Over the past few weeks, I've discovered that most people have a typical Tom Hanks reference character. Even if they sometimes don't know the name of said character, when asked, they will say "Captain Philips", "The one from The Green Mile", "That guy on the island talking to a volley ball", "The guy from Polar Express" or simply "You've got mail" or "Catch me if you can". One even mentioned Woody from Toy Story. My personal reference character is Forrest Gump, although Saving Private Ryan is never far from my mind (I try actively not to think about that film at least once a week).
Anyway, the point is; Tom Hanks has played some wildly different characters over the years. You may think he is 'the rom-com guy' due to You've got mail and Sleepless in Seattle, but you can't exactly call Saving Private Ryan a rom-commy movie. He is pretty versatile in what he does, making very different characters come to life, and somehow most roles tend to stick in someones mind (although nobody mentioned Robert Langdon from the Dan Brown film adaptations, which I quietly thought was a good thing). That is quite a gift, compared to many type-casts who only know how to play 'the love interest' or 'the villain' or 'the ex-CIA/FBI agent returning for one last rogue operation'. (His female counterpart in this, to me, is Meryl Streep).
So why am I going on about the various acting jobs of Tom Hanks, while this post is clearly labelled as being about 'books' and 'reading'? Well, mr Hanks turns out to be even more versatile than I thought, as apart from acting in, writing, and producing films, he has also written a book. Not a novel, but a collection of short stories entitled Uncommon Type. Wikipedia tells us that as early as November 2014, "Hanks said he would publish a collection of short stories based on his typewriter collection". Just let that sink in: the man has a typewriter collection, which he writes short stories about, which he says he will publish, and three years later he actually does publish a short story collection about his typewriter collection. I mean, it is a combination of facts one would never expect to find with one person. This sentence alone deserves its own film!
Anyway, I put the book on my wishlist for my birthday, got it, and then it spent about three months sitting on a shelf, because it's a short story collection about typewriters by Tom Hanks; who would waste their time on that? But the reviews were pretty positive, and I was curious to find whether this really was only published because the author is famous so it will inevitably sell well, so I decided to make it my second read of 2018. If anything, it would fulfil my 'more short story collections' goal of 2018.
But it did so much more than that. Mr Hanks knows how to write. Seriously.
Apart from the first and last story, all stories are stand-alone; they differ in time, location, main character, and above all; plot. The first is from about 1910, if memory serves, and the last is set some time in the near future. The main characters range from a billionaire wanting to travel to the past via a Bulgarian immigrant sneaking into the US to a small-town actress trying her luck in New York City. Apart from one film script, the stories are all of the conventional type: 10-50 pages, prose with a nice twist towards the end (there are some newspaper articley bits in there, which I did not like and did not read, so I am disregarding those). The twists are not of Roald Dahl's bitter or cynical quality; nevertheless, they are good. Some of these stories made me put the book aside for a couple of minutes just to think about them. Some made me speed up my reading just to know for sure the main character would end up alright. Some were forgettable, not downright boring but with less well-written characters or themes.
Because it is the characters that make these stories. The plots are not surprising or unique in any way, there are too many stories on the acting/filming industry and others also includes American Dreamy subject matter that we have all seen before (again; for great short stories, check out Roald Dahl). But the characters are great. I really felt I got to know them in the few short pages I spent time with them. They were distinct, well-written and had a lot of character depth and development. This should not be surprising from an actor who has made his living being so many different people himself (ah, and so the blog post comes full circle), but it is still nice to have.
So what about these typewriters? Mr Hanks himself said he would write "short stories based on his typewriter collection". Well, the one combining element in all stories is that they each feature a typewriter. Not in a forced way; in some stories the typewriter is simply mentioned as part of the inventory of a room; in some stories one of the characters doodles around with one while waiting for other things to happen; but in some, the typewriter is important and in one (These are the meditations of my heart) it actually is the main plot element. In almost all stories, we get the make, colour, shape and age of the typewriter. The page preceding each short story shows a picture of the typewriter used in that story, probably all typewriters from Mr Hanks' personal collection. All, except for the last story. That does not feature a typewriter, but a bowling ball. The picture shows an object (could be typewriter, could be bowling ball) in protective casing. Now I wouldn't put it beyond Tom Hanks to also have a collection of bowling balls, and of at this moment writing a short story collection based on it. We will see in a couple of years... In the meantime, this will do just fine, even for those without a fascination for typewriters...
