Mushroom Soup
Remember back in March when I said I was planning to try a new recipe each week and post it here? Well obviously, that didn’t happen, but better late than never.
I usually don’t follow recipes when I cook. I like to just make something with whatever I have on hand, and I think that’s generally a good way to go, but it also means I tend to stick to what I know. I thought it would be fun to start trying other people’s recipes in an attempt to pick up new flavour combinations and techniques that I might otherwise never consider. I do enjoy cooking, but I’ve never really challenged myself enough to get very good at it.
This is a simple one from Mark Bittman’s fantastic How to Cook Everything cookbook. This would definitely be my desert island cookbook, as it’s a giant tome with a lot of information in it. He also usually gives a base recipe for something and then lists out a number of ideas for building off of that, which is quite handy.
- 1 oz of dried porcini mushrooms (recipe called for 2 oz, but I wasn’t about to spend $20 on dried mushrooms)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 lbs fresh mushrooms
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp minced shallots
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 tbsp dry sherry (one you’d drink, not salty cooking sherry)
- 1 cup half-and-half
- Chives
- Red pepper flakes
Makes 4 servings.
- Soak dried mushrooms in hot water for 15 minutes.
- Place butter in large saucepan and turn heat to medium. Add mushrooms when the butter melts and turn heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes until mushrooms begin to brown. As they cook, drain dried mushrooms (reserve the soaking liquid) and stir them into the mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add shallots and garlic, and stir for 1 minute. Add stock, sherry, and reserved mushroom-soaking liquid and bring the mixture to almost a boil (or accidentally boil briefly if you fail like me).
- Add the half-and-half and some red pepper flakes and serve.
- Garnish with chives.
– Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, p. 56
I enjoyed this, and it’s dead simple to make. I had a sudden bout of guilt when I was shopping and decided to go for the half-and-half instead of the heavy cream, which might have been a mistake. I’ll try it with the proper cream next time.
Bad As Me
Tom Waits, who is amazing in every way and I’ll stab you if you say otherwise, is releasing a new original album on October 25th – Bad As Me. Here’s the title track:
Tom Waits – Bad As Me by antirecords
It gets better with each listen. Can’t wait for the album.
Green Lantern Vol. 6: Secret Origin
Green Lantern Vol. 6: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns
Illustrated By: Ivan Reis
Format: Trade Paperback Comic
Collects: Green Lantern #29-35
Published: 2008
Publisher: DC
I was looking forward to watching the Green Lantern movie, which actually slipped from my radar after seeing the reviews, so I picked up Geoff Johns’ retelling of the origin story a couple months back. I love me some origin stories, and I’d heard that Johns was DC’s golden child after his runs on The Flash and the Green Lantern Blackest Night/Brightest Day event, so I was curious to read something from him.
I knew next to nothing about Green Lantern. I knew he’s a dude with a ring that can construct anything he can imagine, which from what I remember of the few comics and cartoons I saw usually resulted in a big green fist for punching, and over the years there’s been four or five of them on earth. And they’re weak to yellow, which has to be a bit embarrassing. I actually didn’t even realise the lantern was for charging the ring, and I didn’t know about the Green Lantern Oath until news of the movie was released. I’m a bad geek.
In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil’s might,
Beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!
The following two paragraph are spoilerific:
So, Hal Jordon (the second earth Lantern) lost his father in a fighter jet accident at a young age. His mother then forbid him to go near the base, and he spent his childhood being rebellious and obsessing over being a fighter pilot until he was finally old enough to join the Air Force.
Later, one of the Green Lanterns from another sector, Abin Sur, was transporting a nasty baddie named Atrocitus (inflammation of the atrocity?) from sector 666 (you know that ain’t a good sector) to earth. Atrocitus was able to get a glimpse of the future while performing a ritual and discovered a prophecy which fortold earth as being the birthplace of The Black, something which would lead to the end of the universe, so Abin Sur was bringing him there to try and find the source. Things don’t go as planned, Abin Sur ends up crashing his aircraft, and the ring chooses our boy Hal. Abin Sur’s friend Sinestro, who apparently later becomes the Big Bad, then arrives to investigate the crash, mentor Hal, and find Atrocitus.
Spoilers are over.
My main issue with this comic was that Hal Jordon was not likable at all. Even as an adult he acted like a 15-year-old with authority issues, which is even worse than an actual 15-year-old with authority issues. This origin story was told as a flashback in the sixth trade of the series, though, so I supposed you were meant to have seen Hal Jordon as an upstanding citizen before reading this, rather than this being the introduction to the character. That may have helped some.
As of now, I’m not running out to buy any more of the Green Lantern books, although I can see how it could be a fun series to follow if done well, with it eventually dealing with problems of a grander scale than most superhero books. Geoff Johns just didn’t really pull me in with this one.
A Year in Provence
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Published: 1989
Peter Mayle and his wife decided to make the move from London to Provence, to buy and renovate a 200-year-old house, and this book chronicles their first year. Each chapter covers a month of that year as they eat, meet the locals, deal with visitors, and find their way in their new homeland.
This is not an exciting book. They aren’t risking their necks, traveling through the Amazon, and fighting off snakes. They’re just living out their lives as anyone would in a new country. As such, it’s a bit of a slow burn and possibly not that interesting if you aren’t a travel or food nut.
I found myself really enjoying the book, though. I love that first period when you move to a new country, or even to a lesser extent a new city, when everything is new and exciting. Every conversation is an experience, each meal is a titillating discovery process, every trip out of the house is a little adventure, and even the most mundane tasks can become challenges. You meet so many new people and learn so many new things that it’s like you’re living a concentrated life for a short time. Mayle captures that feeling quite well.
Here’s a snippet from his experience giving blood in Gordes:
In England, the reward for a bagful of blood is a cup of tea and a biscuit. But here, after being disconnected from our tubes, we were shown to a long table manned by volunteer waiters. What would we like? Coffee, chocolate, croissants, brioches, sandwiches of ham or garlic sausage, mugs of red or rosé wine? Eat up! Drink up! Replace those corpuscles! The stomach must be served! A young male nurse was hard at work with a corkscrew, and the supervising doctor in his long white coat wished us all bon appétit. If the steadily growing pile of empty bottles behind the bar was anything to go by, the appeal for blood was an undoubted success, both clinically and socially.
Mayle’s great at bringing you in to his world. He’ll make you drool over the food he’s eating and feel as if you know the people he’s encountering. He really has a gift for picking up those small detail that pull you in.
Game of Thrones Digital Effects
SlashFilm posted two videos today showing the digital effects that take place in the Game of Thrones television series. I’m usually not one to get too excited for digital effects in movies. If it’s not done flawlessly, it completely removes me from the story. Particularily with CGI characters.
These videos are neat, though. I always forget just how much is done digitally these days and how seemless it is. The first video is from SSVFX, and it focuses more on inserting items and crowds into scenes. The second video, which includes some spoilers, is from BlueBolt and focuses on scene backdrops.
If you haven’t been watching Game of Thrones and reading George R.R. Martin’s books, you’re really missing out. Like, really missing out. You should feel mildly ashamed.
Walking Dead Vol. 14: No Way Out
The Walking Dead (Volume 14): No Way Out by Robert Kirkman
Illustrator: Charlie Adlard
Format: Trade Paperback Comic
Published: 2011
Publisher: Image Comics
This blog hasn’t been abandoned! I fell quite ill a month ago, even got to spend a couple of weeks in hopsital, and I wasn’t really reading or writing much during that period. I’m back home and settled now, and I’m feeling much better, so I’ll be catching up on the few books and comics I actually got through.
Before I was sick, I read the latest installment of The Walking Dead. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this comic. The dialogue’s always been a bit stilted, and there were a few trades in the middle of the series of which I just wasn’t a fan, but this latest trade is up there as one of my favourites.
The series tends to go through fairly predictable arcs, and we’d just finished a calm, so the inevitable storm was on its way. This trade definitely delivered on that. It’s basically a gore fest, but it contains some great moments, including one of the more shocking panels of the series. I’m usually more of a fan of the calm, character driven trades, but I really enjoyed this one.
While the series does still keep my interest, it would be nice to stray from the repetitive cycle of finding a safe haven, thinking everything is getting better, and then running when it all goes to hell. This trade’s ending does make promise of some potentially interesting changes in attitude and character, so I’m a little more excited than usual to see what happens next.
Here’s the first official trailer for The Monster of Nix, the upcoming 30 minute film featuring Tom Waits and Terry Gilliam that I previously mentioned.
How to Make Spells
I don’t think I’d read a word of Atwood before finding her In Love With Raymond Chandler for the last post, but I’ve been browsing through, and thoroughly enjoying, some of her poetry tonight.
Spelling
My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.A word after a word
after a word is power.At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.This is a metaphor.
How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.
– Margaret Atwood, Spelling
