Brunch Recap ~ Spoiler Alert

This brunch opens on the Valley of the Dolls conversation in the car with Jenny informing me of the heartbreaking terms that Anne resolved her life to Lyon. From Jenny, I find out Neely is 10 times worse than Old Ironsides ever was and Jennifer had a heartwrenching love-of-her-life affair that left her decimated. By the time we arrived at Nicole's in Oakland I felt heavy, slowly processing the sad conclusion of the three characters that started out in life so blissfully naive. I also felt that entering Nicole's apartment was like drawing down the closing curtain on the acts performed by the characters in Valley of the Dolls.

Only thing to do now was to indulge in the buffet lovingly laid out by Nicole and better looking than any craft service table I've encountered in my lifetime. As we were enjoying brunch and talking about our experiences with the Dolls I couldn't help but feel that we were understudies attending a wrap party celebrating the end of a month of turbulent performances.



Nicole had two heavy hitting performers in this brunch, The Wifesaver featured here to the right, and the Dolls Cupcakes (above) as a surprise, happy ending to the last act.

The Wifesaver exceeded expectations on several counts: appearance, taste and name. The savory smell of the ingredients baking in the oven greeted us as we arrived, the golden delicious appearance of a perfectly baked breakfast casserole beckoned us to dive in, and the complimenting tastes and textures of the fluffy goodness of the eggy bread kept us going back for another bite! The layer of the salty canadian bacon was wonderful and the clencher was the buttery crunchiness of the toasted cornflakes topping.


The name of the Wifesaver brought much cheerful debate and conversation. Nicole said the casserole is called the Wifesaver because it saves the wife time on otherwise busy mornings. But several of us felt that it's called the Wifesaver because it keeps the husband full, content and happy with his domestic life. Something Anne could never quite accomplish with Lyon, no matter how hard she tried. Oh, if only she had this recipe!

Toward the end of brunch we weren't quite settled on a book, we had a general direction inspired by Spring and all the lusty awakenings that comes with Spring. We left with marching orders to suggest/recommend a topic for March.

Quote of the day in the context of choosing a book for March, "I don't think the topics of sleeping around and being a feminist are such a bad thing." ~ Kim


Cocktail of the month for February
Hibiscus cocktails:
champagne flute
add one hibiscus flower in syrup
pour in champagne
bubbles from champagne will help your flower bloom

Cheers!

Mistress Roquelaure

Spring is in the air and while we were looking for a subject about resurrection in a literal sense we found that everyone was more interested in erotica in a lustful sense. We revel in the energy that is ushering in Spring and we heard from a certain groundhog that this is going to be a lusty year, we all know what Rabbits do!


Throughout our lives we are in situations where we find ourselves overpowered and dominated into submission, like at the bank when they tell us we could qualify for a better rate if our credit score was just a bit higher. Hopefully we have all experienced the power of domination as well; in everyday life we may dominate in our careers or in sports, all of us exhibiting our natural competitive streak at one time or another. We ask, why not translate that submissive/domination into the bedroom and find out more about this BDSM everyone is talking about? (Privately people, on your own time... sorry to burst your bubble but it's not that kind of book club).


March is the perfect time of year to explore erotica steeped in BDSM, it is said that the month roars in like a lion and goes out like a lamb... Book club translates this to roaring in like a dom and out like a sub and we find it fun to fantasize both roles as we assign The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice and determine punishments for not doing the assignment. (Okay, really, all I can come up with is forcing you all to read the Sookie series...)



Our meeting is at Maguire's Pub where we'll crush a few recovering leprechauns under the heels of our spiked stiletto's.
March 19th at 6pm
145 Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA


RSVP by commenting here or on FB.

Viva Voce or by a Show of Comments

We have a task ahead of us and the results are due by tomorrow night, 02/15/11 at 11:59pm. The task is choosing a book for our March book club reading!

Comment here or post on FB by Tuesday, 11:59pm if you have a recommended reading or you want to vote for one of the following:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Queenmaker: A Novel of King David’s Queen, India Edghill
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
Whisper Falls, Toni Blake
The Thorn Birds: A Novel, Colleen Mccullough
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Anne Rice and A. N. Roquelaure
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
My Secret Garden, Nancy Friday
Lady Chatterly's Lover, D.H. Lawrence
Female Perversions, Louise Kaplan
Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follet
Brooklyn Follies: A Novel, Paul Auster
The Giants House: A Romance, Elizabeth McCracken
Outlander, Diana Gabaldo

We'll post the March reading on Wednesday, February 16th.

