Creamy Red Lentil Soup: Combining Two Madhur Jaffrey Recipes for Souper (Soup, Salad, & Sammie) Sundays

I wanted to cook with Madhur Jaffrey and I wanted lentil soup of which she has multiple recipes. I didn't get a chance to go through my cookbooks before I ran my Saturday errands so standing at the grocery store, I pulled some up online.

Liking two especially, I ended up combining the flavors, ingredients and prep style of this one from Lambeth Larder and this one from Lisa's Kitchen. My combo recipe is below.

Creamy Lentil Soup 
Adapted from Madhur Jaffery
(Makes 4 -5Servings)

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/8 tsp Aleppo pepper or two taste
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed
1 can chopped fire-roasted tomatoes with juices
6 cups veggie broth
1 1/2 cups red lentils (masoor dal), washed  & drained
sea salt & black pepper to taste

In a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion and carrot and fry, stirring occasionally, until quite soft and the pieces start to brown around the edges. Lower the heat and add the spices and stir for about one minute until spices are fragrant.  

Add the potatoes, tomatoes, broth and lentils bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes or until potatoes are cooked through and lentils are softened. Add salt and black pepper. Place about 1/3 of the sup into a high-speed blender and blend until smooth. Stir back into the soup pot. Taste and add additional seasoning as desired.

Serve, garnished with fried onions (my favorite is the garlic and black pepper kind) or cilantro. Enjoy!

Notes/Results: This is a flavorful soup, warm and comforting and really good. In fact it smells so good cooking, I could hardly wait to eat it.I like how creamy the soup became from blending the cooked potatoes and lentils, while still retaining a satisfying chunky texture. Eating a bowl (while reading this new fantasy novel I got for a song on a sale and with a giftcard on Amazon) felt like fall. Now if I could only get our humid weather to cooperate with my inner "ready for autumn vibe." ;-) I would happily make this soup again.

Linking up with IHCC for this week's theme, I Never Cook With...

Now let's look into the Souper Sundays kitchen and see who is here.

 
Judee of Gluten Free A - Z Blog shared a delicious-looking Golden Lentil Soup (we were on the same page this week) and said, "I have quite a stash of lentil soup recipes, but this one is special. Why? It's made with two kinds of lentils- red lentils and brown lentils. The two varieties of lentils create a unique flavor and interesting soup. In addition it's flavored with turmeric, a golden spice now recognized for its anti-inflammatory properties."
 

 
Thanks to Judee for joining in this week!

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!
 

Creamy Chickpea Bow Tie Soup from "I Can Cook Vegan" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays & #AbramsDinnerParty

I adore Isa Chandra Moskowitz and own all of her cookbook so I was extremely excited to see that her newest book, I Can Cook Vegan, was part of the cookbooks I was receiving from Abrams Books as part of the Abrams Dinner Party. I was even more excited to find a recipe for Creamy Chickpea Bow Tie Soup in the book as it happened to be just what I was craving this weekend. A creamy soup with what Moskowitz calls "pot pie vibes."

But first, a little bit about the book. Isa starts it with saying that after a few decades of writing cookbooks, she realizes that, "People want streamlined recipes with easy-to-follow instructions and accessible ingredients." I think she is exactly right. Since I moved back into the regular working world after nearly a decade of working freelance as a consultant, I just don't have the time and energy to come cook most weeknights. I still love to cook and love good food and eat a mostly plant-based diet so I Can Cook Vegan is right up my alley. Although the book is set up with the chapters serving as building blocks to teach the basics of vegan cooking to make for more confident home cooks, there is plenty in here for the more experienced cook. Isa wrote it with a few categories of cooks in mind: 

• The just-born, brand-new cook
• The tried-and-true seasoned cook who is tofu-curious
• The busy weeknight pantry cook
• The farmers' market junkie who looks at all the pretty colors
• The reluctant parent to a vegan child

Abrams Books (October 29, 2019)

Hardcover 288 pages, 150 Color Potographs

Chapters are set up as Ingredients & Philosophy, Pasta & Noodles, Salads Big & Small, Sandwiches, Soups & Stews, Bowls & Sautes, From the Oven, On the Side, Sweets and A Few Staples. As promised (besides a few ingredients that either the ingredients themselves or their uses in vegan cooking may be less familiar to new-to-vegan cooks that she explains: Kala Namak (Himalayan Black Salt), Nutritional Yeast Flakes, Vital Wheat Gluten & Seitan, Tofu, and Nori) most of the ingredients are easy to find in any grocery store. There are lovely color photos for almost all of the recipes and Isa's introductions as well as the chapter heading give the background and tips for the recipes and ideas for serving it.

