Goodreads: His Majesty's Dragon

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although I enjoyed the book, I don't think I'll be picking up the sequels, at least not right away. I did enjoy the juxtaposition of dragon-aviators with the Napoleonic Wars, but the writing isn't all that inspiring and the plot didn't hold any surprises for me. Maybe I'll just stick to Sharpe's and Hornblower for my Napoleonic fiction and D&D for my Draconic inspiration.


View all my reviews.

Politics and Religion

Oh man. Politics and Religion. The two things you should never ever talk about with people you hardly know. And yet here I am, ready to spill some thoughts on both together. Right now I barely have any contact with US News at just about anything less than the presidential election level. So unless I go looking for it (I don't), I end up hearing most of what's going on in America from friends' blogs, Facebook statuses, Google Reader Shared Items, and the like. And so it is with some trepidation and not a little ignorance that I take an outsider's perspective on the recent events surrounding Proposition 8 in California, and the role of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the passing of that proposition during this last electoral cycle. In case you don't know me that well, I pertain to that Church.

First a logical exercise:
- The Proposition passed because a majority of California voters passed for it
- Mormons in California do not make up a majority. Or even 5% of the population
- Therefore "The Mormons" didn't make up the deciding vote to make this resolution pass. It was passed by the electorate.

So there's that. However I do gather that the Church was part of a coalition of churches whose public relations campaign may have changed the minds of many other voters. This has, again I gather, caused considerable ire on the part of those who would have preferred that the Proposition go the other way. I have heard tales of people spitting on old ladies on their way to worship, mailing white powder to temples, and have heard about protest signs with slogans like "Help! There's a Mormon in my bedroom!". Of course this kind of negative attention is hurtful, and of course those providing the attention feel that they have been hurt by the Church's stance on the matter. Many had hoped to have their relationships recognized legally as marriages, and those hopes have been at a minimum postponed indefinitely, and at maximum dashed entirely. The way a particular sign makes me cringe simply does not compare. Much has already been said about who is being 'tolerable' and who is not, with accusations flying from both sides, and I see no need to rehash that here (nor will I 'tolerate' it in the comments, should there be any). Like it or not, both sides of the discussion are 'persecuted minorities', the one being denied rights and the other being a scapegoat for the electorate and a 'legal' target for any amount of mockery.

In fact, the whole business is a little surreal, as far from it as I am. The weekend before Election Day, I was at the wedding of a friend, where after the ceremony was finished I spent most of the evening catching up with and having ponderous conversations with a woman who I consider a dear friend, and who happens to be gay. The same weekend I made the acquaintance of a man who I knew immediately that I valued both for his calming Quaker ways and for his quick wit. He happens to be gay, which I suspected but was never mentioned, but he knew almost from the start about my religious convictions. I wonder what subtext there may have been in our interaction that weekend that I was entirely oblivious to. None, I hope. Anyway, that's by way of saying that on my last visit to America, far more time was spent in conversation with gay friends than was spent at church. So part of the internal discussion I've been having as I hear bits and pieces related to this Proposition and its effects has to do with them, and I must admit the possibility that our friendship may be affected, though I hope not.

I do not represent the Church and do not speak for it except as an individual. But from what I percieve, the Church's stance on the issue has nothing at all to do with trying to ruin people's lives or even tell them how to live them. The Church's position has nothing to do with trying to establish laws that govern people's sexual lives, as I see it. It has everything to do with self-preservation, by which I mean that it looks to me as though the Church's concern is that if the State's definition of marriage includes homosexual relationships, there will be a legal precedent for forcing the Church to perform or recognize these marriages, which would be counter to its principles. The doctrine of the Church holds that "the man is not without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord", and the freedom to act according to this belief (for example, by refusing to perform marriages in the Church or in the Temple for homosexual couples) would be threatened if the State were to recognize and then require religions to recognize an expanded definition of marriage. As I say, I haven't been reading news reports about this, so I don't know how well-covered or how neglected this idea is. I don't even really have any idea as to its truth. But putting myself in the position of the Church, there aren't many reasons to get heavily involved in a potentially unpopular political campaign unless you have something to gain or something to defend from it. I can see nothing at all that the Church stands to gain from its vocalness on the subject. Therefore, in my incomplete logic, it must be defending something. While "the institution of marriage" or "the definition of marriage" are fine things, what the Church has to defend in the matter are its own rights to practice religion as it sees fit. Whether or not you agree that such a thing needs defending in such a manner, my analysis is that is what those who govern Church policy think is at stake.

