Weekend Cooking- A Napa Trip- Part 1- The Food

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

My husband and I made our first visit to Napa Valley wine country last month, and it was a wonderful time. On our first night, we walked from our hotel to the downtown area, stopping at a local bookstore Napa Bookmine first. (Where else would I go?)

Oenotri dessert

We asked the young woman working there for a restaurant suggestion, and she recommended an Italian restaurant, Oenotri, nearby. The place was lovely, with a bar tucked into the corner and wooden tables between the bar and the open kitchen. Scott had a Bistecca Alla Pizzaiola that he raved about, and I thoroughly enjoyed my pasta dish. My favorite though was the cannoli dessert with fig and pistachio- so tasty! It was our favorite dinner of the trip.

The next morning we looked for some breakfast before we started out on our winery tours, and a woman at the Oxbow Market told us about Model Bakery. They are famous for their homemade English muffins, which are a cross between an English muffin and a doughnut. We ordered their egg sandwich on the muffin and it was terrific. We went back again the next morning for pastries and muffins and everything there

was great.

The English muffins are in the center top

Model Bakery's cinnamon rolls

We had a lunch lined up at The Farmstead at Longmeadow Ranch. The Chef's Table was a special lunch for six people, a true farm-to-table meal. While we toured the farm, we saw a cook picking herbs from the garden for our lunch.

The company was fantastic, a younger couple celebrating her graduation from medical school and the other couple was our age, celebrating his birthday. We all had a blast and laughed and drank wine and talked for over two hours.

The food was wonderful too- a melon and tomato salad, grass-fed beef tenderloin and a strawberry and merlot sorbet over a financier.

Melon and Tomato Salad

Beef Tenderloin

Strawberry Merlot Sorbet over Fanancier

By the time dinner rolled around, we had had a lot of wine and food and so we decided to forego our dinner reservation at Cole's Chop House and we hailed an Uber to go eat at In-N-Out Burger. The Uber driver thought we were a little crazy, but we enjoyed our cheeseburger, fries and shared milkshake for dessert.

Our last evening in Napa we had reservations for Bottega, chef Michael Chiarello's upscale Southern Italian restaurant in Yountville. Maybe it was because we had just had too much wine or were too tired, but neither of us enjoyed Bottega.

The decor struck me as too industrial, and the service was rushed. (We were in and out in 45 minutes.) My husband had the meatball appetizer and one of his meatballs was nearly raw. He told the waiter, who took the meatball away and came back after conferring with the kitchen. He told us that the meatballs were meant to be served "medium rare" which is odd enough, but doesn't explain why two of the three were cooked and one wasn't. They did offer to take the item off the bill.

We both found our entrees to be lacking, and it didn't compare to our first evening's enjoyable Southern Italian meal at Oenotri. We skipped dessert and headed back to the hotel. I can't recommend Bottega.

We wanted a hearty breakfast on our last morning, so I found a diner- Jax White Mule Diner located in downtown Napa. We split an order of beignets, which were so sinfully delicious and my husband had the short rib hash, which was fantastic. I even watched the cook shredding the short rib to put in the dish. I highly recommend Jax White Mule Diner if you ever visit Napa.

Beignets

Short Rib Hash

Next week's post will cover the wineries we visited. Have any of you ever visited Napa or Sonoma?

Weekend Cooking- Two Weeknight Recipes

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

It's always a chore to find recipes that I can make on weeknights when I work. This week I made a quick 20 minute lamb chop dinner and a slow cooker beef stroganoff. Two different methods that resulted in two terrific meals.

One of the perks of working at the Book Cellar is that I stock the $1 non-fiction shelf and when the cookbooks get moved there, I often find an interesting new one. (And I mean, how can you go wrong for a $1? You can't even buy a candy bar for a $1 anymore.)

