Recent Read: Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris

This book, Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, was the most recent selection for my online book club. We were supposed to read it by 12/31, but with the holidays and everything going on, I hadn't had a chance. Not only that, but I wasn't terribly motivated to do so. Some of my fellow book clubbers had indicated they didn't particularly enjoy it, so I was, in a lot of ways, not looking forward to reading it.

On Saturday, I finally picked it up and dove into it. And well, now it's Monday, and I'm already blogging about it. That must say something good about it, right? It's been a long time since I've finished a book so quickly, unless I'm traveling. 400+ pages, but once I started, I flew right through it.

Here's one thing I'll tell you right away that took me like 50 pages to figure out: The story is told in first person, but from two different perspectives--two different people. I was completely confused at first, thinking it was the same person, but it eventually became clear, and the story started to make much more sense once I understood.

One of our narrators is Roy Straitley, a teacher for 33 years at St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, a traditional private school in England. The other is Snyde, who we come to learn grew up in the same town, always resented St. Oswald's and its students, and now, as an adult, seeks revenge against the School.

Through Straitley, we learn about the inner dynamics at the School, about the tradition of it, and the people there. Through Snyde, we are given pieces of the story that Straitley is not privy to. Snyde also jumps back and forth between growing up at St. Oswald's (1989) and present day (15 years later), which gives us even more insight into what is happening.

The story takes us through one term at the School. A term that starts off normally enough, but quickly starts to unravel, thanks to Snyde's gradual execution of a sinister plan. Small things happen, then bigger things, and soon enough, the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

I don't want to say much else because it is, after all, a mystery; I don't want to ruin anything. But I will say that I figured out the mystery pretty early on in the book. While some other readers were put off by this (annoyed at having to read the rest of it after figuring it out), I found that knowing the ending actually led me to want to get there more quickly. I was anxious to find out how all of the pieces would fit together, and see how it would all play out. And generally, I was pleased with it.

I do wish I wouldn't have known as early as I did... it's fun when an author can actually dupe you until the end. But don't worry, it's not that obvious. There were several club members who read much further before figuring it out, or had it only half figured out, etc... so who knows? Maybe you'll read it and enjoy the "not-knowing" a bit longer. Anyway, I've said enough about that.

Overall, another good read. I rate it 4 stars out of 5.

As always, the comments are fair game to discuss anything about the book (even spoilers!). So if you haven't read and want to, you have been warned. :) If you've read the book, I'd love to hear what you think of it.

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Cheese--I mean, Garlic--Fries

OK, I must confess up front: These are not the kind of cheese fries you are likely expecting. In fact, it might be unfair to even call them cheese fries (but don't shoot the messenger!).

I'll admit that when I clicked through to the recipe on Cooking Light's website, I was a little bit disappointed, too. Because I would have given my left leg for a "light" version of real CHEESE FRIES. C'mon now.

Looking back, I should have known it was too good to be true.

Still, these sounded good and had great reviews, so we decided to go ahead and make them.

A bit time consuming? Well, cutting potatoes into thin strips can take a few minutes. Baking them for an hour eats up some time, too (obviously). But we planned ahead and they were worth the trouble. Overall, a good texture--I did overcook them a little bit--and great flavors. Really garlicky, and the parmesan added a punch. Yum.

For our fries, I used dried parsley because fresh herbs are always too expensive at my grocery store. And lord knows I'm not going to find them anywhere else around here at this time of year. I just used less of it since dried is always more potent than fresh. We also left the skins on the potatoes because, well, they're good that way.

OK, and now that I've gone back to Cooking Light to cite the recipe, I realize that I am a dirty, dirty liar. They aren't actually called cheese fries, but garlic fries. Whoops. I had done a search for cheese fries and these guys came up, so I guess in my mind, I wanted them to be cheese fries. *sigh* What an idiot. Don't mind me.

Just uh... yeah. Where was I going with this?

