Showing posts with label Dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dreams. Show all posts

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Nightmares Can Be Murder - Mary Kennedy, Author

(Pre-order now for this September 2 release!)

Strawberry Cream Cheese Bread
(One of Ali's favorite)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups strawberries, rinse, dried and chopped


1. Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan. I use "Pam for Baking."
2. Use an electric mixer to cream butter, sugar and cream cheese until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla.
3. In separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Blend flour mixture with butter mixture just until blended. Add buttermilk and only stir until just combined; do not over mix.
5 Carefully fold in strawberries. Dough mixture will be thick.
6. Bake in a 350°F oven for 50 to 60 minutes

Nightmares Can Be Murder - Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat; Think With Your Taste Buds; A Book and A Dish

I felt a little chill go through me, but I tried to keep my tone neutral and plastered a bland expression on my face.  "Bad dreams happen for a reason, Taylor," she said carefully.  Her voice was now barely a whisper, her eyes were full of shadows.  "They have something to tell us, and the message becomes apparent soon enough.  You know what they say, the truth always comes out in the end."  She paused.  "Oh, and tell Barney he can find that little catnip mouse - the blue one with the orange tail - under the refrigerator.  He lost it a week ago, and I finally had a dream about it last night."

When Taylor Blake left Chicago to help her sister Ali get her candy store business in Savannah, GA up and running, she finds herself involved in more than chocolate.  It doesn't take long to learn that Ali not only has a slow running vintage candy business but also a Dream Club that meets at the store.  It also doesn't take her long to realize that these people are actually serious about their dreams as well as their meanings.  So when one of the members tells of a dream she had where a man is murdered while Latino music is playing in the background, she suddenly becomes a bit skeptical when the dream comes true.  Could the dreamer be the one who actually killed him?  No matter what, Taylor will find out!

I thought I had this book pegged within the first 50 pages.  Then I decided I was wrong but after about 100 pages I knew who committed the murder.  Wrong again.  At about 150 pages I simply couldn't be wrong and knew who it was and why.  Finally I'm at page 260 and know who the killer is but not the why.  That I didn't learn until the last 10 pages.  This book turns with every page!  I loved it!

Saturday, July 6, 2013

The Map - Boni Lonnsburry​, Author

Asparagus and Mushroom Tarts  
Originally from Bon Appétit | April 2009

A simple but sophisticated starter: Puff pastry squares are topped with a bright spring mixture of asparagus spears, fresh shiitakes, and crème fraîche.

Yield: Makes 8
 
Ingredients:
1 17.3-ounce package frozen puff pastry (2 sheets), thawed
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
12 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps cut into 1/4-inch-wide strips
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, divided
1 pound slender asparagus spears, trimmed, cut on diagonal into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
1/2 cup crème fraîche*
1/2 cup (packed) coarsely grated Gruyère cheese (about 2 ounces)
Fresh thyme sprigs (for garnish)
 
Preparation:
Roll out each pastry sheet on work surface to 10-inch square. Cut each into 4 squares. Using small knife, score 1/2-inch border (do not cut through pastry) around inside edges of each square. Arrange squares on 2 rimmed baking sheets. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.
Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Sauté until tender and lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer mushrooms to large bowl; cool 15 minutes. Add asparagus, chopped thyme, lemon peel, 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper to mushrooms. Mix in crème fraîche and cheese. DO AHEAD: Filling can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill.
Preheat to 400°F. Mound filling atop pastry squares, leaving 1/2-inch plain border.
Bake tarts 20-22 minutes until crusts are puffed and golden and filling is cooked through. Remove from cookie sheet and cut into 4 pieces each with a pizza cutter. Garnish with thyme sprigs.
Boni’s note:
I absolutely LOVE this recipe!! It is easy, it looks amazing, it tastes like you slaved for days, it is so delicious you’ll crave it in the middle of the night, and it freezes like a dream! What’s more to ask for?
 
 
The Map – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat; Think With Your Taste Buds; A Book and A Dish
 
 
…There are plenty of people who have tons of money but it’s never enough…they are never satisfied, never secure and they never feel truly abundant.
There are people who have the spouse, but not the trust, the support, the respect and the ever-deepening love.
There are people who have careers that they thought would make them happy, but they don’t feel free, creative and excited and they aren’t having fun.
The things are not what bring you the essence (the wonderful, positive feeling states).  The essence (the wonderful positive feelings states is what brings you the things…
 
 
By now I’m sure you’re asking yourself, what exactly does this have to do with a Map?  Well, The Map isn’t just any map.  It’s not one that you can use to map out a trip, or is it?  Actually the answer is yes and no.  You won’t find the highway numbers, little towns and cities you’ll travel through nor your mileage distance but you will find your destination and how to get there.  Through following the instructions given in The Map you don’t create your ‘wish’ list you create your ‘intent’ list.  And this goes for everything from relationships to jobs to cars, to travel and to everything in between.   How?  You ask and then believe.  Now that doesn’t mean half-heartedly believe.  You must truly believe.   You must want it strong enough that it is no longer a wish but an intent.  Again, how?  The Map will map the way for you to have what you intend to have simply by following it’s steps and believing in your own self. 
 
