Just because I have been doing this book blogging thing for a very long time (more than 20 years but who's counting!) doesn't mean that I can't try at new things.
This year, I have decided that I should try to read more Classics, and so I am joining the Classics Club Spin.
The idea is that you put up a list of Classics you want to read numbered 1 to 20, the spin will happen and that is the number book that you have to read. You can find a much better explanation of the rules at the Classics Club itself, but I am sure you get the idea.
The lucky spin number will be announced on Sunday so not too long to wait to see what book the fates have selected for me. The big challenge will be to see if I can complete the read or not.
Here's my list of 20 books
1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
2. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lamdedusa
3. Middlemarch by George Elliot
4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
6. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
7. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
8. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
9. My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
10. The Tree of Man by Patrick White
11. The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson
12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
13. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14. The Fellowship of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
15. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (finishing it!)
16.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I share everything I have made over the previous month. For the first time in months, I had a lot of activity in the kitchen, and I have to say I really enjoyed it!
First up I made Hummingbird Cakes to go with my Cook the Books post about Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil which I posted last week! I had been craving something with cream cheese frosting, and these hit the spot! And bonus, I will now be able to find the recipe whenever I want to rather than just stumbling on the bit of paper on occasion.
Jamie Oliver's Cook Book Club has taken a bit of a nosedive, so I have gone back to looking at my Australian cook book clubs for inspiration. This year, the Lamb's Ear Cook Book Club has a book of the year, the monthly cookbook and new for this year is an ingredient of the month. For January, the ingredient was stone fruit, so I went searching through my books and found a recipe for something called Chaja Cake from one of the cookbooks I got for Christmas, Everybody Loves Cake: Sweet Bakes and Stories by Alisha Henderson. This cake (pictured at the top of the post) originates from Peru, and oh my goodness, it was so good. It is a super light sponge, filled with peaches, dulce de leche and cream, and then the outside is smothered in cream and then the sides are covered with crushed meringue. It was so good! So good, in fact, that I am making it again today, although this time I am going to use store bought dulce de leche. When I next have a gap in my Weekend Cooking posts I will share the recipe.
Continuing on the stone fruit theme, Donna Hay shared a recipe for Upside Down Pavlova on her Facebook page and so I made that too. You can choose whatever combination of fruit you like but I used fresh peaches and plums (we won't mention the blueberries that had been in the freezer for too long) and then you top it with meringue and bake it! It was another delicious recipe, although I think that I needed to buy the fruit a couple of days earlier so it was a bit riper! I actually have Donna Hay's latest cook book out from the library at the moment because it is the February book of the month. I think I am going to end up buying it!
Have you tried the viral Japanese cheesecake? The idea is that you take a tub of yoghurt, you put some biscuits in it and put in the fridge to set. When you eat it, it is supposed to taste like cheesecake. Now, cheesecake is one of my favourites, so I had to try it. We tried it with Greek yoghurt and very plain biscuits. It does have a cheesecakey texture, particularly because the biscuits soften and so are reminiscent of the base, and it doesn't taste bad, but it still tasted very Greek yoghurty. I would try it again with maybe vanilla yoghurt and different biscuits or there is a brand here that does lemon curd swirl yoghurt and I have heard that is good with Anzac biscuits
I have bought more cook books so far this year than I did all of last year! I mentioned earlier that the cook book club has a book of the year, and that is The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. My idea is that I am going to read with the seasons, so when he is writing about July I will read it in January, but I haven't kept up yet. I will try to do better in February.
The other book I bought is Arnotts: The Cook Book. Late last year I went to a book event where the bookseller was talking about the fact that there were three books that she couldn't keep in stock and this was one of them. It is a bit gimicky in that it is recipes that are made using Arnott's biscuits but there are some things in there that I will make. I think I will most likely start with Vanilla Slice but we will see.
