Book & Baking Blog Entry 36

It's been way too long since I've blogged about baking or books. I don't know that I'm going to be doing so this time either.  I've been really busy (as are most people who have jobs and families and a domicile.)  I have actually blogged quite a bit since my last entry here. 

I did, this week, bake a delicious batch of pinwheel cookies.  I never got enough of these as a kid.  They're quite simple. You need a batch of regular sugar cookie dough and a batch of chocolate sugar cookie dough.  Instead of rolling and cutting, you simply break each batch into 4 parts.  1 part of chocolate gets rolled out.  1 part of vanilla gets rolled out.  Lay the vanilla over the chocolate and roll it.  Once it's rolled cut slices, place onto a cookie sheet and bake at 400⁰ for 6-10 minutes depending upon your oven....

Enough about that.  I have been rereading so many books.  I am not sure that I care to review any.  Nothing stands out.  I do have one new Sookie Stackhouse.  Well.  You can't argue with the name.  She's quite a character, and while I don't generally love the vampire genre, it is a bit of fun.  I'll probably let you know how the latest Sookie outing does later...

I guess my new exciting kitchen moment was the appearance of my new refrigerator.  Oh yeah.  MY new 'fridge.  It's HUGE.  And what's so great about a huge 'fridge?  Well, first, we found a bunch of food that was hidden.  We also found the food that was rotten and making the 'fridge smell like freshman gym class.  It's all out the door now. Although I saved us $50 that we were going to spend on a used deep freezer on Craig's list by suggesting that we keep the old 'fridge in the shed for the kegs.  Yep.  Always have a great idea....

Well, the beauty of the new appliance encompasses many things not the least of which is ice cream.  Not just any ice cream, but home made ice cream.  For Christmas, my husband, not only got me a great deal on a HUGE (word of the day) new kitchenaid mixer, but also a free ice cream maker attachment.  Cheap and free.  In general two words that women don't want to be associated with, however, I'll make an exception here.  So, this week I will endeavour to make my first vanilla ice cream.  Why vanilla?  Well, that's what the incredibly loud bruiser that I live with loves.  She is so not the delicate flower of the past.  Almost 4, we tremble in fear of her.  I think home made vanilla ice cream should calm the beast....stay tuned for how it turns out.

I realize that this blog has meandered.  But hey, bite me.  It's my blog.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 26

Crush: The Final Moments

I have to say that I wrote my last blog believing that Jacobson's Crush  really had no further hilarity to be shared.  I wrote the blog without the true badness that the ending brought to me.  How bad?  Bad bad.

I don't think that there can be a spoiler.  We have some real fun as the book winds down.  A character introduced about 1/2 to 2/3 through the book ends up being our killer.  Of course he was hitting on (successfully) our local hottie cop.  What's amazing is that the FBI agent had the entire department chasing a number of others, jumping from one theory to the next with wild abandon.  Two of these suspects were police themselves.  She totally ignores the one cop who is acting suspiciously which is telegraphed in a heavy handed way.  Can I say again that I hope that the FBI are not quite so arrogant or ineffective as Agent Vail.  And how embarrassing for the FBI mentioned in the acknowledgements.  Really, did you LIKE the character?  Seriously?

So, Vail gets a number of people killed, only finds the killer because he tries to kill the cop that he's hitting on when she gets the call with his name given to her by a microsoft tech!  (Thumbs up to Microsoft--the true hero of this tale.)   Vail follows up her fiasco of a manhunt with an embarrassingly amateurish interview.  Was it supposed to seem like she even knew what she was doing?  AND since when do you really just send one very tired cop in to question such an important suspect.  It's also funny that Napa Valley still has no idea that there was a serial killer in their midst.

So, to end this the suspect just tells our "heroine" that she just doesn't get and probably never will and he knows that this will make her crazy (which she acknowledges to herself is the truth--why not just walk away from this nut-job?), her boyfriend has disappeared, and our actual suspicious cop has been somehow secretly working with the killer because his wife and son were threatened.  THE END. 

So, no ACTUAL payoff at all.  Except hours wasted.  I wish I read faster.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 1

Amazingly, I'm pretty sure that I don't have that much unique to say. Ironically, having said that, I'm copying this from another blog space that I wanted to start but didn't work out to my satisfaction.



So, here's my premise, I really like to read murder mysteries and I really like to bake. More importantly eating baked goods while eating is incredibly important to me. So I plan to include book reivews (possibly something uplifting once in a while but probably not), what I'm baking, baking adventures with my toddler (nope, not a mommy blog--but I have already lost a digital camera to flour while making Christmas cookies...), and baked goods that I'm enjoying.



Do I desire to make the world a better place? Yes. But probably my idea of a better place (somewhere that I can lie around in the sun, eat pastries, and read pop-fiction) might be different than yours. I might even care, but that's not what this blog is about.



Also, just so that you're completely clear, I have no intention to actually connect each book review to food or vice versa. Sorry, not who I am. And I will probably go beyond the mystery genre (rarely), and occassionally blog about other stuff.



This is supposed to be fun. Please, grind axes elsewhere.



FYI: I love dangling participles. It's the way of my people.