Category Archives: Uncategorized

Turmeric-Black Pepper Chicken with Asparagus, by Ali Slagle

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This is a super – quick flavorful dish that makes an easy delicious one pot meal.

3 tbsp honey
3/4  tsp black pepper
kosher salt
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp ground tumeric
1 pound(ish) skinless chicken thighs (I’ve also made with boneless skinless breasts and it is just as good)
1 tbsp coconut or canola oil
1.5 bunches of asparagus trimmed and sliced in 1 inch slices at an angle
1 tsp soy

In a small bowl stir together 1/4 cup water with the honey, pepper, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, turmeric, and 1tsp salt.  Add the chicken and toss until all pieces are well coated.

In a deep 10 inch non-stick skillet heat the oil over medium-high.  Add chicken and cook until golden brown 2-30 minutes per side.  Add the asparagus and stir to combine 1-2 minutes, salt to taste.

Add honey mixture and cook until sauce has thickened, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add soy sauce.  Serve over rice.

A Fatal Grace, by Louise Penny

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Proceeding with my binge read of the Inspector Gamache mysteries, this novel (#2) returns us to Three Pines for the unusual murder of CC de Poitier. Life coach, designer, and self-proclaimed spiritual guru, CC professes an unusual philosophy Li Bien– which involves hiding all emotions beneath an air of calm and white. She even calls her enterprise “Be Calm.”

In fact CC is anything but calm, and is constantly lashing out at everyone around her including most virulent verbal attacks to her most intimate – her husband, daughter, and lover. The story abounds with potential suspects – no one likes CC. What is surprising is not the fact she was murdered but the elaborate way it was done, involving an induced hot flash, wiper fluid on ice, and an electrified chair.

As with the other Gamache novels, we are not bombarded with gory details, but rather enticed into the narrative through the quirky characters Penny develops. An enjoyable read as always.

I give Fatal Grace 3👍 out of 5👍.

The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo

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The Great Gadsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This entry is a double header because The Chosen and the Beautiful is a rewrite of The Great Gadsby from the perspective of Jordan.

It has probably been 30 years since I last read Gadsby so I felt compelled to re-read it before starting Chosen. The rereading was helpful to fully appreciate Vo’s project of retelling the story from a female centric sex-positive and culturally diverse perspective. In retrospect I think I might have been better off reading Gadsby after Chosen so I could experience it fresh and not solely through the lens of the original.

Rereading Gadsby made me appreciate anew the original novel, and Fitzgerald’s beautiful prose. While The Chosen re-figured this foundational narrative of class and exclusion to cast a wider net of difference, it seemed somehow a weak gesture in comparison to the original.

Others I’ve spoken who didn’t try to read the Chosen relationally, seemed to enjoy it as an independent narrative. This reinforced for me the feeling that I might have done better rereading Gadsby after rather than before.

Accordingly I give The Chosen and the Beautiful 3.5👍 out of 5👍.

The Great Gadsby tests out of my rating scale.

Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan

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Jennifer Egan lives in Brooklyn, and one of the great pleasures of this book is the life she brings to its historic structures- the Navy Yard, the Coney Island Parachute Drop, the Red Hook Waterfront, the old houses of Clinton Hill.

This is all just the backdrop however for the inspiring story of Anna Kerrigan, a single woman in Brooklyn in the 1930’s who has the courage to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father, and also pursue her dangerous dream of becoming a deep sea diver. Anna develops an informal network of women friends who help her overcome her challenges. Nell lends her a bike so she can run out during her lunch hour to watch the divers practice and get back to work on time. Rose invites her to stay with her family so she live closer to the Navy Yard and not tarnish her reputation by living alone. Her Aunt Brianna accompanies her across the country and helps her reinvent her life and care for her child.

Egan deeply researched the stories of Navy Yard workers and this shows in the specificity of the story- the weight of the diving suit, the different classes of married and unmarried working women, how families cared for special needs children. These details made this novel so captivating, and also inspiring.

I give Manhattan Beach 5👍 out of 5👍

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

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This book starts as historical fiction and slides into magical realism so gently I questioned my browser as to what was real and what was not.

Set in Victorian London, the narrator, Thaniel Steepleton, is a telegraph clerk in the British Home Office who one day receives a bomb threat from Irish separatists. Returning home the night of the threat, he discovers an intricate gold pocket watch, which Thaniel is unable to open. The watch has no note or clue as to its origin. Then mysteriously on the morning of the impending Irish bomb, the watch suddenly clicks open. Thaniel is both intrigued and terrified when the watch suddenly emits a piercing alarm, which takes Thaniel away from the path of the bomb and saves his life.

