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December Book Giveaway # 1: Newman 101

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A number of publishers have graciously given copies of their books for giveaways this month on the blog.

So all this month, as we discuss good books for gifts, the Catholic Post Book Group will be running some book giveaways!

Blog giveaways are a great way to “be lucky.”  The odds are much better than most contests and giveaways, and there’s no cost involved.  I’m surprised at the few things that I have won through blog giveaways–books, mostly (surprise!) though all sorts of things are given away on blogs and websites.   I highly encourage you to enter yourself and let others know about the giveaways.

To enter each giveaway, you should comment on the post before the deadline.   Deadline for this giveaway is this Friday, December 10.   On Saturday, I’ll draw a winner.

Our first giveaway is a copy of Newman 101: An Introduction to the Life and Philosophy of John Cardinal Newman by Father Roderick Strange.  This book was the September selection for the Catholic Post Book Group,  and the book itself is, indeed a great introduction to the newly canonized British writer.  Thanks to Ave Maria Press for providing the book for this giveaway.

Good luck!

First, What are You Reading? Volume 4, December 2010

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Here are my answers to the four questions I ask on the first of each month:
 first, what are you reading?
 what do you like best about it?
 what do you like least?
 what’s next on your list/pile to read?
I hope you’ll consider sharing yours on your blog and/or sharing yours here in the comments or on Facebook.  Happy reading!
First, what are you reading?
I am re-reading two of my favorite books for kids this week in preparation for two books groups happening late this week and early next week.
First, The Ruins of Gorlan, the first book in John Flanagan’s rollicking adventure series about a young “apprentice” to an ranger (a kind of spy/police force in the medieval-like fantasy world).  I’m reading that again for the mother-daughter book group my (almost) teenaged daughter and I attend monthly.



Second, The Kitchen Madonna by Rumer Godden, truly one of Godden’s finest children’s novels.  That is hard for me to even write, considering she wrote so many wonderful novels for children.  


What do you like best about them?


What is not to like about the Ranger’s Apprentice series?  I don’t know if John Flanagan is Catholic or not, but he’s really on the side of the angels as far as promoting virtues like honesty, hard work, perseverance and excellence.  But mostly, they are just fantastic stories, fast-paced and good, clean fun.  The violence is not overwhelming (though a bit dramatic for younger ears–we’ve saved some of the later books for our 7-year-old to read when he’s a bit older).  Until recently, we were able to get the latest Ranger’s Apprentice book earlier than the US market, as I had a grown-up nephew living in Australia, who would send us the latest release.  But he moved back recently, and now we’ll have to wait with the rest of the country to read The Emporer of Nihon-Ja, 10th book in the series, due out in April.


The Kitchen Madonna, in a handsome new reprint by Bethlehem Books (hooray Bethlehem Books!  what a fantastic publisher), is about an English brother and sister who make a “kitchen Madonna” icon for their beloved but homesick cook.  Godden tells wonderful stories; I pretty much love everything she wrote. 


What do you like least about them?


This is a very minor gripe about the Ranger’s Apprentice series.  Frankly, I’m not sure if I’m projecting this onto the series since I learned that John Flanagan was a television sit-com writer years before starting the Ranger’s Apprentice series.   I have noticed from time to time a little bit of a “movie or tv” feel to them.  For instance, the banter between characters occasionally–very occasionally–can strike me as something from a buddy adventure movie or sit-com.


All of Rumer Godden’s books are tinged with melancholy, certain books painfully so–I’m thinking The Doll’s House or Gypsy Girl.  That’s not really what I like least about her writing–Rumer Godden novels wouldn’t be that without it, but it’s still there and can leave an ache.


What are you reading next?


I am in earnest about trying to re-read Anthony Trollope, one of my favorite authors, but I just can’t seem to carve out the time, even as I would put the paperbacks of The Warden or Can You Forgive Her? on my bedside table.   There they sit, forlorn and dejected, as I have so many other reading responsibilities, a reproach to all my good intentions.


I don’t own a Kindle, but our family owns an iPad purchased several months ago at a discount from one of my sisters who got one of the first iPads and decided she didn’t want it.    Thank you, dear sister!  I really enjoy it, especially when I can wrestle it away from my children playing “Angry Birds” or “Bejeweled Blitz.” (Yes, we don’t just read at our house).  I like it for various Apps, chiefly my all-time favorite App, Universalis, for the Liturgy of the Hours.   But I also downloaded some time back the Kindle App for iPhone/iPad.    I decided to try to see if downloading some of Trollope’s novels (easily found for free, can’t beat the price) would make me more likely to read it.  So far, I’m well into Can You Forgive Her? first of the fantastic Pallister novels. Now if I can just get together an Anthony Trollope book group, I will be happy for the long winter ahead.  Any takers?

