Cubicle kitchen: Red Berry Chocolate Peanut Butter Cereal Bars

In comparison to the rest of my library of books, my cookbook collection is actually quite small.  I'm occasionally seduced by the dishes in a particular book while browsing the shelves of Half Price Books.  But I often overlook cookbooks entirely when thinking about what I'm actually going to bake, turning instead to Chef Google.

Last week I decided to turn the tables and instead flipped through one of my cookbooks before going out grocery shopping.  I chose CakeSpy's Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life.  Because I love her and her blog, and the book was calling to me in all of its pinkness.

I was lucky enough to find a recipe that used mostly ingredients that I already had on hand, some of which I was keen to use up.  And you're lucky too because it turns out that she published the same recipe online.  So you can make this too!

The only real changes I made to Jessie's recipe were substitutions, using cereal and peanut butter that included berries.  'Red Berries' to be precise according to the cereal box.  That feels like one of those terms they use on products to be deliberately evasive.  Like 'natural flavorings'.  What exactly are red berries?  As near as I can tell in the cereal it meant dehydrated strawberries.  I tossed in another berry which is technically red by using a Cranberry Crunch peanut butter.  If I were going to change things up even more, I might add some jam (raspberry, to round out the red berry cast?), maybe as a layer between the cereal and the chocolate.  Just to bump up the fruity factor.

I've also noted that I didn't have any issues with cutting these bars after refrigerating.  Which is true.  The only problem I had was that they tasted so good that I kept justifying the need for me to eat more 'scraps' by adjusting the size of the bars.  Like, 'Oh, this one looks too long, let's just cut a little bit off the end,' then, 'Oh, now it looks too wide, I'll just trim it down the side.'  And so on and so forth until the bars went from three to two bits, and now some of the leftovers have been further reduced to bite-sized.

Red Berry Chocolate Peanut Butter Cereal Bars
Recipe from CakeSpy: Chocolate Peanut Butter Special K Bars

My notes:

• Substitutions: Special K with Red Berries (generic brand) rather than original, Planters' Cranberry Crunch peanut butter in addition to regular creamy
• The recipe used up enough of the box of cereal that I went ahead and finished it off, adding a little extra cereal to the bars and crushing the rest to sprinkle on top
• The recipe recommends not chilling the bars in the fridge before cutting into squares, but I didn't have any issues cutting even when it was completely cold

5KCBWDAY3: Wednesday means the week is only half-baked

Experimental Photography And Image Handling For Bloggers.  Refresh your skills at creating attention-grabbing pictures.

For more 'Experimental Photography' posts from day three of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, search on the 5KCBWDAY3 tag.

Inspiration Saturday: A haul from Half Price Books

There are two kinds of shopping trip.  The first is mission-based, like stopping in the grocery store for ten ears of corn because they are 6 for $1, as I did yesterday.  The second is more along the lines of 'the journey is the destination', where you meander into and around a store just to see what you can find.  I am more of a meanderer by nature, and even when I have a mission, I tend to explore areas of the store that have nothing to do with the mission.  Just in case.  But some shopping trips are strictly a case of being in the general area and not having been in there in a while.  This is usually how I end up  in Half Price Books.

Half Price Books is such a dangerous place.  It blends my intrinsic desire for a good deal with my voracious hoarding of books.  There's no way I could ever have the time to read them all, but the idea of reading them is too alluring to ever leave them behind.  Eventually, I tell myself, I will get to them.  And for a dollar, it seems silly not to.

So last Saturday, before seeing the free form lace at Gauge, and even before swirling frozen yogurt at Yogurtland, we stopped at Half Price Books.  I ended up with two distinct stacks: literature and knitting.

First, the knitting books:

The Art of Knitted Lace by Crown

I just love lace so much.  I most want to try Sea-Foam Top, although one day the Silk Stockings might be fun.

Rowan's Greatest Knits by Rowan Yarns

The Long Leaf Coat is epic, but never, ever going to happen.  The Geneva Camisole, however, that's a possibility.

