January reading

In January I read 11 books, which is about average for me. Here they are, with my brief comments.

1. Mickey7 by Edward Ashton: Mickey is an "Expendable"--a person in this far future SF setting who's volunteered to take on very risky work on a colonization/terraforming mission in exchange for being regenerated with all his memories since his most recent backup when he dies. When we meet him, he's on his 7th body. It's a quick and enjoyable read, but I don't really agree with the reviews I read that compared it to Murderbot or The Martian--I just didn't engage with the characters and world to the same degree.

2. Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil by Oliver Darkshire: I'd have to call this a dark cozy fantasy. Homey, yet grim.

3. God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines: The author makes a good case than even evangelical or at least small-o orthodox Christians can and should accept committed, monogamous same-sex relationships, given that the vast majority of such believers have no problem condemning slavery, permitting usury, and accepting that they live in a heliocentric solar system.

4. Fate’s Bane by C.L. Clark: I knew going in that this sapphic romantic fantasy novella was going to be a tragedy, but oh how I hoped to be proven wrong.

5. Field Notes From an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin: A birding memoir with musings about the author's experiences as the child of Soviet Jewish immigrants living in Canada and the US.

6. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Anderson: This book has been on my TBR forever, and who knows how much longer it would've taken me to get to it if I hadn't needed something set in the 50s of any century for a LibraryThing challenge this month? I'm glad I finally picked it up, because it's an accessible deep dive into an important set of historical events I knew relatively little about going in.

7. Funny Story by Emily Henry: This story is like a novel-length episode of the Normal Gossip podcast--and I mean that entirely in a good way.

8. Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake: I definitely know more about fungi than I did upon starting this book, which gives me a new perspective on the living world around me.

9. Flush by Bryn Nelson: A book about human poop, focusing on its potential uses as a resource--mostly for agriculture, but also with discussions of things like fecal transplants and their surprising efficacy for a variety of gastrointestinal and autoimmune ills.

10. Faith After Doubt by Brian D. McLaren: An extremely relatable read for me, given my personal experience of starting out in evangelical Christianity/the nascent Religious Right--doubting and questioning pretty much everything but especially Young Earth Creationism and the idea that women weren't supposed to take on leadership in the church, the home, or society at large--then stepping away from church altogether for awhile, and ultimately finding a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. I'm still not sure of much of anything, but I want to love God (even if I'm not sure most days whether God even exists), love this wonderful, broken world, and love my neighbors. Oh, and I'm a lay preacher now.

11. We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian: This m/m historical romance set in late 1950s NYC is altogether delightful, with vivid, distinctive characters and a strong sense of time of place. I liked the second book in the series, You Should Be So Lucky a little bit better for the baseball of it all, but we're talking the difference between A+ and A++ here.

Cookbook Challenge # 4 - New Covent Garden Soup Co. Book of Soups

My husband Dylan and I first met in England in 1997. We were both volunteers with a program that placed young adults in their late teens through mid 20s for a year of volunteering with various churches and nonprofits, and we met as a pair of jet-lagged Americans at the international volunteers’ welcome conference. During our year there one of us—I’m pretty sure it was Dylan—either bought or was given New Covent Garden Soup Co.’s Book of Soups (1996). New Covent Garden made, and per Google apparently still makes, the sort of higher-end prepared soups that are sold in cartons rather than cans in grocery stores. And this cookbook is just what is says on the tin/carton: a collection of soup recipes.

Because of this, I just made one recipe this week, since I couldn’t really do a main and a side or a main and dessert. (There are a couple of dessert soups, but most of them relied on currently out-of-season fruit like berries and melons.) I selected Lentil and Lemon Soup, because it was straightforward, quick, didn’t require much chopping, and made good use of our extensive stock of dried beans and canned tomatoes. It turned out simple and tasty, when paired with garlic bread a nourishing Sunday evening dinner on a cold night in a troubled world.

