How To Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery

I just found out that Sy Montgomery is known as a children's book author as well as a naturalist/memoirist.  I started the book thinking that it was about animals but it really is a memoir of family for the author.
Let's do the good news first.  This woman's heart is bursting with love that encompasses almost everything that is alive.  She starts with a dog in childhood who she says raised her, and she goes on to show and tell about animals that she has lived with, loved near, and loved from afar or intermittently over her lifetime.  The sad news is that her childhood dog raised her emotionally because her parents did not.  There is an undercurrent of abuse in her childhood at the hands of an alcoholic mother and an authoritarian father that is heartbreaking.  There is not a hint of anger related to her childhood, just relief that she escaped, that the husband her parents disowned her over not only loves her but also gets her, and how relationships with non-humans can be healing for traumatized people.  So while there are some good stories in here, that is the one that I walked away with.

Rising Tide at Pourville, Claude Monet, 1882

I saw this as part of the Figge Art Museum exhibit of French Moderns, and I really love it.
The relationship between Monet and the sea started soon as the young artist established, along with his family, in the coastal town of Le Havre, Normandy, in the mid-1850s. In these early years Monet did not feel an immediate attraction for the “plen air” painting, but he caught the attention of a painter who had established himself at Le Havre years earlier, Eugene Boudin, still considered one of the greatest seascape painters of the 19th century. After a few months, the master convinced the young artist to accompany him on his outings to paint outdoors. The tenacity of Boudin would not be in vain, and Monet recognized, several years later: "If I became a painter, it was thanks to Boudin."
Between 1881 and 1883 Monet made a series of trips back to Normandy, where the landscapes were enough attractive to satisfy his creative appetite. Unlike his early seascapes, Monet seems to focus more on the coastal landscape than in the ocean itself, taking advantage of the spectacularity of the rugged Normandy coast and its dramatic cliffs.  Almost all conventional seascapes are inevitably horizontally conceived, interpreting the horizon, the limit between sea and sky, as the key element in the composition. Many of Monet works from this period are unique for creating an asymmetrical composition of high verticality, as is shown in this one.

Roasted Cabbage with Tarragon and Pecorino

We barely had enough tarragon left in the herb bed to make this, but were able to make it with locally grown cabbage as well.  A wonderful fall dish.

120ml olive oil
2 lemons – finely grate the zest, to get 2 tbsp, then juice, to get 2 tbsp
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
Salt and black pepper
2 sweetheart cabbages (aka pointed cabbage), outer leaves discarded, then cut lengthways into eight wedges each
10g tarragon leaves, roughly chopped
30g pecorino shavings (use a vegetable peeler)

Heat the oven to 220C/425F. In a small bowl, whisk the oil, lemon zest, garlic, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, then transfer two tablespoons to a second bowl.
Put the cabbage wedges in a large bowl and season with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt. Pour the larger portion of oil mixture over the cabbage and toss to coat. Arrange the cabbage on two oven trays lined with baking paper, and roast for 20-25 minutes, until the edges are crisp and golden brown (swap the trays around halfway through, so both get time near the higher heat at the top of the oven). Transfer the cabbage to a platter, then leave to rest and cool for five to 10 minutes.
Mix the lemon juice into the remaining oil mixture, then drizzle evenly over the cabbage wedges. Scatter the tarragon and pecorino on top, finish with a good grind of black pepper and serve.

Twig by Aura Parker

This is the last book that I read in my recent spate of finding the perfect children's picture book, and it is very good, especially if you have a child who is a bit afraid of bugs or thinks that they are really cool.
There are a lot of elements of counting in the book, which could be another good aspect of a book that you might reread.  Here is the basic plot.  Heidi is a stick insect, long and thin like the twig of a tree. It's her first day at Bug School, where she hopes to learn lots and make new friends. But no one will talk to her and no one will play with her at lunch. No one notices her at all - not even her teacher Miss Orb, because she's blending in with the branches a little too well.  Finally, Heidi speaks up for herself and Miss Orb comes up with a plan to help Heidi stand out.  There are many things to hunt for and find in the book, which is exactly what you would have to do outside to find some of these bugs in real life.

