My sister reminded me that today is Irma Rombauer’s birthday. For those of you who don’t refer to your Joy of Cooking by her name, she is the author of Joy of Cooking, my kitchen dictionary. Irma is also my kitchen diary; following in my mother’s footsteps, I use the back, blank pages to record my annual Christmas baking. It’s not such an impressive list as my mom’s, yet; she used to host enormous open houses throughout the holiday season, and her cookie baking would extend into dozens of batches. But I’m getting there, and we’ll be home for Christmas this year (with my parents visiting!) so there’ll be ample opportunity to add to the list.

Here’s what I’ve baked in the past:

Christmas ’98 (dissertation-writing)
bourbon balls
speculatius
chocolate/almond biscotti
pfeffernusse
lemon butter stars
coconut palm trees
gingerbread men
almond crescents
chocolate crinkle cookies
chocolate/chocolate mint chip cookies
raspberry thumbprints

no record of 1999 (job market) or 2000 (my first married Christmas)

Christmas 2001 (pregnant)
bourbon balls
speculatius
pfeffernusse
lemon cornmeal stars
coconut palm trees
gingersnaps
chocolate crinkle cookies
chocolate glazed toffee bars
raspberry thumbprints

no record of 2002, because we were hospitalized with a very sick baby

Christmas 2003 (21-month old baby)
pneumonia, strep throat, bronchitis and truffles

no record of 2004, as we were packing up the house to renovate

Christmas 2005 (7-month old baby; our house under renovations)
gingerbread men
lemon polenta stars

Christmas 2006 (Ben helping with the baking!)
speculatius
gingerbread men
chocolate crinkle cookies
pistachio-cranberry cookies
chocolate-dipped candied orange peel

Tomorrow, I’ll post the batter-stained recipe to which my Joy of Cooking falls open when I pull the book off the shelf.

I’ve been dying to see my copy ever since Elrena posted about hers (sometimes living on the west coast really tries my patience!) and it has finally arrived, and it is gorgeous. But I didn’t get much time to flip through it before Ben grabbed it out of my hands. “Hey!” he said, delighted. “Now we have the boy version and the girl version! I wonder what there is in here for me?”

“Take a look,” I said, “and see what interests you.”

He found the basketball section, right up front, and studied that a while, then flipped ahead to softball, and looked at how that differs from what he knows about baseball.

Flip, flip… Double Dutch Jump Rope: “Wow, look at that! that’s a cool long rope; I want to try that…”

Flip, flip, flip… Every Girl’s Toolbox, with a pause to look at which of those tools he and Eli have toy versions of, and which Tony has downstairs in his workshop (I do not currently have a toolbox, having deferred household improvement tasks to my more skilled husband. But, I should note that it was my mom who wired my dollhouse with electric lights and continues to wield a screwdriver as easily as a rolling pin, so I was raised properly…)

And finally, flip flip flip… pause, and then in a voice of quiet reverence, “Oh, Mama, look: Volcano Project.” Ben started to read it on his own, then we read it together. We talked about vinegar and baking soda a bit (a combination he’s watched work its magic in the kitchen, when we make soda bread), and then Ben said, “Hey, they should write that this is an activity for outside only.” Indeed, people, let’s keep those volcanoes outside!

Check back next month for my official MotherTalk review; in the meantime, Ben and I will be flip-flip-flipping through the book and embarking on daring projects.

I am still behind on the memes I’ve been tagged for, but this one was easy, ie, requiring little of me in terms of reflection or writing ability. (My apologies, but if you’d seen my email inbox this weekend, you’d understand. Elrena, who tagged me for this one, certainly understands, as she sent me half that email as we were copyediting our book!) Anyway, all that work’s starting to ease up, my brain is starting to re-engage, and I’m reading the most fabulous book. I don’t think I’ll be able to part with it anytime soon, so don’t hold your breath that it’ll turn up in a Pay It Forward Book Exchange; I’m only half-way through, and I know this is one I’m going to start re-reading as soon as I finish.

Here are the rules:
“Open the book you’re currently reading to page 161, and post the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag.”

