Back in 2020, some friends and I started a Tea Party/Bible Study/Book Club. We met every Wednesday and worked our way through the Chronicles of Narnia and are currently working through The Chronicles of Prydain. When we started I resolved to share all the recipes, but I couldn’t keep up and that’s why I’m still three years behind (but I’m getting there!) All recipes are now going to be titled Books, Tea, and the Trinity.
After we finished The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; A Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: the next book in the series was The Silver Chair.
I’m not sure if you caught it, but almodt all the food had a green theme to go with the “Lady of the Green Kirtle”
This recipe comes from TeaTime Magazine, a wonderful gift from a friend that keeps on giving! 🙂
Ingredients:
6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
1 cup coarsely chopped watercress
½ cup mayonnaise
1½ tablespoons mustard
¼ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
6 slices firm white sandwich bread
Directions:
In a medium bowl, stir together eggs, watercress, mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper until combined.
Spread a thick, even layer of egg salad onto 3 bread slices. Top each with a remaining bread slice to make 3 whole sandwiches.
Using a serrated bread knife in a gentle sawing motion, trim and discard crusts from each sandwich to create a 3-inch square. Cut each sandwich diagonally into 4 equal triangles. Serve immediately, or cover with damp paper towels, place in a covered container, and refrigerate for a few hours until serving time.
Food was delicious! I loved these sandwiches and have made them multiple times.
When I returned the Emma audiobook, I did a search to see what other Jane Austen audiobooks popped up and when I spotted Austenland. I decided to give it a listen.
Austenland (2013)
I have already done a lengthy review on the book, but as I have said before I like giving the audiobooks a listen as well as sometimes you hear something new, or you make a connection you hadn’t before.
For those who haven’t read the story, Austenland follows Jane Hayes; secret Jane Austen fan who is unlucky in love (a lot of her own doing). After her last disastrous relationship she has decided to give up on men altogether. When her rich aunt dies, one of the few who knows about her affection for Colin Firth/Mr. Darcy, it turns out she has left Jane a dream trip to England and the resort Austenland. As it is non-refundable and non-transferable Jane takes the trip, although it’s not exactly what she dreamed of, as she connects more to the gardener than the gentlemen. Will Jane finally get her storybook romance, or will this vacation turn into a nightmare?
I really enjoyed the audiobook as Kellgren did a great job switching between the American and British accents; along with giving a unique voice to everyone. Martin was especially smarmy and slimy.
The only thing I didn’t enjoy with the audiobook are the things I didn’t like in the book itself. Such as Jane’s strange embarrassment of Jane Austen. I also don’t understand why she dislikes her vacation so much, it’s a free trip abroad and it sounds awesome. And why is she embarrassed to love Jane Austen? Jane Austen is awesome.
If you like the book you’ll like this audiobook, especially Mr. Nobely.
November of last year I was sent a message by Izzy Meakin asking if I wanted to be a part of her podcast; What the Austen?. I was honored to be asked and agreed.
Izzy had offered a few different podcast topics on Lydia Bennet, Louisa Musgrove, or Lucy Steele. I thought they were all great choices but settled on the best of the bad girls; “L is for Liability: Lucy Steele.” She’s a total mean girl.
We planned to record in January at 10AM PST. I plugged the time into my calendar and looked forward to it.
—Being a Guest on the Podcast—
Now I had been a guest on a podcast before; on P. S. I Love Rom-Coms, so I was slightly nervous but hoping I would do well and not lose my train of thought or repeat myself.
My calendar notified me a few days before the recording date, reminding me that the time was coming up, that Saturday at 12 PM. That day I woke up at 9:45 and started to get ready, when I looked at my calendar notification and started to think was that the right time? Luckily, I had screenshoted our appointment and saw I had imputed the time wrong time in my calendar!
That’s not good.
I had to hurry to get everything set up, with of course my electronics not wanting to work right!
Sigh!
But we were able to work it out, Izzy was understanding and such a delight to record with. In the beginning I struggled a bit with expressing my thoughts, you can hear the pauses in my speech:
From Clueless
But otherwise I had a wonderful time. I enjoyed the format a lot as we delved into the text; along with sharing our own views and thoughts. Izzy has the format very well structured to follow the character from introduction to final interaction, but she also leaves room to let the conversation flow naturally. All together it was a wonderful experience and I loved every moment of it.
—Review of Podcast Episode Disney Villains x Northanger Abbey with Ann from Paper.Hearts.Library
A while back I had planned to post a review of a What the Austen?’s post of comparing Jane Austen to Disney villains but haven’t had a chance to do so. I decided there is no better time than now in this post.
I had seen the posts about the comparing Disney villains with Austen villains. There are several different episodes but I decided to review this specific one as you know I love Northanger Abbey.
I had done something similar in a previous post where I tried to find a Disney story that matched up the closest with the Austen books. However, in this episode Izzy and Ann choose the best Disney Villains that matched up to the Austen villains, regardless of the whether or not the other Disney film characters correlated to the Austen story.
