Posted January 19, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Link Up / 8 Comments
This past weekend before a tutoring session at the library, I completed a mission I’ve been looking forward to for weeks: getting out my giant 2016 To Be Read list and hunting down as many books as possible. And I was pretty proud of my efforts! Unfortunately, I’m a combo of slow reader and type-of-reader-who-can-only-read-one-book-at-a-time, so I had to pace myself and only get three. I just keep reminding myself I have all year to read them all, especially since my library has all the ones I want to read most…
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Posted January 12, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Uncategorized / 8 Comments
Howdy, folks! As you know, King Arthur is our January Book of the Month, and I’m loving every minute of working on it. I didn’t pick one specific book version of the Arthurian legends, partially because there are so many…and also partially because I don’t know which is my favorite! I love that there are so many versions of the story. To me, our continued cultural draw to these legends is proof of just how timelessly awesome they are. But which modern versions are the best? In no particular order, here is my completely subjective list of favorite King Arthur retellings:
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Posted June 25, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
Oh, doughnuts. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
- You give me that awesome sugar fix, reminding me that sweet things are of paramount importance.
- You’re so fluffy you make clouds jealous.
- You couldn’t be a better dessert for Tom Sawyer if you tried.
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Posted June 18, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 4 Comments
Here in the Midwest, cornbread is a very serious business, and anyone who comes from a cornbread eating culture will tell you that regional recipe differences are important (i.e. in the south, cornbread is make with white cornmeal and no sugar). So when I set out to find a Missourian cornbread recipe for our Tom Sawyer menu, it had to be authentic. I rounded up a bunch of potential candidates and ran them past my native Missouri friends, who selected this honey cornbread recipe from a restaurant in Branson.
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Posted June 11, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 3 Comments
In so many ways, Tom Sawyer reminds me of Peter Pan. He’s not just a child; he’s childhood. He’s all the good and bad of that stage of life, given shape. He’s Instinct, Whim, Innocence…and more than a little Mischief. Never is this more evident than when he convinces his friends Joe and Huck to run away with him to an island in the middle of the river to become pirates. Smitten with the adventure of such a life, they spend their days eating catfish and searching for buried treasure, thinking little of home.
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Posted June 4, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments
I read Tom Sawyer for the first time this past year. I’m a huge Mark Twain fan, so I wasn’t really surprised when I loved it. I relished Tom’s innocent yet roguish nature and the endless trouble he and Huck always seem to make for themselves. As the quintessential chronicle of golden boyhood summer, I selected Tom Sawyer as our Book of the Month for June.
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