read of the month { the berlin kitchen }

Read of the week has officially become read of the month (or maybe of the season, ha!) because I don't have any time anymore to read.  Ok, scratch that, I do have some time to read.  However, I have also committed to the Bible in a year (I'm currently 55% done, go me!).  So if I do have a few minutes its usually reading on my YouVersion App. 

I did (finally) get this little gem read.  And believe me, it was worth it.  If you loved Eat, Pray, Love and Julie & Julia then you'll love this book.  And if you are a cook like me there area few recipes in here that are worth writing down!  Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

Distance means nothing when your kitchen smells like home.

I guess, dear reader, I want to tell you that even when you have found your person in this world, the person who you know, deep down in your mitochondrial DNA, is meant to be by your side in this life, it is no guarantee that this person will not also drive you completely batshit insane at some moments along the way.  It is unfair to expect your sweetheart to be a perfect person or to consider yourself above reproach just because you love each other.  Even if you have found your one true love, you will still have exact ideas about how to clean a floor, whether your family is nuts or simply lovable, and just what, exactly, are the requirements for being a good driver.  But I knew we were on the right path when we managed to agree on potato salad.

That's the funny thing about good friends.  You can never remember what life was like before they came along.

My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (With Recipes)

in a nutshell (from Amazon)
It takes courage to turn your life upside down, especially when everyone is telling you how lucky you are. But sometimes what seems right can feel deeply wrong. My Berlin Kitchen tells the story of how one thoroughly confused, kitchen-mad perfectionist broke off her engagement to a handsome New Yorker, quit her dream job, and found her way to a new life, a new man, and a new home in Berlin—one recipe at a time.

Luisa Weiss grew up with a divided heart, shuttling back and forth between her father in Boston and her Italian mother in Berlin. She was always yearning for home—until she found a new home in the kitchen. Luisa started clipping recipes in college and was a cookbook editor in New York when she decided to bake, roast, and stew her way through her by then unwieldy collection over the course of one tumultuous year. The blog she wrote to document her adventures in (and out) of the kitchen, The Wednesday Chef, soon became a sensation. But she never stopped hankering for Berlin.

Luisa will seduce you with her stories of foraging for plums in abandoned orchards, battling with white asparagus at the tail end of the season, orchestrating a three-family Thanksgiving in Berlin, and mending her broken heart with batches (and batches) of impossible German Christmas cookies. Fans of her award-winning blog will know the happy ending, but anyone who enjoyed Julie and Julia will laugh and cheer and cook alongside Luisa as she takes us into her heart and tells us how she gave up everything only to find love waiting where she least expected it.

**I'm also updating my Shelfari bookshelf (bottom of blog) after many months of neglect.  Apologies!