Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Pandora's Succession - Russell Brooks, Author



Curried Chicken
(The dish that Parris and Fox ate at the Tea House in Tokyo)

3 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces
1 bulb of garlic, more if you desire
4 bay leaves
1 tsp. ground cloves
3 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. marjoram
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. yellow mustard seeds, ground
2-3 ounces curry powder (suite to your taste and color)
1 chicken bouillon cube (if you'd like to salt your curry)
2 potatoes
1 eggplant

Roti
4 cups flour
hot water
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 tsp. salt

Cut chicken into bite size pieces.  Add garlic and mix into chicken.  In a separate bowl mix all of the spices and curry powder together (but not the bay leaves)  Slowly add spice mixture into chicken/garlic while mixing by hand to ensure even coverage.  Set the mixed chicken aside while you prepare the Roti.

Roti
Boil water and let cool until you can handle it with your hands (you'll be kneading the Roti dough).  Mix 4 cups of flour with the salt and then add the hot water until it is moist but not sticky.  You want the consistency of a flat dough that will be rolled out using a wooden rolling pin.  Take a little more than half a stick of room temperature and add it to the flour and water mixture.  This will keep the dough form sticking to your hand and itself.  Use judgment for rolling consistency.  Flour flat surface and rolling pin and form dough into balls.  Roll balls out to flat and thin consistency, about 5-7 inches.  Heat up your frying pan to medium-high heat.  (This can be done using 2 pans to make it go faster)  Take a paper towel and use oil to rub onto pan before each roti that you cook.  The roti will form small brown spots on each side when done.  Do not overcook, it should never be stiff.  When done in the pan, put on a plate lined with paper towels and cover with a dish towel to keep it warm.  After the Roti is done, start making the curry (both can be done at the same time if you like.)

Curry
Pour just enough oil to cover the bottom of a large pot.  Place 4 big bay leaves into the pot and warm oil on medium for a few minutes (before the bay leaves turn brown).  Turn heat to high and add chicken.  Cook at high heat stirring every minute for 10 minutes, then turn to medium/medium low heat.  Use your judgment when cooking at high heat because you don't want the chicken to stick or burn.  If the pot is lacking any liquid form the high temperature, add small amounts of water or chicken stock.  As the chicken cooks longer, the juices are released.  5 minutes after turning the heat to medium/medium low, add the cubed potatoes and eggplant.  When potatoes are done, the curry is done.  Make sure the eggplant is dissolved into the curry.  You'll all finished!  Use the Roti to scoop up your meal.  No silverware required!

Pandora's Succession - Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat; Think With Your Taste Buds; A Book and A Dish

His partner stood beside the open briefcase.  "You couldn't have been more perfect."  He took the fluorescent-green vial and let it drop gently on the ground without breaking.  He then hit the alarm button.  The siren was heard for miles.  It was not too long after, that ten of the guards burst through the doorway with their assault rifles in position.  They fanned out to cover the inside of the dome.  "What's the emergency?" yelled the leader of the two scientists, and then he saw Cole's body with the dagger protruding from his stomach.  His assault rifle shot up immediately.  "Both of you, hands in the air.  Do it, now!"  Within seconds, they had encircled the two scientists.  "I repeat," yelled the leader to the two scientists.  "Put your hands up, or we will be forced to shoot you."  The two white-coats didn't obey him, but instead looked at each other and smiled.  "For The Promise?"  The partner already had the vial under the heel of his shoe.  As he slowly raised his hands along with the assailant, he breathed his last breath and crushed the vial.  It wasn't long before what felt like millions of microscopic teeth tearing away at the flesh, starting with his foot and then moving to the rest of his body. 

Ridley Fox was a former JTF2 operative who has since been recruited into the CIA. He has the job of his life and should he fail, the whole world, as we now know it, will be at risk from the deadly "Pandora."  At the time a group known as the "Arms of Ares" which is made up of former intelligence operatives, originating from the former Soviet Union, has Pandora and plans to sell it to the highest bidder... but Hexagon Pharmaceuticals has their own feelers out to acquire it for their own use. 

This book is designed for the need for action reader and believe me, it fulfills that need.  There is barely a page that is turned without fast, pack energy and suspense.  And the best part is that Fox has no idea who he can and can't trust.  Hexagon has its hands, or should I say mind, into many high places through its mind control cult making no one safe to deal with. 

When reading this book I found myself being like Fox... not believing anything anyone said nor did, except Fox and I was beginning to worry a bit about him.  This is a 'man's' book but some of us women who like a good action will love it too.


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Exiled Element - John L. Betcher, Author

 
Beth Becker's Hummus Bi TahiniINGREDIENTS:

4 cups ( 2 ½ cans ) garbanzo beans, drained
½ cup tahini ( sesame paste )
1/3 cup warm water
1/3 cup best-quality olive oil
Juice of 2 or 3 lemons

Blend, then add:

4 or more garlic cloves
1 ½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cumin seed
Freshly-ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Process or bled until smooth.Note: Can store in refrigerator for 4 weeks.

The Exiled Element – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat; A Book and A Dish; Think With Your Taste Buds
 
Inside a classified underground laboratory twenty-five miles northeast of Cairo, three white-coated Egyptian scientists labored over a small pile of aluminum casting on the table before them. They were building a model airplane. But it wasn’t just any airplane…it was Aurora. They had manufactured the parts in 1/30th scale with the highest possible precision based on digitized plans provided to the engineers by the United States of America. Well…the plans were definitely of U.S. origin, but perhaps the word ‘provided’ wasn’t entirely accurate. An operative of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (GIS) – Egypt’s version of the CIA – had procured the plans from the Americans. A certain U. S. Senator with an immense assortment of scandalous baggage had facilitated the delivery. After acquiring the Top Secret information, GIS had sought out these three scientists – considered Egypt’s finest minds in aeronautical engineering. What was their opinion? Could they turn these technical drawings and specifications into a tangible product – into the fastest air-breathing plane on the planet?
 
Beth Becker is retired from the CIA but still works part-time doing CIA decryption work from her home in Red Wing, Minnesota. When she is summoned to their McLean, Virginia headquarters she is assuming it’s another decryption project. That turns out to be not quite the case. She will soon be on her way to the U. S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt to make contact with a woman she knew from past years while serving at the embassy. Apparently the woman known as Rasha is now in a computer programming position with her own government and has run across information regarding an assassination that will be taking place in the U.S., target unknown.
 
Beth’s husband ‘Beck’ has been asked by the Red Wing Deputy Sheriff Gunner to help out in a security job protecting an unknown Senator that will be coming into town. Seems that there have been other attempts on the Senator in the past so security has been beefed up and Gunner would like Beck’s ex military help. The security goes well in the beginning but becomes a failed assignment when the Senator is assassinated while leaving the Red Wing Hotel where he had just given a speech. To find his killer, Beck engages the help of his long time friend Mr. Red Feather, AKA Bull.

 
Unknown to Beth and Beck, their assignments are about to collide and become one. The key to their jobs are non-other than the U.S.’s Top Secret plane Aurora. And when Beth comes up missing, Beck sees the Embassy as doing very little to find her, making it his and Bull’s job to take on the task themselves.

 
I can’t get enough of the “Beck” Suspense/Thriller Series! The Exiled Element is the 4th in the series and I’ve read them all. They just keep getting better and better with the stories of espionage, the CIA and a couple, along with their friends, who refuse to let the U.S. down. John L. Betcher has truly become one of my favorite authors.

 
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