Friday Favorites~a weekly series where we share our favorite books, decor, fashion finds, recipes, podcasts, articles and more.
FRIDAY FAVORITES NO. 619
Good morning friends, how has your week been? Honestly, it has been a hard week hasn’t it? It is difficult to get excited or to write about anything because of all of the devastation in California. I simply cannot wrap my head around all of the displaced people, lost lives, animals and what comes next. Where do they start? They have NOTHING, but the clothes on their backs.
Think about that, look around at your house there are probably a few hundred thousand things in there, everything from a tooth brush to clothing to family photos, towels, pots and pans, furniture.
A lifetime of mementos and memories and reduced to ashes. My heart is broken for them. Last week I shared a few places to help our California friends, but if you know of some others that you think we should know about please let me know in the comments.
Aside from the world problems how are you doing? Are you still easing into 2025? Me too and I am enjoying every minute.
Ok, let’s get to Friday Favorites, I have lots to share as always.
FOOD
There is another cold spell and possible snow on the way next week and I am stocking up on some soup recipes to try. I am not sure which ones I will be making but here are some of my favorites.
Minestrone Soup, a hearty Italian vegetable soup with a little pasta.
Lemon Chicken Couscous Soup, a simple comforting soup that uses a handful of ingredients.
Golden cauliflower healing soup, easy, delicious and perfect if you have a cold or are feeling run down.
Thai chicken curry soup is better than takeout and you can start with a rotisserie chicken!
This is not soup but why not treat yourself to a homemade cream cheese danish! These scrumptious breakfast pastries start with store bought puff pastry!
LINKS TO READ+WATCH+LISTEN
Three morning rituals that will change your day for the better.
Philosophy has lost its transformative power. Here’s how we can revive it.
California’s wildfires may also be catastrophic for its insurance market
The Video that raised 800,000 on GoFund Me
The truth behind your $12 dress: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling Shein’s success
Harry Potter first edition saved from rubbish pile
7 Expectations that Often Drain 90 Percent of Our Joy and Peace in Life
The Secret History of the Conversation Chair
The new museum trend helping us regain our lost attention
Books
This week I went shopping at the local used book store, and these are a few of the books that I found. This year I am trying to buy more used books and read books from my library. If I buy new I am giving more away or sharing on my Kindle. Are you buying more or less books this year.
In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.
In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure, and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
A spellbinding, beautifully written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history – the Salem witch trials.
Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest-to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.
As the pieces of Deliverance’s harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem’s dark past then she could have ever imagined.
Seven Days in the Art World
A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion.
In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie’s auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami’s studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton’s entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.
Need More Book Recommendations?
If you have already read these books or missed something I have featured before on the blog check out My Bookshop on Amazon.
Window Shopping
Pink and red is a beautiful color combination, this sweater is a great addition to your winter wardrobe to add a pop of color to your jeans, sweater, dress or even shorts. I paired it with a red skirt from the holidays, if you like red there are many red skirts on sale right now, including this one from Talbots.
Wear sandals or boots, a spritz of perfume and enjoy your winter or Valentine’s Day!
UNTIL Next Time
Please share something that made you smile this week!
I hope you enjoyed the recipes, links and books I discovered this week on Friday Favorites. Thank you for spending part of your day with me, your time is valuable and I am grateful that you spend a little of each day with me. Have a wonderful weekend.
Don’t forget WEEKEND MEANDERINGS tomorrow with Kim and Juliet!
Follow along with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, and Pinterest.
If you have missed a Friday Favorites post you can find them all here.
This post contains affiliate links, if you make a purchase I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you choose to purchase after clicking a link, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
On My Radar
The link for the cauliflower soup isn’t correct….
Do you mean for the Golden healing soup? https://pineconesandacorns.com/2023/10/golden-healing-cauliflower-soup/
Dear Elizabeth,
I completely understand everything you have said about the horrific fire in Southern California. I feel and have thought the same exact thing as you. I think about this throughout the day as I sit in “comfort and ease,” in our home. We have so much to be grateful for. We donated a generous amount of money immediately. We are not there to help but it gave me a good feeling that we were helping
in someway.
Katherine,
I think so many of us feel this way. It is heartbreaking and helpless as we stand by and watch the utter devastation in LA, music like in WNC. So many continue to suffer and will for years.
You are so right, we all have so much to be grateful for! Sadly many of use take it for granted, just as we do the friends and family in our lives.
We also donated, but it just does not feel like enough. I wish there were more we could do.
HAve a wonderful weekend.