Ever bought a cookbook for one specific recipe? I do it all the time, especially at garage sales. I'm always on the look out for the "HP The Book of" series of cookbooks, they are these little skinny things, with simple recipes, easy instruction, and good photos. When I saw "The Book of Regional American Cooking Heartland" cookbook at a garage sale for 50 cents, I tell you it was love at first sight. especially since it had a Corn Chowder recipe in it. I've been making little changes to my Mom's old fashioned corn chowder over the years, and this one looked good. and the cookbook has tons of wild rice recipes, yummy stuff!
I tried to find a link on Amazon for this cookbook. The title didn't bring anything up, but the Author, BEatrice Ojakangas? She's got pages of Finnish and Norwegian and bread cookbooks. That's pretty cool!
I made a few modifications to her recipe, as I was trying to blend it with my Mom's recipe, which is my favorite corn soup ever, but really simple.
Corn Chowder, improved.
(adapted from The Book of Regional American Cooking Heartland, by Beatrice Ojakangas)
4 slices turkey bacon
one onion, chopped
1 cup chopped carrot
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tbsp paprika
4-5 cups chicken broth
5-6 red potatoes diced
1 cup milk (I had some cream in the fridge, so i used that up, and the rest was milk)
1 lb bag frozen corn, thawed
3 green onions, sliced thin
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
cook bacon in some oil in a large non-stick pot. when cooked, remove and dice. cook onion and carrot in grease, till soft, about 10 minutes. stir in flour, and cook, stiring, another few minutes. don't stop stiring, you don't want the flour to burn! stir in paprika and potatoes. stir well, then pour in chicken stock. simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender. add chopped bacon, milk, corn, and green onions, and cook another 10 minutes or until all is hot. season with salt and pepper, garnish with cilantro.
This was the first corn soup that my husband finished. Usually he has a bowl or two, and I pig out on the rest, but this time he kept beating me to the leftovers!
vegetarian/kosher version? Omit meat, use vegetable broth. I don't suggest using straight water, it would be too bland.
so onto Neal Stephenson, who I'm sure you're sick of hearing me bitch about.
Which means of course when I saw The Confusion, the sequel to Quicksilver, I had to buy it. come on, it was on the clearance rack! And you know what? It's better than Quicksilver. A Lot better. Or maybe it's an easier read because I know who these characters are, and I'm kind of expecting the wild goose chases? regardless, it should keep me busy for a while.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Makes that Mediocre stuff so hard to enjoy.
I finally finished Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, and I'm happy to add it to the “Books I want to read again the moment I finish them” list. For an Eco, it's surprisingly readable, and layered in such a way that readers of any interest level will get a lot out of it.
At its most basic level, this is a murder mystery. In Eco's afterward, he mentions the idea of the novel was born when he played with the idea of poisoning a monk. He also mentions that he wrote the prose in a specifically open manner to encourage readers to form their own interpretation of events and conversations. Is that person being sarcastic? Is there some kind of secrecy going on? If you interpret it that way, then he is, and there is.
Brother William and novice Adso are traveling to a Benedictine Monastery in Italy, for the purpose of meeting up with other monks in the area. They are hoping to devise a plan of attack for an upcoming meeting between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, at which heresy will be the main topic. When William and Adso arrive, they are informed of the recent death of a young monk, and asked to investigate. To protect the reputation of his monastery, the Abbot wishes for William to find out what's going on before the other Catholic representatives arrive.
And, as this is a murder mystery, the bodies start piling up. As a friend of Sir Francis Bacon and William of Occam, brother William goes about his investigation in a very scientific way. Ask questions, find out where people were at the times of death, look for people with fishy alibies, look for footprints in the snow by the bodies. Piece by piece, Williams puts together his hypotheses, with minimal help from the secretive monks. He even sneaks into their famous labyrinth library after the abbot forbids him from doing so. There is something in that library that people are dying for. Like myself, William is a lover of books and knowledge – no learning is heretical, it is all important. Libraries of that time were literally banks of information, scrolls and books that existed no where else in the world. The philosophical idea of a library that exists to keep knowledge away from people and keep secrets was beyond fascinating for me.
