The hostess of our reading gathering is Toastmaster Gina Cheng from Grand Toastmasters Club. Gina is an old friend of mine, six years younger than I am. We both went to the same college, majored in Pharmacy, studied French in France, joined Grand Toastmasters Club long time ago. Gina enjoys cooking and inviting friends to her lovely and cozy place to savor her newly developed recipes, from starter to desserts.
Pamela didn't arrive with empty hands. She brought a dozen of colorful cashmere scarves for each one of us as a gift from Shanghai. She also brought grapes and ice coffee freshly dripped by a famous cafe' in her neighborhood. I was touched by her warm and kind heart, even she just joined golden ladies a few months ago. Irene arrived with a big bowl of egg salad. She steamed potato and carrot first and boiled them at last, added chopped apples to make the egg salad a special sweet and crunchy flavor and taste. Amy brought a huge bag of guavas and wax apples. Kate and Gina Fu brought desserts. My green salad with bean burd was unique with mountain celery freshly picked up from the hills along Hsin-tien River this morning.
After sumptuous luncheon, we began our reading. Eat with(in) Nature by Huei-wen Chen was recommended by Pamela. Pamela didn't only give each golden lady a copy as a gift with the author's signature, but she is also working on the project to take golden ladies to meet with the author on her organic farm in San-chi. "Identical Strangers" by Elyse Schein + Paula Berstein and "Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel" by Heather McElhatton were recommended by my humble self.
Identical Strangers is about the issue of nature and nurture. I chose the book, because of my brother. He is hospitalized at the moment with his schizophrenia, a genetic disorder. After I shared my brother's story in tears, every golden lady took turns sharing their touching stories with eyes flooded with tears. Finally Amy woke us up and asked us to look at the bright side of life. We broke into laughter together and acknowledged how fortunate we were to be able to read, to write, and to share with good toastmasters friends!
Pretty Little Mistakes is a fun book to play with. Remember "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost? But, this novel by Heather McElhatton is different, it is a surreal life game you can "Do-Over" again and again. The book opens with a female second person's high school graduation, which leads "you" to two possible choices: travel or college. Each succeeding section similarly offers two options for proceeding, leading to an array of developments, and ending with 150 sorts of death and reincarnation.
Six of seven golden ladies played the game, with seven different endings (Gina Cheng did over her life once). Amy Chen of China Toastmasters Club refused to play the absurd life game. At last, Pamela threw an intriguing question, "what would you choose, to live in a confined happy space or an open troublesome space?" Most ladies didn't hesitate to take the challenges in the big wild world, except Kate and I settled for our happy love nests.
Before 1PM, we arrived at Gina's place, we didn't leave until after 6PM. It was a fruitful, entertaining, educational luncheon chez Gina. Thanks Gina, for your hospitality and mouth-watering dishes. Best wishes with your success in publishing your recipes soon in the future.
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