Lunch was an excellent cheese and cauliflower soup, with bacon and tomato sandwiches to dip in it, and bunches of enormous grapes. Lilah loved cheese and cauliflower soup and grapes.
“You need to eat,” Celie said sternly, taking a big bite of her own sandwich to encourage her sister.
Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George
I can’t believe Crumbs between the Pages turns one this month!
I should have made cake to celebrate. Authors love to talk about cake, so I have no shortage of options. In fact, I was even going to make cake–apple cake from Maggie Steifvater’s The Scorpio Races. But then I realized how minimally I remember The Scorpio Races, and how little time I have to reread it, and how many other books I should be reading. At the same time, I read a food passage from Jessica Day George’s Tuesdays at the Castle and thought, “Mm, that sounds good.”
So, instead of celebrating Crumbs’ birthday with apple cake, I’m marking it with cauliflower and cheese soup and tomato bacon sandwiches.
I have a small friend who has been campaigning for me to read Tuesdays at the Castle for a long time. To my shame, I only decided to read it at last because I thought it might be a good comp title for a Middle Grade fantasy I’m writing. (It is.) And it turned out to be a captivating story as well. My small friend has good taste in books. I will join her in urging you to go read it as soon as possible.
This lunch, enjoyed by the children of the Castle Glower, is intriguing because it reverses the norm: usually we dunk grilled cheese sandwiches in tomato soup. In Sleyne, apparently, they dunk tomato bacon sandwiches in cauliflower and cheese soup. I am fascinated by this.
I was going to try not to apologize for the photos in this post, but I find I can’t do it. Thus and therefore, here are my excuses: I was rushed; I didn’t think through the setup; as usual, I forgot to include the book in the photoshoot. And I also forgot to actually dunk the sandwich in the soup. Oops. Oh well. Apologies over.
I’m planning something I’m really excited about for next month, and I hope to be able to spend more time and thought on it. I’ll just say that it involves acorns.
See you next month!
Crumbs between the Pages 