I’m stuck looking through our photos of our trip to France two years ago. It was such a dream come true.

Updating our travel journal: This was one of our “home” days, having lunch in the walled garden in back of our gite (cottage). Bread & soft cheese (I shared that plateful!). And, I know, it should be wine instead of water but, now & then, we needed a break.
 

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish!

I want to make this a quick list that won’t require extra photos, nor a lot of your time to read.

1. Privacy (in a physical sense). Folks will want to know who your grandfather was, where you’re from, why you’re here and lots, lots more. But most of them “don’t mean nothin’ by it”. It’s just the country way of knowing people. And they leave you be to go out on the deck in your robe (or less!)

2. Quiet – You’re usually far enough away from your neighbours that the noises you hear are the spring peepers, summer crickets, autumn leaves, and winter wind. Much nicer than someone else’s stereo on full blast, sirens and horns, and squealing tires.

3. Friendliness — It might take you a while to be accepted in the country but while you’re waiting you can pretty much know that everybody on Main Street will smile and say hello. It helps to try do things their way instead of showing off your city learnin’.

4. Traffic — There isn’t any. Except during haying season when the farmers drive their tractors down the highway. Three cars behind one is a traffic jam. (The school buses here pull over and let you by.)

5. Clean Air — No traffic carbon monoxide, no factory particulates or smells. Country air smells green; here it sometimes also smells like the ocean.

6. Clotheslines — outlawed in lots of cities, but pretty much de rigeur in the country.

7. No Water or Sewer Bill — not that we waste water; it is a limited earth resource after all. And every few years we have to pay to get the septic tank pumped. But it still beats having that monthly bill.

8. Wildlife — Okay, the bear getting into the green bin was a little much, but I never tire of seeing deer in the yard, or catching a glimpse of a fox or a ferret crossing the road and disappearing into the woods. There’s red squirrels, chipmunks, porcupines, muskrats and lots, lots more.

9. The View from My Window

10. House Accounts — at the pharmacy and the hardware store. Enough said.
 

To be fair, there are a few things that I miss about living in the city. I’ll share them with you next Tuesday.

This link-up is hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best, and was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, “Chains”, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularized by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing.

On the first Saturday of every month, Kate chooses a book as a starting point and links that book to six others forming a chain. Bloggers and readers are invited to join in and the beauty of this mini-challenge is that I can decide how and why I make the links in my chain.

June’s starting book is Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare. Is there anyone who doesn’t know this story, even if they haven’t read the play or seen it performed? It’s the classic “love-tragedy” that is so poignant over 400 years after its writing that I find myself still, upon seeing it performed, wanting to call out loud to the players: “Turn around!” or “No! Wait!”

1. Its connection to my first link Juliet in August by Dianne Warren is in title only. This cool and still story (also published as Cool Water) of a priairie town in summer won the Canadian Governor-General’s Award for Fiction in 2010.

2. The book that is my next link, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt won the same award, the following year. Both books are Canadian and both are very good but deWitt’s ‘noir western’ about two cowboys whose last name is Sisters and who are hired to kill a man, is in no other way similar to Warren’s book, nor to my third link (by a title word only),

3. The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen, which tells the story of two elderly spinster sisters who nurse injured birds back to health. The birds lead me to my fourth link,

4. Nicholas Drayson’s A Guide to the Birds of East Africa , a gentle love story of the courtship between two middle-aged bird-watchers in almost-modern-day Kenya. This was a charming book which connects in two ways (love and Africa) to my fifth link in the chain.

5. African Love Stories, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo, is an anthology of short stories, not so gentle, about love relationships, mostly in West Africa, expecially Nigeria. My last link also connects to Africa and love.

6. Adé: A Love Story by Rebecca Walker is a love story in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet: haunting and heart-breaking. This tale, set in modern-day Kenya, deserves to be a classic of 21st century literature. I have not been as touched by a book in a long time as I was by Adé.

So that’s my chain of six degrees: from a classic love tragedy of the 16th century to an equalling heart-rending love tragedy of the 21st century. What do you think? Does love ever change?

