Three types of butter

It came as no surprise tonight that butter was on the dinner menu for a book group that had just read the novel Butter. Christine made three types for us: salted butter, brown butter, and honey butter, blipped here left to right. They were all delicious with sesame seed bread. 

The rest of the meal comprised salmon poached with ginger, garlic, honey and soy accompanied by pak choi and rice as our main course, and then quatre quart cake served with homemade buttermilk ice cream and raspberries for pudding. What a feast!

Of the seven who came along this evening, one loved Butter, one liked it a lot, three enjoyed it but not to a great extent, and two didn't manage to finish it. I am one of the three that 'enjoyed it but not to a great extent'. I thought that the book was well constructed and written, and that it covered some important themes. However, I felt that it could have achieved as much had it been slightly shorter. I also struggled a little to follow the characters because I kept mixing everyone up. This probably comes from reading the book in short bursts at bedtime. I'm glad that I read it, but it's not the type of novel that I would be pushing under people's noses, begging them to read it too.

I went to the gym this morning for my usual Monday swim. Ali is injured at the moment so I didn't see her in the pool. Instead I called into her flat for a quick cup of tea on my way home at lunchtime. 

My afternoon was dedicated to preparing for the overnight stays of Winsford and LauraMuir, and editing a Wikipedia entry at the kitchen table with the latter. ArcLight also joined us for a wee while before we all set off to Christine's house for our book group meeting.

For other reports of the afternoon and evening, please see the blips for today by:

ArcLight - features Winsford, Mr hazelh, LauraMuir and me at my kitchen table
LauraMuir - compares her grandson's food with ours
Ridgeback13 - includes a collage of the other courses
Winsford - shows a close-up of the rice dish that came with our main course

Exercise today: 1 hour on the exercise bike; swim (60 lengths); walking (21,752 steps).