• 2015 book list

    Since I made the commitment to read one book a month, I have been reading much more than I used to. I’ve read thirty books since my last list, and that’s not including the ones I read out loud to the kids or the ones that I started and never got around to finishing (there are a lot of those). There’s another reason I’m reading more: I’m learning to count reading as part of my work. If I’m going to write a book, I must read, both for research and to better my own writing. So now I have an excuse for reading in the middle of the day.

    Here’s what I’ve read in 2015:

    *100 Sideways Miles, by Andrew Smith. I’m not generally a fan of Young Adult Lit, and it’s been a year since I read this book, but I remember liking this one.

    *I’ll Give You the Sun, by Jandy Nelson. Another YA fiction. Enjoyable.

    *Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. A page-turner. My husband and I literally read it at the same time (see above photo).

    *The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. I read this years ago and loved it. It seemed different this time around, harder to understand, almost. Does that even make any sense?

    *The Presence of the Actor, by Joseph Choikin. I read this book (and the other two acting books on this list) because the director of the play I was in said it was required reading for his beginning acting classes. Since I’m a beginner, I read it. (Or skimmed it, rather.)

    *An Actor Prepares, by Constantin Stanislavski. Because the director said to. The book’s concepts would’ve been easier to absorb if I had been reading the book in conjunction with actual acting classes, I suppose.

    *Yes Please! By Amy Poehler. Fairly insipid. Lots of famous-name spouting, so a person like me who can’t remember famous names to save her life (probably because she doesn’t know them in the first place) finds it rather dull.

    *The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. Another YA Fiction (what is up with me?). Well done, but nothing thrilling.

    *The Actor At Work, by Robert C. Benedetti. I probably gleaned some valuable information, though I can’t remember what.

    *Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, by Po Pronson and Ashley Merryman. I bought it and then wrote about it here. Highly recommend.

    *Things I’ve Learned From Dying: A Book About Life, by David R. Dow. The author defends inmates on death row and deals with his father who is dying from a terminal illness. Well done, raw, and thoughtful.

    *The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne. A staggering book. Tears and five stars.

    *Maus I and Maus II, by Art Spiegelman. Graphic novel memoirs about the author’s father’s experience during the Holocaust. All the Jews are drawn as mice and the Germans as cats. I cannot recommend these two books highly enough.

    *Small Wonder, by Barbara Kingsolver. Another re-read. I love her essays, particularly the personal stories.

    *Red Kayak, by Priscilla Cummings. Another YA. I finished it, so I guess it was okay.

    *The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Interesting story plot, but underdeveloped characters. Lacked credibility but still a fun read.

    *Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott. And yet another re-read. Anne cracks me up. Love her.

    *John Barleycorn, by Jack London. An autobiography about being an alcoholic while still managing to deny that he’s an alcoholic. The guy had a fascinating life, but about halfway through the book, he started to drone. (Side note: London is a great example of an unschooler.)

    *Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson. Fun, but I find her humor tiresome after awhile. My older son loved it.

    *Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. Another re-read, and, now that I’m trying to write something bigger than a blog post, quite pertinent. Reading about Anne’s writing process affirmed my own, normalizing my angst and helping me relax.

    *The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling, by Quinn Cummings. About a mother who decides to homeschool her middle school-aged daughter for one year. The book is well-written and engaging, but I got the impression Cummings was engineering and exploiting her experiences (for example, visiting an unschoolers’ conference and an ultra-conservative homeschool group) for the sake of book material, boo-hiss.

    *The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins. A non-scary page turner.

    *Motherlunge, by Kirstin Scott. Craftily written (or so they say) but I thought all the pretty words were overkill. I’m in the minority, thoughhere’s a more positive reviewso give it a try.

    *11/22/63, by Stephen King. My first King book. It didn’t give me nightmares! (And then I watched The Kennedys on Netflix streaminghighly recommend the eight episode dramadocumentaryand, when it we got to the Oswald shooting scene, I felt like I had already seen it before.)

    *On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. I enjoy his personal writing more than his fiction. After reading the book, I bought it and the Strunk book he kept going on about.

    *Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling. In the style of Yes, Please!: light entertainment in a hollow sort of way.

    *Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Revolutionized how I think about the creative process. Slightly repetitive, but, since my beliefs are so entrenched, I needed the slow pace to mull things over. Highly recommend.

    *The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. A novel about a writer and her biographer. The story sucked me in, and for several days I lived in a satisfying haze. (The biographer was always drinking hot cocoa, so I drank a lot of hot chocolate while reading.)

    *You’d Be So Pretty If…: Teaching Our Daughters to Love Their BodiesEven When We Don’t Love Our Own, by Dara Chadwick. Clunkily written (example, see title) but extremely valuable and helpful. It gave me some good tools and much-needed perspective. If you have daughters, read this.

    It’s your turn! What thrilling and transformative books have you devoured in 2015?

    PS. This blogger has great taste and fabulous book reviews. Every time she posts a write-up, I end up putting a book (or three) on hold at the library.

    PPS. 2014 Book List.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.23.13), dancing mice, and other Christmas tales, raw, and on doing the dishes.  

