I can tell that I’m ready for summer to be over because I’m having more cooking failures than usual. Distraction, stress, exhaustion–all culprits. A couple weeks ago I tried to make this great sounding salad with caramelized fennel and bacon from a Giada recipe. I followed her recipe exactly, but rather than check on the oven full of fennel and bacon like I normally would, I let it run until the timer binged. What I took out of the oven was a blackened sheet of charcoal that had once been something edible. It was like a nuclear holocaust on my dinner salad. It fused itself to the cookie sheet so badly that after 3 attempts at cleaning it I had to throw it out.
Archive: July 23, 2008
Come Fly With Me was released in March to great reviews, and I read it last week and loved it. Then I got sort of addicted to Satomi Ichikawa and grabbed up every book of hers we had in my branch. I loved them all. My Father’s Shop, La La Rose, The First Bear in Africa!–they were all great. Ichikawa’s stories all involve children or the objects of children’s love (toys, dolls, etc.) having great adventures outside their small worlds. These are great stories to build on the ideas of travel, seeing the world, exploring more than what you know. Becoming worldly, basically. I was really taken with them and thought they would make great read-alouds or books to give as gifts. The stories take place in Paris, an African savanna, Morocco, Luxembourg…I haven’t read all her books yet, but this gives you an idea of the great places kids can discover with these books. They’re really wonderful.