The Joys of a Real Book...

It's already Sunday evening. As always, the weekend flew by in a complete and utter whirlwind and here I sit, blogging before I go to bed and get up again on another somewhat-dreaded Monday morning.

I can't complain about my weekend, it was nice, even if it flew by. I finally got to see Avatar in 3D which was amazing. The movie itself was pretty blah. It was "Dances with Wolves" set in space, as a friend had warned me. However, it was so amazing visually to watch that it was well worth the price of the ticket. I also got to spend time with my brothers which is pretty rare unless a holiday is involved.

I also finally just finished reading Julie and Julia. All I can say is thank goodness I can move onto another book with a hopefully more likeable main character. I kept hoping Julie Powell was going to redeem herself and have some moment in which I realized she wasn't that bad. Not so. She had a tantrum and crying fit after she attempted a majority of the recipes which didn't seem to turn out that well very often. What I found amusing is that in the third "The End" part of the book (she couldn't seem to find a place to stop so she wrote "The End" then continued. Then she wrote "The End" and continued again anyway), she talks about how the challenge of cooking all of Julia Child's recipes helped her find a sense of "Joy". I'm curious as to where, exactly, she found that joy because it's certainly not apparent in the book. Perhaps she did but maybe she should have tried to capture that the same way the movie did far more successfully. She did nothing but whine, complain and insult quite a few people. She was also horribly condescending.

Now, I'm going to move on, hopefully to something entertaining. My friend, Ms. P, suggested Outlander and said that it has some nice steamy moments. Since I could use a few steamy moments, I'm willing to give it a try. My mum had a copy of it so I didn't even have to work that far to find it.

I often borrow books from people. I often loan them out too. It's a fun way of bonding with people. This is why I'm becoming more and more curmudgeonly regarding e-readers and e-books. Now they're coming out with the iPad in March. It's a big, giant iPhone, essentially, primarily for reading electronic media such as magazines and books.

Now, don't get me wrong. I get some of the reasonings behind this, the Kindle and the Nook- the current popular e-readers on the market. I just don't personally agree with them. Sure, if I'm going on a plane trip that's going to last a while, taking one little tiny electronic device instead of a bag full of books is going to be more economical, not to mention saving my poor back some strained muscles because of the weight.

But it's not the same. I love the smell of a book, the joy of opening a new book for the first time and hearing the crackle of new pages. I love throwing a book in my backpack in case I get chance to read somewhere.

I love to read in the bath. Which is one of the reasons I think the e-readers will never replace paper books. I mean, accidents happen. Books get dropped in the water or, at the very least, splashed. On a paper book, it means some warped pages, perhaps having to buy a replacement copy.

What if you were to read the iPad in the bath? First of all, not practical. Though I'm sure it's not possible to electrocute yourself in this manner, I'd still worry about that anyway. Also, if you drop that in the tub, you're down $499. I don't think apple is going to be offering replacement iPads if you were dumb enough to drop it in the bath.

No, I know the technology junkies salute e-readers because you can have that instant gratification of wanting to read a book and suddenly thinking, "hey, I'll buy it." And boom, there it is on your reader.

Not me. I'm a contemplater when it comes to books. I only buy them when I've either read it before and must have a copy of my own or when I trust the author so much that I know it will be good enough to invest in. Otherwise, I go to the library. I like to read the back covers of books, browse the pages to see if the writing style is going to agree with me.

How can you do any of that on an e-reader? It's just not the same. Besides, though I know they're trying to light the e-reader screens so they resemble the experience of reading a book, rather than staring at a computer screen, you're still looking at a screen. I spend far too much of my day already. When I get home, I want to sit on the couch, tuck my feet under me, grab a pillow and curl up with my book. I want to bend the pages so that they sit poised underneath my fingers, ready to be turned eagerly. I want the freedom to hug the book if it pleases me to the point at which it deserves a hug. I also want the freedom to hurl the book across my bed if it irritates me, as I was tempted to do with Julie and Julia.

I may change my mind in the future though at this point in time, I can pretty much say I don't think that's likely. Perhaps they'll come out with an e-reader that feels like a book as well as contains the same content. Of course, then I'll wonder why we don't just read books instead and I'll be greeted with a chorus of "it's GREENER!"

