I want to cut my hair in a bob and get myself a diaphanous dress. That's what I get for reading Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. Set in the 1920s among British colonials off doing their job in Hong Kong, Veil tells the story of Kitty Fane, who marries in haste, then takes comfort in the arms of a dashing colonial officer.
Midway through the story, Kitty risks becoming a decent person. This slim tale, told in a spare and serious tone, is actually more fun when Kitty is shallow.
No cow patties, which is amazing, given the subject.
And speaking of shallow things, I know people pay tribute to true beauty and deep beauty but, face it, shallow beauty makes for much better stories. And let's not blame our culture for shallow beauty's grip on our eyes. Nope, it is bred right into our genes. A certain little boy I know possessed an eye for beauty long before he tasted his first solid food. He could pick out the prettiest girl in the room and flash her his biggest smile. If his studio-shot pictures came back with a particularly happy face, I knew the photographer must have been quite a looker.
And speaking of the shallow versus the deep and the true, we feature a dessert that tastes like a granola bar, except that it's redeemed by a whole lot of chocolate.
In fact, in the last granola bar commercial I saw, the voice-over preached the bars' virtues--the fiber, the nutrients--while the camera came in close on its vices--thick scoops of peanut butter, slow-mo shots of a stream of dripping chocolate. This, my friends, was food porn.
Those granola bars couldn't be much worse than Chocolate Oatmeal Bars:
I suppose any candy bar will do. I'd better make them again soon, with Butterfingers, just to make sure. :-)
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Complete This Sentence
My pet peeves. A list. No, just one item. Big one though.
Sentence fragments. Drive me nuts. Doubling over. In pain. Oh, the pretentiousness!
That's why I quit The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor. Amazon fell in love with this book, touting it as one of the best of whatever year it came out. A story about simple people who have a good idea and start up a company sounds tempting, no? I love those kinds of stories.
But Taylor, man of fragments, came off like a rank amateur. Maybe he should try his hand at haiku.
I did, however, love running my fingers over the embossed bird wings on the book jacket.
Next up, Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. I had my doubts. The cover was a dull gray, and no embossed bird wings to fondle.
But now I understand why Twain is famous. We have no plot here, and too many characters to remember. We're talking about a twisty, long river, for goodness sakes, and the people who pilot it and put up with its floody moods. Still, between Twain's exaggerations and his self-deprecations, he makes it all (well, most of it) quite engaging.
He begins in his boyhood, where all his little friends in Hannibal, MO, watched the steamboats chugging up and down the river. They all longed to get on those boats and Live Life. Finally, one of the Hannibal boys hired on to a boat, and when he returned to tell his adventures, to brag about how well he knew "St. Looy," they "envied him and loathed him."
You have to slow down and adopt the rhythms of yesteryear to enjoy Twain's book. But at least the man completes his sentences. I'm sorry that he's long gone. I'm sure he would have made for a most interesting dinner guest.
As for your dinner, I offer Almond Raspberry Tossed Salad. This is for people who would rather skip vegetables and go straight to dessert. If we make the green stuff interesting enough and sweet enough, I will devour it.
We served this at the Jim's wedding "rehearsal dinner." All the new relatives got along great. I think the salad deserves the credit.
Sentence fragments. Drive me nuts. Doubling over. In pain. Oh, the pretentiousness!
That's why I quit The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor. Amazon fell in love with this book, touting it as one of the best of whatever year it came out. A story about simple people who have a good idea and start up a company sounds tempting, no? I love those kinds of stories.
But Taylor, man of fragments, came off like a rank amateur. Maybe he should try his hand at haiku.
I did, however, love running my fingers over the embossed bird wings on the book jacket.
Next up, Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. I had my doubts. The cover was a dull gray, and no embossed bird wings to fondle.
But now I understand why Twain is famous. We have no plot here, and too many characters to remember. We're talking about a twisty, long river, for goodness sakes, and the people who pilot it and put up with its floody moods. Still, between Twain's exaggerations and his self-deprecations, he makes it all (well, most of it) quite engaging.
He begins in his boyhood, where all his little friends in Hannibal, MO, watched the steamboats chugging up and down the river. They all longed to get on those boats and Live Life. Finally, one of the Hannibal boys hired on to a boat, and when he returned to tell his adventures, to brag about how well he knew "St. Looy," they "envied him and loathed him."
