There is Nothing Like Cooking Over a Wood Fire...

Alice Waters has been our heroine for a very long time. She has not only spearheaded the movement towards organic, seasonal, sustainable, slowly-cooked and locally grown food, but she has also started a wonderful project called The Edible Schoolyard which teaches children to respect and value nutritional, natural food from a very young age.
We have used her cookbooks faithfully over the years, with wonderful results every time. At her charming restaurant in Berkeley, Chez Panisse, (considered the birthplace of California Cuisine) they use a wood-fired oven fueled by grape wood.
Great food and atmosphere evokes wonderful memories, and our times there are unforgettable!
Alice Waters has a new book out that we will definitely be reading soon:

Another Book For Us to Read By the Fireplace This Fall!

Congratulations to Doris Lessing for being awarded 2007's Nobel Prize in Literature!

She is described on the Nobel Prize site as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."

We love her already!

We are adding her most famous book, The Golden Notebook, to our "Must Read By The Fireplace This Fall" list.




Also, next Friday, Orham Pamuk, last year's Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature, and author of Snow, My Name is Red, and Istanbul: Memories and the City will be at UC Santa Barbara's Campbell Hall at 8pm.

Ira Glass, producer and host of our favorite radio show, This American Life, introduces his new anthology The New Kings of Non-Fiction this week. “Kings” include authors Malcolm Gladwell (Blink; Tipping Point), Susan Orlean (New Yorker; Orchid Thief), and Chuck Klosterman (Fargo Rock City). We are very excited...Earlier this week, our friends in New York saw them all speak on such diverse topics as the changing role of women in history, the significance of ever-shrinking diapers, Susan's three-week "interview" process, and the unbearable weight of being one of Gene Simmons' dedicated devotees. We can't wait for Ira Glass to come our way on November 4th.

The 8th Annual Ojai Film Festival is on this Weekend! October 4-7
Click here for schedule
We are adding "Lili and the Baobab" and "The Devil Came on Horseback" to our "must see" list!

Celebrate Intellectual Freedom! Banned Books Week: September 29-October 6


“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Our favorite "banned book" is this amazing science-fiction book by Lois Lowry.

Books We're Reading by the Fireplace