Before and After; Or, a shout-out to Mama Gladys

My mom recently picked up this 9-pound cabbage at a grocery store in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and I whipped it up into a big bowl of Cabbage a La Gladys. This involves quartering the cabbage, slicing the wedges into ribbons, and cooking it in butter and olive oil over high heat until it turns golden brown but still has a good crunch to it. The before and after pictures:

It's hard to judge the scale of these photos, but that is a pretty big cutting board and the cabbage took up the entire thing! Also, the after picture shows half of the cabbage post-cooking. I had to cook it in four batches! This is my mom's very favorite recipe, and it's all thanks go Mama Gladys and her culinary expertise.

Quotable Evan

I recently heard from my brother, Evan, who called from California to give me an update on Palo Alto's weather forecast: "It's sunny, 70°, blue sky with no clouds, about 50% humidity. 50% humidity is a little high for me, but I can take it." As I sit here, ensconced in the land of 98% humidity (a.k.a. Pennsylvania), my heart really breaks for Evan as he suffers with 50% humidity. But it's cool, because November has also broken with many exciting plans in the works. The new month got off on the right foot with a Halloween eve' game night, where I put in an appearance as Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach from Glee. I appear on the left with my hand weight and iron supplements, and below with my pal Loren as a "tavern lady." Next up is reading New Moon in preparation for seeing the movie. I was a bona fide Twilight hater until I saw the movie – low budget heaven! Now I'm just hoping I can get to the sequel before the movie opens. After all, time is tight what with watching Season 3 of Buffy on DVD, juggling Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill and Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler, and squeezing in Singles Night at Trader Joe's. I knew I'd been meaning to get business cards made for a reason! And that's how this gal "C's" it!

Can you stand the sweetness?

Sick Day

I'm home sick today. Not the kind of "sick day" that involves a yoga class, an oil change, and some outlet shopping. Rather, the kind of sick day that involves a vague, total-body ache and staring at the clock, willing it to be time for my next dose of Pseudo-Quil. Also the kind of sick day when I think I'll get a jump on all my holiday correspondence, but instead wind up racked out on the futon watching seven consecutive episodes of Flight of the Conchords, Season 2. Hilarious show, by the way, though in my current state any laughter leads to a crackling coughing fit. On the upside, I also get to spend several hours observing the birds on a wire outside my window as they puff themselves up and generally torment Mattie the cat. If only I'd been more organized about my Netflix delivery schedule, I would have Twilight on hand to watch! I just recently read the book and will withhold commentary until I see how Edward the Sparkly Vampire, he of changing eye color and cold skin, is portrayed in the movie. The book absolutely slayed me, and not in a fabulous Buffy-esque way at all. Oops, does that count as commentary?

I laughed, I cried, I listened to the podcast: It's a Rosanne Cash lovefest!

I left work a little late on Monday, so I only caught the last few minutes of Terry Gross' interview with Rosanne Cash on Fresh Air. Oh, but what a wonderful few minutes they were! I don't usually advertise my profound affection for country music; I prefer to save it for awkward moments at parties and/or lulls in any conversation. I then fill these lulls with comments such as: "Hey, have we talked about how much I love Dwight Yoakam?" So anyway, Rosanne Cash has a fabulous new album called The List. This album includes twelve songs from a list of one hundred essential country songs that her father, Johnny Cash, created for her when she was eighteen. The newest of these songs, Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country," is from the early 1960s. In other words, Carrie Underwood won't be keying anyone's Ford Dually in these songs. It's a collection of classic American songs that tiptoe over the border between country, folk, protest music, blues, and mountain music. Plus, I love Rosanne's style on the album cover: And when I listened to the whole interview via podcast, I came away with even more respect for Rosanne as a singer and a person. The List is not to be missed!

E-F-R-O-N, Z-A-C

I recently found myself at a county-wide librarian's training day. We covered all the exciting updates to our inter-library loan system and some of the bells and whistles added to particular databases. An example of these "bells and whistles" is the biographies that were added to SIRS Discoverer (trust me, it's awesome), biographies of luminaries such as Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron. I worked up the courage to raise my hand and ask if these new biographies had been cross-referenced with the database's Biographies feature (again, trust me -- it was an awesome question). Since we were on the topic of Zac Efron, I suggested that we use him as an example. The presenter proceeded to type in "Zach Ephram." I found myself in the awkward situation of knowing exactly how to spell Zac's name, but not necessarily wanting to admit this to the librarian community at large. Oh heck, you know I went for it. The next thing you heard was my thin voice piping up, "E-F-R-O-N, Z-A-C!" That's what she said!

Oh, Snap! Comeback of the Week...

House: I quit.
Dr. Foreman: You can't quit.
House: I think you're confusing me with Jake Gyllenhaal.

I love a good Brokeback Mountain in-joke! Monday's episode of House featured several other zingers. For example, when a patient attempted to diagnose himself with mercury poisoning, Thirteen quipped (*paraphrase alert*), "And you're currently getting mixed reviews in Speed-the-Plow on Broadway?" Oh, snap! Although I am a little embarrassed that I got this vague reference to Jeremy Piven's untimely departure from Speed-the-Plow because of sushi-induced mercury poisoning. And now I'm blogging about it. Time to move on. To another embarrassing incident ... to follow in my next post!

Mattie meets her scratching box ...

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, but I tend to be wordy (true!). So I couldn't resist leaving a caption for this series of three typically adorable photos ...

Here, Mattie meets her scratching box for the first time.

Mattie in the midst of a catnip-induced scratching box frenzy:

"It's mine, mine all mine. As evidenced by the drool stain. Mine!"

Steampunk

I learned a new word recently, and then didn't the word start popping up all over the place? "Steampunk" is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction that depicts an alternate world where everything runs on steam power. It's like the 1980s mashed up with a Jules Verne novel. But, you know, awesome. In these alternate worlds, we all get around in airships not unlike the Hindenburg (but safer), do our work on analog computers, and wear cool Queen Victoria-meets-Cyndi Lauper fashions. Well, I think they're cool. Now what kind of librarian would I be if I got you hooked on the idea of steampunk novels and left you hanging with nary a recommendation? Meet The Affinity Bridge by George Mann.
In this novel, it's 1901 and Queen Victoria is being kept alive by means of a complex, mechanical life-support system (steam-powered, I'm guessing?). Which means that it's still Victorian England and everyone had better dress the part. Meanwhile, Detective Maurice Newbury and his assistant, Veronica Hobbes, investigate a crashed airship, search for a glowing police officer suspected of serial stranglings, and deal with the plague of zombies infesting London's slums. Oh yeah, and the airships, also known as dirigibles or Zeppelins (now I'm just showing off) are piloted by automatons. Affinity Bridge is so going on the Amazon.com wish list!

Rumored News / I heart James Franco

According to a highly reliable source (the Internet Movie Database) my beloved James Franco is "rumored" to be co-starring in the big screen version of Eat Pray Love. This rumor is backed up by a recent People Magazine photo of my beloved James Franco arm in arm with Julia Roberts, who is portraying author Elizabeth Gilbert. I did not, nor will I ever, read Eat Pray Love because Elizabeth Gilbert is profoundly irritating. I will, however, definitely see the movie because I will watch anything starring my "Hollywood husband." Pineapple Express was the best movie of 2008 and even though I'm sure Eat Pray Love won't hold a candle to that masterpiece, my calendar is now marked for its 2011 release!