currently reading

source

With our sun room open for the season, I find myself spending nearly every evening in there, watching the sunset through the trees, soaking up the warmth that was trapped in the room during the day, opening all the windows and letting the breeze flow through. It really is every bit as good as it sounds. When Tim watches 30 Rock or How It's Made on Netflix, I no longer watch; I listen from the sun room. I just can't pull myself away.

Most of the time when I'm in the sun room, I'm reading - magazines, books, and (until my little Macbook crashed and burned a couple days ago) blogs. Last week, I worked through a stack of foodie magazines from the library, and this week I started a most phenomenal book, "Dinner: A Love Story" by Jenny Rosenstrach. I can't even remember how I stumbled upon this book, probably from a blog. But at some point in time I had it earmarked as a book I should read = good idea. It's a witty and delicious memoir-turned-cookbook that is well written, practical, and focuses on the importance of sitting down for dinner together as a family. I find myself resisting the urge to dog ear every single recipe that scattered throughout the book since the library probably wouldn't approve of the bent pages.

It's also inspired me to keep a dinner diary (which Jenny has done since 1998) of my own because, like she says in the book, half the battle of cooking is figuring out what to cook. And when you have an easy-to-please husband like mine, I usually don't get much direction when I ask, "Any food requests this week?" And although he can appreciate a good and well-prepared meal when he sees one, he honestly would be happy with Ramen and hot dogs every week, and that's just not gonna happen. But with a dinner diary, I could look back and see what we've had in the past and get ideas through that. Love it. Let's just say that this book will definitely be going my Christmas list this year.