Big Money, Big Money, No Whammies, and STOP!

Sadly, it's been a while since I graced the pages of my blog, and I’m just wondering exactly how many Christmas references I can cleverly drop in this one post. Good King Wenceslas, it has been a crazy couple of months! Allow me to quickly catch you up to speed. In June, I was still bantering about my disappointment in Julia Child and bragging about my coupon whoring ways. It is now October, and Jingle Bells, it is officially Autumn which for me is the most wonderful time of the year. I am actually going to the store today to stock up on soups, chili, and Brunswick Stew.
Since we last met I have started a book club, The Coffee House Readers and although there are officially almost 10 members the club typically consists of online posting and meetings that occur only between my neighbor and I, the founders and sole participants. In addition to the book club, I have gotten married, and I’m also expecting a baby! How's that for a double whammy? As of today, I am 16 weeks pregnant and my baby is the size of an avocado. Each week since I found out I was pregnant the baby has graduated in size by way of various sorts of food, primarily fruit:

Week 8 Kidney Bean
Week 9 Grape
Week 10 Prune
Week 11 Kiwi
Week 12 Plum
Week 13 Lime
Week 14 Lemon
Week 15 Apple
Week 16 Avocado


In my lazy, hazy days of the first trimester, I literally did…nothing. I didn’t want to clean, read, write, or even cook, some of my favorite things to do. I didn’t and still don’t have an appetite for some of my favorite things such as coffee (yeah, yeah, a pregnant woman can have 200 mg’s of caffeine safely per day and a cup of coffee is 130 mg’s, so don’t judge, I couldn’t drink the stuff anyways!), seafood, aside from tuna which now my doctor has limited my consumption of to two times per month due to mercury. Tell me, for how many centuries were pregnant women eating as much tuna as they wanted to and everything went just peachy keen? According to other research that I’ve read, oily fish, including tuna has so many positive aspects that it contributes to the development of a baby that they say the benefits outweigh the risks involved. The jury is still out on that but given the high-risk nature of my pregnancy I am begrudgingly only satisfying my cravings a mere two times per month.

I go to get my second ultrasound this coming Tuesday and should baby avocado cooperate like a good little avocado, then I’m hoping we will know whether it is a boy or girl. My money is on girl although I’ve honestly had dreams of both. We shall see.

I can’t let a posting go without mentioning how media constantly runneths over my life, so before I go, we, Coffee House readers, or rather my neighbor and I are reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for our October read, quite appropriate for the Halloween season. I will end on this note, a quote from this fabulous novel and one my neighbor drew my attention to, "The creatures were crawling on their hands and knees, biting into ripe cauliflower, which they had mistaken for stray brains.” Speaking of cauliflower, I wonder when Baby Avocado will catch up to that veggie?

"You just put your pickle on everyone's plate, College Boy, and leave the hard stuff to me"

I seem to concoct a million ideas for projects to start that will confine me to a specific container of time all arriving at a refreshing and life-altering goal. I assumed I could blog about this. My first brilliant idea began with the Julie and Julia project sans all 524 recipe’s from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook, both volumes. I planned to simply blog. So far, so good, although I don’t get the motivation to blog quite as often as I like, and experience tells me that if you force yourself to do something that pretty much zaps all of the fun out of it. I’m inspired by quirkiness, random ideas, emotions. Without those my mind draws a complete blank. In any case, another genius idea was to live up to my beloved nickname of Coupon Whore and to only buy things that are on sale AND that I have a coupon for. Then my mind immediately began sifting through all the things that I typically need that I can never find on sale or even an expired coupon for. An example you wonder, well, how about ham cubes. There is this lovely Parmesan Tortellini Salad that I make with divine cheese or spinach-stuffed tortellini, frozen peas, parmesan cheese, and ham cubes, just to name a few savory ingredients. I’ve never seen a ham cube coupon and as I type this I realize that I have to stop myself because I told you I’d offer you an example of items that I could neither get on sale nor find coupons for and I’m just recalling that I purchased 2 packages of ham cubes at Food Lion about a week ago because they were on sale 2 for the bargain price of $4.00. Shoot. Let's re-think this......... Ok, because nothing is coming to me, I will simply justify this rant by saying that even if this were a possible feat, and we are soon to find out, this art of being a coupon whore really boils down to a race against time on various levels; time that is required for perusing through the Sunday paper circulars in search of these coupons and their accompanying sales. You need time to compare prices to make certain that you are getting the best possible deal because what’s the point of being a coupon whore when you find that $.25 coupon off Dawn dish detergent and Walgreens is running a sale on them for $.99 along with Kroger however, Kroger doubles manufacturer coupons up to a $.50 face value making the item a coupon whore’s wet dream, FREE! Actually if you purchase this item with the minimum of one other item and take into consideration the fact that your coupon for Dawn dish detergent is technically $1.00, Kroger pays $.01 of your other groceries as well. Let's not omit the race against the ticking clock; couponing in this manner is also a matter of timing things just perfectly, after all when Wisk detergent is only on sale every 6 weeks to accommodate the coupon that you have which runs out in 4 weeks, keeping in mind the fact that your personal bottle of Wisk contains only one mere orange capful of detergent left to which you just added this to your weekly load of bed sheet washing and your husband has just brought home his clothes from the gym, as you adhere to such a stringent coupon/sale marriage, you could be caught in quite the pickle. We can only hope that jar of dills is on sale this week.

