by Bill O’Reilly. What a book. I probably wouldn’t have read it, except it was the selection by one of my book clubs. I was expecting it to be somewhat slanted since it’s written by O’Reilly, but I found it not so at all. Of course, some of it may be his opinion rather than fact, since there are so many accounts, including those available from government sources, and it’s hard for us to know sometimes what is fact and what is fiction. O’Reilly truly believes Oswald acted alone. I learned more about him than I’d ever read in the past. I wasn’t a Kennedy fan at all before, during or after his presidency. And the seedy side of John Kennedy certainly didn’t endear the man to me any further after reading this. He was a wanton womanizer. I have a problem with that from anyone who is President of our United States. When Kennedy was President I lived in D.C. for about a year, and I recall an evening I spent in the company of an older couple who were in the thick of politics. They abhorred Kennedy, and knew from some first or second hand informant about Kennedy’s lover-boy proclivities. In the 60′s it was kept very hush-hush, and the Press was willing to keep it so. The affair with Marilyn Monroe is explained in detail, and Bobby Kennedy’s role with the President as well. I have more respect for Jacqueline Kennedy than I did before reading this book. How she managed her life, knowing her husband was a philanderer is beyond me, but she did, and with grace. What little there was in the book about Lyndon Johnson didn’t endear him to me either. Lots of bad-boy behavior from that man. I never did like him as President either. Overall, I mistrust politicians. Period. And reading this book didn’t make me feel even the slightest bit more trusting than before.
by Eowyn Ivey, an Alaska native. Set in very backwoods Alaska in the 1920s, a middle aged couple arrive to try to realize their dream and to get away from mentally crushing angst about losing their only child in utero. They homestead. He works the land and she takes care of the house and lives in nearly perpetual loneliness and sadness. At times the couple come together in loving accord, but often they do not. One day they build a snow man. Well, a snow girl. The next morning the snow girl is demolished and the mittens and scarf have disappeared. Eventually they spot a small child who darts through the woods (with red mittens and scarf) with her pet fox and barely seems to touch the ground. Is she real? Where does she live? Is she a figment of their imaginations? Anything else I say could ruin the story. It’s a vivid portrayal of the rough homesteading life back then, yet it’s full of love and friendships. And full of the magic of the snow child. 
by 
by Helen Bryan. I got it as a bargain Kindle book. Liked the idea of the story, but I had difficulty keeping track of the characters. It’s about 5 women from all walks of life who converge in a small country village in England during the middle of WWII. They have numerous trials and tribulations, from relationships to just getting food on the table. The men or boyfriends they’re involved with are also very different, so each person/couple has a different story to tell. There were many, many typo’s and sentence errors in the Kindle version – distracting to be sure. But for a bargain book, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I felt the editor didn’t do his/her job for this author as the story just didn’t have the cohesiveness I was hoping for. I nearly abandoned the book altogether about half way through, but stuck it out.The author wraps everything up at the end, maybe a bit too neatly, which may not be very realistic.
What a book. I was riveted. My friend (and cooking instructor) Tarla Fallgatter recommended this book, and what a treasure it is. I can’t tell you a whole lot about it or I’d be giving away too much of the story. It opens in London, with an ordinary man, with an ordinary wife. He is asked by his sister to help construct a leakproof cement box for her and her husband to take their valuables on an across-the-ocean voyage on a sailboat. They’re planning to move from England to Canada. He does, since he’s a master of constructing small things. Meanwhile, they also ask this childless couple to care for their young daughter for 4 months while they do this traverse-the-ocean thing, and then they’ll have her fly to their new home. Can you guess? They don’t make it, and that’s an integral part of the story too. The husband (and now the new father of his niece) embarks on a journey to – - well, go to the place where the hurricane foundered them. Oh, but there’s so much more to the story. This is written by 
by Rosie Thomas. (There are lots of other books by the same title, but they’re about shawls, not a novel.) In cleaning out their father’s belongings after his death, Mair comes across an incredibly beautiful shawl with a tiny saved lock of blonde hair. The shawl is exquisite. Her grandparents were poor. She knows there must be more to the story. She’s at odds and ends, and decides to retrace her grandparents’ steps when they were missionaries in India around 1940. Part of the story is told from the viewpoint of the granddaughter (Mair) and part from her grandmother (Nerys). There’s a huge cast of characters, but the story is fascinating, particularly since war was raging in Europe, and this couple was sheltered in many ways by being in India and Srinagar. Not quite a page turner, but it’s very interesting. Worth reading for sure. This is a new book.
