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I am adicted to Crash Hot Potatoes, I have given name to the sickness and may perhaps start my recovery. On a late-night forray into Stumbelupon, I hit a site where the picture below grabbed me by the eyes and demanded my attention.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks is the site and besides the wonderful recipes, the site has great photography as evidenced above. The recipe for Crash Hot Potatoes is simple, well illustrated, new (to me), and takes the humble red potato to a place it has never been.

I know, this is going way past the point where good form dictates it should -- they are JUST potatoes, after all; but that is the point, these spuds are not JUST potatoes, they are something sensual, creamy but crispy, earthy but heavenly, naughty but nice -- sorry, I've got to slowly back away from the keyboard and go check the oven, the next batch might be ready.

Christmas Tree Lighting Festival

Saturday night, December 6th, we held our second tree lighting party. I think about 300 people attended the event and we marked it down in our success column. Julie Hildebrand leads the task force of staff and library Friends that put this event together for our library. A lot of time and effort went into making it a success and I think it was worth it.

I thank all who helped!

Death of Tony Hillerman

I do not remember the circumstances of my first reading of a Tony Hillerman mystery except to say that I liked it and went looking for another. Over the years I have purchased both paperback and hard bound copies of many of Hillerman's mysteries and I have given them to many friends who had yet to discover this gem of a series. Last night I counted my collection and I own ten Hillerman books, representing nine titles with Listening Woman appearing twice.

Mr. Hillerman died October 26, 2008, at age 83. He wrote 18 books in his Navajo mystery series beginning with The Blessing Way in 1970, and concluding with Shape Shifter in 2006. The mysteries feature Navajo Tribal Policemen Lt. Joe Leaphorn, and Officer Jim Chee, usually separately but often crossing paths with Leaphorn as the respected but feared mentor to the younger, brasher Chee. The books cover nearly 30 years and have the older Lt. Leaphorn being widowed and retireing but still involved in solving mysteries usually with the help of Jim Chee. Thief of Time strikes me as one of the more interesting of the series if for nothing more than the singular scene of jumping frogs tethered with fine nylon fishing line to prevent their escape.

The movies that have been made using the Hillerman novels have not done justice to the books, in my opinion. I was disappointed in the films when I saw them. Hillerman's writing carries a skillful handling of the outdoor scenes on the huge Arizona/Utah/New Mexico Navajo reservation, argueably some of the most beautiful in America. Anyone who remembers John Ford's cinematic use of Monument Valley knows the area covered by the Navajo Reservation, and Hillerman uses it well.

Here is a wonderful essay that reviews each of the Navajo mysteries by Mr. Hillerman. Check out the sidebar review of the Skinwalkers movie, produced by Robert Redford.

If you have not read Tony Hillerman you might start the serier with Listening Woman rather that the first book The Blessing Way, Hillerman did not consider his first book as his best but that is arguable at least. This series presents police procedurals with unique settings, likeable characters, insights into Native American culture and how that culture has fared over the last hundred years or so. I think people will be reading these books for a long time.

Here is a three segment documentary titled Tony Hillerman: The Art of the Mystery from YouTube.