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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Trepidatiously

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This week's harvest included edamame, green onions, carrots, various peppers, various beans (green and red, long and normal) okra, cherry tomatoes and slicing tomatoes, yellow squash, summer jewel melon, apples, egg plant, cucumber and eggs. We know and like most of this stuff, but I had never cooked okra, nor had I ever offered it to the boys. So, I decided to hide it.

A melange of brown rice, tomatoes, okra, peppers, onions, ham, and boned chicken cooked in the crock pot used several of the veggies as well as some leftovers. It was kind of gummy from the rice and the okra, but it tasted pretty good (lots of garlic). I steeled myself for "eeeeyewww, what's that? Do I have to eat it?" Guess what -- they ate it without a murmur! Now, I'll grant you, no one said, " Yum, can I have more?" But, I'll settle for no complaints and okra successfully ingested.



Speaking of ingested, digested, or whatever, I've finished a few more books.

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is a story of India and a Mann Booker Prize Winner. It's interesting and good reading, but I'm finding that all the India stories, from Slumdog Millionaire on down are beginning to sound alike: class distinction, abject poverty, social injustice, disease, cruelty, and someone who triumphs one way or another. Still worth reading. (Cinder ate the corner of this -- lucky for him and for me, he didn't get any of the text.)

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth is also a Booker prize winner. A tale of an English slave ship's owners and crew. Full of class distinctions, cruelty and social injustice (like the India stories), it reminds me a bit of Two Years Before the Mast. I found it a bit plodding in parts, but all in all, a good read. The style takes a while to get used to -- kind of like seeing a Shakespeare play -- you know, how you have to tune your ear to the sound of it.

The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux is a collection of three novellas about India. The folks he writes about live well at a terrible cost to the under class. Theroux is not a very good novelist, the stories are thin and more about place than people as one would expect from a travel writer.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen is a first novel by a Canadian writer, although it is an American story. I LOVED this book! It reminds me a lot of John Irving - some freaks, good circus history and setting, well told.

The photo above also includes The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because I found it (I was unable to locate it for the earlier photo of a stack of books). Let me know if you would like any of these.

Here are four blocks of my work in progress -- these are 16 inches square and there are 12 of them (all done)
Then, in the same quilt there are four blocks like this -- 27" square. I still have four other blocks to finish and then I'm done. I hope to be done before I go to Nantucket next week.

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