Welcome 
Hi! My name is Margot. My blog is about the things I love to do. That could be what I'm reading, places we visit, my family, food, or whatever else is happening. I hope you'll stay and visit a while.
Contact me by email: margot (DOT) peck (AT) gmail (DOT) com. Currently Reading
 Best Food Writing 2009
If The Church Were Christian
My Book Rating System A = Exellent Book . . . .
B = Very good story . . .
C = Good/Average. . . .
D = Poor . . . . . . . . . . .
F = So poor I couldn’t finish it
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Happy First Day of Spring to all.
The only thing that beats good food writing is really good food. It’s just so enjoyable to read about other people’s experiences with food. Once a year for the past ten, Holly Hughes has been gathering together the best literary works about food written during that year. She combs all the good magazines, newspaper columns, websites, newsletters, and books. And she puts them all together in a yearly edition of -
 Best Food Writing
Edited by Holly Hughes
Da Capo Press, 2009
This anthology is filled with a wide assortment of food topics and authors. She has divided the book into seven sections. My favorite sections are Stocking the Pantry, Home Cooking, Dining Around, and Family Table. Of the fifty essays let me tell you about a few of my favorites.
- The Last Time I Saw Paris was a test by Ruth Reichl to see if she could duplicate her ’60s trip to Paris. She wanted to see if she could find affordable yet high-quality dining that was reminiscent of that long ago trip. She discovered the young chefs of Paris are “reclaiming its title of food capital of the world.”
- Marshmallow Fluff by Katie Liesener was, to me, a hilarious account of how a Massechusetts State Senator sought to outlaw the use of Marshmallow Fluff from school lunches. The ramifications from his actions were felt nationwide. I didn’t know they were still making the stuff.
- Out of the Wild by Peter Jamison chronicled Iso Rabins’ new business of suppling customers with wild-growing edibles he has foraged for within the San Francisco area. His customers include some of the chefs from the Bay Area’s premier restaurants.
- Todd Kliman’s essay on The Last Meal was a tribute to his late father and his love of good food. The piece has caused me to become a enthusiastic fan of Kliman’s writing. If you’d like a sample, visit this website where he has written about The Perfect Chef. Beware, you may catch his obsession, or at least his enthusiasm for great food.
There were a few recipes in the book. I was especially touched by Peter Wells’ quest for foods that would suit his severally allergic little boy. He developed an eggless Chocolate Cupcakes for Almost Everybody that sounds delicious. I also want to try the Tacos de Carnitas and the Blackberry and Apple Cake.
If you are interested in extremely good food writing, I highly recommend this book.
I purchased this book but my library also had copies of previous editions. Best Food Writing 2009 is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.)
Talking about food is a regular feature on my blog and others as well. Visit Beth Fish Reads for other bloggers who are participating in Weekend Cooking.
 The sun is shining and I’m up in beautiful Portland, Oregon. (That’s Washington Park yesterday.) I’m having a Nana Week. The sun really is shining, the cherry trees are blooming, and daffodils are everywhere. I don’t need a calendar to tell me IT’S SPRING!! Actually, Spring starts tomorrow. Hope it’s Spring where you are. Here are a couple of other things I wanted to mention.
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 Since I’m an alum of the University of Kansas and my husband graduated from Kansas State, we’ve often had interesting rivalries over the years. But when March Madness rolls around, it’s all about Kansas – either team. So all I can say is GO KANSAS.
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The READ-A-THON Is Coming!!
April 10
One entire day devoted to reading.
How luxurious is that?
For book-lovers there is nothing we love more than a chance to just sit and read our books. The Read-A-Thon gives us a chance to see if we can do it for an entire 24-hour period.
You do not need to have a blog to participate. Last October my whole family participated (including the two granddaughters). We had a great time doing it. You just need to line up a stack of books, decide on what and how you’re going to handle food that day, and you are set. Everything else is just details. I hope you’ll join me in the fun.
Check in at the website devoted to the Read-A-Thon for more information.
 by Joseph Monniger
Gallery Books, 2010
My Rating: A
Eternal on the Water is a beautiful love story. It’s not a romance novel. And, yes, there is a difference. There is no silliness in this story. It’s a beautiful adult love story set primarily out of doors. What makes this a cut above the other love stories is the writing. I want to share with you a few passages so you get a real feel for the writing. Let me first give you a simple outline of the story.
