I'm too busy reading to write a proper post

I am stuck inside of The Murder Room:The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Michael Capuzzo.

This is the non-fiction story of the members of the Vidocq Society.  Based in Philadelphia, they are comprised of 82 of the world's top detectives and forensic scientists and they help to solve the murders that have been declared cold cases.  I can hardly put this book down. It's not about the crimes, but rather about those people who have dedicated their lives to justice.

I've be back with a review in the next few days. 

Rats Saw God by Rob Thomas

My son read this for his English class this term, so of course I told him that I'd read it as well.  He finished it and submitted his assignment weeks ago and I am only getting to my review now. 

Steven York is a gifted student who is currently under-performing.  His dad is a re-known astronaut who divorced from his mother a few years ago.  Steve lives with his father in in Houston while his sister lives with his mother in Dan Diego.  Mid way through high school he moves to his mother's.

Having been caught for 'drugs' by his guidance teacher, he is given the option of making up his missing English grades by writing a 100 typed page essay on a topic of his choice.  Being a teen, Steve rebels at first, but then he decides to give it a try. 

This assignment gives Steve the chance to re-examine the events of the past few years that have led him to his current situation.  Why he has such a rocky relationship with his father, why he thinks his dad walked out on his mom, why he rebels at so many situations.

I found this book an accurate look at teenagers.  Not all kids are the model academics, nor the aspiring jock.  There are those that either don't fit those moulds or those who purposely break out of them.  It doesn't make them bad, just different.  A couple of the teachers depicted in the book even found those kids more interesting than the 'perfect' ones.    These were the kids that joined the campus club: GOD (Grace or of Dadaists).  Now I'm not really sure what dadaist art is, but I realize that it's not following all those strict art rules of painting composition that came before that period.  Doing your own thing.  That is definitely what Steve was trying to do.  I think he was trying too hard not to be who he thought his dad was. 

My son wasn't too thrilled with the book and he said he didn't see any kids he knew depicted in the book.  I had to chuckle at that.  There is a lot of my son right in Steve.  When I said that to my son, he told me I was wrong. 

I'll keep this book around in the event that my daughter has to read it when she gets to that grade level.

Rob Thomas' website

Recipe Thursday - Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver

A few weeks ago while reading "Weekend Cooking" at Beth Fish Reads, one of the contributors posted a review of a recipe from Jamie's Food Revolution.  This prompted me to borrow the book from my library. Over the past few weeks I have cooked and sampled six recipes from this book.  As a family we were pleased with each of them and are looking forward to trying more.

Son suggested that I go out and buy a copy right away regardless of the price. 

At the same time I have been able to watch a few episodes of Jamie's Ministry of Food.  This guy is cool; he has become my new cooking muse.  This all started out because he was disgusted with the poor quality of food available to school children in Britain.  He realized that many people no longer cooked proper meals at home and that they relied on take-out food every day of the week.  Eeks, what a rotten way to try and grow healthy children.

Jamie travelled to Rotherham, England to launch his Ministry of Food project which aimed to teach and encourage people to cook at home and to teach their friends and family how to prepare these easy to cook meals.  What a great concept.  I found myself cheering along Jamie and his Rotherham cooks.

This book starts with some information on the essential supplies and utensils that a kitchen needs and then talks about basic food stuffs needed to prepare many of the recipes.  It is them broke into food chapters including: 20 Minute Meals, Quick Pasta, Easy Curries, Simple Soups, and many more.

I six recipes from the book based on them all being out of my comfort level.

"My Sweet and Sour Pork"

This dish uses Chinese Five Spice Powder for flavouring and a small pork tenderloin for the most wonderful meat bites.   I chose to serve it on a bed of egg noodles instead of the usual rice.  The cooking time was very short and even the prep time was only about 20 minutes. 

"Tomato Soup"

I was a bit nervous about this one as it's already autumn and I didn't know how flavourful the tomatoes would be.  Not to worry, I found some lovely locally grown greenhouse ones.

Yes, that really is the whole tomato including stem in the pot.  That's exactly what Jamie said to do.  After cooking you use an immersion blender to make it smooth.  My blender is ancient and it couldn't puree the stem parts, so I would leave those off next time.  Great flavour.  I served it with croutons and added a dash or Worcestershire Sauce.

 

" Dressed Asparagus"

Simply cooked with a grainy Dijon mustard and oil sauce.  I wanted to eat the whole dish.

"Baked French Potatoes"

Much like scalloped potatoes, but none of the dairy products.  It was instead cooked in a chicken broth.  This made the tastiest of potatoes.  We were all clambering for more at breakfast the next morning.

"Kedgeree"

This is a curried fish dish that uses both fresh and smoked fish along with hard boiled eggs.  I was going to prepare a more common dish that just spiced and then pan friend the fish, but when I turned the page I saw this one and changed my mind.  I was quite nervous to place this on the table in front of my family as I have not made a dish like this before.  They loved it.  A smaller amount of smoked fish would be more appealing to me next time I make it.

"Salmon en Croute" 

'En croute' means 'wrapped in pastry' and in this case I used store bought puff pastry.  I have had dished like this in restaurants before and paid a fortune, so I figured it must be real difficult to make.  Hah, what a sucker I have been.  It was so easy to roll out the pastry, set the fillet on top, season, add toppings and the scrunch the pastry up over the top.  I did it in about fifteen minutes with my kids and their friends watching.  Next time they can do most of it by themselves.  Of the seven of us at dinner that night, all of us ate huge servings and almost cried when there was none left.  We are now thinking of what else we can wrap in puff pastry and call 'dinner'.