The days go by, there are more deaths, the other Catholic representatives arrive, along with the Inquisition. Eco says he put the Inquisition in the story because you can't have a 14th century story take place in a monastery without them. And yes, that chapter made me queasy, had me biting my nails, and nearly gave me an anxiety attack.
There is so much more I could say about this novel, so I'll say just one more thing: read it. Make sure you get a copy with Eco's afterword (because that's the best part), and read it. Eco hits everything just right: style of prose, action, descriptions, dialogue, I can't find a single thing to complain about. Because this is Eco we're talking about, of course the novel has a handful of untranslated German, Latin, and Spanish. So of course I'm waiting for my Spanish-English dictionary to show up in the mail (Mom, I'm looking at you!), am pulling my Latin books down from the shelf (Mom, if you're looking for your Latin books, I'm holding them hostage), and contemplating getting a German English dictionary. The beauty of transliterations, and mistransliterations is that two people will often come up with three differnt ways to translate something. There's another level for you.
It's books like this that make those mediocre novels so hard to enjoy.
At its most basic level, this is a murder mystery. In Eco's afterward, he mentions the idea of the novel was born when he played with the idea of poisoning a monk. He also mentions that he wrote the prose in a specifically open manner to encourage readers to form their own interpretation of events and conversations. Is that person being sarcastic? Is there some kind of secrecy going on? If you interpret it that way, then he is, and there is.
Brother William and novice Adso are traveling to a Benedictine Monastery in Italy, for the purpose of meeting up with other monks in the area. They are hoping to devise a plan of attack for an upcoming meeting between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, at which heresy will be the main topic. When William and Adso arrive, they are informed of the recent death of a young monk, and asked to investigate. To protect the reputation of his monastery, the Abbot wishes for William to find out what's going on before the other Catholic representatives arrive.
And, as this is a murder mystery, the bodies start piling up. As a friend of Sir Francis Bacon and William of Occam, brother William goes about his investigation in a very scientific way. Ask questions, find out where people were at the times of death, look for people with fishy alibies, look for footprints in the snow by the bodies. Piece by piece, Williams puts together his hypotheses, with minimal help from the secretive monks. He even sneaks into their famous labyrinth library after the abbot forbids him from doing so. There is something in that library that people are dying for. Like myself, William is a lover of books and knowledge – no learning is heretical, it is all important. Libraries of that time were literally banks of information, scrolls and books that existed no where else in the world. The philosophical idea of a library that exists to keep knowledge away from people and keep secrets was beyond fascinating for me.
The days go by, there are more deaths, the other Catholic representatives arrive, along with the Inquisition. Eco says he put the Inquisition in the story because you can't have a 14th century story take place in a monastery without them. And yes, that chapter made me queasy, had me biting my nails, and nearly gave me an anxiety attack.
There is so much more I could say about this novel, so I'll say just one more thing: read it. Make sure you get a copy with Eco's afterword (because that's the best part), and read it. Eco hits everything just right: style of prose, action, descriptions, dialogue, I can't find a single thing to complain about. Because this is Eco we're talking about, of course the novel has a handful of untranslated German, Latin, and Spanish. So of course I'm waiting for my Spanish-English dictionary to show up in the mail (Mom, I'm looking at you!), am pulling my Latin books down from the shelf (Mom, if you're looking for your Latin books, I'm holding them hostage), and contemplating getting a German English dictionary. The beauty of transliterations, and mistransliterations is that two people will often come up with three differnt ways to translate something. There's another level for you.