I picked up Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast Weeknight Meals which promises 5 ingredient, 15 minute recipes, perfect for whipping up on a weeknight after work.  The first recipe I made was Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce. It was so easy and delicious! I don't make lamb too often, so this was a real treat. I will be making this again very soon.

They paired the chops with a Couscous Salad and since I had a box of Near East Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil Couscous in the pantry, I just cooked the couscous according to the directions on the box and added 3/4 cup chopped plum tomatoes, 1/3 cup minced fresh mint,  2 Tbsp. lemon juice and 1 Tbsp. olive oil like the recipe called for. I don't use mint too often, but it really brightened up the couscous and didn't overpower it at all.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper, divided
8 (4-oz) lamb loin chops, trimmed
Cooking spray

Prepare grill. Combine yogurt and next three ingredients. Stir in 1/8 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper. Chill.
Sprinkle lamb evenly with remaining 3/8 tsp. each salt and pepper. Place lamb on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Serve with yogurt sauce and couscous.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce- photo from book

On another day I had to work, I pulled out the slow cooker and made a new recipe I found on Pinterest- No-Canned Soup Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff. I don't like using canned soup in recipes, so this one appealed to me. I had most of the ingredients, I just needed to get the stew beef. The recipe came from Going Reno, and it can be found here.

My slow cooker has a saute feature, so I browned the stew beef, took that out of the cooker, then added thinly sliced onion and sliced mushrooms to brown for a few minutes. After adding a few tablespoons of red wine to deglaze the pot, you toss the beef back in with the onions and mushrooms and add a cup of beef broth. I set the timer and went to work.

Six hours later, I returned and mixed together sour cream, dijon mustard, paprika, bits of cream cheese and added that to the slow cooker for another 20 minutes. And while that finished up, I boiled the egg noodles. I did add some corn starch mixed with water to the beef sauce to thicken it up, and that worked just fine.

The stroganoff was fantastic, and the addition of dijon mustard and paprika gave the sauce a nice little kick. This is a perfect fall weather dinner and we had enough left over for the next night, which I may put over polenta or mashed potatoes to change it up.

What are your favorite weeknight recipes? Share them in comments.

The Life She Wants by Robyn Carr

The Life She Wants by Robyn Carr
Published by Mira ISBN978-0-7783-1967-2
Trade paperback, $15.99, 348 pages

My husband and I took a trip to Napa a few weeks ago, so I brought Robyn Carr's newest book, The Life She Wants along for airplane reading because it is set in Sonoma County.

Emma Shay Compton's marriage to big-time financier falls apart when he is convicted of bilking his clients (ala Bernie Madoff) out of their life savings. Emma is devastated by his betrayal, of which she had no idea. But many people and the media believe she is hiding money and so she is a pariah as well.

All she is left with is a few kitchen tools, and she moves back home to Sonoma County. Her father died years ago, and his second wife, who treated Emma badly, wants nothing to do with her. Emma tries to pick up the pieces of her life, starting with finding a place to live and a job.

Her old friend Lyle finds her a small guest cottage behind Penny, an elderly woman, who becomes Emma's friend. Penny's other widowed friends welcome Emma into their circle.

The only job she can get is working as housekeeper in a nursing home. But when her coworkers realize who her husband was, she loses that job.

Emma reconnects with Adam, the brother of her former best friend Riley. Riley and Emma had a big falling out in high school and haven't spoken since then. Adam gets Emma a job with Riley, who has her own successful cleaning company.

The Life She Wants is a wonderful story of female friendship that you don't frequently see. Riley and Emma are very wary of each other, unable to forget the past. I love the character of Riley, how she overcame her life's challenges to build her own successful business. Riley and Adam's mom is a great character too, one who did a terrific job raising her kids, and is a good grandmother.

I admit to tearing up more than a few times reading The Life She Wants. Carr's writing hits your heart, and her characters' grit and grace win you over. There are a few hot sex scenes and you hope that love eventually wins out.

