Reading Jeeves and Wooster in Order

As I said in my previous post, I plan on reading the Jeeves and Wooster stories in order of publication. I'm using this Wikipedia article as a source. I'm following that articles recommendation,

An efficient method of reading the entire Jeeves canon is to read The World of Jeeves followed by the eleven novels in order of publication. The novels should preferably read in order since there is a certain amount of narrative development between them, and the later novels are essentially sequels to the early ones.

There are lots of short stories to begin with and some are republished in later works. Also, the novel The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) is a semi-novel consisting of 18 chapters originally published as 11 short stories. Matt at work is reading the novel version, I thought I'd tackle the earlier individual stories for comparison. Getting ahold of The World of Jeeves which apparently has the whole collection of short stories is no easy task; it must be out of print. I found a copy of Amazon.com for $65; seems a little steep. But I also found one at Powells for only $11 and they are shipping it from the warehouse to the Beaverton store for me. Hope it's the same book.

Anyway, here is the list in the order in which I plan to read.

• Four early stories . I've finished reading these
• Extricating Young Gussie (1917)
• Leave It To Jeeves (1919)
• Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest (1919)
• Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg (1919)
• The World of Jeeves (Collection) [Ordered from Powell's]
• The short stories forming the basis of The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)
• Carry on, Jeeves (1925)  Ten stories. I've read a couple of these already. 
• Very Good Jeeves (1930)  Eleven stories. 
• Thank You, Jeeves (1934)  The first full-length Jeeves novel
• Right Ho, Jeeves (1934). US title: Brinkley Manor  I read it under the original title this summer on vacation. It's what got me started
• The Code of the Woosters (1938)  I think the classic Jeeves and Wooster story - at least my favorite going into this project  [Ordered]
• Joy in the Morning (1946) US title Jeeves in the Morning Interesting that it looks like there were no Jeeves and Wooster stories during World War II
• The Mating Season (1949)
• Ring for Jeeves (1953) Adapted from P.G. Wodehouse's 1952 play Come on Jeeves I don't think this has Bertie. I may look for the play - we'll see  [Need to purchase]
• Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954) US Title Bertie Wooster sees it Through
• Jeeves Makes an Omelette (1959) A short story - a rewrite of an earlier one in the book A Few Quick Ones
• Jeeves in the Offing (1960) US Title How Right You Are Jeeves  [Need to purchase]
• Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves (1963)  [Need to purchase]
• Jeeves and the Greasy Bird (1966) A short story in the book Plum Pie  [Need to purchase]
• Much Obliged Jeeves (1971). US Title Jeeves and the Tie That Binds
• Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974) US Title The Cat-nappers

Reading Jeeves and Wooster

Coming off my reading of mythic/hero stories, I thought I'd cast about for something a little different as an organizing principle for my reading over the next few months. Every summer I try to read at least one Jeeves and Wooster story. This summer on our road trip I read "Right, Ho, Jeeves" Written in 1934 it is the 2nd full length Jeeves novel.

Bertie has returned from the south of France with a white mess jacket of which Jeeves does not approve.

"I fear that you inadvertently left Cannes in the possession of a coat belonging to some other gentlemen, sir"

Bertie is determined on reinstating the correct power structure of him running the show and Jeeves acting more feudally.

"This mess jacket was very near to my heart and I jolly well intended to fight for it with all the vim of grand old Sieur de Wooster at the Battle of Agincourt."

If you're at all familiar with these stories you know how that works out.

This is the story where Bertie first becomes engaged, accidentally, to Madeline Bassett . He ends up at Aunt Agatha's place in Market Snodsbury in the middle of two broken romances. He originally came down to repair his cousins broken engagement. Of course Dahlia asked Bertie to come just so Jeeves would be there.

At the same time, Augustus, Gussie, Finknottle is in love with Madeline but can't seem to speak of anything but newts with her. So, Bertie pitches in trying to put in a good word for him with Madeline and she thinks he is proposing. She turns him down because her heart belongs to  Gussie. But of course, there are complications  and complications of the complications and he finds himself engaged to her.

Finally of course Jeeves' plan fixes things up, not before Bertie has to take a 16 mile roundtrip bike ride in the dark to pick up a key to the castle after everyone was locked out of the house because of Bertie's ringing the fire bell in the wee hours of the morning.

You see - a typical P.G. Wodehouse tale.

It's been years since I've read this story and it was great to read the tale of the original engagement between Madeline and Bertie. That got me onto the idea of reading the entire Jeeves and Wooster canon from beginning to end. I went to Wikipedia and found a nice bibliography including the publish dates of the various Jeeves stories. You can find it here.

So, I've launched into the first set of stories and have finished five so far this weekend

• Extricating Young Gussie (1917) (this is not Gussie Finknottle)
• Leave it to Jeeves (1919)
• Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest (1919)
• Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg. (1919)
• The Aunt and the Sluggard (1925)

In the first story Jeeves hardly says anything; I think maybe two lines and is not the brains of the outfit. As time goes on, Jeeves moves more to the forefront coming up with the plans to fix things. These short stories are a bit stiff and don't really allow Wodehouse to unleash a long complicated story. Still there is plenty of hilarity. In these early stories more is mentioned about Bertie being rich; of course it is assumed in the later works, just not said. We also see an Aunt Julia in the first story that I don't think is ever mentioned again.

Anyway, P.G. Wodehouse is one of my 5 favorite authors, so I thought I'd turn my attention his way. I don't think I'll be reading them all immediately exclusive of anything else, but I will be taking them all in during the next few months.

Pulled Pork on the Smokenator

Carla headed out to Ashland with her two sisters to see a couple of plays. One of them is Pride and Prejudice. Funny thing about entertainment: Carla's thought was "I can't wait" while mine was more of "Oh, I dodged the bullet".

Regardless, she was going to be gone and I needed a project to fill Saturday. I was disappointed with my first attempt at smoking a Boston Butt on the Smokenator. I think it cooked too cool and I needed to turn the meat. So, I thought I'd give it another chance. Pulled pork was my first recipe when I started cooking a few years ago. I had been watching Alton Brown making stuff and I had said to Carla a couple of times "why don't you make this?". She said "why don't you" When I saw him turn a couple of garden pots and a hot plate into a smoker I knew I had to try it. You can find Alton's recipe here.

Jeff is back in Chicago and Boston visiting Andrew and some old law school buddies, so it would just be Carla and me eating. So, I got a pretty small pieced of pork: about 4.5 lbs. I had called and asked if they had one about that size with bone in and a good fat cap. The butcher said he'd have one ready for me. Well, it had the bone removed; and the small size meant it would be cooking on its side.

Friday night I set up my brine.

Um, I should have taken a closer look at how much molasses I had. I needed 8 oz and only had 5; I had already made a 2nd trip to the store so figured I could substitute a little dark Caro corn syrup.

Into the brine

I love these containers I bought at Cash and Carry a few months ago. I used to put the butt in a small cooler and fight for refrigerator space. These fit right it. That's a bag of ice on top used as a weight because the pork shoulder floats.

Next up the rub. You are supposed to grind the spices right before using, I did it the night before and sealed my mix under plastic wrap.

The next morning kissed Carla goodbye then loaded the Smokenator with unlit briquettes and 8 oz of hickory wood chunks. Twenty briquettes went into chimney starter. Once they were going pretty well I added them on top of the unlit briquettes; this is called the minion method. A little boiling water in the pan then add the pork shoulder. Things kicked off at 9:15 AM

You can see the smoke probe wedged in a piece of potatoe on the side. Check out an earlier post of mine on how I pimped my grill to get the smoker probe set up without getting the cable crimped under the lid.

Sit back, read some Jeeves and Wooster; tend the smoker every hour or so: adjust vents, sweep ashes, add water, stir coals, and flip the meat. Around 1:15 is started to look a little more like pulled pork.

At 3:45 I added 4 brats and let them go until about 5:45. I had one of them for dinner: yum!

In early evening I put in the meat temperature probe. It was right at 165*; I wanted 195* and knew it would take a bit to get there. When I pulled it at 175* last time it wasn't pullable. It took a long time to get up to temp. At 7:25 it was about 182*

Finally it was getting dark, so I wrapped it in aluminum foil and slapped in a 350* oven for a while. Let it rest for 1/2 an hour and it pulled beautifully.

Pretty good smoke ring there and the bits I tasted were pretty dang good. But I could tell cutting down on the molasses resulted in a little less depth than I like.

But I'm still not delighted with the Smokenator. I think most of the heat escapes from the top and it isn't well insulated enough to really keep the heat in. As they say "if you're lookin', you ain't cookin'" and I need to open it up at least every 60 to 90 minutes to tend things. It goes through water and briquettes pretty dang quick. I may invest in a small pellet smoker next summer for smoking duties. They just won't do for grilling so I won't replace my Weber gas grill.

Guess what I'll be having for lunch and dinner this week!

Santa Maria Tri-Tip

Monday August 23, 2010

We got back from our road trip on Saturday and I had today off to run errands and what-not. Having a little time this afternoon, I thought I'd grill some Santa Maria Tri-Tip.  When I picked them up at the butcher's, he asked what I was going to to with them. When I said Santa Maria grilling, he said "Ah, you from California" Sure enough; he grew up in Bakersfield just over the Tehachapi mountains from me.

We had this quite often growing up; it's a relatively cheap cut of meat that you can dress up pretty easily. Basically you use a garlic based rub grill it. There is a basting sauce of garlic infused olive oil and red wine vinegar. Uh, yeah, if you don't like garlic you won't like this. I transcribed this recipe from the Food Network site; any mistakes are mine.

The recipe calls for 2 x 3lb tri-tip roasts; those are pretty big and I can't find them here. I found that 2 1.75 lb roasts work very well though you may want to reduce cutting time.

First I rubbed it and put the oil and vinegar in the Vita-Mix to get a good emulsion.

I used the gas grill today with grill grates. 

If I had more time and our deck wasn't torn up I would have used the Weber kettle. 

On they go; after 15 minutes I flip and change positions and baste.

Turn, swap, and baste again after 15 minutes; then repeat every 5 minutes until they register 145*

All done; let rest for 10 minutes under a loose foil tent; then cut across the grain very thin.

Yum

Trip Statistics

The blogspot tool is great for most of the blog; but it totally sucks when it comes to incorporating tables.

Click here for a travel log that I hope you will be able to read

Our trip out to Chicago took just under 45 hours of car time. We averaged 52 MPH but had averaged over 60 until we hit the traffic in the Chicago area.

Going back we spent 37 1/2 hours of car time to travel 2,273 miles. We averaged 60 MPH. I was amazed it wasn't higher because we were regularly between 75 and 80 in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Montana. I guess those hours of site seeing really bring it down. We felt like we were crawling when we hit Oregon with the 60 MPH limit.

We loved it! Thanks for reading.

I'm getting ready to re-energize my reading list portion of the blog, so stay tuned if you dare. I finished up my reading of myths and epic journeys. I think I'm going to focus on .... well, just stay tuned to the blog to find out. I think it will be fun.

Day 17 Pasco to Home

Saturday August 22, 2010

We had a nice swim and dinner in Pasco on Friday night, so this morning we were refreshed and ready to cover the last couple of hundred miles home. There were thunderstorms booming in the early morning; as we headed out of Pasco and down to the Columbia River we saw some mist in the distance reminding us of our trip out of Deadwood.

There's a lot of farming in this country; the farms in the west are drier and browner. Maybe just because it is wheat instead of corn and/or it is time for harvest.

Not everything is ready for harvest; we saw a crop duster working a field on this quiet cool morning

We continued our trip down to the Columbia  and it came into view!

It doesn't get the press that the Mississippi and Missouri rivers get, but I'll put it up against any river in the country!

We drove along the Washington side to Biggs Junction where Highway 97 crosses into Oregon. Just before we crossed we found this fruit and vegetable stand.

We had been hoping to find places like this all across the country but to no avail; maybe it is a west coast thing.

As we drove along the BNSF railroad tracks we had seen a couple of trains stopped; I figured they were waiting for some high priority train to come by. I was thinking I ought to grab the camera if something came by as were were shopping. As Carla was picking out some peaches and corn I heard a rumble and grabbed a shot of a freght. What great luck.

Less than 5 minutes later, Amtrak rolled by. This is on section of the Pioneer coming into Portland from Chicago. It splits in Spokane with the other section going to Seattle. If we take the train to visit Andrew and Henriët next summer this is the train we'll take. 

We crossed the Columbia back to our home state.

After crossing the river we saw the Pioneer gliding along in Washington

In a few moments our marker of home hove into view.

I'm a western guy; the mountains look beautiful to me.

We got home and unpacked and are busy getting back into our day-to-day lives. We had some of the delicious corn we bought for dinner. Tonight we'll have some salmon and the green beans.

Day 16 Bozeman to Pasco

Friday August 20, 2010

Breakfast at the hotel and a quick stop to fill up. There are bits of a LOT of dead things on the front of our car.

I have two pieces of advice for you if you are planning a road trip through the midwest in the summer months,

1. I strongly recommend you take along a gallon or two of windshield washer fluid. We are on our 3rd gallon. I figure about a gallon every 1,250 miles
2. If (sorry, I mean when) a bug hits your windshield hit it with the windshield washer immediately. Once it gets dried it won't come off until you stop at a gas station and scrub.

The next town of any size we came to was Missoula with there "M" on the hillside. It reminds me of the old Willis Alan Ramsey song "Goodbye Old Missoula"; a great song. I first heard it living at 1214 Blaine with Craig Delk. He had a  great record collection. He also got me turned on to Bonnie Raitt and Doc Watson.

They do more than log the mountains; there is some strip mining going on there as well; you can see the terracing. I don't know what they are mining for...

Montana is a big state. Eventually we hit Idaho as we crossed the pan handle

I think the state border must be the top of the Rockies because as soon as we hit the pass, we were in Idaho and headed down. And it was a long, steep drop down to Couer dÁlene  We stopped there for lunch at a Perkins because we had such a nice time in one outside of Deadwood, SD. This experience was not as great. Very friendly, but the lunch menu wasn't great.

Back on the road and before you know it Washington snuck up on us.

In the midwest all the fields were still green and the corn about shoulder high. Out west there aren't nearly as many farms and the fields we see are mostly brown, ready for harvesting. Here is a picture of some combines going through a field. You may need to double-click the image to get a larger view showing the combines.

We rejoined the BNSF. I was driving; Carla was trying to get some peace and quiet but I kept saying "Hey, there's another train". She's a trooper and grabbed lots of pics.

We hadn't seen many trains on the tracks in Montana. We came upon a caravan of many oversize vehicles with "Derailment Services" painted on the side. They were carrying big track shovels, extra freight car wheels (aka trucks) and more.  Looks like there might have been problems somewhere on the line. 

We pulled into Pasco where we have a room at the Red Lion. This is definitely the best hotel of our 2 weeks. We took a dip in the outdoor pool and that really did the trick. A couple of drinks at dinner helped as well. We split some appetizers and they were great: Capresè salad with heirloom tomatoes, crab cakes, and an avocado stuffed with crab.

Tomorrow we'll head home. We plan to go up the first part of the gorge on the Washington side - state highway 14. It runs right next to the BNSF so Carla will drive and I'll man the camera.

Day 15 Deadwood to Bozeman

Thursday August 19, 2010

We left two weeks ago today and are getting a little anxious to be home again. Only one tourist stop today - Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

But that would be a few hours from now. Before we got there we had to pack up and get on the road.
Leaving town we saw some more colorful hills; the pink and green stretch throughout this region.

Deadwood is about one mile in elevation; we had to lose some of that on the way down to I90. There was a little mist in the air when we loaded the car; as we descended the valley we saw we were destined for a little fog.

It wasn't very deep; we dipped below it in just a couple of minutes.  We had taken one look at the buffet in the casino and figured we could do better elsewhere. Soon after getting on the freeway we saw a Perkins restaurant; we'd seen them quite a bit along the trip and thought we'd try it out. Our waitress was friendly and efficient. Carla had an English muffin and fruit; I had the "senior special"; hey I'm over 55 now and figure why not. One egg; couple of pieces of sausage, toast and hash browns.

Back on the road we didn't have long before we crossed into Wyoming - our second visit to the state, but this time we were a bit farther north.

It was a quick jaunt through Wyoming where the speed limit is 75. We had a quick lunch in Sheridan and were going along so well we barely got the Welcome to Montana sign!

I thought there was no posted speed limit in Montana; but I guess that changed in the last few years. We continued to bomb along at just under 80 MPH but still managed to capture some countryside

Around 3:00 we got to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. I had read a book about Custer's Last Stand when I was in 5th grade and just beginning to enjoy books. Since reading the book I have wanted to see the battlefield. We got there just in time to hear a ranger giving a description of how the battle took place; I was surprised I had remembered so much. 

They were truly surrounded; there were placards with accounts from the Sioux and Cheyenne participants telling how they worked up from all sides. The hillside is strewn with white and red markers; the white markers were where the troops had died; the red markers where the warriors met their demise.

Here is a shot to the west from Last Stand Ridge. 

With Custer's marker.

Technology has arrived at our National Parks. There is a phone number you can call from your cell phone and each spot has a number to enter to hear a description of the site. We had also seen this in Springfield when visiting Lincoln's home.

After a walk around we climbed back in the car and pointed west. Hey what do you know we were running parallel to a BNSF coal line!

And there was more to see than just trains (as long as I was driving and Carla taking the pictures).

We continued to gain elevation; the Rocky Mountains loomed before us. We had just been discussing the fact that the Rocky Mountains is a pretty tame name and we were wishing for something a little jazzier. No sooner said than done; the range in front of us is the Crazy Range

We pulled into Bozeman a little after 6:00 PM. Still two days from home. Tomorrow we will make at least Spokane if not the Tri-Cities.

