READIN

Saturday, September 17th, 2005

Our bedtime story tonight was Chapter 3 of Moominpappa at Sea. Here are a couple of nice things.

• Moomintroll discovers a glade, which he wants to make his secret hiding-place. Unfortunately it is already inhabited by belligerent red ants. Here is Moomintroll's rationalization of why it's alright for him to seek to evict them:

  Naturally, they were living there before he had appeared on the scene. But if one lives in the ground, one just doesn't see anything of what's up above; an ant has no idea of what birds or clouds look like, or for that matter doesn't know anything about the things that are important to a Moomintroll, for instance. [Sylvia interjects here, like his tail is important to him. -- Because in the previous paragraph, the ants had bitten his tail.]

  There were many kinds of justice. According to one kind, which was a little complicated, perhaps, but absolutely fair, the glade belonged to him and not to the ants.

  I love this examination of his thinking. It goes directly to the heart of the matter, tersely poetic. There is also a reference of a sort back to the trial of Thingumy and Bob in "Finn Family Moomintroll", in which their defense was that they thought the King's Ruby was the most beautiful thing in the world, whereas the Groke only thought it was the most expensive. And that seemed pretty convincing in that case, more obviously self-serving here. (Speaking of the Groke, she is portrayed again in this book, and with more depth than before, if still as a monster.)

• There is a picture of the sea-horse, with whom Moomintroll is going to fall in love, for the first time in the book -- she has been mentioned before but not shown. Sylvia says, "Hey that's not a seahorse! That looks like a galloping horse!" And I think, "Wow, now for the first time I understand why they call seahorses that." Because the illustration combines the curvy seahorse body with the body and legs of a horse and it looks very natural.

• Chapter 4, which we will read tomorrow (or Monday -- tomorrow is Sylvia's birthday party and she may be too tired out afterwards to want to think about Moomins), is called "The North-easter". When Sylvia heard this she pricked up and said Chapter 3 had been called "The West Wind" and that the two chapter titles were similar. I had totally not thought of that at all -- I had forgotten the title of the chapter we were reading. So props to Sylvia for seeing something about the frame of the story.

posted evening of September 17th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, September 7th, 2005

🦋 Fun

We've been on a real Moomintroll kick around here! We were just getting to the end of Comet in Moominland as we left for Italy; Sylvia said she wanted me to bring the next Moomin book as well. (Technically the next book in the series is Finn Family Moomintroll but I picked out Moominsummer Madness instead.) So on vacation we finished both of those -- she ate up Moominsummer Madness voraciously, multiple chapters at a sitting, and when we got to the end we spent our reading time going back and rereading favorite bits. Now that we are home we have started (and nearly finished) Finn Family Moomintroll, and Sylvia is saying she wants to hear Moominpappa at Sea next.

Tonight's reading was Chapter 6 of Finn Family, which has a special place in our relationship with the Moomins -- it is the first Moomin story I read to Sylvia and we read it together many times over the past year. When we started reading she said she had been waiting for this chapter to come. Also that she thought (correctly) that Thingumy and Bob's suitcase had the ruby in it that the Hobgoblin was after -- she knew this from looking ahead at a picture in Chapter 7 that shows the ruby, and also I guess from remembering when we read Chapter 7 -- we must have read it twice or so, but not in several months' time.

The other major reading I did on vacation was The Ancestor's Tale, which I loved and am meaning to post about soon.

posted evening of September 7th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

(Sniff also was the one to talk to the astronomer in Chapter VI, in an impressively grown-up way. I had not remembered him growing up at all. -- And in the next book, he will again be babyish.)

posted evening of August 17th, 2005: Respond
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Tuesday, August 16th, 2005

For bedtime stories now, we are reading Comet in Moominland, by Tove Jansson. Sylvia is really loving it, which does my heart good as the Moomin books are some of my favorites. (Previously we have read together chapters here and there from a few of the books, but this is the first one we are taking on as a complete story.)

Tonight while we were reading Chapter IV, we came across one of my favorite moments involving the small animal Sniff, immediately after he escapes from the dragon whose garnets he was trying to steal:

Sniff was sobbing on the ground.

"It's all over now," said Snufkin. "Don't cry anymore, Sniff."

"The garnets," Sniff moaned. "I didn't get a single one."

Snufkin sat down beside him and said kindly, "I know. But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now, I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase."