Another Try at Food Blogging

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Secretly, I harbor a desire to be a popular food blogger like Pioneer Woman or Smitten Kitchen..  I’m not sure why, because while I enjoy baking and cooking, I much prefer reading or other pursuits to making bread or pizza.  I also found when I tried food blogging back in August while we discussed Father Leo’s book,  I don’t have the patience to make everything look lovely and upload all the photos (it seems to take me a long time when I do this).

This past week I made several pizzas from Thursday Night Pizza.   My sous chef (or rather I was hers) was my 12-year-old daughter, who, as it turns out, is an ace at kneading dough and crafting the pizzas.   We’re planning to do a get-together with her classmates soon to make a group of the pizzas, so this was a great test cook for that.

The pizzas looked awesome, in addition to tasting great.  My husband and I really enjoyed the Rotola Pizza, but the kids did not much–not sure why.  When we make more pizzas from the book, we plan to make the Spicy Thai Chicken Peanut Pizza and the Apple Pie Pizza, along with a few more traditional ones.

My daughter is also an ace at taking the photos, a skill she inherited from her talented photographer father (he’s not a professional photographer, but he could be!).  So even if I’m not Pioneer Woman, I’ve got a daughter in the running, merely on her excellent photography skills.

Here is the process:

Here is the yeast proofing in the bowl.

Next, flour is mixed in to make a wet dough.
While the dough rises, we made the 8-minute pizza sauce. It starts with crushed tomatoes.
Now, spices and garlic is added, along with a few other ingredients, and the sauce cooks stovetop.
One the dough is ready, it is stretched out on a floured board.
Then it’s carefully moved over to the preheated pizza stone, and sauce and cheese are added.

Here’s the Rotola Pizza ready to go into the oven (it was the second one in).  It’s covered with Rotola, which is a roll of fresh mozarella and prosciutto.  It was actually easier than a regular pizza but looks fancier.  Now here are some of the finished pizzas.  First is a plain four-cheese pizza:

Doesn’t that look beautiful?  It was very tasty.
Here’s a closer view.  I told you my 12-year-old daughter takes good photos.
Here’s a photo of the Rotola Pizza after it baked.  This photo shows my preferred method of cutting pizzas–with a scissors.  Some think I’m strange, but I find it much easier than either a pizza cutter or a knife.
Thanks for sharing my second adventure in food blogging.  I won’t be making the other pizzas this month, but if I do make them in the next week or so I will try to post some photos of the unusual pizzas.  Have you tried any unusual or good recipes this month?  Share away in the comments.

"Brother Jerome’s" Corn Muffins

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Here’s the recipe for the Corn Meal Muffins that Brother Jerome makes in Father Dominic Garramone’s new children’s book, Brother Jerome & The Angels in the Bakery.   Thanks, Father Dominic, for sharing this great recipe!

1 cup of milk at room temperature

1 beaten egg

¼ cup of vegetable oil or melted shortening

1 cup yellow cornmeal

¾ cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 Tbs. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

Colored sugar or sprinkles

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine egg, milk, and oil in a medium size bowl and stir to mix.  Place cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a sifter and sift into the milk mixture.  Stir until just blended but do not over-mix.

Using a ¼ cup measure, drop batter into well-greased muffin tins; sprinkle tops of muffins with colored sugar.  Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until edges of muffins are lightly browned.   Let cool slightly and serve warm.

Exclusive Q&A with "Baking Priest" & Author Father Dominic Garramone

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Congratulations on your two new books—they are both great!  Tell me about how it happened that you have two books coming out at the same time.
Thursday Night Pizza came about because I was getting a reputation as a gourmet pizza maker.  I started making pizzas for our community’s recreation night on Thursdays, and that eventually expanded into pizza parties and fundraisers, so word got around.  My publisher was at one of these functions last December, and after he sampled my Carbonara Pizza, he said, “We have to do a pizza book!”  So I got to work right away, and finished the book while spending a week in a cabin at Lake Thunderbird near Henry, IL.  I finished writing Brother Jerome and the Angels in the Bakery long before the pizza book, but it took a while to find an illustrator and for him to create the artwork.   We worked hard to get both books out in time for Christmas.

My children loved Brother Jerome and the Angels in the Bakery.   Did you have any kid “testers” for the book, and what was your inspiration in wanting to write a children’s picture book?

Brother Jerome and the Angels in the Bakery started out as a children’s play for my summer theatre program at the Academy back in 2004.  So our test market was that audience of parents and children, and the response was so enthusiastic I knew it could be a book.  We actually hope to produce an entire series of Brother Jerome stories.

How do you think parents and teachers can use Brother Jerome to teach virtues and values to children?

