Five Keys

We were out to dinner at a nice restaurant with a good cocktail bar, and we opted to pass on a cocktail there and have one at home instead. The $60-75 saved could be invested in specialty ingredients, like the unusual Cynar found in this cocktail! Five Keys 1.5 oz bourbon .25 oz luxardo .25 oz Cynar .75 oz sweet vermouth Stir with ice, strain into coupes To quote my spouse, who makes all the cocktails in my house: "This is one of the most delicious cocktails I’ve made this year; perfectly balanced; a keeper!"

Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

This is a medical based memoir focused on the history of tuberculosis and the author's personal experiences with people who are infected with it. On the one hand this seems wildly different from his enormously popular YA books, which are fiction and then again, I think, they contain characters who struggle with substance use, mental health issues, cancer, and death, so maybe not that different at all. He is a talented story teller, and the short but accurate reflection on tuberculosis past and present, as well as the challenges that are faced in addressing the illness are well and accurately described, as are the health discrepancies across the globe. This is a guy who can make you cry for a good reason--I cried through much of the second half of The Fault In Our Stars, it so accurately captured my fears as a parent of a childhood cancer survivor. He gets it and he can write about it, and this book grabs you in a similar way. He makes a case for science, which is not currently popular nor funded, but hopefully that tide will turn and we will once again embrace fact based solutions to difficult problems. In the meantime, this book will help inform your thinking.

Art Quilt Workbook: Exercises & Techniques to Ignite Your Creativity by Jane Davila and Elin Waterston

This is a great How To book about how to move your creative side as an artist towards making fiber arts. I took a collage class with Lisa Thorpe at the Minnesota Quilters retreat and there is a section of this book that totally applies to this. There is information about copyright and how to avoid violating it in your work, which I have not seen much in books related to quilting. This is more about the art than the quilting. There is no instruction on how to piece or sew contained within it, it is all about making your art on fiber--so painting on fabric, dying fabric, printing on fabric, and how to put it all together--with examples from the both of the author's own works--which are very different from each other, so very helpful in the visualization of how it would translate depending on the artist. Recommended if this is a direction you want your quilting to take!

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

I saw this on a "Best Books" list for 2025, and I had just finished reading a fictionalized account of the smuggling of Doctor Zhivago back into Russia earlier in the Cold War and thought this was related to that mission. And in some ways it is, but whereas that happened at the front end of the Cold War, this book is focused on things that happened closer to when the Berlin Wall came down rather than when it went up. This is a well researched and very readable book about the CIA operation codenamed QRHELPFUL. Solzhenitsyn was most often smuggled, but he was far from being the only author whose works the CIA snuck into Soviet block countries. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm were probably the most popular among the dissidents the books were intended for, but a wide range of other authors including Adam Mickiewicz, Albert Camus, Nadezhda Mandelstam and even Agatha Christie also featured on the QRHELPFUL book list. The inspiration behind the scheme was a charming-sounding CIA boss called George Minden, who believed that the freedom to read good literature was as important as any other form of freedom. During most of the 1980s the CIA was run by a rather tiresome, boisterous adventurer called Bill Casey, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981. It was under him that Minden was able to pump books, photocopiers and even printing presses into the Soviet empire. They helped to keep people there in touch with precisely the kind of western culture the high priests of Marxism-Leninism wanted to block out. This was especially true in Poland, which is English’s main focus. Poles never forgot that their country was essentially part of western Europe, and the flow of French, British and American literature in particular was an important part of keeping that awareness going, and that it helped fuel the effort to re-establish independence. This is an interesting read about behind the scenes efforts to educate people.

Bar Hill, Montpelier, Vermont

Bar Hill makes award winning gin, and they have the unique starting ingredient of honey as the source of fermented sugar. They started off in the Northeast Kingdom, a rural part of the state, even by Vermont standards, but with success they expanded their operation and are now located in a facility of thier own making on Gin Lane on the outskirts of town in Montpelier. There is a restaurant, craft cocktail bar, and most appealing to us, a tasting room. We very much enjoyed tasting the variety of gin and vodka products they make, and because we were flying and hoping not to check bags, they have 100cc bottles available to take home in a carry on bag. The facility is as lovely as what they make and I would recommend adding this as a stop if you are in central Vermont or driving through. It is easy to get to off I-89 and well worth it. Montpelier has a lot to offer besides Bar Hill, and is also recommended. The independent bookstore, Bear Pond Books, was featured in a recent New York Times article on independent book stores and the resident animals they have--in addition to books, there is a store cat as well.

