Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 354

Triple Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

Okay, I made these for the first time this year, and this time I actually know where the recipe came from: the Dec 2014 Taste of Home.

I almost made these according to the recipe given at the link above, but not quite. These are well worth making, even if you’re not crazy about peppermint (I am emphatically not fond of peppermint, having overdosed as a small child, but I still like these).

Triple Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

3/4 C butter

1 C sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp peppermint extract (not in original recipe)

1 3/4 C flour

1/2 C cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

4 oz white candy coating, because the white chocolate that I had wasn’t as white as I wanted, so I cheated by using candy coating instead, which is prettier (though not as tasty, granted) (but these cookies have enough going on that it didn’t matter)

4 oz semisweet chocolate

1 tsp canola oil

1/4 C crushed candy canes. A food processor is your friend when it comes to crushing candy canes. If you are going to make smaller cookies than the original recipe, as I do, then you can crush the candy right down to powder with some coarser bits mixed in.

Okay, cream the butter and sugar in the standard fashion. Beat in the egg and the peppermint extract. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and stir in that mixture. You can now wrap in plastic and chill for as long as you like, within reason.

Cut the ball of dough in quarters, in quarters again, and then form each portion into four little balls. You will have 64 balls, obviously. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and flatten gently with a little glass dipped in flour, or whatever you use for that kind of thing.

Bake at 350 degrees for 6 minutes or so. Try not to overbake, always a concern for chocolate cookies. You may want to bake just a couple cookies first, cool them, and break them in half to make sure of the timing.

Anyway, remove the baked cookies to racks to cool completely.

Now, melt the white candy coating and the chocolate, adding the canola oil to the chocolate (candy coating doesn’t need oil, but if you do use white chocolate, add a bit of oil). Pipe each over the cookies. The easiest way is to get a big sheet of plastic wrap, double it over, spoon the chocolate into the middle, gather up the plastic into a kind of bag, and poke with a slim knife to make a little hole. Anyway, pipe the chocolate and the candy coating across the cookies. Sprinkle with crushed candy canes before the chocolate sets. Let set until the chocolate does set.

There you go! Very pretty on any cookie tray.

Cooking when you’re busy: sometimes shortcuts are not a good idea

So, you all know I’ve been busy, what with revising one ms (MOUNTAIN) to remove one of the two protagonists, a big job, as you can imagine; and as it happens I also have (what I hope will be) final editorial comments on another ms (THE KEEPER OF THE MISTS). MISTS ought to be turned around, ideally, by the middle of January, and have I looked at it yet? No. Because, Christmas, plus MOUNTAIN, which I need to get to a stopping place before I, uh, stop.

Also, I accidentally started a book that I turned out to really love, so then I had to read that and the sequel, which was distracting. I knew I should have stuck to nonfiction. I’ll review them for real some time.

Also, I have zero room in my freezer right now. The whole thing is taken up with cookies. Which, yes, btw, cookies freeze beautifully; if you offer people two plates of room temp cookies, they won’t be able to tell which ones were previously frozen (yes, I tried this), except for pastry types of cookies, which do decline in quality if frozen.

All this makes it hard to cook real food, so when I was picking up the ingredients for tamales and fancy sandwiches and so on, I also impulsively picked up three instant “noodle bowls” of “Thai food”. I just had one of these for lunch. It was, to be specific, the “Garlic Basil Singapore Street Noodles”, of the Simply Asia brand. I added a handful of snow peas and a bit of this and that.

Well.

Not to put too fine a point on it: This was dreadful. Dreadful.

To say that the sauce was too sweet and not spicy enough would imply that the sauce had some kind of flavor, which in fact it really did not.

Now, Singapore Noodles are not actually from Singapore, but they are very good and not difficult at all, so in case you have tried instant noodle bowls such as this awful Simply Asia kind, and thus gotten turned off of the whole idea, let me provide the recipe I should have made, which is in fact quick to make if you are pressed for time, and believe me, next time I will make it.

