Book & Baking Blog Entry 38

So this is a blog about baking or about books.  Sometimes I digress such as my rant about publishers and costs, etc.  But really, who cares?!  Frankly, other than a few fabulous people that I know about  I'm not getting much traffic.  So I thought I might talk about baking again today.  Not just any baking but VIRTUAL baking.

Oh yes.  Not only do I bake IRL but I also bake virtually.  Facebook, that great time-sucker, has a game called Baking Life.  I was introduced to Baking Life just like I have been introduced to all my games: My friend Tracy. 

This is not a popular game.  I also joined because my sister, the pastry chef, was also on it.  Well, that was good enough for me.  Then Tracy's daughter.  Finally, my husband joined, just to send me gifts, although he seems to enjoy it quite a bit now.

Baking Life is lame.  It is still in Beta.  Or so they say.  They have some stupid rules, the game runs slow, and there are often glitches.  So, naturally I am devoted.  I check my bakery regularly.  My small child likes to change me and make me different colors and have me wear new outfits.  She also loves to change my hair.

So I bake.  She gets to play dress up and Brian and I send each other gifts.  Everyone is happy.
So, the fun part.  Brian and I were discussing our bakeries (oh yes we do!) and talking about what we bake and how we decide to bake: Our strategies as it were.  It kind of pays to bake all of the stuff available.  But, well...I don't like peach cobbler.  It's OK, but given a choice of the cobbler, scones, and creme brulee, I'll take either rather than the cobbler.  I actually won't bake anything that I don't want to eat.  Really.  I know it's a virtual bakery.  If I won't eat it IRL I won't sell it virtually. 

So, now I can be stupid IRL and in my virtual bakery..  Yep.  baking.  Yep.  I think I should read more....

Book & Baking Blog: Book & Baking Blog Entry 36

Book & Baking Blog: Book & Baking Blog Entry 36

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 35

Well, now you all know the truth, which is that I don't have a lot to say about anything that anyone really needs or wants to know about.  But sometimes I have something to say and probably some English major in the 25th century will come across my blog and decide that his thesis will include my savvy interpretations of 20th and 21st century pop fiction (which will have it's own separate major by then...)  Yep, what some guy won't do to get a PhD.  But I digress


I believe that I wrote a short review of a book by Linda Castillo, Sworn to Silence.  I thought that the author had potential.  So I bought and listened to Pray for Silence.  Both books had good, creepy crimes.  Our heroine, former Amish girl, and Chief of Police, Kate seems like a pretty good character.  I can't figure out if she's supposed to be an alcoholic, if Castillo wants you to think that she's on the edge, or if she just likes her vodka (to which I say, "YOU GO GIRL!)  Tomasetti (Thomasetti?  Spelling names from audio books can be a pain) is fairly limited as well.  Castillo keeps trying to draw these characters for us but instead just designates attributes that they have.  We also get to relive their traumas which regularly come back to haunt them at inopportune times.


It's a shame, because I think Castillo has some talent here.  But why, oh why go out of your way to have a hero and heroine with backgrounds in law enforcement (long and successful careers) and them have them be stupid in emergencies and ignorant of the law and how it works. 


In both tales, the final 1/4 to 1/3 of the book just becomes unbearable as Kate makes stupid mistake after stupid mistake.  And really, how many times does she have to prove that she has good ideas to those around her when A. She's chief of police and B. She was right the last time.  Duh.  Just fuss and nonsense.  Seriously.

If you don't mind a bit of foolishness and can get these for a good price, go for it.  If you have trouble with foolish characters, don't.

Happy Reading.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 34

I love to bake cookies.  Really.  And I prefer baking for others to eat.  Mostly because I put on weight easily and couldn't possibly eat all the cookies that I really would like to eat.


I just had to share the experience of making the rare, almost never seen out of its natural midwestern habitat, Orange Cookie.  Orange Cookies were almost never found at my house even  at Christmas.  Nope.  Why not?  They are delicious.  They are cakey and sweet.  They actually taste like orange.  They have lovely icing--AHA!  There's the kicker.  As a kid I had no idea that there were people out there regularly icing  their cookies.