In many ways I'm glad to be far from the issue. It is a complicated issue, one I can see both sides of and feel empathy for both. I do believe I will stay here while I see how it all plays out. Comment if you will (in fact, please do), but respect those whose convictions do not match your own.

T'beet, or not T'beet; that is the question.

Years ago, when I had time to read lots of cooking blogs, I came across a recipe unlike any I'd seen before. Going back and finding the original entry, I discover this was now more than 4 years ago - every once in a while I'd think about making this, but I never got around to it. This week I bought a chicken with the express purpose of trying it, and MAN was it good. If it sounds good to you, don't wait 4 years like I did before making it. All the ingredients are easy to get, and its a fairly simple recipe, though it does take some planning and a bit of specialized hardware. Some background:

This is T'beet, the traditional Sabbath lunch of Iraqi Jews. Jews are forbidden by religious law from kindling or extinguishing a flame on Saturday, the Jewish day of rest. Accordingly, any meal to be eaten hot on the Sabbath must be set on a fire before sundown the night before. The Jews of Europe have accomodated this imperative with cholent: a slow-cooked stew of meat, beans, and vegetables, which I find utterly revolting. My ancestors relied instead on the middle-eastern staple of rice in composing their Sabbath lunch: a stuffed chicken stewed in tomato sauce and spices and baked into a cake of aromatic basmati rice. After twelve or more hours of cooking, the rice forms a hard, delicious crust on the outside, while the rice surrounding the chicken becomes irresistably tender and absorbs all the flavors in the pot. A rice stuffing within the chicken is the most intense of all: it is heavily spiced and absorbs all the juices of the chicken as it cooks.

As you can see in the above image of T'beet deconstructed, you can have your rice three ways. The rice to the left of the chicken has hardened into a crunchy, nutty shell. At top right, you can see the pillowy rice that surrounds the chicken. At bottom right is the intensely flavored rice from the stuffing. Incidentally, a chicken cooked in this manner emerges from the oven tender enough to cut with a spoon.

Here follows my adaptation:

Recipe: T'beet
Total time to make: about 15 hours. Feeds at least 6.

Ingredients

* 1 whole chicken
* 4 tbsp olive oil
* 1 small-med onion, diced
* 1 plum tomato, diced
* 1 29-oz. can crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce
* Iraqi Jewish five-spice powder, or Dave's Experimental Mexican 5-Spice Powder (see below)
* water
* salt and pepper
* 4 cups basmati rice

Iraqi-Jewish Five Spice Powder:
*2 tsp each of ground cardamom, ground cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and turmeric

Dave's Experimental Mexican 5-Spice (untried, but I think it'd be good)
* 2 tsp each of cumin, chili powder or ground chipotle, coriander, garlic powder, and cinnamon. Plus you'll want some jalapenos, black beans, and corn to add to the rice.

Hardware:
* 5 1/2 Quart Nonstick Oven-Safe or Enameled Dutch Oven
* Medium mixing bowl or plastic ziploc to make the 5-spice in
* Tongs for turning chicken during browning
* Big plate, bigger than the top of your Dutch Oven
* Wooden or non-stick-safe spatula, not flimsy

0) Invite some guests over for lunch on the weekend, unless you need lots of leftovers or have a large family. Do this Thursday.

