"Fruit and meat don't go together," said one of my children.
That didn't stop me, of course. Nor did it stop them from eating sweet and sour meatballs, chock full of pineapple.
Other cooks out there have been discovering wonderful ways to combine fruits and meats, sending their ideas to my favorite cooking magazines. This one came from a guy in New Jersey.
Chicken with Blueberry Sauce
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have The Wet Nurse's Tale by Erica Eisdorfer. The story is about a woman back in the day who, as you might guess, breastfeeds other women's children. Reading it often felt like I was attending a meeting of the La Leche League True Believers, Victorian Chapter. All the breast-feeding talk is pretty frank.
However, the story gripped me right away. I found it easy to put aside things like reading blogs and web-shopping for tote bags or whatever, and read about the upstairs/downstairs drama of servant life. But when Eisdorfer really wound up the tension, when she had me gasping and saying, "Oh, my goodness! Oh no!", her plotting took a turn towards the contrived.
Be warned: there are some cow patties. Susan, our wet nurse heroine, fell from grace and never quite picked herself up again.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Eating Cashews and Balancing Politics
It's been an excruciatingly boring food week. Sunday was a day of intrigue and upset affairs and I just couldn't pull things together enough to fix what was on the menu. Then my husband went off to Atlanta and there was little reason to cook anything at all.
Then one day, I don't remember when, I bought the ingredients I forgot to buy earlier and threw together:
Cashew Turkey Pasta Salad
I made half the recipe and sent some off with Natalie. I hope you ate it, Natalie, because if you didn't, I want it back. That was good stuff.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Surrender Is Not an Option by John Bolton.
Bolton was a conservative ambassador to the UN. He also had a lot of jobs at the Department of State. Something about working for the government turns you into a person that writes in endless acronymns. Readers had better pay attention. If they don't, they will soon be deep into paragraphs about the EAP's position papers on the DPRK and they will have to read back a page or two to figure out that the EAP is the East Asia Pacific group and the DPRK is North Korea. And more of the same throughout the book. Bolton's world is one long game of Boggle.
The best parts of Surrender are the private asides that the government types say to each other, like "Maybe I should act more like Jesse Helms" or "This [committee] isn't worth a bucket of warm spit."
There's just an awful lot wade through, with a wide cast of characters. If Girls' State was the most meaningful experience of your young life, then you might find something interesting in here, but Surrender is nothing I'd risk an overdue fine for.
Plus, it's a little heavy for bathtub reading.
Next up, Independent People by Halldor Laxness. Once you open the pages, you will be thrust into the bleak moors of Iceland at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, things are so bleak, it seems like the middle ages. When the farmers gather, they never fail to discuss the worm problems in their sheep. The patroness of the town, who lives in a house with a tower and servants, stuffs up every public occasion with windy speeches about the nobility of rural life, though she hasn't the faintest idea how freaking hard it is. Our main character, Bjartur, reminds me of a certain crusty farmer I have known.
Back in the fifties, Laxness won either the Nobel or the Pulitzer prize for this book. His conclusion about humanity: most of them really can't afford to live. Like all good book prize winners, he was a socialist.
Then one day, I don't remember when, I bought the ingredients I forgot to buy earlier and threw together:
Cashew Turkey Pasta Salad
I made half the recipe and sent some off with Natalie. I hope you ate it, Natalie, because if you didn't, I want it back. That was good stuff.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Surrender Is Not an Option by John Bolton.
Bolton was a conservative ambassador to the UN. He also had a lot of jobs at the Department of State. Something about working for the government turns you into a person that writes in endless acronymns. Readers had better pay attention. If they don't, they will soon be deep into paragraphs about the EAP's position papers on the DPRK and they will have to read back a page or two to figure out that the EAP is the East Asia Pacific group and the DPRK is North Korea. And more of the same throughout the book. Bolton's world is one long game of Boggle.
The best parts of Surrender are the private asides that the government types say to each other, like "Maybe I should act more like Jesse Helms" or "This [committee] isn't worth a bucket of warm spit."
There's just an awful lot wade through, with a wide cast of characters. If Girls' State was the most meaningful experience of your young life, then you might find something interesting in here, but Surrender is nothing I'd risk an overdue fine for.
Plus, it's a little heavy for bathtub reading.
Next up, Independent People by Halldor Laxness. Once you open the pages, you will be thrust into the bleak moors of Iceland at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, things are so bleak, it seems like the middle ages. When the farmers gather, they never fail to discuss the worm problems in their sheep. The patroness of the town, who lives in a house with a tower and servants, stuffs up every public occasion with windy speeches about the nobility of rural life, though she hasn't the faintest idea how freaking hard it is. Our main character, Bjartur, reminds me of a certain crusty farmer I have known.
