Girl Detective

“Hamlet, Hamlet. Why are you always reading Hamlet?” asked 6yo Drake when I asked if he’d seen my book, James Marsden’s Hamlet: A Novel.

“Because it’s one of the greatest stories, ever,” I replied, wondering how long until I can introduce him to the Dane.

My husband G. Grod and I have many text and DVD editions of the play. I hadn’t heard of Marsden’s, though, until M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, mentioned that our mutual virtual penpal (MVP! heh) S, who blogs at Pages Turned, was enjoying it. S doesn’t recommend lightly, and both M and I picked up Marsden’s novelization of Hamlet right away.

Whether foolhardy or hubristic, Marsden’s novel take on Shakespeare’s play is a success. He updates the prose, keeps much of the poetry, and lets us into the hearts and minds of Hamlet, Horatio and Ophelia, as a production of the play would do. The end result is an eminently readable, widely accessible tale, especially geared to young adults. The humor, sexuality, romance, tragedy and horror is all there, but told in a different style suited to the medium of the novel.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Horatio asked him.

He was lying on Hamlet’s bed.

Hamlet was sitting on the stone floor, in a corner, the corner farthest from the door. The prince was eating strawberries. He smiled. It was the first time Horatio had seen him smile since the funeral.

This novel is a wonderful addition to the ever-expanding Hamlet oeuvre (like The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle and Undiscovered Country from last year) as well as a good introduction to the play for potentially reluctant readers.

All three of my boys are back at work, school and daycare this week after the flu visited each of them over the past 2 weeks. Thus far, I didn’t get the flu, though I did get a small cold that passed quickly. The flu incubation period is 5 to 8 days, so I’m not out of the woods yet, but if I am, I credit these three practices for it, along with the lightness and short duration of the cold last week:

Neti pot, rinsing with warm salt water once or twice a day.

Vitamin D, at least 1000 mgs, up to 3000.

Rest. When I felt tired and could, I laid down to nap, and I went to bed early, sometimes when the kids did, for 9 or 10 hours of sleep.

In addition, I’ve been washing hands and using hand sanitizer, taking an Emergen-C packet every day, trying to keep fluids up, taking Sambucol (an elderberry syrup), and Sinucheck. There are many reasons I may have avoided the flu and only had a mild cold. Given I’d been caring for three coughing, very sick guys for two weeks, though, I think my exemption probably was due to the preventive measures, and the neti pot, vit. D and rest seemed to make the biggest difference in my overall well being.

Recommended briefly at Entertainment Weekly and by M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, Hell is Other Parents by Deborah Copaken Kogan seemed like it would be a good, quick, funny read. For the most part, it is. Kogan’s essays detail some of her clashes with other parents, who at least behave very badly, if not perhaps hellaciously. One father tells her to watch her daughter more carefully. Kogan’s teenage postpartum hospital roommate won’t turn down the TV, get rid of her guests, or throw away the McDonald’s bags that are stinking up the room. A mother spreads gossip about Kogan’s daughter to other parents at school. At other times, Kogan imagines other parents are judging and disparaging her parenting choices, as when her toddler son Leo disrupts the play her older son is in:

The other parents in the room now clearly hate me. They glare at me and roll their collective eyes. What business does she have bringing a two-year-old to a performance? their pursed mouths ask. Does she realize how long it took us to get here? For that matter, what business does she have having one in diapers while the other two are going through adolescence? What’s wrong with her? What was she thinking? Okay, so maybe I’m just projecting those last three thoughts.

Maybe? I think she’s projecting not just those three, but most of the paragraph, and highlighting some tenets of parenting (and really, life in general): it’s really hard; choices are fraught; some people are jerks; others offer needed help.

Kogan is witty and her observations are sharp. She writes clearly and sympathetically of the challenges of parenting and being a working mom. She doesn’t hide her insecurities about things like her parenting decisions, the less than thorough decision making that went into conceiving her third child, and her constant worries about money as a mother of three living in NYC who makes her living as a freelance writer. But she doesn’t seem to have much insight about these, either. For example, I found it interesting that a woman who was upset when chided by her college roommates as being too concerned with money (and specifically, its lack) chose a freelance career, and wrote a book in which she frequently refers to her fears and difficulties around money.