1) The night before you want to eat this, start by making the 5-spice powder of your choosing. Make a stuffing for the chicken from the diced onion and tomato, 3/4 cup of the rice, 3 tsp of the 5-spice, 1/2 tsp salt, and ~2 Tbsp of the tomato sauce. If your chicken came with giblets, you can dice and include the heart and gizzard (not the liver). Mix in a bowl or ziploc bag and refrigerate.

2) Adjust oven rack to lower shelf. Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 125 Celsius. Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry with a paper towel. Salt and pepper the outside of the chicken generously. Place the dutch oven over medium-high heat on the stove and heat the olive oil until it shimmers. Add the chicken, breast side up, and brown on each side until golden brown, rotating with tongs every 3-4 minutes. When all sides have been browned, remove the dutch oven from heat and stuff the chicken loosely with the stuffing. It's OK if there's leftover, no need to cram it all in.

3) Put the chicken back in the dutch oven, breast side down, and return to heat. Add the rest of the tomato sauce, and add water to about 3 inches below the top of the pot. Add the rest of the 5-spice and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

4) Add the remaining rice and any leftover stuffing to the pot, pouring around the sides of the chicken so it doesn't pile up on top. If making the apocryphal Mexican variation, reduce the rice by a cup and add a can of corn, a can of black beans, and some chopped jalapenos and cilantro. Stir in the rice gently to even it out. Place the cover on the dutch oven and put it in the oven. Bake for about 14 hours or so, timing it so it'll be ready as lunch the next day.

5) Bask in the glorious baking aromas all night. In the morning, be sure to go out of your house for some reason for a few minutes so you can smell it all again when you come back in. When it's ready, pull the T'beet out of the oven and rest it on the stovetop for about 10 minutes with the cover removed. Put your big plate over top of it and invert T'beet onto the plate. With luck, most of it, including the delicious outside crusty rice, will go smoothly onto your plate. If not, use your wooden scraper or spatula to get the rest. You may want a second plate on the dinner table anyway for people to put bones on, so for now you can put the rice left in the pot there. Hopefully it looks kinda like this:



6) Serve to your family and guests. You will be able to cut the chicken with a serving spoon. Make sure everyone gets some chicken, and each of the three types of rice: exterior crust, middle rice, and stuffing rice from inside the chicken. Devour.

Goodreads: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a quick read; under 200 pages. Very clever and eloquent at times, farcical and dark at others. Recommended for your next plane ride.


View all my reviews.

Goodreads: Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite

Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite by Gordon Ramsay

My review

We've only had a chance to try a few recipes out of here so far, but they've all been excellent and have sparked some new ideas. Looking forward to doing a few more!


View all my reviews.

Goodreads: 10 Bad Dates with De Niro

Ten Bad Dates with De Niro by Richard T. Kelly

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am naturally a list-reader. I make lists too, when the occasion warrants, but I like reading a good list just as much as making a good list. Not all the movie lists in this book are great, but there are enough lists and enough films covered to make it very enjoyable. And, since there's no plot to follow, there's no guilt in skipping a list that doesn't look interesting, or only reading the paragraphs about movies you've heard of in a list. This may reveal more about my personal habits than I'd like, but I should mention that I read almost all of the parts I read on the toilet. Now you know.



Be forewarned: it is impossible to read this without adding a bunch of movies to your Netflix queue. Seriously, unless you've seen them all, at least add one from the "10 Best Gangster Deaths" list.


View all my reviews.

front page of the ny times

Uh, North Yorkshire Times, that is...

The real reason I bought "London's Underworld"

When I was looking at the book for the first time, I came across this table of statistics:

Number of disorderly prostitutes taken into Custody during the years 1850-1860, and their trades:

1850 -- 2,502
1851 -- 2,573
1852 -- 3,750
1853 -- 3,386
1854 -- 3,764
1855 -- 3,592
1856 -- 4,303
1857 -- 5,178
1858 -- 4,890
1859 -- 4,282
1860 -- 3,734

After some search I have been enabled to give the trades and occupations of those women.