Thaniel seeks out the watchmaker, and soon finds Keita Mori, a Japanese master craftsman with a love for making intricate mechanical creatures. A mechanical octopus attaches itself to Thaniel’s leg. Mechanical birds perch on the counter.

Mori’s magic with the mechanical is surpassed however by his ability to see the future. Mori casually mentions to Thaniel at the end of their first meeting that on his next date he should watch out for the waiter dropping his tray. Thaniel is ready when the waiter’s grip slips and avoids catastrophe.

Thaniel realizes that Mori’s uses his abilities to create elaborate ploys to change the future. An assassination plot is hatched by pouring liquid in the base of a tree he frequently passes, thus weakening its root system until one day it falls on an unsuspecting victim.

Watchmaker is full of elaborate constructions and intricate secrets and puzzles. But it also has moments of great tenderness and intimacy. I found this the most pleasurable book I’ve read in a long time and give it a 5👍 out of 5!

I am already on my third book by Natasha Pulley. All books contain the same mix of historical fiction and magic. Some of the characters, like Mori, make repeat appearances in the series. They all share this same sense of adventure and intrigue which is hard to put down!

Station Eleven: A Novel, by Emily St. John Mandel

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This book could be the ideal or the worst book to read in the midst of a pandemic, depending on your anxiety level. The story takes place in a future present time, during the eruption of a “Georgia Flu” Pandemic and takes place primarily in the Great Lakes Region of the US and Canada. The Georgia Flu is more deadly than the Coronavirus – 4 hours from infection to the onset of symptoms and 1-2 days to death. In a short period of time 99% of the population dies. So either you could read it and be relieved that our Pandemic is not as serious as the Georgia Flu (which is how my book group colleagues responded) or you could read it and fear for the worst about your current situation.

The narrative starts on Day 1 of the Pandemic, with a performance of King Lear in Toronto, during which Arthur Leander (the actor playing the title role) has a heart attack and dies. Jeevan Chaudhary, an EMT and friend of Arthur’s, was sitting in the front row and rushes on stage to try to resuscitate him, but it is too late. As the EMT’s take the body away Jeevan leaves the theater and is wandering the streets of a snowy Toronto in a daze when he gets a call from a doctor friend about the Flu outbreak in his hospital. The doctor tells him to immediately pack and leave the city. Jeevan picks up on the urgency of his friend’s voice and buys 7 grocery carts of food and supplies to bring to the apartment of his handicapped brother Frank. The two ride out the beginning of the pandemic (and the death of Toronto) from his 10th floor apartment window.

The narrative leaps back and forth in time from the King Lear performance on Day 1 of the Pandemic, with occasional extra-diegetic warnings inserted such as “everyone at the bar will be dead in 2 weeks”. What seems like a random assortment of characters, we learn are in fact all loosely connected to Arthur. The story is like a fabric which comes unraveled and then is knitted back together by the end.

Among the characters from Arthur’s past are his first two wives, Miranda and Elizabeth. Miranda is an artist whose life passion is a graphic novel project about a space station named Station Eleven. The story within a story provides a sci-fi mirror to the otherworldly events on earth, and also serves as a device to connect characters. Station Eleven has rescued a group of earthlings from the planet’s natural destruction, but in their escape the station was damaged so it’s always twilight. Factions emerge among the Station Eleven inhabitants between those who want to return to Earth and those who know there is no return.

Another story within the story is the series of letters Arthur writes to his childhood friend “V”. V later sells the letters and publishes them. V never responds to Arthur’s letters so they become an autobiographical view on Arthur’s life.

The future narrative shows post-pandemic life – small towns become strongholds for rural living with collective security measures in place. The conductor of the army orchestra forms the Traveling Symphony which wanders from town to town performing music and Shakespeare. In the troupe is one of the child actors from Arthur’s King Lear performance. Another group of survivors have colonized an airport in Michigan. The group ends up at this small airport after their flights on Day 1 of the Pandemic were re-routed and grounded. Some of these passengers had been on their way to Arthur’s funeral in Toronto. A religious group following “the Prophet” travel from town to town terrorizing residents and stealing their weapons. This group also has a connection to Arthur which I will not spoil for my readers.