Wellness by Nathan Hill

This is a winner that was recommended to me by a friend while we were on a wild adventure in Argentina. She is also the source of the recommended podcasts from Parnassus books each week, for which I will be forever grateful she turned me on to. What a jewel that is! Ok, I read a review of this which called it a tale of the tragicomic maladies of marriage, which is a bit funny and very true. However, I see it more of an exaggerated account of the baggage that each member of the couple brings into their relationship from their families of origin, and how they form a team and try to avoid those exact mistakes onto their offspring, thereby creating their own set of issues to be passed on through their children to their grandchildren, and so on. Jack and Elizabeth meet as students in 1990s Chicago. They live in neighboring buildings and, at night, watch one another through dark windows, imagining themselves into each other’s lives long before actual intimacy occurs. This courtship through glass can’t help but have the aura of a scientific experiment – and scientific experiments are Elizabeth’s area. She works at a lab that specializes in placebo studies, exploring the porous border between real and imagined remedies. The organization is known by the name “Wellness”--which is not what it is about, we come to find out. It is more about manipulation, which is at the heart of this. Jack and Elizabeth come from families with a malignant dose of it--her father and his mother--and it leaves them damaged, so much so that they feel lucky to find each other. They then have to figure out how to make the whole thing work, and it is a messy story about how they manage that.

A Nice Indian Boy (2025)

This is a nice boy meets boy love story. Naveen and Jay are perfect for each other. There are hiccups but it is a straight up romantic comedy other than the couple aren't straight. The movie opens with Naveen's sister's semi-arranged marriage--his parents, who are themselves in an arranged marriage are over hte moon--the groom is a doctor! All eyes are on Naveem--you are next is oft heard, and it is painful for him, because not only is he not dating, he is exceedingly awkward and he is gay, which his paretns know but are a bit prickly about. They don't quite get him. Then miracle of miracles he meets Jay. At temple no less. They are big fans of Ganesh. Yes, Jay is white, but he was raised by an Indian foster family who he adored, and he speaks Hindi. There are some ups and downs, as you would expect in a romantic comedy--one must have comedy, after all, and a lot of things are said out loud that are well worth hearing so if you have some gay averse family members this is a pretty G-rated way to normalize what is altogether normal for them. And there is some light weight Bollywood love at the end that is fun.

Run For The Hills by Kevin Wilson

I have only read one other book by this author but it shared characteristics with this one, making me think that it might be how this author rolls. It’s wacky and full of heart, but in between each laugh I felt the very sad back beat of who is family and why do they so often fail their children in the most basic of ways. It is also a story of family and the many shapes it can take, but it is also much more, asking why the ones who leave and the ones who lie are always the epicenter, always the focal point. The book opens with Mad, an organic farmer in her thirties, is resigned to her solitary lifestyle on her farm that her father left behind. One day her quiet and predictable life is interrupted by her newly discovered half brother, Rube, showing up at her farm. Rube is at once soft and jagged, desperate and pleading, reaching out a hand for Mad to reluctantly take. He shows up with stories of his father, same name as Mad’s dad but an entirely different man—a writer from Boston, whereas the only father Mad ever knew was a farmer in Tennessee. He convinces her to go on a road trip to find their other half siblings and their disappearing father, and what they learn along the way is a lesson for all of us. Really enjoyable and not nearly as light and fluffy as it appears.