Long Braised Green Beans

The problem of what to do with tough green beans is not a problem when you buy your beans but rather when you grow them.  Now that the last of the vegetables have been pulled out of the garden, we have a big bag of same said beans, and this is a good solution.

1 pound green beans, trimmed and washed (3/4”)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and sliced thinly
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice (or 1 lb romas, peeled and diced)
1 teaspoon freshly ground fennel seed (or 1 T fennel seeds)
½ teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons bacon fat (or canola oil)
2 thick slices bacon, cut into bite-size pieces

In a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid, heat the bacon fat or canola oil and cook the onion gently over medium heat until tender, about eight minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, toss together and bring to a simmer. Close the pot, reduce the heat to very low and simmer for about three hours, stirring and tasting the beans occasionally for doneness. When the beans are tender and flavorful, adjust seasoning and serve warm.
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The Tea Set by Claude Monet (1872)

I am very fond of many of Monet's still life paintings, which reflect his attention to detail and a love of pattern and light that are evident in his landscapes as well.  This one reflects his love of Asian art and porcelain.
How it all began is open to speculation, but one account goes like this.
" I had the good fortune to discover a batch of prints at a Dutch merchant's. It was in Amsterdam in a shop of Delft porcelain." Monet was haggling over an object without any success . "Suddenly I saw a dish filled with images below on a shelf. I stepped forward : Japanese woodblocks!" The merchant, not aware of the value of these prints, let him have them with the china jar.And so began his love affair with the classic Japanese woodblock prints of the 16th century. 

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is a bright light for everyone in the young adult literature scene, and now she has written a book for children.
"The Day You Begin

started with a poem in Brown Girl Dreaming about my great grandfather who was the only black child in an all-white school," Woodson told an interviewer. "My mom used to tell us there’d be moments when we walked into a room and no one there was like us. I’ve walked into those rooms many times during my childhood and beyond so I had the sense that this was true of most people and began writing the story."
And that, in a nutshell, is what the book is about.  First the sense of alienation, and then, when you take a risk, that it can all work out well, that people are more alike than they are different.  And it is beautifully illustrated.

Roasted Eggplant with Anchovies and Oregano

The new Ottolenghi cookbook has arrived!  Here is yet another great way that he makes eggplant.

4 medium aubergines, cut into 2cm-thick discs
Salt and black pepper
145ml olive oil
1½ tbsp oregano leaves
20g anchovy fillets, finely chopped
1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
5g parsley, roughly chopped

Heat the oven to 220C/425F.
In a large bowl, mix the aubergine with half a teaspoon of salt.
Transfer to two large oven trays lined with baking paper and brush with 70ml oil: you want to coat both sides of the aubergine discs.
Bake for 35 minutes, until dark golden brown and cooked through, then remove and set aside to cool.
Heat 45ml oil in a very small saucepan or frying pan on a high flame. Test the oil is hot enough by dropping in an oregano leaf: if it sizzles, goes crisp straight away and turns a brighter shade of green, the oil is ready (if the oil is too hot, the oregano will go dark green). When the oil is at the right temperature, add a tablespoon of oregano leaves and cook for 10 seconds, just until crisp, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain. Take the pan off the heat.
In a small bowl, whisk the anchovies, vinegar, garlic, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a quarter-teaspoon of pepper. Slowly pour in the remaining oil, whisking continuously, until well combined.
Finely chop the remaining oregano and put it in a large bowl with the aubergine and parsley. Pour over the anchovy dressing, gently toss, then transfer the salad to a platter. Sprinkle over the fried oregano and serve.

