Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. Astronauts Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) are out on a space walk when their shuttle is hit by space debris. Without connection to Houston, they have to figure out how to get back home.
She says: This movie was probably over-praised. Certainly the effects are amazing; you do believe they are in zero gravity the whole time. But the story is a little bit slight, the theme a bit obvious. It was certainly enough to hold my interest, and there are definitely moments of real drama. But I probably would have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t been so overhyped.
He says: I didn’t think that much of it. I agree with you that the effects were just amazing, and definitely stuff happened. I guess I just didn’t find it the most compelling story ever.
—-
And for those who have seen Gravity and have ever shopped at Ikea… I gave you, the parody video. (Not particularly spoiler-y if you haven’t seen the movie… But not that funny, then, either.)
Most food-related things, I am rather fond of. Cooking, restaurants, wine matching, food writing, even grocery shopping.
But lunch. Lunch is the most chore-like of meals. Lunch is eaten not for the joy of it, but merely to fill that biological urge. Lunch lacks fun.
At least, my lunches do. Usually.
Breakfast has the issue that occurs in the morning—not my favorite time of day. But it’s pretty much the highlight of the morning. It inevitably includes coffee, that most wondrous of beverages, both drug and hydration and fine flavor and aroma. And while it’s fairly routine in its contents compared with supper, it’s a nice little roster I work my way through:
Berry banana smoothie with side of toast and almond butter
Bob’s muesli, warm, cooked in skim milk, served with banana and berries and brown sugar
Egg, poached or scrambled, served with whole-grain bagel and Spanish olive oil, with tomato or oranges
Granola with yogurt and banana
And on weekends, I sometimes get crepes with fruit and maple, cooked for me.
So, breakfast is a good thing.
And supper… Well, supper is variety and relaxing with a glass of wine and discussing the day and catching up on news. This, after preparing it while singing and dancing around the room to whatever tunes the iPod is serving up that day. Supper is a good thing, also.
By comparison, lunch is a drag.
It features no great beverage
Breakfast gets coffee; supper gets wine. Lunch? Water. Maybe with bubbles, if I’m lucky.
It’s an annoying interruption in the day
But isn’t a nice to have a break in the middle of the day? Sure, it’s OK, but wouldn’t it be nicer to leave just leave work a half hour or hour earlier? Which I could do if I didn’t have to stop for lunch partway through. (I just am not one of those people who can survive from breakfast all the way til dinner. No way, no how.)
Even on vacation… Lunches are generally more pleasant, but still. You’re trying to do stuff during the day. Visit sites and museums and go on hikes and take tours. And always, you have to worry: Where will I be when breakfast wears off. Your activities are limited by proximity to lunch, and the need to spend time on that in the middle of the day.
I suck at menu planning for it
I realize this is my totally own fault, but there it is. I’ve got breakfast down. And I plan my suppers a week at a time, bolstered by recipes indexes, and thereby achieve a weekly menu with variety and (I think) balanced nutrition and great taste.
But lunch… Often it’s just a rerun, either a supper leftover or a heartier reprise of breakfast (an omelet? Just scrambled eggs with an extra egg and maybe some cheese and veggies). But after so many years of cooking for two, we don’t always have supper leftovers, and if at the office, I can’t really be blending up smoothies and frying up eggs (given there’s no blender and no stove top there).
Your “proper” lunch foods are what: soups, sandwiches, salads? I love soup, and for a time attempted to make soups on the weekends to serve as a series of lunches, but I don’t always like devoting time to that. (Interrupts the middle of my day—again!) Sandwiches I’m a bit sick of after getting nothing but that during my schools years (probably where my disdain for lunch began), plus I just don’t like luncheon meat. And salads are as much work as soup, but not as satisfying to eat.
It wrecks my good dietary intentions
Because I’m so bad I’m menu planning for lunch, I end up having to rely on convenience food, like frozen dinners. Apart from being kind of dull, and fairly expensive for what you get, it’s really difficult to get one sufficiently low in sodium, that uses whole-grains and includes vegetables… And forget about organic or “humane-treated” meat. I try to get the best of the lot (Lean Cuisine steamers, and Amy’s organics), but it still sure ain’t homemade.
