Category Archives: Books

Straight Up Tasty by Adam Richman Review

Let me start by saying that the products featured in this post were provided to me free of charge courtesy of BloggingforBooks. This in no way will influence the review to follow and all opinions are my own.

Straight Up Tasty:

Meals, Memories, and Mouthfuls from My Travels

Review and Giveaway

A shift has occurred in the past couple years that is directly related to when we purchased out home. Shortly after we bought this house I began to cook, and each day that passed found myself getting more and more interested in the concept of food. In this transitional time we watched a lot more food related television. We discovered that by watching these shows it helped us learn and expand out pallets.

One day we came across a show which featured a restaurant and a challenge. This show was “Man Vs.Food” and it slowly moved its way into our line up (by now in reruns being replayed) and we enjoyed it. When I heard that the Adam Richman, the host of the show, released a cookbook sharing recipes and stories from the show I knew that i had to get it.

Straight Up Tasty: Meals, Memories, and Mouthfuls from My Travels by Adam Richman is a fun culinary journey that brings the best recipes from across the country. The book covers breakfast items, lunch items, dinners, desserts, sides, condiments and everything in between that he has collected through Adam’s travels for the show.

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Upcycle Your Wardrobe Review

Upcycle Your Wardrobe: 21 Sewing Projects for Unique, New Fashions Review and Giveaway

As many of my regular readers know I love to up-cycle items whenever possible. The last project I up-cycled was a maxi dress I purchased at Target. I did not like the top but loved the pattern and the way the dress hung to the floor. This dress sat in my closet each season, and when summer would roll around I would try to rig the dress into a skirt and wear it that way. This never really worked the way I hoped and it never looked quite right when I was wearing it. This went on for a couple of summers until I finally purchased a new sewing machine.

Having a new sewing machine finally allowed me to open my mind to the possibility of cutting the dress at the top and giving me that bottom part I desired. One night, when I was unable to sleep inspiration hit me and I knew how to cut the dress, while preserving the skirt. I eagerly pulled out my sewing machine and got the scissors out, and immediately got to cutting and resewing. After about 45 minutes what resulted was a skirt with a matching scrunchie where there was a full dress an hour before.

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Cookie Love Review

Cookie Love: More Than 60 Recipes and Techniques for Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary Review and Giveaway

I have been a cookie fan since I was a child, in fact I recently admitted to being a cookie monster since I was young. My favorite cookie memory involves my best friends from youth. Each weekend I would play host to slumber parties and 2:00am cookie making messes. Generally speaking we made chocolate chip, oatmeal or peanut butter but sometimes we would venture into the fancier cookie books and attempt a recipe.

Flash forward 25 years later and I still love baking cookies, as well as convincing my friends to come and help me bake them. The major difference is that my cookie making confidence is much higher than at 15 years old. I love cookbooks and recently was given the chance to review Cookie Love: More Than 60 Recipes and Techniques for Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Mindy Segal.

This collection is over 280 pages of recipes, cookie making basics that cover tools used and common tricks, as well as measurement conversion charts. This book includes some of the best cookie recipes I have ever heard of including snickerdoodles, smoked almond shortbread with orange blossom and raspberry framboise, cheese board biscotti and many others.

If you are a fan of quality cookie themed cookbooks and unique recipes I highly recommend this book full of “Cookie Love”.

To learn more about Cookie Love: More Than 60 Recipes and Techniques for Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary, click here,

To purchase, click to own your own copy you can find it here on Amazon

GIVEAWAY: DealsAmongUs will be awarding one person one copy of Cookie Love: More Than 60 Recipes and Techniques for Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Mindy Segal either on Kindle or Hard Copy (winners choice). US and Canada entrants only. I will be randomly choosing 1 person on August 19 (8/19/2015) to receive this awesome cookie book! To enter complete the entries below! Winner will be notified by me by email and prize will be fulfilled by DealsAmongUs via Amazon! Remember you have 48 hours to claim prize, or I will choose another winner. GOOD LUCK!!!

Cookie Love Book Giveaway

Soul Reader Book Review and Giveaway

Let me start by saying that the products featured in this post were provided to me free of charge courtesy of Dianne Bright/Tate Publishing. This post may have affiliate links but this in no way will influence the review to follow and all opinions are my own.

Soul Reader Book Review and Giveaway!

As always I like to be honest with you, my readers, so it is full disclosure time: I met the author in elementary school and we were classmates until we graduated high school, at that time I lost touch with her until the magic of Facebook. This in no way will affect the review to follow, but I wanted to be honest with you right off.

I know some people have a process in which they use in the selection of books, I am not one of these people. I use a method that is sometimes deceiving, sometimes misleading and sometimes a pleasant surprise – I choose by the title only. The reason for this overly simplistic method of choice roots back to my childhood when I would use the title to make book choices, a creature of habit I am.

Let me start by saying that while the title may not have gotten my attention and made me want to read the book, the beautiful cover image and imagery that it projects would have gotten my attention.

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The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly Review

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly Review

Another day, another confession: In my early 30’s I had some non-cancerous lumps removed from my breasts (Go and get your mammograms ladies!!) and due to a couple of complications I spent some time not only in the emergency room but the hospital itself. When I saw a book that covered a physicians first year I was intrigued since I thought I had seen it all and would love to see the “other” side. The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly by Matt McCarthy was a fun read, especially when you relate it to your own local hospital and the characters therein.

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly covers the authors first year as an intern at a New York area hospital. This book brings up such issues as accidental pin pricks and how does a doctor really get to know their patients when schedules do not permit such close-up care. The book is at times suspenseful, sometimes sad but always uplifting. I guarantee that you will view your physician with softer eyes after reading this account of a first year.

There are many aspects of medicine and primary care that we do not consider. For example: how one medication can cause a ripple effect of health problems that may or may not exist if that medication was not used in the first place. The book gets the reader thinking of the ethical, emotional and physical toll that is taken on doctors and I would recommend it to anyone who has ever seen a doctor or knows a doctor.

To learn more about The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly, click here,

To learn more about Dr. Matt McCarthy, click here and for you Reddit fans, here is a AMA Dr. Matt McCarthy hosted.

To purchase click to own your own copy on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

My Social Book Review

Let me start by saying that the products featured in this post were provided to me free of charge courtesy of MySocialBook.com. This in no way will influence the review to follow and all opinions are my own.

My Social Book Review

I am a nostalgic person. I like to receive cards with photos instead of the digital alternatives that are overtaking our inboxes instead of a our mailboxes. With this intense case of nostalgia I found my perfect creative outlet in scrapbooking. Scrapbooking is a very tangible craft, from the paper to the embellishments it is full of color, dimension and texture. On the other side of that nostalgia coin sits Facebook. Facebook has become a digital diary and photo album. What I normally do is print the appropriate section of Facebook for inclusion in my Scrapbooks, which is hard to incorporate at times.

I have always thought that if there was an easy way to print these status updates and comments, this would make my Scrapbooks even more dynamic. While looking for a solution to this rapidly increasing problem I discovered My Social Book.

My Social Book is basically a print out of your Facebook Pages. They take the photos and comments and print them into a bound book that can be either hard cover or soft cover. When you review your book you can decide what dates you want to include in the book.

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