My Gateway Books - Part One

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Life -  

 

 Yesterday, my sister in law asked me for some suggestions for books. This is an awesome thing, because I've never thought of her as a reader. However, when asked what kind of book, she was unclear. That makes it hard, because there are so many different genres and so many great books in each and all very different.

On the plus side, she's also kind of a blank slate. I know she's read books and recently read all six of the books my wife and I have released, which are three radically divergent genres, so that made up my mind for me:

I would write my definitive list of Gateway Books. This is my list of the first book I would want a neophyte to read in each of the genres I love. (Or the first few... I'm not good at being completely definitive...)

 In most cases, these might not be the best book of it's kind in the genre, or completely representative of it. But I think they're books that, when read, would give the reader a good idea of what the genre is about and whether they want to move on to more like it. I also chose ones that were relatively easy reads to the modern reader. As much as I adore Ray Bradbury, HP Lovecraft, Poe and the like, a modern reader has a hard time truly enjoying the reading process with books like that.

• Middle Grade Fantasy
• Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.
•  Easy to read, incorporating elements of mythology and fantasy, this will work.
• Additional reading: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett

• Middle Grade Adventure
• Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
• Clever little noir fantasy adventure, this book incorporates detective, fantasy, humor and action and it a hell of a lot of fun to read. (Technically quite a fantasy novel, but I felt it was more of an adventure.)

• Middle Grade Mystery/Horror
• The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
• My favorite Gothic horror novel growing up, this book is a spooky little tale of a young boy trying to defeat a house ticking its way to doomsday. 

• Non Fiction
• In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
• This is a tricky category for me. I love reading non-fiction but it took a really long time to get into it and I have a hard time finding ones I like. This humorous travel book by the hilarious Bill Bryson is a fantastic read and will make you want to travel. And read more.

• Light Fantasy
• The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• This was the first "Adult" book I read as a child and I fell in love. Watt-Evans is still one of my top two favorite authors and this novel, about a simple soldier and his magic sword is the perfect intro to the genre. Different worlds, strange spells and ideas, but easy to read and very light-hearted.
• Further Reading - Anything by Terry Pratchett. I wouldn't recommend starting with the first book however. The humor is a little rougher, and more British. Harder to get into right away. Maybe start with Guards, Guards!

• Epic Fantasy
• Touched By The Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans
• I know, repeat author, but Epic Fantasy, stuff like Lord Of The Rings, A Song Of Ice And Fire (The Game Of Thrones) The Wheel Of Time Series, can be VERY hard to get into. They're Epic, after all. This single novel by Watt-Evans has a lot of the elements in one great novel.
• Further Reading - The Runelords Books by David Farland are a good place to start with a larger series. 

• Light Science Fiction
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Non-stop hilarious and full of the bizarre worlds that Sci-Fi is made of, I think this should be one of the first ten books every person alive reads.
• Further Reading - Possibly The Hunger Games series. It's quite readable. Might even be a better choice for a first foray into Science Fiction. Dystopian worlds, high tech, pining for boys....

• Hard Science Fiction
• Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
• Honestly, I wouldn't recommend starting with Hard Sci-Fi until you have a lot of other sci fi and fantasy under your belt. A lot of it can be indecipherable at first glance or maddening even. But if you try this and like it, there's a LOT of great stuff out there.

• Horror - Supernatural
• The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
• An odd choice, perhaps but The Strain features a great adventure and a hardcore take on vampires that's very accessible to newbies. 
• After that, some Stephen King maybe or if his slow burn supernatural stuff is a little hard, hit up Jonathan Maberry for one of his action-y zombie novels.

• Horror - Non-Supernatural
• Trapped by Jack Kilborn
• My 13 year old nephew introduced this to me. It's gory and crazy and very over the top. Not for the faint of hearted but features everything this kind of book needs. A horror where people are the horrors.
• Further Reading - Psycho by Robert Bloch. The original.

 

Next time: Mystery and other fiction wonders!

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Recipe Review - Joe's Special: Beef And Spinach San Franciscan Style

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Cookin' With Kris

JOE'S SPECIAL: BEEF AND SPINACH SAN FRANCISCAN STYLE
The Uncommon Cook Book, pg95
by Ruth Mellinkoff, 1968

Recipe:

• 1lb lean ground beef
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 package frozen chopped spinach, cooked and drained
• 1/4lb fresh mushrooms, finely sliced
• salt, pepper & garlic salt
• 4 or 5 tablespoons butter
• 6 beaten eggs 

Saute sliced mushrooms and onions in the butter until lightly browned, then add beef and cook until it has browned. Stir in the spinach and seasonings to taste. Pour in the eggs and stir until lightly set. Turn over once with spatula and cook a minute or so longer. Serve very hot with sour dough bread and butter.

Modifications:

 I removed the mushrooms and onions from the pan prior to browning the beef so that I could drain it after cooking, then added them back in, along with a bit of butter to compensate. We added a sprinkle of grated Parmesan on the top of the finished recipe. 

