If you live in the Owens Valley, you have probably heard by now that the Bishop Bronco Football team WON the CIF section championship. The first championship since 1957!  I am incredibly proud of them, as much because they overcame the jitters and anxiety such a big event generated as for any other reason.  It has been an exciting week to see the community support grow to an unprecedented level.  I personally learned yet another lesson from the whole escapade….waving is wonderful, and probably therapeutic.

Kristen Carr, also a football mom, was the genius behind the Bishop Tailgate Parade from Vons to the field.  With an extra girl in our house for the weekend, we thought she and Katie would have fun decorating the truck and joining in….but we were really expecting about ten vehicles with goofy  parents tootling on down to the field with maybe a honk or two.  Instead, there were more than 100 decorated vehicles and people emptying from stores and motels, the fire and police departments, and the whole early afternoon crowd at Rusty’s, to line up and wave along Main and Line.  The boys on the team were not even there since they were already suiting up and getting ready, it was just the enthusiastic supporters cheering and waving to each other.  It was so moving;  just amazing to feel that much positive energy all channeled towards these kids, one of which happened to be my baby.  (okay he is 6’2″ and will hate me calling him baby, but he is).

Remember the reading chains we stretch around the store in the spring?  The Read Across America project has elementary kids and community members contribute links to a paper chain that is then stretched along Main Street, from Penney’s to the fairgrounds last year.  Yes it is a wonderful visual/physical  embodiment of how many books the community reads, and hence how important reading is, but the best part I think for the kids is all the cars waving and honking to support them!  I have said both years that the waving was everyone’s favorite part of the event!

And yet another example –  my kids use Sierra Street to get to school in the morning, and for several years they have counted it a good day if “the waver” was out to greet them.  This gentleman came out nearly every morning and just waved at each car as it went to school or work.  He certainly always looked happy to do it, and as I said, it made our day to see him, so that has to be a win-win situation!  I have not seen him lately, but hope he is still at it.

As our Bishop Broncos played teams from Pasadena and Palos Verdes, the Southern California media made a big deal of the “small town” experience, and and the unique “atmosphere” the city teams would face in Bishop.  We laughed when that theme came out in an LA Times story, since the other finalist team was Boron, and have you seen Boron lately? I think it should be considered small.  Apparently though, proximity to the Big City made up for small population, and they do not have the same qualifications for “small town USA” as we do.  The Times had to mention that the team went waving through the Christmas Parade, but they really should have seen the tailgate parade!  

So to all of my friends and customers that waved us through town to support our boys, THANK YOU.  You made my day and probably the year.  If you are a more sophisticated sort that missed the whole thing or thinks this was all a silly display, let me suggest you give waving a try.  Yelling is good too; “Go Broncos!” works really well, and I am sure Huskies, Eagles or Warriors would as well if you happen to be in those neighborhoods. 

And Soccer Teams?  I am keeping my posters handy – I am all ready for another CIF championship parade!! It should make you glad to know we have the right “atmosphere” here in small town USA!

The Bishop Street of Lights Festivities are this Friday night, and East Side Books will NOT be there – SORRY!  But that is because I will be at the High School Football Field cheering for our Bishop Broncos in the CIF SEMIFINALS, and as much fun as the Street of Lights can be, I really hope to see MANY of you at the game as well!

So, to make up for missing the festivities, East Side Books will be having a storewide sale on Saturday December 4th.  Your entire pile of books, cd’s, movies from in-store stock will be discounted 10%.  So come downtown to the Christmas parade and then stop by the store for a great selection at great prices.  And another bonus – if you show your CIF football ticket stub – we’ll give you 15% off.  Can’t beat that!

Go Broncos!

Most of you who bother to read this, I have to believe, have fairly  friendly feelings towards the store, so I will beg your forgiveness in advance and vent just a little.  Two recent events have just made me shake my head….really people?  Our technology guru, the wonderful Alden Nash, recently fixed whatever was wrong so that our WiFi works and I was so excited to see a customer using it!  She had connected on her blackberry/iphone/whatever and was going around the store ordering books from Amazon that she found cheaper than in our store…..

