SueMoe

Cooking Mushrooms ala Julia Child: there’s no secret. You cook them.

Julie Power was spot on when she exclaimed “I’ve been cooking mushrooms wrong this whole time!” But what you might not know from her surprise is that there is no secret. JC does not offer any unexpected advice on the matter. (in my world, JC refers to Julia Child, not a god)

HOW TO COOK MUSHROOMS: 1. Heat a pan 1.a Put some oil in it & heat the shit out of that too. Like really hot. 2. Throw in 2-3 handfulls of sliced mushrooms. Stir regularily. (or shake the pan) 2.a Cook them about 2-3 mins longer than you think you should. 3. Put those on the plate & do all steps over for the next batch.

(Apparently you’re not supposed to crowd the mushrooms. I never saw where that was written-I think JulieP made it up. But I didn’t crowd & they were delicious so it must be true.)

Basically you fry the mushrooms for a long time in batches. NOT A SECRET.

You know how everyone loves the crunchy bits in hashbrowns but can’t make them like that at home? Yeah, it’s all about patience. If you put enough oil in & just wait around long enough without fussing, they’ll get crunchy. I guess it’s the same w mushrooms. The longer you wait for them to fry, the better they taste (no they don’t get crunchy. That would be weird). Seriously, when I was a kid I HATED mushrooms. If I had ever had them patiently fried, I might’ve lived a different life. Sigh.

My Mind Was Blown Again: noon panel with Frank X. Walker & Saul Williams

Saul Williams speaks in poetry. With his words, body, and voice. He’s mesmerising. He unconsciously lives his work. There were times when his answers left us all speechless…including Mr. Walker. I exerienced a rather powerful conversation today with two amazing voices in modern American poetry.

Here are some of the gems I thought were worth passing on:

When asked about how they add typographical elements to their written poetry that doesn’t always translate to spoken poetry or performance. “There should be a reward for anyone willing to give time to a book. There should be something there on the page to experience.” ~Frank X. Walker

“Not all performance poets are interested in offering a similar experience on the page. They just wanna see the words.”

They both are book lovers & enjoy the experience of reading & rereading literature. They want to bring the “presence” of performance to their readers.

When asked about something not really about truth at all, Saul took us to a new destination.

What is truth? it’s like the dao. The spoken dao is not the dao. We can’t speak the absolute truth but we can know it. We can talk around & around it in concentric circles getting closer & closer to the root of that truth. ~Saul Williams

When asked the difference between hip hop & poetry.

“Hip hop is CONFIDENCE. Going back in time to when & how it started, to a time when they weren’t even allowed to look people in the eyes—hip hop took on confidence as its mantle.”

The patriarchal bravado that developed as an inherent part of hip hop must ignore all signs of weakness, questioning, & uncertainty.
“The poet sees his vulnerability (uncertainty) as a strength, the rapper sees it as a weakness.”

Real power isn’t grasping onto what we think, or worse, hope, is right & never backing down. It isn’t standing on an air carrier in a jump suit & declaring truth is whatever you want it to be. [my elusive paraphrasing] It is admitting uncertainty & seeking a way through it TOGETHER.
“That bragidocia in hip hop forces them to misunderstand what power is.”

When asked about selling out, & Saul’s “list of demands” being used in a Nike commercial was mentioned. “Selling out only comes about if I do not authenticate an emotion. If I weren’t true to the process.”

How To Safely Open the Spine of a Book Without Breaking It

I’m a firm believer of treating my books with reverence—I want them to last since I’m a frequent rereader. I strongly dislike dogeared, broken backed, mangled, & otherwise “slightly” damaged books. They’re uncomfortable to read because of the strange hand contortions I have to employ to read them. My mom, who I most frequently share books with, has none of these hangups. She bends the cover all the way back, she leaves kleenex in random pages for use or bookmarks (I can’t tell), she leaves them lying open with stacks of heavy stuff on top…you name it, she does it.

