weary as water

Book 11: Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History

The 52-in-52 book challenge is going great, despite my best efforts to keep busy with other things (see: learning japanese, moving to a frickin fantastic apartment). Em & I took a road trip up to Chattanooga to see Ani Difranco & Erin McKeown in a tiny venue, and I brought along my nook. Much to Emily’s dismay, I could hardly put this book down.

I first read about this diamond heist in a Wired article*, and when I saw the ebook on sale at barnes & noble, I had to read it. The story is fascinating, and this “true crime” book is really well written. It tells the story of the “biggest diamond heist in history”, masterminded by Leonardo Notarbartolo. The book never slows, and is filled with interesting tidbits about the diamond industry and history.

336 pages
5/5

*Flawless-the-book calls out the Wired article as being mostly made up by Notarbartolo, so it could be made into a movie, and he would have some legitimate income behind which to hide his robbery profits.

reservations…

I am so glad to be finished making reservations for Japan! We are staying in some neat places, all relatively cheap. I thought a month and a half would be plenty of time in advance to make lodging reservations, but apparently the Japanese like to plan ahead. (Oh yeah, and spring is prime tourist season). Anyway…plane tickets are booked, nightly lodgings have been secured, now all I have to do is show up!

weekend cooking adventures: how to roast a chicken and then make chicken stock

I decided not to post a picture of this week’s vegbox, because it looks pretty much like last week’s vegbox. Cabbage + carrots + parsnips + turnips + salad greens + broccoli + sweet potatoes + tangerines. I have no idea what to do with this much cabbage…am going to try roasting it tomorrow. I’ve been a little under the weather (ok, a lot under the weather…I even stayed home sick from work last week), and I’ve been craving chicken soup. So yesterday Emily picked up a whole chicken from the store, and today we had roast chicken for lunch.

Roast chicken is so frickin easy to make. Seriously. Four steps.

1. Preheat the oven to 400
2. Rinse off the chicken & pat dry with paper towels.
3. Sprinkle generously inside & out with sea salt.
4. Put in dutch oven (or roasting pan) and roast for 1 hour 15 minutes, or so.

If you’re feeling fancy, chop up an onion & potato and put them in the bottom of the dutch oven. If you’re feeling EXTRA fancy, poke a bunch of holes in a lemon and put it inside of the chicken before roasting.

The real reason for making roast chicken (besides delicious juicy chicken) is making AMAZING chicken stock. This is also very simple.

1. Get most of the meat off the chicken bones.
2. Put the chicken bones in a crockpot.
3. Chop up any/all of the following and add to the crockpot: onion, carrots, celery, turnips, parsnips, sweet potatoes, herbs
4. Fill up crockpot with water.
5. Turn on crockpot to low, let the magic happen overnight
6. Strain through cheesecloth.

This magic is happening AS WE SPEAK in the kitchen, and it smells amazing. Tomorrow I’ll strain the broth, then saute an onion & some carrots, add the chicken, and voila, delicious chicken soup!

Book 10: Day by Elie Wiesel

“Love is a question mark, not an exclamation point”.

“Day” is the last book in the Night/Dusk/Day trilogy by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. I found it rambling and not as emotional as the first two. Maybe that was the point, as this book was supposed to characterize the struggle that Holocaust survivors have in living their lives, while constantly remembering the past.

109 pages
3/5

Book 9: The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

A well-written look at the Iraq war, by a reporter who spent a year embedded with army infantry battalion 2-16. I’ve been an opponent of the war(s) since before it they started, but having a brother in the military makes me a little more compassionate towards the people who fight our Leaders Battles. There’s a lot of compassion in this book, for soldiers who lost gave their lives, limbs, and sanity for the Leaders Battles. There’s even a little compassion for the Iraqi people, which made this wacko liberal’s heart go pitterpatter. But mostly reading this book made me realize how hopeless this war is, in the eyes of the people who oppose it, and those who are fighting it.

304 pages
5/5

snow day!

Last Friday there was snow in all 50 states…including Alabama. The ensuing panic caused my workplace to close at 2pm on Friday, and I spent the rest of the day playing in the snow.

As soon as I got home, I grabbed Emily and the lid of a Rubbermaid container, and headed to the park. Partial sledding frenzy ensued. We got back to the house just in time for Whitney to call, did we want to go sledding? YES! So back to the park, Rubbermaid lid in hand. Afterwards we had a little snow cream (with bailey’s). It was one of the best times I’ve had in weeks…I guess the snow brings out the kid in me.

Book 8: Under the Dome by Stephen King

I’ve never been a huge fan of Stephen King – he’s always been a bit too perverted for my tastes. But somewhere in my little brain I thought it would be a good idea to read his new book, “Under The Dome”. This thing is a monster – over a thousand pages long – and for the most part the story is pretty good (if you exclude the gang-raping and multiple instances of just plain old raping). That is, for 1059 pages the story is pretty good. After that, I was severely disappointed.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT (but you’d be better off reading it, and not wasting your time with the book)
Read the rest of this entry »

Baking Bread

I have found the secret to making delicious bread. Get your water really hot (not boiling, though), and then sprinkle the yeast overtop. Let sit for about 10 minutes. Then add honey & butter. Then add pre-mixed dry ingredients.

I make my dough in the bread machine, then after it rises for a while I take it out of the breadmaker, put it in a pam-sprayed pan, and let it rise some more. Bake 20-25 minutes at 400F.

• 1.25 cups of water
• 2.5 tsp bread machine yeast (or 2 tsp SAF yeast)
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into little pieces
• 3 cups flour
• 2 Tablespoons nonfat dry milk
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt

vegbox #2

This week there was a little screwup with the vegbox – apparantly there is a new delivery guy, and he likes to play “hide the veg box”. But, after a completely frustrating phone call with the GrowAlabama folks (in which they promised to do absolutely nothing and basically called me a liar), Emily “The Best Finder In The World” opened the closet door named “gymnasium” and found the box. Hallelujah!

This week we have:

• broccoli
• potatoes
• tangerines
• cabbage
• spinach!
• carrots
• one lonely parsnip
• (plus, the leftover zucchini from last week).

Book 7: The Complete Persepolis

Book #7 is “The Complete Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi. I first ran across this autobiographical “coming of age in Iran” story via the animated film Persepolis (slyt) – and was so taken by the film I decided to read the graphic novel. Even though I knew the major plot points from the film, the book was fascinating. I know very little about the Iranian cultural revolution, and it was neat to read about it in an autobiographical comic book. (Another great autobiographical comic book is Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – although without the political and historical overtones.)

352 pages
4/5