Friday Favorites from Creme de la Crumb, Cooking on the Ranch, No Biggie and More

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Good morning friends! How are you? Are you surviving the heat and the crazy storms? Are you excited for the weekend and the 4th of July? Things are going to be a little, no probably a lot different, but you know what, that is ok. Sometimes life throws a curveball at you, sometimes more than one and how you react is up to you. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am very disappointed that I will not be in Milwaukee watching the 3rd of July fireworks, or going to Summerfest and more importantly seeing my family whom I’ve not seen since Thanksgiving. But I cannot control the situation and I can cry, scream and lament that life is horrible but that is not really the case. I am blessed that my family is healthy, my friends are healthy, I am healthy and so is my husband. We all still have jobs(except one sister who is laid off), we all have health insurance and we all live in the beautiful U.S.A.I will continue to march along and look for the good in every single day and pray for brighter and happier days ahead. 

I hope that you enjoy my Friday Favorites.

Food 

4th of July is all about bbq’s according to my husband so we will be making burgers and ribs this weekend. If you are looking for a burger to try his Texas Ranch Burger from Cooking on the Ranch might be a contender. 

This Patriotic Charcuterie Board from No Biggie is great for a casual drinks and appetizer gathering. 

Fiesta Lime Chicken Foil Packs from Creme de la Crumb are a great alternative to traditional bbq food. 

I want to make this Flag Cake from Baking with Blondie, I have the cake baked and the frosting ready but to be honest cake decorating is not one of my best skills. I am going to give it my best and I will let you know how it turned out. 

Articles

 Books for the Ages

The Power of Once Push-up

The Ups and Downs of Multigenerational Housing

Can Domestic Abusers Keep Themselves Accountable When Know One is Watching?

The Complicated, Vital Work of Helping Domestic Violence Survivors in a Pandemic.

What’s Really Behind the Gender Gap in Covid-19?

I Walked My Way Out of Loneliness

Out of the Belly of Hell: COVID-19 and the humanisation of globalisation

If you would like to become a pen pal of one or two elderly residents of nursing homes please visit Sunshine Letters to send a card or letter. 

102 Black Designers, Crafters, Makers, and More to Follow on Instagram Now

A Real Life Rumpelstiltskin

WWII Submarine Base Transformed into the World’s Largest Digital Art Center

If you ever wondered what Napoleon, George Washington and many others looked like you will enjoy Artist Uses AI to Create Realistic Portraits of Historical Figures

Books

Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

 

Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.

The Daughter’s Tale

From the internationally bestselling author of The German Girl, an unforgettable, “searing” (People) saga exploring a hidden piece of World War II history and the lengths a mother will go to protect her children—perfect for fans of Lilac Girls, We Were the Lucky Ones, and The Alice Network.

Seven decades of secrets unravel with the arrival of a box of letters from the distant past, taking readers on a harrowing journey from Nazi-occupied Berlin, to the South of France, to modern-day New York City.

Berlin, 1939. The dreams that Amanda Sternberg and her husband, Julius, had for their daughters are shattered when the Nazis descend on Berlin, burning down their beloved family bookshop and sending Julius to a concentration camp. Desperate to save her children, Amanda flees toward the South of France. Along the way, a refugee ship headed for Cuba offers another chance at escape and there, at the dock, Amanda is forced to make an impossible choice that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Once in Haute-Vienne, her brief respite is inter­rupted by the arrival of Nazi forces, and Amanda finds herself in a labor camp where she must once again make a heroic sacrifice.

New York, 2015. Eighty-year-old Elise Duval receives a call from a woman bearing messages from a time and country that she forced herself to forget. A French Catholic who arrived in New York after World War II, Elise is shocked to discover that the letters were from her mother, written in German during the war. Her mother’s words unlock a floodgate of memories, a lifetime of loss un-grieved, and a chance—at last—for closure.

Based on true events and “breathtakingly threaded together from start to finish with the sound of a beating heart” (The New York Times Book Review), The Daughter’s Tale is an unforgettable family saga of love, survival, and redemption.