My frustration came to a head when reading the mass market paperback copies of Rober Jordan’s Wheel of Time series for the first time back in Jr High. They are terribly made books that are giant & use the worst spine glue I’ve ever met. When you add my mom’s abuse in the mix, it is a bad scene indeed. My original copies are mostly in 2 to 4 parts. This happened when the spine of the second book broke & we were reading it at the same time. It was MY book, so I got first dibs on it. But I read too slow for her, so she just ripped it in half (to be honest, it was already in half) & we could both read at our leisure. At the time it was a brilliant solution. And the next couple of books followed suit without subterfuge on her part. When the spines broke, she just ripped it into more manageable pieces.

The problem arose when I tried to reread the series in preparation for the next book release. I didn’t have 4 books to read, I had 6-7 parts of books to locate & figure out how to piece together!

A solution to this problem didn’t present itself until around the 8th book & many many years later. I needed to pre-break the spines in a way that wouldn’t ruin the book. Kind of like breaking in your shoes before going on a serious hike. I now use this method on all my books that are just way too effing big to be a comfortable mm pb. (think Jordan, GRRMartin, Stephanie Meyer, King)

PRE-BREAKING A SPINE (Note: do not do this if the book is frozen. Not really a problem for most people, but when a delivered book has been sitting in my porch all day during winter in ND, the spine glue freezes & cracks easily. Just sayin.) I page through the book backwards. I open the book with force & smooth it open till the spine feels some action, maybe popping slightly, about every 5 to 20 pages. —If it’s a really crappy book like the Jordan mms I tediously open every 5 pages. GRRM’s mms are made a bit better & I just do this to keep the book from getting that awkward shelf lean feature where the book is kind of sideways when you hold it.

And that’s it. I break the spine backwards. Then the action of holding it open the other way page by page doesn’t hit the book quite so hard. It has saved the quality of many a book through the years. And none of my Jordan books have fallen apart since.

Pretty simple really, but with giant books like Stephen King’s It or The Stand it can get tedious.

Hope this helps!

Week 8 roundup … Moe’s Big Fat Loser

Week 2(of 12) of Marathon Training
Week 9(of 16) of Moe’s Big Fat Loser

I felt like last week was one big hump day. You know the feeling? Like you’re stuck in a routine, doing your job, but are really thinking about & longing for the fun you’ll have on the weekend? Yeah, that’s how I felt ALL week. Also, we had our 2-week challenge weigh-in yesterday & … I didn’t lose a thing in 2 weeks. I’m sure a lot of you have seen The Biggest Loser tv show. And I’m sure you know what usually happens to the contestants who don’t lose weight but everyone else did (Dada lost 6+ & sis in law 5+ which is pretty fricken awesome!)? Yeah, the non-losers are the ones who get kicked off the show. Sigh. Yeah, sure, I’m proud that I maintained & all - but I worked really hard exercising. It’s frustrating knowing that my hard work doesn’t mean much if I don’t follow the diet plan (to the LETTER) along with it. (I tried on my bridesmaid dress from Nov to make myself feel better. It worked.)

But on the bright side, I think not losing weight is TOTALLY worth it to be able to have sushi at Hanami on 14th St twice, tapas with my favorite author & awesome friends, to learn & help make a bunch of new awesome recipes at Dan’s side, and to sneak chocolate with Deb (it was organic!). Eating healthy is still an accomplishment.

Plus I ran 5 miles without stopping. I am a rockstar. The thought of 3 miles is no longer daunting & someday soon neither will 5 miles be. (although that last mile really really sucked.)

So to round up my thoughts on my first week of training runs I’ll say it’s still a balancing act. I wish this were all already second nature to me. That I just knew what to do with a cramp (ice & ibuprofen) without looking it up. I wish I knew how to balance my carbs & protein all day for maximum energy & burn capacity. (still no clue on that one. So much conflicting advice) I wish my workout clothes would wash themselves so I wouldn’t have to do laundry 3 times a week. I wish my body would magically wash itself 3 times a day too for that matter. (I just hate wet hair!)

The running is ok. I still think this is a little crazy now that I’m getting soreness & cramps that don’t go away after a day—which I was warned about. (Hello yoga!) But I’m still running, I’m getting my speed up, & that first mile & a half feels fantastic! I’ve found my stride, so to speak.

