The Lightning Thief

Book Review

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

This is a young adult offering that has grown into a series.  I was first introduced to it through my daughter and her Literature class.  The book has been made into a movie and the teacher showed the movie at the end of the school year.  I was very curious about a movie that a Literature teacher was showing to her class.  My daughter explained that the movie had Greek gods and goddesses in it, which they had studied recently.  This peaked my interest.

For years now, I have wanted to read The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer.  Everyone I talked to agreed that I should read the Iliad first.  I prefer to read things in the proper order.  I finally worked up the nerve and I borrowed it from the library a few months ago.  And I started reading it.  A bit at a time.  A page or two at a time.

It was slow going.

And then, before I knew it, my library renewals for it were used up.  I had to send it back.

But I still wanted to read it.  Sometime.  Eventually.

I kept my eye open for a used copy at our local used book store.  It didn't take long to find a copy in good condition.  I got it and brought it home.

That was months ago and I still haven't opened it.

I'm feeling a lot of inertia to reading The Iliad on my own.  I tried to encourage myself by picking up the Cliff Notes from the library.  I want to read this book.

But clearly, I don't want to read it so much that I'm willing to set aside all of the other reading I'm also doing.  I just need to find the time and place to sit and get immersed in it.  I guess I just haven't found the right time or place yet.

I'm still interested in reading learning about the Greek gods and goddesses.  I've always been interested.  I didn't any exposure to them in my schooling.  Not middle or high school.  Not college.  During college I bought myself a book on Greek mythology to read on my own.  I was taking astronomy classes and learning the constellations.  It seemed like the right time to learn more about the mythology that went along with them.

But I found that book of mythology too dry to hold my interest.  I didn't get very far with it.

I'm still lacking in knowledge of the Greek myths, but I'm still interested.  It finally dawned on me that what I really wanted was a novel-like version of the myths, with a good plot and characters to move things along.  Kind of like a lot of historical fiction that is now available.  I just hadn't come across anything.  Yet.

Enter The Lightning Thief movie.

My daughter said the movie was good and I was curious, so we got the movie and watched it together.  Watching the movie adaptation before reading the book is very rare for me.  This time, I didn't mind a bit.  Pierce Brosnan is cast prominently in the movie.  This was a great visual to take away.  Oh, and the movie was rather good and the kids enjoyed it.

I was interested enough to want to read the book.  Even if it is a young adult book.  Maybe one of the kids would like to read it and I would know more once I read it.

The Lightning Thief

Our hero is introduced to us in New York City as a troubled sixth grader. He's got learning difficulties and has been kicked out of every school he has ever attended. And he has a step-father that is despicable.  And then strange and unexplainable things start happening.

Well, these things are explained and an action-packed adventure begins.  The plot is constructed such that our hero has to learn everything about himself and the Greek gods very quickly and act accordingly. He has learned some through school, but some he learns on the fly.

Scattered throughout the book are many references to gods or demigods that I've never heard of before.  The descriptions and explanations are very brief.  This is the one way in which I would have liked for the author to provide more depth.  It didn't bother me much that the characters in this young adult novel are rather flat, but I certainly was hoping for more mythology.  It could be argued that this may have taken away from the action, but I think it would have given the book a stronger structure.

I liked the bit of surprise at the end of the book.  I thought I had it all figured out earlier in my reading, but then I forgot.  When the end came around, I was expecting a nice tidy ending.  But I was surprised.  After reflecting a bit, I remembered that I had expected as much.  The ongoing plot distracted me from my expectation.  This is good.  Even though I had guessed the ending, I was pleasantly surprised when I got there.

This is an easy read and the prose is appropriate to a young adult book.  It was quite a bit lighter on the mythology than I would have liked, but maybe I should be looking elsewhere for that.  The plot moves along fine, but I found myself losing interest somewhat.  I'm sure my daughter would see it differently.  I think she will like it, and I will be recommending it to her.  I had assumed that I would be reading others in this series, but now I think I'll have to wait and see.  I don't particularly like reading series books back to back.  I'll have to see if the preview of the next book, which is included in my copy, can entice me.

All in all, I would recommend this to any middle schooler even slightly interested in Greek mythology.  The plot will likely be enough for them to enjoy it.

Gluten-Free KinniToos Chocolate Sandwich Creme Cookies

Gluten-Free Sandwich Cookies

It all started with dirt.

Edible dirt.  And gluten.

And then came a Harry Potter birthday party for my daughter.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in the land of gluten-eating, I used crushed Oreo's to make edible dirt.  I had small, terra cotta pots, each of which contained Dirt Dessert and an candy flower coming out of the pot.  This was a dessert I made for an Easter egg decorating dinner with friends.  They were cute and yummy.

