Author: Lori

what I read in February 2019

A Bird on Every Tree by Carol Bruneau
After Many Years: Twenty-One Long Lost Stories by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Big Three Knitting Techniques by Ann-Mari Nilsson
Bird Migration: The Incredible Journeys of North American Birds by Stan Tekiela
Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
Mr Wilkinson’s Vegetables by Matt Wilkinson
Set for the Holidays by Anna Olson
Shrewed by Elizabeth Renzetti
Skeletons in My Closet: Life Lessons from a Homicide Detective by Dave Sweet and Sarah Graham
You Are a Badass Every Day by Jen Sincero

what I read in January 2019

The Accidental Farmer: The Story of Ross Farm by Joan Watson
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl
Call to Order: A Miscellany of Useful Hierarchies, Systems and Classifications by Jackie Strachan and Jane Moseley
Catalan Food by Daniel Olivella
Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts by Alexander Langlands
Homebody by Joanna Gaines
Reading People by Anne Bogel
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
Transcription by Kate Atkinson
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
You Can Buy Happiness (and It’s Cheap) by Tammy Strobel

homemade hot cocoa mix

Want to know the ingredient list of a popular, unnamed hot cocoa mix? Are you sure? Here goes:

Sugar, Modified Milk Ingredients, Glucose Solids, Hydrogenated Coconut, Palm Kernel and Soy Oils, Cocoa, Salt, Cellulose Gum, Flavour And Artificial Flavour, Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono- And Diglycerides, Datem, Silicon Dioxide, Guar Gum.

Yeah, nothing says warm and delicious like palm oil and silicon dioxide.

Or you could make my homemade hot cocoa mix with four totally ordinary ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cups powdered milk
1 tsp salt

Put it all in a container and shake. Done. Next time you’ll find a bigger container and double the recipe, mark my words.

To serve, put a few teaspoons (or tablespoons, whatever, I don’t judge) of the mix in a mug and add hot water.

what I read in December 2018

The A-Z Guide of Wildlife Watching by Lonely Planet
Bertie Wooster Sees It Through by P.G. Wodehouse
The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen
Calypso by David Sedaris
Cook Like a Pro by Ina Garten
Gross Anatomy by Mara Altman
How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind by Dana K White
Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies
Where the Ghosts Are by Steve Vernon