Girl Detective

I read Zone One as part of a choose-your-own-Colson-Whitehead-novel book group–Zone One, John Henry Days, or The Intuitionist. Alas, since I lead the group, I had to read all three, which was not what I would have planned if I’d remembered the Morning News Tournament of Books was coming up. But I enjoyed all 3, found them similar and different and am glad I read them all.

Zone One is Whitehead’s take on the zombie tale. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic NYC. The narrator, nicknamed Mark Spitz, is part of a civilian group of 3 sweeping the city for skels (zombies) or stragglers (people who got bitten, but didn’t turn rabid, but instead returned to a particular point where they stay frozen) missed by the mass killings the Marines did in the first waves after the plague hit.

As with John Henry Days, the main character is lacking in emotional maturity. Also similar is the commentary on our culture of shallow consumption. It ticks along at a good pace, with the beautiful sentences that Whitehead is so good at crafting. He does a good job at crafting a believable and chilling near future.

The book is structured into three days in Mark Spitz’s life (always both names are used). We get stories of his past and survival plus those of others he encounters as we go along, most of which are well spun. Two that rankled, though, was the withholding of how he got his nickname, and how the anecdote was related in Saturday’s narrative though it took place on Sunday.

One particular character’s Last Night story (about a birthday party) was chillingly all too easy for me to imagine and may well haunt me forever.

Technically, these are Espresso Chocolate Chip Toasted Walnut Whole Wheat Banana Muffins.

A$$load of Adjectives Banana Muffins? Bada$$ Banana Muffins?

I still have this brain-eating virus, so I’m cursing a lot. Not sure I’m very far off from Flowers for Algernon, here. Sorry if the cursing offends.

Call them what you will. They turned out good. I’m sure I’ve shared something like them before, but this was today’s iteration.

Banana Muffins With a Bunch of Stuff in Them, a mashup of recipes from Baked, Super Natural Cooking and an index card recipe ca. 1998 that came either from the Philadelphia Inquirer or The Star Tribune.

makes 12

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted then cooled (or unsalted butter and add 1 tsp. salt to dry ingredients. I was out of unsalted butter)
3 mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup creme fraiche (see recipe from yesterday, or use sour cream, milk, yogurt, whatever)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (you can also just use 1 1/2 cup AP flour)
1 Tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup toasted, cooled then chopped walnuts

1. Oven 350. Spray 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Stir together butter, bananas, sugars, dairy item and egg in a medium-small bowl.
3. Whisk together flour, espresso, soda in a medium-big bowl.
4. Put wet ingredients into dry. Stir till just mixed, then fold in chips/nuts.
5. Using ice-cream scoop fill muffin cups 3/4 or so full. Bake 20 minutes till tester comes clean.
6. Cool pan on rack 15 minutes. Remove muffins, cool rest of the way on rack.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for a few days. Like they’ll last that long.

The recipe calls for one eggs, but I took pictures of three because I thought they were pretty:

Mmmm. There it goes down, down in my belly.

Fear not, friends who know I’m a teetotaller. I’m not talking about Ron Burgundy’s scotch. Or Ron Swanson’s, for that matter. I’m talking butterscotch.

It started with the strawberry cake that about-to-be 7yo Guppy requested for his birthday. After making the cake, I had eight egg yolks. What to do?

Butterscotch pudding with whipped cream

Make pudding! Jennifer Reese of Tipsy Baker’s recipe for Butterscotch Pudding from her book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter calls for 4 egg yolks. Four is exactly half of eight. (Who said fractions aren’t important?) It was a sign from the Kitchen Goddess (who I’ve tentatively identified as Hestia; what do you think?) I could make a double batch!

And so I did; the recipe is below. Butterscotch pudding has become a comfort-food dessert at many restaurants around the Twin Cities. Now I can satisfy my craving for it on a whim. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. But perhaps that’s because I made a double batch, which seemed excessive after a while, even for me. I suggest that you make a single batch. Unless you have 8 egg yolks. Then, what else are you supposed to do?

Reese advises 1. adding a teaspoon of Scotch or bourbon with the butter and vanilla, 2. straining the pudding before putting it in containers, and 3. using small ramekins or teacups for individual servings. But I was impatient for pudding and serving it to small children, so I skipped the Scotch, straining and separate cups. The pudding was still delicious.

Alas, what I couldn’t skip was my conviction that the pudding should be topped by whipped cream.

Reese’s recipe for whipped cream is simple; it’s below. Now, the dead-simplest is to get some cold heavy cream and whip it, which can be arduous if you do it by hand, but goes fast with a hand-held mixer. But adding a little sugar and vanilla does make it even better.

But, the trouble with home-made whipped cream is that it doesn’t keep, it weeps. One way to combat this is to store it in a metal sieve over a bowl, but this tends to dry out the cream. I found another idea in the Genius Recipes archive at Food 52. Nancy Silverton adds creme fraiche to the whipping cream to stabilize it; recipe below. So back I went to Reese’s book, as she has a ridiculously simple recipe for Creme Fraiche though it takes 24 hours; recipe also below.

Ah, so then, was I satisfied? Oh, no. I’d gotten a taste for butterscotch, so my mind turned to my favorite cookie from childhood, the oatmeal scotchie. I tweaked the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, which was in turn a tweak of the back-of-the-box recipe I’d made going up. I upped the amount of salt a titch, and can testify that it only makes these more crave-able.

