It Started with a Journal

Update on Talis's eye situation: So we went to see the specialist, who was super nice -- loved her. The good news is that it's not serious. ( Details, plus a couple of photos. )

I didn't even know there was a new Temeraire book out until yesterday! And I've even got naominovik on my flist! Guess she's not as good at updating as grrm is. Then again, since she publishes more regularly, maybe it's good that she spends less of her time LJing and more of her time actually writing. Go Naomi! If you guys haven't read the Temeraire series, it's fabulous. Don't wait for Peter Jackson's TV series or whatever it is he's doing. I thought I'd be the last person who would be interested in a fantasy series about a man and his dragon, but I WAS WRONG. The general premise of the series is a reimagining of the Napoleonic Wars with an air force of dragons. Trust me, it's awesome.

When I was in SoCal, in my sick bed, I perused the shelf of books in "my" room, which doesn't really have much of my stuff in it anymore. I noticed a very old cookbook from 1968: Marguerite Patten's Every Day Cookbook. I assumed it was my mom's, but she doesn't have much interest in cooking and certainly not from recipes; she denied all knowledge of the cookbook. I have no idea where this book came from. I flipped through it, assuming it'd be outdated and irrelevant, but found myself actually pretty impressed with it. I did a search for it on the internets, and it came up at Amazon UK with seven 5-star reviews. Those people like it because it's so sensible and easy to use, and still extremely useful for cooking today, and I have to say that I feel similarly about the content, just having read through a bit of it. It's very comprehensive, with tips and tricks on common things (like gravy) that people either get way too complex with in modern cookbooks, or leave out entirely, assuming you know how to do it. It's not just 1960s casseroles and what not (though the CorningWare blue cornflower dishes do make an appearance!); it has recipes for beurre blanc and gnocchi and more complex dishes, though very matter-of-factly detailed. It's pretty darn awesome. The photos are horrendous; it's amazing how far food photography has come. But the content, the recipes, are still extremely relevant -- it really drives home that all of the cool technique and what not that's admired today isn't really all that different from what it was 43 years ago. In fact, what struck me is that apparently, this all used to be fairly well-known stuff to home cooks; what changed is that people stopped knowing how to cook, so when all that stuff came back, it seemed like some amazing thing. Another interesting detail is that people used to eat a lot more offal than we do today -- there are recipes for preparing tongue, sweetbreads, hearts, etc. You'd be hard pressed to find that in a modern cookbook unless it was a cookbook specifically about offal. So that's definitely disappeared from the modern table (unless you're in the gourmet food world, where offal is prized). But what was scarce back then that's incredibly common today -- avocados! In fact, the cookbook refers to them as "avocado pears." I had to read through a few recipes to make sure that it was, in fact, just an avocado and not some special other fruit that used to be eaten. I giggled when I read that we should be careful if serving it, because they're "an acquired taste." So yeah, I love the cookbook because it's practical and useful, but also kind of like a history book!

Life is short. I've purchased a meat slicer and an indoor smoker. REAL HOMEMADE SMOKED BACON, HERE I COME.

Did anyone watch Extras with Ricky Gervais? I don't know why it took me so long. It's BRILLIANT! Everyone on the show makes an asshole of themselves, including the big celebrities who guest star. Kate Winslet is obsessed with winning an Oscar, Patrick Stewart just wants to see tits, Orlando Bloom is in love with his own looks, Chris Martin tackily promotes Coldplay everywhere. I'm so sad that there were only two seasons of the show.

Now that I'm caught up on The Walking Dead, I've finally started watching Caprica. Again, don't know what took me so long since I love BSG. It's so good! I've only seen three episodes, but I LOVE the origin story of the Cylons and Zoe Graystone. Now I'm sad it was canceled.

I also attempted to watch the first episode of Babylon 5, which is a show Jade loves. For the first five minutes of the pilot I kept waiting for the screen to zoom out and show the 'real' characters watching this silly sitcom-like show about space/aliens... and then I realized that it WAS the show. I don't know how/if I can go on. I mean, other than looking like a sitcom, it also does that thing that I hate about so many fantasy shows/novels -- it totally throws you into the deep end of the pool with regard to the alien 'verse and the politics like you're supposed to know what's going on. Maybe if I just have it on in the background while reading my 1968 cookbook, I'll eventually get into it. O.o