52 books challenge - June

Wow, is this year going faster than other years, or what? I feel like May has just begun (I've just come back from China), and suddenly it's almost July already! We're bracing ourselves for some of the hottest days to come this year (30+ temperatures, the whole country is in an uproar) and in the meantime I even managed to read some books!
19 De vegetarier (The Vegetarian) - Han Kang
20 The assassination of Margaret Thatcher - Hilary Mantel
21 Us - David Nicholls
22 Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
23 Gooseberries - Anton Chekov

I alllmost managed to finish The Talented Mr Ripley as well, but then sleep overtook me, so that will have to go in next month's list.
But considering that the last full week of June was last week (week 26), and I'm now at 23 books, I seem to have actually caught up by one book! I am now only 3 books behind!
So I read some wildly differing books this month. The Vegetarian is by a South Korean writer who I'd never heard of, and it is a very beautiful but also slightly disturbing book about a woman who decides to stop eating meat, and the events that unravel because of that choice. It makes you wonder whether anyone is actually in their right mind at any time. I feel that Us is this years The Rosie Project: the book about a scientifically minded man (first-person narrator) who falls in love with this artsy girl but can't quite get the affection across because of his slightly autistic nature. Only in Us, the couple are actually married (much to the surprise of the protagonist) and their marriage is falling apart. Also, Us has a wonderful sense of humour, which makes me want to read more books by Nicholls. Then there was Gooseberries, short stories by Chekov, to complement the short stories by Hilary Mantel. And finally Black Swan Green, of which I've written a lot already.
Hopefully the approaching summer weather will mean lots of lazy afternoons filled with reading and eating home-grown strawberries...