Back in the fifties, Laxness won either the Nobel or the Pulitzer prize for this book. His conclusion about humanity: most of them really can't afford to live. Like all good book prize winners, he was a socialist.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Calling all chemists, philosophers and other brainy types
How long 'til dinner? And I don't think there's enough of last night's leftovers. Jim and Mercy are on their way here, so that means extra mouths to feed (love it!). Maybe if I placate them with chicken nuggets, they will let me clean up the rest of the --
Bow Tie Chicken Supper
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic by Daniel Harris. Harris reveals the choices advertisers make to appeal to our longings for cuteness, quaintness, coolness, cleanliness and so forth.
Harris also skewers us all for having such longings in the first place.
Are you into natural foods? Eating for the sake of your health? Then he will call you out for taking a vitamin, "one unobtrusive tablet, a deceptively small commodity that houses the entire farm within its fragile sucrose shell."
Do you love to be zany? "Zaniness," he says, "allows us to misbehave and yet minimizes our risk of being ostracized as eccentric." In other words, you're a chicken-hearted rebel.
Is glamour your thing? Well, the industry that sells it to us "turns women into malcontents always scheming against their wardrobes and thus keeps them returning to department stores." Translation: as soon as you buy that must-have pencil skirt, it will go out of style and they'll make you think you need an A-line instead.
While Harris reveals some interesting tidbits about the images thrust before us, he will surely burst the bubble on one or two of your favorite notions about yourself.
Contains a couple cow patties.
Next up, we have Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein. I really doubt anybody I know would like this novel. The heroine is struggling through a graduate degree in philosophy and she eventually marries a math genius. Their conversations are so dry and high-minded, it's kind of unreal. That's not to say that Goldstein forgot to put any humor in her book, but I'm gonna say the dryness is Strike One against the book.
She's quite candid about her sex life. That's Strike Two. (And this tale feels very autobiographical.)
She's preoccupied with the question of what our true essence is. Our mind? Our body? Some variation of the two? To me, that's a resolved question. Strike Three.
But it was set in Princeton. That's why I stuck with it. Goldstein explains the place. I ate that part up.
Next up, Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Ettlinger took his kids to the shore. Ettlinger bought them ice cream bars. Ettlinger's daughter read the label and said, "Daddy, what's polysorbate 60?"
So journalist Ettlinger embarked on a study of the ingredients in our foods, how they are formulated, and where they come from. Utterly fascinating. That fact that there is ground up bits of iron in the flour I eat didn't gross me out at all. Nor did the fact that shortening gets washed in hydrochloric acid (which is later washed out). An army of chemists out there have been experimenting with every conceivable element, peering under microscopes, perfecting one thing and another until they know just how to make a cake taste like its full of eggs and butter when it's not.
I wore out a little at the end when he got into the chapters on stuff like calcium caseinate and diglycerides (someone who has taken chemistry might follow it better) but I perked up again when he launched into food colors and flavors.
Let's just say that I now understand why I'm creaming the butter and sugar when I whip up a batch of cookies.
Bow Tie Chicken Supper
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic by Daniel Harris. Harris reveals the choices advertisers make to appeal to our longings for cuteness, quaintness, coolness, cleanliness and so forth.
Harris also skewers us all for having such longings in the first place.
Are you into natural foods? Eating for the sake of your health? Then he will call you out for taking a vitamin, "one unobtrusive tablet, a deceptively small commodity that houses the entire farm within its fragile sucrose shell."
Do you love to be zany? "Zaniness," he says, "allows us to misbehave and yet minimizes our risk of being ostracized as eccentric." In other words, you're a chicken-hearted rebel.
Is glamour your thing? Well, the industry that sells it to us "turns women into malcontents always scheming against their wardrobes and thus keeps them returning to department stores." Translation: as soon as you buy that must-have pencil skirt, it will go out of style and they'll make you think you need an A-line instead.
While Harris reveals some interesting tidbits about the images thrust before us, he will surely burst the bubble on one or two of your favorite notions about yourself.
Contains a couple cow patties.
Next up, we have Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein. I really doubt anybody I know would like this novel. The heroine is struggling through a graduate degree in philosophy and she eventually marries a math genius. Their conversations are so dry and high-minded, it's kind of unreal. That's not to say that Goldstein forgot to put any humor in her book, but I'm gonna say the dryness is Strike One against the book.
