Green Eggs & Ham

I know. I’m *always* talking about the time flying by but come on. Another Wednesday roundup? In the middle of August, no less?

Come the f-ck on.

When I look back on the last month or so, I’m hard pressed to account for even the smallest fraction of time because it has gone by in a blink…so this inventory of what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, cooking/eating, etc. should help me reconcile a few things. Operative word being “should.”

So let’s get to it.

On the Kindle…

I overloaded my Kindle a while back, so I’ve committed to getting that cleaned up. I have to get back to the Taylor Swift biz book and the Matthew McConaughey autobiography…just not now. Those are hard copy location books (home office and living room respectively) and I’ve been spending most of my free time outside, reading fiction, namely (and yes, *only* three books because one of them was realllly long):

• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. It was fine but I’ve honestly no idea what all the fuss was about. You know I love my mom so much…so of course we talk about books. When I said my piece about this one she replied, with a dismissive wave of her hand and without missing a beat, “It was like all the best sellers so far this year—left me flat.” 🤣🤣🤣 But I hear her. What was all the fuss about?

• Started and finished One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Definitely a beach read that felt like it shared some similarity with Maybe In Another Life, to the point where I felt like maybe I had already read it. (I hadn’t.) Her early work (of which this is one, her 4th novel) is a little too tidy and predictable, and it bothers me when she says “so-and-so and I” when it should be “and me” but I nitpick, I know…probably because I feel a book trapped inside me, rightly or wrongly, and I simmer with envy at the people who actually get the stories out. Ugh. Sigh.

• After finishing that easy read, palate suitably cleansed, I made a commitment to a book I had been putting off for a while, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I started and stopped a few times, couldn’t get going with it, but my Mom and niece-in-law were putting the screws to me to just get after it, and so I finally did. I gave myself a good chunk of focused time to get into a rhythm with it…and did I ever. It was 560 pages of I-don’t-even-know-what. A gut-wrenching emotional rollercoaster ride from start to finish. A while back I read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain about the manufactured opioid crisis and it was infuriating. All of this addiction and death, fueled by greed. So many people had no choice or means to be anything other than servants in this evil empire, and this book tells that story in a gripping and multi-dimensional way, with interrelated plot lines and all kinds of personal outcomes that I’m pretty sure accurately reflect real life. Demon was a frustratingly lovable character, Angus was one of my fave fictional characters that I can remember, and Fast Forward could see something special when he nicknamed Demon “Diamond.” That said:

  • The egomaniacal money-grubbing ways of the world needlessly harm a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about opioid addiction here.

    • It’s infuriating that people in power wield that power in a number of ways, and so many in society are powerless to stop in, so they drink it in—because it tricks them into thinking they have power. They are blind to the fact that they are mere pawns, without a lick of leverage let alone any meaningful power.

    • I wasn’t a Hayden Panettiere fan by any means, but who doesn’t love her football-obsessed character in Remember the Titans? Even so, I also saw her performance in the show Nashville when it first ran, on account of this Connie Britton *thing* I’ve had since she played Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights. Anyway, Hayden’s death this week after a suspected overdose that followed a troubled life is another sad case in point about the money-grubbing ways of the world. It’s so sad when people soar so high and fall to their deaths through little fault of their own. I think this is one of those cases and I hope she’s found peace, though in the worst way possible.

  • Side note: if you haven’t read any of Patrick Radden Keefe’s stuff, I recommend it highly. His latest book (best-selling, so I’ll have to ask my mom whether it too left her flat 🤣) is on hold, waiting for me to finish up the current Kindle housekeeping. I can’t wait to read it.

    

• I decided that next up is The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel. I was choosing between that and Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye but went with the former based on slightly higher Goodreads and Amazon ratings. It was either that or flip a coin, but the fact that it got higher ratings on both settled the debate. But first I need to take a breath to process Demon’s story, so stay tuned.

On the telly…

Like most people, when we look to find a movie on any one of the multiple streaming services we subscribe to, by the time we find a few contenders, it’s too late to start watching. But recently we had a bit of luck as we had a few on our list that we went straight to without debate.

