Seasonal Reading

I read, a lot - it's a good way to keep me out of trouble and give my brain a different kind of exercise than quilt math or trying to mix colours. I read new works on a fairly regular basis, but I have dozens of old standbys to get me through the year. Some of which I read when the moment strikes - I just finished Monica Sheridan's 'The ARt of Irish Cooking' because, well, it's winter and I wanted to read about stews and potatoes and colcannon, all the comfort foods that keep us going through the long days.

This is also about the time of year when I pull out 'All the Blue Moons at the Wallace Hotel' by Phoebe Stone. It's sadly out of print, and I say sadly because it strikes me as one of the most worthwhile modern books for girls 8-12. I didn't grow up with a sister and didn't suffer bankruptcy and the death of my father as a young girl, but the lessons of family, friendship, and functioning in the world under the weight of great sadness still ring true for me. You can find used copies at the linked image.

Sometime on Christmas Eve I will break out Marcus Sedgwick's 'The Book of Dead Days.' I'm tempted to pull it out after the Yule celebration, but force myself to wait those extra few days. Last year I didn't make it past my morning cup of tea before I was back in the rotten stinking City, greatful for the snow that temporarily covered up the smell of something much worse than horses or people and wondered what secret canals The Phantom would spring from next. Boy is my hero and Willow my little stalwart. Although the book tracks the days from Christmas to New Year's, I don't have that kind of willpower and generally finish it by Boxing Day. It's rapidly followed by the sequel, 'The Dark Flight Down', for which I have no pretense of waiting until January 3rd to begin.

It dawned on me as I pulled out my stack of 'winter classics' that I only have one for summer - David Grann's 'The Lost City of Z.' Perhaps that's because the days are longer and there's always something else to do in the summer.

And it makes me wonder - does any one else do this, does any one else pull out books the way they do decorations?

BotD: Yoga for Elephants

We all know yoga is good for us, but some of the attributes of yoga can feel a little silly to western sensibilities (like squatting on the floor humming). Plus, if you go to a class you are basically sitting around in your pajamas with a bunch of strangers trying to turn your desk-bound body into that of a child again.

Videos can be helpful - at the very least they help you know how long to hold a pose - but quite frankly I have yet to find the voice of a fitness video leader one I can listen to. I need a human, not a chipmunk.

I'm sure there are some great books out there, but my favourite is this one:




Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff

Okay, so I'm a little simple, and very biased towards elephants, but you should really check this book out - if you're interested in learning basic yoga. The pictures are clear, simple and straightforward. The directions are incredibly detailed - the kind of details the yoga teacher at the gym sometimes misses when trying to explain the position to newcomers.

BotD: Secret Lives of Great Artists

. . . . True Tales of Murder, Forgery, Trickery and Great Art

This was a holiday gift from a dear friend - the kind of friend who loves a good scandal and better art as much as I do!

This is one of those universal books for anyone who can read the language. It is clever, witty, full of character and characters and each little tale is short and concise. It's the kind of book you can keep in the bathroom to read while you're brushing your teeth or keep in the car for those interminable roadblocks.

It's also the kind of book that can make you sound smarter at cocktail parties - most people probably don't know that Michelangelo thought bathing would make you ill and had trouble keeping assistants because of his ridiculously foul odor.



Do people who don't live in tarabuland still have cocktail parties? You know, those civilized affairs where you count how many people can fit in your abode and you invite two less than that many. Where people arrive at 7 and leave at 9 and expect h'ors doeurves and canapes, but not a meal. Where people don't yak in the azaleas on the way out.

Do these affairs still exist? I sure hope so.

BotD: The Magic Mirror

Today's Book of the Day is The Magic Mirror by Kermit L. Hall. The subtitle is 'Law in American History' - now, quickly, before you doze off, stick with me for a minute. This isn't nearly as dry and heavy as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it's a paperback, and you can have it for less the cost of your monthly internet cable bill.

The author's preface is the best case for why you don't have to be a law student to read this: 'This book is about the history of American legal culture and the law in action. It is not a technical history of substantive law, nor is it an intensive study of case law development in either private or public law.'

See? It's not boring. It's stories of how the legals system in our country developed - in the context of a developing American society. Every aspect of law and the legal system is touched on - from the personal: the laws of domestic relations and personal standing to the Industrial Revolution and the foundations of regulatory law; from the laws of state and federal economics to the formalization of the bar system - there's a little something here for everyone.

If you live and breathe in this country, if you purchase manufactured goods, vote for your county orphans judge or know anyone who's experienced adoption or divorce, there's an element of law in every day of your life.

It may not be your standard spring break reading, but if you tote this to the beach, you may find yourself offered cosmos instead of jello shooters and you definitely won't be approached by the 'Girls Gone Wild' production team - and that's good for everyone!

BotD: Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby

It may surprise some to know that I'm know full-blood dork. Seriously, I'm kind of like the employee shuttle driver at Epcot Center: I cruise the perimeter, intimately aware of the ins, outs, dramas and trials of each little enclave of the dork forest, but really, I'm not one of them.

I remember choice lines from Buffy, but do not remember the episodes' names.

I know what a D20 is, but do not have one.

I am all about SuperGrover, but don't like Muppets take Manhattan.

I understand why Dragonlance people can't talk to Dragonrider people.

I understand that Halo is a lifestyle choice.

I respect comic-con, but I've never dressed up for anything that didn't start with 'Hallow' and end with 'een'.

I can unite with the other tribes of the dork forest in the universal disdain of civil war reenactors. Yes, they are the original larpers, but, dude, that's a level of dork that just won't wash off.

So it's with much voyeuristic joy that I share Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby: True Adventures in Cult Fandom.

It's hysterical, wonderful and touching - a deep, brazen, blindingly real tale of the lives, loves, turf wars, Orthodox tourists and homeless cats of Buffy Fandom. Being a Buffy Fan, I'm biased to give a lot of slack to the fans. Having never posted on a Buffy chat board, I am still an outsider who wonders how these grown-ups with jobs and rent and pets manage to spend this much time online with each other talking about a tv show. Yes, I do see the irony in my spending time writing about a book about people who talk/write/drink about a tv show.



Welcome to the dork forest. We have beer, cosmos, and cake. Really good cake.

BotD: A Pound of Paper

Sometimes, it's just easier to hand people a user's manual instead of trying to explain things to them.

That's how I feel about inviting people over. You see, I know that people tend to react to my books in the same way they would react to someone's collection of pez dispensers, or walking into someone's home and finding a lifesize mural of Chewbacca (okay that's me, too), so sometimes I will this could be required reading before people are allowed across the threshhold.



If you are book people, this will reassure you that, while not normal, there's at least a good chance that your particular mental disorder isn't going to kill people. If you are someone who loves a book person, it will reassure you that maybe they're a little more normal than you thought.

BotD: The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

I always feel like fictionalized histories of undocumented conversations should come with a warning on every page. A forceful reminder that this is all conjecture - possibly well-informed and intensively researched, but made up nonetheless.

I have the same trouble with films sometimes - like the film from Junger's A Perfect Storm. They never came home, so you don't really know who did what - the punk kid could have been the hero trying to save everybody or the skipper could have gone mad and jumped ship, you just don't know.

Anyway, if you have less difficulty suspending your disbelief, or simply enjoy a good story without worrying about whether it's accurate to the people the characters are based on, then you'll probably enjoy this.

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar is one of those fictionalized biographies that is a great story that may or may not be true - like a lot of fun books.



Note: It's easier to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the story if you read it with a glass of shiraz. I'm just sayin'

BotD: Breakfast with Tiffany

I love biographies - well-written tales of a life's homes, its loves, its fun and failure. They fulfill my deep human need to connect with others of the species while absolving me from the obligation to actually talk to people. They are what keep introverts alive.

So it's with much delight that my quiet little world - an introverted world of quiet scholarship, with three friends, all of the unlikely-to-get-me-arrested sort - tuned in one day to Breakfast with Tiffany.

It's the story of a forty-something single man of Manhattan, with his orderly life, orderly schedule and very orderly apartment who invites his hip, troubled, extroverted teenage niece to live with him. Beyond the usual Felix & Oscar antics that ensue ('teenagers are supposed to live in filth!') the emotional lessons of life's loves, losses and social upheavals are played out all over the place.

I highly recommend it for everyone who ever was a teenager and doesn't remember it being that bad (apparently, it was).

BotD: A Place in Time: Middlesex County, Virginia 1650-1750

Unlike yesterdays piece, this one is not about personal hygiene, but it does remind me how grateful I am to live in an age of reliable indoor plumbing. I'm not a diagnosed ocd, but I won't even camp because I am way to big a fan of the daily ritual of sluffing all the muck from the universe off of me and going to bed in a state of clean.

I only one year of my life in a small town, and only a few months at a boarding school - the rest of my time on this planet has been spent either on acreage removed from the nearest neighbour by more than a shout or a city where I could bang on the wall to ask for help (or tell someone to turn down the damn stereo!).

So it's with a kind of voyeuristic glee that I read social histories of small communities. The kind of communities where everyone knows everyone's business, where your home will be judged 'fine' if you have a porch or whether your household purchased a box seat at church.

A Place in Time may have too many charts for the truly casual reader, but if you've every had any interest in the early life of the Mid-Atlantic states, whether it's a curiosity about living by the calendar, finding love or money in a coastal community or just a voyeuristic look into the past, this may be for you.

BotD: Clean & Decent

Clean & Decent: The Fascinating History of the Bathroom and the Water-closet, and of sundry Habits, Fashions, and Accessories of the Toilet began as the backstory for an exhibit at a building convention. It became a delightfully well-informed history of western toilet habits as told from Ancient Egypt to the early 20th century.

It is not a history of hygiene in general - of health and medical care, sewage systems at large or the public welfare. Instead it is a very personal look at those most personal of household spaces: the loo.

Entirely fascinating and regularly humorous, you will be well rewarded for your time.

Botd: Realityland

It's no secret that I'm Disney people. I lived in central Florida for two years and had a year-round pass for WDW. If I had lived there when I was old enough to drive, I would have worked there. If I weren't committed to this orchard, I would work there now.

So it's with much delight that I collect all the knowledge and trivia about the place that I can.

Enter, Realityland - True-Life Adventures at Walt Disney World.




And yes, I still go to the Carousel of Progress and point out the authentic Revolutionary Era granite steps every time I'm there.

one bowl + double chocolate = brownies

This recipe is a variation of one by Robert Morocco of the fantabulous 'The Baker's Dozen Cookbook' yum, yum, yum, I say.

I apologize that I do not have photos, but this was one of those '7 am, just in from shoveling, the sooner I have this in the oven, the sooner I can get out of the shower and eat it' preparations.

Ingredients
1 cup toasted nuts (optional - recommend pecan or walnut pieces)

6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder (not drinking cocoa)
8 tbls = 1 stick = 1/2 cup unsalted butter, chopped

3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract (real vanilla, please)
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, room temp

7 tbls wheat flour


Preheat the oven to 325 F

In a glass bowl large enough to eventually hold everything, melt the butter and chocolates, mixing until smooth.

Mix in sugar, vanilla and salt until well incorporated.

Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Last, add the flour, stirring heartily for a full minute - you'll know it's ready when the batter is smooth and shiny. Stir in nuts if using.

Dump the batter into a 9" square pan that has been lined with foil, shiny side up, with a little bit hanging over the sides. (Don't butter or flour the foil or pan.)

Bake for 40 minutes +/- or until the top is puffed, cracked and slightly shiny - a toothpick stuck in the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs, but no smear of batter.

Cool completely in the pan (if you can). Pull it out by the foil, peel the foil away and cut. This is a very fudgy brownie, if you want neat and tidy pieces, freeze the uncut brownie for an hour and cut using a sharp knife, cleaning the blade between slices.

tarabu's two cents' worth:

Salt - I know the big boys of tv food go on about the wonders of kosher salt, but I also know that goiter is making a comeback because the health conscious have removed table salt from their diets. Personally, we don't eat a lot of packaged foods and don't add salt to any of our meals, outside the occasional use of low-sodium Old Bay, so I use old fashioned iodized salt in my baking and I have yet to have a complaint that it doesn't have the 'pure, light' taste of kosher salt.

Melting Chocolate - You can either do this over pan of simmering (not boiling) water or in the microwave. If using a microwave, heat on 30% power for 40 seconds at a time. Remember that there is some water in the butter and if it reaches boiling temperature, it will spurt butter and possibly chocolate all over your microwave's innards. And that's a waste of butter and chocolate.