Japanese Inspired Knits by Marianne Isager

We all know how much I love anything that reminds me of my trip to Tokyo.  And I am in love with The Carp, although I must admit that looking at the construction is kind of traumatizing.  It's done with mitered squares in long strips, and turning that into the cute tee is pure magic as far as I'm concerned.  But I want to try it.

Lacy Knits by Alison Crowther-Smith

Now technically this book is all patterns for mohair-silk yarns, but I'm thinking more alpaca for the Spiral Shrug and Sunday Night Mitts.

Okay, that's it for the crafty books, now the book books.  I was clearly missing my college days and decided to recreate my own personal 18th-century literature class:

Evelina by Frances Burney

After reading some of the highlights of classic literature, now I'm trying to find some other authors of the era that remind me of what I liked, so Fanny Burney is someone I have to try.

Cecilia by Frances Burney

Another Fanny Burney.  I like the blurb on the back: 'Cecilia is an heiress, but will inherit her estate only if her husband consents to take her surname.'  Scandalous!

Memoirs of Emma Courtney by Mary Hays

I hadn't heard of Mary Hays before, but we're talking about a late 18th-century feminist author writing about a passionate young heroine.  I'm in.

Okay, so I know what I should be busy doing for the next few years.  Except I know that next week I'm also going to be busy with Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.  I've already started some of my posts, it's so much fun!  I hope to see (um, read) you all there!

Until then, there's more inspiration at Woolen Diversions.

WIP Wednesday: The right kind of wrong

My inner goody-two-shoes tells me it's 'wrong' to cast on a new project before casting off an old one.  But this weekend, I just couldn't help myself.  I made a little incremental progress with both my plying and my cardigan, but both projects are so big that spending 30 minutes never feels like it yields much.

So I decided to dive into a quick project that I knew I was going to have to complete in the near future anyway, a pair of dishcloths for an LYS holiday party.  Obviously, I'm using 'near' in relative terms.  Last year I whipped up some love-ly lace dishcloths, and this year I had another stitch I wanted to try.  Instead of hearts, bricks!

My mom and I bought the yarn earlier this year when Yarn Barn appeared to be going out of business, a trio of Cascade Ultra Pima Fine in gray, red, and yellow.  The gray is for the 'grout' and then I'll have red bricks (the classic) and yellow bricks (follow the yellow brick road!), and there will be plenty left over for Mom to make her pair in whatever pattern and color combo she wants.

Here is the red brick, featured with my current reading material, Aimee Bender's 'Willful Creatures':

Here's where I get to feel like a finisher, because I did finish reading 'Freedom' over the weekend (loved it), and I actually also finished this dishcloth already.  I'm really enjoying the stitch, it's easy but effective, and the yarn has rich colors and a soft feel that you don't always get with cotton.  And you can put in a few hours' worth of crafting time and have a finished object.  Or in this case, half a finished object, since these are like a pair of socks.

Next, I started the yellow brick.  It has the honor of being photographed with something else that's so wrong it's right:

Kerbey Lane pancakes!  But these are even more deliciously evil than usual.  The top pancake in the short stack is the weekly special, called The Elvis.  It's got banana and bacon in the batter, and a peanut butter topping on the side there.  Adding to the wrong factor is the fact that I went to a lunch 'n learn about cholesterol today. But hey, I not only ran this afternoon, I took a spin class.

Right and wrong, it's a delicate balance.

For more WIP Wednesday posts this week, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: The labors of Labor Day weekend

Holiday Mondays are the gift that keeps on giving, because after the long weekend, you get a short work week.  I'm so glad it's Wednesday already, and I'm ready for another weekend, so I can keep working on my WIPs and hopefully turn some of them into FOs for you.

I continued to make progress on my crafting while watching tennis and college football over the weekend.  I've added another few inches to the sleeve of my cardigan.  Part of me is ready to get these pieces done and move onto the next phase, but part of me is also just a little scared of the blocking and sewing and picking up stitches for the ruffle and adding beads and generally making something more like a finished garment than I've ever made before.  But mostly I'm ready to get it done.

