Beautiful Book Quotes with Simini Blocker

One of the best feelings in the world is finding something you forgot you loved, and when you find it again you find that there is more to love! That's how I felt today when I rediscovered Simini Blocker's art. You may know her from her illustrations she's done for Rainbow Rowell and other artists. I follow her on tumblr but somehow have been missing the awesome updates shes been posting. Simini partnered up with Uppercase, which is a young adult book monthly subscription box. Her wonderful book quote art made me so happy I wanted to share them here. She did twelve for a 2017 planner that I can't find all twelve for. So here's the ten I can find =) 

you can find her 

store

blog

tumblr 

at those links!

Speaking of books, let me know what you're reading right now! I'm always looking for recommendations =) 

till next time,

Maggie

Back at it with the Jams - Jams of the Week 1/23/17

Welcome to jams of the week! First batch of 2017, leggo!

John Splithoff - Sing To You

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness - Walking In My Sleep

LP - Lost On You

till next time,

Maggie

New Year, New Hands, New Projects

Hello blogworld. I've been neglecting you since before Christmas and I feel sad about it but to be fair, life is crazytown right now. Short recap: in November I had surgery on my left hand to take care of my carpal tunnel and trigger finger. Then I went back to work and dealt with the craziness of the holidays and now I'm back down to one hand as I had my second surgery done Thursday. 

Left hand! 

Right hand, so ugly. Blame the iodine for the orange hand.

So while I've had lots of blogging ideas I can't do jack until I have both my hands back. Which is very annoying. Especially when I decided to binge the Great British Bake Off again and I got a new collection of cookbooks for the holidays and I want to bake so bad! So until I can blog the recipes themselves, here's a preview of my three favorite new cookbooks. 

Patisserie at Home - by Melanie Dupuis & Anne Cazor

This book is so wonderful! I snagged it for half price at HomeGoods where I saw the pretty cover and then started to flip through and fell in love with the illustrations and photography. My biggest pet peeve in cookbooks is when photos aren't given or aren't clear and this book is so useful! It doesn't have the annoying pages on what tools you need or what they mean when they say milk...I know you mean milk.  I think it's perfect for those bakers who take scientific approaches to their cooking. Look at this wonderful little tart for example:

Mary Berry would say those look scrummy I bet. The book has a ton of recipes you might not find in any other traditional american baking book. I can't wait to share some once I have my hands back!

***

I'm a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain. I once got to stalk him in Spain with some classmates when he was at El Bulli at the same time as us **insert heart eyes emoji here** lol. Anyways his new cookbook was a awesome present from my good pal Chloe. 

Appetites: A Cookbook - Anthony Bourdain 

an epic collection of Tony's family recipes, the things he likes to make when he's at home. Also includes a butt-ton of sass. For example, don't question Jacques...

Personally I can't wait to make this chicken:

gimme gimme gimme.

***

In recent years I've really gotten into my family history and I particularly love the influence of food on cultures. My Dad got me a wonderful book to help me reach out to my German ancestors

Classic German Baking: The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen  –  Luisa Weiss

The book is SO thorough with it's recipes; it has sweet, savory, breads, etc. The one draw back to that is it doesn't have a lot of photos, but I figure I can always google. It's endless list has so many things I've never heard of, but I can't wait to try them out. 

So here's to a new year, new me, new hands, and new projects. 

2017's gunna be awesomesauce.

till next time,

Maggie