Monstrous Oatmeal Raspberry Tarts,

1 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup oatmeal
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup brown sugar (dark)
1/3 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup melted shortening
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
roughly 1/2 cup raspberry jam (or other fruit filling)


Mix the milk and lemon juice to sour the milk. Set aside until needed. In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt, oats, cinnamon and sugars. Add the melted butter and shortening, mixing thoroughly until the dough is mostly little granulated lumps. Gradually add in the sour milk, mixing constantly, until the dough is a single semi-solid lump.

Chill the dough for 1/2 hour in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. grease a cookie sheet.

Roll the dough out to about a quarter-inch thickness. Using a cup or round cookie cutter about 3" across, cut into an even number of circles. I got ten before I ran out of dough. On your greased cookie sheet, lay out half the circles -- preferably the thicker ones, if they're not quite even. Leave a lot of space between them, and keep them away from the edges of the pan -- these suckers get huge when baked.

Place a large spoonful of jam in the center of each circle of dough on the pan. If you want, you can create a thumbprint depression to hold it in better, but seriously, pile that jam on there. Most of it bakes into the dough, and you want enough for there to be some filling, too. Finally, take the other half of the circles, and press them down atop the others, making sure to seal in the jam rather than spilling it out the sides. Press the edges of the circles together.

Bake at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes, and devour the resulting monstrosities while warm.

Recent literary consumption.

Mina de Malfois volumes 2 & 3. Re-read.  The first time I read these, I found them witty, and I adored the constant pop culture references.  On a re-read, I appreciate the plot and character arc all the more, and am ever more aware of the discreet scenes just off camera that tease but never reveal just what happened (both a flaw and a feature, I think).  I'm also not sure how seriously to take some claims made by my favorite character -- if I take them seriously, this is a fantasy series.  But then, the character may just be waxing poetical, or screwing with the narrator's head.


Into the Dark by Peter Abrahams.  A dark, nuanced young adult mystery novel that is very adult in its themes and consequences.  I like this series, but despite the lushness of the anxiety in this volume, I liked the previous one better -- here, the climax and denouement seem so rushed they almost come off as artificial.  Still, I'm going to keep reading.


The Beekeeper's Apprentice and A Monstrous Regiment Of Women by Laurie R. King.  A retired Sherlock Holmes gets a teenaged girl as an apprentice -- and not, like Watson, a sidekick.  Very cool.  The Beekeeper's Apprentice seemed a touch gratuitous in places, but delightful overall.  Monstrous Regiment, which focused more on the heroine and less on Holmes (with notable exceptions) was a brilliant period mystery, but it felt to me like it left some loose ends unexplained.  Still, the way it touches on religion and feminism both are fascinating, and the series has me hooked -- the slight uneven bits are very much made up for by the original and spot-on Holmesian schemes, deductions, and so forth.