Black Swan Green

So I've been reading quite a lot to keep up with my 52 Book Challenge, and one of the books I've recently read was Black Swan Green by David Michell. Now I may not have written all that much about him here, but David Mitchell (not to be confused with the comedian of the same name) is one of my favourite authors.
As with most of my favourite authors, I first read his most well-known novel, Cloud Atlas, because you have to start somewhere, and if lots of people are saying a book is great, you start to believe them. And it is great, beautifully written, very intricate, with seven different 'layers' of story all interweaving into one big saga. Most people know the novel, or the film, which was less good but still nice. Then I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which is about a Dutchman living in Decima in Japan. This novel doesn't have the whole 'separate stories making up one bigger story', but that is a good thing, because it lets you focus on how great the actual writing is. The sentences are very well-constructed, with lots of imagery and metaphor; it is almost poetic. Which meant that I'd become hooked, and that I had to read his three earlier novels too, while waiting for a new one to come out.
His 'earlier' novels, before he became really famous for Cloud Atlas, are Ghostwritten, number9dream, and Black Swan Green, and I read them in that order (although Black Swan Green was published after Cloud Atlas, it never go the same amount of attention, weirdly enough). I've done the same with Ian McEwan's novels after 'discovering' him with Atonement and Saturday, and I think this is a great way to get to know an author, see how they've developed with regards to themes and characters, but also the things that really show their style, who they are as an author. Ghostwritten follows a slightly similar pattern as Cloud Atlas, only less complicated and well-developed: it travels through various countries and characters in various chapters, as the protagonist 'moves' through different people. You can definitely see his style as an author and his way of combining different stories into one, and the mystical elements that become part of all of his novels, but this is clearly a 'first novel'. Then in number9dream and Black Swan Green, we follow the live of a young, teenage male protagonist during a difficult period in their lives. number9dream is set in Japan, and it is a coming-of-age story in which a boy searches for his long-lost father, getting further entrenched in the Japanese underground world. In this novel, there a strong sense of imagination; some scenes don't really happen, but just take place inside the head of the main character as he ponders his options. It is sometimes confusing to read, but very nicely done, and it keeps you as a reader on your toes.
And then there is Black Swan Green. In this, we follow 13-year-old Jason for one year, from January to December 1982, and experience one (or sometimes several) day of each month through his eyes. The chapters begin and end quite suddenly, so you sometimes don't really know what happend until someone mentions something in a later chapter, and some things you never really find out. Which is okay, because again the writing is some of the most beautiful I've ever written (Jason is a poet, after all) and the scenes just take on a magical atmosphere of their own. What happens, really, is nothing out of the ordinary for a 13-year-old in the early 1980s, but because of Mitchell's style, it becomes almost fairytale-like to read. Also, I've just found out that it's semi-autobiographical, which gives it a whole extra layer of complexity. In all, I think Black Swan Green may be my favourite Mitchell novel, even ahead of Cloud Atlas.
So Mitchell is great with his (written) language, and his characters are very well-rounded and deep, and his plots are amazing (even when nothing really happens, which is a lot of the time). But there is one final thing that makes his novels so interesting to read; they are all interconnected. Where Marvel has its Marvel Cinematic Universe, with all of their super-hero movies combined into one larger story, so all of Mitchell's novels are also connected. Characters from one novel appear in another, or are referenced to, or there are other connections that you only see when you've read the novels quite carefully. For example, take Mrs. Crommelynck, who teaches Jason about poetry in Black Swan Green. She mentions she is the daughter of a famous composer from Belgium, whose last sextet was actually written by a young man named Frobisher. This sextet, and the character of Frobisher, form a very important part of Cloud Atlas. Then there is the song '#9 Dream' by John Lennon, played in Black Swan Green, but obviously a reference to number9dream. Several other characters, including classmates and teachers of Jason, appear in other novels or short stories by David Mitchell. So all in all, you get the feeling that not only some of his novels consist of several smaller stories making up one bigger story; no, all of his novels combined make up one large David Mitchell universe, with some things actually taking place in this place and time, and some in mysterious pasts, unknown futures, or mystical 'other' worlds very similar to our own. He does count on his readers to be intelligent, attentive, and amazed. Although the novels are just as nice without seeing the connections, it just adds another layer of brilliance.
Luckily for me, his newest novel The Bone Clocks is out already, and waiting on my 'to read' pile (and another novel, Slade House, is said to come out this year). But as with all great writers, I have to take a little break with some other, lighter novels, before I can dive into one of his intricate and beautiful stories again. It is an experience you can't get enough of, but one you should take in small, measured quantities, or all other novels will seem unoriginal, unintelligent, and uninspired by comparison.

Oreo cake

A couple of weeks ago I made an Oreo cheesecake, wondering why I never thought of using Oreos in my baking before. Since a cheesecake technically doesn't involve any baking, I decided to rectify that today by making an Oreo cake.
I've been making plain old cakes since I was really young (it's one of the easiest recipes to remember: 3x 200 grams and 2 eggs, same as in the family recipe apple cake), but usually they turn out quite dry. Adding Oreos to the mixture seems to remedy that, and it tastes great!

Ingredients
200 g butter (softened)
200 g sugar
200 g self-raising (or plain) flower
2 eggs
a teaspoon of lemon zest
half a packet of Oreo cookies (about 12) broken into small pieces

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, and line the sides of your cake tin with baking parchment.
Now you make this cake like you make any cake: mix the butter and sugar together until they are soft and creamy, add the flower, and then add the eggs one after the other. After adding the eggs, you have to mix continuously for about 4-5 minutes, to get enough air into the mixture for the cake to rise well. This can be really heavy on the hand and wrist, but since I now have my beautiful KitchenAid, I could let the machine do the work for me, and break up the cookies in the meantime.

KitchenAided multitasking.

Add the lemon zest and the Oreos in small quantities, and mix thoroughly so that everything is well-combined (your cake mixture will become somewhat blackish/brownish in colour, which doesn't look that great but means the Oreo taste is spreading its love).
Pour or spoon your mixture into the cake tin and bake for an hour at 180 degrees. My cake was a bit burned at the top, probably because of the really high sugar content. You could probably leave out some of the sugar (use 150 g instead of 200) because the Oreos themselves, especially the white stuff, contain a lot of sugar, but I thought of that after I put it in the oven, so not one of my brighter baking moments.