Few will argue with the real-life examples Kogan offers of mean other parents, and I bet many could respond with stories in kind; I know I could. But this book shines when it’s relating the events of a interesting woman (Kogan was a photographer and war correspondent in years past) as she tackles motherhood and challenges like a son who really wants to act and daughter who really wants a dog, both against their parents’ wishes. As for the hellish other parents of the title, I think they’re minor when compared to the complex, fascinating mess that is the whole of parenting, and of life.

Giles Turnbull, at The Morning News, on family Lego building:

Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. “Dad, please could you pass me that Brick 2×2?” No. In our house, it’ll always be: “Dad, please could you pass me that four-er?”

And I’ll pass it, because I know exactly which piece he means. Lego nomenclature is essential for family Lego building.

I love the chart that compares what the different kids call each piece, and how they vary in right brain (Barney and Jem) and left braininess (Raimi and Max), which may correspond with the Brits and the Americans.

I asked 3yo Guppy what he called the pieces in the chart. He responded quickly: (nothing), holder, smoker, pusher, 3-line, axle, bottom, light, gun, high and (nothing). I’ll ask 6yo Drake after school.

Photos from the last days at the office of the soon-to-be-departed Gourmet magazine. Lovely, sad images. I think my favorite is this one, since I could guess his job, as I used to have the same/similar one.

(He’s not a writer, though he did write this lovely piece several years ago, which I still remember fondly.)

Now that I’m on my own for vegetables, I’ve ranged a bit back into baking. Also, 3 of 4 family members have been felled by the flu (most likely the H1N1 strain), so cooking and blogging have been sparse of late, even though I’m the outlier.

These looked better than they were. If I made dinner rolls on a regular basis, than these orange-pumpkin cloverleafs might have been a welcome change. As it was, we wished for regular ones, not varietal.

I was very hopeful that I could come up with a quick, easy dinner the kids would eat. I used frozen tomato sauce on a pre-baked pizza shell, topped with mozzarella, parmesan, mushrooms and Greek olives. G. Grod and I enjoyed it very much. The kids wouldn’t touch it.

The last time I made the below snacks (probably about a year ago) I was reading The Fabulous Bouncing Chowder with my son Drake. He asked what I was making, I said snack mix, and he called them Snarf Snacks after the treat in the book. So Snarf Snacks they became. These are an Asian variation, using tamari-seaweed cashews in place of the peanuts.

Asian Firecracker Party Mix, from Cook’s Country

Makes about 10 cups. Wasabi peas can be found in the international aisle of most grocery stores.

5 cups Rice Chex cereal
2 cups sesame sticks
1 cup wasabi peas
1 cup chow mein noodles
1 cup honey-roasted peanuts
6 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 250 degrees. Combine cereal, sesame sticks, wasabi peas, chow mein noodles, and peanuts in large bowl. Whisk butter and soy sauce in small bowl, then drizzle over cereal mixture. Sprinkle evenly with ginger, garlic powder, and cayenne and toss until well combined.

2. Spread mixture over rimmed baking sheet and bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until golden and crisp, about 45 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Serve. (Mix can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.)

Finally, this is actually a veg entry, using up pumpkin I roasted a few weeks back.

Pumpkin Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting, from Cook’s Country

Serves 16

Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree

Frosting
6 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese , cut into 8 pieces and softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in bowl. With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat eggs, oil, and granulated sugar until thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed to low, add pumpkin, and mix until incorporated. Slowly add flour mixture and mix until only a few small lumps of flour remain, about 1 minute. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack and cool completely.

2. For the frosting: With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and confectioners’ sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add cream cheese 1 piece at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add vanilla and mix until smooth. Turn cooled cake out onto wire rack, then invert onto serving platter. Frost cake and serve. (Cake can be refrigerated for up to 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.)

