December Mishmash
I should've known it was strange, you only come out at night.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! I hope you had a nice December, with lots of cookies, hot cocoa, delicious food, and fun times with family and friends. This year went by so fast! I had some fun trips, no medical issues, got a promotion at work, and just generally feel like this was a pretty good year. Hopefully these good vibes will just continue on into 2024! I have set some very basic and achievable goals in most of these categories, in the spirit of new years resolutions, and I will continue to share each month via this newsletter as long as you all keep enjoying it! 🖤 This is a long one, so if it's cut off in the email, click the title or the “view in browser” link above to view the full post on substack!
Food!
My wonderful sister sent me two more cookbooks from my wishlist for Christmas (along with two others that she sent early, Hetty McKinnon’s Tenderheart and Julia Turshen’s Simply Julia), and I am feeling very spoiled! My first glance through I Dream of Dinner (so you don’t have to) by Ali Slagle and Everyone’s Table by Gregory Gourdet and I am feeling very excited about what we will be eating in the new year! I’ve added sticky notes to so many of the pages!
On Christmas Eve I made a recipe from Everyone’s Table that I am now obsessed with: Dirty Mashed Potatoes! Caramelized onions and garlic, along with a simple cashew cream combine to make insanely delicious mashed potatoes, and surprise… vegan!! I didn't even miss the butter, and for me that's saying something!!
If you like your baked pasta with more veggies than pasta, this Baked Rigatoni with Butternut Squash, Kale, and Sage is for you! The recipe calls for topping the dish with some pecans or walnuts before baking but I forgot to do this. We didn’t miss it, but I do think it would be a nice addition. My favorite part of this dish is the big dollops of ricotta and fresh mozzarella in the middle, which makes it lasagna-esque!
I made this Salted Maple Pie for a weeknight RHOSLC watching with friends, and it was a big hit! It’s a custard pie, similar to chess pie (which I haven’t had before, so don’t ask me about chess pie), and I used a store bought crust with success. If you make this, don’t skimp on the sprinkle of salt at the end!!! I topped the pie with some really good cinnamon roll walnuts, and the whipped cream is a must! I think some type of fruit would probably be good with this too, maybe apples or pears, or maybe a drizzle of dark chocolate sauce?!? But it doesn’t need it, it’s really yummy with just the whipped cream!
One more sweet thing to share: Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats! I made these for a family get-together. They were dubbed the Best Rice Crispy treats ever, and they’re so addictive!
Food goals for 2024: I am going to attempt to cook a recipe from one of my many wonderful cookbooks once a week, or maybe once a month is more practical.
Books
You can shop all my recent reads here: https://bookshop.org/shop/michelleflook (Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.)
Time for the year end round up!!!! In 2023 I read/listened to 52 books! Here's my favorite breakdown by mood from Storygraph:
It’s so hard to pick favorites! I tend to find something to like about every book, and if I am not enjoying a book, I stop reading it. There are too many books to read to stick with a book you don’t enjoy!! I think this is the first year ever that I read more non-fiction than fiction. I narrowed down my favrorite reads to top three for Fiction and top three for Non-Fiction (in no particular order) and then I have some honorable mentions! Did you read anything great in 2023?
Here are my picks:
Non-fiction:
How to Say Babylon (a gripping memoir written by a poet, it is both an upsetting story and an inspiring one. If you liked Educated, pick this one up!)
What My Bones Know (a difficult but necessary book digging deep into trauma, both inherited and experienced, and its long-lasting effects.)
The Storyteller (Dave Grohl’s audiobook, read by him, was a highlight in my audiobook listening this year!)
Fiction:
Pomegranate (This book reads a bit like a memoir. The main character felt so real to me, and is earnest and honest. This is not an action-packed story, more of a quiet and hopeful living day-to-day type of story. I loved it and would have kept reading Ranita’s story for many more pages!)
A History of Burning (A multi-generational story for fans of Pachinko, etc., with great characters, and a perfect ending.)
Our Missing Hearts (A story told from multiple voices within a family, I was extremely invested in each of them. The first half of the book is a lot of world/character building, and the second half is more action-packed, intense, and heartbreaking. I did not want this story to end!)
Honorable Mentions:
My Absolute Darling (fiction - this is dark and disturbing, so not for everyone, but I found it hard to put down!)
American Mermaid (fiction - an off-kilter beach read, for those who enjoy dark humor and satire, it’s an odd one but really fun!)
Elsewhere (fiction - I keep thinking about this book and the strange fairy-tale-like world within!)
The Night of the Gun (non-fiction - a unique memoir, in which an investigative reporter investigates his own life, and covers a lot of topics. I also really liked his daughter’s memoir, All That You Leave Behind!)
Tell Me Everything (non-fiction - part memoir and part investigation by a rookie p.i., this was a great audiobook for lovers of true crime!)
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt (non-fiction - this is an odd little book that made me smile and I highly recommend the audiobook!!)
