The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Well I finished The Road today. Or maybe I should put the road, since Cormac McCarthy wouldn't put capitals anyway. Hrmph. Anyway, I liked the overall premise of the book, the post-apocalyptic world was dark and real, but I just couldn't get past the pretentious style and the lack of punctuation, and then the last paragraph really irritated me. I was trying hard to like the book, but then the ending was underwhelming, and that pretty much cinches my lack of interest in reading more McCarthy. Sorry Noel.

But today we had the book club meeting about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, which I did enjoy. I didn't like it as much as the rest of the people in the group, but I would still say it was a funny, quick, literate read. Oscar, a lonely, overweight, nerdy Dominican boy wants to be the next Tolkien. His sister Lola clashes with their mother Beli, who had a rough life of her own back in the DR before she came to New Jersey. The story flashes back and forth between Beli living in the Dominican Republic under the brutal dicatorship of Trujillo, and the present day lives of Oscar and Lola in New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be cool, and to have a girlfriend, but he can't lose weight, and he can't help his love of sci fi and RPGs.

Diaz's narrative is strong and persuasive; although the characters are over the top they're still believable somehow, and you want to root for them to succeed. I also really liked the footnotes in the story, which give some of the back story on atrocities commited by Trujillo and his "minions". There are also tons of sci-fi references though, the Tolkien ones were easy enough to follow, but some of them were a little too obscure for me. The part of the book that I found most frustrating was that there is a lot of Spanish (or perhaps more aptly Spanglish) in the book. Usually it's restricted to pejorative exclamations, so although you may not know exactly what's being said you can get a pretty good idea of the context. Sometimes, however, there are whole sentences in Spanish, which made me feel like I was occasionally missing the punchline. I'd give this book a 7 because if you can get past the distractions of the Spanish and Nerd languages, the characters are funny, and the book itself is charming in a helter skelter sort of way.

Award Winning Molasses Cookies

I really like chocolate chip cookies. And butter cookies with brightly colored powdered sugar frosting. And snickerdoodles. And sugar cookies. Really, I like pretty much any cookie that doesn't involve nuts or raisins. But to my tastebuds' way of thinking, nothing compares with molasses cookies. They're like the friendlier, more comfortable cousin of a gingersnap. Spicy, chewy, sweet, and satisfying, these cookies are like crack for me. Well not that I really know what crack is like, but they're addicting, to say the least. The recipe was originally my great-great grandma's, and has been handed down through the generations in our family for the enjoyment of all. Some forty-odd years ago my grandma even won a ribbon at the Pima County Fair with these cookies.

They are perfect warm out of the oven but they also make quite a nice little breakfast when accompanied by a big glass of ice cold milk. (Hey, it's no worse than a bowl of sugary cereal!) So when I got a hint that cookies might be an appropriate graduation present for someone, I decided that it was going to have to be the molasses cookies. Time to share the addiction with a whole new audience!

Grandma Dale's Molasses Cookies

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt

approx 1/4 cup granulated sugar for rolling

Start with all ingredients at room temperature. In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside.

In a large bowl cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. This can be done with a mixer or with a wooden spoon and a little elbow grease. Add the molasses and egg, and mix until all the ingredients are incorporated and the mixture is smooth and evenly brown. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in small increments, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Once the mixture is well combined and evenly light brown; press the mixture into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour, and up to twenty four hours. Let the dough rest on the counter for a few minutes while the oven is pre-heating to 375 degrees F. Place about 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl, and breaking the dough into small pieces roll the pieces between your palms until you have 1/2 inch balls. Place a few balls at a time in the bowl of sugar, and gently shake the bowl until the cookies are covered on all sides. Place the cookies at least 1 inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes or until the cookies are darkening in color and the tops are cracking, but they're still a little soft to the touch. Don't overbake them, or they'll come out crunchy like a gingersnap, and the goal here is soft and chewy. Remove them from the pan carefully, they will still be soft and can break easily. Let them cool on a wire rack. Then store in an airtight container for up to a week. If they start getting a little dry put a slice of bread in the container with them, and they'll soften up again in a few hours. With 1/2 inch size cookies (pre-baked) you'll get seventy cookies about the size of a gingersnap, but oh-so-much better. Or, you can make the balls bigger, and get fewer big, thick, soft cookies--just make sure to add an extra minute or so of cooking time if you make them bigger.

The cookies were a hit at the graduation party. And it was pointed out to me that the sugar on the cookies glistens prettily in the moonlight, which makes these cookies not only delicious and relatively low-calorie, but also beautiful in their simplicity.

A Brief Tale In Which I Am Influenced In My Eating Habits By An Audiobook

I've been listening to Mark Kurlansky's Salt on audiobook in my office. It has been fairly interesting, better than The Basque History of the World, which I just couldn't get into. The thing that is frustrating me about the book though, is that whenever I listen to it in my office I get crazy cravings for salty foods. Monday it was pretzels. Yesterday it was Cheez-its. Today it was Goldfish crackers. I'm not even really hungry, but after listening to that book for an hour or two, I can't help myself, I have an intense urge to devour anything salty that can be found in the break room. After indulging myself, I am of course very thirsty, which leads to drinking lots of water, which leads to bathroom breaks, which leads to pausing the audiobook, which leads to my computer freaking out and refusing to play the audiobook, which leads to me having to restart the disc I'm on and skip through to where I was; meaning that I get to listen to even more information. About salt. And more salt. Salted cod and salted herring and salted anchovies and salted (corned) beef and ham and pickles and lots of other salty foods that I don't even like!

Then this afternoon there was a headline on the MSN homepage for an article about sodium-heavy foods, and in the Bill Bryson audio book that I was listening to in the car on my way home, he took the "Salt Way"--a path from Winchcombe to some Roman ruins, named the Salt Way because it was a path used by (you guessed it) salt traders. Salt, salt and more salt.

I think it's time to go get some Cheez-its.

Why doesn't Cormac McCarthy like apostrophes?

Noel has been on a big Cormac McCarthy kick lately, and has been hinting, with an increasingly wounded attitude, that I ought to give him a shot. (This all stems back to my habit of generally disliking the movies that Noel wants me to watch...now he's paranoid that I hate everything he recommends.) Anyway, I've been meaning to give McCarthy a chance; after all he's won a lot of prizes, and is fairly well respected, so it can't be that bad (even if Noel likes it).

Then last night Noel and Marshall were talking about which McCarthy books they prefer, and I decided that it was time to finally start one. The only ones we actually own are The Road, and No Country for Old Men, and Noel said that of the two he preferred The Road, so I started reading it in spite of my prior resolution to never read an Oprah Book Club pick.

I have to admit that so far it's pretty good, but I'm only on page 90, so things could change. I like the grim imagery of the book, and how McCarthy doesn't explain too much, he gives his readers some credit for logical deduction, which is nice. What really irritates me is his apparent aversion to punctuation. For a while I was trying to decide why some words deserve apostrophes, and others don't, but I think I finally figured it out: he puts apostrophe's for contractions of words + had, but not words + not. i.e. He'd use some markings, but he didnt use others. This to me is both annoying and pretentious. First of all it's annoying because every time he doesnt use an apostrophe, it totally distracts me from the sentence...much as typos in a book always do. Secondly it's pretentious because I don't understand why McCarthy seems to think he's above the normal rules of punctuation. Why not use the apostrophe? It wouldn't be that much harder. I wouldn't even object to the lack of quotation marks if only there were more apostrophes.

Cherries, chocolate, and more cherries

For Mother's Day I decided to try and use up some of my stash of cake mixes. I have a cookbook called The Cake Mix Doctor, and I found a recipe in it for an ice cream cake, using a boxed cake mix and melted ice cream. It sounded intriguing, and since I had a quart of Jerry Garcia ice cream in the freezer I decided to give it a shot. The resulting cake was fluffy but rich, dense, moist, and absolutely irresistible! The only flaw was that it sort of caved in on the top while it was baking, but since I baked it in a bundt pan I inverted it onto a serving platter and the formerly caved in top now became the bottom, and the new top was golden and perfect, even more perfect once it was covered in chocolate and cherries. A ridiculously easy, delicious cake, which I highly recommend.