While sitting on the plane, the man next to me said "Is that Robyn Carr's newest book? I've read all of her books- I love her!" I have to admit that one took me by surprise.

I recommend Robyn Carr's The Life She Wants to anyone who loves a good story about female friendship, and if you like Jennifer Weiner's books, give Robyn Carr a try.

Three Twisty Mysteries

Reprinted from auburnpub.com:

Mysteries are among the best-selling fiction books, and there are three recent entries that are not only propelled by great plots, but by outstanding writing and characters as well.

Noah Hawley, best known as the creative genius behind the television series “Fargo”, is also a novelist. A few years ago, he garnered critical acclaim with his mystery “The Good Father”, about a father whose son is accused of a political assassination. 

Before the Fall

His latest novel is “Before The Fall” a propulsive, twisty story about a plane crash. A private jet falls out of the sky, and the only survivors are a 40-something artist looking for his last chance at success and a four-year-old boy, the son of the head of a powerful conservative cable news channel (think Fox News).

Scott used be a swimmer, and he valiantly saves the young boy’s life by hoisting the boy on his back and swimming miles to shore. He is hailed as hero at first, but then the media begins to dig deeper to find out why the plane went down and why Scott and the young boy were the only survivors.

Besides the powerful head of the news channel, his wife and teenage daughter, another couple was on board. That man was facing an imminent indictment for laundering money for banned foreign companies through his U.S. company.  

Was it a bomb on board that killed them? And if so, who was the target? Scott got on the plane at the last minute, was he involved in the plot to blow up the plane?

One of the characters is a popular and confrontational cable news show host, a close friend of the young boy’s father. He believes that Scott knows more than he has let on, and he uses his nightly TV show to destroy Scott’s reputation, taking advantage of the situation for ratings.

“Before the Fall” is a page-turner of a book, and you should leave yourself plenty of time to read this is one or two sittings because you won’t want to put it down. Hawley paints a portrait of our current circus media atmosphere that is not flattering.

Irish writer Tana French’s sixth book in her Dublin Murder Squad series is “The Trespasser”. Each one of her fascinating books tells a story from the perspective of one of the detectives in the squad, concentrating on one case. 

The Trespasser

“The Trespasser” follows female detective Antoinette Conway, a tough and smart cop who we got to know in the last book, “The Secret Place”. She is again partnered with Steve Moran, the newbie in the squad. 

A woman is found dead in her home. It looks like she was waiting for her date to arrive, so suspicion naturally falls on the man, a mild-mannered bookstore owner, who had recently met the dead woman. The veterans on the Irish squad want Conway and Moran to quickly wrap this case up, but they have their doubts about the bookstore owner being the murderer.

Fans of The Dublin Murder Squad will be happy with this addition to the series, but you don’t have to have read any of the previous books to enjoy this intriguing mystery. French has created a fascinating world here, with whip-smart dialogue and a plot that will have you guessing all the way. Fans of TV’s “Prime Suspect” and “NYPD Blue” will enjoy. 

Ben H. Winter’s has written a fantastic alternative history book, “Underground Airlines” that supposes that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1861, and the Civil War was never fought. Today there are four Southern states where slavery is still in practice, and an uneasiness exists between these states and the rest of the United States. 

Underground Airlines

Victor is a young black man who used to live in one of the slave states. He escaped and is now being forced to work for the U.S. Marshal Service hunting down escaped slaves. He is very conflicted about this, and begins his new assignment when things aren’t what they seem.

He meets a young woman with a young son who is trying to find out what happened to her son’s father, a slave, and Victor gets involved in her situation too.

There is a lot of tension in this book, and Victor is walking a tightrope to help the young woman and figure out why the marshal service really wants to find this one particular fugitive who may not be exactly what he seems. It’s a searing, what-if terrific book, and it deserves to find an audience.

