Abducted by Chapter 17s (part 2)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the post I wrote about my book club Chapter 17. I still think our name is, well…unusual. But then it got me curious, what is Chapter 17?
So, for fun, I grab some of my favorite books and flipped over to Chapter 17. Now, I already shared all of this with my book club at our last meeting but since I had it all typed up I wanted to go ahead and share it in my blog.
This is what I found:

Chapter 17 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone;
The Man With Two Faces
This is the final chapter of the book so it begins with Harry discovering Quirrell in front of the mirror of Erised. He is able to get the Sorcerer’s stone, protect it from He Who Must Not Be Named, and defeat Quirrell.


Chapter 17 of Twilight; The Game
After being introduced to the Cullens, Bella is invited to join them for a game of baseball out in the meadow. The game is quickly interrupted by three traveling Vampires and the plot just takes off from there!



Chapter 17 of The Count of Monte Cristo; In The Abbe’s Cell
Edmond Dantes is faulsly imprisoned in the Chateau D’If. After months of solitude he is finally introduced the Abbe who tunnels into his cell and provides along with companionship, a way to escape to freedom.

Chapter 17 of Pride and Prejudice; No Title
After hearing from Mr. Wickham his side of the events of his childhood, and his relationship with Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth shares the news with Jane and they all prepare for the ball at Netherfield Park.


Chapter 17 of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
Now there actually isn’t a chapter 17 in the Fellowship because the Fellowship is divided into two books. Book One ends at chapter 12 and Book Two ends at chapter 10. However, if you say that the first chapter in Book Two is actually chapter 13, then…
Chapter 17 is The Bridge to Khazard-dum.
After discovering the tomb of Balin, the fellowship must then escape from a Balrog in the mines and loose one of the company in the process.


Chapter 17 of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Hunting of the White Stag
Now, The Silver Chair is actually my favorite book in the Chronicles of Narnia. However, it also doesn’t have a chapter 17. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe does and it is the final chapter. The Hunting of the White Stag is when the children have now been reigning as Kings and Queens over Narnia for several years. While on hunt for the white stag that is supposed to grant them wishes if caught, they stumble upon a lamppost that stirs their memories and leads them back through the wardrobe.

Chapter 17 of Charlotte's Web; Uncle
Wilbur and Charlotte arrive at the fair and meet Uncle, the other “spring pig” that Wilbur will be competing against for the blue ribbon.

Chapter 17 of Hunger Games; no title
After setting off an explosion at the heart of the “Careers” supplies, Catnis must overcome deafness in her left ear. She goes in search of reuniting with Rue only to find her already trapped in one of the Career’s nets.


Chapter 17 of Peter Pan; When Wendy Grew Up
The 17th chapter is again the final chapter of the book. The lost boys have just come to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Darling. Peter returns to Neverland with Tink and makes frequent visits back to Wendy.

In the book of Genesis chapter 17 is when God makes the covenant of circumcision with Abraham. I was going to try to do a whole “the 17th chapter or the 17th book in the bible is…” however, it didn’t work because the 17th book in the Catholic bible is a book called Tobit which only has 14 chapters and the 17th book in the King James bible is Esther which only has 10 chapters.

Abducted by Cooking

This week I found myself abducted by the overwhelming desire to bake! When I allowed myself to completely surrender to this desire I became more and more excited by the possibilities.
As much as I really do love to cook, I don’t do it often. My problem lies in the fact that I hate shopping for groceries. It is so frustrating buying certain ingredients and I use them once and before I can get around to using them again they have expired. Luckily, the recipes I found to experiment with this week, for the most part, used the same basic ingredients.
I have never been able to find a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I really liked. Well, in reality I think I’ve only attempted to make the recipe off the chocolate chip’s bag. But I really like Alton Brown, one of the chefs on the food network, so I wondered if he might have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that would impress me. I chose to use his recipe called “The Chewy”. One of the things listed on the ingredients list was parchment paper. This was to be used on top of the cookie pan to keep them from sticking to the pan. The only problem was I didn’t have parchment paper I only had waxed paper, but I figured hey, what’s the difference. Well apparently the difference is that parchment paper doesn’t melt when you put it in an oven heated to 375 degrees. It doesn’t melt, therefore it doesn’t fill your kitchen with a very smelly smoke. Within 5 minutes my whole kitchen was filling with smoke and I was rushing to open the front door and trying to keep all the smoke out of the hallway so I wouldn’t set off the smoke detector. After avoiding that crisis I then had to transfer the cookies that had baked halfway onto a fresh cookie pan. The cookies turned out not looking that great, but they tasted delicious! And the batter was really good too!
I have had a box of frozen fish in my freezer for almost a month now that I haven’t had the courage to do anything with. Tonight, I excepted the challenge. The fish I was using was called tilapia. I made a mixture using crushed up cornflake crumbs and a non-salt seasoning. I dipped the fillets in lemon juice and then in the cornflake mixture and then baked. I also made French fries from a frozen bag so it was like I had made my very own fish and chips. The fish was soooo good. Again, a very simple no nonsense recipe but the results were incredible!