If I'm really lucky, this weekend as I'm blocking my cardigan I'll also be washing and drying the fifth and final cop in my spinning.  Then I can continue to daydream about getting myself a spinning wheel, having put in the slow yards on a spindle and proven that, yes, this spinning thing is a craft that I'm sticking with.

From that relatively new way of wiling away the hours to an old favorite, I'm really enjoying Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom'.  Part of the joy of my three-day weekend was having the extra night that I could stay up in bed and keep turning the pages.  I'm now at 414, and I have no idea where the Berglunds are going to end up in the next hundred or so pages.  I'm going to guess that it's not happily ever after.  Because this is not a fairy tale story, there aren't really any heroes.  But each character has moments where I can sympathize with them.  And then they do something stupid and I shake my head into the book as if they could heed my warnings.  All in all, a dollar well-spent at Half Price Books.

Another 'project' I have is a swap that I'm moderating over on Ravelry.  It's called Alphabet Soup, and the idea is that everyone has to theme their packages around a certain letter.  Like, say I was assigned the letter G, I could send Goldfish crackers, green yarn, a Garden Pond shawl...you get the idea.  I've just spent most of tonight matching people up, assigning them letters, and letting them know the results so that they can start spoiling.  So that's also a work in progress, I think.

Whew, with all of that, no wonder I'm ready for the weekend again!  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: Even more ado

Last night I snuck a post in about going to see the new 'Much Ado About Nothing' directed by Joss Whedon, and I'm still in a Bard-ly mood.  So I took a stroll down project memory lane.

First, in my own projects.  I participated in a Shakespeare swap last year, where my spoilee's favorite play was 'Macbeth', and she particularly loved Lady Macbeth.  Well, who doesn't, really?  So I tried to pick out some of her quotes in my crafting, like this owl cowl, for 'I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?':

See the owls around the neck?  This was my first time doing beading:

I really want to do more things with that owl pattern, it is so cute.

Of course, you can't reference Lady Macbeth without the damn'd spot that won't come out.  I used Kool-Aid to dye some yarn rather than kill a king:

Okay, onto some other, less bloody, things from Stratford.  I also received a wonderful swap package myself, if you're on Ravelry you can see the post about it.  Part of my spoilage was a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in Ruby River:

I already have a project all queued up for it, funnily enough inspired by another literary genius, Jane Austen.  I want to make the Rose Garden shawl from the Summer 2012 issue of Jane Austen Knits.

And having inspired myself to want to knit that now, I must get back to my spinning.  One week of Tour de Fleece down and I haven't crashed yet!  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Much ado about Shakespeare

What is it about Shakespeare that makes people so cynical?  Somewhere along the way, as literature accumulates the accolades and intellectualism of being a cultural touchstone, it also becomes impossible to talk about without declaring the wrong and right ways to interact with it.  And the right way always seems to involve either a learned professor or a veteran theater actor.  There's almost, oddly enough, this sense that it cannot be enjoyed for its own sake, that if it is treated only as entertainment it will lose its lofty place and be tarnished.

But I've reached the point where I don't really care about tarnishing the genius of Shakespeare.  I like the lesser pop culture renderings of his timeless words just as much as I would jump at the chance to sit around a classroom table and discuss iambic pentameter.  And so I celebrated the 4th of July in the best way I know how: by going to see Joss Whedon's 'Much Ado About Nothing'.

It may well be my favorite play, having grown up with the Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh adaptation and played Dogberry in a high school production.  And since Joss Whedon is one of my favorite people, casting all of his favorite people, I was positively giddy to learn that this was coming to Austin theaters.

It brought me to the Violet Crown theater for the second time, and yet again it was a great experience.  With pre-assigned seats, you don't have to get there more than five minutes ahead of showtime.  And having parking included negates any complications of its downtown location for us non-downtown dwellers.

When I booked the seats there were plenty to choose from, but the actual showing was completely full. Part of the fun of actually going to the movies is the communal aspect, though it does mean that I have to refrain from reciting the lines myself, since each one of them is held safely in my memory for life. But there's something oddly social about laughing along with a room full of strangers as Beatrice and Benedick throw themselves around in an attempt to 'hide' from their Cupid conspirators, and that makes up for it.

