I Loved, I Lost, I Ate Spaghetti (or was it orzo?)

Today we met in my backyard to talk about Guilia Melucci's "I Loved, I Lost, I Ate Spaghetti." While we did not all love the book (the writer's lack of introspection made it seem rather fluffy/shallow to many of us), we did love the food that we prepared from recipes in the book! Some of the recipes had particularly good names, such as "Morning After Pumpkin Bread," which Cathy prepared -- it was DELICIOUS! Also served were lamb burgers, orzo salad with feta, lentil salad, romaine salad, and berry salad. Oh, and for dessert "Fuck You Cakes with Chocolate Bourbon Frosting." Wait, can I use the F-word on this blog?!?!

As always, we had a great discussion, with lots of personal stories and experiences thrown in. It was "foodies" vs. "non-foodies" at the table -- and even the definition of "foodie" was discussed. Some of us love to talk about food, eat food, plan our food, and read cookbooks and magazines like it's porn. Others, not so much. I think you can guess which camp I'm in. Mmm, what's for dinner?

Mother's Day: A Complicated Kindness

I apologize for the delay in posting this GORGEOUS photo from our last book club... We had a delightful lunch at Karen's house and discussed "A Complicated Kindness" by Miriam Toews. We talked about small towns (Liz being an expert), extreme religion, and a crazy blue-flame scene that we think Amy might have made up ;)

We also used a "Table Topics" cube, Book Club Edition, for the first time. It has a bunch of cards with questions to inspire discussion, such as "if this book has an epigraph did it help you understand the message." This question in particular caused us to reach for a dictionary and look up "epigraph!"

All in all, it was a fabulous Mother's Day, with excellent photos to boot! Some are too whacky to post here, even...