Well! Back in the USA. I already miss the Danish and German pastries. I HAVE to find a good baking book and try some real Danish pastries.
NOTE: Do NOT look up "Danish Pastries" on Amazon. It turns out that there is a pornographic movie with that title and you get some interesting hits...One of the movie posters was quite interesting...
So, while I plan on doing some baking in the near future and have ordered some almond meal so that I can try my hand at homemade marzipan I thought that I would do another post on a fantastic novel.
I found a Jane Haddam novel, Glass Houses, that I hadn't read yet. It is a Gregor Demarkian (with Bennis, of course.) I enjoyed the novel. Haddam spent a little more time on the Gregor/Bennis relationship than I cared for. It did interrupt the flow of the story, but overall a great read.
Rather than go into the finer points of Haddam's work I wanted to go back to a prior rant regarding publishers, kindle pricing, and electronic books. Haddam's publisher, Minotaur Books, sets the price for the books. This was fallout for amazon from Steve Jobs playing god again. But I digress. At least this publisher did not charge MORE for the e-book than for the paperback. However, I was appalled at the editing in the kindle edition. There were a fantastic number of words that were wrong words. Clearly they used a spell checker and not a human to detect errors. Thankfully I am able to understand words in context, but really, if I am supposed to pay as much if not more for an e-book PLEASE pay some humans to edit the copy. There were also a large number of extraneous symbols that were left in the text.
If you read my earlier post regarding this I go on at great length about understanding that there are a large number of people to be paid as part of the publishing of a book. I get it. People need jobs and have to be paid. BUT who wasn't doing his/her job in this case?
I believe that it goes back to the lack of respect that publishers have for the e-book format. If the hard copy went out with as many errors they would have to pull it and reprint. Maybe the American public is just to lazy to complain.
Well, I really enjoyed Haddam's effort but am disappointed that she, her publisher, her editor, and whoever else was involved would allow such a poor copy to be distributed.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Book & Baking Blog Entry 16
We've had an awesome time in Denmark. As, I'm sure that you've already noticed, I have loved the pastries of Denmark. My husband's brother-in-law took him to the local bakery a few times. They bought items called Copenhagens. They also bought snails (with chocolate and plain icing.) They also bought "bread."
It turns out that if you want to eat your sweet pastries it is imperative that you eat your "bread." Now, "bread" is absolultely delicious so as the "healthy" portion of the meal I highly recommend it. There are a variety of "breads," which are actually individual rolls, some sweet and some salty, and you put either nutella or some other "spread" or cheese on them respectively. The "bread" could be eaten plain it is so tastey. So, after you have gorged yourself on "bread" you then get other sweet pastries (wait isn't nutella sweet? or the other chocolate spread? or the jams etc?)
Yep, now onto the dessert. So, the copenhagen is a pastry that is many folded layers of light dough (think puff pastry but richer and less delicate) folded into a huge rectangle. It has a top covered in poppy seeds. You split it and then you are supposed to add butter and/or honey. I don't even remember if this was a "bread" or a "sweet.." There is disapproval if you do not add butter or honey. Believe me, I generally LOVE to add butter, but I could eat this all day long and not need the butter. It's amazing.
The cinnamon rolls/snails were just as tastey. I like that they felt that they had to add icing to a very rich pastry with butter and cinnamon and sugar already in it. It was great!
So after we left my sister-in-law's house we went to Copenhagen. My husband decided to try to reenact our bakery days except, to limit the calorie intake, he only bought sweet pastries (and only one for each of us--well, one plus..) WELL, clearly this is not done in Copenhagen (maybe even all of Denmark.) You must first EARN your sweet by eating your bread. Clearly we had committed a faux pas not to be ignored. Valiently my husband withstood the glare of the baker looking from my husband to the bread and back again. Bread. Husband. Sweet. Bread. Husband. Glare.
Finally my husband gave in and went to a different bakery. It turns out that all bakeries in Copenhagen have this strict belief.
Oh well, at least it tastes good.
Now we are back in Germany for a week. Will the brotchen still taste as good? Can the kuchen stand up to the fabulous almond cake that I got at the castle? It will be difficult, but I'm up for the challenge of trying to find an even better pastry in Germany. We have Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen on the list. Can one hold the key to the greatest pastry on earth?
Good eating.
It turns out that if you want to eat your sweet pastries it is imperative that you eat your "bread." Now, "bread" is absolultely delicious so as the "healthy" portion of the meal I highly recommend it. There are a variety of "breads," which are actually individual rolls, some sweet and some salty, and you put either nutella or some other "spread" or cheese on them respectively. The "bread" could be eaten plain it is so tastey. So, after you have gorged yourself on "bread" you then get other sweet pastries (wait isn't nutella sweet? or the other chocolate spread? or the jams etc?)
Yep, now onto the dessert. So, the copenhagen is a pastry that is many folded layers of light dough (think puff pastry but richer and less delicate) folded into a huge rectangle. It has a top covered in poppy seeds. You split it and then you are supposed to add butter and/or honey. I don't even remember if this was a "bread" or a "sweet.." There is disapproval if you do not add butter or honey. Believe me, I generally LOVE to add butter, but I could eat this all day long and not need the butter. It's amazing.