Oatmeal Scotchie cookies

But, perhaps you are not a butterscotch person. My friend Becca has a theory, which is that people either like it or not, they’re not indifferent, and those who do like butterscotch tend to also like coconut, and not liking butterscotch usually means not liking coconut, too. (What math property is this? Transitive? Commutative?) Feel free to add evidence either way in the comments. So if you don’t like butterscotch, use chocolate chips. Do not use raisins. I have coined a term: RAISIN-TMENT, which is the bitterness I feel and taste when I bite into a cookie expecting chocolate chips, and get raisins instead. Then I give the cookie away, appearing generous, but really being self serving. Or not, as the case may be.

Guppy verifies that the pudding is delicious with the 11th Doctor's sonic screwdriver

Also, remember, pudding can be deadly. Be careful out there.

***

All the recipes from this post:

Butterscotch Pudding, adapted from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (also, buy the book)

2 1/4 cups milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Remove from the heat.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the cream, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until well blended.
3. Pour a splash of hot milk into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk in the remainder of the milk.
4. Pour the mixture back into the pot and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it begins to thicken, 3 or 4 minutes. Do not let it boil.
5. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla.
6. Transfer to glass container, cover and chill for at least 4 hours until firm and cold.

Makes 3 1/2 cups, to serve 7

***

Whipped Cream, from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

1 cup very cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

Pour the cream and sugar into a large bowl* and beat until soft peaks form. If you want to use vanilla, add it after peaks have formed. Serve immediately. Makes 1 3/4 cups.

*Cold bowl and beaters = faster whipped cream. I keep my beaters in the freezer, and chill the metal bowl by filling it with ice water for one minute, draining and drying it, then adding the cold cream and beating with the chilled beaters. Probably a toss up of time chilling bowl vs. time saved on whipping, now that I write it out here. –GD

***

Creme Fraiche, from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (see what a useful book it is?)

1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon buttermilk (real, not powdered or soured milk)

Pour the cream and buttermilk into a jar, cap, and shake. Leave in a warmish place–like beside the stove–for 24 hours, until thick. Refrigerate. It will keep for up to a week. Makes 1 cup.

***

Nancy Silverton’s Whipped Cream from Food 52

Makes 2 cups

1 cup whipping cream
4 tablespoons crème fraîche (or sour cream), to taste

To whip by hand, you need a very large bowl and a large, balloon-style whisk. The large bowl is necessary to be able to whip the cream vigorously without making a mess, and the style of whisk is very important: If you whisk is too small or has too few wires, it will take much more effort to whip the cream. Whisking vigorously, it should take about 3 to 5 minutes to bring the liquid cream to the proper consistency.

By machine, start on low speed until the cream thickens enough not to spatter. Increase the speed to medium high and continue to whip, stopping the machine before the cream will hold soft peaks. Remove the bowl from the electric mixer and finish whipping the cream by hand with a whisk. Fold or gently whisk in creme fraiche.

Note: Salvaging extremely overwhipped cream can be done. You must add up to 1/4 cup of cold whipping cream and work it in, stirring with a rubber spatula to restore the proper consistency.

***

Oatmeal Scotchies, adapted from America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated.

Makes 16 to 20 large cookies

Do not overbake these cookies. The edges should be brown but the rest of the cookie should still be very light in color. Parchment makes for easy cookie removal and cleanup, but it’s not a necessity. If you don’t use parchment, let the cookies cool directly on the baking sheet for two minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (or 1 cup AP flour and 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour)
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks unsalted butter (1/2 pound), softened but still firm
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup butterscotch or chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Adjust oven racks to low and middle positions; heat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl of electric mixer or by hand, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.

2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg together, then stir them into butter-sugar mixture with wooden spoon or large rubber spatula. Stir in oats and chips. Reminder: do not use raisins. No one wants them.

3. With ice-cream scoop, make sixteen to twenty 2-inch balls, placing each dough round onto one of two parchment paper—covered, large cookie sheets. Bake until cookie edges turn golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. (Halfway during baking, turn cookie sheets from front to back and also switch them from top to bottom.) Slide cookies on parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 30 minutes before serving.

From “The tyranny of cultural choice is making my brain gasp” by Dorian Lynskey at The Guardian, which I got to via this article (which I didn’t like as well as the one it linked to) at Arts and Letters Daily

It reminds me how much I hate those litanies of things to read, see, hear or experience before you die, and the way they turn entertainment into an impossibly epic assignment to be completed before the ultimate, non-negotiable deadline, as if you will be on your deathbed guiltily confessing to your grandchildren that you never got around to watching the Three Colours trilogy even though you somehow found time for all six seasons of Lost. I find the beat-the-reaper concept irrational and self-defeating, not because I feel above it all but because it highlights how irrational and self-defeating my own attitude to cultural consumption has become.

I’m in three book groups, one of which I moderate. I’m enmeshed in the geekery of this months Tournament of Books. I’m in a Dickens readalong. So when my husband hands me a book and says, I think you’d enjoy this,” I feel guilty. I love books. Reading books. Talking about books. But there’s some tipping point where it turns into obligation. When was the last time I picked up a book just ’cause I wanted to? Let me see…

November 26. Victor LaValle’s Devil in Silver. Just because I wanted to. And I enjoyed the heck out of it. But since then, it’s been all book groups and ToB books, except for graphic novels.