That may have been the last time I ate any Oreo's.  That was when my daughter was a baby.

Fast forward about ten years.  I'm now gluten-free and that very same daughter wants a Harry Potter themed birthday party at the roller rink.  And she is insisting that she have a cake that I can eat too.

She's so sweet!

If I do a themed birthday party, I do it.  I do it all out.  If I'm going to do it all out, I'm going to try to give my daughter what she wants.  If she wants me to be able to eat cake, then I'm going to try to get her a cake I can eat.  If I am going to be able to eat birthday cake, it has to be gluten-free.  If it is going to be gluten-free, I'm going to have to make it.  If I'm going to make a birthday cake for a themed birthday party, it has to be awesome.  If it is going to be awesome, I'm going to do it all out.

Did you follow that?

There are so many options for a homemade Harry Potter cake!  We came up with lots of ideas and plain sheet cakes never made the list.

We settled on a Mandrake Cake.

In Harry Potter, a Mandrake is a plant that screams when it is uprooted for transplanting.  Hearing this screaming is lethal to a wizard, so transplanting can only be done while wearing hearing protection.  But I digress.

Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

The idea we came up with was to use a large terra cotta pot and put gluten-free carrot cake, layered with cream cheese icing in the pot.  That would be covered with gluten-free edible dirt.  I would make a Mandrake plant out of gum paste (gluten-free!) and put on top of the dirt in the center of the pot.

Here's how it turned out.

That pot is full of gluten-free carrot cake, cream cheese icing, and gluten-free edible dirt!

But then we had the additional idea to make baby mandrakes and put them in a seedling tray.  Each cup of the seedling tray contained a gluten-free carrot cake cupcake, iced with cream cheese icing and then covered with gluten-free dirt.  Each was topped with a baby mandrake made of marzipan (unfortunately, not gluten-free).

Here they are.  Each baby mandrake was made unique and with its own personality, made by my daughter and one of her friends.  They had so much fun making these, while I was making the large mandrake.

Can you see the one with the mohawk?  How about the one with the afro?  The cone head?

It turned out that we served the baby mandrakes first to the kids at the party, and then never needed to cut into the full-size mandrake.  I didn't eat a baby mandrake or the full-sized mandrake.  But I did eat that gluten-free carrot cake and gluten-free edible dirt!  Delicious!

Everybody loved the mandrakes, both baby-sized and full-sized!  They were so cute!  And the gluten-free carrot cake was delicious according to everyone!

And the gluten-free dirt made it all possible.

These KinniToos are what I used for the gluten-free edible dirt.  They taste great!

Even now, my kids love Oreo Cookies. I, personally, could take them or leave them, when I was eating gluten.  Nonetheless, now it is hard to watch them love those cookies, knowing I can't have any.

It's really hard to watch.

Unless, of course, I have some gluten-free ones too.

Sometimes now, if I know the kids are going to have some Oreo's or the like, I will pick up some of these KinniToos.  Then we can all eat cookies together, dunking them in milk and licking out the insides.  Just like a kid again!

Life is so much more fun when we can share our experiences together.  Dunking sandwich cookies is no exception!

Bacon, Beef & Bleu Salad

Summertime Salads

It's summertime and I like salads when it is hot.  Actually, we eat salads a lot in our house, year round.  Side salads, mostly.

But the summer is when we eat more entrée salads.  Salads that fill the whole plate.  Salads that have something other than our usual tomato, red bell pepper, and feta toppings.

Spinach Salad with Egg and Bacon.  Chicken Caesar Salad.  Candied Pecan and Dried Cranberry Salad. Greek Green Salad.

This is the time of plates full of salad, with all sorts of toppings.

Bacon, Beef & Bleu Salad

This is not a special gluten-free recipe.  This is just a salad that I really love and it just happens to be gluten-free too!

And everyone in our house goes ballistic for it!

It all happened rather by accident, when I walked into the kitchen one recent evening.

"Is that beef?"

"Yes."

I found that my husband had started marinating some beef.  Eye of Round steaks to be precise.  They had been really thick, so he had sliced them in half to make them thinner and they were marinating that way.

"What are you planning to do with it?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Grill?  Were you going to grill it?"

"Yes.  Probably."

"Great!  Let's do that.  Then what?  Were you thinking anything else?"

"Just a salad."

"Really? What kind of salad?"

"Just a normal side salad."

"Really? Hmmm....  Well, instead of that, why don't we make that salad that has sliced beef and bleu cheese dressing on it?  Everyone loves that!"

