Apple Pancakes and Big Little Lies

I read Lianne Moriarty's fun Big Little Lies a few months ago, but with a busy weekend and not enough time to tackle some of the more ambitious projects I had planned (Neapolitan pizza or cream puffs coming soon!), some easy apple pancakes were the perfect choice this weekend.  I have read a few Moriarty books and she creates a really engaging "Real Housewives of Sydney" type of world, but with more depth and less trashiness (and plastic surgery).  In Big Little Lies, Moriarty creates both characters and a story that are funny and slapstick one moment, and dark and sad the next.  This juxtaposition makes the book a little more than the typical light read.  As the title suggests, the book has some secrets that are eventually revealed, so I will be careful and keep the review short and sweet.  The pancakes are inspired by the hunky neighborhood coffee shop guy, who always seems to be trotting out some delectable special pancakes when one of the books main characters, Jane, is sulkily hanging around.  These were an improvisation, so hopefully the recipe will work for you.

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Purity and Citrus Cheesecake

It pains me to say it, but a big part of why I did not blog for so long is the result of my inability to get through Jonathan Franzen's purity.  I am a big Franzen fan and was really excited when his new book came out this summer, since he takes his sweet ol time writing each masterpiece.  But Purity, in my opinion, despite the great reviews,  was just painful for me to get through.  Usually, when I am having trouble getting through a book I just put it aside and give up.  So many books in the world, why waste time on one that just isn't doing it for me?  But with a Franzen book I felt like I had to stick it out, I had to see if it turned around.  While it got a little better, enough that I could finish it, it took me several months to finish the book - this is NOT normal for me, I am through a book typically in a couple of weeks for a long one.  This one drained the joy of reading out me, that sounds deciceddramatic, but it just honestly turned me off reading for a bit.  That said, it did inspire this bright, pretty little cheesecake pictured above, so it wasn't all bad, right?

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The Paying Guests and Pork and Apple Pie

I have been gone a long, long time.  Sorry for that.  Is it a particularly inspiring book that has brought me back?  Not really.  A fantastic recipe I have been dying to make for a while?  Nope.    I am not sure what it is, but the spark of inspiration to come back to bookcooker started earlier this week with the possibility of a massive snow storm.  What would I do stuck inside?  I would surely have work to do, but that's no fun.  My closets are starting to resemble a hoarders, I could tackle those - no thank you!  Curling up with my laptop and a slightly complicated recipe sounded like just the thing.  So the idea was hatched, I just finished Sarah Waters "The Paying Guests" which is a novel that, while I liked OK, managed to be both overly dramatic and a little boring.  The books takes place in the outskirts of London after World War I and follows a protagonist, Frances, that used to be well off and upper class and is now poor and upper class, which forces her to maintain her family's big fancy house herself.  As part of her daily tasks she must make the sturdy British meals that are also featured on Downtown Abbey - pigeons, pies and stews.  There is one pie in particular (or rather an unfinished one) that takes place at a particularly momentous moment in the book, and this inspired me to google british pies.  The first recipe to pop up was this Pork and Apple Pie from, in my humble opinion, a treasure of British reality TV  - Paul Hollywood. For those of you that don't know him, he is one of the judges on the best cooking competition show ever in human existence - The Great British Baking Show.  This show is great because there is no soap opera drama, the contestants are real every day Britons, but they are also in possession of incredibly impressive baking skills.  It is also fun because they make strange British desserts.  Anyway, highly recommend you check it out.  When I saw the Paul Hollywood recipe I was sold and determined to make a bookcooker comeback.  Of course in Boston the snow storm did not come (sorry DC and NY, good luck!), but my inspiration held out.  

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Orphan Train and Rhubarb Tarts

I have obviously been away from bookcooker for a while.  I was working, on vacation, distracted, uninspired, dieting, and more working.  What brought me back is not the food, but the books.  I had been off reading for a while and when I got my reading mojo back, I starting thinking about the blog again.  So I am back, and hopefully I can keep this up at some regular pace, because I missed it!   First up are these adorable strawberry rhubarb tarts, inspired by the Orphan Train, a great soap opera of a book that is perfect for summer reading. 

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