Rating (Out of 5)

Kris - 2.5

Linz - 2

Review: Both of us had actually rated this recipe higher upon our initial tastes. It has a nice flavor and the browned eggs made a nice strata for everything. But as the meal progressed, we realized exactly how greasy it was, despite draining the beef fat. It might in part be due to us cutting ground beef from our diets - we used to have Hamburger Helper style meals regularly, but haven't for months, but the meal felt heavy and greasy. The sheer number of eggs and meat makes it a fairly unhealthy feeling meal as well. We will be unlikely to try this one again. Interestingly, the leftovers actually cooked up with a better feel and taste than the original meal. 

Notes & Tips: I don't know how I ever cooked with frozen spinach before I snagged my salad spinner. It eliminates that incredibly annoying process of draining the stuff with a couple of quick spins.

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

New...Old Recipes Coming Soon!

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Life -  

 About a month ago, I found a few old cookbooks at Goodwill to go with my beloved Mexican cookbook. I have become a total sucker for cookbooks from the fifties and sixties. Not just their recipes but the way they did things and the little comments and intros are fantastic.But above all else, the recipes themselves take center stage. Food back then was made from scratch. None of these recipes in my other books where the bulk of the soup or the sauce is a can of super-salty, over processed Campbell's Soup. The cookbooks with a focus on crockpot cooking have been especially notorious for that and as we get healthier, I really want to get away from it in my cooking.

Of course, on the flip side is the prevalence of daring, odd or hard to find ingredients that were somewhat commonplace back then. Some I'll never find out here, some I could find, but would end up paying too much, and some of them, like Cracked Pig's Feet.... well.... I'll never cook that.

So we've decided in addition to working through our regular books and reviewing them here, we'll pick a recipe from one of our four "Old" cookbooks every once in a while. (And as I come across them, I'll post the Uncookable Recipes here) To start out with a bang we have chosen one from all four to make this coming week.

I'll do a proper focus on each of these books later but in short...The cookbooks we currently have are:

THE UNCOMMON COOK BOOK by Ruth Mellinkoff [1968]
I'm excited about this book. Not only are they simple, unique recipes with fantastic titles (Like Divine Chicken Divan) but she makes note about how well each freezes and whether you can make it ahead.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Joe's Special: Beef And Spinach San Francisco Style

THE COMPLETE BOOK OF MEXICAN COOKING by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz [1967]
I've had this book for almost a year and though we've only made a few recipes out of it so far, all of them have been fantastic and the Enchilada's are the best we've had since we moved to Maine.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Otro Pollo Verde (Another Green Chicken)

THE ART OF SOUTH AMERICAN COOKERY by Myra Waldo [1961]
I haven't investigated this book much yet, but it looks like a nice compliment to the Mexican one.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Canja (Chicken And Rice Cream)

OLD WARSAW COOK BOOK by Rysia (That's right, just Rysia) [1958]
This is subtitled "Hundreds of Polish Specialties with many additions from Cuisines the World Over"  It doesn't lie. There are fifteen recipes just for cold soups alone and an entire chapter on mushroom dishes. Most have 5-7 ingredients and a brief paragraph of prep. Simple but very intriguing.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Chicken With Tomatoes

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Family Album - It's Alive!

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Family Album

My lovely bride and my slightly less lovely best friend Rob, at our annual Brain Eaters party, back in 2009. Rob always has the best costumes, even when he does something as simple as this. Gotta love it.
 

 

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Recipe Review - Parmesan Pork Roast

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Cookin’ With Kris

Photo from Taste Of Home of the recipe

 PARMESAN PORK ROAST

The Taste Of Home Cookbook

Pg. 129

Recipe:

1 boneless whole pork loin roast (4lb)

2/3c grated parmesan cheese

1/2c honey

3t soy sauce

2T dried basil

1/2t salt

2T minced garlic

2T cornstarch

1/4c cold water

1.Cut roast in half, transfer to 3qt slow cooker. Combine cheese, honey, soy sauce, basil, garlic, oil and salt; pour over pork. Cover and cook on low until pork reaches 160 or 5 ½ - 6 hours.

2.Remove meat to platter, cover with foil to keep warm. Skim fat. Transfer juices to small saucepan. Stir together cornstarch and water until smooth, combine with juices. Heat to boiling – cook and stir until thickened. Slice roast, serve with gravy

Modifications : I didn’t have any dried basil, so I used 2T of italian seasoning, which was essentially just basil anyway. We served ours with mashed potatoes.

Rating (out of 5)

Kris – 4

Linz – 4 ½

Review: An easy to make roast with an interesting mix of flavors. The soy sauce and honey really compliment each other, while bringing out the tanginess of the parmesan. The sauce cooks down to a rich, dark red with pieces of smoky parmesan and basil. I think the sauce could have been improved by using freshly dried basil, rather than the rather old italian seasoning I had to substitute. I should have used my remote thermometer that Linz gave me for Christmas, as the five hour cooking time left the meat quite flavorful but dry. We ended up roughly shredding it and eating it atop mashed potatoes with the sauce as gravy. We’ll try this one again.

