Girl Detective

#37 in my 2007 book challenge was The Professor’s Daughter, story by Joann Sfar, illustrated by Emmanuel Guibert. It is a translation of a European graphic novel, and is published in the US by First Second. This is a beautiful and funny book, which I found surprisingly delightful after recently reading several disappointing graphic novels.

A mummy and a professor’s daughter forge an unlikely romance. There is murder, mystery, and general mayhem. The watercolor art is lovely; the characters and story are engaging. The slim book itself is a lovely edition with heavy paper and a gatefold cover. Highly recommended.

#36 in my 2007 book challenge was Clubbing, written by Andi Watson with wart by Josh Howard. It’s from the DC Comics Minx line of graphic novels. I’ve really enjoyed some of Andi Watson’s work, like Geisha and Slow News Day. Clubbing was a huge disappointment.

London goth girl Charlotte “Lottie” Brooks is exiled to the country with her grandparents after being caught with a fake ID. There is the standard geeky cute boy that the heroine comes to appreciate over the course of the book. The story, though, takes a bizarre twist once Lottie arrives in the country, and ends up as a supernatural mystery. Had it been well done, I might have appreciated the subversion of expectations. Instead, it read like a Season 7 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Not a good thing.)

While the story might appeal to bubble-headed eleven-year olds, any charm was lost on me. Lottie was as self-absorbed, irritating, and foolish as a girl can get. Not recommended.

#35 in my 2007 book challenge was The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Even if I don’t end up seeing the December film, I like to read books around when the movie comes out because of the increased coverage of the book in the press.

The Golden Compass is a sweeping adventure book, mixing fantasy, science, and religion. All humans have daemons, animal-like creatures that shift shape until their partner hits adolescence. A friend of young orphan Lyra Belacqua’s is kidnapped, and she decides to rescue him. Danger and adventure ensue.

GC has a great pace, and some very big ideas, but the characters don’t achieve three dimensions. Most of the adults are evil, all of the kids are good, and Lyra becomes increasingly unrealistic as a kid over the course of her adventures. She’s far too competent in a crisis, of which there are many. Some of her lack of complexity is explained away as a lack of imagination. This is another example for my catalog of fictional lunkheaded saviors, but it doesn’t make her more believable as a kid. Nonetheless, the story swept me along, the ideas intrigued me, and the story had closure and a compelling cliffhanger for the next book.

I am interested to see what the holistic experience of Pullman’s trilogy will be.

#34 in my 2007 book challenge was Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World, which I’ve written about previously here. The premise is that a woman’s life branches after a major decision, and the chapters alternate between the two lives, rather like the movie Sliding Doors, though that was about chance, and not nearly so literate.

Shriver ruthlessly questions the all-too-common assumption we make when we take a fork in the road and things don’t go as planned. The other fork looks great in retrospect. She carefully crafts her narrative to show that there’s good and bad in all choices. In the end, I thought she favored one choice over the other, but I didn’t think this was a bad thing.

Embarrassingly, this book caused me to develop an accidental crush on Anthony Bourdain, an author and TV food personality I previously didn’t care for. Bourdain’s look so matches the physical description of Ramsey in TPBW, though, that my literary crush on the character of Ramsey (for all his faults) segued into a crush on Bourdain. Oops.

#33 in my 2007 book challenge was After Dark, by Haruki Murakami, the first book I’ve read by this author.

any single human being, no matter what kind of a person he or she may be, is all caught up in the tentacles of this animal like a giant octopus, and is getting sucked into the darkness. You can put any kind of spin on it you like, but you end up with the same unbearable spectacle.

The book is the giant octopus, and the reader is sucked in.

We know. But we are not qualified to become involved., …We look down…from above….Gradually, as point of view, we begin to draw back. We break through the ceiling, moving steadily up and away….The higher we climb, the smaller grows our image….until it is just a single point, and then it is gone. We increase our speed, moving backward through the stratosphere. The earth shrinks until it, too, finally disappears. Our point of view draws back through the vacuum of nothingness. The movement is beyond our control.

Murakami toys with point of view and perspective in brave and exhilarating ways.

No one answers our questions. Our question marks are sucked, unresisting, into the final darkness and uncompromising silence of the night.

The author honors his readers by not explaining every little thing. The images, characters and ideas in this book linger; my brain continues to puzzle over them.

