The Start of the Year

Watching the first episode of the Vera Stanhope final season starring Brenda Brethyn as Vera.
The last-ever episode is due next week for Americans (earlier in the UK).
We were amused that a minor character was played by Kevin Whately, the actor who played Inspector Lewis.

Most of my time this week has been spent reading, now that I’m back from a month of seemingly nonstop travel. I’m sharing this post with Deb’s Sunday Salon which starts on Saturday.

Book I’m Reading Now

The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler by Phillips Payson O’Brien.
A very very long history book.

Book I Hated

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.

What a pile of cliches and hackneyed ideas! If the totally predictable historic stuff wasn’t bad enough, the author had to include recipes to make sure you knew it was ChickLit. Setting a book in a boarding house is a lazy way to have a lot of characters. Also lazy: the author gives hints about a murder scene from the beginning, but the choice of when and how to reveal the mystery is completely arbitrary. Same is true for the arbitrary way that the characters’ backgrounds are revealed: not by conversations, not by plot elements, but seemingly at random.

Book I Gave Up in the Middle

How Animals Understand Death by Susana Monso.
A poorly written book. I can’t figure out why I bought it.

Book I Read on One of Our Many Plane Trips

Enjoyed The Secret Life of Bees very much.

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

2025 is Here!

First coffee of the New Year.

New Year’s Eve Dinner at Carol’s House

Carol’s amazing cookie platter: she made them all, including two flavors of strudel and rugelach.

Since it was also (a very late) Chanukah, we had two types of latkes.
These are the sweet-potato latkes. We also had traditional potato latkes.

Soup, cheese, lentil salad. Jason and Katrina made the soup…

Deviled eggs and smoked salmon. I made the deviled eggs,
Carol made all the rest including several dishes that I didn’t take a photo of.

The beautiful table setting. Zingerman’s made the bread.

Here we all are except Carol who took this photo. In case you are wondering,
I was wearing a rather dramatically patterned sweater that looks funny in the picture.
We enjoyed the holiday, and greeted it by using a set of whistles that Carol keeps for the occasion.