1937

I just finished rading two books: The Shanghai Girls by Lisa See and The Samuri's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. One was for bookclub, the other recommended by a friend.

And, completely by coincedence, they both revolve around the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began with an invasion of China in 1937.

While I had heard of this, I certainly didn't know anything about it. Not that I do now, but I do know a bit more and have gone looking for information.

I just find it strange that I'd read two books back -to-back that center around the same historical period (unintentionally -- of course I've done on purpose....)

And, it once again, reinforces the thesis of my Historical Methods class I took senior year (whatever it was called) that teaching history through fiction (well-researched fiction) is a valid, valuable method. The professor did NOT agree with me (or maybe it was my orange crew cut he didn't like....)

First Sentence Quiz

Following up on the First Sentence post below, have you seen the First Sentence Quiz on Goodreads??

Extra Curricular

This post has nothing to do with books or gardens. It's all about Dairy Queen.

Completely unintentionally, I have gotten myself quite involved with the preservation of the Roseville Dairy Queen. Who knew it was Minnesota's first DQ? (Or sort of...) It is an iconic tribute to 1950s car culture -- Roseville, Richfield and St. Louis Park are all totally 1950s suburbs. I have grown to find that first ring suburb stuff quite charming.

The DQ was named to the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota's 10 Most Endangered Buildings list for 2010. I was horrified to see my DQ on the list!

One of my friends built a Facebook page just to see what would happen. It was slow at first, but it has really taken off! We're up well over 400 "fans" and have generated a couple of newspaper articles.

We've got email conversations going with the Preservation Alliance on action steps. Not at all confident we'll be able to save the building, but geez, you gotta try!

Cookbooks

I usually don't read cookbooks from cover to cover. In fact, I never do, but sometimes I enjoy browsing through some, looking at the various recipes. Most often I am looking for inspiration for cooking that night's dinner, since I'm rarely organized enough to plan a week's menu in advance.

Of course, some cookbooks are more suitable for this than others. Mark Bittman's cookbooks are some of my favorites for menu ideas, and I love his no-nonsense style with suggestions for variations and shortcuts. (There's also a "How to Cook Everything" iPhone app.) "The Best Recipe" (also known as "the recipe book" in my house), pulling together recipes and techniques from the magazine "Cook's Illustrated," includes large blocks of text with explanations for the specific proportions and timings for each recipe. This is especially helpful for learning what makes a dish turn out the way it does - thicker or crunchier or whatever. The same goes for the King Arthur cookbooks, with variations for specific recipes so you can make brownies, say, with similar flavor but fudgier, cakier, thicker, thinner, etc.

This morning I picked up a cookbook I received for Christmas. It, too, has plenty of text, plus some lovely color photographs, and I couldn't remember why I hadn't used it at all yet. Then I started skimming through it, and I remembered: the layout is infuriating. Almost every recipe runs two pages, but the ingredients are on the right-hand side, and you have to turn the page to see the directions. It might make for good reading, but I don't think I'll ever cook from it.

I want Betsy's Life

OK, just finished the Betsy Tacy series. I seriously don't think I ever read the whole series as a kid - can you believe that??? I know I read probably the first four, but not the last few. I wonder if they were really even around when we were kids? Of course they were around, but they certainly weren't popular.

So, truly, wouldn't Betsy's life be about perfect?

First lines

Well, Doc Jen and I may remember them better, but there were a couple professors who loved first lines of novels and always made me aware of them. Thought I'd share a couple of good ones of late.

The most magical thing happened on the morning of my grandmother's wedding in Tuscany. (Brava, Valentine)

Momma left her red satin shoes in the middle of the road. (Saving Ceecee Honeycutt)

"I'm Mary Magdalene" (Final Exam)

There comes a time in every girl's life when she realizes her father isn't perfect. (Truly, Madly)

They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how is happened for me. (Before I Fall)

There were also those professors who really liked the last sentences of novels, but that's for another day.

Power's back!

On Saturday, we had a record-setting snowfall, about 2 feet in one day. We dug out, the kids had a 2-hour delay on Monday, and things were back to normal on Tuesday. But then we had a second snowfall Tuesday night and all Wednesday; the kids and I both had snow days declared on Wednesday and Thursday, and I was looking forward to some snug days of reading in my favorite chair next to the radiator and baking all sorts of yummies. I stocked up on all the essentials - eggs, flour, sugar, books from the library - and felt smug in my preparations. Then our power went out at 3:30 on Wednesday. And it didn't come back on.

My king cake was rising on the counter, so when it got to be 6:00 and the power still wasn't back, we decided to go over to a friend's house for dinner and to bake the cake. It would've taken quite a while to shovel out our driveway, so we walked - Eric carrying the cookie sheet with the pan. (He slipped and fell once, but miraculously saved the cake.) Just as we got to Liz and Steve's house, sighing with relief - their power went out. Luckily dinner was still hot and we were able to have a hot meal by candlelight, and we played games by candlelight. Still no power at 10:00, so we trekked home in the snow with the cake.

There are a lot of evergreens here, and their needles hold a lot of snow. With a second 2-foot snowfall, a lot of branches and whole trees had broken off. It was amazingly bright outside, with all the snow reflecting light.

We bundled up and went to bed. Still no power when we went got up, so we dug out our driveway and went out for breakfast. When we came home, the power was back on. Thank goodness! I was having visions of Life As We Knew It as well as the movie "The Day Before Yesterday."