newly available:

Dec

19

I am so relieved and glad to announce that the paperback edition of THE TEXT ISLE PATCHWORK COOKBOOK is now available! It’s easiest to get it via this Amazon link:

Posted in ., Cookbooking, Culinary Patchwork, My Books | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Text Isle Patchwork Cookbook is DONE!

Dec

09

Please pat me on the back for sticking with The Text Isle Patchwork Cookbook.

In July, after a tough-love critique, I went back to the drawing board, and it became the hardest long-term project I’ve ever slogged through. Today it is better than I thought it could be, thanks to the advice of my critiquers, recipe testers, and taters (oops, tasters).

The paperback edition is being printed by CreateSpace (Amazon’s self-publishing platform), just as my novels were. You can download it for free! right here, and at the cookbook page of my website.

The ebook is in PDF format, so you should be able to read it in any e-reader or from a smartphone, or from your computer if you’ve got a PDF reader installed. I’ll let you all know when the paperback is ready for purchase, and then a Kindle edition will follow.

If you like the free download, please consider making a donation of any amount to Calvary Women’s Services (www.calvaryservices.org). CWS supports homeless women’s basic needs, including job training and skill building. Although I didn’t write this with them in mind, the “cookbooking” process required me to do a lot of my own skill building, so CWS was in my thoughts during the final revision. I admire their work.


The tag line for the cookbook is “Culinary patchwork is the art of quilting with food.”

(Like a proud grandmother, I’m now whipping out photos, so don’t read on if my narcissism has already made you throw up a little.)

I designed different covers for the paperback and ebook editions.

This is on the ebook:

And this is the paperback version:

Now I’ll be even more narcissistic in this post by showing off the author photo from the paperback’s back cover:

It was taken by Marissa Rauch, who is an amazing woman in addition to being an incredible photographer. (The photo resolution on my blog does not to justice to how clear and crisp her photos are.)

I feel so happy this evening, but also exhausted and cranky. Adrenalin provides a patchwork of emotions. I hope you will check out the ebook, and the other formats once they come available. Oh, and if you happen to be doing some online shopping at Amazon for Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever wintry holiday you celebrate, please consider my novels FOOD AND WORRY and SIX WORDS.

Posted in Cookbooking, Culinary Patchwork, My Books | Tagged | 2 Comments

In the Midst of Community-Minded Momtrepreneurs

Nov

08

Today was my best sales day ever (23 novels in 6 hours!), at a charity boutique for Calvary Women’s Services. Cindy Schwartz, a DC-based interior designer and photographer, has been raising money for Calvary’s Good Hope Kitchen project.

I loved today because of the women I met, who’ve merged their creative interests with good works. The vendors included Sissy Yates Designs (gemstone jewelry), Good Jeans Company (Kate Fralin’s jeans jackets are lined with incredible scarves), Seeking Sitters (pre-screened babysitters, oh my!), SCOUT by Bungalow (bags, bins, purses, great gifts), and parent coach Meghan Leahy. The other two authors were Nancy Tringali Piho (My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children Who Love to Eat Everything), and Jason Meath (Hollywood on the Potomac (Images of America). (Okay, I know Jason is not a momtrepreneur, and I even understand why some women and men would find the term “momtrepreneur” problematic, but I like that catchy term and I like the catchy title of this blog entry so it’s stayin’.)

I learned and schmoozed today, and I encourage any authors and small business owners who are reading this to participate in events like this. It was kind of the organizer, Cindy Schwartz, to include me because I’m not nearly as well-established as the other people whom I met. Speaking of Cindy, if you’re interested in finding out more about her interior design and photography work, click here.

Posted in #ThankADay, Good Causes, My Books | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Selling Novels at Calvary Women’s Services Benefit

Nov

06

This Tuesday, November 8 from 9 am to 3 pm, I’ll be selling my novels FOOD AND WORRY and SIX WORDS at a charity boutique to raise funds to build a women’s shelter here in Washington, DC. The address for the event is 4554 Klingle Street NW DC (off of Foxhall Road, 2 blocks south of Nebraska Avenue). Vendors include Sissy Yates, Good Jeans, Scout, Porte Italia and others.

More information about Calvary Women’s Services is available at www.calvaryservices.org. If you can’t make it, please consider making an online donation to raise much-needed funds for CWS’s Good Hope Kitchen.

Here’s a blurb about the Good Hope Kitchen from the donation webpage that organizer Cindy Schwartz has set up:

As many of you know, I am actively trying to build a homeless shelter for the women served by Calvary Women’s Services. As part of our building campaign, I am excited to support Calvary’s Good Hope Kitchen project. Calvary provides housing and support services to homeless women in DC. As the crisis of homelessness in our city grows, Calvary is growing its programs to meet the increased need. The Good Hope Kitchen will be the heart of their new home in Anacostia.

