Showing posts with label family affairs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family affairs. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Island Calls - Teresa Garrido Roberts

 
Salsa
(A Teresa Roberts special)
 
1 Anaheim chili
2 Jalepenos
2 Serrano chilis
1/2 bunch of cilantro
3 cloves of garlic
1 big can of diced tamatoes
handful of salt
1/2 handful of cajun
Put it all in a blender and ready to serve!  I would take out all the seeds - and enjoy!

The Island Calls - Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat & Think With Your Taste Buds - Desserts



‘For a brief period, early in my life, things were wonderful.  When I was very young my family, which consisted of my mom and dad and my three sisters, lived in Northridge, California on Napa Street.  My mother, Nikki Philips, was young and beautiful – she was tall, blonde, slender, and a model at the time.  She had big beautiful blue eyes that grabbed you!  A perfect match for my father.  My father had come to the United States from Guam when he was 17 and still in the Marines, but he was 32 when meet my mom, and his dark good looks contrasted, yet complemented, our mother’s fair complexion.  My father’s name was Felix Montanona Garrido.  I felt lucky to have the parents I had.  My older sisters, Kim and Stephanie, were five and six when I was three.  They had a different father than Peggy and I, as our mother had been married before.  But we were a close family, always looking out for one another.  Peggy, the baby, was a year younger than I.  We lived in an old, two bedroom house with a very large fenced yard.  I felt safe and deeply loved by my family.’
 
Teresa Garrido’s life changed when one day her father left her mother, taking her with him.  He hoped her around from place to place until he apparently decided she would be better off with her mother.  Upon returning her, he made her promise him one thing and that was that she would always take care of her baby sister Peggy.  She made the promise and as life went on, she stepped in to rescue her sister more times than she could count. 
 
Peggy was blonde and fair skinned like her mother whereas Teresa took after her father with dark hair, skin and eyes.  This difference in looks caused problems for Teresa throughout her school years with kids calling her names and wanting to know where she came from.  Peggy was well accepted due to her beauty and trusting nature, which brought major problems when it came to men.  Even as a child, she was the target for pedophiles.  It became Teresa’s job to watch her constantly, as she had promised her dad.
 
Teresa loved her father and knew that one day he would come back for her but as the years went on and no dad she quit getting her hopes up.  Then the day came that she found out her dad was dead and had actually been murdered.  This started Teresa’s search for the truth about what really happened to her father. 
 
Searching for the truth opened doors that some would say should never have been opened, but after reading The Island Calls, I think I can understand the need for closure that Teresa Garrido Roberts may have never found otherwise.  I have to praise her for the bravery and persistence she showed throughout her life.  The Island Calls is a very involving story and knowing that it was real and not fiction made it even more so.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Renaissance - Sarah Tate, Author



Low Fat Chicken Curry
(A specialty of Sarah Tate)

Makes 2 servings
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 birds eye chilli
1 thumb ginger
2 chicken breasts
2 tbsp fat free yogurt
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
½ tsp garam masala
1 tin tomatoes
1 tsp vegetable oil


peel the onion, garlic and ginger. chop the top off the chilli but leave the seeds in. put onion, garlic, ginger and chilli in magimix and whizz until finely chopped. Place half the onion mix in a bowl and mix in the yogurt. Cube the chicken and add to the yogurt mixture. Leave for 1/2 hour.
Meanwhile, in an oven proof saucepan heat smallest amount of oil you dare and add the rest of the onion mixture. Fry gently for 3 mins, stirring now and again. Add all the spices and salt. In the
magimix (no need to clean after onions) whizz the tomatoes. Add the tomatoes to the pan and cook on lowest heat uncovered for 1/2 hour.
Add the chicken and yogurt to saucepan stir and cover. Cook in preheated oven (180'c) for 40 mins. Thats it. Serve with rice.

Sarah Tate


Renaissance – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat and Think With Your Taste Buds – Desserts
 
‘My marriage had just fallen apart.  It wasn’t like I didn’t see it coming.  So why was I in complete and utter shock?  The warning signs had been blasting out at me in fanfare for the past…oooooh, six years, or so?  Why the hell didn’t I hear them.  What was wrong with me that I ignored it all for so long?  It was a hell of a wake-up call, discovering my fifty-four year old husband having cyber-sex with a twenty-four year old girl he’d met online.  I suppose I should be grateful to her in a way.  She gave me the shove I needed to finally take action and end a marriage that had been dead in the water practically from day one, if I’m honest.  But I hadn’t expected the tirade of emotions that would come when I finally discovered that it was him, and not me, who had gone astray.  Even until the very end, I had always (stupidly) believed he really did love me.  OK, I know, he had a funny way of showing it.  It’s one thing to make a declaration (or in his case, millions of declarations) of love.  It’s quite another to actually mean what you say and follow your words with honest and genuine actions.
 
Sarah Tate found herself in a position that so many other women (and some men) find themselves in and struggle to survive through.  Some make it and some fail.  Sarah was one of the lucky ones who simply wouldn’t give up.  What is Sarah’s problem?  She is ending her marriage to the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with.  But to her surprise, she will not only have the responsibility to support and care for their 3 children but she will also be left with bills, taxes and commitments that he acquired by using her name.  So the struggle begins and so do the side-effects. 
 
