Where There's Smoke...

I made meatballs in the oven a couple of days ago. Some grease spilled on to the oven and when I heated it up for garlic bread, smoke everywhere. I couldn't even stand to be in the kitchen because my eyes were watering.

I didn't notice how bad it got until the smoke alarm went off. I reacted by turning everything off, opening every window, opening the door to create a vacuum and fanning the stupid detector until it shut up. I made sure there were no flames. Everything was under control inside of 10 minutes.

Did you know venting into your hallway means all your neighbors can smell it? I do! I can finally breathe in the kitchen when I see flashing lights outside. Fire trucks and emergency vehicles were outside and lining the block. I'm standing there thinking, "No. No way. Please tell me I'm just being self-centered."

I'm watching people go in and out with axes feeling pretty damn paranoid. I finally get the courage to poke my head out and a lovely women asks me if I've been cooking. Yup. This display of tax dollars at work is my fault. One of the neighbors smelled it and called it in.

They see how embarrassed I am (yes, it is possible) and realize there is no danger and everyone rolls out. I had a sandwich for dinner.

PopSugar Reading Challenge Book 25 or Something to Chew On

It was an easy choice on which book to revisit from my childhood. I found it going through things for the move and couldn't say no. For the first time in probably 20 years, I reread Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett.

Since it is a children's book, it's driven by the art as much as anything else. Ron Barrett did a great job including the title in a weather forecast on a TV.

There were eggs hanging from trees, a buck with food in its antlers, a roofless restaurant, and a birthday party ruined by brussel sprouts. As the weather takes a turn for the worst you see skies full of T-bone steak clouds, a man trapped under a hamburger, doughnuts rolling after people in the street, and a tomato tornado where someone is reading Gone with the Wind. 

One of my favorite scenes was the sail boats of bread and cheese as people fled the town. You can see a storm of subs and, I think, meatballs or grapes behind them. It was hard to tell.

This is one story that will always hold up for me because it's so simple and silly. I recently discovered that it's part of a series so I'll definitely be including the other books on the list of things I'll have to get my future kids.

A Few of My Favorite Things: Orange and Vanilla Twist Ice Cream Cones

My family had a time share in Ocean City and my grandparents lived near Point Pleasant beach in New Jersey. I spent a lot of my childhood at the beach, on the boardwalk, in arcades playing skee ball, winning cheap plastic trinkets and stuffed animals, and eating an orange and vanilla twist cone. If my childhood had a flavor, that would be it. I still love getting every year in Ocean City.

A Few of My Favorite Things: Peanut Butter in My Ice Cream

I love the combination of salty and sweet. Peanut butter in vanilla ice cream is magic. Something about the melding of those tastes just makes my taste buds dance. It’s OK in chocolate but the flavor can be overwhelming sometimes.

A Few of My Favorite Things: Frozen Blueberries

The first time I ate them I expected them to be rock hard but they were just firm enough. They’re fantastic on ice cream or in yogurt or on their own.

Home Sweet Own Book 34

For Food I read Spiced by Dalia Jurgensen. I enjoy food memoirs for the same reason people enjoy watching The Food Network: something you’re not gonna do at home. I’m never going to work in a starred restaurant so it was interesting to read about someone who worked there and what went on behind the scenes.

Jurgensen watched rather than participated in the various kitchen dramas. It gave most stories a more journalistic feel. She only included her personal dramas as they pertained to cooking which did well for this book. It wasn’t a memoir about her; it was a memoir about her career in the kitchen. It occasionally felt a little distant but overall this style worked.

Most chefs don’t stay in one place for too long before moving on to the next successful venture. The book devoted just the right amount of pages to each location Jurgensen worked. It also talks about a rare and underappreciated side of cooking. Dessert gets less respect than the dinner cooks working the hot line. I liked hearing about life from the sweet side.

All of my major thoughts on the book are best summed up with qualifiers. It was good not great. I liked it, not loved it. If you like food memoirs, you’ll enjoy it but I wouldn’t recommend this as your first.

1) Fiction – A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King

2) Nonfiction – The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

3) Sci-Fi – Redshirts by John Scalzi

4) Fantasy – The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

5) Mystery – Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer

6) Horror – Call of the Jersey Devil by Aurelio Voltaire

7) Memoir/Biography – Data, A Love Story by Amy Webb

8) Chick Lit – Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

9) Feminist – Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

10) Teen – What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

11) Holiday

12) Essays – What Was I Thinking? ed. by Barbara Davilman & Liz Dubelman

13) Short Stories – Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

14) Library

15) Animal

16) Book about Books – Judging a Book By Its Lover by Lauren Leto

17) New – Pitch Perfect by Mickey Rapkin

18) Old – Dark and Stormy Knights edited by P. N. Elrod

19) Pop Science – Why Men Fake It by Abraham Morgentaler, MD

20) Near – Lust, Lies, and Love Over Lunch by Krista White

21) Far – Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

22) Graphic Novel – Love and Capes: Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Thomas F. Zahler

23) Reread – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

24) Wild Card – Altared edited by Colleen Curran

25) Otherworldly Creature – Those Who Fight Monsters edited by Justin Gustianis

26) Free – Point Your Face at This by Demetri Martin

27) Noteworthy

28) Bestseller – How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

29) Themed Anthology – Red edited by Kris Goldsmith

30) Steampunk – The Immersion Book of Steampunk edited by Gareth Jones and Carmelo Rafala

31) Movie-Book – One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

32) Media – Doctor Who: Touched By an Angel by Jonathan Morris

33) Travel – Love with a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche

34) Food – Spiced by Dalia Jurgensen

35) Classic – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

36) Humor – Sleep Talkin’ Man by Karen Slavick-Lennar

37) Poetry

38) Past – Stasiland by Anna Funde

39) Future

40) Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic

41) Zombie

42) Sports – Red Rising by Ted Starkey

Music: Be Our Guest from  Beauty and the Beast