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Book Review: In the Company of Grace: A Veterinarian’s Memoir of Trauma and Healing, by Jody Lulich
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworms Sez
“In the Company of Grace: A Veterinarian’s Memoir of Trauma and Healing” by Jody Lulich
c.2023, University of Minnesota Press $19.95 232 pagesYou are a product of what your parents do.
They nurtured you, and you learned to nurture. They yelled, and you discovered that shouting was the way to communicate. From them, you got your sense of humor, your earliest political beliefs, and your initial ideas of right and wrong. You’re a product of what adults around you do – or, as in the new book “In the Company of Grace” by Jody Lulich, what they don’t.
The suicide attempt on New Year’s Eve of 1966 was not Jody Lulich’s mother’s first.
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Hotel Review: Boston’s Verb Hotel Gets 4.5 Fresh Towels
Prefer to listen? Just click for the audio version.
Hotel reviews are based on a Fresh Towel rating. Five means a top destination, one means check in at your peril.
Welcome to the first hotel review. It’s being added to my restaurant reviews (1-5 Yums), and my general travel reviews and blog posts.
Like a lot of people, we’ve been traveling a lot since the removal of pandemic restrictions. We’ve been to Delaware, Atlantic City, and we’ll be heading to California and Las Vegas soon, as well as taking a cruise to Canada in October that arrives back in Bayonne, NJ, on my birthday!
I was especially prompted to kick these off because we’ve come to Boston to visit one of Frank’s oldest friends (who takes the ferry to Provincetown every year in August when we head their for our annual time share). Frank booked us into The Verb Hotel, and I was wowed!
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Review: Frida Kahlo’s ‘Pose’ Exhibition at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum, by Sue Katz
This article is reprinted with permission from Sue Katz: Consenting Adult
By Sue Katz
Sue Katz I’m on a mission to check out the many small museums in this area of Massachusetts. This rainy Saturday was the perfect timing for my first visit to the Rose Art Museum. Their modern and contemporary permanent collection is extraordinary – every piece of the highest quality. Stunners from one wall to another, with women and people of color now heavily represented.
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Restaurant Review: The Golden Pheasant Inn, 5 Emphatic Yums
By Mark McNease
Restaurant reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 meaning put it on your must list, 1 meaning avoid at all costs.The Golden Pheasant Inn
763 River Road (Route 32)
Erwinna, PA 18920
(610) 294 9595
Website: goldenpheasant.com
Spend Meter: $$$$+
Service: Excellent
Another Sunday, another outstanding meal. I don’t expect them all to be this good, but when you go to the Golden Pheasant Inn you can count on the standards being high. Located in Erwina, PA, just about twenty minutes from our home in rural New Jersey, the Golden Pheasant is a nearby taste of excellence. My husband Frank and I rode there with our friends and neighbors Phil and Jim. We were going out with them regularly before the pandemic put a stop to life as we knew it. Now that restrictions are being lifted, spring has arrived, and we’re all vaccinated, it was time for another delightful dinner out, this time indoors.
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Restaurant Review: The Black Bass Hotel, 5 Yums with a River View
By Mark McNease
Restaurant reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 meaning put it on your must list, 1 meaning avoid at all costs.The Black Bass Hotel
3774 River Road
Lumberville, PA 18933
(215) 297-9260
Website: blackbasshotel.com
Spend Meter: $$$$
Service: Excellent
Now that we and our friends have all been fully vaccinated, it’s time to get out there and enjoy each other’s company again. What better way to do that than with a fine meal in a fine restaurant?
My husband Frank and I have been getting takeout on Sundays for many months. It’s the end of my work week (Thursday through Sunday), and I’ve been determined not to cook, clean, or otherwise tax myself after putting in four days at the job. Once the pandemic started a year ago we followed all the precautions and restrictions, and with a few exceptions for outside dining last fall, we’ve been taking it easy with takeout.
