I'm about to reveal to you one of my best secrets.
Down there in Isonville, Kentucky, they've got a volunteer fire department to mind those little flare-ups that happen when, say, somebody tosses a cigarette out of his truck and it lands in the woods at the roadside. To earn money for a new (probably used) pumper truck or some hoses or something, they have to do a little fund-raising.
Enter Kristen, long-lost relative, in the year they sold their Isonville Volunteer Fire Dept. #889 cookbooks. What do our southern relatives eat? Escalloped Summer Squash, Red Velvet Cake, Kenney's Home Fries and lots of the same Cool-Whip-and-pudding desserts that the rest of us like.
Headlining the "Bread, Rolls, Pies, and Pastry" section is a little treasure called Angel Flake Biscuits:
5 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
3 TB sugar
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cups vegetable shortening
1/2 cup lukewarm water
2 cups buttermilk
Sift together into mixing bowl, flour, baking powder, sugar, soda and salt. Cut in shortening. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water; add to flour mixture. Then add buttermilk. Work together with large spoon until all flour is moistened. Cover bowl; store in refrigerator. When ready to use take out amount desired. Roll out on floured board to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake 12 minutes in 400' oven. NOTE (theirs): This recipe makes 6 dozen light, flaky biscuits. The dough will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
NOTE (mine): I thought they liked big biscuits down there. If it makes 6 dozen, they must be no bigger than Whoppers. When I make them, they are big and sweet and puffy and kind of hard to stay away from. Anyway, for those of you that care, divide 3,875 by the number of biscuits you get, and there's your calories.
Grandma Ison once lamented that she could never make light fluffy biscuits like her mother could. I sent her this recipe and even some brand-new biscuits cutters with handles on them like they have at McDonald's and I think all of it promptly got lost and forgotten in one of her drawers. Anybody willing to dig out the cutters and make these for her?
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card, the second book in the Alvin Maker series. This one required more patience. "Harsher, bleaker and more mystical than Seventh Son," said one reviewer. Quite true.
I had to endure a great deal of Red Man talk about White Man bad, kill the land, go back on boat where come from. And I can't help but read a book as if were already a movie, which makes me puzzle over how the actor is going to say lines like "This is the oath of the land at peace" without wishing he'd been called up for a Pepsi commercial instead.
Despite all the magic, Card's story follows history and geography closely enough that I'm apt to open my next history book and feel shocked that certain real-life players died after certain real-life battles. "No, no! Alvin healed him!"
But I'm sticking with the series. It's all going somewhere. Right, Melanie?
Monday, June 1, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Prom Dining at the Food Court?
Ah, Memorial Day. Best one in a long time. Mercy introduced us to Bexley, where the streets are shady, the vast lawns are landscaped by skilled hands, the driveways are long, curving, bricked, and the houses -- excuse me -- the manors are dignified. At one of the larger ones, I expected Captain Von Trapp to pop around the corner and scowl at me.
That is not all. We found what appears to be the favorite mall of Columbus' teenage girls. At one table in the food court, eight kids were dressed for prom night--sequins and dramatic eyeliner on the girls, bow ties and nervous clowning on the boys. A few tables away, another young group dressed for the Goth prom looked like they were all peeved at each other.
On Monday, Mercy directed us to a shady park. We met Martha and her boys. We ate. And here is what we ate, so you can eat it too:
Curry Chicken Croissants
Country Baked Beans
Fruit Salad w/ Apricot Dressing
COCOA FUDGE CAKE (It was John's birthday. Thanks, John, for giving us an excuse to eat cake)
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Heat oven to 350'. Spray a 9x13-in. pan with PAM. Beat all ingredients in large mixer bowl on low speed, scraping bowl constantly, 30 seconds. Beat on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally 3 minutes. Pour into pan.
Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes; cool. Frost with Vanilla Butter Frosting.
VANILLA BUTTER FROSTING
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup margarine
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
About 2 TB milk
Mix all ingredients until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, I really have finished Alice Munro's View From Castle Rock by now. In the second half, I liked "Hired Girl" and "Home."
"Hired Girl" is one of those stories that, while I read it, I kept saying, "Yep, that's the way it is." The young heroine spends the summer working for people that own an island. In her mind, she's a person. But when she prepares lunch one day for the mistress, the mistress' daughter and herself, she carries the three plates out to the patio. "Oh, no, no," says the mistress. "Only two plates. You'll be eating in the kitchen." Great examination of class boundaries.