Lentil and Lemon Soup

• 2 T extra virgin olive oil

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 1 garlic clove, crushed (I used a teaspoon of jarred minced garlic—what a chef I follow on TikTok calls “jarlic”)

• 150g/5 oz red lentils, rinsed

• 570 ml/1 pint vegetable sotck

• 1 400g/14 oz tin chopped tomatoes (I used a 14.5 oz can diced)

• 2 tsp tomato puree (I wasn’t sure whether this was closer to tomato sauce or paste, but I went with paste because I figured it was a stronger flavor)

• 2 T finely chopped fresh thyme

• salt and freshly ground black pepper

• juice of 1/2 lemon, or to taste (ordinarily I’m a fresh lemon juice snob, but we have a bottle of lemon juice in the fridge from when Dylan was making quince jam this year, and I’m trying to be frugal so I used several generous splashes)

Heat the oil and cook the onion and garlic gently for 10 minutes without coloring. (Which I assumed meant at a low enough heat that the onions didn’t start to brown.) And the lentils and stir to coat well in the oil. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, and 3/4 of the thyme. Bring back to the boil and simmer covered for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste for seasoning and add the remaining thyme. Add the lemon juice little by little to taste.

Cookbook Challenge # 3 - Betty Crocker’s Cookbook (1978)

Some of the cookbooks on The Shelf are family inheritances—including three separate editions of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, all of which my husband and I claimed when clearing out his mother’s house after she passed away a few years ago. This is the newest of the bunch, with the other two copyrighted 1969 and 1950.

Of course, 1978 isn’t exactly recent (she says with a wince, given that she was alive and in elementary school at the time). This cookbook mostly features plain, hearty American fare, heavy on the roasts and casseroles. There’s barely any pasta to be found, and beef rather than chicken is the protein source featured most prominently. Really, it’s got me looking at the older cookbooks on my shelf with some trepidation.

Since this doesn’t really reflect how we eat in this Year of Our Lord of 2026, it took me some time to settle on what to cook. I finally decided to focus on frugality, choosing recipes that would allow me to take advantage of ingredients already in my pantry or freezer—specifically half a bag of lentils, a pie crust, and a pound of ground beef. So last night’s dinner was Beef-Lentil Soup with a dessert of Southern Peanut Butter Pie. And they were…surprisingly good, as it turns out. The soup was plain and hearty in a good way, though I think if you left out the optional red wine it would be too bland. The pie was a bit one-note, sort of like if a peanut butter cookie or peanut brittle became a pie. If I make it again, I’ll throw in some chocolate chips or make a chocolate sauce to go with—sort of an homage to those “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” Reese’s commercials of roughly this cookbook’s vintage!

Beef-Lentil Soup

• 1 lb hamburger

• 1 med onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• 1 4 oz can mushrooms stems and pieces (I’m sure fresh would also work, but I went with canned because authenticity and also it was cheaper)

• 1 16 oz can stewed tomatoes (I used 14.5 oz because I guess at some point the standard medium can size changed?)

• 1 med stalk celery, sliced (about 1/2 cup)

• 1 large carrot, sliced (about 3/4 cup)

• 6 oz dried lentils (about 1 cup)

• 3 cups water

• 1/4 cup red wine (optional)

• 1 bay leaf

• 2 T snipped parsley (I think snipped = fresh? That’s what I used, anyway)

• 2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp instant beef bouillon (I used Better Than Bouillon base, which I think is roughly the same thing, but I’m sure you could use a dried bouillon cube or just replace some or all of the water with beef broth)

• 1/4 tsp pepper

Cook and stir hamburger, onion, and garlic in Dutch oven until hamburger is light brown; drain. (Since hamburger runs leaner these days, I used a splash of canola oil and didn’t drain. I also went ahead and added the salt and pepper earlier than instructed.) Stir in mushrooms (with liquid) and remaining ingredients. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender, about 40 minutes.

Southern Peanut Butter Pie

• Pastry for a 9-inch one crust pie

• 2/3 cup sugar

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 cup dark corn syrup

• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

• 3 eggs

• 1 cup salted peanuts

Heat oven to 375. Beat sugar, salt, corn syrup, peanut butter, and eggs; stir in peanuts. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate.

Bake until crust is golden brown, 40 to 50 minutes. (Center of filling may be slightly soft but will become firm as pie cools.) Cool slightly; refrigerate. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

Cookbook Challenge # 2 - The Best Recipes in the World

The second step on my long journey through my cookbook shelf was The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman (2005). I have several Bittman books, since his recipes tend to be reliable and readily achievable by a reasonably experienced but not expert-level home cook. This is one of his more encyclopedic tomes, and as full of variety as the title suggests, though it skews heavily toward the well-known world cuisines. Lots of French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Mexican, a good amount of Korean, Spanish, Indian, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern, and not so much of anything else. Personally, I’d love to find a cookbook like this, but focused on the hidden gems of lesser-known cuisines.