Singapore Noodles, based on Mark Bittman’s recipe from THE BEST RECIPES IN THE WORLD

I am sizing this recipe for one (very generous) serving, which is how I make it. Almost every ingredient is optional

4 oz thin rice noodles, the kind that are called rice stick or rice vermicelli

1 Tbsp vegetable oil, whatever kind you like

Optional: 4 oz boneless chicken breast, boneless sliced pork, sliced Chinese sausage, peeled shrimp, or tofu, or any combination. Or if you don’t have any of the above, then fine, just go on to the next ingredient.

Optional: 1 egg, beaten

1/2 onion, sliced

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp minced ginger, and incidentally, the best way to store ginger so you have “fresh” ginger available is to peel it, slice it, and put it in a glass jar with rice wine or vodka or sherry to cover. It will last nearly indefinitely in the refrigerator and can be used whenever you need fresh ginger.

1/2 Tbsp curry powder, preferably a fairly hot variety

1/2 Tbsp sugar

Generous 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce

Generous 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce, or more soy sauce if you prefer

2 Tbsp chicken broth or water

1 Tbsp sliced fresh basil, if you have it handy.

1/3 C sliced scallions, if handy

1 Tbsp chopped peanuts

Okay, now that looks like a lot of ingredients, but basically you don’t HAVE to have anything but the rice noodles, onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, sugar, soy sauce, and peanuts. Whatever else you have, great. Now, here’s what to do with it all:

1. Cover the rice noodles with boiling water and set aside.

2. Slice the chicken breast and/or pork and/or Chinese sausage, and/or peel the shrimp, and/or dice the tofu. Set aside. If you’re using the shrimp, set it aside separately from other meats.

3. Slice the onion.

4. Mince the garlic and ginger.

5. Heat a bit of oil in a small nonstick skillet, pour in the egg, and let set on the bottom, then jiggle it around and more or less turn it over, let it cook through. Turn the omelet out on a cutting board and slice.

6. Okay, now, here we go: Heat the rest of the oil in a bigger skillet. Sauté the chicken, pork, and/or sausage until basically cooked. Remove to a bowl. Sauté the shrimp until no longer pink. Remove that to the bowl, too. Add more oil to the skillet. Sauté the onion three minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and sauté 30 seconds. Add the curry powder and the sugar and stir once. Drain the noodles and add those. Stir and toss for about a minute. Add the soy sauce and fish sauce. Add the cooked meat, shrimp, and/or egg, plus a tablespoonful or so of broth or water. Stir and toss until the noodles begin to brown, about five to seven minutes. Add the tofu, if you’re using that, and stir very gently until heated through. Toss in the basil, scallion, and peanuts. Turn out into a bowl and dig in.

Fair warning: if you have any horrible instant “noodle bowls” in your pantry, you will probably throw them away after you try this.

A brand new type of cookie

As you all know, I don’t generally follow recipes very closely, except as you probably also know (if you bake) it’s more important to follow directions in baking than in other types of cooking. However, once you’ve baked, oh, a thousand kinds of cookies or so, you can certainly start to fiddle around with recipes and create your own.

“Snow Bites” are one of the most popular types of cookies I make; lots of people pick them out of the crowd as a particular favorite. It’s also an easy dough to turn to many uses.

Original Snow Bites

4 oz cream cheese

¼ C butter

6 Tbsp margarine

1 C sugar

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla

¼ tsp salt

2 1/5 C flour

Cream the cream cheese, butter, and margarine with the sugar. I’ve made this with butter + cream cheese and with margarine + cream cheese, and although I generally follow the proportions given in the actual recipe, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. There really isn’t any baking powder in this recipe, so I didn’t leave it out by accident. The cookies are supposed to be dense. They have a great texture, trust me.

Beat in the egg, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the flour. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill an hour or until you’re ready to get around to making the cookies. Then divide the ball of dough into quarters, then into eights, and ultimately into 64 evenly-sized little balls. (I would make them bigger for normal purposes, but I like very small cookies for Christmas.) Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so, until tops appear set and dry but they are only a bit golden on the bottom (they should be pale in color; that’s why they’re called “Snow Bites.”

Now, variations. First, you can add about a cup of dried cranberries to the dough, which I’ve found very popular. This is a Christmas standard for me. Or you can add mini chocolate chips, which I personally especially like, but it isn’t as popular or as Christmasy.

