Cookbook Review: Quick Fix Gluten Free by Robert M. Landolphi

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; Original edition (August 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449402933
• ISBN-13: 978-1449402938

Product Description

 

Gluten-free professional chef Robert M. Landolphi proves that a gluten-free lifestyle doesn't have to be bland and boring, labor-intensive, or time consuming inside Quick-Fix Gluten Free. In preparation for his follow-up to Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook, Landolphi queried fans about their biggest gluten-free challenges and created Quick-Fix Gluten Free in response to the dishes.

 

Divided into nine sections delving into everything from appetizers and breakfast to hearty, internationally inspired dishes, fan favorite comfort foods and decadent sweets and treats, Quick-Fix Gluten Free offers 100 fast and easily prepared recipes for crave-worthy dishes like Cinnamon Dusted French Toast, Kickin' Paella, Gnocchi with Roasted Garlic Butter and Parmesan Cheese, and Aunt Lil's Rich and Creamy Cheesecake. With a focus on fast, fresh and flavorful, these contemporary dishes are simple enough for everyday meals and delicious enough to serve to anyone--whether they are on a gluten-free diet or not.

Whether your choice to live gluten free is driven by the desire to lose weight, comply with a celiac diet, the need to avoid wheat because of mild allergies or the suspected link between gluten and autism, Quick-Fix Gluten Free proves that once-taboo foods like crusty breads, creamy pastas and indulgent cakes are no longer off-limits.

About the Author

 

Robert M. Landolphi is a professional gluten-free chef and graduate of the prestigious Johnson & Wales Culinary School. He is currently a Certified Culinary Arts Instructor and Culinary Operations Manager at the University of Connecticut. Robert also writes for a variety of print media and conducts regular radio and TV interviews across the country when he's not developing innovative, gluten-free recipes.

My Review


From Wikipedia: 
A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes foods containing gluten. Gluten is a protein found in wheat (including kamut and spelt), barley, rye, malts and triticale. It is used as a food additive in the form of a flavoring, stabilizing or thickening agent, often as "dextrin". A gluten-free diet is the only medically accepted treatment for celiac disease,^[1] the related condition dermatitis herpetiformis,^[2] and wheat allergy.^[1]
Additionally, a gluten-free diet may exclude oats. Medical practitioners are divided on whether oats are an allergen to celiac disease sufferers^[3] or if they are cross-contaminated in milling facilities by other allergens.<sup>[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet

I've been thinking a lot about eliminating wheat from my diet so this cookbook is very timely.  I had not really thought about flour being made from materials other than wheat.  In this cookbook wheat made from grains such as rice and tapioca are utilized.  I guess the main question is - will dishes taste the same using flours made with grains other than wheat?

For breakfast, the maple glazed fruit skewers sound really good!  Hmmm....and I love the Dijon Cream Sauce recipe.  Creamy chicken marsala...sounds to die for.  Pasta that come gluten free...interesting concept.

There is a chapter near the end on a gluten free pantry that is very helpful.  The author also discusses how he has experimented at great length to find flour mixtures that work with each type of cooking or baking.  I'm glad that someone else has already done the experimenting required to discover which flour blends work. 

As you can tell, I am still wavering on whether to become gluten free or not.  This book is a great resource for those who have made the decision either by choice or necessity to become gluten free.</sup>

Review: Champagne For Buzzards by Phyllis Smallman

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Mcarthur & Company (September 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552789128
• ISBN-13: 978-1552789124

Product Description

 

With its seven foot snakes and nasty horses, Florida ranch country can be as dangerous as the mean streets of any big city. Sherri Travis doesn't do country. She likes it even less when she meets Clay Adam's psychotic neighbors and finds a dead man in the back of her pickup. With fairy lights dancing through the Spanish moss and violent men closing in, the surprise party Sherri plans for Clay turns deadly.


About The Author

...Good Morning America...picked the Sherri Travis series as one of the top six for a summer read in 2010.

Phyllis Smallman's debut mystery, MARGARITA NIGHTS,was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger by the Crime Writers of the UK, nominated for the Malice Domestic in the US and won the first ever Arthur Ellis award for Unhanged Arthur. The Crime Writers of Canada also shortlisted Margarita Nights for best first novel.

Sex in a Sidecar and A Brewski For The Old Man followed. January Magazine named A BREWSKI FOR THE OLD MAN in the 10 best mysteries of 2010.

Champagne for Buzzards, the 4th book in the series, will be out in the US in 2011.

Phyllis Smallman was a potter, spending much of her time on a beach in Florida, before moving to British Columbia and turning to a life of crime.