The Goodbye Year by Kaira Rouda

The Goodbye Year by Kaira Rouda
Published by Spark Press ISBN 9781940716336
Trade paperback, $17, 312 pages

Many of my friends (myself included) have hit the crossroads of life called "empty nest". Our children have grown up and gone away to college to leave us all wondering how we deal with the fact that we are no longer needed in the same way.

Kaira Rouda addresses this situation through her novel The Goodbye Year. In it we meet a group of families who live in a well-to-do beach town in Southern California. There are several couples who are on the cusp of empty nest, including power couple plastic surgeon Jud and his perfectly put together (partially through plastic surgery) wife Sarah, who have the perfect daughter Ashley.

Ashley is a great girl, a hard-working student, beautiful, president of everything. She is dating a football player, but becomes friendly with Collin, the son of two recent Ohio transplants. His mom Melanie works hard to make sure every post on her Facebook page represents the kind of family she wants everyone to believe she has.

Collin is musically gifted but not academically motivated like his older brother Seth, which drives Melanie crazy. She can't understand why he doesn't try harder in school. It caused much friction between them.

Will works as a building inspector for the town, and his wife is the uber-organized principal of the middle school. She has her entire family's lives on a color-coordinated schedule, with nothing left to chance or circumstance. Will is tired of being scheduled to death and is having an affair with the mother of one of the students in his daughter's class.

Rouda takes us through the senior year of high school, alternating narration from the adults and their children. I liked the differing perspectives we get from this, not only what the parents are dealing with, but also the pressures of being a high school senior with everyone coming at you about your future. It is much different than when I was in school.

The one thing I took away from this is that you never know what the person next to you is dealing with. Someone may look so together on the outside, but on the inside they may be just as conflicted or lonely or scared as the next person. Maybe it will make someone reading this feel not so alone with their own issues.

The Goodbye Year can be a little Desperate Housewives-like, with the scandals and affairs and secret lives, but it also makes you think as well as entertain you. And if empty nest is sneaking up on you, reading this may make you feel like you can handle whatever comes your way.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Kaira Rouda's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Kaira Rouda’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Thursday, September 1st: The Baking Bookworm

Friday, September 2nd: FictionZeal

Tuesday, September 6th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Wednesday, September 7th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Thursday, September 8th: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, September 9th: Bookmark Lit

Monday, September 12th: Write Read Life

Tuesday, September 13th: Books and Bindings

Wednesday, September 14th: Dreaming Big – author Q&A

Thursday, September 15th: Bookchickdi

Friday, September 16th: Brooklyn Berry Designs

Monday, September 19th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Tuesday, September 20th: 5 Minutes for Books

Wednesday, September 21st: Lavish Bookshelf

Thursday, September 22nd: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Friday, September 23rd: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, September 26th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews

Tuesday, September 27th: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Wednesday, September 28th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Thursday, September 29th: Laura’s Review

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Published by Harper ISBN 978-0-06249179-4
Hardcover, $27.99, 336 pages

I can vividly remember reading Ann Patchett's novel Bel Canto on my front porch one summer. I was mesmerized by her stunning story of a hostage situation in an unnamed South American country, and how I just fell into the book and didn't come out until the end.

Her last novel, State of Wonder, about a research scientist who goes to the Amazon to search for her missing mentor, also brought me into a completely new world, one I wouldn't know that much about or even dream I would be interested in.

Her newest novel is set closer to her own home. Commonwealth is the story of a blended family- a man with four young children leaves his wife and marries a woman with two children. (This happened to Patchett's family.) How that comes about, and the repercussions of the man kissing a woman who is not his wife at a neighborhood party, makes for a story that may be more relatable to most people.

Albert is a district attorney in Southern California in the 1960's. He goes to a christening party for the daughter of Fix, a police officer he doesn't know well, and becomes enchanted with Fix's beautiful wife Bev. He kisses Bev and soon leaves his wife and children and takes Bev and her two daughters to Virginia to live.