And so, I kind of hate lunch. And yet, I just can’t get through my day without it. I’m the midst of making a bit of an effort again, buying things like smoked salmon and bean salad and organic soups that are convenient yet nutritional. And I’m bolstering those with Greek yogurt and trail mix.
It’s never going to be my favorite meal, but perhaps I can make peace with it. We’ll see.
We went through David Sedaris’ Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls in audiobook form, read by the author himself. David Sedaris may be the only author for whom I will tend to wait until I have time to listen to the audio version, rather than just read. Since they are all personal essays, something is added by hearing the stories through his distinct voice.
If you’ve enjoyed past books by David Sedaris, I don’t see why you wouldn’t like this one, too. If you haven’t read him before, you might want to start with an earlier one. Not that they’re chronological essays of his life, exactly, but still.
And if you don’t want to do the audio thing, the books do work fine in print as well.
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida was the last book club book, which I finished up at the start of vacation. I got the ebook for this one.
We all felt this book wasn’t quite all it was cracked up to be: a major revelation, fascinating, mesmerizing. Not that it was terrible, by any means, but… Well, it probably is different if read by someone who has a child with severe autism. For the rest of the us, it’s kind of interesting, but not earth shattering. Quite short, though, so don’t hesitate to read it if you’re curious.
The other audiobook we listened to, Jonathan Tropper’s One Last Thing Before I Go, was recommended by the owner of Wordsworth Books as the best book of the summer. We definitely enjoyed it. It’s the story of a musician, a drummer, who had one big hit song with his band and then had been on a downward spiral ever since. When he’s diagnosed with a fatal-if-untreated illness, he’s not so sure he has much to live for, anyway. His family doesn’t take so kindly to his response.
The novel deals with serious issues, but often in a humorous way. Some parts were laugh-out-loud funny. The story was engaging, and not entirely predictable. Partway through, we both tried to guess how it would go. Neither of us were exactly right. It was resolved satisfactorily, yet somewhat open-endedly.
I had read any Jonathan Tropper books before this. I would try them again.
Finally, in good old-fashioned paper, I read the fascinating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This is the true story of the woman whose cancer cells were taken and cultured, and found to have the remarkable ability to reproduce endlessly: they are “immortal” cells. These “HeLa” cells proved very important to medicine and biology, but the woman herself and her family knew nothing of this for many years. In this book, Rebecca Skloot tells how she become interested in Henrietta as a person, and gradually came to know the members of the Lacks family (who are still with us). The cross-section of personal and medical history is just fascinating. It may not sound like the kind of book that’s hard to put down, but it really is.
Somewhat of a continuation of my last post, this one focusing on notable dining experiences.
The Tuesday evening we arrived in Ottawa, we met with some friends and went to a very new restaurant called Das Lokal, down on Dalhousie street, below the Market. We all commented that we didn’t think we had ever seen that part of Dalhousie before, but it had some interesting shops and such.
The place was a bit noisy and the service seemed somewhat rushed or something, like persistently asking us about drinks when we first arrived and were still perusing the wine list. And we got bread, but no bread plates. “I find that very odd,” commented one of our friends. Maybe just opening-month kinks they need to work out?
Food-wise, everyone seemed happy with their appetizers, which in Jean and my case was a shared charcuterie plate, with very nice patés and such. As mains everyone but me ordered the rabbit with spatzle; I had the Cornish hen. Jean reported that the rabbit wasn’t as flavorful as he’d hoped, but I found the hen very good. For dessert each couple shared apple crisp, which was fine but not outstanding.
The Cornish henAnd the less-successful rabbit with spatzle
Always good catching up with friends.