Another advantage to modern-day enjoyment of Shakespeare: following it up with a little frozen yogurt.  I know I've raved about it before, but really, The Yogurt Spot is among my favorite froyo places.  Top three.  Because not only do they have a great selection of fruit and tart flavors, they are always exceptionally delicious.  Each one is food to my pleasure, and none of Don John's machinations can convince me otherwise.

And so, I declare my independence from intellectual self-righteousness, and admit freely with my hand and heart my love of Joss' take on the Bard.  Because I'll be honest: if I had that house, those friends, and 12 days to do whatever I felt like, I'd probably film my own 'Much Ado' as well.

WIP Wednesday: A tale of two activities

Last week, having finished one book, I stood in front of my bookshelf and stared at it for a while, trying to decide what to read next.  Apparently my confidence levels are high not only in knitting (a cardigan!) and running (a marathon!), but in reading, because I settled on a 16th-century, 785-page tome: 'Don Quixote'.

According to a recent story on NPR, high school students are reading fewer classics, and I think that's a shame.  Contemporary novels are fantastic, but there is so much more to appreciate in those novels when you have a foundation in the history of the novel itself.  So kids want horror and fairy tales?  Hand them a Gothic novel (but maybe don't tell their parents about that one).  There are plenty of stories hidden in the harder-to-read books of the past.  And once you're lead to one, you're so much more likely to seek another one out for yourself.

And so here I am, with 'Don Quixote' on the sofa next to me along with my project bag.  I'm 86 pages in, and that is part of the reason I'm only a few more rows along in my sleeve.  I keep picking up my book instead of my needles when I have a random moment.  Also: I haven't been able to go to my coffee klatch at work for two weeks in a row now, so I've been missing on that prime knitting time.

But still, it's progress.  I'll find the balance eventually, and then I can sit on the sofa curled up with a good book while I'm wearing this cardigan.  Whether that book will still be 'Don Quixote', I'm not sure.

For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: 'A Glass of Blessings' by Barbara Pym

For the past few months, I've felt a little like a literary poser, because I haven't been reading as much as I would like.  And who is a bookworm without having their nose in a book?  The trouble is, it's rather difficult to multitask with reading.  You cannot read and blog, or read and knit.  You can read and walk, but that takes a certain amount of skill, grace, and clear pathways.  And so my poor books have sat on the shelf, waiting for me.  And one in particular waited in that perilous state of being half-read, 'A Glass of Blessings' by Barbara Pym.

Distilling a plot into a few sentences always seems hollow, but let me try.  The book is narrated by Wilmet Forsyth, a housewife in 1950s London.  She lives a comfortable life of leisure with her civil servant husband, indulging in imagined romances with various other men around her while she endeavors to be somewhat useful in the church.  Wilmet reminds me so strongly of Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse, with her secure, not to say privileged, lifestyle that has left her self-involved, naive, but ultimately well-intentioned.  Her daily dramas are on a similar scale of scandal, nothing more serious than 'borrowing' a Faberge egg.  There's even a not-unsubstantial amount of knitting in the plot, from sweaters being made to Wilmet's meeting a knitting pattern model, another suburban scandal.

I cannot possibly recommend the works of Barbara Pym more.  I love her.  I wrote an entire research paper about her in my last year of college.  A single blog post could never be worthy enough of my devotion to her wonderful novels, so I'm just going to start with this one.  You might think that because it took me so long to finish it, that should mean it wasn't interesting enough, but in fact I think the ability to set this book down for long periods of time, then pick it back up and turn the pages just as quickly again is a mark of a wonderful book.  Wandering through Wilmet's world is easy, and I wish I could join her mother-in-law Sybil in the sitting room after a lovely tea and knit with her.

I reached the end of the book last night, and now I'm wondering what to read next.  Are you reading anything at the moment?  Have you read any books, that aren't a part of the growing knit lit genre, where knitting pops up?

For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

Inspiration Saturday: You know you're a lit nerd when...