Tonight I again experienced a rush of excitement to see that someone had actually linked to our site on their blog!  This is so high tech, next we’ll go viral!   (I know, I know, wrong context).  Of course I had to check it right out.  Turns out he was making fun of one book that has been on our shelf “for years”  (he apparently checks every time he visits town) called “Did Jesus Live in 100 BC?”  He is such a techy that he managed to take a picture of the book on our shelf to illustrate this idiocy.  His faithful commentors decided that us having the book on our shelf was related to us discussing fruit recipe’s in our blog….hmmm. 

Moral of the story,  I had better reserve my excitement for the truly exciting events.  Like kids listening to stories, or finding a book for a student’s class, or someone’s favorite author.  Or maybe I should start responding to some of the spam comments that come in, now those promise REAL excitement.

Thanks again to all who make the store a fun place, and sometimes a funny place as well.

Diane

We lost another friend of East Side Books this week.  Derham Giuliani was one of those quiet and unassuming people who amazes you with a many faceted life as you get to know him over stacks of books.  In Derham’s case, it was usually stacks of books-on-tape that he listened to while traveling hundreds of miles to his “campsites”.  Derham studied nature, insects and butterflies, chipmunks and squirrels, all the little creatures that populate the desert.  I know he did field studies for other scientists as well as his own observations, but he never shared or bragged about his official job titles.  I do know he was an expert by any definition.  It always struck me as funny that he listened to so many police procedural mysteries and suspense books, plus a little romance or general literature, focused on the darker or odder side of human life when he was so grounded in the natural world. Then it dawned on me that he listened to those tapes because that is what we had on the shelf….like so many things he made do with what was available in order to do what he really loved, observing the earth’s creatures.  I am glad to know he was doing what he loved until he passed away, and I am happy to have known, even briefly,  a person who truly followed his passions with his life work.  He will be missed.

The river of books is once again in flood stage, and the shelves are bursting….. there is honestly no more room.  So as short as this buying period was I have to stop accepting books as of Monday, September 13.   I will try to open again October 1.

I am considering a new policy in order to minimize the uncertainty that now seems to plague us – Instead of accepting books until we burst, I would start accepting books to buy only the first week of every month.  Estates would be considered by appointment.  I am open to input, so please give me some feedback here or in person.  I would appreciate other ideas as well!

Where do the months go?  It is already September 6,  and I need to wrap up our August comment contests, and announce September’s….

So, for August the Comment winners are Jessica Burchett and Michel Wehrey.  They each won $25 gift certificates for the comments posted in August. 

With the changing seasons, rabbit brush blooming, and kids getting back into the school habit, my thoughts of September are always a little bittersweet and nostalgic.  In that frame of mind, our question for all of you this month is “What is your most fondly remembered book from  childhood, and what do you remember about it?”  If you are still in your childhood, just tell us about your favorite book so far.  If you are in your second or third childhood… well feel free to enter a comment on a favorite from each of those periods!

I really have so many fondly remembered books; how to pick a favorite?  I loved the Little House on the Prarie series, I loved my mom’s old Raggedy Ann storybook and another of her books about a giraffe racing a car with wonderful dramatic illustrations (that is probably a valuable one Mom!), and the book of poetry for children with the Calico Cat and the Gingham Dog poem, and Wynken Blynken and Nod… it is often tough to remember titles and authors, but I sure recognize them again when copies come through the store!  Probably the one book that I carried around the most and nearly memorized was a fat  Reader’s Digest compilation of Fairy Tales.  These were the traditional versions, full of graphic and violent justice (remember the evil stepmother drug in the barrel with nails?).  There was no doubt about whether good prevailed over evil in these pre-Disney stories.  The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen was my all time favorite, and I read many other translations after the Reader’s Digest volume, but have never been able to stomach the calypso Disney version. While I can appreciate Disney’s exuberance and beautiful animation in other tales, this was not a story with a happy ending, and making it one is a complete travesty.  What happened to those tough choices and lessons learned? 

Okay, time to hear about your memories!  Come browse the vintage children’s shelf if you need some help remembering!

Diane

Apples!!!  Peaches!!!  Everywhere you go these days you see trees laden with fruit.  Apple Hill Orchard in Wilkerson has an especially good crop of peaches this year and the apples are coming on strong.  Manor Market’s produce aisle is overflowing with local bounty.  Time to break out the cookbooks and find a creative way to use up all that harvest.

