Friday Favorites~a weekly series where we share our favorite books, decor, fashion finds, recipes, podcasts, articles and more.
Friday Favorites No. 628
Good morning friends, happy Friday and happy Spring! Does it feel like Spring to you? Here is seems like every other day is Spring and the others late Fall. Don’t get me wrong I do not mind the cooler days, soon the heat will be here and I will be counting the days until Fall.
In the beds the hellebores look fabulous, and there are lots of little “baby” hellebores. Anyone with a green thumb and a garden please tell me what to do with them, should I thin them out? Plant them somewhere else?
My peonies are starting to come out of the ground. In fact one had a stalk about 5 inches tall! I am so excited, I love peonies and wait every years for the couple of weeks that there beautiful pink and fuchsia heads are bobbing in the wind.
The trees are covered with little buds just waiting to flower or sprout their leaves.
How is your garden? Do you having any flowers coming up yet?
Ok, on to my favorites from this week.
Food
Lemon Ricotta Pasta, ready in less than 30 minutes, made with minimal ingredients.
Spring Couscous Bowls with Feta Vinaigrette, with chickpeas, roasted asparagus, fresh herbs, roasted pistachios. I cannot wait to make these.
This is one of my favorite salads, Strawberry feta and walnut salad.
If you are planning your Easter menu why not add hot cross buns this year?
LINKS TO READ+WATCH+LISTEN
A charming 16th-century farmhouse in an idyllic setting in Surrey
Made in Paris: fun workshops in Paris
The last peach orchard in Paris
The Science Behind Your Sugar Cravings
How the Disney remake became 2025’s most divisive film
Step inside a 19th century renovated farmhouse.
One Man’s Lifelong Quest to Create a Lettuce Cigarette
Inside the Fight to Save the World’s Most Endangered Wolf
Wide-awake at night but tired in the morning? Here’s what could help, according to experts
Kevin Costner Talks Conservation, Camping, and His New Docuseries on National Parks
Books
Every month they gather over good food and wine to discuss their favorite books: six very different women, not quite friends, not quite strangers. Enid is a successful psychiatrist, brilliant yet inexplicably dissatisfied; Donna, torn between two lovers, dreams of family but fears commitment; Rina’s destructive fantasies maybe her downfall; Pat and Hedy are sisters as dissimilar as they are competitive; and Connie is the envy of all her friends with the perfect career, the perfect family, the perfect life. Brought together by their love of literature, they share a deep understanding of one another or so they think.
Then Connie, the woman seemingly so happy, announces that she is divorcing her husband for reasons she refuses to share.The ensuing drama that unfolds forces each woman to explore the secrets shaping and burdening her life as they speculate about what could have happened and what, in their own circumstances, would constitute the ultimate betrayal.
Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to the small, rural, scratchy-hot village of Autignac in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he’s made a terrible mistake. Life here is not holding your cigarette chest-high while walking to the café and pulling off the trick of pretending to be Parisian, it’s getting into fights with your wife because you won’t break character and introduce your very American family to the locals, who can smell you and your perfect city-French from a mile away.
But through cooking what the local grocer tells him to cook, he feels more of this place. A neighbor leads him into the world of winemaking, where he learns not as a pedantic oenophile, but bodily, as a grape picker and winemaker’s apprentice. Along the way, he lets go of the abstract ideas he’d held about France, discovering instead the beauty of a culture that is one with its landscape, and of becoming one with that culture.
The Belle Hotel
Welcome to the worst day of Chef Charlie Sheridan’s life, the day he’s about to lose his two great loves: his childhood sweetheart, Lulu, and the legendary Brighton hotel his grandfather, Franco Sheridan, opened in 1973.
This is the story of the Belle Hotel, one that spans the course of four decades – from the training of a young chef in the 1970s and 80s, through the hedonistic 90s, up to the credit crunch of the noughties – and leads us right back to Charlie’s present-day suffering.
In this bittersweet and salty tale, our two Michelin star-crossed lovers navigate their seaside hangout for actors, artists and rock stars; the lure of the great restaurants of London; and the devastating effects of three generations of family secrets.
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
Don’t you just love a great pair of jeans paired with a crisp white blouse? Me too. I like to wear them with loafers, slip on sandals or tennis shoes. Add your favorite tote to cary all of your farmers market goods, or finds from the antique shops.
Outfit Details~Click the photos
You can find the pieces in the outfit above, simply click the photos. You can also find in the collage at the bottom of the blog all of this things “on my radar” including Spring bags, shoes and more.
Until Next Time
I hope that you found something to read, make and to enjoy on Friday Favorites. Don’t forget WEEKEND MEANDERINGS tomorrow with Kim.
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On My Radar
Can’t wait to make that pasta. I didn’t see a link for the salad you love. Please share!
Doesn’t the pasta look fabulous Nanci? I cannot wait to make it. As for the salad, here is a link.
Have a wonderful weekend.