The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Just finished reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair for 52 books in 52 weeks. I was actually pretty surprised by this one, I had always heard it was about the horrors of the meat packing industry, but it really is so much more than that. The book follows the story of a Lithuanian named Jurgis and the rest of his immigrant family through their trials of trying to survive during the early 1900s in Chicago. They seemed to have problems at every turn, and were tricked many times by people who promised to help them in someway or another. I did have a few issues with this book though, many of Sinclair's characters seemed rather flat, such as Ona, Elizabeta, and Marija. I know the story is supposed to be mainly about Jurgis, but I do wish the others would have had a bit more personality.

I did find the actual bits about the meat packing process to be horrifying. Hearing that they used sickly animals as well as continuing to run the grinding machinery even if a worker fell in and was crushed shouldn't have surprised me all that much, but it did. I know things were bad for everybody back in those days, but the amount of filth and sickness was astounding to me. I wasn't fond of the end of the book with all the socialism rallying and events. It isn't that I have issues with the ideas of socialism, I just found it to be terribly boring and really didn't move the story along, but it made sense for Sinclair to put it there since the book was originally published as a serialized novel in a socialist newspaper. It is also interesting to note that this book caused the creation of the FDA.

Marinated Ratatouille Heroes

Just made marinated ratatouille heroes for dinner tonight from my Betty Crocker cookbook. It is a vegetarian dish with eggplant, bell pepper, onion, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The recipe called for goat cheese, but I substituted cream cheese with chives and onions because it was much cheaper. I was a bit skeptical of this recipe at first because I normally don't like vegetarian dishes, but this one surprised me quite a bit. It was very flavorful and very easy to make. I'd definitely make it again!

Summertime is almost over, and a New Year's Resolution Update

I admit it---I've pretty much failed at my New Year's Resolutions - mainly the blogging aspect. I haven't read as much as I'd have liked to, and for what I did read, I tended to just give it a star rating on GoodReads and not post a review here as well. I've done pretty well with cooking new things, but I just haven't shared too many of them (we tend to eat them all before I can get a picture taken). Quilting also has fallen by the wayside, as I've discovered I really don't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I have sewn a few dresses though, and hopefully will start posting about that process.

But today is a new day, so I'll begin again and see what happens. I'm not promising that I'll excel, but I'll definitely try again to stick to everything better this time!

The Emancipation of Robert Sadler by Robert Sadler

Just finished reading The Emancipation of Robert Sadler. It is about Robert's life, starting when he was a young child sold into slavery by his father. This all occurred in the early 1900s in South Carolina---no that is not a misprint. I found the first 2 parts of the book quite interesting detailing his life as a slave and his life after he escaped as he struggled to acclimate to the outside world. I wasn't as fond of part 3 of the book about his ministry, I thought that part was rather disjointed and was lots of little stories about how miraculous various things were.

Rating 3/5

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Just finished the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins---not too impressed. I found the first section interesting, when they were explaining how they were preparing the tributes for the games, but the actual part about the games was quite dull. Yes lots of people died, but you knew almost nothing about most of the characters that were killed so I didn't really care. Many of the tributes were only known as the male (or female) tribute from District #. After reading the book, I still felt I didn't know too much about Katniss and Peeta.

SPOILERS to follow:

I found the rule change that occurred halfway through the book (the one that allowed two tributes to live as long as they were both from the same district) a bit too convenient. Does Katniss really love Peeta? Nobody is sure, least of all Katniss, and nobody seems to really care as long as she pretends she does for the TV viewers. The awkward teenage love bits between the two of them were rather annoying to read. I guess I'm just not a fan of the YA genre. I have no issues with the dystopian themes in the book, those were the interesting parts for me, but I couldn't care less about the characters in this one. I don't think I'll read the others unless someone can convince me it is worth it.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest By Stieg Larrsson

Just finished reading the third book in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series and I was quite impressed. Larsson still delivers nonstop action like in his first two books, and keeps you wondering all the way to the end. Though I am rather sad that this is the end of the book series since the author is dead---I wouldn't have minded another few adventures with Salander and Blomvkist. There really isn't too much I can say about the book without presenting some major spoilers, so I'd just recommend reading it :)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

I just finished reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. It tells the story of the woman behind the HeLa cell line. These cells have been around for 60 years and have been used in hundreds of different studies. Quite a bit is known about the cells, but not too much was ever known about Henrietta Lacks or her family. It was interesting to learn about what happened to Henrietta's family because of the cells, and sad to know that they never benefited from the millions of dollars that the cells have been sold for over the years.

