Friday, October 22, 2004
Gourmet Meals in Minutes from the Culinary Institute of America
I haven't read the entire book nor have I made all the recipes (some I will never make) but Gourmet Meals in Minutes is a good recipe book. I like that they have recipes for boneless chicken thighs as well as breasts and that they have main and side dishes as well as desserts. "In minutes" pretty much means in under 1 hour with prep time included. That's not too bad! They do assume a level of pantry stocking that I do not generally keep but since I generally want to cook in 30-60 minutes I can plan my shopping around a few recipes.
We especially liked: Tomatilla Salsa, Fiwery Fruit Salsa, Salad of Crab and Avocado, Soba Noodle Salad (I'm pretty sure I twitched this recipe but I forgot to note hwhat I changed), Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, Stir-Fry Citrus Beef, Moroccan Lemon Chicken, Lemon-Ginger Grilled Chicken (this is now a regular on our dinner table), Pesto Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Walnut Chicken, Oven Roasted Potatoes, and Coconut Rice with Ginger.
The only problem I had with a recipe was the couscous. 2 Tablespoons of salt are too much and I thought even 1 tablespoon was too salty. There were three veal recipes which I will just skip.
We especially liked: Tomatilla Salsa, Fiwery Fruit Salsa, Salad of Crab and Avocado, Soba Noodle Salad (I'm pretty sure I twitched this recipe but I forgot to note hwhat I changed), Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, Stir-Fry Citrus Beef, Moroccan Lemon Chicken, Lemon-Ginger Grilled Chicken (this is now a regular on our dinner table), Pesto Stuffed Chicken Breasts, Walnut Chicken, Oven Roasted Potatoes, and Coconut Rice with Ginger.
The only problem I had with a recipe was the couscous. 2 Tablespoons of salt are too much and I thought even 1 tablespoon was too salty. There were three veal recipes which I will just skip.
Positive Girl Power!
Piratica by Tanith Lee is a swashbuckling tale of piracy. Artemesia is, at 16, a student at a hoity-toity girl's school when a bump on the head brings her back memories of life aboard a pirate ship. Artemesia's mother was a pirate queen known as Piratica and Arty sailed with her and her band of pirates getting gold and treasure. Piratica is famous not only for her great treasure but for her morality; she wins through trickery and will not kill or sink ships. Arty escapes from school, seeks out the pirate crew (now advertising coffee), steals a ship, and sets out on her piratical career.
The journey is buffeted by different plot winds: there seems to be a traitor on board, Piratica was not the pirate Arty thought she was, there is a rival girl pirate who does not live by Piratica's genteel rules chasing after the ship for her own reasons, and the British Navy is on a mission to bring the new Piratica to justice.
This is a quick moving, engaging story which called up lots of energy from me for the characters and plot. I was pulled directly into the story and swung this way and that as her life changed and she worked her way to a clear view of who she was. While there are idiotic adults, they are not the norm (sort of like real life) and while Artemesia's father is a sexist idiot over concerned with what other people think and how much he can control people associated with him there are concerned and justice minded adults who look at the individual rather than at the generalization.
At the end, one character gets away with evil because she acts simpering and girly and appeals to the gender limitations of the social era. This is not fair but it does sometimes happen in real life. Appealing to those mores/limitations does not make her a happier person, though it saves her life, and it doesn't change who she was as a pirate. She has ruled through fear and abuse of power and has no friends or allies among the other pirates.
I would love to see a sequel!
The journey is buffeted by different plot winds: there seems to be a traitor on board, Piratica was not the pirate Arty thought she was, there is a rival girl pirate who does not live by Piratica's genteel rules chasing after the ship for her own reasons, and the British Navy is on a mission to bring the new Piratica to justice.
This is a quick moving, engaging story which called up lots of energy from me for the characters and plot. I was pulled directly into the story and swung this way and that as her life changed and she worked her way to a clear view of who she was. While there are idiotic adults, they are not the norm (sort of like real life) and while Artemesia's father is a sexist idiot over concerned with what other people think and how much he can control people associated with him there are concerned and justice minded adults who look at the individual rather than at the generalization.
At the end, one character gets away with evil because she acts simpering and girly and appeals to the gender limitations of the social era. This is not fair but it does sometimes happen in real life. Appealing to those mores/limitations does not make her a happier person, though it saves her life, and it doesn't change who she was as a pirate. She has ruled through fear and abuse of power and has no friends or allies among the other pirates.
I would love to see a sequel!