• We watched The Devil Wears Prada double-feature a few weekends ago. The cast did not seem to age over the 20 years between the first and second films, and some even look better. Yet somehow I managed to age at least 10 years in the 24 hours between watching the first and the second installment. And I wish I were kidding about that. I’m at the age where every day I age, literally and physically. The only big change I noticed in DWP2 was in Meryl Streep. Did she get veneers or—gasp!—dentures? Anyhow, I enjoyed the first as much as I had when I initially saw it and the second was a fun follow up. Bottom line for me after watching? So glad I don’t work—merely watching the BS of office life gives me a mild bit of PTSD. 🤦🏼‍♀️

• When I saw that Heartstopper Forever was out on Netflix, we just *had* to see how Charlie and Nick’s story ends, in the sense of this being the last installment for the kids. So we did. We had watched the whole three-season series, which I’ve mentioned here (S1), here (S2), and here (S3). S1 was a breath of sweet fresh air, S2 was bumpy but satisfying, and S3 was pretty grim. (At the time I said the show needed to end.) The movie, though, was redemption. Despite them rushing through a few parts of the story and too nicely tying up some loose ends, they did a good job, getting me to a point where I am comfortable imagining where Charlie and Nick and the crew go from here—and that’s the way it should be. (Plus, the series soundtrack is a fun listen and I’m noting it here as I don’t plan to go into details on it in the listening section.)

Of course, “reality” programming still has a time and place in the lineup:

• I’m watching the trainwreck of TV that is Season 2 of NextGen NYC. There are three new characters this season, one of whom is the child of a friend of one of my college friends. Needless to say, looking for my friend and their kids in the background has added an element of fun to the viewing. That’s a good thing because it’s the only element of fun about it. (And yes, I have spotted my friend and their daughter, though their son proves elusive. Now I wait to see if in S3 any of them are “named” friends v. background players. 🤣🤣🤣)

• I mentioned last week that I’m following but not fully watching the Lindsay Clancy trial. Not much new to add here, except some shock at seeing so much overlap between state witnesses here as in the infamous Karen Read trial, notably State Police lab woman, the controversial Cellebrite “expert”, and the tattooed Medical Examiner (“tattooed” only noted because the wild way her sleeve clashed with her sleeve). 🤣 Additionally, the defense called a foresnsic pathologist who testified for the defense in the Read trial. Small world, crazy stuff. There’s no good outcome in this, but there is accountability to be had. By whom and for what is TBD, but now that the defense is presenting their case, we might get a bit more insight. The prosecution did not present a remotely convincing case of anything, let alone that she was of sound mind.

  

And of course, I’m watching sports.

• Since everyone watches women’s sports now, there are plenty of WNBA games to choose from, which is fun. Saw an exciting Fever v Dream OT game Sunday (Fever FTW) followed by a very close Mercury v Fire game (Fire squeaked it out in regulation) and it’s been great watching the league finally start to take hold. There’s still more controversy surrounding the league as I would like (and I believe in a men’s league these topics wouldn’t come up), I think the league needs new leadership, I’m bummed the CT Sun didn’t relocate to Boston, but I love that the games are all over the TV.

• The struggling-surging-struggling-surging Red Sox are still all over the road, losing more than winning over the last 10 or 12 games (give or take) but I’m all in, as I always am. You can’t count this team out. They were losing 4-3 in the 3rd last night when we were driving home from pickleball and Kerri said that there was plenty of game left—and weren’t they ahead 5-4 when we got home. This team battles back. Big wins the last two nights, 10 games over .500. Imagine that? Dirty water, baby.

• On weekends, and I’m pretty sure I mentioned this before, we often have golf on TV in the background. It just relaxes me—the pretty views, the quiet voices…all of it. Go figure.

And, in a bit of a twist, I’ve started watching The Family Guy. This is one of Kerri’s go-to shows when she can’t fall asleep but doesn’t want to get sucked in so she has a chance of dozing off. For me that show was Friends, but that doesn’t seem to be on at bedtime anymore. Anyhow I started paying attention when she had it on and found myself laughing out loud—a lot. And Lois could be on The Real Housewives of RI. Not kidding. Brilliant stuff.

