Friday Book Whimsy: The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Posted in Book Reviews by kzmclain

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, and the two subsequent novels that made up the Lisbeth Salander/Mikael Blomkvist trilogy, were a thing a few years ago. It was hard to find anyone who reads mysteries who didn’t tackle at least the first of this trilogy. Movies were made, both in Sweden and the United States. I read all three novels, and enjoyed them. Lisbeth Salander is a character the reader is unlikely to forget, whether you like her or dislike her.

So, I was excited but surprised when I came across The Girl in the Spider’s Web a few months ago. The title had a familiar ring to it (the other two books in the trilogy were The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), but I was certain it couldn’t be a new novel by Stieg Larsson because, well, the author had died.

These days, however, that doesn’t stop sequels from being written. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels have been continued by a new writer despite the fact that Parker had died. The same holds true for Vince Flynn’s iconic Mitch Rapp series. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Lisbeth Salander has reappeared, penned by a new author, David Lagercrantz.

In this latest installment, a genius named Frans Balder has been developing artificial intelligence that could turn the world upside down. Surprisingly, he drops it all to take care of his 8-year-old son who is autistic. He contacts investigative reporter extraordinaire Mikael Blomkvist and requests a meeting to tell him about his work and to express his concern that he is being followed by bad people trying to steal what he knows. Unfortunately, he is killed before the meeting can take place.

Blomkvist of course is intrigued and seeks out his friend, Lisbeth Salander, herself a computer genius and all-around tough guy, only to find she is already deeply involved, but for her own reasons. What follows is an intricately crafted story of murder and mayhem.

There are very mixed opinions on how good a job Lagercrantz did in continuing the series. As far as I am concerned, he did an excellent job. The novels have always had an odd tone to them, largely perhaps because they are a translation from Swedish. Still, the novels have always had an unusual way that they present the characters, and I would not have been able to tell the difference if I didn’t know it was a new author. I think perhaps Lagercrantz’s stories were less sexually explicit. I thought he did a good job of capturing Salander’s complex nature.

I wouldn’t recommend that a person pick up this book if they haven’t already read the others. While I applaud Lagercrantz’s writing, I believe it is necessary to read Larsson’s depictions of Salander to truly get a picture of her character.

The Girl in the Spider’s Nest entails a lot of detail about computers and complex math concepts that I found a bit tiring. But I also found it interesting and somewhat frightening.

If you are a fan of the original series, this is a must-read. If you haven’t read Larssen’s trilogy, start with those.

Here is a link to the book.

4Feb2016

Thursday Thoughts

Posted in Recipes, Whimsies by kzmclain

Like Chasing a Rabbit
I’ve had a Fitbit for a couple of years now. Fitbits, as you know, measure your activity. My daily goal is 10,000 steps, and I reach it on the days I work out; other days I have to work a bit harder to reach the goal. One of the incentives is that you compete against others, who agree to compete against you. Bec’s grandchildren got Fitbits for Christmas, and shortly thereafter, they asked me to be on their list of “friends” against whom they compete. I can look at any time and see how I’m faring against the others, and let me tell you, when it comes to Mackenzie and Carter, it isn’t a pretty picture. It’s seriously like competing against Jack Russell Terriers. The numbers are given in 7-day averages, and Carter is always, ALWAYS in the hundred-thousands. How can I possibly compete against someone who has Running Club in the morning and plays soccer every day at recess? I’ll bet on any given day, he has beaten me by 9 o’clock in the morning. I’m pretty sure he gets up during the night and just runs up and down their hallway for an hour. I wonder if Bill would notice if I did that……

Rich and Famous
I truly wonder how many famous people I have walked past without ever seeing them. When the family was in NYC a number of years ago for Heather’s college graduation, every once in a while as we walked the streets of NY, Allen would say, “Oh look, there’s Yoko Ono,” or “Did you see him? That was Alan Rickman” (the guy who played Hans Gruber in Die Hard (may he rest in peace). In 1995, Bill and I were in the Oak Bar at The Plaza Hotel in NYC having a drink, when Bill said to me, “There’s Marcia Clark.” If you will recall, Marcia Clark had her 15 minutes of fame because she was the prosecuting attorney in the OJ Simpson trial. So it’s of very little surprise that the other night, when we were out to dinner for Bec’s birthday and suddenly there was some commotion at the door, I paid ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION. This, despite the fact that a giant of a man accompanied by a bevy of people had entered the Cajun restaurant where we were dining. It was Erik, who actually had his back to the door, who casually said, “Huh, there’s Charles Barkley.” Well, I looked up and confirmed that it actually was the former Phoenix Sun great himself. After getting past being stunned by his sheer size, I made a very quick decision. I grabbed Mackenzie’s and Carter’s hands and briskly led them through the crowded restaurant to his table, just as he was getting ready to sit down. I politely asked him if he would be willing to let me take his picture with my niece and nephew. Now then, that could have gone south very quickly. After all, I was interrupting his private dinner. But it didn’t. See……

When I’m rich and famous, I’m going to be as nice as Charles Barkley.