  • old-fashioned sour cream cake donuts

    I did it! I did it! I have finally mastered the art of the old-fashioned sour cream cake donut and I am all puffed up with pride (and donuts).

    It was no easy task, make no mistake. At one point I almost said Screw it and posted a less-than-satisfactory recipe complete with photos of scorched donuts, but I stuck it out and here we are! Like I said, so happy. 

    When I decided to take on the sour cream cake donut (my favorite), I first turned to the Internet where, weirdly enough, I discovered that all the recipes were nearly identical. I wanted variations for comparison’s sake, but no luck. So I switched to cookbooks, but those cake donut recipes either didn’t call for sour cream or I could tell at a glance that they wouldn’t be any good.

    Since there was only one much-touted recipe on the Internet, you’d think that mastering the cake donut would be fairly straightforward. But no. My mother, one of my key taste testers, said my first donuts were too yellow (from our homegrown eggs), plus, they were puny. “Cake donuts must be substantial,” she said. So I tweaked and experimented, but the donuts kept flopping. The pigs got a lot of them.

    Last week’s batch was nearly perfect: satisfactorily substantial with a white interior and excellent flavor…but, go figure, burned. I could not seem to figure out how to not to burn them. Any less time in the hot oil and the insides were raw. But then I went back to the original recipe and read that the donuts were to be fried at 325 degrees, not 350 like raised donuts. Oh. Also, when I gave Mom a half donut to sample (they were good enough that I was getting scroogey), she said they were still a bit dry. Could I cut back on the flour, perhaps? 

    Fine, sure, okay, whatever. This was getting ridiculous. But then I cut back the flour (and added vanilla) and fried the donuts at the proper temp and, Voila!, I had my donuts. And you know what? All that struggle? Totally worth it.

    Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Cake Donuts
    Adapted from various recipes around the web, like this one from Handle the Heat.

    Some tips:
    *Use anemic, store-bought eggs for a whiter dough.
    *Many of the recipes I read called for a third cup sour cream but the dough absolutely needed a full half cup.
    *I adore this glaze recipe. Raised donuts get all weepy (after about six hours, moisture from the donut seeps into the glaze and makes it watery), but cake donuts do not. The glaze holds up well over time and to freezing.
    *I think these donuts taste even better the next day.
    *The dough, either shaped into donuts or not, stores well in the fridge right up until it’s time to fry them.
    *These donuts dirty the oil pretty quickly, so I almost never save it to reuse.
    *My husband says that these still don’t taste quite as cake-y as bought donuts. I suspect it’s because I’m not using additives like cake enhancer (though I did consider buying some).
    *This recipe makes about 7 or 8 large donuts, plus 2 donut holes.

    for the dough:
    2 tablespoons butter
    ½ cup sugar
    2 egg yolks
    2 cups cake flour
    1 teaspoon salt
    ½ teaspoon nutmeg
    1½ teaspoons baking powder
    1 teaspoon vanilla, optional
    ½ cup sour cream
    canola oil, for frying
    1 recipe of glaze (recipe follows)

    Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the yolks. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream, finishing with the dry ingredients. Cover the dough (it will be sticky) with plastic and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or up to several days.

    On a well-floured surface, gently roll out the chilled dough until it’s 3/8ths to ½-inch thick. Cut donuts into desired shapes. This is a tender, sticky dough, so it’s easier to handle when cold. Also, when re-rolling, be careful not to work in extra flour as extra flour will make a tougher donut.

    Place donuts on a lightly floured cookie sheet. Score the tops of the donuts with a sharp knife. This makes a craggy, crinkly top, better for catching all the crackly, sweet glaze. Cover the cut donuts with plastic and put the tray in the refrigerator.

    In a large-bottomed pan, heat a couple inches of oil to 325 degrees. Fry a few donuts at a time, two minutes for each side. Remove from hot oil and set on a cooling rack that’s set over newspapers or paper towels.

    for the glaze:
    3½ cups confectioner’s sugar
    1-2 teaspoons corn syrup
    ½ teaspoon vanilla
    ¼ teaspoon salt
    ½ cup hot tap water.

    Whisk together until smooth.

    Dip the donuts in glaze and set on a cooling rack to dry. As the glaze sets up, you may want to spoon more glaze over the donuts.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.22.14), Christmas pretty, turkey in a wash basket, and lemon cheesecake tassies.

  • the quotidian (12.21.15)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace

    Not there yet, but getting closer.
    Soup for the soul: another double batch.
    Trimming the tree: no longer my job.

    To the kids: To Kill A Mockingbird.

    A shelter for her prego (we hope) sheep.

    Cutting roof.

    He wanted new clothes so he went to town.

    Clockwise: knitting, writing an essay, reading a novel, listening to a podcast.

    Saturday morning running buddies and the photobomber.

    This same time, years previous: on my to-do list, how to have a dunging-out date, toasty oatmeal muffins, self care, the quotidian (12.19.11), chocolate-dipped candied orange rinds, middle-of-the-night solstice party, and walnut balls.