Cookalong With: The Secret Adversary

I think I've finally found my reading niche among Agatha Christie's mystery series, and it's not with Miss Marple or with Hercule Poirot. It's with Tommy and Tuppence, a Jazz-age sleuthing couple who make their first appearance in The Secret Adversary. 

In 1920, Tommy, a young veteran of WWI, and Tuppence, a former wartime nurse, are both struggling to find jobs and make ends meet. On a whim, they decide to team up and advertise their services as "young adventurers". Surprisingly, they quickly receive a response and are engaged to help track down a missing girl who, years earlier, had secretly smuggled a set of highly secret government papers off of the Lusitania on the night that it sunk. As Tommy and Tuppence set off on the hunt, they soon realize that there's more than meets the eye to their case and their success or failure could have international diplomatic implications. The Secret Adversary was simultaneously the most fun and the most suspenseful of any of the Agatha Christie novels I've read so far. Tommy and Tuppence are extremely likable couple who exude humor and spunk in the face a dangerous enemy whose mysterious identity kept me turning the pages. I definitely plan to seek out the rest of the books in the Tommy and Tuppence series, and hope to read the next one while nibbling on fig and orange scones with Devonshire cream.

When I did my first attempt at a "cookalong with" post, I created a recipe based on a meal that was featured in the book. I should be clear here that this installment is really a fantasy cookalong. These scones don't actually appear in The Secret Adversary and I haven't actually made them yet, but when I saw the recipe on Paper and Salt and read about how Agatha was a voracious lover and eater of cream during her tea time, the connection seemed too perfect to resist. I love having clotted cream on scones and have never found a recipe to make it at home before. The crockpot method sounds easy enough for me to consider trying. If it comes out well, I'll break out another Christie novel in honor. And I'll be sure to blog about it, of course.

Cookalong With: A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness is a book that's too long for its own good. I really liked it for the first couple hundred of pages and found myself swept up in the story of a world where witches, vampires, and daemons live alongside humans and become drawn into conflict with each other when a non-practicing witch uncovers a rare and magical manuscript from Oxford's Bodleian Library. It had all of the light, entertaining qualities you'd expect to find in this kind of book, plus some interesting historical details and an Oxford setting that was bound to appeal to me. I was pretty sure I had a real page-turned on my hands. Then I hit a point where my interest just waned. I realized that all of the new, magical revelations that kept coming one after another weren't really leading to anything. It felt like the author was trying to set the stage for the sequel rather than build a strong plot that could stand on its own in this book. And while I started out easily overlooking a few instances of cheesy writing and characterization, they began to grate on me after 500+ pages.

On a positive note, there was one scene that really stuck with me: While eating at a local diner, the main character (who is basically this book's version of Brad Pitt's character in Ocean's Eleven and is munching on something throughout most of the novel) orders a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. When the waitress brings it, she includes a side of roasted vegetables. For some reason, this combination, though nothing groundbreaking, just sounded so good to me. I couldn't get it out of my head and decided to recreate a version of it for myself.

I tossed some chopped mixed vegetables (I used one potato, one onion, and some cherry tomatoes) in olive oil and salt and roasted them on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. When they were done, I topped them with a couple of poached eggs. It was as satisfying a meal as I had imagined it to be.

 

Bottom line: If you're a huge fan of the magical creatures genre, you may want to give the book a try. If not, skip it and make some veggies and eggs for breakfast instead.