For General Tilney the ladies choose the closest villains to be the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective, Frollo from The Hunchback of Norte Dame, Clayton from Tarzan, andJafarfrom Aladdin. I can see the similarities to all these characters; and I liked all the reasoning behind the choices but I really loved the connection to The Great Mouse Detective. I thought Izzy laid out excellent points out the connection to gothic literature and how Professor Ratigan is so larger than life as a villain, just how Catherine would see General Tilney. I also see Northanger Abbey as a mystery so the it was a great idea to compare her to Basil.
For John and Isabella Thorpe we have Honest John and Gideon from Pinocchio; along with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. I really liked the comparisons, especially Honest John and Gideon as both Thorpe’s take advantage of Catherine and her brother’s naivety to try. The other villain I would add would be the Siamese cats from The Aristocats as Isabella and John also work in tandem to get what they want and only think of themselves. Also like the Siamese cats they don’t have any real skills but rely on cheap tricks.
Also for John is LeFou from Beauty and the Beast. I do agree to that as I see him similar to the cartoon version; bumbling and not quite as high as they would like to be, but also not afraid to name drop. Izzy also chose Sir Hiss, from The Adventures of Robin Hood. I understood her reasoning, but I would disagree as Sir Hiss was very intelligent and good at what he did, he just was never listened to.
The other choices for Isabella Thorpe were Madame Medusa from The Rescuers, Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Assistant Mayor Bellwether from Zootopia, andMother Gothel from Tangled. The one I thought she was most similar to was Mother Gothel with the gaslighting and manipulation.
For Captain Tilney they had the Coachman from Pinocchio, I really liked how Izzy said both the Coachman and Captain Tilney had the characters think they were taking them to Pleasure Island, but instead making a donkey out of them. The other villain I thought he had some similarity to was Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco. Both Ernesto and Captain Tilney are suave and charismatic; and they also don’t care for other people, only thinking of themselves and what is good for them; or caring who they crush in going after what they want.
I found this episode and her podcast extremely enjoyable. I definitely recommend it for Jane Austen fans.
My book club is reading Emma, my pick, and I was hoping to get a copy of the audiobook from the Libby app to listen to.
I enjoy listening to audiobooks and sometimes when I hear the book instead of reading it, I pick up on something that I hadn’t noticed before. Plus it is so easy to play it when cleaning, cooking, driving, etc.
However, when searching for audiobooks Libby only has two Emma copies. One has an extremely long waitlist while the other was currently available. The first I had been on the waitlist forever and a day and had no illusions of it getting to me before we had our book club meeting. I did think it was odd that one audiobook should have so many holds and a six month waitlist and the other none, but I reasoned it as I must have just been lucky to spot a new addition to the app before all the others. I borrowed it and downloaded it immediately.
Oh well…
However, when I began listening to it I realized that it was in Spanish, not English.
From Clueless
As I have mentioned before I am Mexican but I am not fluent in Spanish (although I wish I was!). When it comes to understanding Spanish and translating it to English I do a lot better with the written word than hearing it. I think another reason why I struggled with this audiobook is that Austen is using words that aren’t as commonly used today, translated into Spanish, and I’m trying to retranslate it back into English. Although some lines I had memorized I could still follow along with, for instance the opening line.
So while I decided to give the audiobook a try it was a struggle. That is no reflection to the actual piece as I did think it was a good adaption as felt Nuria Mediavilla did very well in narrating. The only thing I had an issue with so that some of the pronunciation of the words follow the “Spanish” Spanish dialect which means that some of the words have the “th” sound; for example diez, diez y ocho, etc. are pronounced dieth, dieth y ocho, etc.
I would recommend it to those who are fluent in Spanish and looking for a Jane Austen audiobook to give it a listen. Although the Spanish “th” might be hard to hear if that’s not the type of Spanish you are used to hearing.
Back in 2020, some friends and I started a Tea Party/Bible Study/Book Club. We met every Wednesday and worked our way through the Chronicles of Narnia and are currently working through The Chronicles of Prydain. When we started I resolved to share all the recipes, but I couldn’t keep up and that’s why I’m still three years behind (but I’m getting there!) All recipes are now going to be titled Books, Tea, and the Trinity.
After we finished The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; A Horse and His Boy,Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: the next book in the series was The Silver Chair.
The first week we had: Cheese and Basil Scones, TeaTime Magazine Cucumber Canapés with Lemon-Basil Butter, teatime magazine Egg Salad and Watercress Sandwiches, and yogurt fruit bark; along with Winter Grey tea.
This recipe comes from TeaTime Magazine, a wonderful gift from a friend that keeps on giving! 🙂 I love anything with radishes or another way to use up the lemons and lemon juice from our tree that never stops being full of fruit.
Ingredients:
1 English cucumber
3 slices white sandwich bread, frozen
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh basil
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
Garnish: radishes, sliced
Directions:
Using a fork, scrape the sides of the cucumber lengthwise to create lines.
Using a sharp knife or a mandoline, slice the cucumber into 12 thin rounds. Place cucumber rounds on paper towels to absorb liquid.
Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut 12 rounds from frozen bread slices, discarding scraps.
In a small bowl, stir together butter, lemon zest and juice, basil, and salt until combined.
Spread a thin, even layer of butter mixture onto each bread round.
Top each with a cucumber slice. Serve immediately, or cover with damp paper towels, place in a covered container, and refrigerate for a few hours until ready to serve.
Just before serving, garnish each canapé with a radish half, if desired.
janeaustenrunsmylife 