You are here: Home / Archives for Contributors / Paige

The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman – A From Left to Write/This Week for Dinner Cookbook Club

November 17, 2010 6 Comments
Silicon Valley potluck dinner. Photo by Jane Maynard, This Week for Dinner

The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman

Why eat organic? What is fennel anyway and how in the world do you slice the bulb? And, what…what should you make for dinner tonight anyway? Two kinds of clubs – the From Left to Write book club and the This Week for Dinner cooking club – have come together to form a Cookbook Club and our first selection, The Earthbound Cook, was a complete hit. We even got together IN PERSON for some potluck dinners/lunches and some good old fashioned book club chatting. Talk about a great way to try tons of dishes from one cookbook with only a little bit of work.

Silicon Valley potluck dinner. Photo by Jane Maynard, This Week for Dinner

We had a ball with this one, as you will see from all of the stories the From Left to Write bloggers are sharing today, inspired by the cookbook The Earthbound Cook by Myra Goodman, co-founder of Earthbound Farms.

{Stay tuned for an interview with author Myra Goodman later today on From Left to Write.}


From Left to Write / This Week For Dinner Cookbook Club Silicon Valley meetup for The Earthbound Cook

About the book:

As a busy working mom and creative cook, Myra Goodman knows how to make food taste good. And as the co-founder of Earthbound Farm, she knows how producing food sustainably can do good. Put those two things together, and you have her new cookbook, The Earthbound Cook: 250 Recipes for Delicious Food and a Healthy Planet.

In this, her second cookbook, Myra weaves all new recipes into an Earth-friendly theme from starters to seafood, meat to side dishes, breakfast to dessert. For example, there’s a chapter devoted to Vegetarian Entrées; the Vegetable and Grains Salads chapter shows imaginative ways to create tasty salads with substance; and there’s a Baking chapter full of wonderful breads, pita, and pizza.

Together with the delectable food, Myra includes easy guidance for conscientious shoppers about making eco-friendly choices at the market, plus primers on cooking methods and tools, sidebars with insightful ingredient information — and tons of Green Living tips, too.

_______________________

Visit Earthbound Farm’s website with information about The Earthbound Cook.

Visit the publisher’s website.

Purchase your *autographed!* copy of The Earthbound Cook.

Follow @earthboundfarm on Twitter.

Read about author Myra Goodman.

_______________________

Check out other From Left to Write upcoming book clubs and follow the From Left to Write Google Calendar to keep up to date on all of the book club events and dates.

Filed Under: Ana, Bay, Book Club Days, Cindy, Cookbooks, Cooking Club Announcements, Darryle, Emily, Eunice, Jacki, Jane, Jill, Kristina, Linda, Linsey, Lisa H, Meetups, Melanie, Melissa, Michele, Michelle F, Neena, Nicki, Nicole, Paige, Roxane, San Francisco Bay Area, Shannon, Stacy, Tiffany, Tracy, Vanessa

Figures in Motion by Cathy Diez-Luckie – A From Left to Write Book Club

August 27, 2010 5 Comments

Figures in Motion: Dinosaurs on the Move by Cathy Diez-Luckie

Isn’t history an easy subject in school? No? This is the first children’s book we have read here on From Left to Write and, our club being comprised of many moms, we can’t wait to talk about more children’s literature in the future. Read the stories the From Left to Write bloggers are sharing today, inspired by the Figures in Motion books Famous Figures of Ancient Times and DINOSAURS on the Move by Cathy Diez-Luckie.

About the book:

Dinosaurs on the Move: Make prehistoric times come to life with extraordinary dinosaurs that once roamed the earth! Cut-and-color or pre-colored action figures really move as you bring Tyrannosaurus Rex, Allosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and others to life.

Move their jaws, clash their teeth, and make their powerful legs run as you act out your own dinosaur battles—or make up your own stories about these mighty creatures that ruled the planet.

Use this creative learning tool to introduce and reinforce the wonder of natural history and inspire a love of paleontology with hands-on activities for children ages 6 to 12.

Figures in Motion: Famous Figures of Ancient Times by Cathy Diez-Luckie

Famous Figures of Ancient Times: Emperors! Conquerors! Philosophers! These 20 peoples haped history and our world today. Now you can make real moving figures of these world-changing individuals from thousands of years ago. Cut-and-color or pre-colored action figures really move as you play out the lives of Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Jesus, King David, Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (builder of the Great Wall of China), Hannibal (and his elephant!) and others.

Their stories are right in the book – or make up your own stories about these powerful men whose fame has lasted for thousands of years.

Yes, they really move! All you need is this book, a hole punch, and easy-to-use fasteners for assembly. Move their arms and legs, use their swords and shields and act out the real stories of history or make up your own and travel through time.

Famous Figures of Ancient Times by Cathy Diez-Luckie is the National Bronze Medal Winner of the 2009 Independent Book Publishers Awards in the Children’s Interactive Book Category.

Visit the Figures in Motion website.

Follow Cathy Diez-Luckie on Twitter.

Purchase your copy of Famous Ancient Figures and DINOSAURS on the Move by Cathy Diez-Luckie.

Check out other From Left to Write upcoming book clubs and follow the From Left to Write Google Calendar to keep up to date on all of the book club events and dates.