Slightly scorched cake.

As always, looks can be deceiving, and the taste is actually really really good. You can taste the Oreos, but the lemon zest also comes through quite nicely, and the cake itself is not too sweet. It isn't dry at all, but pretty moist and with a firm crust. And it looks great, almost not-homemade. I dare to say this may be one of the best cakes I made in a long time.

Somehow one slice disappeared before I could take a picture...

All because of the Oreos, of course!

Garden update - in bloom!

Remember the veg patches I wrote about a while back? Well, they have gotten bigger. A lot bigger. As did all of the other stuff that we bought for our vegetable patch. Somehow you always start off with lots of small things, thinking that most of them won't take and you'll have plenty of space for those things that do grow. But then suddenly everything is growing and getting bigger and sprouting unpredicted leaves and flowers and what not, and we start dreaming about a bigger garden again...
So how are things doing? Well, of the 7 'veg patches' (aubergine, broccoli, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, thyme, spinach and endive), the thyme never really did anything, and neither did the strawberries. I don't really know what happened to the spinach or the endive, they may still be around in some of the smaller pots, but I've kind of lost track of them.
We planted the 5 proper broccoli plants out into the garden, only for them to be eaten by the ferocious slugs that prowl our garden at night. So the only things left are the aubergine and the cherry tomatoes, and they're doing really great!

Cherry tomatoes and peas

(Now I took these pictures with my phone camera, which appears to be the worst camera in the history of camera phones, on a really bright day, so bear with me.)

So apart from the small supermarket veg patches we also have some other plants which we either got as small plants or which we planted out from seed from last years crop or from housewarming gifts we had a couple of years ago. The peas in the picture above came from a packet that we bought about 4 years ago, but surprisingly they still managed to become proper plants.

Our vegetable patch on 1 June

So this was the 'bit plot' about 3 days ago. We've had a lot of rain and even more sunshine in the days in between, so everything has grown out a lot more since then, but I didn't want to bother taking another picture. The sticks are all anti-kitty protection, because they do like to dig their holes in this area.
On the far right you can see our potato plants, which we grew from potatoes that had sprouted roots after being left out too long. Next to the potatoes are the broccoli plants. The biggest one, the one on the left, is actually the remainder of the supermarket veg patches which we grew from seed, the others were bought as small plants. In front is a small row of onions (actually lasts year's crop; they were too small to eat, so we left them in the shed and planted them out again). Behind them is a line of cucumber plants which we  grew from seed, and behind those is a line of beets, also grown from seed. Then we get to beer slug, who tries to keep everything from being eaten (these things are wonderful: you fill them with beer, the slugs want to drink the beer, they fall in and drown. Much better than spreading poison. Works perfectly with pots or jars not in the shape of snails too). The courgette plant on the far left has already been savagely slaughtered, as you can see. All the way behind the beets you can see our leeks, which were bought as really small plants and are really doing well. There is a kind of empty area in front of beer slug that may or may not contain any seed, I'm not really sure what happened there.
Apart from this plot we have some smaller pots containing the aubergine and possibly the endive or spinach. We will plant these out into the ground if and when space appears, but as I mentioned before, these plants do tend to get larger and larger...

So much for vegetables, what about fruit? Well, our apple tree, after its bumper crop of last year, decided not to do anything at all. No flowers, that is, it's sprouting plenty of leaves. But there will be no home-grown apples in our future.
The strawberries on the other hand...

...doing better than ever!

We're usually on holiday when the strawberry season hits, but this year we won't be going anywhere in June or July, so there will be loads of lovely strawberries to eat!

In short: our garden is in full bloom (both figuratively and literally). Even with the attacks of the snails and the extremes in weather, I think we will manage to grow some things this year, so we will be able to eat from our garden again. Which I still think is one of the best things; eating something you've grown yourself, preferable from seed. It always tastes better than store-bought stuff. And maybe next year, we'll have even more space...