Monday Links

*^Books! Papercraft! The making of Penguins Christmas gift campaign!

*Matthew Dunckley on racism, politics, and "illegal" refugees and taking a stand. (Via The Anti Bogan)

*Stephen King's Under the Dome is being made into a TV show! I haven't read this one yet, but I don't care, I'm excited about anything King related!! (Via Uproxx)

*The internet went crazy last week when early set shots from Catching Fire were released. Can't blame them though, I'M SO EXCITED! (via Parachutes from Panem)

*Ellie over at Curiousity Killed the Bookworm collated all the publisher advent events for you. Go make the most of them! (Via Curiosity Killed the Bookworm)

*I shared a recipe for the most delicious shortbread last week, and if you haven't tried to make it yourself yet you're CRAZY (Via ME!)

*I've shared the link to Literally Unbelievable before, but here's a quiz of 'Real or Onion'?  Some are quite surprising, let me know what score you get! [I got 14/20] (Via Buzzfeed)

Christmas Baking: Shortbread biscuits with caramel centre

Last year I was super broke come Christmas time, so when deciding on a present for Tom's parents and grandparents I baked a bunch of biscuits for them and put them into pretty reusable biscuit jars. In anticipation of a similar broke status and desire to bake (what is it about Christmas that makes baking so much more wonderful?) I picked up a copy of Women's Weekly Christmas Baking, one of the greatest recipe books ever. For anyone ever wanting to bake or cook, check out Ebay for these cookbooks (they have one for absolutely everything, and their huge COOK cookbook is out of this world), because Women's Weekly (a magazine here in Australia) triple tests their recipes in different residential ovens. This is important, dear friends, because commercial ovens operate completely differently to the one in your kitchen, which is why you've possibly had unsuccessful attempts at cooking those fancy recipes from those fancy chefs (can you sense my frustration here?). Anyway, recipes that work + Christmas + baking + rustic little gift wrap options = super fantastic and awesome. Although I really wanted to test out the eggnog macarons, I decided to test something that looked a little easier and just as tasty. And since they were so goddamn good, I'm going to share them for you here now. These are my third batch of them, and they're definitely getting a little better each time, so if you don't make melt in the mouth shortbread the first time around DON'T PANIC!

Shortbread Biscuits with Caramel filling*:

Ingredients:

395g (12 1/2 ounces) canned sweetened condensed milk
250g (8 ounces) butter (softened)
3/4 cup icing/confectioner's sugar (sifted)
1 1/2 cup plain/all purpose flour (sifted) - I actually added a little less than this, maybe 1 or 2 tbsp less.
1/2 cup wheaten cornflour/cornstarch (sifted)
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 deg C/325 deg F and line some trays with baking paper.
2. Beat softened butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Stir in the flour, cornflour and cinnamon, in two batches. Make sure it's completely mixed. For melt in the mouth shortbread it needs to be nice and buttery, so if it looks crumbly it won't turn out as nice as it should.
4. Dust your hands in flour and start rolling the mixture into small balls (about 1.5cm diameter) and place them onto the trays. These don't expand too much, but you should probably leave about an inch or so in between each biscuit.
5. Dip a fork into flour (it makes sure it doesn't stick to the biscuits) and gently press each ball down a little.
6. Bake for about 15 minutes (but check at 10 just in case). Stand the shortbread on the tray for about 5 minutes until they cool just a touch, and then transfer them over to wire trays.

To Make Caramel: 

This can be done either before or after the biscuits have been made. Once the caramel is in them though they don't last as long so if you're making the biscuits ahead of time, leave the caramel to the day of or day before they're needed.

1.  preheat oven to 220 deg C/425 deg F.
2. Pour condensed milk into a shallow oven-proof dish and cover in foil. Place this dish into a roasting pan or similar. Add boiling water to the pan/dish until it comes about halfway up the side of the dish with the caramel inside. This water needs to remain at around this height, so be sure to keep an eye on it and top it up if need me. Otherwise you'll burn the caramel, which will make you sad.
3. Bake for about 1.5 hours (check caramel every half hour or so) until the condensed milk is a nice brown, or y'know caramel, colour.
4. Remove and leave to cool until it's needed. When you're ready to fill the biscuits, whisk the caramel until it's smooth and then go for gold!

Tips: 

*Concentrate the caramel to the centre of the biscuit, because once the lid goes on the caramel will spread and possibly dribble over the side.
*If the dough mixture is a little soft (this'll probably be a problem only for those of us in the sunny Southern Hemisphere) put the bowl into the fridge for 5 minutes and it'll firm up.
*Use a teaspoon so that you can get the balls as similar in size as possible. It makes matching them up a whole lot easier.
*Add some orange zest, vanilla or another spice to the dough in the butter/sugar stage for something a little different.
*Leave the caramel out and make larger biscuits for something less sweet but still super tasty.



*This recipe is adapted slightly from the original recipe in the Women's Weekly Christmas Baking cookbook, but the recipe remains theirs.