74 were Hatters and trimmers.
418 were Laundresses.
646 were Milliners, etc.
400 were Servants.
249 were Shoemakers.
58 were Artificial flower-makers.
215 were Tailors.
33 were Brushmakers.
42 were Bookbinders.
8 were Corkcutters.
7 were Dyers.
2 were Fishmongers.
8 were General and marine-store dealers.
24 were Glovers.
18 were Weavers.

The remainder described themselves as having no trade or occupation.

There's just no way for me not be interested in stats like that - I mean, 646 Milliners? I didn't even know what a milliner was (Wikipedia has it as "the profession or business of designing, making, or selling hats, dresses, and hat trim to women." - I guess that's different from hatters in that hatters sell to men?).

Also, as promised, here's the Table of Contents for the 'Thieves and Swindlers' section:

The Sneaks, or Common Thieves

• Stealing from the Tills
• Stealing from the Doors and Windows of Shops
• Stealing from Children
• Child Stripping
  
• Stealing from Drunken Persons
• Stealing Linen, etc., exposed to dry
• Robberies from Carts and other Vehicles
• Stealing Lead from Housetops, Copper from Kitchens, etc.
• Robberies by False Keys
• Robberies by Lodgers
• Robberies from Servants
• Area and Lobby Sneaks
• Stealing by Lifting Up Windows or Breaking Glass
• Attic or Garret Thieves
• A Visit to the Rookery of St. Giles and its Neighbourhood
• Narrative of a London Sneak, or Common Thief

Pickpockets and Shoplifters

• Omnibus Pickpockets
• Railway Pickpockets
• Shoplifters
• A visit to the Thieves' Dens in Spitalfields
• Narrative of a Pickpocket

Horse and Dog Stealers
Highway Robbers
Housebreakers and Burglars
Felonies on the River Thames

• The Mudlarks
• Sweeping Boys
• Sellers of Small Wares
• Labourers on Board Ship, etc.
• Dredgemen and Fishermen
• Smuggling
• Felonies by Lightermen
• The River Pirates
• Narrative of a Mudlark

Receivers of Stolen Property

• Dolly Shops
• Pawnbrokers, etc.
• Narrative of a Returned Convict

Coining

• Forgers
• Bank Notes
• Cheques
• Forged Acceptance
• Forged Wills

Cheats

• Embezzlers
• Magsmen or Sharpers
• The Card Tricks
• Skittles
• Thimble and Pea
• The Lock
• Swindlers

This section proves to be just as interesting as the last was.

Park Women, or Those Who Frequent The Parks at Night And Other Retired Places

(From the book "London's Underworld", a 19th-century expose on London's seedier side; my current bedside reading)

"Park women, properly so called, are those degraded creatures, utterly lost to all sense of shame, who wander about the paths most frequented after nightfall in the Parks, and consent to any species of humiliation for the sake of acquiring a few shillings. You may meet them in Hyde Park, between the hours of five and ten (till the gates are closed) in winter. In the Green Park, in what is called The Mall, which is a nocturnal thoroughfare, you may see these low wretches walking about sometimes with men, more generally alone, often early in the morning. They are to be seen reclining on the benches placed under the trees, originally intended, no doubt, for a different purpose, occasionally with the head of a drunken man reposing in their lap. These women are well known to give themselves up to disgusting practices, that are alone gratifying to men of morbid and diseased imaginations. They are old, unsound, and by their appearance utterly incapacitated from practising their profession where the gas-lamps would expose the defects in their personal appearance, and the shabbiness of their ancient and dilapidated attire. ... The unfortunate women that form this despicable class have in some cases been well off, and have been reduced to their present condition by a variety of circumstances, among which are intemperance, and the vicissitudes natural to their vocation."

