Sunday Lunch: Risotto With Herbs

I make a lot of risotto lately, especially mushroom; it's something you can make without fresh ingredients that is nonetheless tasty. Today we had fresh basil & parsley and I made this variation:

Basil & Parsley Risotto

1/2 medium onion, minced
3/4 cup Arborio rice (I get mine from Trader Joe's, which has it for a good price)
splash white wine
2 1/2 cups chicken broth (Better Than Bouillon, because I never use a whole carton of broth before it goes bad. If you use this, add no extra salt.)
1/2 cup chopped fresh herbs
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook onion in a little olive oil over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Add rice and stir until rice is oily. Add wine; stir and let bubble away. Then add broth, 1/2 cup at a time, and allow it to almost get dry in between additions, stirring every minute or so. Cook 20-30 minutes or until rice is not quite tender. Add herbs, butter, and cheese.

More pix

Whole bunch of photos from the Switzerland trip on Flickr. I still need to tag them, but they go roughly Geneva - Zermatt/Matterhorn - Zurich - Interlaken.

Bad Sales Tactics

Steve and I are walking around the farmers' market. I beeline toward the mushroom table, where they are still setting up. We watch as a woman opens a box of commercially packaged mushrooms (the same brand you can buy at the grocery store) and transfers them to little baskets. She then pulls out a five-gallon plastic bag of another variety and starts doing the same with these.

"How much are these chanterelles?" I ask.

"Ten dollars. They're wild."

"Hmm. No thanks."

Also: the store with the hot mod shift dress? Closed itself for a private event just when I came back to show Steve the garment and order my size. Guess who lost a sale and guess who bought a sweater dress instead? I am very particular about giving commissions to the people who helped me find an item when I come back to purchase it later. Your loss, Andrea!

Questions

Maybe it's silly that I don't know the answer to these questions, but there it is.

- In last night's episode of The Office, a joke revolved around Andy's problem with nipple chafing from running. I have only ever heard guys complain about this. Why?

- What makes chicken and waffles a good pairing? Do you wrap the waffles around the chicken? Do you mop up syrup with the chicken?

Unconstitutional? Ya think?

Go Judge Lawson.

U.S. District Court Judge David M. Lawson struck down [Michigan's] Minor in Possession (MIP) law because it “authorizes police officers to perform a search of minors without a warrant or legal excuse for not obtaining one” in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. The decision does not apply to drivers of a motor vehicle and allows police officers to administer breath tests without warrants in emergencies.

Michigan is among a handful of states nationwide with an MIP law that makes it illegal for young adults and minors who are pedestrians to refuse a Breathalyzer test even though police do not have a search warrant. Those who refuse to take tests in Michigan are guilty of a civil infraction and must pay a $100 fine. In addition, police in some places — including Michigan State University — tell students that if they refuse to submit to a Breathalyzer upon demand that they could spend up to a dozen hours in jail.

(via)

Shopping Thoughts

1. I always forget to dress up to go to the mall, and then I get the cold shoulder from some of the staff. One of them directed me to the cheap section on the first floor and another tried to warn me off of a pair of "expensive" pants. Bleh. Maybe this is why women buy tacky, loud logo bags. The understated designer bag doesn't scream, "she has money to buy your stuff and spends it stupidly!" I got the pants and am having them tailored because of the problem in (2).
2. The money spent on the trainer last year was a good investment, considering the number of things I try on and then don't buy because the smallest size is still too big.
3. The difference between what's available at the store and what's available online is really infuriating. I'd prefer to get my Lucky Rewards discount, apply some random coupons from Google, and avoid sales tax, but neither the hot pointy-toed boots I liked from Nordstrom nor the mod shift dress* I found at Cusp were available online. This sweater, which was a dress on me, is, but I'm hesitant to buy something than you have to wear layers under (and to buy the XS, which they didn't have in-store but which is probably better fitting).

* Like this, but black. It has pockets! And a pink silk lining!

Children, Nudity, and Britney Spears

Commenters on my previous posts about public sex and nudity asked, "what about the children?" Slate made a half-hearted effort to determine the effects of kids seeing their parents naked. Two thoughts:

1. I have trouble taking seriously any article that unironically uses the words "Oedipal anxiety."
2. Children whose parents defy cultural norms may become uncomfortable once the dissonance between parental action and those norms becomes apparent? Who knew?
   

Dorothy No More

I really want to dress up for Halloween this year, but I need 1) a costume and 2) a costume party. The last time I went all-out was 1L year, and that is much too long ago. I thought about going as Margot Tenenbaum, but I might have to bleach my hair to get the right look. Ideas? Keep in mind I am trying not to be lame.

Bits and Pieces

Hating on Roth.

The proper response to fashion police.

Someone in Norway likes my paragliding post.

Against the feminization of cupcakes.

Best bowling tournament ever.

Literary Criticism

Hating on Brooklyn Books of Wonder.

Hating on Pynchon.

Hating on Harry Potter 7.

I read The Last Colony over the weekend. Verdict: meh. I won't hate on it, though.