Wasting Away in Margaritaville

Some people waste away in Margaritaville. While wasting away in sheer randomness, I'm sitting here and I wonder, what exactly does the “Crisper” drawer in a refrigerator do? Sure, it sounds like a fancy contraption that you nestle your veggies into with tender loving care, but does it really keep them fresher, crispier, or lengthen their short little veggie lives? Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t see how it is possible for this drawer to do anything that the other refrigerator drawers do. There isn’t any button that accommodates this drawer with cooler temperatures than the rest of the fridge. And while I’m on things that make you go hmmm, why is it that the abbreviation for refrigerator has a “d” in it—fridge—when there isn’t a “d” anywhere in the unabridged term? Typically abbreviations are meant to shorten the word rather than add to it, but I digress.

On a more literary note, I happen to be a fan of novels by Sarah Addison Allen. It all began one summer afternoon when I strolled into my local bookstore and saw their monthly recommendation of Garden Spells. I read it in two days. The synopsis behind her books is food and non-gushy romance, non-gushy being the operative non-word, of course. Allen writes about food in the genre of magical realism sprinkled with a dash of romance and a pinch of ubelievably charming characters. My only beef, no pun intended, with her debut novel is her tendency to be overly generous to one incredibly undeserving character. Her second novel was The Sugar Queen, fabulous, and most recently and long anticipated is her novel, The Girl Who Chased the Moon. I loved this one the most of all. Her dishes of choice for this story is the town's local BBQ restaurant which also offers homemade cakes that Allen brings to life with magic and descriptions that have you smelling vanilla, sugar, and butter right steaming right from the very pages. In any case, my whole point for mentioning her is that I read in a magazine the other day that there is a new release by a woman named Aimee Bender fabulously titled The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake about a girl who has, since childhood, been able to feel the emotions of the person who made the food that she eats. I have already ordered my copy in hopes that it satisfies my literary appetite much like Allen does. I'll keep you posted.