Seriously, the whole book is like that. It's hilarious. Here's part 1 of the table of contents (the portion dealing with prostitution):

Introduction
Foreword
Prostitution in London
General Remarks
Seclusives, or those that live in private houses and apartments
The prostitutes of the Haymarket
Board Lodgers
Those who live in low lodging houses
Sailors' women
Soldiers' women
Thieves' women
Park Women
The Dependents of Prostitutes
Bawds
Followers of Dress Lodgers
Keepers of accommodation houses
Procuresses, Pimps, and Panderrs
Fancy-men
Bullies
Clandestine Prostitutes
Female Operatives
Maid-Servants
Ladies of Intrigue and Houses of Assignation
Cohabitant Prostitutes
Criminal Returns
Traffic in Foreign Women


Next time: Thieves!

Danger of Death

Danger of Death
Originally uploaded by Foucalt

STELLLA!!!! We need a big toy frog!

"Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. "

First off, I'm not sure the store sells snow peas by the unit "spoons." Secondly, how thick exactly do you want your slabs? I'm not sure scooping blue cheese into a bag is the best idea. And by Wednesday, it may not be smelling all that great. Plus, by then, won't Bob have gotten his own snack?

These are some of the thoughts that confronted me as I listened to that paragraph over and over at the GMU Speech Accent Archive. You can browse by birth language, region, or native phonetic inventory. But no matter which clip you listen to, it's about Stella, her shopping list, and your upcoming rendez-vous on Wednesday. A few favorites:

* South African
*Northern Australian
*Macon, Mississippi - sounds like Tommy Lee Jones sometimes
*York, UK - this is pretty close to the local accent here
*Viscaya, Spain - requires a little more patience than the others.

If you find a cool one that I missed (which shouldn't be that hard), post it in the comments for me.

Goodreads: another Hellboy and The Arrival

Hellboy Volume 7: The Troll Witch and Other Stories by Mike Mignola

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
As with most compilations, this one is hit-and-miss. I do enjoy the way Mignola will take an old folk tale from someplace like central Africa or Norway or Malaysia and then retell it through Hellboy. Probably my favorite in this collection is "Dr. Carp's Experiment", because of the electric harpoons. But Makoma would be a close second.


View all my reviews.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wordless and beautiful - The story of an immigrant man and his arrival in a new land, where everything is foreign. I think I'll be giving this one as a gift sometime soon; just need to figure out who needs it.


View all my reviews.

Birthday Card from a 5 year old

Here is the text of the birthday card my little girl wrote all by herself for me, sounding out the things she wanted to say (and translation):

DADY
I Lev
Uem

HAPPY
Beta
to
DADY
I HAB
theet
Uem
Wel
HAFU
A
GOD
DAA

Which is of course:
Daddy, I love you.
Happy Birthday to Daddy; I hope that you will have a good day.

What a little sweetie.

Goodreads: Vegetarian Planet

Of course! Cookbooks! I've loads of those I could review!

Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Chock full of deliciousness! Among our faves:



- Creamy tomato soup

- Dirty Rice

- Roasted New Potato Salad

- Masa cakes with salsa verde



And lots more. There are whole sections we still haven't delved into, but I'm sure they're just as good as the stuff we've tried. My sister gave this to us for our wedding as I recall, and it's been serving us well ever since. Whether or not you're vegetarian (we are most definitely NOT), this book is worth picking up and cooking from.


View all my reviews.

Goodreads: Conan and Hellboy

Conan of Cimmeria: The Conquering Sword of Conan by Robert E. Howard

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
I had no idea going into this book that the original Conan stories were so incredibly rife with racism and misogyny, to the point where even though the plots are interesting and the setting excellent, I can't overcome my disgust every time (and it is EVERY TIME) that Conan has to save a near-naked white girl from the unspeakable horrors that "brown-skinned men" will inflict on her. Ugh. Have to quit this one 3/4 of the way in, I'm afraid.



Typical of pulp fiction for the time, I'm sure, but I'll just have to rely on later authors for my swords-and-sorcery fix.


View all my reviews.

Hellboy Volume 6: Strange Places by Mike Mignola

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great art, great stories, great one-liners. Not as epic or memorable as some of the earlier Hellboy tales, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.


View all my reviews.


Here's a couple panels from that Hellboy comic that had me cracking up: