minavox

Wednesday reading on a Thursday:

what I've just finished:
A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett, the third Ana and Din mystery, and I think maybe the best one yet? ( spoilers ) (also, nb: I am using an Elementary icon, but this series is a Nero Wolfe analogue, not a Holmes one! I am just saying!)

The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman, the third Thursday Murder Club mystery, which I enjoyed. Again, the mystery wasn't all that mysterious, but I do enjoy spending time with the characters.

Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher, the sequel to Swordheart. I enjoyed it. It's always fun to revisit the world of the White Rat, and this romance was slightly different from her usual.

what I'm reading now/next:
I don't know! I have so much fic open in tabs, so maybe that for a bit? But also so many books and do I want to stop while I've got momentum? idk idk!

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In work news, I received a supposedly final presentation today from a program team and when I opened it, it was 1. not in the approved organization template and 2. ALL IN COMIC SANS WTF. But it came to me with alleged approval from the higher ups, so I need to ask my boss if I can at least fix the font before I send it out. (I'm still missing the slides from a different team, so it's not delayed by this or anything.) I just...how does this happen in the year of our lord 2026???

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RIP Dolly. This is truly the worst timeline.

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This weekend my entertainment so far has been trying new recipes. Yesterday, I made a tomato tian from Milk Street (paywalled, so the recipe is below the cut), and it was delicious - I ate it with crusty bread and topped with burrata - but I know my oven runs hot and I says to myself, says I, "90 minutes at 425°F seems too long," but then I said, "but I'm sure Milk Street knows what they're about," and so I let it go for 90 minutes and lo and behold, it was too long. My beautiful plum tomatoes were charred in several places. Still delicious! But I had to soak the dish I baked it in over night before putting it in the dishwasher to get all the charred bits off. So definitely would make it again, but roast for maybe only an hour.

Then this morning, I made the NY Times' famous plum torte (gift link), and I was like, this seems like an awfully small amount of batter for a 9" pan, and also to be baked for a whole hour, so I checked it at 30 minutes, and it was not quite done so I let it go another 8 minutes, which was probably about 5 minutes too long? But it tastes good, even if I only used 7 regular plums to top it. Comments suggest the original recipe was using prune plums, which are smaller, and therefore they were able to fit 24 halves on top, but I just had regular black plums. Still turned out to be quite tasty. I like the suggested variations replacing part of the flour with semolina or cornmeal, and for using brown butter or olive oil in place of the butter, so I may try one or more of those variations as well. As it is, I did grate the zest of one lemon into the sugar, and added a tsp of vanilla as well. The thing caused a smoke condition in my kitchen for some reason though - I wonder if it was the cinnamon sprinkled on top? Idk, but I had to turn on the mostly useless fan over the oven.

And then for dinner (and leftovers), I made another NY Times recipe, since I still had 3 ears of corn left from last week's giant corn fritter: slow cooker chicken and creamed corn (also a gift link), though I left out the bell pepper because I don't like them. It's good! I know I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was surprised at how much liquid the corn cobs created in the bottom of the pot. And I love the smell of lime - it is such a good summer smell to me.

Anyway, tomorrow I have another recipe I want to test out, so I will report back how that goes as well.

( summer tomato tian )

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Books!

What I've just finished
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez, which I picked up a while back after glowing reviews from several of you, but had no clue what it was actually about until I started reading (this is a theme for me - I buy things and then take years to get around to reading them, so I don't remember what they're about, and since it's all ebooks, I generally do not look at the blurbs, which can make for fun, if confusing times). In a nutshell, it's about two young men escorting the escaped moon goddess to the sea, which is a very basic summary for a book that is incredibly well-written, even if it felt long and slow to me for a while, even while many, many things were happening. Once things start coming together, though, it's very impressive, even if I wasn't particularly invested in the romance (between the two young men) or the young man in the frame narrative. ( minor spoilers )

This is a book that is doing a lot - A LOT - with POV, though I am still unsure of why it's structured the way it is; it begins and ends in second person, which I know is a no-go for a lot of people, but I have found it can be stunning if done well (e.g., Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy; Harrow the Ninth). In this book that is not the part I found stunning - I mostly spent my time wondering why it was in second person and who the narrator actually was and never felt like I got a satisfactory answer (which is possibly my fault? it took me a couple of weeks to read this book); otoh, the third and first person parts worked really well.

I do think the one thing that didn't quite work for me was ( spoilers )

Anyway, I would highly recommend this as a very different type of fantasy novel, but the violence is A Lot and is very viscerally (pun intended) described.

What I'm reading now
A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett, the third Ana and Din mystery. I'm not very far into it yet, but so far I'm enjoying it!

What I'm reading next
Idk, Idk, I have so many books that sometimes I can't make a choice so I just end up rereading an old favorite or reading fic instead.

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So I have had a little crush on Kyle Chandler since the Early Edition days and of course it really ramped up during Friday Night Lights, so I was excited that he was cast as Hal Jordan in the new HBO show Lanterns even though I have never in my life cared much about Hal Jordan. But! It teams him up with John Stewart, who is my Green Lantern, so that made it a definite must-watch for me.

( spoilers )

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So I guess early results are yes, Kyle Chandler can make me interested in Hal Jordan, but I am very glad John Stewart is along for the ride.

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I doubt you recall my quest for corn fritters last summer (eventually semi-successful - I made them, but they were a little bland, so not totally worth the effort), but when I found this giant cheesy corn fritter recipe, I knew I had to try it! And today, I finally did (picture). It's good - much neater than deep frying, though you don't get the same delicious crunch by shallow frying/broiling, and I think I might have had more corn than called for despite using 2 ears as directed, since it definitely overpowered the batter ingredients. Still tasted good though.

I also finally got to use my new Zuko Zoku freezer cup and made a lemonade slushie in it! I was skeptical that it would work, but all summer I've been craving a cream soda slushie, though apparently you can't do it with the diet soda that I generally buy. But! A few weeks ago, I got regular soda as a substitute (which I did not approve but whatever), so it's just been sitting, unopened, waiting for this moment! I will have to refrigerate the bottle, since the instructions say cold stuff freezes faster (quelle surprise) and it took the cold lemonade a little longer than they say to achieve a full freeze, but it did get there. I also want to try it with coffee, though I'll have to add sugar to it. Quicker and easier than doing granita (and also it takes up less room in the freezer, though it does have to be fully frozen before you can use it). I am going to buy another to use as my white elephant gift this year!

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