5 things that make me crazy…

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1. Slow people at salad bars. These fall into 2 categories, those who stop at EVERY SINGLE offering as they try to pile a full metric ton onto a single plate and in the process leave a trail of salad fixings dribbled behind them like rabbit pellets, or those for whom tongs are an exciting puzzle. This group is usually suffering from what I like to call the “Salad Bar Palsy”. I find the elderly often fall into this category. And watching an 80 year old man in Mr. MaGoo glasses flinging peas and carrot shreds around the room is only funny when you aren’t hungry. *Scoot the tray. Stop. Scoot the cane. Stop. Peer at the onions. Comment to your wife that they give you gas. Scoot the tray. Stop. Scoot the cane. Stop. Peer at the pasta salad. Start to scoot the tray. Stop. Ask you your wife if you’ve ever had the pasta salad before. Stop….* This is usually where I beat them to the ground with my green fiberglass tray.

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2. People who wear parkas, gloves, warm fuzzy hats and flip flops in the winter. I mean really, didn’t your mother teach you anything? And these are the same idiots that waltz around town in the dead of summer in a mini-skirt and fleece-lined Uggs. It’s very simple… as your feet go, so will the rest of you follow! If your feet are purple and mottled with frostbite because you decided to trudge 2 miles in the wet and snow in sandals then I don’t care if you wear electric drop-bottomed long johns, you are going to freeze your most pathetically dumb ass off. And not to put too fine a point on it but looking at your stupid feet is making ME cold!

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3. The “I’m wearing little white iPod earbuds and therefore am impervious to oncoming traffic and feel free to jay-walk without looking” crowd. It’s very simple. You weigh anywhere from 90-175 pounds and you’re wearing earbuds and sweats. *I* am wearing a 3000 lb car and a “the devil may care but I don’t give a shit about you” attitude. Two words: Hood ornament. Or three words: Thinning the herd.

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4. Whoever it is that keeps buying the stuff they market on infomercials and QVC. It’s not a “medical breakthrough”. You won’t look instantly younger… or thinner… or less wrinkly… There will not be a check for $6,700 in the mail “your first week!” Those people that you see got rich by conning money from idiots like YOU. You will never look like THAT no matter how many cheesy exercise machines you store in your closet. If your penis is small… it will remain small… and we will laugh. If you’re educational goals involve being able to wear your pajamas and never leave the house you probably won’t make a million more dollars in your lifetime. But you will end up owing $60,00 in student loans to a fine institution like UTI while you collect unemployment. If you can’t boil an egg NOW.. a cheap-ass plastic cooker won’t help. Nothing will help.

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5. People who spit on the sidewalk. If you spit on the sidewalk you should be forced to wear a bib and a gallon-sized ziplock bag over your head. And caned. I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing you publicly caned.

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The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner (Maze Runner Trilogy) by James Dashner

This is one of those books for which I’ll need to read the remainder of the trilogy in order to form a solid opinion. It is, as another reviewer aptly put it, Ender’s Game meets Lord Of The Flies. Part of my antipathy may be due to the fact that as much as I love dystopian novels, I detested Lord of the Flies and didn’t care for Ender’s Game either now that I think about it. Of course I haven’t read it in 30 years, so I don’t know that I would have the same opinion now. Regardless, this at least held my interest despite the fact that it seems more than a little absurd to me that a group of “apparently evil” scientists intelligent and powerful enough to create and maintain such an all-encompassing and elaborate web of deceit, not to mention the physical world of the maze, would be unable to maintain even the basic needs in a world crippled by plague. But, I realize that some of this may become clearer in the later books so I was able to suspend my disbelief to a point. And really, that’s the sign of an enjoyable science fiction book, when the reader suspend their disbelief. In this case I could, albeit tenuously. ( )

Kauai fruit blog: White people in Paradise. Things I never would have guessed I’d like.

Kekaha Farmers Market

So, I’ve been falling down on the blog again. No surprise there. I’ve been busy being excited about Kauai, packing for Kauai, being IN Kauai or unpacking from Kauai. It’s a full time job being me. Chad’s been in California so I can’t even report on any new recipes of his so I’ll just have to make due with my own feeble rantings. And pictures. Something like 723 pictures.

