Friday Favorites from Cooking Classy, Once Upon a Chef, Half Baked Harvest and More

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Good morning and a happy Friday to you. I hope that your week was a great one. I have been spending lots of time at the ocean, relaxing and enjoying my family.

I hope that you enjoy my favorites from this week. 

Food

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Bruschetta with Heirloom Tomatoes, Basil and Olives from Once Upon a Chef.

This Cherry Tomato Pasta from Half Baked Harvest is a great way to use some of the tomatoes from your own garden. 

Doesn’t this Cranberry Apple Almond Slaw from Cooking Classy look fresh and delicious?

Ice cream is always a refreshing dessert on a hot day. This Roasted Strawberry Ice Cream from The Novice Housewife might become one of your family favorites. 

I made these Cherry Almond Crumble Bars and

and this Sunshine Cake for my mom this week. 

Favorite Articles/Blogs

My Skin Cancer Diagnosis from Blogger Wit & Whimsy.

Harold Peto’s Iford Garden. This garden is beautiful and magical. 

10 Things to Tell Yourself on Hard Days

95 Movies, Shows, Albums and Books to Check Out This Month. (Fast Company)

The Official Trailer for A Beautiful Day in The Neighborhood.

The High Price of Multitasking.

6 Ways to Become a Better Listener.

6 Places in Europe Offering Shelter From the Storm.

Books

Longburn by Jo Baker

• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •

If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.

In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. 

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. 

At the Edge of Summer by Jessica Brockmole

Luc Crépet is accustomed to his mother’s bringing wounded creatures to their idyllic château in the French countryside, where healing comes naturally amid the lush wildflowers and crumbling stone walls. Yet his maman’s newest project is the most surprising: a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl grieving over her parents’ fate. A curious child with an artistic soul, Clare Ross finds solace in her connection to Luc, and she in turn inspires him in ways he never thought possible. Then, just as suddenly as Clare arrives, she is gone, whisked away by her grandfather to the farthest reaches of the globe. Devastated by her departure, Luc begins to write letters to Clare—and, even as she moves from Portugal to Africa and beyond, the memory of the summer they shared keeps her grounded.

Years later, in the wake of World War I, Clare, now an artist, returns to France to help create facial prostheses for wounded soldiers. One of the wary veterans who comes to the studio seems familiar, and as his mask takes shape beneath her fingers, she recognizes Luc. But is this soldier, made bitter by battle and betrayal, the same boy who once wrote her wistful letters from Paris? After war and so many years apart, can Clare and Luc recapture how they felt at the edge of that long-ago summer?

Bringing to life two unforgettable characters and the rich historical period they inhabit, Jessica Brockmole shows how love and forgiveness can redeem us.

The Madwoman Upstairs

In Catherine Lowell’s smart and original debut novel—“an enjoyable academic romp that successfully combines romance and intrigue” (Publishers Weekly)—the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary treasure hunt to find the family’s long-rumored secret estate, using only the clues her father left behind and the Brontës’ own novels.

Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. Since her eccentric father’s untimely death, she is the presumed heir to a long-rumored trove of diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts passed down from the Brontë family—a hidden fortune never revealed to anyone outside of the family, but endlessly speculated about by Brontë scholars and fanatics. Samantha, however, has never seen this alleged estate and for all she knows, it’s just as fictional as Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. 

But everything changes when Samantha enrolls at Oxford University and long lost objects from the past begin rematerializing in her life, beginning with an old novel annotated in her father’s handwriting. With the help of a handsome but inscrutable professor, Samantha plunges into a vast literary mystery and an untold family legacy, one that can only be solved by decoding the clues hidden within the Brontës’ own works.

Finds

I love these Floral napkins from Pottery Barn.

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A classic white shirt is always a great addition  for your wardrobe, this one from Everlane is a favorite of mine. 

As is this poplin skirt from Talbot’s.

I hope that you share your favorite books, finds, movies, recipes and more. Have a happy and safe weekend.