Friday Favorites~a weekly series where we share our favorite books, decor, fashion finds, recipes, podcasts, articles and more.
FRIDAY FAVORITES NO. 615
Good morning friends! How was your week? It is freezing here. One day it’s parka weather then it’s sweatshirt weather and now we are back to parka weather.
I am busy baking and packing up sweet treats for family and friends. Next week I will be sharing some of the easy and delicious treats that I have been making. You can make them for yourself, share them with friends or have them on hand for your guests.
We are so excited because our first holiday guests arrive tomorrow. They leave next week Thursday and the next bunch of family arrives to stay until after Christmas.
In the meantime the bathrooms are still under construction. We are so close to getting the powder room finished. I cannot remember if I told you but the stone cracked last Friday so that set us back a week.
Anyway, more about that later because we are still waiting for the lights, the shades for the lights from York, UK, and the wallpaper samples. Hopefully by next week we will at least be able to wash out hands in there.
As always, I have lots to share so let’s get to all of our Friday Favorites!
FOOD
Cold weather and guests have me thinking of warm comforting meals. Not necessarily easy, but nourishing, filling and comfort for cold weary souls.
On a cold winter day this French Onion Beef Short Rib Soup would be comforting and delicious. Serve with a salad, and some warm crusty bread.
Cozy Wild rice and orzo chicken soup, the perfect slow cooker meal.
Comfort food in a pie pan, chicken pot pie filled with chicken, and vegetables nestled in a flaky crust.
I have this buttery almond braid on my holiday brunch baking list and this delicious Raspberry Danish.Â
LINKS TO READ+WATCH+LISTEN
Stanley Is Recalling Over 2 Million Mugs—Here’s What You Need to Know
Krispy Kreme’s Annual ‘Day of the Dozens’ Is Back—With Free Doughnuts
Capturing the ‘grandeur and beauty’ of Notre Dame during its reconstruction
The history of Christmas Villages
Watch Queen Elizabeth II Deliver the First Televised Christmas Broadcast
Love it or hate it, nonliteral ‘literally’ is here to stay: Here’s why English will survive
BOOKS
The festive season is coming to Cornwall, bringing snow, surprises and the ghosts of Christmas past. This heartwarming new Christmas read from the author of the bestselling Polwenna Bay series is perfect for fans of Poldark and Rosamunde Pilcher. At the end of a hectic year, Grace Anders is looking forward to a quiet Christmas at the family home in Cornwall. Tucked away on Bodmin Moor, Hallows House is the perfect place to relax by the fire and catch up with loved ones. The last thing Grace expects, or wants, is the arrival of warring family members or the unexpected return of the man who broke her heart a lifetime ago. But as the weather closes in and people arrive at Hallows to shelter from the blizzard, family feuds and old heartaches have to be set aside. Can a sprinkling of snow and some Cornish Christmas magic make this the season for second chances after all?
A Week in Winter
Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Chicky is finally ready to welcome the first guests to Stone House’s big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms. John, the American movie star, thinks he has arrived incognito; Winnie and Lillian are forced into taking a holiday together; Nicola and Henry, husband and wife, have been shaken by seeing too much death practicing medicine; Anders hates his father’s business, but has a real talent for music; Miss Nell Howe, a retired schoolteacher, criticizes everything and leaves a day early, much to everyone’s relief; the Walls are disappointed to have won this second-prize holiday in a contest where first prize was Paris; and Freda, the librarian, is afraid of her own psychic visions.
I am currently reading and loving this book! I know I shared this a few weeks ago but I am sharing it again, just in case you need a gift or a stocking stuffer.
A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy
For years, Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna Konditorei.
These are the small moments, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. Miso soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese and homes in on the scent of freshly picked sweet peas and the sound of water breathing at night in Japan.
This funny and sharply observed collection of the good bits of life, often things that pass many of us by, is utter joy from beginning to end.
Massachusetts, 1954. Alice Campbell escapes halfway across the country and finds herself in front of a derelict building tucked among the cobblestone streets of Cambridge, and she turns that sad little shop into the charming bookstore of her dreams.
Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt become fast friends in the sanctuary of Alice’s monthly reading club at The Cambridge Bookshop, where they escape the pressures of being newly independent college women in a world that seems to want to keep them in the kitchen. But they each embody very different personalities, and when a member of the group finds herself shattered, everything they know about each other―and themselves―will be called into question.
A heart-wrenching, inspiring, extraordinary love letter to books set against the backdrop of one of the most pivotal periods in American history, The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club explores how women forge their own paths, regardless of what society expects of them, and illuminates the importance of literature and the vital conversations it sparks.
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.Â
SHOPPING~Christmas Finds
I love this sweater, I hope Santa is reading this post. And this one too, and it’s on sale.
These tartan socks make great stocking stuffers.Â
Need more stocking stuffer or gift ideas? Check out my Christmas Gifts Guides with something for EVERYONE on your list.Â
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. Â 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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It’s been many years since I read A Week in Winter….thanks for the reminder!
Paula, you are very welcome. I had not read it in years and pulled it out of the bookcase to reread. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!