Sunday 21 January 2018
Saturday 20 January 2018
Lemon and poppyseed cake: the sequel
So last week I made this very light lemon and poppy seed cake from a recipe by Yvette van Boven, and although it was great and lovely and light, it was a bit too much of a hassle for me to fit this into a quick Saturday afternoon bake. So I decided to try again, this time using a simple cake which I've been baking my entire childhood (the English would call it a pound cake), which requires only one bowl, a simple set of instructions, and no splitting of eggs. Also, no glazing. Let's see if this works just as well.
Ingredients
200 g butter
200 g sugar
200 g self-raising flour
2-3 eggs (combined weight should be about 200 g)
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
juice and peel of one lemon
Preheat the oven to 180 C and grease and line a baking tin. I used a loaf tin for this one.
Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the flour, poppy seeds, lemon juice and peel. Finally, add the eggs one at a time, and keep whisking for about 4-5 minutes after the last egg has been added to add as much air as possible (I made this cake in the KitchenAid, so no sore arms from too much whisking).
Pour the mixture in the baking tin and bake for about 40-45 minutes. Leave to cool.
If you want, you can add a glaze, but my teeth were still recovering from the last cake, so I didn't. We just had a slice, still-warm from the oven, with our morning tea.
So, the verdict. Is this easy, run-off-the-mill cake just as good as Yvette's fancy one?
Sadly, or gladly, depending on your point of view, it isn't. It's a pretty nice cake, but it is quite heavy and stodgy compared to the 'light' professional one. The texture really is much denser. The lemon doesn't come through quite as well in this cake, it tastes more buttery. All in all, this makes you feel as if you won't have to eat anything for the rest of the day, while the other cake somehow floats away to an airy memory.
Funny, isn't it, how using almost exactly the same ingredients, just a few simple differences in the method leaves you with two so wildly different cakes? The lack of airiness is all due to the lack of separately beaten egg whites, of course, and it is good to know that that makes so much of a difference. And Yvette's cake would have been even lighter if I'd followed her recipe and used 4 egg whites instead of 2.
Anyway, moral of the story is; more elbow grease and bowls to wash also gives you a better cake. And as it turns out, Yvette also has a recipe for a pound cake, one that does involve two bowls and egg splitting and separately beaten egg whites, but is otherwise almost as simple as the one above. This, combined with the lemon juice and poppy seeds, may well be the holy grail of lemon and poppy seed cakes; stay tuned!
Ingredients
200 g butter
200 g sugar
200 g self-raising flour
2-3 eggs (combined weight should be about 200 g)
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
juice and peel of one lemon
Preheat the oven to 180 C and grease and line a baking tin. I used a loaf tin for this one.
Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the flour, poppy seeds, lemon juice and peel. Finally, add the eggs one at a time, and keep whisking for about 4-5 minutes after the last egg has been added to add as much air as possible (I made this cake in the KitchenAid, so no sore arms from too much whisking).
Pour the mixture in the baking tin and bake for about 40-45 minutes. Leave to cool.
If you want, you can add a glaze, but my teeth were still recovering from the last cake, so I didn't. We just had a slice, still-warm from the oven, with our morning tea.
So, the verdict. Is this easy, run-off-the-mill cake just as good as Yvette's fancy one?
Sadly, or gladly, depending on your point of view, it isn't. It's a pretty nice cake, but it is quite heavy and stodgy compared to the 'light' professional one. The texture really is much denser. The lemon doesn't come through quite as well in this cake, it tastes more buttery. All in all, this makes you feel as if you won't have to eat anything for the rest of the day, while the other cake somehow floats away to an airy memory.