Why not visit Kate’s blog and see how she made the final connection to The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Southern France 2014: At the end of the laneway to our gite; the village of Nougein

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

This week’s word is one that most people are familiar with, but rarely use. In Carol Shields’ Swann: a Literary Mystery, one of the main characters meets a Scotsman in a kilt and can’t remember the word for the little purse attached to his outfit, until it comes to him in the night a few weeks later. Rationalizing, he says:

Of course, it’s not a particularly common word. One could go years and years without hearing it. But still he should not have forgotten.

The sporran (/ˈspɒrən/; Scottish Gaelic for “purse”), a traditional part of male Scottish Highland dress, is a pouch that performs the same function as pockets on the pocketless kilt.

Made of leather or fur, the ornamentation of the sporran is chosen to complement the formality of dress worn with it. The sporran is worn on a leather strap or chain, conventionally positioned in front of the groin of the wearer.

When was the last time you used the word sporran?

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Southern France 2014: Cows in the yard, in the heart of the village.  

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

Book Beginnings on Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. Hop on over there to get a linky to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.
 

Opening sentences from Hooperman: a Bookstore Mystery by John M. Daniel
Hooperman Johnson, a tall, skinny, bushy-bearded man of few words, lived that spring and summer of 1972 in a rented room with a bed, a table, and no phone over the ‘At’s Amore Pizza Palace on University Avenue in Palo Alto, California.

My thoughts: Whew! His life story in one sentence. I’m not asking if I should read on, because there’s no way you could stop me. 1972? I remember it well.

* * * * *

Here’s an entry from page 56 of Hooperman:

“You guys aren’t shipping out as much as you were when that other guy was in charge.”
“That right?” Hoop asked.
“Usually be a box or two every day for the Returns Center. I guess you guys aren’t returning as many books nowadays. I guess that’s a good sign.
“Retu,turns Center? What’s that?”
“You tell me,” Mitch said. “it’s your store, guy. I’m just a mailman.”

My thoughts: This sounds a little sinister to me, so I’m looking for a mystery here. This is first up on my Kindle so I’ll be able to let you know!
 
The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice.The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 (or 56% in your ereader) and find any sentence or a few (no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.

What do you think? Would you enjoy this book?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s word comes from the first in the Rare Book Murder series, The Dirty Book Murder. The protagonist is visiting his favourite Irish pub:

An informal seisún began in a corner with a fiddler, a bodhran player, and a girl with a pennywhistle. They played “The Bold Fenian Men” and followed that with “Black and Tan” to put the crowd in a fine rebel mood.
 

seisún: a mostly informal gathering at which people play Irish traditional music. From the Irish sheisiún: session; from Old French session, from Latin sessiō ‎(“a sitting”), from sedeō ‎(“sit”).

bodhran /ˈbôˌrän,-rən/: a shallow one-sided Irish drum typically played with a short two-headed drumstick. Origin: Irish bodhrán. The first known use is 1972.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Southern France – shouldn’t that be ARRÊTEZ?

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads.

Book Beginnings on Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. Hop on over there to get a linky to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

Opening sentences from The Third Son by Julie Wu

My journey began when the Americans bombed us, in 1943, because it was during the bombings that I met the girl.

I was eight years old.

My thoughts: What do you think? Should I read on?

* * * * *

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice.The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 (or 56% in your ereader) and find any sentence or a few (no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.

Here’s an entry from page 56 of The Third Son:

I had never known how hard the ground could be.

Oh, wow – that could be the middle of so many things! I am intrigued. What do you think?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s word comes from the first in the Rare Book Murder series, The Dirty Book Murder. And it’s a lovely “book word”.

“There were thirty more books in the two boxes, all related to travel, adventure, or sporting activities such as hunting and fishing. I didn’t expect to find any incunabula, but these beautifully bound editions covered a period from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth that was in a price zone I could afford.”
 

incunabula: books produced before 1501, in the earliest stages of printing from movable type.

Incunabula (pronounced in-kyoo-nab-yuh-la) is plural; the singular, of course, is incunabulum. The word originated about 1815-25 and is derived from the Latin: straps holding a baby in a cradle, probably equivalent to *incūnā (re) to place in a cradle + -bula, plural of -bulum

Do you have any other “book words” to share?
 

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This link-up is hosted by Books Are My Favourite and Best, and was inspired by Hungarian writer and poet Frigyes Karinthy. In his 1929 short story, “Chains”, Karinthy coined the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularized by a 1990 play written by John Guare, which was later made into a film starring Stockard Channing.

On the first Saturday of every month, Kate chooses a book as a starting point and links that book to six others forming a chain. Bloggers and readers are invited to join in and the beauty of this mini-challenge is that I can decide how and why I make the links in my chain.

May’s starting book is Perfume – the Story of a Murderer.

1. I haven’t read Perfume but I understand that it is translated from German, as is Thomas Mann’s classic of modern literature, The Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, first published in Germany in 1900. I read this in my pre-blogging days for our local book club, The Loquacious Compendium.

2. The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler, a modern classic in its own right, also documents the decline of a family over three generations of farming people in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. The tale culminates in the story of David Canaan who wants to leave the family farm to devote himself to writing.

3. Loyal Blood, the main character in Annie Proulx’ Postcards also leaves the farm – this one in post WWII Vermont, and for an entirely different reason. Loyal has unintentionally killed his fiancee – the literal girl next door, hastily buried her body, and fled in the night leaving a note to say that he and she have run off together. Afraid to ever leave a trail, over the years Loyal sends heart-wrenching barely-literate postcards from across the USA to his family, but remains unable to receive news from them.

4. The postcards in Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence are of a different type. They are part of an artistic correspondence documented in this incredibly imagined & illustrated book. (Click on the title to see my 2012 review.

5. The topic of illustration put me in mind of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury which I also reviewed in 2012.

6. And Bradbury leads me to my sixth and last link in the chain: Dandelion Wine, Bradbury’s enchanting tale of twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding and the summer of 1928. I read (and reread) and loved this book as a teenager. It holds its magic still.

So that’s my chain: not as strong as I’d like but leading from the slums of 18th century France to the small town of Green Town, Illinois two centuries later. Do you have any suggestions for me? Why not visit Kate’s blog and see how she made the final connection to The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Book Beginnings on Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. Hop on over there to get a linky to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

 
Opening sentence from The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany:

My wife finally understood I needed some time on my own . . .

My thoughts: hmmm – what’s he up to? Would you read on?

* * * * *

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice.The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 (or 56% in your ereader) and find any sentence or a few (no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.

Here’s an entry from page 56 of The Automobile Club of Egypt:

My life stretched before me like a long road, but I could see where it led. Then, suddenly, it changed course. It is strange how that can happen unexpectedly due to some small matter or a passing word, going down some street at a particular hour or turning right instead of left or appearing late for work and bumping into someone–any such thing has the potential to change everything.

Intriguing! What are your thoughts?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This is the first time I’ve joined in and I picked a week with a topic that I’ve struggled with. The Broke and the Bookish explain that these characters might be someone I’d like to read about in a novella or something to see what they grew up to be. I couldn’t get to ten – but I got half-way!

1. Rush Melendy, one of the four Melendy children whose story I read and reread in Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, and Then There Were Five. I loved all the Melendys but I had a real crush on Rush, right into my teens.

Never mind the novella: I’d like to meet him in person and catch up with what he and his siblings (Mona, Randy & Oliver) have been doing for the last 50 years!
 

2. Trixie Belden, young heroine of the eponymous series, only 13 books long (the first six by Julie Campbell, and the next seven by Kathryn Kenny) when I was young and reading them. but since taken into syndication. Trixie and I were soul-mates, except that she was athletic, had big brothers, and had rich friends. Okay – I liked to solve mysteries, neither of us were rich, and I thought she was down-to-earth. That’s more of a connection than I made with Nancy Drew.

And, again, never mind the book, I’d like to have dinner with the older Trixie and find out about her brothers, Brian, Mart and Bobby, and her friends Honey Wheeler, Jim Frayne and Diana Lynch.
 

3. Holly Hollister of the Happy Hollisters series by Jerry West. (Again, the series was a lot shorter in the early ’60s.) There were five kids in the Hollister family (just like mine!) and we grew up in the same era. I should have identified with Pam because she was the oldest, but Holly had braids just like mine.

I’d love to read a novella set in the ’80s and then present day to see how they all turned out.

 
4. Nan and Burt Bobbsey, the older set of Laura Lee Hope’s Bobbsey twins. I suppose I could hear about how Freddie and Flossie made out too.

