May is National Salad Month

May 1, 2017February 7, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

salad

The Association for Dressings & Sauces (ADS) launched National Salad Month in May 1992 in response to a 1991 Gallup Poll that revealed that three out of four people eat a tossed salad at least every other day.

Salad is generally a mixture of cold foods such as vegetables or fruits. It is usually topped with dressing, nuts, croutons and sometimes meat, fish, pasta, cheese or whole grains are added. It is often served as an appetizer, sometimes as a meal, and some people serve it after the meal.

Eating a salad is great all year round, but now that the warm weather is here, take a look at what the Cheshire Library has to offer with these selections of salad cookbooks. It’s a great time to come up with some new ideas for salads!

Williams-Sonoma Salad – Salads bring out the best in fresh seasonal ingredients, whether they are delicate spring lettuces paired with soft goat cheese or crisp autumn apples tossed with toasted pecans. Williams-Sonoma Collection Salad offers more than 40 easy-to-follow recipes, including both classic favorites and fresh new ideas. In these pages, you’ll find inspiring salads designed to suit occasions throughout the year — from an informal summer picnic to an elegant dinner with friends. This vividly photographed, full-color recipe collection, appealing to both novice and experienced cooks, will become an essential addition to your kitchen bookshelf.

Food Made Fast – Salad – A collection of illustrated cookbooks for the busy home cook utilizes a straightforward approach to preparing tasty, healthful, and time-saving dishes for every night of the week, with easy-to-follow recipes and tips on keeping a well-stocked pantry, planning ahead, and using fresh ingredients.

Salad as a Meal – A collection of recipes for more than one hundred salads that can be served as a main dish, featuring salads for each season as well as recipes for soup sides and breads.

Salad of the Day – A year’s worth of salad ideas features seasonally inspired options for every month and includes suggestions for special occasions, providing instructions for such dishes as chickpea salad with mint and spicy crab salad.

Salad Days – The author of Death by Chocolate and Desserts to Die For brings his creative approach to main-course salads, with such creations as Penne Pasta and Spinach with Oven-Roasted Plum Tomatoes, Toasted Walnuts, Curly Endive, and Cracked Black Pepper Vinaigrette.

Cooking Light Big Book of Salads – Showcases salads, from simple side salads to giant, meal-size creations, featuring recipes centered around pasta and grains, poultry and meats, and fish.

Substantial Salads – Salads are often considered an appetizer or a summertime meal. When the weather is too hot, lightly tossed greens with seasonal fruits and veggies are perfect for cooling the body and filling the stomach. But with rich, filling ingredients and heartier flavors, salads can be served as main courses even in spring, autumn, and winter. Substantial Salads offers one hundred healthy and delicious recipes for green salads, whole-grain salads, and dressings.

May is quite the foody month. Here is a link to a blog post I did in 2014 on National Barbecue Month and National Hamburger Month.

Tom Colicchio – Chef Extraordinaire, TV Host, and Author

March 22, 2017February 21, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

tom Tom Colicchio is a well-known American chef. He co-founded the Gramercy Tavern in New York City and was the executive chef. He also is the founder of Crafted Hospitality, which includes Craft, Riverpark, Fowler & Wells, Craftbar, Craftsteak, Beachcraft and Heritage Steak restaurants. He is the recipient of five James Beard Foundation Awards. I was introduced to him via the Emmy award winning television show on Bravo, Top Chef. That I would be watching a cooking show is very funny because I don’t, and I can’t, cook. I can read a recipe, but executing it becomes an inedible, unsightly disaster no matter how hard I try. You would think I’d get frustrated or bored watching a cooking show, but Mr. Colicchio is the perfect host for this fast-paced competition among a varied collection of American chefs.

Mr. Colicchio has come out with a new cookbook that will appeal to the hearts of sandwich lovers. It is listed below, along with a few other cookbooks he has had his hand in. Also listed, a powerful documentary film he produced on hunger in America.

‘wichcraft: craft a sandwich into a meal…and a meal into a sandwich – Shares the secrets behind the ‘wichcraft restaurant group’s spin on the sandwich, with recipes for their most popular offerings,essays on stocking the sandwich pantry, and an interview with the owners.

Eat Like A Man: the only cookbook a man will ever need – “So long, dude food. Most men who love food have a roasting pan and a decent spice rack, but they’re still looking for that one book that has all the real food they love to eat and wish they could cook. Esquire food editor Ryan D’Agostino is here to change that with his unapologetically male-centric Eat Like a Man–a choice collection of 75 recipes and food writing for men who like to eat, cook, and read about great food. It’s the Esquire man’s repertoire of perfect recipes, essays on how food figures into the moments that define a man’s life, and all the useful kitchen points every man needs to know. Satisfying, sexy, definitive, and doable, these are recipes for slow Sunday mornings with family, end-of-the-week wind-down dinners with a lady, Saturday night show-off entertaining, poker night feeds, and game-day couch camping. Or, for when a man is just hungry”–

Smart Chefs Stay Slim: lessons in eating and living from America’s best chefs – Celebrity chefs including Michelle Bernstein, Eric Ripert, Tom Colicchio, and Giada de Laurentis provide answers to the often-asked question of how they stay so thin and fit when their occupation clearly is based on their love of indulging in food.

Ten: All the foods we love and ten perfect recipes for each – Identifying thirty-two of our favorite foods, from roast chicken and burgers to mashed potatoes and cakes, a innovative cookbook presents ten variations of each food in a collection of more than three hundred recipes, many contributed by such leading chef s as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Tom Colicchio, Anthony Bourdain, and others.

A Place At The Table (DVD) – 50 Million Americans—1 in 4 children—don’t know where their next meal is coming from. A Place at the Table tells the powerful stories of three such Americans, who maintain their dignity even as they struggle just to eat. In a riveting journey that will change forever how you think about the hungry, A Place at the Table shows how the issue could be solved forever, once the American public decides—as they have in the past—that ending hunger is in the best interests of us all.

Navigating the Mystery of Items Coming From Other Libraries

March 6, 2017March 9, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

We hear you! It can be very frustrating when you have requested an item and it is coming from another library and it’s taking forever! It is a very complicated process that many folks have a hard time understanding. We hope this explanation will give you a better understanding about why it takes so long for you to receive your item(s).

The main misconception is that someone here at the Cheshire library gets in their car and drives to another library to get the item. What actually happens is the Connecticut State Library provides a service called deliverIT CT. This is run by the State and paid for from the State’s budget. At this time, libraries do not have to pay for this service. They have 11 drivers/maintainers currently employed. They go to 167 libraries daily, make 848 stops per week, serve 1,546,895 patrons, and move 15,000 items daily.

As you can imagine, this is a huge undertaking and coordinating it all is quite challenging for the State. Here at the library, we cannot tell you what day or time of day we will get our delivery. The delivery schedule is affected by a variety of factors such as vacations, illness, holidays, the weather, and the like. Cheshire gets at least one delivery a week (although we have gone more than a week without any delivery on occasion). When there is no delivery, there is no pick-up of materials going out. The same is true for other libraries. If they don’t have a delivery, their out-going items sit in bins waiting to go out. We can have 15-25 bins waiting to be picked up here on a weekly basis.

When you see the term “in transit” on your account, that doesn’t mean the item is physically moving between libraries or that it will be in our next delivery. It can sit in a bin at a library for many days (or weeks, in some cases). Once the items leave a library, they need to be sorted before heading out to the various libraries. What we have been experiencing here in Cheshire is that the average time to receive requested items is 2-4 weeks. Some come in sooner, some later. We’ll contact you when your item has arrived.

The Difference Between “Available” and “Ready for Pickup”
To also clarify, when you see the term “Available” on your account, that means the item you requested is sitting on a shelf at one of the 30 libraries in our consortium. If you see it is available in Cheshire, your best bet is to come in to get it or call the library to have staff place a hold on Cheshire’s copy. If you place the hold from home, the computer software does not automatically select Cheshire. Your account will say “Ready for pickup” when it is here in Cheshire on our Hold Shelf.

If the item you want is owned by Cheshire but currently checked out, it is quicker to wait for the Cheshire item instead of requesting it from another library. You can call the library or come in person and we will be happy to place a hold specifically on a Cheshire item since this must be done by a staff member.

The State has instituted various guidelines to help reduce the volume of items being transported between libraries. All libraries have been urged to comply with the established guidelines. (Please note, many libraries do not ship DVDs, CDs, or audiobooks – including Cheshire). The State has done an excellent job considering their resources and the volume. Please know that they are doing everything they can to provide equal access to library resources for all Connecticut residents.

