So 2010 is turning out to be the year of utilizing my public library. They make it so very easy, since I’m able to request books and they’re delivered right to my front door. At one point, I had 12 library books stacked up on my desk. Fortunately, the to-read stack is only 4 high now, with two books currently being read. Progress!

But this means that I’m way, way behind on reporting what I’ve read. So here’s a huge glut of books I’ve read recently. I’ll leave them linkless, as I have faith that you can find them on Amazon or your other favorite book source if any sound interesting.

Nanny Return by Emma McLaughlin and Nikola Kraus – This follow-up of The Nanny Diaries (which I own, and have read several times) takes place 12 years later. Nan is married, pondering children of her own, weaving her way through a work-world that, again, seems a little too over-the-top to believe. She also gets tangled back up with her former charge, Grayer X (who has turned into a grade-A douche) and the rest of the X family. Just like in the first novel, nobody around Nanny is a likeable character, but for some reason I didn’t mind it in the first. I did mind it in this one, and found it to be a tolerable read, but I won’t ever need to read it again. 5 out of 10.

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby – What a shocker — a Nick Hornby book about an awkward relationship and something related to the music industry. In this one, a washed-up American singer/songwriter and the girlfriend of said s/s’s biggest fans strike up a sort of pen-pal email exchange. The characters were more uninteresting than unlikeable, and the ending left me wondering, What the heck? I don’t mind an ambiguous ending, but this one was ambiguous for no real reason. But I guess since I didn’t really care all that much for the characters, it was easy to walk away without caring too much what does, or doesn’t, happen to them. 5 out of 10.

Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran by Andy Taylor – How could I not pick this one up when I saw it on the shelf? Although Andy Taylor has always been, for me, the least important (and least swoonworthy) member of Duran Duran. Turns out, according to this autobiography, he was the driving force behind much of the writing, made most of the important decisions, regularly told the other lads when they were making huge mistakes, and just plain ended up having too much integrity to stick around when things got sour. Shocking, that the guy who paints himself as the most important member of the band is also the guy who is the only one who’s quit the band twice. There was some good history in the book, but it was all surrounded by a splash of douche. 5 out of 10.

Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield – Gang, this is NOT a book about Duran Duran. It’s one of those my-quirky-youth memoirs, tied together through the strange use of the music of the ’80s. Every chapter is titled with a different ’80s song, and Sheffield’s anecdotes from his teen years link loosely (or, sometimes, very loosely) with that song. Bottom line, he lived the life of a teenager in his teenage years, listening to music that a teenager of those teenage years would listen to. Oh, those crazy teens and the teen things they do! I quit one-third of the way through and tossed it on the go-back stack. 2 out of 10 (unfinished).

The Last Colony by John Scalzi – Third in the Old Man’s War series, this book picks up where the first two left off. With the lead Old Man, and one of the main characters from The Ghost Brigades. Scalzi’s universe continues to be a fun one to read, and this novel (like The Ghost Brigades) is more of a mystery than a space-war book. Characters, pace, and story were all great. I haven’t put the final book in the series on hold yet, partially because of the stack in front of me, and partially because I want to savor this universe. 8 out of 10.

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card – Third in the Ender series, and the worst so far of that series. The second book, Speaker for the Dead, left us in a cliffhanger that showed exactly what to expect for this third book. Sadly, the book is probably half again as long as it needs to be; too much of it is full of people wondering, people pondering, and people discussing what they’re wondering and pondering. And sometimes arguing about how what they’re wondering is in opposition to what someone else is pondering. Card covers the same questions several times, until finally at the end everything gets figured out surprisingly fast. I don’t think I can handle another book like this one, so I’ve gone ahead and read the Wikipedia synopsis of book four, Children of the Mind. Now I don’t need to read it. 6 out of 10.

Breathless by Dean Koontz – I picked this one up off the new-release shelf. I’ve liked quite a few of Koontz’s books in the past, but it seems like he’s really cranking them out these days, and the quality is going somewhat downhill. This book flashes between several unrelated characters, who (shockingly) all come together in the end. But a couple of those characters weren’t really all that interesting, and I only read their chapters because I was waiting to see how they related to the characters who were vaguely interesting. An uneventful first-contact-with-aliens story, but nothing to rush to the bookstore for. 6 out of 10.

The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us From Violence by Gavin de Becker – I’ve seen this book recommended many, many times, so I figured I’d give it a read. It’s actually quite good, showing how we’ve been taught that to be “polite”, we will frequently ignore our own instincts. And it’s true — the few people in my life who have triggered my spidey-sense, even though other people seem to like them and the look and seem normal, have turned out to be major creepazoids. Fortunately, I didn’t feel shy about telling the boob-grabber to back the hell off, and I didn’t have a problem personally blackballing the guy who told a work colleague that on an out-of-town trip he was “finally going to get some of [me].” This book is a good read for both genders, and will probably be a real eye-opener for both. 8 out of 10.

The New Space Opera 2 (Collection) – This is a volume of short stories from a variety of authors. I likes me the sci-fi, and I likes me the space opera, so this was a really good read. both John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow had entries in this volume, which was what made me check it out in the first place. Now I’ll have to get volume 1 as well. Out of 19 stories, I only sped past three, which is a really good ratio for me. The 16 I completed ranged from good to fantastic, with a couple that I wished were fleshed out into full novels. 7 out of 10.

WHEW! There we go, 9 more books down. Now I can toss the Post-It on which I was building a list, and start a whole new Post-It for the rest of this stack. Read on, easy readers!

The starter was ready, more than doubling in size after a feeding. I had two days off in a row. It was time to bake!

I began by moving the starter into a larger bowl and feeding it with a full cup of flour, as well as about a half-cup of water. The mere act of making a bigger sour sludge changes its name from “starter” to “sponge”.

“Proofing the sponge” is letting your big gooey mess grow to double its size, as you can see here. Then you use some of the sponge for your bread dough, and put the rest back in your jar. Feed it again, and once more it’s just considered “starter”. Weird that it’s name changes like that, but there you go. Bakers are crazy.

Time to make the dough! I used a simple recipe, and mixed it in my big ol’ stand mixer with the bread hook:

2 cups sponge
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup water
2 cups flour

As with pretty much every other recipe on earth, mix the sponge with everything but the flour. Then add the flour slowly, a half-cup at a time or so, mixing every time. You don’t want to dust the house with explosive flour. Depending on your local humdity, altitude, and whatever other mysterous factors affect baking, you may need to add a little more flour or a little more water. Eventually, the dough will become one cohesive ball, not sticking to the sides of the mixer bowl. Let it thump around in there a little while longer, and you won’t have to knead by hand.

Clean out the sponge bowl, add a little olive oil, and toss in your dough orb. Make sure to roll the dough around in the oil, so that it’s all shiny and slick. This will keep the dough from drying out and getting a “skin” on the surface. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel (again, the dampness helps keep the dough from drying out) and let it grow.

The picture just above is after 6 hours of rising — I mixed the dough at 5pm, and visited it right before heading off to bed at 11pm. I punched the dough back down, re-rolled it in the oil, re-dampened my tea towel, and went to bed.

9 hours later, the dough was ginormous again. I punched it, pulled it out of the bowl, threw some flour on my hands, and kneaded the stuff until it was a small ball again. Then I cut it into sixths, rolled them into balls, and put them on my silicon baking sheet.

I covered them directly with, you guessed it, a damp tea towel. Then we played some video games and went to Costco. Four hours after making the balls, they’d grown considerably again. I took off the towel and let them sit for another hour uncovered. As opposed to previous stints of damp-toweling and oil-slathering, this time I wanted them to grow skins, because that makes the crust even crustier.

So then, at 1pm the second day, I baked. at 350° for 30 minutes. (A full-size loaf would probably take 45 minutes or so.) And the result is some perfectly sour, dense and chewy, crusty-crusted sourdough bread!

So yes, it takes a lot of time. But really, most of that time passes without you having to do anything. I don’t think I put any more actual prep time into this bread than I would into, say, a batch of cookies or brownies. The prep time is just spread out a bit more. And you COULD bake after that first rise, if you felt the urge, although the more time you let this stuff do its thing, the more sour the resulting bread. This was 20 hours from making the dough to baking, and I think the level of sour is just right.

Came home today to find this ginormous mushroom next to the parking lot. Did a double-take, saw the tiny lizard on top of it. He scampered off just as my phone made its picture-clicky sound.

Meanwhile, the sourdough starter from the freezer is ready to use. It grew to more than double its original size (marked with a line) in two hours. Sadly, the pantry stuff isn’t quite there yet. (Although another day or two might get it there.)

