Read a few other books from my (physical and virtual) piles, starting with Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey, an horror story set in post-conquest England, when Mathilda and Stephens are competing for the throne and the country suffers. While the setup is much to my liking, right after Guillaume‘s conquest of Britain at Hastings, the story is too lame to be continued, with cardboard characters and an awful style, if trying to create a fake 12th Century feel. (With potatoes!!) I think I bought this book upon The Guardian’s recommendation. Or maybe it was Tor Reactor Mag‘s… And then Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett, another variation on the fae theme, with a mock scholarly approach but too much infodump and a contrived scenario. Not to mention idiotic characters and an incomprehensible avoidance for acknowledging Iceland as the location of the story. Volume 1 of a series shortlisted for the Hugo Awards, I wonder how it ended up there. (Same question about it being Elle Best book of the year!) I also went quickly through The Human Division, which is Old Man War #5 by John Scalzi, essentially made of several short stories in the OMW universe, regrouped into a single one, rather loosely. Not worth the time. Thanks to Andrew, who was in Paris at the time, I borrowed a great BD, DETROIT ROMA, which is a road movie, from Detroit (Michigan) to Roma (Georgia), drawn in an unusual if not pretty style, with many links to film classics like Gloria, 8 ½ and Sunset Boulevard, but also Paris, Texas (of course!) and Thelma and Louise.
Under the relentless heat, I prepare salad after salad, an uninterrupted series of rhubarb preserve, and my own version of Banh mi, with Lao Gan Ma spicy chili crisp oil (what else?!), peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, coriander and HM Breton tuna tataki, in a fresh whole wheat mini-baguette… I also made another batch of red onion pissaladière, cooked long enough to turn the onions into a tapenade. And had the pleasant surprise to see spaghetti alla bottarga on a restaurant menu (and have a great meal).