Lady Eve (1941)

This is another Preston Sturgiss film, starring Barbara Stanwyck as an adventuress who has lured a rich but unworldly young bachelor, Henry Fonda,  to her cabin on an ocean liner, and is skillfully tantalizing him.  Stanwyck plays Jean Harrington, a con woman who travels first class with her father and their valet, fleecing rich travelers in card games and whatever else comes along. She sets her sights on Charles Pike (Fonda), heir to a brewery fortune, as he comes aboard after a snake-hunting expedition in South America.
What is both skillful and irritating about Stanwyck's performance is how she has it both ways. She is a crook, and yet can be trusted. A seductress, and yet a pushover for romance. A gold digger, and yet she wants nothing from him. And he is a naive innocent. She falls for him so quickly and so thoroughly that she's even frank about her methods; just before he kisses her in the moonlight in the ship's bow, she tells him, "They say a moonlit deck's a woman's business office.”
The thing is that we are watching this movie against the background of #MeToo, the stripping of women of autonomy by the current administration and the incredible entitlement of the upper class demonstrated by Brett Kavanaugh.  So it fell a little flat.

The Dinosaur Expert by Margaret McNamara

I am on a search for good picture books that came out this year to get for our granddaughter.  I get them out of the library, and then make a decision if this is a story that I think will resonate, or one that will be enjoyable to read again and again.
This book features Mr. Tiffin and his class (which have apparently appeared in other books as well.  So same class, different featured student).  Kimmy has been hunting for fossils and studying dinosaurs her whole life and her class is going to a natural history museum, which is like a dream come true.  She experiences some momentary shyness when a classmate tells her that a girl cannot study dinosaurs.  Mr. Tiffin shows her otherwise, and the end of the book concludes with real life women who have contributed to paleontology.  One is Mary Anning, who was amongst the first fossil scientists, and the subject of Tracy Chevalier's book Remarkable Creatures.
There has never been a better time for dinosaur fans. New species are named at a dizzying rate, and refined techniques are telling us more about dinosaur lives than was ever possible before.  So encouraging the study of our planet's past is timely.

Eggtoberfest 2018

There are many things that can unite a family, but for us, it really revolves around food.  My husband's family is all about the food.  Eating it, talking about it, cooking it, we bond over food in a very big way, and we have passed that on to our offspring. Phew.  Whatever ways we may diverge over the years ahead, at least we have that.
I remember being really shocked when my brother's wife said quite clearly that they do not travel to experience the food.  What?  That is not even remotely understandable to me.  Food is culture and culture, long with beauty, are the two things that I love about travel.  So I am left with traveling with my food priority relatives.
So no surprise that we all had a great weekend recently we had a wonderful time at a BBQ festival revolving around the Big Green Egg in Atlanta.  It was more smoked and grilled food than you could imagine, and all of us together as well.  Divine.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2018)

This is the real life retelling of the life of the man who created Wonder Woman.  The movie has all the trappings of a tasteful period piece: the true-story origins, the tweedy collegiate setting, the to-die-for costumes. But beneath all that, it aims to shake you up, make you think and  even squirm a bit.
At the film’s start in the mid-1940s, William Marston (played by Luke Evans)—who created Wonder Woman under the pseudonym Charles Moulton—is being interrogated about the character’s scandalous, sadomasochistic imagery by the head of the Child Study Association of America, the uptight Josette Frank.  Flashbacks to 1928, when he was a Harvard psychology professor working alongside his brilliant wife, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall), shed light on the source of this aesthetic.
Where Marston was all charm and charisma and good looks, Elizabeth was sharp-witted and no-nonsense. The energy between the two crackles long before they begin sharing their lab—and, eventually, their bed—with Olive Byrne (Heathcote), a Radcliffe student who initially enters their lives as a research assistant. The couple can’t deny their joint attraction for the bright, beautiful blonde—and she, in turn, falls for them both, which she’s forced to admit in an exquisitely tense scene involving an early version of a lie detector.  The Marstons are crediting with coming up with the device, which is an interesting dual legacy for them.  It is an intense movie, with lots to recommend it, but it does not shy away from the edges of sexuality, so be forewarned.