"The garnets would have gone in the rucksack," said Sniff miserably. "You don't need hands for that. It's not the same thing at all just looking at them. I want to touch them and know they're mine."

This exchange is kind of a set piece in children's stories, I can't give an example but you see it quite a bit. But I think nowhere else is it done as neatly and touchingly. It reads to my ear as if Jansson knows it is a set piece and is playing with it a bit, but she is also sincerely getting her point across.

What Jansson does particularly well (and what I think authors who present this exchange often fail in) is show how miserable Sniff is about not having gotten the garnets. His line, "the garnets would have gone in the rucksack -- you don't need hands for that", is just perfect. He's heard the line Snufkin is passing him before, and he's not buying it.

posted evening of August 16th, 2005: Respond

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

Something interesting about seeing the bad movie of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was seeing how closely Sylvia has been paying attention to the plot of the book. We were 3 chapters away from the end, when we saw the movie; and all through the movie Sylvia was pointing out details that were different from the book. (Fortunately the matinee was sparsely attended and she could talk without annoying anybody.) And then when we went back to the book, she spent the last three chapters pointing out things that were different from the movie -- especially the last chapter, where the movie diverges widely -- she got really excited at the notion that it was essentially a different story.

posted evening of July 27th, 2005: Respond
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🦋 A lousy movie

We watched Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Friday night and it left me flat. Now "it left me flat" is certainly not a recommendation; but it took until last night, when I was talking about the movie with Mark, for me to realize how much I actively disliked the movie. I had been too distracted by the pretty colors and animation, and the fabulous acting of two of the leads, to really get how lame it was.

Let's think about three things: the book; the old Wilder movie; and the new movie. These are three quite distinct things with not all that much really in common, besides the skeleton of the plot and some similarities in characterization. The book is masterful. The Wilder movie is fun and superficial. The Burton movie stinks.

Both the Wilder movie and the Burton movie have one major deviation from the book's plot plus many little ones. The Wilder movie has the part with Charlie and his Grandpa drinking the soda that makes you float, and Mr. Wonka getting mad at them for it; made up from whole cloth, nothing like it in the book; and whatever -- it's kind of funny though it does not really add much to the story. (Well actually I really like Grandpa Joe's speech after Wonka gets mad. But as I said whatever.) You can fit it in reasonably with the characters as they're presented.

The Burton movie deviates hugely from the plot of the book at the end of the movie; I am not going to go into detail about how because that would be a spoiler, but it's about the lamest ending I can imagine. Seriously -- I was relating it to Mark last night (who is not planning to see the movie) -- and with each clause of my summary he was gasping with incredulity at the total cheesiness/kitschiness of it. And also, there is the little matter of Johnny Depp's performance -- it seemed to me like he was in a totally separate movie from the rest of the actors. And this is not at all true to the book -- Wonka is eccentric, but he is extremely connected to what is going on around him.

So there you have it -- a pan from Jeremy, who is usually quite easy to please when it comes to movies.

Update: A similar reaction to the new movie from Timothy Burke, who expresses himself better than I.

posted evening of July 27th, 2005: Respond
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Saturday, July 16th, 2005

🦋 Candy-making

This afternoon we put it all together, the candies are covered with chocolate and sitting in the refrigerator waiting for Sylvia's play group to come over tomorrow and eat them. Verdict? -- I need practice but I think I could get pretty good at this confectionary stuff.

• The fudge is pretty much of a loss, much too soft to use as candy centers -- though I did get a couple of candies right after the fudge came out of the fridge.
• The marshmallows are very interesting, more like fondant than marshmallows, quite tasty and good for centers if they are handled with extreme care -- they break apart fairly easily. The best technique is to put a dab of chocolate on wax paper, a marshmallow on that, and spoon some more chocolate on top of it.
• The nuts and fruit were fun and easy to do, and we ended up making most of our candies out of them. Also we put crumbled bits of marshmallow in the peanut clusters, which seems like a nice innovation to me.
• I think I tempered the chocolate properly. The cocoa butter did not separate. However it gets quite soft at room temperature. Perhaps a bit of shortening would help stabilize it. Or some guar gum.

Then this evening, we read Chapters 18 and 19 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

posted evening of July 16th, 2005: Respond
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🦋 Fudge part II, Marshmallows part I

This morning we cut up (and sampled) the fudge, and cooked the marshmallows. Verdict on the fudge is, I should definitely have cooked it hotter than I did. It gets pretty hard in the fridge but softens right up at room temp. (Which is fairly high right now.) So the plan is, to keep it in the fridge until we're ready to dip them, and figure once the chocolate sets around them, they can soften without many bad consequences. And yes, the texture is definitely too grainy. But this is not a make-or-break thing; Sylvia is still quite enthusiastic about the results.

