Weekend Cooking: FOODTRIENTS--Age-Defying Recipes for a Sustainable Life by Grace O

My first thought on seeing this cover was: why is there a woman drinking water from a leaf? Are these recipes for our dystopian future where there's no running water? Because I don't live in a place with that many trees.

Turns out they ARE for our dystopian future. It's the first post-apocalyptic cookbook. Kidding! Or am I? Guess you'll just have to read the book to find out. Or read the other reviews where no one else mentions it.

Anywhosie, FoodTrients is a cookbook that claims to provide recipes that "promote longevity, prevent the diseases of aging, and increase energy and vitality." Basically, if we were living in The Hunger Games, this is the kind of food the people in the Capitol would be eating. And naturally many of the ingredients are exotic or unusual, because let's face it, if the book told you the ingredients in Doritos were preserving your skin, there wouldn't be much reason to buy the book. Or much of anything besides Doritos.

What are some these ingredients? I'm happy you asked. There's a table of them in the back of the book that's honestly the best part of this entire cookbook. But Grace O highlights some more unfamiliar (to me, anyway) foods: bitter melon, moringa, hemp milk, soursop, and chia seeds. I have never heard of most of these ingredients or seen them in my grocery store. I'm just happy when they have kale.

Honestly, this cookbook falls into a category I like to call "food porn." The pictures are nice to look at, but the chances that I'm ever going to make any of these recipes is pretty minimal. Not only do you have the unfamiliar ingredients with no suggestions as to substitutions (though I usually just Google that myself, it's nice when a cookbook author acknowledges not every food in the world is readily available to every person in America), there's also not much info on how to pick them out, clean them, handle them, etc.

Just as the instructions are sparse, so is the science. I'm not sure I trust any of Grace O's claims as to the benefits of these ingredients or meals--she offers nothing in the way of supporting evidence or citation, and the lack of specificity makes the whole thing feel more like wishful thinking or guestimating. Does Grace O have a degree in any health sciences-related field? It's not mentioned in her bio that she does. She has cooked for royalty, though (see what I mean? Capitol food). I'm not entirely sure where she's getting her information about the healthfulness of these ingredients or exactly how much one has to eat of them to make an appreciable impact. Yeah, red wine's healthy (note: red wine is not listed as one of the "FoodTrients"), but only in certain quantities.

I will say the best part of the book was the "Starter" section. Actually, this was the only section where there were recipes I wanted to try. I made the Quinoa Tabbouleh on Pita:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 tbs kosher salt dissolved in 1 cup water
  
• 2 cups finely chopped parsley
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
• 3 tbs chopped scallions
• 4 tbs olive oil
  
• 2 tbs lemon juice
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• pinch of sumac
• 3 whole-wheat pitas
  

Directions

• Combine the quinoa and water in saucepan and cook, covered, at medium-high heat for 20 minutes [I followed the package directions]. Allow to cool.
• Toss quinoa with parsley, tomatoes, scallions, 3 tbs olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and sumac [I didn't have any sumac so I used some herbs de Provence].
• To make pita rounds, heat oven to 400 degs Fahrenheit, brush with olive oil, and bake for 10 minutes in foil.

I'd never cooked with quinoa before, so this was a bit of an adventure (one thing I learned: buy the pre-rinsed quinoa next time). The recipe itself was okay. I liked how the quinoa was a little crunchy, but the lemon juice was overwhelming. You definitely need something in there to give it flavor, though, or it would be horribly bland. For the most part I thought it was a lot of work for a snack, but if you have some quinoa leftover from another meal this would be a good way to use it up. The recipe is VERY basic, and I noticed that's pretty typical of the dishes in FoodTrients (whole wheat garlic noodles, for example). As one might expect, the recipes focus on ingredients and for the most part have simple cooking techniques.