Here’s a variant I made this Christmas for the first time:

Along with the above ingredients, you will need:

Juice of one lemon

Finely grated zest of four or five lemons (I had a lot of lemon zest in the freezer because when I made preserved Moroccan lemons earlier, I needed the juice but not the zest of a lot of lemons, and it would be a crime to throw away all those lemon rinds without zesting them first.) (A microplane grater is the just the ticket for quickly and finely zesting citrus fruits.)

¼ to ½ tsp baking soda (Adding lemon juice made me feel I should probably add baking soda.)

4 oz white chocolate

Additional lemon zest

Along with the egg, vanilla, and salt, add the juice of one lemon and the zest of four or five lemons. Add the baking soda to the flour before you stir in the flour. The extra liquid will make the dough a little softer than usual, but it is still easy to handle. Chill, form into balls, and bake as above.

When cookies are cool, melt the white chocolate. Coat the tops of the cookies. The easiest way is to dip your finger in the chocolate and smear it on the cookies, but whatever. You can certainly try dipping the cookies, but I found smearing easier and quicker. Drop a bit of lemon zest on the top of each cookie before the chocolate sets.

Now, lemon and chocolate is an excellent combination, so I also added ½ C of mini chocolate chips to the cookie dough. But if I were doing it again, I would either leave the chocolate chips out or double the amount. You could certainly try it both ways and see what you like best.

Enjoy!

Art held hostage

A post from Chuck Wendig, who is absolutely right:

Hackers, which may or may not be connected to North Korea, found Sony’s new film, The Interview, quite disagreeable — so much so that they hacked the unmerciful shit out of Sony (thus releasing emails and scripts and other internal company information, which our news media flocked to like a pack of starving vultures) and threatened terror attacks in the style of 9/11 if the film was released. Some big theater chains understandably capitulated, and then Sony folded like a paper airplane, too.

Were you all aware of that? I was aware of the hacking bit, but not that Sony rolled over like a scared puppy. Chuck then goes on to excoriate Sony for caving to threats, and taking apart arguments that they were justified. He is, as I say, right about all of that.

I also want to pick out commenter Megan:

December 18, 2014 at 10:10 AM // Reply

I agree with [the previous commenter] about the content of the film…probably…but the fact is, this pressure was not a peaceful or democratic protest aimed at Sony. It was not a capitalist decision. The hackers threatened to bomb theaters and KILL the audience that sees the movie. (Yes, they hacked Sony, and while that’s a huge invasion of privacy, I was less concerned about that.) Sony’s decision not to release the movie is capitulating to terrorists. It is letting another nation, a VIOLENT OPPRESSIVE nation dictate what our country, our citizens are allowed to see, or risk actual death by their hands. And not just the audience of that film, but potentially any film viewed in a theater that day. It is a threat to our freedoms.

Shame on Sony, [and] shame on us for not fighting back.

Yes, what she said. I also am ashamed of the Sony executives, and ashamed of our political leaders, whose behavior has led North Korea — North Korea, of all places — to think they can get away with this. And, apparently, be right.

Dangerous comparisons

From tor.com, this:

Jonathan Strange Meets Georgette Heyer: Pan Macmillan Acquires Zen Cho’s Regency Fantasy Sorcerer to the Crown

And my first thought, Wow, I’d love this.

But my second, firmer thought was, Wow, nobody could live up to that. Do I want to court disappointment?

It’s a tricky business, comparing a forthcoming title to classics that have been out for ages.

Anyway, here’s the book description:

The book takes us to a Regency London where the Crown calls on magic, and English high society holds an uneasy truce with the land of the Faerie. Even though Zacharias Wythe has only begun his work as England’s first African Sorcerer Royal, he’s is already facing three non-magical problems: The Fairy court thinks he murdered his predecessor, a dangerous faction is scheming to unseat him by any means necessary, and…Prunella Gentleman. Prunella, an orphan who has spent her life toiling at a school she hates, has just uncovered a secret that might change the course of English Magic. Wythe doesn’t want to work with her, but it looks like he doesn’t have a choice…

I see why people might glimpse echoes of Jonathan Strange in that. Georgette Heyer, not so much, but then there’s only so much you can put in a single paragraph of description and witty dialogue that burbles gently along is not going to be possible.