Marshmallows are fun to make! I think they are going to come out a fair bit drier than commercial marshmallows but this is not (in my view) a negative. Here is the recipe (taken from Food Reference):

• 2 tablespoons of gelatin
• 1/4 cup of water
• 2 cups of white sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 3/4 cup of mixed cornstarch and powdered sugar (1/4 cup of cornstarch, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar)

Soak the gelatin in 1/4 of a cup of cold water in a small bowl and set aside to swell for 10 minutes.

In a large saucepan pour the sugar and second measure of water. Gently dissolve the sugar over a low heat stirring constantly.

Add the swollen gelatin and dissolve.

Raise the temperature and bring to the boil. Boil steadily but not vigorously for 15 minutes without stirring. (Final temperature should be soft-ball.)

Remove from the heat and allow to cool until luke warm.

Add the vanilla extract and whisk the mixture with an electric mixer or beater until very thick and white.

Rinse an 8 inch sponge roll tin or fudge dish under water and pour the marshmallow mixture into the wet tin.

Refrigerate until set.

Cut into squares and roll in mixed cornstarch and icing sugar. (We will not be doing this since we are dipping them in chocolate instead.)

The Joy of Cooking has a slightly more complicated recipe. When you whip the syrup up into marshmallow it is a lot of fun watching it get foamy and stiff, like whipping cream but moreso.

posted morning of July 16th, 2005: Respond

Friday, July 15th, 2005

🦋 Fudge

Tonight was phase 1 of our candy-making weekend; we made chocolate fudge. Here is a recipe, from Woodstock Candy, a fine place to get fudge if you're in Ulster County:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups granulated white sugar
• 1 cup cream
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter

Combine sugar and cream and cook over moderate heat. When this becomes very hot, add the chocolate. Stir constantly. Cook until mixture reaches soft-ball stage (238 degrees). Remove from heat and add butter. Cool slightly, then mix until fudge starts to thicken. Transfer to a buttered tin. Cut into diamond-shaped pieces before fudge hardens completely.

Right now it is in its buttered tin hardening; soon I will go down and cut it into small diamond pieces. (And some larger diamond pieces also, which will not get dipped in chocolate but might get sprinkled with confectioner's suger instead.)

Sylvia helped with the measuring and mixing but got bored and wandered off during the boiling which I did not want to let her help with because of the high temperatures involved. (Boiling fudge is a grueling procedure in the hot weather.) I am perennially too shy about boiling candy though, in that I shut off the heat the moment my candy thermometer touched the 238-degree "soft ball" line, indeed it may still have been a degree shy of the line, when I think it would actually have been better to err on the high side of the line. I have done the same thing with caramel and had it not harden as fully as I wanted. But we'll see.

After we made the fudge (and Sylvia's interest in the process returned, when there was suddenly the prospect of fudgey spatulas to lick), it was time to get ready for bed, so we came upstairs. Tonight's section of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (chapters 16 and 17) coincidentally included some talk about fudge-making, which was exciting.

Update: Well the tentatitive upshot is, I probably did not heat it up enough (as reckoned above), and I definitely poured it into too large a pan. The pan I used is 6" square, and the fudge is not tall enough in it. I should probably have used a loaf pan. As far as not having heated it up enough, at this point after 3 hours sitting on the counter, it is...soft. No way around it, it's soft. And I sampled a bit of it, it was quite grainy. Which I think if the sugar had gotten hot enough, it would not be. So I am putting it in the fridge now, maybe it will get hard enough in there; but I think it will be grainy regardless. And too short.

posted evening of July 15th, 2005: Respond

Thursday, July 14th, 2005

🦋 Candy

The candy-making date is to be this Saturday afternoon. We will make chocolate fudge and marshmallows, and dip them in chocolate; also brazil nuts and peanut clusters, and a couple of molded chocolate shapes.

Meanwhile in the read, last night we had Chapter 13, "The Big Day Arrives". Sylvia was participating in the book as much as I have seen her do, pointing out the different characters in the picture, describing who they were and what their roles in the story were.

Update: Also Connie and Julia are going to come over and help, and bring strawberries for dipping.

posted morning of July 14th, 2005: Respond

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