Description:
Keep It Like a Secret - LiveJournal.com
Contents:
So The Luxe is my Twilight, and I have the VERY LAST BOOK in my hands. I'm about one-third of the way through, and I can't decide if I want to rush through to see what happens* or go slow and savor it.
*Rest assured, SPOILER none of the characters will be turning into vampires.
Tonight, I made Brussels sprouts with bacon, figs, and parmesan, based on the recipe that Bittman had in the Times a couple weeks ago. I shredded the sprouts a little too much by using the food processor; next time I'll slice them by hand instead.
I really loved making the figs in bacon fat - they turned out tender and flavorful. I'm going to be using that combo a lot more in the future.
I basically want the next season of Mad Men to start right now.
I won't spoil anything .... but I really, really do not want to wait until next summer! Although I do look forward to getting to bed at a decent hour on Sundays.
For reasons I can't quite explain, I spent this afternoon watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Never saw the first one.
One of the great pleasures of life is watching William Shatner read various quotes from the Palin family and its hangers-on as beat poetry.
one year later...
I just reread my post from the Obama rally last year. It feels so far away, and yet just like yesterday.
As I wrote on Inauguration Day, he was always going to disappoint us. But as frustrated as I am by the health care debate being, well, a debate, the situation in Afghanistan, and the continued existence of Don't Ask Don't Tell, I think of everything that happened since he took office, knowing full well it wouldn't have if it had been someone else: Lilly Ledbetter Act becoming law, the repeal of the global gag rule, expanded hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation, and ending the travel ban for those with HIV and AIDS.
Is it everything I wanted from him, by now? No. I expect a lot more. But you know, the man has eight years of damage to undo (and more, really; as much as I admire Clinton and think the good far outweighed the bad, the man did sign DOMA and the dreadful Telecommunications Act of 1996).
I don't feel the euphoria like I did last year. But I don't think there's any reason to give up.
Made fresh pasta tonight -ravioli stuffed with pumpkin and then cavatappi with the leftover dough. It was easy to make the dough, but rolling it out and cutting and molding it? Oh my.
I bet Italian pastamakers have f**king awesome shoulders.
Italian bread salad - yum!
I'm trying to do NaBloPoMo to kickstart regular blogging, so expect to see a few posts about cooking in the next few weeks. Like this one!
Keith had to see A Christmas Carol tonight, so I was on my own for dinner. After briefly considering an Amy's microwaveable meal, I decided to make something similar to panzanella, an Italian bread salad.
I think it usually involves tomatoes and occasionally capers, but I didn't have that. The most important ingredient is good bread that's a few days old, and that I definitely had.
It turned out delicious and super-filling. I've got leftovers for later this week. And, best of all, it took, like, 15 minutes.
INGREDIENTS
3-4 slices Italian bread, torn to bits
4 cloves garlic, cut in half
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup chopped leeks
1 cup roasted squash*
1 cup/1 can white beans**
2 chicken sausages, sliced***
1/2 cup vegetable stock
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parmesan shavings (optional)
Place torn bread and garlic in skillet, add olive oil and toast until bread is slightly crispy. Add leeks and squash. At same time, cook sausage until brown in a separate skillet, then add to bread mixture. Cover with vegetable stock and vinegar, with salt and pepper to taste. Cook in skillet until bread is slightly soft. Top with parmesan shavings and serve.
*I roasted then froze a squash earlier this month, so I just defrosted it and used it in this meal.
**I had fresh beans in the freezer (Navy beans) but a 12-ounce can of cannellini or other white beans would work.
***You could easily leave this out and make it a veggie dish.
fashion advice
So! I have two fashion questions and would appreciate any advice.
1) I am catching up with the hottest styles of spring 2009 and will have a pair of boyfriend jeans arriving this week. It is November, so obvs. the sandals and ballet flats typically worn with these items will not do. How do you make the boyfriend jean work for fall in a cooler climate?
2) I'm in the market for an adult handbag, something made of leather by an actual designer, as opposed to something made by Guatemalan children for Target that will begin to fall apart after two weeks of daily use. It needs to have inside pockets (zippered and for cell phones), something I can attach my keys to, be cute but professional. I don't want a messenger bag, just something I can throw over my shoulder. I'm thinking low three figures, and I want it something that'll last the next ten or fifteen years. I like the hobo shape or a shoulder bag. Nothing too big, oh, and no logos visible logos (if it's attached to the bag like a keychain that I can remove, that's okay.)
and so it goes
Keith's father passed away this afternoon. His mom was by his side, and Keith was able to spend time with him this morning at the hospice facility. I'm flying in tomorrow, and we're planning on services in the early part of next week.