Rating: 5/5

The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

I heard about this book from a forum that I read and thought it sounded interesting so I picked it up. Carr goes through history explaining some of the great thinkers while also explaining the development of the computer and the Internet. He does say that our attention spans in general have decreased because we are so used to skimming articles for content and clicking between tabs (Quick: how many tabs do you have open right now? I have 15 including the one being used to write this post). He states that we jump from item to item never focusing on one task long enough to be able to make sufficient progress on it. He also states that the Internet makes it harder to focus on books because of the lack of interactivity. I did find the studies about interactivity with text and comprehension of the text interesting (apparently people do worse comprehending an article with hyperlinks than they do comprehending a plain text article because they keep clicking around.

However, I was not happy that there was no real solution given in this book for the problem of decreased attention spans due to the Internet (besides avoiding it altogether--which is not really possible in today's society). I wish he would have provided ways to work around the problem.


Rating 3/5

Open by Andre Agassi

Just finished reading Open, Andre Agassi's autobiography, and I was very impressed. His writing style made me feel like I was right next to him, whether he was hitting balls on the court, or dealing with his perfectionist father. I was surprised to learn that he really did hate tennis for quite a while, and that his trademark big hair was actually a wig. Before I read his book, I didn't know too much about him---I had watched him when he played in the late 90s through his retirement, and knew that he built a charter school, but didn't really know much about his early life and early career.

I think that the title itself speaks volumes about the book. His life is about playing tennis in the Open era, in the 4 major tournaments (Aus. Open, Wimbledon, French Open, US Open). You get a very good view of everything in his life, he shows everything---his failed early loves, his dark years of tennis, his drug use---he's putting everything out in the open for his fans to read. I'd really recommend this to anyone who is a tennis fan.

Rating: 5/5

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I really wasn't too fond of this book. It started out ok enough, but I was expecting more of a murder investigation instead of a girl watching her friends and family grow up without her. Many of the characters seemed flat to me, probably because we are only seeing what Susie sees instead of knowing what the actual characters think.

SPOILER ALERT:

I'm also not happy that justice is never really served for Mr. Harvey. It would have been much more satisfying for him to have been found earlier on instead of just dying by accident at the end.  About halfway through the book, I really quit caring about the characters because of their one-dimensionless.

I'm just not quite understanding why there was so much hype around this book a few years ago.



Rating 2/5 stars

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

Just finished reading the Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson, and all I can say is wow. This one started off a little slow as we learned about Lisbeth's new life, but once things started happening, there was a mad rush of activity and suspense until the very end. We finally get answers to the questions we had from book 1, such as "What is "All the Evil" and "Why is Lisbeth the way she is", as well as the explanation for why Bjurman did what he did in the first book. Again as with book 1, I wasn't too fond of Berger, and even less so in this book, but it is ok as she doesn't really appear all that often in this book.


I'm excited to start book 3!!

Rating 5/5

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie

Just finished reading this today and I really enjoyed it. I liked how the story is told through the writings of people of the court. It felt more "alive" to me than just a book of names and dates. I really didn't know too much about Catherine the Great before reading this book, but now I feel like I understand her and the daily court life a lot better.

I will say that I regret reading this as an ebook instead of the dead tree form, as it made flipping back to the family tree section a bit annoying and time consuming.

Rating: 5/5

Look what I found!

I was at the Dollar Tree earlier today and was wandering down the aisles when I saw this. It is a magnetic weekly notepad, with a column for each day plus an extra for notes. I'm planning on using it to write my weekly menu plan out, as well as any other little things I need to remember for the week. I normally tend to use an Excel spreadsheet when making menu lists, which I'll still do, but this will be a nice way for my husband and I to quickly check what we should make for dinner.

I'm trying to be more organized, so I've spent a few hours looking at various homemaking/organization blogs to see what tactics look like they'll work for us.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Just finished Girl With the Dragon Tattoo earlier today. I'm still not quite sure what I think about it.
(Spoilers Follow---Caution Caution Caution):



I liked the majority of the plot, and while part of the ending was satisfying, I wasn't sure how I felt about the convenient ending of Martin Vanger. I wish we could have seen him brought to justice. I found the characters quite intriguing, I think Salander was my favorite, I'm interested to learn more about her past, hopefully the second book (which I just started) will let us know more. I didn't really care for Berger much, and wished that Henrik would have had a more interesting role in the second half of the book. I liked the writing style, I found the book quite engaging and would definitely rank it as one of my favorites.

Rating: 5/5

Saurbraten

Tried making saurbraten this week, as my husband loves German food. We found the recipe in an Amish cookbook at a museum.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 lb pot roast
2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
1 cup sliced onion
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1 Tbs. ground cloves
1 tsp. allspice
1/4 cup brown sugar
salt
1 1/2 Tbs. flour
1 cup sour cream
2 Tbs. ketchup


Put meat in a crock. Heat (do not boil) the water, vinegar, onions, bay leaf, peppercorns and salt. Pour over meat in crock. Cover and refrigerate 2-3 days. Drain meat and reserve liquid. Brown meat, then bake as a pot roast in the liquid, adding cloves, allspice, and brown sugar. Bake for 3-4 hours at 325*F oven. Remove meat from pan, stir in flour, sour cream, and ketchup.

