Cookish: What's for dinner?

Colcannon

This recipe is adapted from Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cooking School CookbookIB

3 large baking potatoes

1/2 head of cabbage

2 garlic cloves, slightly crushed

1 cup milk*

salt and pepper

butter

Peel potatoes and cut into quarters. Put in a large pot and cover with water. Add some salt. Cover, and while the water is coming to a boil, remove the core from the cabbage and shred thinly. When shredded, add to a steamer basket suspended over the boiling potatoes. If you do not have a steamer set-up like this, you can steam in the microwave in a covered bowl with a very small amount of water. In the meantime, put the milk in a small saucepan with the garlic and warm over medium-low heat. Keep an eye on the cabbage--it will likely be tender before the potatoes are done. When the cabbage is tender, toss with salt, pepper, and butter. When the potatoes are done, drain and mash with the warm milk. Add salt and pepper. Stir in the cabbage and add a little more butter. Yum!

*I only keep skim milk in the house, but I had a small amount of whipping cream, so I mixed the two. Use whatever milk you usually use for mashed potatoes.

Book Review: If You Could See Me Now

If You Could See Me Now by Cecilia Ahern takes the premise "What if imaginary friends are not imaginary, just invisible to most people?" When Elizabeth's nephew begins seeing an invisible friend, she attempts to convince him the friend is not real. But soon, she begins to see and hear the friend as well, not realizing he is invisible to everything else. Ivan begins to shake up Elizabeth's perfectly controlled world, bringing out her childlike side--a side that wasn't even really present when she was a child, due to her difficult home situation.

The book was mostly a fun read, though it reinforces again why PS I Love You is Ahern's best-known work--it's simply her best. If you're only going to read one, go with that one.

Bookish Review: In the Woods

In the Woods by Tana French is a mystery set in Ireland. Detectives are assigned to a murder case in which a child has been murdered and placed in an archaelogical dig site near a wood. Complicating matters is the fact that one of the detectives assigned to the case grew up in the neighborhood near the woods and when he was young, two of his friends disappeared in the woods and he was left, bloody and scratched, and with no memory of what happened. Could the cases be related?

The book is well-written, with Detective Rob Ryan looking back at the case and recounting what happened. He is not always a reliable narrator, but gives an interesting view of the case and how he tried to figure out what happened to the murdered girl and to remember what happened to his friends.

My complaint with the book is that I don't like loose ends and not all of the mysteries are solved. But I suppose that is more true to life, no?

Bookish Review: An Irish Country Christmas

An Irish Country Christmas is the third novel in the Irish Country Series by Patrick Taylor. I have not read the other books in the series, but picked up an ARC of this one for a small donation* at the adorable Eagle Harbor Book Company on Bainbridge Island in Washington on a recent vacation. The books feature Doctor Barry Laverty and his mentor, Doctor Fingal Flaherty O'Reilly in the Ulster village of Ballybucklebo. (The village is fictional. In case you didn't know, Ulster = Northern Ireland. And the books are set in the 1960s.)


The book covers country life in Northern Ireland and all of the little dramas that the preparation for the Christmas season creates. This is not a fast-paced or exciting book. It is a leisurely stroll through small-town life. I think the book is better to understand if you have ever been to Ireland or Northern Ireland. The Irish move at their own pace, which most Americans would consider slow. There's no rush there, and the book moves at that pace. So, it took me back a little.


My complaints mainly stem from the fact that the book rather reads like it was written by a retired doctor rather than a professional author; never is the reader's memory counted on. Facts that are presented earlier in the novel are brought up with detail again and again. There is also no subtlety in judging emotion or motive--everything is expressly stated. It's not really the style I prefer. I also have to note that most of the medical problems in the book are minor, but there is one very explicit breech birth scene involving an episiotomy. Consider yourself warned.


SO, the book is not bad, but you have to be in the mood for what it is. It was a little slow for me at the time I read it.


*ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) are giveaways; they are not labeled for sale and recipients are not supposed to resell them. But as a thank you gift for a donation to help literacy...well, they're just perfect, aren't they?