Tropical Fruit Salad

Day 1: Well, actually, day 2 because day one involved being on a plane, which is fine, except they let small children fly. There should be special planes for anything that can scream at greater than 70 decibels. I’m just saying. ANYWAY, we dragged out of bed early and headed off to the Farmer’s market in Kekaha. The cost of produce at the Farmers market was literally a FRACTION of what they were charging at grocery stores and most of it was grown in the yards and neighborhoods of the people selling it. So, you know, it warmed the cockles of my left-leaning, liberal heart to help the locals instead of the big companies. And Ani and I, okay, it was me, decided that I was going to throw caution to the wind and try all manner of new and ordinarily scary looking food while I was there. I mean how often can you try some of these things?

Soursops

Mountain Apples

Custard Apples

We got apple bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas, star fruit, mountain apples, custard apples, soursops, passion fruit, sweet peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and bitter melon. We also stopped on the side of the road and picked, hands down, the sweetest grapefruit I’ve ever eaten in my life. The star fruit was crunchy and tasted a little bit like nectarine to me. The Mountain apples looked and tasted like the small red berries I used to pick and eat off he bushes across the street from my Nana’s house as a kid. But bigger, and frankly, a bit bland. The custard apple was good. I want to say it tasted like grape custard… real grape, not Otter Pop grape, but it might have been more melony. Not sure. But the best fruit we tried had to be the soursops. It had a custardy texture also, something like I imagine a Durian would be like, but with a sweet and sour taste like a combination of pineapple and strawberry. I can imagine these haven’t caught on here on the mainland mostly because of how they look, and let’s face it, the pedestrian tastes of most American’s who seem to think that a new variety of lettuce is something to be eased into. But a girl can hope and I am hoping like mad that I can find it here. The next morning we sliced and mixed all the fruit into a fruit salad.

Ono Poke

I found the whole experience quite satisfying given that the night before, in a fit of culinary bravery, I ordered something called Ono Poke. Basically, it’s chunks of raw fish, in this case Ono, mixed with onion, garlic and dark sesame oil (I know there were other things as well but really, I’m lucky I remember any of it. There may have been a Pina Colada involved.) Turns out, it was fabulous. Who knew?

And doubly awesome, a kitty that came to the outdoor table we  were at that quietly sat by my foot and waited for the sucker at the table to “drop” some fish. Apparently word went out over whatever wireless network that cats use that I was coming. So of course, I “dropped” a piece or six.

Okay, more later. I’ve made myself hungry and I need to hug Huckle Cat, who tried to pack himself in Ani’s suitcase but was discovered due to a little problem of “not fitting”, (Ever see someone try to stuff a marshmallow in a piggy bank?) and so missed the poke, the birds, the chickens (dinner on the hoof as it were), the turtles and geckos. He may never forgive me.

Huckle Cat and "the look".

Promotions, pie and politics… oh, yeah, and Bacon Salt.

Bacon Salt!

In case anyone reading this has not tried this fabulous new product, let me please be the first to introduce you to the wonders of Bacon Salt. I like to think of it as “sprinkle-on kosher pork without the guilty conscience, raised cholesterol or niggling leftover snouts and ankles from which we must manufacture things like doggie treats and Ballpark Franks”. To quote the website, www.baconsalt.com, “Bacon Salt is a zero calorie, zero fat, vegetarian and kosher seasoning that makes everything taste like bacon.” Yeah. If there’s a downside here I don’t see it. So toddle down to your nearest retail location and pick some up. We had ours on scrambled eggs this morning with a sprinkling of sharp cheddar cheese. And can I just say… damn.

New kitchen experiments…

So Chad has continued trying new recipes since his first week making hamburgers and I thought I would share his successes again. I should comment before I go on that most of the recipes we are trying lately are have come from the magazine “Cook’s Country”. We’ve discovered that the recipes are unfailingly simple and unfailingly GOOD. Even Chad, a 15 year old boy, now looks for the magazine in the mail every month and comments on how much he likes what we’ve made from there so far. High praise indeed when you consider his usual idea of a good magazine usually involves gaming or centerfolds. But I digress. Since I last blogged about food this is what we’ve tried:

All I can say about this one is WOW. Chad was rather hesitant to try this as it was described as a sort of quiche but he did a total about-face once he tasted it. For those of you who might be hesitant to include the jalapenos, you can purchase .Mezzetta: Deli Sliced Tamed Jalapeño Peppers. They rock. All the great taste of pickled jalapeno without the runny nose and wish to die. For, you know, the wimps among you. Me, I like the runny nose.

Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla Pie

1 10-inch flour tortilla (burrito size)

3 cups of cooked, shredded chicken

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

1/3 cup drained, jarred, pickled jalapenos, chopped

Salt and pepper

2 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Grease 9-inch pie plate (We used a 10-inch pie plate and misted the surface with olive-oil and it work just fine). Press tortilla into prepared pie plate and spray lightly with cooking spray (We didn’t have buritto size tortillas so we used smaller homemade ones and cut them into pieces that fit the pie plate nicely and that worked perfectly in the final product, it didn’t cause the “crust” to come up in weird pieces). Toss chicken, cilantro, jalapenos, 1 cup cheese, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper in large bowl until combined. Spread filling over tortilla(s).

2. Whisk eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt in bowl until smooth. Slowly pour over filling, then sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake until surface is golden brown, about 20 minutes. let cool 5 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve. (We recommend providing sour cream, avocado and green chile sauce as accompaniements because that’s what we did.)

For dessert that night he set his sights on cake. I had commented earlier that while I love cake, and appreciate the ease of an boxed cake mix, nothing from Betty Crocker holds a candle to a homemade cake. I’m not sure if he saw that as a challenge or was simply curious to see if it was true, but his response was:

New York-Style Crumb Cake

Don’t be tempted to substitute all-purpose flour for the cake flour, as doing so will make a dry, tough cake. If you can’t find buttermilk, you can substitute an equal amount of plain, low-fat yogurt. When topping the cake, take care to not push the crumbs into the batter. This recipe can be easily doubled and baked in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish. If doubling, increase the baking time to about 45 minutes. Cooled leftovers can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Serves 8 to 10

Crumb Topping
1/3	cup granulated sugar (2 2/3 ounces)
1/3	cup dark brown sugar (2 2/3 ounces)
3/4	teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8	teaspoon table salt
8	tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), melted and still warm
1 3/4	cups cake flour (7 ounces)
Cake
1 1/4	cups cake flour (5 ounces)
1/2	cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1/4	teaspoon baking soda
1/4	teaspoon table salt
6	tablespoons unsalted butter (3/4 stick), cut into 6 pieces, softened but still cool
1	large egg
1	large egg yolk
1	teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3	cup buttermilk
	Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1. FOR THE TOPPING: Whisk sugars, cinnamon, salt, and butter in medium bowl to combine. Add flour and stir with rubber spatula or wooden spoon until mixture resembles thick, cohesive dough; set aside to cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.

2. FOR THE CAKE: Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Cut 16-inch length parchment paper or aluminum foil and fold lengthwise to 7-inch width. Spray 8-inch square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and fit parchment into dish, pushing it into corners and up sides; allow excess to overhang edges of dish.

3. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt on low speed to combine. With mixer running at low speed, add butter one piece at a time; continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no visible butter chunks remaining, 1 to 2 minutes. Add egg, yolk, vanilla, and buttermilk; beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute, scraping once if necessary.

4. Transfer batter to baking pan; using rubber spatula, spread batter into even layer. Following photos below, break apart crumb topping into large pea-sized pieces and spread in even layer over batter, beginning with edges and then working toward center. Bake until crumbs are golden and wooden skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes. Remove cake from pan by lifting parchment overhang. Dust with confectioners’ sugar just before serving.

Step-by-Step: Don’t Be Tempted

Sunken Cake: If you use powdered buttermilk instead of the real thing, your crumb cake may sink as the batter will be thinner. I should note we did used powdered buttermilk, Organic Valley brand , and did NOT have this problem.

Dry Cake: Using all-purpose flour in place of cake flour will make the crumb cake dry.