Prompted by a recent article at The Comics Reporter (link from The Morning News) on the collaboration between comic book writer and artist, I pulled my copy of Daredevil: Born Again off the shelf. It’s written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. Even at twenty plus years old with garish colors, it remains undiminished as a classic of the superhero genre.

It opens on a skinny, defeated-looking woman hunched over a cigarette in a smoky room with a smug-looking man:

It’s a hot day. Like all the rest. All two years of them. Two years… and the motion picture epic that turned into just another come-on isn’t even a memory…like all the rest except this one has a special glow to it. It’s not every day you sell your soul. That’s not way to think. Grow up. It’s the eighties. You do what you have to. And you have to do it…

“Daredevil. Okay? I said it. I said the name. And he’s got another name. And it’s written down right here. You want it or not?

Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriend, Karen Page, is a junkie now, and she sells his name for a fix. It gets back to his nemesis, the Kingpin, who systematically breaks down and takes away all support in Murdock’s life until he’s not only on the edge, he’s gone so far beyond it that no one knows if he’s coming back. While the title kind of gives the ending away, it’s the marriage of words and pictures, and how they detail Murdock’s fall and resurrection (in all its Catholic imagery) that compelled this reader through the book.

The recent runs of Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker got a lot of kudos from the critics. But their artistic collaborators (Alex Maleev, who largely made the Bendis run, IMO, and Michael Lark with Brubaker) are hardly mentioned, and often not named on the covers of the collections. Ng Suat Tong’s collaboration article makes a good point. If a writer writes a decent script, and an illustrator draws well, you get a good story, sometimes even a very good one, as when Bendis and Maleev worked together. But only when there’s a true collaboration, and the writer and artist are working together, and both bringing more to it than each could individually, do you get a great work, a classic, like this one. And to give a collaborating artist second billing, or no billing, as noted by Tong, “should be cause for consternation if not disgust.”

This was not the case with Born Again, on which Mazzucchelli receives equal billing with the much-more-famous Miller. Mazzucchelli is receiving his own share of praise this year for his first solo work, the graphic novel Asterios Polyp.

NPR regular and essayist Sarah Vowell delves into Americana and American history with an empathy and sense of humor, then relates what she’s learned in her odd, compelling books. In The Wordy Shipmates, she makes Puritans and colonial life real, close and relate-able. The book and its subjects are funny, interesting, sad and historical, yet none of these things outweighs or imbalances another.

The Wordy Shipmates concerns the Puritan migration to America, and the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These are not the Pilgrims of 1620, Vowell is quick to remind the reader. They sailed to Plymouth in the Mayflower, and were Separatists–they wanted to leave England and its church behind. The Puritans of 1630 sailed to Massachusetts, and were not Separatists. They wanted, or at least wanted to appear, to remain citizens of England and members of its church. They just wanted to do so far away.

I’m always disappointed when I see the word “Puritan” tossed around as a shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to hell. (22)

Vowell introduces us to the Massachusetts Bay Colony governor, John Winthrop, a man who strove for unity, not just for its own sake, but because it let them live and worship as they chose without (much) English interference. There are a few flies in the ointment, though. Roger Williams, a man so devout that he won’t even worship with his wife and children, as they’re not part of the “Elect”. And Anne Hutchinson, a mother of fifteen, whose drawing room becomes as crowded as the local church when she begins to preach such audacious ideas as that the Holy Ghost dwells within people, not just near them.

Williams and Hutchinson are separately forced to depart the Bay Colony, then found Rhode Island, where people might have true freedom of worship, and not have to worry about a meddlesome state poking around in their spiritual affairs.

Along the way to the creation of Rhode Island, kings die, wars are fought, allegiances switch, and letters abound. Vowell dusts off the trappings of people’s conception of history, and breathes not only life into it, but infuses it with humor and pathos as well. Beware this book: not only might you learn something, you might also enjoy it while you do.

My husband G. Grod and I have some major gaps in our film viewing, and given G’s love of Westerns, it’s odd we hadn’t seen The Searchers before. Something recently reminded G of this, so we borrowed it from the library, then had one of those “hit myself in the head for not having seen this before” moments.