You have to slow down and adopt the rhythms of yesteryear to enjoy Twain's book. But at least the man completes his sentences. I'm sorry that he's long gone. I'm sure he would have made for a most interesting dinner guest.
As for your dinner, I offer Almond Raspberry Tossed Salad. This is for people who would rather skip vegetables and go straight to dessert. If we make the green stuff interesting enough and sweet enough, I will devour it.
We served this at the Jim's wedding "rehearsal dinner." All the new relatives got along great. I think the salad deserves the credit.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Half of That Billion is Mine, You Lout
This week, one of my Facebook friends lamented having to make menus. She hates, hates, hates it every week.
I love, love, love it! But how would it have looked if I went on her post and told her so? Neener, neener, neener?
Still, I really can't help myself. I'd rather plan and cook meals than learn how to post pictures on this blog.
So let's try something different this week. Here's our menus from the last week, with links, if I've got them (another way to get out of posting pictures--whee!).
On a Saturday night, we were signed up to share the the sister missionaries. We brought out the clamshells and packed up our family's favorite main dish, the ever gooey and sharp-tasting Skillet Mac 'n Cheese, as well as Microwave Apple Crisp.
SKILLET MAC 'N CHEESE:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1 3/4 cup (7 oz.) uncooked elbow macaroni
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/8 tsp. dry mustard
2 cups water
1 TB flour
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
2 cups (8 oz.) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
In large skillet melt butter over low heat. Add uncooked macaroni, onion and seasonings. Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 7 minutes, or until onion becomes transparent. Add water; bring to boil. Cover; simmer 20 minutes or until macaroni is tender. Sprinkle flour over mixture; blend well. Stir in evaporated milk and shredded cheese. Simmer 5 minutes longer, stirring occasionally, until cheese melts. Serve hot. Makes 6 servings, 400 cals. ea.
And for dessert: Microwave Apple Crisp
The next day was Fast Sunday. I don't know how much credit we get for going hungry when, after the long hours pass, we gather around the table and mow through mounds of something like this (which should, by the way, go in your file of disgustingly easy main dishes):
Chicken 'n Noodles Skillet
And I do believe a certain picky-eater grandson actually ate some Orange-Glazed Carrots.
On Monday, we went in for a veggie option. It's a little strange, but appeals to people who like their food gooey, and that would be me. I don't know why the peppers and onion taste so sweet in this, but they do.
Vegetable Tortilla Stack
Dessert was like a visit to the ice cream shop as we forked our way through Malted Milk Pie (didn't hurt that we had a lot of Whoppers left over either).
Tuesday night, it was time to repent of a weekend full of desserts. Fortunately, I didn't notice the deprivation, since I love Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza so much. I think it's appeared on this blog before, but it's worth the repeat.
As for Wednesday, we've also featured this recipe before, but why would I let that stop me from trotting it out again? That's why we try new things, right? So we know what we want to eat again and again?
Honey Chicken Stir-Fry
Thursday's dinner, well, it didn't turn out as well as I remember. I think I got a little free with the dill weed this time, but I'm sure you won't make the same mistake. It was Creamy Ham Turnovers, and the smell of the baking crust pretty much drives hungry people nuts.
And now, over on the Finished Book Pile, we have All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, by Janelle Brown:
Janice Miller wakes up one day to a news report that her husband's pharmaceutical company has just gone public and the prices shoot straight up to the stratosphere. Let's see now, if Paul and I own this many shares and the shares are worth $$$XXX, oh my, oh my, oh my, that means we're stinkin' rich! She spends her day buying groceries and fresh flowers for the celebration, only to open an e-mail from her husband telling her that the marriage is over.
Her teenage daughter watches Janice swing wildly between frantic house-cleaning and laying in bed with greasy hair and a bottle of wine. Eventually an adult daughter returns home and the three women tiptoe around each other in their comfy custom home, each woman trying to keep some pretty big secrets from the others.
If only I had a beach on which to read this book, because that's just the kind of book it was. A cow patty or two.
Next up, Nine Lives by Dan Baum. Baum chronicles nine residents of New Orleans, extracting from them their life stories clear back to the '60s and following them up through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Baum's subjects hail from all walks of life, from the Garden District's upper crust to the dismal streets of the Lower Ninth Ward, the section wiped out by the levee break.