And After the Fire: A Novel

The New York Times-bestselling author of A Fierce Radiance and City of Light returns with a new powerful and passionate novel—inspired by historical events—about two women, one European and one American, and the mysterious choral masterpiece by Johann Sebastian Bach that changes both their lives.

In the ruins of Germany in 1945, at the end of World War II, American soldier Henry Sachs takes a souvenir, an old music manuscript, from a seemingly deserted mansion and mistakenly kills the girl who tries to stop him.

In America in 2010, Henry’s niece, Susanna Kessler, struggles to rebuild her life after she experiences a devastating act of violence on the streets of New York City. When Henry dies soon after, she uncovers the long-hidden music manuscript. She becomes determined to discover what it is and to return it to its rightful owner, a journey that will challenge her preconceptions about herself and her family’s history—and also offer her an opportunity to finally make peace with the past.

In Berlin, Germany, in 1783, amid the city’s glittering salons where aristocrats and commoners, Christians and Jews, mingle freely despite simmering anti-Semitism, Sara Itzig Levy, a renowned musician, conceals the manuscript of an anti-Jewish cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, an unsettling gift to her from Bach’s son, her teacher. This work and its disturbing message will haunt Sara and her family for generations to come.

Interweaving the stories of Susanna and Sara, and their families, And After the Firetraverses over two hundred years of history, from the eighteenth century through the Holocaust and into today, seamlessly melding past and present, real and imagined. Lauren Belfer’s deeply researched, evocative, and compelling narrative resonates with emotion and immediacy.

Renato’s Luck

Renato Tizzoni, a waterworks man in the beautiful Tuscan village of Sant’Angelo D’Asso, has an infectious zest for life. But recently his rich and vibrant world has lost its piquancy. His best friend has died; his lovestruck teenaged daughter has become a sullen stranger; and even his passionate marriage is showing signs of cooling. To make matters worse, his beloved town is about to change dramatically. Prompted by a dream, Renato resolves to rediscover the flavor of life through a trip to Rome. But his fellow townspeople want in on the journey, and before long, Renato finds himself at the Vatican on behalf of all of them. There, as luck would have it, he finds a way to save his marriage, his family, and even his village.

Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World

Hailed by Virginia Woolf as one of the all-time great letter writers, Jane Welsh Carlyle, wife of Victorian literary celebrity Thomas Carlyle, has been much overlooked. In this compelling new biography, Kathy Chamberlain brings Jane out of her husband’s shadow, focusing on Carlyle as a remarkable woman and writer in her own right.Caught between her own literary aspirations and Victorian society’s oppression of women, Jane Welsh Carlyle hoped to move beyond domestic life and become a respected published writer. As she and her husband moved in exclusive London literary circles, mingling with noted authors, poets, and European revolutionaries, Carlyle created and reported to her correspondents on her rich, rewarding life in her Chelsea home—until her husband’s infatuation with a wealthy, imposing aristocratic society hostess threw her life into chaos.Through dedicated research and unparalleled access to Jane Welsh Carlyle’s private correspondence, Kathy Chamberlain presents an elegant portrait of an extraordinary woman writer.

Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie

Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie are two sparkling comedies from early in the career of Nancy Mitford, beloved author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, here published in one volume with a new introduction by Jane Smiley.

 

In Christmas Pudding, an array of colorful characters converge on the hunt-obsessed Lady Bobbin’s country house, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl’s pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. In Pigeon Pie, set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose, until the murder of her maid and kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic results. Delivered with a touch lighter than that of Mitford’s later masterpieces but no less entertaining, these comedies combine glamour, wit, and fiendishly absurd plots into irresistible literary confections.

Finds

I like these sandals from Anthropologie.

And this dress. 

And this dress from JCrew.

I just ordered these melamine plates from Williams Sonoma, I think they will be great for outdoor dinners. 

Thank you for visiting the blog today, I appreciate your comments and emails and love learning from you about the books, recipes and information that you discovered this week. Have a happy and safe 4th of July.