Tag: reading

family

The Only Celebrity Cookbook I will Ever Buy

Andi

If you’ve been missing my casual cooking and recipe posts, I apologize. I’ve been trying to cook and haven’t had much time to try new recipes. But, I did find a new cookbook and it triggered a need to cook.

Now, if you know, you know I do not like celebrity cookbooks. I am intrigued by them, so I pick them up, but end up just putting them back without even trying to make anything. The only exception was Chrissy Teigan’s Cravings Cookbook. I was able to make a few recipes and they were pretty good. The peanut cluster bites in there were to die for!! Having said that, I also returned it to the library and haven’t bought it or picked it up again. There never has been a celebrity cookbook I loved enough to actually purchase it.

UNTIL NOW

For some people, who knew Snoop Dogg back in the day, this may seem so odd. How could this guy, of all people, write a cookbook? I did not. I did not discover Snoop Dogg until I was an adult, where I’ve also realized I knew his songs but had no idea it was him or who any of these artists were. So when I heard about it, my first thought was, “well duh, he’s like BFFs with Martha Stewart”. Who by the way, did help him with this. But I realize how this may be odd. But I promise, this book is worth it.

I picked it up despite my general dislike of celebrity cookbooks because every time I’ve seen him, he’s always so chill and seems down to earth and genuine. This book reiterated that to me. It’s full of good meals, several of which has simple ingredients I use on the regular. Even the pictures of his pantry and kitchen look nice, but they aren’t over the top extravagant. It was so amazing.

But the real test came when I tried to make one of the recipes. I chose the Pork Chops and Mashed Sweet Potatoes. I expected it to both take me a long time and make a lot of dirty dishes, but I was surprised to be proven wrong on both. It only took me about an hour to make, and far fewer dishes than I thought. I was pleasantly surprised. The entire family loved it too, so it was delicious as well.

And if you still need convincing that this is the best cookbook on the shelf, then allow me to share his quote on Biscuits and Gravy.

“If you’ve been Down South, then you’ve eaten this on plenty of day breaks. This is that real soul food classic. The key here is to get those biscuits fluffy. And that gravy, well thats gotta be like that humid air of a Dirty South Summer- extra, super thick. But eat too much of this and you might as well just take your ass right back to bed. This ain’t for the meek. It’ll put your ass right back to sleep.”

family

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self Love

Andi

I recently finished reading Jonathan Van Ness’s auto biography entitled Over The Top. It was a raw, honest telling of his life thus far.

He openly discusses not only his struggles, but how non linear his journey has been. I think this is important and seldom talked about. You won’t always set to overcome an addiction and then beat that addiction on the first try. You won’t always set a goal and meet it. You will fail. You will experience setbacks. There will be some event that sends you spiraling into your emotions and you turn to the very habit you are trying to break. You will or probably have felt like such a failure before. Why don’t we talk about how many times we’ve all tried to move one step forward and gotten shoved two back instead by an uncontrollable force or our own shortcomings. Jonathon doesn’t hide any of this from the reader. Some of it was hard to read. Honestly. My heart was breaking. It was refreshing to see someone be so honest, but also wrenching to see someone struggle so much. I cried.

I would also say this book is encouraging but also discouraging. It is encouraging in that someone could rise up and accomplish so much, and that society is slowly changing. Yet discouraging because it reminded me that I, as a parent, am incapable of protecting my child from all the bad out to harm them. I can be the most loving, supportive mother, but I still can’t force the world around us to also be loving and supportive.

And most importantly! I love Jonathan’s complete adoration of cats. For real, I watch the instastories eagerly hoping it’s another cat post. He tells a story of the bond he had with his very first cat and it melted me. I love cats. Just animals in general can be such loyal, compassionate companions precisely when we need them, but for me, that animal has been cats. I got my first cat when I was 12. I’d begged for one for years but always been met with a firm no as my dad hated cats. Finally, he caved when we found a rescue that had been dumped out in the country by my uncle’s house. She was a long haired orange tabby named Rachel. She was beautiful, however not as regal as my current companion. My cat now, Magnus, is 6 years old. He is a sleek black short hair, and he believes he is the Lord of a large estate. He has always been beside me, and one of my greatest joys is seeing him interact with my children. He will curl up and comfort them when they are sick. He head bops them, and they head bop him back. I would adopt every last black cat on earth if I could.