I think I’m going to mix a little of the pantry stuff into the freezer batch and go down to just one container. Because the freezer stuff is peppy as heck, but the pantry stuff has more age to it, which means a more sour flavor. Since baking sourdough is an all-day project, I’ll just feed this stuff until Wednesday or Thursday, when I can get back into the swing of things with a practice loaf.

I’ve had this recipe card in my file for about 15 years. I really should make this stuff more often. If you’ve ever been to Duke’s in Seattle, you know how great their chowder is. Their take-home recipe isn’t quite there, but it’s really good anyway. I’ve also made a few small adjustments of my own.

2 slices diced bacon
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
pinch of chopped fresh garlic

1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp basil
1/8 tsp dill
2 bay leaves
pinch of salt
pinch of cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp xanthan gum

2 cups heavy cream
4 oz (1/2 bottle) clam juice

8 oz. diced potatoes (steamed or canned)
1 can (6.5 oz) chopped clams

Starting from the top: dice two strips of bacon, then cook until brown and it gives off yummy bacon fat. Add the butter, onions, celery, garlic, and all of the dry spices. Cook until tender.

Add the xanthan gum (the original recipe calls for 1/3 cup flour at this stage) for thickening. Stir until smooth. Add the cream, clam juice, and any liquid in the can of chopped clams. Bring to a simmer, but not a boil (boiling is bad for cream).

Add the clams and potatoes, bring back to a simmer. Ready, set, eat!

Now, here are my quirks: first off, I used canned potatoes. I just don’t have the patience to cook them for this. I got whole potatoes and chopped them up, but you may also be able to find sliced or chopped potatoes in a can. Also, this could be a totally low-carb dish if you omit the potatoes entirely. Since I’m on maintenance, a little of the ol’ deadly nightshade is fine for me.

Next, I used my stick blender, but just a little bit. I still wanted lots of big chunks, but I also wanted some smaller chunks to help make a thicker texture. I think I got it just right; I probably stick-blended for 30 seconds total, popping in and out in order to get some big chunks under the blade. OH, and — take out the bay leaves before stick blending. Those aren’t good eatin’.

Lastly, I left out the original recipe’s listing of half-and-half (It would have been a quarter-cup, what’s the point?) and chopped fresh parsley. (Garnish, who needs it.) I also completely overlooked the a pinch of cayenne pepper, which probably would have jazzed this up a little bit. I’ll definitely add it next time, and I included it in the list above. I used more thyme than the original recipe called for, because thyme is my A-number-1 go-to favorite spice. You can adjust the seasonings accordingly to your liking.

It’s not surprising that I left something off; the original recipe card has the ingredients in a baffling order, instead of the more sensible order-you-cook-them-in. So I’ve put them in an order I like up above, spaced apart according to the various steps. Now I can put the card away and use a computer instead. Ah, the future. The future of chowder!

A coworker is leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to bake for him. He chose cookies, so I chose cut-out cookies (he’s leaving to do a one-man show that’s guitar-centric, and I wanted to break out my guitar cookie cutter).

These are two of my favorite old holiday recipes, but they’re good any time. I think for the butter cookies, the original recipe was called “bunny butter cookies”, which I always figured meant they were for Easter. But in my house, we made these for birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, Flag Day, and every other holiday that merited cookies.

Mind you, neither of these recipes is low-carb, or sugar-free.

Bunny Butter Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 cup flour

Blend the butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and baking powder. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, blending well each time. Then cover the whole mess with plastic wrap and toss it in the fridge for at least 2 hours to chill. I left this batch in the fridge overnight, and it came through just dandy.

Roll out half the dough, using plenty of flour to keep things from sticking. You can collect the scraps and re-roll, but bear in mind that they’ll be springier and may not hold their shape as well. The more rolling, the more the glutens go crazy.

Bake on silicon sheets, parchment paper, or non-stick baking sheets — whatever you have that’s nonsticky. 425° for 5-7 minutes. Makes 3 to 4 dozen cookies, depending on what size cutters you like.

Gingerbread Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups flour

Toss everything but the flour in a bowl, and mix well. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, mixing after each. Then, as with the other cookies, stash the dough in the fridge for a couple of hours. Again, this stuff sat overnight and was great the next morning.

As with the others, roll out, use cutters (or slice into squares with a knife, if you want to build little houses), bake on a non-stick surface (same as the others). For these, it’s 350° for 6-8 minutes. It’s a bigger batch than the other, so you may get 4-5 dozen cookies depending on size.

Buttercream Frosting

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
1 box (16 oz) powdered sugar
1/3 cup cream
1 tsp vanilla

This is a modified version from the old C&H powdered sugar box. I used cream, because I don’t have milk in the house. And I used more than the 1/4 cup liquid, because I wanted a thinner, more pipe-able frosting.

I’m a haphazard icer. I mostly go for the easy squiggles, but on some I tried to make them look guitar-ish. Looking at the cookies, though, it strikes me that they’re more ukulele-ish in shape. But the neck of the guitar needs to be fatter and shorter, so the cookies don’t break as much. Tiny gingerbread ukes! NOM!

BUBBLES!

Day 1 — 24 hours since these guys woke up. I fed them again at 8am, and now at 8pm, one of them is clearly doing much better than the other. It’s twice the size, and is bubbling like crazy. The other one is just kind of hanging out, bubbling a little but not too much, and hasn’t risen much at all. But I still have hope that it’ll get its act in gear.

It’s interesting to note that the one doing much better is the 03/08 batch that was in the freezer. The 06/08 batch from the pantry is the sad one. I wonder if freezing kept the bacteria fresher somehow.

So over two years ago, as the title suggests, I made my own sourdough starter. It was a victory both of science and of yumminess. I enjoyed the process of capturing the wild Florida yeasts, and the bread I made was pretty darned good too.

I took some of the starter and dried it — smeared a thin coating on sheets of parchment paper, let it dry, crumbled it up and then put it away.

A few months after Project Sourdough, I decided to lose the damn hell ass weight I’d gained since moving to Florida. And successful weight loss, for me, means low-carb. Good-bye bread, and more specifically, good-bye homemade sourdough bread. And even more recently, I’ve moved to good-bye all wheat products.

But recently, it came up in conversation that a couple of coworkers really love fresh, homemade sourdough. So I’ve decided to see if I can bring my starter back to life. I have wheat flour back in my house for the first time in at least a year, because I’m making cookies for another coworker’s going-away party. (Recipes and photos to come in the next few, as per my usual methodologies.) It’s the perfect time!

So … I looked on the shelves in the pantry. No starter. Checked the shelves where I keep spices. No starter. I knew I’d put some away in the freezer, but I was really hoping to find the stuff I’d left out at room temperature. No dice. I dug way, way back into the dark recesses of the freezer, and found the bag I’d tucked away there. Victory!

I put a couple of tablespoons of flakes into a container, then tossed in a couple tablespoons of water. I let it sit for a few minutes to get hydratey, then chucked in a couple of tablespoons of flour, then mashed it all together with a fork until it’s like thick pancake batter. Now I’ve set it on the kitchen counter with a lid slightly ajar for air circulation.

Let’s all cross our fingers, shall we? This stuff is labeled from March of 2008, and it’s been in the freezer for that long. But I’m cautiously optimistic, because it already smells … well, sour.

On a completely unrelated note, I hope the next home in which we live has solid-colored kitchen counters. I’m tired of taking pictures against this ugly brown mottled stuff.

EDIT! I looked in one final nook in the pantry, and there it was. Two big bags full of various dried starter samples from March, April, and June of 2008. So I’ve started re-feeding a sample from one of the June batches, and now the two starters will race.

Seriously, I have a ton of the stuff. So if this stuff comes back to life, if anyone wants some of it, let me know.

We finally went to see Inception yesterday. Fortunately, I’d remained largely spoiler-free for the whole thing. I mean, I knew there was something to do with being in other people’s dreams, but the previews told me that much.

I didn’t even know Michael Caine was in it. I can’t stand that guy. He doesn’t really ever act, he’s just shades of Michael Caine. Just like Jack Nicholson. I also put him in the “oily” category (with such big-name celebs as Matthew McConaughey, Shia LeBouef, Robert DiNero, and a host of others), because he grosses me out.

Anyhoo, what a thinker! A romance film, wrapped in an action/adventure film, wrapped in a sci-fi film, wrapped in a heist film, all smothered in the secret sauce of messing with your mind. With a perfectly timed closing shot, leaving you wondering whether the real world is real or not.

This was also the first complete movie I’d seen Ellen Page in. I tried to watch Whip It and only made it about 15 minutes in before shutting it off. Even more boring and plodding than the source book.

I had a couple of name issues, which may be nitpicky, but they preyed on my mind for most of the viewing. First off, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character: is he named Tom or Dom? Because it sounded about 50/50 each way. A couple of the layman summary-writers on IMDB say it’s Dom, but the listings only put his character as “Cobb”.