Day 14 Sod Huts to Mansions - Sites of South Dakota

Wednesday August 18, 2010

(Blog Hint: you should be able to click on the images to get bigger versions).

Today was given over to seeing the sites in southwest South Dakota. Our hotel room in Kadoka was okay, but boy did it stink. We woke up at 6:00 and were just tired of it, so we headed out early. We were in the car a little after 7:00.

We first headed out to the Bad Lands, then hit the booming burg of Wall, headed south to Mount Rushmore, finished up by a trip north through the Black Hills into Deadwood.

As we got close to the Bad Lands we stopped by a place that has an original sod hut built in 1909. As we walked back to it we saw lots of prairie dogs.

Ed and Alice Brown homesteaded this area in 1909. For $18 and the ability to improve 5 acres of the property over 5 years the homesteaders would get 160 acres. They had a saying about homesteading: the government was wagering 160 acres against $18 that the homesteaders would starve to death within 5 years. Apparently this land is much more accommodating to grazing than farming; millions of buffalo can't be wrong. 

Here are a couple of shots showing the inside and outside of the hut. You can see where it the left and back walls are sod.

 

Numerous problems beset the homesteader. Extreme heat in the summer with frequent droughts; fierce cold in the winter including blizzards and a lack of water. At this homestead site we saw the site of the original well. It was 30 feet deep, dug by hand and yielded a couple of buckets of water a day.

Then we went on a 32 mile scenic tour of the Bad Lands. These are amazing and defy description. The erosion continues to work its way northward and the high plains washes away into the low plains.

One of the amazing things about this country at this time of year is seeing the beautiful blue sky juxtaposed against the gray pyramids and spires

We met a young woman moving back to Alabama from Washington; we exchanged the taking of pictures.

As we headed farther west we noticed that the hills picked up some hints of pink.

Back on the theme of homesteading. Imagine you move to South Dakota from back east with the hope of homesteading; you come upon your stake. Imagine trying to make something of this:

I'll be honest, it's more than I can imagine myself doing.

No trip to western South Dakota would be complete without a trip to Wall Drug. We learned that the town of Wall got its name from the fact that it is perched atop the wall formed by the Bad Lands; don't worry, it's safe, it's just built close to the area on the high plains side.

Yeah, we bought some souvenirs.

Next we headed south to Mount Rushmore. I didn't know what to expect. I had figured it was probably larger in my mind that in reality, so I tried to set myself up for it being smaller than expected (if that makes sense). But it was indeed big. Looking through binoculars it looks to me like Lincoln isn't completely finished, the top of his head is kind of still just block.

People who saw this and the Crazy Horse monument say the Crazy Horse sculpture is more impressive
 thing that really struck me is that this is such a big pieced of Americana but because of it being so remote there weren't a lot of people there. Maybe we saw it on a slow day, but this is in the middle of the summer. Only 1 1/2 of the 4 parking lots were filled. I wonder if this were in California, Oregon, or Washington would there be a huge traffic jam for miles, kind of like for the tulip festival in the fall?

From Mt. Rushmore we headed north on a scenic drive on US 385 to Deadwood. We passed a couple of beautiful lakes that I bet it would be way fun to boat on and swim on. I can almost see myself camping there (Horrors!)

In Deadwood our number one priority was to see the Adams house. It was owned by a couple of the local rich merchants in town. It was a very well preserved/restored Victorian house with all the original contents.

The tour guide was okay, but not great. If you remember my recounting a tour of a railroad museum back on our Route 66 trip, you'll recall the character who guided our tour. Well intentioned but a little too corny and rehearsed. But he gave us plenty of time to look around each of the rooms.

Next we signed up for a quick bus tour to see the highlights of town including Boot Hill where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. This tour guide was wonderful; very knowledgeable and informative with a minimum of corn.

We finally checked into our hotel, the AmericInn and the Cadillac Jack casino. Back in the 70's or 80's the South Dakota legislature allowed gambling in Deadwood with the proviso that 4% of the income be devoted to historic restoration. All the better for Carla and me; we get a low rate for a nice room and meal discounts. They figure they'll get the money back from us on the gaming tables - not so much. Walking through the casino to the restaurant, the people don't look very happy.

We've covered 1,000 miles on our way back west and are still less than halfway home; we still have about 1,300 miles. Tomorrow we head through northeast Wyoming into Montana with a quick stop scheduled for the Custer battlefield monument. It will be a long driving day tomorrow so no promise of an update tomorrow.

I hope my blog entries aren't too long to be interesting; we've been very busy and I'm trying to capture something about everything we've done so we can remember what a blast we had.

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