10 new books, and an everyday cake

Hi there! It's been almost two months, and I'm overwhelmed by the updates I haven't made here, so instead I'm going to write about books and a cake! I think you'll understand. This cake is nothing fancy but it's moist and tasty and perfect with an afternoon cup of tea or a morning cup of coffee. The yogurt keeps it on the healthy side and gives it a great flavor and nice big crumb. Plus you can mix it up, get it in the pan, and maybe even wash the bowl before the oven preheats to 350!

Everyday Yogurt Cake

1 cup sugar
1 cup plain yogurt (lowfat or whole)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 Tablespoon kirsch (or light rum, or Grand Marnier, etc.)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Optional: 1 cup fruit (I really like raspberries, frozen is fine)

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a cake pan (9 or 10 inch). Mix together the wet ingredients (sugar through kirsch). Sift or mix together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the dry to the wet ingredients and mix just until combined (don't overmix). Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

The last ten books I've read:

Eventide by Kent Haruf

Eventide is the sequel to Plainsong, which I also really liked. These are slow books, portraits of people in a small western town and how their lives intersect. It's subtle and character-driven and enjoyable.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

This book traces the fictional history of a Vermeer painting, from its modern day ownership to its inspiration when Johannes van der Meer painted it. A lovely and engaging story and quite a quick read.

Farther than Any Man: Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook by Martin Dugard

A nonfiction account of the life and voyages of the famous explorer, Captain Cook. The story of Cook's life at sea and interactions with South Pacific Islanders, like the Tahitians and Hawaiians, is so interesting, I couldn't put this one down.

Runaway by Alice Munro

Munro is a much-celebrated author, and this collection of short stories illustrated that for me. Each short story had the depth of a novel, with Munro clearly grasping the internal demons and aspirations of each of her characters. The stories are unhappy, mostly, focusing on women and the effects of small changes and choices. A clearly talented storywriter.

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

This is fluff, maybe good enough for the beach.

Women with Men by Richard Ford

I found this book in the Martha's Vineyard thrift shop, and it's a much older book that has three short stories about complicated relationships between men and women. The stories are about the internal struggles of Ford's complex characters - interesting for the depiction of human nature and emotions.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace

This is the first book I've ever read by DFW, and it's a collection of his non-fiction essays and arguments. DFW has been heavily lauded these days, following his suicide, as the most talented writer of his generation, and I've completely bought in. His essays are brillant - he is funny, insightful, strange, and clearly an incredible serious writer and philosopher. The title essay is especially wonderful - it is his account of a Caribbean cruise he went on to write a story for Harper's, and DFW is clearly NOT the Caribbean cruise type. There was only one essay I didn't read because this was the first sentence:

In the 1960s the poststructuralist metacritics came along and turned literary aesthetics on its head by rejecting assumptions their teachers had held as self-evident and making the whole business of interpreting texts way more complicated by fusing theories of creative discourse with hardcore positions in metaphysics.

Don't let that turn you off though! This man was brilliant.

Devices and Desires by P.D. James

P.D. James is apparently a quite famous British mystery or thrill author, which I didn't realize when I got this one at the MV thrift shop. This was a page-turner of a story, though, and well-written - it would be a much better beach read than the Knitting Club!

MotherKind by Jayne Anne Phillips

This book continued my love affair with Phillips, who also wrote Lark and Termite, for her incredible characters and heart-rending and poetic portrait of life and relationships. There were so many beautiful and simple moments in this book. That said, I found this so hard to read, as it's the story of a woman who has a baby and then spends the next year of her life caring for both her new child and her mother, who has terminal cancer.

Lost by Gregory Maguire

This was a strange one... a somewhat interesting, though thoroughly odd story, so I think I'd stick to his Wicked series, which are truly great.