Mary's Recipes Week 9

 

Sunshine! Or Mary Sunshine, as her father called her.  A nice break visually from the arctic conditions we are having here this week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOA On TV: Best Medicine, Fallout S2 Ep6, Star Trek Starfleet Academy Ep1 and 2, The Seven Dials Mystery Ep 1

 

 

Best Medicine  

I missed the new show Best Medicine in last week's write up.  I have heard of the British origin show Doc Martin, but have never seen it.  I saw a few previews for the American version and it seemed worth a watch.   

Dr Best is a former surgeon who has developed a fear of the sight of blood after a traumatic case.  He's been forced to leave Boston, and applies to be the doctor for the small town of Port Wenn.  He spent summers here as a boy and feels it may be a place for him to practice.

Best is a curmudgeon, he's rude, insensitive, but he's a determined doctor when it comes to helping his patients.  There's a certain vulnerable charm to him.

I've huge problems with the receptionist Elaine who spends no time doing her actual job because she's always streaming content from her desk.  Note this picture with all of the patients doing a contest involving marshmallows for her feed. Dr. Best and I find this situation to be impossible.

 There's also a dog that appears to be a stray who finds his way into the clinic constantly.  The little guy needs some love but he just gets yelled at or ignored.

I dunno. The original Doc Martin, Martin Clunes will be on the next episode.  I'll watch that but am not sure about more. 

 

Fallout S 2 Ep 5 The Wrangler

I have to comment that I can't quite tell who the Wrangler of the episode's title is. Robert House? Cooper Howard? The Ghoul? Hank Maclean?  Maybe all of them.

 Most of the episode went to Lucy and the Ghoul, separated briefly while he went to a hotel/bar and she went to find Addictol  which would remove her dependence on drugs.  At the store, she found all of the prices had been recently marked up. She didn't have the money she needed. Bad Lucy decided to sneak in a back door and steal the Addictol, and she grabbed a Power Fist she liked the looks of while she was at it.

 

The "owner" came upon her as she was leaving and challenged her.  She came back with droll comments about a naked man in a trash can behind her who might have been the actual owner.  The man before her was a huge man, who was clearly wedged into the smaller mans clothes and shoes.  The absurdity of his killing the owner, stealing his store, raising prices, and jamming himself into the smaller man's clothes is why Fallout is so crazy and appealing.   When the killer shop owner goes for a gun, Lucy warns him not to shoot at her because she'll fire a maiming shot.  He does, she does, he dies from the bullet.  No room in those tight clothes for a bullet.

When she finds the Ghoul in his room, she's confronted by the Snake Oil Salesman, Hank's first successful mind control victim.  He's dressed in a nice shirt and tie, but loses none of his completely bonkers personality. His message is from Hank. He wants Lucy to go home to Vault 33 where she will be safe.  In return, the Ghouls wife and daughter will remain safe in their cryopods at Vault Tec Las Vegas.

Lucy, who has just gotten used to befriending a ghoul can't believe that The Ghoul would fall for what must be a trick.  The Ghoul, though, tells her she was always his bargaining chip, and this is the bargain.  He shoots her with a tranquilizer dart and says she'll wake up happy at home.  She passes out but pops back up and shoots him with the Power Fist as he stands by the window. He falls out and is impaled on a huge post sticking up from the ground.  Passing out once more, she sees her father for a moment calling her sugar bomb.

Norm reaches the Vault Tec Offices nearest to his vault with the Buds.  They're horrified their workplace is full of parched corpses and a roach farm owned by none other than season one's Ma June.  Boy I like that character.  Norm learns from Claudia that Bud's boss Barbara Howard had all the vault information in her office.  In the office, Norms hacks into her computer and looks up Future Enterprise Ventures, to see if he can find what the experiments on Vault 32 and 33 were.  He finds that F. E. V.  is the real experiment, meaning Forced Evolutionary Virus .  Unfortunately, Bud's sandwich guy Randy has overheard Norm and Claudia talking and he comes in and chokes Norm.

In a large flashback session, Cooper reaches the Lucky 38 with Barb and while she talks to Robco representatives, Coop follows Hank MacLean who has a silver small suitcase chained to his wrist.  This, I thought, must be what Steph was asking Betty to get from Vault 31.  My thought is he has the F. E. V . or it's formula in the case.  I saw speculation on Reddit it may be the Cold Fusion, though, which we know ended up in the Enclave.  And there was additional speculation that Barb's cryopod is empty as she was a double agent for the Enclave, which I like a lot.  Also that Janey is all grown up and we will meet her that way at some point.

There's a tense scene between Cooper and the real Robert House, who Coop remembers as the guy from the toilet.  House starts off all calm and in control, but as he spews mathematical theories about what causes the end of the world, he goes right of the rails and ends up babbling at Coop that maybe he's the one who ends everything. 

