The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)

It has been a long time since I read the book, but the movie seems quite different.  Maybe it is that watching an occupation is worse than reading about it, maybe it is that you have to change things for a movie.  One reviewer summed it up in a sentence: Charming but predictable World War II drama.  The Nazi's are cruel and enjoy their power as an invading force on British soil.  Children were evacuated in advance of the invasion, and it is a bit unclear why others did not leave.  Those who were left behind were either resisters or collaborators, and it is very unclear why those who gave up their fellow islanders were not shunned and pushed off the island all together.  Perhaps the complicating factor was that one of them was in fact willingly involved in a romantic relationship with one that should have made the whole thing more complicated but didn't because we only see it in the retelling of the story.  The happily ever after part of the movie seems unnecessary but is not unpleasant, which I guess also pretty much sums up the movie as well.

Cucumber and Poppy Seed Salad

It is high cucumber season these days at our house, where we harvest twice a day and there is no letting up in the volume.
Here is an Ottolenghi recipe to address the crisis.

6 small cucumbers (about 1 lb)
- 2 mild red chilies, thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp coarsely chopped cilantro
- 4 tbsp white-wine vinegar or rice vinegar
- 1/2 cup sunflower oil
- 2 tbsp poppy seeds
- 2 tbsp superfine sugar
- salt and freshly ground black pepper

Chop off and discard the ends of the cucumbers. Slice the cucumbers at an angle, so you end up with pieces 3⁄8 inch thick and 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches long.
Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to massage the flavors gently into the cucumbers. Taste and adjust the amount of sugar and salt according to the quality of the cucumbers. The salad should be sharp and sweet, almost like a pickle.
If not serving immediately, you might need to drain some liquid off later. Adjust the seasoning again afterward.

The Romantic Rhine

We were going to Bonn for a meeting that my husband was attending, and were momentarily taken aback when it is constantly referred to as the unromantic Rhine.  The good news is that we soon discovered that the romantic Rhine is only about an hour away, easily accessible by train or car.

Between Rüdesheim and Koblenz, the Rhine cuts deeply through the Rhenish slate mountains, meandering between hillside castles and steep fields of wine-producing grapes. This is Germany’s landscape at its most dramatic – forested hillsides alternate with craggy cliffs and near-vertical terraced vineyards.

Idyllic villages appear around each bend, their half-timbered houses and Gothic church steeples seemingly plucked from the world of fairy tales.

Medieval castles perch high above the river. Most were built by local robber barons – knights, princes and even bishops – who extorted tolls from merchant ships by blocking their passage with iron chains. Time and French troops under Louis XIV laid waste to many of the castles, but several were restored in the 19th century, when Prussian kings, German poets and British painters discovered the area’s beauty. In 2002, UNESCO designated these 65 kilometres of riverscape, known as the Oberes Mittelrheintal, as a World Heritage Site.  Visit some decaying castles and picturesque towns, and sit and watch this working river with remarkably active boat traffic.

Like Father (2018)

I really like Kristen Bell and I am fond of both Kelsey Grammer and Seth Rogen, so I thought this would be awesome.  It is not bad but it is definitely (as one reviewer called it) a middling melancholy movie, which could be charming, but not everyone would find it so.
One issue is that while it has a lot of comedic elements, it is most certainly not a comedy.  The structural elements are there: a madcap premise involving two people who get drunk and accidentally wake up on a cruise, a wedding flame out, an extravagant set piece involving karaoke, sequins, and Styx. However it is not a couple who go through all this, it is a father and daughter who are estranged and don't know each other at all.  She is mad at him and he is sad, both to have found her and found her as she is, completely work-obsessed despite the (to some) idyllic Royal Caribbean surroundings. Rachel is attached to her phone, but not because she’s scrolling through Instagram, or wasting time on Twitter. She’s simply obsessed with her job.  In the end, the film leaves us with the impression that Rachel and Harry are two sides of the same coin, both having sacrificed relationships for career success.

