We had an odd start to the week when we heard Margot at the front door meowing and acting up over something on Sunday morning. We correctly assumed she was showing off for her boyfriend, Oliver, the neighborhood cat, on the other side of the door. We've redubbed him Roger Miller for his king-of-the-road swagger and size, but he's really a sweet guy who seems to live outside and visits our front porch on a weekly basis. But when Joel got a closer look at Roger/Oliver, he saw blood coming down his face, as though he got in a pretty bad fight. We've never really known who Roger's owner is, so Joel started knocking on doors. After a long, complicated tracking down of the owner, who was driving home from Tacoma, and dozens of text messages between Roger's assorted housemates, Roger was successfully transported home for the owner to deal with. Joel got a text message the other day with an update that the old brawler is on the mend and unhappily quarantined in his house. I hope he's back on the road soon.
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| A warm chunky sweater in the works |
Reads
I finished On Such a Full Sea: 4 out of 5 stars. It was a beautifully written, challenging read. Kind of dystopian, kind of just another version of our current world, with an unsettling feeling of disconnection. Apparently for fans of Never Let Me Go.
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| Blue bathwater brought to you by Dresdner Essenz |
I then started on a classic I've never read: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. I can't wait to see how McMurphy gets Nurse Ratched.
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| Saturday afternoon hike for hot chocolate and waffle |
TV
We finished Dark - but in kind of a funny way. Turns out after we watched episode 7 (of 10), we turned our TV off but apparently our Amazon Firestick kept playing. When we went to watch it the next night, we watched the final episode entirely before realizing we were missing some major plot points. The show jumps in time so much that it was easy to just assume we would be filled in on details at some point. So we watched 10, then 8 and 9. I actually kind of like how it worked out.
We've been so wrapped up with shows on Netflix and Prime that we realized we're majorly behind on network TV, namely season 30 of The Amazing Race, which started a few weeks ago and we're now catching up on. We have watched this show for a decade and still love it. Best part so far: they went to Antwerp in the second episode, where teams raced around this statue dressed in fry costumes in a dramatic and hilarious finish.
Listens
I have been catching up on the Belle & Sebastian catalogue this week after a long break. Primarily the album "Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance." This song has been on repeat (and the video is a fun study).
Movies
I, Tonya. I haven't enjoyed a movie quite this much in a long time. Allison Janney's performance was incredible; Margot Robbie gave a sympathetic and darkly humorous portrayal of Tonya Harding. I relived my own memories of The Incident, the news coverage, and how I felt, at age 12, about Tonya Harding, and I feel a bit guilty. It's an ugly reflection on all of us who look for good guys and bad guys in news stories while never having the full, complicated picture. I hope Harding felt some redemption through this.
And Atomic Blonde. Like I, Tonya, this had a fabulous 1980s soundtrack, though this one was more in the 99 Luftballoons realm as it was set in Berlin in November of 1989 (though it was not a story about the wall). I have a horrible time following these kinds of movies about spies, double agents and martial arts...so I'm still trying to figure out what happened.
Recipes
We lived off of Mama Leone's chicken soup for three days this week and didn't mind at all. I also experimented with bread, using a rich dough recipe from an old cookbook and modifying it to be a twisted loaf, filled with green onions, parsley and thyme. I kneaded it by hand. I've used the dough hook on my machine for pretty much all of that and had forgotten how satisfying it is to work a wad of dough. It turned out strangely wonderful and made beautiful toast in the days that followed.
The other major highlight was a Thursday night feast of chicken Provencal that I did not make. Joel adapted a Cook's Illustrated recipe to employ our Instant Pot, which vastly sped up the process and put dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. It was all the flavors and colors of the rainbow - olives, saffron, orange, basil, tomatoes. Heaven.
Cookie of the week
This week brought us Kamish. These are what Dorie describes as the Eastern European version of biscotti, also classified as mandelbrot. Sprinkled with cinnamon and coconut, they are quite tasty, crumbly (thanks to the big chunks of almonds) and perfect for dunking.
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| Sliced for the second bake |
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| Sprinkled with cinnamon, sugar and coconut - pre-oven |
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