Monthly Archives: January 2017

Cry Over Curdled Milk

Posted in Recipes, Side Dishes, Whimsies by

For a brief period of time, I tried to write a cooking blog. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that before, maybe six or seven hundred times. I’m sure that I always added that it didn’t take me long to realize that 1) my cooking blog was competing against about a million other cooking blogs; and 2) I am really not an exceptional cook.

Here’s where I am supposed to say that despite my only being an average cook, I LOVE TO COOK. There was a time when I would have said that and would have been speaking the truth. Now I have to be completely honest and tell you that cooking is only fun some of the time. But the rest of the time, it’s just Bill and me, and he would prefer a sandwich to any kind of meal any day of the week. Unless, of course, I am frying a chicken. Then he’s all in. But have you ever fried a chicken? Enough said.

What I’m getting at is that it really isn’t that much fun to cook for only two people. And that’s why very often no matter how committed I am to eating at home, sometime around 4 o’clock I realize I don’t want to make that Chicken Florentine, or whatever it is I have planned. And so I begin making plans on where we can dine out. Sigh.

One way to combat this troubling phenomenon is to use a crock pot, as I have already mentioned in an earlier post. Because at 10 o’clock in the morning, I am still on the cooking-at-home bandwagon. And even if my Crock Pot Chicken Florentine doesn’t sound good anymore at 6 o’clock, I am cheap enough that I won’t throw it away and we will begrudgingly eat it.

This is the point where I should share a Chicken Florentine recipe. Like I would really make chicken Florentine. Ha.

But lately I have been in the mood to try making a few unusal things at home. I’m considering oxtail stew. I’ve looked up recipes for pierogis. I keep saying I’m going to try and make pho from scratch.

But I decided to start small, because a recipe for homemade ricotta cheese came across my desktop, something from the Pioneer Woman (who isn’t a real pioneer woman at all because real pioneer women churned butter and baked bread and pounded the dust from rugs. They didn’t make ricotta cheese.)

But I did. Because it looked very easy. So easy, in fact, that I didn’t even study the recipe very carefully. I just saw the words I like a four-to-one ratio when it comes to my milk and cream.

And without thinking much about it, I poured in four cups of cream and one cup of milk (because who wouldn’t want more cream than milk?), brought it to a boil, removed it from the heat, added the salt and the lemon juice, and waited for it to commence curdling. And waited. And waited some more. And then began cussing and waiting. Something I’ll bet the Pioneer Woman doesn’t do.

But it never curdled. And I began chastising myself. You are a terrible cook, I said to myself. You can’t even curdle milk properly unless you’re trying NOT to curdle it in which case it would probably CURDLE. And then I dumped it down the drain.

(While my cooking skills are questionable, I am VERY good at being hard on myself.)

At some point later in the morning, I took another gander at the recipe for making ricotta cheese. This time I actually READ the recipe from beginning to end. Oh-oh. The ratio is in fact four-to-one, but it is four cups of MILK to one cup of CREAM. Oops.

So, having inherited the stubbornness of both my mother and my father, I went to the store and bought more milk and cream, bringing the total cost to my two cups of ricotta cheese to about $15. But this time, it worked. The milk mixture curdled, and I had myself some fresh, homemade ricotta cheese….

ricotta

Which I used in my baked ziti that I made for my sister Bec’s birthday dinner last night, along with red sauce made from scratch by my sister-in-law Sami, who included – wait for it – the leftover prime rib from a recent meal. Let’s just say, as long as I have a great deal of help from others, maybe I CAN cook…..

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Ingredients
1 c. heavy cream
4 c. whole milk
½ t. salt
2 T. white vinegar or fresh lemon juice

Process
Line a strainer with a couple layers of damp paper towel or cheesecloth, and set aside in a large bowl.

In a large pan, mix cream, milk and salt. Bring liquid to a boil over medium high hieat, and remove from heat. Stir in the vinegar or lemon juice. Let mixture sit for a few minutes, and then pour into the strainer lined with the paper towel or cheesecloth. Let it drain until it is as dry as you want it, at least 20 minutes.

Makes approximately 2 cups of cheese.

Ode to Joy

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joyWhen I was employed and was actually paid to write, I worked with a young woman who had the same hours as me – we came in early in the morning and left in the neighborhood of 4 o’clock. So she and I were about the only ones in the office for an hour or so each morning. I was usually the first to arrive, but each morning, just as soon as she arrived and had put her lunch in the fridge and turned on her computer, she came to my office, sat down, and commenced complaining.

Now, I have told you all before that I think I tend to be a glass-half-empty kind of person, especially as compared to Bill, who sees the glass half full even if the glass is totally empty. But, compared to this fellow employee, I wore rose colored glasses. She didn’t limit her complaints to work, though she did complain a fair amount about her job. But she complained about her husband, and whined about her mother, and grumbled about the weather or her health or what she had for dinner the night before.

It really got to the point that I considered not turning on my light for a bit just to put off listening to her gripe for a bit longer. But then I would remind myself that maybe my listening to her complaints got everything off her chest and she was as cheerful as can be the rest of the day. Somehow I don’t think so.

Blessed are they who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy….

Not that I want to tell God how to do his work (and I say that while cautiously looking up to dodge the lightning bolt) but it seems as though Jesus could have saved himself the three years of teaching by just climbing the mountain and preaching the Beatitudes the day after the Cana wedding. Because they pretty much say everything Jesus taught for his full three years in just a few sentences.

Really, think about it. The rich man and the eye of the needle. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. He who is without sin shall cast the first stone. All of these lessons taught by Jesus say the same thing: Always be humble and kind.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.

According to our homilist, the word from which the term blessed in the Beatitudes is translated means so much more than blessed in its original language. (Greek? Aramaic? Hebrew? See? I’m a biblical scholar.) He said that there is no single English word that translates the full meaning of the word. Blessed is partially correct, but overflowing with joy is closer to the correct translation.

So what is my takeaway from the Beatitudes? That what God wants for us is to be overflowing with joy, and moreover, to be sharing this same abundant joyfulness with others through love and humility and kindness and a gentle spirit. Because just like being around a grouchy person like the woman with whom I worked can make you crabby yourself, being with someone full of joy can make you joyful as well, because abundant joy is contagious.

After all, Jesus concluded the beatitudes with these words: Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.

I’m determined to encourage joy through my own joy. It should be quite easy as the temperatures at our AZ home are finally creeping into the 70s this week.

Joy.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Saturday Smiles: Pooping More Pom Poms

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You remember a couple of weeks ago, I told you how Merlin-the-Very-Naughty-Dog ate the boobly off of the stocking hat I made Joseph for Christmas. Remember Merlin…..

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Remember the burgundy pom pom….

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Well, being the good nana that I am, I made a couple more booblies — a burgundy one and a navy blue one — and mailed them to Joseph and Micah. A few days later I talked to Heather and asked her if the box had arrived.

“Well, yes it did,” she said hesitantly. “It’s a funny thing. We let Joseph select which one he wanted first, and he chose the blue one. So we gave the burgundy one to Micah. And within five minutes, we turned around and Merlin was eating the burgundy one.”

Clearly, despite what people think, dogs are not color blind. Merlin definitely prefers burgundy yarn to navy blue.

Bad Merlin.

Have a great weekend.

 

Friday Book Whimsy: Settle for More

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imgresWhile I’m a fan of an interesting biography, I’m not particularly a fan of memoirs, unless the writer has an exceptionally unique story to tell about themselves, which most don’t. Simply by definition, memoirs are bound to purvey a somewhat self-absorbed point of view. Still, I read Megyn Kelly’s memoir, Settle for More, because I always liked her when I would watch her on Fox News. She seems confident and very smart.

At the end of the day – or the book, as it were – I found her to be a good writer. Because of that, the book was easy to read. Unfortunately, I simply didn’t find her life that interesting. Certainly not interesting enough to warrant a memoir, at least not at this point in her life.

For the record, I am not one of the block of conservatives who are currently mad at Megyn Kelly for a series of questions she asked then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in the first debate. On the contrary, as a journalist by education, I think the questions Ms. Kelly asked a presidential candidate were fair. So my dislike for Settle for More has nothing to do with my feelings about the author.

Kelly was part of a family who encouraged hard work, and encouraged getting your own reward from a job well done. She made it a point, again and again, of saying that her family wasn’t one who believed in getting “participant” trophies, but instead, felt if you earned first place, you should get first place. I frankly find that admirable, but not terribly unique for that time.

She worked hard for her success, but so did (and do) a lot of other people. She came from a middle-class family, and so it isn’t even like she had to struggle to make ends meet in order to become educated. It’s true her father died when she was in high school, which is very sad, but unfortunately, lots of people lose one or both of their parents at a young age.

She worked her bottom off as lawyer before realizing that she had to give up too much of her life to be as successful as she wanted. Many people reach the same conclusion. It is clear that she worked hard for the success she currently experiences, and good for her. But her life seems to have been pretty ordinary, not really warranting the need for a memoir. For that reason, I can’t really recommend the book.

Here is a link to the book.

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Thursday Thoughts

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Clooney the Handyman
In my blog post from yesterday, I mentioned that George Clooney got his acting start as a doctor on the television program ER. A faithful reader gently reminded me that his television career began earlier. Actually, she didn’t remind me, but actually informed me, because I didn’t know it to begin with. Mr. Clooney actually had a regular role on a sitcom called The Facts of Life, in which he played a handyman. From further research, I learned that he also had a role in an episode of The Golden Girls, where he played a police detective. Who knew?

Here is a photo of Mr. Clooney as George Burnett the handyman, and another of my nephew Erik. See how they are both sporting mullets? The resemblance was too astounding to not share (also, I like to remind Erik of his golden years as often as I can…..

clooney-erik-mullets

Impressionable Impressionists
The school which Kaiya and Mylee attend has what seems to this rank amateur as a very good art program. Parents and grandparents know that Art is no longer a regular subject, and is handled differently in each school district. Their district offers Art as one of the Special Subjects, alternating with other subjects such as Technology and PE. But their school features something called Artsonia, in which Art teachers post students’ art projects and subscribers (who are authorized by the parents) are alerted every time the student has a new piece of art posted. I really love that, especially since I am 900 miles away from their art projects. Yesterday I was alerted that Mylee had a new piece of art posted, so I eagerly checked it out. Apparently the first graders are studying Impressionist art, something I didn’t realize existed until college! Here is Mylee’s masterpiece, next to Monet’s original work entitled Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies. You can decided which is which. For my part, I am extremely impressed….

collage-bridge-over-a-pool-of-water-lillies

 

Long Live the Queen
For those of us still reeling from the loss of Downton Abbey on Sunday nights, PBS is offering Victoria, the story of the life of Queen Victoria. I don’t know how factual the series is, but what I do know is that I am enjoying it a great deal. It even has upstairs/downstairs drama, ala Downton, though admittedly, the downstairs staff  haven’t grabbed me quite like Mrs. Patmore or Mr. Carson did. Still, it’s fun to imagine life in the mid 1800s, and it’s interesting to see the life of the queen, who, until Queen Elizabeth II recently surpassed her, had the longest reign of any monarch. And it’s a love story, to boot. Maybe she’s the one who put Prince Albert in a can.

Honey Lemon
“Have you ever seen the movie Big Hero?” Bec asked me recently as we were having lunch. I admitted I had not, though I’ve seen very many movies with my grandkids. I knew Big Hero was one of the many animated Disney movies that have come out as of late. She had recently watched it with her grands. “Well, I know this is going to sound silly,” she said, “but there’s a character in the movie that reminded me of, well, Dagny.” Dagny, of course, is my 10-year-old granddaughter who likes to climb anything and study insects and has been voted by the family to be The Most Likely McLain To Have A Tattoo. Dubious honor to be sure. You’d better not, Dagny. Anyway, as soon as I could, I checked it out. Without even knowing the character’s name, I immediately knew which one Bec was talking about. Honey Lemon. The comparison is in part the fact that she has honey-colored hair and wears glasses. But, according to Disney’s own description of Miss Honey Lemon: Honey may be as sweet as her namesake, but she has a fire in her belly and a can-do attitude that make her pretty much unstoppable. And, well, that certainly describes Dagny Tess to a T. I think that, more than anything, is why Bec saw the resemblance. Honey Lemon and Delightful Dagny….

honey-lemon-dagny-collage

Ciao!

The Doctors are In

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Bill and I watched the movie Fences the other night. Fences is one of the movies nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. It is also one of the movies nominated by the Screen Actors’ Guild for best ensemble cast, which is SAG’s version of best picture. So it’s quite predictable that you would want to slit your wrist after watching it. It’s Hollywood, after all.

I didn’t like the movie very much, though Bill enjoyed it more than I. That’s because Bill’s way smarter than I would ever hope to be, and so he appreciates art. I appreciate art, but only if it’s art that is drawn by one of my grandkids.

Fences had a very weird style, and watching it was almost like watching a play. There were basically two sets: one outside of the home in which the characters played by Denzel Washington and Viola Davis lived, and the other in the kitchen of the house. It was, in fact, originally a play written by the famed playwright August Wilson. Though Wilson died in 2005, he wrote the screenplay before he died, (I am Queen of the Obvious) and it has been sitting, oh, I don’t know exactly where, since then, apparently awaiting the arrival of someone willing to make it into a movie. Denzel Washington was the man.

Though I didn’t care much for the movie, I will tell you that IN MY LIFE, I’ve never seen performances like those of both Washington and Davis. Oh. Em. Gee. They were both amazing. And because of the style of the movie (basically all dialogue and no action), the actors had to memorize about ten million lines. It’s almost worth seeing the movie just to see their performances. Almost.

I love Denzel Washington. I always have, ever since he was one of the characters way back in the eighties in a television program called St. Elsewhere. I loved that show. I think, for reasons I will never understand, I really like medical programs. I’m currently a big fan of CBS’s Code Black, except when they have patients die of bowel obstructions, as they did recently. But, whatever. I was glued to NBC every Tuesday at 9 o’clock, after tucking Court into bed. I liked all of the characters, but I remember thinking that Denzel Washington was a great actor and oh-so-handsome. “He will go far,” I said to myself, because I was the only one in the room. Court might have tiptoed out of his room to see to whom I was talking.

Since I’m writing a rambling post about nothing in particular, I will remind you that George Clooney also got his start in a medical television program called ER. He played the yummy-looking Dr. Ross in this drama about a hospital located in Chicago. ER was on NBC in the mid- to late-90s. I think it was more popular and more critically well-received than St. Elsewhere. But because it was a medical show, I watched every program, front and center. But this time when I said, “George Clooney is going to go far,” Bill was there with me, saving me from becoming a crazy-talk-to-yourself-about-medical-television-programs nutcase.

And since I seem to be talking about famous movie actors who got their start on television, I feel compelled to remind everyone that Meg Ryan, Marissa Tomei, and Julianne Moore all got their start in a soap opera to which I was addicted as a young woman called As the World Turns. I have to admit that I have no recollection of Marissa Tomei or Julianne Moore. They might have been involved after I stopped watching. But I vividly recall Meg Ryan playing the role of Betsy Stewart….

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And then there was this…..

clooney-washington

Two things: Despite all of the time I have spent with doctors over the past few years, I have never had a single doctor that looked like that.

Also, I knew Meg Ryan was going to go far.

This post linked to Grammy’s Grid.

Well, That’s a Crock

Posted in Main Course, Meat Dishes, Recipes by

We live in a fairly roomy house in Denver. Despite the fact that it was built in the 1970s when often homes lacked a lot of places to keep excess things (because frankly, back then people didn’t really have excess things like they do now), there is considerable storage space. The house has large closets, lots of cupboards, a fair amount of countertop space, roomy cabinets, a pantry, an attic, and lots more storage in the basement.

Lots of storage space is a blessing and a curse, at least for me. I am the queen of if there is space, it will be filled.  I have so much storage that is out of sight, i.e., in the basement, and that’s where I keep things like the popover pan I’ve used only once, the French bread pan I’ve used only once, the wicker dumpling steamer that I have used only once (are you sensing a pattern?), and the punch bowl that I have used on several occasions but will almost certainly never use again. There’s a Fry Daddy, a Seal-a-Meal, two ice cream makers, an electric wok, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Well, not that last thing. But lots and lots of stuff.

Our house here in AZ is a mere 1,300 square feet in which there are often three adults residing. We have a small kitchen with a smattering of counter space. There is a small pantry, and a few below-counter cabinets and above-counter cupboards. Space is at a premium. Bill has installed a few cupboards in the garage.

Which (finally) brings me to the point of this post: Crock Pots.

I have long been a fan of crock pots. For working people, I think they are life savers. If you can get yourself organized either early in the morning or the night before and get ingredients into a crock pot, you have dinner waiting for you when you get home.

I, of course, am not a working person. I could spend the entire day cooking if I wanted to. Which I don’t. But I still am a big fan of slow cookers, primarily because if I put food in the slow cooker at 10 o’clock in the morning, I will not talk myself out of cooking and into going out to eat at a restaurant at 6 o’clock.

At some point after we bought this house and Bill and I started spending entire winters here, I decided I needed to get a new crock pot. My existing crock pot was literally from the 1970s, and though it worked just fine, I wanted one that was oval. I think at the point I purchased the new crock pot, I had fallen prey to the Mississippi Pot Roast craze, about which I blogged here. Unfortunately, the roast wouldn’t fit properly in my existing crock pot, so I ended up borrowing one from my niece Maggie. Shortly after, I predictably went and purchased my own oval crock pot – a 6 quart pot in which I could cook the CU Buffaloes’ mascot Ralphie. It worked fine for the one-and-only time I made the Mississippi Pot Roast (as I was frankly underwhelmed.  The pot roast that owns the internet indeed!).

But it didn’t take long for me to realize that a 6 qt. crock pot is far too big for the meals that I cook 99-and-44/100th percent of the time (for Bill and me). So the other day, I spontaneously went to Target and bought a 4 qt. crock pot. I brought it home and used it to make smothered pork chops with mushrooms. As I dumped all of the ingredients into the crock pot, I quickly realized that despite being two whole quarts smaller than my other crock pot, it was still too big.

At the crack of dawn the next day, before I could give myself time to reconsider, I went onto Amazon and ordered (with one click!) a two-and-a-half quart crock pot.

Voila! It’s perfect. Except for the fact that I now own four (count ‘em) crock pots in a house which, if you will recall from this exceptionally long and boring post, HAS NO STORAGE SPACE. Jen’s going to be very surprised when she comes next to AZ and finds her bedroom filled with crock pot boxes.

crock-pot-plethora-2

Just kidding, because by time you read this post, my niece Kacy will have picked up my 4-quart crock pot which I brilliantly thought to give her, as she actually IS a working mother with three small kids. And look at the little teeny tiny crock pot on the right. It doesn’t count because it is so small. Right?

For good measure, here is a recipe I recently made in my crock pot. I’m sorry for the poor photo. At some point I will remember to not shoot photos of my food when it sits on a yellow plate. Everything looks a sad color of orange….

beef-and-noodles

Beef ‘n Noodles with Mushrooms and Onions

Ingredients
3 lbs. boneless beef chuck roast, cut into large chunks
Salt and pepper
3 T. vegetable or olive oil
2 c. beef broth
1 medium onion, cut into wedges and separated
Half of a 1-oz package of onion soup mix
1/8 c. A1 steak sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
½ T. horseradish
½ t. spicy brown mustard
½ t. salt
2 T. butter, cut into pieces
½ lb. sliced mushrooms (any kind)
2 T. cornstarch
2 T. cold water
16-oz. bag noodles or macaroni

Process
Season beef with salt and pepper as necessary. Brown pieces of beef in the vegetable or olive oil until seared nicely. Put into slow cooker. Add the beef broth, onion, soup mix, steak sauce, garlic, horseradish, mustard, salt, butter and mushrooms to the crock pot. Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Mix cornstarch and cold water, and add to the mixture, stirring well. Turn to high and cook for 10 minutes more or so, until the sauce begins to thicken.

Serve over noodles, cooked as instructed on the bag or box.

Follow Through

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The other day I was at Walmart. You know, Walmart: The King of Customer Service. I was looking for something specific in the pharmacy, and because the Walmart Pharmacy area has aisle after aisle of products, I was not having any success finding it. A pharmacy employee walked by clearly headed Someplace Important (his break?), and I called to him and asked the location of the product. He literally didn’t even slow down, but kept walking and shouted back at me, “It’s on the aisle just after the vitamin aisle,” undoubtedly thinking, “My Cup-O-Noodles isn’t going to cook itself, Lady.”

Okay. I found the correct aisle, and yet it took me a very long time to find what I was looking for. I finally did. Hoo-rah!

imgresBelieve it or not, I thought about this situation when I heard the Gospel reading Sunday from Matthew. In the gospel, Matthew tells us that Jesus was walking along beside the Sea of Galilee and came across, first, Andrew and his brother Peter, who were casting fishing nets, and then, two more brothers, James and John, also fishing with their father Zebedee. As Jesus passed them, he shouted out, “Come and follow me, I’ll make you fishers of men.” And so, they all did.

How much nicer it would have been if the Walmart employee had said to me, “Come and follow me, I will show you where your item is located.” There is, of course, no comparison to a Walmart employee demonstrating simple customer service and Jesus asking strangers to follow him and help change the world. Still, that invitation to follow me is welcome in times of trouble and distress.