...you practically squeal out loud as you scan a list of upcoming movie releases and discover that the 18th-century Gothic novel 'The Monk' has been adapted.  Because I'm assuming that's not a reaction that most people had.

Some of you might recognize the book just from the references made to it in Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'.  Matthew Gregory Lewis' novel about a holier-than-thou monk's fall from grace was one of more than a dozen on the syllabus for possibly my favorite class at Sarah Lawrence: The 18th-Century British Novel in Context.  We read it over the break between fall and spring semester, and my mother can attest to just how 'involved' I became while reading it.  The sheer villainy that this monk stoops to, it's deliciously evil.  I found it difficult to analyze the novel in class because I experienced it more like a reader just in awe of what was happening in the story. I felt just like Catherine, eyes wide as I carefully but quickly turned each page.

So there being a new French film adaptation of the book strikes all of the right chords with me.  Unfortunately, it's a 'limited' release over here in the US, even two years after coming out in Europe, and so far no showings have popped up in the Austin area.  I did write an Examiner article about it, though.

Also, I'd just like to shout-out to a fellow blogger, Faith over at Faithfully Geeky, particularly for her recent FO post.  Her sweater, along with this movie, are making me even more nostalgic than usual for my college days.  It's been several years now, I'm pretty sure my missing them isn't going to go away.  I'm really tempted to e-mail my professor about the movie, maybe they'll have better luck finding showtimes nearer New York City.  Then I can at least live vicariously through another class of lucky lit nerds.

Alicia at Woolen Diversions has taken the weekend off, but she's left a really cute kitty photo for you!

WIP Wednesday: I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the swap from me

I've been feeling a little frazzled this week, at times wondering if I was in over my head.  But I was able to make it through those moments to the other side by just getting one thing done at a time.  With each step forward, the way seemed less daunting.  It helps that the way I'm referring to is having fun coloring in notebooks, knitting, and otherwise crafting.

I'm still spoiling away on the theme of Gilmore Girls, and I thought I would offer a little teaser photo of the actual knitted item, since I've given away the yarn and the stitch without spoiling the actual project:

You can sort of see the through-line of a knit every four stitches going up, and the color shift of silver to purple.  I'm into the rhythm of this pattern, I could almost do it without referring to my directions.  But I still use them anyway, because I'm paranoid.  Just a few inches more and I'll be ready to weave the ends in!

I also made progress on a non-knit handmade for this swap, which involves upcycling an old book into something new.  I found the book itself at Half Price (on my birthday trip), and all I can say for now is that it involved cutting, which felt really wrong, and decoupaging.  I'll likely post a tutorial on Examiner, since it is literature related, and they've just introduced a feature that let's us write lists.

In a similar vein, I've added color and a page or two more to the notebook I'm working on.  That should be ready to send this weekend with a little bit of luck.  I've developed a similarly comfortable rhythm in doodling bunnies as in knitting my stitch pattern, but I still can never quite make them look as artistic on paper as they do in my head:

Notice also the roses, which have been 'painted' red, and the pocket watch which tells the White Rabbit how late he is.  I wanted to add in a little color since the bunnies really needed to stay white.  If I had been doing this strategically, I might have drawn them on white paper and pasted them on, but what's drawn is drawn.

And finally, I've also been given a spoilee for a swap themed around the genius that is Joss Whedon.  My mind is swirling with possible connections to random bits of hilarious dialogue, heroic bravery, and gut-wrenching character deaths.  Well, probably not that last one, I want my package to be a happy one, so we'll ignore the death and stick with things like 'the funny syphilis' and 'sudden but inevitable betrayal'.  Which Joss fans know are happy memories.  So my plotting and planning for that is another work in progress.

For even more works in progress, check out Tami's Amis!

Birthday sprouts and sprinkles

Yesterday I celebrated my 26th birthday, and I think I did it in kind of an Austin way.  There wasn't a party, there weren't any balloons, and shockingly enough, there wasn't even any cake.