The Slippery Slope and The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket
The Slippery Slope and The Grim Grotto are books 10 and 11 in the Series of Unfortunate events. These are two of the better books in the series (see my other review for details) with more character involvement and plots that rest on the many people and the mysterious VFD rather on just mean things that people can do to each other.
I haven't found it necessary to read all the books in order but it is important to read the Slippery Slope before the Grim Grotto because many things are alluded to but not explained from book to book.
Again I note that hardback list price is $11.99 (sometimes Powells and Amazon have them on sale) but I got them for $7.47 each at COSTCO. Scholastic books also sells paperback editions.
I haven't found it necessary to read all the books in order but it is important to read the Slippery Slope before the Grim Grotto because many things are alluded to but not explained from book to book.
Again I note that hardback list price is $11.99 (sometimes Powells and Amazon have them on sale) but I got them for $7.47 each at COSTCO. Scholastic books also sells paperback editions.
Warning! Flurry of books
Not a snowstorm, just a flurry.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
The Lost King by Margaret Weis
The Lost King by Margaret Weis is the first of the Star of the Guardians series.
Some themes are loyalty and betrayal, how to deal with adversity, and monarchy, theocracy, and republic.
Some themes are loyalty and betrayal, how to deal with adversity, and monarchy, theocracy, and republic.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, and The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket
My opinions on A Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket are divided. I like the Goreyesque quality of the illustrations by Brett Helquist, the dark puns, sarcasm, the clues, and the wonderful way language is used. On the other hand, I think the plots are weak and that several books could have been easily rolled into one meatier book which would have been good considering the price of the hardback books and the CDs. For comparison sake, the CD set for "The Carniverous Carnival" cost more than $25 which is what I spent for the CDs of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"; Harry Potter took weeks to read and a trip to Toronto and another to Vermont to listen to while The Carniverous Carnival took less than 1 hour to read and one trip to SC to finish listening to. In general most characters outside of the Baudelaires and Count Olaf are paper thin. In several of the books there are one or two better-fleshed characters and they sometimes reappear in later books.
After their Bad Beginning (one of the best books in my opinion) Mr. Poe takes the rescued Baudelaire orphans to live with Uncle Monty who is a specialist on reptiles in The Reptile Room. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are relieved to find that Uncle Monty is a wonderful man who values their unique talents and seems to be able to be counted on to keep them safe and stable. Count Olaf shows up and murders poor Uncle Monty. Adults let down children and while Count Olaf is thwarted he manages to escape. In The Wide Window (Book the Third), the Baudelaire orphans meet their Aunt Josephine widow of their father's second cousin. Aunt Josephine is a stickler for correct grammar and spelling and is afraid of almost everything. Strangely, she is not afraid of Count Olaf (in disguise) and falls for his silly ploy to get hold of the children. In a wonderful victory of human spirit, Aunt Josephine runs away and leave a particularly wonderful clue for the orphans. They find her and are travelling to the authorities to report Count Olaf when the Count and the infamous leeches of Lake Lachrymose do away with the poor Aunt (which in this case does not mean that she had no money but that she was to be pitied). From Lake Lachrymose, Mr. Poe takes the children to "The Miserable Mill" where the orphans are put to work in a lumber mill and Count Olaf is disguised as a woman and has a female hypnotist a coworker. Mr. Poe threatens that if the children cannot stay at the Mill they will be sent to boarding school (this is a nice set-up for the next book in the series "The Austere Academy".
After their Bad Beginning (one of the best books in my opinion) Mr. Poe takes the rescued Baudelaire orphans to live with Uncle Monty who is a specialist on reptiles in The Reptile Room. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are relieved to find that Uncle Monty is a wonderful man who values their unique talents and seems to be able to be counted on to keep them safe and stable. Count Olaf shows up and murders poor Uncle Monty. Adults let down children and while Count Olaf is thwarted he manages to escape. In The Wide Window (Book the Third), the Baudelaire orphans meet their Aunt Josephine widow of their father's second cousin. Aunt Josephine is a stickler for correct grammar and spelling and is afraid of almost everything. Strangely, she is not afraid of Count Olaf (in disguise) and falls for his silly ploy to get hold of the children. In a wonderful victory of human spirit, Aunt Josephine runs away and leave a particularly wonderful clue for the orphans. They find her and are travelling to the authorities to report Count Olaf when the Count and the infamous leeches of Lake Lachrymose do away with the poor Aunt (which in this case does not mean that she had no money but that she was to be pitied). From Lake Lachrymose, Mr. Poe takes the children to "The Miserable Mill" where the orphans are put to work in a lumber mill and Count Olaf is disguised as a woman and has a female hypnotist a coworker. Mr. Poe threatens that if the children cannot stay at the Mill they will be sent to boarding school (this is a nice set-up for the next book in the series "The Austere Academy".