"characters you'd love to have a drink with and a sense of place that captures the essence of the Sunshine State"...The Hamilton Spectator

See additional reviews and excerpts at www.phyllissmallman.com


My Review

This is the first novel in the Sherri Travis Mystery series that I have read although it is the fourth book.  It is preceded by Margarita Nights, Sex in a Sidecar and A Brewski For The Old Man. It is not necessary to have read the first three to enjoy this book.  I wish I had as Sherri Travis is a wonderful, spunky character that I'm looking forward to learning more about.

Sherri Travis, our heroine, owns and manages a bar called The Sunset in Jacaranda, Florida.  Although Sherri grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, her beau Clay Adams is a wealthy man who had recently purchased a ranch, called Riverwood, in nearby Independence.  While Sherri is attempting to ready the ranch for a surprise birthday party for Clay, she encounters his sinister neighbours as well as discovers a dead body in the back of truck.  You would think the buzzards circling her would have tipped her off immediately but she is rather distracted by the party planning!  While the quaint, tourist filled Jacaranda is Sherri's usual haunt, Independence is mired in secrets and evil.  A corrupt sheriff, scary gun-toting neighbours on ATVs, and the mysterious search for a "dangerous" man provide for the thrills in this book.  What Sherri discovers when she starts digging is heart wrenching....

This is a great story told by a talented author...the story just flows nice and easy like a southern breeze.  I enjoyed the characters who Sherri is surrounded by.  All in all a great read.  I'm looking forward to reading more Sherri Travis books by Phyllis Smallman.

Excellent prices for these novels in the Kindle version on the Amazon site.

Review: Second Son (Kindle Single) by Lee Child

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 161 KB
• Print Length: 40 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press (August 15, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

Product Description

 

In this new short story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child, available exclusively as an eBook, a young Jack Reacher knows how to finish a fight so it stays finished. He knows how to get the job done so it stays done. And, in one of his earliest challenges, he knows that his analytical brain is just as important as his impressive brawn.

Okinawa, 1974. Even at thirteen, Jack Reacher knows how to outwit and overpower anyone who stands in his way. And as the new kid in town, that’s pretty much everyone. His family has come to the Pacific with his father, who’s preparing for a top-secret Marine Corps operation. After receiving a rude welcome from the local military brats, Reacher and his older brother, Joe, intend to teach them a lesson they won’t forget. But it’s soon clear that there’s more at stake than pride. When his family’s future appears to come crumbling down, it’s the youngest Reacher who rises to the occasion with all the decisive cunning and bravura that will one day be his deadly trademark.

Second Son also includes a thrilling excerpt from Lee Child’s forthcoming novel, The Affair.

My Review

Short novella that provides a bit of insight into the childhood of Jack Reacher.  The reader is able to see Reacher's family dynamic in action.  And we are able to see how the adult Reacher became who he did.  Great treat for Reacher fans!

Review: Darkness, My Old Friend by Lisa Unger

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown (August 9, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307464997
• ISBN-13: 978-0307464996

Product Description

 

The New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies and Fragile returns to The Hollows, delivering a thriller that explores matters of faith, memory, and sacrifice.

After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. He’s in therapy. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in Fragile, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire.

Michael Holt, a young man who grew up in The Hollows, has returned looking for answers about his mother, who went missing many years earlier. He has hired local PI Ray Muldune and psychic Eloise Montgomery to help him solve the mystery that has haunted him. What he finds might be his undoing.

Fifteen-year-old Willow Graves is exiled to The Hollows from Manhattan when six months earlier she moved to the quiet town with her novelist mother after a bitter divorce.  Willow is acting out, spending time with kids that bring out the worst in her. And when things get hard, she has a tendency to run away—a predilection that might lead her to dark places.

Set in The Hollows, the backdrop for Fragile, this is the riveting story of lives set on a collision course with devastating consequences. The result is Lisa Unger’s most compelling fiction to date.

About the Author

 

Lisa Unger is the New York Times bestselling and award winning author of ten novels. She lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.


My Review

Darkness, My Old Friend is the second Lisa Unger novel to be set in The Hollows.  I am a huge Lisa Unger fan and am pleased to report that her latest is even more thrilling than her earlier books.

This is a story about change and it is story about the darkness in our lives.  Jones Cooper and his wife are back as is psychic Eloise Montgomery from Fragile, Lisa Unger's first book set in The Hollows.  Jones no longer is a detective with The Hollows Police Department...and he has a lot of changes to face in his life.  Michael Holt's mother disappeared twenty years ago.  He hires Eloise and PI Ray Muldune to find out what happened to her.  His father has just died and he is ready to find out the truth.  Young Willow Graves has been moved to The Hollows from New York.  The fifteen year old has trouble fitting in wherever she goes and it is no different in The Hollows.  I found the story of Paula Carr the most haunting.  All of these stories come together in the darkness that consumes The Hollows to make for a thrilling tense story.

