tasty food of the past couple of days

Split Pea Puree

I added a bunch of green and yellow split peas to some water with whole garlic cloves and bay leaves, and boiled them until they were a thick paste. I added salt, butter, bacon grease, and a little lemon juice. I didn't make enough this time, but next time I'm going to make a bunch and then form it into balls with shredded swiss cheese and deep fry them.

Roasted Chick Peas

I tossed four cans of chick peas with several cloves of thickly-sliced garlic, olive oil and sesame oil, salt and dried savory. I roasted them at 400f for about 45 minutes, stirring once in the middle.

I served both with a sauce of plain whole milk yogurt mixed with salt, garlic powder and dried mint.

*foodgasm*

seeking good mindless fiction

I'm in the mood to read more fiction of the sort I was really into in jr. high - kinda trashy fantasy/sci fi: I want books that are compelling enough that you drop into them and read them all night and are sad that they're over, and yet really they're not particularly deep or mind-expanding. I was really into a couple of Piers Anthony series back then, but I think his writing just is too awful for me to attempt now and get much out of. I'm currently reading a bargain copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Forest House that I picked up somewhere, and it's perfect - interesting and the characters are fun and I'm finding myself reading for hours, but ultimately not really intense or contemplative. Entertaining, not life-changing.

Got any suggestions? I like character-driven plot, not so into hard sci-fi though aliens and space are fine. I like magical realism and cyberpunk a whole lot, quirky fiction, somewhat more realistic sci-fi and fantasy (Dragonlance not so much). Writing doesn't have to be great, but it's got to be good enough that I'm not cringing, and the world seems real. I usually go for the books where the metaphors and words are intense and take some pondering (Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie) but right now I am totally wanting something fun that does not involve mental work.