And here is the sentence, a bit of dialogue between two of the novel’s main characters, Prue Winship, a gin distiller, and her younger sister, Tem; the setting is Brooklyn, late 18th century, just after their father’s death:

“The fires have been cold almost three weeks,” she told Tem, before her sister went off for her evening’s drinking, “Will you help?”

But that’s not the kind of sentence, fine as it is, that makes you run off and buy a book, so here’s another. It would probably be useful to know that Prue Winship, gin distiller, is hoping to build a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan:

“Prue thought if she could bridge the distance between here and the Other Side; if she could build a monument to expiate her sin and her folly, and to embody the love she had borne her parents, who’d crossed over too soon, before she was ripe to understand them; if she might take this wealth of money and skill her father had bequeathed her, and do something with it, for the public good and perhaps to the general wonderment–if all, if any, of these circumstances might come to pass, Will Severn could keep to himself, and Ben could remain in the wilderness, and she could never move a hair’s breadth closer to knowing where the dead resided, yet she would be happy the rest of her days.”

That’s a good sentence.

And now I tag Feed Your Loves, Midlife Mama, Marmee’s Musings, Fertile Ground, and LoveBug and RolleyPolley.

This month’s Pay It Forward Book Exchange winner is Stacey! Thanks to those who entered, and tune in next month for another book.

It’s time again for the Pay It Forward Book Exchange, as started by Overwhelmed with Joy. Here’s how it goes:

1) Once a month I’ll pick a book to give away to one lucky reader (you don’t have to have a blog to enter). It may be a book that I’ve purchased new or used, or it may be a book that someone has shared with me that I really like. It’ll probably be a paperback, just to make things easier, but no guarantees.

2) Details on how you can enter to win will be listed below.

3) If you’re the lucky winner of the book giveaway I ask that you, in turn, host a drawing to give that book away for free to one of your readers, after you’ve had a chance to read it (let’s say, within a month after you’ve received the book). If you mail the book out using the media/book rate that the post office offers it’s pretty inexpensive.

4) If you’re really motivated and want to host your own “Pay It Forward” giveaway at any time, feel free to grab the button above to use on your own blog. Just let her know so she can publish a post plugging your giveaway and directing readers your way!

So there you have it, the Pay It Forward Book Exchange, designed to encourage people to read, to share good books, to possibly get you out of your reading comfort zone, and to get fun stuff in the mail instead of just bills!”

So here’s how to enter: leave a comment saying, “I want to enter.” That’s it. No muss, no fuss. I’ll randomly choose one lucky commenter on October 20th and mail the book out; you agree to give the book away when you’re done with it, via your own Pay It Forward Book Exchange or, if you don’t blog, by donating it to a local library or shelter.

This month’s book: Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee.

I don’t have a whole lot to write about the BOB books because I haven’t read them.

Let me revise that: my 5 ½ year old son has not permitted me to read them.

Let me back up.

When MotherTalk asked for the mothers of beginning readers to review the BOB books, I signed right up. At the time, I had a very bookish boy who was just taking his first tentative steps into independent reading. He would sit quietly with a book in his lap, mouthing the story to himself, occasionally asking for help with a tricky word like “asked” or “science.” Or he would page through a book in bed, often falling asleep with it still clutched in his hands, the cover tipped down over his face.

But in the interval between the call for reviewers and the books arriving on our doorstep, Ben became a quite confident reader, indeed. He was asking for less help, and moving from familiar books (those we’d read over and over–and over–again) to books he knew less well. When the box from Scholastic arrived, I said, “Hey, Ben, these books are really for you! Can you let me know if you like them? I’m supposed to let other parents and teachers know what kids think about these books.”

I opened up the package for him and started to slide one of the books out of its nice box (we love boxed sets of books, like the Nutshell Library and the Bunny Planet; there’s such pleasure in simply easing the book in and out of its spot). But Ben took the whole box out of my hands, protesting, “Those are my books!” True enough.

So here I am, watching my son go all independent on me. This month, he started kindergarten after two years at a co-op preschool. We spent nearly as much time at that preschool as he did; we knew everything about his day. Now, we drop him off at 8:30, pick him up at 2, and rely on his selective memory to learn anything about his day. He surfs the internet, downloading videos of BART trains on YouTube. And now he’s reading on his own.