At East Side Books, staff and customers alike spend a lot of time talking about food and exchanging recipes.  It might be because East Side’s extensive cookbook section is right as you walk in the door.  There you can find everything from slow cooker cookbooks to manuals on food safety and canning as well as tomes on the new hot subject of food ecology and biographies and memoirs of foodies.

We would like to extend our food/recipe conversation to the East Side Books’ Blog.  In the comment section below please share your favorite apple or peach recipe…or two or three. (See my peach tart recipe below.)  Do you know how to work peaches into a main dish or have you stumbled upon the perfect apple bread mixture?  Peach and shrimp kebobs? Apple cookies? Don’t be shy…everyone LOVES a great, new recipe. (Note: Before posting this blog entry we did a little research into copyright law.  Interestingly enough, cooking is not considered “inventing”, a recipe “evolves” therefore the copyright laws don’t apply in the same was as say music or lyrics. It is suggested that when posting a recipe the words “based on,” “adapted from,” or “inspired by” be used.)

Over the years I have bought a number of cookbooks from East Side Books and then returned to share what recipes worked…and a few that didn’t.  My favorite recent purchase is The Best Recipe by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.  Some very dedicated cooks spent hours and hours testing the best recipes for each recipe in the book and wrote about their process, what worked and what didn’t, and then came up with a master recipe.  I can think of nothing I would rather not do.  I am a very “loose” cook in that I look at a recipe and then close the book and do my own thing.  Sometimes it works wonderfully…and occasionally it is a disaster.  (My husband’s code for a bad meal is: “Maybe we shouldn’t have this again.”  No problem since I can never remember what I did in the first place.)

I love my cookbook by Cook’s Illustrated because I can check the master recipe and then have a good chance of having it work out if I stick even somewhat close to the original plan. Below is the recipe I created inspired by the tart recipe in The Best Recipe as well as an apple tart recipe from Chef Jacques Pepin.  I especially like this crust because you don’t have to roll it out–a time and mess saver.  I used peaches from the tree in our yard, but you could easily adapt this recipe to use apples.

Peach Tart

1 1/4 c. flour

3 to 4 tbsp. white sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

3 tbsp. chilled butter, cut into little chunks

3 tbsp. vegetable shortening

2 tbsp. milk or cream

1 egg

6 to 7 small peaches

dash of nutmeg

(a bit more flour, sugar, cream or milk, butter)

Grease a 9 inch glass pie dish. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Cut in butter and shortening until coarse.  Add milk and egg and stir until just combined.  Bring dough together with your hands and transfer to pie plate.  Press dough into bottom and sides.  Refrigerate for 3o minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cut peaches into slim wedges.  Toss with a tablespoon or so of flour and sugar until coated.  Mix in dash of nutmeg to taste.  Add a bit of milk or cream to make mixture moist but not so liquid that it pools at the bottom of the bowl.  Cut up a tablespoon or two of butter and add to mixture.  Spoon mixture into tart shell.  Bake for 45 minutes or so, checking often to make sure it doesn’t burn.  (If it gets too brown on top or sides before the bottom is done, cover with a sheet of foil.  Baking in a clear glass pie plate helps to see when the bottom is nicely brown.)  Enjoy!

Now let’s hear from you!

We are again accepting books to buy for the store, and they are pouring in (literally)!  Consequently, if you have been looking for a particular book that has not made our shelves, be sure to come by or call so that we can add it to our wants list.  The wants list is a very low-tech, but effective, system to keep track of things our customers are looking for.  We each regularly review the list of books wanted, and with four or more people watching, we can match quite a few books with the wantee.  What if we don’t call?  Either we did not recognize the book and it slipped by, or it has not come in.  Sometimes new books take six months to a year to really start turning up in the used market, and some titles, like Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, are handed around and held onto so frequently that they remain hard to find used. If it has been longer than six months and you still want us to look, call again and we’ll update the list.  If desperation sets in, we can always do an internet search for a new or used copy and order one in for you!

So bring us your wants when you bring in your books, Murphy’s Law of Book Selling says that if we don’t write down your name, the book you want will show up the very next day… and we of course will not remember who was looking for it!

See you in the store,

Diane