Posts Tagged ‘books’

My totally unbiased assistant pulled two names out of the hat to win copies of the new book, Dewey's Nine Lives.

The winners are:

Joy B.
and
Brenda Evans

If you two will send me your mailing addresses I will contact the publisher and ask them to send you your copies of the book. Please contact me by clicking on the contact button above the header picture at the top of the blog post. Your message will go directly to my e-mail account. I hope you both will enjoy reading this new book.

Thanks to all who left comments and participated in the contest.

Becka

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A couple of years ago I got quite a few books for Christmas. One that I really enjoyed was Dewey The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. I wrote a post about the book. A few weeks ago I received an email asking if I would like to preview another book by the same authors.

The new book is Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions. It contains two more stories about Dewey and the rest of the book is comprised of stories from other cat owners who sent in their own inspiring cat tales.

The publisher, Dutton, is sponsoring a contest for anyone who would like to send in their true tale about a special cat that they have known. The winning selection will be included in the paperback edition of the book. You can read all the details here.

In addition, I have the privilege of giving away two copies of the new book, Dewey's Nine Lives. To enter the drawing all you have to do is leave a comment on this post before 11:59 p.m. (EDT) on October 18, 2010. I will be able to accept comments only from those living in the United States and Canada. All the names will be put in a hat (literally!) and my able-bodied assistant will draw the names of the two winners. The winning books will be sent directly from the publisher. Be sure to include your name with your comment so I can contact you in case you are one of the winners.

So, if you like cats and would like to read about some special ones I hope you will enter my first-ever give-away contest!

Becka

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I recently had a birthday and I received two of these non-stick Madeleine pans from DH. I tried them out for the first time this week and made these lemony Madeleines. I have eaten Madeleines before, but I had never attempted to make them. I discovered that most of the recipes are basically sponge cake recipes that you bake in these special shell-shaped pans to produce tender, cake like cookies. I think they would be nice as refreshments for a shower or tea.

I work in an office with two other ladies. We often discuss books that we are reading or authors that we have enjoyed. This summer all three of us have been enjoying books by Alexander McCall Smith, a Scottish author who has written a delightful series of books about The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. The stories take place in Botswana, South Africa. They do not contain a lot of violence or bad language — the stories are primarily about relationships between people and you can learn a lot about the customs and life in Botswana. I have found the stories to be quite charming.

One thing that the ladies in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency do quite often is to drink Bush Tea.They also treat themselves to donuts on Fridays. I found some Kalahari Bush Tea at a local grocery store (Ingles) and on Friday we had a little tea party at work with the Bush Tea and Madeleines. The tea is a herbal tea and we tried a variety that was lemony. It went quite well with the lemon-flavored Madeleines. It was a fun way to end the week.

Becka

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Several years ago I saw a Cake Mix Doctor book at a local bookstore and perused it. I later checked it out of the library for some in-depth study. After this I decided to purchase a copy of my own. I have since also bought the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor and another book by this author called the What Can I Bring Cookbook.

The author, Anne Byrn had a cooking column in a newspaper in Tennessee and in one column she asked readers to submit their best recipes for things made from cake mixes. Thus began the idea for the cake books.

My daughter Megan's friend, Kristen, bakes cakes for birthdays at her husband's office and she often uses recipes from the Cake Doctor books. She tried a number of the cakes and both she and Megan really like one called the Lethal Peppermint Cake. Here's a picture of the cake:

This cake is oft requested in our family for birthdays and I also made large two layer sheet cake versions of it for the groom's cake at both DD, Meg and DS-in-law Jim's wedding and at DS, Mark and DD-in-law Katie's weddings. Here's a picture of one of the groom's cakes:

The cake itself is a deep, moist chocolate cake filled with a peppermint buttercream and then frosted with a chocolate ganache icing. This picture shows the peppermint filling:

If you like chocolate and mint you will probably like this cake.

I have tried a number of other recipes from these books and there are several that we really like. The author also has a web-site set up like a newsletter with recipes that are not in the books. One recipe that I found on the web-site that is one of my favorites is the Orange Marmalade Cake. If you have read any of the Jan Karon books you are probably familiar with Esther Bolick's famous Orange Marmalade Cakes (scroll down to the recipe--it's in the newsletter titled 4th slice, from 2006 under the heading Recipe Swap ). I tried several recipes for Orange Marmalade Cakes that I found in magazines that I did not care for, but this one is very, very good.

The first Cake Doctor book has a wide variety of recipes for white, yellow, and spice cakes, fruit flavored cakes, chocolate cakes, bars, cookies, etc. The second book has some of the recipes from the first book but nearly all the recipes contain chocolate or white chocolate. In the second book she has revised some of her recipes just a bit. At the front of both books there are small color plates which picture every recipe in the book. I find this to be very helpful.

So, if you like to bake or need ideas for an upcoming birthday or other celebration cake I would definitely recommend that you check out these books.

Becka

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I realized this week that it's been a while since I wrote a post about one of my Christmas books. I have been reading a delightful biography about Dewey, the library cat from Spencer, Iowa.

He was a tiny kitten when he came to the library. He had been shoved into the library drop box one cold morning in January of 1988 and went on to reside there until his death in 2006. He was quite famous in his time and there were news stories about him all over the world. If you like cats or animal stories you would probably enjoy reading about Dewey.

I have never been to a library with a cat, but I have been to a couple of stores here in Greenville which have cats in residence. How about you--do you know of any libraries or businesses where pets reside?

We have two cats as those of you who read my husband's blog know. They are very difficult to photograph, especially with a digital camera. By the time I take the picture they have generally moved on out of camera range. I did snap a couple of cute shots of one of the cats the other day. She was lying in the sun and enjoying herself so much that she didn't get up and run away. Here are the best pics I could find of both of them.

Here is Clementine:

This is Adelaide:

Becka

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