I get that and in most cases, I respect it. Yet when it comes to books, I'm a traditionalist. I like the feel of paper. It's been around for thousands of years, papyrus before paper but still the same concept. I want to keep that tradition alive.

So, I'm pretty sure I won't be buying an e-reader. Give me a paper book any day. I'll try not to drop it in the bath.

Happy Monday.

Come Back, Weekend! Come Back!

I won't wax too poetical today on how quickly the weekend flew by compared to the work week that proceeded it. I'm sure you all feel the same way.

It was a good weekend, albeit fast. We had our first 50 degree day in a long while on Saturday. Since it's winter, anything about 32 degrees farenheit is considered warm. In comparison, Saturday was absolutely balmy.

As I headed out to run errands on Saturday, it occured to me how different the interpretation of temperature is. When I lived in L.A., 50 degrees was cold. I'd reach for my thick jacket and shiver until the heat in the car came on. At night, it would dip down as low as...forty-five degrees and I'd put my thick down comforter on my bed and still manage to be cold. I'd hug my hot-water bottle, hoping to warm up. When you live in a climate where 65-70 degrees is pretty average in the winter, anything below that starts to feel cold.

Yet, here, in the Midwest, I've acclimated back to what I knew before L.A.: In January, 50 degrees is a treat. It's sort of a little tiny gift to remind us that even though there's more cold in store, spring isn't quite so far off and all we have to do is wait. In Ohio, 50 degrees in December means getting way to warm in your winter coat as you go in and out stores in the mall or even outside. It's not quite cold enough to cool you down if you keep that coat on so, as you move on to your next destination, the coat comes off and gets flung on the passenger's side of the car. Sure, it's a little bit chilly when you get out but it's not cold.

I think it's supposed to cool back down this week. I believe I even heard 'snow' in the forecast but I might be mistaken. Either way, it's going to cool way down below that 50 degree mark and re-remind us that it is winter and we have a little bit of hibernation to go before the spring bulbs start shooting and the grass starts greening.

Nevertheless, it was a nice way to kick off the weekend. Nothing like a 50 degree day to make you feel like you don't have to move in slow motion. So I didn't. I ran a multitude of errands on Saturday, even though I'd actually planned on being lazy. I ended up grocery shopping- planning on Kroger but ending up, by fate, in the parking lot of Meijer, another good grocery store. I have to say, despite my love affair with Jungle Jim's, Meijer is smaller but it has a good selection. I was able to procure the small cipollini onions that had thwarted me at Jungle Jim's. Now, if they start getting fresh quail eggs, Jungle Jim's might have some serious competition.

It's funny that going to a grocery store is part of my weekend entertainment. As a self-proclaimed foodie, I suppose it's quite natural that the possibility of ingredients for a new dish makes me happy. Yet, there's something about having free reign in a grocery store that just makes me feel at peace with the word. Yes, I know that's sad...but I can't help it.

It was a food-filled weekend, in one form or another. A coworker loaned me the book of Julie and Julia, upon which the movie was based. I saw the movie, as I mentioned last week. As for the book, well, let me just say as a blogger, I quite would have liked to have to have slapped Ms. Julie Powell a couple of times. Yes, I know what she did was quite unique. She managed to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. I admit, I couldn't do it. For one thing, that is WAY too much fussing around with food. I love to cook but give me the Mario Batali/Giada Di Laurentis school of cooking any day- simple is good, simple is tasty, simple is...simple. Maybe this is why I prefer Italian over French...although I wouldn't say no if someone were to cook me a French meal. Yet, in her book, there is something quite irritating about Ms. Powell. For one thing, she's just...not a pleasant person. She does acknowledge this in some ways. She's stuck in a cubicle job she hates and finds cooking to be her escape.

I can relate to that. I've found that I cook best on days when work has been awful. It really is an escape. It's being able to focus on the mire poix on a soup, making sure the aromatic base simmers to perfection before you pour in the broth and ingredients. Yet, there's something about Julie Powell that is just unlikeable. I know, it's a work of 'fiction'; she herself says in the beginning of the book that she 'made a lot of stuff up.'