In terms of new things in my kitchen this month, there isn't much. In mid January, we went to Perth for the weekend and spent time with my aunties and one of my cousins. Every time I go over there, my aunt buys me a bottle of spearmint milk (yum) and I get new wine recommendations. We don't drink a lot at home but I will go out and buy whichever wine we like after going over there. This time, we tried these two wines from Aldi. Given that I seem to have a bit of a peach thing going on at the moment, I particularly enjoyed the Peach Bellini wine although the Limoncello is very drinkable too
I did buy some new summery everyday place mats and table runner which you can see in some of the photos
In terms of other foodie events, it was our meetaversary in early January. Apparently we can't call it an anniversary now that we have a wedding anniversary as well. It was 9 years ago that we first met, so we went out to dinner at the Meat and Wine Company. It was a delicious meal featuring lots of meat (naturally given the name of the restaurant) and some South African flavours.
Last weekend we went to a new show that is on at the casino in the city. It was called Piper's Playhouse and is an interesting mix of Paris cabaret, magic, drag, burlesque and circus type acts and lots of champagne. The acts were very, very good, and the night was a lot of fun. After the show, the venue turns into a piano bar and the crowd really got into it! I think even the pianist was a bit surprised by some of the things that the crowd did last night! When I head about it, we had to try one of the desserts which was this shoe. The shoe that you see above is actually all made of white chocolate and was filled with fresh berries and served with cream and berry sauce! Really it is just berries and cream but it certainly looks impressive.
While I am not doing the 52 new recipe challenges this year, I do still want to keep track of new recipes I try so I will add them here each month
Hummingbird Cakes
Chaja Cake
Japanese Cheesecake
Roast Chicken
Japanese Chicken Curry
Crispy Lemon and Garlic Chicken
Weekly meals
Saturday - Out for dinner Sunday - Swedish Meatballs with mash Monday - Baked Tuscan Chicken Tuesday - Chicken Stir Fry with noodles Wednesday - Pressure Cooker Spag Bol Thursday - Out for dinner Friday - Out for dinner
I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings.
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
It never ceases to amaze me how many little known stories there are about the events in WWII that are still being told in new stories. This is another one which features characters who share messages in their knitting and is based on a true story.
When an elderly woman has a stroke, her family is shocked when she suddenly starts speaking fluent French, her family are completely shocked. They had no idea that their mother/grandmother who refused to leave their Channel island home could speak French. It turns out, she had a whole other life that she never told them about.
Young Lennie Gallienne is an orphan who lives a very restricted life on the isle of Guernsey. When she received the dreaded telegram to tell her that her beloved brother is missing presumed dead, she refuses to accept it, and heads to London to try to find the truth. An unexpected meeting in the War Office, sees Lennie in training to be a spy .Of course, the men aren't necessarily happy to have a woman recruit with them. And they are even less enamoured when she uses her knitting to teach herself morse code. Her superior officers find out and think it is a great idea and so they all have to learn to knit.
Lennie finds herself working in a bookshop in Paris, helping distribute tracts and pass information back to London. Being a spy is a dangerous business though. It's hard to know who you can trust and if you catch the attention of the wrong people, it can be a matter of life or death. Even if you make it out alive, you can be left with enduring memories and guilt.
In some ways this book felt a little like a thriller, with each chapter headed by a date and time, with the tension building and building as the time and dates got closer and closer together.
Whilst this book is probably technically a dual time line, the modern parts of the story really only bookends the main story and form a very small part of the book. I do think that it added something even though it was only a very small part.
Unfortunately, the other thing that ended up playing only a very small part of the story is the knitting. Yes, there was a group of knitters that Lennie spent time with in Guernsey before she went to London, and then when she was teaching the other recruits. However, there wasn't much obvious knitting when she was in Paris which is the majority of the book. It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, particularly given the title of the book.
I did find myself quite engrossed in the story very quickly. This is the first book in a series, and I am definitely intending to read the next book in the series.
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog, British Isles Friday hosted at Joy's Book Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here. Thanks to the publisher and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. Be sure to check out other stops on the blog tour below.
Rating 4/5
About the Book
The Resistance Knitting Club
Inspired by the true story of a woman who used knitting patterns to encode intelligence during World War Two.
Guernsey, 2010. After a stroke, an elderly woman shocks her family by speaking perfect French – a language they never knew she possessed. As her granddaughter unravels seventy years of silence, a hidden wartime story emerges...
