Pig Roasting
Someone else beside my Dad and Adam’s dad roasts pigs! They seem to appreciate the complexity of the thing.
Apples and Trees and What-not
Adam is totally cracking me up today with this story about his kids. Man, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?!
Foodies! Take Notice!
Jamie Oliver is right: Nigel Slater is a genius. His recipes are infinitely doable, tasty, and his writing borders on the erotic. He demands that all of his food photography is in no way prettified. He’s all about the taste and the sensuality of food. He likes the crunchy, chewy bits that stick to the pan. I highly recommend you rush out to the bookstore right this very second and buy both Toast and Appetite (at least do that search-inside-the-book thing… read a few pages… you won’t be sorry).
Want some amazing recipes? Some kind soul has done something I have attempted to do on my own computer, but they have done a much better than I would have done. An excerpt, just in case you still aren’t paying attention:
Real cocoa is a bit like great sex. Once you get used to it, nothing else quite rings your bell. Once you have sipped a cup of real velvet-textured hot chocolate, there’s no going back. Made with squares of dark, slightly bitter chocolate, melted slowly over hot water then whisked with full-cream milk (none of your cocoa powder and sterilised semi-skimmed here, thank you), no cup of average cocoa will ever taste quite the same… I have never really thought that much of drinking chocolate. Sweet, bland, thin. A Cadbury’s flake of a drink. Rather than conjuring up Juliette Binoche or Johnny Depp smouldering over a cup of chocolat at a tiny café table, it has always smacked of chequered slippers and the phrase, ‘I’m going up to bed now, dear.’
I Keep On Keepin’ On
Today was a pretty exhausting day. Spent about 4 hours over at a school dealing with a case… the case an administrator keeps referring to as "trial by fire" for a little intern like me! It was a trying morning, then on the way home in the car, I got a call saying I have an interview for a post-doc applied for recently. So that’s really good news! Happy me! Then later on, two cancellations that I was secretly kind of happy about. A couple of hours ago I reread the description of the job, and it’s a little different than I had first thought. Just like when I use a recipe, I always miss a detail or two. I’m still qualified, but I’m not as over-the-top excited as I was earlier. Still… a potential job. A way to move. It’s what I want, so I am happy.
Tonight, I thought I’d kick back and relax. Saw "21 Grams" sitting on the coffee table from my free Blockbuster trial membership. I put it in my queue because I heard it was filmed at my apartment complex. I tried skimming it, but it kept hooking me in. I probably watched about 40% of the whole movie, but man, it was wonderful. It was desperate. It was heartbreaking. I probably don’t need anything that heavy given my day job, but I think I may have to go back and watch the whole thing properly. I didn’t see my apartment building, but I saw lots of other things I recognized.
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Oh, and I won’t keep you hanging on why I love "Happiness is a Warm Gun" so much. It ain’t no thing. I have had many Beatles phases in my life, starting with my dad’s copy of Rubber Soul back when I was little bitty. This had another strong resurgence around the 5th grade when I asked for "The Beatles Box" for my birthday. By the time I reached college, I had gotten pretty far in their discography, but I never really GOT the white album… not until I met Annie. Annie turned me on to The Beatles I had always thought was "weird." Now, I can’t even imagine thinking the white album is weird in the least. Another thing about it is that it is singable in my rock ‘n’ roll voice, and it was one of the first things I could sing very well that way. Somehow all the classical training always ends up coming through. I think it probably still does, but "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was my first success in that arena.
