Long-time readers will know that I really admire the cookbooks of Beth Hensperger. First there was the 'Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook,' where she has managed to demonstrate how to properly use a bread machine to make real bread including sourdough and sponges and 'poolish' and all the other wonderful old-fashioned breadbaking techniques that go into making real bread. Then there was 'The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook,' which covers all things rice cooker from boiled rice to one-rice-cooker meals or deserts.

And now, right after all the discussion about the best way to use a crockpot (see the comments) comes 'Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook.' Needless to say, I'm ordering it now...


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It's been quite a while since I wrote up a recipe. Partly that is because I've started a new job. Partly it's been because THE book (see picture on the left) is still hanging fire at the printers. Basically when they entice you to get your book printed with them they neglect to mention that they charge a LOT extra to take credit cards and they take 7-9 business days to process regular checks. And they won't ship to you until you have paid in full AND they take their own sweet time about sending you the final invoice. So really there is almost another four week delay added in to the time they tell you it will take. Plus they took two weeks longer anyway!

So, although I have been cooking, it has been pretty standard stuff - the kind of thing I have written about before. I have lots of left over things to write about but I have to have time to dig out the pictures and rebuild my memory of the event and do on.

The big news is that I have a launch date for the book. May 21st at 11:30 to 2:00 or later at the Berkeley Farmers Market in conjunction with their strawberry tasting event. And May 22nd at 4PM at the Lafayette Book Store on Mt. Diablo Boulevard in Lafayette. There will be refreshments of some kind and everyone in invited to come and bring friends. Four of the authors will be there (me, Dr. Biggles, Stephanie and Ellen. It should be fun!
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Not this post, but the second edition of Blog appetit. The subject this time is lamb and fresh peas (agneau et petits pois). There are already 26 lovely-looking recipes up with more to come, plus the Blog appetit surprise twist of having a real Michelin-starred chef also make a dish. This time around it is Thierry Marx of Chateau Cordeillan Bages, Relais and Chateau de Pauillac en Gironde. And he whips up a lovely Carre d'agneau Domingo Reyes poele et sa mousse de petits pois, croustillant au parmesan (which I think is a Rack of Domingo Reyes lamb with petits pois mousse and parmesan crusts).

It is clear that the world of French food blogs is exploding. Maybe with this example and the IMBB phenomenon, Italian food blogs will also now take off.

I also wish my French were better...
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I have written here and elsewhere on occasion about how the traditional food media are not necessarily the best places to turn anymore for food writing. While there are absolutely brilliant restaurant reviewers among food bloggers, this is still one area where traditional media excel. A case in point is the perennial and mostly accurate 100 best Bay Area restaurants from the SF Chronicle. I'm not going to argue with a good 80% of this list and it is based on judgments from people with real experience. And the Chron has one of the best food sections in the country (the only other ones that measure up are the NYT and the LA Times). But they put 3 of the best 100 in my home town (a small suburb). I like all three restaurants mentioned. I go to one of them regularly and the others occasionally. But there are also other places I go to more and that I think are better. Maybe it is time I shone some light on that great little Pho cafe in Pleasant Hill? Maybe I should play up the tandoori joint in Concord more than I already have? But I don't really want to review restaurants. My food schtick is cooking it.

But back to my main point. I'm pretty sure that the Bay Area blogging community could come up with a 100 best that was a better than this one and that shone some light into the darkness of the unkown places that are hidden gems. Any takers anyone? I'd offer up the following as starter additions/changes: Restaurant Peony in Oakland, Tandoori Chicken USA in Concord, more to come later...
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You have to admire the effort that Viv puts in to her SeattleBonVivant blog. She posts multiple times per day and seems to cover just about everything. She has been a big supporter of the Paper Chef all along and was its first ever winner. So she didn't let a little thing like being on vacation completely derail her from taking part this last time - a week and a half ago. Instead she was just late - very late. But here is her entry at last - some delightful-looking endive, prosciutto and chevre bites as an appetizer.

And, looking at all the moblogging you are doing, all I can say is that even if you get to eat out at all those fancy places, I still can eat a home-made lamb, pear-chutney and arugula sandwich with the best of them...
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So, that lamb. I answered a question about it in the comments section of the 'Anticipation' entry below, but for those of you who don't read the comments (you should), here are the salient points again.

The lamb was falling apart soft. Has a great lamb flavor. The paprika and pepper were subsumed by the overall flavor. The sauce was just flat out rich with strong tomato and garlic/onion/leek components but after that the taste got too complex to break it down. I really liked it and will do it this way again. I am slowly learning that you need to add as little liquid as possible meat in crockpots.

