Random Cookbook of the Week: Roots

One of the things I was most looking forward to about finishing my manuscript was having time to cook again, including rebooting my Random Cookbook of the Week feature. I love to cook. There's something so satisfying about transforming ingredients into dinner with my handy knife, cutting board, whisk, stove, etc. 

I've included every cookbook I own in this round of random cooking, including ones that I consider beyond my skills--the French Laundry Cookbook and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, to name two--and those I keep around for sentimental reasons but rarely cook from because they're just not how a 21st century foodie cooks. Think fundraiser cookbooks with lots of casseroles heavy on the cream of mushroom soup. That's 64 cookbooks. I just can't seem to stop collecting more of the things.

For this first week, I drew one of my newest volumes: Diane Morgan's Roots.

(I need to get better about taking pictures of what I cook, but for this week I'll make do with the book cover.)

It's an encyclopedic cookbook of edible roots, from the common (carrots, potatoes, turnips, etc.) to the exotic (salsify, burdock, crosne, etc.). It's fascinating to page through just for the sheer variety of root vegetables and ways to cook them.

But because I'm just easing back into cooking a lot and trying new recipes again, I didn't go looking for crosnes or decide it was finally time to embrace the Jerusalem artichoke. No, I picked a nice, straightforward carrot recipe, and one that's unusual for this cookbook in using some shortcut ingredients:

Moroccan Carrot and Chickpea Salad with Dried Plums and Toasted Cumin Vinaigrette

- 1 T cumin seeds

- 1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil

- 2 T fresh lemon juice

- 1 T honey

- 3/4 tsp kosher salt

- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

- freshly ground black pepper

- 1 10-oz package shredded carrots

- 1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

- 2/3 c. dried plums (prunes), chopped into chickpea-sized pieces

- 1/2 c. coarsely chopped fresh mint

1. To make the dressing, first toast and grind the cumin seeds. Place a small, heavy frying pan, preferably cast iron, over high heat, add the cumin seeds, and toast, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool. Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, grind the seeds to a powder.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, honey, ground cumin, salt, and cayenne pepper. Season with black pepper.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the carrots, chickpeas, dried plums, and mint. Add the dressing and toss gently to coat evenly. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. (The salad can be made up to 8 hours in advance. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.)

I recommend this one highly. It's quick, the only remotely challenging technique is toasting and grinding the cumin, and it's colorful with lovely bright flavors to match. 

2014 Reading, Books 55-57

FYI, I've at long last turned in the manuscript for my January 2015 historical romance (title and exact release date TBD), so I hope to resume a more regular blogging schedule from here.

55) Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times by Lucy Lethbridge

I'd hoped based on the title that there would be a lot more of the 19th century in this book. Since I write the Regency, that's my primary area of interest, after all. But this book is basically about how the role of domestic servants in British society declined from its Edwardian peak, with special attention to how the wars of the 20th century shook up the British class system. Fascinating, but not quite what I was hoping for. If you're a big Downton Abbey fan, you'd probably love this.

56) The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson

A YA novel about a 15-year-old girl living with her mother and little brother as refugees near Washington DC after her father is overthrown in a coup in her unnamed Middle Eastern native country. We watch her deal with PTSD and culture shock and try to navigate her mother's ongoing political scheming. Above all, she has to come to terms with the fact her beloved, doting father was in fact an oppressive tyrant. Very well-written and compelling, though those who hate first person and/or present tense narration should stay away.

57) What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton.

This book is a compilation of author Jo Walton's blog posts at tor.com, mostly on her experiences re-reading classic science fiction and fantasy. (Though "classic" is a relative term--many of the books she discusses are from the 90's or the first decade of this century, so they haven't stood the test of much time yet.)

I read the book because I greatly enjoy Walton's posts about Lois McMaster Bujold and the Vorkosigan Saga--i.e. my favorite books by my current favorite author--even if we don't read them in quite the same way. E.g. I found the Miles-Ekaterin romance entirely convincing and moving, but I couldn't connect as well to Mark and Kareen. We're not total Vorkosigan-opposites, though. Like me, she's most interested in the Barrayar-focused parts of the series. I once ran across a reviewer whose rankings for the series was almost exactly the opposite of mine--he preferred the more space-operatic entries, while I prefer the Barrayar books.

Anyway. Walton's discussions of Bujold made her someone whose opinions on books I take notice of, even knowing her tastes don't entirely overlap mine. I saw a recent thread on tor.com where she was asking for recommendations, but very politely asked people to stop suggesting she read Naomi Novik's Temeraire books or Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy, because they're just not her thing. I adore both of those series, and for me that adoration inhabits a similar region of my reader-brain as my love for Bujold, or for Walton's own Tooth and Claw. So color me baffled. It's not like I'd expect someone who shares my taste in, say, historical romance, to also like the same nonfiction popular science I'm into, but I'm used to a bit more within-genre overlap. OTOH, there are authors out there you'd think I adore who leave me cold--I can think of one whose characters spend too much time feeling sorry for themselves and wallowing in self-abasement, and another whose heroines are too passive, and WHY ARE THOSE BOOKS SO POPULAR?! and WHY CAN'T ANYONE ELSE *SEE*?!...so Walton is allowed to have a similar reaction to authors I love.