On a side note, can a character actually be named Prunella Gentleman? Is that a terrible idea for a name or could it possible work in context? Horrible names bother me all through a book, even if I love everything else about the book. Could that conceivably be a typo?

Anyway, sounds like one to keep an eye out for. It’s supposed to hit the shelves late next year.

Philip K Dick

Here’s an interesting post on Philip K Dick, over at tor.com. This bit, a quote from Dick himself, is what caught my eye:

“I used to dig in the garden, and there isn’t anything fantastic or ultradimensional about crab grass…unless you are a sf writer, in which case, pretty soon you’re viewing crabgrass with suspicion. What are its real motives? And who sent it in the first place? The question I always found myself asking was, What is it really?”

Next summer, I am going to eye my crabgrass with far more speculation. What is it really?

A memorable turn of phrase

So, I’m reading PLANET NARNIA, by Michael Ward.

It’s a nonfiction book about the underlying coherent organization of the Chronicles of Narnia, not something I ever worried about, actually, when I was reading and re-reading them as a kid. Actually, I’m not sure I even have copies any more. Hmmm.

Anyway, it’s a bit erudite, but interesting. I haven’t gotten too far into it yet. Then I hit this bit, which made first pause, then re-read, then laugh out loud:

“We must remember that each Narnia story is “something made” as well as “something said”. Too often critics (both friendly and hostile) have treated the Chronicles as if they were principally works of propaganda and have exchanged their poetry for a pot of message.”

Congratulations to Michael Ward for pulling that one off!

Anyway, I’m reading nonfiction because, as you may have guessed, I’m busy. I am working on revisions for MOUNTAIN, I just got hopefully final comments back from Michelle about KERI (Now officially THE KEEPER OF THE MIST) and have a fast-approaching deadline to turn that around, I am baking (though at a slower, more sane pace now that I have mailed the cookies I send as gifts — eighteen kinds counting the marshmallows and other candies), AND I am running my two older girls up to the cardiologist in St Louis tomorrow for their biannual heart checks. I hope their murmurs haven’t progressed one bit since last July, but I want to check before they have their dentals later this month.

ALSO, Honey has come into season. Ishmael hasn’t noticed yet, but he will very soon. Yet it would be unkind to pen up either of them with no playmate. By a handy coincidence, my friend Deb’s Natalie has also just come into season and her boy is also going to be making himself a nuisance. So tomorrow we are doing a puppy shuffle. I get both girls, Deb gets both boys, and in a few weeks we’ll switch back.

But at least my last Christmas present has arrived! I can wrap it and put away the wrapping paper.

Here’s hoping all of you are having a smooth (if probably busy) run up to Christmas!

2014 End of Year Book Survey

I can hardly believe we’re already at the end of 2014! This year has really dashed by, especially the last couple of months. But here we are, nearly at 2015. Wow.

I’m glad I started keeping a reading list a few years ago, because otherwise there would be no hope of remembering what I read way back in January, much less deciding on standouts. But as it is, I can actually provide statistics! Actually making choices for my personal favorites from 2014 is much harder, but I’ll try.

1. Number of books read per genre in 2014:

Contemporary: 6

Science-Fiction: 10

Fantasy: 42

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal: 11

Historical Fiction: 2

Mystery: 4

Romance: 9

Middle Grade: 5

Young Adult: 15

Independently Published: 14

All the MG, YA, and Indie titles are also included in the genre categories above, so that is 34 books that are double-counted. That means the total number of books I read in 2014 is . . . 84. This is *terrible*. By far the smallest number since I started keeping track. Even if you add the 13 Shadow Unit books I re-read in April, that’s only 97! Less than a hundred books read in the whole year! !!!

On the other hand, this low number of books read is because I spent a lot of time writing, including the huge hack-it-up-and-rewrite of KEHERA in April — that’s why I re-read all the Shadow Unit books that month, and nothing else. And then KERI took a lot of my free time for most of the summer. I may still read a few more books this month, but not many, because I do need to seriously tackle the revision of MOUNTAIN. One project after another!

So, moving on. Where I wrote a review or comments about a particular title, I linked to that.

