Thursday Crafternoon!: P.S.-You're Invited..., by Erica Domesek

Title: P.S.-You’re Invited…
Author: Erica Domesek
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: September 10th, 2013
Read: September 2013
Where It Came From: eARC from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
Rating: 2.5 Glue Guns

The DIY/crafting movement has gotten big the last few years, and like many other internet-goers I have found myself more than a little drawn to it. Tempted by adorable handmade stuff for sale on Etsy, inspired by blogs like Design*Sponge, seduced by all the gorgeously photographed DIY tutorials spreading through Pinterest…it’s easy to want to get involved, and, even better, easy to actually do so. And the best thing is that the tutorials are more often than not for DIY’d things you’d actually want—follow the instructions for well-designed, professional-looking results.

My interest in DIY led me to this book. The author is quite famous in the DIY/crafting world, with a popular website called P.S.-I Made This… and a book by the same name. In fact, while googling for the link to her website, I came across an article headline in the search results referring to her as the “millennial Martha.”

The title of this book led me to believe that it would be about DIY related to parties (themes, decorations, favors, etc.), but it turns out that’s not quite the case. The introduction rather describes it as a book with a “focus on celebration and stylish living.” Most of the projects are for accessories or décor objects. Things you could wear to a party, or use to help decorate for a party, but not quite as party-focused as I had imagined it would be. And that was fine--just a little different than I had expected.

After a foreword from Stacy London of What Not to Wear fame (!) and the author’s introduction, the book is divided into 10 different themed chapters with about 4-5 projects falling under each theme. Themes are things like “Sexy Mexi!” with fiesta-inspired projects, or “Make a Splash!” with outdoor summery projects, to name a couple. Each chapter opens with an explanation of the theme, a tableau featuring people wearing/using the projects for that theme, and then the featured projects pictured and named alongside it, too. The design and photography are gorgeous and bright and fun. The project instructions seem straightforward and easy to understand, with photos to help you along. One really cool thing about the book is that it’s what the publisher is calling a “smart book”—it has QR-code-type-things interspersed throughout the book that you can scan with your phone and see videos with tips about various projects. I like the multimedia aspect, especially because sometimes it’s easier to learn from watching someone do something than from simply reading about it. I also love that there’s a section in the back that provides info on websites where you can purchase the specific materials necessary for every project.

Unfortunately, though, the book ended up not being as much as I hoped it would. Let me be clear, I love the author’s philosophy of DIY and crafting as a creative outlet, as a way for you to be you, and as a way to create a beautiful, fun life. I’m with her there. I fully agree with and support that. But for most of the projects featured in the book, I’m not sure the cost of materials/time needed/look of the finished product equation balances out for me. Some of the stuff looks pretty cool, but maybe not enough to make it worth my time and money that would need to go into it. When I DIY, it’s definitely to have fun, but it’s also important to me that the project doesn’t look overtly DIY. I don’t want it to look “crafty” or “homemade,” to use those words in the Project Runway sense, which usually means not-so-professional-looking or kitschy-in-a-bad-way. And some of these projects looked a little too cheesy or cheap-looking for my tastes. I want it to look just as good as, if not better than, what I could buy in the store or pay someone else for. For example, there’s a project for a fedora with faux stitching where you use Sharpies to color in parts of a straw fedora hat to make it look like a pattern has been stitched on. Cool idea, and I bet it would look good from far away, but I wonder if up close it would look like precisely what it is—a hat colored with markers.

That being said, there were some projects that I liked and would consider trying out. I thought the project embellishing a pair of flats with lace was simple and sweet; a patchwork blanket project would be perfect for picnics and visits to the beach; the turban headband is trendy and cute; and the cork clutch is really, really cool. Additionally, there were some projects that while I wasn’t so into the finished product, there was a really cool technique involved that could be extrapolated to something I would be interested in making. For example, there’s a project involving Sharpies and rubbing alcohol to achieve a watercolor effect on fabric, which is a really awesome idea. The example uses it on a skirt, but I might use it on a light summer scarf instead. There was another project that uses looking glass spray paint and a vinegar-water solution to achieve a mercury glass effect. Fantastic idea! I would probably use it on some decorative vases instead of what was in the book.