Rhetoric On The Right: The Embracing of Opposite Day

An outspoken advocate for gun ownership was shot and killed at a speaking event on September 11th. Would he be okay with that? In 2023, following a mass shooting at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, he stated, per Newsweek, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” The trade off for gun access and gun deaths is that people will die--and it can't always be other people, can it? In the US about 50,000 people die by guns every year, so "some" is a pretty big number. He was not advocating for the shooting of children, who are more likely to die from gun violence than any other cause, so it seems he accepted the risk, maybe better than those who advocate for more controls on guns. In the aftermath of the shooting death of a man who was known as a spokesman for widespread gun ownership in this country, there is a focus on the politics of advocating violence. The right wants to advocate violence against anyone who disagrees with them, and to vilify those who speak out against them. The current President uses a lot of violent rhetoric when talking about his opponents, and the very same week that Mr. Kirk was killed at a public event, he was threatening war on the city of Chicago. That is violent speech and imagery. Then I hear GOP politicians calling out the left--without attribution of source--for inciting violence. "Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people, but their ideology is pure evil,” Representative Bob Onder, Republican of Missouri, said on Thursday in a speech on the House floor. “They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false, and the ugly.” Calling people well-meaning but evil none-the-less because they disagree with you is what is bad, false, and ugly. Half of America doesn't agree with you, afterall, and that alone does not make them evil. It is that rhetoric, which incites strong feelings, which can lead to violence. So who is it inciting violence in acutality? Seems like the right--look in the mirror if you want to see the problem, Congressman Onder.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

This is another of the Parnassus Book recommendations that I have followed (spoiler alert--I have become fairly addicted to watching these, and have folded a number of their recommendations in to my reading rotation. The book is dedicated to Gore Vidal and is set in 1962, just after the Cuban missile crisis, and describes a day (with some flashing about in time) in the life of George Falconer, a 58-year-old expat Englishman who is living in Santa Monica and teaching at a university in LA, just as Isherwood did. The narrative is edgy, subtle, and controlled, with chasms of buried rage. George has recently lost his partner, Jim, in a car crash, and is struggling with bereavement. He tries to make a connection to the world around him, while denying his predicament as a widower. We see him go through the motions of everyday life: teaching a class, fighting with his neighbors, working out at the gym, shopping at a supermarket, drinking with an older woman friend, flirting intellectually with a young student – before fading out on the final page. As a study of grief and a portrait of the aftermath of a gay marriage, A Single Man is unique, brilliant, and deeply moving, with not a word wasted, saying so much with so little. There is an autobiographical component to this, and the editor of the author's diaries notes that there is a lot of material lifted almost word for word from them. Published in 1964, it was a window into a world that few straight readers would have been familiar with at the time.

Last Christmas (2022)

In the genre of classic Christmas movies, this fails miserably--however it is still worth watching if you need a line up of slightly quirky romantic comedies with the holiday aura about them. I was lured in by Emma Thompson and Michele Yeoh being in it to think it might be elevated above that but it was not. It was appealing in the cookie cutter British light fare sort of way. Based on the song by Wham! the movie tells the story of George Michael-obsessed, former Yugoslavian 26-year-old Kate, a a screw up whose foibles are more annoying than catastrophic. She works in an an all-year-round Christmas store in Covent Garden dressed as an elf, even when she is off the clock sometimes. This minimum wage job is not her dream--she really wants to be a professional singer, without training and while she is sort of homeless and lives on whatever couch she can find. She avoids her concerned mother, exhausts her beleaguered boss, frustrates her ever-decreasing circle of friends and drifts about while struggling to make anything substantial last. We do find out why that might be in the gradual reveal. But then while dusting Christmas decorations, she spots a handsome stranger (Henry Golding) staring at a bird. After the pair start to fall for each other and go on a number of saunters around the city, Kate is feeling a bit hooked but he is giving off a differenct vibe.Why? An why does he keep disappearing on her? All will be revealed.

