Dinosaur Plate

I saw a photo of a plate with giraffes cut halfway through their necks and sprayed pink. While that was definitely not for me I realized I could substitute the color and the animals with my much preferred silver dinos! (This all is a preparation for a different project, I just needed to get the feel for cutting anonymous dinosaurs, you know, to find out if I was OK with it)

You'll need:

• 3 plastic animals roughly of the same size
• a plate (all I could find was a ceramic one, plastic would be easier)
• spray paint
• exacto knife (not as dull as mine, it took ages to cut through!)
• universal glue
• optional: nail polishes for cooler eyes

So, at first you need to take a look at your dinosaurs, compliment them a little so that they start to feel a false sense of security. Say that the measuring is part of their regular health check. Oh, if they only knew... 

 Once you've decided how high or low you want the plate stand or how much body you want to have above, draw a horizontal line all around them so that you know where to cut. This will take ages since you'll be measuring and getting into place where it is difficult to get.

Then, when they expect it the least, attack- stab them and cut them all around. If you have a dull knife, it will take ages as well.

Once the dinosaurs are halved, stick them to the bottom of your plate. Make sure they are evenly spaced. I started upside down to get them where I needed them but then flipped them over so that gravity would help me.

Repeat with the upper halves. Now, doesn't this start looking cosy? :-)=

Get out and prepare to awaken you street sprayer side. I was lucky - it was sunny as well as windy so that narrowed the time of 2 hours of drying per 1 coat to just plain 2 hours for all coats.

I had to spray two coats per side because as you can see here, the primary color seeped through the first coat.

But two coats was enough so all I needed were final touches - the eyes.

Yeah, they look rad :-D= Or red? I dunno. Pardon my English :-p

Aaaand that's it. I'm not sure this is food safe so I decided to let them treasure the keys.

Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian

I don't know why but it's always difficult for me to write a review of something I absolutely loved reading. The great books leave big impression on me but the things they are great for are usually difficult to grasp. They lie hidden in the moments when I cannot put the novel down, they appear days later when I'm walking with a big fat book hangover, they pop up years later when I think I'm good to move on but realize they shaped me more than I'd ever dare to admit.

Such a book is here in front of you (or me, you may not own it). It looks inconspicuous since I bought it in a second hand book store without the dust jacket (or maybe its power is hidden in the haphazard anonymity) and maybe it seems a bit intimidating for some with its more than six hundred pages. But it is a masterpiece.

At first (during the first couple of chapters) I saw the book as a nice mild touristic guide to Europe but shortly after I realized it was more than that. The scope of one's search for the truth can be very large. The story follows a father whose daughter accidentally finds that her daddy may have a thing for Dracula. But we are talking history here, so think Vlad the Impaler, not Bela Lugosi. The worst thing is that Vlad seems to roam the Earth still. 

The tale is put together through memories, letters, ancient journals and talking to witnesses. It takes place during a couple of decades (but our narrator meticulously tries to take things chronologically) and basically it's an effort of more people to put the puzzle pieces together. What looks like a mild fascination with the dark matter soon becomes an obsession, a tale of tremendous loss, of revenge, a futile (maybe) hunt to stop the great evil and way more. 

If you can't appreciate this book then I have no idea what you are doing here. This belongs to the best novels ever written about vampires and you MUST read it. Do it. Just now. Go to a bookstore and buy it. But don't put it somewhere on your TBR pile. Read it immediately!

GENRE: adventurous tourists face the greatest evil in medieval history

FANGS OUT: it has the famous je ne sais quoi
FANGS RETRACTING: keep the fangs out, there is nothing wrong with the novel
TOTAL SCORE:

Millet Flour Cake

I had no idea what I was doing. I just had some exotic ingredients and wanted to used them. So I experimented a little. And it turned out OK. Well, not OK, it was actually good. 

You'll need:

• 1 cup millet flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup amaranth flakes
• 2 table spoons butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup dry goji berries soaked in prickly pear liqueur 

• 200g cream cheese
• 5 table spoons nutella
• strawberries for decoration

1) You know how it is - just mix everything together and wait a little - oats and amaranth tend to soak some of the milk up so you want to let it sit for a little while and then either add a little bit of milk or send it to the oven (180°C, 35 minutes). As you may have noticed, I didn't add any baking powder because I wanted my cake to be flat and dense but you can do whatever you want.

2) Mix the cheese and nutella and wait till you can decorate your cake. ;-)= 

Eve Newton: Forever

So, I've been reading e-books again because right now I'm also reading a very heavy book which is amazing in its 600+ pages' glory but it is also tought-provoking stuff and I have to chill every now and then. My now and then turned out to be a free read again.