I tagged a variety of recipes to make: Shroom and White Bean Scampi, Brussels Sprouts Pad Thai, Chickpea Alfredo, Taco Salad Chorizo, Buffalo Cauliflower Ranch Salad, Grilled Curry Tofu Banh Mi, Chickpea Tuna Melt with Avocado and Dill, Tortilla Soup with Black beans and Artichokes, Souther Comfort Bowl, Sushi Bowl with Five-Spice Tempeh, Green Enchilada Lasagna, Swedish Tofu Balls, Tofu Fish Sticks with Tarter Sauce, Coconut Creamed Corn, Raspberry Pretzel Thumbprints with Chocolate Drizzle, Banana Cinnamon Swirl Muffins, and Homemade Vegan Mayo. L

The recipe that I did try of course was this comforting soup. I don't eat chicken anymore but I get cravings for chicken pot pie and knew I had to try it. The only changes I made to the recipe were using leeks instead of onion (I love leeks) and adding a little roasted garlic powder to the mix--mainly as my one-and-only garlic bulb was mostly bad and only about 2 cloves were salvageable.

Creamy Chickpea Bow Tie Soup
From I Can Cook Vegan by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (reprinted with the publisher's permission)
(Serves 6)

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme, plus extra for garnish
6 cups (1.4 L) vegetable broth
1 cup (140 g) peeled carrots, chopped into 3/4-inch (2 cm) chunks
1 cup (55 g) farfalle
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup (60 g) whole unroasted cashews
1 (24-oz/680 g) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup (135 g) frozen peas

Preheat a 4-quart (3.8 L) soup pot over medium heat. Saute onion in the oil with a pinch of salt until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds or so. Add broth and carrots and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, add pasta, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste. Cook until pasta is done, about 8-10 minutes.

In the meantime, place cashews in a high-speed blender with 1 cup (140 ml) water. Blend until completely smooth, occasionally scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to make sure you get everything.

When pasta is cooked, add chickpeas, cashew cream mixture, and peas. Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and serve. Garnish for extra thyme.

Notes/Results: Oh yeah, this soup is like a brothy pot pie, rich but not heavy and really, really good. Perfect comfort food  and I think you could please vegans and carnivores alike with it. My only regret is not making biscuits to go on top. ;-)  The recipe was easy to follow and relatively quick to make. If you don't have a high-speed blender, Isa suggests soaking the cashew for a few hours or overnight. If you have not made or used cashew cream before, this is a great starter recipe to learn the joys. I would definitely make it again.
 

Many thank to Abrams Books and #AbramsDinner Party for this great new cookbook that I know will get a lot of use at my house. This post is sponsored by Abrams Books, as part of the Abrams Dinner Party however my thoughts, feelings and experiences cooking from it are my own.  #sponsored 

I''m also sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Now let's look into the Souper Sundays kitchen and see who is here.

Judee of Gluten Free A - Z Blog shared Lebanese Moussaka and said, "Do you love Middle Eastern cooking? I do, and this Lebanese Moussaka is fabulous! It's entirely different than the more commonly known Greek Moussaka, and there is a reason why!! ... It turns out Moussaka is actually an Arabic, not Greek, word and many Mediterranean countries make their own unique versions of a Moussaka. Lebanese Moussaka is called "Maghmour" which means "stew" in Arabic. As you can see from the photo, the Lebanese Moussaka is like a stew."

Simona of briciole brought a soupish Fresh Beans in Fresh Tomato Sauce and said, "Schiavone does not have an Adelina in his life and his cooking skills are limited, so my dish was inspired not so much by something mentioned in the novels, as by the wish to prepare something Roman-style for their protagonist. The sight at the Berkeley farmers' market of several varieties of fresh beans, out of which I chose to try Coco Bianco², plus the availability of Early Girl tomatoes, suggested pasta e fagioli alla romana to me. I prepared the beans in tomato sauce without pasta."

 
Thanks to Judee and Simona for joining in this week!