Step-by-Step: Secrets to Bigger Crumbs

Using both hands, break apart the crumb dough, rolling the broken dough between your thumb and forefinger to form crumbs about the size of large peas. Continue until all the dough has been broken down into crumbs. Sprinkle crumbs evenly over the cake batter, breaking apart any larger chunks.

Perfect-Sized Crumbs

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Don’t we all teach our kids to finish what they start?

As tempting as it is to expound once again on my feelings regarding Sarah Palin and her politics, I don’t really want my blog to become quite as drama-ridden as my Facebook account, and so biting my internet tongue, I will refrain. However, I MUST comment on her recent resignation and what it says to me about someone who seems intent on presenting and marketing their personal brand of ethics to an entire county. If you cannot hold to a committment that you have made, to an oath you have taken, because you feel you’re being picked on, or you can’t get what you want, or you you see no point in trying because you have a gubenatorial case of “senioritis”, this does not say much for your ethics, or your character. How are we to trust you with something bigger if you cannot follow through on something smaller? You made a promise to the people of Alaska and you’ve chosen to break that promise. Do you believe that on the larger international stage you’ll be called on to compromise less? You’ll be under less scrutiny? Comedians will take fewer potshots? What will you do then, if you find as we all know you would, that those things are increased hundredfold… will you stomp off down Pennsyvania Avenue in a huff with your party knickers and your soccer hair in a twist?

Oh! And then there is one last issue about all of this that just twists the all-mightly hell out of MY underpants. We just spent what felt like a decade listening to candidates, pundits, current politicians, old politicians, newscasters, bloggers, comedians, action committees and everyone else go on and on and on about what the other guy is doing wrong and about how their candidate is going to fix “all that”. Enough already. Give us all time to breathe between elections. There should be a law passed forbiding any politician or would be politician from campaigning, advertising or fund-raising for the first 3 of the 4 years a president is in office. Perhaps if everyone devoted that time to actually working to improve the lives of the people they represent instead of running around talking about what they WOULD do if only they were elected we might actually make some meaningful progress.

A new book review: The Fragment

The Fragment by Warren Fahy

This is, unfortunately, going to be a short review. The book starts off really well. It has what I admire most in any book where what we know about science intersects with what we wish we knew, or better yet, what we wish was possible, relative plausibility. Given most reader’s average knowledge of biology, genetics and biochemistry, there is an ease in suspending one’s disbelief. For awhile. And then… not so much. And then… not at all. 2/3 of the way through this book I set it down and wandered off to read something else. It became just that absurd. The dialogue is okay, not good, not bad, but okay. The characterization manages to go from passable to downright ridiculous. The circumstances the characters find themselves in and the situations and creatures that confront them are, well… my recommendation for this book would be to tone down the almost plagiarized scientific explanations, add a few more pages from the “field guide” of weird and wonderful creatures and sell this as a “Jurassic Park meets the Spiderwick Chronicles” series to pre-pubescent boys.

I encourage you to read this book if you enjoy comedic science. I personally found the death of the “evil” scientist (one should apparently check the status of one’s Planter’s peanuts before carelessly opening jars) to be one of the most ludicrously amusing things I’ve read in years. So, for it’s scientific and literary value I give it a 0. For it’s sheer snortingly funny moments I give it a 5. So split the difference and call it a 2 1/2.

Pesto, White Bread and Muffin Observations…

Sadly, or not sadly depending on one’s particular perspective, I have no books to blog about at the moment. It has remained however, quite the busy week what with the deaths of Farrah and Michael Jackson and an overabundance of basil in the garden. I would have thought I might be a bit more traumatized given these are two of the biggest Generation X cultural icons but I find, although saddened for their families, a bit underwhelmed by it all. Whether Michael continues moonwalk or Farrah never wears her red bathing suit again really has no affect on my life as I can’t moonwalk nor wear a bikini. Well, I could I suppose, but really, why put us all through THAT? Other things, like the economy and Ani’s somewhat tenuous employment, do have a rather constant place at the table though. So, in our painfully slow, yet consistent effort to lower food costs, eat more healthy and eat less processed food we tried several experiments this last week that I thought I might share with friends.

