Details for January

It appears that the majority of us like the idea of celebrating our anniversary at Mai Bistro on Dundas Street West near Burnhamthorpe.  The date is still Thursday the 5th. A big thanks to Susan for making the arrangements. See you there at the usual time. 

Remember Me Like This

Remember Me Like This was controversial and stirred up quite a lot of comment.  Like it or hate it, you have to admit that the conversation about this novel was fun.

Somehow we discovered that we had reached a milestone: it's twenty years since our book club began! This is cause for celebration and so we've ditched our plan to go to Lynda's next month. Instead we'll meet at a restaurant. Probably we'll stick with the same date: January 5th. The location hasn't been decided yet.  I'll post the information here as soon as we finalize our plan.

This change means that the date for book club at Lynda's has moved up to February 22nd. The book will be All our Names by Dinaw Mengestu.  And following that change, we'll go to Maureen's on March 23rd for Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.

April 20th will be at Sue's.  We'll talk about The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall.
On May 11th the book will be 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad and we'll be at Saara's.

Books that were mentioned:

• A Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
• The Party Wall by Catherine Leroux
• Sweetland by Michael Crummey

Movie recommendations:

• Arrival
• Moonlight
• Manchester by the Sea
• Mustang

And Netflix:

• Longmire
• Dicte
• 30 Degrees in February
• Case
• Rams
• Midnight Diner

Almond Cheddar Appetizers 

Ingredients:

1 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 cup chopped almonds
6 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
1 baguette

Preparation:

Combine mayonnaise and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir in cheese, onion, almonds and bacon.
Cut bread into 1/2 in. slices.  Spread with cheese mixture.  Cut each in half.  (or cut in half before spreading with cheese). Bake at 400 for 10 minutes or until bubbly. Yield: about 4 dozen.

Unbaked appetizers may be frozen. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet; freeze for 1 hour. Remove from the baking sheet and store in an airtight container for up to 2 months. When ready to use, place unthawed appetizers on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until bubbly.

Toblerone Shortbread

Ingredients:

2 cups room temperature butter
1 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
3 1/2 cups flour
2 bars (100g) toblerone chocolate (I used one big bar, around 300 g in all)
3 tbsp. icing sugar

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350 F.

Beat butter and superfine sugar in large bowl with mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. Mix flour and corn starch. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating well after each addition. Stir in chocolate.

Drop by heaping tablespoons 1 inch apart on baking sheet.  Bake until lightly browned. When cool sprinkle with icing sugar. 

Apple Cheesecake

Crust

•  1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup flour

Cream the butter and sugar and then add the flour.  Press into a 9 inch springform pan.

 Middle

•  1 package cream cheese (250 grams)
•  1 cup plain Greek yogourt
•  2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Beat cream cheese and yogourt until smooth. Add rest of ingredients and beat until mixed.  Pour over the crust.

 Topping

•  3 or 4 apples
•  1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

 Peel and slice the apples and place them on top of the cream cheese mixture in a spiral pattern.
 Mix sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle on top of the apples.

 Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

About three babies and a book

Traditional horimono

It was a marvelous evening at Jan's house, sharing the stories of the births that made first-time grandmothers of three of us.  Understandably the talk about the book was a secondary priority in the circumstances.  Still, the beautifully crafted Garden of Evening Mists also deserved and won some of our attention.  Thank you to Jan for a perfect evening.  See cheesecake recipe above.

We made some plans for future evenings.  On December 1st we will be at Lynda's and the book we settled on last night is Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston.
On January 5th book club will be at my house (Marian) and the book will be All Our Names by by Dinaw Mengestu. 
On February 15th we'll meet at Maureen's to talk about Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien.
We decided to meet at Susan's in March but the book and the precise date are up for grabs.

Books that were mentioned last night:

• The Night Stages by Jane Urquart
• Nujeen by Nujeen Mustafa and Christina Lamb
• The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
• The Flame Throwers by Rachel Kushner
• Dogs at the Perimeter by Madeleine Thien
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty  
• All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyld

Recommended on Netflix: The 13th

Below, plucky Nujeen Mustafa on her way to Germany.
  

September at Jo's

Contending with travel fatigue, rain and traffic on the Gardiner we were rewarded by a great evening at Jo's house talking about The Summer Before the War and other things.  A big thank you to Jo!  Too bad the weather didn't allow us to meet in your beautiful backyard retreat.

Next month we'll be at Jan's.  The book will be The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. The date is Tuesday, October 25th, when we can expect much sharing of baby photos.

We chose Wednesday December 1st for the next meeting at Lynda's but didn't decide on a book.

Here are the other books we mentioned:

• Norman Bray and the Performance of his Life by Trevor Cole
• The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
• An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark  
• The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
• The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel 
• The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
• Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad 
• The Best kind of People by Zoe Wittall 
• Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin 
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
• The People's Choice by Jeff Greenfield 

This plot of this last novel has some similarities to the new American TV series, Designated Survivor, with Keifer Sutherland as the stand-in POTUS.

 

Oxford English Dictionary

I found out today that the Toronto Public Library subscribes to the OED online, and so can be accessed using one's library card. Wonderful for crosswords!

August

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. 

- Kent Nerburn

 

Book club started with the quiet of Jane's garden, and finished with an enthusiastic around-the-table discussion of the book, My Name is Lucy Barton, separated by an exciting Olympic race on television.  Thank you Jane - a memorable evening!

Here's Elizabeth Strout talking about the book:
We've made plans for next month.  We'll be at Jo's on September 29th and the book we've chosen is The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson.

Books mentioned last night:

• People You'd Trust Your Life To by Bronwen Wallace
• Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens
• My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
• The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

And also a podcast:

• Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell