Booking Through Thursday-Thankful

It’s Thanksgiving here in the U.S. of A. so …
What authors and books are you most thankful for?

I am most thankful for Robin McKinley, Tanith Lee, and Gregory Frost's Fitcher's Brides.

McKinley's Pegasus reignited my love for young adult fiction, and reminded me of just how much I loved Beauty and Deerskin.

Tanith Lee is a brilliant storyteller, and I really got into her novels this year, she is a "find" that I am very thankful for! Her characters haunt me. Her worlds nag at my subconscious.

Frost's Fitcher's Brides is something I actually read quite a while ago, but it is the first fairy tale retelling set in America that I actually liked. It was excellent. Great characters, great story, great writing.

All three of my authors/books that I am thankful for have settled ideas, characters, and settings deep within my psyche. Maybe that isn't a good thing, but it keeps my thoughts interesting, and for that I am thankful.

Cookbook Review: Healthy Cooking for Two

Strangely enough, the cover image here is completely different then the copy I own. Also strange, I can find no images of the book-cover I have. Even stranger, the copy I have still lists Cornish Game Hens and Mango Salsa as the cover recipes even though my cover has a bean salad and crab cakes on it. Huh.

While weird, it doesn't deter my rather glowing review. Although I haven't tried every recipe in Healthy Cooking for Two (Or Just You) ...there are over 200. Most actually look appealing to me, but certainly not everything (I don't cook seafood this far inland...I just don't). I have tried five at this point, however, and have been extremely pleased with each. If I make more, and my opinion changes, I will certainly update this review!

Of course, I was too busy eating to take pictures of my pretty foodstuffs.

The recipes I did try out were:

• Roasted Greek Potatoes (p. 247)
• New Boston Baked Beans (p. 143)
• New Potato Salad with White Wine Vinaigrette (p. 97)
• Carrots in Lemon-Walnut Vinaigrette (p. 92)
• Szechuan Chicken in Lettuce Bundles (p. 159)
  

Yes they are mostly side-dishes, but that's what I have the most trouble producing come meal time! It's easy to come up with a main dish that sounds good, but whatever should I serve with it?

The Roasted Greek Potatoes were delicious, although next time I would probably use less lemon and extend the cooking time (I must have cut my potatoes a bit thick because when I made this recipe I had to nearly double it's stay in the oven).

My husband and I thought the New Boston Baked Beans were just about the best thing ever. Especially nice and chilled. While it certainly doesn't look appetizing (it is baked beans after all) it is so satisfying and sweet and tangy. It certainly doesn't taste low-calorie but it is.

The New Potato Salad was also quite good, with a great consistency (not too mushy) but once again I think I would cut down on the lemon.

The Carrots in Lemon-Walnut Vinaiggrette were crunchy and refreshing, a basic shredded carrot salad that could accompany sandwiches, chicken, beans, or just about anything.

I admit that I skipped out on the lettuce bundles, and so Szechuan Chicken is probably a better name for what I whipped up the other day. To be honest, it had a bit of bite to it that the lettuce would have really complemented and I regret being too lazy to wrap the bundles! This stir-fry recipe includes chicken, fresh ginger, peanuts, green onions and peppers. It has a lot of flavor for very little work, just as the subtitle claims.

Price writes a very personal cookbook, with each recipe she shares an anecdote or origin story for its inspiration. However, it never gets "too personal" or weird, and I enjoyed sitting and reading through the recipes. Price provides two columns for each recipe, conveniently listing the amount of ingredients you will need depending on the amount of servings you wish to create (usually one person, two people, or four people). I highly recommend this for anyone who cooks for a small family (1-4 people), who is trying to eat healthier but still maintain a varied and exciting diet, or who just wants something dependable and easy to whip up.

New Boston Baked Beans (From Healthy Cooking for Two by Frances Price)
2 servings

1/2 small onion
16 oz canned Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup water
2 TBSP molasses
2 TBSP ketchup
1/2 tsp dry mustard
pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 300F.
Put the onion in a deep 3-cup casserole and cover it with the beans.
In a small saucepan, combine the water, molasses, ketchup, mustard, and pepper. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Pour the mixture over the beans.
Set the casserole on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 1 hour without stirring, until the beans are glazed on top and most of the liquid has been absorbed. Serve hot or lukewarm.

