rosé under fire

When you get a lot of people who are passionate about young adult books together socially, amazing things happen.  My DC Forever Young Adult book club (associated with the ever-hilarious FYA site) usually meets once a month, but this summer we’ve been getting together much more often as part of a YA authors vs. YA readers scavenger hunt.  Last weekend one of our activities was a cocktail mix-off/showdown between the two teams.  My team (the readers. and of the readers, mostly Catie.) came with one YA-related drink recipe in hand, which we called the Rosé Under Fire (after Elizabeth Wein’s Rose Under Fire, obvi).  Friends, it’s pretty AND delicious.  And it won that round!

Rosé Under Fire (adapted slightly from a Creative Culinary recipe)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 ounces silver tequila

1 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce rich simple syrup (two parts sugar, one part water)

2 ounces rosé sparkling wine (we found a sparkling rosé moscato!)

Lemon twist for garnish

Strawberry for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Fill a Collins glass with ice (we used Mason jars, because we’re classy like that). 

Put the tequila, lemon juice and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously.  Open the shaker, add the sparkling wine (do not shake!) and strain into the ice filled glass.

Flame a twist of lemon (hold peel between two fingers, light a match and bring close to the peel without touching it, let spark and then blow out the match), and then run it around the lip of the glass.  Drop into drink when done!

Note: Flaming the lemon may seem a little crazy, but it smells great and heats up the oils in the peel, so when you then rub it on the lip of the glass you get tiny taste of fiery lemon.

Making the simple syrup a day or two before will simplify this drink to the point of ‘too easy not to make it.’  I recommend going that route.  The end result is a fun little drink that has lovely notes of berry and citrus, and if you can’t imagine the tequila and wine together, don’t worry – it works!  It’s a tiny bit like sangria, but mostly just refreshing and lightly sweet.

Recommended for: a simple, summery cocktail to make for yourself or share with friends on a warm evening.

Interested in other food-related posts?  Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking.

code name verity

My favorite film is an obscure one, and it is based on a novel by Sebastian Faulks (I’ve never read the book, actually).  Charlotte Gray features actress Cate Blanchett in the titular role as a Scottish woman who parachutes into France as a WWII intelligence operative, only to see her mission crumble around her.  It’s not a light or happy story, but it makes for a beautiful film, and is both visually and emotionally vivid.  Given that my favorite movie is about a woman sent to France as a spy, Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity was either going to succeed or fail in spectacular fashion.  My heart will never be the same, because Code Name Verity is PERFECT.

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. 

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. 

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.

When a young Scottish woman is arrested by the Nazis for spying in France, her interrogation and confession become not only a desperate revelation of secrets that might keep her alive for a few days longer, but also an unspooling of her memories and friendship with Maddie, a female pilot and mechanic who should not have been flying to France.  In tense moments and amid various reprisals, her testimony shines as brightly as her spirit, and the reader cannot help but hope that somehow, someway she’ll make it home.

What can I say about this book without ruining it for another reader?  It is one of the most convincing, beautiful stories of female friendship that I have ever seen put to paper – it is straight magic in that regard.  Maddie and ‘Verity’ come alive in each other’s eyes; they are real, beautiful young women with hearts and heads, idiosyncrasies and weaknesses.  They are possessed of such courage, determination and ferocity that it is impossible at the end of it all to remember that they are only fictional characters. 

Let me try again to make this sound professional and impartial: Code Name Verity is a taut, moving novel of friendship forged in the midst of World War II, when girls were being called upon to pilot planes, take on intelligence missions and serve their country in ways they never had been before.  This is a story of the line between truth and lies, of the intensity of human existence, of the importance of the family you make for yourself, and a patchwork of those indelible moments that scar, mold, and change a person forever.  It is beautiful and dangerous and heart-rending.

Ah, I don’t think I succeeded.  Here are a few other things I’ll say: I’ve owned this book since May (thanks to @Ginger_Clark’s badgering and many, many retweeted rave reviews), but I held off on reading it until yesterday.  I missed my book club meeting in the afternoon to finish it without spoilers.  Charlotte Gray happened to be on television as I finished the book (so. many. coincidences!), and then this morning it was awarded a Printz Honor.  All those rave reviews, the awards?  Deserved.  Code Name Verity left me a sobbing wreck of a human being, in the best way.

Recommended for: everyone (well, everyone age twelve and over), but especially those partial to historical fiction, WWII accounts and aviatrixes, and anyone who appreciates a haunting and wonderful story.

teaser tuesday (88)

It's Teaser Tuesday, a bookish blog meme hosted every week by MizB of Should Be Reading. Here's how it works:

Grab your current read and let it fall open to a random page (or if you're reading on an electronic device, pick a random number and scroll to that section). Post two or more sentences from that page, along with the book title and author. Share your find with others in the comments at Should Be Reading, and don't give anything vital away!

“You can see the Pennines all around the city of Stockport, green and bare with fast-moving stripes of cloud and sunlight gliding overhead like a Technicolor moving picture.  I know because I went on leave for a weekend and stayed with Maddie and her grandparents, and she took me on her motorbike up the Dark Peak, one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life.”

p. 8 of Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity