This month, book club read Jen Lancaster’s My Fair Lazy.   For the un-jenitiated, JenLan writes humorous memoirs about her various projects. One book follows her quest to lose weight, one follows her self exploration after the dot-com bust, and this one follows her self-assigned directive to get some culture into her reality television saturated life.  She goes to the ballet, she eats good food, she attends the theater, she reads classic literature, and so on.

from the author’s website

Group opinion of the book varied: “Liked her at first, liked her less as she got cultured,” “Disliked her at first, liked her once she got cultured,” “Laughed all the way through,” “Stopped after two chapters,” “Barnes & Noble didn’t have it so I’m just here for the food.”

Speaking of the food, nobody debated about that point. Every month we choose a food theme, and this month we challenged ourselves to create dishes combining high and low cuisine elements to honor JenLan and her dichotomous personality. 

Feast your eyes on this.

I made bacon and cheese spirals. Hi: Artisan raspberry cheese. Lo: Pastry from a tube and microwave bacon. .

Sandy, our resident healthy person, brought vegan chili mac. Hi: Uh, vegan everything. Lo: Technically chili. And mac. But no cheese.

Sara brought a charcuterie plate. Hi: Fancy cheese and sweet relish pickles. Lo: Slim Jims, pork rinds, and Vienna sausages. (I didn’t see anything like these when I was in Austria, FYI.)

Sandy also made the 90s classic, fruit pizza. Hi: Farmer’s Market fresh fruits. Lo: It is fruit masquerading as pizza.

Madelines went more gourmet with Lemon and Ricotta Spread on toast. Hi: Lemon and Ricotta. Lo: I suppose the honey on top, which was squeezed from a bear, but I think Madeline mostly ignored the directive because she’s baller like that.

Laura brought boxed brownies with fresh raspberries. Hi: Rasberries. Lo: Boxed brownies, though we all agreed that homemade brownies really don’t taste any better, so what’s the point of that?

Not pictured: Heather’s fancy ice cream dessert– your choice of salted caramel gelato or sherbet push pop.

Next month we read Farenheit 451 to honor Ray Bradbury, but we’re eating at a restaurant because we can.