Bookish - The Baker's Companion

Hey Foodies,

I love getting recipe books - I quite like browsing them like you would a magazine.

Allyson Gofton's latest offering The Baker's Companion does not disappoint.

It's a beautiful hard covered book and the images make you feel either like baking immediately and certainly like brewing the kettle and sitting down to some serious eating.

Just after I received it my hubby was scheduled for a work shout so I made a couple of the recipes. Both went down a a treat so I consider that a good advert for the book.

The book has a great general know-how section at the start which is perfect if you have someone wanting to become a proficient baker.

The chapters are Pastry, Tray Bakes/Slices/Brownies, Tea Time Quick Bakes, Biscuits and Baked Puddings (hooray for wintery nights and warm puds), Pavlovas/Meringues, Breads and Yeast Baking.

It's a fabulous hard covered book and would make a great gift, or a gift for yourself if you're a baking type.

Details - Penguin Random House, April 2019 RRP $55.00 HB

love you more than a lemon brownie xxx

Bookish - Saving You

Heya friends,

My book reading this year feels like it has been much curtailed - I guess studying and working will have that effect.

A while ago I finished reading Charlotte Nash's book Saving You.

The premise of the book sounded entertaining 'three escaped pensioners and a single mother trying to rescue her son.'

The book follows Mallory and her estranged from Australia and across the USA. I expected the book to be good holiday reading and I wasn't disappointed. The world Nash creates is colourful and engaging.

What I didn't expect was to get emotionally invested in the story, which I did.

This book is a great read if you have a bit of wanderlust or a soft spot for retirement home dwellers or you've ever wanted to put some history to right (or you like men on motorbikes).

I would happily pick up other novels by the same author.

Details - Hachette NZ, Jan 2019 RRP $29.99

love you more than a stetson hat xxx

Bookish - We Are Displaced

Kia ora

Living in Christchurch, New Zealand has been incredibly sad over the last few weeks. On 15th of March a terrorist entered two mosques in our city and opened fire on people while they worshipped.

The grief and sorrow of this is hard to put into words.

Many of those who lost their lives had come to NZ to make a life at a distance from their original homes, making home on this whenua (land) in our city.

While this was happening I was reading We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafazi with contributions from other refugees from around the world.

The stories in this book are beautiful and painful and hopeful. Now in our history more than ever we must see the humanity and the human stories that are unique and universal to people who have been displaced from their homes by politics, persecution and war.

These are the stories our children must read and that we must position ourselves to hear not just in books and online but in person from those in our communities who have these heartbreaking stories too.

The stories in the book are written as records of different young women and girls who have had to leave their homes and build new lives in different places.

We must see one another not as an 'other' but as a person - with stories and hopes and talents and joys.

This book is an excellent and accessible read and I'll be encouraging many people to read it and enter in to deeper understanding and hopefully to be people who build a more welcoming space in their communities for the richness new people bring.

Details - Hachette NZ, Jan 2019, RRP $34.99

love you more than Dave Dobbyn's song Welcome Home xxx