I Wanted to Like This eBook

Salvation Jane

by Ann Massey

I wanted to like this book. You have no idea how much I wanted to like this book.

The first few pages suckered me in then the author dropped me off a cliff into a morass of mindless mishaps.

The author, Ann, offers a colorful opening page. I liked the imagery of a gallery picture compared with the main character’s arrival.

She sets you into the scene immediately with the cab driver, street cleaner, and hobo on the doorstep.

The lead character, Jane, has left a call centre job to run a hotel.

I laughed when Jane typed her notes on an iPad. It just struck me as so modern and so out of place.

It was refreshing in its use of Aussie slang.

A story about a hotel for the homeless is quite a different world from tales and misdeeds of the faux beautiful and their pampered amoral lives -- or about vampires or war. Ann provides a slice of real life with a heavy dose of humor.

I loved her description of the parliamentary receptionist:

“Call me bitchy, but it crossed my mind that the receptionist, a frosted-Nordic lily in a white linen mini dress and with enough silver jewelry to stock Georg Jensen’s showroom, had been chosen to complement the sleek, minimalistic lines of the furnishings.”

Then, I lost the train of thought of the story. I think it started when “Hardie” visited the hotel and Jane and he bumped heads.

Plus, Jane’s mild acquiesce to the take over of her hotel took some of the energy out of the plot.

Jane has intelligence but no common sense. She has no sense about men. She keeps meeting jerks and even hires them.

Her lack of common sense is phenomenal and her ability to learn from her experiences is questionable.

Then the enthusiastic, pessimistic, cockeyed efforts of misfits in various states of disarray, from here and there, somehow pull off a quasi-effective candidate campaign for Jane. Even twitter gets a guest spot.

The introduction of the inner workings of government was interesting for a bit but got bogged down as the author starts introducing new characters with little background. Then Jane seems to find every male she gets near attractive which smacks of a lack of self-control or self-awareness and has the potential for a great deal of disasters.

Sadly, there is no good guy in the story. Horrie does not count. The “hidden” backgrounds of several characters are just too pat.

I know what it’s like to write a few good pages of a story then wander off into a ditch but I could not read all of Jane’s stupid antics; they weren’t even funny or useful in the plot. They seemed like useless decoration just to fill a page with words.

While she does illustrate the opinions and beliefs of phony conservatives, she also provides plenty of poor portraits of liberals enforcing the notions of liberals as flakes, unprofessionals, ignorant sods.

There is not one character in the story that had their shit together. Was this a romance? Was it a mystery? Was it a comedy? Was it an adventure? What was it? It appeared to try and be a bit of everything and ends up being nothing.

Generally, in almost any story, the main characters confront their “demons” or “challenges” and grow, mature or gain knowledge or confidence. All Jane did was hang on. She was like a puppet, little of her own efforts played a role in her success, she followed the advice of anyone who gave it and got lucky.

A bomb? What a tortured path to a confusing, cop-out of an ending that money won’t solve.

I am a first-time ebook author. I know all about the hard work. I know all about the mistakes first-time novelists make because I made them all. But, it is becoming like torture to try and find an author whose books I like.

Samples don’t help. I am seriously considering going back to bookstores because I could find a novel I liked in a bookstore within minutes. It takes too much time to search through various online bookstores to find a title I might try. Then, it takes more time peruse the TOC or the front cover notes etc. then it does to flip through a book to determine if I want to buy it.

I have purchased x amount of e-novels and I have not fully enjoyed any of them. But, I have purchased x amount non-fiction ebooks and I have appreciated all of them.

It is exhausting to try and find novels I like -- I have tried review sites, I have tried “free” books, I have tried recommendations. I am at a loss as to what else to try, but this is getting old. I rarely had this problem when I went into a bookstore.

I like science fiction, I like comedy, I like drama, I like mystery, I like adventure, and more.

I like Janet Evanovitch, Ursula Le Guin, Dorothy Sayers, Dick Francis, John D. MacDonald, and others. One of my favorite novels, “Who Rides the Tiger”, by Doris Miles Disney is probably in the category of romance like Barbara Cartland. So, I am not a literary snob.

I am beginning to wonder if the crux of the problem is that self-published or small press novels lack a “book development” editor. There is no one looking at the story as the sum of its parts.

A Minor Cooking Disaster

Over the last few days, I had been doing quite well cooking some "new" recipes.

So, today, I wanted to make a sandwich I had made before. I was confident I could make it from memory. Now, a clue that things were not going quite right was the fact I started making a batch of pasta. But, I missed the clue.

