Hooked on Books discussion

Looking forward to starting this one tomorrow! 😁

Have my book ready to go

So I've read the first story, The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, which I thought was rather amusing! although I have to ask, in what world do people feel that pretending someone has been murdered is a fun joke to play on people? 😂

I found the way that traditions and foods eaten at Christmas, etc. have already changed so much in such a relatively short space of time very interesting.

What's your favourite Christmas dish? (looking forward to hearing all the different kinds of dishes as you all are celebrating in other countries. Fair warning, if I think they sound extra good, I may steal the idea! 🤣)
I'm rather partial to pigs in blankets myself!

Our most interesting Christmas was one year early in our marriage, when we couldn't afford to get even a small turkey crown. so instead we had a duck for christmas. Delicious! And the only time in my entire life that you could get a whole duck for less than a small turkey crown! lol.

My take-away from the second story, The Mystery of the Spanish chest has got to be...

Never realised Poirot was such a letch! 🤣

Finished the rest of the book.

Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds - It made me chuckle when he said that women are so careless with food, and will just order the first thing they see on the menu, whereas men are more discerning in their food tastes.

Couldn't be more opposite to our household! lol. I'm 100% the foodie of the household. My husband will only eat things he already knows, and my son has a complicated relationship with food - especially textures - because of his autism.

The Dream was more of a filler story for me. I doubt I'll remember much about it by the new year.

The Under dog was interesting though, and it made me realise that Poirot definitely has a habit of using entrapment to get a confession out of people.
If he were in charge of investigations now, not only would his techniques not stand up in court, but he'd likely end up getting the whole case thrown out. I mean, falsifying evidence!!??

I listened to the first story this morning.
My first thought is that I just imagine breaking a tooth on a "prize" found in the pudding.
Also, being a Yank, when I hear/read the word pudding, I thing of custard, not dessert, so I always have to jolt my brain into English words. I read a lot of books from the UK and surrounds, and watch a lot of BBC shows, so most of the other vernacular just slides easily into my head, but this word I always trip over.
And then I want chocolate pudding.

I agree that staging a murder is a bit daft.

This one was fun though.

Favorite Christmas dish? I have to say that the Christmas morning breakfast at my aunt and uncle's house growing up was the best. Brilliant egg and sausage casserole and homemade streusel.

Since I started hosting Christmas at my house, my favorite thing to make (and eat) is root vegetable with spinach dumplings.
Or, whichever brilliant meat dish I choose to make that year.
Since we tend to do turkey for Thanksgiving over here, different meats are usually on the menu for xmas.

Greenshaw's folly definitely wasn't there, but I found it on kindle for 99p, so will read it this afternoon some time 😊

Oh, that sounds like a lovely breakfast.
I'm not much of a breakfast person myself, but when the kids were little, we told them they could choose whatever they wanted to eat for breakfast on Christmas morning. Anything at all. My son chose... Strawberry poptarts...

So now, 15 years on, strawberry poptarts are referred to as "traditional christmas breakfast" in our house, and are only consumed at Christmas (because frankly, I wouldn't want to inflict them on anyone at any other time 😂)

Once a year I buy strawberry pop tarts. It must be a thing. I don't like them, but I crave them very occasionally. Not sure what that says about my palate.

It's like eating pure sugar... Perfect for 6-y-o boys, but their mothers maybe not so much, lol.

I crave the weirdest things, and usually at the most awkward times. although these days I crave specific textures more often than flavours.

Breakfast is my absolute favorite meal, but only if someone else makes it for me. Since I live by myself, that doesn't happen very often. V-8 and coffee is usually what I wake up with. Maybe yogurt or toast.
What I want is a full English. Without having to actually cook in the morning.

I'm a cereal or fruit and yoghurt person. Can't eat large volumes of food early in the day, or anything greasy.

Probably comes from my parents running a B&B and me helping with breakfasts before school when I was a teen. Enough to put anyone off for life, lol!