The Lower Ninth knew it was never as fancy as uptown New Orleans, but it was a decent little neighborhood. Or it was until containerized shipping destroyed the jobs along the riverfront. After that, the Ninth turned in to a place of men idling on porches, youthful gangs roaming the streets, up to no good, and grandmas tending the flowers in their gardens, holding on in the face of a creeping hopelessness.
As for cow patties, I'd say there is one cow patty character. You can avoid his sections chapters until the middle of the book or so, when things get better.
Happy reading and eating.
I love, love, love it! But how would it have looked if I went on her post and told her so? Neener, neener, neener?
Still, I really can't help myself. I'd rather plan and cook meals than learn how to post pictures on this blog.
So let's try something different this week. Here's our menus from the last week, with links, if I've got them (another way to get out of posting pictures--whee!).
On a Saturday night, we were signed up to share the the sister missionaries. We brought out the clamshells and packed up our family's favorite main dish, the ever gooey and sharp-tasting Skillet Mac 'n Cheese, as well as Microwave Apple Crisp.
SKILLET MAC 'N CHEESE:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1 3/4 cup (7 oz.) uncooked elbow macaroni
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/8 tsp. dry mustard
2 cups water
1 TB flour
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
2 cups (8 oz.) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
In large skillet melt butter over low heat. Add uncooked macaroni, onion and seasonings. Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for 7 minutes, or until onion becomes transparent. Add water; bring to boil. Cover; simmer 20 minutes or until macaroni is tender. Sprinkle flour over mixture; blend well. Stir in evaporated milk and shredded cheese. Simmer 5 minutes longer, stirring occasionally, until cheese melts. Serve hot. Makes 6 servings, 400 cals. ea.
And for dessert: Microwave Apple Crisp
The next day was Fast Sunday. I don't know how much credit we get for going hungry when, after the long hours pass, we gather around the table and mow through mounds of something like this (which should, by the way, go in your file of disgustingly easy main dishes):
Chicken 'n Noodles Skillet
And I do believe a certain picky-eater grandson actually ate some Orange-Glazed Carrots.
On Monday, we went in for a veggie option. It's a little strange, but appeals to people who like their food gooey, and that would be me. I don't know why the peppers and onion taste so sweet in this, but they do.
Vegetable Tortilla Stack
Dessert was like a visit to the ice cream shop as we forked our way through Malted Milk Pie (didn't hurt that we had a lot of Whoppers left over either).
Tuesday night, it was time to repent of a weekend full of desserts. Fortunately, I didn't notice the deprivation, since I love Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza so much. I think it's appeared on this blog before, but it's worth the repeat.
As for Wednesday, we've also featured this recipe before, but why would I let that stop me from trotting it out again? That's why we try new things, right? So we know what we want to eat again and again?
Honey Chicken Stir-Fry
Thursday's dinner, well, it didn't turn out as well as I remember. I think I got a little free with the dill weed this time, but I'm sure you won't make the same mistake. It was Creamy Ham Turnovers, and the smell of the baking crust pretty much drives hungry people nuts.
And now, over on the Finished Book Pile, we have All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, by Janelle Brown:
Janice Miller wakes up one day to a news report that her husband's pharmaceutical company has just gone public and the prices shoot straight up to the stratosphere. Let's see now, if Paul and I own this many shares and the shares are worth $$$XXX, oh my, oh my, oh my, that means we're stinkin' rich! She spends her day buying groceries and fresh flowers for the celebration, only to open an e-mail from her husband telling her that the marriage is over.
Her teenage daughter watches Janice swing wildly between frantic house-cleaning and laying in bed with greasy hair and a bottle of wine. Eventually an adult daughter returns home and the three women tiptoe around each other in their comfy custom home, each woman trying to keep some pretty big secrets from the others.
If only I had a beach on which to read this book, because that's just the kind of book it was. A cow patty or two.
Next up, Nine Lives by Dan Baum. Baum chronicles nine residents of New Orleans, extracting from them their life stories clear back to the '60s and following them up through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Baum's subjects hail from all walks of life, from the Garden District's upper crust to the dismal streets of the Lower Ninth Ward, the section wiped out by the levee break.
