Friday Favorites from Garnish & Glaze, Climbing Grier Mountain, My Kitchen Love and More

Good morning, happy Friday and a happy weekend to you! I hope you have been keeping cool this week, it has been a heatwave for many of us and a bit of a challenge staying cool. I have had a great, albeit busy week and I cannot wait to slow down a bit this weekend and get ready for my holiday guests.

I hope that you enjoy my favorites from this week and that you share your favorites as well.

Favorite Foods

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If you are looking for a change from your average bbq burger this 4th of July, this Apple Mustard Pork Burgers from My Kitchen Love might fit the bill.

Tomatoes and grilled corn are “the” vegetables of summer at least in my book. And of the corn is grilled and slathered in butter and salt I think it is the perfect meal. Read this article How To Make the Best Grilled Corn. if you are a fan too.

This article will tell you 4 ways to grill it, just in case you didn’t know how to do it.

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I made this Berry Spinach Salad this week and it is AMAZING!

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This Pink Lime Margarita looks refreshing!

If you are looking for an easy dessert for the 4th of July look no further than these 7 Layer Bars! You can make a giant pan and pretty much top them with any of your favorite nuts, chips, candy bars, chips, pretzels and more. I make these bars for every bbq I attend and there are never any left.

Favorite Articles/ Blogs

Image Home is Where the Boat Is

If you are looking for some great ideas to decorate or host a 4th of July party check out all of the creative ideas at Home is Where the Boat Is!

The Best Bookstagram Accounts

This 10 Year Old is Amazing

Champagne, Caviar and No Shame At All: Remembering Judith Krantz

Why Won’t the Speakeasy Die?

Google’s Invisible Menace

This Dying Bookstore Has A Proposal for NYC: Just Treat Us Like You Treated Amazon

Favorite Books

Looking forward to: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Meet Nina Hill: A young woman supremely confident in her own…shell.

The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.

When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They’re all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She’ll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It’s a disaster! And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn’t he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)

2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).

3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It’s time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn’t convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It’s going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Two Books for the Beach.

The Summer Guests

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Beach House series comes a heartwarming and evocative novel about the bonds and new beginnings that are born from natural disasters and how, even during the worst of circumstances—or perhaps because of them—we discover what is most important in life.

Late August is a beautiful time on the Southern coast—the peach trees are ripe, the ocean is warm, and the sweet tea is icy. A perfect time to enjoy the rocking chairs on the porch. But beneath the calm surface bubbles a threat: it’s also peak hurricane season.

When a hurricane threatens the coasts of Florida and South Carolina, an eclectic group of evacuees flees for the farm of their friends Grace and Charles Phillips in North Carolina: the Phillips’s daughter Moira and her rescue dogs, famed equestrian Javier Angel de la Cruz, makeup artist Hannah McLain, horse breeder Gerda Klug and her daughter Elise, and island resident Cara Rutledge. They bring with them only the few treasured possessions they can fit in their vehicles. Strangers to all but the Phillips, they must ride out the storm together.

During the course of one of the most challenging weeks of their lives, relationships are put to the test as the evacuees are forced to confront the unresolved issues they have with themselves and with each other. But as the storm passes, they realize that what really matters isn’t what they brought with them to the mountains. Rather, it’s what they’ll take with them once they leave.

The Secrets of Paper and Ink

As a counselor, Sophia Barrett is trained to help people cope with their burdens. But when she meets a new patient whose troubles mirror her own, she realizes she hasn’t dealt with the pain of her recent past. After making a snap decision to get away for the summer, Sophia moves overseas to an apartment above a charming bookstore in Cornwall, England. She is hopeful she will find peace there surrounded by her favorite thing: great literature.

Bookstore owner Ginny Rose is desperate to save her business without asking for help from a husband who’s decided to take a break from their marriage. Ginny never imagined she’d be solely responsible for keeping afloat her husband’s dream, but the unexpected friendship with her new renter has her feeling more optimistic. Between the two of them—and Ginny’s brother-in-law, William—the bookstore might stand a chance.

Then Sophia finds a notebook in the bookstore that contains journal entries from Emily Fairfax, a governess who lived in Cornwall more than 150 years ago. Sophia learns that Emily harbored a secret passion for becoming an authoress—as well as a deep love for her childhood friend, Edward, whose station she dared not dream to touch.

Eager to know more of Emily’s story, Sophia goes on a quest—dragging Ginny and William with her—to discover the heart of the woman behind the beautiful entries. Soon Ginny’s need to save the bookstore becomes more than a way to save her marriage, and Sophia finds new purpose of her own. Together they find that sometimes both heartache and hope can reach across the centuries.

Newest Cookbooks

Two Cookbooks from My Favorite NY Bakery