Week Thirteen: The Other Typist

This week I chose The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell. Set in the glamorous world of 1920’s New York, this is a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Rose is a rather drab and prudish orphan, working as a typist in a Manhattan Police precinct. She prides herself on her accuracy and ability not to be ruffled by the bloodthirsty accounts she transcribes every day. She has a strong moral compass and thoroughly disapproves of all the drunkards she encounters (prohibition had just come into effect and subsequently the precinct has become a revolving door for drink related offences). One day her world is turned upside down, when another typist, Odalie is hired. Odalie is glamorous and sexually confident – everything Rose is not. Despite the odds, the two become friends and move in together, but their friendship becomes all consuming, with Rose both fascinated and obsessed by Odalie, whilst also disapproving of her. Odalie is a party girl and introduces Rose to the dark and dangerous world of Manhattan speakeasies, leading her on a wild adventure far from her prim existence prior to their friendship. But just who is Odalie exactly? She has a different story on a different day and seems to be able to acquire drinks and new clothes without ever paying for anything… As Rose becomes more embroiled in her obsession with Odalie, we learn that nothing is really as it seems. 

I enjoyed this book a lot, it’s hard not to get seduced by the exciting and glamorous world of 20’s New York  and the more we learn about the mysterious Odalie, the more absorbing the story becomes. One criticism is that we are given a lot of signposting throughout the story to what might happen at the end, as Rose reveals that something has happened to lead to her downfall. We learn quite early on that Rose is writing her account from an asylum, under the supervision of a doctor, who notes her ‘acute cruel streak’, and Rose ultimately gives too many hints about what is to come. There is a rather big twist at the end, but all this signposting gives too much away, denying the reader of that ‘oh my god’ moment. I guess in all thrillers there needs to be a balance of what is revealed and what is held back – for me, too much was revealed early on, destroying some of that delicious tension. I guess part of that comes from the first person narrative (yet another unreliable narrator) and I could imagine the tension and the ‘reveal’ playing out much better in a film (apparently they are making a film starring Keira Knightley, how apt). Nevertheless, this was a fun and absorbing read – I am a bit of a sucker for anything 1920’s to be honest. Not perfect, but a good read.

 

I couldn’t cook something this week that didn’t somehow incorporate the boozy, dark glamour of the 1920’s. For me, the 20’s = cocktails and tempted though I was to experiment with a load of cocktail making, I decided to cook something cocktail inspired to protect my liver! Gin features quite heavily in the book, so I decided to make some kind of gin flavoured cake. With the help of google, I found a recipe for Gin & Tonic cupcakes… gin & tonic in a cupcake… what could be better?!  Here’s the recipe I used, but I adapted it slightly as below: http://bakeitinstinct.com/2013/08/21/gin-and-tonic-cupcakes/ 

Gin & Tonic Cupcakes 

Makes 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the cakes:

• 90g unsalted butter softened
• 90g golden caster sugar
• 90g self raising flour
•  1 medium egg
• 2 tbsp tonic water 
• 1tbsp gin 

For the icing:

• 100g unsalted butter softened
• 50g icing sugar
• Juice and zest of one lime
• 1tbsp gin

 

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 170c and line a cupcake/muffin tin with 9 cases
2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and creamy 
3. Add the egg and whisk well until fully combined
4. Sift in the flour and fold in being careful not to over stir it
5. Stir in the tonic water
6. Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases but don’t fill more than 2/3
7. Bake for 15-20mins until they are golden and spring and a skewer comes out clean
8. Remove from tins and place on cooling rack. While they are still hot pierce each one with a skewer half a dozen times and brush with gin
9. For the icing, soften the butter with your whisk, add in the icing sugar and whisk fully batch at a time
10. Squeeze in the juice of lime into the icing and add the gin. Whip again until soft and light and fluffy
11. Pipe on to the cakes and add some lime zest to decorate.

