In spite of the prevailing trends, traditional (read: decadent) dishes continue to anchor our holiday dinner tables, from Thanksgiving right on through New Year’s Day. The likes of stuffing and any kind of casserole almost sound foreign in our modern vocabulary. Yet, the thought of bellying up and not reaching for one or the other (and then, instinctively, the gravy boat) would be downright sacrilegious. In that vein, we’re offering up a dish for your consideration that may not be as familiar but should fit in quite nicely with your rotation. If we’re going to indulge, why hold back?
Recipe + photography by Yelena Strokin
Chicken Liver Pâté with Red Wine and Cranberry Jelly Serves four.
FOR THE PÂTÉ 3 tbsps. extra-virgin olive oil 4 tbsps. unsalted butter 1 large yellow onion, chopped 1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped 5-6 white button mushrooms, sliced 1 small garlic clove, crushed 1 lb. fresh chicken livers, cleaned and trimmed 2 tbsps. dry Marsala wine Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
FOR THE JELLY 1 cup red wine ½ cup cranberries (fresh or frozen) 2-3 tbsps. sugar Pinch of salt ½ tsp. freshly ground nutmeg Zest from half a lemon 1 tsp. gelatin
TO SERVE 1 baguette, cut into inch-thick slices
To make the jelly In a small saucepan over a medium heat, mix together the red wine and cranberries and let them simmer for 10 minutes. Then, add the sugar, salt, nutmeg and lemon zest and mix well. Add the gelatin next and stir until it dissolves.
Turn the heat off and let the mixture sit for a minute or two. Then, carefully strain it through a fine sieve into another pot, where it will sit and cool.
To make the pâté
In a large frying pan over a medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onion, carrot and mushrooms and sauté them until they soften, about five minutes. Then, add the garlic and cook until it becomes lightly fragrant, about two minutes.
Add the chicken livers next, season with salt and stir to coat them in the olive oil. Then, add the Marsala wine and allow the alcohol to cook down, about three minutes. Reduce the heat to low and cook uncovered, occasionally—and gently—turning the livers until they achieve a rich brown on the outside and a light pink on the inside, eight to 10 minutes.
At that point, allow the livers to cool slightly. Then, using a food processor, blend them until they reach the consistency of a thick paste. Blend in the butter next until it completely dissolves into the paste. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide the pâté among small glasses. Reserve the last quarter of the glass for the jelly. Once you’ve topped them off, stick the glasses in the refrigerator so the jelly can set.
To serve, simply slather the baguette slices—toast them lightly first—with generous portions of the pâté, making sure to get a good dose of the jelly on there, too.
Yelena Strokin is a Newtown-based food stylist and photographer and the founder of the blog Cooking Melangery.
Ayesha Curry is everywhere lately, as a lifestyle expert, a blogger, a magazine contributor and now, an author and a TV personality. We caught up with her ahead of her appearance at the Philadelphia Taste Festival this month to discuss all that she’s got cooking.
By Jessica Downey
It’s already been a whirlwind fall for Ayesha Curry. Aside from holding down the homefront with her husband, reigning NBA MVP Steph Curry, she’s been promoting her first cookbook and shooting her new Food Network show. She’s also likely been squeezing in some shooting practice. Video of a three-pointer Curry sank during a pickup game last August in China promptly went viral. And there’s more to come. Later this month, she’ll be headlining the Philadelphia Taste Festival of Food, Wine and Spirits October 22 at the Valley Forge Casino Resort.
If you’re already on familiar terms with the 26-year-old Canadian-born, Charlotte, North Carolina-raised mom of two daughters, just wait. You haven’t seen anything yet. This may be that elusive moment when we’re able to pinpoint the precise turn when someone becomes a household name.
Already, Curry’s lifestyle blog and YouTube channel, Little Lights of Mine, where she shares her love of food, family and her approach to living a balanced life, have quickly become go-to resources for millions looking for a lift in and out of the kitchen. Curry also contributes to TheBump.com and CALLED magazine, and she’s been featured in Food & Wine, Time, InStyle, People, USA Today, Brides, POPSUGAR, Hello Beautiful and Diablo Magazine. And, she launched her own brand of extra-virgin olive oil in 2014.
