Food experiments, the good and the bad

Rice, spinach and eggs are heavenly. But...while rice and spinach topped with a poached egg and soy sauce is about as good a breakfast as you'll ever hope to eat, the same cannot be said for buckwheat and collards. Buckwheat has a rotten nut whang and collards need to be tamed with a little acid, like cider vinegar.  One more day to go on this week of nasty breakfasts.

On a lighter note, I ate my home-made polenta today!  It's not as hard to make as people say and I found it tasty, even without any fat and just a sprinkle of salt.  I wonder what it would taste like with a trickle of pure maple syrup?

Smoke & Pickles by Edward Lee

Very enjoyable reading and a lot of good recipes.  There weren't many that I wanted to save but that was just the mood I was in.  I suspect they're all pretty tasty.

A sokay for me, sorry

Frederica
by Georgette Heyer

If I'd read this before reading The Grand Sophie, I'd have liked it.  As it was it seemed like just a weak imitation (or a dim shadow) of the other work.  I still believe that Georgette Heyer is a really good author in the genre, but while reading this one, I was reminded of why I'm really not too fond of the genre--boring, stuffy English people fiddling around with parties and 'coming out' balls instead of doing something real that might benefit society.  Or themselves.

With the other book, I was enraptured by the dynamic, cunning character of Sophie.  The heroine here--Frederica--is not half so interesting as the hero and he's a bit of a bore.  A good-hearted bore who likes poking the hot air out of his sisters' lofty balloons--that's his redeeming characteristic.  Sokay.

love story that works

Eleanor and Park

Rainbow Rowell does not disappoint.  Well...just a teeny tiny bit, at the end.  I wanted a little more thought behind the inaction, but that's okay.  I wasn't mad about it.

Yes, I'm being purposely obtuse.  Eleanor is a new girl in school--the mean kids call her Big Red and torment her accordingly.  Park is an oldtimer in the neighborhood who doesn't fit in but doesn't get picked on--he's been around for too long, keeps his head down, and has friends.  You know they'll end up together on account of the book title, but in the beginning you begin to wonder how?

The audiobook narration was superb, with different actors voicing the two alternating stories.  I usually hate the alternating narrator style, but she pulled it off and I loved it.  In fact, she's the only author I ever read who did it for the right reasons and did it right. Superb!

Not inspirational but informative

Tread Lightly
by Peter Larson, Bill Katovsky
 
I guess I'll have to read this again before saying much about it.  I read it during vacation, mostly in front of a big screen TV playing NCIS episodes.  My concentration must have been faulty.

I remember that it's full of summaries about research into the question of why running injuries seem so common nowadays despite mankind's unique adaptation to running over a lot of years of evolution.  The most common predictors of a future injury are previous injury, lack of experience, competition, and weekly running distance. Since a runner can't or won't control these factors, what can he do?  in an attempt to answer that question, the author does an near-exhaustive research into the factors that can be controlled--footgear, running style, and nutrition. 

The first two topics are done well but the nutrition chapter is skimpy.  I get kind of sick of the "paleo diet" assumptions that human evolution stopped in the prehistoric period; that human gut microbes (which continue to evolve) don't play a part in optimal nutrition; and that food preparation methods don't have an impact on their nutritional suitability.  You can skip this whole chapter and still get a lot out of the book.

Lot of good syntheses of research here and a few good conclusions that I'll leave you to uncover on your own.  That way you get the research as well--plus an opportunity to question it.

Short and okay about it

The Summer I Became a Nerd
by Leah Rae Miller

Silly little YA book about a cool girl who secretly likes comic books. Her search for the latest edition of a comic puts her inside an actual comic book storefront, gasp--anyone could see her.  Even the cute guy who works there.

I enjoyed it.  Very, very light and airy in both plot and detail. In fact, I'm not completely sure the author did her research into the worlds of comics and role playing games.  But I knew enough to fill in the gaps for myself.

So--nice, quick, vacation book. Worked for me.

Before kicking the you-know-what

One of my life's ambitions (you can call it a bucket if you like, but a bucket of what?)   One of my ambitions is to jog in the most beautiful places I can manage. It's not going to be easy since (a) I don't have a jogging partner, and (b) I do have a full-time job.  But my dog can help out sometimes and if I don't start spending less time jogging and more time on the job, I won't have that distraction much longer.
So here are my results to date:



1) The route from my door up the 'back way' to the top of the hill sports some of the most varied wild flowers I've ever expected. And there's one house with some amazing garden plots--I lusted after their rose bushes all summer. No scenery, but there are cows, vultures, snakes, and after a hard rain, tarantulas!  Nice.

2) Plano bike trails.  I only started them this fall after leaves went brown and evenings went gray, so they're not exactly beautiful to look at. But they're peaceful and contain ducks--lots of ducks.  I think I saw a young bobcat in December!








3) Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.  Okay, not exactly beautiful, but Hawaii!  This year the trees with the orange flowers were in bloom and littering the pavement, plus the birds are plentiful even if sparse in species.





4) Beach in front of Ala Moana Shopping Center, Honolulu.  My first experience of jogging barefoot on sand. I was carrying a ten pound purse and I wasn't dressed for the work, but my feet held up fine. They weren't as tough as they used to be so I kept a watch for shells and rocks.  The only thing that hurt badly enough to stop me was the tiny stretch of bumpty asphalt leading back to the car.  I could get into this beach running thing.


Where next?  TBD

Vacation read of top enjoyment

Walking Man
by Robert Wehrman

I really wanted to love this but simply didn't, for all that I devoured it in two large bites-- on the airplane and on my first day of vacation.  Colin Fletcher was a complex guy and had a complicated life, and Mr. Wehrman didn't gloss over any details. But neither did he make them sing.

The section on the writing of The Man From The Cave disappointed me. Of course he (Fletcher) had already told it all in the book; there was no point in repeating it.  But I'd hoped for some deeper insight into the connectedness he felt with his research subject.

So I'd say Mr. Wehrman did an extremely good job of research but didn't put his parts together so well.  The writing was just a tad bland, and he seemed to be going off in too many different directions with his conclusions.  But I still enjoyed the book, a lot.

Fruits of Hawaii

I don't know why apple bananas are seldom seen on the mainland, but I assume it's because people know only the boring, green, watery taste of commercial bananas.  That's okay by me--if people don't know what they're missing, more for me!

We also tried a few "ice cream apple bananas" and didn't like them very much.  Maybe they just weren't ripe--they seemed hard and tasteless.

Then we split and shared a fruit that we all adored.  We could have eaten ten of them.  Each.  I didn't catch what the name was--it was roundish, slightly asymmetrical with a bit of a stem like a mango, but this was no mango!  It was creamy, like a pureed peach.  Best guess is that it might have been an apple guava--

Kumquat  
We ate a few kumquat and were mostly underwhelmed.  Very tangy.  If I ever see a jar of kumquat jelly I'll grab it.







Of course, we had to try out the rambutan.  Despite their forbidding exterior, they're easy to pull apart and such down the soft berry inside.  Wish we'd bought more.



And finally, a star fruit.   (I'm not counting the avocado because I eat them all the time, but this was huge and perfect and possibly the best avocado I ever tasted.)

The star fruit was pretty good but not super sweet--you eat it skin and all.  I'd eat more of them but probably not buy them at a grocery store.  Fruit bought at a farmer's market and eaten on a log at the beach while watching kite surfers is always going to taste better than fruit at the store. 

Heavy sigh.

During holiday catch up

Dog Girl

Robin Brande writes such good stories!  This one is about a shy girl who's been wounded by her experiences with bullying school mates.  She decides to retire from society and concentrate on her true love--training her dogs.  Somehow she decides to volunteer one of them to act in the high-school's drama competition, and while the dogs steal the show she starts to slowly make friends again.  Or so we hope--she insists on pulling away whenever people get too close.  But as the dogs have their tricks and she has a few, too.  The show must go on!

Before Christmas holiday; still catching up

The Kitchen God's Wife
by Amy Tan

I just absolutely loved this book and it was nothing like I expected.  I'd been led to believe it would be something about a mother's need to tell a story that her daughter didn't want to hear and the conflict between them.  But not at all--it was simply the mother telling her story and what a story it was!

I'm scared to give any details at all.  Sorry.

Good to occupy the mind while driving

Dreamland Social Club

Short YA book about a girl rediscovering her mother's life among the Coney Island Beach freak show artists. I'm not at all sure how closely its based on a real place and time--I'm okay if it's not, but by using a real place and time, it ought to be. Otherwise the readers will come away with a distorted view of reality and that's not fair.

I listened to the audiobook so maybe there's a disclaimer in a preface or afterword in the paper copy.  Or maybe it's really based on the place, see: http://www.taraaltebrando.com/about-dreamland-social-club/ for more info.

I enjoyed it but wasn't overwhelmed by it. I was very pleased that the author didn't oversimplify anything or trivialize anyone--no good guys and bad guys here, just people.  Interesting people.

Good surgical drama

Walk on Water
by Michael Ruhlman

Despite his overuse of the 'Walk on Water' epithet, Michael Ruhlman's depiction of  Dr. Roger Mee and other surgeons who reconnect, reroute, and sometimes reconstruct the delicate arteries and veins of children's hearts makes for absorbing reading. Heart defects in newborns and young children are much more common than I ever knew--the statistic I looked up says that heart defects within four weeks of birth cause about 303,000 deaths each year worldwide.  But when I tried to check this statistic, I found confusing supporting evidence--there are about 129,000,000 children born every year and between .8 and 1.2 percent of them have congenital heart disease, so this would be a total of about one million cases per year.  Of course, they might not all die, but the numbers look wrong.

In any event, it's common enough to keep a lot of good surgeons very, very busy.  But it appears that there are a lot of not-so-good surgeons, too--or rather, not-so-good surgery centers.  If you're expecting a baby and any sort of defect is suspected, it might be worthwhile researching your options ahead of time.

But the focus of this book is the great surgeons.  It is full of miracle stories and other suspenseful and somewhat agonizing feats of near-magic in the operating theater.  Maybe it's not the full story, but it's a good one.

Hot but not dry

Heat
by Bill Buford

I can testify to the good writing and awesome storytelling in this book. It kept me listening even after I realized that I wasn't interested in the subject matter at all.  The very first part--learning to be a line cook at a 3-star New York restaurant--was okay.  When he finally got out of 'prepping' (man! this guy can make chopping carrots sound interesting!) and went to the grill, it was near fascinating.   What those people go through to turn out a perfect lamb chop--amazing!  and then they do it again.  And again.  All night long.

Later in the book he learned to make pasta and went on an expedition of research to answer the question on all our minds--who first put the egg into pasta?  Even that was interesting.  What lost me was a supremely long depiction of a chef who was an overgrown, egotistical baby at best or a borderline psychotic at best.   Where does all the ego in cooking come from?  Is it necessary in order to sustain the pace?  Or does it grow with time, fertilized by praise and newspaper critics and fine balsamic vinegar?

Bored as I was, I have to applaud the author. He stuck to the nutcases just as he stuck to the jobs of deboning chicken thighs, and we were treated to every hideously tedious detail.

I enjoyed the pasta-making although I still fail to see the magic.  As he implies, cooks were probably just dealing with supreme bordom when they learned to create campanelli (bells), farfelli (butterflies), or orechietti (little ears).  My ancestors created the bear paw quilt design; Italians created macaroni shapes.

The section on learning to butcher really lost me.  I couldn't get the point at all, but I had to admire his persistence--if you're going to learn and practice a craft, learn from the best and practice it well. Just because I, personally, rank the art of butchery right up there with that of designing product labels to make pop-tarts look like breakfast foods, doesn't mean there's not an art and a skill in turning an animal into pan-sized pieces.

And there you have my testament to this book and this incredibly dedicated researcher--I didn't quit reading; I didn't skip to the end; I didn't even jump ahead.  I savored every bite. If he goes on to France, the next logical step in the evolution of Italian cooking, I might just follow.

Liked and well forgotten

Everywhere that Mary went

I let a little too much time pass after reading it to write this.  I enjoyed it and don't remember why--how lame of me!  The mystery was good and the heroine was neither a wimp nor a helpless female out of control of her emotions.  Those two things combined, plus a good cast of characters, made a good story. Will read more.