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Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop – LaVerne, CA

March 17, 2010 in book review, bookstore, childrens, classics, food, young adult by Kim | 1 comment

These are the Books I Give for Every Baby Shower or Birth

I first heard of Mrs. Nelson’s Toy & Book Shop when it won the Parnell Award last year.  The Parnell Award is given to bookstores that excel in promoting books to young people.  After stopping by last month, it’s clear why they won.  The store is stocked with great books and toys for newborns to YA readers.  I enjoyed walking through the picture book section, it brought back memories of wonderful hours spent reading to my kids. I noticed that since my kids have passed this stage, I tend to gravitate toward the books that were our favorites rather than explore any new books.  So I’ll use this platform to pitch my two favorite children’s books, the ones I give at every baby shower:  Time for Bed by Mem Fox, illustrated by Jane Dyer and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr., John Archambault and Louis Ehlert.

Time for Bed is a story of parent animals lulling their babies to sleep.  The singsong rhyme was perfect for calming down my sleepy, but squirrelly, toddlers.  Although primarily a bedtime book, we read it all through the day.  Each page gave me the opportunity to weave in animal noises for more rousing readings.  Between the stunning illustrations (I bought every book illustrated by Jane Dyer after this one) and the fun rhymes, neither my kids or their incredibly wonderful parents (somebody needs to say it) tired of reading it.

I can still recite most of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Oddly enough, what I tend to forget is the title.  Several times I have asked a bookseller, do you have “A told B and B told C, I’ll Read the rest of this entry »

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Tasteful Literature: Don’t Eat the Pages

February 22, 2010 in cookbook, food, guest by Claire | 3 comments

Book lover, faithful reader, and occasional contributor Meagan discusses culinary novels.   Thanks, Meagan!

I have a complicated relationship with culinary novels; kind of a love-hate thing going on. Back in high school I stumbled on Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel in my mother’s library and was completely seduced. Every chapter started with a recipe that somehow led into the story of Tita, whose life was defined by cooking and her forbidden love with Pedro, her sister’s husband. Throughout the story Tita’s emotions leak into her cooking, mouth watering dishes of Christmas rolls, Chabela Wedding cake, Quail in rose petal sauce… And yes, that is a real recipe no matter what Julie Powell says. I swear I’ve never had a book make me so hungry.

Quail with Rose Petal Sauce!

Usually it’s the other way around; what I’m eating will actually put me in the mood to read a particular book. Not necessarily the whole thing, just a few chapters. To this day I can’t eat a burger without wanting to flip through The Princess Diaries. Don’t ask me why. I’m as mystified as anyone else. But that’s a different story.

It was a terribly romantic introduction to cooking. Being a ‘modern woman’ and all, plus having a mother around to serve all my meals, the only cooking I’d ever attempted was toasting frozen waffles. Reading about it, everything sounded so simple, so natural. So when I attempted it myself, I was a bit disappointed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tasteful Literature: Writing and Reading about Food

January 14, 2010 in cookbook, essay, food, memoir by Claire | No comments

We’re adding another feature

You already know that Kim and I like to read.  We also like to eat.  So it stands to reason that we like to read about food.  When I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago that described my new year’s resolution to become a vegetarian–a resolution inspired by two books about cooking and food–faithful reader and occasional contributor Meagan suggested we make food writing a regular part of the blog.  We love that idea.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that books about food can be broken down into four categories: 1. Cookbooks, 2. Essays about food and meals, 3. Anecdotes and memoirs about life in the food industry, and 4. Diet or prescriptive books about food (i.e. books about what we should or shouldn’t eat).

I’m sure I’ve left something out, but let’s just say for now that most books about food fit into at least one of these categories.

Oh, wait–thought of one more.  5. Fiction that includes recipes, like Nora Ephron’s Heartburn.

I think I’ve mentioned before on this blog that cookbooks are like pornography to me: I love to acquire them and leaf through their pages, giving free rein to my imagination as I gaze at photos and pretend that I could do such things, knowing full well I’ll probably never have the energy.  The truth is that most of the recipes I cook from are either old and scrawled on index cards or culled that day from the internet–it’s a lot faster to search for “miso salmon recipe” than it is to scan index after index of the cookbooks on my shelf.  But I still find myself drifting over to the cookbook shelves in bookstores and I still want to take home the most appealing ones I find. Like I said: it’s about dreaming, not necessarily doing.   Read the rest of this entry »

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