Before her trip to Valley Forge, Home + Table talked with the San Francisco resident about growing up in a foodie household, how she makes her family her top priority and her cookbook, a collection of about 100 of her favorite recipes, many of which she learned growing up, including Cast Iron Biscuits and Smoked Salmon Scramble.
And, of course, we asked if she’s hiding some serious game in deference to Steph.
What were you first introductions to food, growing up in Canada with a Jamaican mom?
ACAt my house, we always had ginormous family get-togethers with incredibly flavorful food.
What kind of influences did your mom’s heritage play on what you ate as a kid?
I think all those flavors really helped to broaden my palate and my taste buds.
What was your favorite thing to eat growing up?
I loved my mom’s oven-roasted, brown-sugar chicken, which I made this spring on “Rachel Ray.”
The food industry has been revolutionized in the last decade by so many celebrity chefs and cooking shows. Where do you fit in?
I’m a young mom of two whose passion for food really stems from family togetherness. My whole message is about cooking with love in an effort to gather your family together. I hope it will help people communicate with each other and keep their sense of family alive.
What do you love most about cooking, especially now that you have your own family?
I absolutely love getting the family involved in making the meals and then seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces when we’re done.
During the NBA season, which is pretty long, are you able to have regular dinners together as a family?
Yes! It’s actually the time when life is the most normal for us. We try to keep an everyday-regimen in place. Most nights are spent together unless there’s a game.
What made you want to write a cookbook?
I really wanted to put my love for food into words. I also wanted to share my joy of cooking for my family and getting everyone to gather together in hopes that one day they would do the same. And I wanted to leave a legacy for my girls.
How does your family-first approach translate to the recipes?
Many of them are family favorites that have been passed down from generation to generation. The others are some that I created over the years. Everything that went into this book is meant to be quick, easy and approachable.
We can’t let you go, of course, without discussing that three-pointer. Was it a fluke, or are you hiding some serious game?
In my dream, it goes in every time. But that shot was a little luck along with some pointers I got from someone I know.
Photo courtesy Little, Brown and Company / Coeur de la Photography
For a couple precious weeks each year, we can enter the homes of complete (and, sometimes, not) strangers and gawk at their stuff. To ensure that you satisfy your curiosity, we offer a brief guide to the prime snooping—err, tours.
By Scott Edwards
‘Tis the season to scope out some of the most inspiring halls around us, public and private. And, of course, soak up some holiday vibes. But, let’s be honest, we drag the dog out for a walk out most nights as a convenient excuse to peer through our neighbors’ floor-to-ceiling windows. These are the couple of weeks of the year when we can drop the act and walk right in. What follows is a guide to the season’s most promising house tours. Rest assured that every property will be decked out. You’re probably more interested in what lies beneath the garland, though. As are we.
Newtown Historic Assoc. Holiday Open House Tour | December 3
Six homes and seven public buildings, all in Rockwell-ian Newtown Borough, comprise this year’s self-guided walking tour, which dates back to 1963 (when admission was a buck-fifty; it’s $30 now). You’ll find some of the most impressive examples of colonial-era architecture in Bucks County among this collection. Chadds Ford Historical Society Candlelight Christmas Tour | Dec. 3
Several historic Chadds Ford and Pennsbury township properties will be decorated and awash in candlelight—or, rather, sunlight; the tour starts at 1 p.m.; but candles will be burning, or plugged in, at least—for the self-guided tour. This one’s most appropriate for the history savant. Most of the featured stops played a role in the 1777 Battle of Brandywine.
Fonthill Holiday Lights Meander | Dec. 10
There’s only one stop on this tour, but it’s a doozy. In broad daylight on an average Tuesday, Henry Mercer’s personal castle in Doylestown, Fonthill Museum, is akin to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, if Wonka was a freak craftsman instead of a sugar fiend. Adorned with garland, candles and designer Christmas trees, it’s sensory overload. Haverford Holiday House Tour | Dec. 11
Five homes, the oldest dating back to the 19th century. Expect lots of wide-plank floors, short doorframes and built-in shelving and cabinetry. In other words, the kind of authentic nuances that, despite our boundless innovation since their inception, have become impossible to replicate.