The opening scene of the party is brilliantly done. Fix the cop describes DA's as "the guys who smoked your cigarettes because they were trying to quit." Soon Albert is not only smoking Fix's cigarettes, he has stolen Fix's wife Bev.

Years later, Fix tells his adult daughter Franny that Bev "didn't have her own character. She turned into whoever she was sitting next to. When she was sitting next to Miss Free Love then free love sounded like a great idea."

The story spans five decades, and we see the children grow from six children thrown together in summers in Virginia to adults, all bearing the scars of a childhood that included a tragedy most of them never got over.

Franny, the baby at the christening, grew up and met Leo Posen, a famous novelist who falls in love with her. She tells Leo her family's tale and he turns it into his comeback novel titled 'Commonwealth'. Franny is staying with Leo at the home of a wealthy actress in the Hamptons, and ends up acting as servant to the many people who decide to descend uninvited, including her younger stepbrother Albie, who comes to confront her about the book.

There are many characters in this moving story, and Patchett excels at crystalizing each one in a few scenes. A book that covers five decades of a family could easily clock in at over 600 pages, but Patchett manages to create this world in just over 300 pages.

Fix was my favorite character in the book, an honorable man who loves his children and even shows great kindness to Albert's first wife when she needed it. I also loved that Albert's first wife picked herself up and got a great job to support her family when her husband left her.

Commonwealth is based on Patchett's family, and Franny is her doppleganger. Patchett has said in interviews about the book that she spoke to all of her siblings about the book, getting their blessing to tell the story. I'm not sure how many families would be OK with that. As I read the book I kept thinking, "what would a book about your childhood look like?"

I think perhaps she felt the time was right to write this intensely personal book, one so close to home. At one point Frannie and her sister Caroline are riding in the car with their ailing father and Frannie thinks of Fix:

"All the stories go with you, Frannie thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn't listen to, won't remember, never got right, wasn't around for."

I think that line sums up Patchett's place in her life, one that many middle-aged people are dealing with as well. You get to a certain point in life and you contemplate how you got to where you are, and how your family played such a big role in that.

Commonwealth is not a story that you race through to finish. It's one to savor and ponder, and upon reflection I liked it much more a week or so after I finished it than when when I closed the book. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Ann Patchett's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 13th: BookNAround

Wednesday, September 14th: Books and Bindings

Thursday, September 15th: Vox Libris

Friday, September 16th: Art @ Home

Friday, September 16th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, September 19th: A Bookish Way of Life

Tuesday, September 20th: Books on the Table

Wednesday, September 21st: A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, September 22nd: Luxury Reading

Thursday, September 22nd: Tina Says…

Monday, September 26th: bookchickdi

Wednesday, September 28th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World

Thursday, September 29th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, October 3rd: Fictionophile

Tuesday, October 4th: Literary Quicksand

Wednesday, October 5th: Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Thursday, October 6th: Lit and Life

Friday, October 7th: The Well-Read Redhead

Ann Patchett's website is here.

Weekend Cooking- Sweet Corn Zucchini Pie

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Although it's back to school and Labor Day the unofficial end to summer has passed, it's still 90 degrees outside here in NYC. I like fall because it means a return to cooking hardy dinners, but that will have to wait until it cools down.

I'm always looking for a way to get more vegetables in our diet, and with the abundance of sweet corn and zucchini this time of year, I found a recipe on Pinterest for Sweet Corn Zucchini Pie that looked appetizing.

The recipe comes from A Pinch of Yum, and I liked this one because it is a crustless pie, which means no extra calories. It also has mushrooms in it and I am a big mushroom fan.

The recipe calls for cutting the corn off two cobs. I found a trick for doing this the easy way. Pull out a big, deep bowl (I use a mixing bowl). Place an overturned small cereal bowl inside the big bowl, place the ear of corn on top of the smaller bowl and slice the corn off the cob. The corn falls into the large bowl, and when you are done, pull the small bowl out of the large bowl and voila, the corn is inside the large bowl and ready to use. I wish I knew where I found this trick so I could give proper credit.

