Beautiful cookbook, but not a book for a cook like me, who dreams of making fancy stuff, but manages to burn water and create food that my cat won't eat, if I were to allow him to eat human food.

Many of the recipes call for ingredients not found easily in my neck of the woods, and I wouldn't buy something I'm a) unsure I'll like b) will only use in one recipe, that I'm not sure I'll like.

That being said, the book is full of beautiful photos and helpful hints on how to can and actually make the stuff Emma talks about. She's full of passion and it shows in the tone of the book.

I thought (my fault, not the author's fault, I should have read more carefully) the book was more on canning and preserving and making small batch real foods, which it is, but it's also about making meats, bacon, deli foods, and things like that that I would never dream of making in a million years. In a 2 adult household, it just doesn't make sense to make things like that.

This is a fascinating non-fiction book about farm life and living off the grid, back when everyone had to live like that in order to survive. The version I read was a newly printed, much cut book of the original.

This book is fascinating because it offers us a glimpse into what life was like back then, complete with sexist commentary. The text is rather dry and straightforward at times, but it's meant to be a manual on farm living, not a book you'd read at the beach.

There's lots of artwork included in the book, some fanciful drawings of farm scenes and others that just cracked me up, like a drawing of a milking stool (but was useful for such tools like a mattack, which I never heard of before).

I do admit to skimming much of this book, because though most of it is interesting, it's just much more detail than what I wanted to know - which is why this modern printing is cut as much as it is.

I've been obsessing over canning for quite some time now - I think this is the 3rd year I've been talking about it. I finally landed some canning equipment for a song at a yard sale, so it's time for me to step up and actually start canning, instead of just dreaming about it. I'm looking at it as more of a hobby, something to do once in a while with some extra veggies I might have, but we'll see where canning takes me.

This was one of quite a stack of books I took out from the library. I'm honestly not terribly interested in making a whole lot of jams/jellies/preserves; I'm more interested in making picked everything I can get my handles on, salsa, relishes, etc... in small batches, but it doesn't mean jam isn't in my future, either.

This book by McCarthy starts off talking about her experience with canning. Though it's an interesting tale, it reminds me a bit of all the people in my life who are lacking self-confidence & in order to make up for that, they have to brag about themselves an awful lot to compensate. It just gets old, rather quickly, in the book.

McCarthy has some interesting recipes in the book, but I get the impression it's not aimed towards a beginner like me. That's OK: I've been reading everything in site for a while now and can get beginner information elsewhere. That being said, most of the recipes aren't anything i can see myself making - I'm not much of a cook, and like I said, I'm not planning on making 100 jars a jam a year, so I'm not going to invest in 900 different ingredients that I'll never use again. A lot of the recipes call for vanilla bean - I don't even know what one looks like or what part of the grocery store one would find a vanilla bean! That being said, something like "I Eat NYC Hot Pepper Jelly" makes me drool, and the only special equipment needed is a food processor which *gasp* I actually own. But the majority of the recipes I'm just never going to make.

There's also a definite slant towards NYC and NYC ingredients, and also uses a type of pectin not found in my area, making the recipes impractical.

This book goes into the "I'll get it used if I find it at a yard sale for a couple of dollars" pile and not the "must buy used on amazon and pay shipping to own it now" pile.

I'm a little in love with this book, which covers jams, jellies, marmalades, conserves, pickles, chutneys, salsa, flavored oils and vinegars (the latter two I'll never make). By far this one is my favorite canning cookbook I've read so far, ever.

It focuses on small batch water bath canning - exactly what I'm looking to do. Make small batches of food, using ingredients mainly from my garden, with maybe a couple of things added (like peppers, because my garden right now is just not producing peppers). Another reviewer mentioned the book had a "vintage" feel to it - the recipes, that is, not the book itself - which is probably why I like the recipes so much.

There are a lot of freezer / fridge "canning" in here, but the name of the book is small batch preserving, not small batch canning, so it's to be expected that there's a variety of prserving methods included.

* warning* some frank adult subject is discussed in this review*

As always, let me start the review with the fact that I am a long time fan of the series, who's been disappointed in the last (I had to look at my past reviews for the number) 8 books, Hit List being my least favorite. That being said, I still usually give all of the books 4 stars, 'cause I just love Anita Blake, and this series was the series that got me hooked on paranormal books.

