Woman in charge.

Review: The Woman Who Would be King, by Kara Cooney, PhD

I have a life-long fascination with Egyptian history. I tried learning to write in hieroglyphs during middle school, and read the stories of the gods and pharaohs. Hatshepsut was always intriguing, and the fact that there were attempts to completely erase any knowledge of her existence from history attests to the strong patriarchal dominance of Egypt at that time.
Although the author is a highly trained Egyptologist, she truly had to use her imagination to try and portray what may have convinced Hatshepsut to declare herself a pharaoh, and to openly rule in a time when women were relegated to the background. She has studied the source materials, yet speculates frequently. Her scholarship is obvious from the notes and bibliographic material in the back.
I would have preferred an actual novel based on her work. In fact, I would recommend to the author that she use this non-fiction work, and all the research she did to write a novelized version. It would be fascinating.
If she uses this depth of detail in the classes she teaches, her students are probably as fascinated as she is.

More fun

I've been an avid reader and an avid cook all my life. Recently, I got to combine both, thanks to "Blogging for Books" They sent me a copy of a tamale cookbook to review, and it was great fun.
Review: Tamales, by Alice Guadalupe Tapp



Tamales were a big part of Christmas celebrations when I was a child. I never made them, but our next door neighbor cooked for a week. We were always lucky that she would bring us a platter of them for Christmas Eve after midnight mass dinner. I watched her make them a few times, but it was mysterious.

As I got older, I was just afraid to try. They were complicated and time consuming. So, I just bought tamales whenever I found someone who made them. This book gives some shortcuts that will help a home-style cook like me to make tamales at home. Purists might complain about using canned or pre-prepared ingredients. Okay, I’m not one of them. I have no desire to make mole from scratch (25 or more ingredients sometimes!) It’s time consuming to roast your own fresh chilies. So, if you have objections, go ahead and find a recipe to do it yourself. I like shortcuts.

This book is for the home tamale maker. It covers the basics, from selecting the wrapper and the masa, to describing the different styles of filling the tamale before it’s cooked. I found the explanations clear and easy to follow. I wish some of the pictures had been captioned, especially the page with different masa shown.

The chapter on “Tontos”, inside-out tamales, where you put the filling and sauce over the cooked masa dough was interesting to me. It’s an approach I’d never heard of. You can keep a supply of the tontos in the freezer and add what would normally be fillings as toppings later.

There is one chapter which was interesting to read, but probably not something I’ll be able to try in my small town; “Nose to Tail Tamales”. It calls for ingredients that are kind of exotic here, including blood, lambs’ heads and beef cheeks. I’m lucky if I can find lamb chops here! But the wild boar tamales looked fabulous! I’m also unlikely to find fresh or prepared masa in my area.

My family is already hoping that we will try some of the dessert tamales, especially the fig-filled ones. I’m looking forward to being a tamalera in the near future.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this honest review.


****Disclosure: If you purchase any of the products linked in this post or products through the links on the right side of my page, I receive a small percentage from the respected affiliate programs****