"Home" is the kind of story that, while I read it, I wondered how it would have been if it had happened in our family. The narrator visits home. Her mother has died. Her father has re-married. The sights along the route are the same, the kitchen is the same, but the table and chairs have been moved to the barn, the front rooms re-papered. "I don't go into the front room now to rummage in the piano bench for old photographs and sheet music. . . . The books that used to lie under beds and on tables all over the house have been corralled by Irlma, chased and squeezed into this front-room bookcase, glass doors shut upon them." It was a story about change, and what the changes say about who is in charge, about who hangs on to sentimental feelings and who lets them go.
No cow patties in Munro's stories, only some strong whiffs.
That is not all. We found what appears to be the favorite mall of Columbus' teenage girls. At one table in the food court, eight kids were dressed for prom night--sequins and dramatic eyeliner on the girls, bow ties and nervous clowning on the boys. A few tables away, another young group dressed for the Goth prom looked like they were all peeved at each other.
On Monday, Mercy directed us to a shady park. We met Martha and her boys. We ate. And here is what we ate, so you can eat it too:
Curry Chicken Croissants
Country Baked Beans
Fruit Salad w/ Apricot Dressing
COCOA FUDGE CAKE (It was John's birthday. Thanks, John, for giving us an excuse to eat cake)
1 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Heat oven to 350'. Spray a 9x13-in. pan with PAM. Beat all ingredients in large mixer bowl on low speed, scraping bowl constantly, 30 seconds. Beat on high speed, scraping bowl occasionally 3 minutes. Pour into pan.
Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes; cool. Frost with Vanilla Butter Frosting.
VANILLA BUTTER FROSTING
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup margarine
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
About 2 TB milk
Mix all ingredients until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, I really have finished Alice Munro's View From Castle Rock by now. In the second half, I liked "Hired Girl" and "Home."
"Hired Girl" is one of those stories that, while I read it, I kept saying, "Yep, that's the way it is." The young heroine spends the summer working for people that own an island. In her mind, she's a person. But when she prepares lunch one day for the mistress, the mistress' daughter and herself, she carries the three plates out to the patio. "Oh, no, no," says the mistress. "Only two plates. You'll be eating in the kitchen." Great examination of class boundaries.
"Home" is the kind of story that, while I read it, I wondered how it would have been if it had happened in our family. The narrator visits home. Her mother has died. Her father has re-married. The sights along the route are the same, the kitchen is the same, but the table and chairs have been moved to the barn, the front rooms re-papered. "I don't go into the front room now to rummage in the piano bench for old photographs and sheet music. . . . The books that used to lie under beds and on tables all over the house have been corralled by Irlma, chased and squeezed into this front-room bookcase, glass doors shut upon them." It was a story about change, and what the changes say about who is in charge, about who hangs on to sentimental feelings and who lets them go.
No cow patties in Munro's stories, only some strong whiffs.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Not that I really want to see January again
Don't want to overwhelm ya'll or anything, but I have more good stuff to share.
For instance, January is a long way off, isn't it? January is when the little Girl Scouts in your neighborhood come around and offer you cookies. January is when you can look forward to your Thin Mint fix. Of course, the seven boxes of Thin Mints you order won't show up until March. And March is a really, really long way off, isn't it? Are you sure you're gonna make it 'til then?
No? Getting a little shaky?
I hear ya. So let's tide ourselves over with Mint Sandwich Cookies.
"Store in an airtight container at room temperature," says the recipe. Who are they kidding? Yeah, and the Girl Scouts say you can store their cookies in your freezer, but that only works if nobody in your thieving family knows where the freezer is (or how to open it).
Your best source for chocolate candy coating is the craft store. I found it near the cake decorating supplies. If any of you are experienced dippers, maybe you can give me some hints. I used toothpicks to shove the cookies around in the chocolate, then tongs to pull them out. If you've got a better way, I'll listen.
After the leftover chocolate hardened for a few days, I tried to warm it up and dip strawberries in it. Most chocolate-dipped strawberries look like Eliza Doolittle at the ball. Mine looked like Eliza on the streetcorner. But they tasted so good, John and I didn't care.
As for the Finished Book Pile, we'll cheat again and report on the half-finished View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro.
Miss Munro scoured her Scottish genealogy and spun the facts about all those uncles, aunts and grandparents into short stories. She inserts herself into the stories with phrases like "I remember . . ." or "Uncle James wrote a letter that said . . ." so they read a little more like a well-done history than a traditional exposition/complication/resolution story arc.
When she can get away from the "I remember"s, she keeps me turning the pages as the characters bob along on the ship to America, then on across the prairie. She makes them real. This one's an old fool. That one's an irritable wench. Here's your good and patient big brother. There's your conniving young son. Who stole the baby? Why did the villagers play that terrible joke on the brother and sister?
The family stories make up the first half of Munro's book. The second half is . . . um . . . 'scuse me while I go read the second half.
For instance, January is a long way off, isn't it? January is when the little Girl Scouts in your neighborhood come around and offer you cookies. January is when you can look forward to your Thin Mint fix. Of course, the seven boxes of Thin Mints you order won't show up until March. And March is a really, really long way off, isn't it? Are you sure you're gonna make it 'til then?
No? Getting a little shaky?
I hear ya. So let's tide ourselves over with Mint Sandwich Cookies.
"Store in an airtight container at room temperature," says the recipe. Who are they kidding? Yeah, and the Girl Scouts say you can store their cookies in your freezer, but that only works if nobody in your thieving family knows where the freezer is (or how to open it).
Your best source for chocolate candy coating is the craft store. I found it near the cake decorating supplies. If any of you are experienced dippers, maybe you can give me some hints. I used toothpicks to shove the cookies around in the chocolate, then tongs to pull them out. If you've got a better way, I'll listen.
After the leftover chocolate hardened for a few days, I tried to warm it up and dip strawberries in it. Most chocolate-dipped strawberries look like Eliza Doolittle at the ball. Mine looked like Eliza on the streetcorner. But they tasted so good, John and I didn't care.
As for the Finished Book Pile, we'll cheat again and report on the half-finished View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro.
Miss Munro scoured her Scottish genealogy and spun the facts about all those uncles, aunts and grandparents into short stories. She inserts herself into the stories with phrases like "I remember . . ." or "Uncle James wrote a letter that said . . ." so they read a little more like a well-done history than a traditional exposition/complication/resolution story arc.
When she can get away from the "I remember"s, she keeps me turning the pages as the characters bob along on the ship to America, then on across the prairie. She makes them real. This one's an old fool. That one's an irritable wench. Here's your good and patient big brother. There's your conniving young son. Who stole the baby? Why did the villagers play that terrible joke on the brother and sister?
The family stories make up the first half of Munro's book. The second half is . . . um . . . 'scuse me while I go read the second half.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Set in Idaho??
The empty nest thing is going fine, thank you, so far. What we lack in excitement, we make up for by digging into the next library book, which means that the Finished Book Pile is a small stack which we must catch up on.
First, there's Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones. Olivia starts on a pretty good hook. British Olivia has, well, an overactive imagination and its gets her in trouble on the job; she's a journalist. She longs to cover hard news, important stuff. But her editor, weary of her embellishments, sends her to cover the launch of a new face cream in Miami. Olivia meets the face cream magnate, who looks eerily familiar, like . . . like . . . Aha! Like a very famous bad man (I won't spoil it by naming him) who, in the face cream business, has devised a perfect cover for doing his bad deeds.
Olivia feels rapidly written. As Fielding threw more characters and plot twists in my path, I said to myself, Ah, Miss Fielding has decided to try her hand at mystery.
Things gel at about page 200 and, mind you, this is a 300-page book. If you decide to take it on, expect a cow patty count of about 1 1/4.
Next, we move on to The Sheep Queen by Thomas Savage. Have you ever read a novel set in, rarest of places, Idaho? Well, don't miss your chance. Read this one.
On the book jacket, Savage is praised for his mastery of the simple declarative sentence and I agree. It was a pleasure to read him.
In his story, a child is given up for adoption. Then she grows up and starts searching.
For me, the resolution wasn't terribly clear or satisfying, but I enjoyed the journey. It was a little hard to keep the names straight--birth mother, adoptive mother, birth mother's false name on the certificate, Thomas somebody in this generation, another Thomas in the next. I should have made a chart as I read, but I pretty well got the idea. I would not be able to explain it all to you, but why should I? Read it yourself.