2. Favorite books read in 2014:

Middle Grade: Jinx by Sage Blackwood

Young Adult SFF: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

Contemporary YA: Fangirl

Contemporary Adult: Blessings

Now, I never wrote a review for this one, because, you know, I just didn’t. Sometimes that happens. But I liked it a lot. Here’s what Goodreads says about it: Late one night, a teenage couple drives up to the big white clapboard home on the Blessing estate and leaves a box. In that instant, the lives of those who live and work there are changed forever. Skip Cuddy, the caretaker, finds a baby girl asleep in that box and decides he wants to keep the child . . . while Lydia Blessing, the matriarch of the estate, for her own reasons, agrees to help him. “Blessings” explores how the secrets of the past affect decisions and lives in the present; what makes a person or a life legitimate or illegitimate and who decides; and the unique resources people find in themselves and in a community.

What I particularly liked was how warm and nurturing Skip is in this story, and how reserved and even cold Lydia is. I loved the reversal of the normal gender stereotypes. Quindlen weaves together past and present as well as different points of view and it all works beautifully. A bit heartbreaking at the end, but then one can see how far both Skip and Lydia have come in their personal journeys by that time, not to mention many of the secondary characters, and the whole story is satisfying — more so than if it had been too saccharine. And how Lydia sorts things out at the very end — so characteristic: both cool and kind at the same time.

Science-Fiction: Ancillary Justice

I never reviewed this one, either, but then everyone else has. And you’ve all read it yourselves already, right?

Fantasy: The Goblin Emperor

Urban Fantasy / Paranormal: Written in Red

Historical Fiction:

Mystery: Sinners and Saints

I met someone who beta reads for Eileen Dreyer, and so I tried this book, and I liked it a lot even though I never quite got around to reviewing it. Goodreads says: Forensics specialist Chastity Byrnes is trying to put the past behind her. It has been ten years since Chastity made accusations against her father that shattered her family…and ten years since she’s seen her sister, Faith. First, Chastity gets a call from Dr. Max Stanton, the brother-in-law she never knew she had. Then she finds out that her long-lost sister is officially missing. Even though Faith never wanted to see her sister again, Chastity decides to go to the Big Easy to find her.

What I liked: The writing was good and Chastity’s voice was clear and engaging. I really liked how the stuff that happened in the past was not just shaken off by anybody, but remained intensely important to everyone involved. I loved how *plausible* all the effects of the past were, too. It felt psychologically real to me. The setting is evoked well, the romance is handled well, the story is good if a bit predictable in some ways. I expect I will be picking up more stories by Dreyer.

Romance: The Chocolate Heart

Fairy Tale Re-Telling: Castle Behind Thorns

Independently Published: Across A Jade Sea

3. Book I thought I was going to love but was disappointed in:

Under the Light by Laura Whitcomb

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

For the former, I was driven mad by how the issues resolved by the characters in the first book turned out to NOT REALLY BE RESOLVED, thus negating the characters’ arcs from the first book and imo ruining the second book. Phooey.

For the latter, I just could not get over what seemed a sharp drop in sentence-level writing quality from the author’s work as Myra Grant. Also, the intense ridiculousness of the story. I get that this was supposed to be light, but it was *too* light for me.

4. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2014:

Written in Red by Anne Bishop

I have found Bishop’s work catchy and engaging but flawed. This story was catchier and *extremely* engaging, and also good. Sure, the world has plausibility issues. Those issues didn’t bother me a bit while reading the story or the second book. I can’t wait for the third.

5. Book I most often recommended to people in 2014:

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Probably. After all, I read Ancillary Justice way back in January, which gave me lots of time this year to recommend it to everyone.

6. Favorite series I discovered in 2014:

The Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker

Catchy, engaging, charming, I zipped right through the whole series.

7. Favorite new author I discovered in 2014:

Sage Blackwood. I’m really looking forward to the finale of her JINX trilogy, and to whatever she writes after that.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2014:

The Martian by Weir. What a page turner!

9. Book I am most likely to re-read next year:

The Goblin Emperor by “Katherine Addison”. I’m already looking forward to reading this again.

10. Favorite cover of a book I read in 2014:

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch.

The book was pretty damn good, too.

