Bob Sherrett was born today in 1923. He died July 1, 2012 and I miss him dearly.

Bob joined the Royal Canadian Air Force on his 18th birthday, graduated as a Sergeant Air Gunner and proceeded overseas in early 1942. He was stationed in Linconshire with 57 Squadron, 15 Bomber Group, flying in the rear turret of Manchester and Lancaster aircraft. Bob returned to Canada in 1943 and, while stationed in Toronto, met the girl he would marry after the war, Joan Wetton. In April 1944 Bob volunteered for a second tour of duty. He flew back to England where he served in an all-Canadian crew, as Gunnery Leader on 431 Canadian Squadron, 6 Bomber Group, with the rank of Flight Lieutenant. Bob survived being shot down in the English Channel in November, 1942, and again, a year later, he was the only member of his air crew to survive after their aircraft was badly damaged on the Peenemünde Raid. Bob was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, bar to the Operational Wings, and was mentioned in Dispatches.

I recently discovered this BBC Radio 4 program that tells the story of Wynford Vaughan-Thomas’ report recorded aboard a Lancaster Bomber during a raid on Berlin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039lmkg

Here’s the set up:

In 1943 the RAF contacted the BBC with a dramatic offer: they were willing to send a two-man radio crew on a bombing raid over Berlin. The BBC chose Wynford Vaughan-Thomas for the mission. He accepted, knowing he might never return.

So on the night of 3rd September 1943, Vaughan-Thomas recorded for the BBC live from a Lancaster Bomber during a bombing raid over Berlin.

Those hours aboard the plane clearly remained a defining time in his life. Forty years later, he called it “the most terrifying eight hours of my life. Berlin burning was like watching somebody throwing jewellery on black velvet – winking rubies, sparkling diamonds all coming up at you.”

Here’s the link again, it’s about 1 hour:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039lmkg

I’m sorry there was ever a reason for Bob (or anyone else) to be bombing people, and I’m glad he returned from that experience. My life is richer having heard his stories. Happy Birthday Bob.

And then there’s The Food Lab: The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

The long and shortening of it:

Butter: keeps cookies tender because it inhibits the formation of gluten (flour + water from the eggs). The more butter, the more tender the cookie, and the more it spreads as it bakes.
Ideal ratio: 1 part butter to 1 part sugar to .8 part flour
Don’t go for shortening
Melted butter = denser cookies, whereas creamed butter = cakier cookies

Eggs: “By keeping the total mass of egg added to a dough the same but altering the proportion of white to yolk, you can achieve a variety of textures. Two whites and a yolk, for instance, produces the more open structure of the top cookie in the photo above, while three yolks and no whites produces the denser, fudgier texture of the cookie on the bottom.”
Extra egg whites = taller cookies; extra egg yolks = fudgier cookies
Ideal ratio: 1 yolk to 1 white (oh, they way eggs come naturally)

Sugar: Blend only the white sugar with the eggs to give a jump start on caramelization then add brown sugar later with the melted butter.

Chocolate: Hand-chopped chocolate = most intense flavour and interesting texture.

“Here’s what we’re working with so far: White sugar is beaten into whole eggs until it dissolves. Butter is browned and chilled with an ice cube to add back lost moisture and hasten its cooling, before being beaten into the egg mixture, along with brown sugar and. Flour and baking soda are folded in very gently, along with chocolate.”

Salt & Vanilla: Salt is essential to balance the flavour of caramelized sugars, and a good amount of vanilla is a must. Press coarse salt to the cookie tops when they first come out of the oven.

Cooler oven = wide cookies, hotter oven = compact cookies That said, caramelization occurs at 356 degrees so if your recipe calls for the oven to be set at 350 degrees, you’re out of luck. Crank up the heat.

Let the dough rest overnight for superior flavour

A report published in this month’s edition of Libri: International Journal of Libraries and Information Services ties Vancouver and Montreal for the top spot, while Chicago, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Toronto rounded out the top five.

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2013/12/vancouver-public-library-number-one-library-world/

Critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923‚ the beginning of TIME. And, I’d read whatever Lev tells me to read. I’ve bolded the ones I have read below. I guess this is my new “to-read” list.

See the full article for links and info on how the list was created.
All-TIME 100 Novels

A – B

The Adventures of Augie March
All the King’s Men
American Pastoral
An American Tragedy
Animal Farm
Appointment in Samarra
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The Assistant
At Swim-Two-Birds
Atonement
Beloved
The Berlin Stories
The Big Sleep
The Blind Assassin
Blood Meridian
Brideshead Revisited
The Bridge of San Luis Rey

C – D

Call It Sleep
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Corrections
The Crying of Lot 49
A Dance to the Music of Time
The Day of the Locust
Death Comes for the Archbishop
A Death in the Family
The Death of the Heart
Deliverance
Dog Soldiers

F – G

Falconer
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
The Golden Notebook
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Great Gatsby

H – I

A Handful of Dust
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter
The Heart of the Matter
Herzog
Housekeeping
A House for Mr. Biswas
I, Claudius
Infinite Jest
Invisible Man

L – N

Light in August
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Lolita
Lord of the Flies
The Lord of the Rings
Loving
The Moviegoer
Lucky Jim
The Man Who Loved Children
Midnight’s Children
Money
Mrs. Dalloway
Naked Lunch
Native Son
Neuromancer
Never Let Me Go
1984

O – R

On the Road
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Painted Bird
Pale Fire
A Passage to India
Play It As It Lays
Portnoy’s Complaint
Possession
The Power and the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
The Recognitions
Red Harvest
Revolutionary Road

S – T

The Sheltering Sky
Slaughterhouse Five
Snow Crash
The Sot-Weed Factor
The Sound and the Fury
The Sportswriter
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Things Fall Apart
To Kill a Mockingbird
To the Lighthouse
Tropic of Cancer

U – W

Ubik
Under the Net
Under the Volcano
Watchmen
White Noise
White Teeth
Wide Sargasso Sea

There are a couple of letters there that need attention.

Read more: TIME.com http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/#ixzz2nsdhtOyf

Why are book lovers obsessed with bookshelves? Maybe because our imaginations are so vivid that we just like to look at books and spaces for reading those books and are magically transported to other worlds upon viewing interesting shelves. Maybe. Just maybe.
http://bookshelfporn.com/tagged/favorites/