Saute onion, mushroom and zucchini, add the corn and saute some more. Add a mixture of cheese, eggs and herbs and blend with the sauteed vegetables. Put the mixture in a pie pan, bake in the oven and there you have it.

My tasty zucchini pie

My sweet corn zucchini pie turned out fabulous. My sons loved it, and my husband even had it as leftovers the next night. If you are looking for a way to use up some of the end of season vegetables, I recommend this recipe. You can find the full recipe from A Pinch of Yum here.

If you have any end-of-summer recipes you'd like to share, please post it in comments.

The Perfect Girl by Gilly MacMillan

The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062476760
Trade paperback, $15.99, 464 pages

Author Gilly Macmillan follows up her 2015 gripping debut novel What She Knew, about a mom whose eight-year-old son vanishes, with another tense and topical suspense thriller, The Perfect Girl.

The Perfect Girl opens with 17-year-old Zoe Maisey and her stepbrother Lucas ready to perform a piano recital. Zoe's mom Maria and Lucas' dad Chris sit proudly in the front row, ready to hear their talented children play. Zoe then tells us that six hours later her mother will be dead.

Now that the author has your attention, we shift narrators to Sam, a solicitor whom we find is having an affair with Zoe's Aunt Tessa. Sam and Tessa met a few years prior, when Sam was Zoe's lawyer. When Zoe was 14 years-old, she was involved in a car accident that took the lives of three of her classmates, and Sam relates that part of the story to us.

We also get Tessa's point of view. Tessa loves her niece Zoe and sister Maria fiercely. She is having trouble in her marriage; she and her husband have been trying for years to conceive a child, and her husband has slid into alcoholism and depression.

The timeline shifts back and forth, but it is never confusing. The title refers to not only Zoe- who is trying her best to be the perfect girl her mother wants, but to Tessa, who has always been the perfect girl in her family, and Maria, a former wild child who, after Zoe's accident, has worked hard to be the perfect wife to Chris.

But what is the cost of trying for perfection? When Zoe was fourteen, she went to a party, had what she thought was one drink, hoping to get the attention of Jack, the guy every girl wanted. She thought she was using good judgement, but in trying to impress Jack a terrible tragedy occurs.

Maria changed her life when she married Chris. Her marriage to Zoe's husband broke up after Zoe's accident, and Maria rebuilt her life with Chris and his son Lucas. She designed the perfect life for her husband- they had the perfect house, she had a beautiful kitchen where she created wonderful meals for her husband. The cost of attempting perfection, especially for women, can be too much to pay.

So how did Maria end up dead? That is the ultimate mystery here, and you'll fly through the pages to find out the answer.

Reading The Perfect Girl put me in mind of HBO's series, The Night Of. A seemingly good kid makes a few bad decisions that leads to more trouble. There's also a lawyer's point of view, as in the HBO series. Fans of The Night Of will want to follow-up with The Perfect Girl. 

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Gilly Macmillan's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 6th: Mama Reads Hazel Sleeps

Wednesday, September 7th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, September 8th: bookchickdi

Friday, September 9th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Monday, September 12th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, September 13th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, September 14th: Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, September 15th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, September 19th: she treads softly

Tuesday, September 20th: A Bookworm’s World

Wednesday, September 21st: Comfy Reading

Thursday, September 22nd: Book Hooked Blog

Monday, September 26th: I Brought a Book

Tuesday, September 27th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, September 28th: Vox Libris

Thursday, September 29th: What Will She Read Next

New in Paperback- The Total Package by Stephanie Evanovich

The Total Package by Stephanie Evanovich
Published by William Morrow ISBN 978-0-06223486-2
Trade paperback, $15.99, 256 pages

A few years ago I read a debut novel by author Stephanie Evanovich, Big Girl Panties, and beyond loving the title, I really enjoyed the book about Logan Montgomery, a hot trainer who brings Holly, a young widow, out of her shell. I finished the book and wanted to read more about two secondary characters, baseball superstar Chase and his sassy wife Amanda.