It's a difficult time, of course, but we're grateful for all of the thoughts and prayers that everyone has had for us.
There is a new Robert Langdon book by Dan Brown. I am so torn, you guys! I am DYING to read it, but then I reflect on the last Dan Brown book I read ... and I am too embarrassed to request it at the library. I guess I can wait a few months until I can buy it for $1 at a garage sale again.
Then again, this new book does not appear to have any homicidal albino monks doing the secret bidding of obviously evil old possibly gay antiquers intent on destroying the Church for ... God, I can't even remember why. So I may not enjoy it as much.
I just hope it has lines as great as "Bazu Fache lost his shirt in the technology craze a few years ago. And Fache liked expensive shirts." Don't we all.
Last night, I listened to NPR for three hours while I reorganized our closets (yes, I know how to party) and heard the absolute worst piece that This American Life has ever run. The theme was "Got You Pegged," about people in situations in which they make assumptions that aren't true: there was a wonderful piece about a woman giving up her child for an open adoption, a very funny reading from Richard Price about a wrongheaded arrest he witnessed, and then this absolutely wretched, neverending bit from Shalom Auslander about trying to expose a fellow vacationer as fabricating his status as a Holocaust survivor.
First of all, it was twenty minutes long at least, and it was just this guy, with a nasal-yet-monotone delivery talking about how he ruins every vacation he goes on basically because he's a jerk. So he goes to therapy for a year and he and his family decide to go to some Sandals-like place in Anguilla, and their neighbor is an 80-year-old man. Auslander immediately doesn't like the old guy, essentially because the old man is chatty and people are nice to him. Later, he finds out the man has been going to the resort for 20 years and he liked to do certain things that he used to do, with is wife, who died. In the Holocaust. Which the old man survived. And that makes Auslander hate him more. So then Auslander becomes convinced the guy is faking his past so he can get free stuff, and spends the rest of his vacation trying to expose the guy as a fraud. And it kept going and going and going, and the voiceover was basically, "and then he said hello. God I hated him! He's so horrible, with how he says hello and talks sadly about his dead wife."
From what I could tell, he was just mad that this old man's talking was getting in the way of his being able to enjoy himself at his luxurious resort. And then, he ends up having to help the old man out of the ocean and flat-out says that he doesn't like the old guy. Then the old guy leaves him alone and he has a fine vacation. There was nothing funny about it, there were no deeper truths about humanity discovered. It was just, "Hi, I am kind of a jerk and here is a story about how jerky I really am."
I think it was supposed to be funny, or self-deprecating, but dear me, it was irritating and unpleasant. And it was Act Four, and it was about 20 minutes. I can't imagine why This American Life devoted a third of their broadcast to some pissy jerk complaining about how horrible it was to have to stay in a high-class resort along with a lonely Holocaust survivor.
I love bad movies, entertainingly bad movies* anyway. So, of course, the last ten years of Nicolas Cage's career have been a gift, to me. Particularly the National Treasure franchise. Well, I just watched this amazing trailer of a remake (kinda?) of Bad Lieutenant starring America's greatest fallen actor and his hair. I don't think it can live up to The Wicker Man, but any movie with the line, "Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing" has nowhere to go but up. Or down.
You know what I mean. Watch this. It's the best way to spend two minutes today.
*Fool's Gold, for example, is not entertaining. Side note: I still have not seen Obsessed! Beyonce! That chick from Heroes! STRINGER BELL! Maybe this weekend...
is this thing on?
Oh, hi! Yes, it has been several months since I last posted. (I've been reading and commenting though.) I'd like to say that everything has been boring, and that's why I've been offline, but it really hasn't. I suppose it's like anything else you stop doing for awhile; you don't know quite how to start back up again and it's paralyzing. Anyway, this is what I've been up to:
- Saw Morrissey, Leonard Cohen, and Bruce Springsteen
- Went to Italy (loved it!)
