Spiced Chocolate with Treats

You may think we’re crazy to create a hot chocolate recipe during the dog days of summer when at least one of us is consistently experiencing days in the triple digit temperatures, but we swear the heat hasn’t addled our brains—let us explain. In our meanderings through our Twitter feed (@ReadThisEatThat, y’all!), we came across this contest that author Ellen Kushner is hosting to celebrate the impending release of the audiobook of The Fall of the Kings. The contest involves creating a recipe inspired by any of the Riverside books.

With our long(ish) and storied history of creating recipes inspired by books (see exhibits A, B, C, and D), not to mention the many feasts of GRRM proportions Alyssa has created with the help of Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer’s wonderful A Feast of Ice and Fire, we thought this bookgeeky fun sounded right up our alley. We did some cross-country collaboration via the magic of Skype, and produced this lovely cup of chocolate to throw into the ring (which we wouldn’t actually do, of course…much too tasty to spill!). It is thick and rich and decadent, and the spices add an intoxicating and kicky element you won’t find in your run-of-the-mill Swiss Miss packets. The light treats to accompany it allow the chocolate to remain the star of the show, but the brightness of the tart-sweet strawberry jam and orange slices serves as a nice contrast to the creaminess of the chocolate, and the blueberries add a mellow freshness to the spread.

Spiced Chocolate with Strawberry Jam on Oat Toast and Fresh Fruit

Ingredients:
Spiced Chocolate
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1-2 dashes red cayenne pepper
1 C. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 small handful semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. brown sugar, packed

Treats
1 slice oat bread
Strawberry jam
1 orange
1 small handful fresh blueberries

1. Combine the cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and cayenne pepper in a mortar and pestle. Grind it all together until it is well-mixed and a uniform, powdery consistency. This might seem like a pain in the patoot extra step, but it will help the spices suspend in the chocolate later, so you don’t get a bunch of gritty stuff swirling around in the bottom of your cup.
   
2. Heat the milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in the vanilla.
   
3. When the milk has heated up a bit, stir in the chocolate chips. Stir regularly to prevent the milk from burning and to combine the melting chips with the milk.
   
4. Are you still stirring? We don’t want burnt milk! When it comes to a low simmer, add the cocoa powder and the brown sugar. Get out Susan’s favorite kitchen utensil, the small whisk, and whisk the mixture until the liquid is a uniform, blended consistency. (At this point, photography mysteriously ceased.)
5. Now, take a 1/2 tsp of the Proprietary Spice Blend® you so lovingly created with your mortar and pestle, and whisk it into the chocolate. (There will be some left over, which you can store and use for future chocolate-making.) Whisk vigorously for a minute or so to aerate the beverage and suspend the spices throughout.
6. As for the treats, it’s really quite simple. If you’re good at multitasking and can prepare the snacks while making the chocolate and not accidentally end up with scalded milk, then by all means do so! First, toast your oat bread.
7. When it’s a nice golden brown, cut the crusts off and give them to a cute dog you know. Cut the bread on the diagonal, and spread the strawberry jam (homemade freezer jam in our case) on both pieces.
8. Peel the orange and separate into wedges, taking off as much of the icky white stuff as you deem necessary. Rinse the blueberries, too.
9. Arrange the toast and fruit artfully on a plate, transfer the chocolate to your best china teacup or other favorite drinking vessel, and enjoy! (We approve of dunking your orange slices in the chocolate for extra tastiness.)

This recipe serves one chocoholic individual, or can be divided out into 2 servings for those inclined to share or desirous of a lighter snack.

Feeling inspired? You can still enter the contest, too! It closes at midnight tonight, and you can find out more details here. Don’t forget to check out the new audiobook when it comes out on August 27th, and in the mean time you can catch up on the previous audiobooks in the series! Have you checked out this series before? What are some other books whose food-inspiration you’d like to see brought to life?

The Audio-Philes: Road Trip Round-Up

Ignore the little “look inside” things…I had to borrow audiobook images from Amazon. And I don’t even think the My Antonia is the right one. Huzzah!

Having just recently returned from a cross-country road trip that involved lots of audiobook listening to pass the hours in the car, I thought I’d do a little round-up of mini-reviews. Summer is drawing to a close in most places (not the place in which I reside!), but in case you’ve got one last trip planned or are just looking for something to make the commute to work go a little quicker, maybe my experiences can help you choose a new book to listen to (or avoid!).

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Published by Random House Audio (2011), read by Wil Wheaton
Listened to (most recently) in July 2013; I own it
Book Rating: 4.5 Stars
Audiobook Rating: 5 Stars

Quick plot summary: In a near, bleak future, Wade Watts escapes the crappy reality of life in the virtual reality of the OASIS. He becomes involved in an online treasure hunt with the prize being the fortune of the deceased creator of the OASIS—much ‘80s nostalgia and geeklove ensues. (Quick plot summaries don’t really do it justice, so go read a real plot summary on Amazon!)

If you know me, you probably already know how much I heart this book. Which is A LOT. It’s just so much fun! I don’t often come across books with such an unbridled, bubbling fun to them, and this is just such a joy to read. The ‘80s pop culture references and nostalgia are great—you don’t have to have been involved in them at the time to appreciate them now in the book. I wasn’t alive for over half of the decade, and I still found it all very interesting and exciting. The author explains enough for you to get a general understanding and appreciate it in the story, but without become pedantic. It’s such a geekfest, and in all the best ways. But I don’t think you have to be a geek to enjoy the book—if you love a good treasure hunt, if you have ever loved some aspect of pop culture, be it a movie, a book, a band, a TV show—you can appreciate what this novel is about.

As for the audiobook version, Wil Wheaton was the perfect choice for narration. A famous geek to read a book about geekery! He portrays Wade so well. This is one where I can say I actually love the audiobook pretty much at the same level as I love the book itself. Go track down a copy. Or better yet, just go buy it. It’s that good.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Published by Random House Audio (2005), read by Stephen Fry
Listened to (most recently) in July 2013; I own it
Book Rating: 5 Stars
Audiobook Rating: 4 Stars

Quick plot summary: Arthur Dent, hapless human, manages to escape Earth with his apparently alien friend Ford Prefect right before the planet is demolished to make room for a space freeway. They set off traveling the galaxy, getting into all kinds of trouble and ridiculous situations. Sci-fi parody/satire at its best.

Let’s be clear—these are some of the funniest books I have ever read. Books don’t often make me laugh out loud, but these ones do. They are just so ridiculous, and clever, and amazing. I don’t care if you don’t like sci-fi—you should read these books anyway. At the same time as they parody sci-fi tropes, they also show affection for the genre, and they do it all so intelligently. I can’t praise them enough.

I own an audio copy of the book narrated by Stephen Fry, who delivers all the one-liners and zany shenanigans with the appropriate Brit wit and aplomb. He does a great job. And yet—for me, it is so much funnier to read the book personally than to listen to someone else reading it to me. I don’t know why it’s so much funnier that way, but it just is. So, by all means, listen to the audiobook, because it’s great. But make sure you try reading it, too.

Motor Mouth, by Janet Evanovich
Published by HarperAudio (2007), read by C.J. Critt
Listened to in July 2013; I own(ed) it
Book Rating: 2.5 Stars
Audiobook Rating: 2.5 Stars

Quick plot summary: In this second entry in the Alex Barnaby series, Barney is working for NASCAR racer Sam Hooker, though they’ve broken up in the interim between books. When the two begin investigating one of the other competitors, they find a dead body and become involved in a mystery involving illegal racing tech and more murders.

This one had the usual Evanovich humor and a lot of the hallmarks of her other books—some parts were very funny, but I just didn't enjoy it as much as the Stephanie Plum series or even the Lizzy and Diesel series. The story itself was okay, but it didn't really hold my attention. On top of that, I wasn't a big fan of the narrator for the audiobook. I eventually got used to her, even though the voice for Sam Hooker made me cringe. Overall, it wasn’t horrible, but I can see why there are only 2 books (not counting the graphic novel) in this series.

My Antonia, by Willa Cather
Published by Blackstone Audio (2007), read by Jeff Cummings
Listened to in August 2013; borrowed from digital library
Book Rating: 4 Stars
Audiobook Rating: 3.5 Stars

Quick plot summary: Written from the perspective of Jim, who moved to Nebraska as a boy to live with his grandparents after the death of his parent-parents, this novel tells the story of his own life and also that of Antonia Shimerda, his Bohemian emigrant neighbor. Quiet, with a surface simplicity that belies its depth, this book shines a light on the strength of the pioneers and immigrants who went through so much to build lives for themselves and also to help build America.

