Sunday, May 31, 2009

A Little Lit with the Ladies

Attic Gal Rachelle says:
I have been busy entertaining this week!  On Thursday evening I hosted our book club.

  We read "These is My Words" by Nancy E. Turner.  It is the story of a woman named Sarah Agnes Prine and her adventures in the frontier of the Arizona Territories in the 1880s and 90s.  A terrific read!!!


The weather was unseasonably lovely so we met outside, which was perfect!  For ambiance I brought out my old trunk  found out saleing (remember this post?) and filled it with old quilts and draped it with my 1880's crazy quilt (see this post).  I added some old books, and a jar of homemade soaps - all of which are very important to the story of Sarah Prine.

It only took minutes to gather everything from the house, but really added to the evening, I think.


Food was simple too.  I used an old quilt for the tablecloth.  I made some pecan pie in honor of the pecan grove they had in the story.  Here is the recipe for my AMAZING and super easy pie.

Honey Crunch Pecan Pie

Pecan filling:

4 eggs
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup pecans, chopped

Crunch topping:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. butter
1  1/2 cups pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350.  For filling, in medium bowl mix eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, sugar, butter, vanilla and salt.  Stir in chopped pecans.  Pour gently into prepared crust.  Bake 35 minutes.  When pie is baking, prepare topping.  In a small sauce pan, over medium heat, combine brown sugar, honey, and butter.  Cook 2-3 minutes, until sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly.  Stir in pecan halves.  When pie has baked 35 minutes, take it out of the oven and gently pour  topping over pie.  Return to oven and bake about 10 minutes longer.  Cool and serve.


I also served warm homemade bread, with homemade jam, Cox whipped honey brought straight from Utah by Tara, and my dear friend Shari even made homemade peanut butter!  There really is nothing better in this world than warm, homemade wheat bread with homemade jam, farm fresh honey, and homemade PB!  Heaven.  Really.

We had a great discussion.  For fun, I found 25 of my favorite quotes from the book, put them in a basket, and everyone picked a few they liked, and took turns reading them for the basis of our discussion.

We had a great literary chat, and everyone agreed it was a really terrific book!

Are you in a book club?  What have been some of you club's favorite reads?

If you are not in a book club, join one or start one.  It's easy.  I love having an excuse to sit down and read something besides Dr. Seuss,  and then get together with such neat ladies each month.

Happy reading!

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a lovely evening. I love how you upped the ante by creating a wonderful scene to showcase the book. I bake my own bread and jam but have yet to make my own peanut butter (although I do purchase one made from peanuts and oil). The food sounds wonderful (pie sounds especially good!) as does the book club!

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  2. Ooh, thanks for sharing the pecan pie recipe. How about the bread recipe? I'm sorry I missed the main part of the evening. You always do great with ambiance.

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  3. I'm going to try your pie recipe! Sounds yummy! What a great book club! I think your idea of simple is different from most people's :) I say that with love and admiration :)

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