Overall, however, not many of the recipes in this book sparked a desire in me to make them. Some of the mains looked downright unappetizing, and there were a lot of dishes that I personally wouldn't be able to eat because of my own health issues. I also find the idea of spending the time, money, and energy to import ingredients from far-flung continents for the sole purpose of making me healthier very death-of-the-Roman-Empire, but that's probably just me. If you're interested in working with ingredients such as the ones I mentioned, however, then you'll probably want to check this book out.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours and the publisher for sending me this cookbook to review!

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Backstory Boycott

In the past week, I read two romances that really frustrated me: About That Night by Julie James and The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne. Both of the these books have received very good reviews from others, and if you want to read positive things about them, I suggest you go to those sites. I, on the other hand, had some major issues with the storytelling in both of these novels, which failed because of issues with the characters' backstory.



Kyle Rhodes shut down twitter after his girlfriend broke up with him via a photo tweet of her making out with another guy (harsh), and as a result spent several months in prison. Once he gets out, he runs into US prosecuting attorney Rylann, whom he asked out on a date in college. They're attracted to one another, blah blah blahhhhhhggg.

Julie James always has problems with the beginnings of her novels, even in Just the Sexiest Man Alive (review here), which I adored. But About That Night is probably the worst of all her beginnings so far. There is a TON and TON and TON of backstory that is delivered in the most unimaginative way possible (i.e., exposition and infodump). Even if I wasn't already familiar with most of it from reading A Lot Like Love (review here), I would still want to skim the 80+ pages where we get to see the episodic and brief moment when Rylann and Kyle meet in college; Rylann breaking up with her boyfriend and moving to Chicago, reflecting on life, etc.; Kyle under house arrest, reflecting on how he got into prison, getting out of prison, thinking about life, etc.; AND THEN FINALLY the story starts with Kyle reluctantly testifying about something he witnessed in prison. Except that lasts for about fifty pages and there's still more than half of the book left to goooooooo.

Basically About That Night has no plot whatsoever. The book was so caught up in telling me a backstory that it forgot to deliver an ACTUAL STORY. By the time Rylann and Kyle had gotten together, I'd lost total interest in this not-a-story. Not mention Kyle is the most unbelievable hero I have run across in a loooooong time.



Joanna Bourne is another writer whom I'm generally a big fan of. She has a great, unique style of writing, backs up her novels with solid historical research, sets many of her books in France, and wrote one of my very rare 5-star reads, My Lord and Spymaster (review here).

The Black Hawk started off with a bang. In my head I was thinking, "At last, a story I can finally sink my teeth into!" In the opening scenes a French spy named Justine is stabbed on the streets of London and seeks help from Adrian Hawkhurst, an English spy we met in The Forbidden Rose (review here). Hawker was the best part of The Forbidden Rose for me, so I was thrilled to see he was getting his own book. It turns out he and Justine have been in love for years, but are always spying on opposite sides of a conflict. Now Hawker has to find out who tried to kill Justine and convince her that they can finally be together.

Hey look, it's a plot! Yay for plots! And it's a different plot from the one Bourne used her last two novels, so double yay! I was settling in for an awesome read... and then the flashbacks started. Not my personal flashbacks, mind (that would be bad enough), but flashbacks of everything Adrian and Justine had ever done in their entire lives.

Perhaps it wasn't everything they'd ever done, but it certainly felt like it. In a 304 page book, 184 pages consist of flashbacks. And in case you're under the delusion I needed to know any of the stuff in these gratuitous flashbacks, let me assure you that I did not. The first flashback, which is sixty effing pages long, basically recounts info I'm already familiar with from The Forbidden Rose. Getting people up to speed is fine; boring people to death with endless backstory that has no purpose and zip to do with the plot is NOT.

And because there was so much time spent on the backstory, just as in About That Night there was no development of the characters and their relationship in THE ACTUAL STORY. Who stabbed Justine becomes obvious as soon as the person shows up on the page, and after that the story becomes très boring. I'm very happy these characters have a long history, but JK Rowling had a lot of backstory she needed to fill her readers in on, too, and she didn't do it by taking her readers out of the story with flashbacks every twenty pages. For which we thank her.

It's common knowledge that I have major issues with prologues, and now I have major issues with flashback scenes, too, thanks to these two books. Aren't flashbacks really just a prologue put into the middle of the book instead of the beginning, anyway?



