I had no idea that Joan of Arc was a character in this play. I actually learned a lot about her, as seeing her name made me go read up a little on her Wikipedia page. I guess we’ve all heard stories about her while we were growing up. “Henry VI, Part I” definitely paints a different picture of her than usual. It was actually a bit confusing the way they portrayed her.

Anyhow, this was a relatively short and painless work of Shakespeare and I’m ready to dive into Part II.

I saw this book on the free table in our laundry room and thought I’d try it out. It looked like one of those fluffy chick lit books, and I wasn’t wrong. I thought that after reading a few classic-y books I’d like something lighter, but I actually couldn’t get into this book for the first hundred pages or so. By the time it finally got me engaged it was mostly over and headed into the denouement. The end is exactly what you’d expect, but despite the cliche I still squeezed out a few tears for the main character.

All in all, I liked it okay, it was fun, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone. XD

So last time when my mom was here visiting, we went to the Asian grocery store and bought all sorts of ingredients intended to make potstickers. In the end, we had some left over ground pork, and before she left she said off-hand, “Oh, you can make sticky rice next time for Mike.” So of course I had to do it, even though I’ve never made sticky rice in my life and have maybe watched my mom make it once all the way through.

On a side note, I found out today that my sister doesn’t like sticky rice at all. I always thought she just didn’t prefer it, but she actually doesn’t like it. I feel kind of bad since we’ve been having it for years at family dinners/holiday get-togethers. Now I know. And originally I wanted to try out the sticky rice thing so that I would know what to do for Thanksgiving, but now I guess I don’t have to make it for Thanksgiving at all. =P

Okay, so, here’s what I did based on my fading memory of what I’m supposed to do.

Ingredients:
- ground pork (don’t know how much I had, but it was about the size of a fat hamburger patty)
- sweet rice (3 cups)
- fried shallots (I used about 1/3 of a 2oz bag)
- shiitake mushrooms (I used ten small-medium sized ones)
- tiny dried shrimp (tiny spice bowl full, maybe 20?)
- soy sauce

Soak the sweet rice for 2+ hours. I soaked the mushrooms and shrimp at the same time since I wasn’t sure. About an hour in, I checked on the rice and added more water so that it was fully submerged again. I soaked the sweet rice in a 2-qt glass bowl with lid so that I could use the same container later.

When the rice was done soaking, I put the whole thing (which still had extra water) in the microwave for 4 minutes.
Slice the mushrooms and finely chop the shrimp.

Tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, put the pork in there and stir it around so you get little chunks of meat. Added soy sauce for a little flavor and color. When it was mostly cooked, I took it out of the pan and put it in a different bowl.

Checked on the rice, it wasn’t nearly done, microwaved it for 4 more minutes.

Olive oil in the pan again, put in the shallots, mixed them around. Waited, then put in the shrimp. At some point I added more oil just because it looked dry. And then I put in some of the mushroom soaking water because I didn’t want to put more oil.

Drained the rice and dumped it all in the pan and mixed it around. Tablespoon or so of soy sauce, mixed it around and it looked brown enough so I thought it was fine. Put in the mushrooms, mix. Put the meat back in, mix.

At this point it looked like risotto and tasted “al dente.” I put the lid on and put it on simmer for 5 minutes. Checked back and it was still mostly cooked but not all the way cooked? And then I seemed to remember Mommy microwaving again at the end, so I transferred the whole thing back into the glass bowl, and microwaved for 3 minutes.

Tastes pretty good for a first try. I’m happy with it.

“I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!”
“Nonsense, child; you’ll think your husband better.
“Impossible,” said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; “husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.”

---

I had been wanting to read Middlemarch for a long time, and now that I’m finished I think I would class it as one of my favorite books. It has that same feel as Pride and Prejudice, except I remember hating P&P the first time through and not really appreciating it until afterwards. The characters in Middlemarch are less exasperating, with just as much drama, I think.

Everything you think might happen to create conflict pretty much happens, but even expecting it doesn’t make it stale when you read it, which is a measure of success as well.

Anyway. Classic sort of BritLit novel. I didn’t like it quite as much as The Portrait of a Lady but it has that same sort of appeal to me.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a book of poetry at my bedside. I like reading a few poems before going to sleep so I can think about them as I drift off. I picked up this volume because of the title, “Bread Alone.” It was not at all what I expected, although I can’t quite say what it was that I expected. There were a few pieces that I really liked:

from “Languedoc”
…
Not to be young forever -

But rather to travel as a mollusk, a barnacle
a subatomic particle, to become nothing
more than

the passage of tiem itself -

an eternal witness to every small death
that happens nto when we die
but when we stay alive.

from “Rock Bottom”
…Praise the brave
who take the plunge

and trade every article of faith
for a shred of compassion or reason –

either one.

from “I Have Not Forgotten You”
All poems are love poems
if you read them right

to left or left to right
for they assume an other

we are forever
trying to reach.

…

There are no legitimate borders
in poems – no fences, no walls, no checkpoints -

for the spirit that inhabits poetry
is a sad ghost, and all poems
are made of mourning.

---

“work”

tallow moss
stone wall

winter grey
road alone

this is all

I long
to leave

nothing
more -

a row
of words

a mile long

Started working through Shakespeare again. Picked up Comedy of Errors from the library last time I was there and just finished it. Actually one of the more annoying Shakespeare plays I’ve written. I know a lot of his comedies are based on role-switching and confusion and whatnot, but this one is about two sets of twins.