Then, I chopped some garlic and onions and started browning them. Then, I decided maybe I should look at the recipe just to make sure.

After perusing a few recipes, I realized I had three recipes in mind, not one. One was a cabbage dish, another was a sandwich and the other was a tomato soup recipe.

When I realized my error, I tried to salvage the situation. I continued making the pasta, no problem there. But, what was I going to do with the cooked garlic and onions.

I decided to try and add them to the original sandwich recipe I had thought of, "SPAM Applely" where you just fry a slice of SPAM, make a mayo, garlic and parmesan sauce and add apple slices. I added one-half of the cooked garlic and onions to the sauce and made the sandwich. Was it eatable? That is a matter of opinion -- all I can say is I ate it.

I added the other half of the cooked garlic and onions to the pasta and added lots of basil and a bit of olive oil. That dish survived.

I do not recall many recipe writers or cooks who talk about their failures.

While learning to make nutritious, frugal, tasty meals is important, so is salvaging a mistake.

The silver lining in this experience is I managed to wash the dishes as I prepared these items. No dirty dishes in the sink when I finished! That is a triumph in itself.

Mocktail Adventure

Oh, the things writers must do for their books or stories.

I am writing a mocktail recipe book. Of course, I have to test the recipes. When I first started, I researched various mocktail recipes that resembled classic cocktails and adapted aspects of various recipes to suit available ingredients, and my budget and tastes.

Somewhere along the way, I felt I should try the original cocktail and make my mocktail recipes as similar in flavor and appearance as possible to the original.

When I went out with friends, it was easy to find Champagne and a Margarita but then I hit a snag. It seemed like many Mexican bartenders did not know how to make a Daiquiri, a Manhattan or Cosmopolitan.

Attempting to tackle the problem, when I went out to dinner, I would order one of the drinks I needed to test. But, on the first try, when I ordered a Daiquiri, I got a sorta of Margarita, a drink with slushy ice and a salted rim. I could not smell or taste the rum. The only flavor was the lime slush. The drink had no bite.

I did not make a fuss but I did check with the bartender to see what rum he used. When he showed me the empty bottle of Bacardi’s white rum, I understood why the drink lacked sufficient alcohol. My question upset the manager and he hovered over my table. I tried explain in my awful Español that I was writing a book about drinks and that the drink was fine. I am sure he thought ‘oh boy, another crazy expat.’

On a second attempt, at a reputable Irish restaurant, I ordered a Manhattan and got a concoction made with cognac. It was yellow and tasted awful. Even my friends said it was not a Manhattan. Whew! This experiment was getting expensive and time consuming.

Ok, one more try. I decided to go to the high-end American hotel, the Hyatt, on a Friday afternoon. They had an informal bar set up in the lobby.

At first, the young bartender, Henry, did not understand what I was trying to do. But, I was able order a Manhattan and watch him make the drink. I think he had to read up on how to make a Manhattan.

He used Johnny Walker Red. I knew JWR, it was a good scotch. But, the drink itself, while I am sure was well made, tasted like pure alcohol with a smoky taste which I think came from the scotch. It was not sweet. I could not discern the bitters or vermouth in the drink. It was cold, smooth, with a pure alcohol flavor.

I think I would rather have JWR on the rocks than in a Manhattan. Plus, I never considered trying a Martini. I just can’t drink straight alcohol.

I had drunk about 1/3 of the Manhattan and I had at least two more drinks to test, when Henry offered me a drink of his own design. He named it, Rivera. It was made with orange juice, Midor, Vodka, creme de menthe and a dash of Sprite. The garnish was a lime slice and mint sprig.

I liked it. It smelled good with a mild lime aroma. It was not too sweet and you could taste a hint of orange. The mint gave the drink a unique flavor. I gave up on the Manhattan and drank the Rivera.

While researching cocktails, the history of a drink often includes the hotel, restaurant or bar where the drink was “invented.” So, for the record, Henry created the Rivera at the Hyatt Hotel in Merida, Mexico.

Henry’s drinks looked like little drinks. So, I wondered about trying a Tom Collins.

I think the Manhattan was kicking in. I was feeling a little silly. I was also thinking about ordering a Cosmopolitan. I felt I was bordering on being foolish.

Do men giggle when they get tipsy?

I did not think my girlfriends would appreciate coming to my rescue if I asked them to order drinks just so I could taste them and to prevent me from going under the table. Just what does that mean, going under the table? If I think about it for too long, it doesn’t sound like fun.

I gave up on the idea of ordering a Tom Collins and asked Henry to make a Cosmopolitan.

Henry had all the right ingredients, so I figured, let’s get this done.