Garlic Fries
(Source: Cooking Light)

Ingredients:
4 tsp. canola oil
3/4 tsp. salt
3 lbs. peeled baking potatoes, cut into 1/4-inch-thick strips (we left skins on)
Cooking spray
2 tbsp. butter (used margarine)
8 garlic cloves, minced (about 5 teaspoons)
2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley (we used 1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes)
2 tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine first 3 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag, tossing to coat. Arrange potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet (we had to use two baking sheets) coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 50 minutes or until potatoes are tender and golden brown, turning after 20 minutes.

3. Place butter and garlic in a large nonstick skillet, and cook over low heat 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add potatoes, parsley, and Parmesan cheese to pan; toss to coat. Serve immediately.

I used less potatoes than the recipe called for, but we still ended up with way too many, even for two really hungry people. Next time, we will probably halve this recipe so we aren't tempted to eat so many.

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No-Guilt Chicken Fingers

Today, more playoff football meant we needed to have more football food. Originally, we were thinking we'd go out to dinner somewhere, but after eating complete junk at a surprise birthday party we went to last night, we figured we'd be better off at least making our own junk food.

I saw this recipe a few months back on Amber's Delectable Delights, but wasn't really motivated to try it out until an internet friend mentioned it earlier this week. She said she tried them and highly recommended them, so I knew I had to find a reason to make these. As it turned out, football was the perfect reason.


The recipe for these Buffalo Chicken Tenders originally came from Cooking Light, so it actually isn't all that bad for you. And as I'm sure I've discussed before... I'm all for delicious food with less guilt. So, starting off with these, I went on the hunt for a french fry recipe. We could have just gone with some simple frozen oven fries, but when browsing Cooking Light's website, I found cheese fries! (I'll share that recipe tomorrow.)

Anyway, I know... it can be hard to imagine cornflake-crusted chicken tasting anything like regular chicken fingers. But it does. And in my opinion, this chicken is actually BETTER than traditional, fried chicken fingers (I don't really like much fried food). These guys are awesome, and I can't wait to have the leftovers.


The recipe calls for making a hot sauce to drizzle over the chicken tenders when they come out of the oven. I decided to skip that and just put some Frank's Red Hot Sauce on the table in case my husband wanted to use it. I don't really like hot sauce (it's not the heat that gets to me, but just the actual taste of it), so I dipped my chicken fingers in BBQ sauce, which was really, really good. The flour mix makes the chicken flavorful, and the corn flakes make for a great crunch. Really, you could eat them without any dipping sauces. You have to give these things a try; you won't regret it!

Changes from Amber's recipe: I doubled the amount of ingredients for the flour mixture, as well as the number of corn flakes (I reflected those changes in my recipe below). I had read in the comments on the Cooking Light website that people kept running out and had to make more, so I wanted to prevent that from happening.

Buffalo-Style Chicken Strips
(Source: Amber's Delectable Delights, adapted from: CookingLight.com)

Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- 2 tsp. paprika
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
- 2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
- 3 cups coarsely crushed cornflakes
- 1 lb. chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch-thick strips
- Cooking spray
- 1/3 cup hot sauce (such as Crystal)
- 1 tsp. hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
- 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp. butter
- 1/2 cup fat-free ranch dressing for dipping (can substitute blue cheese, BBQ sauce, ketchup... whatever you like to dip chicken fingers in)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Combine first 6 ingredients in a shallow dish, stirring with a whisk. Place egg whites in a shallow dish. Place cornflakes in a shallow dish. Working with 1 chicken strip at a time, dredge in flour mixture. Dip in egg whites; dredge in cornflakes. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken strips, flour mixture, egg whites, and cornflakes.

3. Lightly coat chicken strips with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until done, turning once.

4. Combine hot sauce, pepper sauce, and Worcestershire in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in butter. Drizzle hot sauce mixture over chicken. (I read in the comments that it's best not to drizzle it over the chicken, because it can cause the corn flakes to lose their crunch. If you make the hot sauce, I suggest dipping the chicken in it instead.)

Serve with ranch dressing, celery, and carrots.

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Now that's embarrassing.

My mom sent this to me the other day. We have made three ski trips to Vail, so we're familiar with the resort and this lift. When you set aside the danger this guy was in, and consider the fact that he was safely rescued, there is nothing left to do but laugh. This is hilarious. I am so embarrassed for him.

From The Smoking Gun:

Skier Suffers Exposure
Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap

JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning.

The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding.

The Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being "suspended for approximately seven minutes." The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that "the man was caught on the chair."

OK, so there's the story. Are you ready for the pictures? (YES, there are PICTURES!--snapped by fellow skiers.) This poor guy is probably cursing the invention of the digital camera and camera phones. And, well, the internet.
Can you first imagine this happening to you? Not only are you hanging upside down up high on a ski lift, being held up only by your ski and your pants, for SEVEN (possibly up to 15??) minutes... but you're also giving everyone quite the show! And if that weren't bad enough, you log onto the internet the next day and see these photos, and you know it's YOUR ass everyone in the free world is now looking at. Poor guy, he's probably traumatized.

Interestingly enough, it looks to me like it's possible he was not wearing any actual undies (for better or worse, the photos are much larger on The Smoking Gun). It looks like thermal "underwear" or even just the lining of his ski pants. I'm guessing he'll rethink that decision the next time he hits the slopes.

And in case you're skeptical, this story is absolutely real. In addition to the initial story of this poor guy's mishap, there is now a follow-up story circulating. One of the people who snapped some of these photos was a professional photographer for a company called Sharpshooters. The company hires photographers to take pics of people at ski resorts all over the country. This particular photographer (Marty Odom) was not on duty, and was simply enjoying a day off with his family. He snapped the pics with his own camera on his own time and yet Sharpshooters has told him he is "suspended indefinitely" because they feel that the photos are inappropriate. Amazing, huh?

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Recent Read: Sammy's House by Kristin Gore

A few years ago, I read Kristin Gore's first novel, Sammy's Hill. I don't think it's any secret I enjoy politics, and I can also appreciate chick lit. Those two "hobbies" are combined in Sammy's Hill, and came together once again for Sammy's House.

Since there was quite a bit of time between my reading the first and second books, I didn't remember a lot about Sammy's Hill when I decided to buy Sammy's House. I just remembered that I enjoyed it. So I figured I read the first one, I'll read the second one, too.

In the first book, we learn that Sammy is a twentysomething new-to-the-scene healthcare advisor for a up-and-coming United States Senator. Now, in the second book, she's back, but as a junior level staffer in the White House, where she works as a healthcare advisor to the Vice President of the United States.

The two main stories of focus in this book are 1) her job, and 2) her relationship with her boyfriend, Charlie. Charlie is a Washington Post reporter whose beat is--you guessed it--politics. Their relationship changes, for better or worse, when Charlie is transferred to the New York City bureau, and they suddenly find themselves in a long-distance relationship. With all of that in her personal life, Sammy has a lot to juggle once a scandal begins unfolding in the White House. Stressful work + stressful personal life = trouble for Sammy, who is (as you quickly learn) quite quirky.

In terms of chick lit, beach reads--whatever you want to call them--I thought Sammy's House had a plot that definitely kept me turning the pages. However, I did find myself annoyed with Gore's writing style a couple of times. I didn't remember this from the first book, but perhaps it was just so long ago that I had forgotten. Anyway, in Gore's attempt to make Sammy lovably neurotic and paranoid, we are often subjected to the running, rambling dialogue in Sammy's head (the book is written in first person from Sammy's point of view).

And sometimes I would just think: OK, I get that Sammy is unique. You don't have to beat me over the head with it. Sometimes, paragraphs and paragraphs of rambling thoughts really don't add anything to the story. Also, I'd feel like Gore was repeating herself sometimes, trying to remind readers of things that were already discussed earlier in the book, but to the point of excess. OK, yes, I REMEMBERED THAT ALREADY. NO NEED TO GO INTO SO MUCH DETAIL. By the end, I started to wonder if these were things that were actually in the first book that I just happened to remember (hence the reason she was repeating them), but I really don't think so.

Anyway, one of the best books I ever read? No way. Still an entertaining read? Yes.

As always, if you've read it, feel free to discuss in the comments.

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