11. Most memorable character in 2014:

Maia in The Goblin Emperor. Awww. Maia. I am *dying* for a sequel. My brother points out that Maia’s wife would make a good pov character, which is true. I hope this book sweeps the awards next year and “Katherine Addison” changes her mind about not writing a sequel.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2014:

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norril My God, this was long. But without question beautifully written, both on a sentence-by-sentence level — that turns out to be especially important to me in an audiobook — and overall. Watching everything finally come together at the end was fantastic.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on me in 2014:

The Goblin Emperor. I want to write that book. Only different.

14. Best alien species in 2014:

A Darkling Sea by Cambias. Fabulous job.

15. Favorite romance from a book read in 2014:

Amaranthe and Sicarius from The Emperor’s Edge for new-to-me authors. Luc and Summer from The Chocolate Heartfor re-reads.

16. Favorite friendship from a book read in 2014:

Maddie and Julie from Code Name Verity. I know, everybody says this. But it’s true.

17. Best 2014 debut I read:

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I hear that’s the first-ever novel-length work Leckie ever finished. Whoa.

18. Most vivid world/imagery in a book I read in 2014:

Stories of the Raksura by Martha Wells. For me, no one does more vivid, cinematic worldbuilding than Martha Wells.

19. Book I read in 2014 that made me cry:

Code Name Verity, but only at the very end. And, fine, The Chocolate Heart, and not just at the very end, either.

20. Book read in 2014 that was published earlier but that got way too little buzz the year it came out:

The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy by Martha Wells. Seriously, if you still haven’t read this, you should pick it up. It’s even better re-read than it was to read it the first time.

LOOKING AHEAD

1. One book I didn’t get to in 2013 but will be my #1 priority in 2015:

Hild by Nicola Griffith

2. Book I am most anticipating for 2015:

Black Dove White Raven by Elizabeth Wein

3. 2015 debut I am most anticipating:

So, apparently Greg Manchess wrote a book inspired by this painting of his:

He said at the World Fantasy Convention that he expects this book to come out next year. If it does, I’ll be looking for it, because WHAT A GREAT PAINTING.

4. Series ending I am most anticipating in 2015:

The fourth Raven Boys book by Maggie Stiefvater … if that comes out next year? Not sure it’s going to. But if it does, I will finally be able to go back and read the wholse series.

5. One thing I hope to accomplish in my reading in 2015:

Read more nonfiction. This will probably happen, because I sure didn’t read much nonfiction this year — just a couple of books for the whole year. I’m pleased that this year I managed to read a lot more indie-published work than usual, which was one of my goals, and a lot more MG than usual, which ditto. The imbalance toward fantasy was pretty extreme, though. Maybe I can even it out more in 2015.

Baking failures

Sometimes I wonder, I really do. Like that time I suddenly couldn’t open the oven door without burning myself: have you ever had a particularly klutzy month like that? Probably not, probably just me.

So, this year, so far, I’ve made 12 kinds of cookies. And three of them — THREE — have not turned out well. I’ve been baking beautiful little cookies every Christmas for more than a decade and this year? Phooey. So annoying.

The little pastry cookies that you roll up into crescents around a pecan and honey filling? It’s one of my favorite kinds and I’ve made it several times and THIS time, the pastry did not cooperate and actually neither did the filling. Well, I only used half the dough, so I will be turning the other half into tiny little turnovers and sealing the filling in — maybe that will work better. In the meantime, the bad cookies were not pretty but were excellent re-interpreted as breakfast pastries.

The curry shortbread cookies I made last year? I got two requests for those, so I made them. Except I plainly forgot to put in half the flour. They are not actually terrible, but they are not what they are supposed to be. I’m calling them “Curry Butter Crisps” — or, if that would freak people out, “Spicy Butter Crisps.” I may remake the whole recipe later, too, and prove I can do it right.

I will say, the dogs like the curry butter crisps. They got the ones that were more over-baked. Not one spaniel was heard to complain about the quality of the cookie.

And, I forgot to put the caramel layer on the hazelnut thumbprint cookies. They’re good, but not as good as they should be.

On the other hand, the double chocolate ginger cookies turned out great. I made a bunch so I could eat . . . um . . . well . . . let’s just say, more than a couple.

