A Monument to an Arbitrary Milestone

Blogger says this is my 100th post (but it's sorta wrong because it includes all my drafts that are eternal works in progress). Let's commemorate this occasion with a picture of a pile of rocks.


Thrilling, no? We started stripping what sod we have and turning soil for a quarter of one of our four garden plots. So Saturday afternoon's labor resulted in 1/16 of our future garden area. The progress was slow thanks to several additions to our future waterfall stonework, as seen in the above photo. And so the pile grows... I confess that really it was all M's doing. I did a great job wandering around barefoot and distracting him when I wasn't in the garage painting a bookshelf.

That's Just How Scott Rolls...

We've spent 4 of the last 6 days celebrating Upchuck Festival 2008, on and off. It seems to be over (knock on wood), but you never can tell. Scott seems to like to keep you guessing with his intestinal upset. I can't decide if once a day for a week is better or worse than one miserable day. I think I'd be going much more crazy not getting to go anywhere if it weren't for the fact that my allergies have turned into a sinus infection. I really wish someone would help me pull this knife out of my face. Oh wait, it's just my sinus pain... So yah, I don't really have anything funny, let alone happy, to say do I?

I Love Lying to Myself

I was inspired by RA's latest post to echo my long time love of this particular oatmeal cookie recipe. It was even part of my recent cooking surge inspired by my new kitchen island. I don't need to give you the recipe as it's already in the link above, but I will tell you that these cookies are fabulous. A little crispy on the outside, but so soft and chewy on the inside! The recipe is for oatmeal raisin cookies, but in our house, raisins in cookies are considered a cruel hoax. They look like chocolate chips and string you along right up until you take a bite and discover the horrible truth. So we omit the nutmeg and substitute chocolate chips for raisins. There's enough oats in these cookies that you can even pretend that they're a little bit healthy! They're "hearty" enough that I'm occasionally tempted to make them my lunch. Also, keep in mind that they're designed to be huge. Observe how they dwarf Claire's hands:

So it's great because I can say, "I'm just going to have one cookie."

Anyway, the info I really want to impart here is a cookie dough rolling technique that I learned from one of the America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated Magazine cookbooks. How do you find the compromise between the cohesiveness and uniform density of the rolled cookie dough ball and the interesting cragginess of the dropped cookie?

Shaping Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1.Creating a jagged surface on each dough ball gives the finished cookies an attractive appearance. Start by rolling a scant 1/4 cup (or however much you're using) of dough into a smooth ball.

2. Holding the dough ball in the fingertips of both hands, pull the dough apart into two equal halves.

3. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other. Rotate each piece 90 degrees so that the jagged surfaces face up.

4. Jam the halves back together into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged.

So go ahead! Go have yourself just one cookie that's full of healthy oats...

My Own Island

If I can't have my very own tropical isle, this is definitely the next best thing. Christmas morning I came down stairs to this:

M spearheaded this group gift and managed to almost completely surprise me. He even wrapped a decoy gift for under the tree. He stored the flat pack (IKEA, of course) in the neighbors garage. Then sometime on Christmas Eve my brother in law went and got it from them and put it in the side yard under the pretense of taking a cell phone call in the backyard. My dad almost spoiled it when he mentioned something about assembling something kitchen related. Fortunately, I am dense and I just thought he meant maybe we should go get the island I've been wanting from IKEA as something to all do together. But it did make me a little suspicious that maybe, just maybe, there was something going on that I didn't know about. Then bedtime rolled around and I figured I was wrong since I'd seen no sign of anything and M was headed to bed with me.

Turns out M laid there until I fell asleep, then got back up and snuck downstairs where he and my family all assembled my island for me. Aren't they awesome? In the few short weeks we've had it, I've reached the point where I can't figure out how we lived without it. It is the official dedicated food preparation surface. (This is important when you're bad about taking care of dirty dishes!) There was such a void in my life/my kitchen (practically the same thing, right?) and now it has been filled. I no longer have to trek over to the fridge, balance all my ingredients in my arms or set them on the floor because there's nowhere to set them down, then haul them all back to the counter (usually in several trips)! The island is right there, bridging the gap between food storage and cooking. Now I can declare that I like my house without reservation. This new found joy in a previously sub-par kitchen has inspired a lot of cooking. Brace yourselves for more info than you want about my culinary exploits...

Movie Review: Pride and Predjudice

You know how there were a few classes in college you just loved? The ones that had nothing to do with your major but you couldn't help but get an A in because you couldn't stop working on them? Well one of mine was Intro to Film. I am a special sucker for good cinematography and editing. You'll see what I mean. Here we go.


Pride and Prejudice (2005) (i.e. the good one) - 12/13 stars

This movie has it's faults of course. Kiera Knightly is too pretty to play Lizzie but the makers couldn't find any other big name actresses that had the spunk and moxie to play the part. Darcy probably doesn't quite come across as proud enough. G swears that Collins and Mrs. Bennett were better in the Super-sized version.

This version however is fabulous. There are lots of good things but like I said I'm a sucker for cinematography and editing and that is where this movie shines. I cannot believe the director and cinematographer have done effectively nothing else.

This movie has wonderful long takes. A long take is a shot that goes uncut for significantly longer than normal. Long takes require the actors to get the whole thing right in one go, so they aren't used much. There are two long takes that jump out at you. One at the beginning tracking Lizzie through the field then through the house and another following Lizzie through the ballroom. If you watch closely you'll notice there are probably hidden cuts where Lizzie walks behind things (sheet in the opening and pillar in the ball scene) but nevertheless they are well done and let the audience take in a great deal about the family without much dialog (necessary when cutting a 5 1/2 hour movie down to 2). The same technique is used (although I believe serious use of green screen was involved) when panning through the windows the night after Mr. Bingley proposes.

This movie also makes great use of abrupt zooms. I am not a cameraman but I assume these are fairly difficult but they do it well. For example, when Mr. Collins proposes to Lizzie and she abruptly stands up the camera cuts to Lizzie and quickly zooms in on her face creating a very disorienting feeling, which is how Lizzie feels at the moment. You see it again when Darcy bursts in on Lizzy at Mr. Collins' house.

The scene where Darcy is riding away on horseback after delivering his letter to Lizzie is no more than 20 seconds long but incredible. Somehow they found a section of forest with a road next to it they could drive a camera truck down AND that had a parallel path a few yards in straight enough for a horse to gallop on. Then they managed to light and frame the shot so that even outside of the context of the film it is patently obvious that the rider is running away from something rather than towards it by making it appear as if the left edge of the frame is constantly about to catch the rider.

When Lizzie is touring Pemberley she stops to look at the statues. She stands for a while in front of "A Veiled Vestal Virgin" whose true face can't be seen and/or who can't see clearly, and then turns to gaze upon Achilles. Could there be a more poignant visual representation of Lizzie realizing where she and Darcy stand? Possibly, and if so I would really like to see it.

Lizzie spinning on the swing watching the seasons go by is another fabulous way to portray the boring slow passage of time without actually boring the audience with the slow passage of time.

I could go on forever but that would be boring and rather disappointing when reading a review of a movie that manages to avoid that at all costs. Suffice it to say this is one of the better movies I have watched in years. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you have, you should see it again.