Audition by Katie Kitamura

I put this on my library hold list because it was longlisted for the Booker Prize, but I also would have been intrigued because the other book by her that I have read is Intimacies, which tells the story of an interpreter at the Hague who comes to feel that she is the mouth piece for a war criminal that she is interpreting for. in this one, an aging an actress is confronted by a young man who claims to be her son, and though this cannot possibly be the case or can it, we never quite can figure it out. She invites him to live with her and her husband in their apartment as their child, which is bit shocking. If it were my child I would help them with the rend some place, not put them under my roof. But then we wouldn't have the crucial irritant to work with in the story. What could go wrong? Just about everything. These narrators take the most dramatic events in stride and devote most of their attention to minute observation of the people around them, noting the smallest gestures and contemplating their possible meanings. They are not given to outbursts of emotion, and in conversation they tend to listen more than talk. This leaves room for the reader to internally reflect as well, and the result for me was intense and a little startling.

Puerto 511, Baltimore, Maryland

This is a restaurant that you would not find if you were not looking for it. There is almost no curbside appeal and less signage--but it is a special place rather than something deserving of it's hiding spot. We were introduced to it by my SIL who picked it for our son's birthday dinner. It turns out that Little Donna's the night before was a better fit for him, but the rest of us loved this.

It is a fixed price menu of Peruvian food. They do not have a liquor license, so it is BYOB and they will open your wine and give you glasses for a corkage fee per person, but even better, bring your own pisco and they will make you excellent pisco sours. The food is surf and turf--but if you on;y eat seafood, they will sub that in for you. My spouse rhapsodized on the merits of the veal heart dish, but I was just as happy to skip that in favor of a tuna dish. I would definitely recommend this and go back on a return trip to Baltmore.

So We Read On by Maureen Corrigan

I picked this up because it was a Friday "If You Haven't Read This It Is New To You" series recommendation from Parnassus Books (if you are unfamiliar with these short format videos about books that are worthy, not current but in print, and that you might have missed but shouldn't have, they are well worth watching--try not to get overwhelmed though because I am a pretty intense reader and I can not keep up with these and I have not read most of them). Ann Patchett encourages everyone to read The Great Gatsby again if you have not read it since high school, and then read this as a companion. The author teaches a class at the college level about Gatsby, and this is a great reflection on both Fitzgerald as well as his classic novel and I would definitely recommend this, especially if you are interested in how we look at our country and our history.

Persuation (2022)

Ok, there are so many interpretations of this book specifically and Jane Austen in general that it is hard to know which I like best--the Regency steeped ones or the modern versions. This one is kind of a mash up of the two. Set in the original times period, but with decidedly modern asides. This is a thoroughly charming portrayal of Anne Elliot.She drinks red wine straight from the bottle, is seen crying in the tub and lying around in bed, narrating her romantic woes with a familiar, self-effacing wit. She also repeatedly breaks the fourth wall with an amusingly dry aside or a well-timed eye roll. Anne jokes that she’s “thriving,” and clearly she is anything but, but she’s so winning in her state of loss that we can’t help but root for her. Her plight is that the love of her life, Frederick Wentworth, was penniless when they first met, about to set sail on a Navy ship, and Ann's up tight, society obsessed family convinced her that she should give him up--which she did and eight years later she regrets that choice every single day. Then, as luck would have it, they meet up again, and now he is a rich man, all while her own family's fortune is waning--but does she tell him how she feels? Does he tell her he carries a torch for her? No, of course not, so we all have to watch them miss each other time and time again. Not terribly satisfying, but Ann is great and so in the end, I recommend this.

Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang

I started this because it is a debut novel, and to get my Goodreads ribbon in this category, I chose this one. This book is a somewhat jaded look at what it is to be an influencer--I think it is well written and insightful--my rating is more related to my profound lack of interest in that dimension of the modern world rather than a reflection on the writing or story telling. The story follows Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier, as she assumes the influencer lifestyle of her deceased identical twin sister, Chloe Van Huusen. Though twins, the two were separated at a young age as their birth parents died in a car crash; Chloe was adopted by wealthy white parents from New York City, leaving Julie to be raised by her aunt who is straight out of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Since their parents’ death, the twins have only met once in person. Given Chloe’s soaring popularity online, it is unsurprising that their reunion was completely staged for a YouTube video, earning Chloe tens of thousands of dollars. For Julie, who comes from more modest circumstances, this day was more about being used than loved and did not serve to make them friends much less siblings. Then Julie cannot reach Chloe for quite some time and ends up going to her apartment and finding her dead. Julie sees an opportunity to ditch her hum drum and financially unrewarding life to assume Chloe's and she gets to see how the influencer lives--which is not as glamorous as it might first appear.