And the Romanov’s??!! Look. My young life was drastically molded by a select few films. Anastasia was one of them. I Loved it, but my mother did not. She believed it was wicked due to the presence and practice of Rasputin. (Which, to be fair, the story of the REAL Rasputin is…unnerving) I remember going over to friend’s houses to watch it at sleepovers. It still remains a favorite movie of mine. And did trigger a good deal of reading about the actual Romanov family, but that left me far more sad than the movie.

Not to mention how much Jonathon loves figure skating. I, too, dreamed of becoming an Olympic figure skater when I was young. Except unlike his dance routines, I designed all my own costumes. They were detailed. Growing up with a seamstress, I knew what went into crafting an outfit from scratch. I put all the knowledge and a lot of bad math into these costume designs. Most of them were blue, and contained a lot of floral elements.

But truly, what I find most important is learning about a person different than myself. My grandmother would encourage me to read all kinds of books, even books I didn’t think I’d agree with. She was trying to encourage me to think critically from every angle and not be narrow minded. Meeting someone who is different from you and listening to them, learning about them forces you to see from their perspective. It challenges your viewpoints. Diversity is good. Reading can be an easy way to do this. This is why I often look for books that I think I will learn from. Even though I am religious, I find books by athiests enlightening, or written by leaders of other world religions. They might be able to teach me something I’d never considered before. While I think it is good to meet and interact with all kinds of people, maybe you can’t meet these people face to face, that’s why books are so helpful. I can learn about Jonathan Van Ness without meeting him face to face by reading his book.

Which I greatly encourage you to do as well.

Art, family

The Secret Garden

Andi

The Secret Garden. The influence this story has had in my life is immense. We didn’t have a big TV in our house; we had a tiny 13 inch TV my dad would use to repair video cameras. So the number of films I remember from my childhood is very small, but this was one of them. I would hide trinkets in the slats under my bed when I was young. I was constantly knocking on walls hoping they were secret passages. When I was in a production of A Christmas Carol as Ebenezer’s school teacher, my entire costume was based off of Mrs. Medlock. The film was also my first introduction to Maggie Smith 😍. I loved this movie when I was little.

Somehow though, I was never provided with a copy of the book. I had an abridged picture book of it, but that didn’t count, as it was mostly just pretty paintings. I do still have it though. I was an adult before I got ahold of an unabridged copy. I loved the book as much as I had loved the film as a youth.

My only criticism now is that Martha and Dickon’s mother was omitted from the movie save for one small mention of her from Martha. But, throughout the movie they really expounded on Mary feeling unwanted and forgotten which was only eluded to in the book. I appreciated how they fleshed Mary out a little more for the film adaptation.

This story may be why I love growing things so much. It might be why I have such fascination with old keys and old houses. It’s probably why I talk to birds and cats like they can understand me.

Regardless if it is or not, I love this story so much, and I will continue to watch it and read it again and again. I will read it to my children and show them the movie so they can experience the same story I loved when I was their age. And it’s a reminder to me that the littlest joys they experience may the greatest memories of their youth.

family

Paper Portal

Andi

I pulled out a book from my shelf this morning titled Adventures in American Literature. It is a collection of short stories and poems all dating before 1900, and I was enjoying the light reading before the day really got started. Whilst flipping through I noticed a lot of margin notes and scribbles. They were all over in that scrawny cursive like my grandmother used to write in. I bought this book at an estate sale, so I know nothing about the previous owner, save for her name scribbled inside the front cover in that same scrawly cursive.

Upon reading these margin notes though I can surmise she was an English teacher, and wrote her lesson plans directly in the book. They say things like, “what is the rythym” and “finish further reading section on Tuesday” some as simple as “melancholy” and “tone?”

I also found some scribbles written in ink that look like a child’s doodles. Probably sitting at grandma’s house bored and found a book to look at.

This one however is the only note with a date, 3/12/31. Its marked with rhythm above the lines and Monday written beneath it. It’s like a paper portal into an American classroom 90 years ago. The feel of the pages, the smell of the old leather binding, even the way she writes, and of course the date stamp. Meaning this note has been sitting in the book nearly 100 years after being used to teach children about poetry. The poem she was noting here says this:

To him who in love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, And she glides

And then continues on the next page, but the teacher did not continue notations. I’m curious why. The poem is clearly not finished, and yet the following page is empty of hand writing.

History preserves itself in tiny capsules like this and leaves us with little mysteries to wonder at and enjoy.