; 
(just the cutest book – with a miscellany of things – letters, grocery lists, notes, reminders, confessions the author discovered hidden inside the books he purchased for his used bookstore); and 
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It’s really a no-brainer that guacamole, coming from the tropics, would have an affinity to mango, also a tropical fruit. I was amazed at the flavor in this – you got the regular guacamole taste, but then the sweet unctuous mango hits your palate, and zing! Altogether delicious. Different.
Suddenly I realized I hadn’t posted this recipe from our Cinco de Mayo brunch a few weeks ago. It was a delicious guacamole – and so very unusual because of the mango in it. It had a more mango color than it did the regular green of guacamole. It also had tomatoes, a shallot, a little bit of onion, some minced serrano chile, cilantro and lime juice. Oh, and some dried chipotle chiles. But dried chipotle are sometimes hard to find, so use some chipotle paste instead – just be careful how much you put in it because chipotle in adobo is very VERY hot and could overpower the delicate flavors in this dish. The recipe came from an article in Food and Wine magazine (May, 2013).
Do make this just an hour or so before you want to serve it – even though it has lime juice in it to keep the avocado green, with all the other stuff in it, I think it might get brown if it sat overnight. Alternately, make it up completely EXCEPT for the avocado and add that in at the last minute. That would work too if you needed to make it ahead. In case you don’t have fresh mangoes at your grocery store, Trader Joe’s sells frozen mango chunks. I keep a bag in my freezer at all times.
What’s GOOD: the combination of mango and avocado is terrific. I liked the texture difference in this mixture also – you don’t expect to bite into mango when you dip a guacamole/salsa. Everyone loved it. The chipotle is a smoked chile – that gives it a different, deep flavor profile you don’t usually associate with guacamole, either!
What’s NOT: really nothing at all. It’s worth making.
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Smoked Chile and Mango Guacamole
Recipe By: From Food & Wine magazine, May 2013
Serving Size: 6
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 whole plum tomatoes — cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 whole shallot — finely chopped
2 whole dried chipotle chiles — stems discarded and chiles finely crushed, or use 1/2 tsp or more mashed chipotle in adobo sauce
Kosher salt
2 Hass avocados — halved, pitted and diced
1/2 cup white onion — finely chopped
1 serrano chile — minced
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 mango — cut into 1/4-inch dice (1/2 cup)
1 cup cilantro — lightly packed, finely chopped, plus whole leaves, for garnish
Tortilla chips for serving
NOTES: If you want to make this ahead, prepare and mix everything, but hold out the avocado. Add that in just before serving.
1. In a medium skillet, heat the olive oil. Stir in half of the diced plum tomatoes and add the shallot, crushed chipotles and a generous pinch of salt and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the chiles are softened, about 5 minutes. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl and let cool completely.
2. Add the avocados, onion, serrano chile, lime juice and the remaining diced tomato to the bowl and stir gently. Gently fold in the diced mango and the 1 cup of chopped cilantro and season with salt. Garnish the guacamole with cilantro leaves and serve with tortilla chips. Serve within 4 hours.
Per Serving: 166 Calories; 13g Fat (63.6% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 14g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 20mg Sodium.
. Dorie is an American, but she and her husband must be Francophiles at heart, as they own an apartment in Paris. She goes back and forth all the time (if you read her 
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(otherwise you need to dunk them in boiling water for a minute and peel them hot) and chopped, then combined in a good, sturdy pot with all the other ingredients (lower photo) to simmer gently for an hour or more. It oozes out a lot of juice, but by simmering it long and slow, eventually all the watery juice boils off, leaving you with a jam consistency.
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