of the world's greatest and most precious (to me) people,
Julie and Ryan. Being the perfect vacation, and the perfect vacationing couples, each of us had a handful of books we were excited to read on the beach and by the pool. As previously stated, I am usually not a big reader, so I limited my books to two.
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, and
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffner and Annie Barrows. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these books, surprising myself with the speed at which I finished them. Each book was made even more enjoyable with the addition of a strawberry mint spritzer - fresh strawberry puree, fresh mint leaves, sparkling water, and a hint of some other flavoring I could not distinguish.
Where eating is concerned, my meals have ranged from fresh caught local Hawaiian fish, seared perfectly just for me and served either in corn tortillas or on a bed of sauteed vegetables to whole
Maryland crabs that poked through my skin as I tried to crack them open, spurring on tears and me questioning whether or not I really wanted to work that hard for my food. (I did.) It also included a nice, heavy, home-made Italian meal made by me and my Mom, who is not Italian at all but we still had fun going through her old cookbooks and coming up with the most fattening post-Thanksgiving menu we could. For the curious, it involved prosciutto, fontina, lots of butter and cream, and fresh sage leaves.
In a nutshell, I think that sums up my November. Now to come up with some great recipes for the annual Christmas Chill.