Per serving: 248 calories, 1 g. total fat, 0 g. saturated fat, 0 mg. cholesterol, 171 mg. sodium, 11.8 g. protein, 49.6 g. carbohydrates, 7.4 g. dietary fiber.

Price, Frances. Healthy Cooking for Two (Or Just You): Low-Fat Recipes with Half the Fuss and Double the Taste. (location isn't listed!): Rodale, 1995.

Off the Shelf! Update

I feel the need to update my Off the Shelf! reading challenge. So far, I am quite slow putting together my TBR list! But I hope to have a review for one of my Off the Shelf! books soon after New Years.

I still have a year left however (January 1, 2011 to December 21, 2011), to finish at least thirty book that have been collecting dust on my shelf (well, stacked on the floor, on my desk, on the shelves, in the shelves, jammed in the closet...)

Book Review: Fannie's Last Supper

Title: Fannie's Last Supper: Two Years, Twelve Courses, and Creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 Cookbook
Author: Chris Kimball
Themes: Food, Victoriana, Boston, Entertaining, Food History

Plot: In the mid-1990s, Chris Kimball moved into an 1859 Victorian townhouse on the South End of Boston and, as he became accustomed to the quirks and peculiarities of the house and neighborhood, he began to wonder what it was like to live and cook in that era. In particular, he became fascinated with Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Published in 1896, it was the best-selling cookbook of its age--full of odd, long-forgotten ingredients, fascinating details about how the recipes were concocted, and some truly amazing dishes (as well as some awful ones).

In Fannie's Last Supper, Kimball describes the experience of re-creating one of Fannie Farmer's amazing menus: a twelve-course Christmas dinner that she served at the end of the century. Kimball immersed himself in composing twenty different recipes--including rissoles, Lobster à l'Américaine, Roast Goose with Chestnut Stuffing and Jus, and Mandarin Cake--with all the inherent difficulties of sourcing unusual animal parts and mastering many now-forgotten techniques, including regulating the heat on a coal cookstove and boiling a calf's head without its turning to mush, all sans food processor or oven thermometer. Kimball's research leads to many hilarious scenes, bizarre tastings, and an incredible armchair experience for any reader interested in food and the Victorian era.

Fannie's Last Supper includes the dishes from the dinner and revised and updated recipes from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. A culinary thriller. it offers a fresh look at something that most of us take for granted--the American table.

My Thoughts: I received this book from Early Reviewers, but didn't really know what to expect-a memoir? A cookbook? Or something more akin to "Julie and Julia?" While I wasn't sure in the first few "courses" I decided I really enjoyed the style of Kimball's book by the time he discussed "brain balls" and making gelatin from boiled calves' feet. This is a combination food history, cookbook, as well as a brief telling of a very grand 12 course feast.

Kimball decides to prepare a 12 course Victorian (well, American circa 1880s) feast in his vintage Boston house on traditional coal/wood burning ovens. Naturally, such a feat required two years of prep in which recipes are tried, methods are discussed, a "cast" is assembled, and appropriate dinnerware/silverware is found. But this makes up only about a third of the book. Another third is entirely a history of food, etiquette, science, technology, and cooking patterns in American (mostly Boston) homes in the late nineteenth century. The final third is made up of a select few handpicked recipes. The book is divided into courses, beginning with the punch served pre-dinner and ending with wine and cheese. While it may sound disjointed and perhaps a little frivolous and self-indulgent I found this book very enjoyable, and Kimball reflects on some serious issues as well as the frivolous.

As a lover of history, of food, of cookbooks, and of making as much as possible from scratch-I found this to be an entertaining as well as educational book. I closed the book far more excited then when I cracked it open.

Recommendation: While I loved this book, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But, if you love food, cooking, the nineteenth century, entertaining, or just unusually memoirs I think Fannie's Last Supper worth checking out.

Similar Reads: While I haven't read either, Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in France by Julia Child both sound like similar reads. Surprisingly, I have not read anything similar to this before!

Kimball, Chris. Fannie's Last Supper: Two Years, Twelve Courses, and Creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 Cookbook. New York: Hyperion, 2010.

