Around My House

Reading~

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn  I received this book for Christmas.  I added it to my Amazon wishlist after hearing an interview with the author on NPR.  It sounded interesting and it is!  Cooking, or the lack of it, is about so much more than just techniques and knowing your way around a stove.  Apparently, lots of people carry lots of baggage, good and bad, from their childhoods and current relationships when it comes to the simple act of preparing food.  Kathleen Flinn takes nine women from beginner cooks to . . . well, we'll see how far she gets.  I'm only about halfway through the book now.


Listening~

The Little Book of Hygge:  Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking  Pleasingly narrated by the author, this book clocks in at a little over three hours.  I'm about halfway.  It's a good introduction to the concept of hygge, but you could probably get a enough of an idea just by doing a web search.  Wiking is a happiness researcher who clearly knows his stuff, but I'm not really learning anything new about hygge.  If you're a hygge novice, this book will be helpful.







Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset   The author won a Nobel Prize for this historical epic, which is why I wanted to become familiar with it.  The Penguin edition is 1168 pages and the audio edition I'm listening to is over 44 hours long!  I listen to audiobooks when I think I will get bogged down in a paper edition, which would definitely have been the case with Kristin.  By the end of the second part, though, I needed a break; hence The Little Book of Hygge mentioned above.  I like it--I don't love it--and I'll be glad that I got it through it, even in audio format.




Watching~

Howards End  The movie based on E.M. Forster's novel is wonderful.  I had watched it several times many years ago, but since then I haven't been able to find a copy of it until Netflix began streaming it fairly recently.  Excitement!  The acting is excellent, the scenery beautiful, the story compelling. I will be revisiting this until Netflix no longer carries it.  And just so you know, the movie is very faithful to the book.







Mary Berry's Country House Secrets   I stumbled across this series on Youtube a few days ago.  I'd never heard of Mary Berry until The Great British Baking Show, which I loved, and so was excited to find this.  There are four episodes, each of which features the always classy Mary taking us through a stately British country house.  We meet the occupants and learn some of the history of the house and area.  And oh, yes, there is a cooking component.  So much fun!





Housekeeping~

After the great pantry clear out of January, I tackled a big storage closet in our conservatory this month.  It holds board games, puzzles, and the few toys we saved for visiting children, some files, cello music, gifts for future giving, and odds and ends.  One of these days I will learn to take before photos, but here's an after anyway:

There's even room left over!

A Favorite Blog~

Emily's blog, Charming the Birds from the Trees, is lovely!  She documents her life with her Orthodox priest husband and their three children.  There is some peaceful, lovely homekeeping, a little travel, a little knitting and sewing, some wonderful quotations, and always lovely photos.  I like her approach to living!

Admiring~

The winter pond is so beautiful!  A few days ago we had frost on top of ice, and it was sparkly in the sunshine!

(Just so you know, I don't make anything from Amazon or anywhere else for my opinions about movies, books, etc.  Links are provided for your convenience.)