Jonathan Cobb has taken a sabbatical from his teaching job so he can study Thoreau. He has decided to kayak the Allagash River and camp on Pillsbury Island. Mary Fury is a biologist who loves crows and has long ties to and a deep love of this Maine river. Jonathan and Mary meet in a camping area the night before they are set to launch a trip on the river. They like each other immediately and travel together down the river. They are letting this new love they feel for each other grow.
In this first passage Cobb is thinking about the night they slept together (no sex):
How in the world had this happened? We had kissed only once, but when I woke I found my arm over her, her body pushed back into mine to spoon. I felt like a man who had lived in a house all his life who, opening a door he expects to lead him into a closet, finds the house possesses other, more gorgeous rooms. Rooms he had not dreamed of, rooms he had not imagined.
So much of the book takes place outdoors and I loved that. I felt I was with them and I could see and hear and smell everything in the forests and on the river. Here’s another section from the book.I could see this too. Here Cobb is spending the night on Thoreau’s island and he’s been fussing, getting his pack organized.
. . . but now, rolling onto my back, I saw the moon, nearly full, and the gray clouds moving past it like dog shadows running behind summer sheets hung to dry on a clothesline.
In addition to the outdoors of Maine, the story takes us to New Hampshire, Yellowstone National Park and Indonesia.It’s a great adventure for Jonathan and Mary. An adventure trip is also how they see their lives together.
The author took a risk by telling us the end of the story at the very beginning. For me it worked. I was driven to find out the rest of the story. I wanted to know why all of this happened. I’m not going to spoil it for you though because I really want you to read it.
Above all this is a love story so let me close with this final quote.
I liked her smile. And I knew that I had fallen in love. I knew that I wanted to run rivers with her, and camp, and go out to dinner and dance, and meet people with her at my side, and establish routines, and hear every knock-knock joke in her repertoire. I knew that. The knowledge came as simple as clean linen.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Check you local library for this book. Eternal on the Water is also available at Amazon. (I am an Amazon Associate.) I received and read this book as part of Barnes and Nobles’ First Look Book Club.
 It’s Wednesday and time to share new-to-me words I’ve found in my reading.
One the most enjoyable items of modern technology is the instant access to all sorts of information. I remember the days when we had to make a special trip to the library when we needed to look something up in the encyclopedia. Now information is just a click away. I enjoy using Wikipedia. Every day on the home page, there is a special feature. This past week they had this picture of a beautiful Australian songbird. But the first paragraph had me reaching for my dictionary, online of course. Here’s what I found, all in one paragraph.
 The Superb Fairywren is a common and familiar passerine bird of the Maluridae family. Sedentary and territorial, it is found across south-eastern Australia. The species exhibits a high degree of sexual dimorphism; the male in breeding plumage has a striking bright blue forehead, ear coverts, mantle, and tail, with a black mask and black or dark blue throat. Non-breeding males, females and juveniles are predominantly grey-brown in colour; this gave the early impression that males were polygamous as all dull-coloured birds were taken for females.
1. Passerine refers to birds that are adapted to perching. That includes all songbirds.
2. Dimorphism refers to something representing two distinct forms.
3. Covert is not the same as “covert ops” as in a thriller, but close. In ornithology it means the feathers covering the main bases. In this case, the feathers covering the Fairywren’s ears.
4. Polygamous in this sentence also means having more than one mate, no different from the human form of polygamy.
What new words did you find this week? I hope you’ll join us in Wondrous Words Wednesday. Be sure to visit Kathy, our stouthearted (courageous, determined) leader.
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Several people asked me last week how I go about catching all the new words while I am reading. Here’s my method: I use post-its or sticky papers, whatever you call them. I prefer the kind the are only about a half-inch across and maybe an inch and a half long.
 When I start a new book I put about a half dozen into the front of the book. When I come to a new word I put the sticky note in the sentence where the new word occurs and then let the end stick out a little bit so I can find it again later. If the word is really a stopper, I’ll go find a dictionary right away.
I also use the papers to mark a special passage I may want to quote or talk about in my review. What did I do before the invention of sticky notes? Don’t tell anyone but I bent the pages – bottom of the page for new words and top of the page for quotes or special passages. But I never, ever did that in a library book. I learned about the sacredness of library books when I was seven and left my books out in the rain.
