food and drink
Here's my observations lately on food and drink:
1. I think I'm going to do an experiment to see how long I can go with only buying food from fruit stands. Not only are fruit and veggies delicious, but it's an excellent way to eat cheaply and save some money. I just bought ALL of the following for $3.50 TOTAL: 1 pound of strawberries, 1 package of blueberries, 1 kiwi, 1 apple, and 4 ears of corn on the cob. What a deal! At the grocery store across the street, the 1 pound package of strawberies alone was $3.99, so I saved a bundle.
2. I'm really liking the new Diet Coke bottles, which are contoured to fit your hand. After all these years of buying whichever is cheaper, this is the thing that's making me finally commit to Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi.
3. I've noticed that drinking alcohol, especially beer, somehow heightens your taste buds and makes food taste so much better.
4. I've decided that Sabra is my favorite brand of hummus. I'm pretty sure my favorite flavor is roasted garlic, but I'm not prepared to state that definitively.
5. Chinese food is delicious, but I think I sometimes order it just so I can use chopsticks. I really enjoy eating with chopsticks. On a related note, I bought a wok yesterday and I can't wait to learn how to cook something in it.
6. Nutella is extremely tasty.
fall into fall, part 2
Another reason I know fall is here.... this weekend is the Apple & Pork Festival in my hometown of Clinton, IL. I really wish I was there. It's pretty much the greatest small town festival. As the name clearly implies, both apples and pork are prominently featured, and are available in almost every form imaginable.
Here's some other notable highlights, with some pictures I got from the town web page:
* many performance by the town clogging group, The Country Cloggers
* a giant flee market
* lots of demonstrations: an old man who dresses like an Indian and makes rope, a lady who makes candles, and a lady who weaves stuff with a giant loom
* performances by the Civil War era band - complete with Civil War period uniforms AND instruments (Union uniforms on Saturday, Confederate on Sunday)
* strolling Victorian-era musicians and entertainers
* performace by the town's country band, The Modern Cowboyz
* a dress-up-your-scarecrow contest
* pony rides
* lots of tractors
* a HUGE craft market, with any kind of handmade chachky you could ever imagine
* tours of the C.H. Moore Homestead, a Victorian mansion turned museum
* the town Antique Mall is tangentially involved, so you can also get any old goodie you'd like
fall into fall, part 1
Fall is definitely here... it's premiere week on TV. Really, Thursday night is the only night of the week I really care about (although I hear that Gossip Girl is really good, so I may start caring about Wednesdays too). So tonight we're having a wine party to watch all the shows. Here's the line-up:
1. At 9pm we'll of course be watching Grey's Anatomy. I didn't watch last week's rerun of the season finale, so I'm a little rusty on all the particulars they'll be jumping back into, but from what I do remember it should be pretty great. Plus, I'm pretty much convinced that Patrick Dempsey is literally the most attractive man I've ever seen.
2. At 10pm we'll be watching the series premiere of Big Shots. I really just want to watch this show because one of the main characters is played by Michael Vartan, who hasn't done much since coming off of an incredible 5 year stint as Agent Vaughan on Alias. You may also remember him as the adorable Mr. Sam Coulson from Never Been Kissed.
3. At 11pm we'll round out the night by viewing The Office, which will have been TiVo'd from earlier in the evening. Incidentally, everyone I know refers to this amazing technology as TiVo, but I don't think I know anyone who actually has TiVo...everyone has DVR. Anyway, this is an amazingly hysterical show, and should be a great cap to the evening.
Welcome fall!
getting cultured
This fall I've added two new culturally-enriching additions to my schedule: World Wednesdays & Astoria Around the World.
World Wednesdays is something my roommate Faith and I have started doing. We're making our way through
The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World. This book lists every country in alphabetical order, and comes complete with pictures and lists of major cities, common experiences, cultural highlights, etc. Also included for each country is a song to listen to, a book to read, and a movie to watch in order to really get a good feel for that particular country. So, Faith and I are making our way through the book by watching the recommended movie for each nation. We've got Afghanistan (we took a culturally appropriate -sort of- pic for this one) and Albania under our belts. Next up is Algeria.
Astoria Around the World, on the other hand, is a monthly dinner group comprised of 8-10 friends who all live in this same little corner of New York City. Each month we pick a different country as the theme for our dinner party. Everyone brings a dish typical of that country, and dressing as a local is encouraged. We kicked it off with Caribbean night, which included jerk chicken, coconut rice, coconut chicken with mango sauce, a banana-mango crumble, and pina coladas, among other things. Last night was French night. The French flag was waving proudly above a delectable spread of bread, cheese, and wine, of course, as well as herb-ricotta chicken, lentil soup, mussels in champagne sauce, and crepes. It was soooo good.
I can't wait until German night next month!! If you have any good German recipes, send them my way.
It's a sad, dark, rainy day in the city today
which is appropriate.
great day to be a sports fan
This is one of the best sports days in recent memory. Right now I'm clicking back and forth between:
(1) the Chicago Bears opening game against San Diego. So far they're looking pretty good... hopefully they'll get back to the Superbowl!! (Side question - why is the SEC champion and Superbowl team playing a season opener on the road??!)
(2) the US Open Finals. Roger Federer is playing Novak Djokovic. The first set was really exciting and went right down to the wire, and so far the second set is also turning out to be quite competitive. Federer is looking reeaaally good in his all black "tuxedo" outfit. Some friends are I have decided that he is definitly the McDreamy of tennis (aka McTennis).
(3) the BMW Champtionship of PGA Golf. Things have been pretty tight at the top of the leaderboard, but it looks like Tiger is going to pull ahead and come out with the victory.
What a great Sunday afternoon! Now that I'm home and watching all of this, I don't even care that I had to go into work for 3 hours earlier today. Man, I'm SO GLAD I'm a sports fan... life is just more fun that way.
Cop Rock
A couple of days ago I became aware of a very short-lived television show from 1990 called "Cop Rock." Since then, I've been obsessed with getting my hands on it. This has proven difficult, however, because it's never been released on DVD, isn't available for sale in any of the places I've looked, and isn't available on Netflix or Blockbuster Online.
The premise of the show is unbelievable. Steven Bocho (Hillstreet Blues, L.A. Law) boldly attempted to create an entirely new programming genre... the hour long drama musical. Apparently half of the critics thought it was a brilliant cutting-edge idea, and the other half laughed it off as the joke of the century. Anyway, it's a serious police show with gritty stories and real-life subject matter, but each episode includes 5 song/dance numbers. Here's a brief summary of the songs in the first episode, courtesy of imdb.com:
..."first episode alone included a rap song delivered by junkies as they're being arrested in a drug raid, a gospel number by a judge and jury convicting a drug dealer, a tender pop ballad by a husband about his much younger wife, and an R&B number by a corrupt lady mayor to the man who's just offered her a bribe. But the most powerful number came at the end of the episode. A young junkie sits on a bus stop bench singing a lullaby to her infant daughter, a haunting Randy Newman song called "Sandman" (later re-used in Newman's Faust). As she finishes the song, a station wagon pulls up, a man gets out and pays her $200 for the baby. As he drives away with the baby, the junkie finishes the lullaby and breaks down in tears as the music quietly ends and the camera pulls away. It was devastating. And it was brilliant drama."
How awesome does that sound??? I've GOT to see this show. It only lasted for 11 episodes, but occasionally the whole series runs on VH1 or on Trio. Since it doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere, guess I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled on these two networks. If anyone reading this has actually seen "Cop Rock," please let me know what you think of it!