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week!
 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The Art of Escapism Cooking" by Mandy Lee, Served with Poached Eggs with Miso-Browned Butter Hollandaise

Happy Aloha Friday! To celebrate the weekend I have a review of a gorgeous new cookbook, The Art of Escapism Cooking by Mandy Lee for TLC Book Tours. Paired with my review is the delectable Poached Eggs with Miso-Browned Butter Hollandaise from the book.

Publisher's Blurb:

In this inventive and intensely personal cookbook, the blogger behind the award-winning ladyandpups.com reveals how she cooked her way out of an untenable living situation, with more than eighty delicious Asian-inspired dishes with influences from around the world.

For Mandy Lee, moving from New York to Beijing for her husband’s work wasn’t an exotic adventure—it was an ordeal. Growing increasingly exasperated with China’s stifling political climate, its infuriating bureaucracy, and its choking pollution, she began “an unapologetically angry food blog,” LadyandPups.com, to keep herself from going mad.

Mandy cooked because it channeled her focus, helping her cope with the difficult circumstances of her new life. She filled her kitchen with warming spices and sticky sauces while she shared recipes and observations about life, food, and cooking in her blog posts. Born in Taiwan and raised in Vancouver, she came of age food-wise in New York City and now lives in Hong Kong; her food reflects the many places she’s lived. This entertaining and unusual cookbook is the story of how “escapism cooking”—using the kitchen as a refuge and ultimately creating delicious and satisfying meals—helped her crawl out of her expat limbo.

Illustrated with her own gorgeous photography, The Art of Escapism Cooking provides that comforting feeling a good meal provides. Here are dozens of innovative and often Asian-influenced recipes, divided into categories by mood and occasion, such as:

For Getting Out of Bed
Poached Eggs with Miso-Browned Butter Hollandaise
Crackling Pancake with Caramel-Clustered Blueberries and Balsamic Honey

For Slurping
Buffalo Fried Chicken Ramen
Crab Bisque Tsukemen

For a Crowd
Cumin Lamb Rib Burger
Italian Meatballs in Taiwanese Rouzao Sauce

For Snacking
Wontons with Shrimp and Chili Coconut Oil and Herbed Yogurt
Spicy Chickpea Poppers

For Sweets
Mochi with Peanut Brown Sugar and Ice Cream
Recycled Nuts and Caramel Apple Cake

Every dish is sublimely delicious and worth the time and attention required. Mandy also demystifies unfamiliar ingredients and where to find them, shares her favorite tools, and provides instructions for essential condiments for the pantry and fridge, such as Ramen Seasoning, Fried Chili Verde Sauce, Caramelized Onion Powder Paste, and her Ultimate Sichuan Chile Oil.

Hardcover: 400 pages  
Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks (October 15, 2019)

My Review:

I love cookbooks best when they tell me stories about the cook and about the recipes inside and The Art of Escapism Cooking does that well. From the chapter titles to the descriptions of each recipe, Mandy Lee's voice is strong and her words passionate and evocative. I was not familiar with her blog (Lady & Pups) but I spent some time on there while paging through her cookbook and have a feeling I will visit often. The book is gorgeous--the photography, by Lee herself, is stunning and had even the non-meat-eating side of me craving a burger, duck, and pork belly. It does have a definite meat focus to it but there are enough options that I found plenty to be inspired by. Lee was born in Taiwan, raised in Vancouver BC and "slow-aged" in New York City until she moved to Beijing with her husband. She now lives in Hong Kong and her cooking style reflects a mix of cultures from her background, as well as the places she has traveled. It's an eclectic and intriguing group of dishes (there are even homemade dog treats) and likely to drive people without well-stocked Asian markets or who don't order ingredients online a bit crazy. She does do an excellent job explaining her pantry of ingredients in the beginning of the book and gives some great make-your-own condiments (more detail on that below), but many of those condiments, sauces and seasonings also have ingredients that may not be readily available to some. I am lucky that in Hawaii most things are easily obtainable and I already stock a good portion of her pantry items in my own cupboards. 