So, I was in the big “G” the other day, and for those of you who are not my co-worker of whom I share this nickname with, the big “G” is the local Goodwill. I was perusing the bookshelves when I noticed a tangerine hardback book that I have recently seen for full retail price at Barnes and Noble very recently. The book is titled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and I was pretty excited after having inspected it to find that it was in brand new condition for the incredibly low price of $3.00. I had never been interested in it when I saw it before, and this time was no exception, I simply planned to buy it to flip on eBay for at least a 75% profit. It wasn’t until I got home that I read the inscription on the front of the book which piqued my interest leading to follow that up with the reading of the inside of the dust jacket. I was riveted. I have only read a small portion of the beginning, but the topic was so interesting that I have already scanned other facts in the book, pictures, and some of the afterward, fear not though, this wasn’t a novel that I ruined for myself. The book is based around HeLa cells that have been used to create treatments and cures for various medical anomalies and diseases such as HIV, cancer, STI’s, Parkinson’s, In Vitro Fertilization, polio, cloning, and more. If you noticed, HeLa is the combination of the first two letters in each of Henrietta Lacks’ name. She made several appointments with doctors after multiple symptoms lead her to believe that she had a “knot” inside of her. This knot turned out to be an aggressive and eventually a fatal form of cervical cancer. Before Lacks died, the doctors cut a sample of the tumor during their tests to determine her diagnosis, cells that the doctors never disposed of but rather saved in culture to use for future science experiments. Human cells have never been very successful with these experiments because usually outside of their natural habitat, they cannot survive. Henrietta Lacks’ cells however, did survive, and not only did they survive, but they regenerated incessantly becoming the world’s first immortal cells. Scientists have used these cells for various experiments and today, 60 years after Henrietta’s death, the cells are still reproducing and can be found in the billions in each scientific culture lab across the world. This book addresses the fact that Lacks never gave permission for doctors to use her cells in this manner, a practice that today, is still legal (I can recall the appendix I had removed after a vicious appendicitis and even my own recent bout with pre-cancerous cells). Doctors continue to attempt to find other sets of cells like Henrietta’s to further medicine. Aside from present issues of legality, the author Rebecca Skloot also addresses issues of past legality in that Henrietta was African-American, and these cells were used for patients of all races during an era where the “one-drop” of black blood rule could mean life or death. In addition, Skloot talks to several of Lacks’ family members, primarily Deborah, one of her daughters about how they lost their mother at such an early age, and although her cells live on and people are getting rich off of them, her own family cannot even afford to go to the doctor. So far, this is the most interesting, haunting, and shocking books I have ever encountered and I encourage any of you who might be interested in a story that most people are completely oblivious to but have been, unbeknownst to them, touched by in some way or another. I say, it's a must-read.

Silence of the Lambs

My cookbook arrived today and I eagerly ripped open the package and began flipping through it, my hand conveniently stopping on the page that contained the recipe for Julia’s Boeuf A La Bourguignonne, or in America otherwise known as Beef Stew in Red Wine with Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms, although perhaps it could do without the latter. I’m having a bit of a hard time though. Let’s talk about this, I know, as I’ve stated previously, that it won’t be possible for me to complete all of Mrs. Child’s recipes mainly out of the fact that I don’t eat cute and fuzzy animals, namely lamb, the leg, shoulder or any other of its adorable but unsavory body parts, veal, deer…you get the picture. It hurt kind of, to read about Mrs. Child very nonchalantly tell her readers that if they didn't have the heart to steam a lobster alive then they could viciously murder it (okay, not her exact words) by stabbing a knife directly between their little lobster eyes to severe their little lobster spinal cord (again, not verbatim). Maybe it's just me but who the hell could even eat after that? Personally, I prefer this approach:



Aside from this, I was floored albeit specifically disgusted when I reached an entire section on cooking and eating brains. Yes, brains. Lamb brains. Calf brains. Cooked brains. Sauteed brains. No matter how you slice them, it’s pretty repulsive to even consider having any brains play any role in making a meal from scratch aside from my own brain resting safely behind my skull as it decides where to put the dash of salt or the pinch of pepper in my dish. Thinking about brain consumption reminds me of that stomach-turning scene in “Hannibal” where Anthony Hopkins, otherwise known as the infamous Hannibal Lector, has Ray Liotta (otherwise known as the detective who I cannot remember the name of) for dinner, literally, having sliced open the top portion of his skull and then feeding to him his very own, you guessed it, brains, fried in butter on a skillet under low heat. The French will apparently eat anything making me wonder if road kill might be an orthodox ingredient that Julia was required to omit from her book as solely mandated by her publishers due to sanitary reasons. Who am I to judge though, my own grandmother, a solid German girl with small remainders of her charming accent, has enjoyed cow tongue on several occasions and all I can really think about is the texture of my own tongue and how I couldn’t possibly attempt to eat anything even remotely as slippery or pocked with taste buds. Blech. This reminds me of a character I saw recently in “The Lovely Bones” who kept talking about getting the heebie-jeebies. This is the effect that these strange edible considerations have on me. Perhaps this French cookbook was a bad idea since I will only ever really even attempt a small portion of the recipes in this book. Pondering this, I quickly cast my eyes toward my Betty Crocker cookbook which surely has more humane contents and thought just maybe, I will work my way through that one instead...after I make the Boeuf A La Bourguignonne. Bon Appétit.