Between the projects I would be interested in trying out and the ones where I’d like to try the technique involved on something else, I end up interested in about 11 of the 46 projects in the book. That’s 24% of them, which probably isn’t enough for me to go out and buy the book—I would rather check it out from the library when I got the crafting urge. I was disappointed that many of the projects weren’t to my crafting tastes, but I imagine there are plenty of DIYers out there who would love this stuff. If you are into crafting or DIY, maybe find the book at the library or flip through it at a bookstore to make sure your personal style jibes with the book’s before committing to purchase. If you already know you love Erica Domesek and the projects she posts online, you will probably love this, too!

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.

Man Booker Prize Olympics, Part the Second (and Last)

In case you missed our first post, Read This / Eat That is commemorating the month and a half of furious reading that allows the Man Booker Prize judges to whittle their 13-book longlist into a manageable 6-book shortlist for the truly dedicated reader by September 10th (Pro-Tip: wait until October 15th and you only need to pick up one book).

But perhaps you weren’t sold on the value of the Man Booker Prize by our aptly picked Wiki quotes and our guessing the plots of recent nominees by their titles. Perhaps you shook your head and said, “I’ve never even HEARD of these books. How can they possibly have been nominated for an important literary award?” Or perhaps you simply decided that your enjoyment of Culture goes only so far as Downton Abbey.

Yeah . . . we’re kind of with you.

Especially because Booker Prize commendations are notoriously unreliable. Susan has completed 13 Booker nominees and winners, and her average rating for them is 3.3 out of 5. She's not the only dissatisfied reader: many of the Booker selections have average ratings in the low 3 range on Goodreads. Considering that the prize is awarded to the best novel of the year by a nation ever having belonged to the Commonwealth of Nations, this could mean that a third (!) of the world is publishing lackluster literature at its best.

Since we all know that literature has not died in the 45 years of the award’s existence, that theory is clearly wrong.

As far as we can tell, based on the generally uneven books given this prize, the chief enjoyment of the Man Booker may not be for readers to match wits with the judges and determine what the “best novel” eligible is; it is more pleasant to determine how the biases of the judges play out in declaring a winner. The Booker has a rich history of juicy controversy, from awarding only elitist books to awarding books that are not elitist enough. Our favorite scandal might be that Life of Pi received press for appropriating a basic plot outline from a Brazilian novel. The Daily Beast introduces some of the most public controversies associated with the prize, and a Poetry Foundation blog asserts that the Man Booker judges award books for using a combination of tropes.

The unfairness of the judging (point 6 in the Daily Beast piece) is so notorious (Susan has heard about shady quid pro quo from people familiar with a judge almost every time she’s brought the prize up in conversation—lesson being: don’t praise Bookers near your lit professors) that we can only guess that the Booker’s continued influence means that other awards have equally dubious judging.

They also most likely involve less posh award banquets:

Held at Guildhall, a 600-year-old building "designed to reflect the importance of London's ruling elite"

Three forks at each place setting

Shortlisted author Alison Moore and bookbinder Stephen Conway in front of special handbound copies of the nominees

Black tie dress worn by 2012 judge Bharat Tandon

Here we see proof that Cousin Matthew (also a judge) really could use a valet.
(Hint: Black tie dress involves a bow tie.)

And the ultimate sign of just how prestigious this prize is...

This year's longlist was in the form of a royal birth announcement.

Booker Prize Olympics, The Second Event

Let's meet the new members of the Booker family, Balderdash style. (This means that we initially looked at covers and sent each other our guesses of what the plots of the nominees were. Real answers are abridged from the official Man Booker synopses. Some of our guesses were very close to the real plot descriptions; some were just very close to each other. Play along; answers will be at the end!)

1. An unreliable narrator recounts in hallucinatory prose the strange events in her life that have always occurred after an encounter with the same mysterious (and perhaps imaginary) Japanese child.
2. Ruth discovers a diary, possibly washed ashore from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, that expresses the hopes and dreams of a young girl, and contains a mystery. In Tokyo a young woman navigates the challenges of modern life and family mysteries through a diary.
3. A woman grieving for her sister recalls the stories they used to tell as children playing with their porcelain dolls. The doll’s shattered arm is a symbol.

1. A semi-Hungarian Londoner tries to fit in at a traditional English public school, while her immigrant mother deals with her own painful secrets.
2. An alien comes down to Earth with the mysterious ability to speak a language eerily similar to, but not quite, English. It takes on the appearance of a young girl and enrolls in a London public school in an attempt to master both the language and the nuances human interactions.
3. An immigrant realizes how much she has changed since entering England as she fights to get her son into an elite public school.