Funny, isn't it, how using almost exactly the same ingredients, just a few simple differences in the method leaves you with two so wildly different cakes? The lack of airiness is all due to the lack of separately beaten egg whites, of course, and it is good to know that that makes so much of a difference. And Yvette's cake would have been even lighter if I'd followed her recipe and used 4 egg whites instead of 2.
Anyway, moral of the story is; more elbow grease and bowls to wash also gives you a better cake. And as it turns out, Yvette also has a recipe for a pound cake, one that does involve two bowls and egg splitting and separately beaten egg whites, but is otherwise almost as simple as the one above. This, combined with the lemon juice and poppy seeds, may well be the holy grail of lemon and poppy seed cakes; stay tuned!
Sunday 14 January 2018
Very light lemon and poppy seed cake
My previous recipe by Yvette van Boven was a hit, so I decided to try another one this weekend. I made a lemon and poppy seed cake a long, looong time ago (turns out it was 2012... can you believe it?), so it was high time I made another! The poppy seeds took some time to get a hold of, but when those were in my possession, I was ready for the 'very light' lemon and poppy seed cake that Yvette describes. Technically the recipe isn't her own, as she describes a friend buying a lemon and poppy seed cake bought in London and recreated from the ingredients list. Whichever way she came by it, I decided to try it out.
Usually I try to follow new recipes to the letter, but this time I had some reservations against that. Firstly, the recipe required 6 eggs; 2 whole and 4 egg whites. I have nothing against baking with eggs, but 6 felt a bit too extravagant for 'just a cake' (must be my Dutch nature playing up). So I brought that down to 2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites. Secondly, if you follow this recipe properly, you need 4 bowls. I don't know how large your kitchen is, but I do not have 4 mixing bowls. Thirdly, the glazing required 250 grams of icing sugar, which is sweet enough to reduce your teeth to rotting black stumps. So I reduced that to more normal proportions. And finally, to whisk egg whites, you need a very clean bowl and very clean mixer. According to the recipe, I had to mix all the other ingredients first, then clean the whisks, and then whisk the egg whites. What with all the bowls and organisation going on already, this felt like too much hassle. So I whisked the egg whites before doing anything else, thus probably violating about 3 Main Baking Laws, but making my own life a little easier.
So, that brings me to the actual story:
Ingredients:
200 g butter, at room temperature
200 g white muscavado sugar
2 whole eggs
peel and juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons poppy seed
200 g flour
5 g baking powder
2 (or 4) egg whites
For the glazing:
juice of one lemon
120 (or 250) g icing sugar
You can make this cake in either a loaf tin or a round tin. I used a round tin, to get a more 'cakey' feeling, and because this gives you bigger slices to serve to friends (I always try to bake when I know people will be visiting, so I won't have to eat too much cake). Anyway, grease the tin and line with baking parchment. Preheat your oven to 170 C.
I started by mixing the egg whites together with a pinch of salt until firm enough for the bowl to be held upside down. Officially, this step is after the adding of the dry ingredients to the wet.
Mix the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Add the lemon peel, juice and poppy seeds and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together over the mixture, and spoon through until the mixture is smooth.
Add the whisked egg whites; first add one spoonful and incorporate this well, then add the rest and stir until combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.
This cake has a relatively high sugar content, so it will brown quickly. Do not be fooled into thinking it is more baked than it is; an underbaked cake will collapse (as mine did). Also, it will stick to the tin, so make sure to grease the tin really really well.
When your cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of minutes before turning it out.
To make the glazing, simply mix the lemon juice and icing sugar until you have a runny consistency. Pour over the (slightly cooled) cake and leave to harden.
