Indian Cookbook: Book Review

This cookbook would have been great to have 6-9 months ago when I was needing to eat vegetarian food. There are some recipes that look really tasty in here, so I am still looking forward to making things from it.

I know next to nothing about cooking Indian food. I enjoy going out to eat it, but the closest I have come to making it is a curry from a Blue Apron box.

This book had a good section at the front that explained about all the spices. It was really helpful, but also a bit overwhelming and complicated.

The only downside is that there are so many recipes that don't have pictures. I bookmarked quite a few things I want to make in the near future. One I skipped over because it didn't have a picture, but later in the book it was featured again in combination with another sauce. It looked delicious in that picture! I probably never would have made it based just on the name.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review: Road Food

Since I am planning two road trips this summer, and I'm anticipating many stops along the way, I thought this book would be great to plan a great food filled trip. I don't think this will end up working in that way.

This book has over 1000 restaurants, but it seems that most of them are not where I am planning on going. Which will be 5-6 different states, so it isn't like it's a small trip. With a name like Road Food, I would have expected that going on a typical road trip to be able to use this book to find great food. There is a lot more representation of the Midwest and East Coast. Also certain cities seem to have more options than others.

I live in a very food centered place, and there very few selections from where I live. None of which I have heard of. There is no shortage of destination worthy places near me.

I will probably throw this book in the car when we go just in case we happen to get hungry near a suggested place. But, sadly I won't have an exciting list of food places to visit.

Book Review Time!

I really need to do more things so that I can blog about more things. I did read this book at. So, at least it is something.

This book is a young adult magical world type book. It takes place in an alternate Victorian England, where magic exists. The story is about a girl who is prophesied to be the one to defeat the monsters attacking her world.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and a fun story. Mostly what I enjoyed was the fact that it was a story with magic in it.

Despite liking it I wouldn't say I really recommend it. I didn't really like any of the characters. Some of them I couldn't really remember who they were for the book. They seemed like just a name that kept popping up.

Although the book was set in Victorian England, there was very little that made it feel that way. In the beginning there was mention of fires being used for heating, so you know it was without technology. Later there was a carriage mentioned a few times. Nothing really stood out at specifically England or specifically that time period. They threw in meeting the queen at the end, but that really didn't do much.

This book seems like it was written to be a movie. A lot of the things I think it was lacking could be filled out with visuals you'd find in a movie. Maybe that was the intent? I don't know.

German Baking - Book Review

I am not German. I come from a family that loves baking, but pretty much everything in this book is new to me. On that note I found this book to be very disappointing. There are very few pictures, and very few of the pictures are of the finished baked goods. There are pictures of Germany and of food prep, but those don't inspire me to want to make a recipe. As an example the Glazed Hazelnut Torte recipe has two pictures, one of a bicycle and one of a graffiti style art wall. Why would I want to see those pictures right then? It makes no sense.

Other than the very disappointing visual aspect of the book, the recipes look well written with good detailed instruction. I am doubtful that I will ever make anything from this book given how uninspiring the formatting is.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review

 

I tried really hard to get into this book, but I wasn't able to. The format of this book implies using each chapter as a weekly meditation. I didn't have enough time to take this approach since the goal was to review the book.

Looking through the chapters it seems unlikely that each one would apply to every person. I'm not sure how this would factor into someone using the book for a weekly meditation. One meditation is, "So, you want to get married". I'm already married; this would not apply to me. Nor would it apply to someone not interested in that. Another chapter is called, "How to Handle Negative People". This would probably be useful for most people at some point during the year, but not necessarily on the week it happens to come up.

There is a listing of all the topics in the table of contents, but that it doesn't seem to have any particular subject organization beyond the order things appear in the book. I wouldn't be likely to pick up this book if there was something specific I wanted to meditate on because of this format.

I think I will keep it around and read it occasionally, hopefully it will be more helpful than my original opinion indicates.

Book Review: Dark Matter

I started off enjoying this book. It was a quick read, and hard to put down. There were some weird science things that the author made a decent attempt to seem plausible. Nothing stood out as too absurd to exist at least in the realm of fiction. 

The main thing I didn't like about the book overall is that it seemed to be very much written by a man. It was a subtle thing, but not being a man there were quite a few moments where I thought it was odd how something was said or described. On a second thought it seemed less odd, just different. 

I'm always a little hesitant to pick up a fiction book I haven't read great things about. I don't like getting all wrapped up in a book and then have the ending just go pffft. I read a few reviews, which claimed this book had a sappy ending. I thought that would be fine, I don't mind sappy. In my opinion the ending was dumb. It took all the momentum of the story and just killed it. 

This book is about dimensional travel. The idea is that any choice you make you actually made all the choices, and there are infinite realities with all the outcomes of everyone's choices. The book starts with Jason, a happy average man with a family and mediocre job. He is taken hostage and thrown into another world where he didn't get married and have a child, instead he became a famous scientist who invented the dimension travel. The guy who took him hostage was actually the version of himself from that world, who regretted leaving the women Jason married.

The whole book is Jason escaping the world where Jason2 stuck him, trying to get home to his family. The machine to travel in throws him into all these horrible places where he almost dies multiple times. He finally figures out how to use it and finds world's closer and closer to his own, almost going crazy in the process.

When he finally does get to his world there are apparently there are many copies of himself who also found this exact world, and all these copies are trying to kill each other. This is where I think the book stops making as much sense. It makes sense that there are copies of the first Jason, but why do they all end up in the same exact world at the end? Jason was gone for weeks trying to find it, there must be an infinite number of worlds that started as the one he left. That world had millions of people making millions of choices for weeks, there must be a nearly infinite number of worlds that all the versions of Jason's could have ended up in. And then there is the issue of why are they all trying to kill each other? None of them are trying to kill Jason2 for taking their family, they are all attacking each other. It makes very little sense.

Then the worst part one of the Jason, presumably the one we have been following the whole book, gets to his family, and they decide the only way to escape is to all jump in the machine together and try their luck in whatever world they end up in. That plan didn't work so well the first few times Jason went into it. The machine is controlled by your thoughts and emotions, so somehow his wife and teenage son are able to control the machine their first time in it, after being through a very traumatic few days. This ending makes no sense. Maybe the author is leaving it open to a sequel?

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this Review. 

Book Review: Home Sewn

I was really excited to get to review a book on a hobby I actually do. I have some really cute books with some great sewing projects in them, and I was hoping this book would be a great addition to that collection. I was not impressed.

Some of the major problems I had with this book:

Two of the projects in the book are just pictures of the writer having used purchasable kits with her own fabric. There is a make your own lampshade, and make your own headboard. I don't think using a premade kit and writing the instructions count as making your own project...

One project is a linen ottoman. This on it's own this could be a great project. Except when you get to the important part of the stuffing. She gives minimal direction on this. "Stuffing of your choice"... "Up to you really"... I made a floor cushion a year or so ago. The sewing part, although complicated, was the easiest part. Finding a good stuffing, tips on getting it into the cushion, tips on not getting said stuffing all over your house... Any of those would be a really useful addition to this project.

At least two projects in this book don't fall on the right side of the handmade vs homemade. When I make something by hand I want to take the time to do it right. If I am going to spend hours making something and probably spending at least twice what it would cost to buy the same thing. What I make should look good. One project the "embroidered lambskin and silk throw pillows" looks terrible. The final project pictured is wrinkled and the embroidery is a small circle in the middle filled in with random stitches and x's. Maybe if it was a child making it this could be appreciated.

Another project " decorative silk upholstery panels" looks like she tacked on fabric to the back of a chair. Reading the instructions for this project, says that is exactly what she did. "You probably don't need instructions - the images say almost all you need"... She actually says that.

There are a few cute things. One project is making silk butterflies. Another is a leather strap to tie back curtains with. She made a cotton, silk, and leather chandelier that looks nice. But even for these projects that I might actually want to do the instructions are minimal. She takes a lots of posed pictures of the finished product, but doesn't really focus on helping people get there with great instructions. I could probably figure it out, but with a book I shouldn't have to.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

New Game

I normally get books to review, but this time there was an option for a game. Since I like games I got it. I wasn't expecting to love this game, since I don't love puns, and it states that it is a game for pun lovers. Steven loves puns, so I thought he might like it. 

The game makes a claim to be the new Cards Against Humanity. I can't say I really liked the game, but I definitely disagree with that claim. Cards Against Humanity has only the requirements that you read english and aren't easily offended. It doesn't require much thinking and if you have no clue for a round nothing really happens. Punderdome requires a lot of thinking. You are given two topics and you have to write your own pun combining them. Some combinations are easier than others, but when you can't come up with anything it is frustrating. 

Also it seems to be a wasteful game. Each round you write your pun on a piece of paper. By the end of game there was a lot of little paper bits. 

I would like to watch this game be played by people who are really good at puns. It might be amusing. I don't think it is a game that can be enjoyed by any group. Which is something that is good to have in a game.

Some examples of our rounds.

Cat in the Hat

Book review

I have mixed feelings about this book. It has a lot of information about a lot of things to do with food and babies. Which is in theory good, because knowing things is generally good. That being said, I have a few friends who are planning to have children in the near future and I wouldn't even think of giving it this book to them. It has so much information about so many things that could go wrong. It goes into a lot of detail about very rare allergies. For a new parent who is prone to hypochondria it would be a horrible thing to read. 