NB: An English public school is traditionally a preparatory boarding school with extremely high tuition. Since most people would note that such a school is hardly a public option, hearing the expression is as confusing to American ears as potato crisp/chip/fry terminology or floor numbers.

1. A wealthy hotel owner learns true wealth is getting know some of his eccentric clients.
2. The Five Star Billionaire's lessons for success unsettle the dynamics of four disparate lives in China.
3. A man becomes involved in a deal with numerous publishing outlets wherein he is compensated for writing five star reviews of all of their books. Many years later, after he has made a fortune as a result of this agreement, he wonders whether compromising his integrity and taste was truly worth it.

1. A man sees his hamlet unmade: the harvest blackened by smoke and fear, the new arrivals cruelly punished, and his neighbors held captive on suspicion of witchcraft. But something even darker is at the heart of his story, and he will be the only man left to tell it . . .
2. In this horror story, a sheaf of wheat recounts his golden days waving in the Midwestern breeze, followed by the harrowing reaping of all of his friends and family members at the hands of cruel, heartless farmers and their scythes.
3. Against a landscape of WWII bombings, a British farmer focuses on his crops in an attempt to ignore how much the world is changing around him.

1. A military camp in Iraq is being converted for civilian use when there is an explosion and an attack on a regional government office. One worker has disappeared and over fifty million dollars of reconstruction funds are missing. As the camp tries to restore order and get revenge, there is a murder in Italy that reduplicates a well-known novel.
2. A retrospective on the beloved musical group.
3. A spy questions the morality of his latest mission and looks back on his long career of assassination.

1. A disgraced bank executive trades in his suit for some waders and sets out on a walkabout in the Everglades, befriending an alligator, a manatee, and a roseate spoonbill who help him begin to know himself and realize his true purpose in life.
2. In India a communist zealot looks for peace after participating in armed assaults on wealthy patricians of his city.
3. Two Indian brothers' lives diverge as one becomes drawn to the Communist movement and the other moves to America to pursue a PhD. The repercussions of one's actions will link their fates irrevocably and tragically together, reverberating across continents and seeping through the generations that follow.

1. A scholar researches a group of mercurial poetesses of the 1800s, but finds resistance in his field because he is male.
2. A new immigrant in New Zealand is drawn into the mystery of a series of unsolved crimes that make a network of fates and fortunes as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.
3. A group of poets and artists, radical in their time but destined to be great in the estimation of future generations, start a movement providing lanterns to poor families in their city. In the present, a young scholar uncovers one of these lanterns and its connection to the murder of one of the artists, and must track down more to perhaps finally solve the mystery.

1. An Indian woman marries a Jewish man—hijinks ensue as the wedding day approaches and their two families attempt to connect with each other and understand a different culture.
2. Buried secrets, fear and sexual desire bubble to the surface in a story of liberation and choice, as a young woman preparing for an arranged marriage learns what it means to be a Jewish wife.
3. Hijinks and hilarity ensue as Chani plans a wedding with a Gentile.

1. A young boy befriends an old man in the park who is afflicted with a medical condition that causes his heart to literally spin in his chest. As the boy meets the man there for weekly chess lessons, he learns much about life, hardship, and the power of hope.
2. After her husband dies, a woman finds solace in spinning his hairs with her own. But when she runs out of his hair, she wonders if her pastime was chiefly about her love for him, or her interest in textile arts. Could textile manipulation be a new direction for her life?
3. In the aftermath of Ireland’s financial collapse, dangerous tensions surface in an Irish town. As violence flares, the characters face a battle between public persona and inner desires. Through a chorus of unique voices, each struggling to tell their own kind of truth, a single authentic tale unfolds.

1. Mary Miller, a hopeless and despondent mother of 3 living in the suburbs of Anaheim, begins having seizures, claiming to receive visions and messages from God. As the media gets involved and people flock to see her in either pilgrimage or skepticism, her friends and children learn about the nature of belief, faith, and acceptance.

2. A retelling of the crucifixion and early Christianity through the eyes of a postmodern Mary Magdalene.

3. Living in exile and fear, Mary mother of Jesus tries to piece together the memories of the events that led to her son's brutal death. She slowly emerges as a figure of immense moral stature as well as a woman from history rendered now as fully human.

