I didn’t intend for this blog to suddenly become PastaQueen’s book review bonanza, but that’s how everything landed, so let’s just go with it, ok? My friend, Stephanie O’Dea, who blogs at A Year of Slow Cooking just released her first cookbook, smartly titled Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking. Please note the usage of the word “slow cooker” and not “crockpot” which is a trademarked term that we will avoid for fear of litigation.

Steph sent me a copy of her book, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone, or rather kill half a peck of apples with one recipe.

I dug out my mother’s slow cooker, which is literally older than I am, and grabbed nine apples from my freshly picked peck, to make the Apple Crisp recipe on page 402. This meant I got to use my favorite kitchen appliance, the apple slicer!

My knife skills are nothing to brag about, so I spent at least 15 minutes peeling the skin off of the apples, but once that was done it was very easy to literally throw this recipe together. I tossed all the ingredients into the slow cooker (not the crockpot!) and then cooked it on high for a little over two hours.

The result was a warm, yummy treat for a cool October afternoon. As a bonus, the apartment smelled really nice too.The recipe uses butter and brown sugar, so it’s not exactly a low-calorie desert, but that’s probably also why it tasted so good :) I did substitute the 1/4 cup of orange juice for Crystal Lite peach tea in a compulsive effort to cut calories and it turned out just fine.

I don’t really like to cook, so I like the idea of dumping a lot of stuff into a slow cooker and having a finished meal a few hours later. I was also surprised by all the different types of food you can cook in a slow cooker, like desserts, lattes, and dip. There is a recipe for an egg, feta and mushroom breakfast casserole that I’m going to try out soon too.

You can buy the book on Amazon, or read more about it on Steph’s book page.

Java Bean hits a dead end at the drive-through.

What? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I swear!

Office Krupke is my copy editor, which is why there are so many typos.

I was driving to Cleveland in the dark and I’d had a headache for half of Ohio, when Elna Baker came on my MP3 player. I had downloaded podcasts of The Moth, a storytelling show based in New York, and the latest episode featured the comedian/writer/Mormon recounting a family trip to Cyprus (which you can listen to here). My second reaction was, “Man, my family vacations only occurred at lame places (like Gettysburg,which is as interesting as you think a field would be) or predictable places, like Ocean City (love the salt water taffy). Why didn’t I get to go to Cyprus?” This was my second reaction because my first reaction was laughter, which helped me get through the rest of Ohio.

Later, I looked up information on Elna Baker and realized I’d heard her before, on This American Life where she told another funny, yet disturbing story, about selling dolls at FAO Schwarz. So, when I saw that she had a memoir coming out this October 15th called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, I requested a copy to review, which is why I am typing this and you are reading this now.

The memoir is a humorous and moving tale of Elna’s life as a 20-something Mormon in New York who has lost 80 pounds. It’s peppered with some stories from her childhood, but the driving storylines of the book are Elna’s search for a boyfriend who doesn’t treat Mormonism like an STD, and her shifting relationship with her faith which is tested and changed by her experiences in New York City.

While I don’t subscribe to Elna’s particular beliefs, her descriptions of how she feels about her faith and the comfort it gives her were touching. It was refreshing to read a book by someone who is sincerely religious, but not preachy, and still has their sense of humor firmly in tact. I can tell that the Mormon community means a lot to her, but she’s also honest about the doubts she’s had about it and the problems she’s encountered with her faith.

But, don’t let that make you think this is a heavy book. It weighs less than a pound and contains many humorous, self-deprecating stories about Elna’s adventures. As I mentioned, she lost 80 pounds in her early 20′s, and then had to learn how to deal with men who never would have flirted with her before. She talks about her loose skin problems (as I have), and explains why she decided to have a tummy tuck. While I recommend the book, I do not recommend losing weight the way Elna did, which involved a crash diet and Fen-phen (though in her defense she didn’t realize that was what her doctor was prescribing her).

