banana bread revisited

Good Morning!
My book club went well earlier this week! I got to hang out with a group of adult women who were very nice and said I fit in well for a 22 year old.

The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is what we read for September. It was very interesting, definitely an easy read (I read it in one day). Historical fiction but based off a very true and interesting phenomena from the turn of the last century where orphans, or children without stable households who were working on the streets, were rounded up from New York City and given away to families in the country. Some, mainly babies, were taken to be brought up as children in households. Older kids were often used as free labor, boys were wanted on farms and girls were taken to be nannies or seamstresses.  I learned a lot about this in one of my history classes and it was great to revisit the material in a fictionalized way.

For October we are reading Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan. I read this this summer actually and looooved it, so I was excited to see that the book club was doing it too! I would categorize this a magical realism, it's about regular people, living on earth, but there are magical elements without being about wizards and faeries. For example, one character, when she is angry or nagging, has bees come out with her words that attack the person she is annoyed with. The story is about a little girl and her unusual upbringing and then follows her through her marriage, issues with in-laws, and struggles with her husband and son. It doesn't seem to be in the library system either here or at home, but I have a copy at my house in MA if anyone wants to borrow it.

another book I just finished was The Glass Sentence by E. S. Groves. I got 5 books out of the library the other day and this is the only one I liked. I read it all yesterday, it was so good. However, like bees and mist, you have to enjoy fantasy. It's also YA, so keep an open mind about the plot. However, I thought it was awesome and exciting, perfect for when you want an adventure that is not too heavy. In the story, the Great Disruption has occurred a generation or two before. Something happened which split Earth up in time, not in space. Basically, we still have all the same continents, but different parts of the planet now exist as they were in the past or as they will be in the future. The main character is Sophia, a teenage girl, who's family are mapmakers and explorers. Her parents disappeared when she was three and when her uncle gets kidnapped, she sets off the find him, using some special maps he left her. A very interesting world!

I have had a great few days, it was lovely having my friends from home visit. They are driving across the country, staying with friends along the way. They came from D.C. and then left yesterday to go to Asheville, N.C.

we snuck in to visit a farm down the street from my apartment but then the car got stuck and we had a very scary couple moments stuck in the dirt (Volvo triumphed in the end!)

We then took a little trip to Carter's Mountain to get some outdoor exercise

and I showed them my work where we ate great pastries :)))

On Thursday we went to an event called Night at the Museum, at the aboriginal art museum owned by UVA. It was really cool! There were food trucks and some games and live music. We were the youngest people by far (except for the little kids) but I thought it was really cool.

playing corn hole, I am so embarrassingly terrible

In Food News!

We tried Spudnuts for the first time! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spudnut_Shops

They make donuts made with potato flour, obviously I had to eat two. This was glazed, and I a,so had a cinnamon sugar.

Some new kitchen art I made! Designs heavily inspired by some things I saw on easy but was too poor to purchase

Keegan and I had Mexican at Guadalajara (http://charlottesvillemexicanfood.com) last night. I had my classic of verde enchiladas, they were yummy and reasonably priced.

Remember how I made banana bread last week? I think I over cooked it because it was kind of dry. And then it got stale. So this morning I made Banana Bread French Toast! It was so yummy. Because my mom was traumatized by bad french toast as a kid, this was my first time making it myself!

As a final note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! It was my dad's birthday yesterday and I am so sad that I missed it but we will celebrate at thanksgiving!

Great family shot, miss you all

mwah!