Anyway: tonight, not sure what to try. Paciencia, maybe. I have made paciencia twice and once they failed completely, so evidently there’s a fifty percent chance of adding to my failure rate for the year, so there’s that. But I want to try them again this year anyway, so onward!

Or marshmallows — I have this great new recipe from Bon Appetit for layered coconut/orange marshmallows.

Maybe I’ll try both!

Recent Additions to the TBR shelves: First Lines

They’d told Aristeas that the Arimaspians were horrible, but he wasn’t prepared for how horrible they were, and it nearly cost him his life.

This is the first line of Beyond the North Wind by Gillian Bradshaw, which I have never read. I picked it up recently because of this post at By Singing Light. Well, the post and following comments. So. Pretty catchy first sentence, isn’t it?

I definitely want to dive right in.

Anyway, next:

On a windless summer day in an uncertain year, more than a century after the founding of Cornell, a man who told lies for a living climbed to the top of The Hill to fly a kite.

This is from Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff, which I borrowed from my brother during a recent visit because I really enjoyed Ruff’s Set This House in Order. I would say that’s definitely a promising beginning.

Here’s one you might recognize:

I stare at my gravestone. Locke Jenkins. They paid too much for it. More than they could afford.

I know, that’s more than one sentence, but hey, they’re very short sentences. What a different feel that gives to the opening of a story! This protagonist sounds, what? Closed in, defensive, bitter. Or maybe that’s just me projecting from the second book to this one, the third. This is Fox Forever by Mary Pearson, as you may have recognized, because I wanted to finish the trilogy after reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox and The Fox Inheritance. I do expect a tolerably happy ending, though I’m not actually familiar with Pearson’s other work, so I can’t be sure.

Okay, another:

Happiness, Luc thought as he stroked his wife’s bare shoulder, was not like chocolate. It didn’t melt if you held it too long in your hands.

I bet you all immediately guessed that this might be that new Laura Florand story, and you would be right: The Shadowed Heart. I read this one this past weekend — actually, I went back to The Chocolate Heart and re-read that first. Honestly, it’s amazing how Florand makes the luminously beautiful amazingly rich Summer Corey into a woman you just weep for. Also, I now have a faint but perceptible urge to write some kind of Persephone / Hades retelling. I wonder if that will ever turn into anything?

Moving on:

Sunset fell early over the wintry moorlands of northern England, and prudent men abandoned the road to the criminal, the desperate, and the mail coaches.

This is from Season for Desire, Theresa Romain’s newest Christmas-themed Regency romance, which just came out a couple months ago. These are fun, light, charming, and just right for the Christmas season. Also, I like the chapter titles: Chapter One: Wherein the Adventure Begins, Much Against the Will of Certain Participants. I’ve always enjoyed that kind of thing — and it establishes the tone right off, doesn’t it? Light, fun, charming.

Here’s one I just have as a sample, so far:

Call me Ishael. Yeah, I know, but in this case it’s really my name. Ishmael Horatio Wang. My parents had an unfortunate sense of humor.

I don’t know — the first line is obviously copied from my puppy’s name, so how can I turn it down? Maybe Ish would like me to read this to him? He would probably wag his tail whenever I said “Ishmael.”

Anyway, I got this sample because of a recommendation I saw around somewhere. Here’s what Goodreads says:

THE GOLDEN AGE OF SAIL HAS RETURNED — IN THE YEAR 2351

When his mother dies in a flitter crash, eighteen-year-old Ishmael Horatio Wang must find a job with the planet company or leave the system–and NerisCo isn’t hiring. With credits running low, and prospects limited, he has just one hope…to enlist for two years with a deep space commercial freighter. Ishmael, who only rarely visited the Neris Orbital, and has never been off-planet alone before, finds himself part of an eclectic crew sailing a deep space leviathan between the stars.

Join the crew of the SC Lois McKendrick, a Manchester built clipper as she sets solar sails in search of profit for her company and a crew each entitled to a share equal to their rating.

Space adventure! Who doesn’t love space adventure? It’s got really good ratings on Goodreads — over four stars with about 300 reviews.

So that’s an even half-dozen of the titles I’ve most recently added to my TBR pile, virtual and physical. They all sound pretty promising!