spotted sign - Davison Orchard September 2020

 

book club - My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

 2020-28

 

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When she is older, she will remember him as her first love.  She will think of how perfect his crooked nose was, and how soulful his eyes.  But even if she forgets his face, his voice will stay with her in her dreams."

Ayoola lives in a world where things must always go her way.  It's a law as certain as the law of gravity.

Covert Farms Family Estate

One of the highlights of our Summer was a visit to Covert Farms in Oliver.  

Covert Farms is an organic farm and winery run by the same family for 4 generations.

Their farm and location are absolutely stunning, and for a couple of hours I got to pretend my dream of living on a farm had come true.

Covert has a few options when you visit them - you can do a wine tasting - they have different tastings to choose from, or a couple of different farm tours.  We took the Hands on Harvest Tour.

 Our tour started at their beautiful outdoor patio which has a lovely view of the outdoor entertainment area and lawn game area, including a bouncy trampoline like thing the kids were desperate to get to.

Our very friendly guide first took us to meet the dogs and Delilah the pig, as well as some chickens and ducks.  We fed the llamas and got a peek at the new baby llama too.

Then we climbed in the back of the super cool farm truck and started the driving part of the tour.

In addition to learning about grapes, vines, wine, and their winery in particular, the scenery was incredible.

Beautiful!

We stopped by the farm portion of the property and our guide gave us our own bags and boxes to pick blueberries, blackberries and peaches.

We ended back at the patio for our tasting.  Since I don't drink, The Mister quite enjoyed his doubles of everything.

Our wines came with a charcuterie board which was so delicious.  Don't worry, the kids weren't left out.  They got to do a juice tasting and had their own charcuterie board.  They drank the juice, ate some strawberries and crackers and then ran off to play with Delilah and jump on the trampoline.

The few hours we spent there was truly one of the best parts of our Summer, possibly the year!  If you enjoy wine or farms or delicious cheese or beautiful locations, this is a good spot to visit.

Covert Farms Family Estate

book club - The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

 2020-27

 

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"But it doesn't give you license to sit here and wait for life to find you.  It just means you can survive whatever is out there."

my favorites in september

 I will NOT talk about how quickly September flew by.  I will not.

On Prime -

Golden Girls

On Crave - 

Veep

Jann

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 We are trying Hello Fresh!

I need some breaks somewhere and getting some help with meals and groceries sounds wonderful to me.  We had our first order this past week and not only did we love all 3 meals, we had leftovers from all 3, including the one we served to 5 people instead of 4 when The Grandpa came over.  We won't use it every week, but I am already excited to get another order in a few weeks.

 

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Cucumber Mint Cooler from David Lebovitz

 

 

Whipped Frozen Lemonade from Eating Well

My current favorite hot sauce

 

My current favorite hot sauce on a bagel with garlic cream cheese and cucumber

My current favorite hot sauce on a BLT bagel

A very, VERY excellent read on the "leader" of the US and what it really means if you support it -

The Consequences of Your Actions

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 2020-26 

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She had learned that when people were bent on doing something they believed was a good deed, it was usually impossible to dissuade them.

Snapshot - Breakfast

 

Guacamole, tomato and scrambled egg on toast.  Melon on the side.

Cornflake Cake

My Boo (eternal BFF) and I had a socially distanced birthday lunch for her this summer, and I decided it was the perfect time to try out a saved dessert recipe, a chocolate cornflake cake.  Well, "cake".  It isn't a true cake.  But there is a lot of chocolate.  What else do you need?

This Chocolate Cornflake Cake (which is apparently a favorite of the Queen's) was very easy to make, although not super pretty.

It did look a little nicer with its ganache topping.  I was so excited about the lunch I forgot to make the salty buttery cornflake topping.

One thing I will say is that this is a FIRM "cake".  The recipe says to let the cake sit at room temperature before serving.  This one sat out for more than an hour and it was still difficult to cut. 

We hacked off a piece to keep and served it for dessert to The Grandpa that night, and he was also a fan.  Another no bake dessert win.

Snapshot - Sidewalk Rainbow

book club - Educated by Tara Westover

 2020-25

 

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"Men like to think they're saving some brain-dead woman who's got herself into a scrape.All I had to do was step aside and let him play the hero!" 

Then she'd smile - not a soothing smile for someone else but for herself, of baffled amusement, a smile that to me always seemed to say, Ain't nothing funnier than real life, I tell you what.