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

This was short listed for the Booker Prize and has been on a lot of Best of 2018 reading lists.  The New York Times apparently printed a 12 page special section to highlight the importance of the book.
Romy Hall, the protagonist of the novel novel, is 29 years old when we first meet her, and she has resigned herself to the likelihood that she'll die in prison; she's been sentenced to two life sentences for beating to death a man who stalked her.  The novel goes back and forth between Romy's time before she went to prison with her time while there, and the overwhelming feature is that neither of them are any good at all.  Her drug addicted and self-debasing life, all lived with an attitude of refusing to feel sorry for herself and the reader can't help thinking otherwise.  It is a painful and all too believable story that doesn't even stoop to viciousness to get its bleak point across.  The book is populated with well drawn characters, and a heart breaking dilemma to propel it along, but it is the people and not the story that drive the book.  Very well done.

The Power of the Egg

One thing that binds my husband's siblings together is food.  And the cooking of food.  So when it comes to outdoor cooking, not one of us would argue against the Big Green Egg.
I remember when my husband first told me that he was going to buy one.  He did not explain that it was a ceramic kamodo-style grill, modeled on an ancient method.  The earliest cooking vessels were made of clay and found in China, dated to be over 3,000 years old. All over the world these cooking vessels evolved in many different ways, and in Japan a clay pot with a removable dome lid became popular. This device was called a "mushikamado" and it included a damper and draft door for better heat control. It was introduced to Americans after the Second World War, and eventually, it became known as a "kamado" which literally means "cooking range" or "stove" in Japanese.
I love the egg, and so when asked if I wanted to go to a cooking festival revolving around all things cooked in an egg, I acquiesced.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

In a search for a filmmaker who we like as much as Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges was recommended.  He is known for his witty movies with a hint of slap stick, which does sound a lot like Lubitsch.  The dialogue drives the movie and as a result, there is little that actually happens.
The movie spends most of the time inside the obsessive imagination of its protagonist, an easily excitable and completely self-centered concert conductor . He at first resists the idea that his wife might be unfaithful to him, refusing to look at a private detective, and then his subsequent pathologically jealous state adds vitality to his art. Played by Rex Harrison, the conductor’s mind becomes the stage on which the film’s fantasized events play out, ranging from elaborate traps to the slashing of a razor, from a humble goodbye to Russian roulette. Under the false impression that his faithful and loving wife is cheating on him, he directs his orchestra, and as he does so, he loses himself in the particular mood of the given composition. In a flurry of impassioned emotion shaped by selections from Gioacchino Rossini, Richard Wagner, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, he visualizes himself in a series of sometimes vengeful fantasies. Sturges explores the notion that music not only shapes our mood but that our perceptions of the world are rarely accurate.

Custer State Park, the Black Hills, South Dakota

Skip Mount Rushmore, and go here instead.
We hadn't been to Mount Rushmore in almost 30 years, and the intervening years have not been good to it.  There is an elaborate Visitor's Center and loads of people.
This is it, the beginning of the west, right there on the edge of South Dakota.  From here you go on to see the Big Horn Mountains and the Wind River Range and all the wonder that is Yellowstone.  But a stop here is well worth it, and amazingly, my oldest son lives within an easy day's drive of here (for us, it is a more substantial day, but still doable).
The mountains are not the Rockies, but they are worthy of the name, the lakes are beautiful, and best of all there is a lot of animals about.  The hallmark is bison, but I saw Dahl sheep, which I really love.
We had a very short visit, but it was a place that would be well worth returning to.

French Moderns at the Figge Museum, Davenport, IA

Run, do not walk, to see this spectacular exhibit of French art from between 1850 and 1950.  All 60 pieces, most of them paintings, but also some sculpture, comes from the Brooklyn Museum's collection.  This painting by Gustave Caillebotte
Apple Tree in Blossom (1885), is just one example of how even lesser known artists have produced spectacular art.  I walked away from the exhibit almost breathless, rejuvenated in a way that being amongst beauty can do, and hoping that i would be able to get back and see it again before it ends (which would be January 6, 2019).
So two things that are cool.  The first is that a museum as small as the Figge was able to get this exhibit, so hats off to them for that vision, and the Brooklyn Museum for letting Iowa have a shot at it.  The other is that  for the duration of the exhibit the town of Davenport is immersing itself in the culture of France, with lectures, art classes, French food, you name it.  Something almost every week to better understand where this art came from.  Really inspirational in many ways.

