A Curious Statistical Anomaly

The Soup and Bread Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas. Rodale Books. Photographs by Hector Sanchez. ISBN: 978-1-60961-362-4. (Retail: $23.99 / Amazon: $18.47) (October 2013)

First, I love cookbooks. I buy them for many reasons besides wanting to make the delicious sounding recipes in them. I buy them for the beautiful photos or artwork, the way they’re set-up and designed, their clarity, and especially if the writing is clear, informative, entertaining, and the recipes themselves seem to be accurate (no ingredients hidden in the instructions that aren’t in the list of ingredients — that sort of thing). I even have the two books by Laurie Colwin that aren’t so much about the recipes as they are about cooking, food, and good eating and read like you were sitting around the table with a cuppa and just talking.

Ojakangas’ The Soup and Bread Cookbooks has some of that flavor for me. The introduction to each season’s recipes is sort of a quick overview of what the season means to her. There’s also some interesting background in the short information piece on each recipe. The recipes seem set up to make them easy to follow and the instructions are clear. Some of the recipes have variations and some of the bread recipes have instruction for using a bread machine rather than doing it all by hand.

My preference is for recipes and cookbooks that use actual ingredients rather than a can of this and a can of that, plus a box mix or two of something else. All the recipes use real food — which is better for you and your family. However, I did notice that many had a note on use of a canned or frozen ingredient as well as some substitutions if something wasn’t available in your area.

The photography was beautiful and it looks like this would be a cookbook you could sit and look at over and over.

Now for the cons:
Understand that I read a digital review copy which expired just about the time I finished reading through it. Digital review copies, as well as the print review copies are unfinished — there were a few places where there was just a note on what would be added, such as a sidebar. Even so, the instructions were still clear and concise — meaning I have great hopes for the finished edition. None of the recipes, in the copy I read, had calorie, carbs, etc. listed for a serving size. Normally, that wouldn’t be of interest to me but my family is being really careful right now due to a medical need to cut cholesterol and lose weight — so I’m more aware of this information not being readily available. WARNING: Since the copy I read was unfinished some of the material may change between the copy I read and the finished one you’ll find in your favorite bookstore.

Overall Impression:
Overall, I found this cookbook to be one I’ll more than likely go out and buy when it comes out in October. You’ll notice that the recipes that most often caught my attention are those for bread — I love bread. During the winter, I make bread — from scratch — nearly every week. While I currently have a bread machine, I still like to set it on dough and knead it — there’s something so satisfying and relaxing about making bread. Anyway, that another reviewer bias for you to add into the mix.

Now for the details:
Basics: Stocks, Broths, and Basic Breads
This section contained some recipes as well as helpful information and tips.
Recipes: Basic Chicken Stock, Two-for-One Chicken Stock (for soup stock and flavoring beans and rice dishes, braising vegetables, etc.), Two-for-One Beef Stock. Soup Tips: Cooling Stock Safely, Tips for making broth or stocks in a slow cooker, How to freeze stocks and Broths, Basic Vegetable Broth.

Glossary of Bread-Baking Basics
This section had some really good advice on breadmaking and some tips on how to get it right.
Recipes included: Fresh Baguette, Basic Vegetable Soup (whatever is in the house soup), Basic Home-Baked Bread (with Variations)

The book is arranged with the recipes chosen for what fresh ingredients would be available, and to deal with the heat or cold of the time of year. For each season, I’ve listed the total number of recipes for either soup or bread and the recipes that really got me wanting to pull out the pots and pans and try out. Luckily, I just did a read through because the book expired before I finished reading it through and if I’d stopped to cook along the way, I wouldn’t have gotten through it.

Spring:
27 soup and bread recipes
Some recipes that sounded interesting: Herbed Biscuit Muffins, Wheat Germ Batter Bread, Rosemary Focaccia, Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins, Asian Lemon-Ginger Soup, Cheddar Cheese Onion Scones, Walleye Chowder, and Super Simple Salmon Chowder.

Summer
24 soup and bread recipes
A sample listing of the recipes in this section I enjoyed reading: Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits, Avgolemondo Soup, Pita Bread, Summer Day Herb-scented Soup, Whole-Grain Buttermilk Oatmeal Bread, Bacon Parmesan Crackers, Red Curry & Coconut Bread, Spiced Zucchini Soup10-minute Chickpea-Tomato Soup, Easy Refrigerator Rolls. Cranberry Bean & Pasta Soup. Southwestern Chicken Tortilla Soup, and Cowboy Beer & Cheddar Bread.

Autumn:
26 soup and bread recipes
The first recipe in this section is for Stone Soup based on the children’s story. This is great for an autumn party potluck dinner and the author gives suggestions for what the guests should bring, as well as a bit of the story of stone soup.

