Falconry and Murder

(Image from the British School of Falconry and google pictures)

I bet "Falconry and Murder" got your attention! Today is book review day and I have a favorite of mine for you. Andy Straka is back. He lost his publisher several years ago. Cold Quarry, his last book published, won the Shamus Award for best paperback original private eye novel in 2004. I'm happy to say he's found another publisher. Kitty Hitter: A Frank Pavlicek Mystery was just released.

You know that I read mysteries. I used to read a lot of P.I. mysteries. Then I got tired of them. They were too dark, too formulaic. Then I discovered Andy Straka. His "hero" is Frank Pavlicek, an ex NYC cop, now retired and living in Virginia. He has a tough guy sidekick, Jake Toronto, who comes with the requisite shady background. There the formula stops. You see, Frank has a daughter, who he gets along with (shock), who has become a P.I. All three, Frank, Nicole, and Jake are falconers -- something I've been interested in for what seems like forever.

In Kitty Hitter (the fourth mystery featuring Frank Pavlicek), Frank returns to New York City to help an old friend with an unusual case. He is asked to help find a physician/animal rights activist's missing cat. The doctor believes her cat was stolen and then hunted down by a bird of prey. Other pets are missing from the apartment complex, too. The case becomes more unusual as Frank and Nicole dig deeper into the case. The doctor leaves out some important information about herself. Is there really an owl in Central Park feeding on pets? Illegal immigrants show up along with secretive developers. Gang wars are going on. Straka successfully weaves it all together and includes some interesting information on falconry.

Easy reading and recommended! Welcome back to Frank, Nicole, Jake and Andy!

(Andy Straka is a licensed falconer, a native of upstate New York and lives with his family in Virginia.)

My World

Visit My World to see more of our world or to participate yourself!

Today, I'm taking you back to Texas Art Supply
and the last of the murals on the outside walls.

Click here to view all the participants of My World Tuesday.

Just a short note to thank all of you who have left messages of condolence
by commenting or by email regarding the death of our kitlet, Rocky.
All of us appreciate your kindness. The house is too quiet.
We all miss him -- two leggeds and four leggeds.
I'll have more about what took Rocky from us at a later time.

Memorial

At around 9PM this evening, my little dumpling boy, our precious Rocky, died. He had been with us not quite three years. He was too young to die and I don't know why he did. One minute he was with us. I heard him cough. And he was gone. He was a very special kitty and he'll be greatly missed by Mr. Dragon, his sister, Riley, his big brother Teddy and his Mom. Especially his mom. Here are some of the latest photos that we had taken of him -- saving them for a camera critters post.

I don't believe this has happened. It's just too sad.
We love you Rocky.
Rest in Peace little one.

(I will be taking some time off from blogging. I'm not sure when I'll be back.)

Food...

Shame on me for enticing you with the word Food. There are no recipes here today, just a review of one book - The Best Thing I Ever Tasted:The Secret of Food by Sallie Tisdale.

This book is used in an English class at a nearby community college. For a number of years I have given a tour on Food and Feasting at the museum for this class. I decided it was about time I read one of the books that the students were reading. Better late than never.

Maybe I’m still channeling Julia, but I found this book very interesting and easy to read. Her style is casual. It is part memoir, part culinary history, part sociology. She ties together history, folklore, personal anecdote and analysis. She talks about the medieval kitchen, the classic French kitchen, Betty Crocker’s test kitchen (General Mills), her childhood kitchen, her kitchen today.

Here’s a little something from the book:

“What did you eat for breakfast? For lunch, for last night’s supper, as an afternoon, snack? What did you eat, and why? We think we choose food consciously, deliberately, rationally. We think about calories, price, time, convenience, cholesterol and fat and protein and other people’s opinions, even as we mull over our desire. But what we choose to eat, even what we want to eat, is dictated by forces far beyond our reach, by tiny tides we do not see. Whether we want to believe it or not, we eat what we eat for a thousand reasons. We eat to settle our nerves, in joy and despair, in boredom and lust. We comfort ourselves, make ritual, find delight. What we choose makes us naughty or good. Food fills many empty spaces. It can be symbolic, mythic, even archetypal - and nothing special. How we feel about food is how we feel about our own lives ...”

I keep a scrap piece of paper in the books I read, especially the non-fiction, and take notes as I go along. This piece of paper is covered, front and back, up and down, where ever there was an empty space to take a note. Tisdale talks about whole grains and the change to milled white flour being the modern way to eat because it was farther from the soil. Betty Crocker being the idea General Mills had to answer all those cooking questions being asked by women who had never learned how to cook and the desire to keep things quick and easy with the use of processed foods.

Interesting partial quotes (because I didn’t write the whole thing down) like this one from Wendell Berry, “It is impossible to mechanize production without mechanizing consumption.” ...”impossible to make machines of soil, plants, and animals without making machines also of people.”

Or, the quote from Belasco and his Appetite For Change: “Avoid processed food.” “Awakening to the joy of cooking and eating, especially together...” I had just returned from a wonderful afternoon at the Path of Tea and came home, picked up this book and read the last quote. I thought how wonderful it was to spend time with people I enjoy, drinking tea, eating cake, laughing, talking. Wow! Just like we were *real* people!

Lots of wonderful things in this book. Lots to think about. I'm going to set the table tonight for sandwiches and enjoy every minute talking to Mr. Dragon about his class today. Maybe a beer to go with the sandwich in a nice, tall sparkly glass?! A candle or two?!

I guess you get the idea. I did like this book and recommend it highly.

My World

Visit My World to see more of our world or participate yourself!

We had to drop by Texas Art Supply last week to pick up some supplies for Mr. Dragon. He is taking color theory this semester. Someone should have told me we needed to buy stock in Texas Art Supply! This time I had my camera with me and took pictures of the murals on the building.

I've saved some for next week!

Remember to click on photo to enlarge.

Have a wonderful day!

Joy to You!

Click here to view all participants of My World Tuesday.