Cake Wars Continues
Bill isn’t the only one in this family who can bake. I made some cupcakes from scratch yesterday afternoon, using a wonderful Barefoot Contessa recipe. I changed them up a bit by using leftover icing from Bec’s birthday cake as a filling. I put the icing – a mixture of cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, and powdered sugar – into a squirt bottle and filled the chocolate cupcakes with the cream before icing them. They were delicious.

Chocolate Cupcakes, courtesy Ina Garten and Food Network

Ingredients
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, shaken, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
2 tablespoons brewed coffee
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Process
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 2 sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes. Lower the speed to medium, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. On low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture alternately in thirds to the mixer bowl, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Mix only until blended. Fold the batter with a rubber spatula to be sure it’s completely blended.

Divide the batter among the cupcake pans (1 rounded standard ice cream scoop per cup is the right amount). Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, remove from the pans, and allow to cool completely before frosting.
Nana’s Notes: The Barefoot Contessa wouldn’t even consider OWNING a plastic squirt bottle, but too bad, her loss. The filling makes the cupcakes good. And, unlike Bill, I used store-bought frosting. So there.

3Feb2016

What Next?

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

The other day, the most unexpected words came out of Bill’s mouth. So unexpected, in fact, that if you ask me to list as many unlikely things he might say that I could think of, these words would not have been among them. Not even if I’d listed 10,000 things.

What were the words? Kris, do we have any cake pans.

Actually, that’s not really true. Those weren’t the words that surprised me. After all, this is a man who used my bread knife to cut up a sofa so he could fit it into the outdoor garbage can. He might want to know if we had cake pans so that he could dump used motor oil into them.

No, it was the words that followed that took me by surprise. I am going to bake a cake and make homemade fondant icing to decorate it.

Excuse me? Bill McLain doesn’t make a ham sandwich much less a homemade cake. And fondant icing? Seriously? I’m a pretty decent baker and I wouldn’t dream of attempting fondant icing. It’s so, well, fondanty. Sticky. Sugary. Messy. Hard to work.

I explained to him that you could buy already-made fondant icing at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. Nope, he wanted to make it himself.

As hard as I think (and I have spent an extraordinary amount of time pondering this the past few days, I can’t begin to understand what generated this idea in the man’s mind. I asked him.

I want to bake Bec a birthday cake.

Well, I talked him out of that because the outcome was so unpredictable.

Why not make a cake for the Super Bowl, I suggested. And so his journey has begun. Super Bowl 50. Homemade-Cake-With-Fondant-By-Bill One.

As the days have gone by, he has spent a lot of time on his iPad or at his computer, researching. I have stopped being surprised at the questions he asks. Out of the blue one morning: Do we have a cake flattener? How about a fondant spreader? No and no. Didn’t even know those two things existed. I have floss and an offset spatula. But the internet told him he needed a cake flattener and a fondant spreader, so we now own both. Anyone need to borrow a fondant spreader?

Does your Kitchenaide have a dough hook, he asked? Someone said the icing is easier to work if you use a stand mixer with a dough hook. Yes, that I have.

Knibble

Do we have a rolling pin? One that is completely flat so my fondant can be smooth? Nope. I have a knibble. You know, those long thin wooden ones. My dad called them knibbles. Don’t ask.

Shortly after announcing his intention to create a culinary masterpiece, he made his fondant out of marshmallows and confectioners sugar……

He has spent the past few days patiently creating the Broncos’ logo out of that fondant…..

When I got home from doing errands yesterday, he cheerfully said, “Let’s bake the cake.”

So he brought out the Kitchenaide, prepared the batter, added the orange food coloring, poured the batter into pans and baked the cake layers……

Once the cake is completed, I will post pictures. In the meantime, I’m going to give Food Network a call. I’m pretty sure he can get onto Cake Wars.

2Feb2016

The Greatest of These

Posted in Whimsies by kzmclain

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13:13

For reasons I have never quite understood, I became sort of the go-to person when it came to doing readings at the various weddings of my friends and family. I’m not a particularly good reader I don’t think. I get nervous and hate the way my voice sounds. Mostly it’s just that I’m the godmother or the aunt or the friend of the family who isn’t walking down the aisle and so I’m available to read.

More often than not, it seems, the reading has been that all-popular (at least at Catholic weddings) section about love from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. I have read it so often that I can almost say it by heart. That’s a bad thing, of course, because that probably means I’m not really thinking about the words as I recite them, and, more importantly, not heeding them.