Brother Jerome is young and lacks self-confidence, but with the encouragement of his abbot and a little help from the angels, his bakery becomes a success.  Parents can use the story to teach children about perseverance and hope.  The book ends with several people praying in thanksgiving to God, and then Brother Jerome prays the guardian angel prayer, so it’s the perfect bedtime book!

I am so intrigued and interested by the idea of “haustus,” (a weekly time of snacks and relaxing) and how that Benedictine tradition might translate to homes.  What has “haustus” meant to you over the years?  Do you have suggestions for lay people who might want to begin this kind of tradition among family and friends?

“Haustus” is a monastic tradition whose purpose is to strengthen the bonds of community.  As far back as St. Antony of the desert (3rd-4th century AD) monks have had the custom of having common periods of relaxation and conversation, as a way to refresh body and spirit and to promote fraternal love.  It’s very much like having a regularly scheduled family game night, or Sunday dinner with grandparents.  In a fast-paced culture like ours, these traditions are more important than ever, and we really have to be vigilant to protect those times together.

Several years ago, you wrote a book called Bake and Be Blessed:  Bread Baking as a Metaphor for Spiritual Growth.  Share a little about how that “spirituality” would apply to the making of a good pizza.

In the final chapter of Bake and Be Blessed, I compare various breads to different kinds of Christian ministry and witness.  A “pizza” Christian is the leader (a pastor, parent, choir director, etc.) who can unite a variety of people with diverse personalities (symbolized by the different kinds of toppings).  A well-run school usually has a “pizza principal” in charge!

What is your favorite part about making pizza?

Tossing and spinning the crust—I like to try to make maximum height in the kitchen!

What is your favorite pizza recipe from the book? (crust, sauce, toppings)

I especially like the Four Cheese Tomato Top Pizza, because it uses fresh tomatoes and herbs from our abbey gardens.  Can’t make it in the winter of course, but it’s worth the wait for the August harvest season.

I notice some of the crust recipes have a slow rise in the fridge, to mellow the flavor. What is your opinion of the no-knead bread recipes and techniques (like Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day) that have been popular recently?

I actually enjoy kneading dough so much that I haven’t really explored the no-knead method yet.  But my mom just bought me one of those books for my birthday, so I suppose I’ll give it a try this winter.

Baking Bread as Spiritual Metaphor…Successfully

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Once, years ago, I wrong a blog post about about how I envied Michele Obama because she has a nice big staff to tend her organic garden.  I, too, enjoy healthy, fresh organic food, but I am not much of a gardener, and I so wish I could enjoy it and succeed at it.   What drives me crazy about gardens is that it’s a never-ending process.  There’s always more to do, and often does not look like one has accomplished anything (unlike, say, mowing the lawn, a much more satisfying outdoor task).  

I wrote, “I’m sure there are a lot of metaphors for this. I’m sure there are books for gardeners about how it’s like the spiritual life or relationships–if you don’t keep up with them every day and root out the weeds every single day, you’ll run into problems, blah, blah, blah. But fortunately our good Catholic faith has lots of spiritual charisms and I finally realize that one does not speak to me, or inspires in me more guilt than growth.”

So it was with a wee bit of trepidation that I picked up Father Dominic’s book, Bake and Be Blessed: Baking Bread As A Metaphor for the Spiritual Life.   I don’t have quite the same “issues” with  baking bread as gardening.  But I have never been consistently successful at baking bread or pizza.  As someone who enjoys baking and cooking, I was concerned about reading a book that might equate baking good bread with having a good spiritual life.  Because, just like with gardening, I would be in big trouble with this particular spiritual comparison.  Right now, I need encouragement in my spiritual life, not to be reminded of what I’m doing wrong.

 (I must add here that I have not forgotten the promise this month to try food blogging again, as I plan to make some of the recipes from Father Dominic’s excellent new book, Thursday Night Pizza.  The month has been extra hectic in our family, so this will be a late post in the month. )



Bake and Be Blessed has far exceeded my expectations.  It was a very enjoyable read about how we ourselves are like bread, and need to be “blessed, broken and shared” in the world.  Chapters range from “mise en place,” about planning our spiritual life like we plan in the kitchen; to “Letting it rise” about the importance of rest and time apart for spiritual growth; and my  favorite, “gather up the crusts” about old age.  In that chapter, Father Dominic’s description of a woman’s lifelong recipe collection and how it reflected (positively) on her spiritual life brought me to tears.

Bake and Be Blessed  is a great read for this time of year when we are heading into family reunions, and the family cooking and baking traditions of the holidays.  Its connection of bread to the spiritual life are just right.

What spiritual metaphors do you find helpful?  Or not so helpful?   Do you have any books to recommend along these lines?