She's quite candid about her sex life. That's Strike Two. (And this tale feels very autobiographical.)
She's preoccupied with the question of what our true essence is. Our mind? Our body? Some variation of the two? To me, that's a resolved question. Strike Three.
But it was set in Princeton. That's why I stuck with it. Goldstein explains the place. I ate that part up.
Next up, Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Ettlinger took his kids to the shore. Ettlinger bought them ice cream bars. Ettlinger's daughter read the label and said, "Daddy, what's polysorbate 60?"
So journalist Ettlinger embarked on a study of the ingredients in our foods, how they are formulated, and where they come from. Utterly fascinating. That fact that there is ground up bits of iron in the flour I eat didn't gross me out at all. Nor did the fact that shortening gets washed in hydrochloric acid (which is later washed out). An army of chemists out there have been experimenting with every conceivable element, peering under microscopes, perfecting one thing and another until they know just how to make a cake taste like its full of eggs and butter when it's not.
I wore out a little at the end when he got into the chapters on stuff like calcium caseinate and diglycerides (someone who has taken chemistry might follow it better) but I perked up again when he launched into food colors and flavors.
Let's just say that I now understand why I'm creaming the butter and sugar when I whip up a batch of cookies.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Wicked, wicked, yummy, wicked
I am desperately giving away servings of a wicked, wicked dessert right now. It's hard to know who to give it to, because half the ward is on a diet. Some are on diet teams. A few more women wear black armbands, on which are embedded a thingy that measures their metabolisms. When yet another woman showed up with black around her arm, I asked, "Oh, have you joined The Cult of the Black Armband too?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I just have tendonitis."
I feel an almost reflexive urge to join in. But then I remember: I've already done my thing. I get to sit out the weight-loss game, doin' my own version of the balanced diet which is: a few vegetables because, you know, you have to have 'em, and a considerable amount of chocolate because, you know, you have to have that, too.
One of the dieters was our dinner guest last night. Fortunately, her program allows one day off per week, so she could enjoy our wicked, wicked dessert with us. And we gave some more to a family whose boys, I hear, can polish off entire pizzas by themselves.
You think I'm going to give you the recipe for this wicked, wicked dessert, don't you? Well, first you get the recipe with the vegetables because, you know, you have have 'em.
Lemon Chicken and Rice
This one was quick to fix and good to eat. If John hunts for the leftovers, I'm sorry, but he's too late.
Now for your chocolate:
Banana Cream Brownie Dessert
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson. We've featured Anderson before--Midwestern writer, living about the time cars were invented. This time, he imitates Faulkner (and does it better), writing about a young newspaper reporter who chucks it all. Then there's the wife of the town tycoon who is vaguely dissatisfied, can't put her finger on what's wrong with her. Maybe you can see where this is going. Still, no cow patties in this book.
Dark Laughter was Anderson's best seller, though the critics liked his Winesburg Ohio best. I've liked everything I read by Anderson. I like visiting his slower era, but I wouldn't want to live there, unless they had GPSes and blow dryers and pizza that Anderson forgot to mention.
Next up, Edwin Mullhouse by Steven Millhauser. This one's a satire on biography. Young Jeffrey Cartwright writes the life story of his best friend next door, Edwin, who lives all the way to the ripe age of 11. Jeffrey presents Edwin as "an American writer" because he created a book of cartoons. Jeffrey may be imitating the classic Life of Johnson by Boswell. He affects a brainy, academic tone as he describes the small stuff of childhood. On Edwin in kindergarten: "Later he was fascinated by the yellow paper with its alternately dark blue and light blue lines." Or, "The tall white machines with their shiny silver handles fascinated him; he kept flushing and flushing, watching the jets of water shoot along the back from invisible holes in the top. He was puzzled and upset when he learned what the machines were used for, for he thought them a kind of upright bathtub."
At other times, Jeffrey slips into more ordinary tones, i.e. of Edwin's earliest writings: "[M]asterpieces they most emphatically were not. It is only my word against Edwin's, I know, but he is dead, and besides, I was the one who had to listen to that drivel."
Jeffrey the biographer includes far too much detail (all seven dozen or so gifts that Edwin gives his first love) and inserts himself into Edwin's biography far too often ("humbly" admitting that some of the starred papers on display in the classroom are his own), but I found it all fun. Millhauser, the real author, creates in Jeffrey, the fictional biographer, a delightful tongue-in-cheek portrait of childhood in the '40s and '50s. No cow patties.
"Huh? Oh, no, I just have tendonitis."