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Family Album - Maine Oddities

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Family Album - TREBOR MANSION

 We spotted this building while we were out cruising around for Maine Maple Sunday last year. It looked like it had once (And possibly still is) an inn.... The building was BEAUTIFUL and quirky but man, it was a mess. Not exactly the type of place I would cruise up to for a quiet weekend with my wife.

 Maybe a quiet weekend with my knife.
 

But seriously, We were there in the off season, and the place looked awesome. It's apparently still open and run by some truly unique owners. They don't charge much, have a bohemian nutball personality that I find hilarious and in reality, is probably just the place my wife and I would choose. This is actually one of their "Rates" posted on their website - Almost Broke and Desperate: We have allowed hikers to camp on the porch. If you are reading this on a computer, you probably don't qualify. You should be reasonably presentable and willing to work. It will probably be under $25 a night, but we'll talk.

I love it.

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Our New Addition

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Life -  

 Back in October of 2011, we bought a little 8x8 shed from Home Depot for our front yard. They came out and installed it and I spent a few days installing insulation, cheap walls and painting it, transforming it into my Fortress Of Smallitude. (The post on that is HERE)

It wasn't the best place in the world, but it was cozy and worked for an afternoon retreat - sculpting, artwork, etc. Eventually, as Deeply Dapper took over our household, The FOS was transformed into a wood prep and painting shack. It's now used more than ever, but every inch of it is covered in paint and sawdust and skull dust in every crack and crevice.

The entire process of getting the shed was awesome though. Home Depot was great to work with and Sheds USA, the company that installed them was professional and fast. SO when we realized Lindsay's room in the house, formerly her office/writing room was going to have to be converted to an office/stockroom for Deeply Dapper, we decided she needed a little retreat and headed back to the Depot.

We went a bit bigger this time, opting for an 8x12 one with six foot high walls. While the 8x8 was fine for my art room, Linz has a nice day bed she wanted to include and the 4 foot walls on the FOS made the place a little claustrophobic. The installation was just as slick as before. One guy, a couple of hours and we had our new room - The Writing Cottage!

The sheds come unlined, unpainted, essentially a place for tools or a mower, but with a little bit of effort and a couple of hundred bucks, you can make a pretty comfy room. For this one, we decided to leave the upper rafters uncovered and painted them a nice creamy white. We'd initially planned to run a set or two of net lights along the rafters, but later decided it was too bright and looked bad. For the FOS, we lined the walls in thick, heavy plywood, which was pretty simple and reasonably priced - $18 a panel. While at Home Depot, we noticed a thinner, laminated board that I think is used for underflooring when laying carpet, but I'm not actually sure. It was a lot cheaper than the plywood - $4 less a panel, and quite smooth, so we went with it instead. We also picked up an additional window to install in the side of the shed to let in some light and airflow.

The paneling, while lightweight and looking much better than the plywood, ended up being harder to install. It was quite flexible, so instead of just slapping it up and screwing it to studs, I had to line up the edges with the studs or create a system of supports behind the edges to prevent gapping. It was also harder to cut than the plywood due to its tendency to sag while cutting it. All said though, I still liked it better for the Cottage. It ended up looking nice and smooth. The window went in pretty well too.

I didn't spend as much time with it as I could have - a few of the walls were a bit gappy and not everything lined up perfectly, but that was okay - we aren't really planning to use it for more than a year or so. If this was going to be her writing retreat for years and years, I would have done it up right. As it was, it turned out pretty great. I used the excess panels we bought to add a second layer of flooring, covering the small gaps in the original floor that could have let in cold air or insects.

Then it was Linz's turn. She painted nearly the entire thing by herself, using a pink-beige-orange color called Butternut. Which pretty much looks exactly like a butternut squash. It's interesting. At first I was afraid it would be too orange or pink, but it looks very different at times of the day and now that furniture is out there, it looks quite nice.

After the initial paint job, we hit Home Depot again to buy some cheap trim. There were just enough little goofy jagged lines that we figured that would help tie the room together. Oh yeah, we also needed a rug.

Generally speaking, trim and edging is sold by the foot at hardware stores, which can get quite expensive, quite fast but if you look, there's usually some pretty dirt cheap options that sell by the piece instead. They're usually a composite thing, made to line cheap apartments and mobile homes. (Our entire trailer is trimmed in the stuff.) We bought a bunch and planned to paint them the blue Linz had picked out for the accent color. In the end, it took twice as much time and paint as it should have - the cheap trim is so slick that the paint just doesn't stick. It's meant to be hung without adding color, which is what we'll do next time.

While there, we also noticed some wall panels that were even cheaper than the ones we bought, down on the bottom by the trim. They're all the fake "Board" lined panels that you see in 70's houses, but it would have saved us $70. Oh well.

At any rate, the Cottage looks pretty great now. We've built a couple of shelves that need to have the painting finished and I haven't made her curtains yet, but aside from that, it's pretty cozy. I'll post more pictures later.

Now it's time for her to write some books!

The ROUS FAMILY -