SO

[prof]

As you may know, I have a new apartment! I intend to do much cooking in it as I advance rapidly towards self-sufficient adulthood. Unrelatedly, as you probably do NOT know, I just ordered a Kindle offa Amazon.

Thus, I want two things from you all!

1. Recipies! Give me recipies that you like, and I will try them out, and rate them on a scale of one to awesome.

2. Books! Give me books that you like, and I will assimilate them into my magical reading box.

GO

Comments

[hurricane-chris.livejournal.com]

I don't have any recipes, but there was one book I read for a summer assignment in high school that I enjoyed. It's called On the Beach, written by Nevil Shute. It takes place in a world after a nuclear war, where all of the damage was in the northern hemisphere, and the radiation is seeping south. It sounds a lot more grim than it is, and it kept me entertained.

[long-scarves.livejournal.com]

ahhhh i don't know what kind of books you like tell me what books you like

alternatively tell me three of the books you like and that you have now

[behold-the-void.livejournal.com]

I'll rattle some off tomorrow when you get your TV, but you'll have to use terrestrial paper, not your strange, Olympian contraption.

[secretlymoe.livejournal.com]

Give me your e-mail and I'll send you all of ours. We've got some good ones.

[uwaaaah.livejournal.com]

I would totally give you a bunch of books, but I do not think we share the same taste in them.

[treashin.livejournal.com]

All of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, go go go! (Unless you already have them.)

In case you don't have it anymore: the most awesome (and easy) lemon cake recipe ever!

1 Box lemon cake mix
1 Box lemon jello mix (about the size of a deck of cards)
4 Eggs
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup water

Mix everything together until there are no lumps and bake as directed on the box!

Most awesome lemon cake topping ever!

Lemon juice and powdered sugar mixed to desired consistency. Pour over top of baked cake. If making cake instead of cupcakes, poke the baked cake with toothpicks to allow all the goodness to soak in.

Remember to only fill the cupcake holes about 2/3rds full otherwise it'll overflow!

I can't believe I have that recipe memorized...

[m-a-foxfire.livejournal.com]

*stalks about...* Space opera, you say?

Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Best damn example of the genre. Starts with the character at seventeen (okay, in what's technically the second book, he's a major player, but he's also a fetus so uh)

I recommend starting with The Warrior's Apprentice, but there's two prequel-ish novels starring the main protagonist's parents.

Basically it is about a young SPACE NOBLEMAN in a very conservativeish society in which he is kind of not perfect for because they hate mutants. He's not a sexy awesome sort of mutant, either - basically, the two important things are that he is incredibly short and his bones are hella brittle which is a pretty sucky thing in a militaristic society! Fortunately, he is legitimately clever - like, not in the sense that the author says he's clever when all she's doing is making the other characters idiots in comparison, he's just crazy brilliant and it comes off that way.

His thing is basically coming up with a simple plan, and then things go horribly wrong, and then there's lots of scrambling around and making up plans on the fly and it is glorious. It shifts around a bit - last few books, he's been in his thirties and he's been settling down a bit and not breaking into and/or out of heavily guarded prison camps but there's still plenty of space adventure.

The world-building is awesome - there's somewhere between a dozen and half a dozen planets/societies (it's a long series) that get a major focus, and the history and general attitudes (and occasionally regional attitudes if it's a particularly cosmopolitan place or if there's on-planet traveling) and it's just pretty well thought out.

I could gush for hours on his delicious flaws and awesome love interests and awesome family and how he has some pretty realistic deep angst moments which the supporting cast generally doesn't let him drag on with and the comedy oh man the comedy he's got the best internal narration ever and then there's the philosophy angle...

tl;dr You should read it.