Next, Cobb’s wife. First I heard her name as “Maul”, which is totally not a name. Then I figured that it must be “Moll”, as a nickname for Molly or something. Although an elegant French woman doesn’t really seem like a Molly. The IMDB tells me her character is “Mal”, which in my mind is pronounced like “pal”, a.k.a. the captain’s name on Firefly.

The movie was also a festival of “where do I know that guy from”. Firstly, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was easy. I was pretty sure that a guy near the beginning was Lukas Haas (of Solarbabies fame), and I was right. So Solarbabies and Inception are one degree apart, and that delights me. The funny thing is, he’s been working steadily since the early ’80s, but I haven’t seen a single piece of his work since a craptacular sci-fi rollerskating movie made in 1986.

I had to look up Tom Hardy, who played Eames — he was Jean-Luc Picard’s pouty young clone in the terrible Star Trek: Nemesis. Not to mention Pete Postlethwaite and poor Tom Berenger — he always looks old and bloated to me, probably because my mind always expects him to look just like he did in 1985.

And speaking of bloated, I’m worried about Leonardo DiCaprio. His head is getting wider as he ages, and he’s sneaking up on potato-head territory. I’d hate for him to join the ranks of other potato-headed guys like Russell Crowe and Gerard Butler. Bleah.

My last thought of this bunch of barely-surface-scratching rambling: I bet The Matrix would give its left nut for everything that happened in the hotel hallway (and in that vein, Joseph Gordon-Levitt would make a much better Neo than Keanu Reeves [potato head] ever did). Effects have come so far in the last 10 years.

For years now, I’ve lusted after Smart Cars. Even before they came to America, I looked at pictures from other countries and crossed my fingers that the USA would someday have them for sale. And if not, I’d just have to figure out a way to buy one in Canada.

But frabjous day, they did indeed come to America. And next year, there should be a glut of 3-year-old Smart Cars available for sale, after the crazy people who get 3-year leases turn them back in. So I’ve started thinking more and more about these little cuties.

I decided I’m finally ready for a test drive. I haven’t done that yet, out of fear — what if I hate the driving experience? I remember thinking the Chevy Aveo was absolutely adorable, but then I drove one. What a massively uncomfortable ride, for me at least. So I’ve been holding off on the odd chance that I might find the Smart to be the same way. But I really need to do it, so I can either cement the lust in my mind, or move on to some other automotive dream (Fiat 500, anyone?).

So I ventured to the Smart Web site, where they had a form to fill out if you’re interested in a test drive. I filled out the form, being sure to check the box for “email” as the preferred method of contact (because the phone is a viper). I also filled in a field that said I would be looking to buy in 2011. Here’s what I received back:

Subj: smart Test drive request form

Thank you in advance,
The smart center Orlando team.

So maybe I’ve been mistaken in capitalizing the word “Smart” all this while? Anyhoo, not surprising to receive a form email basically saying “we got your email, and we’ll be in touch soon.” Lots of folks do it. But then, two minutes later, this arrived in my inbox:

Subj: an important message from

[three names]
[physical address / phone number / Web site / email address]

Okay, so a second placeholder email. Also with some grammar issues, and no capitalization of the company name. Is this perhaps that cute hipster thing of not capitalizing things? Am I yearning for a hipster car?

Two days later, more communication:

Subj: Thank you for your inquiry

[one dude's name / title]
[physical address / phone number / email address / Web site]

So at least this guy knows where his shift key is. But it seems that, three emails after I filled out a form saying I’d like to set up a test drive and prefer email communication, they’re asking me to now call them on the phone to set up my test drive. I’m at a complete loss as to why I filled out the form, or why I had to sit through these emails. Plus, since I’m not buying until 2011, why should I bother with having a stranger drive my car for trade-in purposes? Ugh.

I wrote back:

So do I need an appointment for a test drive? Or can I just stop by the dealership?

The next day:

Its always better to schedule some time as we tend to get busy. But if you want to just come by feel free.

Thank goodness I have my desk right here, to bash my head on. I think … I’ll just feel free to come by.

Fortunately, there are two other Smart dealerships over in the Tampa area. So if these people continue to make me a little crazy, and a test drive turns out to wet my whistle, I’ll have a variety of purchase options.

And we frequently call the car a “Snart” because of an old greeting card I remember from my college days, of a guy looking at notes he’d written to himself, stuck on his refrigerator door. One of those notes read, “I am snart.”