And that’s one reason I love graphic novels–they don’t take as long to read. The pleasure to time factor is bigger than with a “regular” book. So I got to read Finder Library 2, Fairest, Wonder Woman: Blood, Fables: Cubs in Toyland, Drama, and Revival in the same amount of time. I enjoyed most of them.

I know I’ve written about the Tyranny of the TBR pile more than once. But how to buck it? Still haven’t figured that one out. Bet you guys haven’t either.

I don’t think I’ve ever embedded a video, so this is a great one to start with. Cloud Cult has a new album, Love, that officially goes on sale tomorrow. It’s the CD of the week at my radio station The Current, so if you join this week you get it.

And this new song “Good Friend”, is a terrific example of the kind of their exuberant, anthemic sound. I love it. Hope you do too. The creature in it reminds me of big Totoro from Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, which I watched this weekend with my kids, who I’m glad to say are not too old for it. Neither am I.

Good news: my swollen finger joint is better.

Bad news: After over a week, my on-again/off-again cold has dug in to stay. I have a small colony of frogs living at the base of my throat and they get really active at night. I am determined to kick this thing to the curb. I’m going to throw so much $h1t at it that it will have to bow down.

I am still in pajamas and convinced my 9yo to make his own lunch (his dad helped) and my husband worked from home today, and took the kids to the bus stop so I didn’t have to. I don’t plan on leaving the house for the foreseeable future. Laundry and cleaning can damn well wait till I’m solidly better. Like, next week, maybe. Also the Tournament of Books started today, so I better get reading.

I used to chew a raw clove of garlic, but the last time I tried it I vomited it right back up (it’s that gross), so, lesson learned, no more of that. I may make myself grape Jello water instead.

I have finished all my Cold Calm, which is really just homeopathic sugar pills and makes my husband G. Grod crazy that I buy them, but aren’t placebos supposed to be effective, too? I’m taking a packet of EmergenC, 1000 iu of Vitamin D, a multivitamin, fish oil, some herbal sinus pill (Sinus Take Care; what a terrible name), Yogi’s Cold Care tea, honey, Sambucol, and a new twist on my favorite cold tonic:

Moxie’s Cold Cure-all, from Bon Appetit January 2013
A warming drink with echinacea, plus a kick of ginger and cayenne to clear the sinuses? We’re in.

Makes 1. Recipe by Moxie Rx in Portland, OR.

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons honey or light agave syrup (nectar)*
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger**
1/4 teaspoon super echinacea extract***
Pinch of cayenne pepper

*Screw agave. It’s a fad. Sugar is sugar, except when it’s local honey, which is better for you. Use local honey.
**Use your Microplane grater. If you do not have one, fix that.
***Super echinacea extract can be found at natural foods stores.

Combine all ingredients in a mug with 1 cup boiling water, stirring until honey is dissolved. Let sit for 1 minute before serving.

(Patience. I will eventually get to the stuff about the John Green book. But first, a long story about why I haven’t, yet.)

Have not managed to kick virus from last week. Rested. Got better. Expended burst of energy. Got worse. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then, the morning after my birthday, which I spent congratulating myself on how not old I felt, I woke feeling woozy and congested again (see above; also, I do not drink, so it wasn’t that) and with a swollen, painful middle finger knuckle and no memory of having injured it (again, I do not drink, so the obvious conclusion did not apply.)

Oh, no! I thought. I have my dad’s arthritis. I emailed him. He told me I didn’t. (He’s a retired doctor, not just an internet diagnostic genius, as I am, so I mostly trust him. Kinda like a Medical Magic 8 Ball. FYI, best site for diagnosing yourself and not freaking out is The Mayo Clinic’s excellent site.) I left it alone. It got worse. It hurt so much I couldn’t sleep, then got up and had to eat rice cakes and drink almond milk so I could take the TWO ibuprofen I could find in the house at 1am. I missed the GIANT BOTTLE my husband had gotten earlier that day. Shoulda known he wouldn’t allow us to run out of what a former brother in law called Vitamin M.

Anyhoo, slept on couch so wouldn’t disturb husband who was looking forward to geeky sci-fi con today, then told him when he got up that he had to drive me to urgent care because my hand was so effed up I couldn’t be trusted with the car. Two hours later I was told it wasn’t broken, it wasn’t arthritis, but a swollen joint capsule. Doc asked if I did repetitive motions. Typing, I asked? No, he said, wouldn’t be just that finger.

I professed ignorance and innocence while wondering if perhaps my flipping off of my family behind their back when they annoyed me had perhaps gotten a little two vigorous. And yet, I usually give the double salute, so even though I’m (sort of) joking about this, it is just the one hand. Upon consideration, it may have been from opening a jar. I got some pain meds, and am doing much better now, thanks. Which you can probably infer, since I’m typing this. But if you could see how many times I have to edit a line, you might see I’m still impaired (handwise, I mean. Again, don’t drink anymore.) And now I have to see a rheumatologist. Maybe I’ll just stop opening jars. (And flipping off people. Maybe.)

SO, the reason I started this is to say why I haven’t blogged lately, and why, now that the story has been told, I may give short shrift to reviews as I catch up here.

I’d heard from a bajillion people I trusted that The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was A. Really good and B. Really sad. I knew I was going to read it sometime, so when it was picked for this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books, AND it finally came in at the library, it was time.

And as for a review, I like what Janet Potter had to say at The Millions, because I think we do it a disservice by focusing on the crying part, as I did in my Good Reads review that said not to read the last 50 pages in public:

It’s a sad book, to be sure, about two teenagers who meet in a support group for kids with cancer, but it’s also joyful, hopeful, wise, funny, romantic, and genuinely inspirational. So why, in my efforts to share this joy and hope with other people, did I keep saying, go be unspeakably sad for as long as it takes you to read a 300-page book?

I think that when we talk about The Fault in Our Stars, we go straight to the unspeakable sadness, out of all the emotions evoked, because we want to convey the incredible emotional resonance of the book. What we’re trying to say is: this book mattered deeply to me, I think it could matter deeply to you too.

I didn’t love this book because it was sad, I loved it because the main characters were funny and smart. I delighted in the time I spent with them. Highly recommended.

But, don’t read the last 50 pages in public.

Guppy told me he wanted a strawberry cake for his 7th birthday, so I showed him a picture of The Pink Lady Cake at Smitten Kitchen.

I didn’t call it the Pink Lady, because he’s a seven year old boy. I’m all for gender boundaries coming down and boys embracing pink, but really, it’s called the Pink Lady, and that sounds like a cocktail cougars would drink at a male strip club, not a little boy’s birthday cake. Instead, it got the somewhat unwieldy handle Strawberry Cake with Cream-Cheese Frosting.

But in my head, I gave it a tough name, since it was such a girly cake. I decided to call it the Bada$$ Motherf!@#er cake in my head, which amused me because I’m immature that way.

Anyhoo, the BAMF cake nearly broke my trusty 20+ yo Kitchenaid mixer (the only good thing I’ve ever bought from Kitchenaid. Made in USA back then. Go figure.) My 4.5-quart mixer was too small for the three-layer cake recipe, and adding pureed frozen strawberries to the batter made the melted butter freeze up. I thought the motor was going to quit on me, but I stopped, did math, cut everything by 1/3, warmed the batter in the microwave to defrost the strawberries, filled two cake pans, then made the last 1/3 batter separately to fill the last pan, and voila: Macgyver Mom + Math = Success.

Here is when I stopped the mixer to reduce the batter by 1/3. Hooray fractions! Also, to taste the batter to make sure it was good. It was.

I weighed the layers to make sure they were even. Because sometimes I'm a dork like that. Also, because I own a kitchen scale, so why not?

Then there was the requisite assembling and frosting and when finished, it looked like this:

I like how the perspective makes Guppy's head look like a decoration on his own cake. I didn't have time to make it look fancy, so it looks like a big white puck

Two-Layer Strawberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Filling (or, if you wish, The Bada$$ Motherf&*^er Cake)
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Sky High. For the strawberries, take about half of a 10-ounce bag of frozen berries, defrost them at room temperature or in the microwave, then puree to get one cup. If you have leftover cream cheese frosting, get graham crackers, put a tablespoon between 2 squares, repeat until you run out of frosting, then freeze. You’re welcome.

For the cake
3 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup pureed thawed frozen strawberries*
6 egg whites
scant 1/2 cup milk

For the cream cheese frosting
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Make the cake
1. Preheat the oven to 350»F. Butter two 9-inch round or 8-inch square cake pans. Line with parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper.

2. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixer bowl. With the electric mixer on low speed, blend for 30 seconds. Add the butter and strawberry puree and mix to blend the ingredients. Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes; the batter will resemble strawberry ice cream at this point.

3. In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and milk to blend. Add the whites to the batter in two or three additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl well and mixing only to incorporate after each addition. Divide the batter among the two prepared pans.

4. Bake the cakes for 30 to 34 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the layers to cool in the pans for 10 to 15 minutes. Invert and turn out onto wire racks and peel off the paper liners. Let stand until completely cooled before assembling the cake, at least an hour.

Make the cream cheese frosting
5. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners’ sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Frost and assemble the cake
6. Place one cake layer on a cake board or platter. Tuck scraps of waxed paper under the edges of the cake to protect the board or plate from any mess created while frosting the cake. Spread about 2/3 cup frosting over the layer, spreading it to the edge. Add the second layer then frost the top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. You can decorate the cake top with thinly-sliced strawberries. What you should not do is take some of the strawberry puree in a pastry bag and try to decorate the cake with that because it will look like strawberry vomit. Remove the waxed strips to reveal a clean cake board.

The not-too-pink cake

Once cut, you can see it was a perfectly respectable 3-layer pink-ish cake. I did not add red food coloring to increase the pink. Even so, a handful of 7yo boys at the party refused it, saying they didn’t like strawberry. I don’t know if this was code for “I’m not going to eat that girly cake.” So, nice, I work really hard on this cake, and then little boys REFUSE CAKE. Happily, Guppy enjoyed it, so that’s all that matters.

But, you may notice that this recipe calls for 6 egg whites, so, doing math, the 3 layer cake called for 8. I had 8 egg yolks left over. What was I going to do?

It was there my troubles began. TO BE CONTINUED.

My friends often ask, “How do you read so much?”

First, I’m a freelance writer and stay at home parents of two kids in school full time. I don’t make much money, but I have a lot of wiggle room in my schedule.

Second, I tell them to come look at my house and its escalating level of filth.

Alas, sometimes the filth gets so noticable, or I need something and unearthing it starts an accidental organization project, which is what happened this morning, and lo and behold, I did some cleaning.

No reading, no writing. Alas, some time on Facebook kibbutzing about the Oscars (which I mostly enjoyed. Socks in the dryer and giant-eyed sock puppets! Shatner! My boyfriend Channing Tatum dancing!)

For me the same thing is true of cleaning that is true of any other work like writing: I don’t like doing it, but I feel good about having done it.

So, in honor of my recent burst of housewifery, some advice I’ve received, or things I’ve learned over the years about laundry.

1. If you’re in a bad mood, do a load of laundry. It won’t make you feel better, but you’ll have a load of clean laundry. (shout out to the Steve who said this, wherever he may be.)

2. Do two loads. No matter how backed up laundry is, if you do two loads a day, you will eventually catch up, and two loads won’t kill you (See #1).

3. Always empty the lint trap before you start the dryer. Clothes dry faster (one of the lessons I learned in college. An expensive one, my parents would agree, but useful.) plus if you forget and take it out once it’s started, things can get clogged and flame-y in there, sez a friend named Jen.

4. If you can’t face doing laundry, do a load of pants. This one’s from my friend The Hoff. They’re easy to fold. Leave the socks and underwear and dish towels for a day you’re feeling more resilient.

5. Powdered detergent, and not much of it. Liquid detergent is a scam.

6. Borax does not dissolve very well and will clog your machine. Beware.

Revival, Vol. 1: You’re Among Friends by Tim Seeley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Found myself wanting to like this more than I did. I found some clumsy visual storytelling like an text dump on a spread, and multiple characters who look too like others.

Everything reminded me of something else, so nothing felt fresh or original. Newscaster reminded me of Cersei from Game of Thrones. Main character reminded me of something by Rucka (forget which title: Stumptown?) Art and main character design reminded me of Whiteout. CDC guy reminded me of Sayeed from Lost.

Yet it says noir right on the cover, and part of noir is its embracing of tropes. In my experience, a critique of a noir work that says it’s cliche misses the point, and yet that’s what I felt after reading this. Am I missing the point? Not in the mood for noir?

It has an intro by Jeff Lemire who writes Sweet Tooth, which I love, so I feel I should love it by the transitive property. Not sure whether I’ll continue with this series.

BUT, props for the Dessa and Rhymesayers poster in one character’s dorm room!

View all my reviews

From “Dickens, Austen and Twain, Through a Digital Lens,” (hat tip friend V)

Any list of the leading novelists of the 19th century, writing in English, would almost surely include Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain.

But they do not appear at the top of a list of the most influential writers of their time. Instead, a recent study has found, Jane Austen, author of “Pride and Prejudice, “ and Sir Walter Scott, the creator of “Ivanhoe,” had the greatest effect on other authors, in terms of writing style and themes.

Numbers aren’t everything, but I find it interesting to ponder that Austen and Scott–reductively romance and adventure, hers and his–come out, literary DNA-wise, as the progenitors.

Also, how awkward is the punctuation of the article’s title, given the NYT choice not to use the Oxford comma? Perhaps only we copyeditors (copy editors?) would care or notice.

File under the heading “Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time”:

For one of my three book groups, I picked an author, rather than one book to read, so we’re having a sort of literary Colson Whitehead potluck where people could read Intuitionist, John Henry Days, or Zone One. But, as the moderator, that meant I had to read all 3 in the month before the Morning News Tournament of Books, which I’m much rather be reading nerdishly for.

John Henry Days centers on a freelance journalist, J Sutter, who goes to cover an event celebrating the legend. We’re told early on there’s a murder, and then the book hops here and there (rather in the manner that a legend accretes) telling J’s and John Henry’s and the ballad’s stories.

John Henry Days is a bigger and much more ambitious book than The Intuitionist. Interestingly, I preferred the latter. this one was a bit too big, sprawled a bit too much, and I felt like Whitehead and his editor were too reluctant to kill his darlings (edit out precious but unnecessary sentences). From Jonathan Franzen’s review at the New York Times “Freeloading Man“:

Unfortunately, in his pursuit of the exhaustive, Whitehead also serves up …half a dozen other interludes that read, at times, like the work of somebody getting $2 a word.

If Franzen says you’re too wordy, that’s something to pay attention to.

But, Franzen also says that just when you are frustrated you stumble across a sentence or passage or chapter that draws you back in, despite the rambling and un-urgent narrative. I found this absolutely true.

Impressive, often entertaining (one bit about air quotes will stay with me for life), but a little too wordy, and a little too cerebral and lacking in emotion, for me to urge it on all and sundry.

I’m not sure I can recall the last time (ever?) I got my inbox to zero. My feed reader, yes. Trying to practice new habits, I saw Inbox Zero for Life.

Doable? I don’t know. Has my smart phone made my bad email management worse? Don’t know.

I’ve been whittling away at the inbox today, and am down about 75. Only 850 to go…

Wonder if I can get to zero.

An Open Letter to Kitchenaid Customer Service:

Interestingly and frustratingly, but sadly not surprisingly, I have visited your website and am unable to complete the customer feedback because I cannot access the columns–you have a faulty website with a limited Flash program that doesn’t accept input from our browser.

Also, you don’t list an address so I can send a physical letter.

And when I called to get an address, I was told by the electronic voice that I’d have to wait over ten minutes to talk to a real person. Also, I wasn’t given an option of customer feedback, just service or parts.

APPARENTLY, YOU DON’T WANT TO RECEIVE CUSTOMER FEEDBACK. I HAVE NO DOUBT WHY. KITCHENAID, YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE, LIKE YOUR PRODUCTS, STINKS.

I have recently received two solicitations for an extended service plan for our Kitchenaid dishwasher, purchased at Warner Stellian in February 2006. The dishwasher is the worst appliance we have ever had the misfortune to own, and your brazen solicitations for us to pour good money after bad on the dishwasher in general, and Kitchenaid in particular, only add insult to the considerable injury we have endured over the years as we’ve muddled through with this substandard, poorly made machine waiting for it to die.

The machine broke down for the first time in February 2007. We thought we’d be covered by the warranty and were surprised and upset to find the warranty had been for a mere six months, which hardly shows company confidence in your products. The door mechanism had failed, and the chopper was clogged. The technician fixed both problems, and told me the door was an ongoing issue. I did my own research and found significant online evidence (just 2 examples: here and here) that the door attachment was weak and faulty. A more conscientious company would have notified all customers and replaced its shoddy work for free. Instead, we like many others, had to pay about $300 soon after we bought the machine to fix something that wasn’t made right in the first place.

A few months later, our control panel froze again. We called a technician, who came, told us the clogged chopper was an ongoing problem with the Kitchenaids, and showed me how to reset the panel and take the machine apart so I wouldn’t have to call for service everytime. He did not have to do this, and I am still grateful that he had the decency and good customer sense to do this. It is only this that has allowed us to trudge on over the years with the dishwasher, as the machine clogs at least once a month and I have to take it entirely apart to clear it out. This is yet another ongoing problem with the machine that could have been avoided by better engineering early on, but then at least mitigated later on by including how to reset the panel and take apart the machine in the user manual, rather than trying to hide that information with technicians who charge about $200 a visit.

This second visit meant we’d paid over $500 on top of the original price, all within 18 months of purchase. I determined that if another service call was ever warranted, that we’d buy a new, non-Kitchenaid dishwasher, one from a company with a good performance and excellent customer service record.

And while the door has not detached from the machine again, it has not performed well, either. It frequently pops open during a cycle, an unpleasant surprise to discover in the morning, and a waste of water as the cycle runs again. We’ve learned to hack this by wedging it shut with a chair and our cast-iron pan to weight it down. It seems to me this is an extreme solution to something so basic as KEEPING THE DOOR CLOSED.

The front basket accessory unravelled at the bottom, but we chose not to spend more money on the dishwasher. Ditto one of the brackets on the top shelf.

In order to keep the chopper clear, we had to scrupulously rinse dishes of food particles, plus carefully arrange dishes in the machine. This machine was extremely fussy and require a great deal of practice and attention in order to function. Even so, it often didn’t clean dishes thoroughly.

I contacted Kitchenaid customer service to detail the bad experiences we’d had with our machine. I was told it was out of warranty, and that they’d be happy to arrange another service call for me that I could pay for.

There is plentiful documentation online that many others had similar troubles. For me and for others, your company had NOT responded to repeated requests to stand by their malfunctioning product by fixing or replacing shoddy items.

The guts of the Kitchenaid DW. You need to remove them ALL to get to the clog.

For better or worse, I’ve been able to keep the machine going for almost 7 years since I learned to reset and clean it out myself. But the clogs have been getting more and more frequent, so I think the machine is near the time when I’ll kick it to the curb and tell it not to let the door hit it in the rear on its way out. I don’t appreciate spending hundreds more dollars on replacing an appliance I’d hoped would last for many years, not limping through seven. But I very much look forward to a non-Kitchenaid dishwasher.

Interestingly, and not coincidentally, over these years I’ve accumulated what I call the Kitchenaid Graveyard of other Kitchenaid kitchen implements that have failed. I will attach a photo, and will attach the photo to this letter that I’ll post online to my website, to Facebook. I will additionally follow up to review these items accordingly on major retailing sites so that other consumers might avoid the expense of these readily breaking down items:

The Kitchenaid graveyard of broken items. Cheese slicer and grater not shown.

Blender 1: glass container cracked, lid had faulty liner
Blender 2: plastic container cracked
ice cream scoop: squeeze mechanism broke, and scoop wouldn’t release without it
basting brush: filaments bent and would no longer evenly distribute sauce
cheese slicer (not pictured): wire broke immediately
Cheese grater: rubber ring base ripped; plastic casing and base both cracked

It took some years, but I finally learned my lesson and stopped buying Kitchenaid. I had a false sense of a reliable brand given my ONE good experience, which was with the mixer I bought at Bloomingdale’s at King of Prussia mall in the early 90’s. It still works well over twenty years later, even though it’s the lower end 4.5 quart size. But if it ever does break, I doubt I’d replace it with a modern Kitchenaid, given the subsequent product debacles I’ve endured over the years.

My advice to you:

Reduce advertising and spend that money and attention on engineering and customer service, which are severely lacking in products both large and small.

Extend your warranty yourself–make it two years, and when an issue like the dishwasher door becomes evident, replace the items at no cost to the consumer. Stand by your products, and not by sending out extended warranty solicitations way after the fact like you’re doing us some favor.

And, if you’d really like to stand up for your products, replace our Kitchenaid Dishwasher model KUDS01FLWH7 which has been a constant disappointment with a new one, and if it holds up, I’ll write positive reviews.

But until and unless you make a definitive statement like replacing our limping dishwasher, I will keep this letter posted on the web, and post detailed, negative reviews of your faulty products based on my experiences.

I am your sincerely disappointed, irritated and now aggravated by your recent solicitations,

Unhappy Kitchenaid Dupe

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, a selection for the 2013 Tournament of Books, is exactly the kind of book I’ve come to hope for from the tournament. I’d heard that it was good, but not until I read it myself, and it reached out and dragged me into it for 440 odd pages, did I appreciate HOW good, or how glad I am to have this book in my life now.

A boy in North Korea, who is NOT an orphan as he defensively tells people throughout his life, grows up and has improbable adventures with unbelievable coincidences. Horrible and wondrous things happen. It’s like a Dickens story set in a communist state, the details of which are so insane it reads like satire, but probably isn’t. Especially in the second half of the book, point of view and time switch suddenly and often, yet I didn’t have trouble following the narrative. This reminded me of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, except without the bat$hit crazy magic stuff. Kim Jong Il = bat$hit crazy all by himself, no magic needed. I loved this book, and highly recommend it.

I have of late been on a B-movie bender. And oh, how it has helped keep up my mirth in the short, dark days of winter. (Or, winter as it is now, which is hardly anything, even here in MN, which is still short and dark, if not that cold or snowy.)

In years past, I’ve gone on Oscar-nominee benders, seeing movies like Capote, There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men. This year, for now, I have no taste for the deep and meaningful award-winning movie. Flight, about a plane crash? The Master, about a delusional cult-starter? Lincoln, a Spielberg Important Film? The Impossible, about a tsunami? No, thank you.

(I do still plan to see Zero Dark Thirty because: Jessica Chastain, Kathryn Bigelow, and Chris Pratt.)

Of this year’s Oscar contenders, I have seen The Silver Linings Playbook, which I enjoyed (as I had the book it was based on) Argo and Les Mis, all of which were crowd-pleasing but Silver Linings is the only one I’d recommend highly. The other two were overtly emotionally manipulative; I could feel the buttons being pushed and the puppet-strings being pulled.

When I look back over the movies and DVDs I watched in 2012, I can see the same pattern of enjoying B movies, but being disappointed in so-called Important ones. Will it last? I don’t know. Is it that the Important Movies don’t look good enough to justify the pain they portray? Or am I just looking for a balance between Complex and Involving/Engaging (e.g., Inglourious Basterds, The Hurt Locker), and if I have to choose between Important and Entertaining, I’ll take the latter.

In December/January, Friday Night Lights sent me on something of a Taylor Kitsch (Riggins!) bender, which I then followed with a Channing Tatum bender, and accidentally (but happily) wound up with a Fass-bender. (Sorry).

Have I become a stereotypical cougar in my 40’s, ogling pretty boys young enough to be my son? Um, perhaps. (Wait, no! I looked up Kitsch, Tatum and Fassbender, and while they’re younger than me, they’re not young enough to be my sons! Woot!)

Friday Night Lights Seasons 3 to 5. My sister and I watched this in tandem so we could phone and email. I loved, loved, loved this series, and its portrayal of a loving, complicated, supportive marriage. I don’t like Texas or football particularly, but I adored this series. Also, Wire alums: Wallace! D’Angelo! So glad to see you guys again!

Savages. I loved the gonzo, over-the-top violent book, and figured the adaptation directed by Oliver Stone would either be a perfect match, or a clustercuss. I choose perfect match, though critics didn’t like it. I thought it was visually arresting, and kind of a blast. Caveat: choose the rated, not the unrated version. It’s Oliver Stone, and the unrated version had me looking at the ceiling a lot till my husband told me it was OK to look back at the screen. Benicio went over the top with scene chewing, but I thought Salma, Travolta, and Taylor Kitsch did some great work.

John Carter. Not as bad as I’d feared, with really impressive effects. Fun to watch. Reminded me strongly of the original Star Wars, and I think my two boys, 7 and 9 years old, would really enjoy it as a sci-fi epic. It might seem derivative but only because it was what everything since has been based on.

Battleship. Swear to you, I was doubtful, but this is a fun movie that will occasionally surprise you (its inclusion of real military vets). If you were a fan of FNL, then it’s directed by Peter Berg and has both Riggins and Landry, and a terrific funny long opening scene. Rihanna shouldn’t quit her day job.

Haywire. I will watch anything that Steven Soderbergh directs. It may not be great, but it WILL be interesting. This one about a female assassin was involving to watch, then the extras elevated it. The star is a real-life mixed-martial-arts champion, and is impressive to watch fight, though her acting skills weren’t enough to really carry the movie. Channing Tatum (whose Magic Mike can be seen as a companion to this, for messing up the gaze and who we cheer for and what we want for them) was solid, plus, Michael Fassbender! Love him. For the fight scenes alone, this worked for me.