As a novelist, I make a lot of stuff up. Yet if I were to write a book based on my experiences in the kitchen and tied it in to someone like, say, Julia Child's life, I probably would be a little less honest in stating that I 'made stuff up.' After all, her book is supposed to be based on a true story. Without a detailed description, how do we, as readers, know what she 'made up' and what was actually true?

admit, some of this is probably a little bitter. After all, she blogged about food, got a publishing deal and now had her story turned into a movie. I'd just love that.

Yet, the other part of me is a wee bit angry about the whole thing. For one thing, she's pretty honest about stating how she added a Pay-Pal link to her site in order to cover her ingredients. Ok, so I wasn't in on the Julie/Julia Project phenomenon but this does seem a little cheeky. Based on her book, she wasn't exactly a great cook. She was trying to get through the recipes. She had more failures than successes. It was, as most good moneymaker's are, a gimmick.

I'm not saying that Julie Powell wasn't smart. I wish I'd had the idea before her. Yet I find it a little...offensive that she asked for donations to cook her dishes that she couldn't afford.

Perhaps if I were on her side of things, it would be a little different. Yet the only view I have is the one she presents in her book. She seems to have this fantastically loyal husband. He seemed to not want to throttle her at most stages of her attempt to cook through Julie Child's recipes. That, in itself, seems like an accomplishment. Interestingly enough, it seems in her second book, Ms. Powell confesses that she cheated upon her overly patient husband. I haven't read it so I can't judge but, in all honesty, it doesn't surprise me. In Julie and Julia, I'm actually quite surprised she had a husband at the end of the book. She's just not a very nice person. Yes, cooking is hard but there's no reason to treat your husband's migraines like an irritant in the way of conquering aspics. If you don't like aspics, don't try to make them. I don't care what the challenge; there's nothing more irritating than a martyr who thinks she's doing something for 'the cause' even when it means her life is hard.

That's what Julie Powell is, in my opinion: A big martyr. I understand her challenge. I respect her challenge. Yet she was the one who decided she wanted to cook her way through Julia Child's recipes. It was her idea. Does she really have the right to 'beg' for money to complete her challenge? Should she really be whining how hard it is? How much her life sucks because she drops her dessert on the streets of New York?

I'm being mean, I know. Yet, if you take on a challenge, in my opinion, you should be prepared for it. Gourmet cooking is expensive. Yet, as much as I hate to admit it, there's something to be said about using butter over margarine, parmeggiano reggiano over store-brand grated parmesan cheese. If you want to cook properly, you have to be willing to accept that it's not always inexpensive.

I think the point at which Ms. Powell set up PayPal on her website was officially the point at which I'd like to have slapped her. For one, she does nothing but make fun of people. Yes, Julie Powell, Republicans do things with which you don't agree. Yet I guarantee at least one of those people who sent you money was a Republican. Perhaps you could have toned down your slightly pathetic bias in order to accept that these were the people who were indulging your attempts to learn to cook. I don't honestly know which party I fall in to; I tend to agree more with issues than lean one way to the other or not.

Ok, I'm not about to turn this into a Twilight sort of hatred. I'm just not enjoying Ms. Powell's outlook on life that much. Mostly, I think she was an exceptionally lucky average-Joe who takes what she has for granted. She blogged about it and her blog got attention. I'm happy for her there. I love it when anyone reads this blog. I'm exceptionally grateful for those that read it regularly.

Still, people like Julie Powell make me appreciate my own life where I can dabble with cooking yet still appreciate the life I have around me. I actually didn't cook this weekend, other than to make a fresh tabbouleh salad that involved no cooking at all- just chopping, which I love.

All in all, reading Julie and Julia makes me appreciate the fact that while I may set guidelines for myself, deadlines in life, writing, cooking, etc, they're on my own terms. If i know I'm going to have to be in order to make my deadline, I won't do it; I'll reconsider and arrange the timetable so I can get everything done on my own terms.

And even if the terms are a weekend that flies by way too quickly, I will, at least try too meet it. If not, I'll move forward anyway. Life always gets in the way of fun; it's the way things are. I think accepting this is half the battle. The other half...

Well....that's up to us, isn't it?

Happy Monday!

Weekends, IKEA and Blobby Kitchen Messes...