He opened the box, pulled out a book, and started to read. Then he started to crack up. Then he started reading to his little brother. Eli started laughing, too.

So let me say this about the BOB books: I love them.

Mama Zen wins this month’s Pay It Forward Book Exchange. Tune in again next month for another fabulous giveaway.

It’s rare that I get two nights out in a row, rarer still that I get two such different, such enjoyable booky events in a row, but that’s what I got this past weekend.

First up, a reading from the new Bad Girls anthology at my friend, teacher, and fellow columnist Susan Ito’s house. She always gathers a fabulous group of people, this time many of my fellow Literary Mamas, including Ericka Lutz, Rachel Sarah, Joanne Hartman and Sybil Lockhart. Meanwhile, the Bad Girls themselves are fantastic writers: Ellen Sussman (the book’s editor), Lolly Winston, Mary Roach, and Kim Addonizio all read from their essays, and I’m eager to read the whole book. Following the reading, the writers answered a range of questions; it was interesting to hear Ellen Sussman talk about how her idea of the anthology shifted as she was editing it, as some writers joined up and others, for various reasons, dropped out of the project. And I was interested to hear, as I await cover art for my book, about how many of these writers hate their book covers! Sussman acknowledged that the luscious lips on the Bad Girls cover will probably sell some books — but worries that those same lips might put some readers off.

The next night, a very different, quieter event: a reading by George Saunders at a home in Menlo Park. The hostess, Kimberly Chisholm (another Literary Mama writer; the Bay Area is full of us!) periodically gathers writers together for an informal salon, and I wound up on this lucky guest list due to the good graces of LM columnist and Mama, PhD contributor Jennifer Margulis. Saunders read a story, talked about the different approaches he takes to writing fiction, nonfiction, and humor pieces, told us about trying to find something new to write about Bill Clinton (with whom he recently traveled in Africa), and revealed that even very successful writers sometimes need a bit of encouragement.

I’ve been wondering what to write about Madeleine L’Engle’s death last week. Episcopal Life has a beautiful tribute, as do several of the blogs I read, including Lessons from the Tortoise and As Yet Untitled. I’d just written about L’Engle’s books recently for the Literary Mama Essential Reading list:

Madeleine L’Engle is one of those writers whose books have carried me through a few different stages of life. I loved her Austin family books when I was little, and reread her “Time Trilogy” annually when I was a bit older. I found L’Engle again as an adult, reading her Crosswicks Journal series meditations on faith, family, and marriage, and found a passage from The Irrational Season to read at my wedding.

She was essential reading for me my whole life long, and although our paths never crossed, I feel a bit like I’ve lost one of my grandmothers. I am well comforted by her books, though, and glad that Ben’s of an age that he can enjoy them, too. Time to dig out the Austin family chronicles and start re-reading!

It’s time again for the Pay It Forward Book Exchange, as started by Overwhelmed with Joy. Here’s how it goes:

1) Once a month I’ll pick a book to give away to one lucky reader (you don’t have to have a blog to enter). It may be a book that I’ve purchased new or used, or it may be a book that someone has shared with me that I really like. It’ll probably be a paperback, just to make things easier, but no guarantees.

2) Details on how you can enter to win will be listed below.

3) If you’re the lucky winner of the book giveaway I ask that you, in turn, host a drawing to give that book away for free to one of your readers, after you’ve had a chance to read it (let’s say, within a month after you’ve received the book). If you mail the book out using the media/book rate that the post office offers it’s pretty inexpensive.

4) If you’re really motivated and want to host your own “Pay It Forward” giveaway at any time, feel free to grab the button above to use on your own blog. Just let her know so she can publish a post plugging your giveaway and directing readers your way!

So there you have it, the Pay It Forward Book Exchange, designed to encourage people to read, to share good books, to possibly get you out of your reading comfort zone, and to get fun stuff in the mail instead of just bills!”

So here’s how to enter: leave a comment saying, “I want to enter.” That’s it. No muss, no fuss. I’ll randomly choose one lucky commenter on September 12th and mail the book out; you agree to give the book away when you’re done with it, via your own Pay It Forward Book Exchange or, if you don’t blog, by donating it to a local library or shelter.

This month’s book: How I Learned to Cook and Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships, edited by Margo Perin.