Chocolate Cherry Garcia Cake
(adapted from The Cake Mix Doctor)

For Cake

1 18.25 oz box yellow cake mix

2 cups melted ice cream (this is approximately 1 pint of unmelted ice cream, it gets much more dense as it melts and it loses air)

1 egg

For Glaze

Equal parts semisweet chocolate and heavy cream

(I used about 4 oz of chocolate chips and 4 tbsp heavy cream for this recipe. If you want the glaze to cover the entire cake you'll need to make a little more).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a ten inch bundt pan. In a medium size mixing bowl stir together cake mix, melted ice cream, and one egg. The batter will be extremely thick. Pour and scrape the batter into the bundt pan, bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, or until top of cake is puffed and golden, and a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake sit in the pan and cool for about 15 minutes, then carefully loosen the edges of the cake from the pan with a spatula and gently invert the cake onto a wire rack to cool.

While the cake is cooling, heat the heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the cream is slightly bubbly and hot through, remove it from heat and stir in the chocolate pieces until the glaze is dark brown and shiny. Let the glaze cool for a few minutes until it has slightly thickened, then pour it over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. Top the cake with fresh cherries right before serving, and enjoy!

Books, books, books!

It's official: Barbara Nadel is too creepy for me. I finished Harem, and in spite of the appeal of Inspector Ikmen, the weird sexual predilections of the minor characters disturbs me. Plus I feel bad for poor Inspector Ikmen, overwhelmed by the combination of his nine children and his duties on the Istanbul police force. While it's nice to have a detective with a family for once (as opposed to the usual divorced, moody, alchoholic types) I think I'll stick with Donna Leon and Commisario Guido Brunetti when I want a contented detective.

Speaking of divorced, moody, alchoholic detectives, I finished Ian Rankin's The Naming of The Dead. While I think the end was a bit obvious, and the whole G8 Summit setting dragged a bit, I enjoyed the character of DI John Rebus, and his interaction with DS Siobhan Clarke. I appreciated the fact that not all of the loose ends were tied up at the end, and that although Rebus is rather stereotypical in a lot of ways, he's still funnier than most other alchoholic detectives.

In The Naming of The Dead Rebus and Clarke are working to try and simultaneously solve the murder of a bouncer-turned-rapist that appears to have been killed by a serial killer, a possible suicide of an MP, and an attack on an innocent woman in a protest of the G8 in downtown Edinburgh. The city is in chaos, with thousands of extra cops and special service guys called in to help with the G8 and the ensuing protests. Rebus and Siobhan (pronounced Sha-vonne) have to deal with traffic snarls, secretive special forces, a Chief who wants them to lay low on the murder(s) till the G8 is over, and complications in their own personal lives. It felt a bit like I'd read parts of it before in some other mystery, but parts of it were really funny, and I liked the character of Rebus. I'll definitely give Rankin another shot--but try an earlier book in the hope that it will be a little more original, I'll keep you posted on the results!

On a non-mystery note, the first book club pick was Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. I think perhaps the reviews I read of this book were a bit inflated. I was certainly expecting more than what it was after reading other reviews. By and large I thought it was pretty good, but it definitely had some strange "schmaltzy" moments, and a few odd plot holes. Since I knew that Nemirovsky died at Auschwitz, and thus was unable to edit or finish the novel, I think I kept reading more into it than was really there, ie "Well this part is a bit far-fetched, but she probably would've fixed it if she'd had a chance."

Nemirovsky did an excellent job of showing how the German invasion affected many different people, and gave brief evocative glimpses into their lives. The term "Suite Francaise" is, however, misleading--really the book is two short novellas that were published together. The first novella, Storm in June, gives rapid looks at about twenty different characters who are all fleeing Paris into the countryside, trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans. Some of the characters, such as Maurice and Jeanne Michaud are very likeable, some such as Charles Langelet are eminently non-likeable. The confusion brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

The second novella, Dolce, gives a more in depth look at the lives of villagers in a German occupied town. Lucile Angellier, a young French wife whose husband is a POW in Germany, finds herself with conflicted feelings for the German officer stationed in the Angellier home. Some other villlagers have much more confrontational reactions with the Germans, while some are content to collaborate. The two books are very different, and in our book club some people preferred the second, but I preferred the first. I liked the short chapters, and the quick glimpses at people that suggested the whole history condensed into just a few paragraphs. The second book was good, but seemed to drag in some spots. All in all I'd give it a B+, I can forgive the weak spots due to Nemirovsky's beautiful prose, and the amazing history behind the book and the survival of the manuscript.