Instead, it was essentially a trip down Lamar, starting with Half Price Books, where I bought three books for three dollars.  You gotta love that.  Here's what I added to my library:

• A complete collection of Guy de Maupassant's short stories
• A vintage copy of 'The Travels of Marco Polo' which is destined for a little Gilmore Girls swap upcycling
• Not technically a book, but a page-a-day cupcake calendar, with photos and recipes

From there, we headed up to The Yogurt Spot.  Because who needs cake when you can fill up a bowl with Taro Tart?  Every time I taste it, I cannot believe how delicious it is.  And even though there isn't as much turnaround of flavors here, that never really bothers us because we love what they have.  I would have been really disappointed if Taro hadn't been there.

There were some rotations, though.  Toasted Marshmallow was really interesting, I think it perfectly captured that slightly burnt sugar taste, without being too sweet or too smoky.  Raspberry Tart replaced the Burrberry, and inspired a very wide-eyed reaction on my part.  Both were tasty, but the latter made it into my bowl along with some Strawberry Fields.  Just with the yogurts, it looked so pretty, with a lilac, two soft pinks, and a deep magenta from the Raspberry Pomegranate sorbet.  And for my birthday, I splurged on some rainbow sprinkles to go along with my fresh fruit topping.  Because sprinkles make everything celebratory.

Taking advantage of the parking available at Yogurt Spot, we walked down the block to Lush for another chosen birthday indulgence: body care.  I have loved Lush ever since I first passed one by on the way to class when I was studying abroad in Prague.  I'm so glad that Austin now has one of our own, even though it's a terrible temptation.

I'm not really concerned with getting older and anti-aging at this point, but I feel like pampering is what birthdays are about, and my love of beauty products is not limited to nail polish and eye shadow.  They have some of that now at Lush, but there are so many other products I would love to try, from bath bombs to henna hair dyes.  I can't really justify buying any more lotion or shower gel until I use up more of what I stockpiled while I worked at Bath & Body Works.  It's been a couple of years now, and I still have plenty.

So this time around, I decided to try the Soak and Float shampoo bar and Angels on Bare Skin face cleanser (couldn't find it on their website).  The shampoo smells pretty much like a campfire, which is...interesting.  Makes me think of Salt Lick BBQ sauce, which isn't usually an association I make in the shower.  I've used their Godiva shampoo bar before and really like it.  Just the concept of a bar of shampoo is fun, and really pretty practical.  The facial cleanser I've used once so far, and feels really nice.  I'm thinking next time I might splurge for a face mask.  Because Cupcake just seems too perfect not to, right?

And then, we went further up to Central Market to source the necessary ingredients for what perhaps is an unlikely birthday dinner.  Weird as it sounds, I decided that I wanted some Brussels sprouts and cauliflower.  The sprouts we roasted in the oven with some dijon, and the cauliflower was just steamed with some seasoning.  Delicious.  And that left plenty of calories for me to indulge again for dessert.  The bakery had so many things to choose from, but ultimately I went with creme brulee.  It may never be Jello, but that's a good thing.  It was so luscious, I could literally feel the conditioning effect of the full-fat cream on my lips.

Another birthday gone, another 364 un-birthdays to celebrate until the next one!

Putting the lit back in this twit

I've been feeling a little guilty lately about the lack of 'lit' on this blog.  It's bad enough that I can barely share my knits because they are for secret swaps, but to also not be able to talk about what I'm reading because I wasn't reading felt duplicitous somehow.

The problem with reading is that it is a mono-task.  These days, there's a premium placed on being able to do as much as possible simultaneously.  While with the right pattern I can knit and listen, reading requires my full attention.  And somehow the months slipped by without my having finished reading a single book.

My younger self would be horrified.  I used to take a book with me everywhere, and devote any spare moment to poking my nose back into my fictional world, reluctant to be tugged back into the real one.  After college, it just seems like the tugs have been stronger, and escaping into a book has become something which takes a more concerted effort.  Despite several sincere attempts in the recent past, I kept allowing books to collect dust in favor of knitting, nail polish, and of course, the time-suck generally known as the internet.

But this week, I turned a corner by turning 149 pages of a book called World of Pies.  I mentioned it earlier this week, it's the book I found at Half Price and made a serious dent in while not being selected for jury duty.  It was just a dollar in the clearance section, and aside from having baked goods in the title, I was swayed by the fact that this copy had been signed by the author at BookPeople.  If you're in Austin and haven't been there yet, I can only conclude that you also have fallen into a terrible non-reading gap, because this is an awesome bookstore.  It's two stories full of books, and they have great author events.  I used to write about them weekly for Examiner, and would invariably end up wanting to read whatever book I was writing about.

While this book starts with a pie fair, the baking influence is more indirect throughout the rest of the novel.  It's the story of a girl growing up in the small town of Annette, Texas, and along with the kind of milestones you would expect (births, deaths, marriages, war, etc.), each event is marked with food.  A few pies, of course, plenty of cakes, and some muffins, brownies, and even a frozen salad for good measure.  Sprinkled throughout the story, the recipes for these goodies are also in the back of the book, so I might try one or two out sometime.

Along with the food, there was another comforting context I enjoyed while reading, though it won't apply to everyone.  Because author Karen Stolz is a local.  Even though she's from Kansas, she lives in Austin now, and her heroine Roxanne also resides in my fair city for several years in the novel.  There's something fun about seeing a place you know, like Barton Springs, whether it shoots across the screen in a TV show or movie, or shows up in the middle of a story you're reading.

Anyway, I enjoyed this easy read.  It got me back into the groove of reading, reminding me what it feels like to hypnotically turn page after page whenever you get the chance, and to cast furtive glances towards the cover whenever you don't.  I'll give myself a day or two to transition out of the world of Annette, and then hope the sugar rush will see me through the pages of another book.

Joe Wright's book club cinema

I'm starting to wonder if Joe Wright has something against original screenplays.  Not that I can hold it against him, if I were a director the first place I would probably go for inspiration would be my bookshelf.

Having started with many a reader's favorite novel, Pride & Prejudice, Wright has also adapted Ian McEwan's Atonement, and even The Soloist, which is a true story, was also a book before becoming a film.  Only his previous film Hanna was an original screenplay (though I feel the need to point out its many fairy tale elements).

He's done everything from classic to contemporary to non-fiction when it comes to book adaptations.  And now, he's going for full-on Russian epic:

Something else to look forward to later this year, right now Anna Karenina is looking at a November release in the US.  Given my current reading rate, I don't think I'll have time to read the book first if I plan on seeing it in theaters.

It was a graveyard smash...

Thought I would point everyone to another Examiner article that I published at the end of last week.  It was about the release of 'Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter', and has a slideshow of a few other books that have come out in the past few years that are a part of this new genre of taking a classic story (in Lincoln's case, a true story) and adding in a monster or two.  So you end up with 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' and 'Little Women and Werewolves'.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this new subgenre.  On the one hand, I can't really begrudge anything that gets people reading the fabulous words of Austen and Alcott, even if they are sprinkled amongst the words of another author.  Taking books from syllabus must-reads to bestseller want-to-reads is always worthwhile.

But on the other hand, my self-righteous side doesn't like how these iconic authors are so often used as a shortcut to recognition and boosted sales.  An entirely original novel mixing an 18th-century tale of courtship with the eating of brains might make a blip on the literary radar for sheer inventiveness.  But toss in a little Jane, and suddenly reviewers are clamoring to give their take on your newest release.

To defy biology and take a third hand, it isn't as though this isn't a tried and true methodology.  People have been writing 'sequels' to Austen novels for quite a while, and outside of books, TV and film producers have been putting their own stamp and reaping their own profits from the seeds of someone else's genius with adaptations of many varieties.  When they're done poorly, I sulk with a sense of superiority as is the right of everyone who 'read it first'.  But when they're done well, I love them.

So I suppose I'm still ambiguous about it all.  I have to admire the creativity of turning a President into a supernatural slayer, but for the most part monster horror just isn't my thing.  So I'll leave fans to enjoy it and try and keep my teacherly tutting to a minimum.