A Cooking Tip Begrudgingly Learned from Gwyneth Paltrow

I bet you never thought I post about Gwyneth Paltrow and food in the same entry (and in a positive light, no less!)…

Some of you may have heard that Gwyneth has started an online newsletter endeavor, bizzarely called GOOP.  Maybe it has something to do with her intials?  Who knows!  Anyway, Gwynnie’s whole purpose with GOOP is that she wants to “nourish the inner aspect”, and so in every mailing, she provides advice on things to purchase for your wardrobe, places to stay, restaurants to try, and perhaps most shocking of all, recipes to make.  In one installment, Gwyneth muses about how she’s earned a bum rap in the media with respect to her diet, namely that she follows an extreme one that involves her grazing on grass and not much else.  Granted, when her first offering of 2009 is about a week-long cleanse that focuses on shakes and soups, well, the press might be on to something, is all I’m saying!

Now, Gwyneth has starred in a quite a few movies that I enjoy quite a bit, but I must confess that off-screen I find her pretty insufferable.  I don’t really believe that she noshes on duck burgers and fries when she visits L.A., and I dislike how she tries to have it both ways: all-American girl but also super English sophisticate (no wonder she’s purported to be pals with Madonna).  That being said, I did pick up a tip in one of her recipe newsletters about browning meat.  It might be something everyone already knows, but here it is: if you want your meat to brown, make sure it’s at room temperature before you put it in your hot pan.  If it’s fresh from the fridge, it’ll just simmer and boil in its own juices.  If you’re an impulsive cook like I am, it might be hard to make this happen, but if you’re making a dish where properly browned meat will really sing, then that’s how you’re going to make it happen.

I’ll leave it up to you to search out her recipe for Super Greens Juice…

Oops!… I Did It Again

The first step is admitting I have a problem, right?

Sigh.  As much as I resolve that my most recent trip to McKay’s will be my last until I’ve made a sizeable dent in that bounty (if not all the other books that languish on our shelves… and floors, as you will see!), it never is.  When it comes to buying books, I just can’t seem to quit.  And McKay’s really does me no favors, given its fabulous selection AND the low prices.  I reckon that church rummage and library sales might be a tad cheaper, but as I’ve said before, when a “splurge” means plonking down $5, I’ll pay a bit extra for the convenience of being able to buy books whenever I want!

Just 1 day into the new year, and Tony and I found ourselves at McKay’s, as we had amassed enough of a read books and played video games stack to warrant a trade-in.  Our trip was momentous for several reasons.  First, due to the sizeable trade-in amountn we were awarded, we walked out of McKay’s without spending a single penny (in fact, we walked away with credit towards our next spree!). Second, I think you’ll notice that this time round, Tony actively contributed to our spending by selecting several books himself.  I love when I have a partner in crime!

Without further ado, onto the books! (Click to Enlarge)

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

I always knew that today would be hard, since who ever enjoys the first day back to work after the holidays?  But I guess I didn’t expect it to be as emotionally eviscerating as it turned out to be.  The weather has been bleak, but the building where I work has never felt so empty as it does to me today.  I’m sure part of this has to do with the fact that classes don’t start back up until Wednesday, so there isn’t the pitter patter of undergraduate feet and their vapid chatter echoing down the halls, but I know that’s not really the thorn in my paw today.

No, today I’m just plain sad because one of my really good friends here in Nashville has finally moved on to snowier pastures.  If you’ll recall, back in early December, Tony & I went out for a birthday/thesis defense celebration for a good friend of mine.  He’s since relocated to Chicago for a post-doc position, and while I couldn’t be happier for him, I am feeling a bit sad for me.  This is compounded by the fact that another friend of mine just finished up a post-doc in December, and has since made his way back to Australia.  So that’s two friends no longer just down the hall or up a flight of stairs, and in a building where there are few people to whom I genuinely enjoy talking, it’s a pretty hard blow.

“Franny & Zooey” by J.D. Salinger

True confession time: I first encountered J.D. Salinger when I was about 10 years old.  I was still of the age where I read magazines aimed at my target demographic, those being of the ilk of Bop, Big Bopper, Tiger Beat, etc.,  At sleepovers, my best friend and I would giggle over articles involving Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell, and Leonardo DiCaprio, then famous for portraying the homeless boy Luke, who was adopted by the Seaver family on Growing Pains.  Good times.  Now, of course, J.D. Salinger himself was not featured in the illustrious pages of Tiger Beat.  For one thing, this would have been well into the era when Salinger had become a recluse and was no longer granting interviews, never mind posing for pin-up spreads.  No, instead I heard about him when reading an interview with one of my favorite actresses of the time, Sarah Gilbert (she who portrayed the sardonic daughter Darlene on Roseanne).  It was a questionnaire-style interview, and under “Favorite Book” she had written The Catcher in the Rye.  And so, on my next trip to the local library, I checked it out.  [Further guilty, but true!, confession: when I was about 7 or 8, I checked out Wuthering Heights simply because it was the favorite book of Mary-Anne Spier from The Baby-Sitters Club book series.  Clearly it was way over my head… but when I read it again almost a decade later, I still didn’t like it!]

“The Cure for Death by Lightning” by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

My first book of 2009 was one I picked up on a whim at McKay’s, primarily because the title amused me, as did the opening line:

“The cure for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mother’s scrapbook, under the recipe for my father’s favourite oatcakes: Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more.”