Marinated Eggplant with Tahini Sauce

We have had a really productive garden this summer, and besides tomatoes and cucumbers, there are lots of eggplants.
This is an Ottolenghi recipe to cope with that!

1. 3 medium Japanese eggplants
2. Extra-virgin olive oil
3. Kosher salt
4. Freshly cracked black pepper
5. 1 jalapeño, finely chopped
6. 2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
7. 2 tablespoons finely chopped oregano
8. 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, divided
9. 3 cloves garlic, divided
10. 2/3 cup tahini

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Trim the stalk end off the eggplants, then cut each eggplant in half widthwise. Cut the fat lower pieces lengthwise in half and then cut each half into 3 wedges. Do the same with the thinner pieces, but cut each half into 2 wedges. You should end up 30 similar-size pieces with skin on their curved side.
2. Place the eggplant pieces on a large baking sheet. Brush on all sides with plenty of olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Roast the eggplant for 15 to 18 minutes, until they are golden brown and totally soft inside.
3. Meanwhile make the marinade by whisking together the jalapeño, herbs, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 4 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper in a medium mixing bowl until smooth. Add a crushed garlic clove.
4. As soon as the eggplants come out of the oven, add them to the marinade, gently tossing to coat completely. Leave them to marinade at room temperature for at least 2 hours before serving. You can store them in the fridge for up to 2 days at this stage, but make sure you don't serve the eggplant cold; if refrigerating take them out of the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving.
5. While the eggplant marinades, make the tahini sauce by whisking together the tahini, 2/3 cup water, 5 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 minced garlic cloves, and 1/2 teaspoon salt until smooth.
6. To serve, arrange the eggplant wedges on a plate then drizzle with the tahini sauce.

Salmon Canning Heyday

The Old City Hall in Bellingham, WA now functions as a museum and there is an incredible exhibit of stuffed birds that have existed or do exist in the area (yet another way to look at climate change and the myriad of affected beings).  There is also a pretty impressive logging exhibit, which is what initially brought Europeans to the Northwest, and then a changing exhibit of things that are regionally relevant.
Currently that exhibit is about salmon canning and the labeling of said cans.  Now almost no one buys canned salmon.  Everyone vacuum packs it and flash freezes it, to be thawed by someone thousands of miles away months later.  But back in the day, canning was the way it went.

The labels for the cans are indeed beautiful, dated, and reflective of the time that they were created in, but for me the most fascinating thing was the photo of the whole operation.  I am sure it smelled to high heaven and very never quite so neat as this photo would have you believe, but not so long ago, in my lifetime, this is how it was done.

Miss Austen Regrets (2008)

It is so startling to me when I think about it that I really do love all things Jane Austen.  It goes beyond the books themselves, which I do love, but I have watched a number of film renditions of them, including strict adaptations as well as modern updates.  I loved PD James sequel to Pride and Prejudice, and I have enjoyed other movies that revolve around and star Miss Austen herself. 
In point of fact, I think you do have to be at least a little Jane obsessed to truly enjoy this story.  The writer steeped herself in Austen's own letters to pull together the threads of a story into whole cloth and here it is.
Austen's beloved young niece, Fanny (played charmingly by Imogen Poots), asks the author, who is happily unmarried at 40 to look over her potential husbands, which gets Jane thinking on her own suitors. Her memory alights on the ones that got away; in a flashback, we see that when the author was 27, a rich neighboring landowner, proposed to her. She initially accepted, but after a long dark night of the soul, the next day she turned him down. The rejection condemned her family to live in a sort of upper class poverty, and her mother never lets her forget it.
Jane reflects wistfully on the fact that this episode put her off the very idea of marriage. Consequently, she never settled down with her soulmate, the Reverend Brook Bridges (Hugh Bonneville), a clergyman who could wait no longer and ended up marrying someone else. It is a poignant tale of missed opportunities.  And regret, with the wistfulness that you would expect from an Austen story.