So to round up the last 2 weeks: I had a lot of fun & I paid for it. But not too much that I’m depressed about it. Just enough so that I’m doubly motivated to work harder these next 2 weeks.

Where I was after my 1st day running…

Day 1 of marathon training 12 weeks till half-marathon 8 weeks till final weigh-in (unless we extend)

I’ve become a runner. I’ve embraced this fact. (Much like I long ago embraced my ghetto booty. Hopefully by the end of all this I’ll be as proud of the former as I am of the latter=difficult & annoying at first, but eventually a source of pride.)

When my family announced we were running in the Fargo Marathon, I went out for reading material. Unless you want to spend a lot of money on a trainer (who are worth every penny!), or if your trainer lives across the country, you need “someone” else to tell you how to train for a marathon & how to schedule your runs. Crowdsourcing advice is great but can’t be counted on to be there for you all the time telling you what to do next/how to start.

I read a lot of advice from old books at the library on what to expect (blisters if your shoes are 10yrs old like mine), how to train, (intervals vs time vs miles vs a walk/run method). The one book Dan recommended, THE NON-RUNNER’S MARATHON TRAINER proved rather difficult to get my hands on. I couldn’t rely on borrowing a copy from Jim or Dan (the way our family usually handles books) because they are using it. So I figured I could read up on the training in lots of other books & then just get a training schedule from Jim or Dan. Whoo boy was I wrong. There’s a reason that’s the book Dan recommended. It’s way better than the running for Dummies, which was the winner of the choices at the library.

Another book worth mentioning is The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer for women. I bought it thinking it was in the same series as the real one, only specific to Me (a woman). Plus the diary-like entries were all funny as if Bridget Jones had decided to run a marathon. (Can you imagine? Really? Yeah, that’s how I feel a lot of the time. Bridget Moe) About 3 chapters in, though, I realized that although I can be sarcastic, self-depricating, & dare I say whiney? sometimes—I’m still a happy person. I find reasons to enjoy what I’m doing (even if it’s breaking up w my boyfriend, losing my dream job, & packing up ALL my shit to move away from my beloved NYC toward a frigid wasteland.) Through it all I can still laugh at myself because, hey, I’m a Moe! So while this book makes a lot of fun of her exercise buddy, dubbing her “Chipper Jen” I got super annoyed. I’M chipper jen. Always have been. I’m annoyingly positive in the face of exercise. Well…not while doing it myself, but when motivating others as a coach or exercise buddy I can be pretty damn annoying.

So I made a concious choice to not curse myself out, call myself crazy for doing this, or otherwise believe that this isn’t worth it. That’s not to say I haven’t done all those things publicly already, nor that I never will again…it’s just an intentional difference. This does not suck. This is COOL. Sure it sucks in the small upsets, but not in the long run. (pun not intended, but appreciated.)

RUNNING LOG

Yeah yeah, today I started training & all. But after the weekend I’ve had, I feel like I’ve been at exercise camp. Dan didn’t write out a new exercise plan or anything like I hoped…he did better.

He took me to the gym, kicked my ass, let me pick up the pieces then did something different. Then Deb stepped in & said let’s do something different. I had never guessed how vital yoga would be. But all the worsening aches & pains I was getting melted back to a dull feel-good muscle soreness instead. It’s obvious now that I haven’t been stretching enough, & I got to experience the benefits 1st hand.

I’ve done a LOT this weekend. But it’s like tapas: (which I get to eat tomorrow!) a little bit of everything. Now I can go home & make full meals out of each piece on my own. I haven’t figured out how to balance out everything I want to do on a regular basis—but it’s ok. (so much easier to have it all written out & handed to you & have someone tell you what to do than to try to choose from day to day.) I’ll figure it out. AND I’ll have fun doing it. Look out for Chipper Sue.

Recipe: DINNER IN A SQUASH. A high-protien, good carb meal.