The Searchers was a collaboration between John Ford and John Wayne, with the latter as Ethan Edwards, a long-lost brother who returns to his family just prior to their attack by a group of Comanche native Americans. Ford and the family’s foster son Martin track the group over five years, searching for the remaining girl.

Ethan: Our turnin’ back don’t mean nothin’, not in the long run. She’s alive, she’s safe… for a while. They’ll keep her to raise her as one of their own till, until she’s of an age to…

Martin: Don’t you think there’s a chance we still might find her?

Ethan: Injun will chase a thing till he thinks he’s chased it enough. Then he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there’s such a thing as a critter that’ll just keep comin’ on. So we’ll find ‘em in the end, I promise you. We’ll find ‘em. Just as sure as the turnin’ of the earth.

Wayne is surprising, but not quite believable, as the bitter outsider. He’s angry at the kidnappers, but willing to kill the girl after she’s been with the tribe so long. In the final confrontation, he has to confront his own hatred, with moving results.

The film is beautiful to look at, Wayne is totally at home in the duds and the saddle, and best of all, it doesn’t offer answers up to the viewer on a platter. Details of the relationships are shown, not told and some only hinted at, like that between Ethan and the family’s foster son Martin.

Some fun bits of trivia from IMDB:

Natalie Wood was in still in high school, and John Wayne sometimes picked her up there for a ride to the set.

Buddy Holly’s “That’ll be the Day” was inspired by Ethan’s catchphrase.

This was Wayne’s favorite role; he named a son Ethan afterwards.

If you, like us, haven’t seen it, seek it out. This may well be one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday. The season is officially over for our farm, and our share of its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Thus, no box of mystery vegetables yesterday. Even better because I haven’t yet used all the ones from last week.

For me the farm share was a mixed experience. I loved supporting a local farm and receiving fresh, seasonal, local produce. I loved the idea of learning to prepare new dishes and the challenge of cooking whatever was in that week’s box. In practice, though, it preyed upon two of my weak spots–a tendency to compulsion (I felt I had to use all the veg and use them well) and anxiety (I’d fret if they went bad before I used them, or if the new box came before the old ones were used). Eating all the veg went slow, too, as our two sons, 6 and 3, wouldn’t eat many of them.

One thing I could do differently would be to store more of the items. Blanching and freezing wouldn’t have been more time consuming than cooking, and would have lessened the anxiety about needing to cook and eat everything NOW NOW NOW. Another is that I may see about going from a half share every week to a half share every other week. This would also allow me some veggie leeway to shop our farmers’ markets, which I didn’t do much this summer as I never needed much.

But there was a lot of fabulous food, and I learned a lot as a cook and an eater. I found I was especially good at incorporating some of the things that I’d formerly thrown away–beet, turnip and radish greens, and chard or kale stems. Here, then, is a sampling from the end of the season.

Spaghetti with Broccoli Rabe and Toasted Garlic and Bread Crumbs from The New York Times

Salt

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, more as needed

3 or 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and slivered

1 cup bread crumbs, preferably homemade

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

About 1 pound broccoli rabe, trimmed and washed

1 pound spaghetti, linguine or other long pasta

Freshly ground black pepper

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. When oil is warm, cook garlic just until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add bread crumbs and red pepper flakes and cook until bread crumbs are golden, 5 minutes or so. Remove and set aside.

2. Cook broccoli rabe in boiling water until it is soft, about 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain well and chop. Cook pasta in same pot.

3. Meanwhile, add remaining oil to skillet over medium-low heat. Add broccoli rabe and toss well; sprinkle with salt and pepper. When it is warm add garlic and bread crumbs and mix well.

4. When pasta is done, drain it, reserving a little cooking water. Toss pasta in skillet with broccoli rabe mixture, moistening with a little reserved water if necessary. Adjust seasonings and serve with freshly grated Parmesan.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Sweet potatoes, cut and roasted with olive oil and salt at 400F, with wasabi mayo.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I was going to try to make a smaller amount of hollandaise faster. I also poached the eggs but didn’t follow it with a cold and hot bath. As you can see, this dish is nowhere near as pretty as the one from last week where I followed all the Julia Child directions. But it still tasted good alongside sauteed broccoli rabe, and made a lot fewer dishes in a lot less time.

Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Lemon Zest Adapted from “The Union Square Cafe Cookbook,” by Michael Romano and Danny Meyer
Time: 25 minutes

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus grated zest of 1 lemon
2 pounds brussels sprouts
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons black mustard seeds or poppy seeds
¼ cup dry white wine or vermouth
Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Place lemon juice in a large bowl. Cut bottoms off sprouts, and discard. Halve sprouts lengthwise, and thinly slice them crosswise. The slices toward the stem end should be thinner, to help pieces cook evenly. As you work, transfer slices into bowl with lemon juice. When all sprouts are sliced toss them in juice and separate leaves. (Recipe can be prepared to this point and refrigerated, covered, for up to 3 hours.)

2. When ready to serve, heat oil and butter over high heat in a skillet large enough to hold all sprouts. When very hot add sprouts, garlic and seeds, and cook, stirring often, until sprouts are wilted and lightly cooked, but still bright green and crisp, about 4 minutes. Some leaves might brown slightly.

3. Add wine, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, 1 minute more. Turn off heat, add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the lemon zest, reserving a little for top of dish. Transfer to a serving bowl, sprinkle with remaining zest and serve.

Yield: 10 servings.

This was good, but I didn’t like it as well as the roasted brussels sprouts I made earlier.

Impossible Pumpkin Pie with Vanilla Whipped Cream

1 15-oz. can pumpkin or a scant 2 c. pumpkin puree
1 1/2 c. milk, or 1 13-oz. can evaporated milk
1/2 c. biscuit/pancake mix or 1/2 c. flour plus 3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 c. sugar
2 Tbl. butter, melted then cooled
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch glass or Pyrex pie plate.

Place all ingredients in blender; blend for 2 minutes. Pour mixture into pie plate and bake for about an hour, or till center is set and tester comes out clean. Cool.

For topping, whip 1/3 c. heavy cream, 1/2 Tbl. cane sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla to soft peaks.

The photo doesn’t really capture the loveliness of the colors of these ingredients for Thai Tofu and Winter Squash Stew–the deep orange of the squash puree, the light variegated green of the sliced leeks, and the golden yellow of the grated ginger. But I had to try. Here are the leeks sauteeing, and even more lovely in color:

I’d nearly given up on the Daredevil series a while back, thoroughly fed up with many things, but especially the character of Milla, who the creators seemed to think was an interesting, compelling story element, rather than a whiny, clingy, bore. I was tempted back, though, by the latest collection Return of the King as it’s the last that the creative team of Brubaker, Lark and Aja are doing.

I always enjoy Lark’s art, and Brubaker is one of my favorite writers in comics these days with his work on Criminal. Still, there were a lot of elements I felt I’d been through too many times before: the Kingpin is back! Is he good or bad? Evil ninjas! Foggy and Daredevil’s girl in danger! And finally, something that’s become kind of an unfortunate hallmark of Brubaker’s run on the series: Matt Murdoch acts like a complete and utter a-hole!

The familiar story elements made me appreciate how DC has turned the Batman franchise on its head, with Bruce Wayne out of the picture, Richard Grayson in the batsuit and Wayne’s illegitimate son as Robin. These series are so old, that everything HAD been done before, and the only way to really take a new direction is to do it radically and not by halves. Brubaker’s run did have some solid elements, like Murdoch’s stay in Ryker’s. But the obsessive focus on the drippy Milla along with Murdoch’s nasty side made it hard for me to like.

Return of the King, though, was pretty good. It has the familiar elements, but it nicely ties up a lot of characters and themes from Brubaker’s run, like the Owl and Milla. And it leaves Murdoch in a very interesting place for the next team to start from. It’s not a good place to start the series (for that go back to Frank Miller’s Born Again) but for any fans who’d left during the run, it’s a good reminder that series ebb and flow, and that Daredevil, the character or the series, isn’t a lost cause.

