Last Thursday was our second Book Thieves Young Professional’s book club meeting for Into the Beautiful North.
To stick with the Mexican theme, I brought in dessert nachos (flour tortillas coated with melted butter and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar, cut into triangles, and baked in the oven at 350 for 10-12 minutes, top with sliced strawberries and mangoes, drizzle melted chocolate over the nachos, garnish with whipped cream and mint leaves). The nachos were a hit and the cinnamon sugar chips are totally great just on their own.
Another book clubber brought in phenomenally delicious, jaw-dropping margarita cupcakes made with tequila and lime. Yes, they were as awesome as they sound. We also had a nice selection of fine cheeses and veggie dip with crackers, and a pumpernickel loaf with spinach artichoke hummus and, of course, wine. (Yup, I’m one of those modern folk who read and highlight the book via iPad.)
We noshed and chatted for a while like you do (good food and good company are a cornerstone of any good book club, it seems!), discussed the book for about an hour – mostly all agreeing upon our opinion of the book (a fun, enjoyable, optimistic adventure fairytale of boarder-crossing proportions but with a lot of loose ends left up in the air and a few flaws that we struggled to overlook), and selected the classic The Great Gatsby for our May meeting (just in time for the movie debut and the continuation of a slew of 1920s themed parties in the Rochester area!) followed by A Pig in Paris, a humorous short story collection by a local published Rochester author and staffer at Writers & Books, for our June meeting. I haven’t read Gatsby since high school and am eager to give it a second read, and we all concluded that while we enjoy short stories, we don’t typically read them for one reason or another (not since college, in my case). This collection is rumored to be very funny…sold!
I have a few books I’m reading on my own as well…The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty and Wild by Cheryl Strayed top my list of about 30 books I’d like to get to in the the next year or so.
What are you reading?
Any themed food suggestions for The Great Gatsby?