On a whim I bought an lovely green squash one day (I thought it was acorn. I was WAY off.) But it tasted like…well, like nothing. So I devised a recipe to spice it up. I took the idea of my mom’s “dinner in a pumpkin” recipe, nixed the rice, and then just threw stuff together. It turned out really really yummy. Now I make it all the time. And it’s what I’m making my brother & sister-in-law for dinner on my night to cook.

Dinner in a Squash

1 Medium Buttercup or Acorn Squash
1/2 - 1 med onion, chopped
1 1/2 cloves garlic, chopped, minced, spooned out of one of those jars…whatever
1 cup chopped vegetable of your choice.
- Red peppers, edamame, frozen corn, frz green beans, pea pods … something sweetish to counteract the salty of the squash.
1/2 lb ground turkey meat
2 tsp of dried sage
2 tsp of dried oregano
Leftover curry or tika masala (SECRET INGREDIENT)
- this is probably not necessary, I’m sure a tomato or 2 would work, but it certainly added a nice kick of sauciness and spices. I had made it with leftovers before, but as I hadn’t gone out for Indian for way too long I just bought a jar of Bombay Curry simmer sauce just so I could use a 1/2 cup to make this. Whatever, it’s always nice to have around anyway.

1. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Then place in a baking dish, cut side down, with about 1” of water and bake at 350 for 30 mins until tender (those are the directions on the little grocery store sticker. I find it takes a bit longer than 30 mins. Usually around 45.) YOU MUST PREBAKE YOUR SQUASH. If after 30 mins you can’t stick a fork all the way through - cook it some more until you can. I promise you it’s necessary.

1. a. Once the squash is prebaked, pour out the liquid and flip it over cut side up. Cover with tinfoil if the stuffing isn’t ready.

2. On the stove top saute the onions in a bit of olive oil. Once they get going, add the garlic. For a stronger garlic flavor, wait longer to add it (or add more). For weaker, put it in right away with the onions. Once the onions are translucent (I like them practically mushy, so translucent just means they’re not cooked but adente) add the vegetable of your choice. Season with some salt and greek seasoning (if you don’t have greek seasoning, get it. I put it in EVERYTHING. But plain pepper works too)

2. Add the meat and stir. Once the meat is about 3/4ths of the way cooked, add the sage and oregano. Since this is ground turkey you can add a bit more salt too.

3. Once the meat is fully cooked add the tika masala, curry, or whatever Indian or Thai saucy leftovers you have. If it’s just a 1/4 cup, that’s fine. If it’s a full 2 cups, that’s fine too. This is for taste and a bit of moisture for the meat. Since I had a full jar to work with last time, I put in about 2 cups. It was pretty fantastic.

4. Scoop the meat mixture into the handy bowl-like reservoir in the squash.
—Acorns will hold a lot, but buttercups won’t. Buttercup tastes sweeter (better) but you end up with a lot higher squash-to-meat ratio. If you end up with extra stuffing, you might want to save it instead of eating it while the squash bowls bake again. But if you can actually keep from chowing it down while you wait—you are a far more disciplined cook than I.
Bake for 15 mins at 375.

5. If you didn’t listen to me about the prebaking and your squash still needs a bit of time to cook through, cover it all with tinfoil so your meat doesn’t dry out, and cook for 30-45 mins instead of 15. If that still doesn’t work, (I think I ended up with a slightly old/dried out squash one time) you can throw your portion in the microwave for 5-8 mins to cook the squash through. I don’t recommend prebaking in the microwave, however, as it tends to cook well in random places and leave other places hard as a rock. BEWARE.

6. EAT IT. But don’t eat the skin. You can, I suppose, but it’s kind of weird.

RECAP:

1. PreBake your squash
2. Saute up the meat and veg with some secret sauce.
3. Scoop the stuffing into the squash.
4. Bake again to solidify the whole thing.
5. Eat it. Yum.

