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Lentil and Rice Salad
This last week I was trying to think of a nice side dish to serve with a lovely grilled lemon chicken recipe, and for some reason, I thought, ‘rice salad’. Rice salad isn’t an idea that I come up with too often. Generally we have straight rice, or potatoes, that sort of thing. A few weeks ago I took some leftover salmon and made a lunch out of it, tossing it with a few other ingredients, and I decided to throw some leftover rice in there, and it was delicious…so I thought I’d give it a try. Did a quick internet search, and found a Lentil and Rice Salad from…
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Flight
Denzel Washington’s portrayal of Capt. ‘Whip’ Whitaker in Flight is that of a thoroughly gifted airline pilot, but one who has nothing else going for him in life. He is a functioning alcoholic, one whose way of coping with a brutal hangover is to snort a line of cocaine. ‘Flight’ begins with Whip waking up in a hotel room with a beautiful (and very naked) young woman, who is an attendant on the flight he is piloting from Florida to Georgia in 90 minutes. He’s seriously hung over, snorts his coke, gets in a fight on the phone with his ex-wife, and then goes to work, where you would not…
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Friday Randomness
Did anyone notice that it’s November? Thinking maybe I’ll try for NaBloPoMo this year. A few years ago, it was more difficult for me to restrict myself to a post a day, and now it’s crazy for me to post two days in a row. So let’s see if I can rise to the challenge. We’ll start with some randomness, shall we? Maya took her written driving test on Tuesday, and passed, so now she has her permit. I don’t know what the laws are in your state, but here, that means she has to take 3 driving lessons (2 hours each), drive at least 50 hours for practice, and…
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Día de los Muertos
Today is The Day of the Dead, otherwise known as Día de los Muertos. It is a day to remember and pray for beloved family and friends who have died. I thought maybe I’d slow down and reflect on some loved ones who are gone. First, of course, is my mom. It’s been 4 1/2 years since she died, and of course, I still miss her every day. I miss our long conversations, and I wish she were still here. I don’t miss her being sick, and all of the stress that that gave me. Mostly, I think about all of the things that she’s missing by not being here. …
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Cloud Atlas
cool graphic found here Cloud Atlas is a 2004 novel by David Mitchell, which I reviewed back in 2007 on this very blog. The book was so ambitious, and was such a treat to read. It was told in nesting chapters, with different characters, and different genres, which refer to each other and interconnect in interesting ways. I loved it. When I heard it was being made into a film, I wondered how the different genres would translate…Melvillian sea story, 20th century crime drama, post apocalyptic tale, amongst others. I’m happy to report that they did a darned good job with it. I’m not sure I loved it as much…
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Everything’s Better With Butter
Way back in 2007, a friend of mine mailed me a newspaper clipping with a recipe for fresh tomato sauce, knowing (from my blog) of my love of tomatoes and pasta and cooking, via this very blog. It was fun getting a recipe in the mail, but the butter scared me, so I never tried it. Since then, I found a very similar recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and was intrigued. But again, never tried it. On Sunday, I went to our local farmers’ market, and picked up maybe 5 lbs of slightly overripe tomatoes. My favorite thing to do with overripe tomatoes is to make tomato sauce. My only problem…
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Ted and I went to see ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower‘ yesterday. I really, really liked it. Here’s the quick wrap up, without giving anything away. Charlie is a damaged and shy high school freshman, excluded from groups that he had hoped to be included in…his senior sister and her boyfriend won’t eat lunch with him, his friend from middle school friend won’t eat lunch with him, and his older brother’s football teammates won’t eat lunch with him. He’s on his own. On his first day, he makes only one friend, and that’s his English teacher, which even Charlie knows is pathetic. Time goes by, and he finally makes…
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Cindy Sherman
This last Monday was the final day of the Cindy Sherman exhibit at the SFMOMA. I’ve been wanting to go for a few months now, but finally we hit a day that worked for all of us. If you’re not familiar with Cindy Sherman, she is an artist who explores identity through photography. She does the makeup, lighting, modeling, clothing, background, all of it. She is the photographer and the subject. The earliest works on display were from the 1970s, and the most current were very recent. I really liked the exhibit. I liked how DIFFERENT all of these identities were, and yet how you could tell so much about…
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What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
I remember going to see Short Cuts in 1993, the Robert Altman directed film based on the short stories of Raymond Carver. I remember being so shaken by the coldness and hopelessness of the characters that I had to leave the theater for a few minutes, to stand outside and breathe, and try to believe that the real world wasn’t this kind of place. A few weeks ago, I heard part of an interview (click the link to go to the site, where you can listen to the interview, if you’re so inclined) on our local NPR station with Molly Ringwald, who has a new book of short stories out…
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The Skin I Live In
Whilst Maya was off at her Homecoming dance last Saturday, watching in horror the spectacle that is ‘freak dancing’, Ted and I were at home with a DVD, watching in horror the extreme weirdness that is The Skin I Live In. Which is not to say that we didn’t like it. We both did, quite a bit. But God, it was strange, and sure left a person with some insane images. Picture Boxing Helena, but done well. (Let me stop here to say, if you’ve not seen Boxing Helena, good for you. Keep it that way. Seriously.) In The Skin I Live In, Antonio Banderas plays a brilliant but seriously…
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Wordless Wednesday ~ A Hint of Autumn Edition
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The Netflix Dress
When I was in High School, the Homecoming dance was Friday night, after the game. We were all super casual, (except of course for the Homecoming Royalty), and we danced in the gym and had a great time. Fast forward to the year 2012, and the Homecoming game is still on Friday (LL 24, D 8…Maya goes to LL, so this is a good thing), but the dance is on Saturday, and the kids get MUCH more dressed up. Not prom formal, but certainly the girls wear what I would call a cocktail dress. The boys wear jeans and polo type shirts, mostly. I wonder if the guys ever do…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is Canadian Thanksgiving! Happy Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian friends and family. Ted was born in Canada, and though he renounced his citizenship as a child when he became an American citizen, recent changes to Canadian law say that if he wants to be, he can be Canadian as well. Groovy, huh? We celebrated last night with a typical Thanksgiving feast, including roast turkey and stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pie, and veggies. Yum. Give thanks, for whatever things you have to be thankful for. For us, right now, it’s family, friends, enough food to eat, a comfortable place to sleep. Interesting work, a good school for…
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Saturday in San Francisco
Here’s Ted, looking handsome and showing off the beauty that is San Francisco in October. Seriously, if you ever decide to come to SF, come in October. It’s the best weather of the year. Yesterday we went in to San Francisco for a few hours. SF was hopping, with people coming in to see the Blue Angels put on their admittedly fun show of money wasting bravado, the Giants were playing the Reds (go Giants! (stupid Reds won, drats!)), and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park. Ted has a gig coming up, directing and editing a show for a local TV station, Fresh From the Farmers’ Market, which…
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Braised Chicken Thighs and Legs with Tomato
Yesterday was one of those days when I found myself thinking, “What in the heck are we going to have for dinner? I have no ideas.” So I clicked on over to Yahoo Shine Foods, which has been known in the past to give me an idea or two. They had a recipe for chicken braised in tomato which sounded pretty interesting, but the link didn’t go anywhere. So I did a little google search for chicken braised in tomato, and I found this recipe, from Food Network. I liked the idea of cumin and cinnamon in the sauce, and it looked fairly simple, so I decided we’d try it.…