New Recipe and New Book Review

So, after an intense episode of Breaking Bad (the season finale of season 3 — holy sh*t), I’m now lightening it up a bit with The Bachelorette.  Final Three!

I have two things to share with you tonight — a recipe and a review.

We’ll start with the recipe.  I’m not the biggest fan of overnight oats–I prefer my oatmeal to be hot–but when it is already 90 degrees by the time I get back from my morning workouts, cold overnight oats are perfect.  So I came up with Strawberry Banana Overnight Oats.

Strawberry Banana Overnight Oats

Strawberry Banana Overnight Oats

Ingredients:

2/3 cup of oats

1/2 cup of almond milk (I used vanilla)

1 6 oz. container of plain 0% greek yogurt

Half of a banana (mashed)

1 T of honey

1 t. of vanilla

Sliced strawberries

Directions:

- Combine the oats, milk, greek yogurt, banana, honey, and vanilla in a bowl and refrigerate overnight.

- In the morning, add a little more honey (if you want — of course I always want more honey), and the sliced strawberries

- Enjoy

This is the perfect way to get some fruit in my diet in the morning, and it’s a good summer breakfast!

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Now the book review.  I borrowed a bunch of books from Staci, and one of the first I read from her was The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey  Eugenides, which I loved!  So, I also borrowed Middlesex from her, which I recently finished.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

(I forgot to take a pic before I gave the book back)

From goodreads.com:  “‘I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.’

So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.”

(Source)

This book is a pretty big deal (it one the Pulitzer Prize), so I was excited to read it.

I definitely liked it a lot, but it was a little drawn out.  The first part of the story (of relatives coming from Greece) got a little tedious, but I liked it more as the book progressed because I liked the 60′s and 70′s settings.  I really liked all the history in it through the family’s story, but I did think it was a little long.  However, Eugenides’s writing and details are really good, so it kind of makes it worth it.

The story is also very interesting and different than anything I have read, and Eugenides tells a great story, which I wasn’t fully expecting (in the first few pages, Cal talks about being in a text book, so for some reason, I thought this book would be more textbook-like — don’t ask me why).

I would recommend this book, but I did like Virgin Suicides much more.  It also captured that 60′s and 70′s time, but it was a bit more interesting to me and easier to read (not that easy makes a book good or bad, but I just liked the story more).  But Eugenides is definitely a great writer, and I think this is a book you should read if you are looking for great writing and a different story than you are used to.  I also look forward to reading the Marriage Plot soon, so keep em coming Eugenides!

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Now, time to cheer on my faves (Jef and Sean), and mentally prepare for the next episode of Breaking Bad.  I hear Episode 1 of Season 4 is pretty great, so I’m really excited!

Hope you all have a great night!