No cow patties.
Meanwhile, if you need an idea for something to eat, I suggest: Olive Cheese Bread
Anybody watch What About Bob? Anybody remember him moaning and sighing through the family dinner scene? I've watched people do the same over this bread.
But do take precautions. I served it at a luncheon of friends. I talked. I laughed. I smiled as I hugged them and sent them out the door. Then I looked in the mirror and saw the little olive bits stuck in my teeth.
First, there's Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones. Olivia starts on a pretty good hook. British Olivia has, well, an overactive imagination and its gets her in trouble on the job; she's a journalist. She longs to cover hard news, important stuff. But her editor, weary of her embellishments, sends her to cover the launch of a new face cream in Miami. Olivia meets the face cream magnate, who looks eerily familiar, like . . . like . . . Aha! Like a very famous bad man (I won't spoil it by naming him) who, in the face cream business, has devised a perfect cover for doing his bad deeds.
Olivia feels rapidly written. As Fielding threw more characters and plot twists in my path, I said to myself, Ah, Miss Fielding has decided to try her hand at mystery.
Things gel at about page 200 and, mind you, this is a 300-page book. If you decide to take it on, expect a cow patty count of about 1 1/4.
Next, we move on to The Sheep Queen by Thomas Savage. Have you ever read a novel set in, rarest of places, Idaho? Well, don't miss your chance. Read this one.
On the book jacket, Savage is praised for his mastery of the simple declarative sentence and I agree. It was a pleasure to read him.
In his story, a child is given up for adoption. Then she grows up and starts searching.
For me, the resolution wasn't terribly clear or satisfying, but I enjoyed the journey. It was a little hard to keep the names straight--birth mother, adoptive mother, birth mother's false name on the certificate, Thomas somebody in this generation, another Thomas in the next. I should have made a chart as I read, but I pretty well got the idea. I would not be able to explain it all to you, but why should I? Read it yourself.
No cow patties.
Meanwhile, if you need an idea for something to eat, I suggest: Olive Cheese Bread
Anybody watch What About Bob? Anybody remember him moaning and sighing through the family dinner scene? I've watched people do the same over this bread.
But do take precautions. I served it at a luncheon of friends. I talked. I laughed. I smiled as I hugged them and sent them out the door. Then I looked in the mirror and saw the little olive bits stuck in my teeth.
Monday, April 27, 2009
In the college-girl kitchen
I'm living the college-girl life this week. I'm shacked up in Emma's room, where I find a wall calendar with due dates for assignments, textbooks stacked beside her bed, and the student herself frowning over her schoolwork.
So if you get the urge to cook while visiting a college student/working girl, the food better be quick and require minimum kitchen equipment. Out of all the dinner ideas I brought to her, Emma said, "Let's definitely do this one."
CHICKEN SALSA PIZZA
CRISP GRAHAM COOKIES
YIELD: 7 doz. 2-in cookies which, if you can make them that small, will have 64 calories each. Goodness, who could possibly make them that small? We came out with 39 cookies and three (or was it four, Emma?) spoonfuls of raw dough.
If the dough seems a little sticky, throw in a couple spoonfuls of flour.
As for the Finished Book Pile, I forgot to mention Freakonomics by Steven Levitt. Finished it weeks ago. Returned it to the library rather efficiently. Forgot it while I dove into research-type reading.
Levitt, as economists go, can't keep his mind on truly boring economic stuff, but spends his days wondering about questions like Do schoolteachers cheat? and What were your parents telling the world when they gave you your name? Being an economist, he's comfortable with numbers and data, which he uses to answer these compelling little questions. Title chapters include: "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" and "What Makes a Perfect Parent?"
I'm currently working my way through Mark Winegardner's Crooked River Burning, a novel about . . . Cleveland. Hey, out in the Midwest, they call Cleveland "the mistake on the lake," referring to the time when it had polluted its waters so badly, they caught fire.
So what has Winegardner got to say about Cleveland?
He starts his story back in the '40s when, according to the jacket, "Cleveland was America's sixth biggest city," a decent place, a hometown to be proud of. His story, complete with star-crossed lovers, advances to 1969, by which time Cleveland had lost population and prestige. Readers like me are willing to let Winegardner tell us: what happened?