Paris, 1941. After her brother is declared missing in action at Dunkirk, eighteen-year-old Lenny Gallienne vanishes into Churchill’s secret army. In a bookshop on Rue de la Pompe, she poses as a simple shop girl while encoding intelligence from Nazi headquarters into knitting patterns. Each sweater smuggled to prisoners contains flight paths. Each scarf holds radio frequencies. Each mistake means execution.
Fellow agent, Harry Dennison is the only person who knows her real name. But when the SS close in, Lenny faces an impossible choice in the Metro tunnels beneath Paris – one that will haunt her family for generations. Because in the resistance, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those you love most.
Jenny O’Brien writes complex thrillers and heartbreaking historical fiction, as well as intriguing romances. Silent Cry, initially self published, topped the Amazon kindle chart in both the UK and the USA. Most of her books have followed suit.
Jenny has over 40 years experience as a qualified nurse. She turned to creative writing as a hobby when her children were born.
Born in Ireland, she now lives in Guernsey with her husband and children. BOOK NEWS
The Resistance Knitting Club comes out in February, 2026. A blend of Jenny’s two hobbies - knitting and reading. For more check out The Resistance Knitting Club Facebook Page. Join the conversation as well as share your crafting projects.
Young Italian woman Giulia Leone lives on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy. Her father runs a hotel and amongst the guests are some Jewish people, including Ester who is her best friend. It is 1943 and the Germans approaching Giulia and her family come up with a plan to help their Jewish guests, but it all goes terribly wrong. Giulia is the only person to escape. She doesn't know what happened to any of them, including her own parents, and now she finds herself on the German's wanted list.
After finding a safe house for a while, it soon becomes clear that the Germans are still determined to find her. She therefore has no choice but to head to the hills and join a small band of partisans who are lead by Raffaele, the son of the hotel manager. Raffaele resents being lumbered with a spoilt rich girl but soon he begins to appreciate her willingness to work hard for the cause. However, she is not always keen to follow orders, especially as she is determined to find out what happened to her friends and her parents,
Lake Maggiore straddles the border between Italy and Switzerland so you can see why people would head to that area in the hope of being able to escape from persecution, and if you have a look at the pictures it looks like a gorgeous part of Italy. I was glad to see that there were moments where the characters could appreciate the views, even if it was just for a fleeting moment
I do enjoy the stories that Siobhan Daiko brings us. This is the fifth book featuring Girls and each is set in a different region and often the stories are based on true events from WWII. They aren't strictly a series given that there aren't recurring characters. I have read The Girl from Venice, from Sicily and now from Lake Maggiore (as well as some of her other books set in Italy) but I still need to read Portofino and Bologna. I think I own both of them. Actually though, my introduction was through one of her book set in the Pacific theatre of war and I would love it if we got another story from there.
This time though, the book didn't work as well as it might have. Some of the dialogue seemed somewhat simplistic and it detracted from the overall reading experience. It could be that it is not that different from previous books but I did really notice it this time.
Will I still be reading the next book from this author. Most likely!
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.
Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Book Covers Featuring Cool/Pretty/Unique/etc. Typography (Typography is the art of arranging letters so they look visually appealing and more interesting than, for example, the body text of this blog post you’re reading now.). I am going to broaden the theme a bit to pick books where there are more than one font on the cover or where I found them interesting in some way.
Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada - I like how they fit the title, author and translator all in the sky of the illustration by putting it on an angle (my review)
Everyone on this Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson - I like the mix of fonts, and the way they did the word train (my review)
The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson- Three different fonts probably shouldn't work but it does (my review)
Us Against You by Fredrik Backman- This is a different font choice
Good Spirits by B K Borison - I like the font choice here
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce - I really like how the cover looks like a typewriter (my review)
Escape to the Northern Lights by Carrie Walker - chose this purely because of the curly bit on the end of the word Escape (my review)
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina - I like how they use all lower case on this cover (my review)
Hooked by Asako Yuzuki - This book isn't out yet, but I like how the title is vertical instead of horizontal
The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden - Love the font and the colour on this one. (my review)
This week I had finished several books and two of them were 5 star reads. That has to count as a good reading week right? The first one was Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, which is the second book in the Beartown trilogy! I did pick up the third book in the trilogy from the library as well, and it is a very big book! I am looking forward to reading it!
I then finished The Girl from Lake Maggiore by Siobhan Daiko. I actually started this book a few weeks ago but I put it aside. When I was trying to decide what to read after finishing my last book, I figured I should probably finish that one!
I also started reading The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien for a blog tour later this week. So far I am enjoying it a lot
When my read on a theme book club chose the theme of Childhood Favourite, I decided pretty quickly that I was going to read Jean Plaidy as I read every one of her books I could get through my school library when I was 12 or 14. I have a whole stack of her books which I got from someone, and there were two copies of The Goldsmith's Wife so I took that as a sign that I should read that book. It was only on Wednesday night that I realised that I only had two day to get it read before the meeting! I loved it though and gave it 5 stars. That could be related to the nostalgia of reading one of her books after so many years.
There was only a small group of us at book club for the first meeting of the year and these were the books that we talked about. The next theme is a Book Someone Lent You!
Best of
In January I read 14 books and had quite a few that were 4.5 star reads. The two that were 5 star reads for me were Us Against You by Fredrik Backman and The Goldsmith's Wife by Jean Plaidy, which are pictured at the top of the post.
Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen
Here are all the places I travelled in my reading this month
Europe
UK - The Sweet Life Café, The Goldsmith's Wife
Ireland - So Late in the Day
Croatia - The Croatian Island Library
Norway - The Arctic Cruise
France - The Boulangerie on the Corner
Sweden - Us Against You
Italy - The Girl from Lake Maggiore
US
New York - The Housemaid
Australia
NT/SA - Everyone on this Train is a Suspect
Asia
Japan - Dinner at the Night Library
Japan/Korea/US - Flashlight
Korea - Soyangri Book Kitchen
I'm watching
Nothing in particular really
Life
On Saturday night we went to a new show that is on at the casino in the city. It was called Piper's Playhouse and is an interesting mix of Paris cabaret, magic, drag, burlesque and circus type acts. The acts were very, very good, and the night was a lot of fun. After the show, the venue turns into a piano bar and the crowd really got into it! I think even the pianist was a bit surprised by some of the things that the crowd did last night!
In the photo above, the show that you see is actually all made of white chocolate and was filled with fresh berries!
Thank you to everyone who contributed a review in January for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. It's been a good start to the 2026 challenge. Currently there are nearly 50 links! I will be back in the next week or so with all the statistics for the month.
I am looking forward to reading your reviews throughout the rest of the year! I am sure there is going to be a lot of great historical fiction discovered and shared with fellow HF lovers over the course of this year!
If you haven't already signed up, it's not too late! The sign up post is here.
Just to recap what participants need to know. At the beginning of each month I will put up a post which will have a Mr Linky embedded into it for you to add your link.
Please remember...
add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review).
it doesn't matter where you review - Bookstagram, Goodreads etc as long as you share a direct link to your review.
any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)
if you have time, have a look some of the other links that are present. You never know when you will discover new blogs or books!
You can also join the challenge group on Facebook which you can find here and don't forget to use the #histficreadingchallenge hashtag on the socials.
When this book was announced as the Cook the Books selection for December/January, I wasn't sure that I would be able to join in as both the paper book and the e-books were pretty expensive. I tried a few different places and then realised that the book was available as an audiobook and I had credits available!
Bite By Bite is a collection of short food essays from essayist and poet Aimee Nexhukumatathil. It is a really interesting mix of nostalgia, the author's personal memories, culture and food history.
The audiobook is narrated by the author herself. Some times that can work and other times not so much, but I do think it worked here, mainly because it is her memories, her heritage, her favourite foods etc. It also worked as an audiobook for me because it isn't a straight line narrative, by which I mean because all the essays are short and about particular subjects so if you don't listen for a week it doesn't matter. You can just pick up the next story and go from there. Some of the essays are 3 or 4 minutes long and others are about 15 minutes long.
The author is of both Indian and Phillipino heritage which brings an interesting mix of ingredients, and a little bit of competition to the mix such as when her parents disagree about whether the best mangoes grow in India or The Phillipines. There are also a number a traditional Phillipino dishes that are included such as Lumpia and Kaong. There is also an influence from her travels, such as the essays about Shave Ice and associated social history in Hawaii and Gyro from Greece.
I did learn quite a lot from many of these essays, and it did get me thinking. For example, there are numerous chapters about different types of bananas. In our supermarkets, you might be lucky to find two varieties of bananas. Who decided that those are the only two varieties that we should have? I was particularly intrigued by a variety called Saba Banana that is less sweet but is used as part of a bananacue in the Philippines. Barbecued banana with a caramel sauce sounds amazing! There were also other fruits that also have some different banana asssociated names, such as Pawpaw which can be known as names like Poor Mans Bananas or Hoosier Bananas. Here in Australia, we tend to call them Papaya.
I was surprised to see the suggestion that you can make your own homemade vanilla extract by using vanilla beans and vodka. I have never even thought that such a thing could be possible! And this chapter was also interesting due to the history of the cultivation of vanilla.
Some of the essays are more a collection of sentences, for example in the chapter about onion, but others are personal stories which flow a lot better.
I am so glad that I was able to participate this time. I don't read a lot of non fiction, so I am not sure I would have come across this book if not for Cook the Books.
I decided pretty early on what I was going to make, although I did have a few other ideas, but in the end I decided to make something that is kind of inspired by the essay on pineapple.
I really had two reasons for making Hummingbird cakes. The first was because in the essay, it talks about the fact that hummingbirds are banned in Hawaii as they pollinate pineapples and change the internal structure of the pineapple making them less marketable. So yes, I have made hummingbird cake because hummingbirds are banned in Hawaii
The second reason is because my auntie had given me this recipe ages ago. Every now and again I come across the piece of paper and so today I am putting it on the blog so that I can find it again when I want to find it, not just when I happen to find it. Oh, and and a bonus reason....I have been thinking about finding something to make with cream cheese frosting for weeks!
I have made Hummingbird Cake before, but that time it was a large cake, and it also had the addition of coconut in it.
When I was making the cakes I just used normal oil as we only had extra virgin olive oil in the pantry, and I made 1.5x the frosting because that just didn't feel like enough with the measurements. It actually could have done with double the frosting. I started trying to pipe the icing but quickly ran short so ended up just using a knife to spread it on the top, which is why they look a bit messy! Although to be fair, my baking always looks messy. It does taste good though! I served these up as dessert when my sister and her family came for dinner and they got a big thumbs up.
The Cook the Books selection for February and March is Annabel Abbs' book Miss Eliza's English Kitchen, which is also published under the name The Language of Food. This will be a reread for me so it will be interesting to see if it works for me the second time round. Here is my original review.
Hummingbird Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
3/4 cup plain flour 3/4 cup self raising flour 2 tspns ground cinnamon 1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda 3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed 440g can crushed pineapple in juice, well drained 2 eggs, lightly beaten 3/4 cup mashed banana 2/3 cup light olive oil Frosting 75g cream cheese, at room temperature 25g unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture
Line a 12-hole muffin pan (1/3 cup capacity) with paper cases
Sift flours, cinnamon and soda into a large bowl. Stir in sugar.
Combine pineapple, eggs, banana and oil in a large jug. Whisk well. Stir into flour mixture until just combined. Divide mixture evenly among paper cases.
Cook in a moderate oven (180C) for 20 minutes, or until cooked when tested. Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
To make frosting, beat cream cheese and butter in a small bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar. Beat until combined.
Spread frosting over top of cold cakes.
Weekly meals
Saturday - Steak, baked potato, salad Sunday - Crispy lemon and garlic roast chicken (new) Monday - Beef and broccoli noodles Tuesday - Chicken and onion wraps Wednesday - Honey pepper chicken and rice Thursday - Pork chops, mash, beans and mushroom sauce Friday - Takeout
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page
.jpg)
.png)
.png)