 Nick Buckley seems to be one of those young women I associate with the 1920’s who spent her time floating around with no real cares. She’s the mistress of a big old house, End House, in a beautiful resort town. Her friends visit quite often. No one seems to have a job.
The “world’s greatest detective,” Hercule Poirot, and his trusty companion, Captain Hastings, are staying at a nearby luxurious hotel. They are there for a vacation but they soon involve themselves in a mystery. Actually, I should say that Poirot involves them in a mystery. Hastings would prefer to play golf.
Poirot is convinced that someone is trying to kill Nick. He would like to solve a murder before it actually becomes a murder. Nick doesn’t seem to take the incidents seriously until there finally is a murder.
At the very beginning of the book there is a Cast of Characters. I really needed that just to keep everybody straight in my head. With this Cast, Poirot has a whole line-up of suspects to choose from. Very diligently and methodically Poirot works his way through the suspects and the clues. When all else fails he used a seance, which surprised me. Agatha Christie used a couple of seances in last month’s book, The Sittaford Mystery.
Even though this was a re-read for me, I didn’t remember who the killer was. I figured it out just a little bit before Poirot did. This was another wonderful Agatha Christie book. There were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing.
This is book 13 in my challenge to read all of Christie’s books in order of their publication date. For more information visit Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise. I also watched the movie version of this on dvd. It starred the wonderful David Suchet as Poirot, Hugh Fraser as Hastings, Phillip Jackson as Inspector Japp, and Polly Walker as Nick Buckley. I’m also counting this as one of my Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge events.
Check your local library for copies of Peril At End House in both the book and the dvd. Amazon also has the book .
Simon & Schuster, 1932 My Rating: A
 The Comforts of Home
by Flannery O’Connor, 1965
Thomas is a thirty-five year old man living with his mother. His father is physically dead but seems to mentally plague Thomas from time to time. His mother develops an attachment to a young woman in jail. She manages to get the young woman released, finds a place for her to live and a job.
For some reason that doesn’t seem to be enough for the young woman. Soon she is living in their guest room and taking over every room in the house. When she shows up in Thomas’ bedroom, Thomas gets mad enough to explode. He issues an ultimatum to his mother: the young woman must be out of the house today or he will leave. Mother must choose between the young woman and her son.
The ultimatum doesn’t work and now Thomas must hatch a new plot to get rid of her. His plot is to stash his gun in the young woman’s belongings and tell the sheriff the gun is missing.
This story is another excellent example of how a short story has me totally absorbed until the last paragraph. The story ends but my mind is still thinking about it. I ask the author, “What’s going to happen now?” but she doesn’t answer. So here’s the real beauty of short stories – I get to make up my own final conclusion.
It’s been a couple of days since I read the story but I’m still thinking about Thomas and the young woman. I really like my conclusion. Tell me if you’ve had the same reaction to short stories.
I read this story in my new book, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (edited by Toni Hillerman). I could not find The Comforts of Home online but check your library’s collection of short stories.
Short Story Monday is sponsored by John of Book Mind Set. Be sure to visit John for more short stories.
 We lived for many years in the greater Kansas City area. When out-of-town visitors would come we tried to show off some of the cultural aspects of our area. We almost always took people to Independence, Missouri to the home and library of Harry S. Truman. After many years of living away from the area, we were visitors ourselves in the Fall of 2009. Visiting Truman’s home was definitely on the list. It has been designated as a National Historic Site.
 As you can see, it’s a rather modest home. It sits on a big corner lot with only a simple iron fence surrounding it. It’s only a few blocks away from the Independence business district.
 The home was built by the grandfather of Truman’s wife, Bess Wallace Truman. It was known primarily as the Wallace house. During the years Truman was president (1945 – 1953) this home was the Summer White House.
 Harry Truman loved to read. His mother taught him to read before he started school. He continued to read his entire life. He was too poor to afford college, but managed to educate himself.
 It’s only fitting that Harry Truman have his own library. This was one of the first presidential libraries we visited. It’s an effective way to learn a portion of history.
Since that time all former presidents of the past century have libraries housing their papers and other items of interest. They are scattered all over the country. Have you had a chance to visit a presidential library?
* The last two pictures were borrowed from the National Park website.
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