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Usually, after an absence of 4-5 days, I come in with a flurry of books. Not today.
This whole time I have been reading one book:
Iron Council by China Mieville. Why did it take so long? Well, it's a dense book with lots of action, description, and characters to keep straight and it was so good that I was trying to make it last as long as I could. My endeavour ended as it always does late at night tragically trying to make the story last but unable to stop reading.
Just lately I've been struck by how different authors use and introduce interesting vocabulary. Lemony Snicket, in the series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", uses a word and then explains in an aside to the readers what the word means in this instance. "Klaus's glasses were hanging askew, a phrase which here means "tilted to one side from leaning over logs the entire morning."" Cornelia Funke, in Inkheart, uses the entire sentence and the context that the word is used in to define the word. "The entire room was red. The walls, the columns, even the ceiling were vermilion, the color of raw meat or dried blood." China Mieville uses the words as a matter of fact and scatters in words native to his fantasy world. If I don't already know the word, I can guess that it is part of his world or I can go look it up. "Coruscant" was a word that sounded familiar but I looked it up to be sure. (It means "glittering" or "light flashing".)
China Mieville's stories are set in and out of the many levels of cities and cultures. Don't expect pretty people though there is great beauty and a certain grace in the deep passion that his characters have for their lives and missions.
One of the great things about Iron Council is that the people in the story know only what they know, they do not see the big picture, and the reader only knows what each character knows and that bias keeps the reader from knowing exactly what the big picture is until it is revealed by the author. Sure, I may think that Ori is being lead astray from his revolutionist activist group and into something darker but I feel and hope that this will be something greater, something more than talktalktalk. As Toro's group seems to be turning thuggish, I wonder if the means will justify the end and at that end I feel the betrayal that Ori suffers. He's been used! What kind of person uses that passionate desire to make things better for the world for their own desires? The answer is real people, real people who finally get some power and focus more on themselves than on the good that could be done for the community.
One of the great struggles in Iron Council is the need to get a group to work for some collective good while not sacrificing the valid lives and desires and passions of the individuals AND not letting an individual take over responsibility of the group. This works out different ways in New Corbuzon and on the Iron Council and nobody is immune from the corruption that power can bring, especially the mistake of assuming that one person knows the will of the group.
Another thing to think about: How powerful is myth? Can myth change the way a people work and think? If that myth comes back into our interactive world, will the flawed reality destroy the power of the myth or can seeing the strength of the reality make the whole thing even more powerful?
(sigh) Lovely.
Iron Council by China Mieville. Why did it take so long? Well, it's a dense book with lots of action, description, and characters to keep straight and it was so good that I was trying to make it last as long as I could. My endeavour ended as it always does late at night tragically trying to make the story last but unable to stop reading.
Just lately I've been struck by how different authors use and introduce interesting vocabulary. Lemony Snicket, in the series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", uses a word and then explains in an aside to the readers what the word means in this instance. "Klaus's glasses were hanging askew, a phrase which here means "tilted to one side from leaning over logs the entire morning."" Cornelia Funke, in Inkheart, uses the entire sentence and the context that the word is used in to define the word. "The entire room was red. The walls, the columns, even the ceiling were vermilion, the color of raw meat or dried blood." China Mieville uses the words as a matter of fact and scatters in words native to his fantasy world. If I don't already know the word, I can guess that it is part of his world or I can go look it up. "Coruscant" was a word that sounded familiar but I looked it up to be sure. (It means "glittering" or "light flashing".)
China Mieville's stories are set in and out of the many levels of cities and cultures. Don't expect pretty people though there is great beauty and a certain grace in the deep passion that his characters have for their lives and missions.
One of the great things about Iron Council is that the people in the story know only what they know, they do not see the big picture, and the reader only knows what each character knows and that bias keeps the reader from knowing exactly what the big picture is until it is revealed by the author. Sure, I may think that Ori is being lead astray from his revolutionist activist group and into something darker but I feel and hope that this will be something greater, something more than talktalktalk. As Toro's group seems to be turning thuggish, I wonder if the means will justify the end and at that end I feel the betrayal that Ori suffers. He's been used! What kind of person uses that passionate desire to make things better for the world for their own desires? The answer is real people, real people who finally get some power and focus more on themselves than on the good that could be done for the community.