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Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen at the Movies – The Clock
In MGM ‘s wartime romance, THE CLOCK, director Vincente Minnelli takes future wife Judy Garland out of the musical spot light and into the arms of soldier Robert Walker for her first serious, romantic drama. With a supporting cast headed by Keenan Wynn and James Gleason, it’s a delightfully tender and touching, romantic travelogue of New York during World War II and did much to establish Garland as a serious actress. You ‘ll be beguiled by the chemistry of Garland at her loveliest and Walker at his sincerest. – Steve Hayes, Tired Old Queen at the Movies
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Restaurant Review: Martine’s Riverhouse Restaurant, 3 ½ Yums (New Hope, PA)
Reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 being must-go, 2 being save your money, 1 being call an ambulance.
Where: Martine’s Riverhouse Restaurant, New Hope, PA
Price: $$$
Fun new word: RiverhouseSo it is two words or one? Is the ‘H’ capitalized or not? I found it both ways on their website and their Facebook page. That can happen when you make up words – it’s tough to know which is catchier.
My husband Frank and I made it across the Delaware River to New Hope, Pennsylvania. We parked in Lambertville, New Jersey, and walked over the bridge, since New Hope decided several years ago there would be no free parking anywhere in town. It’s Delaware River Towns Restaurant Week and both communities are nestled on the river. It’s a spectacular place to live. Art and progressive politics are in the air, but there’s something for everyone. Last night that something was dinner at Martine’s.
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Restaurant Review: Martine’s Riverhouse Restaurant, 3 ½ Yums (New Hope, PA)
Reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 being must-go, 2 being save your money, 1 being call an ambulance.
Where: Martine’s Riverhouse Restaurant, New Hope, PA
Price: $$$
Fun new word: RiverhouseSo it is two words or one? Is the ‘H’ capitalized or not? I found it both ways on their website and their Facebook page. That can happen when you make up words – it’s tough to know which is catchier.
My husband Frank and I made it across the Delaware River to New Hope, Pennsylvania. We parked in Lambertville, New Jersey, and walked over the bridge, since New Hope decided several years ago there would be no free parking anywhere in town. It’s Delaware River Towns Restaurant Week and both communities are nestled on the river. It’s a spectacular place to live. Art and progressive politics are in the air, but there’s something for everyone. Last night that something was dinner at Martine’s.
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Book Review: Whiskey When We’re Dry, by John Larison
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“Whiskey When We’re Dry” by John Larison
c.2018, Viking $28.00 / $35.00 CanadaIt was right here a minute ago.
You saw it, but now it’s gone and you have to find it. Beneath a newspaper, atop a shelf, under a blanket, wherever it is, it was just right here – and as in the new book “Whiskey When We’re Dry” by John Larison, you’d search years to have it back.
Jessilyn Harney never knew her mother.
She died in childbirth, leaving Jessilyn’s father to raise Jessilyn and her brother, Noah, who was five years older. Noah took care of Jessilyn when their father drank too much syrup. He was a good brother, making sure she was warm, dressed, and protected – until the year she turned thirteen and, as young men are wont to do, Noah had a fight with his father and he rode away.
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Book Review: The Royal Art of Poison, by Eleanor Herman
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“The Royal Art of Poison” by Eleanor Herman
c.2018, St. Martin’s Press $27.99 / $36.50 CanadaIt must’ve been the salad.
You had three helpings of Aunt Rudy’s famous family reunion contribution and it sure tasted good. Until later that night and then… not so good for the rest of the weekend and into Monday. It must’ve been the salad because, as in The Royal Art of Poison, by Eleanor Herman, you spent awhile on the throne.
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Dining Remains an Event at Marsha Brown: 5 Yums
This marks the return of my popular restaurant reviews that ran for several years on my original blog.Reviews are based on a 5 Yum scale, 5 being must-go, 2 being save your money, 1 being call an ambulance.
Where: Marsha Brown, New Hope, PA
Price: $$$$
Fun new word: Housemade (my use, not theirs)My husband Frank decided to surprise me with dinner the night before our 5th wedding anniversary (I usually say marriage, since we didn’t have a wedding). I thought we were going to a Cuban restaurant in New Hope, but he stopped in front of the large sign outside Marsha Brown and said, “Here we are.”