1. Personal stories of four generations of Irish women are woven together to explore the fine line between what is real and what is imagined, and the tangled skein of connections that make up our lives.
2. In the 1930s, a man invents a new mode of transportation—basically a spinning swing ride from a carnival, but it spins fast enough to create its own gravity and propulsion. In order to test it out and get people to take the invention seriously, he enlists a mismatched group of people to help him navigate it across the Atlantic.
3. An Irish family’s brief visit to America is derailed by World War, and they must reluctantly make their home in the shadow of the endless carnival of Coney Island.

1. Living near a demilitarized zone, a woman is inured to finding undetonated bombs as she walks. But her frustration in her marriage leaves her increasingly mentally unstable.
2. A woman visiting Normandy with her family in the 1950s comes across undetonated ordnance left over from WWII. While she ponders what to do with it, secrets from the war accelerate the deterioration of her family life.
3. In 1940 Brighton a woman struggles to fall in with the war effort and the constraints of her role in life. Her developing relationship with a German-Jewish prisoner of war will shatter the structures on which her life, her family and her community rest.

1. Six young girls live in a shanty, and dream of escaping to America, Dubai or Europe. But if they do escape, will these new lands bring them everything they wish for?
2. African emigrants living in London struggle to fit in with their neighbors.
3. Two young graffiti artists trying to parlay their skills into the NYC art scene decide to invent more exciting names and pasts for themselves to ease their acceptance into the art world.

Based on these synopses, which books do you see making the shortlist next week? Do you have a guess about the winner yet?

We, naturally, have made uninformed opinions about the shortlist and winner.

Alyssa: We Need New Names, TransAtlantic, The Spinning Heart, The Marrying of Chani Kaufmann, The Lowland, A Tale for the Time Being
Winner The Lowland

Susan:A Tale for the Time Being, The Spinning Heart, TransAtlantic, Unexploded, The Lowland, Harvest
Winner Harvest

Balderdash answers!
A Tale for the Time Being, 2
Almost English, 1
Five Star Billionaire, 2
Harvest, 1
The Kills, 1
The Lowland, 3
The Luminaries, 2
The Marrying of Chani Kaufmann, 2
The Spinning Heart, 3
The Testament of Mary, 3
TranAtlantic, 1
Unexploded, 3
We Need New Names, 1

For those of you keeping track of our Olympics points, Alyssa won this event with her inventive and elaborate plot descriptions. (Especially compared to Susan's typically short and literal guesses.) From corrupt publishing in her version of Five Star Billionaire to the amazing self-propelled carnival swing in TransAtlantic, it's likely that Alyssa's plot descriptions would be more fun to read than the actual shortlisted books. Combined with her score from event 1, Alyssa is the uncontested winner of the Read This / Eat That Man Booker Prize Olympics! We expect to get cereal endorsement offers any minute now . . .

While spending time with family this summer, one of my aunts recruited me to help her recreate a zucchini boat recipe that she had once made, but could no longer find the instructions for. I thought it was going to just be your every day, run-of-the-mill sort of grilled zucchini boats, like one might eat at a summer barbecue (is that a normal barbecue food, or is that just something my family does?). Wrong, wrong, wrong was I! Armed with four different handwritten stuffed zucchini boat recipes that my aunt mysteriously produced, we set about combining and adjusting them until we arrived at something we were pleased with. This is the result, and although it is a bit labor-intensive, it is definitely tasty. And a good way to use up the last summer zucchini and impress the guests you feed it to, to boot!

Cheesy Mushroom Zucchini Boats

Ingredients:
2 big zucchinis (this is a good way to use the overgrown club-like ones from your garden)
Cooking spray or olive oil
1-8 oz. package button mushrooms
1 clove garlic
1 medium onion (yellow or white)
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper
1 C. shredded Italian blend cheese
1/2 C. fresh grated parmesan
1/2 C. ricotta
1 C. bread crumbs

Topping
2 Tbsp. parmesan
2 Tbsp. bread crumbs
1 tsp. salt

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
2. Take your humongous zucchinis (have a gander at the photo below if you’d like an idea of exactly how humongous we’re talking about), and cut them in half lengthwise, and then in half again crosswise.
3. Hollow them out, leaving about 1/4” of shell. You can use a paring knife to slice out the zucchini stuff, or you can use a grapefruit spoon to excavate and scrape it out. Or use a combo of both! We ended up settling on a teamwork approach with my aunt cutting out most of the stuff and then me cleaning up with the grapefruit spoon. Put all the cut up zucchini insides in a bowl to save for later.
   
