1. I'm astonished by the lyrical and imaginative ways Anthony Doerr tells two concurrent stories about the run up to Germany's occupation of France and the occupation itself in his novel All the Light We Cannot See. I've read about a quarter of this riveting, poetic story. It's invigorating me, awakening my love of concentrated multi-layered language, philosophical rumination, tight story telling, and the emergence and development of memorable characters, both major and minor ones.
2. Some time in the last couple of weeks, I cooked a HelloFresh meal that included ground turkey. At Trader Joe's soon after, I bought a pound of ground turkey, not really knowing what I'd do with it. A few days ago, Christy assigned me to provide the appetizer for tonight's family dinner.
Aha!
I'll make ground turkey meatballs.
I did a quick search of a few recipes and immediately decided I'd prepare Asian Glazed Turkey Meatballs.
All I had to do was mix the pound of ground turkey, egg, panko, minced scallions, minced garlic, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl. I formed ten meatballs out of this mixture and baked them.
While they baked, I combined Hoisin sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, water, and corn starch in a pot and cooked this mixture for fifteen minutes or so, slowly, stirring it as it thickened.
Once the meatballs were baked, I put them in the glaze I had just cooked on the stovetop, coated them, put them in a baking dish to serve, and garnished the meatballs with sesame seeds and the green part of the scallions.
3. These meatballs helped get a delicious dinner started. Christy slow cooked a moist and flavor-packed lemon garlic pork tenderloin atop an island of wild rice. Carol assembled a refreshing summer squash salad, exquisitely dressed. Debbie brought a table red wine and a Chardonnay. (I drank water. I'm not ready for alcohol just yet. Alcohol has never come up with the transplant team. I am abstaining because I don't like the idea of mixing alcohol with the several medications I'm taking.)
We finished our meal in grand style with root beer floats.
We talked about a lot things tonight. I enjoy it when I leave family dinner with unresolved thoughts buzzing like yellow jackets in my head. I had a few things to say this evening about Jess Walter's book chronicling the history of Ruby Ridge. Earlier I'd mentioned in this blog how Walter's book seemed linked, to me at least, to Norman Mailer's story about Gary Gilmore, The Executioner's Song.
Christy had read Mailer's book years ago and told us she remembered how Mailer's book, unlike many true crime books she's read (say, by Ann Rule), left her feeling some empathy for Gary Gilmore. I agreed. Mailer's book had had a similar impact on me.
Christy wondered if I came away from Ruby Ridge feeling some empathy for Randy Weaver.
At the moment, I can't answer that question.
It has my mind buzzing.
What I can say, though, is that upon finishing the book, I did not think of Randy Weaver as a monster nor did I find him someone I looked up to as a hero.
I'm at a loss to write precisely how I felt about him as Walter's books concluded. I'll definitely let this question continue to buzz around in my head.
No comments:
Post a Comment