A delightful aspect of fiction is that in a world where 99% of humanity has succumbed to a virus, so many characters and plot lines can come together at the end. This is especially comforting from the perspective of a New Yorker stuck in a quarantine with no end in sight. The book also wraps up with a note of hope – Electricity has re-emerged in Chicago – a grid of streetlights appear on the distant horizon. Despite the devastating losses, humanity has preserved its knowledge and basic technology. Station Eleven is a beautifully written novel, and even if you must wait until after our own Pandemic to read it, it will be worth the wait. I rate this book  a 4.5 👍 out of 5👍.

Weather: A Novel, by Jenny Offill

Weather is a book written in short vignettes like a long poem in verse. That “A Novel” is part of the title seems almost a point of clarification, to assure the reader that this ephemeral narrative will meet the expectations of the genre.

A writer friend I know keeps a journal with detailed observations from her everyday life. This book reads like that journal, filled with delicious snippets of the overlooked and unexamined. The narrator works in a library and is privy to an ever-changing cast of characters who visit and work around her.

“Also in the air: a coworker who has taken to carrying X-rays around in her purse. Some kind of medical mistake. It can’t be undone, but it can be recounted.”

Interspersed with the vignettes are some very quirky jokes, not all of which I understood.

The story itself is told from the perspective of Lizzie Benson, and describes her life with her husband Ben (a philosophy PhD who makes money as a coder) and son Eli (whose New York public school drop offs each morning are an encounter with otherness). The book takes place just prior to the last presidential election, so the volatile political environment is background to the narrative. The changing Weather marked by the title is both environmental and political.

Lizzie has a very close relationship with her brother Henry, a recovering substance abuser who struggles with depression. Their relationship is endearing, including the little tricks Lizzie employs to support him and keep him alive from day to day.

In Weather, the future is uncertain; the war photographer comments on the nature of countries about to erupt in war (“hackles up”), the environmentalists say there is no where to relocate to keep your family safe in the inevitable climate catastrophe to come, Eli’s uncomfortable questions about death are diverted and unanswered. The counterpoint to this temporal anxiety seem to be the everyday acts of kindness and a present-focused living. A driver with a car service Lizzie uses is getting forced out of business by that “other company” so Lizzie starts taking his cars everywhere and wonders if she is his only client. Her mother buys socks for the homeless which she hands out with dollar bills. She takes in her brother after his marriage falls apart, and stays up late with him each night brainstorming greeting card ideas to distract him from the depression.

Just as this story resides very much in the present, the ending comes almost arbitrarily. At first I found this unsettling, but have come to understand this as consistent with Offill’s present-centered focus. Though short, the book covers a lot of ground and I would give it a 4.5 👍 out of 5👍.

Middle Eastern Pita and Vegetable Salad by Martha Rose Shuleman

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I made this salad last night and it is now my favorite. The combination of creamy yogurt, tart lemon, and crunchy vegetables and pita are my dream salad combo. I made a few modifications as noted below:

For the Salad:

-4 Persian cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise and chopped in moon shaped slices

-1 lb grape tomatoes sliced in half

-6 scallions sliced thin, white and light green sections

-1/2 cup chopped parsley

-1/4 cup chopped mint leaves

-White inside leaves of head of romaine sliced thin

-4 cups of chopped arugula

For the Dressing:

-1 clove of garlic minced

– Juice of one lemon (approx 1/4 cup)

– 1/4 cup olive oil

-1/4 cup of plain yogurt

For the Topping:

1 pita bread toasted and cut into matchstick shaped pieces.

Mix all the salad ingredients. In a separate jar or bowl mix the dressing ingredients and let sit so the garlic permeates. Toast and cut the pita then let cool. Toss the salad ingredients with about half the dressing then slowly add more to taste. I had about 1/3 cup left over. Salt and pepper to taste. Add pita and toss again before serving. Enjoy!

Mission Critical, by Mark Greaney

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Mission Critical is the eighth book in the Gray Man series. These are books fueled by pure adrenaline. This one takes it up a notch with its focus on biological weapons; just what you want to be reading during the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

If you’ve never dipped in Gray Man before, the books chronicle the blacker than black ops of the CIA. If you like spy stories set in exotic locations these books are for you.

Mission Critical is set in Scotland – a little less exotic than some of the other Gray Man books. A rogue North Korean scientist and secret agent has teamed up with her Russian counterparts to take down the western intelligence community who are all attending a conference in Edinburgh. Court Gentry, the Gray Man, accidentally finds out about this and soon becomes an integral part of the case.

If I told you any more about the plot I’d have to kill you so you’ll have to read the rest yourself! Rating this book within the Spy Thriller Subgenre, of a total of possible 5 👍 I would give this one 4 👍👍👍👍!