 
Does this work?  A couple years ago I wanted to take a trip to Utah.  I lived there a couple years when I was a child and wanted to see if my childhood memories were real or just made up by my mind over the years.  Now, how to I afford a trip like this?  I thought about it and thought about it and became determined, or should I say intent, upon making this trip.  Then it hit me.  I was a smoker for 44 years.  If I quit smoking I could easily afford this trip.  I had tried to quit smoking a hundred times and nothing seemed to work but I was determined to make this trip.  Through my intent to quit smoking and my intent to make this trip I did both!  And in the long run I did even more that made me very happy.  I gave up something that was harmful to my health, I made the trip, I saw relatives that I had not seen in 50 years and will probably never see again, but the biggest accomplishment was that when I became intent on that one trip I proved to myself that I can do and have anything if I really put my mind to it and make it an intent instead of a wish.  So, since reading The Map I’ve ‘mapped’ out other intents that I have all the confidence that I will acquire along the way.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Dragonfly Dreams - Franki deMerle, Author

"Snoqualmie Oatmeal"
(Major's favorite)

Take a bowl of hot oatmeal, cover with brown sugar and fresh blueberries, add butter and milk, stir, and enjoy.


Dragonfly Dreams – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat

‘Shortly before 2:30 AM, Daphne awoke from a vivid dream.  She dreamt she was in Scotland and had just been widowed.  Her husband had been murdered.  It was some distant time in the past, and she was dressed in a long black gown with a stiff white headdress  She could feel the tightness of her corset contrast the softness of her gown’s material on her skin.  Richard was there, but other people in the dream were saying he was responsible for her late husband’s murder.  She was confused and didn’t know what to believe.  She had thought she could trust Richard, but a voice in the dream announced, “During the Protestant Reformation, these sides were divided.”  As she wondered what that meant, Richard captured her and took her against her will to a castle, where he raped her.  Then, when he left her alone with a woman companion to look after her, the two women escaped.  They disguised themselves as men and used bed linens to climb through a window and down the castle wall.  She was terrified.  She and her companion rode across the nearby border to England, where they thought they would be safe.  At first, when they told their story of what had happened, they were given sanctuary by kind people.  But after about a week or so, word came to the household from the authorities that she was to be held as a prisoner again.  She did not understand why.  Then she was told that Richard had also fled Scotland and was also imprisoned, but in another country.’

Daphne Robin and her sister Deandra were both accustomed to strange dreams.  Deandra has dreamed, since childhood, that she was a soldier with lots of brothers.  In her dream she was a man and someone was beating her face in.  Daphne’s dream about Scotland came shortly after her marriage to Richard Gatorman, owner of a construction company as well as Daphne’s boss.  Scotland was a place Daphne had always wanted to go to so when the dream coincided with Richard announcing that they would be honeymooning in Scotland, she let her excitement override the possibility of a warning.  But, Richard had always been the perfect mate.  He was loving, caring and offered her everything she could ever want…so she thought.  The honeymoon would turn out to be the beginning of her seeing the true Richard she had married.  A marriage that she soon realized had been a big mistake.  The only out for Daphne becomes sleep in which her dreams have her flying the skies with a handsome man.  If it weren’t for her dream time she would probably give up on life itself.

Deandra, being an officer in the Army, enlists the help of her friend Major Ursa-Barrios to help Daphne escape the abuse being inflicted by Richard.  Major, as he likes to be called, has had his own dreams over the years.  In his dreams he would help a young lady and falls in love with her.  Could Daphne possibly be the woman in his dream?  Could Major possibly be the man in Daphne’s dreams? 

As Deandra, Daphne and Major come together, they start searching for the answers to their dreams.  Deandra wanting to know who the person getting their face bashed in is and who are the brothers.  Daphne wants to know who the woman in Scotland could be as well as who she soars the skies with.  And Major wants to meet the lady from his dreams.

Franki deMerle has done it again with a book of mystery, love and a certain air of suspense.  The more I read, the more I wanted answers to the character’s dreams but I wasn’t really expecting what the dreams actually turned out to be.

2010
iUniverse
299 pages
ISBN# 978-1-4502-7244-5

 
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