That would do it!
I have to find a new cereal. The one I ate for years is no longer available for some bloody reason. I can't do sweet in the morning unless it is a doughnut, of course, and most cereals are god awful and sweet.

I hate it when they do that! Why can't they discontinue the awful stuff, and leave the good stuff alone?

Having said that, by some miracle they changed the recipe of my go-to cereal recently, and it's actually tastier now! just about unheard of, that is.

They used to do this gorgeous chocolate muesli once upon a time (dark choc, so more bitter than sweet), which was to die for with a dollop of yoghurt, which I prefer to milk in my cereal.
First they went and poisoned it (changed the recipe to include coconut, which I'm allergic to) and then stopped it altogether. Grrr...

Wow! Changing something for the better is almost unheard of!
Usually "they" solve a problem that doesn't exist, making things worse. Huh.
Sorry about the coconut.

Generally their "new, improved" recipes mean that they've switched to cheaper ingredients...

My husband calls me cynical 😂

Have finished the first four stories. There is a forward by the author where Agatha Christie talks of the writing of this book and reminisces about her own childhood Christmases. Oyster soup though sounds disgusting. I used to do the roast turkey in the beginning but being in Australia and summer, we now mainly have seafood- lobster, prawns, balmain bugs, oysters.
When the kids were still at home, I used to make Belgium waffles with blueberry compote but since they left, have been trying different pancake recipes.
Breakfast is one of my favourite meals and we usually eat out on weekends for this.

I'm not really a fan of the short stories but these were still interesting.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds done. Now I want to go to dinner at the Gallant Endeavor. And prove that women have discerning tastes with regard to food. I will not mention the pop tarts to Mr< Bonnington.
I liked this one, but as with most short stories, I wanted it to be longer and more involved.

I also noticed when I was looking this up that there is a movie of this story. Anyone see it?

Jenny wrote: "Four and Twenty Blackbirds done. Now I want to go to dinner at the Gallant Endeavor. And prove that women have discerning tastes with regard to food. I will not mention the pop tarts to Mr< Bonning..."
The movie was part of the Poirot series with David Suchet. All the short stories have been made into an episode in this series.

I probably saw it at some point, as I saw a whole heap of them back in the day, but can't remember a single thing about any of them, lol.

Anastasia wrote: "Have finished the first four stories. There is a forward by the author where Agatha Christie talks of the writing of this book and reminisces about her own childhood Christmases. Oyster soup though..."

My mum was born in New Zealand. She remembers Christmas on the beach 😁

Also, oysters are just as poisonous to me as coconut is, so I'll skip the oyster soup too thanks!

Has anyone ever made a boiled pudding? Sounds like too much hard work especially when there are so many you can just buy. Not really a fan of the christmas pudding although I don't mind the fruitcake. I usually make a trifle and having tried a few different ones, the one I like is the tropical trifle with mango and passionfruit.

Sammy wrote: "Also, oysters are just as poisonous to me as coconut is, so I'll skip the oyster soup too thanks!"

I don't like oysters either but my husband loves them. We recently stopped at an oyster farm on a foodie tour of Briny Island in Tasmania. My husband loved it as he ended up with all the oysters that others on the tour did not want.

Oh yes, because the shop bought ones are vile! We always, always make our own Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies!
Wouldn't be christmas without them!

I love oysters. I get them whenever I can. Never had oyster stew though. I have used them in stuffing or savory pies though. Mmmm.
Not so good if it will kill you though.

I have not made a boiled pudding, but after seeing Bake Off, I kind of want to try.

My dad makes drunk fruitcake. Makes it about a month in advance, and "irrigates" it every night with brandy and bourbon. I love those, and he shares.

I just started The Under Dog. What is the wooden blocks game Poirot is playing? Is it Jenga? Isn't that too new? Is to some form of Go or something that he is trying to figure out the pattern?

Jenny wrote: "My dad makes drunk fruitcake. Makes it about a month in advance, and "irrigates" it every night with brandy and bourbon. I love those, and he shares"

Sounds like our Christmas pudding. sooooo much brandy! lol.