Valley of the Brunch Drunch

In Hobbiton our Sunday brunch at 1pm would be considered 4th meal, 2nd lunch or 3rd breakfast. In the SF bay area, drinking and eating at 1pm is also considered Drunch, drinking during lunch. In order to simplify the potluck choices we are calling this meeting Brunch!

Here is the potluck list so far:
Angela ~ Hibiscus Cocktails (champagne, hibiscus flowers in syrup)
Nicole ~ Wife Saver (egg, cheese, bacon casserole)

Kim ~ Apple Crumble

Jenny ~ Fruit Plate
Gloria ~ Breakfast Casserole

Melissa ~ Champagne/Orange Juice

And... that's it. If you haven't made a choice yet or you need a little nudge, here is what the hostess suggests:
little sandwiches
potato dish
salad
beverages (Nicole will have coffee)

You may comment here or on Facebook to give your dish of choice and I'll update the blog.

Juicy Peaches and Bitter Nuts

Reading Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (VotD) is similar to eating a juicy peach. We get to enjoy the fruity celebrity personalities while sucking on the juice of a few tantalizing sex scenes. Here are the celebrity inspirations for each of the characters we are about to meet:
Carol Landis = Jennifer North
Dean Martin = Tony Polar
Judy Garland/Betty Hutton = Neely O’hara
Ethel Merman = Helen Lawson
After we devour the celebrity bits and slurp up all of the good juiciness we are left with the story’s remains… the hard, wrinkled shell that contains the bitter nut; the message that getting old in Hollywood sucks.

With her introductory poem, Jacqueline Susann warns us about the journeys we are about to witness while reading VotD yet our desire for celebrity gossip and sex overwhelm us and we dive right in, letting the story wash over us in waves of hope only to battle a vicious riptide of the reality of beautiful, ambitious, naive young women in 1960’s New York:
“You’ve got to climb to the top of Mount Everest
to reach the Valley of the Dolls
You stand there, waiting for
the rush of exhilaration you thought you’d feel – but
it doesn’t come.
You’re too far away to hear the applause
and take your bows.
And there’s no place left to climb...

…Anne Welles had never meant to start the climb.
Yet, unwittingly, she took her first step
the day she looked around
and said to herself,
‘This is not enough – I want something more.’”…

This “something more” is a common thread that binds the three main characters, Anne Welles, Jennifer North and Neely O’Hara into friendship. Outside of their ambitious career aspirations the pressure to find and marry “the one” is intense and adding to the intensity is the introduction of Helen Lawson. Helen is divorced, loud, brash, and overconfident. At the age of 32, she is considered old and decidedly unsexy by the successful men that surround her. Helen is inserted into the story by Susann like a threat to Anne, Jennifer and Neely that beauty fades with age and if you choose to be independent and don’t marry a successful man by the age of 25 you may end up with a nickname such as Old Ironsides.

Here are some book club questions to ponder as you read through VotD:

• What type is “the one” for Anne? For Neely? For Jennifer? How does the type you chose for them compare to the men they chose for themselves?
• Go back to your youthful early 20’s for this question: which character did you most relate to Anne, Jennifer, Neely or Old Ironsides?
• Could you relate to Anne’s sexual awakening? What was the first time like for you? Was it as awkward and immature as Anne’s? Or was it everything you ever dreamed of?
• What did you think/hope about Allen and Anne?
• What are your thoughts about the evolution of Neely?
• What did you think about the relationship between Maria and Jennifer North?
• While reading VotD are you longing for the simpler requirements of the women in the 1960’s? Or are you grateful for all the opportunity women have today?
• What did you think of Lawrenceville? And Anne’s picturesque house in Lawrenceville? Do you think Anne will change her mind about Lawrenceville as she matures?

Returning to our topic of juicy peaches and bitter nuts, we are working on the potluck list for Nicole’s brunch on February 13th. If you know what you’re going to bring then comment here or post on Facebook. We’ll post the potluck details on the blog next week.