Some of the recipes that caught my eye as ones I’d really like to make are: Oatmeal Batter Bread, Curried Chicken Wild Rice Soup, Dutch Raisin Bread, Green Cabbage & Hamburger Soup, Honey Whole Wheat Cranberry-Nut Bread, Brie & Apple Soup, Granola Loaf, Buttermilk Corn Muffins, and Curried Pumpkin Soup.

I was surprised by the Old-Fashioned Gridded Cheese, Apple, & Basil Sandwiches. I love grilled cheese sandwiches and often have them with swiss cheese, onion, and tomato but never thought of using apple and basil — what was I thinking, or rather not thinking to never consider this taste combination? I’ve got to try this in the fall when we usually have apples in the house.

Winter:
30 soup and bread recipes.
Some of the recipes that intrigued me in this section: Spicy Black Bean Soup (one can never have enough black bean soup recipes), Oatmeal Rusks, Brown Bread Muffins, New Year’s Good Luck Lentil Soup, Johnnycake, Herbed White Bean & Sausage Soup, Beer Biscuits, Cumin & Coriander Bean Soup, Senate Bean Soup (similar to one served in the US Senate dining room), Molasses Wheat Loaf, Rustic Rye Bread, Swedish Yellow Pea Soup with Pork, Overnight Mini Croissants, Russian Black Bread (there’s chocolate and coffee in this one), Cabbage & Apple Soup, Mulligan Stew, and Feijoada (a black bean soup with oranges).

All in all, a great cookbook, especially if you have a garden or a good produce section in your local stores. Not a lot of specialty items needed. Soups are always great because you can stretch them out to feed company or for several meals. Since many people are cutting their budgets and food is usually a big expense for most families — soups and homemade bread would be a great way to serve nutritious meals at a lower cost per person.

As always, feel free to leave a comment.

For a while, I was knitting a row or two of a sock and then putting it aside. Lots of starts and very few finished — well none of them finished actually — got the finishing of about 12 socks on my ToDo list now and trying not to get overwhelmed by the length of that list .

Then I got in the mood last year and did a seat-of-the-pants sort of proof of concept sweater just to wear around the house. Paul — who hates sweaters by the way — put it on one cold morning and loved it. Seems he really hates sweaters that are tight in the neck. He wore it to work and around the house and actually had it on 4-5 days a week. It was hard to get it back to wash. The problem was it wasn’t even a really good sweater — just navy blue left over yarn knit top down with no pattern and not really following the rules for increases and the sleeves were short.

So, I decided to make him a nice sweater. He picked out some really nice grey yarn (Red Heart’s Grey Heather). By nice I mean it will go into the washer and dryer and be tough since I’m expecting it to be worn as much as the navy blue one from last year.

Got the yarn home and tried to find the Cobblestone Sweater pattern by Jared Flood. I’d made this sweater a couple of years ago for my son. Couldn’t find the pattern which was in a past issue of Interweave Knits but couldn’t find the magazine. So, went to Flood’s website and bought a copy, downloaded the pattern, and started knitting.

In a week, I’d knit the entire lower body and then needed to start the sleeves. Several month’s later I was still on the first sleeve with 6 more pattern repeats to get to the part where you join for the top of the sweater. So, I started knitting when I watched streaming video of class lectures, news shows, etc. and finished the first sleeve in 1 1/2 weeks. I took this picture of the body, pattern, and sleeves two days ago — sorry for the blurriness. The second sleeve is now just 11 patter repeats from being done. Once this sleeve is finished I expect to be able to zoom through the top and finish it. I’ll report next week on how far I get from this point.

I should also note that I’ve made a change from the pattern. I continued a strip of garter stitch up the outside of the sleeves (10 stitches wide).
Next Thursday, I’ll post another photo of the Cobblestone Sweater status. It feels good to be back into knitting again.

I can’t believe how long it has been since I last posted here. Time continues to get away from me. I’ve got the drafts of at least three book reviews and hope to get them up the first of the year.

Also, have been working on a sock pattern — my own design so I’m pretty psyched up about it. It’s a toe up and I’m to the point of starting the heel and have been dithering for months over which type of heel would work best for this sock. I think I’ve finally made up my mind and now I just have to get knitting again.

An observation on getting older:
Finger snapping:
Why does getting older mean you have pain when you try to snap your fingers? I used to do that all the time when I was younger. You know. SNAP. I got it — the shouting Eureka in the streets thing with a finger snap. Now — even though I don’t have arthritis in my fingers — it hurts to snap. But, since I noticed I try to do it a few times a day and it’s getting better.