Onto a strikingly ironic topic transition from brains, the Grey’s Anatomy season finale delivered like I’ve never seen a finale deliver before. Oh, the previews were all the same, offering the slight taste that someone was going to get shot on the episode, though you never know who it is until you watch and I anticipated this to be like every other cliffhanger finale where you find out that it is a main character who gets the bullet only to reach the last seconds of the show where they are virtually dying right before your eyes and then the screen goes black, you’re left in a state of panic and must muster up the incredible patience to wait to see what happens come the Fall batch of new episodes in September, unless you are like me who will then proceed to run an internet search to decipher whether or not contracts have lapsed or are in limbo between the show and whichever apparent actor may or may not be killed off of the show. Wow, that was an incredibly fantastic run-on sentence. But really, I began the show with high hopes but also the expectation that I would be hanging from the proverbial cliff at the end offering myself no disappointments. The producers had a very different idea. In the first five minutes of the show, a frequent albeit unfavorable character on the show, one of the transfers from Mercy West from the merge episode was shot at point blank range right between the eyes, and Karev, a main character in the show was also shot. The shooter is the husband of a patient who had appeared on a previous show and received surgery leaving her brain dead, all of which both she and her husband were warned about prior to the surgery. She had signed a DNR without her husband knowing and he wasn’t aware that he needed to obtain any kind of power of attorney to make decisions on behalf his wife should she ever find herself in this state which left the decision of her fate legally in the hands of the hospital. Because she was brain dead and being held alive solely via breathing machines, Derek sought to respect her wishes and turn the machines off, to the adamant disagreement of her husband’s wishes. Said husband has returned to seek his revenge on three people, Derek, who made the decision to turn off the machines, Richard, the previous chief who also played a large role in the decision, and Lexi, who physically turned the machines off. Despite the fact that this man was out to kill these three people, he ended up shooting and injuring or killing pretty much anyone who got in his way, primarily surgeons in the hopes of just knocking off anyone who participated in the surgery that resulted in this situation in the first place. I spent this riveting two hours with my hand over my mouth and my heart beating so fast that I was on the verge of an all out panic attack for a full 120 minutes in what I have to say is by far, the best season finale I’ve ever seen. The only finale I’ve seen without a cliff hanger ending, but I don’t think my heart could even have handled it after the two hour roller coaster ride that it was taken on. Two words: simply brilliant.

Byrd is the Word

Last night I was christened into Richmond's historic Byrd Theatre. I walked down the aisle soaking up its sheer beauty envisioning everyone clad in double-breasted suits and Victorian hula hoop dresses lined in ruffles and lace, some smoking french cigarettes with long plastic filters from the balcony overhead. I immediately missed my friend, who owns one of the most amazing digital camera's I've come in contact with (check out the zoo pics below), this place is not only living history but a heavily breathing architectural masterpiece.

Although my rear never quite molded to the lumpy cushioned seat quite reminiscent of a miniature trampoline that has been in use by a daycare for centuries, the theatre darkened, I lost all sight of my surroundings, my mind quieted, and finally I viewed "Shutter Island."


Overall, it was a pretty good film, and I promise not to drop spoilers here in my mini review. The film followed the book like a map and only one small scene was interjected that strayed from the original text. I wasn't impressed by the melodramatic music that sometimes seemed a bit misplaced nor by the forced special effects which I felt was amateur considering the film was directed by Martin Scorsese. A bit of humor was sprinkled throughout the film which I found to be a nice touch to the otherwise dark and disturbing tone. In addition, the ending of the book leaves the reader open to some interpretation about what actually happens, one of the most powerful elements of the story, whereas the film does not. I'm pleased that I read the book first on this particular story, and that isn't always the case. Lehane was able to effectively convey the macabre in his book which is fairly rare for authors outside of Stephen King, the primary reason why I favor this book.

Netflix is delivering a copy of "Extraordinary Measures" today. Bear with me while I take a momentary Google intermission to investigate whether or not this film was born of a book... The results are in, Google tells me that this film is based on a biography written by Greeta Anand titled Chasing Miracles: The Crowley Family Journey of Strength, Hope, and Joy. I'll let you know how this one goes.