I thought I understood that at the beginning of the story, one of the twins was in the city in order to look for his twin. Under this belief, I thought that meant all of the twins knew that they had twin brothers somewhere in the world. If that were true though, and one brother is looking for another brother, it really shouldn’t have taken five acts for them to realize they had found each other? I mean, if you know you have an identical twin, you go to a city you’ve never been to before, and everyone acts like they know you, wouldn’t that tip you off that you’re in the right place and that your twin lives nearby?

Anyway, so that just made me sort of frustrated at how the story was dragging on. =/
My advice – skip this one. There are plenty more Shakespeare plays in the sea.

Is it just me or all the popular YA books these days dystopian novels?

I knew the basic premise of Delirium from the recommendations I received, but was still thrilled while reading it. It sort of reminds me of The Giver in a way, but with more of a romantic bent. And less…foreign, I guess.

I expected a betrayal by Hana but she surprised me. (I don’t know if that counts as a spoiler but…yeah, she doesn’t betray Lena. Sorry for giving that away. =P)
The ending surprised me as well. I know there are books following this one so it makes me wonder how the story will continue. But it doesn’t make me feel like I must must must read the next book right this minute.

I felt like that with Angelfall too. A good stand-alone first book – leaves room for more but doesn’t feel incomplete on its own.

So I had a banana and it was brown. I mean really gooey soft brown. I remembered that I posted a banana bread recipe on here a little while ago, so I went back to look for it. For some reason, I thought the recipe called for 1 banana or maybe 1.5 bananas. Nope, it calls for 3 bananas.

You can see the recipe here: Banana Bread.

Because I’m crazy, I decided to third the recipe. Mike was like, “Just throw the banana away.” But I was determined!

Here’s my thirded and edited recipe (differs slightly from the original post linked above):

(Makes 4 normal-sized muffins.)

1 over-ripe banana
1 tbs butter
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
pinch and a half salt
~1/3 tsp baking soda
1/2 c flour
handful chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Take the butter out of the fridge.

In a medium bowl, mash banana. Add butter and chop/mash/cut in as well as you can. You’ll end up with mostly gooey consistent banana with chunks of butter, oh well.
Add sugar, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. I literally have a measuring spoon that says “pinch” on it (1/16 tsp) that I normally use in my salt jar. And I only had a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon for baking soda, hence the approximation for baking soda. Stir.
Add flour, stir until consistent.

Spray muffin pan (or at least four of the wells) with Pam. Divvy out mixture (2/3 full). I added 6-8 chocolate chips in two of the muffins, as an experiment. Bake for 20 minutes.

They turned our pretty tasty! And I didn’t have the problem I had last time of banana bread overload. You eat one, it’s yum. You eat another one and you’re like, okay that’s enough banana for awhile. And look how perfect, there aren’t any leftovers you have to force yourself to finish before it goes bad.

I liked the plain ones better. Mike liked the chocolate chip ones slightly better (but he said not a LOT better).

It’s maybe a pain to wash an entire 12-well muffin pan for four muffins (well, I used to have a 6-well pan, so I guess that wouldn’t be as bad), but I more often have one banana left over and over-ripe than 3, so I’m glad I tried this and that it worked out.

[Edit]
I just realized something funny. I forgot the egg again! Although I would’ve skipped it anyway because how do you third an egg, I actually didn’t mean to do it. I just didn’t see it when I glanced over the list of ingredients in the original recipe. I also skipped the egg in the Cranberry Orange Scones I made last time, but it also turned out fine. ^^;

So I’m reading Angelfall by Susan Ee. Really had no idea what it was about, but it was highly recommended by an acquaintance who likes some of the same genres I like. I’m pretty sure I’ve never read it before, but the main characters are named Penryn and Raffe which sound very familiar. I still haven’t figured out where I’ve heard those names before.

Another surprise is that it’s set in the San Francisco Bay Area, or at least the beginning is. In the very first chapter they mention El Camino and Page Mill. In the second “Silicon Valley” is directly named. I’m on Chapter 28 currently and they main characters are heading toward the Financial District of San Francisco. So that tickles my fancy.

And a third thing that caught my eye:
“A group of angels called the Watchers were stationed on Earth to observe the humans. Over time, they got lonely and took human wives, knowing they shouldn’t. Their children were called Nephilim. And they were abominations. They fed on humans, drank their blood and terrorized the Earth. For that, the Watchers were condemned to the Pit until Judgment Day.”

Reminded me of “Nephilim Valour” from D3. =P

Anyway, I can see why it was recommended, and I’m enjoying it so far. At first I heard it was going to be a trilogy, and now I hear it’s going to be 5 books? So I’m not quite sure. And I don’t know the schedule for how quickly the next books will be released, or even if at the end of the book the author will have me begging for more. We’ll see.

If you’re interested, you can read the book for free at ePub: Susan Ee – Angelfall. Not sure if it was uploaded herself or illegally? According to the author’s blog, susanee.com, the book was being sold earlier this month on BN for less than 5$. The actual, literal, paperback book, not an eBook. If the following books are that inexpensive I may spring for them so as not to have to wait to read them, and also to support the author. =)

Carlos Fuentes sounded kind of familiar, so I picked up this book from Geisel Library. Turns out it’s a collection of short stories related to Cortés and the New World. Very interesting, and a clear central theme of the orange tree, which I appreciated.

Although the book is a work of fiction, after a glance at the Hernán Cortés Wikipedia page, a lot seems to be based on fact. I ended up learning a lot of history, which is always a nice bonus.