Eggs - Cold eggs taken right from the fridge don't whip well, which is why cookbooks generally tell you to leave eggs at room temperature for a few hours before using. In fact, the 34 - 37 degrees of most refrigerators is too cold for eggs. If you are lucky enough to have a larder that stays betweeen 45 and 55 degrees, that's perfect. If not, set your eggs out for up to two hours before using. If you notice your eggs are sweating, then your fridge is too cold or your kitchen is too warm - if your kitchen is over 70 degrees, set your eggs 'out' in a cupboard so they can lose some of their cool safely.

Cooling - Becuase this is a fudgy brownie, you need to let it cool properly before cutting if you want to have even pieces. If you are a member of chez tarabu, however, you wait five minutes before dumping it onto a serving dish and giving every one present a chunk on a plate and a spoon.

The source:

BotD - That Dorky Homemade Look

I love this book - it's quirky, it's funny, it speaks to me.

It taught me that my seam ripper is my friend, my overworked and underappreciated friend - the notions version of that girlfriend I could call at 4 am when I finally got discharged from the hospital after eating bad shrimp.

It taught me to name my quilts with common names, like George or Donovan.

It taught me that the lecture circuit is full of donuts. Except in Hawaii.

It reminded me that fashion is fleeting, lifetimes are short and polyester is forever.

I give you, Lisa Boyer: Queen of the Dorky Homemade quilt universe:

BotD: Danny: The Astronaut Deer

Winter has it's cold, dead grip wrapped tightly around my home, which leaves my brain drifting towards spring's joys: it will soon be time to start seedlings and Artomatic will be opening registration.

One of the best part of Artomatic is the huge quantity of fabulous artists one gets to meet. Last year I had the joy of setting up next to Matty Burns, who showed off many of the paintings for his picture book Danny: The Astronaut Deer.

The story is the best kind of picture book - a simple, outrageous adventure, easy to read text and subtle pictures.

If your spring mindset has you thinking about children - whether it's a new baby, or a kindergarten graduation, or you're just missing the great wide wonder of childhood, when deer really could be astronauts - well, I suggest you pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed.

BotD - Time Flies

BotD - The China Price

BotD - The Lazarus Smile

This book is new to my library. It hasn't actually made it to the bookshelf yet - my filthy sailor wouldn't tell me where it was the first week, lest I steal it from him, and at the moment it's on the shelf next to my bed rather than one of the public shelves.

It's flippin' brilliant and lots of fun. Exciting in the way Clive Cussler's novels were in the '80s, when an author could put a lot of history in and not worry about whether it would get lost when it was converted to a screenplay - you know when authors wrote for the sake of writing.

And in the interest of full disclosure, this was written by a friend of mine. If you pick up a copy this week, you will have it in time to have read it before his first reading, February 28th in Baltimore. For more details, join The Lazarus Smile group on FaceBook.

Bookshelf

I started a feature on my facebook FanPage, the Book of the Day, however facebook doesn't allow archiving or sorting or searching by keywords, so if you want to find a past rec, you have to scroll through all my foolishness.

To correct for that, I'm going to double-post. You can look up prior botd mentions and reviews here any time you please by clicking the bookshelf icon in the sidebar, or looking up label 'botd'.

Even better, it gives me another tiny chance to sell out - all the links here in the blog will connect to Amazon, and if you decide to buy the book recommended, I get a tiny commission from the sale. Everybody wins!

If you've missed the goings-on on the fb page, lemme'splain:
I have a lot of books, I mean, a lot. I have been told that what is probably going on in my home is an undiagnosed compulsive disorder related to books, knowledge, and possibly the safety of nerd-dom. I find great comfort in books, in having them with me at all times (I even make my handbags out of books, and often large enough to hold a paperback in them, as well).
So to help justify my obsession, I am providing a public service by sharing my collection, one title a day, in no particular order, with the world. or at least my friends.

Today's BotD title: Plague's Progress



A fascinating social history of plagues, how and when they have arrived, and how they have worked to keep the population in check. As Oliver Sacks said, it makes you wonder how we've ever survived. This is one of those books that at the end, you'll be wondering whether science has done more harm than good (so far it hasn't) and you will probably find yourself eschewing gel hand sanitizers for old fashioned soap, hot water and a good rinse!