Pottsgrove Manor by Candlelight | Dec. 11
On the 12th day of Christmas, the English colonists got down with their God-fearing selves—indulgent dinners, lavish parties. So, here, actors will be recreating some of those scenes throughout the 264-year-old mansion of Pottstown’s founder. There will be something on all three floors—dancing in the parlor, cooking in the kitchen and, we’re expecting, a secret rendezvous in the servants’ quarters.
We’re heading into hibernation with big appetites and familiar cravings.
Recipes and photography by Yelena Strokin
The return to cool days and cold nights sparks a hunger that almost feels insatiable. Overnight, we find ourselves craving the kind of hearty meals that are going to anchor us to the dinner table for a couple hours at a time and leave us not just full but warmed, too. Once the holidays pass, it won’t be long before we’ll start to feel boxed in by root veggies. But, for now, the scent of roasting meats and baking desserts smells like the start of a cozy new existence.
Rosemary Roast Leg of Lamb Serves six to eight.
5 lbs. leg of lamb, bone removed, untied 3 tbsps. vegetable oil 1 cup dry white wine 6-7 garlic cloves, minced 2 tbsps. fresh rosemary, chopped 1 onion, peeled and minced 5-6 potatoes, peeled and quartered 3 turnips, peeled and quartered 3 tsps. salt Freshly ground pepper to taste
• Place the lamb in a glass baking dish.
• In a bowl, mix together the vegetable oil, wine, garlic, rosemary, onion, salt and pepper, then pour it over the lamb. Move the lamb to the refrigerator to marinate for anywhere from three hours to overnight (the longer the better), turning it occasionally.
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Move the lamb to a rack in a roasting pan and add half of the marinade. Roast it for about two hours, or until the lamb becomes tender. An hour in, add the potatoes and the turnips, along with the remaining marinade. Baste the lamb frequently.
• Place the lamb and the veggies on a hot serving platter and let them stand for 10 minutes before carving.
Baked Acorn Squash with Chestnuts, Mushrooms and Quinoa Serves four.
3-4 acorn squash (about 1 pound each), halved lengthwise and deseeded 6 tbsps. extra-virgin olive oil Pinch of cinnamon ½ tsp. paprika 5 ozs. chestnuts, roasted, peeled and chopped 1½ cups cooked quinoa 1 onion, peeled and diced 2 cups assorted mushrooms, chopped 1 small carrot, peeled and grated Bleu cheese Fresh sage Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• In a small bowl, mix together three tablespoons of the olive oil with the cinnamon, paprika and salt and pepper. Brush the cut sides of the squash with the mixture. Then place the squash, cut side down, on two baking sheets and roast until they begin to tenderize, about 25 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the remaining olive oil over a medium heat. Then add the onion, carrot and mushrooms. Stirring occasionally, cook until softened, about five to eight minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
• Turn the squash cut side up. Spoon the onions, carrots and mushrooms into the cavities, top with a few crumbles of bleu cheese, then return the squash to the oven until the stuffing turns golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
• Transfer to plates, garnish with sage and serve hot.
Apple-Almond Tart with Baked Apple Chips
A couple of notes: Don’t add sugar to the apples. It’ll draw all of the liquid out of them. There will be plenty of sweetness in the pastry. And, if the tart seems too full after adding the apple slices, it’s OK; they’ll shrink as they bake.
For the pastry 1½ cups plain all-purpose flour 6 tbsps. unsalted butter, diced (and kept cold) ¼ cup ground almonds 2 tbsps. superfine sugar 1 egg yolk 1 tbsp. cold water ¼ tsp. almond extract
For the topping and filling 1 cup plain all-purpose flour ¼ tsp. mixed spice ¼ cup (4 tbsps.) unsalted butter, diced ¼ cup raw sugar ¼ cup sliced almonds 1½ lbs. cooking apples 3 tbsps. raisins Confectioner’s sugar, for dusting
For the chips 1-2 apples Cinnamon
The apple chips
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
• Cut the apples into eighth-inch-thick slices with a mandolin. Then, arrange the slices in a single layer across a parchment-lined, rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle the cinnamon evenly.
• Bake in the bottom third of the oven until the apples are dry and crisp, about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. Then, let them cool completely.