- Took on two new freelance jobs, so my free time has been limited
- Started writing a novel
- Started taking long walks each weekend, after walking 5+ miles a day in Italy
- Solved a Rubik's cube
- Hosted my parents for a few days
Anyway, I've missed posting. It's probably time to start doing it regularly again. With my job keeping me busy, all the travel we've been doing and planning (we're going to Ohio and New York next month) and the freelance work I've been getting, I haven't been taking much time for me as of late. And that's really important, to make sure I'm eating right, sleeping, working out, seeing my friends, writing in my journal and such. Plus, I find that I'm getting less articulate and that writing, here, helps me in writing elsewhere.
If nothing else, the weather is nice again, and that is making me think positively.
There has been so much going on, I have barely had time to post.
Monday was my birthday. It was super fantastic. I took last Friday off, and Keith and I went to Madison. We drove up via New Glarus and stopped at the brewery to enjoy the day's tasting (Stone Soup, Coffee Stout and Cracked Wheat) then bought pastries at the New Glarus Bakery, the best bakery I have ever visited. I had a doughnut, even though it was 5p.m., that's how good the doughnuts are there. We bought 52 bottles of beer. We ate the fish fry at the Old Fashioned, visited the House on the Rock (OMG, the terror) and went to Nick's for pie and saw some old friends. On our way out of town, we did our weekly grocery shopping at the Willy St. Co-Op, so I have loads of Wisco cheese and organically raised meat from the fields of God's blessed country.
It made me miss Madison, a lot. I suppose the nice thing about not living there is that it makes visiting such a pleasure.
We came back on Sunday and I did some freelance work, and we watched some TV. Oh, and I got my birthday gifts from Keith: The Complete New Yorker and an ice cream maker. Rad.
Monday, my coworkers took me out for lunch and gave me a bottle of wine and some hilarious coasters. After work, we met up with a few friends for dinner at Big Jones, a Southern restaurant in the neighborhood that I'm fond of, and that was fun. So I stretched my celebration out to four days.
Oh! And I'm going to Italy in late April. I got a ticket for $48 using my frequent flier miles, and we got a cheap ticket for Keith. We'll be in Tuscany for three days (Siena and Florence) and then Rome for three days. I wish we had just an extra day or two but I'm grateful enough to have the resources to travel. My renewed passport came in the mail yesterday, so I am all set.
Of course, with all this fun stuff, there had to be some bad news. My employer is facing a large shortfall, so we're laying off ten people (my job is safe) and the staff is taking five furlough days. Memorial Day and July 4 will be unpaid holidays, and then we need to take an additional three unpaid days after that.
So between that, and saving for Italy, we're going to be pretty frugal for the next few weeks. Good thing I have all that beer, food and an ice cream maker. I don't see any reason to leave the house.
Can it all be so simple?
There are exactly ten shopping days before my birthday, and you may be wondering what you could possibly get me, the girl who has everything.
This is your answer.
Ten years ago and change, I was befriended by a shy young writer after a brief meeting at a screening of She's All That. A few weeks later, he asked me to see Cruel Intentions. I had already organized a group outing to see it at East Towne Cinemas, and much to Keith's credit, he was not at all disturbed by this, and he asked for my phone number when we all moved onto Nick's after that very special film.
A few days later, we went to dinner at the late, lamented Luigi's Restaurant in Madison and then saw The General, a somewhat forgettable film by John Boorman and starring Brendan Gleeson, about a Dublin gangster. I didn't order a drink at dinner because I was worried about being carded, and the movie was kind of short. Keith drove me home (a grand total of two blocks) and held my hand at the end. I was home by 9 and ended up meeting up with my friends post-date to watch The Last Days of Disco or maybe it was Spiceworld. I had a nice time, but I wasn't convinced I'd see him again.
And yet, ten years later, here we are, with a cat, a dog, a house and a life together. It's funny how even the quietest beginning can lead to something special.
/mushy.
All these many years, all the scientific advancements in this world, and yet no one has figured out how to make Robitussin taste better.
Even though the economy is tanking and there's loads of things going wrong, I found myself feeling relieved that Barack Obama is president while all this is going on. And then I thought how comforting it is to know that at no point in the next four years will I watch a speech by my president, turn to Keith and say, "Did he just say 'human-animal hybrids?'"
I was catching up on my RSS feeds this morning over coffee, and read in The Stew that Corner Bakery made Health's list of 10 Healthiest Quick-Service Chains. This begs the question ... did anyone from Health visit Corner Bakery? The salads appear to be terrible for you.
I'm now psyching myself up to take the dog outside in 18-degree weather, amid flurries. Welcome spring!