For Buffy and Joss fans, especially those disappointed in the likely-to-be canceled Dollhouse, the Buffy “Season 8” comic series from Dark Horse is pretty good. The stories, for better and sometimes worse, are true to the series, while the art looks not only like real people but like the original actors. Best of all is the Whedon-esque banter–witty, fast and of the moment.

I originally read the individual issues, until Dark Horse started mixing ads into the the story rather than putting them at the end. I made the switch to reading the graphic-novel collections, as I have with other series like Fables. Predators and Prey collects five stories that can stand alone, but which also interconnect. Harmony, Buffy, insidious but cute kitty-cat toys, Andrew, Faith, Giles and Dawn all feature prominently. There’s finally resolution in Dawn’s shape-shifting curse.

This collection continues to portray a world with armies of slayers, and shifts things as well. As many superhero comics have done, the villains turn the tables and get the public to fear the heroes, the slayers. It sets things up nicely for the ongoing series. The comic is nowhere near as entertaining as the show was at its zenith, but it’s frequently good, which is good enough for me.

Redbelt, a David Mamet film, was one of those blink-and-you-miss-’em films from last year. I wanted to see it in theater, didn’t manage by the time it was gone, then forgot about it for a while. But I’m glad I finally got around to it.

There’s always an escape.

Mike Terry is a mixed-martial-arts teacher and studio owner. An accident followed by a chance celebrity encounter combine in strange ways and have strong repercussions. Ejiofor is fantastic as the idealistic master, Emily Mortimer’s American accent worked fine by me, and she perfectly embodied her fragile character who’s not quite ready to get ground down. Tim Allen is great in his brief screen time as a boozy, overblown action star who tries to mooch onto Terry’ obvious power and charisma. Joe Mantegna plays an oily Hollywood agent, and they all interact in a heady mix of Mamet’s sharp (sometimes too much so) dialogue and story. Nothing much was surprising, but I found the entire thing engaging and enjoyable. An excellent rental.

I sought out In the Shadow of the Moon after reading and enjoying T Minus, the comic book historical novel about the space race to the moon. The film is terrific. It combines interviews with the men from the Apollo program alongside historical footage. It’s an amazing story, well told, and a great example of a documentary. Sorry for the brevity of the review, but there’s not much more to add than: See it.

Earlier this year when League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910 came out, I realized I’d missed The Black Dossier. After reading it, I can’t discount that I may have skipped it on purpose. Alan Moore’s fore story, illustrated in lavish detail by Kevin O’Neill, is nearly swamped by the profusion of back story. All have merit, and some of this is wildly enjoyable, but still, it was a bumpy read.

Mina Murray (fka Mina Harker, of Dracula) and Allan Quatermain (he of King Solomon’s Mines, not Port Charles), former secret agents of the crown, are back in Britain after a protracted stay in the Americas, in which they avoided the Big Brother regime back home. As before, Moore plays fast (but not loose) with British historical fiction and pop culture, and references in this one include James Bond, The Avengers, Woolf’s Orlando, Orwell’s 1984, Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster series, and more. Murray and Quatermain seek the black dossier of the title, which fills them (and the reader) in on what they and their colleagues like Fanny Hill and Orlando, have been up to for literally ages.

In what I found an unfortunate choice, the dossier is included in its entirety, albeit in chunks that alternate with Murray and her beau getting chased, beat up and shot at all over England and its environs. The dossier material is often in single spaced small type and while illustrated, it’s not really in comic-book format as is the main story. I found the frequent switches in narrative disruptive, distracting, and worse, unnecessary. I didn’t need six pages of the adventures of Fanny Hill, eighteen on Orlando, three by Bertie Wooster, or five by a Kerouac-ian beat poet. I wished many times that Moore and his editors had chosen instead to excerpt the dossier. Small doses of the fictional history would have worked as well, or even better. Then the book could have had a “director’s cut” that included all of Moore’s back matter for those, unlike me, who want it. Shorter excerpts would have gotten the same info across, still been as clever, given the reader more credit, plus not exhausted, annoyed and sometimes bored this one.