Just a note on the icing – I know from experience that all recipes recommend you use way too much icing sugar, so I reduced the amount I used by a lot, so you could use more if needed. I also always end up with too much icing, so I made half the recommended amount. These cupcakes were tasty, but very limey, meaning the taste of G&T didn’t really come through. If I were to make again, I add more gin as you can’t go wrong with that! The lime icing was delicious though, don’t get me wrong! Because the icing has booze in it, I would recommend refrigerating it as mine did go a little bit runny. 

Here’s a pic: 

Not too shabby! 

 

 

Week 7: The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells – by Andrew Sean Greer

 

It’s 1985 New York and Greta Wells has watched her dear brother, Felix die of AIDS and has been left by her long term partner, Nathan. Lonely and devastated by the loss of both men, she becomes depressed. She is prescribed electroconvulsive therapy, assured by her doctor that the side effects will be mild and over a course of treatments, she will be returned to herself. 

Instead, she wakes up in 1918 and discovers that with each treatment she is transported to the life of another Greta – and through the course of her treatments, she travels between 1918, 1942 and 1985. Each Greta in habits a life that is familiar, yet different and each Greta is broken. In 1918, she is married to an unfaithful Nathan who is away at war and has been having an affair with a young man, Leo. Felix is still alive and struggling in a society that does not tolerate his homosexuality. In 1942, she is recuperating from an accident that killed her aunt Ruth, but still has Nathan and Felix. As she travels between each world, she learns that each Greta is also travelling between lives and comes to understand each Greta, and herself a little more. Ultimately, towards the end, she must decide which life she wants to live in and which Greta will be happiest in which era.

I had high hopes for the this novel and found the whole notion of time travel through parallel lives really interesting. However, I don’t think Greer quite pulls it off – while the idea of switching between each life works as a plot device, it also didn’t work quite seamlessly enough for me (maybe I am pedantic but it annoyed me that in one world she has a broken arm and yet doesn’t travel with it but in 1918, she gets pregnant and seemingly does travel with that condition). I guess I couldn’t quite get my head around it enough to believe it. I also don’t feel that I ever got to know Greta or any of the other versions of her well enough to actually like her and sympathise with her. I just felt a bit removed from it all, which isn’t helped by some of the prose which is, to use a technical term, quite waffly! To me it felt like this book could have done with a bit of a tighter edit! That said, the book did raise some interesting themes – war plays a role in each world and it is interesting to think that those involved in WW1 would never have imagined that in just another 20 years or so, they’d be at war again. It’s also interesting to see the parallels between each era – in 1918 there is an influenza epidemic killing masses, whereas in 1985 it’s an AIDS epidemic. Overall I’d say this was an ambitious book, that in my opinion didn’t quite pull it off – what a shame!

I ran with the war theme this week and decided to make a 1940s chocolate cake – which suited me well as I am on pre-payday rations! I found a recipe on the BBC history site of all places, for an eggless chocolate cake…

This is possibly the easiest cake ever to make! It took me about five minutes to make the mixture – I only baked this for 45mins, not the full 90mins suggested by the recipe – not sure what it would have been like after all that time!! The cake came out alright really, it’s quite dense, a bit like a brownie but considering it doesn’t really use much by way of ingredients, it’s pretty good. Not the more delicious cake you’ll ever eat, but not the worst either!

Book Four: The Engagements

Love was in the air this week – I read The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan…

 

 

 

A diamond is forever – a slogan that changed the way we view diamonds. The Engagements opens with the story of Frances Gerety – the copywriter who coined that infamous slogan and convinced the world that diamonds were ubiquitous with love and marriage.  Her story forms the backbone to the novel and interspersed between it, the novel spans four very different relationships over a period of seventy years.

There is Evelyn, married to Gerald – the best friend of her first husband who was killed in a tragic accident. It’s now the 1970’s and the couple are struggling to come to terms with the fact that their only son is divorcing, for Evelyn it’s absolutely heartbreaking.

