The Jane Austen Cookbook

I was perusing the food section of a bookstore the other day, looking for another cookbook to add to my ever growing collection, when I came across The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black & Deirdre Le Faye.
Naturally, I picked it up right away. The cover is exactly what I hoped it would be.

The authors are a food historian and an Austenian scholar, so you just know the book is going to be good. And it is.
Aside from recipes like Lady Williams’s Muffins and something called Forcemeat Balls (which involves anchovies and pigeons’ livers), The Jane Austen Cookbook also has a great introduction that goes into the social conventions of shopping, eating and entertaining in Austen’s time.

As much as I love Jane Austen, I have no real desire to make a Pigeon Pie or Venison Cake, so I can’t say I really want to attempt any of the recipes in this book. That’s why I was happy to find the site Austenacious. Here’s how the lovely ladies of Austenacious describe their site:

Austenacious began as an excuse to cook, eat, and watch BBC period dramas on Friday nights, and grew into an excuse to cook, eat, and talk about Jane Austen every day of the week.

What’s not to love, right? They have posts with recipes from the book including Apple Puffs and Martha’s Gingerbread Cakes.
Their other posts are worth reading, too.

Have you tried a recipe from this book? I’d love to hear how it turned out.
But if you made the Chicken with Tongues, you can omit the gory details.

Related posts:
Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Darcy
How writing is like baking cookies

An awesome blog of Awesome People Reading

The Tumblr blog Awesome People Reading has over 3,000 followers who must agree with me that there is something so entertaining about looking at photos of people reading. Whether it’s Kurt Vonnegut, Charlie Chaplin (two of the most popular readers, according to the site), or Kate Moss, photos of people reading can feel very intimate, like this one of John Lennon reading, or very staged, like this one of Megan Fox reading. Either way, with all the crazy things you can look at online it’s sometimes nice to see people doing something simple, like reading.

Related posts:
Awful Library Books
Out of Print Clothing

UnNetworking according to UnMarketing

If you’ve never heard of UnMarketing.com or its president Scott Stratten, the title of this post probably makes no sense to you.

UnMarketing is basically authentic marketing, or as it says in Stratten’s bio, “It’s all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market, so when they have the need, they choose you.” Forget cold calls and awkward elevator pitches. UnMarketing is about building relationships, having conversations, and engaging your market.

Chapter 55 of the book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. confirmed something that I have long suspected: networking events are evil. 

The chapter goes over the differences between old school networking (random stranger hands you a business card) and new school networking (hugging it out with someone you’ve been talking to on Twitter for months). I’m a fan of the new school approach because, like so many introverted folks out there, I find that networking the old-fashioned way is a little bit intimidating.

Not that there is anything wrong with business cards. I love mine and hand them out proudly. But I think the point is that giving your business card to someone should be done after you’ve made some sort of connection so that the relationship can continue after the event. And I like Stratten’s idea of asking someone what their Twitter handle is right away so that you can follow them on the spot and carry on your conversations online after the event.

I’ve made a lot of amazing connections via Twitter and I love the idea that it can replace the traditional model of networking that has scared off so many people from reaching out to others in the past.

And speaking of Twitter, you should drop by and say hello to me there: @FlorenceMcC.

Awful Library Books

I came across this post on BuzzFeed the other day that led me to what may be my new favourite website.
Awful Library Books is devoted to bringing its viewers the best of the worst when it comes to library books. It’s not really that the books are bad so much as they are strange. In the words of Mary and Holly, the librarians who run the site, “These books are just odd, outdated or maybe should be reconsidered under a current interpretation of collection policies.”

I admit that I’ve purchased some pretty strange books at library sales over the years. And since Awful Library Books accepts submission, I now have a use for them.

It’s time to set up a Facebook page

While setting up my own Facebook page for my freelance writing and editing business (finally!) I found a post on Mashable that was extremely helpful, so I thought I’d do the right thing and share it.
It starts off really basic (Create your page, fill in your information…) and takes you through the more complex stuff like getting a vanity URL and using the insight tools that Facebook offers.
I’ve had my own personal Facebook account for years, and while I don’t always love it, I recognize that you simply can’t ignore it.
There are 500 million users on Facebook who spend over 700 billion hours a month on there! That kind of exposure is not just good for business, it’s essential.
HOW TO: Set Up a Facebook Page.

(And while you’re on Facebook, come by my page and say hello!)