The next part of this post was started by the commenter who asked about my crockpot experiences. They are mostly good because about four years ago Sunset published a great article with six recipes for crockpots that were all good and that's where I learned the 'start it or finish it' (or both) OUTSIDE the crockpot technique. One example was a lovely corned beef in beer mustard sauce where you cook the corned beef in the crockpot with beer and lots of spices and then take it out, cover it with a blend of honey and mustard and stick it in a hot oven until the honey/mustard starts to caramelize. If you can I'd take the crockpot back. I've heard that the same brand can differ from one to the next quite widely. We have a large (oval) Rival that has low and high settings. It can hold a whole chicken easily and maybe even two small ones.

So THAT comment spawned a 'never used my crockpot' comment from another reader (Kevin) about what kitchen gadgets never got used. First, though, let me say that a crockpot is really good for hot punch drinks at parties (hot mulled apple cider in the winter for example) and also for melting large amounts of chocolate.

As for gadgets. Crockpot - used when I want to make a big meal for the family but will be gone all day. Rice cooker - most frequently used and best value gadget of all time - we got ours for $3 new in a going out of business sale. Bread machine - used about the same as the crockpot - if I don't have time to hand bake the bread I do it overnight in the machine. Kitchen Aid - less used than it should be because we don't have a good place for it and it is trouble to move. Blender - frequent manufacturer of salsas, sauces and smoothies and more. Toaster - everyday. Electric kettle - multiple times per day. Ice cream maker - rarely used. Electric pasta maker - used in spurts - actually makes very good pasta but is a royal pain to clean. I think that is the majority of the electrical ones.

Non electric - too many to count.

So, what are all your gadgets and uses (don't mention obvious things like knives and microwaves)?
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I am looking forward to this evening. I got up at 6:30, pulled a butterflied leg of lamb out of the fridge, carefully patted it dry with a paper towel and rubbed it with garlic, salt, cajun spices and smoked paprika. Then I browned it on the stove on low while I made the kids' breakfasts and lunches (melon, scrambled eggs and toast for one and sausage, pear chutney and arugula sandwiches for the other). Then I removed it to the crockpot, rapidly softened three green garlics and a leek in the leftover oil, threw in half a cup of sherry to deglaze the pot and added all that to the crockpot. Then I stirred three tablespoons of thick tomato paste into the crockpot, set it on low and left. In 7 more hours I anticipate a very nice supper...
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I thought Fatemeh at Gastronomie had a really tough decision to make this time. There ended up being 15 entries from 12 different blogs and I can safely say that I would be happy making, serving and eating every single one of the entries (not all of them were entrees - bada-boom).

However, Fatemeh had a decision to make and make it she did. You can find her decision(s) here.

I learned a great deal from the entries this time around. I also thought the standard was superb and I was very happy that many of the participants felt their creations were good enough to add to their permanent repetoire of dishes. Thank you all for taking part. The Paper Chef will return next month, starting at noon of Friday May 6th. About a week or so before that we'll start collecting more ingredient nominations.
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Wow! It is rather hard to add up how many entries we have for the Paper Chef this time around. At least two blogs posted entries by more than one person and more than that entered more than one item. Fortunately, I don't have to sort it all out - that's up to Fatemeh of Gastronomie, the 'winner' last month. I put winner in quotation marks, because, of course, the real winners are all of us who get to see these wonderful creations. And I really mean wonderful - there are some absolutely stupendous entries this time. Plus we also have been spun tales of woe and bedevilment involving pets, work, drainage systems, the unfortunate tendency of seasons to be opposite in the Southern Hemisphere, island living and the lack of green garlic. And one entry is the first ever blog entry ever for that blog. Not the first ever Paper Chef entry (that's true of several here), not the first ever blog event entry (also true of several) but the christening of a brand new blog! We are honored. I won't tell you which entry goes with which slice of life - you'll just have to read them all!

To recap, this month's randomly chosen ingredients were: goat cheese, sherry vinegar (but substitutions were allowed for other high-end vinegars) and prosciutto. The 'seasonal' ingredient was green garlic (also, I am now told called spring garlic and young garlic and not available in the autumn of southern latitudes). In my defence, if you read the full instructions carefully, I did anticipate that last one and allowed any vaguely close approximation like spring onions or plain old garlic.