Watching Henry reminds me of the time when I was a bar maid and I had to use a book to make drinks. My favorite customers would let me make any drink I wanted for them. I would go crazy, using the fanciest glasses, embellishing the rims, and adding  various garnishes.

The Cosmopolitan smelled like pink grapefruit. I see why people like it. It is not an overwhelming drink. It is not too citrusy or overly sweet. There is a faint taste of orange. I suspect Henry used pink grapefruit instead of cranberry juice.

To heck with the Tom Collins and Daiquiri.

I think vodka is sneaky. What is the opposite of a liquor connoisseur? I am not a connoisseur of anything, but, I have grown to like my mocktails. They are tasty, fun and refreshing and I won’t be going under any tables if I drink them.

Good thing I didn’t finish the Manhattan.

Now home to create more mocktails.

Here's my revised Boyhattan Mocktail recipe:

Wow! What a Soup! Tomato Souped! Up

Working on my new cookbook has presented some problems. One of them is I am eating too much and gaining weight. So, I switched my focus to soups because simple soups, in general, have less calories.

In addition, because I have purchased ingredients I do not normally stock, I have to get creative with the leftovers.

I had purchased a carton of tomato juice to make a Virgin Mary. But, I don’t drink tomato juice on a regular basis, so to use the remainder of the juice, I researched tomato soup recipes.

In my search, I came across the Hot Bloody Mary Soup recipe at BBC.com (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2604647/hot-bloody-mary-soup) and that sparked my interest.

But, in the end after reviewing many tomato soup recipes, I created a recipe by pulling ideas from at least nine recipes and making my own variations.

I am proud of my tomato soup recipe!

Tomato Souped! Up

(adapted from Creamy Tomato Soup, Cooks.oom)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 onion. diced

1 garlic clove, diced

3 cups tomato juice

1 cup water

1/2 vegetable or chicken bouillon cube

2 tablespoons basil, dry, crushed

1 capful lime juice concentrate or lime juice

2 small capfuls vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

3 tablespoons to 1 cup milk or cream cheese, cubes, per serving

Chunks of hard bread.

Process:

Add oil to skillet.

Add onions and garlic.

Cook medium-high until a majority of onions and garlic are browned.

Add tomato juice.

Add water.

Add bouillon.

Stir.

Add basil, lime juice, vinegar.

Stir.

Reduce heat, simmer 15 minutes.

Season to taste.

Stir.

Serve in a bowl.

Add milk or cream cheese cubes.

Stir.

Serve with chunks of hard bread.

Reheat in Microwave if desired.

Notes:

The browned onions and garlic added to flavor. I liked the cream cheese cubes partially melted, because they provided a cool, creamy contrast.

Variation: add paprika.

Walter Mosley and Thom Hartmann -- Two of My Favorite Writers -- Together Onscreen

Two of my favorite writers, Walter Mosley and Thom Hartmann are together, online, onscreen on Thom Hartmann's RT TV Show.

On Thom Hartmann’s show, "The Big Picture" (http://rt.com/shows/big-picture/), he has a special segment called “Conversations with Great Minds.” In this segment, he converses with Walter Mosley. I do not know the exact date of this particular show other than I uploaded them in May 2011.

Part 1: http://youtu.be/VCIoKLdFwBc

Part 2: http://youtu.be/izircly9WpY

Love is a funny word. It can have many meanings. I love the public personas of Walter Mosley and Thom Hartmann and the depth of their delicious, curious and intelligent minds.

First, I need to say, Walter Mosley (http://www.waltermosley.com/) is the only writer I have ever read who captures the intimate chemistry between words between people -- he touches that river where trust, love, fear, and joy shimmer and change in moments, especially in his mysteries featuring Easy Rawlings.

Mosley has also written several nonfiction books like The Twelve Steps Towards Political Revelation where he analyzes America's failing political system and offers the public suggestions for how to change our failed system.

I have not read the book yet but this book is part of Thom Hartmann and Walter Mosley’s conversation.

Mosley notes that Americans are miseducated exemplified by the fact that most Americans think that their only political activity is to vote, not realizing that they should be active in politics by participating in "town halls", by educating ourselves about our government and by making our opinions known to our politicians. He suggests an online or participatory town halls.

Another perspective Mosley describes is that there is no middle class, most Americans are working class.

He states we are not citizens, we are denizens because it is money that controls our political system.

He says we are fooling ourselves, because capitalism is killing us.

As I watched these two smart, educated, intellectually curious men converse, to me, sparks flew as their ideas lit up the screen.

Mosley also wants to find a way to use our technology to create a place for public dialogue.