In her book Web of Lies – My Life with a Narcissist, Sarah Tate opens her life to the world as she goes through an emotional roller-coaster with her husband Bill.  She becomes aware that he really isn’t the person she met, fell in love and started a family with.  In Renaissance she takes us, in detail, through the two year struggle to keep her own sanity as well as create some sort of normalcy within the lives of her three children.  A lot of this even takes place while still in the marital home with the husband living in the basement.  She takes you through the trials experienced as she breaks free from the toxic relationship that has threatened so many times to take her under.  The problems experienced while trying to explain to her two oldest daughters as to why their daddy isn’t in the home and why he doesn’t bother to visit.  She explains the importance of support not only through family but through friends and even therapy.  She takes us through the 5 steps to recovery – Euphoria, Disquiet, Denial, Despair and finally Release. 
 
In today’s time, the divorce stats are tremendously high and getting higher every day.  As I read Renaissance, I found myself relating to so many of Sarah’s problems and feelings of helplessness.  Whether you are or were married to a narcissist or not, I feel that just about anyone, male or female, can find something in common with Sarah and hopefully through reading Renaissance you will be able to see that you are or were not alone in your struggle and that her strength will help you to make the right choices for your own situation.
 
319 pages
2011
ISBN# 978-1456388171
 

Sunday, May 29, 2011

A Love Rekindled - Myne Whitman, Author

 
Banga Soup
  (mentioned in A Love Rekindled and
  a favorite of Myne Whitman)
 
Ingredients for a Party of 10
Beef ( 10 medium pieces cooked)
Smoked fish - Deboned ( 2 medium size) 
Frozen Fish (1 Large size)
Crayfish 4 Tspns, Habanero Pepper (3 Medium size), and One Large red Onion (Blend together)Bitter Leaf ( 2 bunches fresh or 2 packs frozen) *chopped and cleaned*
Cocoyam Flour paste
Palm Oil or Palm nut paste (1/2CUP)
Knor or Maggi Seasoning ( 2 cubes)
Local Spices and Salt to taste
Directions:
  • In a large pot, combine the pre-cooked Beef and Smoked fish. Add in 1 cup water, then add in the palm oil, blended peppers, onions and crayfish. Cook on high heat until it starts to boil.
  • Add in the Cocoyam Paste, Knorr seasoning, salt and local spices. Reduce heat and simmer for 10mins.
  • Add in the bitterleaf and frozen fish. Stir and taste for seasoning. Simmer for another 10 mins. 
  • Stir and remove from heat.
  •  
A Love Rekindled – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat
 
‘Jane and Joan’s sobs mingled, and they ran out of the room, tears gushing down their cheeks.  Ovie came in soon after.  “What is this I hear?  I saw the twins on my way here.”  “Kevwe may have broken up with Efe…”  Efe looked up to her.  “Is there any doubt about it?  His father told me.  I’d been hoping he would call, but he hasn’t.”  “So he couldn’t face you to tell you himself?”  Ovie demanded as she sat.  “I saw him today, and he wouldn’t talk to me too…”  “You saw Kevwe, today?”  Efe sat straight. Time seemed to move in slow motion, and she felt dizzy for a while.  “Yes.  On my way to First Bank, I saw him at UBA Akpakpava, near the roundabout.  When I said hi, he ignored me.  Maybe he thought I knew about the break-up…”  “Are you sure it was him you saw?”  Efe clutched her chest.  The ache in her pounding heart was real.  “I’m sure.  You know how I complain about his habit of  jangling his keys all the time as if he’s the only one who has a car.  It was the sound that caught my attention, and he was with another girl.”  Efe stopped thinking, her breathing also seemed to cease.  All the blood in every single part of her body drained to her heart, making it expand, and it pushed against her ribs as if to burst loose.  Efe sprang out of bed, screaming in fear.’
 
Efe Sagay grew up and went to school in Nigeria.  While attending school she met the love of her life, her soul mate, the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with…Kevwe Mukoro.  And the feelings were duplicated by Kevwe.  As soon as Efe graduated, they would be married.  This was the dream and this was the plan.
 
But real life doesn’t always see things the way we do.  The perfect future can always be destroyed by unforeseen circumstances.  In Efe and Kevwe’s case, one of their biggest obstacles came in the form of his father.  Nigeria is made up of tribes and with the tribal wars that had been going on for years sometimes lead to hate between the different tribe members.  This was the case with Kevwe’s father when he found that Efe was from the tribe he hated the most.  He was determined that there would be no way Efe and Kevwe would ever marry.  And with the events that followed the announcement of  their engagement, he may have gotten his wish.  Through deceit on his part, the couple separated with Efe going to America to finish her education and Kevwe putting his life into the company he had started. 
 
But then again, fate steps in and seven years later the couple will meet again.  Can they rekindle what was so perfect for them?  Will family again put a stop to their relationship?  Or has there just been too much time lost for them to reunite?
 
A Love Rekindled is a beautiful story of true, 100% love.  The hardships and heartbreaks that were bestowed upon Efe and Kevwe are heart wrenching.  And their struggles to understand and accept what happened to them and what will become of them is painful as well as healing.  This is one great story of complete love.
 
2011
ISBN# 978-1456516864
 

 
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