(h/t Bookslut times two)

Fear of Flying

According to the pilot, I was more relaxed about my first paragliding experience than most people are. I told her that once you jumped off the hill into the air, it didn't seem like it would do much good to get upset about it.

I highly recommend this particular form of recreation.

Pot Effective in Treating Mad Cow Disease?

I love venison, but eating anything but imported stuff makes me nervous because American deer have freaky mad-cow-like prion diseases. Maybe we should give avid hunters medical marijuana.

God Monkey Robot

On another note

Interesting post on kissing technique. The video that sparked the conversation (fast-forward to the 2:00 mark) is worth checking out for tips on what not to do. One should not kiss like a snake strikes, but I disagree that one should just be still and let the tongue do the work all the time. For one thing, darting in and pulling away allows for surprising excursions to the ear or neck, nibbling, etc.

I hate D.C.

I lost my card case and am full of impotent rage. The cute silk case with the bunny pattern from Japan? Gone. SmartCard with $20? Gone. Collection of various business cards? Gone. Customer service for SmartCard and Metro? Useless.

Recent Comments Widget

Via Belle, a mechanism for monitoring recent comments on this site. I replaced the Recent Posts section with this. Let me know if anyone is upset by its removal.

Death doesn't make the incessant references to hair-pulling any more tolerable.

I am more than a little appalled at some of the reactions to Robert Jordan's death. He sounds like he was a very nice man, but some of the encomiums to the quality of his writing are a bit rich even by the standards of commentary about the recently deceased. But maybe I'm just bitter about the days of my high school life that I'll never get back that were wasted on books 1-7. The first spirited argument I had at college was with a guy in my honors history seminar on why The Eye of the World was derivative, sexist tripe. People here know that I will read practically anything in the fantasy genre, but even I could not slog my way through all 7,000+ pages of Jordan's opus.

Epic fantasy with entertwining plotlines and a huge cast of characters is great, but I do ask that said characters, even the women, have personalities, and that there be a plot that goes somewhere. If I wanted to read meandering wankage I could pick up Proust (kidding. sort of.).

Is this how lit fic readers generally feel when they hear genre fans talking about their favorite books?

Relatedly: the best, nerdiest post this week.

Book Review: Lies of Locke Lamora & Red Seas Under Red Skies

"Has it got any sports in it?"

"Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."

I've been talking up these books for a while now, but I wanted to write a double review and that had to wait for my completion of the second volume. So:

Here we have two installments of Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards sequence. You really must read The Lies of Locke Lamora first. It contains essential backstory, although even with plentiful use of flashback the reader is still left with tantalizing gaps in the characters' history. Without some grounding in Lynch's world, you will be lost, because the cast is large and the plots entwined.

Imagine if George R.R. Martin had written an entire series based on the criminal underworld of King's Landing. Picture as a protagonist a cross between MacGyver, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Parker. Imagine that every time Baldrick had a cunning plan it actually could work. These are books about scheming, lying, cheating thieves, and their schemes incidentally produce a certain amount of high adventure.

Settings range from convincingly filthy slums to soaring towers that may be the relic of a culture from the deep past or the far future (is this more Star Wars than Book of the New Sun? uncertain.). Characterizations are broad when appropriate but generally reflect a more nuanced psychology. In Locke Lamora we could have a generic Prince of Thieves, but Lynch imbues him with personality, history, and flair. He also avoids the general trap of permitting readers to grow too comfortable. Death, mayhem, unexpected reverses, and hollow victories abound.

The first book could exist as a stand-alone feature; most of the main plot threads are resolved by the novel's end, and we get some significant closure while preserving some uncertainty for the future. Red Seas Under Red Skies, by contrast, ends on something of a cliffhanger, and my emotional attachment to the characters is at war with my admiration for Lynch's nerve with respect to how I hope things shake out.

The only quibbles: sometimes the dialogue is pedestrian, although it's occasionally hilarious (who can argue, through a mouthful of broken teeth, with lines like "one plus one equals don't fuck with me"?) and there is NO MORE of this for a long time, since Red Seas was just released. Also, while one can entertain one's self with casting games* and imagining how some of the more dramatic scenes would play on screen, these books, I fear, are basically unfilmable; too much depends on intricate plots that would require substantial narration to explain or, as is perhaps more likely, a more intelligent audience than the average pack of adolescent boys which makes up the target audience for action-adventure movies.

Highly recommended for fantasy and adventure fans and for others who enjoy a good yarn.

* Locke really requires a young Clive Owen type, and perhaps Vincent Cassel might do as as the villain in Lies and Terrence Stamp would for Red Seas. Or maybe not. Thoughts?

Returning

I am en route to the USA. Observations:

• Creepy Swiss guys on trains keeping the spirit of 1970 alive! Nice going.
• Steve has a new method of self analysis: asking himself what a parasailer paraglider would do.
• Swiss food: altogether disappointing. No outings to cheese making monasteries, and no good cheese found randomly along the way.
• We saw some of those famous black sheep political ads. Photos of them and their retaliatory graffiti to come.

Alive

We survived the parasailing paragliding. Check out Steve's blog for more.