Thrown to the Dogs

Gavin came up to me tonight with a serious look on his face. He looked me in the eye, wagged his finger at me and said "daddy, if you don't behave I'll throw you over the fence and let the dogs have you". Then he walked off laughing. What? Where did that come from? My boy is a cheeky little blighter - I'm so proud.

I started reading another Patricia Cornwell "wristslasher" this lunchtime. I was quite happy when I started reading - half an hour later I was ready to jump out the window and end it all. Her characters are without exception grey, miserable, pessimistic, whiny and full of self pity. They are forever moping around complaining about their "hard lives" and sounding increasingly like Eeyore. I enjoyed the early Kay Scarpetta novels but the later ones became increasingly bizarre and unrealistic. This one - "Black Notice" - falls somewhere in the middle. It starts with the main character sobbing in emotional turmoil and making a complete prat of herself. And she just keeps on going. By the end of the first chapter she must be completely dehydrated and I was about ready to whack her myself.

One thing I do like about the Kay Scarpetta novels is that the stories are intertwined with some great Italian cooking, which leads to this book - the most unique, fun and delicious cookbook I own. I have not had one bad recipe from it and each one includes a small description of how it fits into the novel to which it belongs. The recipes are indexed by both course and novel - highly recommended.