Grandma's crunchies

Grandma baked the best crunchies. We didn't ever bother to make them, because they were so available for every occasion.

"Going on holiday? Here's a tin of crunchies... Feeling down? These will help." Or even - "We felt like baking, I'm sending a few home with your daughter."

We loved them so much, and every time we baked them (we did eventually get that recipe), we though of how generous she was with them. Until I lost the recipe. Seriously. Lost and gone.

I tried so many different recipes. And although I couldn't remember enough to make the crunchies from scratch, I could remember enough that I knew they were all wrong. Like - definitely bicarb. Also, I remember boiling water - but how much? And I really thought there was an egg. But why would there be an egg - no one puts an egg in these. 

And then, last month, I FOUND the recipe. The original. And we've baked them, twice. They are just as good as they ever were, with the same power to evoke memories of Grandma and her baking.

So for posterity (and in case history repeats itself), here's the famous blend. They're great with a cuppa tea, or just on their own. They're the best, in fact.

Ingredients

250g butter

2 cups sugar

30ml golden syrup

3 Tablespoons boiling water

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp vanilla essence

3 cups white flour

2 cups desiccated coconut

2 cups oats

1 cup cranberries / cake mix (optional)

1 egg

Melt butter and sugar in a saucepan on the stove. Heat until it starts bubbling, add water and syrup then turn heat off and leave to cool. Mix flour, oats, coconut and oats in a separate bowl in the meantime.

Add bicarb, vanilla to butter and sugar, then combine with the other dry ingredients, adding the dried fruit, and the egg.

Mix well, so that liquid is evenly spread through bowl/pan, then press into a large greased baking tray.

Bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees or until crunchies are golden brown. Slice while still warm, but wait until cool before you remove them from the tray.

Notes: 1. Original recipe used currants instead of cranberries, but over the years, we preferred the taste of the fruit in cake mix packets.

2. You can bake longer for crunchier crunchies, but then they definitely need tea for dunking.

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman is possibly not as well known (yet) as Ove - from "A Man called...". Yet he has written Britt-Marie was here, Beartown (released initially as The Scandal) and also My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry.

Backman is "..hailed as “a writer of astonishing depth [with] the remarkable ability to make you understand the feelings of each of a dozen different characters” (The Washington Times).

If you haven't read Beartown/The Scandal yet, what are you doing here, reading this? Go straight to the bookstore and get yourself a copy. Seriously though, this is one that is a uncompromising sequel, and you'll spoil Beartown if you read Us Against You first.

Ok, that's out of the way, what is the book about? Well, it's Beartown II. The town lost a lot back then - its hockey stars have moved on to nearby rivals Hed, and now the team may be disbanded. All the characters  are still living here, but there's a new coach. And guess what? No, I'm not saying. But the bar, the rink, all the hangouts for the troubled teens and their aging relatives attract the usual crowd, with the unusual tension.

The small-town atmosphere amplifies the emotions, the fears, the prejudices. And then there are the mistakes, the slip-ups, the evil lurking in each of us. In a locker room after a hockey game, our favourite team mates are less attractive before their showers - the same can be said about our humanity sometimes. And there are moments when you can't breathe.

This is so not Ove or Britt-Marie, but it's Beartown again, and Backman excels here too.

Loved it.

5 stars

ISBN:9781982100407

You may also enjoy Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman.

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Book Club Books #3 2018

I've been reading such great books, I couldn't wait to do this post - a mini collection of all the best ones - you could get them for book club, or just for you to read. If you click the covers, you'll see my full review of each book, and then come back to see the rest of the list.

Just Mercy is one of the most profound, moving books I have ever read. According to IMdB it'll be a movie in 2020. It tells the various stories of prisoners fighting for justice (and their lives) on death row, simultaneously with that of Bryan Stevenson, a philosopher-turned defence attorney, who tries to help them. It's about justice, mercy (I suppose that's obvious) but also brokenness, judgement and redemption. Powerful stuff.

I love it when one of my favourite authors hits it out of the park. Belinda Bauer did it with Snap, which Val McDermid calls 'The best crime novel I've read in a very long time'. And then it got long-listed for a Man-Booker. Read about Jack, Joy and Merry Bright, who were left on the side of the highway in their mother's car on the hottest day of the year, the day she never came back, before everyone else does.

Speaking of heart-wrenching and storytelling, Khwezi is one of those we should all read. Redi Thlabi is passionate, and the limelight, which hurt Khwezi so much when she experienced it in life, is gentler than reality in this account. We learn of her humanity, her mistakes, her hopes and her dreams, starkly contrasted by the violent and abusive behaviour of her perpetrators and their supporters. It's a wonderful book.

You won't all go for this one, but I know there are some of you who will, and if you decide to, you won't be sorry. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz knows a lot about our information age, the data available, and why and how (especially on Facebook) everybody lies. Big deal. But what's interesting here is the way that, despite the lying, the truth finds a way to tell its own stories, and how fascinating those tales can be, if we listen.

The Great Alone could so easily have become the worst cliché. Troubled teen, parents who fight all the time, never in school long enough to make friends, and they get to go to Alaska, to start over, where mere survival is tough enough. And with all that's happened, being isolated in a cabin with broken people could be the greatest danger of all. I couldn't put this down.

Suzan Hackney had an interesting childhood. She also writes about it with great distance, humour and unique insight. 'I was made in Coffee Bay. Right there on the beach, in the sand' is the start, and it sets the stage, the tone and the context for a truly enjoyable memoir that you will read in one sitting.

