Brown, Alton - I'm Just Here for More Food

Usually I don't review books that I use as reference, unless I read them from cover to cover. Even though I started cooking about a month ago, when I got this book, I got it purely for entertainment value and not for the recipes at all! I mean, I did plan on using some... eventually... down the road... when I decided to use my kitchen again. So I've actually only tested out one of the recipes.

For those of you who have not been subject to my multiple ravings about Alton Brown, he's the host of the Food Network show Good Eats, which is also one of the shows I watch religiously. And in case people think that this is just because I started cooking, I would just like to note that I have been watching it since I randomly caught it on the air two years ago. And I didn't do it because I wanted to cook, I did it because he's funny as hell and geeky and I get to learn random things about how food works.

I'm Just Here for More Food covers more than his previous cookbook, I'm Just Here for the Food, which focused on heat application (aka, broiling, grilling, frying, etc.). This one is on food + heat + mixing = baking! I have no idea how most cookbooks are organized, since I just randomly grab recipes off the internet, but this one is actually organized by mixing method. Brown's thesis is that different mixing methods are the core differentiating factor among different types of baked goods.

I had a lot of fun just reading the introductory section, which divides most baking ingredients up into categories and proceeds to explain what part each ingredient plays. It's not like I am good enough to modify baking recipes (though I, er, try and mess up anyway), but with this in hand, I feel like I can play around with things and figure out why my biscuits turned out too soft and not flaky enough, or how my cake turned into a muffin. He then goes on to separate mixing methods (aka, "The Biscuit Method" or "The Muffin Method"), which largely differ in how they mix various fats into the batter. And I will love him forever for explaining just why I should "cut" butter in instead of melting the darn thing and just pouring it in, which is so much less trouble that I used to do it. Eh heh, yes.

I mean, I may do it anyway, but at least then I know that I will be making whatever I'm baking less flaky and more fluffy.

Also, he's just funny. I, uh, seem to be a giant food science dork, because I actually made this into my fun bedtime reading.

Also also, my scones didn't turn out so great, but I suspect that was more the cook's fault than the book's.

Also also also, the mixing methods are on little flaps, so that you can fold them over your current recipe and refer straight to them.

Aka, I really like Alton Brown!

(whee! Last of the 2005 book entries, with the exception of manga, which I am not quite sure how to blog)

2005 book round up

I read less than last year by a bit, probably by a lot volume-wise, because so much of this year was manga, which I read much faster. I am too lazy to separate out my manga read, and so I just count a volume as a book. I also still haven't figured out how to do LJ entries on manga -- sometimes I do entries on a chunk of volumes, sometimes I do overviews after I finish a series, sometimes I just hold off on writing anything until I've completed the whole thing. I dunno. I'll figure something out, I guess.

I didn't get quite as excited over what I read this year as well, which makes doing this difficult. I don't know if it's because I was concentrating on other things, like re-picking up knitting or having a better social life, or if it's just what I read. Last year it was tough just picking ten books out of all the good stuff I had read; this year, I'm sort of struggling to fill it. It's not that what I read wasn't good, it's that not as much hit quite as hard.

Anyhow, here are my ten favorite books of the year, alphabetically by author. I don't pick books written this year, but books read this year. And my definition of favorite is very fuzzy. Basically, it's anything that left a lasting impression on me, or anything that I smile at when I go over the list of books read. While I generally don't include rereads on the list, I also reserve the right to cheat horribly.

I've blogged all of these except some of the manga, for reasons explained above. You can find everything in my books memories. I am too lazy to link all 149 books.

1. Loretta Chase, Lord of the Scoundrels
   
   This is a sort of placeholder for all the Loretta Chase books I read this year (Miss Wonderful, Mr. Impossible, and The Last Hellion). I loved all of them, though Lord of the Scoundrels is hands down my favorite. Loretta Chase is very good at taking some fairly boring and standard romance tropes, most of which I dislike, and inserting a proactive heroine, a hero who is completely ok with falling in love, and a plot that generally ends up enabling the heroine. LotS also subverts one of the romance tropes that I most dislike, that of the alpha bastard hero who treats everyone, particularly women, abominably because he had a rotten childhood. Chase writes about people who like each other while they're falling in love, which is all too rare in romance.



2. Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
   
   This is a small, unambitious book that nonetheless made me happier than Gaiman's latest books. While the comedy relies on the awkwardness of the protagonist, there's a sense that Gaiman loves and identifies with Fat Nancy; the awkwardness isn't embarrassing, but rather, endearing. And in the end, it is, like Sandman, a story about the stories we tell ourselves and how stories shape our lives.



3. Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
   
   Hornbacher's memoir is a stark, no-holds-barred look at the damage that eating disorders can wreak on a life; her descriptions of her ordeal are visceral and stunning. It's a painful read of someone who has dedicated her formidable intellect and willpower to destroying her own body.



4. Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle
   
   Technically, this is a reread, but I remember vaguely not getting the book the first time I read it. This time, I loved it to pieces, from the decidedly imperfect characters to the wry narrative voice. The best part is that despite the moving castle and attempts to foil the Witch of the Waste's plans, the book is about the characters growing up and growing into themselves, while remaining crotchety and flawed. Jones never tries to make anyone in the book a straight-up hero, and that's why it works so well for me.



5. Rosemary Kirstein, Steerswoman series
   
   Kirstein's Steerswoman series made me realize how much I missed traditional science fiction; her books are about knowledge and the scientific method, discovery and logic. She also does this without making the characters mere talking heads; rather, the process and not the results of uncovering knowledge and analyzing drives the main character. There's also a wonderfully rendered friendship between two women who are very different and yet respect each other.
   
   The series is yet unfinished and consists of The Steerswoman, The Outskirter's Secret, The Lost Steersman, and The Language of Power.



6. Caroline Knapp, Appetites: Why Women Want
   
   Knapp's book is also somewhat biographical, like Marya Hornbacher's, but rather than describing the experience of eating disorders, Knapp attempts to analyze the whys and hows of them. She talks of deprivation of both the body and the mind, of the complex factors that feed into eating disorders and problems with body image. Sympathetic and compassionate, Knapp never loses sight of the human in search of the universal.



7. Peter D. Kramer, Against Depression
   
   A deeply compassionate and very compelling argument on the destructiveness of depression. Kramer looks at how depression affects the people who suffer from it and the people in their lives; he gathers data on how much depression costs in terms of physical health and lost productivity. I would give this book to anyone who argued that depression wasn't a serious disease or wasn't a disease at all, as well as to anyone who argues that getting rid of depression would somehow tampers with the human condition.



8. Minekura Kazuya, Saiyuki (spoilers in second half)
   
   Minekura's gorgeous art, sharp and sinewy, and the snarky, angsty, fallible characters are hard to resist. Sanzo, Goku, Hakkai and Gojyo are all wonderful, well-rounded characters in their own right; but I love them best as a group. They're all broken people who have found each other; they're all trying to recover from their pasts, and I love how they help each other even while they snark and bitch and moan and look incredibly sexy.



9. Simon Singh, The Code Book
   
   One of the fun pieces of non-fiction I read this year. The book is deceptively simple until you realize how difficult some of the concepts that Singh is explaining. The invisible prose and effortless explanation make it an educational experience, but it isn't just a book on hows and whys. Singh never fails to show the reader how exciting he finds cryptography and code-breaking.



10. Scott Westerfeld, Peeps


This book made me go on a giant Scott Westerfeld binge that has yet to stop. Like the Steerswoman series, Peeps reminds me of why I love science fiction. Much of it lies in how enthusiastic Westerfeld is about parasites and the way they work, so much so that I didn't mind reading about gory deaths and biological details at all. Peeps takes the vampire novel, which I was getting bored of, and turns it into something else all together.

Also recommended: Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses; Rachel Manija Brown, All the Fishes Come Home to Roost; Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls; Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby and The Truth About Forever; Teresa Edgerton, Goblin Moon; Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; Laura Kinsale, Seize the Fire; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; and Tsuda Masami, Kare Kano.

Hrm, looks like there was a lot of non-fiction this year, particularly in the realm of eating disorders and depression. Why is this not a surprise to me? ;)

2004 book round up

Total read: 149 (6 rereads)

( All books read )