My guess is that as you get older you don’t do it as often and the muscles you haven’t used then just have problems working in that way. So, practice keeps the skill going.

If you’ve got another explanation I’d love to hear it (well read it).

So, book reviews and sock photos are on the horizon.

Yesterday after a long day at work, I stopped by the post office to mail out the latest batch of books. Shortly after getting into line, a woman came in and asked if anybody liked cats, because there as a kitten outside that looked like it was in some distress. What she got was a lot of folks ignoring her, or telling her that they were dog folks, or allergic, or one of a dozen other excuses. I too was reluctant to speak up, because while Gayle’s allergies are being kept under control as long as we use the Allerpet on Emnot, there’s no guarantee that it would be effective on a different cat. Nor was there any guarantee that Emnot would tolerate another cat in the house. He has a tendency to go all territorial warlord whenever another cat dares to come up on the porch. Of course, that display is limited to when the door is closed, or when one of his human’s goes out to back him up.

In any event, one of the other customers told the lady there was an animal shelter nearby and that she should just call them and they’d come and pick the cat up. I offered to get her the phone number, but she said she’d just drive over and report him in person, and have them come get him. And for a while I though that was the end of it.

I stood in line for nearly 20 minutes until I was finally able to pass off the packages to the mail clerk and get back on my way. But I couldn’t just leave without checking to make sure the kitten had been picked up. I walked around to where the woman had indicated … and there he still was. Maybe eight inches long from nose to rump. Certainly less then a year old. He was a shorthair, mostly yellow-orange, mixed liberally with white fur. And he was lying on the brick patio near the rear door to the lobby. He was motionless except for the distressed panting as he tried desperately to breath. I knew in that second that the kitten wasn’t going to survive until nightfall. And I’d already discounted any hope that the animal shelter was going to arrive, or that the woman had even gone to them.

I called our vet and described the situation. They agreed that I should bring him to them. If animal control was called, they’d just put him down immediately. So I scooped him into the basket that I’d been using to carry the packages. I didn’t know if he was at all used to humans, and I didn’t want to terrify the poor thing any more than I had to. When I slid my fingers under him, he managed to twitch a little and pull his head back, but he couldn’t move his legs or body. I hurried back to the car, cooing stupid things to him, like you do, and tried to get him to the vet as quickly as I could. Maybe it’s just me, but I think I hit every red light on the way. I ran the air conditioner up and he seemed to relax a little as the temperature in the car dropped. He even managed a few meows.

I took him into the waiting room and three nurses swooped down on me and bore him off to the back where the doctor was waiting for him. I waited in one of the exam rooms and when they came to find me, the prognosis was not good. He was in shock, dehydrated, there was blood in his urinary tract, and there was something wrong with his bladder. They couldn’t tell for sure without a lot more tests.

They wanted to know if I was planning on keeping him and, to my embarrassment, I had to confess that it would depend on how much it would cost to nurse him back to health, assuming that it was even possible. It’s a sad, but unfortunate truth, that finances can not be ignored. The doctor said that they would keep him overnight and see how he was in the morning, and that I should call them and we’d discuss it more then.

I called Gayle on they way back and told her the story. We talked about the situation last night and this morning, and we went over the finances to see just how much we could afford.

I called back this morning, ready to negotiate if need be … and was told that he’d passed away last night. They’d found evidence of internal bleeding, and one of the nurses had taken him home with her so that she could care for him, and he’d passed away in her car on the way.

So at least he went peacefully, with someone that cared for him. Not alone and baking to death on the pavement while dozens of people walked by and ignored him.

Unfortunately, I never though to take a picture of him.

So, for the kitten that was only part of my life for a couple of hours, I’m sorry that the world is such a cruel place. That so many humans, that wield such awesome powers, just don’t give a damn. I’m sorry that you didn’t get to meet Gayle or Emnot. That you won’t be able to join our clowder.

But I’m glad that you were able to spend the last few hours of your far too short life, surrounded by the best representatives that humanity has to offer. The people that do care, sometimes far too much.

Goodbye little one.

We got back from Balticon then had May 31st to get everything finalized and up for the zines. We managed to get them both online and active but needing a few additions and fixes on June 1st. Not a problem since that’s the usual way. However, the stress of having to do so much in such a short time made me think the house was really hot.

Yesterday, June 1st, the temperature outside was, with the heat index, 110 degrees — inside it was 90 with the AC set to 75. Guess the day before it was hot inside the house afterall, since the outside temp was nearly as high. As if heat that made it difficult to focus and think straight wasn’t bad enough — we lost power for a few hours. But we called the heat/AC guys and they should come today sometime (evidently lots of people have AC problems when the temps go up).