Dinner was just the two of us at Whalesbone on Wednesday. We started with some raw oysters, as per usual, but I was really struck by the special appetizer of the day, which included mussels in a spicy broth, fried clams, and smoked oysters on a creamy sauce of some kind. Everything was just amazing; maybe the best food of the trip.
All these items were just fabulous
The waitress recommended a bottle of Nautilus Sauvignon Blanc, from New Zealand, to have with this. It was more than others on the menu, but still only $52. It was indeed very nice and well-suited to the food.
Le vin
(And all their fish and seafood, by the way, is sustainably fished.)
As our main courses, I went with BC trout while Jean had Ontario walleye. These were quite fine, with good vegetables to accompany.
Our first day in the Finger Lakes area, we didn’t feel like driving more, so we had dinner at an Italian restaurant down the road from our B&B in Montour Falls, called Mura Bella’s. They were very nice there, even giving us an umbrella for the walk home, as it was quite rainy by then (after a very nice day). It was our first taste of the local wine there, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t terribly interesting, either. The food was good, except for Jean getting frozen veggies with his main. (I mean, heated frozen veggies. They weren’t still frozen.)
Nice tomato and bocconcini appetizer at Mura Bella’s
On the Friday after our hike, we had lunch at the Wildflower Cafe in the town of Watkins Glen, which focused on the local and sustainable. It was attached to a brewery and had recommended beers for most items. I couldn’t resist, so I ordered the recommend Blonde beer, which wasn’t bad, as beers go. Jean went with a glass of local wine, which tasted rather nouveau.
I had catfish tacos that were just delicious, really, with a side salad of corn and black beans. Jean had a jambalaya that he enjoyed. He also had room for an apple crumble dessert that I just tasted.
Our dinner that night was at Suzanne’s Fine Regional Cuisine, and it was very enjoyable. They specialize in set menus of varying numbers of courses. We went for the three-course rather than five. I started with a nice salad of pear, pecan, and blue cheese, while Jean had the corn chowder with bacon and basil oil. For mains we both had the duck with potato Galette and broccoli. The local wines we had here acquitted themselves better than previous; I started with a nice blanc de blanc (Chardonnay) sparkling, while Jean had a decent Pinot. And we both enjoyed the recommended Syrah with the duck; it was quite smooth, with vanilla notes.
(Jean seems to not have selected any pictures from this meal, for some reason… I was all dressed up for it, too.)
For dessert he had a Panna cotta in Concord grape sauce, while I had very delicious profiteroles with chocolate chip ice cream and brownies. I also ordered a local Port which was, very clearly, not Portuguese. 🙂 (That is, maybe don’t try Finger Lakes port.)
Lunch on Saturday was at Bully Hill winery, where we sat with on a patio with a lovely view (the drive in these parts was probably the best of the trip). The food was quite good. We shared grape-leaf wrapped meat appetizers, then I had a grilled goat cheese and portebello sandwich while Jean had chili. I drank a red blend from the winery and Jean had an off-dry red, which seems a bit weird, but is common with the wines here. We enjoyed both of those.
We also had dinner at a winery that day: Glenora. This was a disappointing meal, with service whose timing seemed a bit “off” all evening, and Jean’s main course of duck apparently suffered from having sat under heat lamp too long. Both our appetizers were good, mind you: I had fried calamari (a bit too big a serving, though), and Jean had squash soup. And my main of venison, mashed potatoes, and green beans was well-done, though would have been better if my red (a good Cabernet Franc) had arrived before I was nearly done with the food.
This venison dish was good, but would have been more enjoyable with the red I’d ordered
On the drive home we had lunch in Jordan Station, Ontario, in a restaurant called Zooma Zooma cafe. That was very good; a nice capper to our trip.
… because a week later, it’s pretty easy to forget that, what with all the gray and cold and even snow.
Fortunately, we were on vacation the previous week. It did start in Timmins, for the previously blogged-about wedding and funeral.
