I used random.org to determine the winners of the two contests that ended at midnight last night and they are:

Angels by Chuck Fischer (paper engineered by Bruce Foster)

• Natalie
• Lorin
• Margot

The Paper Bag Christmas by Kevin Alan Milne

• DarcyO

I’ve emailed the winners and will pass their names and addresses along to the publisher when I’ve received all of them.  (Thanks, Hachette!)  Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who entered!

When a two-week old kitten was found and brought into Patricia Khuly’s veterinary office, she refused to euthanize him, in spite of the fact that she had to remove his eyes because of a severe eye infection.  The kitten bounced back well from the surgery and seemed to have a sweet spirit.  Dr. Khuly had worked with blind cats before and knew this one could live a full life, since it had never seen  and wouldn’t know what it was missing out on.  She couldn’t find anyone to take this kitten and, out of desperation, called Gwen Cooper.

Gwen agreed to take a look at the kitten, but made no promises, since she already owned two cats.  Upon seeing the kitten, Gwen was smitten and agreed to take him, thus changing her life forever.  She named the tiny little kitten Homer after the Greek poet.  I admire Gwen and her willingness to adopt a cat no one else wanted.  Homer is a sweet, adventurous cat who loves everyone and sometimes frightens Gwen with his fearlessness.

Homer’s Odyssey by Gwen Cooper  is the story of Gwen’s life with Homer and her other two cats.  As an animal lover, I fell in love with Homer and his sweet, adventurous spirit.  He amazed me with his ability to adapt and his love of life.

This book started out with a bang for me, but dragged a little bit by the end.  I realize that it was important to know about Gwen’s life in order to understand some of what was going on in the life of her cats, but I felt like the end of the book focused on Gwen and her relationship too much.   Without Homer, her life wasn’t all that different from anyone else’s, so the end of the book didn’t pull me in the way the beginning did.  I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it to animal lovers.  Here’s a video of Gwen reading from her book and you can see Homer in it:

Review copy provided by Random House.   I am an Amazon Associate.

Julie of Booking Mama and I enjoyed bringing you The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies and hope you enjoyed it too.  Now that they’re over, we’re hoping you’ll share one of your tried and true recipes on your blog.  (If you don’t have a blog, leave your recipe in the comments or send me an email.)

After you post your recipe, please leave a link, using Mr. Linky,  for your traditional cookie recipes here and for your candy and chocolate cookie recipes on Julie’s blog.  To encourage (and reward) participation we’re both offering prizes.  We both have a prize pack for one lucky reader and a copy of The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman for another.  (Copies of The Christmas Cookie Club have been provided by Simon & Schuster.)  Because of the cost of postage, only those in the US and Canada are eligible to win the prize pack, but international readers can enter to win the book.  Winners will be chosen at random and you’re welcome to enter on both blogs!  You have until December 4 to link your post – prizes will be awarded on December 5.

Items included in the prize pack I’m giving away include:

• The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman
• square “Snow Days” cookie plate by St. Nicholas Square
• 2 small cookie cookbooks
• sprinkles
• spatulas
• cookie scoop
• snowman cookie cutter
• 2 oz. Ghiradelli chocolate peppermint coffee
• magnetic snowman notepad

Please join us and share one of your favorite cookie recipes.

I was so flattered when Rebecca of Lost in Books asked me to answer her 20 Questions feature last month.  She posted my answers yesterday and you can go on over there to see what I had to say.

In case you missed it, Julie, of Booking Mama, and I are hosting a virtual cookie swap.  We’ve posted twelve cookie recipes (six each, since we alternated days) and we hope you’ll share a recipe with us tomorrow, November 27. Yesterday, Julie posted a great recipe for Holly Leaves, which sound really festive.

I’m ending things up by going out on a limb today and featuring a recipe I’ve never made.  My sister made these last year and they were fabulous – she was kind enough to share the recipe with me.

Brown Sugar Cookies

14 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ cup sugar

2 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Heat 10 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat until melted.  Continue to cook, swirling the pan constantly, until the butter is dark golden brown and has a nutty aroma.  Transfer the browned butter to a large, heat proof bowl.  Stir the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter into the hot butter to melt. Set aside for 15 minutes
3. Combine the sugar and ¼ cup of the brown sugar in a shallow bowl; set aside.  Whisk the flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in a medium bowl.
4. Stir the remaining 1¾ cup brown sugar and salt into the cooked butter.  Add the egg, yolk and vanilla and mix until fully incorporated.  Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.
5. Working with 2 tablespoons of dough each time, roll the dough into 1½ inch balls.  Working in batches, carefully roll the balls in the reserved sugar mixture and place them on the baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart.
6. Bake the cookies at 350°, one sheet at a time, until browned and still puffy and the edges have begun to set but the centers are still soft, 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through baking.  Do not overbake.  (The cookies will look raw between the cracks and seem underdone.)
7. Cool the cookies on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

WHERE THINGS CAN GO WRONG: Avoid using a nonstick skillet to brown the butter.  Use fresh brown sugar.  Do not overbake.

