TBR Challenge Books #4 and #5

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope (#4)

A woman breaks off an engagement to the man she loves; another, unhappy in marriage, is drawn to an old lover; and a rich widow decides between two very different suitors. Trollope's lengthy novel, originally published in serial form in the 1860s, looks at the state of marriage with an eye that's in turn serious, melodramatic and comedic.

Trollope intersperses the stories of Alice, Glencora and Mrs Greenow with some satirically sharp jabs at the British aristocracy and political life. Clever and cynical as these chapters are, the real heart of the story is with the three women.

Although the narrator asks us, solemnly, if we can forgive these unconventional heroines, my question is - what's to forgive? I'd say the narrator is Trollope himself, except that the three lead and several supporting women characters seem so much more flawed and complex and human than the sanctimonious narrator.

Though the book rambles and lacks focus at times, and the storylines wrap up waaaay too neatly, it's a fairly easy read for an 800-page C19th doorstopper, landing somewhere in the spectrum between one of the lighter-hearted Dickens and George Eliot's Middlemarch. The next time I've whittled my to-be-read pile down to something manageable, so perhaps some time in my retirement, I'll happily try some further Trollope novels.

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits by Emma Donoghue (#5)

Currently in the spotlight as author of the much-lauded The Room, I'm more familiar with Donoghue as a writer of short stories. Her book of fairytale retellings, Kissing The Witch, is a good read if you like them Angela Carter-style.

The 17 short stories of this collection are each based in English and Irish history of the last millenium, focusing on often obscure episodes and forgotten supporting players. The title story, for instance, is told from the point of view of a woman jailed in the 1700s for conning the public into believing she - well, you know. The other stories cover a range of topics as diverse as pioneer animal rights activists, religious cults, king's mistresses and witch-burnings.

Linked roughly in geography and time, most of the stories are linked thematically as well through Donoghue's depiction of the female body through the ages: as commodity; as a site of contested or hidden identity; in terms of disease and physical strangeness. For almost all these stories, I found the premise interesting - in execution, however, Donoghue was as much hit as miss. While conceptually great many of these felt half-baked and underdeveloped.


My 12 books for the 2011 TBR Challenge

Food photos and fish tacos

Saturday night was one of the hottest in recent memory - perhaps not the best night to be dressed up to the nines for a 7 course meal? But when the occasion is a friend's birthday and the catering is by roving underground resturant Transient Diner, in their last dinner ever, it's going to be good times regardless of the weather.



Transient Diner pulled off a really lovely meal for their finale, and the venue was stunning - a three-storey converted warehouse in Camperdown with beautiful wooden floors and furniture, internal courtyard, and indoor pool. Very, very swanky. The dish above was the final course: a three-milk cake with peach puree.



I also loved loved loved the quinoa, lentil, vegetable and oyster dish; and the chocolate mousse cake above was great.



And here's the birthday cake for the awesome birthday boy and girl - a macaron tower, half jasmine flavoured and half passionfruit. Though it melted somewhat in the heat, it looked amazing and tasted like sweet, sweet birthday partying. NOM.


Now for something completely different:


There's been a bit of a surge in American style diners in the past year or so - the late and beloved South, Eathouse in Redfern, and Jazz City Diner in Darlinghurst to name a few. The Stuffed Beaver in Bondi is one of the newest additions, serving old-school diner food - burger, hot dog, tacos, hot wings, you get the deal. Fun place to visit, pretty good food, and their cocktails are not bad at all. Above is a picture of their fish tacos. And here's something roughly inspired by the same.


Fish Tacos with Avocado Salsa

8 taco shells
600g bream fish fillets (or other white fish, e.g. whiting or flathead)
Cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tbsp oil
100g rocket leaves

Salsa:
1 green capsicum, diced
1 avocado, peeled and diced
1 tbsp jalapeno chillies (I subbed in birdseye chilli)
1/2 red onion, finely sliced
2 tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp fresh coriander
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp olive oil


Combine the avocado, capsicum, chillis, tomato and onion. Mix the coriander, garlic, cumin, lime juice, salt and pepper and beat well. Combine and toss the salsa.

Prepare your taco shells - heat in the oven or microwave.

Dust the fish fillets with cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper. Sear in a pan, on both sides of the fillet, until golden and cooked through. Remove and break the fish into bite-sized pieces.

Fill the shells with rocket, fish, then salsa and serve.

From Jill Dupleix's Summer Food

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (2011 TBR Challenge #3)

In 1913, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. Ninety years later, her granddaughter Cassandra will journey back to England to unravel the mystery of her family’s past. The story moves back and forth from present to past, revealing a story of a secret garden, a mysterious lady authoress, a supposed family curse and two cousins who quarrel.

