Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Save the Contemporary, Save the World

Hello, friends. I come to you tonight to talk about a dying breed: the contemporary romance. I know you get all sorts of causes thrown at you. Save endangered wildlife, save starving children, save out planet, blah blah. But this could very well be the most important thing you ever do.

Okay so it probably won't be the most important thing you ever do, but the lovely ladies over at Smart bitches, trashy books (www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com) have created a campaign: Save the Contemporary, Save the World. Not romantic suspense, not paranormal romance (though I'm all in favor of those as well) but stories about two people meeting, growing and falling in love with no external forces pushing them together set in the modern day.

How can you help our cause? By buying contemporary romances. Not just any contemporary romances of course: GOOD ones. Find out more about this here. Books featured include Jill Shalvis' Instant Attraction - whose review I've had half done for a good 3 weeks (I'll finish that up for you, though if you're really curious about it, smart bitches did a review of it - just fish around their website a bit)

The most recent book to be spotlighted by this campaign? Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas. I've read some of Lisa Kleypas's historicals and loved them - particularly her heroines and the circle of friends they have surrounding and supporting them. I have not read Smooth Talking Stranger yet, most likely because it's not actually out yet, but yet again our friends over at Smart Bitches help us out - if you're curious and want to read a review, come on over here to read theirs

And remember: you CAN make a difference. :-p Happy reading!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Hey - I've had this review half written for like 3 weeks. Instead hereare a couple of amusing comics!

Hungry Eyes

1000 Times

Monday, March 2, 2009

Peanut Butter Balls

I love people's reaction to Romance as a genre. This came from author Jill Shalvis's blog. The question came to her from a stranger in the middle of a haircut.

“What is it you do again?”

“I write romances.”

“Really? The ones that have sex in them?”

“Uh, well, yeah. But—“

“How many have you written?”

“I don’t know, more than thirty.”

Her eyes widened. “More than thirty! Wow. How many guys have you slept with?”

Har.

And I still haven't been very good about posting in here. I haven't had any food adventures this week, but I could share a short little ditty on trying to make peanut butter balls.

I'd been craving chocolate peanut butter balls all week. Actually for several weeks. I had a whole jar of peanut butter, I had butter, I just needed powered sugar and chocolate chips, which I snatch up on my next WalMart trip. I then wait for my ideal moment. Actually I just wait until I can't deal with the craving anymore. Roomie was asleep for this one, Accomplice wasn't there. I was on my own.

I'd post the recipie on here, but I don't remember exactly where I got it - I just googled peanut butter ball recipe and modified one to fit me the best. One without wax or rice crispies just because I didn't have either ingredient.

Turns out a full jar of peanut butter wasn't quite enough. Now I could do the math and figure out proportionally exactly how much of the other ingreedients I needed, but then I wouldn't be me. I just cut a random little bit off the butter and poured in the powered sugar until I thought the consistency looked about right.

Don't judge, it worked!

Then came the chocolate dipping bit. I don't actually have a double boiler at school with me (what college student does?) so I jerry-rigged one by putting a random bowl with chocolate chips in boiling water.

Much to my surprise, this doesn't prove ideal for melting the chocolate. I can't get it to melt right, which is really pissing me off, let me tell you. Instead of a nice liquidy texture I'm getting a clay like texture. I try dipping them in anyway, but surprise surprise, silly puddy doesn't provide ideal conditions for dipping.

At this point I'm determined to beat the damn things. It's me against the peanut butter balls and I WILL win. So I take the bowl out of the pot of water, take a glop of chocolate in my hands and mold it around my peanut butter balls like clay.

SO THERE

Eventually the chocolate did melt, but not for a few batches in. The result was half of them looking like beautifully dipped chocolate concoctions and half of them looking like Franken-balls. I still maintain that the latter tasted better.