Notes from my sister: “I mixed the dough entirely by hand, it wasn’t difficult to work with, but I’m sure it would work just as well with a mixer.  Also, I followed the directions and used 2 tablespoons of the dough when rolling the balls.  I think next time, I’ll only use 1 tablespoon.  I think I’d prefer a smaller cookie.  Might have to reduce the cooking time slightly though.”

We’re hoping everyone will post one of their favorite cookie recipes tomorrow! Please check back here and at Julie’s blog tomorrow.  We’ll both have our prize packs listed and Mr. Linky’s up.  Please link your candy and chocolate cookie recipes to Julie’s blog and your traditional cookie recipes to mine.  You’re welcome to enter on both of our sites by posting more than one recipe.

Thanksgiving is the Hokies favorite holiday, since they have so much to be thankful for. To celebrate in style, I thought I’d share pictures of a couple members of our family.

This is our nephew, Adam. He's really a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket, but we love him anyway.

Carl with the Hokie Bird.

I hope everyone has a lot to be thankful for today.  Have a wonderful holiday with your friends and family.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading.  If you want to play along, grab the button, and join the fun!  (Don’t forget to leave a link in your comment if you’re participating.

Today’s words are the last I’ll feature from The Magicians by Lev Grossman – this book was full of new-to-me words!

1. fealty – “Mostly they just scolded everybody involved for the mess they’d made, finishing each other’s sentences, then made everyone renew their vows of fealty before wandering away to crop some luckless farmer’s alfalfa fields.”

For some reason, I thought fealty had to do with being feeble, but I knew that didn’t make sense in the context.  Fealty means intense fidelity.

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2. flense – “And Janet, who could usually be counted on to ruthlessly flense anybody who made the mistake of taking anything seriously, Janet waited on Richard hand and foot!”

Flense means to strip (as a whale) of blubber or skin.  I don’t even want to think about that!

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3. kludge – “I thought at first that the entire place was a kludge, a virtual environment that functioned as a kind of three-dimensional switchboard.”

Kludge means a system, especially a computer system, made up of poorly matched components.

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4. aeruginous – “From the uptown end he could just barely see the tiny, hazy aeruginous spike of the Statue of Liberty out in the bay.”

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Aeruginous isn’t in my dictionary, but according to wiktionary.org, it means of, or pertaining to copper-rust or verdigris.

What new words have you encountered lately?

Earlier this month, I read and reviewed The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman.  I really enjoyed the book and was lucky enough to have the opportunity to ask Ann a few questions.  Here’s what she had to say:

THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB is so different from your other books.  What made you decide to tell this story?

I have been writing fiction for some time and have won prizes for short stories from small literary magazines.  I also have written several novels that have not found a home, one back in high school. So writing fiction is not new for me. When I first attended the cookie party in 2000, I knew it would make a great setting for a novel about women’s friendships.  I started notes for it then.  Writing another non-fiction book interrupted the project.

How was the writing process different for writing fiction than it has been for writing non-fiction?  Do you feel your personality is better suited to either one? Do you enjoy one more than the other?

In fiction there is less research.  When I’m writing non-fiction, I do massive amounts of research which I love doing.  Some of my non-fiction has entailed projecting myself into another person’s mind and experience which is entirely different than going deep inside your own mind and unearthing characters there.  With both fiction and non-fiction, the writer is entertaining and teaching.

In both, it’s a question of getting to know your characters, making scenes come alive and believable. In fiction, your characters teach, show you, tell you who they are. In non-fiction, I work to be true to people and facts. In fiction, I work to be true to in an internal vision.

Would you consider including not only cookie recipes but also recipes for some of the dishes that the women bring to the party?

You must be prescient! Marybeth Bayer, who is the hostess for the cookie party I attend, and I are finishing up a non-fiction workbook How to Start your own Christmas Cookie Club. In it we have dozens of new cookie and appetizer recipes, baking tips, and all sorts of other suggestions for a cookie exchange. Marybeth is a great hostess and baker.

How have the members of your Cookie Club reacted to the publication of this book?

They are excited and proud!  I threw a party for them, gave each of them a copy of the novel.  We decided we’ll sign each others’ copies at our cookie party this year.  The book seems to have focused attention on cookie exchanges throughout the country, and started a bunch more!!

