Friday 5ive- July 23, 2021

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

1)  We went to a restaurant with friends in Harrison on Saturday, Emilio Ristorante. The food was fabulous, starting with my so-very-thinly-sliced eggplant parmesan appetizer on to my cingale (wild boar) ravioli entree. We've only had cingale in Italy, and this was so tasty. Our party of six drank a lot of great wine, and we had a lot of laughs with the affable owner, Sergio. There was also much
commiserating from the Mets fans at the table, who are fervently hoping for a World Series appearance this year. We'll see.... 

 Photo from Emilio's Instagram account

2) I finished another virtual ride, this one was Tahoe to Malibu, a 700 mile ride. I started it on May 1st and finished it on July 11th. On to my next challenge, Route 66, a 2200 mile ride, which should take me almost a year to complete. 

3) Walking to get my hair cut, I saw this ad in a window on 3rd Ave. for Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, a terrific summer read from Elyssa Friedland. I get so excited when I see book ads in the wild.  This delightful novel is for fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Dirty Dancing, and Schitt's Creek.

4)  We watched Dr. Death, a limited series on Peacock, based on a popular podcast. Joshua Jackson stars as a Texas surgeon who maimed and killed several of his patients before he was stopped by two doctors, played by Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin. The doctor moved from hospital to hospital, and the big question became was he just incompetent or a sociopath? The medical powers-that-be are indicted in this true crime story because they covered up his actions and let him move on to another facility with impunity. The acting is very good, but I would have preferred that the story was told in chronological order. True crime podcast fans will like this one. 

5) I finished two books this week. The first was Jennifer Ryan's The Kitchen Front, a novel set in WWII near London. Four women are recruited to enter a cooking contest, the prize is co-hosting a popular radio show on the BBC, called The Kitchen Front. Audrey is a widow struggling to provide for her two sons, and this would allow her to keep her home. Her sister, Lady Geraldine, is married to a powerful man in the town who rules over her with an iron fist. Zelda is a displaced rising London chef, now working as the head cook in  the local factory. Nell is a young cook working in Lady Geraldine's home. It's a good story of female friendship and resilience, and my book club is discussing it today.

Sara Ackerman's Radar Girls is also set in WWII, but in Hawaii, right after the Pearl Harbor attack. Local women are enlisted to work, learning how to read radar signals and assist the pilots fighting the Japanese. Fans of Kate Quinn's The Rose Code will find themselves drawn to this intriguing story. My full review publishes on July 26th. 

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy, and that you have gotten your vaccine if you are able. It will keep us all safe.

Friday 5ive- May 28, 2021

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. The Friday 5ive took a few weeks off because we finally made a trip to our home in Florida after 15 months.

1) Every time I see the calming blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I feel so peaceful. It was great to walk along the beach every morning, feel the warm water and sand between my toes. 

2) We had lunch with friends at Columbia restaurant, where our server was an amusing gentleman named Norbert, who put on quite a show as he prepared our sangria and Columbia 1905 salads tableside. 

3) I made a new recipe this week- Joy Bauer's made a healthier Egg Roll Bowl on the Today Show. It was delicious, made with ground turkey, cabbage, chopped mushrooms, and soy sauce, rice vinegar and a homemade duck sauce. We loved it and it moves into regular dinner rotation. 

4) I finished another virtual bike race- 750 miles from Boston to Bar Harbor. The t-shirt for this one is so soft, I think it will be a favorite for awhile. 

5)  I finished nine books in the two weeks we were away and there were a few standouts.

Chris Whitaker's novel We Begin At The End had me gasping out loud at a few points. Walk is the chief of police of a small tourist town. When he was a teenager, he testified against his best friend Vince in the hit and run case where a young girl was killed. Thirty years later, Vince is released from prison. Star, the sister of the young girl killed, was Vince's girlfriend. She now has a teenage daughter, Duchess Day Radley, who fancies herself an outlaw, and cares for her younger brother Robin, and Star, who is an alcoholic and can't hold a steady job. All these lives collide in ways that bring more misery to everyone. It's a remarkable story about the family you're born with and the one you create. It's a powerfully emotional novel. 

Beatriz Williams' spy novel, Our Woman in Moscow, takes place at the beginning of the Cold War. Iris Digby's husband is accused of being a Russian spy, and her family defects to Moscow. When she sends her estranged twin sister Ruth a postcard asking her to come to Moscow to help her when she gives birth to her fourth child, FBI agent Sumner Fox convinces Ruth to help him extract Iris from Russia. It's a real page turner, with twists and turns you don't expect.  

I hope you all have an enjoyable and safe Memorial Day weekend.

My Year By The Numbers

The year 2020 is one that is destined to be remembered by us all for a long time. We will look back on it as the year we hunkered down in our homes, trying to stay away from the Coronavirus. When my friend Dorothy and I closed and locked the door at the Book Cellar on March 12th, we did not think we would still be closed ten months later, not knowing when we will go back.

It's been ten months of trying to keep busy at our apartment in New York City- trying everyday to decide  what to make for dinner, figuring out how to order groceries on Wegmans.com and Instacart for delivery. We rented a summer home in Westchester and got grocery deliveries from Costco and DeCiccos, a beautiful family-owned grocery store.

On this look back at 2020 by the numbers, we received:

14 deliveries from Wegmans

8 deliveries from Costco (New Rochelle)

4 deliveries from DeCiccos (Pelham) 

Thank goodness we had our Peloton bike, it kept me sane and healthy, and a reason to get out of bed every morning to ride. In 2020:

I rode 2627.20 miles

Took 382 cycling classes (Yacht Rock was my favorite!)

101 Strength classes 

My favorite Peloton instructor- Jenn Sherman

I did 6 virtual bike races- (these total miles are included in the above Peloton numbers)

Summer Around the Finger Lakes- 408.2 miles (cycling around the 11 Finger Lakes- my sons joined in)

WNY Rail Trail Foliage Challenge- 269.26 (the distance of the Western Region and Finger Lakes Rail Trails)

Manhattan to Montauk- 180 miles (two friends joined in)

Run for Ruth- 87 miles

Winter Quest- The New York State Snow Belt from Niagara Falls to Albany- 300 miles

Ring of Kerry- ride around the Ring of Kerry in Ireland 124.3 miles 

My WNY Rail Trail medal and jacket

Of course I read- a LOT. My usual goal is to read 100 books, and I usually end up in the 80-85 book range. There were many days during the summer when I could read a book in a single day. This year-

137 books read

47,507 pages read

113 female authors

24 male authors

113 fiction

24 nonfiction

20 historical fiction

9 thriller/mysteries

21 romance

11 series books

3 books by Jenny Colgan

2 books by Chris Bohjalian

20 books that made multiple Best of 2020 lists

My bookshelves

Here is a link to the best ten books I read this year.

Let's hope for a better 2021, in the meantime, stay safe, socially distant, wear a mask and wash your hands until we can beat this virus with the vaccine.