"Ah.... Well...."

"Hey, we've got everything we need for it:  bacon, bleu cheese, potatoes, and you've already started the beef."

And we were off and running.

We always have romaine lettuce in our house.  It is, by far and wide, our favorite lettuce.  Butter lettuce is too soft.  Iceberg is too pale.  Sometimes we have baby mixed greens or spinach, but we always have romaine.  This is perfect as a base for this salad.  

He grilled the beef as planned.  When it was done, we just needed to slice it thinly for the tops of the salad.  Of course, any kind of cooked, sliced beef would work fine here.  Choose your favorite.

We almost always have some bacon in the freezer.  We pulled that out and popped it into the microwave.  A year or two ago, I bought a microwave bacon tray.  It has ridges that the bacon slices lie on, and a groove down the middle leading to a tray at the bottom.  The groove sends the liquid fat down to collect in the tray, and the bacon cooks on top of the ridges and out of the fat.  This is now my favorite way to make bacon.  Just be sure to cover the bacon with a paper towel before cooking!

After the bacon was cooked and crispy, I further drained it on paper towels and then cut it into small bits, ready for the top of the salad.

Potatoes.  Did I mention the potatoes?  I'm not usually a fan of potatoes on salads, but I have grown to love them on this salad.  That is, if they are cooked well enough.  I like them slightly brown and crunchy on the outside and well done all the way through.  That's why I cut them into very thin wedges.  I like the shape of the wedges, but the thinness is necessary if you want to get them done enough through the middle.  I dusted them lightly with sea salt and baked them for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees.

These turned out perfect.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of them after they were done.  They were beautiful!

And actually, we didn't have bleu cheese.  We had gorgonzola.  Close enough.  Yummy enough.  Either works just fine for this homemade dressing.

To make the dressing, I just winged it, using a couple of heaping tablespoons of sour cream, a splash of milk, a bit of cider vinegar, a small wedge of gorgonzola, salt and pepper.  I would have used non-fat greek yogurt too, if I had had any at the time.  But I didn't.  I put it all into the food processor and it was done in a minute or two.  I added a touch more vinegar and milk, until the tanginess and consistency were just right.  Thick, but not too thick.  If you don't have a food processor, a blender works just fine too.  Or you can mash the cheese sufficiently small with a fork and just mix all the ingredients in a bowl.  Still easy.  Oh, and delicious!

Then I laid everything out on the plates:  first the romaine, then potatoes, bacon, beef, and finally the gorgonzola dressing.  Adjust the ratio of each according to your own liking.

This was our Bacon, Beef & Bleu Salad!  Everyone in our house fawns over this salad.  It is so tasty and so flavorful!  It really is a meal unto itself.  And it naturally doesn't have any gluten in it.  Fabulous!

The Secret Garden

Book Review

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  This is a classic children's book.  It was originally written in 1911 and the prose is appropriate to that time frame.  This is one of those classic children's books that may have been intended for children, but probably wasn't often read by them until they were quite a bit older and their reading skills more advanced.  It is the kind of story that I can imagine being read to children right before bedtime.

The plot is somewhat predictable from the title alone.  A garden is hinted at but hidden, found and kept secret, and then announced and accepted.  There are no plot twists or turns, as one might expect from a child's book of this era.  The pace is right on target and moves along as one might expect.

The characters are few and didn't seem especially deep.  Maybe this is the symptom of being a children's book.  Maybe not.  Our protagonist is initially unforgivable and we are unsympathetic towards her, but she has had her share of upheavals.  It takes an equally unsympathetic antagonist to shake her to her core and bring awareness.  This is done in an appropriately simple manner.  We appreciate the changes brought over on our protagonist.  We expect these changes.  There is nothing unexpected here.

The prose is typical of the time, along with the prevalent prejudices and customs.  The local dialect is difficult to read silently and I doubt many American children would be able to decipher it.  It is possible that British children might have an easier time of it, if they know what local Yorkshire dialect sounds like.  Luckily for us, sometimes the author has made the effort of reiterating or translating or having our characters repeat what is said.  Well, at least the most pertinent parts.  The written dialect was heavily laden with apostrophes and my reading was greatly slowed through these parts.  As painful at it was, it did lend the appropriate flavor to the specific characters using it.  It was also used as a means for our protagonist to grow and accept her new situation.

Most of the prose is appropriate for an advanced child to read, but in the latter half of the book in several places, it seems as if the author has forgotten for whom it is written.  The word "hysterics" is used repeatedly and finally explained in an appropriately simplified manner.  But at one point, the author uses the word "atrophied" and then defines the word in a parenthetical expression.  This speaking directly to the reader jolts us out of our place in the story and is distracting.  In another place the author uses the word "hypochondriac", but does not define it or explain it.  I found this as an unfortunate oversight.  How many ten-year-olds know what a hypochondriac is?