Page count total is about even. 98 pages of fore-story, and 93 pages of back. Given the density of the back matter, it felt far longer than what it was purported to support. Plus, much of it had been alluded to or flat out recorded already in the extensive back matter in LoEG v. 2.

As with the other LoEG books, Jess Nevins has done extensive footnoting of Moore’s nigh-endless references. Unfortunately, the notes for Black Dossier are no longerat his site, but at Comic Book Resources, and in a book called Impossible Territories. Trouble is, for me, these are interesting, but like adding insult to injury. Part of the fun of Moore’s work is getting the references I can and knowing I’m missing some but not worrying over it. Really, though, what I’d prefer would be a “Previously on” segment that covers the basics, rather than pages of single spaced small type that makes me hunt for things like why Mina is not aging and Allan is young again (they bathed in the same pool of immortality in Africa that Orlando had done). Some details are listed at Wikipedia. Others are at this review at Comics Bulletin.

If I feel up to it, I might compile my own. I need to rest up a bit before I do so, though. Here are a few notes: Jimmy is James Bond, recently returned from Jamaica where he confronted Dr. No. Emma Night will become Emma Peel. Her godfather, Hugo Drummond, was a character in a series of English noir novels. Familiarity with 1984 and The Tempest would be helpful.

ETA: one of the reviewers remarked that Moore’s use of alternate formats to tell the story/stories is very like what he did in Watchmen. It is, yet I found it much less effective here. That was a masterwork, and one with far reaching implications both in story and in the political context of the time in which it was published. The LoEG series, to me, is supposed to be a lark–adventure stories like the ones it’s drawn from. The at-times ponderous alternate material doesn’t suit the type of story, IMO.

This was the last weekend of the Toy Story double feature in 3D, so I risked taking the two kids, 6yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, and figured I’d see how it went. Mostly well. The movies are as wonderful as ever, for both kids and adults: smart, sweet and funny without resorting to cheap gags or pop-culture refs. Toy Story 2 is deservedly famous as one of the few sequels that many think surpasses the original. While I enjoyed the 3D additions, the kids had a hard time keeping the glasses on (they were too big for Guppy) and the movies are blurry without them.

The movie included two previews. One for Toy Story 3–Andy’s in college! (How is that possible? Well, actually if he were six in Toy Story 1 (1992), that would make him 24. Yikes.) Drake’s response: “We have to wait till JUNE?” And one for the animated A Christmas Carol in 3D. Drake and his friend A’s response: “Ew! I NEVER want to see that movie!”

Can’t really blame them. The memory of Scrooge’s beak nose, and its large pores, coming at me in 3D, is unpleasantly seared on my memory.

I saw Children of Men in the theater, but re-watched it with my husband G. Grod. He was dissatisfied with the ending, which he said can be predicted from the beginning. He has a point, but the look of this film is so haunting and distinct, and the performances, especially by Clive Owen and Michael Caine, are so excellent that any weakness in story was simply brushed away for me. It’s a chilling dystopic vision that seems all too possible, and the look, which doesn’t rely on special effects and gadgetry, reinforces this. The deservedly famous tracking shot in the car only makes this film more impressive. I think it’s great, though others like G. Grod don’t. See it yourself to decide.

Josh Bazell’s Beat the Reaper is the November selection for the Books and Bars book club here in the Twin Cities. It’s a fast, furious read that often left me jaw-dropped at its brazen, hilarious, profane moments, which are many. The book isn’t for the faint of heart, or the sensitive of ears. Here’s the opening:

So I’m on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me! Naturally there’s a gun. He comes up behind me and sticks it into the base of my skull. It’s cold, and it actually feels sort of good, in an acupressure kind of way. “Take it easy, Doc,” he says.

Which explains that, at least. Even at five in the morning, I’m not the kind of guy you mug. I look like an Easter Island sculpture of a longshoreman. But the fuckhead can see the blue scrub pants under my overcoat, and the ventilated green plastic clogs, so he thinks I’ef got drugs and money on me. And maybe that I’ve taken some kind of oath not to kick his fuckhead ass for trying to mug me…

Peter Brown is a first-year resident in Internal Medicine at low-regarded Manhattan Catholic hospital. He proceeds to kick the mugger’s ass, but leaves him still breathing, “in fact with a bubbly joie de vivre” then plans to deposit him at the ER. But

…before I stand, I take his handgun.

