The Porch Postscript

Title:    Food - A Love Story Author:   Jim Gaffigan Type:   Memoir For starters, I cheated and listened to the audiobook, but a book is a book, right?  My only mistake with this decision was that I made it while traveling on an airplane so I couldn't laugh out loud as much as I would have had I listened to it at home. Jim Gaffigan narrates the book himself, which I'm sure adds to the funniness of the audiobook.  He is a stand-up comedian after all. I chose this book because I love books about food, especially memoirs.  I also needed a book to distract me while we flew several hours on a trip home.  I figured it would get me through a few flights and if I never finished it, no big deal, as that is usually the fate of audiobooks on trips with me.  That was not the fate of this book.  I listened to the entire book and was sad when it was over.  I will actually be listening to it again, it was that good.  When Gaffigan tells you h...

Eat The City by Robin Shulman Title:    Eat the City Author:   Robin Shulman Type:   Regional Food From the back of the book:   Food, of course, is about hunger - but it's also about community.  With humor and insight,  Eat the City  shows how, in places like New York, people have found ways to use their collective hunger to build their own kind of city. Why I picked this book up:   I'm always drawn to books about food.   This book  caught my eye at the library and I knew I had to read it. My thoughts on the book:   I really enjoyed reading this book.  Lots of great history was mixed in with the present-day food seen. This is a book about the people who are passionate about the food they help create.  When Shulman describes the people she talks to, she does a fantastic job of giving you enough detail to create a vivid mental picture, without getting too wrapped up in all the little bitty details of it a...

Title:   Notes From a Blue Bike Author:   Tsh Oxenreider Type:   Spiritual Growth I wanted to like this book.  I really did, but it wasn't meant to be.  The subtitle " The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World" made me think this would be a bit of a how-to with tips and advice on small things to work toward living a more intentional life.  Nope, not really.   In this book, Tsh Oxenreider focuses a great deal of her book on her children, first homeschooling them, and then putting them in public school.  I felt this book was more focused on raising children than living intentionally. This is a book that I could not force myself to finish.  I struggled through about half of it before calling it a wash.  The focus was too much "mommy life" for my interest.  I'd think twice before I would pick up anything else by this author.

I started building a kitchen library when we got married, nearly 13 years ago.  Before that, I had a handful of cookbooks and a recipe box.  I know what you're thinking - "well isn't that a kitchen library?"  The short answer is yes, but I'm talking about something that's a little more in-depth, something with a little more meat on the shelves so to speak. So what's in my kitchen library?  I have an array of cookbooks, books on food writing and how to write cookbooks, books about ingredients, books on dehydrations, books for selling table to market, books on substitutions, and even a book about wine.  I've also taken my recipes out of boxes, because I'm not a recipe box user, as much as I love the idea of one.  My recipes are in 3-ring binders, yes plural, and every recipe is in a sheet protector or photo pocket depending on what it's written on.  I also have a small selection of food memoirs on a shelf in the living room. Today I though...

can·did ˈkandəd/ adjective 1 . truthful and straightforward; frank. synonyms: frank, outspoken, forthright, blunt, open, honest, truthful, sincere, direct, plain-spoken, straightforward, ingenious, bluff; Being brave.  Following my path.  Following my calling.  Following my detour.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'm doing it one step at a time.  The other part of this journey is I'm finding my tribe, surrounding myself with like-minded people. Find it on Amazon I'm seven chapters into Lindsay McKenzie's book Follow Your Detour , about the halfway mark of the book.  I'm no speed reader, and I'm reading about 20 minutes a day while I walk on the elliptical.  Lindsay is very open and raw with how they got to be the fulltime RVers they are today, but it's about more than that.  It's about the pain, the fear, the healing and the leep of faith they had to take to follow their detour. This read came along ...

Currently Reading: Title:   Art Before Breakfast Author:   Danny Gregory Type:   Creativity I haven't finished this book yet but wanted to share how it's helping me change some of my creative habits.  In the first few pages of this book, Gregory talks about how to add five, ten or even 15 minutes of creativity to any busy schedule. While I'm not interested in drawing my daily breakfast, as he suggests, I have taken up the habit of sketching nearly every day. Below are the first five days of sketching I've done so far.  I can say that if I gain nothing else from this book it has encouraged me to pick up my pencil and return to sketching. Day 1: Day 2: Day 3: Day 4: Day 5:

Good Morning, Are you ready for your day?  Did you start with a glass of water?  Have you had your coffee?  What about breakfast? I don't know if I'm ready for my day just yet.  I did start with a big glass of water and enjoyed a smoothie for breakfast.  I'm enjoying my third cup of coffee as I write this.  Yes.  I said third.  There's something about hot coffee on a cold morning.  It's 26 below again this morning. We had a bit of snow last night.  It's the dry, fine powdery snow.  The kind that blows away the minute the wind comes up.  We need a good, heavy, wet snow to insulate the ground and provide moisture.  It's been pretty dry in this neck of the woods. What are you reading?  I'm trying to finish Lady at the OK Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp .  It's not a bad book, it's just that I keep picturing the cast from Tombstone while I read.  I've seen the movie a dozen or more tim...