Beach Reads by Ali Rosen

 LUCY BURDETTE: Ali Rosen visited us a while back and we enjoyed not only her first novel, but also her recipe for Amalfi Lemon Pasta. We’re thrilled that she’s back today with a second novel, and watch your waistlines—a recipe for Irish cheddar gougeres. Welcome Ali!

ALI ROSEN: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the term ‘beach read’ and what we all hope to get out of our reading in the summer. 

Among non-readers (or reading snobs!) there’s this idea that a beach read is vapid. That it’s meant to not challenge. As a romance writer, I see this dismissal all times of year, but there’s a certain synergy with summer and vacation that seems to make these stereotypes raise their heads even more.

But for those of us who love reading, summer is just a chance to maybe have a bit more time for our favorite escape and to perhaps get to do it outside. Winter is snuggling up on the couch with a book and summer is lying on a lounger in the warm weather. Maybe the mood strikes for something a little different (cozy mysteries vs sunshine escapes), but the sentiment to me is the same. A book is an adventure. A book is there to take me somewhere new. A book propels me inside someone else’s life. 

I think the assumption of frothiness in a beach read is because it often relates to books where we know the shades of the ending before we start. With a romance or a women’s fiction beach read, we’re guaranteed our happy ending. But to me, the knowledge of a happy ending can contain so much more depth than other books because it cocoons us enough to explore the complexities of life without the fear of them hurting us. 

My newest book, Alternate Endings, has all those fun trappings of a beach read—it’s a romance set across New York and Ireland and features all the hijinks you want out of a romcom (falling out of boats! sexy castles! a precocious kid!). But it tackles some headier topics that I hope resonate with the women who read it: what happens when we reach middle age and don’t actually have everything figured out as promised? How do we balance being mothers and career women who also want a romantic life? Can we ever become brave enough to not only ask for what we want, but just know what we want? 

For me, that’s the best kind of beach read. Because as women and readers, we contain all those multitudes. We want thoughtful prose along with our fun. So I’m going to wear the beach reader label as a badge of honor, and I hope you will too. I hope we all get time to ourselves on a beach (or wherever our summer vacations take us) to reflect on our lives while enjoying our books.

And since I can’t ignore my other favorite love - cooking! - I’m going to leave you not just with a recommendation to read my book (out now in paperback and on Kindle Unlimited for those digital readers like myself!) but also with an Irish recipe from it. Have a marvelous start to summer everyone!

What's a book everyone described as a beach read but has sat with you forever and changed your perspective?

Irish Cheddar GOUGÈRES

This is an appetizer that no one can argue with: it’s cheese and bread—come on! Gougères are technically French, but we’re making them Irish here with one of the best exports you can get from the Emerald Isle—assuming you can get Irish cheddar, of course.

Makes 30–35 small gougères.

Ingredients

1 cup water

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

5 large eggs

2 cups grated cheddar cheese (Irish cheddar preferred)

Preheat the oven to 450˚F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine the water, butter, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn the heat to low and immediately add the flour, whisking it into the liquid. You want to stir quickly and long enough for the dough to get drier and much smoother—a bit of starch on the bottom is totally fine. Transfer to the bowl of a mixer and allow to cool for a few minutes. Then add the eggs slowly as the dough mixes (if you don’t have a stand mixer, you can use a hand mixer, but put it on a low setting). The eggs should be fully mixed in and incorporated. Then add the cheese and fully incorporate that—the dough should be sticky but manageable.

Scoop out the dough into approximately 1-tablespoon balls and place them on the parchment paper.

Put the gougères in the oven and immediately turn it down to 350˚F. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through. They should be golden and puffy when cooked.

Note: you can also freeze the uncooked balls and then cook them for just a few minutes longer, and they should turn out almost completely the same.

About Ali Rosen:

Ali Rosen is a bestselling writer of both cookbooks and novels, and is the Emmy and James Beard Award-nominated host of Potluck with Ali Rosen on NYC Life. Her first novel is the #1 Amazon romance Recipe for Second Chances and her second, Alternate Endings, is coming May 7th. She is also the author of the cookbooks 15 Minute Meals, Modern Freezer Meals and Bring It!. She's been featured everywhere from The Today Show to The New York Times and has written for publications including Bon Appetit, Wine Enthusiast and New York Magazine. She is originally from Charleston, SC but now lives in New York City with her husband and three kids and can usually be found cooking in her kitchen or curled up in a chair reading a romance novel.

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