But What Were We Reading?

There is always plenty of eating and drinking when family gets together, isn't there? In my family, there is. One of my good friends sat in for me at the bookstore on Saturday so I could go next door to the Garage Bar & Grill to have lunch with my mother and sisters. My friend said she should be the one to thank me: "I got to sit here and read instead of going home to clean house!"

Besides having reading friends, I come from a family of readers. That, I think, has already been established. My mother and sisters brought books with them on their trip and found books in Northport, but during our time together we were talking and laughing and eating and drinking. Later, in our separate beds, we pulled out our books to read ourselves to sleep, tired out from sunshine and fresh air (perfect weather!) and good food and drink and talk.

I finished The Checkered Years: A Bonanza Farm Diary, 1884-88, by Mary Dodge Woodward, and passed it along to my mother, who had finished a book and needed another. I am the firstborn of my mother's three daughters, and I was born out in Dakota -- South, not North, but I knew my mother would enjoy reading about North Dakota farm life in the 1800s and be glad her Aberdeen experiences were milder. Here is the farm where Mary Dodge Woodward lived outside Fargo. I would not trade my old northern Michigan farmhouse for the windswept Great Plains.

Salmon one night, cherry bratwurst and linguine with pesto the next, roast chicken the third -- we ate well during our little reunion. For a peek at dessert, visit my brand-new blog, "From My Paris Kitchen," and tell me what you think! My family inspired me!