Readers like me are not, however, willing to read about Cleveland Indians' baseball games. Winegardner likes to give us blow-by-blow accounts of famous games, or infamous ones, I don't know and don't care. Easily skipped.
He's a fun writer when he's not trying to be too glib. I can see him sometimes, taking a writerly break, making a sandwich and repeating to himself some phrase he just wrote, feeling awfully proud of it, juggling the mayo and the mustard playfully as he puts them back in the fridge.
Cow patty count for this book is 2 1/2 or 3 out of 10.
So if you get the urge to cook while visiting a college student/working girl, the food better be quick and require minimum kitchen equipment. Out of all the dinner ideas I brought to her, Emma said, "Let's definitely do this one."
CHICKEN SALSA PIZZA
CRISP GRAHAM COOKIES
YIELD: 7 doz. 2-in cookies which, if you can make them that small, will have 64 calories each. Goodness, who could possibly make them that small? We came out with 39 cookies and three (or was it four, Emma?) spoonfuls of raw dough.
If the dough seems a little sticky, throw in a couple spoonfuls of flour.
As for the Finished Book Pile, I forgot to mention Freakonomics by Steven Levitt. Finished it weeks ago. Returned it to the library rather efficiently. Forgot it while I dove into research-type reading.
Levitt, as economists go, can't keep his mind on truly boring economic stuff, but spends his days wondering about questions like Do schoolteachers cheat? and What were your parents telling the world when they gave you your name? Being an economist, he's comfortable with numbers and data, which he uses to answer these compelling little questions. Title chapters include: "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?" and "What Makes a Perfect Parent?"
I'm currently working my way through Mark Winegardner's Crooked River Burning, a novel about . . . Cleveland. Hey, out in the Midwest, they call Cleveland "the mistake on the lake," referring to the time when it had polluted its waters so badly, they caught fire.
So what has Winegardner got to say about Cleveland?
He starts his story back in the '40s when, according to the jacket, "Cleveland was America's sixth biggest city," a decent place, a hometown to be proud of. His story, complete with star-crossed lovers, advances to 1969, by which time Cleveland had lost population and prestige. Readers like me are willing to let Winegardner tell us: what happened?
Readers like me are not, however, willing to read about Cleveland Indians' baseball games. Winegardner likes to give us blow-by-blow accounts of famous games, or infamous ones, I don't know and don't care. Easily skipped.
He's a fun writer when he's not trying to be too glib. I can see him sometimes, taking a writerly break, making a sandwich and repeating to himself some phrase he just wrote, feeling awfully proud of it, juggling the mayo and the mustard playfully as he puts them back in the fridge.
Cow patty count for this book is 2 1/2 or 3 out of 10.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Too Much High-Livin' for Cookin'
Yes, Emma. Me and my laptop at Panera. I've joined the . . . the whatever-it-is-now generation.
Anyway, it was a high-living week, dashing down to Louisville on Wednesday to join my husband on his business trip. On Thursday, I wandered home in time to meet our guests, Jim and Mercy, who arrived at midnight. On Friday, Jim and I took Mercy to Chicago, where she'd never been before. "Pretty much like New York," she pronounced, "but I don't like the wind." When we could not find our way out of town, we learned that it does indeed matter whether you put the GPS in drive mode or pedestrian mode. Meanwhile, we drove around, quite lost, in some cool neighborhoods that bear further exploration. Once the GPS started being nice to us again, we drove home, arriving late, only to turn around the next morning and return to Louisville for a temple trip.
So after a few days like that, when you get back to the house, and the cat's litter box is full, and the laundry rises out of the hamper, climbing halfway up the wall, you still have church music to practice and something to get at the store, your wallet says you've already eaten out too much and--oh my goodness, when did there get to be so many dishes?--what do you fix to eat?
CHICKEN CAESAR SANDWICHES
As we go to the Finished Book Pile, we'll have to cheat just a little because we are not quite finished with Wendy Holder's Farm Fatale. This British novel is all about Londoners that think the country is peaceful, quiet and charming. So they decide to move there. You can well imagine the antics that follow. It's a fun read. Holder loves puns; to her credit, I don't remember any groaners.
Since this is a book about country life, we'll call the parts you should skip "cow patties." The chapter on Samantha's party is thick with 'em. Otherwise they are just now and then throughout the story, so just step carefully and you can avoid them.