#32 in my 2007 book challenge was Faith Sullivan’s Cape Ann. I’ve taken a few seminars with Sullivan through the Loft. She is both a kind and constructive reader, so I wanted to check out her books. The Cape Ann is narrated by young Lark Ann Erhardt, and set in a depression-era small town in Minnesota. The details are carefully crafted, and the narrative unfolds precisely but not predictably. Lark and her mother are engaging characters, easy to love and empathize with, though there are some heartbreaking things that transpire. Lark’s voice is at times too knowing for a six-year old, but the overall effect is winning.

#31 in my 2007 book challenge was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I wrote about here, here, here, here, and here.

In short, I really enjoyed it. It digressed and dragged in the middle, but I found both the ending and the epilogue satisfying. I also enjoyed reading many of the interviews with J. K. Rowling, to learn the answers to questions I had, and ones that hadn’t occurred to me.

I didn’t win any ribbons at the fair this year. Apparently my four entries were small potatoes compared to the woman who hogged all the awards. Worse, she sounds too charming to dislike for it.

My sister Sydney complains when I do reviews and don’t write funny stories about her nephews. The point of the blog is to encompass it all. I hope to do a slew of reviews soon, though, so this entry is to placate Sydney.

18mo Guppy likes it when I sing the ABCs, and starts to babble random letters while I sing, in a letterish harmony. When excited, he does a happy dance, like Drake did at the same age, where he stomps his feet up and down very fast and grins, rather like Snoopy. He also likes to pivot in a circle, using one leg as a fulcrum.

Drake is reminding me that things change, then change again. When in the midst of some particular stage, it seems as if it will last forever. He’s entirely out of diapers, though, even at night, so he is changing. Several months ago, Drake would wait till we shut the light off at night, then scurry up, turn on the light, and look at books till he fell asleep. G. Grod and I would remove the pile of books from his bed, and turn off the light. At some point, though, it stopped. When we turned off the light, he turned over and went to sleep. Or he stayed up and turned off the light before he fell asleep. Within the last week, though, things have changed again. He’s turning the light on after we leave, then falling asleep with it on.

I will be interested to see how long this variation of the stage lasts, and also whether Guppy does it when he gets older.

One of my strange, largely non-marketable skills is that I write letters that get responses. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl printed one of mine in her City Pages food column this week, and came to the interesting conclusion that compiling a list of Minnesota food gems will start a gourmet revolution. I think revival might be more accurate, but hey, I’m not called revolutionary that often, so I’ll take it.

Here are a few of my MN food essentials–a short, incomplete list of why the Twin Cities are great for foodies:

Grocery Cooperatives
Farmers Markets with countless, if not only, local farmed goods
New French and Rustica breads
Cedar Summit Milk
Hope and Pastureland butters
Sonny’s Ice Cream
Legacy Chocolate’s Potion No. 9
Cafe Brenda
La Belle Vie
MN State Fair
Midtown Global Market
Origami sushi
Restaurant Alma
The Modern
NE Mpls food corridor: Surdyk’s, Pizza Nea, Punch Pizza, Fugaise, Brasa, Bulldog, Gardens of Salonica, Wilde Roast, all within blocks of one another! Now if only someone (Sonny’s, Izzy’s, Sebastian Joe’s, I’m talkin’ to you) would open an ice cream outpost, that area would be foodie heaven.

My stomach and I are only human, so even on three trips to the fair this year I couldn’t try everything. I also didn’t make it to the Fine Arts building. Foodwise, I found both winners and losers, but here are some of Rick Nelson’s 2007 picks that I’ll check out next year in their sophomore outings:

**** (four stars)

- Alderman plums, Midtown Global Market, Cosgrove St. between Dan Patch Av. and Wright Av.

- Buttermilk scones with jam, Country Scones & Coffee, Food Building

- Lingonberry Turnovers, Lingonberry Ice Cream, Underwood St. and Carnes Av.

- Strawberry and chocolate ice cream sodas, Bridgeman’s, Judson Av. and Liggett St.

- Strawberry malts, Dairy Goodness Bar, Empire Commons

I’ll also try for a pork chop on a stick. I’ve only heard superlative things about them from my carnivorous friends.

Yesterday all four of us went to the fair for food and rides. Drake loved it. So if you’re wondering at what age kids really get a fair or something like it, for us it was four (same thing for his birthday party).

G. Grod was less than thrilled that Drake wanted to ride the giant swinging boat ride, but both enjoyed the big ferris wheel. I agreed to go with Drake on the giant slide, which I found disconcertingly fast, though Drake loved it. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and decided not to try any rides with 18M Guppy. Even the carousel frightened Drake until he was three.

And, oh yes, we did some eating.

Breakfast was Cinnie Minis from Cinnie Smith’s–warm mini cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. CMs have a good amount of cinnamon and sugar, unlike Cinnabon. For protein, we got the Twisted Sister sausage from Sausage Sister n Me. While better than the Uff Da brat, it still wasn’t great. I don’t know if we’re choosing bad menu items, or if they’re off their game this year, since we’ve so enjoyed them previously.

Since we were in the food building, we got Mouth Trap fried cheese curds and fried pickle slices stuffed with cream cheese from The Preferred Pickle. Both of these were hits with the boys, though the ranch dipping sauce for the pickles was overkill, if such a thing is possible at the MN state fair. Exhausted, Guppy took an early nap in the stroller while Drake, G. Grod and I devoured a wild rice/beef hot dog on a stick from the Wild Rice stand in the food building, surprisingly inexpensive for fair food at only $2.50.

I got a lingonberry sno cone. It had too much ice, but the syrup was pleasantly tart and sweet, though I’m not sure I could have distinguished it from cranberry.

We tried Fresh French Fries this year, which didn’t seem markedly better than World’s Best, and had too many short, “bottom of the batch” specimens.

While his brother was on the ferris wheel, Guppy devoured his first Pronto Pup, and I suspect it won’t be his last. Pups are Minnesota’s batter-dipped hot dogs on a stick. Corn dogs are Iowan, you know.

Drake was loathe to share from the cone of Sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies, and our glass of milk wasn’t big enough for the four of us. We had a few other unremarkable food stuffs for the ravening kids, like fried cheese on a stick, lemonade, and soft-serve ice cream. By that time, though, it was hot and crowded, and G. Grod had had enough. Drake and I could have probably kept going, but I think we’ll wait till next year. A look at the daily attendance makes it look like the opening day and the first Tuesday are the best bets to beat the crowds.

I visited the fair solo in the morning to catch the cooking demos by local chefs, then brought 4yo Drake back with me in the afternoon. The weather was erratic, but the cooking panels were good, as were the food samples, which I’ll describe along with yesterday’s fair food.

New. Double-dark frozen mocha dipped in chocolate on a stick. Who knew they could improve on the best fair food, the mocha on a stick? Go, Minnesota Farmer’s Union Coffee!

Tom Thumb mini donuts. The most delicious carb bomb in the world. Perfect for breakfast, and I accompanied it with a free sample of Cedar Summit whole milk, my favorite–yay!

Then other free, delicious samples:

Thousand Hills Cattle Co.’s sloppy joe
Pastures a Plenty breakfast link
Pastureland gouda and butter

For the demos, JP Samuelson, of JP American Bistro, did a coconut curry with rock shrimp and English shell peas. The chefs from the Birchwood Cafe did a summer ceviche. Both were very good, as was a squash, beet and blue cheese soup later in the day.

For lunch I had

Roast Corn. As good as always.
Honey Lemonade from the Ag building. Just $1.

Later with Drake, we had a chocolate custard cone (good, not great) from Custard’s Last Stand, and 1919 root beer, my only repeat foodstuff. Neither impaired our ability to enjoy the carousel, the skyride, or a whirling ride in Kidland.

More fun at the fair to come.

Today was Minnesota Cooks day at the MN State Fair. There were cooking demos by local chefs all day who used mainly local, organic ingredients. There were tasting panels of local farmers and other food-conscious personages (newspaper reporter, senator, Olympic athlete, food critic). There was a tent with lots of information on local food, as well as stunningly tasty free samples: Cedar Summit had cups of milk, Pastures a Plenty had different types of their pork sausage, Thousand Acres Farm had sloppy joe mix, and Pastureland had gouda and buttered crackers.

For further foodie heaven, the on-stage chefs cooked enough for the crowd to sample. I tried a coconut-curry rock shrimp with peas, a lime ceviche with black corn tortilla chip, and a buttercup squash soup with roasted beets and blue cheese. Other local chefs, such as Brenda Langton, interviewed the participants to provide a broad view of local food use, benefits, consumption and availability. It was a wonderful community food event, which took place at the biggest community food event in Minnesota, the state fair.