My 7 Week Round-up of the “Moe’s Big Fat Loser” Competition

I feel like I should’ve been keeping track of my progress since Jan, I meant to. I even started a Twitter acct just for a exercise outlet so my FB friends wouldn’t have to put up w me complaining about aches & pains & motivation problems OR an acct of what I was eating/caloric intake. BUT I was too busy actually working out to document much of anything extra. I also didn’t want to blog about my progress for everyone on FB to read. That seemed just kind of self-obsessed, boring, and … nothing like anything I had ever talked about thus totally out of character and weird. Dance, yes. Exercise? NO.
(Disclaimer: if you feel that is an accurate statement, and think talking about competing in a family weight-loss challenge is narcissistic, don’t read further. It’s as simple as that.)

The first step was to start working out. I thought I could breeze through these 16 weeks (w 3-4 more added now…but I’ll get to that later) by just doing the exercise videos I have from beach body (Turbo Jam & Slim & 6). But I quickly surpassed & grew bored with them. I mean sure, they were still hardish, but they started to feel like work. I soon discovered (around week 3 or 4) that I’d have to (unfortunately) work a little harder.

I realized this when my brother, Jim, started talking about his workouts. They were way harder (and cooler) than mine. He had actually gotten a workout schedule from a trainer!! Our celebrity trainer (my other brother, Dan) had given him a lifting routine, & a running schedule. They seemed to have it all worked out. Plus Jim’s a master chef & seemingly far more disciplined than me in the food department. He intimidated me into knowing I needed to step things up—both to feel it more & to win one of our 2 week mini-competitions.

And let’s face it—this whole competition thing is really the only thing that keeps me going. Thus I decided to take up the hardest thing I could think of to do: running. I’ve always hated running. It brings back memories of brutal “conditioning” training I had received & despised during my 8 years on dance teams. Lifting weights is fun, the results are quickly apparent, & I understand the mechanics/uses of being able to lift heavy things. But running is HARD. (Well, it’s hard if you do it wrong, I’ve discovered. I guess I’ve always done it wrong.) But if I really wanted to kick my own ass - I was gonna have to run.

Here’s how I found a way that worked: on a day that I’d already been out crosscountry skiing & had an exercise video planned…I didn’t really NEED to run. I had the exercise thing covered for the day. But the treadmill was there & my plan for the next hour was to watch Smallville. Why not walk in place for that instead of lying in my bed? Once the pressure was off, RUNNING MADE SENSE. Jim had gone on and on about his running routine (intervals, with increased intensity every minute for 4-5 mins, then starting back at the slow pace), and I thought I would give that a shot. I walked when I started to hyperventilate, ran when I felt rested again, & upped the speed when I felt ambitious (usually coinciding w an exciting part of the episode). And it worked! I walked or jogged for the full 45 mins! (mostly walking) But it worked! I didn’t pass out or puke! (known to happen at dance practice when forced by beefy ex-football players obsessed with lifting to run up & down stairs for waaaaaay too long)

So I’m a runner now, I guess. Albeit a very very slow runner (who normal people call joggers or mall-walkers), but a “runner” by my standards.

Just when I was starting to feel good about this, to get a little comfortable that I was actually running on a treadmill and being that person in the gym that people look at askance and wonder if she’s working out too hard (anorexic) because no one normal runs for 30-45 mins straight, my family decided they’d up the stakes. AGAIN.

WE’RE RUNNING AN EFFING MARATHON. Ok, ok, a HALF marathon. But still. Those are miles and miles of running. Yes, yes it’s strange that I don’t think twice about riding my bike the 7.5 miles out to the airport on a whim, or the 40 miles for the Newman Center bike race … but the thought of running 10k let alone 13.1 MILES is rather daunting. Thanks, family. You suck (and I love you.)

Side note: running in the Fargo Marathon is an idea my old roommate ran by me (pun intended) the week we started the challenge—but I dismissed it out of hand. Seriously, a challenge to lose 55lbs in 16 weeks is surely enough without adding strenuous running into the mix, right? Running for 13.1 miles? Really? Why would I ever do that? Looks like she was right on the money.