This messes Cooper up, of course, and he leaves and drinks everything he can grab, ending with a ride on the casino's bronco type bomb. 

 

 

Star Trek Starfleet Academy  Ep 1 Kids These Days and Ep 2 Beta Test

 I was cautious about watching this new series, because the promos made it look terrible.  To my delight, I enjoyed both opening episodes, and really like many of the new characters.

Episode one introduced Nahla Ake, a Starfleet Officer on a remote planet passing judgement on a mother and a pirate who helped her find food for herself and her six year old son.  A Starfleet Officer died during the theft and the sentence was harsh.  The mother would be sent to a rehabilitation facility, leaving her son alone and orphaned.  Ake tried to comfort the boy, but he was clever and escaped custody.

 

Fifteen years later, the boy is discovered at a detention facility. Ake has been looking for him all these years. Stricken by guilt over the trial and it's consequences, she left Starfleet, but now is going to re-join and be chancellor of the Academy.  She wants the boy, Caleb, to come back with her and join the Academy, promising she will help find his mother.  Reluctantly he agrees, beginning an interesting relationship between the two.

The journey back to Earth and San Francisco where the Academy is located is fraught with danger, giving Caleb and the other new recruits time to shine. 

Episode Two Beta Test shows more of the operations at the Academy, and  seems to re-introduce the Betazoids to Starfleet.  There was an event called The Burn which I know nothing of, that apparently brought Starfleet to its knees (?) and destroyed the relationship Betazed had with them.  Must have happened in Discovery which I never watched.  

The ambassador and his two teen children travel to Earth to test the idea of a re-alliance.  His daughter Tarima, a completely charming young woman, finds Caleb to be of interest. 

The show has good Trek roots, I'm liking many of the characters.  I think it will be good.

 

The Seven Dials Mystery  Episode 1

 

This is an Agatha Christie adaptation. Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent feels she has the world at her fingertips, till the day after a party at her home.  The man she intends to marry is found dead in his bed with alarm clocks going off all around him.  Another friend whom she's asked for help ends up shot in the road on the way to London.  It's out in the middle of nowhere, on the sort of road with hedgerows lining it and making it extremely narrow.  She's trying to make her way to Scotland Yard, instead, there she is, listening to his last words, "Seven Dials".

I thought the episode was a little slow, but I think I'll watch it again before watching the next two.  It's a three part series.

Librariandoa's Saturday Puzzles A Double Puzzle

 Here's this week's puzzle, closely verified by me not to be missing any parts. Yay!   For a Double Puzzle, unscramble the words, then use the numbers below some of the letters to enter into the boxes below to reveal a phrase. Click to enlarge. So easy!  Find the answer Saturday January 24th at 7 am.

 

 

 

 

Librariandoa's Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key for the January 10, 2026 Rebus (Apologies!)

 Here's the answer to last week's rebus in case you missed a word or two.  This first line is from The Plague Court Murders by John Dickson Carr.

Apologies! for the first time ever I trimmed the last line of symbols from the puzzle.  Mr. DOA discovered the problem and figured out why he couldn't get the last word. 

 

 

 

Old Merrivale, that astute and garrulous lump who sits with his feet on the desk at the War Office, has been growling again for somebody to write the story of the Plague Court murders; chiefly, it is believed, to glorify himself.

 

 

Mary's Recipes Week 8

 

Booya!  So many technical issues this week!  I scanned these recipes quite awhile ago to put on another of my blogs which I poofed.  Cleverly, few of the scans ended up in my Mary's Recipes Folder. Somehow, most/many are/were in a My Pictures Folder from 2020. This morning I dragged several hundred (!) recipe scans to the Mary's Recipes folder.  Now, I can slowly eke out the recipes. In case you wonder, I can only do five at a time because Blogger only allows 200 characters worth of "labels" to be used. In order to note what recipes are in each post so you could search for them, I've got to really snip things down sometimes.   Note also the picture of my son and I instead of the glorious Mary.  

I need to scan more pictures of her from photographs, which means I had to do some real dicey rearranging of my office space to plug in and use my real scanner, an Epson V600 (the love of my scanner life).  Till next week, my son and I say Hi!

 

 

 

 

DOA ON TV The Rookie, Will Trent, Doc, High Potential, Fallout S2 Ep 4 The Demon In The Snow, The Pitt 7 am

 

 

Whoa what a huge week for TV.  I have now have six scripted television series I watch.  Four came back Tuesday night, while Matlock and Elspeth won't return till late February.  I tend to watch the day after episodes air so I can watch them when I'm ready, and without commercials.  The only "live" TV show I generally watch in real time is Survivor, which I will not be watching this time around.  Suffice it to say I don't enjoy returning player seasons in general, but in a big season 50 with returns from all eras, there are way too many irritating people I never want to see again, including the two entrants from season 49.  

The Rookie S 8 Ep 1 Czech Mate

 

I last watched The Rookie in May of last year. I binge watched all of the seasons till I caught up with current episodes in May.  I loved the characters and the wild situations often portrayed.  My three favorite characters are Detectives Lopez and Harper and Lieutenant Wade Gray.  I live for their scenes.  Nathan Fillion's lead character John Nolan is likeable enough, but he's always at the right place at the right time and has low level "super powerish" abilities to save the day.

In season 8's opener, the staff is spread between simultaneous operations in Prague and Los Angeles.  We go back and forth between the two, catching up on characters and their lives since last season.  The episode simply wasn't very interesting.  Part of the shows appeal for me are the outrageous situations and crimes our characters face on a day to day basis.  It just felt like not much went on here.  I'm certain once everyone is home it will be full bore exciting again.

 

Will Trent S4 Ep 1 : Speaking of Sharks

 

The new season of Will Trent jumped right back into the many crazy things that happened at the end of season three: Amanda shot and fighting for her life, Angie being pregnant, Will and his real father finding their footing, and Ormer's brain tumor.

In addition to this, Will's nemesis James Ulster escapes from prison with an accomplice, leaving a trail of bodies.   Will is struggling in all ways and having the man he once thought was his father on the loose and taunting him is almost too much.

 

Doc  S2 Ep 10   Chief

 

Returning from mid season break, Doc delivers a sad episode in which two kids and a homeless man are treated for symptoms that can't be figured out until it's seen that they had a connection that is making them ill.    

Amy continues to deal with the hacker who seeks vengeance, and with Sonya's jealousy and dislike of her that puts a patient at risk. 

In the past, Amy seeks the position of Chief and she's ruthless with anyone standing in her way.  There are parallels between past Amy's ambition and current Amy's frustration with being a resident instead of head of the department.  There's always the fear on my part that the better version of Amy today will be subsumed by past Amy as she gains her memories.

 

High Potential S2 Ep 8  The One That Got Away Part 2

 

We're still trying to find the missing Rembrandt painting, and return it to it's rightful owner, once art thief Jean Baptiste is uncovered.  Morgan, who isn't officially a member of the police force plays by her own rules, as she often does.  Usually she's right to do so, because she sees a wider picture.  Here, though, she betrays the trust and respect her partner Karadec has for her, and it's kind of hard to take.

 

Fallout S2 Ep 4   The Demon In The Snow

 

The show opens with Cooper and his friend Chuck in T45 Power Armor fighting on the Alaskan front before any of the events we've previously seen.  Chuck's comm is out and his armor is emitting wild electrical charges.  The men are told to move forward, but Cooper tells Chuck to retreat and he'll be right behind him.  Almost immediately enemy soldiers attack and shoot at Cooper in his armor, which shorts out and forces him to fall to the ground.  In moments, the Chinese soldiers are attacked from behind by a giant clawed creature who comes in close to examine Cooper, then runs off toward more gunfire.  It's our first look at the Deathclaw.

Lucy and the Ghoul rest up with the NCR Rangers who are going to move on. They've had Lucy hooked up to an IV with something called Buffout which heals her but leaves her addicted.  She feels they're too close to Vegas to wait out the drug addiction, so she takes more and has a wild scene with ghoul Elvis impersonators, just gleefully blowing them up with a sawed off shotgun.  They're only ghouls, right, she says?  Farther down the deep path for Lucy.

In the Vaults, Betty and Steph meet and Betty asks for help with 33's water problem.  Steph takes a hard line and says the experiment is over, shrugging at the thought 33 won't survive.  She does try to get Betty to go back to Vault 31 to get a box of personal possessions that belonged to Hank, and she might consider helping Betty.  Is this box the box of toys Barb Howard was packing and sobbing over?  Why does Hank have it?  My bet is on Betty to keep her people alive, whatever she has to do.

Norm and Bud's Buds walk through a town, snacking like there's no tomorrow, though Norm tries to tell them to conserve.  Bud's former personal assistant (errand boy) teases that he overheard talk of Phase Two of the experiment being run in vaults 32 and 33.

Maximus returns to Area 51 with Thaddeus disguised poorly as Xander in power armor.  He plans to kill Quintus, but isn't able to do it though Quintus shoots at him.   The other faction leaders try to talk Xander (Thaddeus) into making a deal with them, but they all turn on each other and the cafeteria they're talking in becomes a shootout.  Dane steals the cold fusion and gives it to Maximus to run away with.  As Maximus and Thaddeus run from Area 51, the airships are shooting at each other and falling from the skies.