One of Alton Brown’s favorite memorized recipes is for something called “popovers”. They are a very basic kind of roll that pops up kind of like a muffin, but they turn out hollow inside. Now, Alton’s recipe calls for kosher salt and I just used basic table salt so they did turn out to have a slightly salty flavor but it wasn’t overwhelming at all so they were amazing. I plan on taking some of them with me to work tomorrow for lunch. I am going to eat them with my spaghetti o’s, but don’t tell that to Alton because I don’t know if he would approve.

The last item I am choosing to attempt to make this week is PB&J pancakes. Another recipe I got off the food network that is basically peanut butter pancakes with blackberry syrup. Now, as much as I have enjoyed cooking this week I just wasn’t up for the task of making my own syrup for now so instead I just bought strawberry syrup so it still fulfills the “jelly” part of the equation.
Okay, the pancakes did not turn out as well as I had hoped. This is very disappointing because I really wanted to make them for my book club the next time I get to host. My absolute favorite thing to have for dinner, is breakfast! So, when chapter 17 makes its way back to my apartment that is exactly what I want to have. Breakfast for dinner along with Mimosas! I loved the idea of PB&J pancakes but it just didn’t translate very well in my kitchen. The pancakes had a really strange after taste to them. I’m not sure if it was the peanut butter or what but it just didn’t work.

Abducted by a Guilty Pleasure

I have a horrible habit of being addicted to television. I come home and the first thing I do is turn on the TV. I can't help myself! Eventually I'll find something to watch and before I know it any other plans I might have had of running errands or heading to Hastings to use their Internet are out the window. The worst part about this habit is that I can get caught up in shows that I am truly embarrassed by. Shows that when you watch them you can literally feel your IQ just plummeting.

Well this weekend was a classic example.

I wrote out this really long blog all about my experiences in the kitchen last week. And I was supposed to go to Hastings on Sunday night and post it. But I got caught up in watching Army Wives (a show I'm NOT proud to say I watch). Then I told Kate I was going to go last night and make my post and yet again I got side tracked. But this time it was because I was abducted by my all time favorite Reality TV show. One that I am not ashamed to admit that I have watched every episode and that I am halfway tempted to buy it on DVD. That's right I was abducted by the New Jersey Housewives!!!

I know what you are thinking, "Come on Bittner, seriously!?!"

Yes, I am serious. Last night was their premier episode for the new season and I watched it with great joy because I had truly come to miss my Italian bitches! Many people can not stand the "Housewife" shows that come on Bravo. You have the Orange County Housewives, Atlanta, New York City, and I believe there is fixing to be a Beverly Hills cast. But New Jersey is completely different.

For the most part they are all related. Two are sisters, one is their sister-in-law and one of the other girls has been friends with them for over 10 years. Only one of the girls is a newbie and that is Daniel and she is Crazy!!! On all the other shows you get this feeling like they are all only friends because they have to be for the sake of the show. Because of this feeling I can watch a couple of episodes and I really only care about one person. Like in New York, I really only like Bethany. In Orange County I really only like Gretchen. As for Atlanta, that show can suck it, all those bitches are annoying!

Because I only care about a character from those shows it stops me from being sucked in. But with New Jersey, I can't get enough. I love the girls I love their husbands, I love their kids!!! Even though I think Daniel is crazy, I still have to love her because she brings all the drama. With out her, the show wouldn't have any controversy and therefore would have been cancelled after the first season.

Last week Neil Patrick Harris made a quick cameo on Andy Cohen Live and Andy asked him if he ever watched the housewives. Neil said that he had never really watched any of the other shows but that he had seen one episode of New Jersey and now he was hooked! Don't you just love Neil Patrick Harris!

In the end, I apologize for not having posted about my cooking abduction yet, I promise it is coming. But last night, and for every Monday night in the near future, I will be...

Abducted by the New Jersey Housewives!

Abducted By Chapter 17!

