Cooking Through Fiction: The Seeing Stone — Simon's Butterscotch Toffee Skillet Cookie

When I was a kid, I would describe myself as having been mischievous (which I used to pronounce miss-chee-vee-us; is this because I am southern or are others led astray by the pronunciation?). And being mischievous led me to make a few—okay, a lot of righteously stupid decisions.

A few of my less-than-stellar ideas:  Eating Play-Doh. Because Play-Doh has a peculiar, yet tantalizing smell, it had to taste good. It doesn’t. Eating soap. If bath soap smells so good (again with the smells), surely it tastes good, too. It doesn’t. Finger stapling. If you put your finger beneath a stapler and press it, it will—I repeat, it will—staple through your index finger. And it hurts like the dickens.

Cooking Through Fiction: The Field Guide — Spiderwick Macaroni & Cheese

Years ago, Ma bought me The Spiderwick Chronicles series from a children’s store in my hometown because she said, “They were pretty.” And they are. The illustrations are fantastic, and the book covers alone make you want to rub your fingers over the embossed artwork, the gothic font, and the shiny high-gloss finish. During one of my bouts of insomnia, I sat up all night (and morning) and read the entire series. Now, I’ve decided to reread them on my “Cooking Through Fiction” journey.

In The Spiderwick Chronicles series, the Grace children are in for an adventure. After her divorce, Helen Grace moves her children into a dilapidated Victorian home owned by their Aunt Lucinda (who is supposedly crazy). The children—Mallory and twins Jared and Simon—cope in different ways. Simon collects animals like a zookeeper, Jared gets into fights at school, and Mallory parries imaginary opponents with her fencing sword.

Cooking Through "The Baker's Man": Rum Cake

Continuing with the adventure to cook my way through The Baker’s Man, today I bring you Chapter 2: Rum Cake.

Sometimes your best friend knows exactly what you need when your heart breaks like peanut brittle. Other times, a night of innocent encouraging turns into an accidental disaster in the kitchen, courtesy of a bottle of rum and an enchanted recipe.

Instead of Anna and Lily creating a deliciously sweet rum cake, the recipe causes something else entirely to pop out of the oven.

Cooking Through Fiction: Dracula's Robber Steak

Continuing in the pursuit of cooking my way through fiction, I’ve been reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Within a few chapters, it’s as though a shroud has been draped over the entire world. Sunlight cannot penetrate the darkness, and as a reader tumbles into this gothic realm, one begins to wonder if anything other than flickering firelight exists at all. Perhaps there are only degrees of darkness, ranging from the silvery gray of twilight to the absolute stygian blackness. On the rare occasions when a moon can be seen, villagers are mesmerized, desperate for its light.

The Baker's Man Full Moon Giveaway

From one full moon to the next, enter to win a copy of The Baker's Man!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Baker's Man

by Jennifer Moorman

Giveaway ends May 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Words I’ve never read

not in its entirety.

But I can’t see it or think of it

and not have you come dancing into view.

Without meaning to, I think of your smile

then your smirk

then the time I hit you,

and suddenly I’m not sorry you and I forked in the road,

you going your way, me going mine.

Wednesday Word Museum

When I went to college, I took a linguistics class because my advisor thought I might like it. He knew I was a lover of words. He also knew that if I randomly won a truckload of cash, I'd buy my own set of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). Turns out, I loved the Intro to Linguistics course, and then I loved all of the other courses I took for the minor. 

Both for fun and for class presentations, I read The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary and The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. I loved them both. I would suggest that anyone who loves the making of dictionaries, especially the OED, read these. These two books fueled my love of words. They also push us think about how we choose which words are important to us, how some words were burnt to a crisp in a stove, and how other people choose what is important to us without even our knowledge.