Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

I can see if some of my shorter books help with spell outs.

Is anyone really good at making curries, salads, etc. that wants to go through our ingredients and try to make some tasty meals?

I will probably have some time at night this week to work on meals but my work schedule is kind of crazy during the day. I also still have tons of books to update. It's been a wild couple of weeks. I don't mind looking for meals this week and I know when Sunday rolls around that I will have lots more time.

I just read one that we can use for UBE

I'll take a stab this week on making up some menu order items with the ingredients we have on hand. We were a little short last month, and have a high swinbourne rating, so this round we should expect even more customers. I think we should aim to have 180 menu items if we can.

Any specific items I should focus on? Stick mostly to frozen, with maybe 30% fresh items?

We get more points with fresh...I’d strive for a balance...thinking 40% fresh though...I think more meals

I’m going to try to get my 500 plus page books updated in between patients and work today. It looks like a lighter clinic day but that can always change pretty fast. I just went ahead and bought kulti because it was a really good book and I’ll probably want to read it again at some point.

I had tons of good ingredients in Hands Down. One book done, going to see a few kids and then I'll come back and work on a second one.

I'm at work and it's crazy today but I'm hoping to get a few more of my books updated. I need to find that list of words worth more points because even if it's not ube it may still be helpful like avocados.

I'm going to make a crazy pasta dish with this The Piano Teacher book. It's set in Hong Kong and they eat jellyfish a lot and vermicelli noodles. I'll work on that one later. Also, I'm just putting the words below that I'm specifically working for for extra points so I can find them easier. Yes, I'm rambling but I'm on phone duty for a couple hours so I'm multi-tasking. I've got watermelon coming up in two books also. I'm still looking for a good U in one of my shorter books for UBE. I totally think we can get 180 meals. I will definitely have time Sunday to power through and make meals.




17-20 You're the hottest place in town this week and everyone wants to try your meals. Now is the time to think about what your niche market is looking for to maintain your popularity
Meals with the word "ube", "watermelon", or "legume" in the text or title, or used as a spell-it-out will attract more adults for round 2

Just to clarify on our bonus words...our words are listed in the 17-20 range only

Ohhhh, I totally didn't pay attention to that. I had in my head that the numbers at the beginning were the additional points that we would get. Sorry for that confusion, I fixed my post and my words that I'm hunting down. I have watermelon though! It's been a long couple of weeks. I also have utmost respect for people who are phones all day long. Being on this phone the past couple hours has been a hot mess.

Will this work for watermelon? Can it be in the title?

I think we could use the word "watermelon" in the title or text of that recipe whatever it is we create from this book.

Some thanksgiving themed dishes might be fun

30 books to go...7 days to finish round 2

I made a few meal tonight...we need

2x U
and 3 vinegars...if someone can spare these, please fill in...thanks!

Cool, I have books to add and words to add. I'm pretty sure that I have vinegar once maybe twice. I have a U coming up in a power read weekend situation. Sunday, I plan on sitting at the kitchen table with snacks, paper, a pen, and an audiobook while I update all my books and words and make meals. I think Thanksgiving meals would be good so I can work on adding some of those. I also found waffles, pancake syrup and chicken in a book so I'm thinking a waffle breakfast sandwich may be a good addition also.

bamaace83 wrote: "Cool, I have books to add and words to add. I'm pretty sure that I have vinegar once maybe twice. I have a U coming up in a power read weekend situation. Sunday, I plan on sitting at the kitchen ta..."

perfecto

I added eleven books tonight that all have a page count over 300. If we want/need more books I can add those as well. I have a lot that are between 200-299. I'll add the foods for those books tomorrow. The Summoning won't add a number of items I can use, I guess because Jenny already use her maximum for the same title. Do I need to remove it or can that be fixed?

Yes that was the problem. I changed your book title to The Summoning2, but it's really the same book I read. Now you have 8 items.

Okay we have space for six more books this round.

I have a 532 page book I'm reading that I need to get done by tomorrow. If it has enough food/drink items, that would give us 12 more ingredients.