   Slice and…
   
   Scrape!
4. Clean and chop the mushrooms. Mince the garlic and onion. Get all the knife work out of the way in one step!
   
   Cat treats optional.
5. In a large frying pan, melt the 2 Tbsp. butter over medium heat. Sauté the garlic and onion until fragrant, and then add the chopped mushrooms.
   Mmm…
6. Sauté the shroomies and add the 2 tsp. of lemon juice. Cook for about 3 minutes, and then add all the chopped zucchini insides. Add 1/2 tsp of Italian seasoning and a dash of salt and fresh ground pepper, and cook it for about 3-4 minutes, or until the juices come out.
   
7. Take the veggie mixture out of the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer it into a large mixing bowl. (It’s okay if a little liquid hitchhikes along.) Add the cup of Italian cheese blend, 1/2 cup of parmesan, 1/2 cup of ricotta, and 1 cup bread crumbs, and mix well.
   
   Cheeeeeesy…
8. Arrange the boats in a glass baking dish that’s been cooking sprayed or olive oiled down, and use a spoon to fill the zucchini shells with the mixture. If there’s more than you can fit in the shells, it tastes good on top of crackers, as well!
   
   Empty, then…
   
   …presto!
9. In a small bowl, mix the 2 Tbsp. of parmesan with the 2 Tbsp. of bread crumbs and 1 tsp. of salt. Sprinkle this on top of the zucchini boats so you will have a nice, crispy topping to all the cheesy goodness.
   Sprinkle, sprinkle!
10. Slide the baking dish in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the cheese is melty and the crumbs on top are toasted lightly brown.
    
    Almost done!
11. Take it out of the oven and serve! A boat makes a good meal by itself, or you can serve them with pan-fried chicken for a tasty treat.
    
    Ta-dahhh!

How do you like to bring tasty veggie goodness to your table? Do you have any summer party recipes you break out when you want to impress?

Recipe: Root-a-Bake-a

While I was visiting my cousin last month (the one who joined me in all my literary adventurings in Minnesota), she produced this lovely, simple recipe for a filling and delicious meal. Much like our last post of hot chocolate, it would be particularly enjoyable in winter, but is just as yummy in other seasons. With only salt, pepper, and olive oil needed for seasoning, the flavors of these root-and-other-starchy veggies really shine. A longish baking time gives all the flavors time to mingle and meld and become something really delicious and comforting. Take advantage of the sweet corn crop while it’s available in the grocery store—that and the onion really make the dish, in my opinion.

The Great Root-a-Bake-a!

Ingredients:
1 sweet potato
1 russet potato
1 onion (yellow or white)
1 zucchini
1 rutabaga
2 ears sweet corn
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F, and assemble your ingredients. Pretty easy, eh?
   
2. Get out a baking sheet. One with sides (so not a cookie sheet), or vegetables will go everywhere. Artfully drizzle some olive oil on it, and tilt it back and forth to make pretty patterns and cover more of the surface.
   
3. Wash and peel the sweet potato and the rutabaga. While you’re at it, wash the russet potato reaaaaally well too, because you won’t be peeling it. Slice the sweet potato and then cut it into smaller chunks. I aimed to keep each slice about 1/4” thick so they’d all cook at the same rate, and then cut each one in half and sometimes in half again at my whim. Do the same with your washed-but-not-peeled russet potato, and then dump them all on the baking sheet.
   
4. Slice the rutabaga thinner than the sweet potato because it requires more time to cook. Smaller size = cooks faster, so it will be done when the potatoes are! Then, cut it into smaller chunks, like so:
   
5. Keep piling the veggies chunks on the baking sheet as you go. Peel and slice the onion, and break the layers apart with your fingers as you add them to the sheet.
   
6. Wash your zucchini (best to make it not an overgrown and seedy one from the garden), and slice it into discs. Chop each disc into a pretty little semi-circle, and add to the mountain of veggies.
   
7. Shuck the corn husks and silk, and then find yourself a sharp knife to slice the kernels off the cob. It’s a bit of a pain to do, but it tastes much better than corn from a can, I promise! Distribute them atop all the other veggies.
   
8. Next, drizzle about 2 Tbsp. olive oil over the vegetables, and season with salt and pepper.
   
9. Slide the baking sheet in the oven, and let it all roast for 45-60 minutes. Take it out twice during the baking and use a spatula to rearrange the veggies for even roasting. When you can stick a fork in the potato slices and they feel soft rather than hard and crisp, it’s done! (The delicious smell pervading your house will also let you know it’s getting closer to “done” time.) Serve it as a side dish or as a meal itself, and after sampling feel free to add more olive oil/salt/pepper to your tastes.
   

See? Simple, easy, yummy. I’m thinking next time I might add butternut squash to the mix. What would you add to a root bake like this one? What late summer vegetables are gracing your table these days?

Spiced Chocolate with Treats

You may think we’re crazy to create a hot chocolate recipe during the dog days of summer when at least one of us is consistently experiencing days in the triple digit temperatures, but we swear the heat hasn’t addled our brains—let us explain. In our meanderings through our Twitter feed (@ReadThisEatThat, y’all!), we came across this contest that author Ellen Kushner is hosting to celebrate the impending release of the audiobook of The Fall of the Kings. The contest involves creating a recipe inspired by any of the Riverside books.

With our long(ish) and storied history of creating recipes inspired by books (see exhibits A, B, C, and D), not to mention the many feasts of GRRM proportions Alyssa has created with the help of Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer’s wonderful A Feast of Ice and Fire, we thought this bookgeeky fun sounded right up our alley. We did some cross-country collaboration via the magic of Skype, and produced this lovely cup of chocolate to throw into the ring (which we wouldn’t actually do, of course…much too tasty to spill!). It is thick and rich and decadent, and the spices add an intoxicating and kicky element you won’t find in your run-of-the-mill Swiss Miss packets. The light treats to accompany it allow the chocolate to remain the star of the show, but the brightness of the tart-sweet strawberry jam and orange slices serves as a nice contrast to the creaminess of the chocolate, and the blueberries add a mellow freshness to the spread.

Spiced Chocolate with Strawberry Jam on Oat Toast and Fresh Fruit

Ingredients:
Spiced Chocolate
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1-2 dashes red cayenne pepper
1 C. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 small handful semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. brown sugar, packed

Treats
1 slice oat bread
Strawberry jam
1 orange
1 small handful fresh blueberries

1. Combine the cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and cayenne pepper in a mortar and pestle. Grind it all together until it is well-mixed and a uniform, powdery consistency. This might seem like a pain in the patoot extra step, but it will help the spices suspend in the chocolate later, so you don’t get a bunch of gritty stuff swirling around in the bottom of your cup.
   
2. Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the vanilla.
   
3. When the milk has heated up a bit, stir in the chocolate chips. Stir regularly to prevent the milk from burning and to combine the melting chips with the milk.
   
4. Are you still stirring? We don’t want burnt milk! When it comes to a low simmer, add the cocoa powder and the brown sugar. Get out Susan’s favorite kitchen utensil, the small whisk, and whisk the mixture until the liquid is a uniform, blended consistency. (At this point, photography mysteriously ceased.)
5. Now, take a 1/2 tsp of the Proprietary Spice Blend® you so lovingly created with your mortar and pestle, and whisk it into the chocolate. (There will be some left over, which you can store and use for future chocolate-making.) Whisk vigorously for a minute or so to aerate the beverage and suspend the spices throughout.
6. As for the treats, it’s really quite simple. If you’re good at multitasking and can prepare the snacks while making the chocolate and not accidentally end up with scalded milk, then by all means do so! First, toast your oat bread.
7. When it’s a nice golden brown, cut the crusts off and give them to a cute dog you know. Cut the bread on the diagonal, and spread the strawberry jam (homemade freezer jam in our case) on both pieces.
8. Peel the orange and separate into wedges, taking off as much of the icky white stuff as you deem necessary. Rinse the blueberries, too.
9. Arrange the toast and fruit artfully on a plate, transfer the chocolate to your best china teacup or other favorite drinking vessel, and enjoy! (We approve of dunking your orange slices in the chocolate for extra tastiness.)

This recipe serves one chocoholic individual, or can be divided out into 2 servings for those inclined to share or desirous of a lighter snack.

Feeling inspired? You can still enter the contest, too! It closes at midnight tonight, and you can find out more details here. Don’t forget to check out the new audiobook when it comes out on August 27th, and in the mean time you can catch up on the previous audiobooks in the series! Have you checked out this series before? What are some other books whose food-inspiration you’d like to see brought to life?