Review: Pets and the City

Pets and the City:

True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian

By Dr. Am Attas

I liked this okay—it was cute and light and amusing. With occasional sad stories, although I think she steered us away from the really sad cases that any veterinarian must have to endure. There were a few that made you sad, but most of them had happy endings.

I got the impression it was one of those books written because everyone always told her, “You really have to write this stuff down!  Your job would make a wonderful book!”  Not because of any deep, overwhelming need she had to pull it out of her chest and throw it on the ground. Which is fine—sometime you just need a mindless amusement. (With an occasional lesson—Don’t Feed Grapes to Dogs!)

Cooking…for the halibut

To-Try Recipe #18: Sticky Miso Salmon Bowl

It was okay—there’s really nothing you can do to salmon to ruin it--but nowhere good as other salmon treatments like Dr Bruce's Awesome S
almon.  I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but that’s all.

Keep or Discard?  Discard

Review: The Last Cheater’s Waltz

 The Last Cheater’s Waltz:

Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest

by Ellen Meloy

I can’t do justice to this elegant work; all I can do is explain how I reacted to it. The alternating subjects—beauty of the desert vs. violence of the atomic bombs that were developed and tested there—kept me alternating between wanting to read deeply and savor every turn of phrase...and wanting to skip past the awful stuff. Atomic explosions—the suffering they caused and will go on causing for as long as we likely will exist as a viable species—don’t make for good reading. Or thinking about.

And so I confess to skipping and skimming, a lot. But when I would suddenly hit upon a passage of heart-lifting beauty, I’d be deep into it; lost and not wanting to come back up for air.

I suspect people will fault her writing for being disjointed and somewhat random in coherency and flow. But that’s the way this sort of nature writing is supposed to be. It’s poetry—no, it’s better than poetry, because poetry is bound by a rhyme and a rhythm. Her writing springs from the rhythm of nature—long, slow pauses, bursts of action, and crash! of flash floods in the arroyos.

Cooking…for the halibut

Finished!  I'm lagging behind on writing up and posting these reviews, but the cooking was all finished in January.  Summary follows in a few days.

To-Try Recipe #17: Coconut and Spice Chickpeas

Not impressed. It’s just chickpeas cooked with onion, garlic, coconut milk, turmeric and cayenne pepper. I’ll try it again before making a final decision, but the turmeric really has no flavor and all the cayenne does is make it a little spicy. Some real spices, like cardamon or curry or cumin, would have improved things a whole lot.

Later, on retry, I decided that they tasted better that I thought at first. A half-hour sitting in the pan improved them immensely. But I think I’ll hold out for a different recipe.

Keep or Discard?  Discard

Cooking…for the halibut

To-Try Recipe #16: Oven-baked Sweet Potato Fries

From Serious Eats—you coat the fries in cornstarch and flour with a little baking powder, then bake them on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  And they were good!   I didn’t even use the seasoned salt at the end or make the spicy dipping sauce. And they were still good! 

I just needed to be reminded that you don’t put cornstarch in hot water!  It turns into marbles. Use cold, of course.

Keep or Discard?  Keep for sure

Cooking…for the halibut

To-Try Recipe #14: Vegetable Sushi Bowls

(From Cookie and Kate.) I’ve been wanting to try this because they’re vegan and nutritious and sounded like a great lunch to take camping. But they didn’t taste all that special.  I’ll eat some more tomorrow and see if a day in the refrigerator changed my opinion.  All I had was a little taste of the finished product—I had some leftovers already on the menu.

Maybe the spicy mayo would have pulled it all together.

Keep or Discard?  Probably discard, although the rice treatment seemed to be a good idea.

To-Try Recipe #15: Black Pepper Chicken

It turned out okay, not especially exciting. It needed salt, as I guessed while making it.  It was basically just chicken in a potato starch, black pepper, and garlic rub, stir fried and seasoned with oyster sauce and sesame oil.  He only called for one-quarter teaspoon of salt for the three pieces of chicken—I think splash of soy sauce at the end would have improved it a lot.

But still, that particular “treatment” didn’t complement the chicken. It would have been better with beef, IMHO. 

Keep or Discard?  Discard.

Review: A Farewell to Arfs

by Spencer Quinn

I’ve sometimes thought that when a mystery writer (or TV show) has to resort to choosing characters from the detective’s immediate family (neighbor, coworker, friend), then it’s about time he gave up on the series.  He’s clearly running out of ideas.

Plus the characters he chose made me sad. I guess I shouldn’t fault him for that—if I care about characters enough to be sad when things happen to them, it’s a sign he’s created some engaging imaginary beings. But all the same, I don’t like to be sad!

It’s a pretty good book all the same, but I wouldn’t call it the best in the series. By any means.  Even Chet’s inner narration seemed to be off its game.