Friday Favorites~a weekly series where we share our favorite books, decor, fashion finds, recipes, podcasts, articles and more.
FRIDAY FAVORITES NO. 597
Good morning friends! It’s been a long wet, and rainy one here with more rain on the way. Sadly there are many people who suffered flood and tornado damage, not in my area but all over North and South Carolina. Welcome to hurricane season, hopefully it doesn’t any worse than this.
How was your week? Were you are are you in the path of the tropical storm? What are your plans for the weekend?
As always, I have lots to share so let’s get to all of our Friday Favorites!
FOOD
All the flavor of your favorite Indian take-out in these Saucy Chicken Tikka Meatballs.
Bacon and cream potatoes bakes in a tart, a delicious dinner or brunch dish.
This spicy fried egg breakfast sandwich looks like a great recipe to try this weekend.
Double chocolate zucchini bread! A delicious and easy way to use up some of your squash.
LINKS TO READ+WATCH+LISTEN
Sarah Raven on why the chrysanthemum is having a comeback
10 Reasons Why AI may be overrated.
Dairy Queen’s Soft Serve Isn’t What You Think It Is
3 Daily Habits that Often Drain 90 Percent of Our Potential in Life (Week After Week)
The Biggest Ban in America in 2024
Fake Meat’s False Promise: Why Silicon Valley Can’t Hack the Future of Food
Is Everyone on Ozempic? Our Deep-Dive Into The Internet’s Weight Loss Obsession
BOOKS
Cassoulet Confessions
Cassoulet Confessions is an enthralling memoir by award-winning food and travel writer Sylvie Bigar that reveals how a simple journalistic assignment sparked a culinary obsession and transcended into a quest for identity. Set in the stunning southern French countryside, this honest and poignant memoir conveys hunger for authentic food and a universal hunger for home. In Cassoulet Confessions, Sylvie travels across the Atlantic from her home in New York to the origin of cassoulet – the Occitanie region of Southern France. There she immerses herself in all things cassoulet: the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. From her first spoonful, she is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, and finds herself journeying through an unexpected rabbit hole of memories. Not only does she discover the deeper meanings of her ancestral French cuisine, but she is ultimately transformed by having to face her unsettling, complex family history.
Sylvie’s simple but poetic prose immerses us in her story: we smell the simmering aromas of French kitchens, empathize with her family dilemmas, and experience her internal struggle to understand and ultimately accept herself.
The Girl I Used to Know
Amanda King and Tess Cuffe are strangers who share the same Georgian house, but their lives couldn’t be more different. Amanda seems to have it all, absolute perfection. She projects all the accoutrements of a lady who lunches. Sadly, the reality is a soulless home, an unfaithful husband and a very lonely heart. By comparison, in the basement flat, unwanted tenant Tess has spent a lifetime hiding and shutting her heart to love. It takes a bossy doctor, a handsome gardener, a pushy teenager and an abandoned cat to show these two women that sometimes letting go is the first step to moving forward and new friendships can come from the most unlikely situations.
When Isobel Dusi visited Italy with her Australian husband Lou, little did they imagine that life would change forever. But, utterly besotted with the fragrant warmth and good-natured conviviality of Southern Tuscany, they decided to sell up their lives in the big city and move thousands of miles to follow the dream of a life more in keeping with ancient rhythms and time-honoured traditions of the Mediterranean. After months of searching they settled upon Montalcino, an intriguing hilltop medieval village with a reputation for some of the finest wine in Italy. VANILLA BEANS AND BRODO is an account of Isobel’s hard-won acceptance into this tempestuous, warm-hearted and proudly independent community, whose voluble passions for home grown wine and Tuscan cuisine, for football and ancient traditions and festivals, puts paid to the myth that life in rural Tuscany is tranquil. Isobel and Lou are gradually transformed into Isabella and Luigi in this charming account of Tuscan village life that really gets to the beating heart of an Italian community – its joys, pleasures, anxieties, but above all, its absorbing eccentricities.
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.
SHOPPING
OUTFIT OF THE DAY
Fall and winter are sweater season, why not add a new sweater to your wardrobe with a little color? This one caught my eye, I think it has a bit of a Swiss flair to it and also reminds me of an Alex Mill sweater I had my eye on last year. This sweater can be worn with a t-shirt, white blouse or just buttoned up with jeans, a skirt or over a dress.
Outfit Details
UNTIL TOMORROW
What are your weekend plans?
Tell me 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.
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Don’t forget that Kim, Juliet and I will be back tomorrow on Weekend Meanderings!
If you have missed a Friday Favorites post you can find them all here.
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On My Radar
Thank you so much for your blog. I often buy your book recommendations. This time I bought them both!
Kathleen thank you for letting me know! I love reading and sometimes is it a challenge to share all of the books because I am unsure of what kind all of the readers like.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Dear Elizabeth,
I am happy to hear you are doing well with the crazy weather. I was worried. I have just joined a book club and love your suggestions. They ask people to choose books for the next year and you are my “cheat sheet”. Thank you
Cristi