I have recently joined a book club here in Norman, OK. We started out as a branch off from a much larger book club group called Book End Babes. Because we are a branch off of something bigger we were given the name "Chapter 17." I fought against this with all my might. I created alternatives like; Readers of the Lost Arc, Hooked on Books, The Page Turners, or my personal favorite the Write to Read book club (this actually fits because we all met through a writing group), alas all of my protest fell on deaf ears and the rest of the group decided to stick with Chapter 17.
Anyway, Chapter 17 is an all girl book club made up of 6 avid readers!
So far we have read Tainted, Beautiful Creatures, The Book of Fires, and the April book selection which was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
We had our meet up to discuss The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last night. I actually hadn't finished reading the book yet so I spent the whole day carrying my laptop with me all around my apartment. You see I had also downloaded the audio version of the book to my laptop so all day yesterday as I cleaned my apartment and did the dishes, my laptop came along with me. That is right, even when I was taking a shower my laptop came with me!
Okay, well, I didn't actually take it in the shower with me but I did have it sitting on top of the toilet (toilet seat down) and the volume was turned up as loud as possible.
And it worked. By six o'clock I had the book done and I was on my to meet up with the girls.
I feel bad though because I seem to be developing a theme when it comes to this book club. At our first meeting we discussed Tainted and Beautiful Creatures. Although I had finished Tainted, I was literally still reading the last few pages of Beautiful Creatures as the girls were already showing up at my apartment. And then last month with the Book of Fires, I didn't even read the stupid thing! I really need to pay attention to my book selections better and actually have the book finished BEFORE we are supposed to meet up!
Anyway, in the book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the characters are always drinking coffee. Every time a new character entered the scene and was about to deliver some very important, or even not so important, information to help with the case, it never failed that someone else in the scene would suggestion to them to "go make some coffee"
As part of our attempts to stick to the theme of the books one of the girls, Mandy, decided to make coffee to bring for everyone. She sent out an email wanting to know what kind of coffee everyone liked. I wrote back and said, that was very nice of her but I really only liked iced coffee.
I showed up last night, and not only had Mandy gone out of her way to provide me with iced coffee even though I was the only one in the group that liked it, she had made me an entire pitcher full of iced coffee. Along with all the cream and milk and other various dairy products that go into iced coffee she had included 12 cups of Starbucks brand mocha coffee!!! I felt horrible that she had gone through so much trouble. So what did I do?
And I drank every last drop of it!!!
At first it was awesome.
After ten minutes my hands were a little shaky and my eyes were popping out of my head. I could feel them! I could feel my eyes getting pulled out of their sockets!
After an hour the caffeine had worn off and all the dairy I had just consumed decided to get back at me. I felt so sick the rest of the night and somewhat still into the next day!
Don't get me wrong, I really really appreciated it!
But I wont be drinking iced coffee again for a very very long time!

Abducted by Dead Until Dark

DEAD UNTIL DARK by Charlaine Harris


Well I had Wed. and Thurs. off so I started to read and finished the book in two days. I really didn't expect to finish so quickly because I wasn't that interested in the book to be honest, but I really enjoyed it.

I watched the first episode of True Blood with Kate (aka Midnight Book Girl) and since I don't have cable that was the only episode I could watch. It was so long ago but I just remember Bill as being more distant and cold in that first episode so it was a while before I could really see him and Sookie together. From what I remember about True Blood I think I like the book better. I liked that Sookie was able to control her "disability" in the book, in the show it seemed like she could hear everybody, including her boss.

I was suspecting Sam pretty early on. I really thought it could be him but I couldn't figure out why he would want to kill all the people that were wanting to work for him. When Sookie was in his office and going through the files I thought I was right and pretty proud of myself. Then he just turned out to be a freaking dog.

It was kind of hard to not compare this series to Twilight. I mean they are in a way, intended for two seperate audiences. But they really are so similar. Regular girl, doesn't have much expierence in relationships, falls for a vampire, has a friend who she doesn't realize is in love with her and oh yeah he can turn into a dog. Not to mention the fact that a lead character in the book can read minds.

But anyway, I didn't really mind Jason in the book, I mean this book doesn't really bring out his best qualities but I thought he seemed like an ok guy. I didn't really care for Sam, but that is probably left over frustration that is supposed to be directed at Jacob.

I liked Arlene and felt bad for her in the end. I liked Terry a lot too. But I also really liked Rene, I thought he was nice and I liked that him and Arlene still had a little thing going. Oh, well

I prefer Edward to Bill, maybe that's just me. I was surprised that Sookie never even really doubted Bill. I mean I even doubted him when he was in the room with the Grandmother.
I hated that she had to kill off the grandmother, and the cat. I mean I can see where that helps the series because Sookie doesn't have to really be tied down to protecting her and it gives her more independence. But it was still sad and I didn't like reading about it. After the cat died, and then she found Jason all bloody, I was like "What the Hell is she doing to this poor girl!?!"

I liked Sookie. I didn't understand why Sookie got so upset towards the end when Sam tells her that Bill doesn't have a "virus." I mean come on how does that really change anything? But she might have been a little dense about some things but as least she didn't have that inner dialogue that just goes on and on. I like books written in the first person point of view but like with Twilight there were entire chapters that were just Bella's thoughts. This book went much faster so for that I was grateful.

I liked that the author leaves you with the idea that maybe people are just born that way. I mean she doesn't really explain why Sam is the way he is or why Sookie is the way she is. Maybe that is something she explains later.

I was surprised that Eric didn't have a bigger role in this book because I thought that he would but I guess the author was just laying ground work for the other books.

I didn't really like the ending. I mean I liked the way that they ended Sookie's story but to have Bill come in and start talking about elections and then having Eric flying outside the window, it just left me going "what?"

I would rather Bill have just come back and when Sookie asks him, just to say "Business in New Orleans is completed but I'll tell you about it later." I mean that would end the book with a question but the way it is now I'm just left wondering what the hell he was talking about.
To be honest, I didn't pick up on the whole Elvis thing. When it got to the part about Bubba and they were saying he looked like the guy from Memphis, I thought that they were talking about some tourist that had come into the bar earlier in the book and I just forgot about him. My friedn Amanda had to point it out to me, then I was like "that's who that was? Really?"

All in all, I really liked this book. I would like to eventually read the other books, but I'm not really in a hurry.

I give this Abduction 3 1/2 stars out of 5.