It’s the 80’s and paramedic James is working the Christmas eve shift so he can earn double time, despite his wife’s protestations. His house is falling apart and he is heavily in debt – all he wants to do is make his wife and kids proud. Will he get the break he deserves?

2003 and Delphine is exacting revenge on the young American musician she left her life in France for. She betrayed her husband Henri, only to discover what goes around comes around.

And finally it’s 2013 and marriage skeptic Kate is watching her gay cousin Jeffrey tie the knot, now that gay marriage is legal in the States.

Four very different relationships which we come to learn are linked…

This book reminded me a lot of one of those films like Valentine’s Day in the way it switches between all the different characters and we gradually see the links between each story. Frances’ story ties it all together as we see how she struggled in her heyday to be a woman in a man’s world, how she never wanted romance and didn’t marry yet built myths around diamonds and love that still pervade today. Because of the bitty nature of this book, I really struggled to get into it and the connection between all the parts is not obvious from the start and so at first I was really wondering what the whole point of it was! I think it’s a book that you can appreciate better once you’ve finished and can step back and look at the book as a whole – despite struggling through it and saying I didn’t really enjoy it, I still got that little rush of emotion I sometimes get when finishing a book! It’s a slow starter, but I do think The Engagements achieves a lot. It’s not all sappy romance and there are definitely some ambiguous characters in there, so I suppose, despite the facade and glitter of the diamonds, there is something very real in there. I loved Frances’ story the most and that was the one that was real – her story is very mad men-esque  and has definitely made me think twice about all the mythology that exists around diamonds… are they really a girl’s best friend?!

 

So, with all that love in the air, I decided this week to cook something love themed. I quite fancied baking a cake too, so with the help of google, I stumbled upon this recipe for Sri Lankan Love Cake. This really appealed to me, with it’s flavours of cinnamon, cardamon and rose. Some of my favourites!

Sri Lankan Love Cake

Ingredients:

• 150 g unsalted butter
• 350 g caster sugar
• 6 medium eggs
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons rose water
• Grated zest of 1 orange
• Grated zest 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 250 g coarse semolina
• 50 g of glacé cherries [can be replaced with wine gums of jelly babies]
• 25 g of mixed peel
• 25 g of crystallized stem ginger
• Icing sugar to dust

– To start, cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs, one at a time and beat.

– Then add the rose water, grated zest, honey and spices (you will probably need to grind the cardamom seeds first unless you have some already ground. You can just do this in a pestle and mortar if you have one). Mix through.

– Finally add the semolina (you could also use polenta if you wanted to make this gluten free), the glace cherries, peel and ginger. Give it all a good mix and then pour into a greased baking tin – the recipe suggests 25×30, but I think just use whatever you have got and then bake for about an hour at 150C.

– Leave cake to cool in the tin before removing. Once it’s completely cool then sprinkle with a dusting of icing sugar.

I had really high hopes for this cake because I love all the flavours but in reality it is just too sweet!! The flavour of rose is actually quite overpowering so if you make this I would reduce the amount you use a lot! If I were to make this again I’d just use half a tbsp of rose water, skip out the honey altogether and use more spices so you get those flavours coming through. I’d also be tempted to leave out the stem ginger and use ground ginger instead. Bit of a shame really, you need a VERY sweet tooth to enjoy this… or just have a little bit at a time with a cup of tea I suppose! Despite the over-sweetness, the texture of the cake is really good. It’s perfectly moist! The original recipe suggested adding in cashew nuts which I left out, but actually it might be nice to add in some crunch. What I should really do is make this cake again with all the corrections I want to make and then post it… but I just don’t have time!! Got another book to read and another recipe to make!

I did originally think that making this cake was a bit of a cop out, because it’s only really linked to the book by name. The book has absolutely nothing to do with Sri Lanka and I probably should have got a bit creative and tried to make some edible diamonds or something else ridiculous… but having tasted the cake and finished the book, I think they actually complement each other rather well!

See you next week!!