Quoteskimming
The quote in today's icon is from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Chapter XII. (It's part of dialogue, attributed to the King.
My first quote today is taken directly from the New York Times Book Review page dealing with Chapter Books:
5 PAPER TOWNS, by John Green. (Dutton, $17.99.) After a night of mischief, the girl Quentin loves disappears. (Ages 12 and up)
That's right, Paper Towns by John Green, about which I've already raved at Guys Lit Wire, is #5 on the NY Times bestseller list for Chapter Books, just ahead of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and three spaces ahead of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Three of my favorite books this year, sharing a narrow column in the New York Times. Knowing that John's book is there due in large part to his brother's marketing efforts and a lot of Nerdfighters makes me happy indeed. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
Over at Through the Toll Booth this week, M.T. Anderson discussed horror with Tami Lewis Brown. In response to the question, "what is horror?", here's what Anderson said:
That's a hard one. Because what really differentiates horror from, say, a thriller - or from particularly scary fantasy? You can’t just say that horror involves the supernatural … because then there are all those hack-‘em-up flicks with no supernatural elements at all.
I guess I would go with a Freudian answer … Horror is that genre that deals with the familiar made terrifyingly unfamiliar. (As Freud calls it, the unheimlich.)
Stephen King, for example, is a master of taking ordinary situations and extending them almost symbolically so that the narrative straddles the chasm of our deepest fears and insecurities. A textbook example of this in children’s lit. would be the creepy scenes of the alternate house and the alternate parents in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline - those places and people who are supposed to be most known, most comfortable, become most alien and menacing because of that.
This infusion of the strange into the familiar is (I think) one of the basic functions of literature in general. Horror is just a particularly troubling version of that process. As a writer, it’s important to remember that good horror, effective horror, does not just consist of nasty surface effects (though they help). The thing that makes good horror stories truly disturbing is their substrate connection to human situations and moral tangles.
Finally, another lengthy "quote" - actually the recipe for Pumpkin Butter from my favorite Crock Pot cookbook. (Crock Pot is actually trademarked, but as the four I own are all that brand, I feel justified in referring to it that way.) The name of the book is actually Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. It features lots of fresh ingredients, occasionally requiring a bit of cooking prior to hitting the slow cooker, rather than relying on cans of soup and the like. I've made a number of recipes from it, and they've all been good (and some, like today's Butternut Squash Soup, have been great).
I particularly liked the idea to cook beets in the crock pot (so easy!), the Minestrone and Cock-a-Leekie soups and the California Tamale Pie with Corn and Black Olives, and the Thai Pork with Peanut Sauce page contains the note "spectacularly great!" on it. And now, the recipe so many of you asked for. Be sure to use the right size slow cooker - if you use a big oval one, it won't work right.
Pumpkin Butter (makes about 3-1/2 cups)
Use a medium round cooker for this
Cook at HIGH for 2-1/2 to 3 hours; cooker is uncovered during the last 30 mins to 1 hour
One 29-oz. can pumpkin puree
1-1/4 c. firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 c. of mild honey
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3/4 tsp. applie pie or pumpkin pie spice (I used a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg, not having either of the pie spices on hand.)
1. Put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and stir with a spatula until well mixed. Don't worry if there are some lumps in the sugar; they will melt into the butter during cooking. Use the spatula to scrape down the sides. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
2. Remove the lid and let cook on HIGH for an additional 30 minutes to 1 hour to reach the desired thickness.
3. Turn off the cooker and let the pumpkin butter cool to room temperature in the crock. Scrape with a rubber spatula into spring-top glass jars (or use screw tops with new lids). Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. Or transfer to small plastic storage containers and freeze for up to 3 months. Serve cold or at room temperature.
My first quote today is taken directly from the New York Times Book Review page dealing with Chapter Books:
5 PAPER TOWNS, by John Green. (Dutton, $17.99.) After a night of mischief, the girl Quentin loves disappears. (Ages 12 and up)
That's right, Paper Towns by John Green, about which I've already raved at Guys Lit Wire, is #5 on the NY Times bestseller list for Chapter Books, just ahead of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and three spaces ahead of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Three of my favorite books this year, sharing a narrow column in the New York Times. Knowing that John's book is there due in large part to his brother's marketing efforts and a lot of Nerdfighters makes me happy indeed. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
Over at Through the Toll Booth this week, M.T. Anderson discussed horror with Tami Lewis Brown. In response to the question, "what is horror?", here's what Anderson said:
That's a hard one. Because what really differentiates horror from, say, a thriller - or from particularly scary fantasy? You can’t just say that horror involves the supernatural … because then there are all those hack-‘em-up flicks with no supernatural elements at all.
I guess I would go with a Freudian answer … Horror is that genre that deals with the familiar made terrifyingly unfamiliar. (As Freud calls it, the unheimlich.)
Stephen King, for example, is a master of taking ordinary situations and extending them almost symbolically so that the narrative straddles the chasm of our deepest fears and insecurities. A textbook example of this in children’s lit. would be the creepy scenes of the alternate house and the alternate parents in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline - those places and people who are supposed to be most known, most comfortable, become most alien and menacing because of that.
This infusion of the strange into the familiar is (I think) one of the basic functions of literature in general. Horror is just a particularly troubling version of that process. As a writer, it’s important to remember that good horror, effective horror, does not just consist of nasty surface effects (though they help). The thing that makes good horror stories truly disturbing is their substrate connection to human situations and moral tangles.
Finally, another lengthy "quote" - actually the recipe for Pumpkin Butter from my favorite Crock Pot cookbook. (Crock Pot is actually trademarked, but as the four I own are all that brand, I feel justified in referring to it that way.) The name of the book is actually Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. It features lots of fresh ingredients, occasionally requiring a bit of cooking prior to hitting the slow cooker, rather than relying on cans of soup and the like. I've made a number of recipes from it, and they've all been good (and some, like today's Butternut Squash Soup, have been great).
I particularly liked the idea to cook beets in the crock pot (so easy!), the Minestrone and Cock-a-Leekie soups and the California Tamale Pie with Corn and Black Olives, and the Thai Pork with Peanut Sauce page contains the note "spectacularly great!" on it. And now, the recipe so many of you asked for. Be sure to use the right size slow cooker - if you use a big oval one, it won't work right.
Pumpkin Butter (makes about 3-1/2 cups)
Use a medium round cooker for this
Cook at HIGH for 2-1/2 to 3 hours; cooker is uncovered during the last 30 mins to 1 hour
One 29-oz. can pumpkin puree
1-1/4 c. firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 c. of mild honey
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
3/4 tsp. applie pie or pumpkin pie spice (I used a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg, not having either of the pie spices on hand.)
1. Put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and stir with a spatula until well mixed. Don't worry if there are some lumps in the sugar; they will melt into the butter during cooking. Use the spatula to scrape down the sides. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
2. Remove the lid and let cook on HIGH for an additional 30 minutes to 1 hour to reach the desired thickness.
3. Turn off the cooker and let the pumpkin butter cool to room temperature in the crock. Scrape with a rubber spatula into spring-top glass jars (or use screw tops with new lids). Store, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. Or transfer to small plastic storage containers and freeze for up to 3 months. Serve cold or at room temperature.