I've been on a bit of a re-reading kick and this was so fun to revisit
Reviews and Comments
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mouse finished reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #1)
mouse started reading The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
mouse finished reading Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
mouse commented on A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos (The Mirror Visitor Quartet, #1)
mouse finished reading The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
mouse commented on Cain's Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers
I would like to say, since I continue to wish I didn't have to stumble on other people posting their Cain's Jawbone solving thoughts, that I'm not going to post any of my Cain's Jawbone solving thoughts. Just, if anything, genuine, uncritical reactions to the text.
mouse reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Lovely
5 stars
I found this touching and hopeful, I liked how poignantly the characters were drawn, and the themes of kindness and the vicissitudes of life.
My main complaint was that I think the simulation theory stuff was basically an unnecessary macguffin and didn't add to the themes (at least as far as they interested me).
mouse reviewed Baking and Pastry by Culinary Institute of America
A bit of a letdown
3 stars
I found this book a little disappointing because of how it's organized and how much of baking it tries to cover. It starts out with a ton of information about baking as a profession, tools, and technical information about baking (like tables of different gelling agents, and bread techniques and terminology). All of that information is really good, well curated, and clear, but I wished that the techniques specific to certain kinds of baking were placed with the recipes, rather than all together at the beginning. It also spends a lot of time, understandably, on professional bread techniques, and a lot less on pastry techniques. It feels at times like a bread book with some pastry recipes included.
There are tons of recipes, but often they are variants on a theme (like banana, chocolate, or lacenut tuiles) but no basic recipe and no information on how to modify the recipe …
I found this book a little disappointing because of how it's organized and how much of baking it tries to cover. It starts out with a ton of information about baking as a profession, tools, and technical information about baking (like tables of different gelling agents, and bread techniques and terminology). All of that information is really good, well curated, and clear, but I wished that the techniques specific to certain kinds of baking were placed with the recipes, rather than all together at the beginning. It also spends a lot of time, understandably, on professional bread techniques, and a lot less on pastry techniques. It feels at times like a bread book with some pastry recipes included.
There are tons of recipes, but often they are variants on a theme (like banana, chocolate, or lacenut tuiles) but no basic recipe and no information on how to modify the recipe yourself or what makes the modifications work. The pastry recipes aren't terribly well organized, not much time gets devoted to different types, and there are big omissions (like macarons).
I think it is just too ambitious to have a single book about "baking and pastry"!