Without further ado, here are the nominations in no particular order. If I missed someone yell out loud and clear here and to my email owenl1998 at yahoo dot com...

Braised Garlic With Prosciutto and a Sherry Wine Vinegar Reduction
Rachael at Fresh Catering

Cheesy egg puffs in ham cups, topped with spicy ginger sauce and crispy garlic
Daffy at KitchenCrazyDaffy
Daffy gets a special shout-out here - I believe this is her fourth Paper Chef - and she usually does the whole thing while also going to France for the weekend (or so it seems...)


Goat Cheese & Prosciutto Quittata with Sherry Gastrique
Chopper Dave and Mrs Deedop at Belly Timber

Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Sarah at Cooking with the Headhunter

Chicken Roulades with Sherry-Vinegar Cream Sauce
Caryn at Delicious! Delicious!


Macaroni in Goat Cheese
Lyle at Crocodile Caucus


Green Garlic and Goat Cheese Cheesecake AND Squid Stuffed with Seafood and Green Garlic Risotto AND Prosciutto and Goat Cheese "Candy"
Orion and Rebecca at The Confabulist

Proscuitto and Goat Cheese Roll Up Appetizers AND Goat Cheese Dip with Asparagus/Prosciutto Spears
Biscuit Girl and Biscuit Boy at You Gonna Eat All That?

Garlic chive and Goat's Cheese Ravioli with Sherry Vinegar Reduction and Prosciutto Shards
David at A Banana in Australia

Sushi A la Alice (at least five kinds of sushi using green garlic and sherry vinegar sushi rice and green garlic wasabi)
Alice at My Epicurean Debauchery


Proscuitto "crackers" with herbed chevre and balsamic caramelized onions
Emily at Baking Beast

Acckk! (as Opus used to say)

I somehow missed out
Chicken Roulade with Sherry Vinegar Sauce
Molly at spicetart


And one more who had trouble posting:

fig, goat cheese and prosciutto won tons
Sarah at The Delicious Life
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I start a new job today - after many months of being unemployed. So I am not going to have time to get to rounding up the entries until later this evening. So, you officially have until 7PM PST today to get an entry in. (See below - Friday's entry - if you want to know more about this month's ingredients and the rules). I'll write them all up late this evening.
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I do do other things besides cook and work on the book about cooking. One of the other things I do (that all my family can attest to) is read. Crocodile Caucus linked to me about the Paper Chef, so I am returning the favor about this chain/meme thing about books you have read/should read. Warning - long list - over 400 books. The rest is in the full post.

This came from Trash Heap to the Crocodile Caucus.

- Bold those you have read
- Italicize those you started, but didn't finish
- Add three books after the last one

001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
004. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
008. 1984, George Orwell
009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
019. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
026. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
027. Middlemarch, George Eliot
028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
030. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
038. Persuasion, Jane Austen
039. Dune, Frank Herbert
040. Emma, Jane Austen
041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
042. Watership Down, Richard Adams
043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
046. Animal Farm, George Orwell
047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
053. The Stand, Stephen King
054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
056. The BFG, Roald Dahl
057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
065. Mort, Terry Pratchett
066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
067. The Magus, John Fowles
068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
074. Matilda, Roald Dahl
075. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
078. Ulysses, James Joyce
079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
081. The Twits, Roald Dahl
082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
083. Holes, Louis Sachar
084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
089. Magician, Raymond E Feist
090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
095. Katherine, Anya Seton
096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt Bleh.
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lacky
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Divine Comedy, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Buold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
375. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
376. number9dream, David Mitchell
377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
380. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers
382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin
383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin
388. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
389. Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry
390. Contact, Carl Sagan
391. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
392. Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks
393. The Golden, Lucius Shepard
394. Decamerone, Boccaccio
395. Birdy, William Wharton
396. The Red Tent, Anita Diaman
397. The Foundation, Isaac Asimov
398. Il Principe, Machiavelli
399. Post Office, Charles Bukowski
400. Macht und Rebel, Abu Rasul
401. Grass, Sheri S. Tepper
402. The Long Walk, Richard Bachman
403. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
404. The Joy Of Work, Scott Adams
405. Romeo, Elise Title
406. The Ninth Gate, Arturo Perez-Reverte
407. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
408. Dead Famous, Ben Elton
409. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
410. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
411. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
412. The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller
413. Branded, Alissa Quart
414. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
415. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
416. White teeth, Zadie Smith
417. Under the bell jar, Sylvia Plath
418. The little prince of Belleville, Calixthe Beyala
419. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
420. A King Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev
421. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
422. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin
423. Hija de la Fortuna, Isabel Allende
424. Retrato en Sepia, Isabel Allende
425. Villette, Charlotte Brontë
426. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
427. Ubik, Philip K. Dick
428. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
429. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
430. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
431. Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre
432. The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco
433. The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
434. The Angel Of The West Window, Gustav Meyrink
435. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
436. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
437. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
438. In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, Philip Ridley
439. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
440. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland
441. Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
442. The Giving Tree -Shel Silverstein
443. Go Ask Alice -Anonymous
444. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Becket
445. Blankets, Craig Thompson
446. The Girls' Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Banks
447. Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore
448. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
449. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
450. Hip Hop America, Nelon George
451. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
452. Basquiat, Phoebe Hoban
453. Sleepers, Lorenzo Carcaterra
454. Naked, David Sedaris
455. Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask, Jim Munroe
456. All Families Are Psychotic, Douglas Coupland
457. The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
458. Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow
459. The Tale of Genji, Shikibu Murasaki
460. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
461. Sabriel, Garth Nix
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462. Shogun, James Clavell
463. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein
464. To The Hilt, Dick Francis