The Lower Ninth knew it was never as fancy as uptown New Orleans, but it was a decent little neighborhood. Or it was until containerized shipping destroyed the jobs along the riverfront. After that, the Ninth turned in to a place of men idling on porches, youthful gangs roaming the streets, up to no good, and grandmas tending the flowers in their gardens, holding on in the face of a creeping hopelessness.
As for cow patties, I'd say there is one cow patty character. You can avoid his sections chapters until the middle of the book or so, when things get better.
Happy reading and eating.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Cruel Planet
I never watched the TV show, Sex and the City.
But tipped off by a review of the original book by Candace Bushnell, wherein the reviewer said Bushnell painted a far more realistic picture than the carnival of dating and shoe-shopping that Hollywood made of it, I put her book on my list.
Actually, Bushnell comes off less as truth-teller and more as bored, catty queen bee. Make that a very observant, bored, catty queen bee.
Didn't I always tell myself that I loved New York, but would never know what New York was like inside those lovely brownstones?
Well, it's a cruel world in there. The rich and the beautiful constantly reel in and then discard one another. Everybody is on the make. Some of us grow up, pair off and gladly leave behind the unbearable tensions of dating life (Will anybody notice me? Will he be at the party? Does he like me better than her?). Of course we also give up the thrills and flattery that go with it (He's checking me out! He likes me!). In Bushnell's world, they never do, married or not.
Are there cow patties in this book? Well, honey, cow patties are the subject here.
Next up, Live Through This by Debra Gwartney. After a nasty divorce, Gwartney's daughters dress in black cloth and dog collars and start the grand sport of running away. They're only twelve and fourteen, if I remember right. They have no use for their mother, except when life on the street finally exhausts all their resources and they come home to raid the pantry and the dresser drawers, then head out again to the world of drugs and confused kids.
Gwartney is a concerned mother, but she's also an interfering and enabling one. You wouldn't want to live her story, but it makes for some pretty good reading. There's even a Boise connection to the story.
As for your recipe, Creamy Chicken Enchiladas is not too tough. It's something I managed to pull together on a day when I just couldn't get going. I derailed myself first thing in the morning, reading news magazines on my phone. And since this is an election year, I fear that's the way it's going to go all the way until November.
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas
But tipped off by a review of the original book by Candace Bushnell, wherein the reviewer said Bushnell painted a far more realistic picture than the carnival of dating and shoe-shopping that Hollywood made of it, I put her book on my list.
Actually, Bushnell comes off less as truth-teller and more as bored, catty queen bee. Make that a very observant, bored, catty queen bee.
Didn't I always tell myself that I loved New York, but would never know what New York was like inside those lovely brownstones?
Well, it's a cruel world in there. The rich and the beautiful constantly reel in and then discard one another. Everybody is on the make. Some of us grow up, pair off and gladly leave behind the unbearable tensions of dating life (Will anybody notice me? Will he be at the party? Does he like me better than her?). Of course we also give up the thrills and flattery that go with it (He's checking me out! He likes me!). In Bushnell's world, they never do, married or not.
Are there cow patties in this book? Well, honey, cow patties are the subject here.
Next up, Live Through This by Debra Gwartney. After a nasty divorce, Gwartney's daughters dress in black cloth and dog collars and start the grand sport of running away. They're only twelve and fourteen, if I remember right. They have no use for their mother, except when life on the street finally exhausts all their resources and they come home to raid the pantry and the dresser drawers, then head out again to the world of drugs and confused kids.
Gwartney is a concerned mother, but she's also an interfering and enabling one. You wouldn't want to live her story, but it makes for some pretty good reading. There's even a Boise connection to the story.
As for your recipe, Creamy Chicken Enchiladas is not too tough. It's something I managed to pull together on a day when I just couldn't get going. I derailed myself first thing in the morning, reading news magazines on my phone. And since this is an election year, I fear that's the way it's going to go all the way until November.
Creamy Chicken Enchiladas
Monday, January 2, 2012
Dud Pile
Winter has set in, as you know, and I'm dying to escape it, even if it's just in the pages of a book. Sadly, the books I have chosen lately were a pile of duds. So let's just dive in to the Finished Book Pile today and express our frustrations, OK?