Hey look, one of the 100 greatest novels of all time! And I quite enjoyed this one. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect book to listen to as you’re driving across the prairies of Kansas. As I looked out the window I tried to imagine what it must’ve looked like in Antonia’s time, as most of the prairie is gone now. Even in the book, the narrator notes that the prairie is already less than it had been, and the author describes it with such loving beauty. The book was vaguely Little House-ish, in that it covered the daily lives of pioneers, but it also shows how very rough it could be for immigrant pioneers. And yet, despite all the adversity life had to throw Antonia’s way, she managed to be happy. I really appreciated that—so many classics are utterly depressing, and I was glad that this one ended with a happy sort of contentedness. You go, Antonia—we can all take something from her example.

As for the audiobook, I wasn’t a big fan of the narrator at first, but then I grew to enjoy the accents he did for various characters. Couldn’t tell you if they were accurate accents, but they worked well in the story and helped me differentiate between characters.

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Published by AudioGO Ltd (2013), performed by cast
Listened to in August 2013; found on the YouTubes
Book Rating: 4.5 Stars
Performance Rating: 5 Stars

Quick plot summary: Richard Mayhew helps a mysterious girl on the street and finds himself drawn into the world of London Below, full of markets and rat-speakers and angels and assassins and all manner of shadowy things. In his quest to help the girl called Door and find his way back to his ordinary life, he will have to learn to survive in this world so different from and so much darker than his own.

Okay, to be fair, this isn’t actually an audiobook. BBC 4 did a radio play of Neverwhere back in March, and I never got to finish listening to it before they took it off their website. After My Antonia, the narrator of The Brothers Karamazov audiobook was too difficult to understand and Beloved was too quiet to hear, so I tracked this down on YouTube to stream through my phone and listen to during the last leg of our journey. I love this story (it was my first Neil Gaiman, in fact, back in high school), and I love the campy BBC TV series he wrote that led to him writing the novel (a little change-up from the usual flow of things, yes?), so it’s no surprise that I would love the radio play. The story itself is great urban fantasy, and the cast and production team did a great job with the performance. The cast includes such talent as James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Anthony Head, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Christopher Lee, and all the sound effects and things added to the background made it feel very immersive. Great work—why aren’t there more radio plays these days? In my huntings for it to listen to on the ride, I didn’t see anywhere to purchase it, but logging on to Amazon today I saw that it is being released on audible.com on September 5th. Check it out!

Summer Reading Favorites

I am a list reader. I like to keep arbitrary lists of my favorite and least favorite things (When I traveled to Greece for a class, my friends and I ranked our favorite types of artifacts. Tripods beat out nude sculptures. Go figure.), and I like to read lists, especially people’s “Top 50 Novels of the 20th Century” or “Top 100 Novels of ALL TIME.” Reading top book lists is almost meaningless for me because my idea of a good showing is having read 33%, which means that I can’t fully disagree with people who love cite Lolita as the Best Book Ever, or Moby Dick as the Novel to Read Before You Die. But I love reading the lists anyway, and I do make a conscious effort to pick up some books from lists so when I read the next trendy list I can be more judgmental about the curator’s sanity.

All of this is a long way of saying that because my library’s summer reading program finished, I have a nice concise collection of 25 books that I can distill to more useful lists for you. I don’t know how many opinions you can have about the Favorite designations I’m giving out, but I know that for once I have read 100% of the master list. Hurrah!*

*No pressure for you to read them all too. In fact, you may remember reviews of some books urging quite the opposite action.

Favorite Audiobook

• Pearl of China by Anchee Min; Reader Angela Lin
• The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin; Reader Robertson Dean
• Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson; Reader Dan Woren
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman; Full Cast
• The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien; Reader Rob Inglis

This is a difficult category to judge because my reaction to audiobooks is often I LOVE IT or MAKE IT STOP. It’s more difficult this summer because I genuinely enjoyed the recordings of all these contenders, but one audiobook reader did such an incredible job that the award must go to Rob Inglis’ recording of The Return of the King. Inglis not only does sensitive portrayals of all the epic’s characters—he SINGS shire melodies and elf tunes.

Favorite Nonfiction Book

• The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin
• Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
• Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong by William Kilpatrick
• Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
• Health Care Reform by Jonathan Gruber, H.P. Newquist and Nathan Schreiber

I’m giving this one to Why Nations Fail, although The Oath is a close second. Why Nations Fail chooses a variety of international and historical examples to support the thesis that exploitative political and economic institutions stagnate and imperil national growth, and steps towards inclusivity in either politics or economics can create positive feedback and eventually economic growth. The thesis is almost not a thesis because it appears so self-evident by the end of the book, but that just shows what a good job the authors have done in arguing their point. I suspect there are quite a few counterarguments the book isn't presenting; it seems a little too neat by the end. Don’t let the political and economic talk keep you from the book—Acemoglu and Robinson’s examples are fascinating, and even if the theory doesn't always fit the world, it's a good one to consider.

Favorite Young Adult Novel

• The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
• Legend by Marie Lu
• Enchanted by Alethea Contis
• Plague in the Mirror by Deborah Noyes
• Jepp Who Defied the Stars by Katherine Marsh
• You Look Different in Real Life by Jennifer Castle
• The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
• Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth

I loved The Dream Thieves. Second books of series can be extremely difficult to nail, and Stiefvater manages to add new twists while keeping the overall series plot moving in Raven Cycle #2. There are so many things I enjoyed about the plot, the characters and the style that I have trouble explaining my enthusiasm in a coherent way. The book is coming out in September, which means that you have one month to read The Raven Boys and brush up on Welsh history and ley line theories. Expect a review when I finally pull my !!!! and ? and :-D into words.

Best Non-Young Adult Fiction

• Pearl of China by Anchee Min
• Left Drowning by Jessica Park
• The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller
• The Last Camellia by Sarah Jio
• Lady Susan / The Watsons / Sanditon by Jane Austen
• My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares
• The Hen of the Baskervilles by Donna Andrews
• Live from Golgotha by Gore Vidal
• The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
• My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

THE SONG OF ACHILLES!!! (Did you even think there was a question in this category?) Granted, much of this list is quality, and I can imagine getting more out of the Lord of the Rings as I reread and appreciate the ending more. I've also been overwhelming friends and family with my analysis of Austen's unfinished novels, so if my category were "Most Likely for Me to Bring Up in Conversation" this would be a strong contender. But this award is for my favorite read of this summer, and for now, it’s Miller’s reworking of Homeric material.

The Audio-Philes: Pearl of China, by Anchee Min

Title: Pearl of China
Author: Anchee Min
Read By: Angela Lin
Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC
Publication Year: 2010
Listened To: June 2013
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: ****

Fiction audiobooks are generally not my thing (nor Alyssa's). I usually can read faster than someone else can read to me, many voices readers use for characters don’t sound like the way I’d read them from the page, and most importantly—listening to bedroom scenes destroys any pleasure I’d have in them on the page. So when I won a collection of audiobooks from my library’s summer reading raffle a few summers ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever listen to the fiction selections.

Following a few soporific nonfiction titles I chose from my library (Guns, Germs and Steel and The Revenge of Geography) I decided to try fiction again. Unfitting voices at least can keep me awake while driving; I remain thankful that I caught myself before falling asleep at the wheel while listening to geography studies (DWB—driving while bored).

By luck, the first novel on my iTunes playlist this month was Pearl of China, which I didn’t realize until midway through listening was the historical fiction version of Pearl S. Buck’s life. A few days later I was baking muffins galore because scurrying around the kitchen would give me an excuse to keep listening to the book. I’m giving up on geography books—the history parts of Pearl of China (spanning the last emperor of China through the death of Madame Mao) fully absorbed me.

It isn’t just the history in the novel that makes it enjoyable listening; the main character, Willow (Pearl’s childhood best friend in the story), is courageous and resilient. My impression from women’s literature set in China has been that women’s lives were miserable and that no matter how intelligent they were, they’d get caught by institutional violence. However important such tragic stories are, it’s hard to listen to them. Pearl of China upended the tragic battered wife stereotype by making women escape their marriages and find intellectual fulfillment in universities and publishing, and some romantic fulfillment in new partners. These successes do not mean that Willow and other characters necessarily have easy lives after escaping marriage, but it makes them the force behind what happens to them later in life. It’s also worth noting that Willow’s choices in the second half of her long life (~50-80 years old) are the ones that show her true strength, and that all the other senior citizen characters are autonomous and active. So double well done to Anchee Min—independent women AND senior citizens!

Angela Lin, the audiobook reader, does a very good job. She varies voices for characters without exaggerated affectations. Best, she sings haunting excerpts of songs.