I have often wondered, and frankly did as I listened to the story this time, if the men knew of Jesus beforehand, if they had heard his teachings, and that’s why they dropped what they were doing and followed him. Or was there just something so charismatic about Jesus that they followed without question? The problem with scripture readings, of course, is that they are snapshots. There is some context to this whole story that we must fill in ourselves. The priest/homilist pointed out that every story we know from the scripture makes it clear that the apostles weren’t crazy about their career choices. Scripture tells us about the frustration of empty fishing nets; the discomfort of rough seas; Peter, Andrew, John and James sitting around mending their nets, a mundane activity for sure. Matthew was a despised tax collector, and he couldn’t have loved that job. So perhaps they had simply heard about Jesus and thought to themselves, “What could it hurt? We can follow him and see what happens.”

As I listened, I also wondered just what Zebedee thought when his sons up and left him to pull in the nets by himself. He couldn’t have been very happy about his sons walking away. And then he had to go home and tell his wife that James and John weren’t coming home because they followed that crazy preacher. A few chapters later in Matthew’s gospel, he tells us that that James’ and John’s mother asked Jesus if her wonderful sons could be on his right and left when they were all in heaven. I bet she thought that was the least he could do after having taken her sons away from she and Zeb.

Nevertheless, follow Jesus, they did. And they may not have been the most reliable of disciples (betrayal, denial, doubt), but their decision to follow Jesus changed our lives as well as their own. Now it’s my turn to say yes to Jesus when he asks me to follow him every day of my life.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Saturday Smile: Manners and Honesty

Posted in Whimsies by

Every year following Christmas, the four McLains are instructed by their parents to sit down and write thank-you notes to everyone who gave them a gift. They all write their own notes. Jll tells them to write something from the heart, and to give their notes some thought before writing them.

Jll’s sister Julie received this note from Alastair, which she posted on Facebook…..

alastair-thank-you-note-to-julie

By the way, the notation in the bottom corner apparently refers to Jll’s insistence that he give thought to what he writes.

You have to give the child points for honesty. And poor Addie….

Have a great weekend.

 

 

 

 

Friday Book Whimsy: Eligible

Posted in Book Reviews by

searchJane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a THING with a lot of people. You can find a whole section on Etsy for items relating to what is probably Jane Austen’s most well-known novel out of the six that were published. There are big-screen movies and made-for-television series and literary spin-offs and Facebook pages and annual gatherings of P & P fans. There is even a zombie movie version of Pride and Prejudice.

All of this for a book written by a young woman about whom shockingly little is known and who, despite the romantic themes of her books, not only didn’t marry, but likely died a virgin. And not a zombie virgin.

I downloaded the book Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld sometime late last year because it was on sale from Amazon. I wasn’t even entirely sure what the book was about, and I had certainly not heard of the author. But $2.99? How bad could it be?

And then I didn’t read it for the longest time, partly because I discovered that it was a contemporary take on Pride and Prejudice. And while I have nothing particularly against that novel (which I haven’t read since high school), I also sort of took a stand against it in that way that I sometimes do because I hate being like everyone else and I get stubborn. It’s why I didn’t read Harry Potter books for a long time – everyone else was, and I wasn’t everyone else. But frankly, part of the reason why I didn’t read the book was because of the name of the author. How could a MALE AUTHOR think they could tackle such an endeavor as a contemporary version of Pride and Prejudice?

Dumb, for several reasons, not the least of which is that Curtis Sittenfeld happens to be a woman.

The plot is familiar. Liz and Jane Bennet have returned home from their lives in NYC to take care of their father who has had a heart attack. Their sisters Kitty and Lydia are too flighty to trust, and their sister Mary rarely emerges from her bedroom where she endlessly pursues master’s degrees via computer.

The Bennets have been high society in Cincinnati, but unbeknownst to Mrs. Bennet – who is much more concerned with finding husbands for her five unmarried daughters – they are flat broke.

Mrs. Bennet has ensured that Jane meets Chip Bingley, a doctor best known for his appearance on a television show Eligible, modeled after real-life The Bachelor.

Liz, in the meantime, has met and started knocking heads with Chip’s friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, a renowned doctor and peculiar fellow. Love and then complications ensue, just as in Pride and Prejudice. And if you are a fan of the original novel, you can imagine how it ends.

Still, after finally giving in and reading the book, I must admit that I really enjoyed it. It was a fun take on the original book, and interesting to see how the author handled the familiar situations. Like the original novel, Mr. Bennet was a dear, and it was impossible to not want to strangle Mrs. Bennet and the younger sisters.

I think this is a must-read for fans of P & P, but honestly, I think it is a cleverly-written novel that will be enjoyed by anyone who likes a great romantic romp. Don’t be crabby like me.

Here is a link to the book.

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