This pile of duds included Dangerous Laughter, a collection of short stories by Stephen Millhauser. These are odd little stories. In one, a fad of laughter spreads through a group of young teens. Yep, that's what they get together to do, laugh until they grow hysterical and spent. In another story, a small town constructs an exact replica of itself somewhere on its own outskirts. Dozens of civic employees work constantly to keep up with all the small changes. If somebody moves a doily in the real town, a worker moves the same doily over in the replica town. Citizens of the real town visit the replica whenever they wish, wandering through the bedrooms of their neighbors' "houses."
Where does all this come from? The author, a professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, must be lost in some mighty strange thoughts as he moseys along on the sidewalks to and from campus. We've reviewed two other Millhauser book on this blog, Edwin Mullhouse (which was good in a quirky way) and Martin Dressler.
But maybe you like strange stories. I was not thrilled and, in fact, gave up near the end.
Next up, and another strange one, is The Hunters by Claire Messud. I've read and loved Messud before and, like Millhauser above, must have read her best stuff first. I certainly don't remember all the maddening, writerly affectations that I found in this book: In every sentence, she'd capture my interest, then take off, inserting new clauses between everything, side trips if you will, and by the time she returned to the main thrust of her sentence, it had grown as thick as a mega-burger, one of those things you can't get your mouth around.
This little book contained two novellas. The first was the story of a woman who escaped WWII and lived out her remaining years in Toronto. In the second, a New England professor (man or woman? Messud never tells us) stays in London for a summer, his/her peace disturbed by a pesky neighbor. The New York Times called it "Exceptional, a work of near-miraculous perfection." I call it "Huh?" Baffling, inconclusive, no pay-off.
My dear Claire M., I liked you so much in The Emperor's Children. What gives?
Finally, I embarked upon Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet and then un-embarked upon it. It was about . . . um . . . um . . . Sadly, nothing about this book stuck with me. There was a man in it, a proper sort of gentleman, toting his umbrella with him as he walked about in New York. There were his memories--some time in WWII as a Jewish refugee, some time in London. There were pages and pages of his philosophy.
So, a pile of books having failed to save me from winter's dullness, I tried inviting friends over instead. It worked much better, thank you. These particular friends told a pile of amusing stories, quite a few of them about a back-country ward where they used to live. Journal-worthy events happened every Sunday. "Yep, there was the time I had to break up a fistfight in Elder's Quorum."
We ate:
Sweet 'n Spicy Chicken
Dad's Favorite Salad
Buttery Rolls (We've already featured this one, but it's worth a repeat).
White Cake with Raspberry Sauce (except we used strawberries, since John doesn't like raspberry seeds)
It was an easy and yummy dinner.
And I promise, the next pile of books will be better.
This pile of duds included Dangerous Laughter, a collection of short stories by Stephen Millhauser. These are odd little stories. In one, a fad of laughter spreads through a group of young teens. Yep, that's what they get together to do, laugh until they grow hysterical and spent. In another story, a small town constructs an exact replica of itself somewhere on its own outskirts. Dozens of civic employees work constantly to keep up with all the small changes. If somebody moves a doily in the real town, a worker moves the same doily over in the replica town. Citizens of the real town visit the replica whenever they wish, wandering through the bedrooms of their neighbors' "houses."
Where does all this come from? The author, a professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, must be lost in some mighty strange thoughts as he moseys along on the sidewalks to and from campus. We've reviewed two other Millhauser book on this blog, Edwin Mullhouse (which was good in a quirky way) and Martin Dressler.
But maybe you like strange stories. I was not thrilled and, in fact, gave up near the end.
Next up, and another strange one, is The Hunters by Claire Messud. I've read and loved Messud before and, like Millhauser above, must have read her best stuff first. I certainly don't remember all the maddening, writerly affectations that I found in this book: In every sentence, she'd capture my interest, then take off, inserting new clauses between everything, side trips if you will, and by the time she returned to the main thrust of her sentence, it had grown as thick as a mega-burger, one of those things you can't get your mouth around.
This little book contained two novellas. The first was the story of a woman who escaped WWII and lived out her remaining years in Toronto. In the second, a New England professor (man or woman? Messud never tells us) stays in London for a summer, his/her peace disturbed by a pesky neighbor. The New York Times called it "Exceptional, a work of near-miraculous perfection." I call it "Huh?" Baffling, inconclusive, no pay-off.
My dear Claire M., I liked you so much in The Emperor's Children. What gives?