The bottom line according to St. Paul is that if I speak beautifully, give a compelling speech, tell the very best jokes, or write a blog every day, but neither love nor am loved, nothing I say means a darn thing. That’s how important love is to our lives. In fact, it’s the most important thing. Because if you love, then faith and hope fall naturally into place.

It’s easy to think about love as we nudge our way towards Valentine’s Day. Proclamations of love abound. For $5.95, you can buy a Hallmark card that will tell your husband or wife just how much you love them. A $60 bouquet of roses absolutely SCREAMS love. Every week on The Bachelor, one or more of the women tell the bachelor-of-the-season how much they LOVE him.

None of the above examples, of course, has very much to do with real love. It’s easy to “love” someone when you are being wined and dined in exotic places. The love sentiment on the Hallmark card was probably written by a computer.

But what about when you’re 10 years into a marriage and you reach a HUGE stumbling block (something that happens within most marriages at some point)? That’s when love is really tested, and the need for faith and hope becomes abundantly clear.

When Court was in high school, he went through a (thankfully) short-lived phase during which he dyed his hair orange, proclaimed Natural Born Killers to be his favorite movie (and wore plaid flannel shirts as a tribute), and moved in full-time with his dad, proclaiming me to be impossible to live with. My heart was broken, as you would imagine. But here’s the thing….love won out in the end. Because the love a parent has for a child and the love the child has for his/her parents never fails. It’s an example of true love. Because, as St. Paul tells us…..

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

The good news is that God loves all of us in that way, with that much strength. And when it becomes hard to see the path of love, that is the most important time to turn to God and feel his love and protection.

1Feb2016

Feeling Crepe-y

Posted in Main Course, Recipes by kzmclain

When Court was a little boy, one of his favorite breakfasts was crepes. They weren’t fancy or difficult – maybe not even worthy of being called crepes. I would mix flour and milk and eggs and a bit of oil, pour a couple of tablespoons into a hot pan, roll the pan around until the batter covered the bottom, and let it cook. A little butter and cinnamon sugar, roll them up, hand them to Court to eat. He would literally consume them as quick as I could make them.

I thought about crepes yesterday because Bill and I joined Bec and her son Erik and his kids Mackenzie and Carter at a Food Truck Festival in Scottsdale. We walked around and walked around. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 or 70 different trucks. And out of all those options, Bill chose crepes.

I would never – not in a million years – choose crepes. I don’t hate them. But when I’m surrounded by options like barbecued pulled pork or street tacos or lobster mac and cheese, there is no contest.

But he chose crepes. Of course, he chose crepes smothered in Nutella and bananas, with a dollop of whipped cream and called it lunch. But he chose crepes.

I was reminded of a time this past past summer when I took Addie, Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith to a movie. Afterwards, I offered to take them to lunch. Would you like a burger, I asked. Or maybe some Mexican food? How about some barbecue? As they were pondering, we passed a little kiosk selling homemade crepes.

“Voila!” they all said. “We want crepes.”

(Well, they didn’t actually say voila.)

So crepes it was. Of course, much like their grandfather, their crepes included strawberries and bananas and Nutella and whipped cream. They were hot and sweet and delicious. As we sat at an outdoor table eating our crepes, I looked up at the building towering over us. It happened to be the building in which Court works. I wondered to myself whether or not he ever ate these crepes for lunch.

I later asked him and he admitted he didn’t even realize there was a kiosk that sold crepes that he could see from his window. I think he’s moved on from crepes to huevos rancheros.

When we were in northern France during our big adventure in 2008, we were in a town called Dinan in the Brittany region. Before we would ever move to a new area, I would judiciously study my Rick Steves Guidebook. The Brittany region of France is famous for (among other things) their wonderful crepes. And so, when in Rome (or France)…… I looked back at my blog entry for that day way back in 2008 and discovered that Bill had a crepe that included bacon and mine had scallops, leeks, and cream. Ding, ding, ding. I won!

The recipe I prepared for Court’s breakfast crepes came from my sister Jen. Therefore, the buttery-stained handwritten recipe card calls them Aunt Jennie’s Crepes. Here is her simple recipe…

Aunt Jennie’s Crepes (makes 18)

Ingredients
1 c. flour
1-1/2 c. milk
2 eggs
1-1/2 T. oil
¼ t. salt

Process
Mix ingredients until smooth. Spray a small pan with Pam and preheat. When the pan is hot, drop 3 T. of the batter into it. Roll the pan around until the batter covers the bottom. Cook until light brown. Using a fork, turn the crepe over and finish off.

Remove from pan. Smear with butter and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar. Or smear with Nutella and add bananas or strawberries. Or whatever else strikes your fancy. Call them breakfast or an after-school snack.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

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Monthly Archives: February 2016