Now, as I mentioned, my cake had collapsed slightly in the middle. This meant that all the glazing pooled into the dip in the middle, making the first small bites from the middle very very lemony. Also, the 'crust' stuck to the tin when I took it out, so bits of the 'crust' were lost as trimmings
But the texture of the cake came out perfect. Not just light, as the recipe says, but almost fluffy. This may well be one of the best cakes I've ever made, crumb structure wise. Even Mary Berry may have been impressed. The poppy seed taste came out well, although the lemon is a bit too strong in comparison. I will use less lemon juice in the glazing in the future, as it takes away from the actual cake taste. But otherwise, it was pretty close to perfect, and I won't wait another 6 years before making another lemon and poppy seed cake.
Usually I try to follow new recipes to the letter, but this time I had some reservations against that. Firstly, the recipe required 6 eggs; 2 whole and 4 egg whites. I have nothing against baking with eggs, but 6 felt a bit too extravagant for 'just a cake' (must be my Dutch nature playing up). So I brought that down to 2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites. Secondly, if you follow this recipe properly, you need 4 bowls. I don't know how large your kitchen is, but I do not have 4 mixing bowls. Thirdly, the glazing required 250 grams of icing sugar, which is sweet enough to reduce your teeth to rotting black stumps. So I reduced that to more normal proportions. And finally, to whisk egg whites, you need a very clean bowl and very clean mixer. According to the recipe, I had to mix all the other ingredients first, then clean the whisks, and then whisk the egg whites. What with all the bowls and organisation going on already, this felt like too much hassle. So I whisked the egg whites before doing anything else, thus probably violating about 3 Main Baking Laws, but making my own life a little easier.
So, that brings me to the actual story:
Ingredients:
200 g butter, at room temperature
200 g white muscavado sugar
2 whole eggs
peel and juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons poppy seed
200 g flour
5 g baking powder
2 (or 4) egg whites
For the glazing:
juice of one lemon
120 (or 250) g icing sugar
You can make this cake in either a loaf tin or a round tin. I used a round tin, to get a more 'cakey' feeling, and because this gives you bigger slices to serve to friends (I always try to bake when I know people will be visiting, so I won't have to eat too much cake). Anyway, grease the tin and line with baking parchment. Preheat your oven to 170 C.
I started by mixing the egg whites together with a pinch of salt until firm enough for the bowl to be held upside down. Officially, this step is after the adding of the dry ingredients to the wet.
Mix the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between. Add the lemon peel, juice and poppy seeds and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together over the mixture, and spoon through until the mixture is smooth.
Add the whisked egg whites; first add one spoonful and incorporate this well, then add the rest and stir until combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes.
This cake has a relatively high sugar content, so it will brown quickly. Do not be fooled into thinking it is more baked than it is; an underbaked cake will collapse (as mine did). Also, it will stick to the tin, so make sure to grease the tin really really well.
When your cake is done, take it out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of minutes before turning it out.
To make the glazing, simply mix the lemon juice and icing sugar until you have a runny consistency. Pour over the (slightly cooled) cake and leave to harden.
 |
| Not an optical illusion: that is quite a dip in the middle. |
Now, as I mentioned, my cake had collapsed slightly in the middle. This meant that all the glazing pooled into the dip in the middle, making the first small bites from the middle very very lemony. Also, the 'crust' stuck to the tin when I took it out, so bits of the 'crust' were lost as trimmings
 |
| Pretty, pretty crumb structure! |
But the texture of the cake came out perfect. Not just light, as the recipe says, but almost fluffy. This may well be one of the best cakes I've ever made, crumb structure wise. Even Mary Berry may have been impressed. The poppy seed taste came out well, although the lemon is a bit too strong in comparison. I will use less lemon juice in the glazing in the future, as it takes away from the actual cake taste. But otherwise, it was pretty close to perfect, and I won't wait another 6 years before making another lemon and poppy seed cake.
Tuesday 9 January 2018
Lincoln in the bardo
So, the first novel of 2018 is a fact! Although, maybe it wasn't really a novel... I decided to keep up with the Man Booker winners and get started on Lincoln in the Bardo, the 2017 Man Booker winner and the second American novel in a row to do so. The first one, The Sellout, was a huge disappointment, and as this novel had beaten Mohsin Hamid's Exit West (which should have won, really), it had to be pretty good to keep me happy.