I really enjoyed making meals from this book.  I will be buying my own.  I have also joined Jamie's site and look forward to receiving emails from him.  If you are looking for one cookbook to buy for the reluctant or insecure cook, then give this one a try.

Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader also tried the "Baked French Potatoes".  Click to read her review.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hailsham seems like the typical English boarding school.  A big spacious building, wide open grounds and caring staff, teachers and guardians.  They receive a liberal arts education and are highly encouraged to produce 'works of art'.  What is unusual is  that no parents ever come to visit, nor do any of the students ever go 'home' for the weekend or holidays.

From a young age the students are told that they will become 'donors', whatever that might be.  They also learn that this will happen soon after they leave school and that they won't grow old and have the lives that they see depicted in the movies they watch.

I listened to this as an audio book and was hooked from the opening passages.  The book was read by Rosalyn Landor.  Her soothing voice was a perfect choice for this novel.  There were a number of difficult and troubling concepts introduced and having them presented by such a calming voice made them easier to believe.

Spoiler Alert

This book introduces a group of people who were created for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs so that others could live.  Their lives were not valued by a wider society, only their organs.  While I was grappling with the morality of  saving one life by ending another, the students had to deal with the knowledge that their lives would be ending just when they should be starting careers and building families.  Hailsham didn't teach them how to deal with that, in fact it didn't teach them much about life beyond being a student. Why bother when it wouldn't really be necessary for long; after all they'd be spending much of their remaining lives in one hospital or another.

This was an excellent, though difficult story to listen to.  When one considers that there are already children being conceived with the hopes that they will be a perfect match for an older sibling requiring a bone marrow transplant etc., this book becomes more than fiction; it poses a serious moral dilemma.  Have we crossed that line already; do allow doctors/parents to create a new life just to save an existing one.


Read an excerpt of Never Let Me Go. 
Cover photo from Random House Canada


Also reviewed at:
A More Diverse Universe

Read what Two Canadian Readers had to say about both the book and the screening of the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Books with cloning topics:

Perfect Copy: Unravelling the Cloning Debate by Nicolas Agar
Cloning Miranda by Carol Matas

This is my 16th book for the Read, Remember, Recommend Fiction Challenge hosted by Bibliobabe.com.  There is still time for you to join in the challenge. 

Fragile by Lisa Unger

Peering in from the outside, life seems idyllic in The Hollows. Psychologist Dr. Maggie Cooper and her husband Police Detective Jones Cooper are awaiting their son Ricky's graduation from high school. 

This is all turned on end when Charlene, Ricky's girlfriend disappears.  Rumours swirl that she has run away to New York City as she has often threatened to do.  A Facebook message that she posts supports that claim; but Ricky feels that it wasn't written by Charlene. 

While investigating this case, Jones has to face a looming ghost from his past which draws him back together with a number of his high school confidants.

I found this a well constructed mystery that kept me from figuring out 'who done it'.  Unfortunately I didn't connect with any of the main characters.  They seemed too flat, without enough depth.  Several of them wanted to escape their small town where everyone knew everyone else, yet those that did manage to leave were all easily pulled back.  Didn't they develop any roots in their life when they were outside of The Hollows.

When I read a book like this I want it to grab me and keep me reading till the wee hours of the morning.  This one I was able to put down and leave with only forty pages to go.  It's an okay read, but not what I was expecting or hoping for. 

Author Lisa Unger's website.

This was a library copy.

Needlework Tuesday - Halloween Costume

 I've always loved making costumes.  This year was no different.  My daughter didn't want my help beyond giving her some white fabric she could tear into strips. My niece  Michelle was looking forward to her first Canadian Halloween and found a pattern for Mr. & Mrs. Pototo Head in my pattern stash.

She bought a great piece of sweater knit fabric and I sewed the body and attached a few strips of velcro on the front.  Niece used many sheets of craft foam and cut out and decorated all the 'accessory' pieces.  Oh yes, I also made the tiny handbag  to carry a cell phone and camera.  There is a pocket on the back of the costume to store the extra face pieces.

Being modelled are ourfavourite glasses, we call them the 'Dame Edna' glasses and added a row of rhinestones across the top and a few more in those swooping corners.  Note that there is also a rhinestone on the right front upper tooth.  Gotta have that bling.

I checked the Simplicity website and this pattern isn't listed any longer.  There are dozens of other fun ones available.

Michelle sent me this photo of Mrs. Potato Head's extra face pieces.  They all have  velcro on the back for easy changing.

Martha Stewart's Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

After cleaning out three pumpkins for carving yesterday, I was left with a big bowl of seeds.  Pumpkin seeds are great for your health, one benefit is that they help to lower blood pressure (don't recall where i read this, but I can use all the help I can get in this area).  I love this recipe from Martha Stewart for 'Spicy Pumpkin Seeds'.  Be sure to use peanut oil.  I have tried canola oil and it just doesn't work.

I had enough to make four batches.  I didn't double the batches as I didn't want to muck around with too much hot oil in the pan at once.  The smaller batches cook up very quickly, only 45 -60 seconds.  To make the four batches only took fifteen minutes or so.   Now we have this huge bowl of sweet and spicy seeds which I suspect will last a few days. 

PS, you don't need to wash the seeds before cooking just remove the largest of the stringy stuff.