Holder's earlier novels sound interesting, though I don't think I'll get to them anytime soon. They are: Simply Divine, and Bad Heir Day.
Anyway, it was a high-living week, dashing down to Louisville on Wednesday to join my husband on his business trip. On Thursday, I wandered home in time to meet our guests, Jim and Mercy, who arrived at midnight. On Friday, Jim and I took Mercy to Chicago, where she'd never been before. "Pretty much like New York," she pronounced, "but I don't like the wind." When we could not find our way out of town, we learned that it does indeed matter whether you put the GPS in drive mode or pedestrian mode. Meanwhile, we drove around, quite lost, in some cool neighborhoods that bear further exploration. Once the GPS started being nice to us again, we drove home, arriving late, only to turn around the next morning and return to Louisville for a temple trip.
So after a few days like that, when you get back to the house, and the cat's litter box is full, and the laundry rises out of the hamper, climbing halfway up the wall, you still have church music to practice and something to get at the store, your wallet says you've already eaten out too much and--oh my goodness, when did there get to be so many dishes?--what do you fix to eat?
CHICKEN CAESAR SANDWICHES
As we go to the Finished Book Pile, we'll have to cheat just a little because we are not quite finished with Wendy Holder's Farm Fatale. This British novel is all about Londoners that think the country is peaceful, quiet and charming. So they decide to move there. You can well imagine the antics that follow. It's a fun read. Holder loves puns; to her credit, I don't remember any groaners.
Since this is a book about country life, we'll call the parts you should skip "cow patties." The chapter on Samantha's party is thick with 'em. Otherwise they are just now and then throughout the story, so just step carefully and you can avoid them.
Holder's earlier novels sound interesting, though I don't think I'll get to them anytime soon. They are: Simply Divine, and Bad Heir Day.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
How to Fake an Enchilada
Well, starting with The Finished Book Pile as I sit here in a Panera in Louisville, we have Invisible Ink by Carl Veno. The jacket bills Veno's book as a bunch of short stories by a master storyteller. What it turns out to be is a memoir by a self-admitted "bronze-medal" kind of news reporter (compared to the "gold-medal" types he knew who really went somewhere in the business) who bounced around from one minor newspaper to another. The "short stories" are just chapters in his life which, if anybody takes on the task of writing their life history, is the only sane way to undertake it. Not far into the book, I started examining information about the publisher and--just as I suspected--self-published. But an OK little tour through Orlando, Yonkers, Newark and eventually Quakertown, PA, where he worked for newspapers that are mostly defunct now. Oh, ooops, shouldn't have given that away.
Next up, Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card.
I'm not usually a fan of fantasy writers, but this book appeared on a list of best all-time Mormon novels. And I can get Card's books in my local library.
It's been a long time since I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed this one. Seventh Son went by way too fast. It's the first in a series of five books about Alvin Maker, a little boy in frontier America born with special powers. Mormon readers will take special delight at all the symbolism hidden in there just for us. I love all the subtleties between the characters, the way Card had them saying one thing while meaning another. I loved the interaction between the children in the family--fierce loyalty right next to murderous competition. And I got very caught up in the forces that both threaten and protect Alvin. Can't wait for the next four books.
As for kitchen stuff, we just tried Cilantro Chicken. Everybody around the table thought it tasted like enchiladas.
I made a little extra and sliced up the leftover breasts for sandwiches on one of those too crazy-to-cook nights.
Next up, Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card.
I'm not usually a fan of fantasy writers, but this book appeared on a list of best all-time Mormon novels. And I can get Card's books in my local library.
It's been a long time since I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed this one. Seventh Son went by way too fast. It's the first in a series of five books about Alvin Maker, a little boy in frontier America born with special powers. Mormon readers will take special delight at all the symbolism hidden in there just for us. I love all the subtleties between the characters, the way Card had them saying one thing while meaning another. I loved the interaction between the children in the family--fierce loyalty right next to murderous competition. And I got very caught up in the forces that both threaten and protect Alvin. Can't wait for the next four books.
As for kitchen stuff, we just tried Cilantro Chicken. Everybody around the table thought it tasted like enchiladas.
I made a little extra and sliced up the leftover breasts for sandwiches on one of those too crazy-to-cook nights.
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