I feel an almost reflexive urge to join in. But then I remember: I've already done my thing. I get to sit out the weight-loss game, doin' my own version of the balanced diet which is: a few vegetables because, you know, you have to have 'em, and a considerable amount of chocolate because, you know, you have to have that, too.
One of the dieters was our dinner guest last night. Fortunately, her program allows one day off per week, so she could enjoy our wicked, wicked dessert with us. And we gave some more to a family whose boys, I hear, can polish off entire pizzas by themselves.
You think I'm going to give you the recipe for this wicked, wicked dessert, don't you? Well, first you get the recipe with the vegetables because, you know, you have have 'em.
Lemon Chicken and Rice
This one was quick to fix and good to eat. If John hunts for the leftovers, I'm sorry, but he's too late.
Now for your chocolate:
Banana Cream Brownie Dessert
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson. We've featured Anderson before--Midwestern writer, living about the time cars were invented. This time, he imitates Faulkner (and does it better), writing about a young newspaper reporter who chucks it all. Then there's the wife of the town tycoon who is vaguely dissatisfied, can't put her finger on what's wrong with her. Maybe you can see where this is going. Still, no cow patties in this book.
Dark Laughter was Anderson's best seller, though the critics liked his Winesburg Ohio best. I've liked everything I read by Anderson. I like visiting his slower era, but I wouldn't want to live there, unless they had GPSes and blow dryers and pizza that Anderson forgot to mention.
Next up, Edwin Mullhouse by Steven Millhauser. This one's a satire on biography. Young Jeffrey Cartwright writes the life story of his best friend next door, Edwin, who lives all the way to the ripe age of 11. Jeffrey presents Edwin as "an American writer" because he created a book of cartoons. Jeffrey may be imitating the classic Life of Johnson by Boswell. He affects a brainy, academic tone as he describes the small stuff of childhood. On Edwin in kindergarten: "Later he was fascinated by the yellow paper with its alternately dark blue and light blue lines." Or, "The tall white machines with their shiny silver handles fascinated him; he kept flushing and flushing, watching the jets of water shoot along the back from invisible holes in the top. He was puzzled and upset when he learned what the machines were used for, for he thought them a kind of upright bathtub."
At other times, Jeffrey slips into more ordinary tones, i.e. of Edwin's earliest writings: "[M]asterpieces they most emphatically were not. It is only my word against Edwin's, I know, but he is dead, and besides, I was the one who had to listen to that drivel."
Jeffrey the biographer includes far too much detail (all seven dozen or so gifts that Edwin gives his first love) and inserts himself into Edwin's biography far too often ("humbly" admitting that some of the starred papers on display in the classroom are his own), but I found it all fun. Millhauser, the real author, creates in Jeffrey, the fictional biographer, a delightful tongue-in-cheek portrait of childhood in the '40s and '50s. No cow patties.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
LIttle Colored Things in the Rice
Would I be bragging if I say this meal came out just like the magazine pictures? Or could it be that the dishes were so easy, any dummy could make them look nice?
First, we feature Chicken Parmigiana.
May you enjoy the aroma as this bakes. I sure did.
While it's in the oven, you have time to fix Zucchini Rice Pilaf
I love restaurant rice or box rice mixes with colorful stuff in them. But I don't want to have to think of stuff to add in. Someone just tell me please. So here it is.
The recipe contributor suggests that if you abhor zucchini, you might substitute squash or mushrooms instead. If you abhor squash and mushrooms, I really don't know what to tell you.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Living It Up at National Review by Priscilla Buckley. This is a fun look behind the scenes of running a magazine. I especially like the chapter on the young interns that crossed the office threshold over the years. In between the chapters on work, Priscilla squeezes in some chapters on play. Money was no problem; the Buckleys were the WASP-y sort with a named country home in Connecticut and a winter place in South Carolina.
Follow Priscilla as she bumps along on safari in Africa, or yachts around the Mediterranean, or rides a hot-air balloon over the hills featured in The Sound of Music. Then head back to the office with her as she directs traffic between the secretaries, the writers, the printer, etc.
Oh, my goodness, two books on the Finished Book Pile are unfinished! Yeah, I was just not in the mood for them. At one time, I would have thoroughly enjoyed Storm Over Rangelands by Wayne Hage, but I've exhausted myself on Hage's topic. Ten or fifteen years ago, I devoured everything I could find on the West, mostly to figure out for myself if all those childhood dinner conversations about danged power companies and doubled-danged environmentalists were John-Bircher-style rants, or legitimate complaints. Conclusion: the dinner rants were a little of both.
The development of the West is a fascinating tale, not that I expect anybody to corner me at the next family reunion to hear all about it. Joseph R. would have enjoyed this book but, unfortunately, he's gone off to his great leather recliner in the sky. Seeing as how it talked about grazing rights in the West, I can also imagine Uncle Grayson reading it, shutting it in disgust, picking it up again, talking back to it.
I gave it the old Read-10% try but I just didn't have the patience to finish it.
So, moving on, I also read 10% of Irish on the Inside by Tom Hayden. You baby boomers remember Hayden, right? Disrupter of the '60s political conventions? Senator from California? Husband of Jane Fonda? Aha, you do remember that one, don't you?
Hayden's worldview is all about identity and power and protest. "If the blacks get to complain about how they're treated, why can't we Irish complain too? We're not all about fiddles and Guinness Beer, you know."
Hey, I enjoy complaining. But going through life with your fist raised in the air? What's fun about that?
If I were Hayden, I would get a kitten and a laser light and mellow out.
First, we feature Chicken Parmigiana.
May you enjoy the aroma as this bakes. I sure did.
While it's in the oven, you have time to fix Zucchini Rice Pilaf
I love restaurant rice or box rice mixes with colorful stuff in them. But I don't want to have to think of stuff to add in. Someone just tell me please. So here it is.
The recipe contributor suggests that if you abhor zucchini, you might substitute squash or mushrooms instead. If you abhor squash and mushrooms, I really don't know what to tell you.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Living It Up at National Review by Priscilla Buckley. This is a fun look behind the scenes of running a magazine. I especially like the chapter on the young interns that crossed the office threshold over the years. In between the chapters on work, Priscilla squeezes in some chapters on play. Money was no problem; the Buckleys were the WASP-y sort with a named country home in Connecticut and a winter place in South Carolina.
Follow Priscilla as she bumps along on safari in Africa, or yachts around the Mediterranean, or rides a hot-air balloon over the hills featured in The Sound of Music. Then head back to the office with her as she directs traffic between the secretaries, the writers, the printer, etc.
Oh, my goodness, two books on the Finished Book Pile are unfinished! Yeah, I was just not in the mood for them. At one time, I would have thoroughly enjoyed Storm Over Rangelands by Wayne Hage, but I've exhausted myself on Hage's topic. Ten or fifteen years ago, I devoured everything I could find on the West, mostly to figure out for myself if all those childhood dinner conversations about danged power companies and doubled-danged environmentalists were John-Bircher-style rants, or legitimate complaints. Conclusion: the dinner rants were a little of both.
The development of the West is a fascinating tale, not that I expect anybody to corner me at the next family reunion to hear all about it. Joseph R. would have enjoyed this book but, unfortunately, he's gone off to his great leather recliner in the sky. Seeing as how it talked about grazing rights in the West, I can also imagine Uncle Grayson reading it, shutting it in disgust, picking it up again, talking back to it.
I gave it the old Read-10% try but I just didn't have the patience to finish it.
So, moving on, I also read 10% of Irish on the Inside by Tom Hayden. You baby boomers remember Hayden, right? Disrupter of the '60s political conventions? Senator from California? Husband of Jane Fonda? Aha, you do remember that one, don't you?
Hayden's worldview is all about identity and power and protest. "If the blacks get to complain about how they're treated, why can't we Irish complain too? We're not all about fiddles and Guinness Beer, you know."
Hey, I enjoy complaining. But going through life with your fist raised in the air? What's fun about that?
If I were Hayden, I would get a kitten and a laser light and mellow out.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Dreaming of Chocolate Lumps
Nesquik is my user name all over the internet and it's starting to play with my brain. I type it in and remember that wonderful chocolate milk of long-ago. I have moments when the urge to go down to the kitchen and mix up a glass washes over me and then I remember that it's all gone. And I'm sad.
On a happier note, Skooby is starting to grow teeth. I've been waiting for this. Grandchildren exist, as far as I'm concerned, to eat the stuff I give them. He seems to know the routine: arrive at my house, get locked into the high chair, reach for the honey-butter Ritz cracker that I hold out to him, and look happy while he gums it up.
I've been waiting to feed him (and his cousin ) cookies. I've held off long enough and tomorrow I give in to the urge. These are the cookies I've been dreaming of sharing with the little guys:
Cinnamon Crackle Cookies
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism by Donald T. Critchlow. I know, I know, Phyllis gets a bad rap. And she married herself the kind of last name that Hollywood agents would change half a heartbeat. But I really admire the lady.
