La Leche League, Victorian Chapter

"Fruit and meat don't go together," said one of my children.

That didn't stop me, of course. Nor did it stop them from eating sweet and sour meatballs, chock full of pineapple.

Other cooks out there have been discovering wonderful ways to combine fruits and meats, sending their ideas to my favorite cooking magazines. This one came from a guy in New Jersey.

Chicken with Blueberry Sauce 

Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have The Wet Nurse's Tale by Erica Eisdorfer. The story is about a woman back in the day who, as you might guess, breastfeeds other women's children. Reading it often felt like I was attending a meeting of the La Leche League True Believers, Victorian Chapter. All the breast-feeding talk is pretty frank.

However, the story gripped me right away. I found it easy to put aside things like reading blogs and web-shopping for tote bags or whatever, and read about the upstairs/downstairs drama of servant life. But when Eisdorfer really wound up the tension, when she had me gasping and saying, "Oh, my goodness! Oh no!", her plotting took a turn towards the contrived.

Be warned: there are some cow patties. Susan, our wet nurse heroine, fell from grace and never quite picked herself up again.