The pastry and the topping
• Add the flour to a food processor or a mixing bowl, fold in the butter and mix until it takes on the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Then, stir in the almonds and sugar. Separately, whisk the yolk with the water and almond extract, then add it to the food processor/mixing bowl. The dough should now be soft and pliable. Knead it until becomes smooth, then wrap it in clear film and leave it in a cool place for 20 minutes.
• In the meantime, make the topping. In a large bowl, sift the flour and the mixed spice. Knead in the butter, then stir in the sugar and almond slices.
• Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured counter. Then, line a quiche dish with it, taking care to press it into the nooks and form a lip over the top edge. Use a rolling pin to trim off the excess. Then, stick it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
• Put a baking sheet in the oven and preheat it to 375 degrees.
• Peel, core and thinly slice the cooking apples. Then arrange them in the quiche dish, overlapping, in concentric circles, doming in the center. Top with the raisins, then, with light pressure, the topping mixture.
• Place the quiche dish on the hot baking sheet and bake until the top of the tart turns golden brown and the apples, tender, about 30 minutes. (Test them with a fine-gauge skewer.)
• Let the tart stand for 10 minutes. Dust with the confectioner’s sugar and serve warm.
Yelena Strokin is a Newtown-based food stylist and photographer and the founder of the blog Cooking Melangery
[divider]What I’m Drinking Right Now[/divider]
Brandywine Branch Distillers The Revivalist Botanical Gin
$41.75 to $50.95 (750ml)
I’m a brown-spirits guy. But this summer, I began exploring the suddenly-evolving world of gin. Gone are the days when the juniper-heavy London dry style was about the extent of your options. Now, they come in so many unique varieties, it hardly seems right to refer to them all simply as gin. Among the most intriguing is this series of four, small-batch, seasonal gins being made right in our own backyard, at Brandywine Branch Distillers in Chester County. Each kind is infused with its own unique blend of botanicals and spices that plays to the season. Harvest Expression, out now, bears the essence of orange and clove. Solstice Expression marries dried cherry, anise, orange peel and ginger. If you left the gin and tonic behind with your white jeans, it’s time to reconsider.
Moving and packing are stressful. It is even more stressful when you have a lot of items that you don’t know what to do with. You know what I’m talking about, the clutter that accumulates over the years and continues to pile up. The vase from your husband’s aunt, the knick-knack from your cousin. Clothing that was last in fashion a decade ago. Threadbare towels. DVDs. When was the last time you even watched a DVD?
Unload your unwanted stuff and earn a little cash for it in the process. Win, win. Now, you’re decluttering for a move and covering some of its cost. Just keep in mind that your primary aim here is to end the day empty-handed, not with a wad of bills in your back pocket, so price everything to sell fast.
Spread heirlooms among your family
If you are downsizing, space will be critical, so you’re going to have to start prioritizing your possessions. Even the heirlooms—actual and the stuff that just holds a lot of sentimental value. Obviously, you’d prefer not to sell or donate anything that’s been handed down through your family for generations, so start asking your siblings and cousins if they have any interest in it. They’re your first line. Your closest friends are your second. The sentimental stuff especially is likely to be just as meaningful to your friends because they’re the ones you interact with most frequently. Even if they didn’t have a hand directly in those experiences, they may still remember them.
Donate to local organizations
Yes, it’s convenient to toss your unwanted things, especially in the frenzy haze of moving, but it’s wasteful. Best-case scenario: A small fraction of it will be recycled. The remainder’s going to be plowed under at a landfill. If there’s still some wear left in your clothes and some use in your household utensils and accessories, donate them. Scheduling a pick-up with a charity, these days, is even easier than trashing your things. Now you’re moving them to the front porch instead of all the way out to the curb. And you’re helping any number of people.
Auction them off online
If you’re a planner, you’re probably preparing to pack for your move weeks in advance. With that kind of lead, you’re buying yourself ample time to separate what’s coming with you from all that’s not. So add another couple of steps and turn a profit. Snap of photo of each unwanted thing and post it to eBay, or list it on Craigslist. You’ll be amazed what there are markets for. That said, the aim here is the same as the rummage sale’s: to end up empty-handed. So price to sell. And don’t be swallowed by the process. Packing’s a big enough chore. If you find yourself devoting too much time to shipping your sales or meeting with potential buyers, scrap it and go with the rummage sale instead.
