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I know that what the world really needs is an update on my progress through The Other Queen, so here goes: I have 10 pages left! Good read, Philippa Gregory, but not your best, although reading it has sparked my interest in watching The Tudors on DVD.
Evan hooked me up with beaucoup birthday books from my Amazon Wish List so I'm a bit overwhelmed with reading options for my next book. One of the contenders (not an Evan book but one he'd probably like and read ridiculously fast, reminding me of how happy I was not to have to follow him through school) is The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the wilds of Wyoming by Shreve Stockton. The author also maintains a blog at www.DailyCoyote.net. I love reading nonfiction, especially nature writing, and this book looks delightful.
On Monday my beloved fellow C-lunchers and I are going to have a potluck to celebrate the beginning of June, and although I'm thrilled to finally live the potluck fantasy I really can't decide what to take. I never thought I'd say this but I'm getting tired of eating pasta after having it twice daily for two weeks. What's a carbivore to do? I'm thinking polenta tacos might be a nice change, but I'm not sure how well they'll reheat in the staff microwave.
I just made a quick run to Trader Joe's, and didn't I see WANDA SYKES out walking her dog with a couple of friends. She seems like a cool lady, her little dog is adorable (possibly a Jack Russell mix?), and she co-starred with Jane Fonda (love her) and Jennifer Lopez (love her) in Monster-in-Law. I feel a commemorative viewing coming on! If only I had a digital camera to document this brush with celebrity ...
In other news, I got a good recipe idea from my brother Doug yesterday. He made a fabulous pesto cream sauce by heating pesto, goat cheese, and a little milk over low heat. This is good on everything from tortellini to grilled salmon. Admittedly, I have only tried it on tortellini and grilled salmon. Some fresh grape tomatoes and wilted greens never hurt, either.
Some other edge-of-your-seat updates: I just started watching Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. I'm continuing to make progress through The Other Queen. And thanks to my brother Evan hooking me up with several birthday items from my Amazon.com Wish List, I have added some new books to my bookshelf:
- Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future by Greg Melville
- What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (a romance that seems to be based on the Jennifer Aniston/Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie love triangle)
Actually Evan openly admits that he only buys books for me that he himself would not be embarrassed to be seen reading, so you can guess which one is from him and which one was guiltily checked out from the public library while I hoped I didn't run into anyone I know.
All winter I anxiously awaited the return of Trader Joe's "Chard of Many Colors." The chard is chopped, triple-washed, and ready to be used straight out of the bag. The Trader Joe's sample counter featured a fabulous vegetarian recipe that I've been hoping to recreate. It includes fava beans, which they sell seasoned in vacuum sealed packages, but canned cannellini beans (rinsed and drained) work just as well, if not better. This is the recipe, as closely as I can remember it:
Sauté 2 cloves of minced garlic and some chopped green onions in olive oil for a couple of minutes. Add the bag of chard and about 1/4 cup of veggie stock. The stock will wilt the chard as it cooks down. Stir in the beans, sprinkle with red pepper flakes, and top with fresh parmesan shavings just before serving.
This recipe is fresh, light, and delicious.
On April 20, 2009 (the ten-year anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School) I added Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine to my Netflix queue. It arrived in the mail, and now that all of my top shelf TV shows have season finale'd I will actually get around to watching it. (Side note: House had the best season finale ever. All of the others have faded from my memory already but I will always remember that image of Dr. House walking up the steps of the psychiatric hospital.) I love watching documentaries and Michael Moore's movies are one of the reasons why I got into watching them. He's especially good at combining toe-tapping music with horrifying footage to get his point across. As part of an anti-bullying initiative for the school district we're all going to read Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes this summer. Hope I don't go into school shooting overdrive ...
I just started The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. Love the cover, but so far it's not as good as The Other Boleyn Girl. It doesn't have enough background information on Mary, Queen of Scots, the titular other queen (or is the other queen really Queen Elizabeth? I went through a similar mental debate whilst reading The Other Boleyn Girl. And now my New Year's Resolution to use the word "whilst" in a sentence can be scratched.) Anyway I spent the first 75 pages trying to figure out what was up and why Mary was in exile in the first place. And who the heck is Bothwell? A pox on historical fiction that provides insufficient background information!