This time we have a strong female character who build herself from a naive poor girl over the span of 500 years. She is devoted to her maker who lost her trust when he started sleeping around (apparently the vampires here have big appetite and don't sate it only with their beloveds) so she started running away from him, drank her fill of fear and blood and turned a man to be with her. They are best friends with benefits and live together.

And to this unusual setting she leads a man she is drawn to from the very first sight of him. There is a conflict when to tell him, when to turn him yadda yadda yadda. 

I would have like the story if a) there was less sexual action since it was repetitive and leading nowhere, and b) it didn't stop when it started to be interesting. There were some unravelled mysteries and old prophecies and all those lies and promises of love that it would have made a cool story otherwise.  

GENRE: romance

FANGS OUT: well-written and surprising in places
FANGS RETRACTING: too much repetitive sex and too much unjustified prolonging of the story
TOTAL SCORE:

Zucchini Cake

This monster looks gross as a whole, I know, but don't judge the book by its cover, alright? This tastes so good! It's moist, it's sweet and sour at the same time. I just love it. And it's got chocolate in it, so... 

You'll need:

batter

• 130g dark chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 80ml sour cream
• 110ml sunflower oil
• a pinch of salt
• 300g flour
• 2 tea spoons baking soda
• 40g cocoa powder
•  110g butter
• 200g sugar
• 1 big shredded zucchini

topping

• 300g ricotta
• 50g sugar
• a handful of raspberries

• extra: rasbrerry jam 

1) Melt the chocolate.

2) Mix all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix the sugar with soft butter so that it looks lighter, the start adding the eggs and later the chocolate (it must be out of the heat some time, you don't wanna cook the eggs). Then add the dry ingredients and lastly add the zucchini.

3) Bake at 180°C about 40 minutes (it helps if you put the batter into two baking pans).

4) Mix the ingredients for the topping - you can crush the raspberries a little since you want to get it a nice pink tint. 

5) Assembly the cake - a cake layer, raspberry jam, another cake layer, topping. Or anyway you like it, really ;-)=

 

Antony J. Stanton: Once Bitten, Twice Die

You know I love post-apocalyptic books. And you know I love vampires (duh!) so how could I resist buying the first book of a trilogy just about that. Wait a moment, did anyone say zombies? Vampires and zombies? Well, now I am genuinely intrigued because I don't remember ever reading a book with the combination of these two species. Subspecies. Whatever. You know what I mean. Let's not talk imaginative creatures' biology right now.

So, this time we arrive into postapocalyptic Britain (finally somewhere more close to reality where not many people have guns at home) where some mad rushed scientists wanted to cure dementia and winded up with crazy people instead. Due to a series of unfortunate events the "cure" got distributed all over the world and before anyone started noticing odd behaviour and realized that the disease can be spread by biting, !POOF! most people died or became zombies. There is a military base which holds its ground and scavenges for food which is good in short-term but what about later?

And the vampires? The book cover promised vampires! They are hidden. They've been hidden for centuries after all and the British clan which is closest to the military base is unsure of what to do. See, there is a fraction there. The leader wants to wait before making any decision while some feel this is the right time to finally reveal themselves and rule the world - with people as cattle. 

It's a very enjoyable read given the fact that it's the author's very first book and it wouldn't even exist had he not made a bet with his friends. I mean, it's got vampires (not so much now but I hope for seeing them more in the following books), it's got survivors trying to figure out how to live while losing everyone they love, there's no time for cheesy romance, it's action packed, and there's interesting character development everyone tends to overlook until it's too late. Only if the people weren't so full of themselves, they would have prevented so much trouble. Oh yeah.

Anyway, you know I have to lower the score because of the cliffhanger. And there is one particular thing which nagged me the whole time. It's not about the story. It's about the print. When I saw yellowish pages I was happy because it hurts people's eyes less. Yay! But then I noticed that the ends of the lines weren't aligned. It was so distracting! I just discovered my biggest bookish pet peeve! It's not the annoying stickers you never get rid of or broken spines and folded corners. No. It's the text which hasn't been put into a nice block. Just look how much you hate this paragraph when you compare it to the ones above! Wow. Really. Sometimes I held my breath as I was turning the page if I'd miraculously see a page set right. Nope. The person responsible for it should rethink their career because book design isn't probably it.

GENRE: postapocalyptic

FANGS OUT: a ton of action and innovative elements
FANGS RETRACTING: cliffhanger, the ends of lines make my eyes weep blood
TOTAL SCORE:

Blueberry Cupcakes

It's summer. And summer means I can gorge on blueberries. So in the next few weeks you'll see how delightful that can be. Of course, I usually devour most of them fresh and raw but since this year I've got a ton, I had to make something out of them. The first and easiest were these muffins:

You'll need:

batter

• a cup of blueberries
• 200g flour 
• 200g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 120g butter
• 2 tea spoons baking soda
• a pinch of salt

topping

• 300g cream cheese
• 50g sugar (or more if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup blueberries plus some for the top

1) Mix everything for the batter - add the blueberies last and fold them gently in so that you don't crush many.