All that said, I think the best way I can review this book is to list all the "book bullets" that got added to my TBR as I read along:

Random Acts of Senseless Violence - Jack Womack
Biting the Sun - Tanith Lee
Janissaries - Jerry Pournelle
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean (this one I've read before, but it's been years)
Kalpa Imperial - Angélica Gorodischer
A Shadow in Summer - Daniel Abraham
Kindred - Octavia Butler
Fire on the Mountain - Terry Bisson
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula LeGuin
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Midshipman's Hope - David Feintuch
The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
Jhereg - Steven Brust
The Interior Life - Katherine Blake
The Discovery of France - Graham Robb (nonfiction, but sounds fascinating and relevant to some of my research interests)
Planet of Exile - Ursula LeGuin
The Chronoliths - Robert Charles Wilson

The good news is that most of these seem to be available either as reasonably-priced ebooks or at my local library. Unfortunately, I couldn't find The Dragon Waiting or The Interior Life at either place, and Planet of Exile seems to be only available as an audiobook. I don't do audiobooks, at least not for fiction. I listen to nonfiction podcasts all the time, but for fiction I want to dive in, and I can't do that just listening to something. That said, it looks like I could get all three as used mass market paperbacks. Back when Amazon, eBay, and the like were newer things, I used to order used paperbacks all the time, but I've gotten out of the habit since so many authors started putting their backlists out as ebooks.

2014 Reading, Books 49-54

49. Secrets of a Bollywood Marriage by Susanna Carr.

A quick, relaxing read that hit the spot during a stressful, busy time. That said, it's definitely a "fight-fight-kiss" romance, and the last fight came so close to the end of the book I wasn't sure I believed they'd learned how to communicate well enough for the kissing to be more frequent than the fighting in their future.

50) Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond

If you like popular science or psychology books, I recommend this exploration of how we experience time. It's fun and readable without feeling dumbed down, and it closes with a practical chapter on how to better manage your experience of time, if not time itself.

51) Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear.

Epic fantasy (which I love) with a twist (something I also generally love). The setting is recognizably similar to our world--something like Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series in that the map will look really familiar, though the fantastical elements are more forward. However, rather than being set in an alternate Europe, this story centers on an alternate central Asia. It ranges across a large chunk of its globe through the eyes of multiple characters, but its focus is a young man named Temur, grandson of a Genghis Khan-like figure, though he's surrounded by a cast of strong women. I enjoyed it very much and plan to read the sequels.

52) Only Human by Gareth Roberts.

A Doctor Who novel, and one that felt like reading an average episode of the show...in a good way. Another fun, relaxing read as I fight my way through my current writing deadline.

53) Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood by Nathan Hale.

The fourth in this series of graphic novels about American history manages, at least in my opinion, to make WWI palatable and understandable for its middle grade audience without dumbing down the material or treating the war lightly. FWIW, my 10-year-old pronounced it good, though not as funny as the previous three. If you've got a child in the right age group, get them these books. Schools don't teach enough history these days, in my not at all humble opinion, and this series strikes the perfect balance of informative and fun.

54) The Marathon Conspiracy by Gary Corby.

This must be my week for just-released Books 4. I enjoyed this latest entry in Corby's series about Nicolaos, a fictional elder brother of Socrates solving crime in Periclean Athens. Especially recommended for fans of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, since it has a similar combination of humor and modern tone with rich historical detail.

2014 Reading, Books 46-48

46) Katie's Redemption by Patricia Davids.

Amish romance fiction is one of those things I thought I'd never be interested in, but I happened across one of this author's other books earlier and enjoyed it enough to want to try her again. And while I don't know if it's an accurate portrayal of Amish life, I found it worked surprisingly well for me. For one thing, it reminds me of my mother. She passed away four years ago, and she loved gentle, sweet inspirational romances. Our reading tastes diverged more than they converged as I grew up, but I miss her, and reading something she would love feels good, you know?

Also, I don't read a lot of inspirational romance for the same reason I'm not a big fan of small-town contemporary romance--I'm a city-dwelling Episcopalian who grew up a rural Southern Baptist. I don't necessarily want to read books set in a world I chose to walk away from because they so often condemn people who've made such choices, whether overtly or covertly. But I was never anything close to Amish. It's not my world, so when, as in this book, a heroine chooses to return to the Amish church after some time in the "English" world, I don't react to it personally.

And finally, it's nice every once in awhile to read a gentle, quiet story where the stakes and characters aren't so over-the-top. Don't get me wrong. I like the big, the epic, the superlative. But sometimes I enjoy a story like this where the hero and heroine are just striving for a happy ordinary life. It's relaxing, and that's exactly what I needed this weekend.

47) His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik.

I read this book when it first came out--in fact, my reaction upon hearing someone had written a book reminiscent of the Aubrey-Maturin series, but with dragons, was, "Someone wrote a book just for ME?!?" I love it, and I've given it to someone almost every year in SantaThing, but this is the first time I've re-read it from cover to cover, and it's even better than I remembered. Reading it from the vantage of having read all its sequels, I can see how well Novik set up Temeraire's intelligence and independence and hinted at all the change and disruption he'll cause just by being himself. Wonderful, wonderful book.