Aglow with good feeling for my fellow foodies, I followed a link from Arts & Letters Daily based on this teaser:

Imagine an egalitarian world in which all food is organic and local, the air is free of industrial pollution, and vigorous physical exertion is guaranteed. Sound idyllic?

Daniel Ben-Ami, writing for the Spiked Review of Books, examines several of the latest economic books, and decries the trend to criticize prosperity and romanticize simplicity. He correctly asserts, in his well researched and documented article, that things are more complex than many gung-ho, Buy-Local advocates would believe. Yet he doesn’t nuance the other extreme, so his article feels imbalanced.

Privileging the local can be taken to an extreme that would have a negative impact on the economy, and ultimately the lives of many. Ignoring the local would have a different but still negative effect. Ultimately, I think the answer lies in the simple adage, “Think Global, Act Local.” Both global and local are important and neither could exist without the other. That there is a global market has huge benefits on many levels. But supporting local businesses and farms does too. It doesn’t have to be either/or; it’s both/and.

G. Grod and I had a date at the MN State Fair last night. We parked and rode, which was free and not too time consuming. Since we entered near the creative arts building, we checked that out first. There were some cool quilts, like one with Ugly-Doll looking beasties. The sock monkey corner has expanded, but I think the geek pleasure maxed out last year, and this year the monkeys have jumped the shark. (Thanks, Jon Hein, for that term, by the way.)

I found my four baking entries on display among the hundreds of others. I was proud of myself (and G. Grod) for spotting them. I felt like I’d found my kids in a big crowd. The winning entries must have tasted better, because their appearance wasn’t exceptional. The winning brownies looked rather pale and were probably made with Hershey’s cocoa, which doesn’t provide enough chocolate punch for my taste. The winning scones were wedge shaped and denser than mine. The winning banana breads looked very plain–just bananas, or bananas and walnuts. Perhaps my bittersweet shaved chocolate was too risque for the judges in that category. I think I’ll bake again next year, as long as I can have fun with it, try not to care if I win, and minimize my “one more thing” stress-y tendencies.

We went to see Greg Brown, but decided to wander rather than see the whole show. We caught a few songs, which reminded us that he’s a great songwriter with a low voice that draws us in.

Foodwise, the new things we tried were mostly disappointing, while the old faves held up:

Corn fritters and fried green tomatoes with honey butter: the former were savory and sweet, the latter were tangy. The honey butter complemented both. Yum; highly recommended.

1919 root beer: nicely spicy and smooth; highly recommended

New: Uff-da Brat from Sausage Sister N Me: Disappointing. Dry lefse around a decent brat. Perhaps it would be better with the works (mashed potatoes and kraut), but they sounded awfully heavy. The lingonberry ketchup was sweet and bland. Not recommended. Try some of their past winners instead: Puff Daddy on a Stick, or Nacho Sistaaz.

Mouth Trap fried cheese curds: the must-have; greasy, gooey, and a whopping $5 (is that more expensive than last year?) Still, highly recommended.

New: Sundae with Minnesota strawberries: unremarkable. Soft-serve ice cream was stiff and not very flavorful, strawberries were macerated and good, but nothing more. Recommended with reservations.

New: Spam burger (for G. Grod, but I took a bite when he swore it was good): Surprisingly good, in a “I can’t believe I’m eating this, yet I crave another bite” way. Soft bun, salty slab of Spam, gooey cheese=remarkably simple yet tasty combination. Recommended, in spite of myself.

New: Frozen Key Lime Pie on a Stick: Not good. The lime pie was simultaneously bitter and over-sugared. The sweetness did not offset the bitterness, and overwhelmed the chocolate coating, rendering it tasteless. Not recommended.

[I'll try to add links later.]

The snizzly grey weather has me reaching for moody music. Too often, though, I’m listening to some poor guy who came to a bad end: Nick Drake, Chet Baker, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley. Today, I listened to Damien Rice’s O, and that suited me well. Sufjan Stevens’s Seven Swans is also a good rainy day record, and I haven’t even delved into the Bright Eyes discs. Any other suggestions on non-destructive artist rainy-day music?

I wonder who the copywriter was who invented the phrase “natural skin tone enhancer” to puff up “self tanner”? Yes it’s my annual attempt at self tanning. The difference is that this year wasn’t a debacle!

L’Oreals Sublime Glow (recommended by Consumer Reports) has rewarded my self-tanner perseverance! (Or at least not punished it. Much.) The beige lotion has a faint, pleasant smell; it doesn’t have the characteristic stink of most self-tanners. It’s got “micro-pearls” so it adds a little glimmer, but isn’t too Princess Sparkle. The color is only barely orange, but mostly light brown. It’s light and gradual enough to look natural, especially on my arms. I’ve had no disasters in the knee, elbow or ankle areas.

This is the best self-tanner I’ve used. It’s not perfect. It’s prone to streaks if you rush over wet skin. But it’s mostly natural-looking color, mostly easy, and not smelly.

It’s that time again. I’m hoping to make it to the MN State Fair three times this year. I’ve learned a few things that will help maximize food and minimize fatigue.

Old Favorites (taught to us by Mr. and Mrs. Blogenheimer, who showed us the glory that is the fair)

- Mouth Trap cheese curds
- World’s Best french fries
- Roast corn
- Sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies
- Tom Thumb mini donuts
- 1919 root beer

Newer Favorites

- Frozen Mocha on a Stick (Minnesota Farmers Union Coffee Shop, Dan Patch Avenue at Cosgrove Street).
- Mini cinnamon rolls (Cinni Smiths, Murphy Avenue at Cooper Street).
- Puff Daddy on a Stick (or anything from Sausage Sister & Me, Food Building).
- Wild rice corn dogs, Minnesota Wild Rice, Food Building
- Corn fritters with honey butter
- Cider Freezie
- Honey sunflower seed ice cream

For the husband:

- Red Bull Push-ups, Axel’s, Food Building, southeast corner

This year, based on Rick Nelson’s recommendations, I’m planning to try:

- Key Lime Pie on a Stick
- Sundae with Local Strawberries at the Dairy Goodness Bar
- Lingonberry ice cream at Underwood and Carnes
- Fresh French Fries (Liggett and Carnes, or Judson and Nelson)

My tips for the fair:

- Go early. Go hungry.
- Skip “real” food; it’s heavy and will fill you up. You can make a meal on a combination of the recommendations above.
- Always order the small size, no matter how good a deal a bigger size is.
- Share it, preferably among four (like fair-food tapas).
- Don’t take fair food home; the magic is gone.
- Visit the creative arts and fine arts building. I was not listed in the top five of the baking categories I entered, so I’m going to size up the competition, and see if I want to bake again next year.
- Go once with the kids, and at least once without them.
- Minnesota Cooks day is Tuesday August 28, 2007
- Weather this week is supposed to be good.
- Check out the free Leinie Lodge bandshell shows. There’s usually a gem or two worth seeking out.

Spoilers ahead:

I was shocked, but not really, when Tre was told at the close of episode 9 to pack his knives. His team was cocky even in part 1, and thought they could coast into night 2. Team Quatre took the constructive criticism to heart (though perhaps Howie, not so much, choosing lamb and undercooking it), and worked well together, especially considering how contentious some of their past partnerships has been. I loved Joey’s comment that he knew Howie’s dish because it was undercooked meat.

In the quickfire, Casey choked. I felt bad for her team, especially Brian who’d gotten them such a lead. I laughed in delight to watch Sara and Hung. They were fast but accurate enough, and the challenge was especially suited to Hung’s spastic skills.

As the comments piled up, it became increasingly clear that Tre should go. He was the lead for the team but didn’t galvanize them. Instead, he his cockiness became complacency, like in the Barbecue episode, and his pride led to his fall. Both the salmon and the bread pudding looked and sounded terrible. And the rest of the team was complicit in their loss. They all thought they had it in the bag, they all coasted, but Tre took the fall. While he may have been the best chef left, he was cut for good reason, in my opinion. I had him picked to win, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out.

One thing is sure; I’m going to stop trying to guess who is getting cut next, and who will be TC at the end. I called Casey to leave because she was so teary in her sitting commentary shots. Apparently it was because she felt to guilty for letting a team down, again. I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to guess that Casey is not going to be Top Chef, though.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

If only they weren’t so darn accurate of late.

(Link thanks to A Bland and Deadly Courtesy)