There is a lot of use of the word "magic".  With today's kids, this would require some explanation.  The usage here is not the same as it is used in the Harry Potter series or any of the other common fantasy works.  Here the word is simply meant to represent the beauty of nature doing its work in the world of living things.  Mother Nature.  It could be extended to imply a religious or spiritual or mystic origin, but I suspect the author specifically chose to avoid stating any of these explicitly.  Other references to religion are given, specifically the ceremony and the sung hymn, but these seem to stem naturally from the children's experience and less from a direct persuasion of the author's.  I believe the word "magic" was specifically chosen to avoid a specific connotation and to let the reader infer its meaning however they wish.

This is a well-written book and is appropriate as a story for children.  I don't know if I could interest my modern children to read it now, but I could imagine having read it to them a few years back, when I was still reading bedtime stories to them.  If I had done so, I would have had to do some explaining of the prejudices and language used, as well as the British rule of India.  At an age of five or six years old, they might have been patient to listen to me read the story, but they probably wouldn't have known about British-controlled India.

Considering everything, this was a good read.  It is evident of its time, but still has the qualities of a well-crafted and well-written book.   With other exposure to children's classics, and if you can get it to today's kids young enough, even today's children are likely to enjoy it.

Gluten-Free Tempura

The Farmers' Market

It all started with a trip to the library.  Really.  The library.

We had things waiting for us at the library.  We always have things to take back.  Often we need to get more books.  We go weekly to keep ourselves well supplied with reading materials.

Our local library shares their parking space with the local farmers' market during the summer months.  When we arrived at the library, we couldn't help walking through the farmers' market first.  It was near the market's closing time, and the vendors would be gone by the time we were done in the library.  We had to walk through the market first.

Baked goods.  No thanks, I'm gluten-free.

Dairy products.  Um... not today, thanks.

And that's when I spotted the okra.

Okra!

And zucchini.  And eggplant.  And tomatoes.

We got some of each.

Now we had to figure out what we were going to do with our new found bounty.

After finishing at the library, we started thinking quickly.  What do we want to do with these vegetables and what would we need from the store before we head home?

Fry!

Fried okra.  We wanted fried okra.

We never fry anything at home.  Maybe pan fry, with just a tablespoon or two of olive oil, but never deep-fat fry.  It's just not our style.

But the rest of the family had had some fried okra a few weeks before at a restaurant.  I, of course, could not partake or even taste their fried okra, since it was battered and fried.  Glutenated.

This is the tough part of being the only one in the family that needs to be gluten-free.

They all were in love with that fried okra!  They smiled and giggled and sighed and went back for more.

I just imagined what it would taste like.

Now, we had okra in hand and I was ready for some fried okra myself.  I wanted to taste that deliciousness too.

Everyone was with me.  They wanted fried okra too!  They had no hesitation to making it gluten-free.  Let's do it!

Okay....  What else would we want to have with it?  Well... if we are going to fry, why not shrimp?!  Gluten-free Tempura Shrimp!  Well, if we make tempura batter, we can just use that on the okra too.

I was so excited!  I hadn't had tempura in more than five years!  I hadn't had tempura since I had become gluten-free.

Gluten-Free Tempura Shrimp and Vegetables

Have you ever noticed how beautiful sliced okra is?

Have you ever noticed how slimy sliced okra is?!

For our tempura, we used about a cup of potato starch, some baking bowder, salt, milk, one egg, a bit of olive oil, and a dash of paprika.

Mix the dry together first and then combine wet ingredients in the mixer.  Then slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet.  The mixer was overkill here.  This can be done easily in two bowls with a wisk or fork.

We used sweet rice flour to coat the vegetables and shrimp.  Then we dipped each piece in the wet batter.

Then it is time to fry!  We heated a liter of olive oil in our fryer/slow cooker.  It was a wedding gift and this was the first time we were using it as a fryer!  And the oil needs to be hot, so that everything doesn't end up being mushy and soggy with oil.  We set our fryer to about 350 or 375 degrees.  Be careful!

 The zucchini turned out beautiful.

Then came the eggplant!  Wow.  I couldn't wait to finish the rest.  I wanted some now!

But then came the okra.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  We need to hurry up!

And finally the shrimp!  I'm ready!  Let's eat!

Finally we were ready.

And, oh my!  Everything was so delicious!  Everything tasted so good.