That guy from “Shark Tank”—not Mark Cuban; the other one—is aiming to convert the non-wine-drinkers and the casual drinkers of the world one $20-bottle at a time. Or, rather, one case of $20-bottles at a time.
While Kevin O’Leary may be blunt to the point of offensive on TV—he didn’t earn the nickname Mr. Wonderful because he’s an especially gracious Canadian—he knows too well the cocktail of emotions raging within each budding entrepreneur who comes before him on “Shark Tank” after 33 years of his own experience.
When you consider that one startup goes under for every two that get off the ground, today’s innovators need to possess paradigm-shifting visions and wills of steel. Which is why pitching on “Shark Tank” is akin to going viral for wannabe celebrities. “Any product we put on the show increases its sales twentyfold,” O’Leary says. Thus, the hundreds of thousands of applications a year.
Long since established in his own right, O’Leary’s been devoting a good chunk of his seemingly infinite attention to a more personal endeavor as of late. O’Leary Fine Wines is aiming to put not-bad wine in the hands of the masses. O’Leary, the consummate entrepreneur, perceives it as a void in a lucrative market. To that end, he’ll be hosting a tasting of his cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay at the Philadelphia Taste Festival of Food, Wine and Spirits October 21.
“A decade ago, I asked myself why inexpensive wines have to be so bad,” O’Leary says. “I figured I could do a better job.”
He partnered with 20 vineyards in California’s Napa, Sonoma and Russian River regions to create his own line.
“This isn’t a story where some celebrity slaps his name on some swill,” he says. “I create these varietals with my own palate. And I challenge anyone to do a blind taste test with one of my wines and a $100- or $200-bottle. Very often, mine will be better.”
Thanks to loosening liquor laws, like the one recently enacted in Pennsylvania, O’Leary Fine Wines is now shipping directly to 40 states. Business is booming, basically. Though, do you expect a more modest report? Earlier this month, he debuted his latest vintages on QVC. In anticipation, O’Leary said, “We’ll move thousands of cases that day.” Excuse us, then, for assuming this was an introduction. —Sean Downey
You like a good scare, but you’d prefer not to wet your pants. Follow us.
By Christine Olley
Halloween, like salsa, is an occasion that’s served at various intensities. Some of us may kick back with The Wizard of Oz and then call it a night. Black-and-white if we’re feeling brave (or buzzed), Technicolor if we’re alone and especially paranoid, with all those trick-or-treaters roaming around. Others may opt for a haunted hayride. Just enough of a fright to cause a spike or two of adrenaline, but never too threatening. And then there are those whose every action over the coming weeks suggests that Halloween is, in fact, the dawning of the end of times.
Our compilation of some of the coolest Halloween attractions now playing favors the mild-to-moderate side of the palate. We figured if you were seeking something hot, you weren’t going to refer to a magazine called Home + Table. Still, there are ample reasons to feel afraid. Just think more along the lines of goosebumps than night terrors.
If you tend to weather your hauntings better on a full stomach, the Nassau Inn, which sits across from Princeton University, in charming Palmer Square, is offering private dinners for groups of 20 or more chased by a tour of the campus’s most notoriously haunted nooks. ($75 per person.) You’ll be armed with EMF meters, dousing rods and night-vision flashlights and fed lots of graphic stories for dessert.
If not for Halloween, we’d likely never realize that we’re surrounded by so many turn-of-the-century asylums and orphanages. And thanks to whichever reality TV-ghost hunter you favor, we’re all now well aware of the horrific treatment that played out within their walls. So what we have here at Malfate Manor, a.k.a. The House in the Hollow, is the perfect storm: Our own ridiculous preconceptions colliding, head-on, with lots of dark corners and costumed teenagers jumping out from them.
Imagine a haunted house where you and your friends are the attraction. That’s the idea behind Waldorf’s newest scene, the Zombie Escape Room. You’ll be offered refuge from the encroaching apocalypse and then given a half-hour to figure out the clues that’ll lead to the exit. Think “The Walking Dead,” but without the armfuls of guns. If there are enough of you—10 are admitted per turn—make a game of it. Slowest to exit buys dinner. Then align with your Type A friends.