One of my favorite things about being between semesters is having time to cook meals from scratch instead of falling into the old "boxed dinner with a sauce packet" trap. I'm revisiting some old cookbooks, photocopied recipes, and Vegetarian Times in hopes of reviving new recipe night. And by reviving I mean beginning ... it was always more of a good idea than a reality. Anyway, on a recent visit to the library I discovered Giada's Kitchen, the new cookbook by Giada de Laurentiis. Giada was never a particular favorite of mine when I had access to the Food Network, but the recipes in this new cookbook look phenomenal. Particularly tempting items include Garlic and Sun-Dried Tomato Corn Muffins, Butternut Squash and Vanilla Risotto, and Baked Orzo with Fontina and Peas. Almost all of the recipes are also on www.FoodNetwork.com. It looks like the Baked Orzo will be the first item on the New Recipe Night Menu next Sunday ... at long last I have a use for that container of Panko breadcrumbs languishing in my cupboard. And peas are chock full of F-I-B-E-R!
My book group just finished up with Little Bee by Chris Cleave. This book should come with a prescription for antidepressants or, at the very least, a hotline to call and get counseled out of the funk the book will surely put you into. A reviewer with the Amazon Vine program said it better than I could: "This is one of those books that's likely to be deeply divisive -- either you're going to be swept up by and find it a gripping story of human connection, or you're going to find it to be a rather mawkish clunkily written expression of first-world angst." I found it to be a rather mawkish clunkily written expression of first-world angst. Side note: love the use of "clunky" as an adverb. Little Bee was not quite in the "will be hurled across the room repeatedly" category (The Shack, this means you) but it was firmly in the "oh puh-leeze" category.
Next I decided to read something a little lighter, keeping in mind that wet cement is
lighter than Little Bee. So I returned to one of my favorite young adult series that began with Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty and continued with Triple Shot Bettys in Love. These books are hilarious, sweet, and mocha-jones-inducing! Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty was based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and Triple Shot Bettys in Love borrows from Cyrano de Bergerac. A highlight of the second book is an eyebrow-plucking-gone-awry scene that actually had me crying with laughter. Highly recommended!
I have been exploring all the fun online image generators available through fd's Flickr Toys and my favorite is the Warholizer. I'm always looking for alternatives to the dreaded "Title Slide" on PowerPoint. A creative image can communicate a concept much more clearly than a long list of bullets. Image Chef is also quite cool, especially the Word Mosaic feature.
I've been waiting for the perfect moment to debut Mattie LaMew on True Blue Media Gal, and that moment is here! This photo showcases her adorable overbite. The indescribably precious freckle on her nose is not visible in this shot.
"Government publications emanate from many sources and so present special problems in bibliographic citation." -- MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.
I am updating the Ridley Research Guide to reflect all of the changes in the latest edition of the MLA Handbook. It's quotes like the one above that make me enjoy the process just a little bit more! I Y librarianship.
I have been watching Season One of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, and coveting the red Sunnydale T-shirts worn by various cast members. So as an early birthday present to myself I have purchased the awesome T-shirt pictured below.
I like the other colors that are available, but I'm all about authenticity so I wanted the same color that was featured on the show. I'm also all about doing my part to support the economy which has relieved all guilt associated with spending lots of money on myself.
I'm happy to report that I recently finished my third-to-last course in my graduate program at West Chester University. I wrote my Capstone Research Project on the Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. The project involved reading all the latest Printz award winners, surveying fifty high school sophomores about their reading habits, and creating some eye-popping graphs in Excel (I do enjoy the Insert Chart feature). I concluded that the key to getting teens to read award winners is endless promotion, especially because some of the books are so teen-unfriendly.
Anyway, now that I'm finished with assigned readings I can turn my attention to the teetering tower of books that have been gathering dust on my bookshelf. Okay, who am I kidding, the meticulously dusted and alphabetized row of books currently occupying "Amy's Top Shelf," the high-priority location on my bookshelf. Five books in the highest priority position are:
- Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found by Marie Brenner
- Triple Shot Bettys in Love by Jody Gehrman
- The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
- American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
- Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
I just finished Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert. Hilarious book! And my book group is reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave. All this, and a new episode of Fringe ... time to break out the French Roast!
So at long last I know the meaning of the little orange icon that peppers many of my favorite sites (an example appears on the left). Until now I have studiously avoided clicking on this little feller. And I must admit I will probably continue to studiously avoid clicking this and the host of other icons that represent a content feed subscription. Why? Because I only read a handful of blogs and news sources, and I don't really mind visiting each site to see what's new. Don't be shocked by what I consider a "news source." I have a reputation to maintain and that includes knowing all the latest celebrity gossip so I don't get scooped!
On Monday my beloved fellow C-lunchers and I are going to have a potluck to celebrate the beginning of June, and although I'm thrilled to finally live the potluck fantasy I really can't decide what to take. I never thought I'd say this but I'm getting tired of eating pasta after having it twice daily for two weeks. What's a carbivore to do? I'm thinking polenta tacos might be a nice change, but I'm not sure how well they'll reheat in the staff microwave.