Another misconception is that staff can tell you what number you are in line for an item, especially for a book by one of the most popular authors. Unfortunately, our computer software does not have any way to determine where you are on the list.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of what it takes for your item to come from another library. If you need an item for a specific date, you will need to plan ahead. You always have the option of going to a specific library to pick up the item yourself. Just call the library ahead of time and they will set the item aside for you.

4abc340cf5d893ff4bf6ebc17b29c221 Always remember that if you need help locating an item, any of our staff will be happy to assist you.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

February 21, 2017January 26, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

ptsd

Most people associate PTSD with events suffered by war veterans, but it is very common for any one who experiences a traumatic event to get PTSD. It can be triggered when a person lives through, or witnesses, a traumatic event such as a fire, natural disaster, shooting, robbery, car accident, sudden death of a loved one, abuse, etc. Many people are not aware that they are suffering from it. Symptoms can include flashbacks, trouble sleeping, nightmares, feeling worried, guilty, or sad. Sometimes the symptoms don’t appear until many months after the event. Huffington Post recently featured an article that you can read here. If you think you or someone you know may be suffering from PTSD and want to learn a little more about it, the library has books that may be of help to you.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder – The authors here provide discussions of current research in treatment, intervention, and prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition to giving a historical review of PTSD, following chapters all include case studies intended to add to the understanding of the influences and impacts of the disease and its treatment and care. Topics include recognizing PTSD, its varieties, PTSD in children and adolescents, neuroscience, treatment approaches, and post-traumatic strengths.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder – Scott Barbour – Describes the causes, symptoms, and treatments of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Coping with post traumatic stress disorder: a guide for families – Cheryl Roberts – This book is a user friendly discussion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as it affects individuals and families.

The post traumatic stress disorder relationship: how to support your partner and keep your relationship healthy – Diane England – Citing a prevalence in PTSD in America, a guide for partners of PTSD sufferers shares practical counsel on such topics as managing a loved one’s emotions, communicating while separated by military duty, and handling post-trauma sexual relations.

The post-traumatic stress disorder sourcebook: a guide to healing, recovery and growth – Glenn Schiraldi – An important updated guidebook for those suffering from a traumatic experience provides information on coping mechanisms, emotional triggers, the mental defenses that protect us from further harm, and much more.

Conquering post-traumatic stress disorder – More than 13 million Americans experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and one out of 13 adults will develop it in their lifetime. Recent worldwide crises and events including the Iraq war; the September 11th attacks; numerous Columbine-like events; the Catholic Church child molestation scandal; and the Katrina tragedy in New Orleans, continue to present thousands more PTSD cases each year in all age groups. This book helps victims make sense of the events that led to their illness and teaches them how to create a new reality with specific advice and action plans that put them on the road to recovery and long-term healing.

Upside: the new science of post-traumatic growth – Jim Rendon -Drawing on interviews with leading researchers and trauma survivors, a journalist, delving into the study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, uses accessible language, prescriptive takeaways and specific tools to promote positive responses to trauma.

The body keeps the score: brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma – Bessel Van Der Kolk – A forefront expert on traumatic stress outlines his own take on healing, explaining how traumatic stress affects brain processes and how to use innovative treatments to reactivate the mind’s abilities to trust, engage others and experience pleasure.

A Beautiful Ending To A Wonderful Romantic Series

February 15, 2017February 15, 2017 / Linda / Leave a comment

Back in August 2016, I introduced you to a new series, Wild Aces, by Chanel Cleeton. You can read about it here. Available now is the third and final book in the series, On Broken Wings. Here’s the official summary:

A year after losing her husband, Joker, the squadron commander of the Wild Aces, Dani Peterson gets an offer from his best friend, Alex “Easy” Rogers, to help fix up her house. Dani accepts, and their friendship grows—along with an undeniable attraction.

Racked by guilt for loving his best friend’s widow, Easy’s caught between what he wants and can’t have. Until one night everything changes, and the woman who’s always held his heart ends up in his arms. Yet as Easy leaves for his next deployment, he and Dani are torn between their feelings and their loyalty to Joker’s memory.

But when Dani discovers something that sends them both into a spin, the conflicted lovers must overcome the past to navigate a future together…

I can’t remember when I have ever been so moved by a fictional book. When I finished reading it, I just sat in my chair stunned, only able to think “wow”. The three books in the series can stand on their own, but On Broken Wings ties all the books together with a genuinely authentic military love story full of emotion, humor, love, passion, heartache and triumph.

What a way to end a series. This book was completely captivating and everything a romance should be.