The legend has it that Damon DeMonio returned home after fighting in the Civil War only to discover that his new wife was, um, nurturing an army of her own. He lost his head. The result was not pretty. Skip ahead 150 years: An actual freemasons lodge sits atop the plot where DeMonio’s home once stood. Strange things, reportedly, happen there, like freemasonry. Also: a three-story haunted house. But, really, freemasonry is plenty creepy enough.
When you’re moaning your way up a small hill, barely maintaining a walking pace, do you ever think, What could make this jog even better? A bulky, awkward-fitting costume? Yes! Then the Costume Dash is just the opportunity you’ve been looking for to further sabotage your fitness. And if that wasn’t already a weird enough site, there’s a pub crawl afterward. Nothing says, “You’re a man now,” to a 10-year-old like forcing him to witness Iron Man and his super friends stumble out of a bar in the middle of the afternoon.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is hosting a “Stranger Things”-themed party (Will!) October 19, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., (free with museum admission; registration required) complete with pumpkin decorating (resistance is futile) and tarot card readings (find out when you’re going to die through a party game!). There’s also going to be ghost tours of the galleries, including one of Fernando Orellana’s ghost machines. It’s a site-specific installation where Orellana’s configured four robotic machines through which he’s attempting to interact with the ghost of Thomas Eakins.
Photos courtesy (from the top) Waldorf Estate of Fear; Nassau Inn; Waldorf Estate of Fear; Costume Dash
Brandi Granett’s mastered the fickle art of nurturing grassroots support for her novels. With her latest, she’s taking a different tack: turning away from her computer and trying it in her backyard.
By Scott Edwards
It’s early 2000, and everything in Brandi Granett’s world is right. She’s fresh out of graduate school and her first book just dropped. The world is opening up before her. Until it abruptly flips upside down. Her publisher, William Morrow and Company, is bought by a larger publisher, HarperCollins, and overnight, everyone she works with is dismissed. Just that quickly, she’s alone and adrift.
“So, I didn’t want to do it again for a very long time. I walked away from it. I was saying, ‘I’ll just be a teacher,’ ” Granett says. “But then I started competitive archery on a lark.”
Her daughter was aiming to star in either the Olympics or a renaissance fair, so they scoped out a school in Lambertville, New Jersey, near their home, and the director confided in Granett, with a wink, “You know, women are better at this than men.” She was hooked from that moment. With writing and then publishing, everything Granett thought she knew deteriorated to nothing. But archery revealed itself to be surprisingly profound. The more she practiced, the further it grounded and focused her in the rest of her life, including the writing.
“There’s a coach that I admire, Jim White, out of Georgia,” she says. “And he teaches his people, relationships determine results.”
It became a kind of mantra for her as she gradually worked her way back to the thought of taking a run at writing another book. The rules are different now; the book’s only part of the pitch. “You’re expected now to have a platform,” Granett says. “If you go to a publisher and you have two Twitter followers and one of them is your dog, they don’t want to hear from you.”
So she joined a peer group called the Tall Poppy Writers, comprised of 45 women fiction writers from across the country. And she launched an author profile series for The Huffington Post, for which she’s a frequent contributor. The aim of both is one and the same: To establish a self-sustaining community. The authors, these days, who draw a marketing budget that’ll reach mainstream America could be listed in a single breath, and there’d be some air leftover. The rest are left, largely, to find their own ways. And as with all grassroots efforts today, that means social media networking. A well-placed Retweet is as valuable to these workingman writers as a New York Times endorsement.
When it came time to promote her latest novel, Triple Love Score, published last month by Wyatt-Mackenzie, Granett was inclined to make it a group affair, naturally. Over the last few months, she’s organized what’s become quite a massive book fair, for lack of a better term. In all, 45 mostly-Delaware Valley-based authors spanning a range of genres, including children and young adult, will present themselves and their books October 23, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Prallsville Mills, in Stockton, NJ, as part of the event Granett’s dubbed River Reads.
[divider]River Reads[/divider]
WHAT A book fair featuring 45 mostly-local authors. Plus, crepes and a Unionville Vineyard tasting
WHEN Sunday, Oct. 23, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
WHERE Prallsville Mills, Stockton, NJ
“I didn’t want it to be about my book,” she says. “That sounds so—I don’t have this mysticism about, like, oh, I wrote a book, so I’m somebody special, because thousands of people, every day, hit publish on Amazon Createspace. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. But what means something is connecting people to readers and sharing books with other people.”