We also need two Us for SIOs, and 2 vinegars to make fish and chips with vinegar. It looks like Vicki has a U book and Anna has a U book, so that works out. We also have at least 2 vinegars in books already posted/read, so that works out.

So, no need to worry about finding anything particular at this point.

@Shannon, have you read these books?

The Screaming Staircase
Truly Devious

@Ann, have you read these books?

Marriage for One
Watermelon

@Anna, have you read these books?

Wait For It
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
The Best of Me
The Summer I Turned Pretty
November 9
Game for Seduction
Under the Covers
Taken By Tuesday

@Tammie, have you read these books?

The Thorn Birds

It is a power house reading weekend for me. I'm determined to move along some of my challenges. I finished 2 of those books last night. I will read most of them this weekend but November 9th I'm going to read on November 9th. I can also take off a couple of the 200 page books I added somewhere to get a book with more ingredients. I have Lady Luck that I'm planning on reading next week which is a 12 ingredient book. I will have almost all afternoon tomorrow to work on adding my words and make meals.

I’m still reading...over 700 pgs
I’ll read at least 2 more with more than 300 pgs...will put them on the SS.

I took off one of my little 200 page books that didn't have U in it or vinegar and replaced it with Lady Luck. That still saves spots for bigger books. One of my tiny books had watermelon in it which I was happy about. Do you think a good fruit salad would work for salad? I'm thinking watermelon, pineapple, and some other fruits I have in places.

bamaace83 wrote: "I took off one of my little 200 page books that didn't have U in it or vinegar and replaced it with Lady Luck. That still saves spots for bigger books. One of my tiny books had watermelon in it whi..."

Yes a very good idea. I’ve been googling recipes for some of mine...it’s been helpful.

I’ll have more books, but won’t plan to add more either...I’ll remove shorter books as needed to make room. I did use a few shorter books for spell out so those may need to stay.

I love that K. Ashley series. She drones on a bit...her style...but the stories a very good.

I'll have to spend time with google tomorrow. I have some random ingredients in places. My reading has been all over the boards lately because of some of these random challenges. Yes, I read the first two and I liked them. They do ramble some but the overall stories are good. Plus, there is usually a bar involved which means more alcohol and drink words. :)

Let's just make sure we don't leave any unread books on our list of 90 total books we can read. I'll go through my books that are posted and make sure the SIO letters are used or the items are used, and if not clearly mark off what has been used.

Jammin Jenny wrote: "Let's just make sure we don't leave any unread books on our list of 90 total books we can read. I'll go through my books that are posted and make sure the SIO letters are used or the items are used..."

Thanks Jenny...I'd like to ask that our reading be done by Thursday so last minute whatever can be taken care of. Happy reading everyone!

I've caught us up on naming meals. If you can, please try to name your meals inspired by the books used to make them.

As you all review, if you can make the names even better...please feel free to do so :)

From the mods in prep of finish and Round 3...


Google Reviews


Now your restraurants are in full swing, some of your customers are going to start leaving google reviews and a score out of 5 after the end of round 2.

Customers can leave reviews for a variety of reasons. But as a guide, they will be looking at:

* Variety of dishes
* Names of the dishes served
* Ability to feed all customers
* Name and description of restaurant


This gives an overall google review score out of 5 which will give you the option of certain additions to your meals to better attract Adult customers when you open in round 3.

Google Score


Score Round 3 Additions

17-20 Nice work! Customers are starting to take photos for Instagram and even doing Tik Tok videos outside!
Meals with the word "instagram", "chic", or "trendy" in the text or title, or used as a spell-it-out will attract more adults for round 3

13-16 You're doing well and locals are still testing you out. It will take a bit more though to attract a broader base of customers.
Meals with the word "local", "neighbourhood / neighborhood", or "quality" in the text or title, or used as a spell-it-out will attract more adults for round 3

6-12 Now known as "cheap and cheerful" you attract families which mean messy children.
Meals with the word "crayon", "mess", or "hectic" in the text or title, or used as a spell-it-out will attract more adults for round 3

0-5 Your chef quit. Try a new theme for round 3. Pensioners will be attracted to your restaurant, but you will need to work to get other groups in the door
Meals with the word "old", "refresh", or "retire" in the text or title, or used as a spell-it-out will attract more adults for round 3

I just added my 1000 foods to one book...slight hyperbole but I probably could. LOL

That one book has SO many less often found words, so if anyone finds something and it's not crossed off, feel free if you find something you need to make a meal. I'll be working on meals too. I have my other books to add the foods for so I'll be trying to finish that tonight or at the latest tomorrow.