Weekly Geeks 2010-38

This weeks topic: Antique Books.
This is not something I have a lot of.
In fact, this is something I only have one of. That is of course, only if you can include a rapidly deteriorating book of poetry that my mother took from my grandmother then eventually passed along to me. It's very pretty to look at, and that is probably why I have kept it, since the poetry itself doesn't really appeal to me. I've never really been able to "get" poetry, and this one is no exception.
This treasured tome is an 1884 hardcover edition of The Poetical Works of Jean Ingelow: Including the Shepard Lady and Other Poems.

I would love to expand my collection of antique books. The library I was interning in last Spring actually had a whole room of rare and antique books that had been donated, the oldest one was a series from the seventeenth century. This library was in a private high school. All they did was sit on the shelves (sad), and were not properly cared for since the librarian did not have the funding or permission to do anything with the collection. One of my jobs was to occasionally dust down the whole room and each volume. I admit I did some dilly-dallying so I could admire each one.

Book Review: The Manual of Detection

On Reviews
They are harder than they at first seem.

Title: The Manual of Detection, a Novel
Author: Jedediah Berry
Themes: Routine, Mystery, Dreams, Carnies, Romance, Detectives
Plot: Armed with only an umbrella and a curious handbook, an unlikey detective must untangle a string of crimes committed in and through people's dreams.
In an unnamed city always slick with rain, Charles Unwin toils as a clerk at a huge, imperious detective agency. But when the illustrious detective Travis Sivart turns up murdered, Unwin is suddenly promoted to detective and must solve the mystery himself, aided only by the Manual of Detection. Sivart's greatest cases-including The Three Deaths of Colonel Baker and The Man Who Stole November Twelfth-it turns out, were solved incorrectly, and Unwin must enter the dreams of a murdered man and face a criminal mastermind bent on total control of a slumbering city.

My Thoughts: While I had read and (thought I) understood the plot summary provided on the back of this trade paperback, I was nevertheless surprised and delighted with the odd twists and turns in The Manual of Detection. I had thought I picked up some fanciful detective noir book (and was quite proud of myself for trying something new!) and instead read a delightful piece of modern fiction that happens to have a detective and a mystery.

Unwin was a lovable and proud bureaucrat in an ominously large detective agency in a dreary city that seemed to be London or San Francisco or Seattle...or anywhere really. There is a rather large cast of supporting characters that slip in and out of scenes. All of them are fleshed out, and probably merit more attention then they are given in this slim novel. While the plot is spelled out on the back of the book, it will take the reader by surprise as it unfolds. The cast of characters is delightful, and to be honest I love anything that features "old style carnies" of the shady and malevolent persuasion.

Wonderful characterization of flawed and three dimensional people, archetypal settings, and a delightfully unexpected story make this one of my favorite reads of the year. Perhaps even better sicne I was able to find it for $1.99 at Borders in a Buy-One-Get-One-Free (BOGO) bin (okay, I ended up getting six books!).

Random Passage: "Mr. Lamech," Unwin said again, crossing the threshold, "I am sorry to have to bother you, sir. It's Charles Unwin, clerk, floor fourteen. I've come about the matter of the promotion. I believe there may have been some kind of error (p. 23)."

Recommendation: I would recommend this to basically anyone, unless they didn't like a bit of whimsy or "unreality" in their novels.

Similar Reads: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, White Noise by Don DeLillo

Berry, Jedediah. The Manual of Detection. New York: Penguin Books, 2010.

Weekly Geeks 2010-37

Do you read for a few minutes here and there?

Do you put aside certain nights or times of the day to read?

How do you minimize family interruptions?

I have yet to figure out how to plan my reading well, to get reading time in at all!
It seems to happen in spurts. I won't read for weeks, then spend a week doing nothing at all but reading. Between school and family obligations it seems impossible to even get homework done, much less leisure reading. That said, I find it impossible to just read for a few minutes here and there-it just isn't enough! I try to get work done early enough to just dedicate an entire night to reading, but that rarely happens...I usually read then desperately try to catch up on everything else the next day instead!
Unfortunately, in my house, there is no way to minimize family interruptions. In fact, I would say that the only time I am consistently (and I mean every few minutes with asinine stuff) interrupted is when I am trying to read. I look forward to reading everyone else's posts this week for ideas on how to properly fit in time for reading!