The truth is this: that I am not a good daughter.  I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good.

It was not that I had done something wrong so much as that I existed in the wrong way.  There was something impure in the back of my being.

my favorites in august

 Here's a few things I enjoyed in August - 

It feels like I just struggled to find things to share that I enjoyed in July, and here we are at the end of August.  Bleh.

Little Fires Everywhere the book and the show - I finished the book and immediately started the show on Prime.  The book is much better, but the show is good too.

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The Great - I accidentally binged the first season and The Great is pretty great.  Hurry up season 2!

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Prime recommended Versailles after I was done with The Great.Very good but NOT light and funny like The Great.

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We changed our tv package and finally got access to Drunk History.  I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.

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Treated myself to a new face mist this month.

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educated - a really good, frustrating read.

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thai iced coffee 

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A flat of delicious blueberries!

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spending some time sitting with this.

Sunday Dinner - no bake cookie bar

This was a HUGE hit at Sunday dinner.  Everyone loved them and repeatedly asked me to make sure I had saved the recipe so I could make them again (soon).

I made these no bake cookie bars in a slightly bigger pan - 8x10 or so, to make it a bit thinner, which is our preference for bars like this.  You get more that way.

This is a good summertime treat as you don't have to turn on the oven - and who doesn't love peanut butter, oats, graham and chocolate?????

the power of orange and vinegar combined

I love cleaning with vinegar - it does a good job and it's cheap.  I decided to try one of the homemade cleaner recipes that are always floating around the internet.  I used this article for guidance although I didn't have any whole cloves or cinnamon sticks to add. 

I put my peels in a jar........

And added vinegar to cover.........

Let it sit for 2 weeks!

Pulled out the orange peels and there's my orange infused vinegar.

I added it to a spray bottle with some water.

 

And got to cleaning.

It works well and while it still smells very strongly of vinegar (of course) this is some orange there too.

Up next I want to try the lemon and rosemary cleaner - we used to have a rosemary plant in our garden, but I didn't notice if it came back this year!  Off to check.

book club - Sula by Toni Morrison

2020-24

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It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both.

They did not believe death was accidental - life might be, but death was deliberate.  They did not believe Nature was ever askew - only inconvenient.  Plague and drought were are "natural" as springtime.

"Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody.  Risky.  You don't get nothing for it."

Cookbook Cleanup 18 - Food

Book 18 is Food by Mary McCartney, another book picked up from Dollarama.

 

This is a book of family friendly vegetarian home cooking.  It's a toss up between what is more lovely, the recipes or the beautiful photography, of the food, ingredients, and family photography, including some photos from her famous family.

The table of contents covers breakfast and brunch, sandwiches, soups and salads, mains, sides and desserts.

I made 5 recipes from the book - 

Banana Muffins - super easy AND super delicious

Quick Breakfast Bowl - Yogurt, granola, fruit, nuts, honey - how can you go wrong?

You can't.  And you can customize it however you want.  So good.

Breakfast pancakes were a hit with all of us.

Arty's Chocolate Chip Cookies - always the best kind of cookie.

Choose Your Own Flavor Loaf Cake.  We chose chocolate.

I have to say that going into cooking from this book I was quite determined that this one would go.  I wasn't sure I could find enough recipes that interested me AND that the picky kids would eat, and also because I am determined to cut my cookbook collection down.  But I really really like this book, to look at and cook from.  It's staying and  I've got a list of what to try next:

 Hearty Quinoa and White Bean Soup

Sprout and Carrot Salad

Black Bean, Sweet Corn and Feta Tacos

Lip Smacking Minestrone

Cauliflower Cheese

Yummy Spicy Rice Noodles

Cookbook Cleanup results so far - Bookshelf - 10  Donated - 8

book club - The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

2020-23

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"....wbat made it worse were the constant messages I got from society that women are weak, women should be afraid, women should settle for whatever they can get."

Good God, sometimes it felt like all of society was complicit in trying to make life harder for women.

Popsugar 2020 Reading Challenge

 I found a new reading challenge for 2020!

I have to be honest, I am not taking part in the library's reading club this summer. 

Keeping track of how many minutes I read at a time is not for me.  

So I was happy to finding a reading challenge with a list - and it's a very interesting list.

 

Read more about the challenge here