Is your book club reading An Acquired Taste? Download these questions to get the discussion started.
Book club materials – An Acquired Taste
29 Tuesday Mar 2022
Posted in Blog, Book Club materials
Category Archives: Reader’s Corner
Evergreen book recommendations
29 Tuesday Aug 2017
Posted in Book recommendations
Fantasy
One of my favorite genres.
Time travel
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (this could fall in many genres)
- River of Time series by Lisa Tawn Bergren (also fits under YA)
- Out of Time series by Monique Martin
General fantasy
- The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Claire (also author of The Mortal Instruments but you probably know all about that already) (also YA)
- The Godsland series by Brian Rathbone
- The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney
- Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
- A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas
- Landline by Rainbow Rowell
- Innkeeper Chronicles series by Llona Andrews
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- The Trinity Saga by Ronnell D. Porter
Young Adult
- Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
- Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon
- Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
Historical Fiction
- Cane River by Lalita Tademy
- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole
- Victorian San Francisco Mystery series by Louisa M. Locke
- Pluto’s Snitch series by Carolyn Haines
- The Alienist by Caleb Carr
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- Whiplash by Yvie Towers
Mystery, Thrillers, & Intrigue
- Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben
- Hollywood Homicide by Kellye Garrett
- Agents Irish & Whiskey series by Layla Reyne
- Millennium by Stieg Larsson
- The Burden by Mary Westmacott
- Ape House by Sara Gruen
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
- The Alienist by Caleb Carr
- Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries by Carolyn Haines
- Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow
- Rai Rahotep series by Nick Drake
- Liv Bergen Mysteries by Sandra Brannan
- The Dead Saint by Marilyn Brown Oden
- An Arsonist’s Guide To Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
The Classics
- The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (actually a novella, completely love)
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (my all-time favorite)
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Contemporary Lit & Romance
- One Day by David Nicholls
- Crossfire series by Sylvia Day
- He Say, She Say by Yolanda Joe
- Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
- Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper
- Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart
- The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Cosmopolis: A Novel by DeLillo
New Adult
- On Dublin Street by Samantha Young
- Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
- Point of Retreat (#2 of the Slammed Series) by Colleen Hoover
- Song of the Fireflies by J A Redmerski
Reader’s Corner
28 Monday Aug 2017
Posted in Reader's Corner
Liv’s Favorite Red Beans & Rice
01 Tuesday Sep 2015
Posted in Book recipes
Liv loves her Creole food and Red Beans & Rice is a staple. Although it takes a couple of hours to cook, the prep time is minimal.
Ingredients
1 lb dried red beans, rinsed and soaked overnight, drained
bacon grease
1 medium chopped yellow onion
4 stalks chopped celery
1 chopped green bell pepper
salt and pepper
pinch cayenne
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1 pkg smoked Andouille sausage, sliced
2 smoked ham hocks
4 cloves chopped garlic
10 cups chicken stock
cooked rice (Liv prefers black rice)
Directions
In a large pot, heat the bacon grease over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery and bell peppers to the pot. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne stirring, until the vegetables are soft, about 3-4 minutes. Add the bay leaves, thyme, sausage, and ham hocks, to brown the sausage and ham hocks, about 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the beans and stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender and starting to thicken, about 2 hours.
In a large pot, heat the bacon grease over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery and bell peppers to the pot. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne stirring, until the vegetables are soft, about 3-4 minutes. Add the bay leaves, thyme, sausage, and ham hocks, to brown the sausage and ham hocks, about 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the beans and stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender and starting to thicken, about 2 hours.
Remove from the heat and with the back of a heavy spoon, mash about 1/4 of the beans against the side of the pot. Continue to cook until the beans are tender and creamy, 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and remove the bay leaves. Serve over rice.
Liv’s Lasagna
30 Thursday Jul 2015
Posted in Book recipes
This is a favorite of LIv’s family and friends. She uses thinly sliced zucchini instead of lasagna noodles, but that’s a personal preference.
- 1 lb ground meat (hamburger turkey) (you can exclude meat to make it vegetarian)
- Appx 10 c spaghetti sauce (Liv makes her own sauce (see below)*, but you can use your favorite pre-made sauce)
- 5 large zucchini, sliced thin (or 1 box lasagna noodles, al dente)
- 4 c mozzarella plus 1 c separated
- 3 eggs
- 24 oz small curd cottage cheese
- 3 TB fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- salt & pepper
- 5 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brown ground meat in a large skillet, add sauce and simmer covered. Mix the 4 c mozzarella with the eggs, cottage cheese and parsley until well blended. Salt and pepper to taste.
Assemble the lasagna by using a 13x9x2 lasagna pan and adding layers. Start with a layer of the sauce, then a layer of zucchini (or noodles), then a layer of the cheese mixture. Repeat this until near the top where the last two layers will be the zucchini then sauce on top. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese and cover with foil. Place in the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining cup of mozzarella cheese on top. Place back in the over for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven and let cool at least 20-30 minutes. Cut into squares.
Liv’s Spaghetti Sauce
- 1 pound mushrooms of choice, sliced
- 2 large white or yellow onion, chopped
- 2 large green bell pepper, chopped
- 2 zucchini, shredded
- 2 carrots, shredded
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- olive oil
- 4 TB tomato paste
- 1 c dry red wine
- 2 28-oz can whole tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 6 14-oz cans tomato sauce
- 3 TB fresh basil, chopped
- 1 TB fresh oregano, chopped
- Salt and pepper
Heat up large skillet and olive oil over medium high heat and saute mushrooms until brown. Add onion and bell pepper and saute for about 3-4 minutes. Add zucchini and carrots and cook an additional 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and saute another minute. Salt and pepper to taste. Add tomato paste and cook another 2 minutes or so, stirring constantly. Add wine to de-glaze skillet. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce, then season again with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and turn down low to simmer. This can simmer as long as you’d like it to. The longer, the better, just make sure to stir it once in awhile. Add the basil and oregano.
Gumbo
24 Friday Jul 2015
Posted in Book recipes
This recipe won’t have too many measurements. Most are “to taste.” Liv has been making this so long, she does it automatically.
- Crab legs, washed
- Seasoning salt
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Paprika
- Cayenne pepper
- Gumbo file (2 tsp plus 2 TB)
- Celery, chopped
- Bell pepper, chopped
- Onion, chopped
- Garlic, minced
- Chicken legs
- Sausage (andouille is good)
- Gravy (in a jar)
- Corn starch (1 TB dissolved in 1 cup cold water)
- Shrimp, cleaned and deveined
Place crab legs in a huge, deep pot and add water 3/4 full. Put on high heat to boil. Once it begins boiling, turn down to medium-high heat and add seasonings including 2 tsp of the file. Add vegetables and boil another 30 minutes. Add chicken legs and sausage and boil another 45 minutes. Add 2 TB of file, stir and scrape. Add gravy and corn starch, stir. Add shrimp and turn off heat. Serve with rice. Liv prefers black rice, but any rice will do.
Liv’s gumbo