Very Merry Christmas Crème Brulee

★★★★ (4/5)

Merry Christmas everyone! So Book Nerd has been on me about my overdue blog posts… and she’s right, it’s been far too long since we’ve had some OC from the Cook Nerd. I have to preface this post by saying that this is another bake, and that everything that I bake does not always begin as a yellow soup (see: Lemon Curd Tart). This recipe was born from some last minute Christmas shopping and an opportunistic find in TJMaxx. While walking through the aisles I noticed a set of four ramekin & a blow torch and said to myself “Hey, that’s a good price on something that I don’t have, will only use once, and probably don’t need” (I think that should be the TJMaxx slogan). So, as one does, I added the ramekins to our cart, checked out of TJMaxx, and went home to embark on making my first crème brulee (Christmas style, of course).

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

★★★★ (4/5)

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is a WWII novel based on the true story of Lale Eisenberg (later Lale Slovak) during his imprisonment at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It's the first read of our new quarterly "Ya-Ya" Book Club (don't ask on the name), and I'm so happy this is what we started with! It has received a ton of hype and I feel like I finally got to find out what all the fuss has been about.

Orange is the New Black

★★★ (3/5)

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman is another stray from my typical reads (I generally stick to fiction); the book is a memoir about Piper's time spent in federal prison which was eventually turned into a popular show on Netflix. I'll admit - I was interested in the book because of how much I loved the first few seasons of the show. I was especially drawn in by the dynamics and back stories between the prisoners, which I thought were extremely insightful. I'll be honest, though, this book was a little tough for me to stick with (hence another hiatus between posts), but I think that may be because of my general aversion to reading non-fiction and/or my expectations of similarity to the show, and not because it's a bad memoir in any way.