There is despite all the very likely unnecessary information about rare conditions some good information in this book. This information seems somewhat buried in all the question- answer formatting. There are some useful charts, but you can't flip through it easily to find them. It would be more useful to read while you are making your first child, than wondering what you should feed your child of X months. 

Once past the first year or so of feeding suggestions, this book turns more into a basic nutrition book. Toddlers that are eating regular food apparently have the same nutrition concerns as adults. Limit excess sugar and salt, eat vegetables... 

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review: Broth and Stock

My first impression of this book was not good. Based on the title I was expecting a cookbook of broths and stocks. Most of this book appears to be soups. Those do use broth and stock, but that isn't the same as making your own.

The first third of the book has useful information about broth and stocks. There is some history of it and a few a bunch of recipes for various types of broth. It was a little disappointing that all of the vegetable broths contained chicken bone broth. 

The rest of the book is just recipes. Most, but not all of these do use some amount of broth. I doubt I will be making anything from this book. There is not enough variety of recipes that it will be something I pick up when I am looking for a soup recipe. The broth recipes that it has are very basic. So I doubt that I would use it for that either. 

The most useful thing I got from this was to try adding wine when making a broth to a flavor and as an acid to bring out more nutrients.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Home Cooked

Another cookbook on how to cook the old fashioned way and why it is so much better. This seems to be a trend, but one I am enjoying. 

This book had some things I will never eat, unless I am literally starving to death and for some reason it is the only option. Maybe some people are into them, maybe they do taste good, but it just isn't something I'm going to eat. On this list I did put the blood orange salad, but I recognize that more people will eat that than roasted chicken hearts. 

Ignoring the food I consider too weird to eat, I liked this book. There are some things in it that I do plan to make. I might even have been a little inspired to try tomato canning once tomato season comes around. If the inspiration lasts anyway. 

I think this is a nice book to have around if you ever feel like having a big cooking day. It isn't the best for situations where you want to make dinner and are looking for recipes. 

Book Review: The more of less

I didn't not like this book. It was a quick and enjoyable read. The book is written by the creator of a minimalist blog. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, but it didn't seem overly helpful. It made the idea of minimalism seem nice, but since I have already been wanting to get rid of my extra stuff that wasn't a high bar to reach. 

I think the problem with this book is that it isn't a book about how to be a minimalist; it is an autobiography about a man who became a minimalist. In his book he shares his personal stories and other stories he has come across, but there is very little practical advice. One chapter about halfway through the book gave a starting suggestion about getting rid of some of your stuff. 

Another book about minimalism I read recently was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Her book also shared many of her personal stories, but she also had a lot of actual advice. I didn't agree with it all, but it was at least there. The more of less doesn't have that, and I think without more actual methods or practical advice it isn't very useful of a book. 

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review: Eleanor

I was having brunch with a new friend and we got to talking about books. She had similar taste in books to me and recommended this book. I added it to my to read list. When I got home I posted my last review and went to look for a new book, and there was this one. Happy coincidence. 

I did enjoy this book. It was very engaging and I didn't want to put it down. My impression while reading it was that is was really weird. It starts out as a sad story that is completely plausible in the normal work. Then it gets strange, but not necessarily a bad strange.

There were two things I did not like about the book. The first is a spoiler, so if you don't like those don't read it. The end of the book negates the rest of the book. There is a lot of weird stuff including time travel. The character manages to undo not only her past, but part of her grandmothers and most of her mother's. The second is I didn't like a half of the characters. Many seemed completely incapable of dealing with their reality, and let their tragedies destroy not only their lives and the lives of their families. 

Book Review

I really wanted to like this book. I love doodling and I liked the idea of having a draw in book to learn some new things to doole. 

I don't like this book. Some of the drawings are cute, but the instructions are terrible. You would think the first section of the book would be the easier one, especially considering this is basically a workbook. It is not, you clearly need some previous drawing experience. The drawings aren't doodle cartoons, they look like full on anime characters. Not easy to just doodle. 

I also didn't like the physical size of the book. With a name like doodletopia you would think you would be making little doodles. The pages are huge. When you start adding shading and such, it becomes a lot to do. It isn't a little doodle anymore it is a full on art project.

I did like one section of the book. It was making two different things, animals usually, using the same starting shape. I thought that was interesting to see. I would have liked to see that section expanded more, with more options and practice pages.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review

I have mixed feelings about this book. There are some good points in it. Some good enough that I am going to pass it along to someone I think it will be good for. Going over the good parts in this case would be more like a book report than a book review, so I won't be doing that. There are good things in this book. If it looks like something that would appeal to you, it is definitely worth a read. 