It's books like this that make those mediocre novels so hard to enjoy.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sandman Slim Review
first things first, check out all those awesome super easy recipes from the other redhead in the kitchen! Rockin!
on a slighty darker note, i wasn't a fan of Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim:
Sandman Slim isn't so much a novel as it is a revenge genre graphic novel with no pictures – plenty of action, violence, some flirtation, and not much else. A bastard child ofThe Crow, Constantine, Spawn and Sin City, it's all the grit and action of a first person shooter adventure video game, with a less intelligent script.
When James Stark was 19 years old, he was a talented magician, in love with the beautiful Alice, and running with the wrong crowd. After a ritual gone horribly wrong (or right?) he ends up in hell. Alive and kicking, but in hell. An obvious novelty, Stark spends the next eleven years as a slave pit warrior, killing monsters left and right, and generally becoming a hellion himself. He eventually finds the magic key that gets him out of hell and back to earth. None of this is really explained, the reader learns of it through Stark's scattered flashbacks.
He's missed eleven years of current events, but is thrilled to be back on earth to track down Mason, Parker, and the rest of the guys who sent him to hell and then killed Alice. Kasabian is easy to find – the dumbest of the lot, he's been holing up in a junky video store, which while in a bad area of Los Angeles is of course surrounded by Beamers, Lexusi, and other fancy cars for Stark to steal whenever he needs to get somewhere. The manager of the video store is the beautiful Allegra, who offers to help Stark merge back into society because she thinks he's right out of prison. She helps him buy a cell phone, he tells her magic is real. Next thing we know, Allegra is apprenticing with the mysterious Dr. Kinski, alchemist extraordinaire. Stark's only goal in life is to avenge Alice's death by killing Mason very slowly.
Like leveling up in an MMORPG, as the novel progresses, the bad guys get tougher, but Stark gets stronger. Convenient how that works. Kadrey should have hired an artist and an inker, because this would have made a decent graphic novel.
Stark spends most of the next few hundred pages getting the crap beaten out of him while trying to find Mason and rest of his minions. Did I mention Angels get involved? And the Department of Homeland Security? And a brothel? And lots of porno dvds? It's not that this book is over the top, it's that this book is so over the top it that it starts to come off as rediculous. Kadrey seems to be competing with himself to see which he can do more often – remind us that Stark is beyond stronger than the strongest person ever, or that everything MacGuyer could ever need is found in the porn section of Kasabian's video store.
This is where the “revenge novel and nothing else” got most annoying for me. Stark was sent to hell during a magical ritual gone horribly wrong. What were they trying to do? Maybe it didn't go wrong, maybe Mason had planned to send him to hell? What did Mason get out of the whole thing? I want to know more about Alice. I want to know more about Kinski, I want to know more about the Jades and all the other creatures in this dark fantasy world. I want to know how Stark managed to trick and kill the Devil's generals and I want to know how he got the key to the Room of Thirteen Doors and embed it in his own body. Kadrey had every opportunity to flesh out his characters, story, and universe by giving the reader some information about how this whole disaster started, but all he could was give Stark some weapons and start him running. Makes me wonder if this is the second book in a series, and I missed the first one?
I probably shouldn't have finished this book. The more I read it, the angrier it made me. It made me angry that Kadrey would make Stark so naïve and stupid. It made me angry that the most interesting character, Kinski, got minimal screen time, and that other characters were so undeveloped as to be embarrasing. It made me angry that reading this made me feel like a prude, as I'd reached my limit of violence, carjacking, blow job jokes and video store porn by page 75. It made me angry that everytime I put the book down I felt the need to bath in Clorox.
All that said, I'm sure this novel has some redeeming points. I picked up a ton of great insults that I hope never to have the opportunity to use. Change the names and place, and you'd have a great novel adaptation of your favorite first person shooter video game. I hope when they make the movie Kinski is played by Peter Stormare and Aelita is played by Tinda Swinton.
on a slighty darker note, i wasn't a fan of Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim:
Sandman Slim isn't so much a novel as it is a revenge genre graphic novel with no pictures – plenty of action, violence, some flirtation, and not much else. A bastard child ofThe Crow, Constantine, Spawn and Sin City, it's all the grit and action of a first person shooter adventure video game, with a less intelligent script.