For Lee, cooking is an escape--particularly when she was living in China and frustrated with her life there. I like to escape into cooking too, but one of the big differences between us is that I am often a lazy cook and like simple but delicious recipes full of flavor, while Lee's recipes for the most part are for cooks who like fully immersing themselves in the details of the recipes. The ingredient lists are often long and there are many steps. In some recipes, the steps seem to have steps. Even the section titled "Shit I Eat When I'm By Myself" has more complexity than I like on a weeknight after a long day at work or a weekend spent recovering from a long week. That, and the meat emphasis will end up making The Art of Escapism Cooking a book that I pull out to read and for inspiration rather than one I would rely on for regular meals. I will use it mainly for that condiments section, various components of the dishes, and for flavor inspiration (oh yeah, and for the Miso-Browned Butter Hollandaise Sauce recipe that I would lick off a stick). ;-P There is nothing wrong with having a cookbook for special occasions and inspiration, and I am lucky to add this stunning volume to my cookbook collection.


-----

Author Notes: Mandy Lee founded her award-winning “angry food blog,” Lady and Pups, in 2012 out of sheer frustration after moving from New York City to Beijing. She and her blog have been featured in numerous publications and sites, including Saveur, FoodandWine.com, CNN.com, Yahoo, Food52, and WashingtonPost.com. She currently lives in Hong Kong with her husband and pups.

Check out her blog, Lady and Pups, and follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

-----

The recipes I most wanted to make were for the seasonings like the Ramen Seasoning in it's regular and vegan version, the Makrut Lime Leaf Oil (a perfect use for the lime leaves I buy when I see them at the market which are marked kaffir but the same thing. Apparently Makrut is the politically correct name--see this article.), Garlic Confit Sauce, Fried Chile Verde Sauce, Caramelized Onion Powdered Paste, Sweet Soy Sauce, and Fried Garlic Powder. Also the Semi-Instant Laksa Mix, Spicy Chickpea Poppers, Black Hummus, Mapo Tofummus, and Chongqing Melted Cheese all look do-able and delicious.

Between the weather and my schedule, I just didn't have the time or inclination to fuss over recipes, and so as I went through The Art of Escapism Cooking, I looked for something relatively easy to make. At first it was going to be a seasoning or a sauce but then I read the description for Poached Eggs with Miso-Browned Butter Sauce and it became stuck in my head with it hitting on so many of my food favorites like breakfast, miso, eggs with runny yolks, capers, pickled vegetables (in this case shallots), browned butter and toasted bread. It also had fewer steps than most of the other recipes. I also had all of the ingredients except the shallots and bread so it became my Sunday morning project.

I'm not going to print the recipe as the sublime Miso-Browned Butter Sauce is worth purchasing the book yourself, but here is a link to Mandy Lee's Burnt/Browned Butter Hollandaise on her Lady & Pups site. Add 2 1/2 Tbsp of medium/yellow miso paste and a pinch of sugar and a little more lemon juice and you have it. For the pickled shallots, Lee gives a pantry recipe for Pickled Chilies or says to use whatever jarred chile pickle juice you have on hand--like jalapeño juice which I just happened to have. Lee also suggests using an immersion blender for the sauce to limit the splatters of ingredients in a blender--a good suggestion but I used my Vitamix and had no issues.

Notes/Results: The Miso-Browned Butter Hollandaise Sauce will become a regular in my kitchen as in addition to eggs, I can see it drizzled over veggies and topping a piece of cooked fish. I can also see myself eating it straight from the bender cup. ;-) It is  that perfect umami, especially with the capers and shallots on top. I put two eggs on my toast, drenched the whole thing in the sauce and had an amazing Sunday brunch that made cleaning the several pans more than worth it. I will happily make it again. 

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "The Art of Escapism Cooing" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins, via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own. 
 
You can see the other stops for this TLC Book Tour and what other bloggers thought of the book here.

Creamy Tomato Soup & Toast with Tomato Butter for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

I wanted a simple tomato soup this week and looked to How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman my source for good, easy recipes. I used his recipe and added milk at the end to make it creamy. Part of my reason for making tomato soup with tomato paste was to open a small can and use the remainder in this two-ingredient Tomato Butter that I pinned from Food & Wine the other day. I thought it would be delicious on a piece of toast...and it was.