The cinnamon rolls/snails were just as tastey. I like that they felt that they had to add icing to a very rich pastry with butter and cinnamon and sugar already in it. It was great!
So after we left my sister-in-law's house we went to Copenhagen. My husband decided to try to reenact our bakery days except, to limit the calorie intake, he only bought sweet pastries (and only one for each of us--well, one plus..) WELL, clearly this is not done in Copenhagen (maybe even all of Denmark.) You must first EARN your sweet by eating your bread. Clearly we had committed a faux pas not to be ignored. Valiently my husband withstood the glare of the baker looking from my husband to the bread and back again. Bread. Husband. Sweet. Bread. Husband. Glare.
Finally my husband gave in and went to a different bakery. It turns out that all bakeries in Copenhagen have this strict belief.
Oh well, at least it tastes good.
Now we are back in Germany for a week. Will the brotchen still taste as good? Can the kuchen stand up to the fabulous almond cake that I got at the castle? It will be difficult, but I'm up for the challenge of trying to find an even better pastry in Germany. We have Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen on the list. Can one hold the key to the greatest pastry on earth?
Good eating.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Book & Baking Blog Entry 15
The beauty of travel....and murder.
So we're in Denmark staying with family. Late nights and eating and drinking stuff that I normally wouldn't. For me, this is no more harmful than a carafe of coffee at 4pm. Unfortunately, for a woman who doesn't usually drink more than one cup of tea per morning, this was slightly detrimental to my sleep. Or maybe I just wasn't sleepy. I didn't feel jittery. I just was enthused by my novel.
I was, I thought, about 2/3 of the way through Jane Haddam's Wanting Sheila Dead. It's a Gregor Demarkian novel for those who know and love our old, cuddly, Armenian detective with the hot, younger, wife. Well. I had to finish it. I know that when I bought it I blogged about how I HATE the publishers who set exorbitantly high prices on ebooks. I think that they are sharks. However, I couldn't resist Haddam. I only wish she got a higher percentage from the sale of the ebook. That would make it worth it to me.
Wow! What a read. Haddam never fails to entertain and in a big way. She doens't generally give away the killer, although if you think about it, it always makes sense.
SPOILER ALERT (maybe, I'll try not to, but no promises.)
Wanting Sheila Dead has 2 mysteries involved. One brought to Gregor by 'the very old ladies' and the other by a shrewish reality tv star host (or rather, her PA.) Gregor realizes that there are similarities in the cases and works them Miss Marple-like to a fun conclusion.
I did get a little irritated at the drawn out ending without explanation. There are some key pieces of information missing to make this a true 'whodunit' for the reader. But, in the end it satisfies and makes sense. Haddam, rightly, doesn't get into big relationship crap with Gregor and Bennis.
So, happy reading. I highly recommend the new Haddam.
In the cakes department, wow! I had some excellent Kringle at Gammel Estrup. The coffee was mediocre but the cake was incredible. It was a wedge that had a huge warm dollop of filling that included cinnamon and almond paste. Yummy. And worth waiting to have it warmed up. I love this country!
So we're in Denmark staying with family. Late nights and eating and drinking stuff that I normally wouldn't. For me, this is no more harmful than a carafe of coffee at 4pm. Unfortunately, for a woman who doesn't usually drink more than one cup of tea per morning, this was slightly detrimental to my sleep. Or maybe I just wasn't sleepy. I didn't feel jittery. I just was enthused by my novel.
I was, I thought, about 2/3 of the way through Jane Haddam's Wanting Sheila Dead. It's a Gregor Demarkian novel for those who know and love our old, cuddly, Armenian detective with the hot, younger, wife. Well. I had to finish it. I know that when I bought it I blogged about how I HATE the publishers who set exorbitantly high prices on ebooks. I think that they are sharks. However, I couldn't resist Haddam. I only wish she got a higher percentage from the sale of the ebook. That would make it worth it to me.
Wow! What a read. Haddam never fails to entertain and in a big way. She doens't generally give away the killer, although if you think about it, it always makes sense.
SPOILER ALERT (maybe, I'll try not to, but no promises.)
Wanting Sheila Dead has 2 mysteries involved. One brought to Gregor by 'the very old ladies' and the other by a shrewish reality tv star host (or rather, her PA.) Gregor realizes that there are similarities in the cases and works them Miss Marple-like to a fun conclusion.
I did get a little irritated at the drawn out ending without explanation. There are some key pieces of information missing to make this a true 'whodunit' for the reader. But, in the end it satisfies and makes sense. Haddam, rightly, doesn't get into big relationship crap with Gregor and Bennis.
So, happy reading. I highly recommend the new Haddam.
In the cakes department, wow! I had some excellent Kringle at Gammel Estrup. The coffee was mediocre but the cake was incredible. It was a wedge that had a huge warm dollop of filling that included cinnamon and almond paste. Yummy. And worth waiting to have it warmed up. I love this country!
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