The Tersa Sphinx Moth Turnaround

I was staying in a slightly sad hotel in Orlando recently, attending a less than perfect conference, and not altogether being able to live life to its fullest in the moment.  These things happen, and they seem to happen more in Florida than other places that I go, and I completely concede that I need to do a better job of adapting to my circumstances.  But then, things took a turn for the better.  I was on my way to the ice machine I came up this exceptionally beautiful moth.  It is huge, maybe three inches tall with a similar wing span, and it really took my breath away (well, the moth and the humidity combined). It has a sleek design that no doubt was one of the design influences for the Bat Mobile.  My only regret is that I did not see it fly because exactly how that works seems mysterious to me. 

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Do not be fooled by the Pixar label.  This dinosaur movie is not very good.  It would probably work for a child, in that nothing much happens that is scary (although Arlo's father does get carried away by flash flooding, and does not make it out alive very early on in the movie), and there is a good message about friendship and doing what is right.
It is completely without merit from a scientific point of view.  Humans and dinosaurs did not walk the earth together.  There is no evidence that the plant eating dinosaurs farmed, and they certainly did not grow corn, which wasn't developed into its modern day version until very recently in the history of the earth.  The meat eating dinosaurs did not companionably walk with their prey, most likely.  So what is accurate?  The nomadic and primitive existence of man at that point in time is true (although it didn't happen in the United States that we know of).  The landscape of Wyoming is beautifully rendered and animated in a really spectacular manner.

The Willows, Lummi Island, Washington

This is a gorgeous spot on a relatively sizable island in the San Juans.  The exterior doesn't even look like a restaurant, you could drive right by it and not notice anything but the beautiful (and largely edible) vegetation out front.
I was recently here for lunch, after braving a front row seat on the ferry (yikes!  Thank goodness we didn't encounter any sort of action en route, because our position felt precarious), we drove past the restaurant The Willows recently took over at the ferry stop, and settled in to the porch for a delicious lunch.  So good in fact that we bought some clams on the way home and had just those for dinner.  Light and delicious.
What makes this place so special?  The answer is the attention to detail.  Everything makes it special.  The is thought and intention in every aspect of the place and that is hard to overlook.  Take the table for example.  It is beautiful, simple, unique and memorable.  Do not miss this on your next trip to either Seattle or Vancouver.

Gather, Silverton, Oregon

I was visiting friends and we went out for a late afternoon bite to eat at this cool restaurant. 

Anna Kuzmin and her husband moved into this abandoned Mexican restaurant space with an eye to restoring it. The couple scanned historic photos of the building, which first opened in 1892, to restore the restaurant to its past excellence. Kuzmin, who grew up in Montana, wanted Oregon's bounty and history to shine through her menu and space, and so it does.  I had this gorgeous salad, one of the best composed salads that I have ever had and it just popped with flavor.  I had a bowl of one of my all time favorite dishes, New England Clam Chowder, Oregon style, and it was equally delicious.  The high ceilings lead to a loud atmosphere, but in the late afternoon it was underpopulated and absolutely delicious.

Big Eyes (2015)

This is a true story, and one that I really did not know anything about (kind of like how I felt after watching Trumbo, that film had brought something that I didn't know much about into my consciousness).  It is the story of the artist behind making the very creepy paintings of sad children with over sized eyes that were very popular in the 1960's.  The filmmaker is Tim Burton, which totally makes sense and he plays it with the right touch.
Amy Adams plays Margaret Keane, a woman with limited artistic talent and bad taste in men, to a tee.  She is a little bit irritating and you feel more than a little sorry for her.  Christopher Waltz is her husband, a man with no talent artistically but is a wizard when it comes to marketing and sales.  He takes his wife's paintings as his own and he makes them, and thereby him, a huge success.  It is soul crushing to her, because not only does she have to lie to absolutely everyone, including her daughter, they consume all of her time, so she really has no life.  She eventually speaks out, but the whole story is kind of fascinating in a reality TV kind of way.

Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies

My youngest son picked these out to make for one of his brothers and they were really surprisingly good.  As with all sandwich cookies, being fastidious about the size is important since they need to fit together, and I would make them a bit smaller next time, because one cookie was a meal ender.

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups quick or old fashioned oatmeal

For the Cream Filling

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon milk or half and half

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add in oats and mix until incorporated.
4. To make large cookies, use a large cookie scoop (about 3 tablespoons) to drop dough onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake in preheated oven for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow cookies to sit on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely. To makes small cookies, use a medium cookie scoop (about 1.5 tablespoons) of dough per cookie and bake for 10-12 minutes. Once cookies have cooled completely, prepare the cream filling.

Prepare the Cream Filling:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes. This process will lighten the color of the butter and ensure you buttercream in extra fluffy.
2. Turn the speed down to low and gradually add in the powdered sugar. Continue mixing on low speed until the powdered sugar is completely incorporated. Add in vanilla extract and milk and mix until combined.
3. Turn mixer back up to medium-high speed and beat the mixture for an additional 3-5 minutes. If needed, add in a little more cream 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach the consistency you desire.
4. To assemble the cookies, pipe or spread the cream filling on the flat side of half of the cookies and put the remaining cookies on top.

Reflecting on the New World

Where are we in this New World in which we live?  What have we done, and will it be sustained through the current assault on it's form of government, a president who desires to be a king?  I harken back to Edmund Burke, the father of ceonservatism.
“But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

The Overstory by Richard Powers

First of all, I have to confess that I may have gotten this all wrong.  The book is interwoven and dense, so I may have ended up getting it all wrong.  The book is a modern day take on Thoreau, with a lot more people in it.
The book moves the way a hike in an open field evolves into a thick forest: slowly, then inevitably. For a while, almost a third of it, the various stories develop independently, and it’s not apparent that they have anything to do with one another. But have faith in this author. H is working through tree history, not human history, and the effect is like a time-lapse video.  Eventually they tie together, and tell an alarming story without much in the way of hope.
Trees are becoming extinct, and man is the reason why.  We are cutting them down, heating up the planet, killing them and by all means, we ourselves are doomed.  Unless we take action, like some in the book do.  It is overwhelming in so many ways, and truly exceptional.  Up for the Booker Prize this year, it has a good shot at winning.

Unforgotten (2015)

Wow this cold case show is intense, in a good way.  Why ?
Unforgotten does a lot of things right. A good mystery builds layers of complication, but not too many. It surprises you, but it plays by the rules it sets and doesn't decide at the last minute that a person you've never heard about before is the culprit for a reason unconnected to anything you've learned. It doesn't allow you to guess in the first ten minutes, but it doesn't make it seem pointless to try to solve the case in your mind.
And ideally, it is pushed forward by detectives who are appealing enough to become the heroes, but reserved enough to stay out of the way. Perhaps one reason Unforgotten works so well is that DCI Stuart, in particular, almost never raises her voice. Her determination is communicated through stillness, but her excitement when she learns something important animates her eyes. The forensics people who work with her take great pride in thrilling her with what they've discovered. She's clever and patient, and for reasons the show doesn't feel obligated to explain, it just sticks in her craw that a case might be abandoned simply because it's old.
One of the things that distinguishes a mystery about a cold case that's approximately as old as this one turns out to be is that it tells the stories of older people who are viewed in their capacities as full and complicated humans with pasts, rather than as grandparents or wise advisers. All old people were once young people, with the secrets and the dramas and the sex lives and the unsettled identities television typically associates with being young. Here, the history of each person, made of achievements and regrets, is the central idea in the story. That even enriches the entire idea of investigating a murder, as it reinforces that had the murder not happened, the victim would, too, be an older person with regrets and achievements that never came to be.