Little Donnas, Baltimore, Maryland

I heard about this in a somewhat round about way. The New York Times did a review of "50 Restaurants We Are Excited About" in 2023 and a favorite restaurant in my home town, The Webster, was on that list. When it came out we went to another restaurant on the same list in Minneapolis that we loved and while I was looking it up to recommend it, and I saw this one. We were headed to Baltimore a few days later, and I looked to see if they had a reservation for five, and lo and behold, they did.

It was a lucky break because we all loved it. They have a tavern pizza, which won my son over, but for us the seafood was the key. They are famous for their pierogis, which were good, but we had a tuna crudo that was out of this world, a couple of vegetable forward dishes that were delicious and a chrimp dish that I loved as well. The atmosphere is very funky, as it the neighborhood, and it is reasonably priced as well. I would definitely go here again.

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church

Spoiler alert--if you have been paying attention at all, there is nothing in here that is ground breaking. Shocking, yes. The depth of the corruption and how it has infiltrated our government and the governments of Europe is well laid out but on reflection, not surprising. The first thing to note about Opus is the tremendous amount of research that went into the project. This involved serious attention to many published works on the prelature, personal interviews with present and former members of Opus Dei (including significant leadership figures), and archival research materials. The resources are fully a quarter of the pages of the book. Some things I didn't know were that Opus Dei was founded in 1928 to be an association of mostly lay Catholics who would seek holiness through their daily activities and secular jobs. Most members are supernumeraries, which means they can be married and live independently, in their own homes; others are numeraries, making a promise of celibacy and living in Opus Dei centers in the community. The author started to investigate them because he was interested in the collapse of a Spanish bank in 2027--but it turned out that was literally the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the influence the group wields, and how Pope Francis was not under their sway being the sole bright light within. The author structures his book around three complementary narratives: one financial, one political and one ecclesial. He is on the strongest ground with following the money, and then where that leads in terms of political influence. It is pretty awful and demonstrates that we are very far from a separation of church and state.

Penguin Lessons (2025)

The director of this movie was also the director of The Full Monty, and if you are looking for something similar, you will be disappointed--but if you are looking for a quiet indie film that has some really awful things going on in hte background but that does not deal with that ugliness head on, you might enjoy this--I did. The movie features a mentally checked-out teacher named Michell at a boys’ private school in Buenos Aires, Argentina--we do not find out until much later what it was that happened to him that left him so damaged, but it is there. It all starts to shift a bit for him when he finds a Magellanic penguin on the beach in Uruguay, cleans him up, and the penguin is quite imprinted on him, and he reluctantly brings it home with him. The penguin helps him to segue back into the land of empathy and compassion, a place he has been disconnected from for an untold amount of time. Unfortunately, he is working in Argentina in the time when a right-wing military dictatorship takes over the country and is kidnapping people on the street and disappearing them. Sounds impossible but that is also happening right now in the United States, so never forget. This does not dealve too deeply into those waters, but does end with the sobering statistics on how widespread the kidnapping, torture and murder was and how many people suffered. I was in Buenos Aires earlier this year, and there are many doorsteps throughout the city marking homes where people disappeared and who they were--never foget.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

I learned about this book from a Friday episode of :If You Haven't Read This It Is New To You" from Parnassus Books--this weekly video clip recommends books that you might have missed when they came out that you should have read and why. The description of this is that it is messy, and I would certainly agree with that assessment! There are shades of Sally Rooney to be sure--less graphic sex but the same kinds of people who struggle with what to do and why to do it in their twenties, as well as the more fluid definitions of social support that extend beyond family. the author author who comes to mind in Anne Tyler, with her evocative portrayals of her character's inner lives. I liked this a lot. The book opens with Rachel Murray as a happily married, pregnant journalist based in present-day London, where she’s written extensively about the legalization of abortion in her native Republic of Ireland. Flashback to 2010, when she is an undergraduate, struggling to figure out a path for herself, and finding herself in a friendship with James, a young gay man that is her absolute best support. Ireland is in the midst of recovering from an economic setback, the social landscape in Ireland is shifting rapidly, and while she doesn't quite know what to do with her life or how she fits in, she does know who she can rely upon in times of crisis. She and James share a mutual infatuation with an older married man, and while James wins out in that situation, there are quite a few downstream complications that add an element of humor and fun to Rachel's figuring it all out and getting on with it in her thirties.