The Good Hope Kitchen will serve over 35,000 nutritious meals each year to the women living at Calvary. It will also enable program residents to cook side by side with volunteers and staff, offer hands-on nutrition and cooking classes, provide employment for formerly homeless women, and much more.

I am hugely grateful to Cindy Schwartz for asking me to be a part of this day. Her work on behalf of the women and staff of Calvary Women’s Services is inspiring. Again, the link for her donation page is at http://calvaryservices.donorpages.com/GoodHopeKitchen/CindySchwarz/

Thanks, and if you or anyone you know is organizing similar charitable events where I could help out by peddling my books (peddling that is, like um, a character from Fiddler On the Roof–no, not really), please let me know in the comments or by emailing info at textislepatchwork dot com.

Posted in Good Causes, My Books | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Two women who spread peace with bread and circuits

Nov

03

May their children e-mail one another and not bomb one another
May they download each other’s mother’s bread recipes

This line from the poem “Fayetteville as in Fate” comes from E-mails from Scheherazad , a 2003 collection by Professor Mohja Kahf.

Professor Kahf also wrote the novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (a Syrian immigrant woman’s coming-of-age story).

I learned of Kahf’s peace-making quote from Rabbi Rachel Berenblat, whose leadership, beautiful Velveteen Rabbi blog, and generous spirit also promote peace.

—————————————————————————————
“O God, bless us with bread and do not make separation between it and us.”– the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W.

And also:
— Hamotzi lechem min haaretz is the Hebrew blessing over bread.

Do you or anyone you know want to write a guest-blog for this here T.I.P. blog about either of these two things:

1) Muslims and Jews breaking bread together at Thanksgiving?
2) Your mother’s bread or roll recipe? Autumn and Winter were designed for bread-baking.

If you’re interested in guest-blogging, please let me know in the comments or contact me at * info at textislepatchwork dot com * Thank you.

Posted in #ThankADay, Author Profiles, Blog Reviews, Blogger Profiles, Book Reviews, Want to Guest-Blog?, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

#ThankADay for Twitter: A Patchwork of Gratitude

Oct

30

“The thing I am working on has been dealing out epiphanies quite liberally these last couple months. Life is beautiful (and cheesy).” — Buster Benson

If you’re on Twitter, you’re cordially invited to join me by using the #ThankADay hashtag to tweet (at least once a day) your gratitude for something going on in your life, or a person, or a non-profit, or a business, or a book, or an idea that helped you in 2011, and that might help other people also.

Social media enables us to thank and compliment one another. Too often those acknowledgements are self-serving, but often enough, the praise heals old wounds between friends, acquaintances, and current or former co-workers. It also provides free publicity to companies and organizations and entrepreneurs who deserve attention. I won’t be posting my #ThankADay tweets to Facebook because Facebook has a different atmosphere. I love Facebook, but I feel more self-conscious on Facebook, and maybe other people who use Twitter and Facebook feel that way also. Twitter’s an impulsive, goofy lovenest.

I got the idea for #ThankADay from Dr. Sherry Pagoto, an associate professor at UMass Medical School. Among her areas of expertise are psychiatric co-morbidities of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, AND the lifestyle interventions that address these chronic illnesses. I’m grateful to her for being an encouraging, informative voice in the Twitter fitness community. She’s best-known there for launching #PlankADay. More than a Twitter hashtag, #PlankADay is a friendly competition to promote an abdominal exercise that should permanently unseat the crunch because it’s easier on the back and works the arms simultaneously. (Not that I’m a certified trainer or anything, but I’ve heard this said and read it said by the pros).

I began #PlankADay on August 25 and haven’t broken my streak yet. You do at least one plank a day, and then tweet to record it, and there’s a leaderboard. Check out Sherry’s PlankADay Revolution page for the full 411 on this. I also like her FU Diet, which is an un-diet.

One technical note for people unfamiliar with Twitter–if you join and decide to do this, just type #ThankADay somewhere in your thankfulness tweet. People often put it in at the end of the tweet. And my Twitter name is @GoalsGamified.

Thank you for reading this, and any other Text Isle Patchwork blog posts that you happen to click onto. My blog is exactly one-year-and-a-day-old today. My first post was about NaNoWriMo, a friendly challenge in which writers try to write a whole novel in the month of November, or at least to get a rough draft done.

(Oh, one more thing, in honor of my one-year-and-a-day-old blog, I want to recommend Leslie Pietrzyk‘s novel A Year and a Day.
.