Thom warns that neocons would hijack an online system and make it reflect a right-wing perspective just as neocons are actively re-writing Wikipedia to reflect their propaganda and to rewrite history with misinformation.

This post is just a brief glimpse of the conversation between Mosley and Hartmann.

Tuna Fish Sandwich and Homemade Croutons

I am running, screaming from the kitchen.

A “simple” tuna sandwich turned into an ordeal. I have too many recipe ideas in my head and too many tasks I have given myself.

I wanted to spice up my tuna sandwich and also make some croutons from a sack of leftover bread I had been collecting. Sounded simple.

As I was making the tuna mixture, I decided to add some green pepper. Looking in my frig for one green pepper caused an avalanche because I had so many items leftover from experimenting with other recipes, jars of  sauces and teas, bags of onions, potatoes, carrots, peppers, squash, celery and more, they all came spilling out. As I plucked the green pepper from the heap, I realized that I would have to cut up the whole pepper and freeze the remains.

I went forward cutting up the bread ends into cubes and tossing them in the skillet. I doused them with olive oil and and lots of oregano and stirred them frequently as they toasted.

As I had noted previously, Mexican tuna fish in cans is more soup than solid. So, rather than drain the oil and save it, I decided to add some croutons to soak up the oil. While I diced up the onion, green pepper and celery, the dirty dishes began to pile up. 

At first, I doubted the croutons would work but they did, they also disappeared into the tuna mixture. I ladled a few spoonfuls of the tuna mixture onto a kaiser roll and took a bite. Not bad, the oregano added a tang and I could not taste the bread per se. From about 10 bread ends, surprisingly, I only ended up with about 3/4 a small baggie of croutons.

Even though I tried to wash a few dishes as I went, the sink was still full of dirty dishes. I struggled to free a bottle of ginger ale from its plastic harness. It was so thick and tight even the scissors broke trying to cut it loose. But, soon I freed a bottle and with a glass of ice, I settled down to the tuna sandwich. Ginger ale is my favorite soda, so it made all the difference between a disaster and an eatable lunch.

But, boy, those dirty dishes are such a deterrent. I am going to rethink my budget to include a lot more eating out.

Tuna Fish Sandwich and Homemade Croutons

1 can tuna fish, drain if desired

1 heaping tablespoon mayo

1/4 red onion, diced

1/4 green pepper, diced

1/3 stalk of celery, diced

3 tablespoons, croutons (optional)

1 kaiser roll or bread slices

salt and pepper, season to taste.

Mix ingredients together (except kaiser roll or bread slices) in a small bowl or container with a cover.

Season to taste.

Ladle a few spoonfuls onto one half kaiser roll or slice of bread.

Top with second half of roll or slice of bread.

Cover remaining tuna mixture, store in frig.

Optional: serve on bed of lettuce instead of bread.

What to Do? (Chicken & Vegetables in Tomato Sauce)

I found this “recipe” for chicken in tomato sauce with the fewest instructions I have ever seen. The links did not lead to a fuller recipe. 

"ChooseMyPlate.gov ‏@MyPlateFast & #Easy= simmer skinless chicken breasts in tomato sauce with veggies & Italian seasonings Serve over pasta  http://ow.ly/uqpLc  "

So, into the wilderness, I went. Braving the unknown, I guessed at what the directions might have been.

Based on what I had on hand, this was my approach.

Chicken and Vegetables in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

2 skinned chicken legs (thigh and drumstick)

2 cups water

2 stalks celery, sliced into chunks

1 carrot, quartered in chunks

1 onion, quartered in chunks

1 potato, quartered in chunks

1 8 oz container of tomato sauce

2 tablespoons rosemary, crushed*

2 tablespoons thyme, crushed

2 tablespoons oregano, crushed

2 tablespoons Basil, crushed

salt and pepper, season to taste

1 small bag of pasta

*crush spices between your palms and sprinkle over dish

Process:

Put water into microwaveable casserole dish (with lid).

Put vegetables into dish.

Top with chicken legs.

Sprinkle spices over chicken and vegetables.

Pour tomato sauce over mixture.

Cover and microwave on high for 20 minutes.

While dish is cooking, make pasta.

When pasta is cooked, drain and set aside.

When mixture is cooked, spoon one serving of pasta onto a plate

Place one chicken leg on top of pasta.

Spoon vegetables and tomato sauce over chicken and pasta.

Use a fork to remove chicken meat from bone.

I divided the remaining mixture (after pulling chicken off the bones) into four containers and put three into the freezer.

I think I reached the "summit", let's raise the flag or a cup of tea to success.