So, while the outside temp is barely 70 right now it’s 78 inside. I’ve got the fans on and I’m waiting for the repair guys and really hoping it’s something they can fix. Meanwhile, I still have all the updates to do — and I’m trying to convince myself that below 80 is much much better than 90 and besides I’ve got power.

I think myself is trying to lie to me. So, if you’ve looked at SFRevu.com — check back there’s more to come. Gumshoe Review is now finalized (but if you know of news of interest to mystery readers or upcoming conventions let us know).

Turns out that our new[ish] air handling system seems to have sprung a leak. We’re told that the coil on this particular model has flaw in a small percentage of the coils. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyway to determine which are the ones that will last for decades, and which will last for a year. This one appears to be the later. The unit is still under warranty, so we’ll get a new coil and a new supply of coolant, and hopefully this one will be one of the good ones. At least it should last through the summer. And if the last two days were any indication, it’s going to be another scorcher.

Today we went to Maryland Sheep and Wool. We had a great time considering we walked constantly from arrival to leaving — about 7.5 hours. Driving time 1.5 hours each way.

We’re home now. My knee feels like it is the size of a basketball and my back is reporting that it’s filing for a separation. If it wins, I guess I’ll be flopping around but at least it won’t hurt anymore.

We used the GPS to get there this time. We’ve got one and thought we’d give it a try. It took us off the route we usually take for the last few miles and at first we thought it knew some new way to get to the parking fields. Nope. It put us on a major divided highway and then announced we’d arrived at our destination. Of course we had arrived. The fact that our destination was just off the highway down a gully and over a fence separating it from the highway was of no concern to the GPS. We had a good laugh about parking on the highway and scaling the fence and took the next exit and backtracked to the actual entrance to the fairgrounds.

Crowds we thick on the grounds. We hadn’t been for the last two years so we surprised to see whole new areas opened to vendors. I’ll write more later but I’ve got to take some pain meds and ice a few bits of me. We took pictures but have no idea what will come out and what is fuzzy so will post those later.

It’s amazing how tired one can get from fresh air and sunshine. I feel like I’ve been up and moving for a week — and a tough week at that.

Eating rice — soft, soft, rice — and the tooth I had the root canal on just a week ago split in two. Yup, right up the middle along the drill hole. So half a tooth fell out into my mouth. Luckily, I didn’t swallow it. From tip to gum, a half a tooth.

It’s Saturday night. My dental appointment is for Wednesday. Guess Monday will be a day to make calls and hope for a spot on the dentist’s calendar.

On the bright side the tooth is dead so there’s no pain — at least none yet. Wonder if there will be. I hope not. But, at least this is fixable and we have insurance. I keep telling myself I’m actually lucky. Yeah, lucky with half a tooth in my palm.

Can you believe that after noting here that Earth Hour was coming up and getting all excited about it — well, I never got a chance to do anything about it. We had a planning meeting that day, and it was in DC. After the meeting, because we were there and it was supposed to snow, this years Capclave Chair and Hyperion and I met to discuss strategies for the Capclave website and Blog and online publicity.

Once that was done it was about an hour Metro back to the car and then we had to do the weekly shopping in Waldorf. By the time we headed home it was nearly 8:30 and by the time we got home it was nearly 9:30 p.m. We kept light to a minimum but in the past we’ve turned them all off and either read by candle light or oil lamp. So, we’ve been very careful the past few days to turn lights off when we leave a room and not use one if not necessary. Okay, we do that anyway but I’m being compulsive about it now.

Meanwhile, SFRevu and Gumshoe Review go live with the new issues on April 1st so I’ve been working steadily on getting things ready.

What’s making everything more difficult is the lack of energy. I’ve got problems with energy levels anyway and after fighting the flu for the past 3 1/2 to 4 weeks — I feel like walking across the room is the equivalent to running a quarter-mile. It’s weird when you stand up and suddenly all our energy drains out and all you want to do is curl up on the floor and sleep. I find myself looking down to see if I can see the energy leaking out of my heel. I’ve taken to wearing shoes and socks instead of going around in just my socks in case that will help hold in the energy. Haven’t seen anything leaking out of my heel — but really it feels like it should be visible.

But, the good news is that while I was sick, Spring sprung. One day last week — I think it was Wednesday — I looked out the window and the pear trees had flowers, the forsythia was blooming, the daffodils along the woodland path were in bloom, and the chives and some other herbs were showing signs of growth. Spring happened. I just sat with my coffee and contemplated how nice it was to just wake up and see such signs of spring all around me. It’s a great change from all the grey dreariness that came before with rain, overcast skies, and blah days.