Pluses:
*There's not a lot of Jean-Claude. I'm just not a Jean-Claude fan, he's whiney, and fake, and melodramatic, and ugh.
* Edward's back! Definitely one of my favorite characters in the Anita Blake world. He has a small part, to be sure, and doesn't really DO a whole heck of a lot, but it was nice to see him.
* Again, MUCH less sex than in some of the other recent books, and much more normal bedroom activities, thank you very much. I'm not a prude, but I don't want to read group sex-bang scenes, either. Sex doesn't happen on page 10.
* there's actually a plot

Negatives:
* SO SO SO SO SO much Anita soul-searching, rationalizing, explaining and re-explaining herself, her actions, her decisions. Every scene with a new character, Anita has to re-examine her whole life, slow long paragraph after slow long paragraph, after wait, another 3 pages of hashing the exact same conversation, again.
* the ending? wraps up so, so fast. Without really wrapping up the book at, it just sort of says "this is the bad guy" and "here's the closing summary"
* there's the usual Hamilton obsessing over tough guy verses feminine women issues that she seems to overly stress in every book. Anything "strong" is a guy issue
* Anita Blake is simply amazing. Anita Blake is simply awesome. Anita Blake is the only human being every to exist ever in the universe that can ever do anything right. (I'm being sarcastic here). Do we really need to hear how perfect Anita is in every single sentence? Over and over again?
* The whole Micah's family leading a secret life parellel to his own life (being vague here because I don't want to spoil anyone) is really just way too much of a coincidence.
* when did Anita become such a clothes whore? I know the last few books talked alot about clothes, and I know that's the Nathaniel influence, but geez. Do we need to hear 3 pages worth of every outfit?

All in all, I think I have to say, 3 stars.

I'm a little confused because I vividly remember reviewing this book, going through all the patterns & adding my thoughts and comments about each one, and I can't find a copy of my review anywhere either online or on my hard drive. So here I am trying to recreate it, playing catch up as I am always doing.

I love Jean Moss's designs and I'm always looking for "gift" related patterns. I only knit for a few people & usually socks, because generally speaking those are the only items that anyone ever appreciates (it's why I knit a lot for charity). This book has a lot of gift giving ideas that maybe, just maybe might actually be appreciated by family.

Patterns are clearly written, terms and abbreviations are explained, and items are well photographed.

This is another book that I vividly remember reviewing, but yet I can't find a copy of it anywhere.

I downloaded this book to read and go through on my nook and it entertained me all the way on the long drive to the airport and back (we were taking my parents). There is a wonderful variety of patterns in here that you'd come to expect from Mary Beth Temple, from jackets and sweaters to accessories. And of course there's hints and tips on how to make garments actually fit your body and make them flatter.

There's simpler, basic, every day sweater designs, that you'd actually live in all winter long, and more complicated, fancier stuff that you'd make and wear on special occasions.

Crochet garments, even in this day and age, still has the repuation that it's bulky and not flattering on a girl's figure, and this book goes a long long way to change that.

One of the best knitting books ever

Anyone who has read more than one of my reviews before knows I'm a crafter and more specifically a knitter and crocheter, and anyone who follows my blog knows I try to review a wide variety of crafting books, so naturally I jumped at the chance.

There's a few similar books out there, a collection of short stories with the common theme of knitting in all the stories. The difference is this collection includes more famous people, like Barbara Kingsolver, Sue Grafton, and Anne Shayne (of Mason Dixon fame). Like any short story collection, some are better than others - my least favorite was about a guy who kept talking about how he didn't knit but yet his story somehow involves knitting anyway. He just kept talking about how he didn't knit, like he was insulting the craft and those who love it. But that's the great thing about short story collections, you spend a few minutes reading a story you don't like, you move on to the next one that you do like.

There's also a few patterns included in the book, which in books like this I always figure they include solely as a way of selling more books (you know, people who enjoy reading will read this book, and people who just want patterns will buy this book, so you get twice as many sales). You have no idea what the patterns look like because you have to go online to see photos - I hope that this is maybe just something in my e-ARC and not in the final book. They are all very basic designs, like fingerless gloves, cabled head wrap, ruffled slipper socks, coffee cozies, etc., and most designed by Helen Bingham.



I received a copy of this book for free through http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com/

I don't read a lot of graphics or comics, and I've reviewed very few of them - reviewing a graphic novel just seems a lot harder than reviewing a regular book, at least to me.

I'm a big Trekkie and read a lot of Trekkie books - fluff that's read in a day, more often than not, but quick and fun reads.

I received an e-copy and read it on my computer screen so I could actually read the type, and found it was distracting having to scroll all the time - I think something like this is just better read in a "real" book.

The story line is not terribly original, creative, or even well written (about the pon farr of all things) and unfortunately really leaves a lot to be desired.

I rate this 3 stars mainly because I did like (not love) the artwork and I did like (not love) the story and I do like (not love) the "new" Star Trek AU.