Do they recognize themselves in it?

I didn’t give them that chance.  Long before the book was published, I told the few that were in it and showed them a draft of the bits I used – an email, an appearance, and an event–  and received their enthusiastic permission and excitement.  Our friends recognize the pieces of people who are in it in spite of the fact I made up so much about them. But other than the few things I mentioned in the acknowledgements, the book is not true and my characters are not the women in my cookie club.

I think the women in the cookie club feel proud that our great group has been memorialized by the book and may increase the number of cookie clubs across the country.

People who live in Ann Arbor get a kick out of reading about the city.

I loved the little essays about the cookie ingredients. At what point in the writing process did you decide to include them?

That idea came almost out of the blue as I was finishing up the book.  I wanted to give people something they could take away that would spotlight and call for reexamination of things we assume as ordinary… our friendships, the very food we eat. It’s not ordinary. Especially now in these times focus on food has changed.  And, human beings’ search for food has a spectacular history and effect.  I struggled how to present the ingredients… Some people wouldn’t want the narrative interrupted, others read to learn.  So I put them in discrete chapters and each reader decides how to handle them. Some save them to the end and read them all at once.  Others read the book straight through.

For me this is really a story about the importance of women’s friendships. Why do you think women’s friendships are so important?

Yes.  This book is about the importance of women friendships.

Why are they important?  Individually, we help each other get through the rough times, and celebrate the good. We are there to talk, cry, laugh, help out in an emergency or a major crisis.  We have fun together.  We understand and accept each other.  We support each other when our lives need to change. We love each other.

As communities, by relying on each other, we cooperate to get through emergencies and crisis.  In Katrina, for example, women who merged resources, shared, and figured out what to do survived with the least trauma.

In our history, recently evolutionary research has looked at the role of grandmothers.  A grandmother, a non-reproductive female with stamina to work, often made the difference for the survival of her grandchildren, and the carrying forth of her genes, by sharing the food she gathered.  We underestimate the importance of grandmothers to the survival of our species and cultures.

Do you have any plans for a sequel to THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB?

Absolutely.  I’m working on a novel about Sky and Tara.  I have fallen in love with them and their story.  A question for you and your readers: The Christmas Cookie Club is like a party.  You meet new friends and enjoy old ones. Which of the women from the novel would you like to become a closer friend (or enemy)? Who do you want to know about?  A prequel or a sequel?

I’d like to thank Ann for taking the time to answer my questions, and ask you to answer her questions if you’ve read THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB.  Which of the women from the book do you want to know more about?

In case you missed it, Julie, of Booking Mama, and I were inspired by The Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman, so we’re hosting a virtual cookie swap.  We’ll post twelve cookie recipes (six each, since we’re alternating days) and we hope you’ll  share a recipe with us on November 27. Yesterday, Julie posted a great recipe for coconut biscotti.

I got this recipe from a dear friend in Auburn.  These cookies are so popular, she made them for every occasion and would always send a batch to my mother whenever she knew I was going for a visit.

Raspberry almond cookies

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup butter (I use half unsalted butter, half margarine)

½ teaspoon almond extract

Mix together – add 2 cups flour – then mix again.

Roll dough into a log.  Cut and roll into balls.  Put on cookie sheet and indent.  Bake at 350° for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly browned.  Fill indentations with seedless raspberry jam.  (Stir jam first.)

Drizzle:

½ cup confectioners sugar

½ teaspoon almond extract

2/3 teaspoon water

Add water gradually, until you get the right consistency.  Drizzle once cookies have cooled.

Be sure to check Julie’s blog tomorrow for Day 11 – I’m sure she’ll have another yummy recipe featured.

A big thanks to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting this fun meme!  Head on over there to see what everyone else got last week or to play along.  Here’s what I found in my mailbox last week:

Monday

• Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson came from Hachette Books
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera was a win from The Roaring 20’s
• Try to Remember by Iris Gomez came from Hachette Books

Tuesday

• How Clarissa Burden Leaned to Fly by Connie May Fowler came from Hachette Books
• True Blue by David Baldacci was a win from The Printed Page

Wednesday

• Evenings at the Argentine Club by Julia Amante was a win from Bookin’ with Bingo

Friday

• The Body in the Sleigh by Katherine Hall Page came from Harper Collins for participating in a Blog Talk Radio show with the author

Saturday

• Annie’s Ghost by Steve Luxenberg was a BBAW win from the War Through the Generations Challenge
• When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge came from Booking Mama
• Perfect Timing by Jill Mansell came from Booking Mama

What books came into your home last week?