What's In My Teapot?

What do you get when you combine a collection of stories about life around the table with a variety of  recipes that will leave you licking your lips- if not digging deep into your own culinary skills? Why, Bread and Wine , by Shauna Niequist, of course!  Now, I am just going to tell you upfront that I am "cheating" a bit this month by picking and choosing from the handy-dandy list of questions in the book-club section at the back of the book!!! I didn't know when I chose this book that the review would come on the very day that I was giving achievement tests to nine  third graders in the morning, or that I would be faced with nine workbooks to check, or that I would be finishing the book on the day that the book review was due, or that I would not have tried a single recipe...but here  we are! Sticking to schedule, but giving myself a few breaks in the brain department while I am at it!!! Why try to come up with my own unique questions when I can have...

Have no fear, this is not a post on the merits of taking your own bags to the grocery store and planting trees and turning the water off while brushing your teeth! It's not even about the joys of recycling, although our big blue recycling container is currently overflowing in a way that gives me no end of pleasure these days, which means I am making headway in the cleaning frenzy purge that is underway at our house! No, all of these things are right and good, but this post is about feeling Irish for a day, making corned beef and cabbage, and finding out what, exactly, a three leaf clover has to do with March 17th! In other words, it's about how our little family enjoys a few fun traditions and a bit of extra green on St. Patrick's Day. To begin with, what is St. Patrick's Day? Well, to make a long explanation short, it is a global celebration of Irish culture on or around March 17. It particularly remembers St Patrick, one of Ireland's patron saints, w...

Forgive me! This is my third post about food in four days, and between that and posts about books, you must think that's about all I get done around here... eat and read ! Believe me, while that does sound like a very pleasant existence, there are other things that happen in my life: teaching Elasa what a sphere is in math, going to Prayer Meeting in single-digit weather & nylons, attempting to iron but getting off the hook when the iron calls in sick, changing Parker's wardrobe after he soaks himself playing in the dishwater left undrained after his older siblings washed the dishes, making a huge batch of granola (oops! Food again!) I've even been taking small and furtive bites from a brand new and rather large tome of a book on, uhm... dieting ! But more on that another time... Diets are not for cold evenings in February when the temperature is groveling in the basement on the thermometer. These evenings beg for comfort foods that go well with a cup of t...