Timmins had just glorious weather while we were there, with highs around 20. We went for two big walks during our visit, one on the Ski Runners property, another through the “tailings rehabilitation” area at the end of the road my parents live on. Interesting to see how far that went, in an area that was largely off-limits to me when I lived here as a kid. At one point we had “beautiful lake and fall colors” on the left, “ugly open mining pit” on the right. That’s the north for you.
On Tuesday we drove to Ottawa, our biggest day of driving for the trip, as we split up the Timmins trip by stopping in Barrie overnight on the way up. So besides driving, all we had time for of note was dinner with friends, which I’ll write about separately.
Wednesday morning, for the first time on the trip, it was a bit drizzly, so we visited the Museum of Nature. It was our first time there since the exhibits were fully open, and it was fun to see everything. They had a special exhibits on ants, and another one on frogs.
We stepped into another worldWith strange creatures
The rain had mostly stopped by noon, so after a sushi lunch we just did some walking around and photo taking, and visited a Bernard Callebaut chocolate store I’d spotted the night before on Dalhousie. Very good.
The nation’s capital can look grandVery grand indeed.
The next day we drove to the Finger Lakes region of New York. (Did we drive too much on this trip? Probably.) Our B&B turned out to be this huge, gorgeous old house in Montour Falls — right beside those falls, in fact, and near a church that had become a private residence. (Would love to know how they converted the interior into living space.) The B&B included a great breakfast with all kinds of fruit, baked beans, eggs, bacon, and on on, and it was interesting talking to the other guests, who were mostly Americans, but there was a young German couple staying there as well.
Our humble abode for the trip
We didn’t do a whole lot the first day but walk around Montour Falls itself.
But on Friday, we decided to emphasize the hiking, as the forecast threatened possible rain on Saturday. We started with Watkins Glen State Park, which had really nice trails through a canyon going around and even behind waterfalls. It included a fair number of stairs but wasn’t really that arduous; nothing like our Italian walking trip! Things were wet after all that rain, so we were glad of waterproof boots and rain jackets, but the weather was nice.
On the stairs, in the canyonSome of the falls
Our afternoon hike was to another set of falls in a canyon, but this trail was just flat and didn’t bring you quite as close to the falls as the other had. It was pretty, though.
Hike to the fallsOverland view of falls
Our dinner reservations were near this set of falls, and we ended up with some time to kill. We visited a few little towns, including one with a chocolate shop, so I stocked up on more of those. (My favorite local chocolate shops seem to keep closing on me.)
Saturday ended up being not so rainy after all. We started with a visit to a big market in Penn Yan, which was fun and provided me with a new purse. We then hit some wineries. Did you know there are about 110 (!) in this region? We got to 3.
The first was the big complex of Bully Hill. It’s very busy, but they do their wine tastings “en masse” here, with two guys providing lively banter as they pour everyone their choice of two options for a total of five tastings. It was fun, and there were two wines we would have bought if we hadn’t been concerned about wine limits when going over the border.
View from Bully Hill
Once we found it, our next stop was Rasta Ranch, which has a real hippie vibe to it, with tie-dyed clothes and Jim Morrison posters for sale. A long-haired dude gave us a free-flowing sample of various options that were unusual, though not necessarily fantastic. Still, Jean was taken with the name of the Ja’maca Me Blush! wine and wanted to buy that. I then noticed Bohemian Raspberry, which they let me taste. Actually pretty good–very raspberry, not too sweet. So we got a bottle of that, too.
Driving in Finger Lakes wine country
The best winery, wine-wise, was Chateau LaFayette Renau. We would have bought a bottle of everything we tasted had we, again, not been concerned about wine limits at the border. These included a nice 2007 Pinot, a delicious 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, a semi-sweet red blend that didn’t come across as that sweet, a very pleasant semisweet Rieseling, and a dessert wine based on the Niagara grape, the same one used in Welch’s grape juice, but here turned into a surprisingly pleasant drink.
“Welcome to your day of mixed emotions,” said my uncle. As happens occasionally in life, I was attending both a funeral, and a wedding, in one day.
The two events weren’t as different as one might have thought.
* Both began with a ceremony that took place place in a Catholic church.
* Perhaps unexpectedly, really both ceremonies featured a mix of laughter, tears, solemnity, and smiles.
* Attendees to both wore their Sunday best (though it was a Saturday).
* A meal followed both. (Though only the wedding featured an open bar and DJ dancing.)
And both ended up being at least partly on the theme of the importance of a good marriage (pray, eat, love, I guess). My cousins gave a loving and eloquent eulogy to their father, that included these words:
“My father had a message to men that he wanted to pass along. Don’t be too proud to tell your wife how much her love and care means to you. Don’t wait to express yourself.”
And my niece, whose wedding party included two stepsisters along with her biological sister, included this tribute to her new in-laws:
“And thank you for serving as a great example of a successful marriage. Because while my parents passed along a lot of values to me, the value of marriage wasn’t one of them.”
With a name like that, I wasn’t expecting too much (other than that it ought to be good for me). I was surprised it was so delicious.
I think the avocado is the secret ingredient. Recipe says it’s optional, but I think that, combined with the barrel-aged feta and really good Spanish olive oil I used, gave it this appealing, creamy deliciousness that seemed almost decadent.
Other changes I made:
I don’t know what wheat berries are, so I used quinoa. Grainy, good for you, and cooks in only 12 minutes.
Reduced the peppers from 2 and one-half, as my husband is not a fan.
Omitted the green onion.
Omitted the kale. Kale can be delicious cooked, but raw? Baby kale is OK, but “adult” kale is pretty bitter til cooked.
Instead of minced hot pepper in the dressing, used dried ancho, which is less spicy. (I don’t mind spicy, but I am a bit lazy, and that was less work.)
So my version be kind of like this:
1/2 cup (125 mL) quinoa
1 can (14 oz/540 mL) no-salt black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup (250 mL) halved cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 red or yellow pepper, diced
1 avocado, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup (125 mL) crumbled Canadian Feta cheese (consider barrel aged)
3 cups (750 mL) torn romaine lettuce
Coriander Chili Dressing:
2 tbsp (25 mL) chopped fresh coriander
2 tbsp (25 mL) each extra-virgin olive oil and canola oil
2 tbsp (25 mL) cider vinegar
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 tsp (5 mL) ancho chili powder
Pinch each kosher salt and pepper
Bring 1 cup of salted water to boil. Add quinoa; cover and simmer over medium-low heat until tender, about 12 minutes.
Add black beans, tomatoes, red or yellow pepper, avocado, and Feta cheese.
Coriander Chili Dressing: In small bowl, whisk together coriander, olive oil, canola oil, vinegar, garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper; pour over salad, tossing to coat. Divide lettuce among plates; top with wheat berry mixture.
Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin. Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine has to go live with her working-class sister Ginger after her wealthy husband is arrested for fraud.
She says: At first I thought Jasmine would be this annoying character to spend two hours with, but she develops layers as we witness her current plight and flash back to what brought her here. That the two sisters are so different is explained by each of them having been adopted, which works. It’s interesting to see past secrets revealed as Jasmine desperately tries to adjust to no longer being ultra-rich. By the end, we still didn’t know quite what will become of her. But we care…
Naomi Watts, Robin Wright. Two 40ish women, best friends, become lovers with each other’s sons, which gets complicated.
She says: This was billed as “porn with good acting”, but I dunno. I think porn would have a lot more sex and fewer scenes after characters looking angsty as dramatic music plays.
The acting was indeed fine, and everyone involved was quite attractive and thus appealing to look at, and the ocean-side setting was pretty. I don’t have a problem with the age difference, and the fact that there was a “son swap” was merely weird, not disturbing, but the movie made it clear that the women had known these boys since they were little babies. That made their later relationship kind of ookey, and you had to ignore that part to enjoy the storyline at all.
He says: I had too much trouble ignoring that part. The movie wasn’t boring. That’s the best I can say about it.