Finally, I embarked upon Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet and then un-embarked upon it. It was about . . . um . . . um . . . Sadly, nothing about this book stuck with me. There was a man in it, a proper sort of gentleman, toting his umbrella with him as he walked about in New York. There were his memories--some time in WWII as a Jewish refugee, some time in London. There were pages and pages of his philosophy.
So, a pile of books having failed to save me from winter's dullness, I tried inviting friends over instead. It worked much better, thank you. These particular friends told a pile of amusing stories, quite a few of them about a back-country ward where they used to live. Journal-worthy events happened every Sunday. "Yep, there was the time I had to break up a fistfight in Elder's Quorum."
We ate:
Sweet 'n Spicy Chicken
Dad's Favorite Salad
Buttery Rolls (We've already featured this one, but it's worth a repeat).
White Cake with Raspberry Sauce (except we used strawberries, since John doesn't like raspberry seeds)
It was an easy and yummy dinner.
And I promise, the next pile of books will be better.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Blogger Reads Sci-Fi, Survives
By request, I offer you POOR MAN'S LOBSTER as our recipe for the day:
8 boned and skinned chicken breast halves
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. pineapple juice
1/4 c. oil
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 TB brown sugar
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
Mix together all ingredients except chicken. Marinate chicken in the mixture for 3 to 6 hours. Drain well. Broil on second shelf 6 to 10 minutes on each side. Serve with melted butter and dip as with lobster. Calories equal 280/serving, unless most of the oil drains off. But then I guess you make up for that with the butter.
Recipe from a community cookbook.
I never have dipped this in butter, because I have never eaten lobster. We save that kind of thing for Abbey, the adventurous one in our family. She vowed to try lobster on a family vacation to Maine. We all sat around watching raptly as she tore off the legs and dug out the meat. Yes, she loved her little lobster feast. As for the guts, not so much. But they don't warn you about those, do they?
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have I'll Go To Bed At Noon by Gerard Woodward. We've reviewed Mr. Woodward here before and, in that story, we thought the family who camps every summer in Wales was kind of bland. But now the family of Aldous and Colette Jones has grown up. Colette's brilliant, piano virtuoso son is a raging alcoholic, whose mind games and destructive bent make for never a dull moment in the Woodward household. Colette's brother drowns the sorrows of his new widowhood in drink. And Colette herself rather likes to while away the hours at the pub. The lady can put away a pint or two.
I wouldn't want to live any of it, but it was an instructive read. Includes some whiffs of cow patties.
Next up, we have Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. Mark this one down for history: your favorite book-and-recipe blogger just read herself some science fiction. However, this was not the alien/space travel type. Silverberg's main character can read minds. For good or ill, he can just burrow in there and know what his sister has been up to, or his roommates. When he meets a fellow mind-reader, he can tell when his own mind is being penetrated.
Sometimes, what he learns frightens him away. Once, when presidential candidate Richard Nixon was in town, the main character went down to the street where the motorcade passed by, just to experiment with getting in to Nixon's brain. What he found there frightened him so badly that he refused to vote ever again.
But in middle age, he begins to lose his gift.
Fascinating. Frequent, fleeting cow patties.
Next up, What Happened to Anna K.? by Irina Reyn. I needn't give you any hints about the plot because, supposedly, this story is a contemporary version of Anna Karenina. (Does this mean I have to go read the real thing, just so I know that last sentence is true?) Reyn set her version in New York among Russian Jewish immigrants. I loved peeking into their lives, their meals of sausages, beets and vodka, their wedding parties at Queens restaurants, their obsession with money, their strange nostalgia for a frozen and miserable homeland.
Reyn reveals "the Russian soul" to her readers. "Does it have anything to do with . . . the addictive qualities of vodka? Wars fought with little training, shoddy clothing, and primitive equipment?"
It was a yummy book.
8 boned and skinned chicken breast halves
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. pineapple juice
1/4 c. oil
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 TB brown sugar
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
Mix together all ingredients except chicken. Marinate chicken in the mixture for 3 to 6 hours. Drain well. Broil on second shelf 6 to 10 minutes on each side. Serve with melted butter and dip as with lobster. Calories equal 280/serving, unless most of the oil drains off. But then I guess you make up for that with the butter.
Recipe from a community cookbook.
I never have dipped this in butter, because I have never eaten lobster. We save that kind of thing for Abbey, the adventurous one in our family. She vowed to try lobster on a family vacation to Maine. We all sat around watching raptly as she tore off the legs and dug out the meat. Yes, she loved her little lobster feast. As for the guts, not so much. But they don't warn you about those, do they?
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we have I'll Go To Bed At Noon by Gerard Woodward. We've reviewed Mr. Woodward here before and, in that story, we thought the family who camps every summer in Wales was kind of bland. But now the family of Aldous and Colette Jones has grown up. Colette's brilliant, piano virtuoso son is a raging alcoholic, whose mind games and destructive bent make for never a dull moment in the Woodward household. Colette's brother drowns the sorrows of his new widowhood in drink. And Colette herself rather likes to while away the hours at the pub. The lady can put away a pint or two.
I wouldn't want to live any of it, but it was an instructive read. Includes some whiffs of cow patties.
Next up, we have Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg. Mark this one down for history: your favorite book-and-recipe blogger just read herself some science fiction. However, this was not the alien/space travel type. Silverberg's main character can read minds. For good or ill, he can just burrow in there and know what his sister has been up to, or his roommates. When he meets a fellow mind-reader, he can tell when his own mind is being penetrated.
Sometimes, what he learns frightens him away. Once, when presidential candidate Richard Nixon was in town, the main character went down to the street where the motorcade passed by, just to experiment with getting in to Nixon's brain. What he found there frightened him so badly that he refused to vote ever again.
But in middle age, he begins to lose his gift.
Fascinating. Frequent, fleeting cow patties.
Next up, What Happened to Anna K.? by Irina Reyn. I needn't give you any hints about the plot because, supposedly, this story is a contemporary version of Anna Karenina. (Does this mean I have to go read the real thing, just so I know that last sentence is true?) Reyn set her version in New York among Russian Jewish immigrants. I loved peeking into their lives, their meals of sausages, beets and vodka, their wedding parties at Queens restaurants, their obsession with money, their strange nostalgia for a frozen and miserable homeland.
Reyn reveals "the Russian soul" to her readers. "Does it have anything to do with . . . the addictive qualities of vodka? Wars fought with little training, shoddy clothing, and primitive equipment?"
It was a yummy book.
Friday, October 14, 2011
There Are Bad Days and Then There are BAD DAYS
Go ahead, name me your worst. Your kid forgot his lunch. The cop behind you turned on his lights. You cut your finger while making dinner. You got laid off. You backed the car into a Hummer. The doctor called you back for a "consultation" after the tests. You found icky stuff in the computer's history.
I'm impressed by your troubles, really, I am. But I can top them. Not with my own, thank goodness, but over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Son of the Morning Star by Evan Connell, chronicling the life of General Custer, a man who had one very Bad Day.
It starts out gory, following a few cavalry soldiers as they come upon a scene of barbaric slaughter (missing scalps, evisceration, long gashes down limbs, arrows sticking out of delicate places).
So what happened at Custer's Last Stand? Well, we aren't sure. All the eyewitnesses ended up scalped, eviscerated, gashed and pierced. (See paragraph above.)
What we do know is that Custer was a mean dude. His cavalry had the highest desertion rate of them all. And why not, when he marched his men in 120' heat, making them wear their full wool uniforms and carry pounds and pounds of equipment?
He rose fast in the army, but historians agree that he ascended on a bubble of other men's brilliance and strategy. Custer's only strategy was to yell "Charge!" and plunge in. And it worked. Until one very Bad Day in 1876 when it didn't.
Connell's book circles around in time, examining all the theories and eyewitness accounts about the man. I was never sure the author had any organization in mind at all. But I stuck with it for all the tidbits that came up. For instance, I would not have wanted to miss the story of Mrs. Nash, who traveled along with the 7th Cavalry as laundress, midwife and baker of pies extraordinaire.
Near the end, all that circling tightens until he introduces some new eyewitnesses. When I finally closed the book, I walked away with the sense that I could see Custer in his last moments.
Next, we have Martin Dressler by Stephen Millhauser. Martin is a dreamer who comes of age at the end of the 19th century. He is the kind of restless soul who always looks for the next big thing to build. It's mildly interesting but, Mr. Author, I spent the whole book wondering why you didn't resolve the matter of Martin's women. He married Woman A. Woman B had every right to expect he'd marry her. Do you really think flesh-and-blood women react the way she did?
