These are a few (!) of my favorite things ...

     'Tis the season for The Sound of Music to be shown on TV, though I'm not quite sure what-all it has to do with Christmas. Perhaps because it's a "family" movie, it seems appropriate to air it during a "family" time of year.

     At any rate, 'tis also the season for making lists (and, yes, checking them twice).

     My favorite novels and films are already listed in the left sidebar. So here are more of my favorite things:

 

Non-fiction books: Practically everyone who knows me knows I love everything Helene Hanff wrote. In fact, I wrote a whole post about her and her delightfully chatty, autobiographical books. They know, too, how much I love the ever-amusing travel memoirist Emily Kimbrough, of whom I wrote in this post. Like Helene Hanff, I am a tremendous Anglophile, so I also love Beverley Nichols (a man, not a woman, in case you didn't know), especially A Thatched Roof, A Village in a Valley, and his trilogy Merry Hall/Laughter on the Stairs/Sunlight on the Lawn.

 

Food stuff: Wowee. Let's see. I could eat pasta every single day. I like it simply prepared, though if you offered me a plate of cannelloni, I wouldn't spit in your eye. Seafood is a biggie with me, especially salmon, halibut, monkfish, shrimp, scallops, and lobster. And I looooove a good steak, prime rib or rib eye, medium rare. I'd have to say my favorite overall cuisine is Italian (oh, big surprise), then French and Chinese. I only like Filipino if it's my mother's. No one else's can compare. I never go out to Filipino restaurants anymore (heck, I have a hard time even finding Filipino restaurants) because they simply don't measure up to my mom's cooking.

     My most favorite dessert in the whole world (probably) is coconut cream pie. Not coconut meringue – coconut cream. Chocolate silk pie. Chocolate mousse. Chocolate pot de crème. Cream puffs, St. Honoré, St. Tropez (just about anything with pastry cream; I just love pastry cream).

 

Music: Baroque, baroque, and baroque for relaxation and "mood." Corelli first of all, Bach, Handel, Purcell, Monteverdi, all that ilk. I prefer instrumental, however; surprisingly, I seldom listen these days to vocal or choral. Piano repertoire – Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninov, whatever. I'm not fond of Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev. As to non-classical, I like old standards and singers such as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Jane Morgan, Vera Lynn, Rosemary Clooney, early Doris Day, Helen Ward, Helen Forrest, Mel Torme, Vic Damone. I never tire of the Beatles, especially early to mid-Beatles. Vintage Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan. Peter, Paul, and Mary. A special fondness for Blood, Sweat, and Tears and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Yes, I am a child of the 60's and early 70's.

 

TV: Come on; do you even have to ask? Okay, besides Frasier: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, The Paper Chase, The Antiques Roadshow, Chopped!, Iron Chef America, House Hunters International and, of course, Dancing with the Stars. I used to love Candace Olsen's old show Divine Design, and that great travel show of the early to mid-90's, Travelers. I miss Samantha Brown's European show. She's a kook.

 

Ways to spend time: Reading, antiquing, book hunting (in antiquarian bookstores), discovering great restaurants. Movies.

     My favorite part of the day is when I'm in prayer. I dedicate the first hour and a half of the morning to God, plus an hour in the evening and a half hour before bedtime. Nothing, however, compares to sitting in silent adoration before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, either exposed in the monstrance or hidden in the tabernacle. If I could, I would spend hours a day doing just that.

Spiritual writers: My favorite go-to books in this area are the ones written by, mysteriously, "A Carthusian," particularly They Speak by Silences. This beautiful little volume is comprised of very short (most of them shorter than one page) meditations and instructions written by a Carthusian monk to a novice. G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Elisabeth Leseur, Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (also his writings as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) are others I consult regularly. Among the canon of Saints: Catherine of Siena, Thérèse of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, and Pope John Paul II are my top faves. Of course, Thomas a Kempis' great classic Imitation of Christ; and I have also begun to use the Carmelite book of meditation Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalen.

 

Scripture: I find endless strength in the Gospels of John and Luke, as well as John's first epistle and Revelation, Romans (most particularly chapter 8), Galatians, Ephesians, the epistles of Peter, most of Isaiah, much of Jeremiah, Sirach, and of course the Psalms. So much more; impossible to list here.