The first 15 original Bobbsey Twins books were published between 1904 and 1922 (on Kindle for .77 cents) so I guess something set between 1950 and 1980 would catch them up.

 

5. Laura Ingalls Wilder from her own Little House series. This one’s a little trickier because Laura was a real person and we know how her life turned out. But rather than read what someone else has said, I’d like to have had her version of events after The First Four Years.
 

So that’s all I could come up with. Who have I missed? Who from your childhood reading would you like to catch up with?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

This week’s word comes from Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan, the author of Booker Prize winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Death of a River Guide is set in Tasmania and is told by Aljaz, said guide, who has a vision of his father:

(T)here it is, smoking and spluttering, Harry’s celebrated barbeque, spitting and flaring, the griddle full of roo patties on one side and cevapcici on the other(.)

Ćevapi is a grilled dish of minced meat, a type of skinless sausage, found traditionally in the countries of southeastern Europe (the Balkans), originating during the Ottoman Period. According to Wikipedia, they are considered a national dish in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and are also common in Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, as well as in Albania, Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania. They are usually served 5–10 pieces on a plate or in a flatbread with chopped raw onions.

From Persian kebab, sometimes with the South Slavic diminutive ending -čići.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I got books from all over last week: one win, one purchase new, one from the bring-some-take-some fundraiser at my dentist’s office, two library loans, two library sale items, and two from the bring-some-take-some fundraiser at our village post office. In total, I spent $7.00 on the used books.

The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home, both by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers are two delightful children’s picture books. I’d recommend them for ages 4-8. I borrowed these from my library.

Secret Paris by Zoe de Las Cases is a beautiful adult colouring book I bought from Amazon. It was strictly a cost-saving measure since I needed $10 to bring my order of a new ironing board cover to the free shipping level. Hey – why pay good money on shipping when we can pay the same $10 and get a book?

* * * * *

Ann Morgan’s Beside Myself is a win from Bloomsburg Publishing via a TLC Book Tour post by Kelly of The Well-Read Redhead. I haven’t started this yet but it promises a whole lot of suspense.

From the boxes at my dentist’s office where the fundraiser benefits local hockey activities, I picked up a classic “dime novel”: Murder Racquet, edited by Alfred Hitchcock. I’m a sucker for Hitchcock mystery pulps, and those published under the auspices of ‘Ellery Queen’.

From the small sale table at the library, I bought The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg, and Caro Peacock’s Foreign Affair:, which seems to be the first in the “Liberty Lane” series.

The former is meant for fans of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and the latter is set in 1837 when “Queen Victoria, barely eighteen, has just ascended to the throne”. The promise of a young Queen Victoria sold me on this book. These two books were .50 cents each.

The sale “table” at our post office has grown over time and actually occupies a couple of bookcases as well as the table and windowsills. The books there are gems but the prices are the highest of any the places I obtained books last week.

I spent $3 on Accordian Crimes by E. Annie Proulx. I read this story that follows the life of a “little green accordian” through a century of American history, about 20 years ago and have been wanting to reread it.

M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans needs no introduction and has been on my TBR list for a while now. It cost $2
 

Do any of these interest you? What was your favourite book acquisition this week?

Go on and visit Mailbox Monday and have a look at the wonderful goodies in other people’s mailboxes!
 

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase after clicking through on them, I will earn a small percentage of the sale.

Book Beginnings on Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. Hop on over there to get a linky to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

Opening sentences from Swann: A Literary Mystery by Carol Shields:

As recently as two years ago, when I was twenty-six, I dressed in ratty jeans and a sweatshirt with lettering across the chest. That’s where I was. Now I own six pairs of beautiful shoes, which I keep, when I’m not wearing them, swathed in tissue paper in their original boxes. Not one of these pairs of shoes cost less than a hundred dollars.

My thoughts: I’m so curious to find out how the narrator got from point A to point B! Would you read on?

* * * * *

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice.The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 (or 56% in your ereader) and find any sentence or a few (no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.

Here’s an entry from page 56 of Swann: A Literary Mystery:

The news they imparted was good, wholly positive, in fact: the lump removed from my mother’s side this morning was not, as they had feared, the pulpy sponge of cancer but a compacted little bundle of bone and hair, which, they told me, was a fossilized fetus, my mother’s twin sibling who somehow, in the months before her own birth, became absorbed into her body. A genuine medical curiosity, one of the devilish pranks the human body plays on itself from time to time.

Shades of My Big Fat Greek Wedding! (Swann  predated the movie by 15 years.) What do you think?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I ran across this week’s words while reading the latest installment in Julie Mulhern’s Country Club Murders, Clouds in My Coffee. The protagonist, Ellison Russell, is an artist living in 1974 Kansas City, Missouri.

The world around us faded like a watercolor painting left in the rain. The soot, the brilliant leaves–burnt umber, orange-red, gamboge, and the Tyrian purple of the now-trampled pansies in my hosta beds dimmed.
gamboge: a gum resin from various Asian trees of the genus Garcinia, used as a yellow pigment; yellow or yellow-orange.

From New Latin gambog-, variant of cambog-, after Cambodia

Tyrian purple: a crimson or purple dye obtained by the ancient Phoenicians from gastropod mollusks (sea snails); also known as Tyrian red, royal purple, imperial purple.

Phoenicia, which roughly corresponded to modern-day Lebanon, was noted for its Tyrian purple dye, named after the city of Tyre, a maritime city of ancient Phoenicia. Tyrian purple was the most precious dye of its time, in large part because of the labor required to produce it.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love. It’s hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Hop on over and see what wondrous words other bloggers have discovered this week.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

Everything that landed in my mailbox this week was ebooks: one ARC from NetGalley and two purchases.
 

I was most excited about Julie Mulhern’s Clouds in My Coffee, due for release on May 10, 2016. This is the third installment in the Country Club Murder series set in 1974 Kansas City, Missouri.

The protagonist, Ellison Russell, widowed and “on the cusp of 40”, is smart and funny; and the electricity between her and Homicide Detective Anarchy Jones could run the lights in my house for a year. This time out, it seems someone is trying to kill Ellison, although no one can figure out why.

Wednesday’s BookBub mailing tipped me off to to Michael Alvear’s Eat it Later: Mastering Self-Control and the Slimming Power of Postponement on sale for $1. Although the title makes this sounds like a diet book, the author insists that it’s not, and I think he’s right. No doubt putting into practice what he advises will result in weight loss in the long run; but the goal, as Alvear say, is well-being.

I should write these things down because I’m getting old and forgetful: I can’t remember what twigged my attention to Karen Charlton’s Detective Lavender mystery series, set in Northumberland England in the early 19th century. Whoever it was, was talking about Charlton’s second or third book but intrigued me enough that I actually bought (at full Kindle price!) the first in the series, The Heiress of Linn Hagh.

 
Go on and visit Mailbox Monday and have a look at the wonderful goodies in other people’s mailboxes!

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

 
Weekend Cooking 16Apr16, sponsored by Candace at Beth Fish Reads, is a chance to share the food love. Follow the link to see what delish dishes other bloggers are talking about this week.
 

Patty at Books, Thoughts and a Few Adventures has mentioned the wonderful recipes in the cookbook Sheet Pan Suppers by Molly Gilbert a few times over the last few months. So when I saw a copy of it discounted at Book Closeouts, I snapped it up.

Sheet Pan Suppers is a beautiful book to behold: all glossy photos and heavyweight papers, although I do wish it would lay flat so that I could more easily stay on the recipe. But, of course, the true test of any cookbook is the recipes. And the recipes look wonderful!

The first recipe I tried was Lemon & Herb Sole on Crispy Potato Rafts. Gilbert notes that haddock, halibut and cod are also good choices for this dish so I used the wonderful frozen cod I get from the “fish guys” who come to my door in their truck once a month. I substituted dried thyme for the fresh and I skipped the capers because I didn’t have any on hand. I’m sure that made some difference in the finished product but the recipe still came out a keeper.

My seven-year-old grandson whose usual comment on my cooking for the past year-and-a-half has been consistently only “good”, pronounced these potatoes as “GREAT”. I’d have to agree. As Gilbert says: “They’re hot and crisp and supremely garlickly, a noble base for the delicately light, flaky, herb-, lemon-, and butter-flavored fish fillets.”

You can find the recipe here.

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.