Overall, the book is infused with a childlike enthusiasm for the world and all the wonders in it. Where it occasionally stumbles in technique, it makes up for in spirit. Elna has a conversational writing style that is probably an extension of her stand-up comedy experience. She is unafraid to reveal personal stories that leave her vulnerable, an act I respect and admire.

The book is interspersed with humorous drawings and diagrams about Elna’s love life and beliefs at different ages. By the end of the book, things still felt somewhat unresolved, but that is probably because the author still wrestles with these issues herself. Anyway, this was a funny, pleasurable read and if you like the tone of my blog, you’ll probably like this book. It’s official release day is today, Thursday, October 15.

At the end I was left with only on big question. In one chapter she talks about making out with a famous guy she met at the sushi restaurant she works at in New York. She doesn’t give us the leading man’s real name, but he would be about 70-years-old, is an actor and a writer, married, and she says, “he’s up there with Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Jack Nicholson in terms of classic sex appeal, age, and fame. Also, my all-time favorite screen kiss, one that I’ve watched over and over again, belongs to him.” It’s not Warren Beatty. The fact that she couldn’t say who it was has now made his identity far more interesting to me that it would have been otherwise. So, dear readers, please tell me, who did Elna Baker French kiss? I need to know! If we put our heads together, I know we can figure this one out. My best guess was Harrison Ford, but he’s not a writer.

When I am running, I try not to think about the fact that I’m running. That is because running sucks. Anyone who tells you running doesn’t suck is a liar. Have you ever seen the runners at the end of the Boston Marathon? They are thrilled to cross the finish line because it means they don’t have to run any farther. Even the fast people are exhausted at the end of the race.

I love running too, even though it sucks. I love the happy chemicals it releases in my body. I get a great feeling of accomplishment after I survive a race. Sometimes, I even feel like a graceful, yet powerful gazelle, jaunting across the Sahara, even though I probably look more like a chubby housecat sprinting for a bag of Friskies. Still, running is uncomfortable. It makes me breathe hard and leaves me very sweaty and sticky and stinky.

This is why I try to ignore the fact that I am running while I am running. I didn’t quite realize that I was doing, until I started reading one of the latest bestselling social science books, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. I don’t have kids, but it’s fascinating to learn about why humans are the way they are, be they kids or not. Chapter Eight is about self-control, and it mentions a Russian study from the 1950′s where they asked kids to stand still as long as they could. The kids lasted two minutes. Then they asked another group of kids to pretend they were guards who had to stand still at their posts. These kids lasts eleven minutes.

When I run, sometimes I pretend that I am somewhere other than a boring gray fitness room. Sometimes I am in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, chasing down vampires. Other times I am trying to escape a building before a bomb explodes. I have even been known to pretend I am a spy trying to outrun pursuers after I have stolen secret data that is stored in the disk partition of my MP3 player. All of this is quite silly of course, but it keeps my mind off of the running and even makes running a kind of game. It’s not work, it’s play! If I’m exhausted, I can pretend it’s only 2:47 minutes to the border! I can’t stop now! Try it sometime and working out might be more like play.

If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend you check out the latest project from Shauna and Carla a.k.a. DietGirl and Miz Fit. These fab ladies have overcome time zone differences and the winter sniffles to bring you a fitness podcast called Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone. They solicited names for the podcast a few weeks ago, and this title is far more clever than the only one I could think of, which was “Not the Jillian Michaels Podcast.” Hey, it’s got great SEO! (Half of you are now mumbling, “What’s an SEO?”) This week’s episode is all about running. New podcasts should be published every two weeks or so, and you can even find them in iTunes! Congrats ladies, and keep up the good work!

If you haven’t already, be sure to enter the $100 gift card giveaway in association with BlogHer and Pepperidge Farm. The contest is open until November 2.

Finally, a big congrats to my friend Stephanie O’Dea, who appeared on Good Morning America today to promote her new book, Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking. Steph did great and I know her book will too. I’m gonna’ see if I can use part of my peck of apples in her apple crisp recipe.