Run Towards the Danger (non-fiction - a book of essays by actress/film-maker Sarah Polley, delving into memory, trauma, her life as a child actor, a life full of medical issues, loss of her mother at a young age, etc.)
Reading goals for 2024: I didn’t quite meet my goal of 60 books this year, but I am going to set 60 books as my goal again for 2024. I have such a giant backlog of books I want to read, and wish I could just read and sew every day!
TV/Movies
We watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix as soon as it came out. I read the book in 2022, and was looking forward to seeing the movie! The movie was well done, the changes/differences made sense to me. The ending of the movie was a little too open-ended to me, but I think that is the point. If I recall, the book had a similar ending, but I feel that it just worked better in the book. Did you watch this? What did you think??
A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu is I guess what you would call a modern take on the locked-room mystery, bringing in a lot of technology elements to a story set in a remote hotel owned by a very wealthy tech guru. The main character is a young hacker who also happens to be really into solving murders. We really enjoy the writers/creators behind this show, and I love a ‘murder show,’ so I was excited to watch it. We liked the show overall, though the very ending didn’t sit quite right with me (let me know if you watch it so we can discuss!). I definitely didn’t figure out who the murderer was before it was revealed, which is always a nice surprise!
Projects!
I can finally share a couple sewing projects I made for my sister! Her birthday is right before Christmas, so I always try to send her lots of fun goodies for her birthday, separate from Christmas. Many years back I made her an apron and she requested a new apron this year, so I made her a patchwork apron with some vaguely “spooky/witchy” themed fabric, and I love how it turned out!
I also made a Wild Star Quilt (pattern from Plains and Pine) without any plan for what to do with it, just wanting to use up some scraps, and decided I would mail the finished quilt to my sister. I really enjoyed making this, sorting fabrics by color and then creating each diamond with a bit of improvisation. The final result I think is really neat, and is absolutely one of a kind. I should have taken more photos of the star up close, it’s really neat seeing these scraps from various projects all together working together to make something new. I also really love the backing fabric, full of plants and a black cat that reminded me of my sister’s kitty, Diana, who I am sure will be snuggling up with this quilt!
*I’ll put it out there again that I would love to do more quilt commissions, so reach out if you are at all interested in buying a custom handmade quilt!!
With the above quilt, that makes a total of 6 quilts that I completed in 2023, three for us, and three for gifts! I’m nearly done with a commissioned quilt that I absolutely love, but holiday plans have slowed down the progress a bit. It will be done in January!! In addition to quilts, I also made the above apron, and two dresses for myself.
Sewing/crafty goals for 2024: I have plans more non-quilty sewing in January, and will continue to prioritize quilt patterns that allow me to use up scraps! I am going to try adding some curved pieces into quilts, I signed up for a block of the month club, and maybe I will revisit my book cover inspired mini quilt art idea. I got stuck with how to display them—mount on stretched canvas somehow? frames? a dowel insert on the back? Not sure how practical this idea is overall, but I still like the idea. Also, not sewing, but I want to get back into punch needle, a yarn-based craft that I started and for some reason dropped, but I still have lots of supplies and even a full project kit that I never started! I’ll share all of my adventures, don’t worry. 🧵
Miscellaneous!
You may remember from last month, that our oven decided it didn’t want to heat up past 300 degrees any longer, so we took advantage of Black Friday deals and upgraded a lot of our kitchen this month! We are really enjoying the modern upgrades, like the oven has an air fryer mode, the dishwasher is so quiet, and the microwave seems to heat faster and more evenly. I also put up a faux backsplash behind the new oven (not sure how long it will stay but it's fine for now). We also got a new toilet, which is way more exciting than it should be, as well as replaced an LED light fixture that was half burnt out, and replaced the bathroom sink faucet whose finish has been flaking off and driving me crazy for a while. All of this is our Christmas gift to ourselves!
Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo has been in my head all month long!!! The new Fortnite music mode that’s similar to Rock Band is partly to blame, because it was one of the few tolerable songs in the first group of songs in that mode and I played it (more than) a few times!
We went a little bit silly with our Christmas card this year, using a photo from our trip to Hawaii back in February, photoshopping Remi, Santa, and a snowman in. It makes me smile, and I hope the recipients also enjoyed receiving it. 🎄☃️🎅
Matthew and I got dressed up for two holiday parties on the same evening, and we looked pretty cute!
For my Miscellaneous goals for 2024, I am going to attempt to prioritize doing yoga regularly (this sort of fell off after last January). I’ll also be walking more due to returning to an office for work in February. Luckily the location is a good walkable distance, so that will be nice on days when the weather cooperates. Maybe I’ll even ride my bike? I am trying to look on the bright side in most situations these days, as I tend to get bogged down with negativity really easily, so that’s another area that I just want to continue with.
Remi!
She is always on the nice list.
Thanks for reading these every month. I really appreciate you all! Feel free to send me a message (you can reply directly to the email!) to say hi, or share your favorite books of the year, or tell me your resolutions, or suggest a recipe I should make! I love to hear from you!
Goodbye, until next YEAR!! :)
xoM