I’ll be writing about how my first official training run goes later today. After I take a dance class from a really hot, celebrity choreographer at the Broadway Dance Center. Ah yes. Isn’t unemployment glamorous? (not really at all, but I’m making the most of it. Luckily my family is pretty kick-ass supportive)

An Homage to Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangrously

First off, let me tell you that the book JULIE & JULIA is inspiring. Well, not so much inspiring as mouth watering. It makes you want all those dinners with too much butter and cream (who wouldn’t??). And it’s like a really funny version of the cooking chanel meets some lame-ass reality TV show like the girls next door. I sat there for two days, reading this book, and drooling over the nasty French dishes she’s cooking, that no matter how disgusting she describes the making of them, I still wish I was in her shitty apt in Long Island City eating them with her (and drinking copious amounts of alcohol that always seem to accompany her dinners).

So here I am on the first gorgeous afternoon for a week, just went on a bike ride, should be out suntanning on the dock doing nothing but reading trashy magazines - and what am I doing? Sitting on the couch doing suduko puzzles, playing Donky Kong on my ancient super nintendo (well, it’s only 2 years old for ME), and reading my book, Julie & Julia. That’s when I got fed up. Not with reading or futzing around, but with the box of strawberries and old plastic bag full of rhubarb that have been wasting away in the fridge for days and days. Probably weeks.

My mom was supposed to show me how to make her delicous rhubarb/strawberry jam that is really just goo because it can never get thick enough to actually jam/jelly up, but we eat it every time anyway because it tastes so good. Finally, this afternoon, I decided it was time to make it. But in the process of making a GIANT pot of it (seriously, the pot was giant. Anyone need a jar of delicous goo? I’ll give it to you for free.), we both got ravenously hungry.

MY MOM & I STARTED OUT WITH TWO INGREDIENTS:
One chosen by me: frozen baby scalops I’d dug out of the freezer when I went out for a shitty lean cuisine this lunch. And one from my mom: zucchini that’s been in the fridge for a while, sauted it goes well with ANY meal, and it’s about high time we cook it up. Y.U.M. Seriously, this was really appealing to both of us.

I wanted to eat the scallops as our friend had made some time before, with butter and waaaaaaay too much garlic. I mean painful amounts of garlic. (literally, it upset my stomach. But it was too delicious to stop eating.) However, we only had most of one mangled stick of table butter in the house. Oh well! With a little oil and butter simmering on the stove, I threw in my freshly chopped (minced?) 4 cloves of garlic. Ha! And we thought that was enough. I’m sorry, friends, it takes more than 4 cloves to combat that slight flavor of freezer burn that lingers on those scallops from Sam’s Club from a month ago.

So there we were with way too much watery substance (oil, butter, melt off from the frozen scallops), and a ton of not-so-cooked-scallops we refused to waste but didn’t know how to save. Well, after staring at it for a minute, we decided to just transfer all the scallops to a fresh pan sans their water that neither of us could justify dumping down the drain & continue to fry them up. I mean, there had to be something we could fry up in the water that would be made better by tons of butter and garlic, right? Aha! Zucchini!

So in went the zucchini (+onions, and yes, more garlic) into the 1/4 inch of watery stuff we had simmering. The scallops appeared to be browning nicely-but as I’m an expert in sauteing zucchini, I knew that they have more water in them than anyone unfamiliar with the vegetable would suspect. This water was not going to boil off anytime soon. In fact, it was just going to get worse.

As we stood there, staring at our two sizzling pans we lazily discussed what “starch” would go best with this. The scallops tasted a little freezer burned and needed more butter. The zucchini was going to end up more boiled than fried, and that’s not ideal. My mom suggested rice, but I’m NOT a fan of rice. Then I suggested a bit of pasta and our eyes lit up. (I’d hazard to say that our stomachs lit up, but I think that’s a very seldom used idiom that I’ll stay away from.) Only, you can’t just throw in a bunch of uncooked pasta and hope it’ll cook up nicely in time with the rest of the ingredients.

We turned off all the burners and boiled some water. Once the suggestion of adding pasta to it was ignited, we couldn’t think of anything more perfect. This was going to be a pasta concoction dish, god damn it, and that’s all there was to it.

Except the problem is, neither of us are big fans of those oily, garlicy pasta dishes you find at cheap italian restaurants (yes, Olive Garden, I’m thinking of you. You aren’t Italian. NY does Italian. You don’t.) They upset my stomach. Buuuuut, the other day my mom showed me how to make Beef Strogonoff. Who knew it was just sour cream to thicken it? I had NO idea. But I do now.

So after throwing the mostly cooked pasta into the simmering-again zucchini, I looked at it and realized I wasn’t going to like the garlicy glaze going on. But sour cream didn’t seem to be quite the way to go with it. My mom wanted to throw in the precious (delicous and dangerous to my lactardedness Goat Cheese) and I didn’t want to waste it. Finally, after rifling through the fridge for a bit, we found and compromised on cream cheese and half & half. Seriously, you have no idea how perfect of an idea it was.

We started out with 2 ingredients and ended with one of the best meals I’ve had in a loooong time. I’d been drooling over the French dishes in Julie & Julia for a couple of days now, and never suspected I would get a dinner that would be as satisfying as the ones she described. But it was seriously fun arriving at it, just as she said.

In the end we took our organic red wine that tasted a lot better on its second glass, our plates of really really rich Garlic Scalops and Zucchini over Pasta Concoction out to the end of the dock, and enjoyed a fabulous meal. Ahh to be baked in the late sun while eating a meal you made up. I hope I made you drool as much as Julie Powell does.

June Reads - Suemoe’s reviews

I’ve been traveling a lot this month, and when traveling I like to read. Who doesn’t? I hold no distinctions between ebook, trade paperback, or audiobook. I consider absorbing them in any way is still “reading.” So here is my list of what I’ve read and partially read this month - after which, I want to know what YOU’RE reading too and where I should go next.

Books I’ve finished in no particular order:

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (amazon)
OMFG I loved this book! I’ve read a lot of Austen rewrites, knockoffs, and attempts in my day … but this is truely amazing. And here’s its secret: it leaves Austen’s words intact. I would venture to say at least 50% of the writing is hers, but it feels more like 60-70%. All of the moments, all of the classic lines, all of the scenes that we fanatics love so much about P&P are there. Some are just … embellished. The premise is that about 100 years before Elizabeth’s birth, the Zombie plague breaks out. So that’s what Wickham’s militia is doing: fighting the unfortunates who roam the countrysides in herds. Oh, and Lady Catherine and Elizabeth are noted warrirors trained in The Orient and Darcy, instead of swimming in a pond and emerging all wet and rugged, rides a white steed with a smoking gun all gallant atop his horse. Even the match between Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins is made better by Charlotte’s affliction. It is ridiculous, but fantastic in its ridiculousness.

THE RED TENT (amazon)
I liked this book mostly because it took me right back to my Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies in college. It brought back the memories of first discovering that the people of the bible back then didn’t necessarily not believe in mulitple gods, they just thought El/Yahweh/God was the best and the only one that should be worshipped. Lots of people only followed one god, but still believed in many. If that makes sense. There was also a lot of strong feminism in THE RED TENT that made me love the main character and narrator, Dinah, even more. However, the downside to the book is that there is a LOT of discussion about birthing. She and her mothers were midwives, after all, and well, as a non-mother myself, I thought that was a little too much for me. Unfortunately, I’m a “read every word” type of girl instead of “skim the annoying parts” kind of reader. The relentless birthing scenes did get a bit tedious.

MY SISTER’S KEEPER (amazon - yes, I’m reading the Movie Tie In mm paperback. Blech.)
Technically I haven’t finished this yet. But since I’ll finish it tonight, or even a few hours after this is posted, I’ll just say I finished it. It’s official: I like Jodi Picoult. I knew I would, but I thought it would be a gruding like, like Dan Brown or something. No, I think she really got at a serious topic in an easily digestable way. Kind of like a woman’s John Grisham. At least, that’s how I see her.

THE DESERT SPEAR (news of when/how it’ll be published)
As this is an unpublished book, I am not allowed to comment. Nor will I. Other than to say that I devoured it last week and intend on rereading it soon. My reviews are reserved for the author.

