Archive | November, 2018

Bake Offs: Tasty Books and Prize Winning Recipes for You to Try at Home

28 Nov

My son and I love to bake together; the weekend I wrote this post we made cookies for a class party.  But one thing we love almost as much as baking itself is to watch baking competitions together on TV.  Here are a few suggestions that you might enjoy if you too love the sweet taste of victory.

Great British Baking Show
GreatBritishBakingShow
I was curious to first checkout the Great British Baking Show because I was a fan of one of the hosts, Sue Perkins from the funny historical foodie show Supersizers Go…  I found this show just as delightful with contestants who are sweetly kind to one another rather than being cut throat like many reality competitions. They compete in three rounds: the first, a signature bake puts their unique spin on a classic, the second round where they must recreate one of the judge’s tricky bakes with minimal instructions, and a final show stopper round where the baked good frequently almost look too beautiful to eat. Even when disaster occurs and a contestant has a dreaded “soggy bottom” on one of their tarts the judges always have at least a kind word or two for the bakers. You’ll be rooting for your favorite baker and wishing you could taste the delicious looking treats they prepare.  Besides two of the seasons, Hoopla also has available Master Classes with Judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood who show you how to make their special treats.

Plus you can get the behind the scenes scoop with The Story Of The Great British Bake Off by Anita Singh.  You can borrow seasons 1-5 on DVD and try out the recipes yourselves with The Great British Bake Off: Big Book of Baking and The Great British Bake Off: Perfect Cakes and Bakes to Make at Home by Linda Collister from BCCLS libraries.  Learn more about judge, Paul Hollywood, in his memoir/cookbook A Baker’s Life: From Childhood Bakes to Five-Star Excellence.

The Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Series

bestofpillsburydesserts

Image from Hoopla

The Great British Baking Show is titled The Great British Bake Off in the UK, but changed its name because of Pillsbury’s copyright on the phrase in the US .  The Bake Off sponsored by Pillsbury is one of the most legendary in this country.  You can borrow a variety of cook books from Hoopla divided into different dishes including one on desserts which covers yummy goodies from over 50 years of competition from 1957’s now classic French Silk Chocolate Pie to more modern winners.  The book also looks back at the history of the competition and how desserts have evolved.  Each recipe includes the contestant’s name, home town, and year they competed.  You can also borrow bake off books on casseroles and specifically on making my family’s favorites: cookies and bars.

The Bake-Off
by Beth Kendrick
bake off
The Bake-Off by Beth Kendrick use a national bake-off as the setting that brings together two very different estranged sisters. Their grandmother thinks a top-secret family pie recipe will not just have them winning the competition but also find common ground. Of course, neither one is a baker, and if you’ve ever tried to bake one you might be questioning the phrase “easy as pie.”

If you are a fan of foodie fiction you can also check out All’s Fair in Love and Cupcakes by Betsy St. Amant where aspiring baker Kat’s best friend Lucas Brannen signs her up for TV baking competition called Cupcake Combat; it seems like Kat may achieve her dreams, but Lucas is afraid he might lose Kat to the big city.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Head of Reference

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Twilight’s 10 Year Anniversary: Reimagine How the Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb

21 Nov

Twilight Reimagined

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb… What a stupid lamb. What a sick, masochistic lion.”

As we come to the month of November and the 21st approaches, I am hit with the truth that it’s been ten years that the fangirl in us all has freaked out about the first Twilight movie.

As a teenage high schooler whom loved going against trends and getting sucked into the world that was fangirling – I didn’t even know what Twilight, the book, was until the first movie trailer came out. I of course having no knowledge whatsoever on the series was super confused while others squealed with joyous anticipation.  Hadn’t even noticed that almost everyone around me was reading the books. It wasn’t until my best friend told me about the series – while spoiling everything she could on the way up to book three, that I thought I’d give it a shot. That was when I got sucked into a world I wasn’t ready for.

Now, ten years later it’s a franchise that still moves hearts and imaginations everywhere. So much so that you can now tour these iconic spots in Forks and Portland, Oregon and reenact the most iconic moments in the movies.

This series was such a hit that it caused other phenomenon novels to follow after it. Everyone knows of the adult novel Fifty Shades of Grey when it took the world by storm. But what most people don’t know is that E L James was inspired by Twilight and in fact the Grey Series is entirely based off of it and is considered fanfiction.

With rumors of Meyer creating a book through the perspective of Edward himself it’s no surprise that James went along and created a whole new spin off through the eyes of Christian Grey himself.

Unfortunately, as eager fans such as myself anticipated the beauty that would’ve been Edward’s mind, Meyer did not go through with her idea of what was to be called Midnight Sun and instead created a whole different spin off told as if the Vampire was a woman. Twilight Reimagined: Life and Death I dare say is just as good as the first. Taking you into this whole new but yet familiar world again, we are brought on this journey of what would’ve happened if Edward was a woman. Of course because of the whole twist on gender roles, the story only goes as far as one book but it is good enough to satisfy the craving for a new vampire love story. It is quite fun juxtaposing Twilight against Twilight Reimagined: Life and Death.

You can check out the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey series as ebooks and digital audiobooks from eLibraryNJ and eBCCLS.  Also check out our previous blog post where we discussed Twilight Reimagined and other books/shows that were inspired by Fan fiction.  Don’t like Twilight, check out parodies of the novels written by Stephfordy Mayo on Hoopla; you can also read a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Written by:
Sherissa Hernandez
Adult Programming Assistant

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