Just a block away from the cluster that is the rejuvenated Inman Park social scene on Highland Avenue, sits the aptly named Park’s Edge. Self-proclaimed as “Inman Park’s Best Kept Secret,” that will no longer be the case when February 3rd’s episode of Kitchen Nightmares – a reality TV show who’s famous host, Gordon Ramsey, is known for taking a tough love approach to cleaning up restaurant messes – airs and features the quaint neighborhood eatery.
My husband and I joined several friends there on Friday night, hoping to take advantage …

A. Manette Ansay’s prose is the comforting arms of a familiar lover.
In the afternoon I read Good Things I Wish You, I was immediately home and nodding agreement with her beautiful language. It wasn’t the roller-coaster ride of discovering something new, but a gentle cadence that is completely fulfilling, leaving you looking forward to your next interlude.
This latest novel tells parallel tales – that of the narrator relationship with a new beau – and the suspicious romance of Clara Schumann’s and her husband’s student, Johannes Brahms.  The narrator - Jeanette Hochmann – …

It has been a long time since I wrote a truly negative review, but yuck. yuck. yuck.
Told in three parts – daughter, mother, grandmother – Michael Dorris’ A Yellow Raft in Blue Water attempts – I think – to tell the story of what happens when the truth is hidden from generation to generation in a native American family. Because the reader doesn’t learn the truth until the grandmother’s tale, there’s so much presumption and suspicion that I had a hard time going backwards to make the pieces fit. What’s …

Patti Callahan Henry was among the first authors I reviewed when I started this blog way back when. I had the opportunity to sit with her at dinner when she spoke to my mom’s literary club a few years back and was enthralled by her. She’s sweet, down to earth, and an Auburn grad – what’s not to love?
Coming Up for Air is her latest and eighth novel (in as many years), and it’s the best I’ve read so far.
Ellie Calvin is mourning the loss of her mother at too …

UPDATE: Congratulations to Rebecca & Ashley H. on winning this giveaway! I hope you enjoy!
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So, there are few things more satisfying than when a product you loves proves itself worthy of your admiration. So goes St. Ives.
Frequenters of Lit&Leisure may remember my very first “Love” post about St. Ives Green Tea face scrub. It was the product that inspired this theme of reoccurring posts for me.
Enter December when I purchase a new tube of the scrub and experience a product fail – the tube splits at the sides. I was …

I’m always on the lookout for excellent side dishes. I get tired of the same old thing, and while I feel like there are an endless ways of cooking chicken, pork tenderloin or shrimp, veggies seem to be a stretch for me. When I found this recipe on Pinterest, I was intrigued. I changed it up just a little, loved it, so I’m sharing it with you.
Chopped Brussels Sprouts
16 oz. brussels sprouts
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3 T. olive oil
1/4 cup capers
juice one lemon
several splashes (~2 Tablespoons?) balsamic or red wine vinegar
Kosher …

I love games, but especially card games. Last year when we moved into our home, our new neighbors taught us a card game that we were immediately addicted to. We started teaching it to everyone we knew, and quickly the running joke became, knowing this game is a prerequisite of friendship. (Not really, but we may see you more often if you play!)
Over the recent holidays we had one such couple over. They couldn’t remember all the rules and had tried to find it on the internet, but couldn’t find …

Boiled custard is an old-fashioned Southern recipe and was a favorite treat of mine that Mom saved for very special occasions. I hadn’t had it for years when I up & married someone who loves it as much as I do. Mom wasn’t sure of her recipe (she quit making it when one of her friends starting bringing a superior version to Dad as a treat), so I’ve been on a quest for several years now to replicate that delicious, creamy egg-nectar from my childhood.
If you’re not familiar with boiled …

S.J. Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep is not the sort of book our book club typically selects, but for October (yes, sorry, I’m late) we wanted to read something a little different. None of us were disappointed.
This psychological thriller centers on a Christine – a woman who, because of a severe trauma she experienced, suffers from amnesia, and her sleep erases her memory. The book opens with Christine getting out of bed with someone who doesn’t seem familiar and looking into a bathroom mirror at a much older than …

I’ve never added books I’ve read during my morning devotions to the books I’ve reviewed, but this year that quiet time I have in the mornings was very special to me, and I wanted to share with you some of the books I read that made it so.
Jesus Calling by Sarah Young is a tremendously popular book in my area. I don’t know if it has the notoriety across the US it has in Atlanta, but if so, then you may have already heard of it. It is a daily …