I can't speak for my mother, but I suspect that she did not like to frost cookies.  For example, I thought that sugar cookies were called sugar cookies because you sprinkled sugar on them.  I didn't realize that it was because they are sugary goodness and most people put even more sugary icing on them.  Who knew?! 


So, of course, we all like to think that we don't have the hang-ups of our mothers.  So why don't I make the sugary, sweet, orange, frosted cookies?  Well, I don't keep orange juice in the house.  I should find out if there is such a think as powdered orange juice, not Tang, but real stuff.  There has got to be.  Seriously, you can get powdered milk...


I don't mind frosting the cookies and the best part about these is that the frosting gets nice and stiff.  You're supposed to use wax paper to separate the layers of cookies, but I don't.  Honey-badger just don't care....


So, rethinking the cookie line up.  What was really fun was that I know mom would always use orange food color so that the cookies were "orange." I made the frosting, well, mauve? even towards a lilac.  I used pink, but the cream color of the frosting clearly influenced the end color more than I figured.  Too cute.  My daughter LOVES it.


Happy Baking.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 33

WARNING:  some bad language and spoilers

Well, it's time to think about novellas.  First, one of the great thing about Kindle is that novellas are affordable and can be downloaded without an anthology.  I just wish that it was made clear when one is buying a novella.  If I'm on the amazon site I usually double-check but on the kindle itself, at 10pm when I'm reading by flashlight....you get it.

Anyway.  Coffee Clutch by Marshall Thornton.  Wow.  Didn't like it.  At all.  Wouldn't recommend it.  Even for .99. 

First I object to the title.  Please.  I hope that the author was trying to be clever, but I get the idea, based on the rest of the novella, that he was just ignorant of the spelling.

One of the amazon reviewers says that she can't point out what she doens't like without spoilers, so HEY, THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT.

I don't like the characters.  Are ALL men of the sixties truly heinous assholes?  Are all of the women ineffectual wimps who just take it?  And why are they friends when they don't seem to like each other?

And, the plot.  Our main character, a wimpy, sixties housewife who gave up her non-career that she never really tried to get to be a wife and mother decides that her risque, divorced neighbor must have been murdered by her other neighbor.  So she sets out to prove this?  Not really.  She does a bunch of stuff and accidentally finds the killer BUT because she's so wimpy she won't do anything about it because he (the killer) will actually prove that she did it because her husband and ALL of the other husbands in the neighborhood were actually having affairs with the divorcee?  Really?  And she's not going to confront her husband and she'll continue to live next to the killer. 

I get the idea that there will be more in the "next" Jan Birch novel and that she'll "grow" as a person and find herself, blah blah blah.  The characters couldn't be more one dimensional.  Everything we know is because the author tells us it's so.

The kicker?!  There is a movie short with the same name.  Based on the novella?!  I hope not.

Book & Baking Blog Entry 32

So, I've been lazy and have not been blogging.  And now I have a second blog.  I only have one entry, but I set it up today, so don't expect too much.  I thought that I would go with the professional blog.  But enough about that travesty....


So I finally "read" (audiobook) Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay.  Not bad.  It didn't enthrall me as much as it might have but I did enjoy it.  I understand that there is a TV show.  People love it.


I would say that it was better than a large number of books that I've read, but I'm not beating down the computer to download another.  Perhaps it was the narrator, but I don't think so.  First, I'm not just how Dexter is so smart that he is finding serial killers when no one else can?  Is it merely that monsters can find each other?  Having only read the one book it just seemed to be a matter of the author "said so" and that we, the reader had to accept it.  I might consider another to see if the characters develop at all.  They seemed pretty one-dimensional and, frankly, some of the stupidest cops that I've ever read about in a novel.

I have also recently finished Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo.  I enjoyed this book (audio) quite a bit.  Well, right up until the last 25%.  But I enjoyed the characters, they seemed to be somewhat developed, their interaction seemed true to the story.  Until: our chief of police, who has 8 years of law experience prior to her current job seems to lose any sense of how the law works and her rights under the law.  She actually just walks out of her office and doesn't fight her contractual rights and then allows herself to be manhandled by her successor.  I plan to read at least one more by Castillo.  I thought that the rest was interesting enough to give her another try.

Good reading.