Fresh Spring Break Outfit, Easy Feta And Olive Appetizer, Good Books And More

Hello, Spring is officially here this week and I have a Spring Break outfit, an easy appetizer recipe and lots of books for you to consider! This is a quick read.. It’s favorite things time with Annie and Cindy!

Spring In Florida

Last weekend, we stayed with our friends, Lisa and Jim in Winter Park, Florida where it definitely felt like Spring! The have a beautiful home on a lake and we enjoyed sitting outside.

I featured more of their home here: Creating a Fresh, Classic Neutral Living Room in A Two Story Space.

Black And White Outfit For Warmer Weather–Spring Break Outfit

I wore this embroidered linen wrap dress while in Winter Park. It’s a “one and done” type outfit and comes in light blue and white, too.

Or for another Spring Break outfit, you could purchase the blouse version in black or blue to wear with white jeans.

Baked Feta With Olives And Lemon Appetizer

We had this easy appetizer at our daughter’s house and I made it to take to our friend, Mark’s birthday party. 

I bought the ramekin at Home Goods but you can use a small baking dish such as this one by Staub.

Here is the recipe to try for yourself!

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Baked Feta Cheese With Olives Recipe

This is a simple, delicious appetizer served warm with crackers or toasted baguette slices.

Ingredients

• 7 oz block of sheep’s milk feta
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of one half lemon and cut the other half in two as garnish
• 1 cup mixed olives
• 1/2 cup oven dried tomatoes with garlic optional: from the Whole Foods Deli
• 2 tbs. chopped rosemary plus a branch or two as garnish
• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• Sprinkling of fresh black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Put the feta in a gratin dish or other small ovenproof dish that you will also use for serving.
• Pour the olive oil into the dish, followed by the lemon juice.
• Arrange the olives around the cheese, with the rosemary and the optional oven roasted tomatoes.
• Add the quartered lemon halve as well.
• Sprinkle the red and black pepper over all.
• Bake for about 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbling.

Notes

I put the lid on the ramekin and transported it on a wooden cutting board to our friends’ dinner party.

What To Watch: Running Point On Netflix

My sister sent out this TV show recommendation in our family group post. Kate Hudson (she is really funny) stars in Running Point, a new comedy series from executive producer Mindy Kaling.

What To Read: Embracing Beauty By Beth Webb

Cindy gave me this beautiful book as a gift. It’s pretty on the coffee table and I’ve already flipped through it several times (thanks, Cindy).

I always like to have a list of book recommendations! And I have mentioned this before, but I like to use the Libby app to get the books for free. Just sign up with your local library card. You might be on a waiting list for some, but you can’t beat the price.

The 10 Best Books of 2024 According to the staff of The New York Times Book Review

My friend, Mercedes is going to read all the books (She’s already read a few and I have read “James.” I think you have to have a subscription to the NY Times to get the link to the list, so here they are:

All Fours By Miranda July

“July’s second novel, which follows a married mother and artist who derails a solo cross-country road trip by checking into a motel close to home and starting an affair with a younger rental-car worker, was the year’s literary conversation piece.”

Good Material By Dolly Alderton

“In Alderton’s brisk, witty novel, a 35-year-old struggling comedian in London tries to make sense of a recent breakup at the same moment when the majority of his friends seem to be pairing off for life.”

James By Percival Everett

“It takes a lot of ambition, skill and vision to reinvent one of the most iconic books in American letters, but Everett demonstrates he possesses those virtues in droves in “James.” The novel is a radical reworking of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” telling the story not from Huck’s perspective, but from the point of view of the enslaved man who accompanies Huck down the Mississippi River: Jim (or, as he clarifies, James).”

Martyr By Kaveh Akbar

“Cyrus Shams, an Iranian American aspiring poet and recovering drug addict, wallows in a post-college malaise in a fictional Midwestern town. He’s working dead-end jobs and halfheartedly attending A.A., while grieving his parents’ deaths and, increasingly, fantasizing about his own. Cyrus is lost and sad, but this captivating first novel, by an author who is himself a poet, is anything but”.

You Dreamed of Empires By Álvaro Enrigue; translated by Natasha Wimmer

“History has long been Enrigue’s playground, and his latest novel takes readers to 16th-century Tenochtitlan, or what is now Mexico City”.

Nonfiction

Cold Crematorium By József Debreczeni; translated by Paul Olchváry

“Debreczeni, 39 when he was deported from his native Hungary to what he calls “the Land of Auschwitz,” would later memorialize the experience in a book that defies easy classification.”

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here By Jonathan Blitzer

“Blitzer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, presents a timely analysis of the situation at America’s southern border, placing the blame for today’s screaming headlines, detainee camps and unaccompanied minors firmly on post-Cold War U.S. policy.”

I Heard Her Call My Name By Lucy Sante

“When the veteran literary and cultural critic came out as transgender in 2021 at the age of 66, she described in an email to her loved ones the devastating realization that her “parallel life” — the one presented to her by a “gender-swapping” app that showed her how she would have looked as a girl and then a woman at various junctures in her life — had passed her by.”

Reagan By Max Boot

“This elegant biography of the 40th president stands out for its deep authority and nimble style.”

The Wide Wide Sea By Hampton Sides

“In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook’s third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers.”

Let’s see what my friends have discovered this week:

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