Somehow, it's managed to become Sunday again without my being fully aware of it. That's the thing about weekends, they're tricky. I'm still convinced that there's some weird time-space continuam thing where time slows down while we're at work but speeds up as soon as we have some free time.

Since it's Sunday evening, my free time is rapidly moving by and Monday morning looms closer. Since I plan on spending part of the evening with Jack Bauer on "24", I anticipate wildly-ridiculous plot points, a miraculous recovery for Jack who was formerly dying and lots of "Damn it!" spoken with Jack's trademark inflection. Naturally, I'm still looking forward to it.

I can't complain though. I've had a very productive weekend. I managed to clean and organize and my house is feeling much better. I also got to go to IKEA which is always dangerous. You go there for one thing and come out with ten. For example, I was looking for some shelves for my pantry. I managed to find something better- a unit with interchangeable drawers from baskets to tubs to fabric ones. Because it was IKEA, it was inexpensive. I also managed to buy some towels, some candles, two toy mice/rat things- one for me, one for my niece- heat pads for hot pans, tupperware-like containers and a rug. All I wanted were the shelves. Curse you IKEA for your inexpensive products that are very useful and have odd names.

Of course, I realized when I got home that my shelf/drawer unit thingy really did need that worktop that I thought I could live without. Having it would give me much more storage space on top. Also, it would make my pantry look tidier. Since my kitchen currently looked like a bomb had hit it because I'd taken everything out of my pantry, I ended up going back to IKEA for the worktop. I emerged with the worktop...and a set of washcloths to match my new towels and a 79 cent vase that I thought would look nice in my bathroom. Curse you, IKEA!

I'm willing to concede that it probably isn't really IKEA's fault. I really need to NOT put things in that handy blue bag you pick up when you walk in the door.

Aside from my IKEA trips, I also managed to finally watch "Julie and Julia." I'd been loaned the movie by a coworker but hadn't watched it. Then my good friend, Saz, gave me it as a Christmas gift so I figured it was time to watch it. You'd think I'd have done so much sooner since I'm a blogger and a foodie.

I found the movie entertaining. I like the idea and I admit, I could relate to Julie rather a lot. As a yet unpublished writer, having a blog is one way to feel better about writing. I like her idea too- cooking your way through that many recipes in a year would be fun and a challenge. Since I've recently become obsessed with cooking, i think it's a cool idea. Yet, like so many of those, someone else had it first. Now everyone else would be a copycat.

Yet the thing I like most is that Julie took on the project so she could finish something. It's good to have a goal like that. For me, that's what the National Novel Writing Month challenge was for. I actually spent the evening editing that novel and as horrible arrogant as it sounds, I made myself laugh out load a few times. In my defense, I haven't read the book since I wrote it and though I can't speak for other writers, for me, at least, when I'm writing, it's like being in a different world. I often just write and let the words flow out and not know what I wrote until I reread it a few days later. It seems alien, foreign...not something I created. It's like stepping out of your body and observing yourself from a distant point of view. You think, "I wrote that? The demon says that?" Sometime, it's the characters writing the story. For this last novel, I can't say that was the case. It just...happened.

Yet, like it was for Julie when she finished her 365 of cooking Julia Child's recipes, finishing a novel in a month was a feeling of accomplishment. Granted, unlike Julie, I don't have publishers, editors and the Food Network leaving me messages but that's ok. I can live with that.

Though it'd be super fantastic if the Food Network called me. Don't you think "Cooking with Captain Monkeypants" has an interesting ring to it?

I'm kidding. My food tastes pretty good but it never quite looks....pretty. For example, I made radacchio pancakes for lunch (Mario Batali's recipe, naturally) and while they were delicious, it really showed me that I haven't got the hang of presentation. The pancakes looked a bit like uneven, discoloured blobs of egg that were not round but more like, uh, clouds...misshapen, slightly awkward, blobby clouds. I really must work on my plating. Still, when it's just me, it doesn't matter. I'm just afraid that if I ever cook for someone else, they'll balk at the sight of my blobby, odd-looking food that makes the plate look messy even when I try to wipe it the way I see the chef'\s on TV do it.

Anyway, all in all, it's been a very nice, productive sort of weekend. The nice thing is that there's another one coming up in under six days.

If only that pesky work-week wasn't in between.

Happy Monday!