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While every year is filled with tons of memories, there are a few moments that you happily recall when the year comes to a close. These are what I think my top five of 2012 were...


One
Started writing for BBC Good Food India



Two
Was lucky to be one of the few people selected to attend the artisan bread making workshop with Maurice Chaplais

Pic courtesy: Breadworks/ Maurice Chaplais

Three
Being a part of this parody music track that went viral

 



Four
Got my first opportunity to be a part of a TV show



Five
Bloggers unconference at Kanatal



I wish you and your loved ones much peace, joy and fulfillment in 2012.

Notice I didnt exactly say that I "asked" him on a date, because in fact, I did not. Instead, I surprised him with an amazing trio of treatments (including a DIY mud room/sauna situation and a 60-minute massage) at the ridiculously luxurious Pearl Spa and sushi at, and I kid you not when I say this, the BEST sushi restaurant Ive ever been to, Sushi Sono.

Would you like to know how good both of these establishments actually are? Theyre in Columbia, MD. From my DC-area residence, its a good hour drive away. And not on big, spacious freeways with 60+ MPH speed limits. No. Sixty minutes on long stretches of city streets, running rampant with traffic lights, narrow lines, and pedestrians with a death wish. And yet, I still wanted to go there.

Beyond the amazing treatments themselves, The Pearl also has a few over-the-top touches that make you long to repeat the experience, kinda like Amanda Bynes with vehicular accidents. The customer service was indulgent-- they offer champagne and brownies post-treatment. They even have their own signature fragrance of bath products: Moonflower.
To start, they have some of the most unusual and adventurous rolls Ive ever seen. Not to mention, they have the best fish Ive ever eaten. Ive even read that theyve flown in fish from Japan. I dont wanna suggest that we should use our non-renewable resources for something as frivolous as fish, but I am suggesting that we use our non-renewable resources for something as frivolous as fish.

From cake to quinoa - my year's best gluten-free recipes

The annual ritual of creating top ten lists has commenced. Critics are choosing their top ten movies, editors have picked their Top Ten Books. Fashionistas have declared the year's best and worst trends of 2010 (jeggings- love 'em or hate 'em?). Do I dare leap into the scuffle and pluck ten gluten-free recipes as the year's best? And if so -- just how, exactly -- does one choose the golden top ten? The best of the best. Do I do as I did last year and let stats decide? (Might seem rather lazy, to repeat that process.) Or do I rely on my personal and often quirky preferences? (Could be controversial, especially if I was honest and chose peanut butter on ryeless rye bread toast as my number one.) Perhaps I should make a game of it and draw names from a hat. Randomness is appealing, in a way. (Though unsatisfying.)

I'll just do it.

I'll be bold. I'll be opinionated. I'll pick my g-free favorites from this year's recipes. Perhaps I need to define my criteria, though. How do you choose a favorite among the dozens you've created in a year? I'm proud of each recipe. After all, I enjoyed them enough to photograph them in all their gluten-free glory (unless, sadly, they were not photogenic, and that, Dear Reader, is a loss to the blog). And every recipe I shared passed the family taste test or they wouldn't stand a chance of appearing on Gluten-Free Goddess. You don't hear about the runner-ups, or the flat out failures that left your intrepid goddess weeping and gnashing her teeth. [Not really. I'm not the weeping kind. I swear like a character in Deadwood and take deadly aim at the trash bin.]

My criteria, then? Simple. A favorite recipe would be a recipe I'd make again. And share with company.

So with that in mind, away we go.

Read more + get the recipe >>

If you enjoy stories of strong women, like the White Queen, on TV at the moment, you might want to pick up a copy of My Notorious Life by Madame X, a novel  based on a true story by Kate Manning. It would be a great book to take on holiday, easy reading and great story-telling.

About My Notorious Life by Madame X:
In the end, they celebrated. They bragged. They got me finally, was their feeling. They said I would take my secrets to the grave.
They should be so lucky.’
Axie Muldoon, the headstrong daughter of Irish immigrants, forced to beg for pennies as a child on the brutal streets on New York City, grows up to become the most successful – and controversial – midwife of her time.
‘Saved’ from poverty by a well-meaning philanthropist, Axie is sent West with her younger brother and sister. But the kindness of strangers is short-lived and soon Axie returns to the city of her birth, alone, but determined to one day reunite her family.
When she is taken in by a Manhattan doctor Axie learns the craft that she will live by – and later fight for. She rises from the gutter to the glitter of Fifth Avenue high society, and discovers that the right way is not always the way of the church or the law, and that you should never trust a man who says ‘trust me.’ But what if that man is an irresistible risk-taker with a poetical Irish soul?
As Axie’s reputation grows she finds herself on a collision course with the crusading official who would be the righteous instrument of her downfall. It will take all of her power to outwit him and save both herself and those she loves from ruin.

About the Author:
A former documentary television producer (and winner of two Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award), Kate Manning has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Glamour and More, among other publications. She is the author of Whitegirl, a novel, and is an adjunct faculty member of the English Department at Bard High School Early College. She lives with her family in New York City.


My Review
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the characters are well drawn, lively and appealing.  The story is told by Axie Muldoon and lapses into the vernacular just enough to remind you of her lowly roots.  There are no heros or heroines in this story just desperate people trying to make their way in a rich MANs world.  It is very much a mans world and reminded me just how fortunate I am to have been born where and when I was. In Axies time both rich and poor women suffered from medical ignorance and moral posturing.  Today it is mainly poor women who still suffer but unfortunately there are still many societies where matters of conception are still hugely contraversial and, of course, it is women who suffer.

If you enjoy a good story of a feisty young girl and her family, fighting fate, at first to survive and then  to make something of themselves, you will enjoy this novel.  Its a family story full of love and compassion without being soppy, its a tragedy, a social history and an entertainment. My Notorious Life by Madame X will hook you in and keep you reading until you discover just how Axie survives her trials and outwits her enemies.

My Notorious Life by Madame X
Author Kate Manning
Publisher - an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing
RRP £12.99
Online Price £11.69

www.bloomsbury.com/author/kate-manning/
@KateManning10


Many thanks to Jude for providing this copy for me to review, I was not paid for this review and my views are my own.