For those of you who are too young to remember rotary dial phones, Phyllis was a housewife from the St. Louis area who led the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. Actually, calling her "just a housewife" doesn't paint an accurate picture of the woman. Spurred by a Catholic sense of duty, she worked in Washington when she was a young single woman, which is where she learned the art of political organizing. After marriage and a first child, friends approached her husband Fred and asked him to run for Congress. He wasn't interested. "Then how about Phyllis?" they asked.
She didn't win the race, but she brought her considerable skills to bear on cause after cause. She fought against communism, for national defense, for Goldwater and Reagan. Not long before the ERA fight, she sat down to dinner with her husband and six children and announced that she'd decided to go to law school.
This is a woman who subscribed to 100 magazines and newspapers, who seldom got caught spewing mistaken facts. Her energy seemed endless, although she surely must have had household help. I just don't think she could have made all those phone calls, published all those newsletters, or run around Illinois making all those speeches without somebody back home to make dinner and clean the bathrooms. (I don't think money was a problem. Fred was a lawyer.) And when Phyllis' name became nationally known, she would hire a ballroom and throw a reception for her supporters.
Phyllis' enemies saw her as "doctrinaire, intolerant and self-righteous." Her supporters found her "logical, morally passionate [who] spoke on behalf of the average American." In later years, a very seasoned Phyllis had refined the art of maintaining her cool in a debate. When Betty Friedan said she would like to burn Phyllis at the stake, Schlafly calmly replied, "I'm glad you said that because it just shows the intemperate nature of proponents of ERA."
The book can be heavy wading. I endured the parts about nuclear stuff, but ate up everything the ERA fight. If the political stuff doesn't appeal to you but you'd like to read about the woman, I suggest Sweetheart of Silent Majorityby Carol Felsenthal. I think I read that one decades ago and enjoyed it.
Next up, Character Studies by Mark Singer. This book is a collection of profiles, all on "the curiously obsessed." People who collects Tom Mix memorabilia; a group of guys who meet every week to discuss how to find the skull of Pancho Villa (we didn't know it was missing!) and return it to Mexico. Then there is the chapter on Donald Trump, throughout which the author seems to be rolling his eyes. As Singer says, Trump, for all he has in this life, completely lacks a sense of irony. I really gotta read that chapter out loud to John.
Next up, When the Messenger is Hot a short-story collection by Elizabeth Crane. All of her stories take the tone of a gossipy friend, telling you her latest troubles over a couple tall cups of Starbucks' best. Some stories suffer from too many cow patties, some from a structure little better than a fleshed-out list. Crane's sentences run on and on. Taking her all in one chunk tried my patience some, unless it was a really charming or compelling story, i.e., "Privacy and Coffee," "Year-at-a-Glance,", "Christina" and "Something Shiny," which was about a girl who wrote her memoirs. Then Hollywood wanted to make them into a movie. Then the actress hired to play the author came to study her habits and mannerisms. Great fun.
On a happier note, Skooby is starting to grow teeth. I've been waiting for this. Grandchildren exist, as far as I'm concerned, to eat the stuff I give them. He seems to know the routine: arrive at my house, get locked into the high chair, reach for the honey-butter Ritz cracker that I hold out to him, and look happy while he gums it up.
I've been waiting to feed him (and his cousin ) cookies. I've held off long enough and tomorrow I give in to the urge. These are the cookies I've been dreaming of sharing with the little guys:
Cinnamon Crackle Cookies
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism by Donald T. Critchlow. I know, I know, Phyllis gets a bad rap. And she married herself the kind of last name that Hollywood agents would change half a heartbeat. But I really admire the lady.
For those of you who are too young to remember rotary dial phones, Phyllis was a housewife from the St. Louis area who led the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. Actually, calling her "just a housewife" doesn't paint an accurate picture of the woman. Spurred by a Catholic sense of duty, she worked in Washington when she was a young single woman, which is where she learned the art of political organizing. After marriage and a first child, friends approached her husband Fred and asked him to run for Congress. He wasn't interested. "Then how about Phyllis?" they asked.
She didn't win the race, but she brought her considerable skills to bear on cause after cause. She fought against communism, for national defense, for Goldwater and Reagan. Not long before the ERA fight, she sat down to dinner with her husband and six children and announced that she'd decided to go to law school.