Also, to be fair, Christmas pudding is rarely boiled these days... Some people still use a pressure cooker (which you need to do if you want to add things like money and stuff to it), but most people just do it in the microwave these days 😁

Jenny wrote: "I just started The Under Dog. What is the wooden blocks game Poirot is playing? Is it Jenga? Isn't that too new? Is to some form of Go or something that he is trying to figure out the pattern?"
I don't think it is any game that he is playing. I think he just stacks them along with stacking cards into houses is how he focuses and thinks.

Just finished The Dream and just Greenshaw's Folly to go. I liked the story and thought it was clever but a bit obvious.

Finished the first story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding. It was a cute/amusing story.

I have to agree with Sammy, pretending someone is murdered as a joke doesn't seem like anything fun!

And also with Jenny, I don't understand the putting of small objects in the pudding (or any food for that matter)...I'd be afraid I'd break a tooth or choke (or someone might)!!

We don't really do much on Christmas Day, we do have breakfast for whomever wants to come. We get together to open gifts on Christmas Eve. We also don't have a meal, instead we have finger foods.

So have any of you eagle-eye solvers guessed whodunit for any of these short stories?

I guessed correctly on the first one, but not the others.

And, I love the change in tone with the Marple short story. I always wanted to meet her when I was a kid. Still do.

I've finished all the stories now. They are not as good as the full length books but still interesting.

Finished the second story, The Mystery of the Spanish Chest.

I figured out the how he got in the chest; that seemed obvious to me. This story was so-so. I'm just not a fan of short stories!

It seems we all like longer books better. There are a couple of authors that write short stories that I love. But, they are more in the speculative fiction genre where I expect weird and unanswered questions, so the format works.

Is this the edition you guys are claiming? 240 pages-

- This is the collection of all the stories, including the Miss Marple one.

Yay! Thank you!

Angie ☯ wrote: "And also with Jenny, I don't understand the putting of small objects in the pudding (or any food for that matter)...I'd be afraid I'd break a tooth or choke (or someone might)!!"

In reality it is actually very obvious (unless you're shovelling huge mounds of it into your mouth without looking!) As the items are wrapped in greaseproof paper before adding to the batter, and thus are quite bulky. I have never experienced anyone accidentally biting into one.

so I went and bought the kindle copy of Greenshaw's Folly, only to realise halfway through reading it that I'd already read it in one of the other short story collections.

Needless to say, I guessed whodunnit with that one 😂

But I think one of the reasons Christie's short stories don't work as well as the longer ones, is that she seems to rely more on the internal (and unknown to the reader) thought processes of Poirot than she does leaving clues for the reader to figure out in them.

Sammy wrote: "In reality it is actually very obvious (unless you're shovelling huge mounds of it into your mouth without looking!) As the items are wrapped in greaseproof paper before adding to the batter, and thus are quite bulky. ..."

Sammy - that makes much more sense!! Lol

I enjoyed this collection. All the stories seem to be quick and to the point.

Finished, Four-And-Twenty Blackbirds. I think this was my favorite of these shorts.

I guess that on the average, both men and women, some of each at least have discerning tastes for foods. But it is my experience, with the people I know, that more women are the foodies! So, I immediately was suspicious when Henry was said to have ordered something that he didn't normally order or like.

I would have liked this to be a full book, instead of a short.

The Dream was okay but a bit odd....as was Farley who sent for Poirot to discuss his dream. I thought asking for the letter back that was sent to summon Poirot was the oddest thing ever!

This one was okay but seemed very short and insubstantial to me. (Could just be my lack of love for shorts!)

Finished The Underdog as well. There was more happening in this story. But, Sammy is right, Poirot uses some very questionable methods to get confessions from his suspects!

I thought the wife/widow's absolute certainty that she knew who killed her husband was explored in a fun way with the hypnotism, but again, is that admissible??

That concludes the book for me!

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