Let’s just get this straight, first off: You won’t like this week’s book. I read James Baldwin’s book — actually it’s more of an essay, or a couple long letters — The Fire Next Time just because I’m up for hearing people out. Baldwin is a black writer and an angry man. One can see why. We know blacks have suffered generations of indignities [...]
Bananas come to my house to die. I have good intentions. I know the potassium is good for lots of things. Still, I turn around one day and there they are, brown, squishy and dying. I know, I know, make banana bread. Except I don't particularly like banana bread, not enough to use up that many bananas. Banana bread brownies, however, just might catch on [...]
Here at Read Fast, Eat Slow, we are celebrating Bake for Family Fun Month. And sometimes, we have to borrow the family. That’s how I got to do a baking day with the V family. When I arrived, Mom informed me that we were baking in teams, with Dad and the boys working on brownies, Mom and the girls making her famous Yummy Bars. [...]
This is a cookie for the indecisive sugar fiend. When you visit the recipe site, you will find a more beautiful sample of the finished product. I used a rather large cookie scoop, and cookies that big take 17 minutes to bake! As for the review of the extra-large book that I know you're all waiting on, I can report that I passed [...]
Oh, those Super-Bloggers, the ones with the big cameras. They dangle their decadent brownies in front of us. Sometimes those brownies turn out terrible. I'm happy to report: this is not one of those times. Twix Truffle Brownies came together pretty easily, even the potentially ruinous step of spreading the "truffle" of crushed Lorna Doone cookies over the brownie layer. You will find yourself [...]
Two stories: When I was a tween, I tagged along with a sister to Taco Time. I’m no big fan of tacos, but when I looked up at the menu and saw the Taco Burger, my mouth began to water. I was the kind of tween that was too young to babysit, and had never heard of an allowance, so my pockets were empty. [...]
Tonight, you get two desserts, to make up for getting no book. I'm reading a long one, already been at it for two weeks and it's going to take me another to finish. Meanwhile, I'm visiting a household where nobody is on a special diet, where everybody goes bug-eyed for sugar-y treats. We tried: Slutty Brownies. Start with some chocolate chip cookie dough. [...]
OK, I tried Lynn Kurland’s Star of the Morning. They say this author consistently spins great stories. I just happened to pick one with magic swords and what-not. Not my favorite genre. Ten pages in, not even this highly-praised storyteller could sell me on magic swords or legendary kingdoms or something called the Black Mage running loose in the land . But if I could find a [...]
As social habits go, listening to talk radio rates somewhere between shopping at Wal-Mart in your pajamas and tossing litter out of your car window. Especially if your afternoon fix is Rush Limbaugh. I’ve eaten dinner with friends who dismissed the “dittoheads” they know as crazy sheep-like paranoids who take their marching orders from a bombastic liar. But I like the guy. I’ll gladly listen. [...]
With just a few weeks of perfect sit-outside weather left, you know a wedding-weekend novel would be just the thing to read. Some of you can’t make it to the beach because your kids are already in school. No problem. The porch will do, especially with no children around, begging for snacks. In Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand, we not only have a wedding to [...]