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

The best of books write about the things that we fear and care about the most.  I have always loved the author’s books written for younger children, and when this one was recommended by a children’s book lover for my DIL to consider reading to her third grade class, I thought I would dive in.
One thing to keep in mind when reading chapter books for the grammar school crowd is that unlike the young adult literature, which is about the things we all care about but written in a more straight forward manner, the issues of children are inherently less complex from their point of view than they really are, and the book reflects that.  Billy Miller has a lot going on in his life, but he has the support of each of his parents, his sister, and his teacher in working them out. I like the way it deals with his fears and how they are countered and how he learns from his successes, how he comes to appreciate what he has and how to mobilize his assets.

Vermont Living

I spent an almost perfect long weekend in Vermont recently.  First there was the weather.  The summer can be very unforgiving in a damp house without any climate control what-so-ever.  The heat and the humidity can combine to make you feel like a pioneer.  The fact that most Vermonters have not had to install air conditioning until the last decade makes it pretty common that you will be warm in July, unduly so.  Climate change is upon us, and Vermont is no exception. 
Late summer going into fall is another story, with cooler and more comfortable temperatures that invite a stroll.  We had that kind of luck, which we combined with good food, an auction with a few good finds (and more if we had been closer to home, and in a moving van), and a sense of peacefulness that I get at times when I am there.  Just perfect, like the covered bridge near our house.

Crab Salad

We usually make our Gulf crab meat into crab cakes, but we took a break from that recently, and it was really delicious.  The sour cream is an inspired addition.  Add lots of herbs.

• 1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over to remove any shell or cartilage
• 1 stalk celery, peeled, and cut into 1/8-inch dice
• 4 teaspoons finely sliced fresh chives
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh tarragon leaves
• 1/3 cup prepared mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper 
• Chopped parsley to taste

In a medium bowl, lightly toss the crabmeat, celery, chives, and tarragon together. 
In a small bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, and mustard. Add the dressing to the crabmeat mixture and stir until just coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If not using right away refrigerate until ready to serve. 
Serve on toasted rolls or on a bed of lettuce.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

It is hard to exactly put your finger on why this movie is so mediocre.  Maybe the hidden fact is that we all know the plot, so don't take quite so long to get to the point might have helped.
There is oodles of talent in this film (much like the version made in 1974, which was also not that great).  Kenneth Branagh, apparently in an attempt to portray each and every one of his favorite fictional detectives, is a very good Poirot.  I didn't think that I could get over the fact that he is not the David Suchet, but I did.  He has a way more elaborate mustache, and he is a more action figure kind of Poirot, both of which kind of grew on me over the course of the film.  The setting is flat out gorgeous, but the cinematography is just mediocre.  There are all kinds of odd blown off roof shots that do not work well.  The characters come across as wooden, and again, remember, we all know who did it and why, so here is hoping that Poirot's allusion to a murder on the Nile leads to a better outcome for the viewer should it materialize.

All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin

It is so ironic reading this in the aftermath of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings last week (I am still wearing black).  Griffin is an author that is well and truly chick lit, so while I see it as a step above my usual murder mystery fare, it is not what I would call a giant step up, let’s put it that way.  In this one Nina is slowly but surely coming to the realization that this is not her beautiful life.  Her son, Fitch, who had everything going for him, is caught with a photo of a semi-conscious partly naked woman on his phone that has a modestly racist epitaph scrawled across it.
What to do?  Nina’s husband is all for covering it up.  It is no big deal.  He didn’t mean anything by it.  The usual it didn’t happen and if it did happen then it was no big deal. Nina, who was date raped in college and on some level it changed the whole rest of her life, feels differently.  She is worried about the young woman involved, and thinks that it is very appropriate that he go through the disciplinary process of his school.  In the end, the boy is found to be far from honorable, the father demonstrates that that acorn didn’t fall far from the tree, but in a classic this would never happen in real life, the women prevail.