And originally I’d hoped to go as off the beaten path as I could. However, this was a long, stressful week, so I decided to go for something that was fairly straightforward and that used some of the boneless, skinless chicken thighs I stocked up on last time I was at Costco. I chose two Chinese recipes—Spicy Cold Celery (which I forgot to photograph) and Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn. The latter is a Hong Kong recipe that apparently reflects some of the East-West fusion of that city and allowed me to feel like I was being at least a tiny bit more adventurous than if I’d chosen, say, Kung Pao Chicken or Chicken Teriyaki.

Both recipes were pretty good. Spicy Cold Celery is similar to the kind of quick pickle or salad I often make with cucumber, and I can easily see myself making it again, though I might replace the sesame oil with more vinegar or lemon or lime juice. As for the chicken, it looked weirder than it tasted, and I liked it enough to save the leftovers for lunch. I agree with Bittman’s note: “It’s not fancy, but it’s a good home-cooked dish, quick, easy, and convenient.”

Spicy Cold Celery

• 1 pound celery stalks

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp sugar

• 3 Tbsp dark sesame oil

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 2 tsp vinegar, preferably rice or cider (I used rice)

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 1 tsp chili oil, optional

Cut the celery into 2-inch lengths. Mix with the salt and 1 tsp sugar and set aside while you whisk together the remaining ingredients.

Rinse, drain, and pat dry the celery, then toss with the dressing. Let stand in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours and up to a day. Serve chilled. Serves 4.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into roughly 1-inch chunks.

• 2 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp dark sesame oil

• 1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine, dry sherry, or white wine (I used white wine)

• 2 Tbsp neutral oil

• 1 Tbsp minced garlic

• 1 Tbsp peeled and minced ginger

• 1 small fresh chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced, or hot red pepper flakes to taste (I used a jalapeno)

• 1 15 oz can creamed corn

• 1 cup fresh, frozen, or canned corn kernels (I used canned)

• Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish

In a small bowl, mix the chicken with the soy sauce, sesame oil, and wine. Marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.

Put the oil in a deep skillet or large wok, and turn the heat to high. Drain the chicken. When the oil is hot, add the chicken to the skillet and cook, undisturbed, until the bottom browns, about 2 minutes. Stir once or twice and cook for another 2 minutes. Turn the heat to medium-low.

Add the garlic, ginger, and chile and stir; 15 seconds later, add both types of corn. Cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, 3-4 minutes. Garnish with cilantro and serve over rice.

Note: As I often find with Bittman’s recipes, this was a bit under-seasoned. Use a heavy hand with the cilantro, be prepared to add more soy sauce or salt, and have your hot sauce bottle handy.

Cookbook Challenge # 1 - Betty Crocker’s Old-Fashioned Desserts

My husband and I have a lot of cookbooks. Like, they almost fill a full-sized Billy bookshelf. Sure, astute observers may notice that not every single book in that image is a cookbook, but they for sure predominate.

It’d be one thing if we consulted them on a daily or weekly basis as we plan our meals, but we don’t. I have favorite recipes in a few of them, easily identifiable by spill-stained pages, but usually if I want to cook something specific I’ll just google “vegetarian chili” or “recipes with boneless skinless chicken thighs” or whatever. And at a guess, I’d say I’ve never made anything at all from at least half of them.

I feel a bit guilty about that, but somehow the cookbooks always stay on the shelf whenever I’m having a downsizing fit. And I think Marie Kondo would approve, because having them there to look at, and occasionally pull off the shelf and page through, sparks joy.

So one of my resolutions for 2026 is to begin cooking my way through this bounty. In a fit of nerdy hyperfocus, I made a list of all the cookbooks and randomized it. For each book, I’m going to try to cook two recipes, at least one of which is new to me. While the goal is to do a cookbook per week, I know I’m going to miss weeks here and there between travel, holidays, and life and general. Which is fine by me—this is supposed to be a fun project, not a chore!

And the randomly selected first book is Betty Crocker’s Old-Fashioned Desserts (1992). I picked it up off the bargain counter at the Border’s in Center City Philadelphia in ‘93 or ‘94, and I’ve often paged through it lovingly, admiring the color photos and the sidebars on baking history…but somehow I’d never actually MADE any of it.

My two chosen recipes were Eggnog Pound Cake and Maple-baked Winter Pears, which I combined into a single plate and served as dessert tonight after a simple dinner of chicken caesar salad and garlic bread.

