Lessons in Chemistry: Book Review

I heard about this book from someone on a YouTube channel and requested it from the library.

Lessons in Chemistry is by Bonnie Garmus and is her first novel.

Before I started reading it, I noticed that everyone was recommending this book and also it was being featured in a lot of book clubs. When I picked it up from the library, the librarian mentioned that “they” are already talking about making this book into a movie. This actually almost put me off reading it, but I decided to forge ahead.

What’s great about this book: SO MUCH! It made me laugh out loud several times, which is not an every day occurrence for me as a reader. Also, the main characters were all so very interesting, even—maybe especially—the dog, and each is quite brave in their own way. Keep reading

Chocolate chock full of heavy metals

“I’d like a side of lead and cadmium with my dark chocolate”–

said nobody, ever.

I was paging through the February 2023 issue of Consumer Reports and discovered that these heavy metals are apparently exactly what I have been unknowingly getting. You know, in dark chocolate? The kind that is supposed to be “better for you” (p. 34)?

I think of the couple of bars of Green & Black’s that I have sitting in my desk drawer that are now going into the trash instead of my body. Before throwing them out, I looked at the Nutrition Facts label. Shockingly, lead and cadmium are missing from the list! I looked at the list of ingredients and once again, lead and cadmium are omitted. I wonder what other foods and products contain toxic ingredients that somehow never made it on the packages ingredients list. Keep reading

Mala meditation

My friend recommended this book to me last year.

I looked at it and remembered that I had a mala somewhere that looked exactly like that one on the cover!

I took this as a sign to read the book.

It drew me in right away and I recommend The Magic Mala by Bob Olson to anyone who is looking for motivation and structure to help with their floundering (or non-existent) meditation practice. I found my mala and started meditating. After several months, I got away from it but recently it popped into my mind so I pulled the book and the mala out again. Keep reading

Learning a new language

I have renewed my goal of learning to speak Italian this year.

Why Italian? Because half of my family of origin was from Italy. The other half is from Ireland, and I already speak English. 🙂

Also, I want to go to Italy and visit where my grandparents were from. Learning Italian makes me feel closer to that goal, which is, sadly, already about ten years overdue.

This is the second foreign language I’ve studied so far. I learned French when I was younger. I began in seventh grade, continued in high school and college. I remember sitting in the language lab in college and having no fun whatsoever. The end result is that I can understand and read some French, but I am (and was) a poor speaker of it. Keep reading

Pastina Emergency!

I have been making Pastina for decades, since my children were babies. Back then, they called it “Stini”, and sometimes I still do. It was a quick, easy, comforting thing to eat and they loved it.

Making Pastina was also a tradition, because my mother and my grandmother made it for me when I was a baby and for all the years after that.

Over the past several months, I have been having trouble finding Pastina at the grocery store. I had quite a stash so I didn’t worry too much about this at first. I preferred Prince Pastina but decided that Barilla or Ronzoni would also be fine. Keep reading