From My Margins: July 11

Faeries in a frozen landscape can make July heat charming and refreshing

We had an exhausting weekend with family in town. I still feel like I’m recovering from that. At work, we’re putting together the final details for our big live show next week, so I’m swamped there as well. It’s been a delight to escape into fiction in the tiny pockets of time I’ve found between things.

If You Only Have Time for One Thing:

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (4 stars)

Ages ago on a Ringer podcast, Joanna Robinson (who is one of my favorite pop culture critics) recommended this book. I take Joanna’s recommendations seriously with good reason.

I found this fantasy story about Emily Wilde, dryadologist and Cambridge professor, so charming. Emily heads to a northern country in pursuit of completing her research for an encyclopaedia of faeries. Of course, once there, she stumbles into a story of her own. This was an easy read that was neither too dark nor too twee. It was well balanced and I enjoyed the characters.

So much of the fantasy I’ve read in the past few years has been complex with lots of details and world-building. This was a nice change of pace in that it didn’t require me to remember a lot of specific rules of the world or dozens of different characters. A great summer read - particularly since so much of it takes place in a frozen landscape. Reading about snow in 95 degree weather is a specific pleasure.

Reading:

The Puzzle Box by Danielle Trussoni (3 stars)

I popped over to the library last week to grab a few books for the weekend and snagged this one off the new release shelf on a whim. I did not realize it’s the second in a series about genius puzzle master Mike Brink until I had already started it and wanted to keep going. In this installation, Brink is called upon to solve the mysterious Japanese Dragon Box and reveal its long-held secrets.

This didn’t blow me away, but I enjoyed it and now will go back and read the first installation, The Puzzle Master. If you liked The Da Vinci Code or books by Steve Berry or other novels that weave real history with fictional puzzles and legends, then you’ll enjoy this.

Watching:

We watched basically nothing this week since we had family in town. We did watch the wedding episode of The Bear; I’m still holding all my thoughts about that show until we see the entire season. We also made it a couple episodes closer to the end of the Top Chef season since I am on the clock before I see

Danielle Adair

next week!

Cooking:

With family in town, I rolled out a few new things and a few standards.

• Spicy Citrus Refresher - It was fun to let the kids juice all the citrus for this, even though they were in bed before we actually drank any of it. This had just the right hint of spice to make it interesting and could easily be made without the rum for a mocktail. Really refreshing for a hot summer night.

• Copycat Chipotle Guacamole - This is my go-to guac recipe. I chop and serve the red onion separately since I don’t like a lot of it in my guac, but Kevin likes a ton. That way, we can each add it to our preferences. We had a giant bowl of this for dinner on Sunday night after our houseguests left.

• Paula Deen’s Banana Pudding - Living in the South for over a decade has won me over to banana pudding. This is my favorite recipe, even if it isn’t a truly traditional one. However, it’s Paula Deen, so who can argue with its Southern cred? None of our northern guests were interested in it, so most of the pan ended up going to our neighbors, who all loved it, as do I.

On the Docket:

We’re hoping to have a relatively quiet weekend, but we’ll see if that actually comes to fruition. Next week/end, I’m in Cincinnati for the

Pantsuit Politics

10th Birthday show and Executive Producer retreat. That will keep me from doing too much, but I am very much looking forward to having a hotel room to myself for 3 nights.

How are you escaping the summer heat?