Garden update:

As some of you know already, we have an small indoor garden where we are experimenting with what will grow inside where pollination in nil and the sunporch can get hot enough to bake cookies. So far herbs like basil, oregano, dill, rosemary and mint are growing well. In addition the jalapenos and  cucumbers are thriving. The tomato plants are enormous but have declined to flower making the “fruiting” portion of this years event rather unlikely. Unless we are developing a strain of Virgin Mary tomatoes and I’m not holding my unholy breath on that. Those additional plants that were a bit of a failure: The blueberry bush which died so quickly it was as though I had murdered it on purpose, the strawberry plant that burns far too easily and the spinach that sprouted and then weakly fell over like a row of junior high nerds. The previously mentioned herbs, however, are growing at a fantastic rate given judicious applications of fertilizer and earthworm tea from the local farmer’s market and I decided I HAD to prune them before the sunporch began attracting small predators and an understory. Sooo…

Recipes:

Ani has been making the most amazing sourdough bread from a sponge we are nurturing in the fridge. We have discovered there is something very zen about making your own bread. It’s even more zen when you remember that for a really good sourdough loaf up here it’s between $5 and $7 a loaf whereas you can spend the same amount on flour and get dozens of loaves. AND you get to sample them slathered in butter while warm from the oven.

At the beginning of his summer vacation we assigned Chad the task of making dinner twice a week and his first meal was hamburgers and potato salad. Not too terribly taxing BUT I helped him to make homemade hamburger buns since none of us can agree on which hamburger buns we like and it pains me deeply to pay for round wonder bread. Turns out the quick 40 minute recipe for these buns is fabulous! We made enough to have extras for tuna fish sandwiches the next day. I do recommend making 8 buns from the recipe, not 12, unless you are making sliders. Here is the recipe:

Homemade Hamburger Buns

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water (110° to 115°)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add oil and sugar; let stand for 5 minutes. Add the egg, salt and enough flour to form a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes. Do not let rise. Divide into 12 pieces; shape each into a ball. Place 3 in. apart on greased baking sheets.
Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Bake at 425° for 8-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Yield: 1 dozen.

Our next experiment was pasta sauce. I needed something that would use up a good portion of the herbs:

Garlic-Herb Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 15 oz cans diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1-15 cloves of garlic, depending on your tolerance
  
• Several handfuls of fresh basil leaves
• 1 handful of oregano leaves
• 1 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
  
• 1 tsp chili powder
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• dollop of red wine
• dollop of worcestershire sauce
• Sea salt to taste
  

I simply ran all this through the food processor until it was smooth and then simmered it on the stovetop on low for an hour until the flavors were married. Then we popped it in the freezer and froze it. Chad declared it excellent and thought it would taste equally good on pizza.

We also made pesto which was a bit of a challenge since I did not have a number of the “key” pesto ingredients. Those of you who are purists please look away. I didn’t have pine nuts so I substituted walnuts. I’m also out of olive oil until our next Costco trip, so I was forced to use canola oil. Not a preferred ingredient, BUT even given the limitations we had the pesto turned out AMAZING. We had some on our scrambled eggs this morning and Ani nearly tackled me trying to get more. So, improvise away….

Make-Do Pesto

Ingredients:

• Large handful fresh basil leaves
• Large handful fresh oregano leaves
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3 fresh garlic cloves, peeled
• Sea salt to taste
• Vegetable Oil

Place basil, oregano, walnuts, parmesan, garlic and salt into the food processor. While processor is running slowly drizzle oil into the mixture until it reaches the consistency you would like. Pesto can be eaten immediately or frozen into ice cube trays for later use.

Lastly I thought I’d throw in some of our money saving methods that we’ve adopted in hopes of either giving others some ideas or getting suggestions from you’all about what you do. So if you have any ideas or methods to add, please do so. Brilliant ideas are always welcome!

