Saturday Morning Walker - June 25, 2006

Hi everyone,
Our walk yesterday morning was lovely until, as Barb predicted, mosquitoes joined us - definitely made us walk faster!
Book reports for the week:
From Mary:
Janet Evanovich's series of Stephanie Plum mystery novels - she just read the latest in the series, Twelve Sharp - apparently you must start with the beginning of the series, One for the Money
From Jan:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Amazon.comIn this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Barb:
Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies - a children's book that was reviewed this morning on NPR - I just went out to get it for Jacob and its a wonderful story with great illustrations - I'll let you know Jacob's review after we read it next weekend!
From School Library JournalPreSchool-Grade 3–This is the quintessential book about going to the beach complete with overflowing picnic baskets, kite flying, singing around the campfire, and scratchy sand in places where no sand should be. Kids will certainly identify with the exuberant and familiar fun, but what will get them howling is the fact that the characters are bats that are visiting the beach in the moonlight. The rhyming text is grounded in reality with many inventive twists to keep the imagination rolling. There is moon-tan lotion, salted 'skeeters, and bat kites. Where the book truly soars is in the dark yet luminescent art where bat wings glow in the light of the full moon and the sky is a steely blue. The faces on the bats are furry and friendly. These creatures use cocktail umbrellas for beach umbrellas; they hold wing-boat races in red-and-white checked food containers; and when it's time for a late-night snack, they enter the ice-cream shack where a lit light bulb attracts a multitude of succulent bugs. Readers may not be tempted to try marshmallows with bug legs and gossamer wings but that won't keep them from reveling in this grand adventure.–Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
From Susan:
Still working on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (on tape) - I'm just not in the car enough!
Am about to start on a book:
Katerina by Aharon Appelfeld
From Publishers WeeklyWith piercing clarity, Israeli novelist Appelfeld tells the profoundly moving story of Katerina, a Polish housekeeper who works for a succession of Jewish families in the years before WW II. Raised in a culture permeated with virulent anti-Semitism, she must constantly try to overcome the prejudice instilled by her bitter mother, who beat her, and her callous father, who attempted to rape her. One by one, Jewish people who are good to Katerina die: an employer murdered by thugs on Passover; a moody, perfectionistic female pianist. Then her own baby, whom she has raised as a Jew, is snatched from her arms and killed. For knifing her son's murderer, Katerina spends more than 40 years in prison. Other inmates cheer as freight trains take Jews to concentration camps. Released from prison, Katerina lives in a hut on her deceased family's deserted farm and, at age 79, narrates her life story, lamenting that "there are no more victims in the world, only murderers." A theme that might be didactic in the hands of a lesser novelist is here conveyed with moving, unpreachy simplicity. This masterful novel is a powerful study of the poison of prejudice, a poignant meditation on life's horrors, beauty and God's inscrutable ways. Appelfeld imbues every scene with deep humanity in a riveting tale of universal appeal.
Recipe for the week - my oldie but goodie - Noodle Kugel - I made it the other night for Friday night services at Scott Carpenter Park.
8 ounces medium width noodles, cooked
8 ounces fruit cocktail, drained
1 cup sugar
1 large can evaporated milk
8 ounces cottage cheese, small curd
1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon plus additional to sprinkle on top
1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix all of the above ingredients. Put into a 9 x 13 baking pan. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon to taste. Bake for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Yield: 1 pan
Notes: 12/7/01 I have successfully substituted lite fruit cocktail and non-fat evaporated milk, and liquid egg substitute with no noticeable difference.
Serving Ideas: Works as a side dish or dessert - good warm or at room temperature!

Restaurant find: Dish at 1918 Pearl Street - fabulous gourmet shop with wonderful sandwiches - limited seating.
Here's the review from the Daily Camera:
Stellar sandwiches
Boulder's Dish Gourmet does Dagwood proud
By Catherine Christiansen, Camera Restaurant CriticJune 9, 2006
The pickle summed it up: clean, crisp flavors of cucumber and brine, spices enhancing rather than knocking you over the head. It tasted like Grandma's homemade — if Grandma lived on East Pearl, that is. And had a groovy condo and wore yoga pants. With Grandpa in his feed store cap and some big white sunglasses.
A few friends and I did a little drooling over the wholesome menu at Dish Gourmet deli one Friday afternoon while settling in to watch the action. Aside from a Liberace light fixture, it's a cool, simple space in shades of avocado, tomato and creamy mustard. Sausages line the bright display case filled with salads, prepared foods and good selection of farmstead cheeses.