However despite giving it a pretty good rating I did have a few problems with it:

The book is very clearly written by a woman for women. She tries to avoid this fact by repeatedly saying that anyone can benefit from it, and denying that it is geared toward women. I found this distracting. I think she should have either owned that she was writing to a female audience or just let it be. 

The author has a tendency to have large quotes from other sources. I didn't find the first few to be overly relevant or helpful, and I found myself just skimming over them. I think a good portion of them could have been weeded out. She had plenty of good things of her own to say, she didn't need to waste space repeating other people's words.

Lastly, there are some exercises in the book that are supposed to help you think about a certain thing in a new way. They seem overly involved to me. Most of them seem like they might have a purpose, but in order to do them you would need to have a dedicated time to sit down and do them. But, the way they are presented in the book is more of a quick thing to do. I may try a few out sometime, but overall they don't seem to be as refined as they could be. 

Book Review - Asian Dumplings

Another book review. You'd think I like cooking giving the amount of cookbooks I seem to get. I got this book because I thought it would be fun to learn how to make those white dumplings you can get at an asian market. 

I like this book because it has very clear instructions. It seems easy enough, although very time consuming. 

The instructions on how to use a chinese bamboo steamer don't seem as thorough as I would have hoped them to be. Perhaps better instructions come when you actually purchase one of them. 

The other thing this book is lacking is enough pictures. I prefer cookbooks to have pictures of every recipe. This book has some very nice pictures, but not nearly enough of them. 

I think I will keep this book, but I doubt I would have purchased it if I had just seen it in a store. 

Book Review - Hot Bread Kitchen

When I got this book I didn't know that Hot Bread Kitchen was a place. I thought the cover looked good, and I liked making bread at a recent bread making class I went to.

The story of the Hot Bread Kitchen is nice. It is a nice story. The kitchen provides education for low income minority women. It helps them get management track positions in the food industry. 

My favorite thing about this book is that is has recipes for all those tasty breads you get when you eat out. Some I enjoied eating but couldn't remember the name of or how to spell it even if I did. Now I can make them at home. 

I also like that the books assumes you know nothing about making bread and gives some great tips on how to get started. 

Book Review - The Homemade Kitchen

I love this book. I have the author's other book The Homemade Pantry. This book is even better. My favorite thing about it is that it doesn't assume you know how to do all the basic things. I know a lot of the basics, but not all and probably not the best way to do things. It is nice having that available. One section is on roasting vegetables. Which I do regularly, but it is nice to have a better idea written down for how long to roast each type.

I also love that it has simple recipes. Especially in the salads section. The recipes are simple and don't require a lot of ingredients. One is sauteed dandelion greens and a fried egg. It looks delicious, but I never would have thought to make it.

I'm very happy with this book, I am looking forward to trying more of the recipes.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Book Review - The Chili Cookbook

I was excited about this book since there the cold weather is coming. This is a nice looking cookbook, lots of big pictures.

I really like how this cookbook has lots of background information about chili. I've made chili before, but I've just bought the chili powder in the store and haven't paid much attention to anything else. I'm looking forward to trying out the different varieties.

My main complaint about this book is how it is organized. It is divided into 4 parts. With some background information in each one and then mixed into that are the recipes. It makes it slightly more difficult to just flip through to pick what you want to make.

The Martian

I read the book The Martian awhile ago on a friend's recommendation. I absolutely loved the book. I cannot say enough good things about it. It was funny and serious at the same time. It had accurate science, but not enough to overwhelm those of us who are not astronauts. I read the almost the entire book in one sitting, ignoring everything else I had to do that day. I've recommended it to almost everyone I talk to about books.

The thing I remember most about the book, was that almost every other chapter was the main character, Mark, saying "**** I'm going to die." There was an overwhelming sense of doom. It gave the impression that it was a very serious situation filled with an overwhelming amount of problems. He inventively came up with a brilliant sciency solution.

When I finished the book it had that satisfying feeling of that being the great book. One of the best I've read in a long time.

Today the movie was released. (Technically anyway, it seemed to be playing yesterday evening well before midnight.) I have been looking forward to it since it was announced. I enjoyed the movie, but it did not give me that feeling of having just seen something awesome. The movie was mostly true to the book. They didn't change too much. One semi-major thing, but overall not huge amount.

What the did do was leave out a bunch of things. Maybe it was for keeping down the special effects cost? Maybe for time? The effect of this was removing the impending doom. Not something one usually expects from Hollywood, usually they add this for no reason. It also removed a lot of the cussing. The two main things I remember from the book...

The movie wasn't disappointing, but I can't say I loved it.