At first glance, it was mostly... weird. I'd been somewhat prepared to that due to a review I'd read, but still, it took me a while to 'get' it. The novel starts with someone recounting a pretty silly story, until other voices seem to burst into the conversation, and then the chapter is suddenly finished. The next chapter consists of snippets of (real?) historical sources, all recounting something about Abraham Lincoln. Which in no way has any relation with chapter one. Then more 'talk' from the characters introduced in chapter one, and then more historical sources. Quite puzzeling. And it could have been quite annoying, so much so that I might have put the thing down never to pick it up again, but there is something that kept me reading, something in the style of writing or the events described (everything is described by the characters, it is all dialogue, or rather intertwined monologues).
And as I got into it, a picture started to emerge. I won't give too much away, for the discovery of what is going on is half the joy of reading. But all these characters were so confusing because they didn't realise the position they were in, or were in denial of it. They were unreliable narrators, but unintentionally. And the historical sources were there to give some sort of a frame for the other events, ordered in such a way that they provide the necessary background information for the rest of the story. These 'historical' (I'm still not sure whether these were real sources) texts were pretty reliable, apart from the bit where they all gave Abraham Lincoln different coloured eyes.
The book has over a hundred chapters, but somehow I flew through them, feeling dazed and confused when it was all over. The pacing is somewhat off; the first chapters feel very slow and uneventful, and then suddenly everything is in motion and happening at the same time. The plot is equally unbalanced. Not in an annoying way, but it makes you wonder whether it couldn't have been done differently. There are some truly funny bits, and also some moving bits, with one slightly disturbing image that keeps coming back. The characters are flat as pancakes, but they cannot help themselves, there being so many and them only able to describe events and their own emotions. The style, the combination of monologue and historical sources, and the choice of words and language, is the main selling point.
So the overall verdict? Way, way better than The Sellout. A deserved winner over Exit West? No way. But as an experiment in style and subject matter, it is truly well done. It gives me similar feelings as The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton; a lot of preparatory work went into the 'framework' of that novel as well, and sometimes the story collapses under all that structure. This novel holds up on its own, mostly due to the author's writing style. Apparently, George Saunders said he's never written a novel, and Lincoln in the Bardo shouldn't be considered his first, as it is not a novel at all. I somewhat agree with him, but I also hope he will put his considerable talents towards actually writing a novel soon. That may, in years where there are no other favourite authors to compete, be Man Booker worthy.
At first glance, it was mostly... weird. I'd been somewhat prepared to that due to a review I'd read, but still, it took me a while to 'get' it. The novel starts with someone recounting a pretty silly story, until other voices seem to burst into the conversation, and then the chapter is suddenly finished. The next chapter consists of snippets of (real?) historical sources, all recounting something about Abraham Lincoln. Which in no way has any relation with chapter one. Then more 'talk' from the characters introduced in chapter one, and then more historical sources. Quite puzzeling. And it could have been quite annoying, so much so that I might have put the thing down never to pick it up again, but there is something that kept me reading, something in the style of writing or the events described (everything is described by the characters, it is all dialogue, or rather intertwined monologues).
And as I got into it, a picture started to emerge. I won't give too much away, for the discovery of what is going on is half the joy of reading. But all these characters were so confusing because they didn't realise the position they were in, or were in denial of it. They were unreliable narrators, but unintentionally. And the historical sources were there to give some sort of a frame for the other events, ordered in such a way that they provide the necessary background information for the rest of the story. These 'historical' (I'm still not sure whether these were real sources) texts were pretty reliable, apart from the bit where they all gave Abraham Lincoln different coloured eyes.
The book has over a hundred chapters, but somehow I flew through them, feeling dazed and confused when it was all over. The pacing is somewhat off; the first chapters feel very slow and uneventful, and then suddenly everything is in motion and happening at the same time. The plot is equally unbalanced. Not in an annoying way, but it makes you wonder whether it couldn't have been done differently. There are some truly funny bits, and also some moving bits, with one slightly disturbing image that keeps coming back. The characters are flat as pancakes, but they cannot help themselves, there being so many and them only able to describe events and their own emotions. The style, the combination of monologue and historical sources, and the choice of words and language, is the main selling point.