Filed Under: Alma, Book Club Days, Children's Activity Books, Children's Literature, Dannie, Elaine, Elena, Linsey, Lisa H, Melanie, Michele, Michelle F, Paige, Rebecca, Robin M, Susan, Thien-Kim, Tiffany

If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman: A From Left to Write Book Club

July 6, 2010
If you knew suzy

If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman

What would you find out about your parent when they die? What would your kids find out about you? A new thing or two might be learned, would it not? Read the stories the From Left to Write bloggers are sharing today, inspired by the book If You Knew Suzy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Reporter’s Notebook by Katherine Rosman.

The Twitter hashtag for the From Left to Write book club is #left2write. Follow From Left to Write at @fromleft2write. Follow Katie Rosman at @katierosman.

About the book:

Faced with the loss of her mother, Suzy, to cancer at sixty, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Rosman longs to find answers to the questions that we all wrestle with after losing someone we love. So she does what she does best: she opens her notebook and starts investigating.

Thumbing through her late mother’s address book, Rosman begins to discover a woman whose life was intricately connected to a host of characters her daughter hardly knew. Her reporting skills at the ready, she embarks on a cross-country odyssey, tracking down total strangers from whom she hopes to learn about a woman she once thought she couldn’t know better. Venturing into the heart of some colorful communities, Rosman interviews friends and acquaintances of her mother’s, as well as people whose relationships with her were more complex though no less potent—among them a former golf caddie, a legendary Pilates instructor, an eBay glass collector, and an immigrant doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. As Rosman attempts to fill in the blank spaces that may explain her mother’s motivations and philosophies in building a life and in facing death, she comes to understand this woman as she never imagined she could.

Blending humor, honesty, and old-fashioned reporting, Rosman grapples with the bittersweet reality that sometimes we can’t truly know someone until after she is gone. At once comforting, candid, and very funny, If You Knew Suzy is a heartfelt memoir against which readers can consider themselves and the lives of all those they love.

Author website:

http://www.katherinerosman.com

Publisher website:

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/If-You-Knew-Suzy-Katherine-Rosman/?isbn=9780061735233

Purchase your copy of  If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman here.

_________________________________________________________

Full Disclosure: From Left to Write bloggers received complimentary copies of the book If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman for use and participation in the From Left to Write Book Club. They were not obligated to write about this book.

Filed Under: Book Club Days, Brenda, Cristie, Darryle, Elena, Emily, Emily C, Grace, Heidi, Helen, Jennifer M, Linsey, Lisa, Lisa H, Melanie, Melissa, Memoirs, Michelle, Paige, Pamela, Rachel, Rebekah, Samantha, Sarah, Sharon, Thien-Kim

If You Knew Suzy Like I Knew…

July 6, 2010 Leave a Comment

Katherine Rosman’s book, If You Knew Suzy, has that affect on you. The affect you hope to have after you’ve spent your valuable time reading a book. Staying up late at night, exhausted, turning pages…and then YES! I know what you mean…

Rosman’s book is a memoir that covers a daughter’s journey of exploration into her mother’s life, following her mother’s death. As a Wall Street Journal reporter, Rosman puts her unique journalistic skill to the test in uncovering who her mother was as a person, beyond who she knew her to be as a mother.

And what she proves beyond any doubt is that it’s difficult for any one person to ever really know another individual.

I’ve always believed that books pick you at the right time. Just when you need a love story, here comes Sense and Sensibility. In a similar vein, If You Knew Suzy came to me…

You see, three weeks ago, my uncle passed away from cancer, the same affliction that took Suzy’s mother. My uncle was young, only 65. And he wasn’t a distant uncle. He lived in town, with my mom and stepfather, where he had been for the past, gosh, 15 years on and off? We were close. I still feel a heaviness from his absence. I still expect him to be there, when I walk through my mom’s door.

Here are some interesting factoids about my uncle: Having come of age in the 1960′s, he was associated to the Merry Pranksters. He shared great stories about Janis Joplin and told me about the time he and Jerry Garcia were so high, that the group of friends they were with dropped them off at some random apartment in San Francisco, where they proceeded to sober up over the next several days. He studied Easter Religion, he could contort his body into yoga poses teenagers would envy, he studied the I Ching and constantly flattered me that my readings were uber powerful.

He was a great man. I miss him. But like Suzy, I felt the instinct to know him better, once he had passed.

I didn’t spend the last day of his life with him; I wanted that to be reserved for my cousin, his daughter, and my mother, his sister. But I spent a good deal of time with him over the last month of his life, up until two days before his death. I sat with him, those last days, with a thousand questions at the tip of my tongue. Suddenly, the time we had spent together, my entire life, didn’t seem enough. I felt ashamed. How close are we really?

All of us…how close are we?

How much do we know about each other? The important things, not just the stories like Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia. When I die, I want people to know me….really know me. But I have to admit that while I sat there with my uncle on his last days, I felt uncomfortable. A thousand questions at the tip of my tongue, and I felt too uncomfortable to ask a single one.

I applaud Suzy for further exploring a relationship of closeness. Knowing myself, knowing how much I love the people closest to me, I realize these people I love…they only know a portion of who I know myself to be. And more than anything, when I am gone, what I would most want is to be known.

Isn’t that what we all want?

*****************

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as part of the From Left to Write book club. – The Twitter hashtag for the From Left to Write book club is #left2write. Follow From Left to Write at @fromleft2write.

Filed Under: Book Club Days, Health, Memoirs, Paige

Submit a Book

Are you an author or publisher? Submit your book for consideration as a From Left to Write book club selection.

Grab a Button

Code to put a From Left to Write Book Club Member button on your blog: <p><a href="http://www.fromlefttowrite.com"><img  src="http://www.fromlefttowrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/badge.png"/> </a></p>


To the Top