As for your recipe, we feature QUICKER CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS. This implies that there are more tedious ways to make chicken and dumplings, don't ask me what they are. Unless it includes plucking an actual chicken. That I know something about, and it is tedious indeed. That is, until it comes to the part about getting the very last bits off, the ones that are too much trouble to pluck. For that, my mom poured a little rubbing alcohol into a jar lid, lit it and burned off any final fuzz off the chicken carcass. Open flames always make the kitchen more interesting.
Come to think of it, I didn't really know what a dumpling was, until I tried this recipe. Basically, they are dough balls. Well, they cook up like a biscuit, but the broth they cook in makes the outsides gooey.
Cooks probably never fix foods they don't like, which might explain my dumpling ignorance. My mom loved crispy and crunchy, while I loved gooey and squishy. She loved throwing in a little of this, a little of that. I loved to measure ingredients. She loved dogs. I loved cats. She loved the countryside. I loved the city. She loved . . . wait, I'm getting off the subject here, aren't I?
Anyway, this recipe saves you untold effort, not that we know what it is, and fills you up on a wintery night.
Quicker Chicken 'n Dumplings
I'm impressed by your troubles, really, I am. But I can top them. Not with my own, thank goodness, but over on the Finished Book Pile, we have Son of the Morning Star by Evan Connell, chronicling the life of General Custer, a man who had one very Bad Day.
It starts out gory, following a few cavalry soldiers as they come upon a scene of barbaric slaughter (missing scalps, evisceration, long gashes down limbs, arrows sticking out of delicate places).
So what happened at Custer's Last Stand? Well, we aren't sure. All the eyewitnesses ended up scalped, eviscerated, gashed and pierced. (See paragraph above.)
What we do know is that Custer was a mean dude. His cavalry had the highest desertion rate of them all. And why not, when he marched his men in 120' heat, making them wear their full wool uniforms and carry pounds and pounds of equipment?
He rose fast in the army, but historians agree that he ascended on a bubble of other men's brilliance and strategy. Custer's only strategy was to yell "Charge!" and plunge in. And it worked. Until one very Bad Day in 1876 when it didn't.
Connell's book circles around in time, examining all the theories and eyewitness accounts about the man. I was never sure the author had any organization in mind at all. But I stuck with it for all the tidbits that came up. For instance, I would not have wanted to miss the story of Mrs. Nash, who traveled along with the 7th Cavalry as laundress, midwife and baker of pies extraordinaire.
Near the end, all that circling tightens until he introduces some new eyewitnesses. When I finally closed the book, I walked away with the sense that I could see Custer in his last moments.
Next, we have Martin Dressler by Stephen Millhauser. Martin is a dreamer who comes of age at the end of the 19th century. He is the kind of restless soul who always looks for the next big thing to build. It's mildly interesting but, Mr. Author, I spent the whole book wondering why you didn't resolve the matter of Martin's women. He married Woman A. Woman B had every right to expect he'd marry her. Do you really think flesh-and-blood women react the way she did?
As for your recipe, we feature QUICKER CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS. This implies that there are more tedious ways to make chicken and dumplings, don't ask me what they are. Unless it includes plucking an actual chicken. That I know something about, and it is tedious indeed. That is, until it comes to the part about getting the very last bits off, the ones that are too much trouble to pluck. For that, my mom poured a little rubbing alcohol into a jar lid, lit it and burned off any final fuzz off the chicken carcass. Open flames always make the kitchen more interesting.
Come to think of it, I didn't really know what a dumpling was, until I tried this recipe. Basically, they are dough balls. Well, they cook up like a biscuit, but the broth they cook in makes the outsides gooey.
Cooks probably never fix foods they don't like, which might explain my dumpling ignorance. My mom loved crispy and crunchy, while I loved gooey and squishy. She loved throwing in a little of this, a little of that. I loved to measure ingredients. She loved dogs. I loved cats. She loved the countryside. I loved the city. She loved . . . wait, I'm getting off the subject here, aren't I?
Anyway, this recipe saves you untold effort, not that we know what it is, and fills you up on a wintery night.
Quicker Chicken 'n Dumplings
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