Noel's Birthday Part 3

Ok, this is getting a little silly, I admit it. But I made a bunch of good recipes, and I want to share them! Here's the last one:

Yogurt Berry Cake
(adapted from Orangette's blog, again. Thanks!)

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup frozen berries, cut into small pieces, not thawed

3 tbsp. berry jam
2 tbsp. granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, and eggs, stirring until well blended. Add the flour and baking powder, mixing to just combine. Add the oil and stir to incorporate. Pour half the batter into a lightly greased 9-inch round spring form cake pan (I enclosed a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the springform pan before greasing). Sprinkle the berry pieces onto the batter, top with the remainder of the batter. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Cool cake on a rack for about 15 minutes; using a spatula gently separate the edges of the cake from the pan, then gently unlatch the springform, and turn the cake out onto a plate to finish cooling. When the cake is thoroughly cooled, flip it right side up onto another plate. Combine the rasberry jam and granulated sugar in a small saucepan, and heat just until it bubbles and thickens a little. The glaze will be a little gloppy, spread it carefully over the cake, and if serving immediately sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar for some extra panache. (If you're not serving it immediately, the sugar will absorb into the glaze and you won't be able to tell it was there--learned that one the hard way!) Then enjoy a delicious slice of this moist, tangy cake!


P.S. Here's the tupperware I caught on fire while trying to fit all the pasta/burgers/cake/cupcakes in the fridge--and not paying attention to exactly where I set things on the countertop in the process. It was kind of exciting for a second there.

Noel's Birthday Part 2

So since I had the whole day off work, I went a little nuts with the cooking. But I now have casserole pans full of pasta and sauted onions and mushrooms, a plate full of cake, and a platter full of chocolate ganache topped cupcakes. Mmmm....I can't wait for the barbeque tonight! The burgers should be fantastic and since Vanessa's making mac and cheese and potatoes to accompany them, it should be a perfect meal all around. Then we'll finish it off with some cupcakes and home-made ice cream sandwiches, and maybe a round of Settlers of Catan. Happy birthday Noel!

Three days later: we're still eating leftovers! The burgers were delicious, Vanessa's mac and cheese was a golden, messy, goopy hit, and the cupcakes and cake and ice cream sandwiches disappeared awfully quickly! No Settlers of Catan, but I did kick Aaron's butt at Jeopardy on the 64, (gotta love the graphics!) and then we had a big round of Apples to Apples.

Then Saturday the cheesy, sweet pasta casserole vanished equally quickly (possibly due in part to the fact that Nathan's kind of a piggy--I think he ate half a pan by himself!) and the sweet butter cupcakes with the shiny chocolate ganache looked super cute with stripey candles in each one. I preferred the yogurt berry cake though, it wasn't as pretty, but its tangy, sweet flavor and delicate moist crumb were superb! I snacked while I totally won Qwerkle (yay! I lost miserably last time!) and then lost at Blokus, but it was all good, since I had delicious cake to keep me happy. So here are the rest of the recipes from the birthday insanity: then I think I need to go walk off a little more cake!

Ice Cream Sandwiches

First of all--make chocolate chip cookies.

Then, place a little scoop of slightly melted vanilla ice cream between two similarly sized cookies. Press the cookies together till the ice cream squelches toward the edges. Place the cookies in ziptop baggies or airtight containers, and get them back in the freezer stat, they'll melt fast! Keep them in the freezer until you're ready to serve them.

Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

(Adapted from Orangette's blog. She in turn adapted it from Flo Braker)

1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 one oz. square unsweetened baking chocolate (optional--it gives the ganache a darker flavor, but you'd be fine with just chocolate chips)

1/2 cup heavy cream

Bring all ingredients to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350°. Get out cupcake liners for 20-24 medium sized cupcakes. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl at medium speed until it is smooth and creamy. Maintaining the same speed, add the sugar in a steady stream. When all the sugar is added, stop the machine and scrape the mixture clinging to the sides of the bowl into the center of the bowl. (I don't have a stand mixer, so I used a hand mixer, and just kept scraping the bowl with a spatula with my other hand, and it worked fine.) Continue to cream at the same speed for 3 minutes, or until the mixture is light in color and fluffy in appearance. Add the extracts in the final moments of beating the butter and sugar. (The original recipe called for 1/2 tsp lemon, 1/2 tsp almond, and 1 tsp vanilla--I just used what I had on hand).