Scenes from a Marriage: Goth Edition
skuenn (4:18:03 PM): Morrissey and Leonard Cohen in one month! I feel like I won the goth lottery.
avclubphipps (4:19:04 PM): Wait until you get the Siouxise and The Banshees/Bauhuaus tickets I'm getting you for your birthday.
some advice, on watching Meet the Press
If I were a Republican, which I most certainly am not, but if I were and I was thinking about the future of my party and its ability to lead the modern electorate, I think I'd follow Charlie Crist and not part-time exorcist Bobby Jindal.
Everything went to hell when we decided to watch American Idol.
Hello friends! Let me tell you about the clusterf**k that was my life last week.
On Wednesday, we drove to Ohio. My father-in-law needed to settle some legal dealings regarding his August 2007 accident on Thursday morning, so our plan was to drive down Wednesday, attend his legal matter Thursday, then drive back on Friday, as we had tickets to the Goodman and dinner reservations on Saturday.
We got in late Wednesday afternoon and, after aborting a trip to the mall due to heavy rain, ate at a Buffalo Wild Wings before returning to the house and settling in to watch American Idol. Outside, the winds increased to about 70 miles per hour and the power got knocked out. Here is what happened in the following four days:
- The power was out for 48 hours, because a pole on the inlaws' block went down. Their block was the only one in their subdivision without power. No heat, no hot water.
- The basement sump pump failed, as did its battery backup, so the basement filled with 8+ inches of water, destroying the carpet, wood panelling, the furnace, the water heater, and the pilot light, and causing gas to leak into the house (Which we learned as we finished starting a fire!)
- Because we had no heat or hot water on Thursday morning, the four of us showed up to court in nice clothes, looking like we'd had way too much fun at the office party the night before and were recently released from the drunk tank
- After the court appearance (which went really well, and all our legal trouble is now behind us), we went back to the house to look for a ring my father-in-law had put on that morning but lost at some point. He dropped it between the car door and seat
- Because I have tiny doll hands, I attempted to pull the ring out myself. I got my hand caught in the car and had to call 911 to free me. The mailman came over to watch as the fire chief, two EMTs, and two firemen* used a crowbar and an axe to pry me out (no damage to the car.) My fingers swelled and bruised, I pulled a ligament, and I wasn't able to type for a week. I went to the ER on Sunday, after we got home, and got a note forbidding me to type.
- Afterwards, at my insistence, we got a hotel room for Thursday night. Luckily enough, we found one that took dogs. We showered, found an adjacent room for the inlaws, went out for a nice dinner, and scheduled basement contracters for Friday. We also went for a drink in the bar, which Keith accurately dubbed "funpressing."
- Friday morning, we checked out and went to the house. We didn't find out how bad the basement situation was until Friday afternoon when the contracters came, and ended up cancelling our Valentine's Day plans in Chicago (tickets to a play, which were not refundable, and a nice dinner) and checking back into the hotel we checked into that morning. In fact, we ended up back in the very same room we checked out of that morning.
- After getting Keith's folks checked into their extended-stay place (they were displaced Thursday - Tuesday), we had THE WORST MEAL EVER** at a Cracker Barrel. Then we couldn't bear to go to the funpressing bar again, so we decided to buy limes, a fifth of rum and Coke at Meijer. But even at this, we failed: they only had half-proof fruit-flavored rum at Meijer.
- Saturday, we bought pastries and fruit at Kroger, ate them at the house, and then got the hell out of Dayton before something else went horribly, horribly wrong.
* They weren't sexy.
**No, really: my "grilled" catfish was wet and the macaroni and cheese was burned; I ate very little of it.
You'll have to pry my books from my cold, dead hands, but I downloaded The Age of Innocence via the Stanza application for my Touch, and wow, is it great. I'm nine chapters in. I don't think I'm ready to convert 100% to digital books, but it's nice to just bring a small gadget to the gym or to the train and access such great literature.
Oh! And I cannot believe I've never read this book before! It's such a pleasure to experience a classic for the first time. The clarity of her writing, the subtle wit and just the purity of it ... it's like the first time I read Hamlet or hearing Sgt. Pepper's for the first time. Sometimes classics are overrated, but this is the very reason why literature is praised for generations.
Every day, Keith reads off the Amazon mp3 deal of the day to me.
Keith: Today's deal? Is Reckless by Bryan Adams. Reckless is the one with "Heaven"...
Me: Yes.
Keith: "Summer of '69"...
Me: Yes.
Keith: "Run to You"... Done.
Home
|
