Pi (3.14) Day cupcakes!

This is why I love working at a school-- people understand and appreciate Pi day treats and cupcakes! Even though it is a day early, I think the students in the math class (and English class afterwards) that I work in enjoyed these. The teachers did, too.

Books I have read over the past year and some assorted comments about them...

I'm sorry to say that I don't remember them all.



!. We were the Mulvaneys (Joyce Carol Oates)- very depressing and long, but a good book overall.

2. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything in Italy, India, and Indonesia (Elizabeth Gilbert)- A new divorcee has a lot of money to blow, goes to Italy to gain lots of lbs and learn the language, then to India to lose the weight by yoga-ing for three months, and then goes to Bali to find a medicine man she doesn't even know and then ta-da, finds love in the worst of cliches. The first part had potential, but no wonder some guy wrote a male version entitled Drink, Play, F&*$, in which a dude goes to Ireland, Vegas, and Thailand. My friend Nora and I made fun of this book a lot.

3. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)-- This was the second time I read this book and most of it was at the credit union, while supposedly working online. Reading this was in preparation for our honeymoon to Prince Edward Island. I'm so happy that I visited the fictional Green Gables!

4. Ahab's Wife- another book that seemed to have a lot of hype, but was completely unbelievable and a little bit insulting to those from the South, or anyone who has studied history. Oh, and I hate to give it away, but the Ahab's widow, the heroine, marries Ishmael at the end. Not worth six-hundred pages.

5. This Side of Paradise- F. Scott Fitzgerald set the tone for the 1920's. I also read the short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and liked it.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)- Now I consider this one of my favorite books and I wish I had read this earlier in my life. Atticus Finch is one of the greatest fictional heroes of our time.

7. Dancing Girls (Margaret Atwood)- A short story collection by one of my favorite authors. There were some very twisted stories in here, but Atwood is always full of surprises.

8. Delta Wedding (Eudora Welty)- I had to read a book in the tradition of the Southern gothic genre. This novel expertly paints a portrait of a Southern family, rich in secrets, heritage, and tradition.

9. Witches of Eastwick- A really weird book by John Updike, who recently passed away. Although I enjoyed the book, I'm not sure if I will be reading the sequel- The Widows of Eastwick.

10. A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)- A commentary about British-Indian relations in the 1920's. The British are not portrayed too positively here.

11. 1984 (George Orwell)- Whoa, this book is crazy. Although I was totally intrigued and couldn't put it down at times, I enjoyed Huxley's Brave New World much more. The kids at school are reading it now and the reviews are pretty mixed, but some of them just don't want to read at all.

12. Tender is the Night (Fitzgerald)- Another of Fitzgerald's novels and one of his best. Beautifully written about an unhappy couple oozing with the glitz of the 1920's and the inevitable downfall.

13. My Life in France (Julia Child)- a love letter to French cuisine by my new idol, Julia. Read about it in my last journal entry.

There are many more to come in 2009, including my current read, The Beautiful and the Damned, by Fitzgerald.

Julia (Child's) and my own obsession with France

Today I finished a book about Julia Child, entitled My Life in France. This book, written by Child in collaboration with her grand-nephew, focuses on her culinary and cultural explorations of France when she lived there in the late 1940's and 1950's, and afterwards when she became a famous cookbook author and television personality. I have a fascination with food and cooking, and even though this is non-fiction, I love My Life in France because it tells a story with food and is very descriptive in terms of taste, smell, etc. Also, anything French seems to fascinate me. Prior to reading My Life in France, I read Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which in part takes place in the south of France, where "it was pleasant to drive back to the hotel in the late afternoon, above a sea as mysteriously colored as the agates and cornelians of childhood, green as green milk, blue as laundry water, wine dark.” Awwwww. A few years ago, I read the novel Le Divorce, which is an okay movie, but book is fabulous because the author gives France such a lovely ambiance. Some of the characters were completely annoying, but the setting was picture perfect.

I wish I had taken the French language in school, not only for conversation or for food, but also for singing, for French is very useful in chansons. Alas, the class was full and I took Japanese instead. Kusoo or should I say Merde!

A croissant may be a dream in my future. Bon appetit!