This is a woman who subscribed to 100 magazines and newspapers, who seldom got caught spewing mistaken facts. Her energy seemed endless, although she surely must have had household help. I just don't think she could have made all those phone calls, published all those newsletters, or run around Illinois making all those speeches without somebody back home to make dinner and clean the bathrooms. (I don't think money was a problem. Fred was a lawyer.) And when Phyllis' name became nationally known, she would hire a ballroom and throw a reception for her supporters.
Phyllis' enemies saw her as "doctrinaire, intolerant and self-righteous." Her supporters found her "logical, morally passionate [who] spoke on behalf of the average American." In later years, a very seasoned Phyllis had refined the art of maintaining her cool in a debate. When Betty Friedan said she would like to burn Phyllis at the stake, Schlafly calmly replied, "I'm glad you said that because it just shows the intemperate nature of proponents of ERA."
The book can be heavy wading. I endured the parts about nuclear stuff, but ate up everything the ERA fight. If the political stuff doesn't appeal to you but you'd like to read about the woman, I suggest Sweetheart of Silent Majorityby Carol Felsenthal. I think I read that one decades ago and enjoyed it.
Next up, Character Studies by Mark Singer. This book is a collection of profiles, all on "the curiously obsessed." People who collects Tom Mix memorabilia; a group of guys who meet every week to discuss how to find the skull of Pancho Villa (we didn't know it was missing!) and return it to Mexico. Then there is the chapter on Donald Trump, throughout which the author seems to be rolling his eyes. As Singer says, Trump, for all he has in this life, completely lacks a sense of irony. I really gotta read that chapter out loud to John.
Next up, When the Messenger is Hot a short-story collection by Elizabeth Crane. All of her stories take the tone of a gossipy friend, telling you her latest troubles over a couple tall cups of Starbucks' best. Some stories suffer from too many cow patties, some from a structure little better than a fleshed-out list. Crane's sentences run on and on. Taking her all in one chunk tried my patience some, unless it was a really charming or compelling story, i.e., "Privacy and Coffee," "Year-at-a-Glance,", "Christina" and "Something Shiny," which was about a girl who wrote her memoirs. Then Hollywood wanted to make them into a movie. Then the actress hired to play the author came to study her habits and mannerisms. Great fun.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
I thought of you, LD
Today, I've got something for the cooks that find themselves in a Boring Side-Dish Rut. We feature a salad. I'm pretty lazy about salads. I open a bag of pre-cut greens, toss in some grape tomatoes and slice up some cucumber and expect the diners at my table to be happy with it, week after week after week. Nothing else goes into a salad unless a recipe specifically tells me to put it in there. So let's do:
Swiss Tossed Salad
I actually prefer various bottled dressings over the mayo/sour cream one. The only problem with this salad is that the heavy stuff (the Swiss cheese) sinks to the bottom. It's hard to fish all the ingredients out of the bowl equally. But I like these flavors together. Thanks, Quick Cooking Magazine.
As for the finished book pile, I thought of Lora Dawn every time I picked up Playing Doctor by Joseph Turow, a book about TV doctor shows.
First, my doctor show anecdote: I grew up without TV--alas! Well, we had a TV, but it didn't work. My mom said it needed a picture tube. She said picture tubes were expensive. How expensive? I figured they must cost just less than a space rocket, an impression Mother never bothered to correct.
All this changed on general conference weekends. Mom and Dad left town for Salt Lake City. Noel and Hertha came over to "babysit" Jana and I. And they always brought TVs! For watching Saturday morning cartoo -- er, excuse me -- talks by apostles.
Well, OK, we did fit in a little secular viewing. Like the night we watched Medical Center. A young engaged couple came in to see the handsome Dr. Joe Gannon. The fiancee wasn't feeling too well. Dr. Gannon ran a few tests. Then he took her aside privately and told her she had . . . Gonorrhea!
I couldn't figure out why her fiance reacted with such stunned shock. I couldn't figure out why the adults in my own living room all looked at each other with nervous laughs.
"What's gonorrhea?" I asked.
"Ask your mother," Hertha retorted, with an end-of-discussion finality in her voice.
Anyhoo, Turow's book covers the mania that broke out when Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare began on TV in the early '60s. Women swooning! Women writing the actors for advice about their medical (even their gynecological) problems! Then, in the '70s, along came Marcus Welby, M.D. and Medical Center. Robert Young, the actor who played Welby, identified thoroughly with the role. After years of depression and alcoholism, he needed a personality to adopt, so he adopted Welby's. When the woman who played his nurse felt a little under the weather, he reached out and took her pulse.