Celebrate Good Times

I stared, paralyzed, as a co-worker showed me Sunday's obituaries, folded neatly in fourths with the one of interest open-faced on the counter. Every Saturday, the boss orders lunch for us because typically we’re running around like proverbial chickens with our heads cut off not able to stop and run to the back to re-heat last evening’s supper. Our choices are limited to whichever restaurant is delivering that day and many times we opt for the local deli. Ricky, our regular delivery man, was an outgoing, friendly, and sweet guy. He incessantly gushed about the many kids in his life ranging from his own to his grandkids, nieces, and nephews, the number of them reaching high into the double digits. From my own experience with Ricky, he seemed to bring a smile to everyone he encountered. I stood there, looking down at Ricky’s portrait, reading the names of all of the kids he spoke lovingly about, partially shocked that he passed at what I thought was such a young age, and also because the realization permeated my thoughts that one truly never knows when they will depart from this world. The very reality of this thought makes you evaluate your own life thinking of whether the people that you love know how much they mean to you, or if where you are in life was built on the foundation of what really matters in this life, or the superficial.

I turned 30 years old this week, and after scanning the rest of the obituaries among Ricky’s, I also noticed a 26 year old guy as well as a young child and wondered if my 30th birthday was the mark of the halfway point in my life, a scary notion, or if that I will be one of the lucky ones to live to see the 100th birthday that one could only hope for. So much of my life recently has revolved around death. Prior to learning of this news regarding Ricky, the love of my life lost two of his family members, a great-grandmother and his grandfather. I never met his great-grandmother, but I did meet his grandfather, and I’m humbly thankful that I got the opportunity. I also know his grandmother, a sweet and resilient woman who lost her mother and her own love of her life in a mere matter of weeks. Since the funeral most of the talk about them has been in celebration of their lives by way of funny anecdotes and bittersweet memories, as the old cliché goes, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Celebration is the theme of life in all that we do regardless of whether or not we recognize it, playing with our kids in celebration of youth, a home-cooked meal enjoyed around a table of loved ones in celebration of family, a newborn baby in celebration of love, a list of celebrations that could surpass any of our combined time here on earth. I say, it’s about time we all start to recognize, savor, and cherish celebrations, both big and small.



Celebrate Good Times by Kool and the Gang

Yahoo! This is your celebration
Yahoo! This is your celebration

Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's celebrate)
Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's celebrate)

There's a party goin' on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times, and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you

Come on now

Celebration
Let's all celebrate and have a good time
Celebration
We gonna celebrate and have a good time

It's time to come together
It's up to you, what's your pleasure

Everyone around the world
Come on!

Yahoo! It's a celebration
Yahoo!

Celebrate good times, come on!
It's a celebration
Celebrate good times, come on!
Let's celebrate

We're gonna have a good time tonight
Let's celebrate, it's all right
We're gonna have a good time tonight
Let's celebrate, it's all right

Baby...

We're gonna have a good time tonight (Ce-le-bra-tion)
Let's celebrate, it's all right
We're gonna have a good time tonight (Ce-le-bra-tion)
Let's celebrate, it's all right

Yahoo!
Yahoo!

Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's celebrate)
Celebrate good times, come on!
It's a celebration!
Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's celebrate)

Come on and celebrate, good times, tonight (Celebrate good times, come on!)
'Cause everything's gonna be all right
Let's celebrate (Celebrate good times, come on)
(Let's celebrate)...

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

I'm presently contemplating whether or not to feel sorry for my waiter last night. Poor thing, I caught him off guard by yelling "Hey" which was immediately followed by the random question of has he ever seen "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" to which he returned the shock by responding that he had, in fact, seen the movie (because let's face it, the total population of people who have seen this movie can only be half the number of bad actors that were recruited to make the film). After he answered I told him "You look like that guy." He said, "That guy?" I said, "Yes, that guy, the main actor." He said, "Did you ever see that movie he was in when he was about 5 years old about people in the woods?" Appalled at my own ignorance about this film he spoke of and never having seen the actor in anything other than "Tokyo Drift" I started naming off strange indie-trash films such as the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Wrong Turn." After suffering through the pain it generated to even name those titles, neither of us ever figured out what film he was referencing. Never fear, Google is here: The actor's name is Lucas Black and the film that he played in as a kid is, drumroll please, "Sling Blade." My only regret is that someone didn't kill me with a lawnmower blade before I made the unfortunate decision to see that Billy Bob disaster.