After reading The Black Hawk and About That Night, I came to a depressing conclusion: as much as Fifty Shades of Grey (review here) made me roll eyes and want to throw myself out a window, it was actually better than either of these two novels (from the perspective of storytelling; neither Black Hawk nor About That Night left a terrible taste in my mouth like I'd just licked garbage, so that's a point in their favor). At least in Fifty Shades there was a plot--one blatantly stolen from Stephenie Meyer, but still, a plot--the characters, for what they were, were believable, and there was some chemistry between them; and EL James didn't bore me to death with backstory delivered in lame-o infodumps and flashbacks. She just told the freaking story and let the characters' history emerge as she made it up it went on. So yes, if I was going to compare these three books (and clearly I am) I would say if this is an example of what James is going up against, I am no longer surprised she's selling so many books. There's a lot to be said for not having one's patience tried.

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Readathon Wrap-Up Post

It's time wrap-up the Readathon that was. Did I manage to read for 24 hours? No. Do I ever? No.

What I read:

• 3 short stories on audiobook, "The Moabite Cipher" by R. Austin Freeman; "A Scandal in Bohemia" by SIR Arthur Conan Doyle; and "The Eye of Apollo" by GK Chesterton.
• I finished The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne, yay!

End of event meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Probably the one where I woke up. :P
   
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? That I personally read this time around? No.
   
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Actually, yes. Maybe have a mid-event meme? I admit I was looking for this. Also, the way winners were announced seemed a little haphazard to me. And I know this is probably just a personal quirk, but animated gifs at the beginning of posts make my eyes bleed. Sorry--one is okay, but being confronted with a whole page of them is just too much.
   
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? The mini-challenges seemed to go pretty smoothly.
   
5. How many books did you read? 1, and 3 short stories.
   
6. What were the names of the books you read? See above.
   
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Probably "A Scandal in Bohemia".
   
8. Which did you enjoy least? The Black Hawk
   
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? I wasn't a cheerleader.
   
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I'll participate next time if at all possible.
    

How did your Readathon go?

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Readathon Mid-Event Update

We're halfway through the Dewey's 24-hour Readathon! And by "we," I mean "you," because I spent most of the day working. But accomplishments! I haz them:

• I listened to two short stories on audiobook, "A Scandal in Bohemia," which was pretty decent for a Holmes mystery; and "The Moabite Cipher" by R. Austin Freeman. That was a little boring.
• I finished a few challenges, including the eBook survey, book appetite, turn to a page (romance novels are great fodder for this), and book staging. I staged The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne (pic above). The story is about two spies in 19th-century France, so I have my French kitty postcard; and one of the spies is nicknamed Owl, so there's an owl drawing and fuzzy owl ornament. Knives also feature prominently in the story, and in one scene the spies are at a masqued ball and one them wears a Venetian moretta mask, which I just happen to have.

I'm going to enjoy the great weather for a bit by reading outside now. How has your Readathon been going so far?

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Readathon Start Post!

Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon is once again upon us. What is the Readathon, you ask? Well, it's kind of like the Superbowl for bibliophiles. Basically we all try to read until our eyes bleed, blog about it, cheer one another along, and spend a lot of time thinking about snacks. I am dead cert (sorry, been reading a little too much PG Wodehouse) that you can still sign up if you want to join in, so do it! It's fun.

Sadly, I have to work during the day, but I will try to get in as much reading as possible. Here are my *very* loose plans:

• Try to wake up at 6 a.m. Obviously I didn't accomplish this.
• Finish The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne.
• I was thinking of starting on A Discovery of Witches next, which I won from The Picky Girl. Yay! We'll see what mood I'm in.
• Plug away at Great Expectations.
• Listen to an audiobook or two. I have no idea which one--I have a bunch of short stories to listen to, plus some longer novels, all from Librivox.
• Watch The Philadelphia Story for #fauxhitchfest.
  