When James Stark was 19 years old, he was a talented magician, in love with the beautiful Alice, and running with the wrong crowd. After a ritual gone horribly wrong (or right?) he ends up in hell. Alive and kicking, but in hell. An obvious novelty, Stark spends the next eleven years as a slave pit warrior, killing monsters left and right, and generally becoming a hellion himself. He eventually finds the magic key that gets him out of hell and back to earth. None of this is really explained, the reader learns of it through Stark's scattered flashbacks.
He's missed eleven years of current events, but is thrilled to be back on earth to track down Mason, Parker, and the rest of the guys who sent him to hell and then killed Alice. Kasabian is easy to find – the dumbest of the lot, he's been holing up in a junky video store, which while in a bad area of Los Angeles is of course surrounded by Beamers, Lexusi, and other fancy cars for Stark to steal whenever he needs to get somewhere. The manager of the video store is the beautiful Allegra, who offers to help Stark merge back into society because she thinks he's right out of prison. She helps him buy a cell phone, he tells her magic is real. Next thing we know, Allegra is apprenticing with the mysterious Dr. Kinski, alchemist extraordinaire. Stark's only goal in life is to avenge Alice's death by killing Mason very slowly.
Like leveling up in an MMORPG, as the novel progresses, the bad guys get tougher, but Stark gets stronger. Convenient how that works. Kadrey should have hired an artist and an inker, because this would have made a decent graphic novel.
Stark spends most of the next few hundred pages getting the crap beaten out of him while trying to find Mason and rest of his minions. Did I mention Angels get involved? And the Department of Homeland Security? And a brothel? And lots of porno dvds? It's not that this book is over the top, it's that this book is so over the top it that it starts to come off as rediculous. Kadrey seems to be competing with himself to see which he can do more often – remind us that Stark is beyond stronger than the strongest person ever, or that everything MacGuyer could ever need is found in the porn section of Kasabian's video store.
This is where the “revenge novel and nothing else” got most annoying for me. Stark was sent to hell during a magical ritual gone horribly wrong. What were they trying to do? Maybe it didn't go wrong, maybe Mason had planned to send him to hell? What did Mason get out of the whole thing? I want to know more about Alice. I want to know more about Kinski, I want to know more about the Jades and all the other creatures in this dark fantasy world. I want to know how Stark managed to trick and kill the Devil's generals and I want to know how he got the key to the Room of Thirteen Doors and embed it in his own body. Kadrey had every opportunity to flesh out his characters, story, and universe by giving the reader some information about how this whole disaster started, but all he could was give Stark some weapons and start him running. Makes me wonder if this is the second book in a series, and I missed the first one?
I probably shouldn't have finished this book. The more I read it, the angrier it made me. It made me angry that Kadrey would make Stark so naïve and stupid. It made me angry that the most interesting character, Kinski, got minimal screen time, and that other characters were so undeveloped as to be embarrasing. It made me angry that reading this made me feel like a prude, as I'd reached my limit of violence, carjacking, blow job jokes and video store porn by page 75. It made me angry that everytime I put the book down I felt the need to bath in Clorox.
All that said, I'm sure this novel has some redeeming points. I picked up a ton of great insults that I hope never to have the opportunity to use. Change the names and place, and you'd have a great novel adaptation of your favorite first person shooter video game. I hope when they make the movie Kinski is played by Peter Stormare and Aelita is played by Tinda Swinton.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Yellow Squash Bake
Another simple, good recipe for Passover. From the Second Redhead in the Kitchen.