Money Savers

• Checking the Grocery Outlet before going to the market to see what we can get on our list at a significant price reduction. This week we scored on 2 huge containers of Skippy peanut butter ($3.99 for 2), Dial anti-bacterial shower gel ($3.99 ea), Ben & Jerry’s Organic Ice Cream ($1.50 ea), 3lbs Barenaked Granola ($8.99) and fair trade coffee bean ($5.99 lb).
• Making beans in the crockpot and then freezing them with the bean broth. Significantly less expensive than canned beans, better tasting and just as fast to use in a meal.
• Finding recipes online for what we previously considered the “throw-away” parts of the vegetables we get at the farmer’s market. This week we are making a soup out of radish tops.
• Purchasing in bulk from Costco about once every 3 months. We use bins and such in our pantry to store huge bags of potatoes and onions. Using up the existing boxed and canned foods in the pantry has given us more room for bulk products.
• Making muffins from the dregs of cold cereal left when you get down to the end of the box. (Hence my raisin bran muffins that I’ve renamed bowel movement muffins).
• We sprung for a new chest freezer in order to take advantage of reduced price meats. It also gives us a place for bulk frozen foods like corn and peas as well as the gallons of berries we pick during the summer. it’s also nice as I often make more for dinner than we can eat and this way I can package up the excess for a night when we don’t want to cook.

The Strain: Book One of the Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro

I’m not generally a fan of the horror genre anymore, haven’t been for years. I used to collect Stephen King books in my early 20’s but that ship sailed quite some time ago. There must be something to the idea that the older you get the more you realize that the truly frightening stuff is on the 6 O’Clock news everyday and there is really no need to scare yourself further with walls that bleed or extra special serial killers. BUT, I loved Pan’s Labrynth so I thought “what the hell…”. Turns out I couldn’t put it down once I started. If I had to describe this book in one sentence… think “[I Am Legend] meets Gil Grissom”. I actually found myself taking the book to work with me and holing myself up in my office with the door locked and reading all afternoon instead of working on my research. I just HAD to find out what happened next. And that’s, well let’s be honest, a pretty nice thing to find in any book. Is the writing a bit sophomoric? Well, only if you dig reading authors like Austen or Faulkner and can no longer enjoy another book that doesn’t fall into that category. In this case I find the easier reading style to be a plus. This isn’t writing you want to savor like a fine cheese, this is a story you want to totally lose yourself in so that when someone taps on your shoulder somewhere around page 355 you jump and scream like a little girl.
And did I mention the best part of the book? Not one vampire SPARKLES. And even better… there will be no debate as to which one is “OMG… hotter?!?!?!”
Lastly, another reviewer commented on the inclusion of the holocaust and how unnecessary and offensive they found that to be, the holocaust being horrific enough with the addition of storybook monsters (or something to that affect). And I have to admit that gave me pause for thought. But I think I ultimately don’t agree to the point of taking offense. I won’t go so far as to say that the author was using the vampire legend as a tool to expose the true monsters in the story (although I believe he inadvertently did, the vampire in question having nothing on the Nazi’s if you ask me) but that doesn’t mean you can’t still walk away understanding that sometimes monsters do walk the earth and they look exactly like the rest of us.
Now, how long until the second book comes out? ( )

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride… by Daniel James Brown

Well, I could not possibly have been more excited to receive this book! Having lived within just a few miles of the cabins I developed an intense interest in the history of the Donner-Reed Party when I was younger. I drove past it every day but never really thought about it until one day, out of desperation for something to read while waiting for my laundry to finish, I picked up a copy of [Ordeal By Hunger] at the local grocery store. That was 20 years ago now and I am still just as fascinated.

Over the years there has been a variety of myths and legends surrounding what happened, some started by the survivors themselves and some originated or perpetuated by writers like Stewart and McGlashan, I hoped that Brown would take a more modern approach to his research and make an attempt to weed some of those inconsistencies and more dramatic add-ons from the story and he did so in fine style. Because the truth is, inevitably, so much more interesting. While this doesn’t go into research in the depth that I would have liked, being a fan of those dry scientific papers that others seem so loathe to read, it is still far more informative than I expected and full of additional information culled from various perspectives such as PTSD, the effects of starvation, grief, poor diet, interpersonal conflict and hygiene. In addition the author addresses how, by necessity, many of the decisions of emigrants of that time period were based on nothing more than educated guesses. Forced to make decisions without any kind of true cartography, confronted with conflicting opinions, information presented as truth when in reality it was often nothing more than speculation and overly optimistic descriptions, it is amazing that many more emigrants didn’t suffer similar fates. Having made the drive myself many, many times from Reno to Truckee up the same canyon that the Donners were forced to travel by wagon with no roads, it is simply a mystery to me how they did it.