Coming through the speakers…

Before I get into it, let me loop back to something that I saw when I was looking at the old Heartstopper posts. I created a playlist of favorite songs of yours a while back, and the way it worked was straightforward: I asked you to submit your fave song, I put them on a playlist, and then I write about what I think about when I think about your song. If you haven’t sent a song and want to, please do. And if you don’t, that’s cool. The playlist is rock solid as is.

Anyhow, I’ve been listening to a few of my own playlists, by request of some recent houseguests:

• When my sis and bro-in-law came for dinner, he requested Quarantine Songs. This is a playlist I put together in the pandemic days and he likes the music but also likes trying to guess what I was thinking when I put the songs on. I can still remember why I chose most of them, and it’s a fun listen. But of course I’d say that. It’s my playlist. 🤣

• When my niece was here for sunning, swimming, and lunch, we put on the playlist from her college grad party. She was too busy socializing to really listen to it, so we popped that on and had fun listening. My aunt even commented on it, noting that she liked that there was something for everyone on it. The ultimate party playlist compliment.

And nothing made me happier than getting a text from a friend saying they were listening to the grad party playlist (because I mentioned it here before), and they had a long car ride coming up and do I have any more playlists. Do I have any more playlists? Poor thing now has about 700 hours’ worth of playlists to link to. 🤣🤣🤣

I’ve mentioned going to a local record store, Inclusion Records, and the last time I went a week or so ago, it was a total fever dream. Here’s what I picked up:

• Jackson Browne, Late For the Sky. Two of my fave JB songs are on this one, the title track and “After the Deluge,” and listening to the whole album was sheer bliss.

• Grateful Dead, Skeletons From the Closet. I already have American Beauty so this kind of scratches my Dead itch, for the most part.

• Alison Moyet, Raindancing. This one might seem random or WTF? to many of you, but some of you hardcore 80s music junkies will remember her debut album after Yaz split. I was in Reading, England for over a month visiting my sis (she did jurnior year abroad, I was in between sophomore year and summer job) and the song “Ordinary Girl” was playing everywhere over there. Brought the cassette home as a souvenir and we listened all summer. So when I saw this album in the rack, I may have shrieked. Best $6 I’ve spent in a while. Listening took me right back, though when she sang this line in “When I Say” it made me laugh: “just give me back my negatives and I won’t tell your wife about last night.” If I were 20 and hearing that song for the first time today, I wouldn’t get it. 😂😂😂

• ’Til Tuesday, Welcome Home. They also had Love in a Vacuum but I passed on that because as much as I like the title track and “Voices Carry,” it wasn’t one of *my* albums. Welcome Home, on the other hand, is one of the all-time greats and “Coming Up Close” is one of my all-time favorite songs. That said, if they had had Everything’s Different Now, I would have bought it without a thought. Anyhow, listening to that was the best kind of time traveling. Aimee Mann’s voice is 👩🏼‍🍳’s 😘, and “David Denies” and “Have Mercy” are brilliant. The whole album is 🔥. here cheers for their New Year’s Eve concert at The Paradise on Comm Ave., 1989 into 1990. Good times.

• U2, War. Wouldn’t have been my first choice for a U2 album to add to my growing collection but how do you resist that boy’s face? Plus, it is a great album, no questions asked. And speaking of U2, Bono caught some shit for not singing at Glen Hansard’s funeral, despite the rumor being the family requested he read certain lyrics. And I’ll tell you this: in this context “Beautiful Day” was better spoken than sung, and beyond that it emphasized the exquisite lyricism of the song.

  

  

My obsession with the Mumford & Sons Prizefighter album has not quieted down at all, and I’m not sure a day goes by that I don’t listen to it. A few things to note this week:

• When I saw that Marcus was on the latest Smartless podcast, I listened while I walked. I’m not a big podcast person, but I do enjoy Smartless on occasion. During that conversation, they mentioned a number of artists, and I saved them to Spotify so I could dabble with them when I have time. In case you’re interested:

  • Laura Marling (he played drums for her when he dropped out of college)

  • Dove Ellis

  • Westside Cowboy (Will Arnett called them out)

  • Divorce, with whom Marcus sings on the track “Antarctica”

• Not everyone likes Mumford like I do, and I didn’t get it. Until I listened to the podcast. Marcus said his wife didn’t like their live shows that much, finding the band a bit “shouty.” And that was my aha moment. They are a bit shouty, so I get it…but I also get right past it, because for me the lyrics combined with the shoutiness is the right level of emotional engagement for me, because I’m lose myself in this music. All that said, “Babel” is shouty both live and recorded. Doesn’t make me love it any less but I guess that’s why some people don’t love them.

I briefly mentioned Dylan LeBlanc last time I was here on a Wednesday. I really liked his sound so I dug a little deeper, and on July 31 a new album by The Family, Delusions of Grandeur, was released—and it was love at first listen. The Family is a supergroup comprised of Dylan, his dad, his stepmom, and his stepbrother and this album was passed on for years by major labels. So they recently endeavored to put it out themselves, through Dylan’s brother-in-law’s Big Black Cow Records. When my friend tipped me off to this, I immediately went to the BBCR website and bought the vinyl. Can’t wait for it to arrive!

So, yeah, that turntable I got for Christmas really is the gift that keeps on giving. And perhaps the greatest gift of all came a few weeks ago when my mom was here for dinner, and the weather was such that cooking and eating outside was not feasible (more on that dinner later). She hadn’t even seen the turntable, so she was very interested in it. I put on John Denver and she was (I was too, TBH) in heaven. After dinner we listened to Anne Murray, and my mom was even more relaxed and content than usual. Listening on vinyl is, I imagine, like seeing one of the big animals in a natural habit on safari in Africa vs at the big zoo in some city. Needless to say, she loves it. When the weather brings us indoors on the regular, I’ll be sure to spin her something every time she’s here.

In other music news:

• “Superman” by REM is a cover? What? Yep. It is. Maybe it’s my fave cover of all time, then. The original by The Clique? 🤔 Not so much. Definitely sounds like a dime-a-dozen song of the late 60s. Which it was. 😂😂😂

• I listened to Gracie Abrams’ new album, Daughter From Hell, start to finish (what I’ve dubbed “vinyl style”). It was fine, but I won’t be buying said vinyl. Just didn’t set the hook in my lip. That said:

  • I like that she’s embraced her nepo-baby-ness but also that she does so with an asterisk—she acknowledges that her famous dad helped open doors, but she only got through them thanks to focus, commitment, and hard work. So there’s that. (Unlike this Stella Lefty chick who is co-opting our city to sell music, somehow made it on stage with Marcus Mumford, and whose parents apparently have a boatload of money to spend on making her famous. 🤢She’s not from the South or from Boston, which makes her hot, hit country-ish song doubly offensive.)

  • Gracie has some vibe overlap with TSwizzle, which is no surprise since Gracie opened for her for parts of the Eras tour…and it’s especially noticeable in “Minibar.” Not that that’s a bad thing.

  • Her song with Marcus Mumford (“What If It’s Right?”) is the 15th song, second-to-last on the album…so was it worth the wait? Meh. I like the song she sings with him on his album better (“Badlands”) because she’s more pronounced/they are more balanced on that one. You can barely hear him on her song.

I wish I knew how to use one of those DJ apps. I think there’s a big mashup opportunity between two songs I recently listened to, the Trampled by Turtles cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” and “Cowboy Take Me Away” by The (Dixie) Chicks. Any DJs out there? You’re welcome. 😂

On the plate and in the glass…

Let’s start by going back to the title of the post and talk about the green pasta. I mentioned this indoor dinner with mom when I was talking about listening to actual records with her. So when she comes for dinner I always menu plan thoughtfully, and attempt to try a new recipe that looks good to me that I think she’ll like. So a few weeks ago, because the weather did not look suitable for grilling, it was an easy call for me. I’d make the Creamy Cottage Cheese Basil Pasta, a 5-star recipe from NYT Cooking, over 2.5K reviews, with garden-fresh basil. Sounds delicious, right?

As I made the dish, it looked and smelled delicious. I served it and was gathering a few things in the kitchen before sitting down, as is customary. During this time, typically, my mom can’t wait to dive in and she’s saying “oh, honey…delicious,” before I’ve even sat down. But that day? Silence. Long story short, the dinner was not a hit. I loved it. Kerri did not but we weren’t expecting her to—she doesn’t like pesto. When I mentioned sharing the recipe with my sister my mom cut me off: “Don’t. I don’t know anyone who likes pesto.” Well, my sister does, and I know that, but needless to say I did not share the recipe. I served that with some bread that I’ll discuss in a bit, and some mixed (chocolate and salted caramel) chip cookie bars that were far more successful than the dinner. I didn’t clean up all the way at night because I was driving my mom home so I just soaked most of the dishes…and I will be honest the next morning when I came into the kitchen it did look like maybe someone had massacred Kermit the frog and his whole family…everything was green. And if this pasta could talk it would undoubtedly agree that it’s not easy being green.

You can’t win ’em all.

About that bread…

As you may know, I’ve been making sourdough bread lately. I made my fourth loaf and decided there was no need to discuss that here. But after that, things took a turn into experimental loaf territory, so I will talk about that:

• First, the bread I made for that dinner was something I decided to do that morning. I had no time for a standard bake so after a little research and a kitchen experiment to ensure my old yeast still had oomph (it did), I went with a sourdough discard honey loaf that doesn’t really have a formal name. Is it technically Honey Sourdough? No idea. In any case, it was delicious. A different texture and taste, more akin to a store-bought bread. My mom noted that she liked it better than my previous traditional loaves, as “sourdough has no taste.” Ouch.

  

• Next, in the spirit of continued culinary adventure and living off the land, I used two garden-fresh jalapeños to make a cheddar jalapeño sourdough. The mix-ins (diced peppers and shredded cheese) were a challenge, but eventually they got folded in enough. Baking it was another story.

  • After uncovering the dough and turning the oven down, I neglected to press start after entering the new temp. So when I went to check on it, I discovered the oven was off. Fortunately the bread temp was up to 180 so I turned the oven back on and waited for the internal bread temp to get to 210.

  • Unfortunately, when I was taking the temperature probe out something happened and the next thing I knew the plastic battery cover was in the back of the hot oven melting and the battery was lodged at the bottom of the door.

    • I flicked the battery out with a knife before it blew up.

    • After several hours of patience and elbow grease, the plastic was gone from the bottom of the oven.

    • Jesus H. Christ.

  • The bread itself was exquisite in all forms":

    • plain

    • For a sandwich, specifically the viral Katie Couric 5-ingredient tomato sandwich (bread, mayo on both pieces, garden-fresh tomato, salt, and pepper), which was heavenly

    • toasted with butter

    • toasted as part of a fried egg sandwich

    • as a base to a grilled cheese with garden fresh tomato sandwich (which my mom enjoyed very much; I have to claw my way back on to her “good cook” list after the pasta debacle).

  • The cooking process was stressful. But now we have a clean oven, a new thermometer, and several lessons learned. It’s all good.

    

    

• Last week’s experiment turned to a sweet loaf—cinnamon and sugar swirl sourdough. That was another matter altogether, as I had a bugger of a time keeping the butter/cinnamon/sugar mixture inside. The dough was a sloppy wet mess, but I did the best I could to get it shaped and proofing overnight. Getting it into the Dutch oven and scored the next morning was another messy scene, but as it cooked the house smelled great, so I was hopeful…and when the time came to eat it, well, I know I made it…but it was sooooo good.

  

• I’ve continued to use MS Copilot as my sous chef, albeit with mixed results. Note to self: do some actual research; AI is *not* all that.

• This week, I’m going back to basics: a regular tasteless (according to some 🤣) loaf. This concludes the sourdough chronicles…for now…until I step out with something crazy again.

Our new grill continues to be a joy.

• The first thing I cooked on our griddle insert for the new grill was chicken smashburgers, and since then, they have become part of our standard rotation, if not a bit of a fixation. I’ve made them three times since, and several people have noted they like them better than hamburgers. Even the guest who was exceptionally skeptical of a chicken burger with cheese (“I just don’t know what a chicken patty is”) was a convert. Additionally, they reheat perfectly in the microwave. Winner, winner, chicken smashburger dinner.

• I left the griddle in place so we could take advantage of it and the other day whipped up some griddled chicken fajita bowls.

• I’ll tell you, cooking on that thing is an absolute blast.

  • I love not having to worry about food falling through the grates.

  • And I also love, as in the case of the fajitas, how the chicken gets a nice crunch on the outside and then you can just dice it up into bite-sized pieces right there on the grill—not only is everything ready to eat, it’s easy to make sure it’s all cooked through but still juicy.

I feel like my drinking this summer has been kind of beer and wine boring, but:

• For alcoholic drinks

  • I got these Casamigos Margarita drinks as a hostess gift (so thoughtful when someone does that, right?). They are quite good, but a can is 200ml. That’s 6.76 ounces—which on a cold day is maybe four sips…and on a hot summer day about 2.5. Oy. I could drink the whole pack in an hour for crying out loud.

    

  • We ate out last week and I had a Hot & Dirty Martini, which was Tito’s, hot pepper juice, olive juice, and blue cheese olives. heaven in a glass.

  • I also broke out the kit and had one nice smoked old fashioned out back—so fun to make, and so nice to drink.

• For non-alcoholic sips

  • A new variety pack of Spindrift which includes Island Punch, Yuzu Mandarin, and Cherry). So good.

  • Iced honey lemon espresso, which I know sounds weird but is so refreshing. Hit me up if you want the “recipe.” My 22-year-old niece tried it and described it as something you’d get at a hipster coffee shop. I’m down to open one of those as long as we can have wine and cocktails and cheese and live music at night, the place where *everyone* comes to hang out. (There’s also this variation of the drink called mazagran which I tried the other day when I was so tired but couldn’t nap and I knew we hadn’t finished the whole pot of coffee in the morning, so I didn’t want to waste it. Also tasty..

    

  • For regular coffee when we were in Maine in June, we had some coffee that was very good, but that Kerri really loved. I brought some home for her and we used it up since, but I have some on order now so we can rotate it in with our Dunkin. Check out this Maine made women-driven company, Coffee By Design, if you’re looking for some fresh sips.

I know we can’t have lettuce, unless we want to risk explosive diarrhea of course, so I’ve been into bean and chopped salads. I recently made a chopped Greek salad hold the lettuce with homemade dressing. Nothing unusual about that except I realized that when I make dressing not from a recipe, I end up making triple what I need—a little more of this, a lot more of that, until I finally get the taste just right.

And other goings on…

I enjoyed a perfect beach day last Thursday with an old friend who is here part time. We were planning to leave the beach and meet their sis for drinks, but it was too nice to leave. So the sis changed course, grabbed some wine, cheese, and snacks, and we sat on the beach gabbing and soaking in every last second of golden hour. Perfection.

I’ve continued golfing since last I wrote, I think four times: twice at the usual 9-hole course in town, once in an annual 9-hole scramble tournament, and one 18-hole slugfest where I got my money’s worth. Took lots of shots but lost only 1 ball! Additionally, golfing requires golf clothes, and I’ve no interest in $85 shirts, thanks. So Kerri discovered some $15 shirts on Amazon that fit the bill. There’s no UPF and they’re not that breathable but the price is right and they look decent. I mean, I’ve gotten compliments. Bottom line, I’ve embraced the suck. I’ve accepted that sucking is the only path to decent, so I’m trying to have fun with it.

Speaking of fun, I hope you’re having fun with whatever you’re reading, watching, eating, drinking, or doing. I’m having fun here, and very much appreciate you spending this time with me.

Love you too.

But wait, there’s more. Closing thoughts:

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