48) On the Map by Simon Garfield.

A history of maps, mapmaking, and exploration. Interesting, but episodic, with brief chapters that almost stand alone--it would be the perfect book to have around in the bathroom, of if you want to read for 15-20 minutes at bedtime, without the fear of getting so hooked you'll be up at 3 AM before you know it.

2014 Reading, Books 43-45 (or, is a booted woman from the waist down the latest thing in cover design?)

43) Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols.

YA romance about a girl brought up touring the bluegrass festival circuit who turns rebellious after her sister gets a big Nashville recording contract and their family and her recording label want her to give up her own music and lie low to facilitate her sister's solo career. But she finds giving up her fiddle easier said than done, especially after she meets an attractive boy who needs a fiddler for what sounds like a sort of punk rockabilly band. (The name they settle on is "Redneck Death Wish.") It's a well-written book, and I loved how music and musicianship is handled in the story, though I found the heroine's parents' behavior a bit over-the-top in spots.



44) Girl at the End of the World by Elizabeth Esther.

Incidentally, I'm kinda fascinated by the similarity in design and look in these two book covers when they're in completely different genres. (This one is a memoir.) I guess they're both about young women struggling to break free of controlling family environments and assert their own identities, but I doubt that explains the similarities in cover and design as much as the fact they're both very recent books (2013 and 2014 respectively). I guess browns and blues/gray-blues and booted women viewed from ~ waist down are trendy...

Anyway, about the book. Elizabeth Esther is one of several ex-fundamentalist bloggers whose work I read because her experience resonates with my own, though her upbringing was FAR more extreme. I was just a garden-variety Southern Baptist who then got involved in a ultra-conservative chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in college, leading me to almost break my brain trying to not believe in evolution, to accept that women were supposed to have a subservient role, only that was actually wonderful because Jesus was a servant, making it actually better and close to God to serve, etc. But in Esther's word all these beliefs and more were enforced in an abusive, cultish environment.

Her memoir mostly covers her childhood and youth, but in the last fifth or so she and her husband gradually step away from the environment and rebuild their lives and faiths in a more mainstream environment.

45) The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti.

I'm having a flareup of my recurring neck and back pain issues, so I can't write about this book in as much detail as I'd like to right now. Suffice it to say that Valenti makes a great case for how terrible it is to treat chastity as not just a virtue but the most important virtue a young woman can have--i.e. a "good girl" isn't one who is compassionate, thoughtful, brave, generous, hard-working, etc. but one who doesn't sleep around. She also shows how purity culture and rape culture are two sides of the same coin. A depressing but nonetheless thought-provoking read.

Two guest posts

I'm still deep in deadline country, but today I have two guest posts up!

First, I'm at fellow Carina author Angela Highland's blog. I've adopted the voice of Anna Wright-Gordon, a major character in both of my first two books, to complain about how difficult my older brother is making my life.

And for my regular monthly post at Risky Regencies, I post some of the Tom Hiddleston videos that are helping me through my manuscript.

2014 Reading, Books 37-42

Still plugging away at the manuscript that's due April 30, but forcing myself to make time to read so I get the occasional brain break:

37) Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire.

This book was just plain fun. At first I missed Verity, the protagonist of the two previous InCryptid novels, but once I got used to her more serious science geek brother Alex, I enjoyed this story of paranormal murders at an Ohio zoo.

38) An Heir of Uncertainty by Alyssa Everett.

Alyssa is one of my critique partners and Carina one of my publishers, so I can't be totally objective about her books. With that caveat, this book shows Alyssa's deep understanding of the Regency era and her elegant voice. It's a well-paced, romantic story with relatable characters. My one caveat is I wish there had been a little more space in the denouement to show the hero and heroine coming to terms with the identity of the murderer.

39) The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief by George M. Marsden.

Marsden looks at the subtle fault lines in American culture in the 1950s--ways the consensus worldview, a mix of Protestant faith and Enlightenment philosophy, was starting to break down, ultimately creating the culture war of the past three decades. I don't usually delve so deeply into philosophy, theology, or psychology, but I'm glad I read this book. I feel like it gave me a deeper insight into the events and ideas that created the world I was born into.

40) The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas.

A beautifully written historical romance set in late Victorian England. The hero is that staple of romance fiction, the man who won't let himself love because his parents' terrible relationship made him afraid to trust love in general or women in particular, but Thomas made the resulting conflict feel more human and believable than this trope usually is for me. That said, the heroine forgives him a lot quicker than I would've done...

41) Newton's Football: The Science Behind America's Game by Allen St. John & Ainissa Ramirez.

A quick, interesting read on some of the science behind football--everything from the West Coast offense to how improved tackling technique and better helmets could reduce concussion risk.

42) The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold.

I've read this novella once before, but I'd forgotten what a strong punch it packs. It's such a perfect encapsulation of everything important about the world of the Vorkosigan series and beautifully written and constructed to boot. I...I just wish I could write like that.