This is without question one of the better books written on this story. That the author accomplished this with such compassion and attention to detail makes this book a welcome addition to my Donner library. ( )

Frozen in Time: The Enduring Legacy of the 1961 U.S. Figure Skating Team… by Nikki Nichols

Although the loss of the 1961 figure skating team occurred before I was born it still surprises me that I had never heard of the incident before I saw the book offered on the Early Reviewer program. And, although I can’t even stand on skates and have little if any interest in the sport of figure skating, I was fascinated by the stark reality of how this would have affected the sport, the competitors, the survivors and the fans. That the photos of Laurence Owen were so appealing and her smile so engaging only made it more intriguing, because the truth is that tragedy is that much more compelling when those involved are young and beautiful. So my knowledge with regard to figure skating was minimal when I began the book and I am sad to say it still is. Although I would certainly not expect the author to provide a comprehensive history of the sport for the benefit of those who don’t follow it, I also understand that a book needs to appeal to more than a limited range of fans who likely already know most of what was in this book. Overall it IS interesting. I enjoyed the all to brief biographies of the lost skaters and what they sometimes gave up for their sport. A comparison to today’s athletes brought into sharp focus the differences in how athletes are perceived and treated 50 years later. The problems with the book, none so bad as to not recommend it, are disappointing. Making direct reference to events that occurred more recently only works for readers who follow the sport and know the players and events involved. 1. For those who might read in order to learn more it’s jarring and confusing. 2. I understand the benefit of focusing on one or two main families, it gives the book a reference point and a focus, but I would have liked to have known more about some of the others skaters beyond a minimal biography and some of the coaches were not discussed at all with the exception of a single line or two prior to boarding the plane. 3. Making the decision to include what is essentially a chapter of fiction in order to “fill in” the events that occurred in flight to Belgium, was in my opinion a foolish choice. Although the author was careful to state that this was speculation, it was a bit like dressing up the dead. it was, in a word, tawdry. That they were mostly kids, that they were excited, scared, and nervous goes without saying. Allowing the reader to imagine what that last trip must have been like is more than sufficient for readers of non-fiction. These are not readers who need to be walked through everything, they understand that the imagination can be the best tool for “seeing”.
My last criticism is one built entirely of personal disappointment. I read non-fiction to KNOW more, to UNDERSTAND more. What were the real implications of the crash? Did the loss of the 1961 team affect how the media covered the sport? Did the American public take more interest in the sport because of the crash? Were they drawn to it in part because of the compelling images of promising young lives ended before they could become stars? What of the young skaters who were now thrust to the front of the line, did some leave because the pressure was too great? What were the affects, if any, on national teams from other countries? We know that the team no longer flies together on a single plane and that a fund was set up to help young aspiring skaters but beyond that the book fails to go. And for that I’m sorry. ( )

Tattoo Machine: Tall Tales, True Stories, and My Life in Ink… by Jeff Johnson

Although I do own the book, I’ve not read “Kitchen Confidential” so I can’t speak as to whether Jeff Johnson’s tattoo parlor tell-all is similar. And although I have two tattoos and I once nearly vibrated myself off the table at a shop on Melrose getting my eyebrow pierced, I’m not all that familiar with tattoo parlors either. But I can say that this book is fun to read. It’s not terribly revealing, the author often waxes lyrical about his own personal philosophy and several of the tales seem to have been included simply for the shock value, but the book is, well, for the most part, fun; and in that regard I believe the book lives up to exactly what the title states: tall tales, true stories and my life in ink. For it’s many small shortcomings this book at the very least can claim honesty of advertising, a refreshing change when more often than not the synopsis on the back of the book seems have been written by editors who never actually READ the book.
I will comment as an aside that only twice in my life have I ever been frightened in a “Silence of The Lambs” kind of way… once while standing in a used bookstore in Las Vegas when I overheard a police detective tell a visiting detective that, on average, there are 7 serial killers operating in Las Vegas at any given time but the transient population and other more arcane factors hide it, AND reading Johnson’s story about the man with the banner tattoos. Those two tidbits are enough to make a person seriously consider agoraphobia as a potential lifestyle choice. ( )