I was joking the other day with Jean about my blogging persona. “I’m kind of jealous of her,” I said. “Nice life! Seeing all those art movies, going to concerts, eating at nice restaurants (while showing too much cleavage), traveling around, watching TV, drinking wine… Does she even work? Does she watch the news?…”
Now, clearly, I have never consciously tried to cultivate a brand for this blog as I’m not trying to monetize it nor achieve a particular readership level. Because to do that I would need to cultivate a niche and really focus on that one that area, rather than what do I do, which is just write about whatever I feel like.
But the fact is, I’ve realized, a quasi-brand has emerged anyway, and it’s one largely focused on the shallow side of life. It does not, or does not very often, touch on the following:
1. Big, weighty world issues
The world is kind of a mess. It’s not that I don’t care about this, nor that I’m uninterested in it. I read a lot of news. I fret, I fume, and I worry about it. I donate to causes. I sign petition. I tweet and retweet about certain outrages in the world.
But—although there have been exceptions, and may be again—I don’t blog that much about the issues I care deeply about, like climate change and other environmental problems; the erosion of democracy; and human rights infractions.
Because honestly, these things are just too depressing. I usually don’t feel that anything I say can really make a difference, and I generally don’t feel I have any new solutions to offer up.
I blog as an escape from all that, rather than to delve into it further.
2. My job
This one has been really conscious choice: to not blog about my employer (I certainly hope there haven’t been exceptions), and therefore not go on too much about my job, or my profession, even.
It’s partly that I don’t want to inadvertently get myself into trouble. But it’s mainly because that part of my life already consumes the majority of my waking hours. I like my job fine, but that’s enough. When I’m blogging, on my own time, it’s going to be on other subjects that interest me.
3. Personal problems
I have these, sometimes. If they’re minor enough, I may even rant about them here. But when something big is going on, when something’s really troubling me, I somehow don’t feel that telling everyone on the Internet about it is going to help in any way. Indeed, there is an inverse relationship: The more something is bothering me, the fewer the number of people I’m willing to share it with.
This is probably unhealthy, and I probably should learn to open up to people more, or more quickly. Not sure that will ever take blog form, however.
Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep
My Netflix account remained sorely underused for a long time.
I was generally unimpressed with the selection of movies. Tunneling through to the US site helped—great to finally see Cabin in the Woods, which was a pretty clever, deconstructionist take on the horror genre, and fun to see Roger Daltrey play a gay man (albeit with no love scenes) in Like It Is—but overall, I’d still rather go to the Princess.
I’d be watching maybe one show a month on Netflix? So even though it’s only $8 a month, it still wasn’t great value for me.
So I was quite surprised the other day to discover that, somehow, I had watched every single episode of The IT Crowd on Netflix. That’s 4 seasons, folks. Now, it’s British show, so the seasons are much shorter than with American shows.
But still. I’ve clearly stepped up my Netflix usage. And it’s not because of the movies; it’s the TV shows.
The IT Crowd is hardly essential viewing. But it generally makes me laugh, sometimes quite a bit. So watching just one more episode was often appealing.
I’m also finding the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black rather addictive. And Jean likes it too, which is a bonus. It focuses on a middle-class, white (race is very prominent in this series) woman who is sentenced to a year in prison after a youthful indiscretion catches up with her. It’s not Oz (in fact, that’s a direct quote from the series), thank God, in that it doesn’t have that intensity and violence. It’s much funnier. But it still makes it clear, lest I had any doubt, that I never want to go prison.
Most episodes end with Piper facing some new, unexpected dilemma in this very odd world (based on an actual memoir, by the way), so you really want to know what’s going to happen next. And it’s Netflix, so all episodes are available for… whenever.
As are all episodes of Friday Night Lights, and Louis, and House of Cards, and Derek, and Mad Men and… Yeah. With no commercials, and no download time. How TV should be?
Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. Astronauts Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Matt Kowalsky (Clooney) are out on a space walk when their shuttle is hit by space debris. Without connection to Houston, they have to figure out how to get back home.
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