On Recommendations

You have to give some thought and considerations, before recommending a book to someone.  No matter how wonderful or amazing you might consider a book to be, there will still be some people who read it and think "Meh".. and there will  be others who might start it, but not finish it.. or might not even pick the book up at all. It's not just about the book, it's about the reader.

I read a lot of books, and I have a friend - essentially the same age, and the same profession - who also reads a lot of books.  We've tried to recommend books to each other.. and it nearly always fails. It took us awhile - and a lot of discarded books - to figure this out, but we've now come to terms with the fact that the Venn diagram of the books he likes, and the books I like, would have a very small overlap.  That overlap does indeed exist, but it's quite small.  So while we continue to tell each "I just finished a really good book", it's most often followed by "but you wouldn't like it."

On the other hand, I know someone else who reads a lot of books and we frequently recommend titles to each other, and 99% of the time those recommendations are spot on.  Maybe even 99.5%.  On a couple of occasions, we've actually recommended the same title to each other at the same time. We're not too far apart in age, but our professions and our lifestyles are very different from each other... yet our reading tastes are very closely aligned.

I have a young niece, and over the years, I've given her quite a number of books as gifts.  I received a phone call from her a few months ago....  "Aunt Laurie, I'm at the library, and they don't have the book I was going to get, so I thought I'd see if you had any recommendations."
Wow.
I was delighted, of course... but there was also a lot of pressure.  We'd shifted from - "Here's a present for you,... Oh, thank you," to .. what do you recommend?  I began by telling her that I could only recommend something, if I knew what she liked.. and I asked her about the last few books I'd given her.  She was rather shy about admitting that she hadn't liked some of them... but I assured her that this was okay and it wouldn't hurt my feelings, and that knowing both her likes and dislikes would help me recommend something new.

And this, of course, is the important thing. There are a gazillion lists out there... with titles such as "25 Books to Read Before You Die",  "The Top 50 Greatest Fiction Books of All Time",  "The 10 Best New Books of 2018"... and many, many more. But unless you created the list, odds are high that you will disagree with at least one title on that list.
And this is okay.
It doesn't mean you're wrong or that the list is wrong, it just means that someone other than you prepared the list.

Having said that -- I thought I'd share some book titles with you.  I'm not suggesting you have to read these before you die, or that they're the greatest of all time, or even the greatest of this year.... and I'm not even suggesting that you will like them.  I'm merely saying that I liked them. If you haven't already read them, or looked at them and concluded you wouldn't like them... you might want to consider them -- or not.
"Sleeping Beauties", by Stephen King and Jonathan Hill.  I'm generally leery of collaborations; usually you can figure out who wrote which section, which means you start looking for those dividing lines.  But I like Stephen King, and I know Jonathan Hill is one of his sons, and I was curious to see how this collaboration would work.  There's no question that the very beginning of the book doesn't 'feel' like a King.. but nonetheless it made me want to read more.  And it wasn't very long before I forgot to try to discern who wrote what, because it was pretty darned seamless.  And it was a great story.  And if you want to find it, there is a lot of social commentary on our times and the book really makes you think.. but I think you could also ignore that and just enjoy the story if you wanted. A successful collaboration, a great read.
"An Easy Death", by Charlaine Harris.  I was  familiar with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie is a cocktail waitress in Louisiana. She can read minds, and many of her friends are vampires and were-animals. Yes, it's brain-candy.. it's pretty mindless stuff, but it's entertaining.  So when I saw a title by Harris that I hadn't read, I decided I was in the mood for fluff and I grabbed it without reading the back jacket. "An Easy Death" is not part of the Stackhouse series. Instead, it's kind of a combination of Old West (think 'gunslingers and wagon trains') and wizards, with a nod to some czarist Russian history.  And it's good, it's really good.  I found myself thinking about the characters, days after I'd finished reading the book.  I was delighted to see that it appears this is a new series, with at least one more book planned.
"The Old Man", by Thomas Perry.  Thomas Perry has written a lot of books.. including the Jane Whitefield series and the Butcher Boy series, and he's also written a lot of stand-alone titles.  This one is a stand-alone.  The title character is not really that old ... well, he's my age. And he doesn't think of himself as an old man, although he notes that his daughter does. But don't mistake this book as a soft, warm, cuddly, character-study.  It's an adventure/spy/suspense book with lots of intense moments.. and a lot of the other characters underestimate the main character, partly because of his age.  Very well-written, my favorite Thomas Perry book by far. As I said, this is a stand-alone... but I wish Perry would follow up with another story with this character.

Are these my favorite books of all time? No, although they're pretty good.  Are they my favorites from this year?  Hmmm, not sure, but they are the three that popped into my head first. Am I recommending them?  Of course not, I don't know your reading likes/dislikes.  But you might want to take a look at them.  Am I drinking my favorite tea as I write this?  Of course I am.  But then, you already knew that.

PSA

I just came across an email in my inbox with the subject line 10 Potato Recipes Everyone Should Know.   And frankly, this has me looking over my shoulder to see if someone is watching me,  if perhaps Alexa or Siri are listening in and tattling on me.  It's either a huge coincidence, or I'm being spied upon.  And I'm certain that it must be the latter.

Since I'm clearly being spied on anyway, let me share a confession with you, a bit of a PSA.  No, I don't mean Public Service Announcement... although perhaps that would apply as well.  I mean Potato Spoilage Advice.