The book is a brick at 554 pages but it's an easy, quick read. Morton handles the timelines and point-of-view switches reasonably well, and I particularly liked the way she uses rather melancholy, lovely nested fairytales inside the narrative.

However, mostly this felt like something I'd read before. This is partly deliberate, I guess, as Morton wears her references on her sleeves. The plot bears more than a passing resemblance to AS Byatt's Possession and Frances Hodgson-Burnett herself, author of The Secret Garden, appears briefly as a party guest. But all references aside, I doubt it was Morton's intention that the central mystery of the story doesn't feel much like a mystery at all.

My 12 books for the 2011 TBR Challenge

Recent adventures in gluttony, or fooding photos

Firstly an improved and much more attractive Earl Grey Chiffon Cake! A co-production with Chengy which we were both very happy with. Between us, we made 3 chiffon cakes in a week and this one was the best. Then it was off to Melbourne.



The Press Club, Melbourne. Despite the celeb-spotting thrill we had in sighting in George Calombaris, who seemed very charming and friendly when taking time out to sign some cookbooks for kids, overall this was a disappointing experience. The fish dish pictured was nice but there were also some truly 'meh' courses.



Verge on the other hand was fabulous. We only went for tea and dessert but every dish looked spectacular and the two I tasted were great. This is berries and chamomile, sorrel, and lemon curd on a brioche - amazing and delicious.



Serving classic, elegant and simple Japanese food, Tempura Hajime was a really lovely experience in every way. My favourite Melbourne dining experience.



The dishes at Jacques Reymond were all skillfully prepared and plated, and every dish was challenging and thoughtful. But it was a mixed experience - some of these dishes just didn't work. Here's a sandwich of spanner crab, mirin and fresh wasabi jelly, lacquered Petuna ocean trout, black bean and sweetcorn dressing. It looked great and it had great elements, but it didn't come together as a whole.



Finally we return to Sydney with the Lunar New Year Markets at Belmore Park. Food was a bit hit and miss but who cares when you get giant bunnies made out of recycled bottles and cooking demonstrations from Hong Kong celebrity chefs!

The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon by William Thackeray (2011 TBR Challenge #2)

After downing his first man in a duel at the age of fifteen, young Barry flees Ireland to become a soldier in the Seven Years' War. In later years he'll become a gambler, a fortune hunter, and finally, to his great satisfaction, a lord. A thoroughly unreliable narrator, Barry claims nobility and honour and love in one breath, and in the next will describe his cheats, deceptions, and base villainy.

Also known as The Luck of Barry Lyndon, this is a book I've been putting it off for four or five years. As usual it was nothing like as scary as I'd feared. Told in the first-person and in a style I'm informed is picaresque, this is a blackly funny and razor-sharp satire that leaves no one unscathed, whether rich or poor, Irish or English or Prussian, man or woman.

Barry himself is one of the greatest rogues and scoundrels ever set to the page. His story reminded me of both Fielding's Tom Jones and Thackeray's own Vanity Fair in its scope, cynicism and humour. Often, Thackeray just made me laugh. Here's his depiction of two lovers' banter, from early in the book:

"No, Norelia," said the Captain (for it was the fashion of those times for lovers to call themselves by the most romantic names out of novels), "except for you and four others, I vow before all the gods, my heart has never felt the soft flame!"
"Ah! You men, you men, Eugenio!" said she ... "your passion is not equal to ours. We are like – like some plant I've read of – we bear but one flower and then we die!"

In the same vein here's young Barry:

"Mark this: come what will of it, I swear I'll fight the man who pretends to the hand of Nora Brady. I'll follow him, if it's into the church, and meet him there. I'll have his blood, or he shall have mine; and this riband shall be found dyed in it. Yet and if I'll kill him, I'll pin it on his breast, and then she may go and take back her token." This I said because I was very much excited at the time, and because I had not read novels and romantic plays for nothing.

But it's not all fun and games. There's some powerful commentary too on the grim reality of war, and at times Thackeray's depiction of a corrupt world seems unrelentingly cynical - Barry's own opportunism and selfishness is matched only by the greed and dishonour of those around him. However, as the book progresses his deeds grow blacker and blacker, his delusions of grandeur and blindness to his own flaws ever greater, and at last he tips over the edge from anti-hero to villain.

Despite the darkness of the later stages of the book and some minor quibbles (some totally unnecessary footnoting from Thackeray), this is a great journey with a great character. Just one more quote, one that made me LOL:

"But listen: you are an Englishman?"
"That I am," said the fellow, with an air of the utmost superiority. "Your honour could tell that by my haccent."
I knew he was and therefore might offer him a bribe.

My 12 books for the 2011 TBR Challenge