Some of the authors, Granett knows—a few Tall Poppies will be there—but the majority simply answered her public call. The total number of participants doesn’t even represent the true extent of the interest. It’s only where she was forced to cap them for lack of space to accommodate any more.
Spread across both floors of the mill’s main building, each writer will have his or her own display. And there will be brief readings performed every 15 minutes or so downstairs and up-, “like a little commercial blast of what they have to offer,” Granett says. Also, nearby Unionville Vineyards will be hosting a tasting and the Bonjour Creperie truck will be stationed outside.
A community, virtual and actual, is currency in modern writing. The larger the population, the more likely you are to publish another book. But it’s also become a support system for a profession that’s notoriously isolating and disorienting. For many aspiring and established writers alike, Granett included, the former is the icing, the latter, the cake. Granett expects River Reads, if nothing else, to reinforce the following: “I know that I’m not the only person that had an agent break up with her. I’m not the only person who’s struggling to find time with writing and being a mom.” And that, she says, “kind of keeps me invested in the process.”
Our aim here is simply to inspire. Whether you lift these ideas for your vision board or your shopping list is entirely up to you. ‘Tis the season to be merry, after all. And, despite what we grimace and mutter through gritted teeth, it’s not the thought that makes us happy. It’s the stuff we crave. Like this stuff, as you’re about to discover. So if you’re buying for yourself, really, you’re just saving someone else the trouble. And if you’re shopping for those in your circle, we haven’t been properly introduced.
Styling by Courtney Greisman and Kristen Chase • Photography by Matthew J. Rhein
Diane von Furstenberg clutch, $198, ESTATE Boutique
Nicole Miller Sunburst pleat skirt, $395, ESTATE Boutique
Smythe + Audgen I Know, Right sweater, $425, ESTATE Boutique
Erickson Beamon Electric Queens Earrings, $330, ESTATE Boutique
For Him
J.Lindeberg Wolverine Compact Melton Jacket, $650, J.Lindeberg Dani CL poplin shirt, $154, leather gloves, $160, VINCE. cashmere scarf, $195 All available at ESTATE Boutique, estateboutique.myshopify.com
Jo Bucket Weekender Canvas, $265, Bucks County Dry Goods, bcdrygoods.com
HEWN Spirits Shipmate Gold Rum, $29, hewnspirits.com; California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties (hardcover with Japanese matte art paper), $40, Bucks County Dry Goods; Vintage blankets, $115 (each), Bucks County Dry Goods; HEWN Spirits Dark Hollow Pennsylvania Bourbon Whiskey, $34, and HEWN Spirits Red Barn Rye Whiskey, $32, hewnspirits.com
AG The Protégé sueded stretch sateen pants, $178, ESTATE Boutique 34 Heritage Charisma twill pants, $175, ESTATE Boutique;
Gant Rugger Knit Cap, $35, ESTATE Boutique, estateboutique. myshopify.com
For Kids
Tegu magnetic wooden building system, $35 (14-piece set) to $110 (42-piece set) JaZams, jazams.com
Runspecht marble tower, $110,
My Marquee Light Box, $37
Gund Pusheen Plush, $25
Automoblox Mini 3-Pack, $35
Micro Kickboard Mini Deluxe Scooter, $89
For Pets
Martingale dog collar, $13, P & A Feed and Pet, pafeed.com
All-natural dog bone, $15.50 (per pound), and Pumpkin biscotti pet treats, $20 (one pound), Crossroads Bake Shop, crossroadsbakeshop.com
Top Paw dog dress, $21, PetSmart, petsmart.com; Paul Frank Signature Julius dog leash, $19, P & A Feed and Pet, Top Paw dog sweater, $24, PetSmart, petsmart.com
For Host
Honeycomb wine rack, $44, Bucks County Dry Goods, bcdrygoods.com
KOBO soy candle, $38, Bucks County Dry Goods
seda france L’Ambre Boudoir Boxed Candle, $32.50, ESTATE Boutique, estateboutique.myshopify.com
catstudio Philadelphia dish towel, $20, and glasses, $12 (each), Bucks County Dry Goods