2) Bake for about 35min at 180°C.

3) Mix the cheese with the sugar and blueberries - this time you want to crush some of them so that they the cheese gets a nice purple tint. 

4) When the muffins have cooled down to room temperature you can decorate them with the cheese mixture. 

Krystal Shannan: My Viking Vampire

Before you start wondering - yes, this is another free e-read of mine. You know how I feel about those so let's switch on my bullshit-o-meter and start reviewing.

First of all, it reads fast and the style is OK. That's way more that we expect at this point, right? It's a story set in near future where the supernatural world has surfaced and some states (within US) have accepted these new citizens and some not. What also changed was the view on women. You either marry when you are a teenager or you are on your road to become a whore. See the dystopian hints right there? I do and it pains me they weren't elaborated on because I like it. 

Anyway, our protagonist who keeps escaping her abusive husband reaches a town full of supernatural creatures as it was foretold by a mighty seer. See the paranormal hints right there? I do and it pains me I didn't learn more about the interesting inhabitants of the town because I bet their stories are interesting. And why didn't I learn more? Because the protagonist is humping her new hot vampire boyfriend all the time! 

And honestly, why the hell ALL vampires from Scandinavia have to be called Eric?! There are definitely more names to choose from! Anyway, if I read this book as one of those romances I will appreciate the hot scenes and will just block out anything else but even in this case I have to wonder if really one session with a whip can erase years of abuse and fear. Just saying. Because all mental institutions can go to hell in that case. 

GENRE: romance

FANGS OUT: other creatures of the paranormal world are out there
FANGS RETRACTING: the ending is too unreal, sorry
TOTAL SCORE:

Poland 2016

There are no straight flights from Prague to Vilnius. Maybe they are in the summer but definitely not in May. So when we had a layover in Warsaw we decided to spend a day there because why not use our time in a more pleasant way than sitting at the airport all night long - yeah the connecting flights are also super crazy. When you arrive in the evening or at night you have to wait till the next day. Sheesh.

There was total chaos when we arrived. Firstly, they didn't give us our bags at the airport because they thought we wouldn't need them and hid them somewhere to wait till the next day when we would return for them. Bummer. So I had to explain how all our stuff was there and how we need it to survive so we waited a looong time but got them back. How come no one asked us if we wanted them if they saw we had two different dates on our tickets?! Anyway, the night had fallen before I managed to get the bags and buy bus tickets so we disembarked at the last stop (the closest to the old town where our hostel lay) and found ourselves in total chaos. People were everywhere. 

They shouted, played some weird instruments and were drunk and happy I guess but swimming against the flow with heavy bags at night when you are looking for something you haven't seen before sucks. 

It took us a very long time to find our hostel but we managed. Usually I'd leave my bag somewhere with the group and would run around looking at buildings and street signs and asking waiters where the heck I was. And I found it. My group found a piece of a tank in a church while I was gone. That was a double win. 

Oh speaking of the church - apart from whatever the Polish people were celebrating that day it was also the night during which entrance fees to museums disappeared so more people in the streets. Lucky us. 

I must say I was famished by the time we settled in our rooms and fortunately there was a baguette place around the corner. I've never had so expensive and delicious tuna/avocado baguette. Yum!

The next day we explored the old town which looks so nice and clean and the buildings are in great condition - then you realise they must be since Warsaw was bombed during the WWII and most of the buildings disappeared for a moment. So basically what you see in the Old Town nowadays is replicas of the original buildings. And some of them (like the church) have a reminder of their tragic past in the facade. They found the tank which destroyed the church and put one of its ... what is it called ... the thing which it uses for motion .. you know, the track thingy ... into the facade as a reminder. It's very interesting to say the least.

This was yet another reminder of the horrors people must have gone through. There was nothing left behind and they had to start anew. The same thing happened in Lithuania so most of the Vilnius's Old Town buildings are fake, too. And in other towns people just didn't bother with replicas and started building totally new structures. Unfortunately it was a Soviet kind of style. The ugly blocks of flats mushroomed everywhere. Not that I don't see those in my own country. But what I saw in Warsaw and Lithuania was more space between those hideous structures. People left enough space for trees so that they kinda obscure the view. I wish someone thought of that in here as well.

We spent a pleasant day in Warsaw - didn't have time to go in any museum so maybe next time around. I definitely plan to go back because I liked it there a lot.