Everything went well until we went to pull it out of the oven. This is what we saw:

It was a little burnt. DH was in charge of baking it (because I was at work), and decided to put it in for the 4 full hours because our oven tends to take longer to cook things. I pulled it out when I got home and saw what had happened. We were unable to mix in the flour, ketchup, and sour cream as there was no liquid left in the bottom of the pan, it had burnt to the sides.

However, all was not lost. The meat still tasted really good, the spices added a lot to it. I served it with some rolls, some carrots, and some mashed sweet potatoes.

Rating: 4/5
Would I make this again? Most likely I would, but I'd make sure to take it out of the oven earlier.

The Light Horseman's Daughter by David Crookes

Just finished reading The Light Horseman's Daughter on my Nook last night. It was a free download from Barnes and Noble a few months ago. I enjoyed the book quite a bit. It is the story of Emma McKenna and her family (mother and 2 brothers) during the Great Depression in Australia. After her father dies while the family is being evicted, Emma is left to care for her mother and her two twin brothers all by herself. Emma is a very strong character, doing whatever she can to survive and bring the family back together through multiple hardships. I did like learning about the Australian Great Depression, as I do not know much about Australian history. I liked the way that David Crookes handled the romance scenes with the "fade to black" method reminiscent of old movies.

Spoiler Alert!


I did think that some of the plot was rushed through, such as some of the revelations near the end about parentage and the Mary Wells Society, and I think that most of the character's reactions to them were rather blase. Coltrane was the only one that seemed to really be affected, the other characters didn't seem to care too much, which was surprising given how race was treated in the 30s. Also, I wasn't too fond of the last chapter that said "this person is now..." for every character in the novel. I mean, I understand that he had to tell what happened to everybody, but it just seems like a last second addition. I also wasn't a big fan of Stephen or Bill, neither of them seemed like good matches for Emma, but being a romance, she had to end up with one of them. I also wish we would have learned more about some of the secondary characters like Strickland and Eleanor.

 All in all though, I found the book rather enjoyable, and it was a good story to read to wind down at the end of the day. Rating: 4.5/5

Smoky Three-Bean Chili Recipe Review

I made Smoky Three-Bean Chili last night and was wonderfully surprised. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of beans---the texture is a problem for me. But my husband likes them, and wanted to try this recipe. I followed the recipe, omitting the celery (neither of us are a fan), and using 1 can of northern beans in place of 1 of the kidney bean cans. I had mine with some shredded cheese tossed in as well as a cornbread muffin crumbled in. I think that made the difference for me, as it hid the bean texture. I liked how I didn't have to do much prep for this recipe, and didn't have to babysit it as it cooked on the stove.

Rating: 5/5
Would I make it again? Definitely.


Sorry I didn't get a picture of it, I'll try to be better about that in the future.

52 books in 52 weeks challenge

Robin (of My Two Blessings) is the host of the returning 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.

The challenge is simple: read 52 books in a year (thus, the 52 weeks).  It can be any book you want - easy or hard; as Robin states: "The goal is to read 52 books.  How you get there is up to you."


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I'm excited to be participating in this challenge this year, and will do my best to blog a review about each book that I read. You can see what I'm currently reading on the sidebar to the right.

Below is a list of the books I've read this year, with a link to my review of each one.

1. The Light Horseman's Daughter by David Crookes
2.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
3. Catherine the Great by Robert Massie
4. The Girl Who Played With Fire by stieg Larsson
5. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
6.  Open by Andre Agassi
7. The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
8.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
9.  The Girl who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
10.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
11.  The Emancipation of Robert Sadler

Recipe Review: Skillet Chicken Divan

Last night I made Skillet Chicken Divan from the Pillsbury Savvy Shoppers Cookbook.
Recipe can be found here.

I used turkey breast instead of chicken (turkey was a better price), and used fresh broccoli instead of frozen. I also used white rice instead of brown as I was out of brown.

The recipe was ok, it was a bit bland, and the broccoli wasn't very soft (but that might be because I used fresh broccoli). I think if I make this again I'll cook the rice and broccoli separate from the chicken and maybe use some cumin or chili pepper on the rice to give it a bit more flavor.

I had the leftovers earlier today, and I am happy to say that they survived the fridge well. 


Overall rating: 3/5

Would I make it again? Yes, with the modifications outlined above.

New Year, New Blog

2012 goals:

1. Read 52 books (that comes out to 1 a week). I'll blog a review about each one here.

2. Cook a new recipe every other week. I'll share my results here as well.

3. Sew 2 quilts start to finish. Will share progress here.

4. Blog at least twice a week.