Posted in #ThankADay, Good Causes, Highbrow Self-Help, Social Media | Tagged | 4 Comments

Mystery Goblin Food Photo: the Reveal

Oct

28

The Twittered guess: “Red peppers in a marinade w/zombie brains.” Extra credit for creativity, Cindy, but the answer is tomato paste squeezed out of a tube and gravy fat and pan drippings.

Now I want to share two T.I.P.s about tomato paste (but will wait to post T.I.P.s about gravy until closer to Thanksgiving.)

TOMATO PASTE T.I.P.s:

1) Buy tomato paste in tubes, not those little cans, because it’s so hard to open those little cans.

2) Tomato paste only keeps in the refrigerator for two weeks (officially) but you can freeze it either in ice cube trays, or just squeeze some two-tablespoon portions into a quart-size or gallon-sized freezer bag.

If you use the latter method, set the ziplock bag flat as it freezes so those dollops of paste won’t mush together. Once they are frozen, they’ll stay distinct and you won’t have to worry about them mushing together in the same bag. Frozen tomato paste defrosts so quickly that you won’t need to heat it up before adding it to future recipes, especially if you’re cooking in a kitchen that’s already warmed up.

And by the way, I spell “tips” as T.I.P.s because those initials are my cutesy acronym for Text Isle Patchwork.

Posted in Culinary Mysteries, Curiosity, Gamifying | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Vile Goblin Food Mystery iPhoto (October Edition)

Oct

27

This is not only gross but harder to identify because I’m such a bad iPhoneographer, or rather, a ghoulishly bad iPhoneographer. I’ll announce the results before the clock strikes Midnight tomorrow evening (AKA Friday, October 28).

What’s the reward this time? If you have the courage to take a guess, I won’t make you eat it, even if you guess incorrectly. The rest of you better start running away now.

May the forks be with you.

Click here to check out past mysteries, or click the Culinary Mysteries tab on the Categories list to the right of this post. (Read the posts from oldest to newest, otherwise you’ll always be seeing the answers first.)

Posted in Culinary Mysteries, Curiosity, Gamifying | Tagged , | Leave a comment

John Madden & My Fitness Pal web/mobile app

Oct

23

Are any of you using MyFitnessPal? Please consider friending me there, I could use the accountability help. Here’s the link to my profile: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/bwolsk1

My waist measurement isn’t in the healthy range. Though not, perhaps, to the level of John Madden’s waist measurement yet.

When I snack mindlessly, I think it’s disrespectful to my body, and even to the Big Guy Upstairs. I don’t mean John Madden. The belly fat needs to go. I’ve been saying it for years.

In addition, I was told ten years ago that because I had borderline gestational diabetes, I’m at a higher risk to get Type 2 diabetes later in life. Also, I worry about the connection between belly fat and unhealthy cortisol and heart disease. And my jeans are too tight.

Lastly, if you’re interested in spiritually-motivated fitness and nutrition, Scott Davis’s If My Body Is A Temple, I Was a Mega-Church is a funny, helpful memoir.

I recommend this for people of all faiths, and for people of all weights. He movingly relates his commitment to his Christian ministry with his commitment to getting healthy. He gives great advice about healthful eating, though I don’t know much about the weight loss center he went to. It worked for him, and although he gets a bit infomercial about it at times, he explicitly says he wants to be a bit infomercial about it, so I respect that, and it makes those sections un-intrusive.

That title’s got to be one of the best titles from this year’s book buffet.

Posted in Book Reviews, Crafty Health & Fitness Strategy, Creative Challenges and Goal-Setting, Highbrow Self-Help | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

If Gertrude Stein Wrote Blog Comment Spam

Oct

18

A few months ago I blogged my book review of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne Of The Island.

I received the following comment, which my excellent Akismet spam-blocker circumvented. This particular spam was so funny that I’m bothering you with it. Maybe Gertrude Stein wrote it posthumously.

After reading both of your blogposts I staleness say i pioneer this specific one to generally be top cut. I hold a weblog also and necessity to repost a few snips of your articles on my own blog place. Should it be alright if I use this as retentive I own comment your web journal or create a incoming attach to your article I procured the dress from? If not I realise and could not do it without having your approval . I score fact noticeable this article to twitter and zynga story conscious for reference. Anyway appreciate it either way!

Boy, the auteur of this passage really puts the whole life thing in perspective, eh?

P.S.: Have you read this?

What did you think of it? If you have time, please post your thoughts in the comments (unless you are a spammer.)

Posted in Curiosity | Tagged , | 1 Comment