Review: The Jazz Cage by Ray Chen Smith

The Jazz Cage 
Written by: Ray Chen Smith

Published: 2012

Synopsis: It is 1924—sixty years after the South’s victory in the Civil War.

Frank McCluey, bounty hunter for the mob, is sent to help out a wealthy Virginian bootlegger. Frank’s job: track down two female slaves who’ve run away from the millionaire.

But the mob has made a bad choice. Instead of capturing the women, Frank decides to help them escape to Canada, his mission now aided by the pint-sized but steel-willed runaway Della and the outlawed Underground Railroad.

Soon Della and Frank become the target of slave catchers, cops, gangsters, and most chilling of all, a Confederate agent nicknamed the Hound for his ability to always sniff out and kill his prey
_________________________________________________________________________________

Set in an alternate 1920s America where the South won the Civil War and seceded from the North, the Jazz Cage offers a dynamic tale of secrets, mobsters, and race relations.

The secession both changes everything and nothing. Arnold Rothstein is still a big name in the underworld, jazz still plays and the twenties still roar but, and this is a pretty big but, America is divided in two and an entire group of people are subjugated and refused the most basic of rights. This changes everything, even for those in the "free" north, and above all else, this book provides a chilling alternative look at what could have been. And while I'm not American, this change has a knock-on effect - if America was divided, would they have joined WWII? If they had, would they have the same power? Would the South have joined the allies or the axis? Would racial segregation and inequality have ever ended? How would this affect other countries who have had their own issues with inequality? Would America have gone to the moon? Would the Cold War have happened? The Vietnam war? Would a black man ever be made president? Sure, these issues aren't actually raised, as such, in the book but they are implicit the second history was shifted and the ramifications add weight to a story that otherwise is much narrower in scope.

The book is paced fairly well, delivering past glimpses into their lives only when necessary to uncover another dimension to the character. When we're first introduced to the three protagonists, Frank, Cece and Della, their characters seem fairly prosaic. Frank works for the mob, and understandably seems to be lacking the capacity for basic emotions or empathy, unless to do with the young and impetuous Isaac, who rarely leaves his side. He seems tired, bored and unable to muster a single care for anyone else. Della and Cece are both escaped slaves, Della is strong and independent and fiercely protective of the young and vulnerable Cece, who, through systematic abuse and trauma, has the emotional capacity of a child. However as the book continues you learn that none of them are quite so easy to define. All three have pasts which have lead them to build walls around themselves, to hide their true selves away from further harm. As the story continues with the three of them together, they struggle behind their individual walls, wondering whether it's safe to lower the gangway or if, like everyone else they've ever met, this new travelling companion(s) is going to take advantage and lead them to ruin.

It all comes down, in the end, to trust. If you're a slave who has spent your whole life being abused and lied to by white men, how can you truly trust the pudgy white guy who says he can get you to Canada? And when a mobster who is hired to capture you and take you back to your owner, how can you ever believe that he wants to help you? And if you were always closed off to the world, until a chance meeting with a captivating and wilful woman changed everything and then left too soon, would you be trusting of any feelings that might begin to bubble below the surface? Letting down the walls, trusting, believing that when people say something they actually mean it, it's all symptomatic of this alternate world and the environment they've been forced to live in.

The book explores all of this as Frank, Della and Cece struggle to make their way up to Canada. With the disgruntled slave owner, the mob, the police and their lack of trust working against them, the three protagonists take one hell of a ride. It's packed with action, adventure, humour and it's thought-provoking. It isn't the perfect book, but it has all the ingredients for a good book and Ray Chen Smith mixes them together just about right.

Monday Links

*I attempted to put my thoughts into words about the passing of author Bryce Courtenay on Friday, but perhaps I should leave it to the people who do it for a living. Here's one of the Australian newspaper's obituaries. (Via Herald Sun)

*John Mellencamp and Stephen King have a musical coming out next year. Need I say more? (Via AV  Club)

*Rather than post them myself, head over to Belle's Bookshelf to watch all the trailers for the latest books to be turned into films. Some look pretty promising. (Via Belle's Bookshelf)

*I've just gotten back into True Blood (I watched season 1-2 a year or so ago) and I have a lot of feels and thoughts. Comment below or tweet me if you have a similar urge.

RIP Bryce Courtenay, an amazing author

The African/Australia author Bryce Courtenay passed away yesterday at the age of 79. There have been many, many authors who have captured my mind and my imagination, but Bryce Courtenay was the first author to really captivate me as an Australian. Although several of his books (and perhaps his most famous) take place in his home country of South Africa, the books set in Australia were game-changing. They showed a side of Australia that I never saw growing up in the cities and suburbs, and that was definitely absent from Home and Away and Neighbours, yet they felt unmistakably Australian. I recognised the yearning, the love of the outdoors, the bigger than life hopes and aspirations  They were things that spoke to me, as an Australian, in such a primal way that I'm having trouble putting them into words. He told the story of the average Australian, and of the average Australian family. He told their stories so well, that some of his characters feel more real to me than people I grew up with. He made me fall in love with boxing. Or at least, in literature he made me fall in love with boxing and recognise the poetry and beauty that exists within it, although I've never managed to find that in an actual game of boxing. He made me want to go to Africa, and to learn more about plants. He opened my eyes to the "secret" atrocities perpetrated on Australian soldiers in Sandakan, something that was hushed up for many years, and sadly aren't known as well today as they should be. He never wrote a one sided character, and their flaws made them so easy to love, and then hate, and then understand. He made me cry in every single one of his books.  Four Fires is still one of the most intense and wonderful books I've ever read, and every time I reread it I feel like I'm going home to visit my family. April Fool's Day was the most honest autobiography I've ever read, and it broke my heart at how hard on himself Courtenay was, but at the same time I can't help but feel proud that he never took the easy way out, he owned up to his actions. Bryce Courtenay is the kind of man who you need to read up on. He's larger than any of his books, and has lived a life that has been weaved into many of his stories which perhaps is why they live on the page so vividly.

Australia lost a favourite author and adopted son yesterday, he will be missed.

TV Review: The Tudors (2007)

What pushed me to finally read Wolf Hall (and you should all read it, seriously, do it now) was finishing the Showtime series The Tudors, and being desperate for more. Partly because the series reawakened an interest of mine for English history and partly because it failed to deliver on quite a few fronts and I needed some kind of satisfying conclusion. That's not to say it's a bad series, but it's rather one-sided and trips over its own feet from time to time.

The biggest problem the show struggles with is sex. Undoubtedly the original pitch for this show was "attractive ye olde English King has sex with everything that moves, and then beheads bitches and stuff". Yes, Henry the VIII had 6 wives and countless mistresses, but the problem with centring a series around sex is that it makes it very difficult to show the characters in a bad light. No one wants to see the sex king get old, or invalid, or deal with the paperwork associated with being the head of an empire. It also, unless you're a porn addict, gets old pretty quick.

The series takes place between 1491 and 1547, and it's only in the last episode that Jonathan Rhys Meyers looks significantly older. Before then it wasn't advantageous to have a lecherous old king with the young women he chose as brides, not really TV friendly. Sure, they changed his hair style, put him in slightly bulkier clothes and added a few creases around his eyes during the last season or two, but considering how much weight Henry VIII gained and how gross history reports he became it's kind of laughable. Not to mention the Pantomime-esque old man voice Meyers employs to get across his old age.

"old" Henry VIII

As someone watching the show for the history and not just the sex, the lack of aging makes it extremely difficult to tell how much time has passed. Is it a matter of weeks, months or years between Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves? Who knows, since EVERYONE LOOKS THE SAME. It also doesn't help that aside from Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon who get 2 seasons, each of the other queens get about 4-5 episodes each. This means they're basically cardboard cut-outs there to  move the story along for the king, but with very little personality or motivation of their own. Because the show isn't badly written though, you get these bright little glimpses at who the queen could be if they were given the time and space to develop properly as a character. Yes, aside from the first two queens the others didn't have lengthy posts as Queen but they had more than enough time to have a personality.

BUT, complaints aside, this isn't a bad show. In fact, it's quite a good show. I'm not sure I'd say I'm a Jonathan Rhys Meyers fan, but Sam Neil (Cardinal Wolsey), Henry Cavill (Charles Brandon) and Maria Doyle Kennedy (Catherine of Aragon), amongst others, were unbelievably good and really elevated the program to great heights. Even the singer Joss Stone who played Anne of Cleves was good, something I had not expected when I saw her name listed on IMDB.

And once the Anne Boleyn story is finished, the show manages to look wider than their court, especially in relation to the riots and systematic execution of countless Englishmen/women/children who didn't agree with Henry as head of church. Prior to that, the break from church was mostly seen as it related to the union of Anne and Henry and the whispers that abounded in court. After that, the realities set in, and the whole disastrous event is beautifully and heartbreakingly played out on the screen.

Visually is where this show hits its greatest heights. the costumes are phenomenal and subtly reflect the history and future of each character, the locations are selected with care and the composition of the shots and editing choices clearly were meticulously crafted. The shots outside of London were always great examples of this, but perhaps it was the executions that best reflected the care and talent that went into this show. The monologues that each character gave before death were some of the best writing of the show, but visually, wow, visually they really hit it out of the park. The death of Catherine Howard, in particular, stood out as both tragic and beautiful when I watched it, and utterly captivating.

I guess it was a bit of an experiment, an attempt to bank on the popularity of history (especially when it involves sex) and translate the big screen events such as Elizabeth to TV. Ultimately I'd say that in spite of the flaws, the over-sexed narrative and over-attractive (and youthful) cast and historical inaccuracies aside, the series was a success and worth a watch. Just be ready to roll your eyes and cringe a few times.

death comes riding.