The Paris Secret by Karen  Swan is about a family who owns an apartment, with some art that needs evaluation. Of course they haven't opened the front door since WWII, so there are some secrets lurking amongst the dust and hiding under the old furniture.

Read all these? Here are my other book club picks from earlier this year.

All the 2018 books.

Rise 'til we fall

Morning - the best part of the day, and Monday - the cleanest newest freshest part of the week.

Time to shine.

And this morning, its gusty, and did I hear the gentle sounds of springtime rain in the wee hours? So it could even be damp underfoot - all those last leaves and new buds crunching with every step.

Can you tell I can't wait to get outside today? Come on, what do you mean one more nap? And no, you can't have five more minutes. Put on your running shoes and come with me. There's a spring in my step, and a song in my head, and I'm rocking the running this morning. With Jonas Blue (ft Jack & Jack)

We're gonna ri-ri-ri-ri-rise 'til we fall

They said we got no no no no future at all

They wanna ke-ke-keep us down but they can't hold us down anymore

We're gonna ri-ri-ri-ri-rise 'til we fall

When we hit the bottom, then it goes up

Climb to the top with you

We could be the breaks, ones who never made yeah

I could be talking to you

They tryna hate hate hate

But we won't change, change anything at all

We're gonna ri-ri-ri-ri-rise 'til we fall

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Who's with me?

Last Monday Motivation - Run with the stars.

Ten of the Best #132

Hey! I know I'm late today, but can't let the weekend pass us by. Here're all the best reads and watches from your timelines. Thank you so much for sharing, and for stopping by to catch up on what you may have missed.

This made me giggle. Northerner terrifies Londoners by saying "Hello".

Ariana Huffington writes to Elon Musk and tells it like it is. In the words of God, speaking to Abram, "Listen to the woman".

Lewis Pugh did it!

Ten of the Best #131

Morning everyone, it's perfect cold and cloudy weather in JHB for catching up on our social media feeds this morning. It's been quite a week, so much that we didn't get to watch/read during the week - you'll find my favourites here.

Patrick Gaspard putting the Trump Twitter storm into perspective for us.

Ben Trovato wrote a letter to President Trump this week, it's worth a read. Click the pic of Trump's map of Africa.

Friday Books - Middlesex

Oh yay, it's Friday. Time to share things bookish.

At Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader, you share the first line, and  a few thoughts about the book.

 Here's the beginning of the book I'm featuring today.

A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of "The Virgin Suicides"--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. 

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all. 
The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie's grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly real: a hermaphrodite. 

Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire.

At Freda's Voice, you'll find the Friday56, where the excerpt comes from page 56 or 56% in your Kindle.

Here's a snippet from page 56 of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it to be an insightful and well-written book. It was completely different to what I usually read, and I thoroughly enjoyed. My review should be up soon.

What are you reading this weekend? I'd love to visit your blog and check it out.

Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles by Anne Tyler

The only person who I would trust to write about a person who has a gift of healing is Anne Tyler. Ok, maybe Emma Donoghue too, but definitely Anne Tyler.

Here's the opening line: "The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m just like you."

Susanna heals people, reluctantly at first, with a touch. And sometimes she doesn't. And with a deft hand and an elegant touch in this little account, we find ourselves accepting the truth of her tale and holding the "whys" and the "why nots" without question. That's the extent of Tyler's talent.

"This is a wry and moving story by an American master."

“Not merely good . . . she is wickedly good.” —John Updike

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

4 stars

ISBN: 9780525565079

You may also enjoy Anne Tyler's A spool of Blue Thread. Or what about Emma Donoghue's The Wonder? Or even Faithful by Alice Hoffman?

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Snap by Belinda Bauer

From part of the blurb - this is all you're getting from me.

"On a stifling summer's day, eleven-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack's in charge, she said. I won't be long.

But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever."

Belinda Bauer is one of my "buy as soon as the book is released" authors. I've loved absolutely everything she has written, although I do have some favourites. And it seems that the most treasured among my ever growing collection are those featuring children, traumas and their effect on these children. This has three. Children, that is - Jack and his two sisters. And they're brilliantly portrayed as they navigate life without mum.

The story also features old favourites - DCI John Marvel (loved him from The Shut Eye and Darkside) and DS Reynolds (from Finders Keepers) lighten the mood with their bumbling rapacity for solved crimes, or just "don't let me stuff this one up". But far and away the winner here is the plot. The scene setting in so many places, but so obviously right for the tone - each aspect of this story is essential, the line keeps moving and your head keeps spinning. Just what we've come to expect from the talented Man-Booker long-listed award-winning author. I loved it.

A well deserved 5 stars. Read it, before everyone else does.

You may also enjoy The Beautiful Dead or Rubbernecker, or Blacklands from the same author. Or what about The facts of Life and Death? And put the kettle on, I'm going to need some more tea after this one!

ISBN: 9780593075531

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This Week in Books 22.08.18

This Week in Books 22.08.18 #TWIB

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that features  bloggers who share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

NOW: I’ve just started Nabokov's favourite word is Mauve which is a book on trawling through the texts of massive numbers of books to see whether writers actually follow the advice they dish out - you know, like 'don't use "-ly" words', 'show don't tell', 'use more nouns and verbs than adjectives and adverbs', and so on. So far it's fascinating.

THEN: The last book I finished was Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  I loved this tome featuring the least prominent of the founding fathers (according to Eliza and Mr Bryce). My review is up, in case you're interested.

NEXT: I'm keen to start The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. My husband has just finished this book and rated it 5 stars, and it sounds fantastic.

Leave me a comment with what you're reading and I'll visit your blog.