Judith Ryan Hendricks

I was first introduced to Ms. Hendricks' work through the novel Bread Alone, which I mostly read in a single night in a hotel in L.A. that had an extremely uncomfortable mattress. That book was warm and funny, and when I finished it, I was inspired to bake bread for the first time in years, so when I discovered that a sequel was published this year, I immediately added it to my amazon wishlist, and then ordered it when I spent the birthday gift certificates I'd amassed.

I regret to confess – I'm disapponted in the sequel. The Baker's Apprentice lives up to all those negative stereotypes of second novels, and while the old familiar characters – Wynter who fled her cheating husband in L.A. and moved to Seattle to bake bread, her friend and sometime roomate, the dancer CM, young blue-haired art school dropout and cake decorator, Tyler, andMac the bartender/novelist who wins Wynter's heart – are all there, they seem pale shadows of their earlier selves, and instead of coming away from this book feeling cozy and wanting to sip coffee and smell bread baking, I feel cold and sort of hollow and unsatisfied.

If Bread Alone was a perfectly flakey croissant with sweet cream butter and bitter dark marmalade, The Baker's Apprentice is Wonder bread – bland, spongey, and utterly lacking in color.

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You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Inspired by Sky…

Lapsang Souchong and I go way back, well, twenty years back, anyway. I first discovered it on a family trip to Carmel, when I discovered the coolest little tea shop. In my head I refer to it as the magic tea shop because I've been there twice but no one else ever knows what store I mean, or is able to find it. It's like a personal Brigadoon.

The tea itself is sort of the unofficial tea of the beatnik generation, which gives it a poetic and literary reputation that I quite like. Also, in my mental picture dictionary beatniks are always wearing black turtlenecks and berets, even if they don't always look like a very young Bob Denver, and as I'm partial to black turtlenecks and berets you can see the obvious attraction.

The tea itself is dark and smokey, sort of fire roasted. It makes me think of dark cafes with plate glass windows shielding diners from sleet and grey skies, and a crackling fire, with tables circled round it, and open mic nights, with poetry slams. It's great with milk, not so great with sugar, and unlike Earl Grey, better without coming near a lemon. It reminds me a little of Russian blend, which can smell almost like bacon, it's so smokey.

To read more about the tea itself, go here.

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As predicted, it's been a lazy day here. Neither of us are feeling great, and Fuzzy's been in an antihistamine haze. We ventured out, in fact, only to feed my addiction to frou-frou coffee.

I have, finally, updated my book blog at Zenitopia.com, with nine of the eleven books I've read since my last update, on September 11th. (Two were Silhouette novels read strictly for research purposes, and I haven't listed them.)

Also, only the last three were allowed to filter to LiveJournal.

Here's the list, in roughly chronological order.
For my comments, please see the book blog:

1. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
2. Star Trek Titan: Taking Wing, Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
3. Forgiveness: Wisdom from Around the World, Gillian Stokes
4. Egalia's Daughters, Gerd Brantenberg
5. Kushiel's Avatar, Jacqueline Carey
6. Miracle, Danielle Steel
7. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Lilian Jackson Braun
8. The Cat Who Went Bananas, Lilian Jackson Braun
9. Atlantis Found, Clive Cussler

And to answer the question asked by Mr. Parallelogram at Open Diary, I'm currently reading The Baker's Apprentice, by Judith Ryan Hendricks – it's the sequel to an old favorite of mine, Bread Alone.

The rest of the books on my nightstand are listed in the sidebar at the bookblog.

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Clive Cussler

My friend Rana mentioned the movie Sahara, and Clive Cussler books as a guilty pleasure in one of her blog entries, so when I saw several of his books on the library shelf, I picked one at random.

Atlantis Found reimagines the typical lost society of Atlantis and ties them together with a group of Nazi survivors hiding in South America and plotting to take over the world – on the surface not terribly original, except that it's a Dirk Pitt novel which means there are exotic locations and cool gadgets and a sort of Indiana Jones / James Bond sense of fun.

I enjoyed the book a lot, but couldn't talk about it because I knew it would be the type of thing Fuzzy would enjoy, and, indeed, he's been reading it all weekend. I'm not sure I could read Cussler in large doses, but every so often, a visit with Mr. Pitt might not be ill-advised.

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Lilian Jackson Braun

From the first Cat Who… book, I jumped to one of the more recent, as I'd lost track of the series several years ago, and felt the need to catch up. Qwilleran and the cats (KoKo aquired a female partner a few books into the series) are in the tiny town of Pickax now, and the characters woven through this story are mostly old friends.

It involves a local production of The Importance of Being Earnest, bananas, bookstores, and real estate.

Enough said.

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Lilian Jackson Braun

I read this book years ago – decades even – when my mother still lived in the US, and we used to hit the library together every weekend, sometimes with my grandmother, sometimes not, and take home as many books as we could carry. Together, we worked through all of this series, as well as many others.

In any case, this book was originally published in 1966, but it manages to hold up pretty well, considering, and it's the first in a long series of cozy mysteries about reporter Jim Qwilleran and his crime-solving Siamese cat KoKo.

These books aren't intellectual in the slightest, but they're full of great characters, gastronomic and architectural delights, and mild mysteries that are completely lacking in horror and gore.

Perfect for afternoon tea.
Or for sharing with your mother.

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It's been a quiet day around here. Fuzzy was bitten by a bug, and is having a mild allergic reaction, for which he decided to take two benadryl caplets. Okay, that is the recommended dosage, but half of one knocks ME out, and I've got a tolerance to antihistamines. Fuzzy barely even takes ibuprofen. Translation: he was comatose most of the day. Also he's very cranky, and apparently has forgotten that he's stoic!boy and I'm the cranky one.

I finally finished Atlantis Found, by Clive Cussler, my first experience with his work. It was fun, I guess, but half of it took place in antarctica, and I kept expecting to look outside and see a blizzard, and then was bitterly disappointed to see only unrelenting sunshine.

The weather is turning cooler again, however, and when I stepped outside to supervise the dogs' evening activities I noticed that the metal arms of the deck chairs are distinctly cold. I love that. I love crisp evenings of firelight and tea. If it could be fall weather all year, I'd be completely happy. Well, except that there'd have to be rain. Not all the time, but a healthy amount. We're still woefully behind on rainfall here, and everything feels restless as if its waiting for fall to, well, fall.

As Fuzzy is both sick and on call, our weekend will be a lazy one, but that's alright, because I'm in a puttering-in-the-kitchen kind of mood, and I have a stack of new books to read, and a month and a half of books to update on my bookblog. (Warning to LJ users, there will be a lot of book posts filtering through here this weekend.)

I've sent my annual Halloween CD to a few select people, and copies of my summer burn collection to a few more, well, two more, and am in search of new music. I'm in a “kicky acoustic coffeehouse rock by women” sort of mood, music wise, but I never know what to listen to. Suggestions are always welcome. Especially if they can be found on Napster or eMusic.

And on that note, my book is calling.

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, as I was reading the web pages I'm about to talk about I thought of you and these amazing dinner parties you write about. (You should be a food writer, truly.)

* * *
On the phone with my aunt last night, we were discussing different organizations/places where she could set up signings and readings from her book (she got the galleys on Monday!), and since it's about ethnic gardens, and immigrant gardens, I suggested things like local farmers markets (the Dallas one offers cooking classes and such) and Botanical Gardens.

In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that I was making lasagne as we were chatting, and using Pasta Barilla's “no boil” noodles. (I know, I know, I should make my own pasta. Consider this an experiment.) From there, the topic shifted to Slow Food, and she mocked me for being unfamiliar with the concept.

Basically, it's a reaction to the American fast-food lifestyle, and it includes everything from returning to the use of whole and wholesome foods in cooking, to celebrating the pleasure of dining. It began in Italy, where the celebration of dining is a national sport, really, but it's spread across Europe, and to the US. In fact, I learned just now that Dallas has it's own chapter of SlowFoodUSA.

Events range from cooking demos and lectures to gourmet potlucks called “Conviviums” at which guests are often instructed that at least one ingredient must be from a local source, and, at least with the Dallas branch, links to things like farmers who specialize in organic foods and free-range poultry, to where to find local stuff in our city-block-wide farmers' market.

Of course, now I'm dying to host a dinner party.

I love decorating for the season. Summer is difficult for me, because it has no real theme, but fall, winter, spring, those seasons always inspire me.

Today my grocery order included three large pumpkins, and, as they were three for $10, three bouquets of fresh flowers.

The pumpkins are currently lined up along the breakfast bar, waiting patiently for their lobotomies, which will take place sometime next week. (I've assured the waiting squash that they'll feel no pain.)

The flowers, in an array of candy corn and other seasonal colors and one stray fuschia Gerbera daisy, have been split and rearranged and now fill four vases (kitchen table, mantle, my dresser, my desk), and a tiny bud vase in the bathroom. I love having the house filled with flowers, and I smile now as I move from room to room.

This weekend, I'll actually do the Halloween decorating. I confess: I own pumpkin lighs, which are like Christmas lights except they're covered by little plastic jack-o-lanterns. I can't wait.

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