One of the great struggles in Iron Council is the need to get a group to work for some collective good while not sacrificing the valid lives and desires and passions of the individuals AND not letting an individual take over responsibility of the group. This works out different ways in New Corbuzon and on the Iron Council and nobody is immune from the corruption that power can bring, especially the mistake of assuming that one person knows the will of the group.
Another thing to think about: How powerful is myth? Can myth change the way a people work and think? If that myth comes back into our interactive world, will the flawed reality destroy the power of the myth or can seeing the strength of the reality make the whole thing even more powerful?
(sigh) Lovely.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter
Freckles has wonderful descriptions. Gene Stratton Porter brings the deep forest and swamp of Linberlost to life with both broad background to detail of colour and sound. The vast presence of the forest with its sounds and silences and the feelings of fear and loneliness they can raise in people are exquisitely rendered.
The story reminds me of some Louisa May Alcott plot. A maimed orphan looking for legitimate work stumbles into a lumber camp. His honesty, enthusiasm, and persistance get him a chance from the Boss. Known only as Freckles, the boy must twice a day walk the 7 mile perimeter of a plot of forest making sure that poachers are not skimming the best of the trees out of the forest before the crew can get to the job. It is a hard lonely job but Freckles is drawn from his fear by the lush details of the wildlife. Friendships and care blossom when the fear has gone and Freckles enears himself to his host family, his boss, and a naturalist photographer and the young girl who accompanies her into the forest.
Freckles falls in love with the girl. She saves him from terrible trouble at one point and he saves her life, at great risk to himself. An orphan with little if any future, Freckles knows that he cannot even hope to have his love for the "Swamp Angel" to be returned. The angel seems to care for him as well but it cannot be. Freckles works hard to educate himself and his boss sees a future for Freckles of college and a job in the logging company. Everyone, well almost everyone, mentions his politeness and gentility.
Surprise! Though Freckles is an orphan they find his family (Uncle) and discover that Freckles is a wealthy member of a Noble Irish family. This family was not aware of his existance until lately and they have straight away come to America to find him and restore him to his rightful place. Now Freckles and the Angel's love can be requited because they are of similar class.
The story reminds me of some Louisa May Alcott plot. A maimed orphan looking for legitimate work stumbles into a lumber camp. His honesty, enthusiasm, and persistance get him a chance from the Boss. Known only as Freckles, the boy must twice a day walk the 7 mile perimeter of a plot of forest making sure that poachers are not skimming the best of the trees out of the forest before the crew can get to the job. It is a hard lonely job but Freckles is drawn from his fear by the lush details of the wildlife. Friendships and care blossom when the fear has gone and Freckles enears himself to his host family, his boss, and a naturalist photographer and the young girl who accompanies her into the forest.
Freckles falls in love with the girl. She saves him from terrible trouble at one point and he saves her life, at great risk to himself. An orphan with little if any future, Freckles knows that he cannot even hope to have his love for the "Swamp Angel" to be returned. The angel seems to care for him as well but
Surprise! Though Freckles is an orphan they find his family (Uncle) and discover that Freckles is a wealthy member of a Noble Irish family. This family was not aware of his existance until lately and they have straight away come to America to find him and restore him to his rightful place. Now Freckles and the Angel's love can be requited because they are of similar class.
Gringa Latina - A Woman of Two Worlds by Gabriella De Ferrari
Gringa Latina tells a story that I know nothing about and yet it resonates deeply within me. I've never been to Peru and I am either Latina nor Gringa but like Gabriella De Ferrari I have been a "Second Culture Kid", a person who matures in two very different and separate cultures. De Ferrari does not use the term nor does she talk about the experiences of anyone but herself but there are strong similariites between the lives of people who are outsiders no matter where they are. Gabriella De Ferrari is the child of Italian parents who fell in love with Peru and raised their family there; later De Ferrari went to college in America and became a citizen. A gringa in Peru; a Latina in America; somehow both fully and separately.
This is a gentle, thoughtful book. There is no racing from exciting instant to instant but rather an amble, a soft look into the graceful home and garden and a quiet look into the intimacy of the family.
This is a gentle, thoughtful book. There is no racing from exciting instant to instant but rather an amble, a soft look into the graceful home and garden and a quiet look into the intimacy of the family.