When The Sweet Spot was published the following year, I was so excited that we got to find out how Chase and Amanda got together, and I loved it even more than Big Girl Panties. 

Evanovich just published her third book, The Total Package, about a big shot quarterback, Tyson Palmer, who trashes his career. When Palmer hits bottom, the owner of the Austin Mavericks picks him up and makes him the cornerstone of his team, hoping to win the Super Bowl.

Palmer digs in and works to make himself one of the league's best quarterbacks. When hot young wide receiver Marcus LaRue joins the Mavericks, he hopes that he and Palmer can be a dream team. LaRue's only request is that the team hire a young reporter, Dani Carr, to be his media person. He will only allow Carr to interview him, no one else.

Carr leaves her young son behind in Philadelphia with her supportive family- Mom, Dad and brothers- to take advantage of this possible career-building opportunity. She concentrates on the work, and hopes that no one discovers her secret.

Tyson is attracted to Carr but finds it hard to break through her shell. LaRue too is very secretive. He doesn't party like a rock star and he is never seen in the company of the many young ladies who seek his attention. And for some reason LaRue keeps pushing for Tyson and Dani to get together.

The Total Package is Evanovich's best book yet. Her characters feel like people you would know, especially Dani's close-knit Italian family. They are the family we all want to have. It's nice to read a book where the characters are kind to each other and support each other, even when they make mistakes.

I'm more of a baseball fan than football fan, but that didn't stop me from loving everything about this book. And I cried tears of joy when old friends Logan and Holly and Chase and Amanda made an appearance in the book. It was so much fun to see Chase and Amanda's wedding from a different perspective.

Evanovich's writing is sharp in this book, and you will find yourself racing through it to finish it. Like her first two books, it is sexy (oh, those sex scenes!) and sassy and this one has such a sweetness to it it is heartwarming.

Now I am hoping that the next book will tell us more about Marcus LaRue's story (and not just because Marcus and I share a surname). He may be Evanovich's most intriguing character yet and I want to find out more about where he came from and where he is going.

The Total Package is a great book to give your best girlfriend and you may want to read the steamier scenes out loud to your significant other, you know for inspiration. It's like Fifty Shades of Grey, except much better written and with a lot more heart. I give it my highest recommendation.

Stephanie Evanovich's website is here.

Finding Libbie by Deanna Lynn Sletten

Finding Libbie by Deanna Lynn Sletten
Published by Lake Union Publishing ISBN 9781503937154
Trade paperback, $14.95, 352 pages

I was intrigued by the premise of Deanna Lynn Sletten's novel, Finding Libbie. Emily is helping her grandmother pack up the family farm when she finds a hatbox filled with old photos of her father as young man. Her grandmother tells Emily that they are photos of Emily's father Jack with his first wife Libbie.

His first wife? Emily had no idea that her father was married before. Her own mother died last year, and Emily knew how much her parents loved each other and how devastated her father was when she died.

The story of Libbie, a beautiful young woman from one of the town's most prominent families, and Jack, the hardworking son of a cabinet maker who lived on a farm, is related through flashbacks. Jack was head-over-heels in love with Libbie when he swept her off her feet in high school.

Libbie's mother was openly hostile to Jack and Libbie's relationship, looking down on Jack as just a lowly mechanic, someone who couldn't possibly make her daughter happy. But Libbie was in love, and Jack's family treated with kindness and respect, unlike her mother and older sister Gwen.

We see how Jack wooed Libbie with romantic gestures, and was thrilled when she agreed to marry him, over her mother's strenuous objections. They lived in a little cottage on a small lake, and Jack worked as a mechanic. Life was good.