Creamy Tomato Soup & Toast with Tomato Butter 
Slightly Adapted from How To Cook Everything By Mark Bittman
(Serves 4)

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large or 2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
1 carrot, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 sprig fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried
2 lbs tomatoes, cored & chopped, or one 28-oz can diced tomatoes with juice
2 to 3 cups water or tomato juice
1 tsp sugar, optional
3/4 cup half-and-half or coconut milk
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves for garnish, optional

Put the oil in a large pot over medium heat. When it’s hot, add the onion and carrot, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring, until the vegetables begin to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, lower the heat a bit, and continue to cook, stirring to coat the vegetables with the paste, until the paste begins to darken (don’t let it burn), 1 to 2 minutes.

Strip the thyme leaves from the stem and add them to the pot along with the tomatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down, 10 to 15 minutes. Add 2 cups of the water and bring to a boil, then adjust the heat so that the mixture bubbles gently. Let the soup cook until the flavors meld, 5 more minutes. (At this point, I pureed the soup to make it smooth.)

Add milk and cook until warmed through--do not boil. Taste and adjust the seasoning; if the soup tastes flat (but salty enough), stir in the sugar. If the soup is too thick, add more water, 1/4 cup at a time. If it’s too thin, continue to cook until it thickens and reduces slightly (this will also intensify the flavors). Garnish with the basil if you’re using it and serve.

For the Tomato Butter by Stacey Ballis, there isn't a recipe--just combine the tomato paste with softened butter in a 1:1 ratio. Use in cooked rice, pasta, on toast, etc. Yum!

Notes/Results: This is a simple tomato soup, full of good flavor. I like mine creamy so I used my blender to puree it, then added some leftover half-and-half to make it creamy. It was delicious with the toast spread with the tomato butter--like a double punch of tomato flavor. I will make both again.

Tomato Soup is an American classic so I'm linking up this recipe to I Heart Cooking Clubs where this week is our Monthly Cuisine Spotlight: American Food.

About Souper Sundays:

Souper Sundays (going since 2008) now has a format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches at any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter  

Have a happy, healthy week!
 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "Lies in White Dresses" by Sofia Grant with a Recipe for Chop Suey with Shrimp

I'm excited to be a stop on the TLC Book Tours for Lies in White Dresses by Sofia Grant, a novel that taught me about a tidbit of U.S. cultural history that I was unaware of. Along with my review, I have a recipe for a tasty Chop Suey inspired by the book.

Publisher's Blurb:

Award winning author Sofia Grant weaves an entrancing tale of female friendship and new beginnings inspired by the true stories of those who “took the Reno cure”. In the 1940s and 50s, women who needed a fast divorce went to Nevada to live on a ranch with other women in the same boat.

“Sofia Grant entices us into following three women seeking the Reno Cure, as they overcome their disillusionment over the lives they expected to have and summon the bravery to embrace new and unexpected paths.” –Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room

Francie Meeker and Vi Carothers were sold a bill of goods: find a man, marry him in a white wedding gown, and live happily ever after. These best friends never expected to be on the train to Reno, those “lies in white dresses” shattered, their marriages over.

On board the train they meet June Samples, who is fleeing an abusive husband with her daughter, and take the vulnerable young mother under their wing.  The three decide to wait out the required six weeks together, and then they can toss their wedding bands into the Truckee River and start new lives as divorcees.

But as they settle in at the ranch, one shocking moment will change their lives forever. As it brings their deceptions and fears into focus, it will also demand a reckoning with the past, and the choices that a person in love can be driven to make.

Paperback: 384 pages  
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (September 17, 2019)

My Review:

I jumped on this tour because I really enjoyed one of the author's previous book, The Daisy Children (see my review here) and because I knew little about Reno, Nevada's role in divorce in the United States. Growing up I knew Nevada was the place for a quick, uncontested divorce but I had not heard the term "the Reno cure" or known Reno was considered "The Divorce Capital of the World" for over six decades. At it's heyday, many women (including actresses and heiresses) came to the city and surrounding communities for the Reno cure and stayed for six weeks or more in order to get their residency established and get an uncontested divorce. Here's a great article about it I found online.  
Set in 1952, Lies in White Dresses tells the stories of Vi and Francie, two long-time best friends seeking divorces from marriages they expected to last forever. They befriend June, a young woman fleeing her marriage with her young daughter Patty, and take her under their wings and into the hotel they reside at in Reno that caters to women taking the cure. Chapters are told from their alternating perspectives, as well as the perspectives of Virgie, the budding Nancy Drew daughter of the hotel's owner, Willy a singer and the other woman in Vi's marriage, and Charlie, Vi's son. I found each of their stories absorbing, as was this look at women's history during a time when they didn't have a lot of options for getting out of a bad situation--especially if they didn't have the money to do so. 