My reason for bringing up my Ruby Tuesday visit, aside from another obvious demonstration of how the media violently shoves itself into my random conversations is that the restaurant's "soundtrack" is something reminiscent of my beloved Starbucks.



Ah, Starbucks, in all of its beautiful glory is not merely a place to savor your favorite iced Frappuccino, which by the way is their registered trademark, it is a complete full body experience leaving no sense unsatisfied. You walk in and your nose immediately inhales that heavenly scent of brewing coffee and baked pastries while your ears are simultaneously filled to overflowing with the eclectic and unique musical wizardry of Adele, Ali Farka, or Ingrid Michaelson. Your eyes scan their surroundings, dancing in the reflection of whimsical framed paintings and richly painted walls in warm hues reminding you of Autumn foliage. Once you've placed your order, the barista smiles at you as she hands you a sweet, steaming coffee scented with the season's special flavor, which you sip as your tastebuds burst in your mouth. As you nestle into one of their huge, over-stuffed arm chairs, one hand dangles over the side lightly brushing the deep velvet and no matter what kind of day you just stepped out of, all is forgotten as you reach a state of pure unadulterated bliss.

Starbucks, you had me at hello.

The Zoo Story

I am proud to announce that my mailbox is currently waiting to be graced with my delicious new copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

On another note, after my birthday visit to the zoo I was posting my photo's and while listing goofy captions to accompany these candid animal portraits, the realization slapped me in the face that they're all media-inspired. Given the nature of this blog, I'm simply flabber-gasted and kind of hurt that sarcasm cannot possibly be effectively conveyed through the written word for its lack of vocal tone. I welcomed myself back from my mini-tangent and figured a photo album would be a lovely addition to demonstrate just how subliminally the media washes over my life and intrudes on virtually every thought that crosses my mind. Enjoy.


"Bella Swan...er, I mean Jacob Black...ok, no, really, Black Swan."
**It will excruciatingly pain me if I have to reveal the source of this ridiculously overrated pop culture reference, speaking of which, a LONG blog is in the works on my experience with the stay-at-home mom turned female "literary" sensation, Stephenie Meyer. You'd be wise to prepare yourself for the impending brutality of it all.


"The Dingo who ate your baby."


"Morla: The Sneezy Tortoise"


"I only have eyes...for you. Shu-bop Shu-bop."


"Don't look now, there's a monkey on your back."


"Eye of the Tiger."


"When I was a young warthog..."



I really agonized over whether or not to reference Kevin, the rainbow-brite-wannabe-chocolate-loving-male-assumed-Mama bird from "Up" but let's face it, she's no peacock, despite their almost identical mating calls. Erego, I have no quote for this but it was really too cool to omit :)


"I shot the sheriff, but I didn't shoot no deputy." (The thumbnail might be a bit small to distinguish but this quote is purely cornrow-inspired.)


"Daniel-san, you all wet behind ear."


"I think you're really beautiful and I feel warm when I'm around you and my tongue swells up."

You catch my drift.

Shutter Island

So because this blog is new I am taking selfish liberties to reminisce on my recent experiences with literature and film. I’ve recently completed the novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Part of me began this novel only to pass it upon completion over to my future brother-in-law. We don’t have much in common but we stand on the loosely-packed and level ground of books and movies, and that makes for juicy conversations that only he and I truly understand. I gave him Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith for Christmas, one of my very favorite books and an absolutely brilliant debut novel from the author, and he had minimal hopes about the book after unwrapping it, so when he came to me positively bubbling once he had finished it, I was so excited, I loaned him my sleek hardback copy of the sequel, The Secret Speech. He loved that one even more. And though Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men didn't have quite the same effect and wreaked absolute havoc on his literary tastebuds and I'm still planning on having him read McCarthy's The Road, which, by the way, finally releases on film at the end of this month. I was so thrilled to find someone else who got equally excited as me regarding books that I didn’t think twice about offering my brand new, not even cracked open once for the sole exception to flip the pages breathing in that heavenly new book smell, book, all despite my weird mental deformity about anyone reading any of my books before me. This deformity, I might add, also makes for quite the expensive hobby. Unlike other sensible readers who cherish their local library card, gaining new cracks in the plastic with every borrowed story, checking out book after book without cost, my deformity has me feverishly running to Barnes and Noble to sniff new copies of books that don’t even interest me all to settle on the ones that do. Tom Hanks said it best in "You’ve Got Mail," “We’ll get them…We’ll get them with our discounts, our deep arm chairs, and a cappuccino… we’re going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants.” By God, they were right and have I yet mentioned that "You’ve Got Mail" is my favorite movie of all time? I’ll get into that savory rationale some other time.