Beginning as it ended with Deathclaws, Lucy and the Ghoul find out why the streets of Vegas are deserted when a Deathclaw emerges from a casino, and another steals up from behind. 

The Pitt 7 am

Last season I didn’t watch the Pitt till all episodes were out. It’s always fun to try a new show and just watch one episode after another.  This season, it’s one hour of a fifteen hour day over fifteen weeks for me. Yikes. 

Everyone is back on the job, including head nurse Dana who looked like she might be packing it in after a patient assault, and Dr. Langdon, ousted for stealing drugs from patients last year.  Langdon confesses to a favorite patient that he stole from him and goes on at length about it.

New this season is Dr Baran Al-Hashimi, who will take Robby’s position when he leaves for a three month sabbatical after today’s shift.  She comes from a Veterans Hospital and it’s a struggle to see how she would be able to take charge of a hospital with a constant flow of disasters. She seems confident that she can use her organizational skills to make everything run smoothly and on budget, those being her chief concerns.

Robby’s impulse is immediately to evade being in her presence.  That won’t hold up long, but perhaps neither will she.

Librariandoa's Saturday Puzzles A Rebus for January 10, 2026

 Welcome to the first Rebus of 2026.  It's a long one!  I couldn't resist the robust length of the sentence, nor the presence of a couple of excellent words.  I used Rebus Creator's Club for the puzzle and the interface was completely changed.  You can see the puzzle background is a bit different too.  The generator let me replace a few icons I thought might be confusing.  Best of luck!  The answer key will be up January 17th at 7 am.

 

 

Librariandoa's Puzzles An Answer Key for the January 3rd Word Find

 Just in the nick of time (6:39 am Saturday) here'ss the answer key for last week's Word Find.

 

 

 

Mary's Recipes Week 7

 Here are the tasty recipes you need to get you through these cold snowy blowy days of January!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Librariandoa's Most Anticipated Books of 2026

 Books are looking great for 2026.  Here's my initial list of books coming out this year that I've already ordered, or will order.  I will be tweaking the list as we go, but there's plenty to look forward to already!

 

 

January

Pendergast the Beginning  Preston and Child

 

The Murder At World’s End  Ross Montgomery

 

My Husbands Wife  Alice Feeney January 20

 

A Box Full of Darkness Simone St James  January 20

 

Beth Is Dead Katie Bernet January 6

 

Order of Royals    Blue Swan 2   Jude Deveraux  January 6

 

 Dear Debbie Freida McFadden  January 27

 

February

The Astral Library Kate Quinn  February 17

 

Murder By Moonrise A Dr Julia Lewis Mystery Patrice McDonough  February 24

 

March

The Antique Hunter’s Murder At The Castle  C L Miller  March 17 moved from January 17

 

Everyone In This Bank Is A Thief          Ernest Cunningham 4  Benjamin Stevenson  March 17 moved from January 20

 

 The Library of Amorlin   #1 The Age of Beasts  Kalyn Josephson

 

Daughter of Egypt   Marie Benedict    March 24

 

April

The Velvet Knife   Truly Devious #6   Maureen Johnson  April 28

 

The Ending Writes Itself Evelyn Clarke April 7

 

The Faith of Beasts The Captives War  #2  James S A Corey  April 14

 

The Ballad of Falling Dragons Moonfall #2  Sarah A Parker

 

How To Cheat Your Own Death  Kristen Perrin Castle Knoll #3

 

May

The Tapestry of Fate An Amina al-Sirafi Adventure Book 2  Shannon Chakraborty May 19

 

An Ordinary Sort of Evil   Rip Through Time 5 Kelley Armstrong  May 19

 

Two for Joy   The Murder Quartet 1 Susan Dennard  May 5

 

Death's Daughter  Children of the Old Ones #1    S A Barnes

 

June

The Unicorn Hunters   Katherine Arden   June 2

 

A Box Full of Murders #2  Death At The Museum (US Edition later?)

 

 Murder At The Spirit Lounge  Nora Breen Investigates #2  Jess Kidd   June 16

 

July

The Intrigue Silvia Moreno Garcia   July 14

 

August

The Unknown  Riley Sager  August 4

 

A Trade of Blood: An Ana and Din Mystery Shadow of the Leviathan 3   August 11

(No Cover) 

The Silent Appeal  Janice Hallett  August 25

 

 

September

Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel  The New Miss Marple Mystery    Lucy Foley  Sept 8

 

 The Knave and the Moon  The Stonewater Kingdom #2   Rachel Gillig  Sep 1

 

October

The Splintered Sun  Tad Williams   October 6

(No Cover) 

Dive Bar At The End of the Road   Kelly Armstrong  Oct 6

(No Cover) 

 

November

 Bad Company (Lily Sedako)  Sara Paretsky   (Added 1/7/26)

No Cover

December