In my kitchen, I have a drawer where I keep onions (red and yellow) and potatoes (sweet and Yukon Gold).  It's a cool, dark, dry place.  And it's convenient.  And it's never been a problem before, although I have recently read that you should keep your onions and potatoes separated, because the onions will make the potatoes sprout.  And while I often digress in my Teapot Musings... this time it's not a digression.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to throw some sliced red onions on the grill.  I opened my onion-potato drawer, and peered inside.  All seemed well.  I had 2 red onions, 1 sweet potato, and a bag of Yukon Gold potatoes.  The potatoes on the top of the bag were clearly firm, and without sprouts.  To better reach the red onions, I picked up the bag of potatoes, which is when my whole world exploded.

Hmmm, I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration.  But it is accurate to say that the potatoes that had been on the bottom exploded, and I found myself holding a dripping bag of potato soup... with a couple of Very Sneaky normal-looking potatoes sitting on the top to fool me into thinking all was well with the world.
 



And of course the smell. There had been no odor at all when I opened the drawer, with the exception of a very slight aroma from the red onions.  But now that the potatoes had exploded... everything reeked.



But I'm not just posting to tell you my sad story, I'm here to tell you how the reek issue was finally resolved.  I suppose that would make this a PSA PSA.

First, everything needs to be washed.  That's not going to take care of the odor... it doesn't even come close... but it's a critical first step.  In my case, this included the drawer, the drawer above it and its contents, as well as  the cabinet the drawer slid into.

Next, I wiped down both drawers and the cabinet with vinegar.  Then I sprinkled baking soda everywhere and let it sit overnight.  Then I cleaned up the baking soda -- which smelled, of course, but that was a good sign.  Gave the sniff taste, and wiped everything down again with vinegar.  And then baking soda.  And then vinegar. and then baking soda. 

And after the fourth or fifth time, I deemed the cabinet and the drawer above the potato drawer, to be usable once again.  It took another week, with many more rounds of vinegar and baking soda, but I have finally declared the potato drawer to be odor free, and have returned it to its place in the cabinet.

Which brings me back to the post with potato recipes, and the serious underlying message. If you have potatoes, you need to cook potatoes.  And since tea is my answer to everything, I've manage to locate a recipe for tea-infused potatoes.

Hmmm... sounds interesting.  I'll give it some thought as I drink another cup of tea.

..but I LIKE carrots!

I eat carrots.   I eat a LOT of carrots... I mean REALLY a LOT of carrots. Not the cooked ones, mind you.. but the raw ones. 









When I first started eating carrots, it was largely because I was trying to lose weight.  Carrots make a great snack.  They're crunchy... they have a slightly sweet flavor...and they have very few calories.  But over time, I realized that there were even more positive attributes to this orange vegetable.... they don't get smashed in the bottom of your lunch bag, they last a long time before they go bad, they're inexpensive... and most importantly, I really like the taste of carrots.  And if you buy the pre-washed baby carrots, they're really easy... you don't peel, you don't cut, you don't wash... you just open the bag and reach in.

My husband doesn't eat carrots - at least not raw carrots.  It's not so much that he doesn't like them, it's more that he prefers fruit - almost any fruit - to vegetables. 
But I digress... let's get back to carrots.

As I was saying... I eat a lot of carrots.  In a typical week, I probably go through two big bags of carrots. And as my items are moving along on the conveyor belt in the grocery store... I sometimes wonder what the cashier is thinking about my order.  ("Hmmm, two bags of carrots, a large jar of pickles, and a jar of yeast.  That's an odd recipe.")  But then I realize that the cashier probably doesn't care about my grocery order, and instead is thinking about the movie they're going to see that weekend, or whether they have to stop and fill up their gas tank before they go home.

Except that I just came across an article about grocery store customers in the UK and Australia.  Apparently, the self-serve kiosks are far more plentiful there than they are here.  At least in the grocery stores that I frequent, there are only a few self-serve registers ... and it always seems a bit silly as there is nearly always at least one employee hovering around to help out and keep an eye on things.

A recent study of self-checkout machines in Australia and Great Britain revealed that  -- according to the register receipts -- people are buying pounds and Pounds and POUNDS ..... of carrots!  In fact, people are buying more carrots than the stores have!!! 

Well obviously people aren't buying more carrots than the store has in stock.  But it turns out that they're buying expensive things like avocados, and berries, and exotic or out-of-season fruits and vegetables... and ringing them up as carrots. 

Frankly, it never occurred to me to do that -- although, as I said, there always seems to be an employee hovering about the self-serve registers.  And besides that, you wouldn't think it would really make that much of a difference in the whole scheme of things. 

But I guess it does. 

The report noted that this tactic resulted in a loss to British grocery stores to the tune of 1 million dollars per year.  My, that IS a lot of carrots.  And don't think that the British are taking this matter lying down.  Some fellow was charged with stealing almost $600 worth of groceries over a three month period of time, by ringing up expensive produce as "loose onions".  Clearly, he should have used "carrots"... one reason why he was caught was that the particular grocery store he was frequenting didn't even sell loose onions.

Just in case anyone out there has been taking note of my grocery store receipts, and they've noticed the larger-than-typical amount of carrots in my purchases... please know that I like carrots, I really do.  And when my receipt says carrots, you can be sure I bought carrots.

I also like tea.  And although my favorite tea (Typhoo) comes from the UK, I would NEVER ring up my tea, as carrots.