There is humor and tragedy and a bit of mystery and intrigue thrown into Lies in White Dresses. Although there were a few things that seemed implausible, especially toward the end, I liked how Sofia Grant tied the stories together and created a not-perfect but satisfying ending for the characters I had grown to care about. If you like historical fiction, books set in the 1950s,stories about women's friendship and strong female characters, you will likely enjoy it too. 

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Author Notes: Sofia Grant has the heart of a homemaker, the curiosity of a cat, and the keen eye of a scout. She works from an urban aerie in Oakland, California.


Find out more about Sofia at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Food Inspiration:

There was a good amount of food in Lies in White Dresses with many dishes indicative of the time. Mentions included a cottage cheese and pineapple plate, veal chop in paprika cream sauce, ham and cheese sandwich, fried chicken, broiled sole, iced tea, Shirley temples, hot cocoa and toasted cheese sandwiches, lemonade and cookies, sherry, lichee black tea, whiskey, rabbit, asparagus with creamy sauce, rolls, chicken divan, New York strip, Saddle Sores (a cocktail with rum, chartreuse and ginger ale), ginger cookies and hot tea, lemon meringue pie, coffee, chicken salad sandwiches, chicken and scalloped potatoes, scotch, mulled wine, ravioli and spaghetti, Manhattans, broiled chicken, steaks and boilermakers, pork chops with creamed onions, cake, brisket, meatloaf and corned beef sandwiches.

For my book inspired dish I had to go with Chop Suey from a conversation between Francie, Vi and June about things Francie wants to try while waiting for and after her divorce in Reno. 

"Well I want to try some new things."  
"Like what?" June asked.
"Chinese food," Francie said immediately. "It sounds so interesting. Even the names sound so exotic--chop suey and the like."

I remember when going out to eat at the very Americanized Chinese restaurant in town when I was a child in the seventies and my mom making chop suey and chow mein at home and how very exotic it felt so I wanted to recreate that, only using shrimp instead of the thinly cut beef my mom used since I don't eat meat. I looked on line for recipes and found several, but ended up making my own based on what I had on hand.

Chop Suey
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Serves 2 to 3)

1 1/2 Tbsp canola oil
sea salt and ground black pepper
4 green onions, sliced, white and green parts separated
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, julienned 
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 cup snow peas, trimmed and sliced in half
2 cups cabbage, thinly sliced
2 cups bean sprouts
1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined

Sauce
1/3 cup veggie broth or water
3 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
1 Tbsp mirin or cooking sherry
2 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp chili oil
2 Tbsp corn starch
Cooked noodles or rice and sesame seeds to serve.

Heat the oil in a large wok over medium-high high and add the white parts of the green onion, celery, carrot and salt and pepper and cook about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the red bell pepper and water chestnuts and cook another 3 minutes, then add the snow peas and cabbage and cook for a minute or two. 

Meanwhile combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl and stir until blended. Add to the stir fry mixture along with the shrimp, stirring gently to combine. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes--until sauce has thickened and shrimp are pink and cooked through. Taste for seasoning and serve over rice or chow mein noodles with green onions and sesame seeds sprinkled on to garnish. Enjoy! 

Notes/Results: Simple and tasty, it took me back to the dinners I ate as a child, just a bit more crisp and fresh tasting. ;-) I added a bit of chili oil and I liked the little kick and the sweetness from the mirin and oyster sauce in the chop suey sauce. (If you don't have mirin and oyster sauce available you could just add a bit of sugar and a tiny touch of vinegar.) At our house this was served with crunchy chow mein noodles but I have never been a fan so i used fresh packaged chow mein noodles instead. Fast and good for a weeknight, I will happily make it again.

I am sharing this book and food pairing with Novel Foods #37, an event celebrating food inspired by the written word and hosted by my friend Simona at Briciole. This deadline for this round of Novel Food ends Sunday, October 20th.

I''m also sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "Lies in White Dresses" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins, via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own. 
 
You can see the other stops for this TLC Book Tour and what other bloggers thought of the book here.