4 lbs. yellow squash
3 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. orange juice
1 c. matzah meal
1/2 stick margarine
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and slice the squash. Steam it with the salt until it is tender. Drain well and mash in food processor or by hand. Add the eggs, sugar, orange juice, matzah meal and melted margarine. Place the mixture in a greased Pyrex pan and bake for an hour in the preheated oven.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
4 lbs. yellow squash
3 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. orange juice
1 c. matzah meal
1/2 stick margarine
1/2 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and slice the squash. Steam it with the salt until it is tender. Drain well and mash in food processor or by hand. Add the eggs, sugar, orange juice, matzah meal and melted margarine. Place the mixture in a greased Pyrex pan and bake for an hour in the preheated oven.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
Matzah Cheese Kugal
We have made this each year as a Passover tradition. This recipe comes from my in-laws. We have it either at dinner, or for breakfast! From the Second Redhead in the Kitchen.
5 eggs
1 c. milk
1 lb cottage cheese
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 T. margarine
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 c. nondairy creamer
1/2 c. raisins
6 sheets matzah
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, milk, cottage cheese, sugar, cinnamon, margarine, vanilla extract, lemon juice, nondairy creamer and raisins in large bowl and mix well. Layer matzah in a large casserole dish, pouring liquid mixture on the matzah between each layer. Some matzah may be broken into smaller pieces and used to fill in gaps. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. Serves 8.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
5 eggs
1 c. milk
1 lb cottage cheese
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 T. margarine
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 c. nondairy creamer
1/2 c. raisins
6 sheets matzah
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, milk, cottage cheese, sugar, cinnamon, margarine, vanilla extract, lemon juice, nondairy creamer and raisins in large bowl and mix well. Layer matzah in a large casserole dish, pouring liquid mixture on the matzah between each layer. Some matzah may be broken into smaller pieces and used to fill in gaps. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes. Serves 8.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
Baked Squash Casserole
I made this with the matzah meal for Passover. From the Second Redhead in the Kitchen.
3 lbs. yellow squash
1 T. sugar
1/2 c .matzah meal or cornflakes crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 stick margarine
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 c. chopped onions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook squash until tender. Drain. Mash squash. Add margarine, sugar, salt, pepper, onions and matzah meal or cornflakes crumbs. Add eggs and pour into a small, deep glass casserole dish. Sprinkle a few more crumbs or matzah meal on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 3/4 hour or until lightly brown. Serves 8.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
3 lbs. yellow squash
1 T. sugar
1/2 c .matzah meal or cornflakes crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 stick margarine
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 c. chopped onions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook squash until tender. Drain. Mash squash. Add margarine, sugar, salt, pepper, onions and matzah meal or cornflakes crumbs. Add eggs and pour into a small, deep glass casserole dish. Sprinkle a few more crumbs or matzah meal on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 3/4 hour or until lightly brown. Serves 8.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Cranberry-Walnut Pareve Pasta
Excellent side dish for the fall season. From the Second Redhead in the Kitchen.
1 lb. angel hair pasta
2 T. olive oil
1 lg. sweet onion, sliced thin
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1 c. chopped cranberry sauce (soft cranberries with a little liquid)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
Heat olive oil in large saucepan. Add sliced onions. Saute onions in the olive oil on medium heat until soft. Add garlic and stir for a minute. Add walnuts and allow to saute until hot before adding cranberry sauce. Stir the sauce into the mixture. Continue stirring occasionally until hot. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Mix angel hair pasta with sauce.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
1 lb. angel hair pasta
2 T. olive oil
1 lg. sweet onion, sliced thin
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1 c. chopped cranberry sauce (soft cranberries with a little liquid)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
Heat olive oil in large saucepan. Add sliced onions. Saute onions in the olive oil on medium heat until soft. Add garlic and stir for a minute. Add walnuts and allow to saute until hot before adding cranberry sauce. Stir the sauce into the mixture. Continue stirring occasionally until hot. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Mix angel hair pasta with sauce.
Congregation Beth El Sisterhood cookbook (2003), Bethesda, MD
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