Highly recommend this excellent mystery/crime thriller from Lisa Unger.  If you can, read Fragile first but it is not necessary.

Blog Tour and Review: The Bum Magnet by K. L. Brady

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star; Reprint edition (March 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451613709
• ISBN-13: 978-1451613704

Product Description

 

Charisse Tyson’s got it all going on . . .

She’s a savvy, successful real-estate agent with a quick wit, a low tolerance for BS, a gorgeous size-14 body, and a thirst for top shelf vodka. Despite her dream house, luxury car, and appetite for life’s best—like fine dining and hot men—she seems to have her own special talent for attracting players. Why do all of her ex-lovers belong in the Losers Hall of Fame?

There was Lamar, the hazel-eyed Adonis who sowed more wild oats than Quaker. . . Sean, an expert at juggling relationships . . . Marcus, whose lips wandered as often as his eyes . . . and others, too.      But just as Rissey swears off sex and vows to dump her emotional baggage, she meets house-hunting client Dwayne Gibson. There’s no way she can resist his seductive smile and rock-hard body. . . . Will Dwayne turn out to be the biggest bum of them all? Or will this time be different?






About The Author

 

K. L. Brady is a D.C. native but spent a number of her formative years in the Ohio Valley. She’s an alumnus of the University of the District of Columbia and University of Maryland University College, earning a B.A. in Economics and M.B.A., respectively. She works as an analyst for a major government contracting firm and is an active real estate agent with Exit Realty by day—and writes by night (often into the wee hours of the morning). She lives just outside of D.C. in Cheltenham, Maryland, with her son and lives to eat chocolate, shop, read, and write.

Her upcoming adult novel, THE BUM MAGNET, will be published by Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books in March 2011. THE BUM MAGNET was the winner of the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for Multicultural Fiction, as well as the Third Place Grand Prize Winner for Best Fiction of 2010. Moreover, the African Americans on the Move Book Club recently named her their 2011 Female Author of the Year. You can visit K.L. Brady’s website at www.authorklbrady.com.

You can find K. L. Brady at:
www.authorklbrady.com
www.facebook.com/KL-Brady (fan page)
www.facebook.com/KarlaB27
www.twitter.com/KarlaB27
www.thebummagnet.blogspot.com (relationship blog, under construction)
www.cheapindieauthor.blogspot.com (self-publishing tips and advice)

Watch the Trailer Here. 

The Bum Magnet Virtual Book Tour Schedule

Monday, August 1

Guest post at

Tuesday, August 2

Interviewed at Examiner

Wednesday, August 3

Book spotlighted at Book Marketing Buzz

Thursday, August 4

Guest blogging at Romance Junkies

Friday, August 5

Book reviewed at Book Reviews by Molly

Monday, August 8

Interviewed at Blogcritics

Tuesday, August 9

Book reviewed at Just Another Book Addict

Wednesday, August 10

Interviewed at Review From Here

Thursday, August 11

Book reviewed at Mad Moose Mama

Friday, August 12

Interviewed at The Hot Author Report

Monday, August 15

Book reviewed at Mysteries Etc.

Tuesday, August 16

Guest blogging at Literarily Speaking

Wednesday, August 17

Guest blogging at  Literal Exposure

Thursday, August 18

Guest blogging at

Friday, August 19

Guest participant at Literarily Speaking’s August Book Panel

Monday, August 22

Interviewed at Pump Up Your Book

Wednesday, August 24

Guest blogging at The Book Bin

Thursday, August 25

Book reviewed at Lynn’s Corner

My Review

Charisse is a forty-something woman trying to figure out love and life.  She has everything she needs in life except the most important thing....love.  This book follows the adventures/misadventures of Charisse's love life. She does learn an important lesson that we should all note:  when you stop trying so hard and let your guard down things all come together.  It is a hilarious book at times that has you laughing out loud.  It is a brave woman that re-examines her past relationships and who continues in her quest for love.

Great read for women. Warning:  Spicy language and situations. 

Review: Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (August 9, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307596850
• ISBN-13: 978-0307596857

Product Description

 

Wickedly hilarious and utterly recognizable, Girls in White Dresses tells the story of three women grappling with heartbreak and career change, family pressure and new love—all while suffering through an endless round of weddings and bridal showers.

