Book & Baking Blog Entry 14

Again, you never know if I'm going to give something away, so read at your own risk.

So here I am, on the road. We're in Denmark now. Since we're at a private home there hasn't been as much pastry eating. More on that when we go to Copenhagen or return to Denmark (although my brother-in-law it turns out makes a fantastic cherry pie...who knew the Danes had it in them?!) I love vacation. It's great.

So I just finished listening to/reading Embrace the Grim Reaper (book 1) by Judy Clemens. It was pretty good. A little too much on the "hidden" backstory. Too many hints about too many things in our heroine Casey's past. I do like the Grim Reaper. It's a good character and mostly keeps the story lighter than it might be. The weird sex scene could have been, or more to the point, should have been avoided.

Why do all authors (or editors or publishers) believe that there should be an obligatory sex scene in a murder mystery. I know that there is a desire for cross-over from romance, but really, a good story doesn't need weird abortive sex where everyone feels guilty.
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HERE's my latest rant regarding all of the books that I've been reading lately: all these heroines have a dead child. I'm really tired of the false pathos of the dead child. I would like a warning label on these books because the authors never really get to it OR they spend too much time lingering on it.

By the way, I broke down and spent money on the latest Jane Haddam book. It grinds me to give money to a publisher that clearly holds me in contempt, but I will say that Haddam is, as always, worth it. I'll look forward to my review.

Good reading. Pop Tarts for breakfast!

Book & Baking Blog Entry 13

Pastries I have known and loved.

My favorite city is Rome. It's beautiful. There is culture. The food is excellent. If you know where to go the wine is good.

But if you want the best pastries on earth go to Germany. Yes, the beer is good. Go for the beer stay for the bread. We arrived last night at 9 pm. It is 24 hours later. So far I have eaten brotchen to die for, a strawberry pastrie with a touch of custard, and a poppyseed swirl that was good as well.

For a snack we had a Warm melt-in your-mouth cinnamon pastry that was so good my 3-year-old cried when she didn't get the last bite.

Did I mention the bread service at meals? They served these excellent rolls-not Some faux sourdough. crusty on the outside-chewy on the inside! And some kind of bizarre yet tasty onion spread.

Yum! Happy eats from Hamburg: pictures later.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 12

DOWNER ALERT: not a fun read. or maybe it is.

So I spent an hour trying to write my blog yesterday and then deleted it I was so tired. And annoyed. So here's why I am annoyed.

I love my kindle. I love my audiobooks. I am appalled that I went to buy a book for my kindle and realized that the publisher, who set the price, was charging more for my electronic edition than for the mass market paperback. I can't begin to tell you how mad I was (am.) This is ludicrous. So I did what any right-minded person would do, I sent the company an email. I posted on my facebook and twitter accounts and now, I'm adding it to my blog.

I buy a lot of books. Frankly, since owning the kindle I've probably bought a much wider variety of authors simply because I can sample the goods. I love being able to read a chapter or 2 and realize that yes, I like this (although that doesn't always work out) or gee, no, not for me. I probably doubled the number of books that I've bought. Kindle has probably created more business for more authors than any single factor in the last 100 years.

I realize that people need to be paid for books. I do not advocate selling books at a loss to anyone. I believe in capitalism. I believe that authors should be paid good money for their ability to entertain.

I realize that there are a lot more people, other than authors, that go into a book. There is the agent, the editor, and people who make the actual paper and binding materials. Oh yeah, but with an ebook you don't have to pay them. Hmmmm. And doesn't the author pay the agent? OK. So who desperately needs this e-money?! The author is getting a bigger percentage even though there are no materials to buy.



This is simple greed. I will be listing, as I discover, publishers who do this. My intent is to do my best not to buy books from these publishers. They have shown me nothing but contempt. Eventually Steve Jobs will put them out of business and until then, I will eschew them.



For those interested yesterdays capitalist pig (by the way, not ALL capitalists are pigs!):



Hachette Book Group distributes books for the following:

Chronicle Books

Filipacchi Publishing

Guinness World Records

Hachette UK

Harry N. Abrams Inc. ...

Innovative Kids

Octopus Publishing

Oxmoor House

Phaidon Press

Time Inc. Home Entertainment.



This is per the Publishing house website of Little, Brown and Company that had the book on Kindle that cost MORE than the print edition in mass market paperback. I'll be only getting these books at the library.

Happy reading. Watch out for sharks....:)

Book & Baking Blog Entry 11

Back to murder.

REMINDER: THERE MAY BE UNINTENTIONAL SPOILERS (especially since I'm discussing the first 6 of a series...)

First, have I mentioned my love of the audiobook? I am an audiobook fan from the time we called them "books on tape." I had my first in the early '90s. Yes. I'm old and I prefer books to music, scandalous. I used to spend a lot of time traveling for work. I love listening to a book and driving. Now that I have an iPod I use audible. I can't recommend it enough. You can buy books a la carte or you can buy a subscription. I have "read" 228 books via my iPods (I had to replace a broken one) since 2005. I am dedicated.

I've been reading a series of British murder mysteries by Deborah Crombie. I really like them. They are great if you don't want a lot of gore and enjoy a bit of personal story without it being all about the relationship. Duncan Kincaid and Jemma James are our hero/heroine cops. They begin as colleagues and end up as a couple. This is not a love/hate fight fight fight relationship. I like that it develops naturally with some angst over professional concerns but not too much. There is a nice blend of the actual murder plot with the relatioship. These are nice people, with normal relatioships, normal issues working together.

Another plus with this book is that there aren't sex scenes. At least none that come to mind, and I probably would remember. I don't care to listen to sex scenes. When actually reading I skip those pages. Yes. I do. And listening is even worse. It's a bit creepy and voyeuristic.

I've read:

Necessary as Blood
Kissed a Sad Goodbye
Dreaming of the Bones
A Finer End
Leave the Grave Green
Mourn Not Your Dead

For those who really like to read a series in order, I didn't. It didn't make a huge difference to me as any good writer can give you the information you need about the past relationship without spoiling earlier books.

My biggest criticism of Crombie is that the story does sometimes lag a bit. Not so much that I didn't read 6 of her novels, but this might be a better read in print for that reason.

Maybe next blog I'll discuss when I buy an audiobook vs a print (Kindle) edition. It's quite important. Also coming: my next cake!

Happy Murder & Good reading.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 10

Apple pie is AWESOME! Since I bake regularly to reduce stress (by baking AND eating but I pretend it's the baking that does it) I rarely get really stoked by something that I've baked. Did Picasso really feel like he was a genius for Guernica? It was just another painting to him (maybe this is not a good metaphor.) NOT the point.

For the 4th of July my family went to BBQ with some friends. I offered to bring an apple pie. I don't know what came over me since I have not ever in my life baked a great apple pie, but it seemed very American and appropriate given the holiday and the fact that our hosts were from Australia.

Choosing a recipe is important. I looked on the Internet, Paula Dean has a recipe that looks great on the FoodTV network. There were a lot of recipes available. I decided to go with the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Maybe I should have chosen Betty Crocker. I'll never know...not to digress.

I realized that in the past I had, through sheer inertia, not THINLY sliced my apples. Well. I decided that following the recipe scrupulously was imperative. Halleluia! Thinly sliced apples were the key to fixing all of the problems that I've had with apple pie in the past. Who knew that following the directions would help?!!!

I do not have a picture. We ate the pie and it was delicious. Thank you Better Homes & Gardens.

Murder in the next post....:)

Good Baking!