Both turned out…pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but sweet and soothing. Old-fashioned, you might say. I might make the pear recipe again, since it’s a super-simple way to make something of a treat out of a fruit I’ve never much cared for in its raw state. As for the cake, it’s way better than any grocery store pound cake, but it lacks the rich buttery density and moistness of my mom’s favorite recipe (which is in one of those cookbooks on the shelf, and I dearly hope I either remembered to mark it or one of my brothers or sisters-in-law did in their copies).

Maple-baked Winter Pears

• 6 pears, pared, cut in half and cored (I used half this amount but the full amount of the sauce ingredients)

• 1/2 c packed brown sugar

• 1/3 c maple sugar

• 1/4 c water

• 2 tsp grated lemon peel

• 1/8 tsp ground ginger

  Heat oven to 350. Place pears, cut sides down, in ungreased rectangular pan, 13x9x2 inches. Mix remaining ingredients. Pour over pears. Bake uncovered, 20 to 25 minutes, brushing pears occasionally with syrup, until tender. Serve warm.

Eggnog Pound Cake

• 1 c sugar

• 1/2 c butter, softened

• 2 Tbsp rum

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 5 egg yolks

• 1 3/4 c all-purposed flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 3/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

• 3/4 c milk

Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches. Beat sugar, butter, rum, vanilla, and egg yolks in large bowl on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed 5 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg alternately with milk on low speed. Pour into pan.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely.

My 2025 reading

Going into 2026, I’m planning to do monthly updates on what I’m reading. But for now, here’s a list of the books I loved best out of the 150 I read this year, listed in the order I read them. (Yes, I really do read that much, though the count includes novellas and even novelettes.)

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams. This is on the surface a paranormal romance, but a unique one, written from a semi-omniscient POV that's unusual in modern genre fiction but gives a certain mythical once-upon-a-time feel that really works for it.

How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz. A rare self-help book, in that I’ve actually been applying its lessons on how to thrive and find joy in wintertime as I go through what we in Seattle refer to as The Great Dark. Currently, 10 days or so after the solstice, the sun is rising around 8 AM and setting before 4:30 PM.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. This science fiction novel is the only case I know of where my fiction tastes have overlapped with Barack Obama’s—it made his Summer 2024 reading list. (In nonfiction we’re more alike.)

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. Just your average horror-fantasy monster-slaying romance written from the perspective of the monster.

Who Is Government? ed. by Michael Lewis. A beautiful look at some of the extraordinary yet ordinary employees of the US government. Unfortunately it was also a depressing look, given the current state of things.

The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko. I really enjoyed this YA fantasy novel with an ordinary, humble heroine who (mostly) stays ordinary even as she comes into her voice and confidence.

The Scapegracers and its sequels by H.A. Clarke. What a fun, twisty, chaotic YA horror-fantasy!

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold. A lovely novella in the long-running Penric & Desdemona fantasy series, and an excuse for a comfort re-read of most of the earlier entries in the series.

Hemlock & Silver by T Kingfisher. While I will read Kingfisher's horror novels, I'm always happiest when she writes books like this, fantasy with a nice thread of romance and just a smidge of horror here and there.

The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy. A fantasy novel about a band of feral cats in Delhi--it reminded me of the Warrior Cats series my son loved as a child, only much more elegantly written and grounded in its setting.

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis. A delightful and rather cozy fantasy about a mundane mother who has to try to make a place for her family in a snooty, competitive magical town after her daughter is bitten by a werewolf and can no longer attend a "normal" school.

Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan. A portal fantasy where a young woman on the verge of death from cancer is granted a chance to live in the world of a popular dark fantasy series, only to find herself playing the role of one of the main villains. It's dark, bloody, and often hilarious, and I've already preordered the sequel that's due out next spring.

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian. An utterly heartwarming m/m baseball romance set in NYC in 1960.

A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry. What if the French and Haitian Revolutions, but with necromancers, vampires, weather mages, and the like, many of whom will be very familiar from the pages of your history books or your hours spent listening to Mike Duncan’s podcasts?

A blog? In THIS economy?!

I realized recently that I really miss blogging—having a public journal where I can talk about topics that interest me (and hopefully other people!) at greater length than I can on BlueSky or similar sites. I considered vlogging, since I certainly enjoy watching other people’s YouTube and TikTok videos. However, I don’t really want to learn video editing or to have to worry about the best lighting and most flattering camera angles just to be able to talk about what books I’ve read lately or the really cool bird I saw at the arboretum…so blogging it is, even if that makes me something of a (non-avian and therefore extinct) dinosaur.