Step Up. OK, bear with me here. I saw this mentioned in Entertainment Weekly as part of a reminder that Wire alums were in it. This one had Deirdre Lovejoy as a mom. It’s Romeo-and-Juliet-ish, though it took that analogy a little too far in its final 30 minutes. My husband G. Grod and I watched the first hour and he agreed that it was decent, and it’s fun to watch Channing Tatum dance, and in some scenes, pretend like he can’t dance. But when we watched the last 30 minutes the next night, we were groaning. So, the first hour and the dancing, thumbs up. Plot developments toward the end? I can only shake my head.

X-Men First Class. My husband swore it wasn’t that bad and since I’d made him watch Step Up, this only seemed fair. And again, this was a perfectly good, entertaining B movie! Kevin Bacon seems to sink his teeth into evil, McAvoy can’t quite cover up his Scottish accent the whole time, January Jones can’t act but looks pretty, while Jennifer Lawrence does both, and, again, FASSBENDER! A few nice, geeky cameos, too.

I’m not sure if our B-bender is going to continue, but it’s been nice to lower my standards, and embiggen my enjoyment.

I’m having one of those days where I can’t find things. Couldn’t find the charger for one of our gadgets, and then couldn’t find my copy of The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead so I could pull a segment out to show you how much trippy fun his prose is.

Tellingly, my first thought was, “huh, must be one of those days, stars out of alignment and what not.”

When really, the correct response is “this house is an effing pit, and I really need to stop being so sluttish about the housewifery. (NB “sluttish” used in the English, not American sense.)

The Intuitionist was Whitehead’s first novel, and it’s a mind-bending work. Lila Mae Watson is the first black female elevator inspector, in an alternate reality where elevators are really important, and racism is overt.

“Lila Mae Watson,” she says. “I’ve come to inspect your elevator.”

The man’s lips arch up toward his nose and Lila Mae understands that he’s never seen an elevator inspector like her before….He doesn’t like her. “Let me see your badge,” the man says, but Lila Mae’s hand is already fishing in her jacket pocket. She flips open her identification and holds it up to the man’s face. He doesn’t bother to look at it. He just asked for effect.

The hallway sells of burning animal fat and obscure gravies boiling to slag. (4, 5)

(As you can see, I found my copy. It was hiding under some of the boy’s school papers right next to my desk.)

Elevator inspectors come in two flavors: Intuitionists, who sense what’s wrong with the elevator by trying it separate it from its “elevator-ness”; and Empiricists, who crunch numbers. When Lila Mae is implicated in an accident, these two groups scramble to place the blame in the other groups’ camp, all while some noir-ish mystery plays out with kidnapping, torture, hired goons, and alluring strangers.

As a story, it’s compulsively readable, but its also about race, change, and potentially all sorts of other things. I continue to ruminate on it after I finished. Engaging and thought provoking, my favorite combination.

I read comic books, but not generally superhero ones. It has probably been about fifteen years since anyone at the comic shop said to me, “Hey, you should check out Wonder Woman.” But a friend recently said I might like the new story line, which centered on the Greek gods. I recently enjoyed spending time in ancient Greece when I read The Song of Achilles. Then I saw the striking art by Cliff Chiang on the cover of the collection of the series’ reboot, Wonder Woman: Blood, and I thought it might be time to try again. I’m glad I did.

As part of DC Comics’ reboot, many of the series regulars have aspects old and new, so it’s a good time to start reading. I’m familiar with the Wonder Woman story, having seen all 3 movies (the Cathy Lee Crosby one and both Lynda Carter ones) when I was a girl and watched the ongoing series with Lynda Carter.

In this new take on the character, Zeus is missing, other gods are jostling for the throne, and Diana learns some shocking news about her origin while taking on the protection of a young woman who Hera is trying to kill. This collection is of the first 6 issues. I really like Chiang’s art, and his strong, distinct portrayals of characters, and will snap up the next graphic novel as soon as it comes out.

A selection for this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books, Lauren Groff’s Arcadia was a surprise to me. Going in, I thought it was a dystopian-future YA novel. Imagine my surprise, then, to find it set in a 70’s commune in upstate New York. Because I didn’t expect it, the book felt utterly surprising to me. Written in short, lyrical bursts, it engaged me from start to finish.

I devoured it in a few days, and am hesitant to say more about it, so that you might enter without baggage as well. What I will say is that I loved reading it, and it was full of characters who I loved and cared about. An early section is narrated by a small child, but was not irritating to me as was Emma Donoghue’s Room. The time frame reminded me of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Good Squad.

Fair warning: the end of the book centers around a character’s parent dying. I have many friends who lost a parent recently, and this last section might be excruciating to someone still grieving such a loss.

Les Miserables was a long book full of thrills, snores, tears and laughter. This was one passage that made me smirk:

Wedding customs in 1833 were not what they are today. France had not yet borrowed from England the supreme refinement of abducting the bride, carrying her off from the church as though ashamed of her happiness like an escaping bankrupt or like rape in the manner of the Song of Songs. The chastity and propriety of whisking one’s paradise into a post-chaise to consummate it in a tavern-bed at so much a night, mingling the most sacred of life’s memories with a hired driver and tavern serving maids, was not yet understood in France.

Zing!