Libbie tried hard to be a good wife, keeping house and cooking meals she learned from Jack's mother, but she soon grew bored. She began to drink, and her moods swung wildly. She feared that she was becoming more like her mother, who increasingly began to spend her entire day in her dark bedroom, drunk and taking pills.

Jack was distraught; he did everything he could to help make life easier for Libbie, but when her father bought them a big house, Jack had to work more hours just to keep up with the bills, and so he spent more time away from home. The isolation that Libbie felt only made matters worse.

Eventually we discover what happened to Libbie and Jack, and Emily sets out to try and find Libbie. In her journey to find Libbie, Emily discovers some things about her own life. She has been living with and supporting her boyfriend while he goes to school, and she has to decide if this is the life she is willing to settle for.

I loved Finding Libbie, and it's not the genre of book I usually enjoy. I found myself so caught up in Jack and Libbie's story, and Emily's journey too. I read it in two sittings, and it even kept me on the treadmill longer, the sign of a truly good book.

Sletten handled the topic of addiction and mental illness with sensitivity, and I daresay that anyone who has experienced that for themselves will probably appreciate this beautiful story even more deeply. Since the story takes place in the late 1960's/early 1970's, people didn't understand as much about these issues as we do now, and so didn't know how to handle them.

Everything in this story- the well-drawn characters, the plot and the Minnesota setting during the Vietnam War-worked for me.  I admit to tearing up at the end of the story, and if you liked Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, this book is for you. I liked it even better than The Notebook. I highly recommend Finding Libbie.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Deanna Lynn Sletten's tour. The rest of her tour stops are here:

Deanna Lynn Sletten’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, September 6th: Bookchickdi

Thursday, September 8th: Reading Reality

Wednesday, September 14th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, September 15th: Back Porchervations

Friday, September 16th: A Chick Who Reads

Monday, September 19th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Wednesday, September 21st: Mama Vicky Says

Monday, September 26th: All Roads Lead to the Kitchen

Tuesday, October 4th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, October 5th: Books and Bindings

Thursday, October 6th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Friday, October 7th: View from the Birdhouse

Monday, October 10th: Snowdrop Dreams of Books

Wednesday, October 12th: Write Read Life

Weekend Cooking- Indigenous in Sarasota

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

When we visit our vacation home near Sarasota in Florida, our friends always have a new restaurant for us to try. There are so many great restaurants down there, foodies are in heaven.

On our most recent trip, we visited Indigenous, located in the downtown Towles Court area. It's located in a big old house, in a mixed residential, small business area. There are tables on the big front porch, with billowing white awnings overhead, and tables along the side of the house.

We sat inside, where there appeared to be a dozen or so tables of various sizes which overlook the open kitchen. It is a little dark inside, and it was raining hard that night, so you may need to use your phone flashlight app to read the menu.

The menu is not extensive, but everything we tried was fantastic. I always check out Yelp and Trip Advisor reviews before we go to a restaurant to see what people recommend, and this time I went with two appetizers as my meal.

Three of us ordered the Wild Mushroom Bisque, which was phenomenal. It was very rich, and the crispy rye croutons added just the right crunch. I convinced the table to order the Parmesan Beignets, which were served on a honey, pear and thyme sauce. We went crazy over these, trying to be polite over who would get the last tasty, fluffy beignet morsel. (My husband and I split it.)

Parmesan Beignets

I had the Pork Belly appetizer as my entree. It was such a mouth-watering burst of flavors, served over a charred corn tortilla salad, with salsa verde and salsa roja, bacon and queso fresco. The entire dish was just perfectly blended.

Pork Belly

Indigenous is known for its Hook to Fork, a daily fish special featuring the freshest local sustainable ingredients in creative dishes. One of our friends had the Hook to Fork special, a cobia dish. You can't get much fresher or more beautiful than this.

Cobia- Hook to Fork 

The service was terrific and the ambience and food were wonderful. We will return to Indigenous again, and next time I'm not sharing the Parmesan Beignets.


Indigenous' website is here.