POST #384 looks like the FUN is really beginning!

BTW can we add whole foods such as "pecan crusted trout" or "blue cheese cream sauce" if it was listed like that in the book?

I think so.

Tammie, do you know?

Vicki wrote: "BTW can we add whole foods such as "pecan crusted trout" or "blue cheese cream sauce" if it was listed like that in the book?"

You can, but you still need the minimum ingredients for whatever dish you are making. This option works best for coffee, other drinks and desserts where there is only one ingredient required

Both of your examples would be a start for a pasta dish I think

I've just added several meals but need help coming up with catchy names. Let me see if I can find a shorter book for spell-outs to get some of those E's. I still have meals to make and a couple books more to add but whew. I've been sitting here for a couple hours so I'm going to take a break and come back tonight and work on it some more. We are going to a national park for a few days Monday-Thursday this week. I haven't finished reading a couple books but I'm going to spend tonight finding all the words for the books so then all we have to do is add the read date and make meals with them. If anyone can find mint in a book, we could make a watermelon, cucumber, mint salad. I saw a cucumber left and I still have a couple watermelons in a book that I need to place. I'll be back later to work on that. :)

Uh oh there are no spots left so I can't get an E book. Maybe when it's all filled in later this week we will be able to fill in those E's. I'm going to add the words for the books that I'm reading and then I can just do read dates and menu items.

Do any of your E books have Us in them too? If so, you could take my spot for #90 - Unpunished. I was just going to read it for the U.

I think we need to rethink what we spell out for those last menu items. There are a lot of unused letters in our SIO options, and if we add in the unspelled items (except for the one UBE item), we have these letters to work with;

A - 1
B - 1
C - 1
D - 2
F - 1
H - 2
J - 1
L - 1
M - 2
N - 1
Q - 1
R - 1
S - 2
T - 4
U - 1
W: 1
Y - 1

Can anyone think of any ingredients we can make out of these letters?

PLUS we can move the U we have down there to cover the U we need in one of the earlier meals!!

ETA: Here are some I can think of:

YAMS
HAM
CATFiSH - if we can use your E book for an I too
RAM
SALT

maybe if we could find another A we could use HAM and SALT to make a ham salad - FRESH SALAD??

Let me go do some more searching. I have to find a book with a horse on the cover so let me see if I can find one that has all three of those things. :)

I can save that horse book for later this week. Here is one option:

If Wishes Were Earls by Elizabeth Boyle

So spell out options for it would be:
Author: E, B
Title: I
Series: R
Characters: H, H, T, B

Those are the ones on the goodreads page but I'm sure there are more characters. This could be a good option. Just no U.

Hi guys! I accidentally added two books twice so I removed the repeats. There's empty space for two more books on lines 101-102

Here's another option:

Until the Dawn by Elizabeth Camden

Author: E, C
Title: U
Series: U
Characters: S, R, Q, V

That one gives us two U's to play with and an E but not sure what all characters will show up here either.

Anna, your book on Nov 6 we were using for SIO, the title/book link got messed up - someone accidentally pasted a list of characters in that spot. It might have been me, but I don't know for sure :)

bamaace83 wrote: "Here's another option:

Until the Dawn by Elizabeth Camden

Author: E, C
Title: U
Series: U
Characters: S, R, Q, V

That one gives us two U's to play with and an E ..."

I like that idea. Can you read it in time?

Yeah, I can read it in time. I'll go add that one to the spreadsheet and I fixed the other one. I'll put it in one of the empty spaces.

Awesome! Great team work!!