Culinary Adventures with Camilla

  I bought The Italian Villa by Daniela Sacerdoti* because, well, I will read just about anything set in Italy, though I do prefer the Italian title of the book bett er:  I Segreti della Villa in Collina - The Secrets of the House in the Hills. Had I seen that version, I probably would have bought it...and just muddled my way through with my very, very rusty Italian! But, as it was, I was  able to breeze through this novel in a couple of hours. What a great way to start my Sunday morning! On the Page You have to suspend more than a little disbelief to get to the main story. Briefly, Callie DiGiacomo, who lives in San Antonio, Texas was orphaned at 10-years-old and went into the foster care system. On her twenty-first birthday, her former case worker summons her and gives her a letter from an attorney. Long story short: the couple she believed were her parents were actually her adoptive parents; she now knows the name of her birth mother, Malva Stella; and she has inhe...

Murder in the South of France by Susan Kiernan-Lewis* was the first in a series about character Maggie Newberry, an American who heads to France to identify the body of her sister who has purported died from a drug overdose. I blazed through this one in a couple of hours and jumped right in to the second book Murder à la Carte , actually preferring the second to the first. However, after reading these two, I think I'm done with the chick-lit mystery genre for awhile. On the Page image from amazon.com As I already mentioned Maggie heads to France to identify the body of her sister only to discover that she also has a niece about whom no one knew. Maggie makes some rather unbelievable choices and decisions, especially regarding Laurent. The Newberrys seems oddly detached from the death of their daughter Elise even though they end up taking custody of the granddaughter. And the authorities were written as uncaring and incompetent. I think the only thing that kept me ...

This afternoon I bought fresh edible flowers from  MEarth . Fresh calendula has always reminded me of a summer sunset on the beach. So, in keeping with that, I made a salad in shades of red, orange, and yellow.   Ingredients 2 to 3 roasted beets, sliced into wedges (this post explains how to roast beets ) 2 to 3 ripe tomatoes, sliced into wedges petals from 2 to 3 calendula blossoms + a full blossom or two for garnish 1/4 C apple cider vinegar 3/4 C olive oil 1 T ginger syrup freshly ground salt freshly ground pepper also needed: mason jar with lid Procedure Place calendula petals in the bottom of the mason jar.  Pour in vinegar, olive oil, and ginger syrup. Tighten the lid on the jar. Shake to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper.  To assemble, place wedges of beets and tomatoes in a serving bowl. Drizzle a generous amount of vinaigrette over the top. Sprinkle with more salt and pepper, if desired. G...