Archive for the ‘Books We Like’ Category

Garden Mystery Book & Garden Glove Give Away!

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Garden Mystery Give Away

We have two paperback copies of Rosemary Harris’ Pushing Up Daisies to give away, along with a pair of Womanswork nitrile weeding gloves. Pushing Up Daisies is Rosemary’s first novel, and it won her the “Anthony and Agatha” nomination for best first novel. This week she launches her third book, Dead Head, published by St. Martin’s Minotaur imprint. I read it this weekend and it is as much fun as the first two were. Her books fit into the category of cozy mysteries. I found this definition at suite101.com. “Cozies are the kind of stories one might read while curled up on the couch with a cup of tea.”  There’s no gore or gratuitous violence.

The main character in Rosemary Harris’ ”Dirty Business” series is Paula Holliday, a cheeky 40-something woman, newly single and launching a landscaping business in a small town in Connecticut after being downsized from her big city career in video production. It turns out she has a knack for getting to the bottom of things, and finds herself at the center of a whodunnit in every plotline. Her landscaping business figures in her stories, which makes it a bonus for gardeners to read.

Rosemary Harris' Third Garden Mystery

I met Rosemary Harris for coffee at The Lakeside Diner (aka Paradise Diner). Read her books to find out the significance of that! I was impressed by the fact that she wears two hats. She is not only a writer, which is impressive enough, but she is a businesswoman. These days, you have to be willing and able to think like a marketing person because most publishers have limited resources for that. I commented that her lead character reminds me of  a Womanswork woman. She’s independent minded, a hard worker and likes to garden. That’s why we decided to cross promote Rosemary’s books with Womanswork gloves. We hope to work with the publisher in the future to do more.
Write a comment and we will do a random drawing for the books and gloves around this time next week. Let us know your glove size (size chart is here)

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Judith Jones by Eve Winslow

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Last week I had the greatest pleasure of seeing Judith Jones speak about her philosophy of food and eating, and her new book “The Pleasures of Cooking for One.” 

The Pleasures of Cooking for One

The Pleasures of Cooking for One

Judith Jones is the senior editor and vice president at Knopf.  She was responsible for publishing “The Diary of Anne Frank” and Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  In her talk she spoke of her early years in France and the marvelous meals she would have at little corner bistros.  She now lives in Vermont where she raises her own cattle, eats local and enjoys the pleasures of cooking for herself.

Reading her books and hearing her speak I feel like she is someone I could be friends with.  I felt the same way when I read Julia Child’s “My Life in France”.  She has this lovely humor, but also her ideas on food and the way we eat are the same as mine.  I believe, as she does, that the best food is always fresh, local and organic. We also share the belief that there is always time to make a good supper instead of a prepared frozen meal. When talking of instant meals she asked the audience something like “So your instant meal saves you time you say? Well what do you need all that extra time for anyway, another tv show?”  It’s so true! Her book is not so much a cookbook but more of a way of looking at the way you shop and prepare meals. 

Most of her meal ideas are pretty quick. Except for some Sunday afternoon stews and such they all look to take 20 minutes or so. The book works with using leftovers– enjoying pork tenderloin one night and then the next using the leftovers to create a ginger pork stir fry for example. She, like Jacques Pepin, also suggests putting things like the tops of leeks or scraps of veggies in the freezer for the next time you make stock, so as not to waste anything.

We all know the importance of eating local, eating organic, and we know the politics of food, but Judith Jones is there to remind us of the pleasures of food.  The act of being in the kitchen, enjoying the scent of garlic sizzling in olive oil, your glass of wine and music, and enjoying the process as well as the meal.

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Pushing Up Daisies with Rosemary Harris

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Garden Mystery by First Time Author

Garden Mystery by First Time Author

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Rosemary Harris, author of gardening mysteries and an Anthony and Agatha Nominee for Best First Novel. I had read her first book in her “Dirty Business” series, Pushing Up Daisies, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Her lead character is Paula Holliday, a cheeky 40-something woman, newly single and launching a landscaping business in a small town in Connecticut after being downsized from her big city career in video production.

We met at the coffee shop that Rosemary says was the inspiration for Paradise Diner in the book. I looked around for the proprietor Babe, who is a colorful personality and figures large in the series, but quickly realized that she is an invention of Rosemary’s. Here’s a description of Babe in Pushing Up Daisies: “Though only the boldest of the soccer moms ventured in, the Paradise is a magnet for every male in town between the ages of 12 and 80…They come in to see what color [Babe's] hair is this week or what sexy, tattoo-revealing getup she’ll be wearing…Despite our glaring differences, Babe and I had hit it off immediately. ’Top you off, Paula?’ she asked. I threw caution to the wind and held out my cup for more.” 

Mystery Writer Rosemary Harris

Mystery Writer Rosemary Harris

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