There - now don't I wish I had done something more productive with all that time? Especially when you realise that I read quite a few of these more than once?!

It would be nice to have some ability to indicate which of the books I read were garbage - yes, I read garbage - it isn't all that many - by and large this is a medium to high quality list - but there is some trash in there too. For example, I did read all the Robert Jordan books. I wish I hadn't. The first few were promising but then I realised that the whole lot could have been put in two volumes. Oh well. Also note that in the 400s somebody redid a bunch of the numbers twice so this is actually something like 494 book titles. Anyway, have fun doing this if you want to...
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For April, 2005, the final ingredients are:

1)Goat cheese - chevre, or really, any cheese made of goats milk that you like.
2)Sherry vinegar - OK, here I will allow substitutions of other very high-quality vinegars if you have trouble getting sherry vinegar.
3)Prosciutto - this should be easier, but if you are stuck in some blighted corner of the world then you can substitute the absolute best quality smoked product you can find (that gives you an alternative if you don't eat meat!)
4)And the topical/seasonal ingredient? I have been reading about green garlic everywhere - food blogs left and right and even the newspaper. Plus I have about ten stalks to use up from my CSA delivery from Terra Firma. I realize that in some parts of the world it isn't Spring, so this may not be possible. In that case you may substitute either spring onions (the onion equivalent of green garlic) or regular garlic.

Sorry for all the dessert lovers. I was pulling for a sweeter option but it was not to be.

Our judge this time around is Fatimeh of Gastronomie (winner last month).

Start as soon as you read this - and email a link to your entry about what you cooked before Monday Noon PST. Spectacular whining, preferably with stupendously creative excuses left in the comments area, may get you an extended deadline.

Winner gets to put up the prestigious Paper Chef Winner icon (which will be supplied) and also gets to judge next month (if they want).

Have fun! I'm off to find some sherry vinegar...
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Whew! I finally did it! A real EOTMEOTE entry!

Of course, I realised too late that my family absconded on hols with the digital camera, so I can't give you a picky. Serves them right that they don't get any.

Huevos Rancheros

Now, don't go getting huffy with me about authenticity. This is how I likes 'em. Huevos Rancheros really should be a fried or poached egg or two on top of a crispy tortilla or two - corn tortillas NOT flour - along with black beans, salsa, crema and sundry bits'n'bobs. But I likes my flour tortillas - especially when they are Trader Joe's sundried tomato and chile tortillas. So...

Get two of said tortillas. Have heating in cast iron skillet a small, small amount of olive oil very hot. Cook tortillas until crispy and browned both sides and pop onto plate warming in the oven. Meanwhile heat up half a can of black beans with a squeeze of lemon juice and a teaspoon of cumin powder and a small amount of diced onion. Just get it to bubbling and turn it off. Add more olive oil to the skillet and rapidly fry two eggs so that they have a nice crispy bottom but still runny yolks. Put beans onto tortillas. Put eggs onto beans. Put two tablespoons of spicy fresh salsa cruda onto eggs. Pour very large cup of coffee - coffee not some fancy espresso thingy. Hot chocolate - very strong - may be substituted for coffee - nothing else. If you want to get fancy you are allowed to garnish with chopped cilantro. Hot sauce on the side if you want. Next time you are out at the ranch I'll make 'em for you....
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