Mixing on medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating each one thoroughly into the mixture before adding the next. When the mixture appears fluffy, reduce the mixer speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions alternately with the milk in two additions. Scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally, and mix until smooth after each addition. Using an ice cream scoop, fill each cupcake liner about 1/3 of the way. (Don't overfill, otherwise the tops of the cupcakes will puff out while baking, and then the ganache won't spread evenly.)

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of one of the cupcakes comes out free of wet batter. Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Carefully remove cupcakes from pans, and leave them on racks until they are fully cooled.

Meanwhile--in a small bowl over a pot of boiling water stir together the chocolate chips and the chocolate square until they're mostly melted. Then turn heat off, and stir in heavy cream, mixing thoroughly till there are no chunks of chocolate left. Carefully spoon the ganache over the cupcakes, spreading it to the edges of the paper liners. Cool in fridge so that ganache hardens a little, then serve at room temperature.

Makes 20-24 cupcakes, with 160 calories each (including the ganache).

Noel's Birthday Part 1

Well the fun of the blog thing wore off a little bit. And then of course there was the computer virus, which limited internet availability for several days. Add in family stuff, and just normal life--and here we are, two weeks later! But today I've made a bunch of delicioso food, so I thought I'd give it another go. Besides after all that cooking, and after washing three piles of dishes like the one above, I need a reason to sit down for a little while!

Today is Noel's birthday! We're celebrating with his family today, and my family tomorrow. So today I'm doing hamburgers with all the fixings, ice cream sandwiches, and butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache for 10. Then tomorrow it's my "famous" pasta casserole with homemade tomato sauce, a berry yogurt cake, and probably some leftover cupcakes, for 15 people this time.

The butter cupcake recipe and the yogurt cake recipe were both adapted from Orangette's blog. The tomato sauce and pasta casserole are both entirely my own creation....

Tomato Sauce

56 ounces canned diced tomatoes
45 ounces canned plain tomato sauce

1 cup diced onion

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

4 tbsp butter

1 cup fresh basil, chopped

2 tsp salt

salt and pepper to taste

In a large stockpot combine tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced onion, garlic, and half the basil. Simmer uncovered over medium high heat until it starts to bubble, let it bubble for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in 2 teaspoons salt and the four tablespoons butter, once the butter has melted in turn heat down to low. Put on the lid, let it simmer on low heat for about ninety minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so. At this point add salt and pepper to taste, and add the other half of the basil. Simmer uncovered for about twenty more minutes, or until the stockpot is about 2/3 as full as it was to start with, and the sauce is thick and shinily red.

Ladle sauce into glass jars or other containers, let them sit uncovered on counter until they've cooled off before putting the lids on. Seal jars tightly, then refrigerate. It'll keep for about two weeks in the fridge, or can be frozen for up to a month. I filled three 24 oz jars all the way, and one jar three quarters of the way with this amount.

Pasta Casserole

1 lb pasta, such as elbow macaroni or mini penne

2 lbs sweet italian sausages, casings removed

3 bell peppers, preferably three different colors

1 medium onion

40 oz tomato sauce (that's one and 3/4 jars from the above recipe)

8 oz fresh ricotta cheese

12 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

3 oz shredded parmesan cheese

Boil pasta just until al dente. Drain immediately, place pasta in a very large bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, dice bell peppers and onion into half inch pieces, spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray, bake vegetables in oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until slightly blistered. While the vegetables are cooking cut the italian sausages into half inch pieces. Place in large skillet, cook covered for about six minutes, then remove lid and cook for an additional two to three minutes, stirring often, till sausage pieces are browned on all sides.

Add the tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, half the mozzarella cheese, and the parmesan cheese to the bowl of pasta, stir until well combined. Stir in sausage pieces and diced vegetables. Divide the pasta mixture between two 9X13 baking pans. Sprinkle the casseroles with the remaining mozzarella cheese.

Bake the casseroles at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the cheese on top is melted and the casserole is hot. Eat hot! (Or refrigerate, and then reheat in the oven the next day--it's always better the second day, after the flavors have had a chance to meld.)