It's a good thing we don't fry at home.  I wouldn't be able to keep myself away from these!

And this was certainly a treat.  My favorite turned out to the flavorful shrimp.  But in a very close second was...

...

the okra!  Tempura Okra!

Three cheers for Tempura Okra!  Hip Hip Hooray!

Unbelievably good.  We just can't let ourselves indulge in this very often.

Who said gluten-free had to be lifeless or tasteless?  Think again!  Eat again!

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Book Review

"A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan. I decided to read this after a discussion with a friend. At the time, I had plenty of other books to read, so I put it on my list for later. Then, when I thought I was ready, I looked it up at my local library.

It wasn't available. I had to request it.

And I had to wait.

Weeks.

Months.

Not years.

I finally got notice that it was waiting for me. I promptly picked up and started it.

Slowly. It started slowly. Not because nothing was happening, but because I was having a hard time finding a frame of reference for what I was reading.

2011 Pulitzer Prize Winner

I don't think I have ever read a Pulitzer Prize winner before. Or not knowingly. After glancing at the titles of the last fifteen years worth of winners, I'm pretty sure I have not read any other recent winner.

I haven't even heard of most of them.

This made me wonder what criteria they use to determine a winner.

I admit freely that I am not an expert in literature. Or fine literature. Or poor literature, for that matter. I just like to read and want to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of literature.

Reading a Pulitzer Prize winner has now filled in a gap.

I wasn't really aware of this gap until now. I wasn't really trying to fill this unrealized gap. Nonetheless, it is now filled.

And thank goodness. I'm not sure what I would find in these other Pulitzer winners of the past decade or two.

Clearly, "A Visit from the Goon Squad" is inventive. It is clearly crafted. It is well written.

It is also a little hard to follow. The timeline is disconnected, and only through continued reading does the reader finally get a sense of the current time. This is difficult, since the setting is presented in a rather sparse way. Narrators change at each chapter, without identifying themselves. Directly or indirectly.

The characters are quite "interesting". None are perfect and pristine.  Each seems to have his or her own foibles.  Who doesn't?  But some of these foibles are a little unusual, not quite what I think of as "mainstream" idiosyncrasies.  I'm guessing there are plenty of people out in the world who can identify with some of these characters, but I had trouble doing so.   Granted, my exposure to big, wide world may be a bit limited.  Reading about such lifestyles like these, assuming they do exist, is probably better than never knowing about them at all.

The plot is hard to discern, certainly not until after the entire book is read.  In fact, throughout reading the book, I found myself asking what it was all about.  With a disconnected timeline and different narrators, connections between characters and times doesn't come until most or all of the book is read.  A few lifelines are thrown the reader's way occasionally.  Even though a new narrator is presented in each chapter, somewhere within each chapter is some mention of at least one of the characters already introduced.  This wasn't immediately apparent, but I finally caught on.

Without a continuous timeline to guide me, I started looking for the setting of each chapter.  Unfortunately, the setting is almost non-existent, except in an off-hand way.  Time and place are given very light treatment through the same brief narrative descriptions.  The reader is left to piece things together on his or her own.

Much of the discussion between characters and within themselves revolves around music. Musicians' music, not casual listeners' music. I didn't get much from the detailed discussions of the specifics of the music. I'm not familiar with music or musicians or promoters. I found it difficult to understand or care about the music references. I did identify, on a most basic level, with the pauses in music. But only because I have noticed small pauses in some of my favorite songs. Maybe I learned something more about pauses through reading this.

Late in the book, one whole chapter is presented in Powerpoint slides. Yes, slides. This was different. At first I resented it. It seemed too easy. Too new. Too hip. Too "of the current times". Too attention getting. But now I have come to see this as a genuine way to present the narrator of that chapter. It was her way of written communication. It ended up working.  This time.  I hope I never see it again in another novel. It has been done. Leave it that way.

This book takes work to read. Nothing is readily handed to the reader.

Eventually, the plot and characters all do relate back and the loop is closed, but it is loop left filled with lots of gaps and holes.  That loosely knitted loop takes the reader through the themes of deceiving oneself and yet wanting redemption for past actions or inactions.  These are not so far from what real people deal with all the time.

This is book for those who enjoy reading to discover. Discover the plot. Discover the relationships between characters. Discover the timeframe. Discover the setting. Discover the purpose.

And, as I said before, this book is inventive. It is a worthwhile read, if you enjoy this kind of thing. For anyone looking for a nice, tight and tidy timeline and plot, don't bother. But if you like to be intrigued and don't mind a rather hefty dose of less than pleasant personality eccentricities, give it a shot. It is certainly interesting.