The gun is a real piece of shit…

I should throw it out. Bend the barrel and drop it down a storm drain.

Instead I slip it into the back pocket of my scrub pants.

Old habits die harder than that.

Peter’s smart; he’s funny. And he used to be a mafia hitman, fka Pietro Brnwa aka Bearclaw,.

In alternating chapters we learn Peter’s past, and how it’s continuing to reach out into his present, as always happens in a mafia story. Someone from his past has surfaced, threatening to expose him. Along with an imminent visit by the reaper of the title (whose icon changes appropriately and hilariously midway through the book), Brown’s dealing with a chronic lack of sleep, an absent nursing staff, eager med students, an escaped patient, a mystery infection, and a sultry drug rep.

To say this book is fast paced is an understatement. The story roars ahead with a momentum built on Peter’s med-fueled mania and his attempt to beat the reaper, which culminates in a “no freaking way!” scene that must be read to be believed. In spite of his past, and his bitter present, Peter is a good guy, trying to help those who need it and punish those who deserve it. Whether he falls into the latter category is a running question through the book.

In the end, there are a few loose ends and unanswered questions, but it’s hard to care much about them other than to wish for the speedy appearance of a sequel. Some critic described this as a mix of House and the Sopranos. I’d add: on speed and with no sleep.

There’s not a lot of love in the world for kale and Brussels sprouts. As in most things, though, I find if I work with their strengths, good things happen.

For the Brussels sprouts, halving the larger ones so they all were uniform helped them cook quickly and kept them tasting fresh and sweet. Trimming the stem first allowed easy peeling away of tough outer leaves.

Sweet and Sour Glazed Brussels Sprouts from Cook’s Country

Serves 8

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 pounds Brussels sprouts , trimmed and halved through core if large
12 small shallots , halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Melt butter and sugar together in microwave. Toss Brussels sprouts, shallots, butter mixture, vinegar, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in large bowl. Scatter on rimmed baking sheet and roast until golden brown, about 30 minutes, shaking pan every 10 minutes to redistribute vegetables. Serve.

Back in August, my friend from Knit Think posted about roasting kale. We didn’t have any in our farm’s box till this week, but this is something I’ll do from now on.

Roasted Kale from Suite 101

Of course, any firm leafy green works fine in this recipe. Collard greens or swiss chard could easily be substituted for the kale.

* 4 cups firmly-packed kale
* 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
* 1 tsp. good-quality sea salt, such as Maldon or Cyprus Flake

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Wash and trim the kale: Peel off the tough stems by folding the kale leaves in half like a book and stripping the stems off. Toss with extra virgin olive oil. Roast for five minutes. Turn kale over. Roast another 7 to 10 minutes until kale turns brown and becomes paper thin and brittle. Remove from oven and sprinkle with sea salt. Serve immediately. Makes 2 servings.

A few weeks ago, Mark Bittman posted a recipe for Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Black Beans and Chili Dressing. I modified based on what I had on hand (banana peppers instead of bell, white onion instead of red, serrano pepper, not jalapeno) with good results. Except for the limes and canned black beans, everything was local and fresh.

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad With Black Beans and Chili Dressing

4 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 large onion, preferably red, chopped

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh hot chili, like jalapeño

1 clove garlic, peeled

Juice of 2 limes

2 cups cooked black beans, drained (canned are fine)

1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and finely diced

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro.

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put sweet potatoes and onions on a large baking sheet, drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil, toss to coat and spread out in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast, turning occasionally, until potatoes begin to brown on corners and are just tender inside, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven; keep on pan until ready to mix with dressing.

2. Put chilies in a blender or mini food processor along with garlic, lime juice, remaining olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Process until blended.

3. Put warm vegetables in a large bowl with beans and bell pepper; toss with dressing and cilantro. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve warm or at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to a day.

Yield: 4 servings.