Early Spring by Darren Thompson

[Oh yes, the warm weather is coming and reading on a park bench sounds like just the warm weather pursuit I could use right about now. I wonder what she's reading?]

I go back to the reading room where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of the Arabian Nights. Slowly, Like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.
~Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.
~Marcel Proust, Time Regained

by Chris Silas Neal for the Brooklyn Public Library

When I was 21 I read Anna Karenina. I thought Anna and Vronsky were soulmates. They were deeply in love and therefore had to be together. I found Karenin cruel and oppressive for keeping his wife from her destiny. Levin and Kitty and the peasants bored me. I read those parts quickly. Last year I turned 49, and read the book again. This time, I loved Levin and Kitty. I loved the fact that after she declined his proposal he waited for a long time to mend his hurt feelings and then asked her again. I loved that she had grown up in the interim and now felt grateful for a second chance. Anna and Vronsky bored me. I thought Anna was selfish and shrill. My heart went out to poor Karenin, who tried to be decent. What has literature taught me about love? Literature (along with experience) has taught me that love means different things at different points in our lives, and that often as we get older we gravitate toward the quieter, kinder plot lines, and find them to be richer than we had originally understood them to be.
~Ann Patchett, A Sentimental Education - Writers on Love

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I feel the same way about these characters in AK. I only read the book once in my 40's so I didn't have the opportunity to compare the two differing perspectives. But I distinctly remember confusion over why Anna gets top billing as if this is her story. Levin and Kitty are far more interesting so it might have been more appropriate to title the book Kitty Scherbatsky. 

One book I did read twice and had totally different takes on was Dr. Zhivago. In my 20s Yuri Zhivago was Dr. Dreamy *sigh* But in my 40s he was nothing but an adulterous cad. I couldn't believe I fell for him! The scenery sure was lovely though. Isn't reading great? Carry on.

Reading Notes

Deep winter months are in need of a good book and a hot drink. Ahhh delightful.

Recently I dabbled in some non-fiction:

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan is an excellent if somewhat controversial read. Just what are we dealing with when we poke around in our subconscious? Just because we can, should we? Although I am intensely curious about it all, I can't help but feel it's better left alone. Regular, everyday, conscious life is confusing enough, no? Still it's fascinating to read about someone else's experience, especially someone as engaging as Michael Pollan.

Books like Pollan's I get from the library as I am trying to keep my own shelves at a reasonable capacity. And unless it is a particularly noteworthy or keepsake kind of book, or a book that I pick up for a few bucks at a sale, I'd really much rather borrow it than buy it. And, besides, isn't a library visit just a lovely experience anyway? I'd say, yes. Yes it is.

 

But now I am all in with some classic, old school authors and their wonderful fiction. For these I had to rummage through my long neglected, used-book-sale-acquired TBR shelf - also an enjoyable endeavour - and came up with The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (a double bill along with Love in a Cold Climate, which I will get to soon as I so much enjoyed Pursuit ) and Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton, which I am reading right now and enjoying immensely.

Paris in the early morning has a cheerful, bustling aspect, a promise of delicious things to come, a positive smell of coffee and croissants, quite peculiar to itself.

~Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

First Lesson by Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky

Peace and quiet.
(image source)

There is no replacing the experience of reading a text. The very private interaction, the intimate communion of reading, sitting down with a book, living with it, having the book dwell inside of you - there is no substitute for that.
~Junot Diaz

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. 

~Albert Camus

I've posted some of these before but they are worth another look.

20 Works of Art That Capture The Coziness of Fall Reading

Quiet reading under an autumn tree.

image source

I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

~Henry David Thoreau

Cooking Notes - Sourdough Pancakes

I've heard about these for years but never really believed they would work. I don't know, something about the milky starter had me skeptical and I was never much of a pancake enthusiast to begin with. But still, with my experience and love of baking/eating sourdough bread, I knew I'd have to give sourdough pancakes a try sooner or later.

So here we are.

Recently I came across a recipe that seemed simple enough: starter, flour, milk, egg, pinch of salt. And a warm place to let it sit over night. This is all assuming one has a healthy starter ready to use. If not, here is my from-scratch starter recipe that I use for baking bread, which can also be used to start a pancake starter, the only difference being the milk. The idea is to transfer your bubble-making wild yeast colony to a new milky environment by adding a spoonful of bubbly bread starter to a 50/50 milk and flour mixture ( a 1/4 cup of each) to adjust it to pancakes instead of bread. Once this milk starter is bubbling, keep it in the fridge until the night before you want to make pancakes. You now have a separate pancake starter to use anytime.

Ok, so it's Friday evening and you want to have a Saturday morning pancake breakfast. Take your starter out of the fridge and let it come to room temp for maybe an hour or so. Once the chill is off the starter, mix together 1 cup of milk (I use goat milk, but regular milk works too, I just haven't yet tried almond milk etc) and a 1 1/2 cups flour of any mixture you like (I use 1 cup spelt and 1/2 cup teff) in a medium bowl (I use a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup) and add 1/4 cup starter (this amount doesn't have to be exact as long as you leave some in the bottom of the jar) mixing all together until you form a smooth batter. Cover this with plastic wrap and let it sit overnight. Add 50/50 milk and flour back into your starter jar to replace that which you just used. What's left in the bottom of the jar will feed your new starter for use next time. Let this sit overnight also and then put the jart into the fridge in the morning.

The next morning your batter should look like this:

See the spongy bubbly texture? Just wait 'til you stir in the egg and see how foamy the batter is under the surface. But first, before anything else, make coffee.

Ok so once you've got your hot morning beverage of choice, go ahead and stir the egg into your batter and add a pinch of salt (more or less to taste). You can also add any other flavours now if you want like sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, etc. I like to keep them as plain and simple as possible because I like to dress the finished pancake with fruit, yogurt and maple syrup on my plate. See below. Hubs likes savoury toppings on his, so it's win/win.

Frying: Once you've incorporated the egg and salt into the batter you're ready to fry them up. I like to use a cast iron frying pan that's been well seasoned with olive oil, but any other frying pan will do.

See how the bubbles pop through the surface? That's the natural leaven from the starter. I didn't add anything extra like baking soda, so the texture of my finished pancake is something between a crepe and an old school pancake. If you want more a more spongy rise, go ahead and add some baking soda, otherwise I think they are best without. I keep a casserole dish with a lid nearby to keep the finished pancakes warm.

With this batch, I'm also making blinis, those little Russian pancakes traditionally topped with sour cream and smoked fish or caviar. I'll be getting more creative with these, perhaps using shredded turkey and hot sauce or cheese and pickles and having them as appetizers with a glass of wine later today.

But first, breakfast . . .

These sourdough pancakes taste decidedly tangy on their own and hold up nicely with any combination of toppings from butter and maple syrup to fruit and yogurt to ham and cheese to fish and coleslaw (think fish tacos!) It's a versatile meal revelation.

Reading Nook Love

Because I've been searching for all things cozy and fall and reading, I keep coming up with some pretty darn awesome places, like this one here. Brew yourself a hot beverage and prepare to bliss out on these super cozy reading nooks.

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance. 

~Yoko Ono

But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he had been and things he has done since the last time he saw you.

~Stephen King, Salem's Lot

Autumn Reading 

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These Marguerite Davis illustrations are always so delightful. I'd like to say this one is my favourite because of the fall leaves, but really all of them are my favourite for their gentle simplicity.