So the overall verdict? Way, way better than The Sellout. A deserved winner over Exit West? No way. But as an experiment in style and subject matter, it is truly well done. It gives me similar feelings as The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton; a lot of preparatory work went into the 'framework' of that novel as well, and sometimes the story collapses under all that structure. This novel holds up on its own, mostly due to the author's writing style. Apparently, George Saunders said he's never written a novel, and Lincoln in the Bardo shouldn't be considered his first, as it is not a novel at all. I somewhat agree with him, but I also hope he will put his considerable talents towards actually writing a novel soon. That may, in years where there are no other favourite authors to compete, be Man Booker worthy.
Friday 5 January 2018
Healthy fruitcake
So one of my favourite new baking-recipe sources is Yvette van Boven. If you aren't Dutch you've probably never heard of her, but she is a great and funny and down-to-earth baker/cook. I bought her baking cookbook Home Baked with the book coupons I got for my birthday.
Yvette van Boven combines classic Dutch recipes with Irish inspiration, as she grew up in Ireland. Since my baking style is also a mix of Dutch and English, influenced by years of watching The Great British Bake-Off, this suits me perfectly. Today, I didn't really know what I wanted to bake, so I let my boyfriend pick out something easy that didn't involve pie-crusts (my arch nemesis). His suggestion: almond-fruitcake.
Now Yvette also likes to include recipes that are gluten or 'fast sugar' free, and this is one of those recipes. As such, it includes almond flour, which turns out to be one of the most expensive things ever. You could probably get away with using wheat (or any other kind of) flour, but we shall see what the almonds add to the taste when the cake gets out of the oven.
Ingredients:
250 g almond flour (or wheat, probably)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 apple or pear, cored and diced
100 g dried apricots (I cut these into smaller pieces too)
100 g dried prunes (cut, althoug the recipe doesn't tell you to)
50 g walnuts
4 eggs
1 teaspoon of honey
about 75 ml water
Grease a loaf tin with olive oil (if you want to be all vegan about it) or butter, line with baking parchment. Preheat your oven to 170 C (fun fact: Yvette also wants you to get an oven thermometer, so I now know exactly how hot my oven is. Turns out it is a lot cooler than it thinks it is).
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the fruits and nuts in another bowl, and combine with the dry ingredients. Then, lightly whisk the eggs together with the honey and add that to the dry mixture.
 |
| Fruity cake filling mixture |
Now at this point Yvette tells me to 'add water until the mixture becomes creamy. This may be 50 ml, this may be 75'. However, my mixture was already pretty creamy. I checkt again, and turns out my apricots and prunes weren't actually the dried-dried fruits she mentioned, but just semi-dried and stuck in a package. So I didn't add any water. But if you have proper dried fruits, I'd add some water.
Pour the mixture into the prepared caketin and bake for about 40-50 minutes.
Now the only raising agents in this cake are the bicarbonate and the four eggs (lightly whisked) while there is a lot of heavy fruit in there. I was very curious to see whether this would come out looking anything like a cake, or more a stodgy lump. Luckily, I need not have worried.
 |
| Fruity fruitcake |
It was a proper cake, although not really the lightest cake I've ever eaten. Chock full of fruits and nuts, with sweetness from the cinnamon and honey coming through, while ate the same time feeling very very healthy. Not much of the almond flavour coming through, although the texture is a bit different than with a wheat flour cake. Still, I do think wheat flour would work.
The recipe picker declared this 'the best cake he'd ever eaten', so all was well in that regard.
Because I used so many large 'wet' fruits, the cake does somewhat fall apart when you slice it. If I'd known this beforehand, I would have cut the fruit in smaller pieces. So; dried fruits are okay to be a bit on the large size, fresh fruit should be cut. But that is mostly a logistical issue; flavour wise, it is great!
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