I initially had seen previews for the film that appealed to me and although I missed it on the big and expensive screen, we Virginians who live near the greater metro Richmond have the benefit of the ancient Byrd Theater. A theater in all of its vintage glory, if you can imagine, quite reminiscent of the theater where John Wilkes Booth decided that he had a pair of cowardly balls. Sorry, Abe. The Byrd Theater charges under $2.00 to see films that are on their way to soon become the newest DVD craze and makes my wallet do cartwheels in my purse since my new book fetish normally has it projectile vomiting money. So, I am planning on seeing the film in the next few days so stay tuned for the update. As far as the novel goes, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had the perfect eclectic mix of an eerie setting, disturbing dreams, creepy characters, and a downright challenge to the very concept of reality in the ending pages that will have you pouncing through the final chapters of the book like Tigger in the Flowerdew Hundred. I won’t spoil it for you, but the end of the book will leave you guessing, unsatisfied, and savoring that feeling in the pit of your stomach that will have you wondering, what the hell just happened here? From what I understand, the film doesn’t provide the same feeling but rather answers all of your questions quite affirmatively, which is unfortunate. This makes me breathe a coffee-drenched sigh of relief that I read the book first, as for this particular title it would have been quite the disaster had I been subjected to these two forms of media in the reverse. The melting pot of emotion that the original text sifts through your insides, I assure you, is an absolute rarity, a true Shutter Island.

Julie and Julia

I’ve finally completed my run with "Julie and Julia," the film about the infamous Julia Child and Julie Powell, a regular gal and former telephone operator turned writer by avenue of cheeky cooking blog. I did some minor research following this charming adaptation of Powell’s book only to discover that it received some pretty harsh treatment in reviews. Readers voiced complaints ranging from her frequent use of profanity to her seemingly incessant daily whining sessions. These reviews offered a batch of complete sense in reference to the disgust that Julia Child apparently shows towards Powell once she discovers her blog. I will say, having not read the book nor will ever be inspired to thanks to the “fan” club I came across, the film never clarifies if Julia Child made this deduction as a result of personally reading the blog or simply hearing about it through the proverbial grapevine. I can only assume that she did, in fact, read even if only snippets of Powell’s blog to make her determination. From what I understand from reader reviews as well as my own investigation into Powell's original blog, every other word that appears in black and white contains four letters and begins with a capital “F.” While I’m confident that Julia Child can appreciate strategically implanted profanity in a novel of fiction, given that Mrs. Child was in her nineties when she was graced with this blog, chances are that her old fashion ways did not precede her and she was offended with the language alone in a blog that was supposed to have been inspired by herself. I can only imagine, and in that imagination, I digress.

Since I am unable to feed my usual craving, no pun intended, for the original text on this film, what I can say is that I have been truly inspired to attempt as many dishes from Child’s original cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, as absolutely possible. Let me be the first to announce that my attempts will not be quite as ambitious as the truck-driving sailor, Julie Powell, as I suffer from the inability to steam lobsters alive or to take even a short stroll down the memory lane of my high school biology class and dissect a duck on my coffee table, all in the name of dinner. Still, it should be quite the interesting endeavor.

I am a bit surprised that during my feverish search to locate the most recent yet inexpensive copy of Child’s cookbook that I stumbled upon various reviews of recent readers who were inspired to do the same, long before me. I read review after review of readers who snatched up this cookbook while still viewing the credits for Julie and Julia. I have yet to receive my copy, although I’ll certainly keep you posted regarding the outcome of my own experience. My first plan of action will be to attack that fabulous stew that I still can’t even pronounce but I can only presume, for my own sanity, that Amy Adams was forced to survive hundreds of takes on various scenes just to get the pronunciation right, afterall, she can't possibly be as perfect as she seems...right?, Beef Boyiongrsofurosu-eieio or something or another. Yep, and I'm an English major. Go ahead, you try. Ok, now five times fast.



Let’s just hope it tastes much better than it sounds. Bon Appétit!