Friday Favorites from In Jennie's Kitchen, Salt & Baker, and More

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Good morning! Happy Friday to you. How are you doing? Are you getting outside to get some fresh air, make sure to do that daily, it is great for your physical and mental wellbeing during these trying times. Are you watching anything interesting? Learning anything new? Although we are still working this is also a great opportunity to take a class and try something new or something that you have “always” wanted to do but didn’t have the time.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my finds for the week.

If you have always wanted to learn to make bread now is your chance, Bread Baking for Beginners from In Jennie’s Kitchen.

If you like sourdough here is a link to How to Make a Sourdough Starter from Displaced Housewife.

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Tuscan Bean Soupfrom These Old Cookbooks, the perfect accompaniment for warm bread straight from the oven.

Homemade Orange Sweet Rolls from Salt & Baker would be excellent for a weekend treat or for Easter weekend.

Interesting Articles

Bring a little Spring into your home by Forcing Spring Branches.

Let’s Paint Together, a beginners class with Mariane from Miss Mustard Seed

Dame Helen Mirren Says Gardening Helps Her Anxiety

How Often Should We Disinfect Our Home?

How to Store Produce So That It Last Longer

If you are a fan of photographer Jamie Beck than you will love her Isolation Creations.

Enroll for free at Yale’s most popular class, The Science of Happiness.

A Sewing Army Makes Masks for America.

Books

Bird Summons

In her adventurous new novel, New York Times Notable author Leila Aboulela delivers a lively portrait of three women who embark on a journey of self-discovery while grappling with the conflicting demands of family, duty, and faith.

When Salma, Moni, and Iman—friends and active members of their local Muslim Women’s group—decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life, but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married, but tempted to risk it all when she’s contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son without the help of her indifferent husband; and Iman, in her twenties and already on her third marriage, longs for the freedom and autonomy she’s never known. When the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird from Muslim and Celtic literature, they are compelled to question their relationships to faith and femininity, love, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Brilliantly imagined, thoughtful and wise, Bird Summons confirms Leila Aboulela’s reputation as one of our finest contemporary writers.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

Perfect for fans of A Man Called Ove, this curiously charming debut follows a lovable widower and his life-changing adventure of love and self-discovery.

Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater vest, waters his fern, Frederica, and heads out to his garden.

But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam’s death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam’s possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he’s never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife’s secret life before they met—a journey that leads him to find hope and healing in the most unexpected places.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters with big hearts and irresistible flaws, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is a joyous reminder of life’s infinite possibilities.

“Why has it taken more than half a century for this wonderful flight of humor to be rediscovered?”—Guardian

“The sweetest grown-up book in the world.”—Sunday Times

“Everyone, no matter how poor or prim or neglected, has a second chance to blossom in the world.”—Daily Mail, in reference to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

A major film released in 2008, Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day is a delightful, funny, lighthearted novel. First published in 1938, it was reissued in the United Kingdom in 2000, complete with thirty-five original illustrations, and has sold over 22,000 copies.

Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew encounters a kind of glamour that she had only met before at the movies. Over the course of a single day, both women are changed forever.

IF you prefer you can always watch the movie!

The Books of Flowers

French flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) devoted himself exclusively to capturing the diversity of flowering plants in watercolor paintings which were then published as copper engravings, with careful botanical descriptions. The darling of wealthy Parisian patrons including Napoleon’s wife Josephine, he was dubbed “the Raphael of flowers,” and is regarded to this day as a master of botanical illustration.

This elegant catalogue brings together all engravings from Redouté’s illustrations of Roses and Choix des plus belles fleurs (Selection of the Most Beautiful Flowers) and the most astounding images from The Lilies. Offering a vibrant overview of Redouté’s admixture of accuracy and beauty, it is also a privileged glimpse into the magnificent gardens and greenhouses of a bygone Paris.

That is it for this week, I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Again, please share your finds, coping techniques, comments, angst, or whatever.