JSA: THY KINGDOM COME (amazon)
This is … ok. It is nowhere near as good as KINGDOM COME, and I’m also reading it completely out of order. I remember reading Part 3 a long time ago in my cubicle at Random House. And when I finished this Part 2 I was so annoyed that i didn’t have the full story. That’s why I get trades in the first place!! Oh well, as for the story, the story is great. The art is nowhere near as good as Kingdom Come. It’s not even because everyone looks the same like Ross’s art usually does. It’s because there are some truely terrible shots of superman. I took a picture of one cell where he’s hideous, but don’t feel like taking the time to embed it right now. Trust me it’s bad. But whoever did Power Girl in it, did a great job throughout. Luckily she features prominently in this part. Did I mention it was a good story line, though? I also like that there are a million characters I’m unfamiliar with but there are enough guides and explanations at the beginning and throughout that it wasn’t a problem at all.

THE DARK TOWER: TREACHERY (amazon)
LOVED IT. Not much more to say. The story of the Dark Tower and the people in search of it is sufficiently confusing enough for me to be unable to share any of it with you. But this graphic novel is a good background to The Gunslinger that I liked and appreciated. However, as usual with anything associated with The Dark Tower, I’m left with far more questions than answers. I bought myself a used copy of The Gunslinger so I could go back and read the whole thing from the beginning. But I have so much more New stuff to read that I don’t think I’ll plough through the whole series this summer.

Books I started but haven’t finished:

A WOLF AT THE TABLE (amazon)
I like the book. It is impeccably written. I heard someone say Augusten Burroughs isn’t a good writer but his memoirs are so compelling you can’t put them down … I disagree. I think he is a fantastic writer. It is the subject matter and the course I am expecting it to take that makes me put it down. This is such a serious book, with such an unchangeably sociopathic father, that I can’t stomach living this poor kid’s life for too long. I don’t see justice being handed to this father in any way, so I’m not eager to reach the disappointment I’m sure to feel upon reaching the end. However, I’ve been assured there is closure of some sort that is kind of satisfying, so I’ll finish it very soon. I don’t have much more to go.

THE SIRENS OF TITAN (amazon)
My duties to interviews and to other books I was reading before this took precidence and I had to stop reading Sirens. It is a very Vonnegut book. It reminds me more of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND than SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, but it has the same flippant acceptance of the weird that I have now come to associate with Vonnegut. I enjoyed what I read—it just didn’t grab me and strap me down to my chair the way I expected it to. However, I’m thinking that once I finish it, it will stay with me for a very long time. Kind of the way SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE did.

4,000 QUESTIONS FOR GETTING TO KNOW ANYONE AND EVERYONE (amazon)
I carry this book with me wherever I go. It is permenently stuck in the back of my blue goiter (my teal blue canvas purse that is basically attached to my hip and comes with me everywhere). It is fun and funny to ask people questions from the book. When the questions are taken seriously, the answers usually surprise their audience. When not taken seriously, the answers are usually hilarious. Thus it’s a win win situation and the best ice breaker I’ve ever found. Not to mention a great flirting tool and/or excuse to ask the penetrating questions I’m usually too shy to ask early on in a relationship.

Next Up:

MIDDLESEX (amazon) - been on my TBR for a long time
REBECCA (amazon) - recommended by my sister in law
ATLAS SHRUGGED (amazon) - audiobook lent by my brother. Probably the only way I’ll be able to slug through Ayn Rand.
THE RED WOLF CONSPIRACY (amazon) - also been on my TBR forever. Can’t wait to read it, but things keep popping up. Sigh.
THE GUNSLINGER (amazon) - my reasoning was previously mentioned. WTF is going on in this series??
THE GUERNSEY LITERARY & POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY (amazon) - I’ve heard a lot of good things about it and want to check it out. I almost bought it during my 5 hour layover in NY, but I bought MY SISTER’S KEEPER instead since I wanted to read that before I saw the movie.

Ok, that’s my month in review.

WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Anything I need to add to my list?
Anything I need to kick off my July TBR list?