Isabella, Mary, and Lauren feel like everyone they know is getting married. On Sunday after Sunday, at bridal shower after bridal shower, they coo over toasters, collect ribbons and wrapping paper, eat minuscule sandwiches and doll-sized cakes. They wear pastel dresses and drink champagne by the case, but amid the celebration these women have their own lives to contend with: Isabella is working at a mailing-list company, dizzy with the mixed signals of a boss who claims she’s on a diet but has Isabella file all morning if she forgets to bring her a chocolate muffin. Mary thinks she might cry with happiness when she finally meets a nice guy who loves his mother, only to realize he’ll never love Mary quite as much. And Lauren, a waitress at a Midtown bar, swears up and down she won’t fall for the sleazy bartender—a promise that his dirty blond curls and perfect vodka sodas make hard to keep.

With a wry sense of humor, Jennifer Close brings us through those thrilling, bewildering, what-on-earth-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life years of early adulthood. These are the years when everyone else seems to have a plan, a great job, and an appropriate boyfriend, while Isabella has a blind date with a gay man, Mary has a crush on her boss, and Lauren has a goldfish named Willard. Through boozy family holidays and disastrous ski vacations, relationships lost to politics and relationships found in pet stores, Girls in White Dresses pulls us deep inside the circle of these friends, perfectly capturing the wild frustrations and soaring joys of modern life. 

 

About the Author

 

Jennifer Close was born and raised on the North Shore of Chicago. She is a graduate of Boston College and received her MFA in Fiction Writing from The New School in 2005. She worked in New York in magazines for many years and then in Washington, D.C., as a bookseller. Girls in White Dresses is her first book.

My Review

Awesome debut novel by Jennifer Close. I was ready for a funny, chick lit book after reading Triple Crossing.  This book is a perfect blend of hilarity and the poignant reality of being a young woman in New York City.  The twenties are such an emotional time in any young person's life...what am I going to do with my life?  Am I ever going to get married?  Jennifer Close captures those feelings perfectly and blends in a dose of fun and laughter. I kept catching myself laughing out loud!  I loved the endless parade of showers and weddings that seem to fill everyone's twenties.  Six showers for one bride!..that was just crazy...

This is a heartwarming story about women and the friendship that they share with one another. I had a hard time putting this book down.  It is a easy but captivating read.  Excellent book to read on a lazy summer day.

I highly recommend this great book!

Review: Triple Crossing by Sebastian Rotella

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Mulholland Books (August 10, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316105309
• ISBN-13: 978-0316105309

Product Description

 

Valentine Pescatore, a volatile rookie Border Patrol agent, is trying to survive the trenches of The Line in San Diego. He gets in trouble and finds himself recruited as an informant by Isabel Puente, a beautiful U.S. agent investigating a powerful Mexican crime family.

As he infiltrates the mafia, Pescatore falls in love with Puente. But he clashes with her ally Leo Mendez, chief of a Tijuana anti-corruption unit. Politically charged violence escalates, plunging Pescatore into the lawless "triple border" region of South America and a showdown full of bloodshed and betrayal.

Writing with rapid-fire intensity, Sebastian Rotella captures the despair and intrigue of the borderlands, where enforcing the law has become an act of subversion. TRIPLE CROSSING is an explosive and riveting debut.

About the Author

 

Sebastian Rotella is an author and award-winning senior reporter for Propublica, an independent organization dedicated to investigative journalism. He covers issues including international terrorism, organized crime, homeland security and immigration. Previously, he worked for 23 years for the Los Angeles Times, serving as bureau chief in Paris and Buenos Aires and covering the Mexican border. He was a Pulitzer finalist in international reporting in 2006. He is the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Norton), which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1998.

Excellent article on the Mulholland Book Site here.


My Review

Excellent debut novel by Sebastian Rotella. Triple Crossing refers to the three country junction of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in South America which is similar to the Mexico/US border with its smuggling of people and goods.  Corruption and militaristic governments are the norm in the area.  I have dozens of friends who grew up in Mennonite colonies in the area and I have heard endless stories of violence and corruption that has existed for decades.

The story follows Border Patrol rookie Valentine Pescatore from the US/Mexican border near San Diego to the Triple Border area.  Rotella paints a vivid picture of the realities of both border regions where political corruption and organized crime intermingle to form this lawless landscape.  Violence is a daily occurrence.  Mexicans are no longer the only migrants trying to cross into the United States.  South and Central Americans along with Asians are also crossing illegally.  They are known as OTMs...Other Than Mexicans.  The organized crime element in the form of global mafias are moving migrants across borders in all regions that have uncontrolled borders.  The book focused on middle eastern mafioso in the Triple Border region.  

This was a really interesting book besides being an excellent crime thriller.  I haven't been in Tijuana since the mid 1970s and all I remember was extreme poverty, shacks made of cardboard and children trying to sell us paper flowers in the street.  I remember giving my Canadian flag pin to one of the young boys who asked for it.  A lot has changed since then.

Highly recommend this informative and thought provoking crime thriller.