The Audio-Philes: Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Title: Leviathan
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Read By: Alan Cumming
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Publication Year: 2009
Listened To: June 2013
Genre: YA-steampunk-alt history
Rating: 4 Out of 5 Fabricated Beasties

I used to joke that everything I knew about World War I, I learned from reading Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan. Now I can happily say that everything I know about WWI I’ve learned from Leviathan and Downton Abbey. (I feel WWI was perhaps not as well-covered as WWII during my secondary education—thankfully I can rely on fictional entertainment to pick up the slack.) And this book is great—full of imagination, historical inspiration, vividly portrayed characters, and rollicking action. Here, have a GoodReads blurb:

Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

So yes, I love this trilogy THIS MUCH and think everyone should read it, especially if they’re unsure about steampunk but want to give it a go. However, I’m not here to review the BOOK-book right now, but rather the audiobook.

My nitpicks and dissatisfactions with audiobooks in general are well-documented, so every time I decide to try another I wonder if I’m setting myself up for failure. But when I saw this beckoning to me from the library shelf, I had to give it a go. Scott Westerfeld? Love. Alan Cumming? Love. What could possibly go wrong? And I am pleased to say, not much. I found this to be a very pleasant listen.

It fit my criteria of having been a book I’d: a), already read the traditional way (so I could follow without much trouble), and b) enjoyed immensely, so it had those things going for it from the start. And I thought Alan Cumming did a great job reading it! Really wonderful choice there. There’s always an adjustment period where I acclimate to the characters sounding different than they do in my head, but once I made it through that, it was great. I loved his narration and the voices he created for all the characters, most notably and surprisingly, Deryn! I have this thing where I normally in audiobooks (or movies like Milo and Otis) I hate hate HATE when men try to approximate a female voice, but Mr. Cumming’s was spot-on for the character.

Less successful, for me, was his portrayal of the German-speaking characters. I don’t know what it was about it, but it just seemed…maybe a bit hokey? And to me it kinda made Alek seem a little less intelligent than he was. When I was reading, I imagined Alek with a lighter accent, with more natural tone and smooth cadence when speaking English, due to his privileged upbringing and education. Like I said, though, that’s just part of adjusting to a portrayal of characters on CD sounding different than they do in your head. But this is completely subjective on both counts—I’m sure there are plenty of people who LOVE that he gives those characters distinct accents. At any rate, while it really bothered me for about the first 2 discs, after that I got used to it and got sucked back into the story and Mr. Cumming’s reading of it and it didn’t really matter anymore! The fact that I want to listen to the rest of the series serves as evidence of that, but it seems my library doesn’t have the other two! Noooooo!

All in all, I thought it was great. Alan Cumming’s reading really captured the feel and personality of not just the main characters, but more peripheral ones as well, along with the sense of excitement and adventure of the story overall. If you haven’t read this book, you should probably go do that, or listen to it, or something. AS LONG AS YOU CONSUME IT AND LOVE IT AS MUCH AS I DO. No pressure. :)

Poetry: "The DNA Molecule" by May Swenson

I was listening to the Caedmon Poetry Collection when "The DNA Molecule" caught my attention. I was on my way to Robert Graves' "Poem to My Son" when what sounded like a science lecture started playing. This was naturally confusing. In the past year I have reread some chapters of a biology textbook and skimmed some Science journals, but I have not taken out any audiobook more natural-science-oriented than Guns, Germs, and Steel, to which I was familiar enough not to confuse with the explanation of base pairing that I was now hearing.

As you can tell from this post, what I was listening to was a poem, and not a science book. I still don't fully understand the poem, and I've read and listened to it at least ten times now. Part of me is still confused to see DNA in a poem, and I am curious about her biology choices. The other part of me is able to stop and appreciate the image of butterfly wings in juxtaposition to replicated DNA.

The Audio-Philes: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Disclaimer: I fully intended for this to be a short and sweet review of the audiobook, but it morphed into a beast of a treatise on the merits of audiobookery, poetry in translation, and other geeky rants. You’ve been warned! (Skip to the next-to-the-last paragraph if all you want is the bottom line.)

Title: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Author: Unknown
Translator: Simon Armitage
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks America
Listened to: April 2013
Star Rating: ****

Now, I’m not normally a person who enjoys audiobooks. I am very picky about them—if I don’t like the voice reading the book or how it reads the book, I will probably end up not liking the book. I suspect this has something to do with early trauma watching Milo and Otis with that one guy doing voices for ALL the animals, including a terrible approximation of a female voice. (There was also a bad experience involving the audiobook of Snow Falling On Cedars, with some offensive stereotypical “Asian” accents for the Japanese-American characters, but we shall speak no more on that matter…)