Those are my plans! In reality I'll be lucky to finish Black Hawk and will probably spend all my time doing mini-challenges, but that's the way things roll.

What are your Readathon plans?

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Manga Review: BRIDE OF THE WATER GOD by Mi-Kyung Yun, vols. 1-7

Soah is a young woman whose destiny is to be the bride of water god, Habaek. But when she finally travels to the land of the gods on her wedding day, she discovers that Habaek is a grumpy little boy who doesn't expect her to fulfill her wifely duties. What she doesn't know--even though someone mentions it in every single freaking volume--is that Habaek is cursed to be a boy during the day and turns into a man at night. A handsome man, no less, who tells Soah his name is Mui and whom Soah really likes. Now she's torn between her husband and... her husband. If only we all had such problems.


Habaek as a kid in day mode.

I first heard about Bride of the Water God on Stella Matutina, and wanted to read it because it's pretty clearly based on the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast: Soah's father sells her to the town as a sacrifice, and she winds up going to a magical castle filled with quirky characters and a mysterious hubby who's not what he appears. Habaek may not be a monster looks-wise, but personality-wise the kid's a terror.


Habaek and his friends life among the stars.

The first few volumes of Bride of the Water God are really funny and entertaining. But they get harder and harder to follow as the series goes on. The stories are told in a very non-linear way, with multiple flashbacks and viewpoints. I approve of non-linear storytelling, but there's nothing to differentiate when you're reading a flashback scene, so that made it extremely confusing. Plus, I started to get very frustrated with the characters, particularly Habaek. It seems as though in every volume, Nakbin, Habeak's evil bitch of a first wife, comes back from the dead; except she's never the real Nakbin, even though Habaek thinks she is. I don't know if all of these impersonations are by the same person or not, but it doesn't really make a difference. The important point is it happens at the cost of further character development and moving the story forward.

As for the art, it's gorgeous--very ornate and detailed. One of my favorite parts of reading this series is Habaek's palace, because the architecture is fantastic and you feel like you can just walk right into it. That being said, there are times when the art is TOO ornate and it's hard to figure out what the heck you are looking at. Even if the story didn't have its own problems, the manga wouldn't flow well due to the occasionally incomprehensible art. Oh, and the characters speak with a lot of dots and exclamation marks (!). They gave me a headache.


Habaek in night mode with Soah.

Technically, Bride of the Water God is a manwha, which is the Korean version of manga. Maybe my ignorance of the Korean style of art contributed to my confusion and frustration with this series, but it does require some patience. Either way, I think it's worth checking out for the art alone, or if you enjoy beauty and the beast-type stories. And who knows, maybe everything starts to make sense at some point.

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Tempted by the Words of Another

Do you cheat on the books you're reading?

You know what I mean, but just to make SURE you know what I know that you know what I mean, let me explain: there are two types of readers. One reads a single book at a time, finishes it, then moves on to the next one. The other type reads multiple books at the same time and is constantly switching them out.

Me, I'm the former. I read one book at a time. And if I decide to put that book down in favor of another book, well... it's pretty much over.

Basically, books are like mini-marriages. If I'm in, I am fully committed to reading this sucker and making the relationship work. But sometimes you just have to break it off for you own sanity. Also, if I'm reading two books at once, it's hard not to compare one to the other and be impatient with the not-as-good one, which is why I try to avoid the situation altogether. This happens to me even when I'm listening to audiobooks and reading another book. Sometimes I'm like, "Why aren't you that other book??"

For example, I'm trying to read two (well, three, but I don't usually count audiobooks) novels at the same right now, and it's not going well at all. I'm reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; and while it's good and even really funny, whenever I pick the book up I feel like I'm taking my medicine. Also, finishing it is taking FOREVER. But I don't want to stop reading GE because 1. it is really good; and 2. I want to write a review about it. So I decided to just read a little every day and also read a romance novel at night. But whenever I pick up the romance novel I'm just like, "Uhg, what," and can't concentrate on it because I don't feel fully committed to reading it. Clearly one of these books has got to go. But which one?



What about you--do you view books like a marriage or like an open relationship?

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