Friday 5ive- January 26, 2024

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. 

1)  It was a bookish week, with two events. It began with Zibby Media's New Year, New Chapter event at the Whitby Hotel on Saturday. There were over 40 authors speaking at several panels, including Rom-Coms, Your Deepest, Darkest (Thrillers), Advice for Debut Authors, and Don't Make Me Laugh among them. The great Anna Quindlen gave the keynote address (more on her later) and the discussions  and authors were so interesting. I got to connect with authors I've met before, like Jane L. Rosen (whose upcoming June novel Seven Summer Weekends is one I can't wait for) and Caroline Leavitt (her upcoming book Days of Wonder is on several lists of 2024 Eagerly Anticipated Books). I also got to meet in person Nancy Johnson, whose debut novel The Kindest Lie holds a place on my All-Time Favorites Shelf. That was such a delight! I met a few Instagram friends, and connected with some people I used to see at Book Expo (I miss that.). It was a great day and the turnout was so good I hope it encourages more bookish events in the future. Zibby Owens and her team did a wonderful job.

The authors

Meeting Nancy Johnson

Keynote speaker Anna Quindlen

2)  On Tuesday evening, the Book Cellar Book Club gathered at the Vanguard Wine Bar to discuss Helene Hanff's classic book 84, Charing Cross Road. The book consists of twenty years of letters written between Hanff, who lived in New York City, and the Marks & Co. Booksellers in London following WWII. Hanff was a freelance writer and literature lover who would order books from London to be sent to her. She struck up a friendly correspondence with the used book dealer and her letters were funny and a bit snarky at times. Eventually she got to know his family and others who worked at the bookstore, and she would arrange to have food and other items sent to them that were hard to find in post-war England. It's a lovely little book that restores your faith in humanity.

While on the way out, we ran into a group of women who were meeting for a book swap and we had a lovely chat with them. Apparently Vanguard Wine Bar is the literary salon of the Upper East Side.

Our new friends

3)  On Saturday evening, my husband and two of our friends went to see the fantastic Nick Fradiani portray Neil Diamond in A Beautiful Noise- the Neil Diamond Musical on Broadway. If you are a Neil Diamond fan this show is a must-see. The music will make you smile and dance in your seat, but please don't sing until the Sweet Caroline singalong at the end. Nick sang at the ArchCare gala in October and we went backstage after the show to congratulate him on an amazing performance. He graciously took a photo with us on stage. With so much bad news and chaos in the world, this show will leave you singing and smiling. 

4)  Somone suggested we watch Beef , a limited series on Netflix, and after it won several awards at the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards recently, we gave it a try. It is crazy good! Ali Wong and Steven Yeun play two people who have a road rage incident that spirals out of control. Both of them make one bad decision after the other that threatens their work, family, sanity and even their lives. Everyone involved deserves all the awards, especially Wong and Yeun who are just brilliant. 

5)  After hearing Anna Quindlen speak at New Year, New Chapter, I couldn't wait to dive into her upcoming novel, After Annie, publishing in February. From the first sentence- "Annie Brown died right before dinner", I was hooked.  Annie was a 37 year-old wife and mom to four young children who worked as a nurse aide in a nursing home. After she dies in their kitchen, her husband Bill, who owns his plumbing business, is lost and doesn't know what to do. Thirteen year-old daughter Ali becomes the caretaker to her dad and three younger brothers, and we see the story of what happens 'after Annie' through Ali, Bill, and Annie's lifelong best friend Annmarie's eyes. They bring Annie to life in this heartbreaking and emotional story. Annie was the glue that held the family together, and helped Annmarie through her addiction to pain killers. We watch these people as they grieve, which Quindlen likens to spring. "Grief was like spring, maybe. You thought you were getting out from under it and then it comes roaring back." After Annie is one of the most visceral novels about grief that I have read, and it will stay with me for a long time. I started reading it and five hours later I finished it because I could not put this book down. I give it my highest recommendation. 

 I hope you have a safe, healthy week, Until next time.

Friday 5ive- October 27, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Like the fact that as I write this, it is 75 degrees in NYC. It was a busy week, we were out everywhere.

1) The ArchCare Gala was held this week and they raised over $2 million to care for the frail and vulnerable in the archdiocese of New York. It was a fantastic evening, with Good Day New York's Rosanna Scotto once again emceeing, and she had a terrific interview with New York Giants legend Eli Manning. Everyone was excited to meet and get a photo with Eli (who is very tall). Nick Fradiani, who now plays Neil Diamond  in Broadway's A Beautiful Noise- The Neil Diamond Musical, performed four songs-America, I'm A Believer,  I Am I Said, and of course Sweet Caroline. We saw Nick in A Beautiful Noise earlier this year and he is phenomenal in the show. If you get the chance to come to NYC, definitely go see it. 

Our team with Eli Manning

Nick Fradiani, my husband Scott and myself

You can see some of Rosanna's interview with Eli Manning here.

You can see some of Nick's performance here.

2) We had dinner with two friends this week at Sartiano's in the Mercer Hotel in New York and it was quite an experience. Apparently it is the hot spot, drawing lots of celebrities. It's a gorgeous restaurant, and the food was amazing. I had the Agnolotti, made with sweet corn, chanterelles, and pecorino cheese. It was the best pasta I've had outside of Italy. It's a special treat dinner, and I highly recommend it. 

Photo from Sartiano's website

3) After dinner we attended a talk at the Sheen Center featuring television producer Matt Williams reading from his memoir Glimpses- A Comedy Writer's Take on Life, Love and All That Spiritual Stuff. Williams, who co-created and produced Roseanne and Home Improvement, two of the biggest sitcoms of the 1990s, also teaches at Columbia University, so he knows how to speak to an audience and keep us engaged. Author Adriana Trigiani came onstage after the reading to discuss Williams' book and career, and I found the talk so interesting. Williams' book talks about how throughout his life he has found glimpses of grace and goodness when he needed it most. In the scary world we find ourselves in, glimpses of grace and goodness are so important. I'm looking forward to reading Glimpses.  

4) It was a week of bookish lunches. The first was with a new friend, Alexa Weijko, an editor at 

Soho Press. I've seen Alexa on Zoom presentations with publishers speaking about their upcoming books, so I was excited to meet in person this week. We talked books we like, my work at the Book Cellar, and I learned all about the job an editor does (which I found fascinating). We're also from the same hometown of Auburn, New York, so we caught up on all things Auburn. I can't wait to hunker down with these terrific upcoming Soho Crime books, they're always intriguing reads.

My second bookish lunch was catching up with two of my Book Cellar friends. We talked books we've recently read and loved and books we're looking forward to reading, as well as new restaurants and shops in the neighborhood. I even stopped into the recently opened Caroline's Donuts and picked up a few treats for me and one doggie treat for my son's dog Otto. Mmmm, donuts as Homer Simpson would say.

5) I read two good books this week. The first is Jean Kwok's The Leftover Woman, the story of two women whose very different lives intersect in ways they couldn't imagine. Jasmine secretly leaves her home in China for New York City to look for the daughter she was told by husband had died at birth. Rebecca works in publishing and lives in a beautiful New York City home with her handsome and charismatic husband and young daughter they adopted from China. Jasmine deals with the challenges of being an impoverished immigrant while trying to find her daughter, while Rebecca's carefully manicured life is becoming unglued with problems in her marriage and her career in her father's legacy publishing house crumbling. Kwok masterfully manages to keep the story suspenseful while at the same time throwing a light on the intensely competitive publishing world, the invisibility of immigrants, and the repercussions of the one child policy in China. It's just brilliant. 

The second book is Tess Gerritsen's thriller The Spy Coast. Maggie Bird, a retired CIA spy moves to a quiet coastal town in Maine where some of her former colleagues have already quietly settled incognito. When someone from Maggie's past comes looking for her, the team, who calls themselves The Martini Club, band together to find out who is after Maggie. They also have to deal with Jo, the new chief of police of this quiet town, who wonders what is the deal with this so-called Martini Club of older people who keep insinuating themselves in her investigation. It's a fast-paced story with terrific characters and I'm happy to see that this is billed as the first in the Martini Club series, I will be impatiently waiting for the next book in the series. Gerritsen got the idea for the book from the fact that she discovered the little town she lives in in Maine has a group of retired CIA agents living there. 

Stay safe and healthy all. Until next time.

Friday 5ive- February 17, 2023

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly(ish) post featuring five things that caught my attention this week. Since last week I was traveling, this post covers two weeks worth of fun. It's curently 60 degrees in NYC but it will be 28 degrees Saturday morning when I am heading to work. This weather is crazy.

1) My sister-in-law Brigette and I love Ina Garten's cookbooks, and we started a tradition of buying her new cookbook and choosing a three-course meal to cook with each other long distance over Facetime. This year from her Go-To Dinners cookbook we chose French Bistro Salad, Roast Chicken with Spring Vegetables, and Pannetone Bread Pudding for our menu. We began with the bread pudding, toasting the bread in the oven and then letting it sit the refrigerator all afternoon to soak up the custard. 

The toasted pannetone

The French Bistro Salad has sliced radicchio and endive (I subbed Boston lettuce for the endive), roquefort cheese, carmelized walnuts, matchsticked Granny Smith apples and a simple vinaigrette made with champagne vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and olive oil. I loved this simple salad and will be making it often. 

The chicken was roasted alongside heirloom baby carrots, yellow onions, Yukon potatoes, and asparagus. Again, it was easy to prepare and so delicious, the best roast chicken I have ever made.

The Pannetone Bread Pudding was the calorie-buster of the meal with lots of eggs and half-and-half, but it was so worth it. I cut the leftovers into squares and froze for future treats. 

Brigette and I spent the prep time catching up and when it came for dinner, we placed our IPad on our dining table and shared our meal with our spouses. We both said we must do this more often. 

Diiner is served!

2)  There is a construction site near us that has been up for a few years now, and the ugly fencing around it has a new covering. A local politician got some money and had a local middle school work on art project. The students created scenes reflecting NYC and those drawings were screened onto fencing covering the site. It makes such a big difference! It used to feel so desolate walking by there and now it is bright and cheery. Great job!

3) Our friends took us to dinner to celebrate my husband's birthday and then to see A Beautiful Noise, the Broadway musical about the life of Neil Diamond. It was fantastic! If you've seen Jersey Boys, the show is in that similar vein. It tells the story of Neil Diamond through his iconic music. There was a lot I didn't know about Neil Diamond, and the performances, especially Mark Jacoby (playing Neil- Now) and Robyn Hurder as Neil's second wife Marcia were wonderful. We were there on a Wednesday night so we saw the alternate, Nick Fradiani, playing Neil-Then, and he was really great. At first I was disappointed that Will Swenson, who plays Neil-Then for seven performances a week wasn't on, but Nick was fabulous. The audience could not hold back, singing along with some songs, and then joining in for the encore of Sweet Caroline. If you like Neil Diamond and/or Broadway, go see this one.

4)  I finished watching all 11 seasons of Frasier on my Echo Show in my kitchen while preparing dinners, and I've moved onto NewsRadio, the 1990's NBC sitcom starring Dave Foley, Stephen Root, Maura Tierney (pre-ER), and the brilliant Phil Hartman on Amazon Prime video. Set in a NYC news radio station, it has me laughing out loud. Phil Hartman's blustery, bloviating newsman Bill McNeil is just perfection as he plays a more self-aware Ted Baxter-like character. The cast is top-notch, even if some of them are now better known for other more outrageous things today (Andy Dick and Joe Rogan), and the death of Phil Hartman after season four was so tragic. 

5)  I read a book I've been looking forward to for a long time now. Ayóbámi Adébáyo’s debut novel, Stay With Me was the most compelling book I read in 2017 and her second novel, A Spell of Good Things is just as powerful. Set in Nigeria, we meet two families, one wealthy and one in poverty, whose worlds collide.

Eniola is a young teen whose family is plunged into poverty when his father is one of 6000 teachers who lost their job. His father comes deeply depressed and he, his mother, and sister are forced into begging family and strangers for money for food, rent, and school tuition.

Wuraola is a doctor from a wealthy family who becomes engaged to longtime family friend. She begins to question her future when her betrothed’s behavior becomes intolerable, knowing that her family will be angry if she calls the wedding off.

Eniola’s involvement with a local group of young men with ties to a powerful politician at first seems to be the answer to his family’s money problems, but soon turns dangerous.

Adébáyo brings the reader directly into this Nigerian setting, with the dichotomy of the poverty of Eniola and the wealth of Wurola’s circle jumping off the page at you. The customs, the food, the education, political, and medical systems provide an eye-opening experience for the reader.

Once again, Adébáyo’s story is heartbreaking and you ache for these characters that you will not soon forget.

 

Stay safe and healthy, until next time my friends.