Playing Doctor gets rather bogged down in discussions about the AMA trying to exercise control over doctors' TV images, and the networks constantly trying to figure out the perfect doctor-show formula while keeping the genre fresh. True medical-drama fans may find the book a little thin on behind-the-scenes anecdotes.
But even some of the network machinations can be interesting. For instance, Emergency!, in the '70s, was thrown on to the schedule against the very popular All in the Family. Network execs thought that there must be people out there who either didn't understand Archie Bunker, or couldn't stand him. Give them something else to watch! However, each Emergency! episode was written with three or four vignettes per show. The biggest, most expensive emergency (say, something with explosions) always fell in the third segment, right at 8:30 when, over on the other channel, Archie Bunker was just finishing up. Capture Archie's audience!
The book finished up with M*A*S*H and St. Elsewhere. Too bad it was written clear back in 1988. Wouldn't we love to know what Turow had to say about E.R. and Scrubs?
Next up: What Are the Odds? by Mike Orkin. "Chance in Everyday Life." I'm a few pages in and that's enough for me. I don't want my books peppered with equations and math-professor jokes. But if you're dying to know what the chances are that a tossed coin will turn up heads 100% of the time, or if you're trying to refine your casino strategy, give it a whirl. All the jacket praise says Orkin makes the subject fascinating.
I kinda like reading the Yellow Pages better.
Swiss Tossed Salad
I actually prefer various bottled dressings over the mayo/sour cream one. The only problem with this salad is that the heavy stuff (the Swiss cheese) sinks to the bottom. It's hard to fish all the ingredients out of the bowl equally. But I like these flavors together. Thanks, Quick Cooking Magazine.
As for the finished book pile, I thought of Lora Dawn every time I picked up Playing Doctor by Joseph Turow, a book about TV doctor shows.
First, my doctor show anecdote: I grew up without TV--alas! Well, we had a TV, but it didn't work. My mom said it needed a picture tube. She said picture tubes were expensive. How expensive? I figured they must cost just less than a space rocket, an impression Mother never bothered to correct.
All this changed on general conference weekends. Mom and Dad left town for Salt Lake City. Noel and Hertha came over to "babysit" Jana and I. And they always brought TVs! For watching Saturday morning cartoo -- er, excuse me -- talks by apostles.
Well, OK, we did fit in a little secular viewing. Like the night we watched Medical Center. A young engaged couple came in to see the handsome Dr. Joe Gannon. The fiancee wasn't feeling too well. Dr. Gannon ran a few tests. Then he took her aside privately and told her she had . . . Gonorrhea!
I couldn't figure out why her fiance reacted with such stunned shock. I couldn't figure out why the adults in my own living room all looked at each other with nervous laughs.
"What's gonorrhea?" I asked.
"Ask your mother," Hertha retorted, with an end-of-discussion finality in her voice.
Anyhoo, Turow's book covers the mania that broke out when Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare began on TV in the early '60s. Women swooning! Women writing the actors for advice about their medical (even their gynecological) problems! Then, in the '70s, along came Marcus Welby, M.D. and Medical Center. Robert Young, the actor who played Welby, identified thoroughly with the role. After years of depression and alcoholism, he needed a personality to adopt, so he adopted Welby's. When the woman who played his nurse felt a little under the weather, he reached out and took her pulse.
Playing Doctor gets rather bogged down in discussions about the AMA trying to exercise control over doctors' TV images, and the networks constantly trying to figure out the perfect doctor-show formula while keeping the genre fresh. True medical-drama fans may find the book a little thin on behind-the-scenes anecdotes.
But even some of the network machinations can be interesting. For instance, Emergency!, in the '70s, was thrown on to the schedule against the very popular All in the Family. Network execs thought that there must be people out there who either didn't understand Archie Bunker, or couldn't stand him. Give them something else to watch! However, each Emergency! episode was written with three or four vignettes per show. The biggest, most expensive emergency (say, something with explosions) always fell in the third segment, right at 8:30 when, over on the other channel, Archie Bunker was just finishing up. Capture Archie's audience!
The book finished up with M*A*S*H and St. Elsewhere. Too bad it was written clear back in 1988. Wouldn't we love to know what Turow had to say about E.R. and Scrubs?
Next up: What Are the Odds? by Mike Orkin. "Chance in Everyday Life." I'm a few pages in and that's enough for me. I don't want my books peppered with equations and math-professor jokes. But if you're dying to know what the chances are that a tossed coin will turn up heads 100% of the time, or if you're trying to refine your casino strategy, give it a whirl. All the jacket praise says Orkin makes the subject fascinating.
I kinda like reading the Yellow Pages better.
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