7 Quick Takes, The Easter 2011 Edition

--1--

We spent a lovely Easter weekend at my in-laws' house. One nice thing about spending holidays with my mother-in-law has always been that she sets the table for the dinner at least a day ahead of time. Unlike me, who is frantically trying to get the table set with dinner nearly ready. After fifteen years of marriage, you'd think I'd have learned that from her by now.

Grandma B always has the most wonderful centerpieces on her holiday table!

--2--

Dinner was a delicious roast filet, roasted potatoes and carrots, a beautiful tossed salad that their neighbors, who joined us for dinner, had brought, and Grandma B's TOP SECRET Easter pies.

For appetizers, my mother-in-law fixed some deviled eggs to die for. Truffled Deviled Eggs...

...and everyone's favorite, Tyler Florence's Lobster Deviled Eggs. Instead of lobster, do you know what Grandma used? Crayfish. Delicious.


Look how much butter Grandma covered the filet with!



The roast potatoes and carrots are Joe's favorite, and they were delicious.


Dang, I forgot to take a picture of the pies. Maybe next year I'll try to make them and share a photo with you if they look any good. I just won't be able to share the recipe with you, or my mother-in-law will disown me.

--3--

Guess what I found at our local butcher's this week? Pasture-raised veal. I'm almost certain there wasn't any there when I got the tenderloin for our marsala pork, but the lady told me that it's something that they almost always have. If I run across any more veal in Nick's books, I won't need to substitute pork or chicken. Hooray! (Joe still says he'd rather just have a steak. We'll see.)

--4--

I've started re-reading True Believer. It's the first part of a two-book series; the second book is At First Sight. Curly noticed that the picture on the cover of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse seems out-of-date, because it appears to be standing in its original location even though it was moved in 1999 to save it from the encroaching ocean waves. We were there last summer and saw it for ourselves

Here's the book...

...and here's the actual lighthouse.

It's a long way to the top.

Looking out you can see the place where the lighthouse once stood, 2,900 feet from its present location. (Learn more about moving Cape Hatteras Lighthouse here and here.)

What's on the cover isn't important, anyway; it's the story inside.

(If you want, you can check out this post for more from our visit to the Outer Banks last summer. If you're interested.)

--5--

I still haven't decided whether or not to re-read Nick's memoir, Three Weeks With My Brother, for this blog. I know I will eventually read it again ; I love the moving story Nick tells of his life from childhood to bestselling author, about the tragic deaths of both his parents, and about losing his younger sister to cancer when she was only thirty-three. He also recalls the around-the-world adventure trip he took with his brother Micah, and how that three-week-long journey helped their already close relationship grow even stronger.

I don't know if there is anything I could cook that would tie into Three Weeks With My Brother. (I do recall an instance of Nick and Micah reluctantly sampling a roast guinea pig in Peru or some such place. We won't be having guinea pig here.) Anyhow, I won't know until I read it again whether or not to include it in this journey through Nick's books, will I?

--6--

If I had one of these...

I wonder if I would drink less coffee? If I would need to make my coffee one cup at a time, rather than a pot full that I just keep refilling my cup with, would I drink fewer cups? Then again, I might drink even more, since one cup only takes like thirty seconds. If I didn't already have a perfectly good coffee maker I would be sorely tempted to buy one. They've got them at Costco...Hmmmm....

--7--



Have you noticed anything different about this blog lately? Probably not. Recently I took photos of all of my Nicholas Sparks books, and used them to replace the images of the book covers that I pulled from the Internet. I've also taken down a few miscellaneous images, including the ones from Nick's films. I don't know whether or not this is an improvement, but mostly I want to make sure that every photo I post here is my own. I've been exploring ways to use images from the Internet without breaking any copyright laws, but for now I'm having fun figuring out creative ways to use my own photos in my blogs. (I'm open to suggestions!)

Check out my 7 Quick Takes post from a couple weeks back that I posted on Musings of a Catholic Mom for more about my blog de-cluttering project.

And be sure to check out Jen Fulwiler's Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

Have a great week; may it be full of good food and good books!