I figured this would be a fairly quirky read, which it certainly was.  But what I wasn’t expecting was just how dark and disturbing a story I would be getting in the bargain; in fact, this is probably one of the most alarming and unsettling books I have ever read.  Don’t get me wrong, it was compelling and I raced through the pages (obviously, as we’re not even a full week into the new year!), but it was creepy.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” – Oscar Wilde

1890

Recently, as I was perusing our steadily growing book collection looking for something new to read, I ran into Steph’s collection of Oscar Wilde’s writing. It is a massive tome, and being someone with a sick penchant for reading thick books, I decided it was time to tackle some Wilde. Reading the book from start to finish (I told Steph it has over 900 pages and she said something along the lines of “you’re stupid, why are you reading all of that at once?”) the first story I came to was The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I’ll tell you honestly, it may be a while before you see another book review out of me, as I don’t plan on filling our blog with all and sundry Oscar Wilde reviews. Seeing as this is one of his more famous works I decided it would be good fodder for a review.

“A Spot of Bother” by Mark Haddon

Why bother? Don't.

Oh bother.  Mark Haddon is probably best known for his book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which is a really great book, and if you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest you do, because it is highly probable that you will like it.  Also, it is vastly superior to this less than awesome book.).  Based on the strength of that novel (and a debut novel at that!), I picked up his second offering, A Spot of Bother.  I am sad to report that this was a mistake.

Happy Holidays 2008

I hope all of you have been having a wonderful holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Christmukkah, or some variant thereof (Whatevermas, for example).  This year Tony and I decided to NOT separate over the holiday season – it seemed cruel to think that we were going to see loved ones, only to be apart from one another – and instead decided to problem solve and bring our loved ones to us collectively!  As much as we love it, our condo is way to small for us to have more than one overnight guest, never mind two families, so we opted to rent a cabin in Gatlinburg for several days.  This wasn’t your grandmother’s cabin though, as it was pimped out with a hot tub, pool table, and several flatscreen tvs.  I was a bit disappointed in the kitchen, which was far from fully equipped (there was only one pot that would have been large enough to boil anything!  And if you advertise that your cabin sleeps 8 people, maybe you should make sure that you have provided enough silverware for that many people at any given meal!  Foolish!), but we made do and made some lovely meals.  I was grateful that this year we got the light-end of the traveling, and it was fantastic that our families got along like a house on fire (including our brothers, who reinforced our motto of “Why have children when you can have dogs?” 😉 ).  We spent lazy days watching movies, playing the diabolical Scene It, and – once we had procured powercords for the respective systems – playing games on the PS3 and Wii.  When did Mario Kart become so evil?  Seriously, the computer is out for blood in the Wii version!  It was still fun though, and one of the highlights for me was watching our two fathers play Ghostsquad on the Wii and try to kill as many people as possible.  Tony and I had played earlier, and despite three tries, never managed to get a headshot on the final big boss.  Our fathers?  Got it on the first attempt.  Bah!

All in all, it was so nice to have everyone all together at Christmas, and also to try something new this year.   Even the dogs got to be a part of the celebrations rather than being sent to the kennel (aka, “puppy jail”), and they were spoiled mightily by our parents, much to their great pleasure.  I do hope we’ll be able to make it up to Toronto in 2009, perhaps after it’s thawed up a bit!  For New Year’s Eve, we had several invites, but all involved flying, and we decided to keep up our streak and just bum around this year.  We look forward to playing more video games, eating delicious Indian take out, and watching movies (I intend to convince Tony that on NYE, it only makes sense to watch the 5 hour BBC version of Pride and Prejudice!  If that fails, then I hope to be allowed to watch When Harry Met Sally!).  It’s gonna be hassle-free, we’ll be together, and that’s what will make it great!  However you choose to usher in 2009, have fun and stay safe!  See you on the other side…

Reading 2008: A Year In Review

Wheee! I'm my own longitudinal study!

2008 was ostensibly my best reading year in a long while, and I’d say this was true not just in terms of quantity, but also quality!  I started to keep track in earnest of the books I was reading in 2007 (I began my listkeeping near the tail-end of 2006, but it was already too late by then to remember everything I had read that year).  I think this exercise has reinvigorated my interest in reading, and by tracking what I read, I’m finding out how to get the very most out of my reading experience.   This year, I read 44 books, which is just slightly more than double the books that I read in 2007 (20 books), and likely far more than I read in 2006 (13 books recorded).  I definitely feel as though this year a made a conscious decision to devote more of my personal time to reading, and that is certainly a decision I have not regretted.  Perhaps more significant is that I didn’t just read more books this year, but I appeared to read books that I enjoyed more overall (after all, what’s the point in reading more, if you’re enjoying the books less?).  My mean book rating this year was 3.69, which is an improvement over 2007’s mean rating (3.52), and an even greater increase when compared to 2006 (3.31).  See plot for geekish visual exploration of my reading trends.  Further in-depth evaluations of my reading habits of 2008, as well as the complete list of what I read, after the jump.  I promise there will be no more graphs.  Probably.

“Mamma Mia!” (2008)

Slightly better than a pencil in the eye.

Jesus. I like to think that I’m a pretty good boyfriend, but I had to throw in the towel about 45 minutes into this steaming turd of a movie. Fortunately, Steph being a normal person, the feeling was mutual. This movie is an embarrassment, for everyone, not just those who were tricked into watching it.

I know for a fact that the only reason Steph got this movie was Colin Firth, which is fine. I’ve come to terms with the fact that she would leave me for him, cursing my lack of an English accent.

Sweet, sweet Colin aside, this movie was terrible. Steph and I agreed that this is the work of alcohol. Let me explain. You see, Meryl Streep, Mrs. Weasley (that’s who she is, and who she should stay) and Cybill Shepherd’s friend all got together one night, drank a bunch of dirty martinis and sang along to ABBA. Then, in the midst of their middle-aged reverie, one of them (or possibly all three) decided to make a movie where they act like fools for two fucking hours.Which is fine, if you’re a drunk 50 year old woman who wants to lose two hours of your life that you can never get back. Never.