Dim Sum Palace, Catonsville, Maryland

Dim sum is a cuisine that we all really like, so when we went to Baltimore for our son's birthday weekend this was on the list of places to make time to have a lunch at. My nephew, who lived in China for several years, gave a thumbs up from a previous visit, so it had a seal of approval as well. The restaurant opens at 11AM and the rule of thumb is that you need to be there before it opens or soon thereafter. We were not so on top of it, but a luck would have it, we were a party of 5 and the large tables had yet to fill up, and we were seated immediately. There is a menu that you can order off, but we chose to eat off the roving trolleys, and the food was delicious--the crowd favorite was the Chinese broccoli, which was cooked perfectly with some tooth feel left but cooked through and with a delicious sauce. My next up was the shrimp and scallop shi mei, which we had one left over of and I wish we had gotten more to go. The scallion pancake around a shrimp was the next favorite for some, and I did enjoy the salt and pepper calamari, but wouldn't get it unless there are at least 4 diners, as it is both a large portion and filling. We would 100% make a effort to go back, and when we left 45 mintures after arriving there were dozens of people waiting for tables.

Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall

Well, the country is quite broken right now, so the title stands out for it's accuracy, and the stories told within are of people who are also struggling mightily. Beth had big dreams as a teenager. She was in love with Gabriel, who encouraged her to reach for the stars, and she was on course to go to Oxford and fulfill her dreams of writing. It was all set off course by Gabriel, a misunderstanding, and his mother, who did and didn't do her part, and Beth decided to marry someone else from her class, a man who had loved her for years. Beth and Frank lead a fulfilling life. They love each other and work alongside each other, along with Frank’s volatile brother Jimmy, on the Blakely family farm in Dorset. They had a son soon after they were married, and he died in a tragic accident that both Frank and Beth blame on Frank. Enter Gabriel, returned from years away, on the verge of a divorce, with a son about the age that Beth's would have been, and it is all over for Beth. A love triangle develops for all to see, and it ends tragically. As with all tragedy's, you can see this one coming from a mile away, but there is no stopping it and no telling how it will end.

Holiday in the Vineyards (2025)

Yes, this is a romantic comedy aimed at the holiday viewing set, and no it is not a great film. I watchd it when my spouse unexpectedly tested positive for COVID and all of our weekend plans got canceled or put on hold because of it. He was ill, not just infected, and so our whole household lived separate lives for several days and I watched this movie. I enjoy the occasional movie in this genre. There are predictable things that happen and there are some real stretches to believe, more so than in movies of this genre, which is saying something. The situation is that Carter Baldwyn is the screw-up son of Margo Baldwyn (Eileen Davidson), the wealthy head of a huge bargain basement wine brand. In an effort to prove to his mom that he’s not a total good-for-nothing, he agrees to visit a small winery called Huckabee Vineyard in the fictional wine country town of Los Santos, CA, that’s just gone on the market and which his mother wants to acquire for their company. The catch – Carter has to be a run of the mill guy while he’s scoping out the vineyard so no one catches wind that it’s a Baldwyn that’s buying. No one likes the Baldwyns or their brand, becausethey are predators who not only make bad wine, but have a scorched earth approach to doing so. Carter lucks out when the real estate agent selling Huckabee, Valentina Espin offers him a place to stay if he finishes the remodel on her guest house. She is a widowed mom of two adorable boys, and Carter is no more suited to renovation than he is to anything else, but he manages to get the local hardware store owner to help him. It turns out that the locals are making some very good wine in their garages, and Carter comes to see things from their point of view. The scenery is gorgeous, and this is a quiet unassuming movie.