Cabbage and Kale Salad

My friend in Bellingham, who I spent a small amount of time with recently in order to have a great deal of fun, seafood, and good conversation, and, as it turns out, this great salad.  You can use any nut (pumpkin seeds work well) and you can substitute tahini for the chickpeas if you have one but not the other.  You can add a cup of cooked grain if you like, or not.

for the salad:

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 cup diced, de-stemmed kale
• 3 cups purple cabbage, shredded
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

for the dressing:

• 1/4 cup chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt

To make the salad: Combine sesame oil and kale in a large mixing bowl. Gently massage the oil into the kale leaves by hand for approximately 2 minutes. This helps reduce the bitterness and softens the texture of the kale. Add the cabbage, quinoa, walnuts, and goat cheese and toss gently to combine.
To make the dressing: In a separate bowl, combine all dressing ingredients and use an immersion blender—a food processor or blender will also work—to puree until smooth.
Pour the dressing over the salad and toss thoroughly to combine.

Dry Creek Petrified Forest, Buffalo, Wyoming

 We were traveling with a one year old on a recent westward vacation, and looked for a place where we could do a little hike after lunch, be out of the car and in nature before having an afternoon nap, and we found this wonderful little park with a mile and a half walking loop through what was once a forest of trees.  I love petrified wood and missed going to the national park in Arizona on a recent southwest trip, so doubly perfect for me.

It is more of a stroll than a hike, with very little up and down (although if you are coming from sea level, just walking van be a bit complicated by the elevation that is close to that of Denver).  I really loved it, and would highly recommend it.  The one caveat is that you need to drive through a field with bulls in it, all of whom eyed us and our car suspiciously and moved toward us to see exactly what we were about.  We managed to exit without incident, and on the way back the rancher was there with food and water, which made him far more interesting than we were, but don't be startled by that.

The Dressmaker (2015)

On a recent trip where I watched little and read less, I finally managed to watch this gem of a movie.  Pay no attention to the reviews that state otherwise, this is a good movie where Kate Winslet is altogether glamorous.
She plays Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage, who has returned to the rural Australian community that once banished her as a child for accidentally killing the town bully. She is ostensibly there to care for her dotty crank of a mother, Mad Molly, who has been living in pungent squalor. But Tilly also is clearly out to right some wrongs while shedding a light on a tragic incident from the past that she can’t quite recall.
Naturally, evil also lurks in Dungatar, as it does in these relatively lawless frontier towns, and it takes several forms, including a hunchback town pharmacist and wife abuser who greets Tilly by hissing, “Your mother’s a slut and you’re a bastard,” the rumor-mongering female schoolteacher whose lies caused Tilly to be forced out of town and the womanizing councilman who torments his clean-freak wife.  Tillie loses in love but she does manage to exact her revenge on a number of levels and strides out of town to a better place.

Halibut in a Coconut Curry Sauce

I had this with halibut and that is what the recipe calls for as well, but you could make this with any fish.  I was on the northern coast of Washington, so essentially halibut country.  We served it with black forbidden rice and it was delicious.

2 lb. Halibut, cut into pieces
1 tsp. salt
1-2 serrano or bird's eye chilis, sliced
1 tsp. Thai chili paste
3 tbs. vegetable oil
1 can coconut milk
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 stalks lemongrass, cut into 6" pieces and smashed
1 tsp. fish sauce
4-5 lime leaves
1 tsp. Thai chili sauce

Use a towel to dry the fish off and rub it with salt, then cut into pieces. 
In a sauce pan, heat the oil and stir in chili paste, sliced peppers and coconut milk.  Bring to a boil before stirring in the brown sugar, lemon grass stalks, fish sauce, lime leave and Thai chili sauce.  Reduce to simmer and cook 15 minutes.
You can pause at this step for hours, then heat up again to boiling, add the fish, and cook for 3-4 minutes, until fish is cooked.
Serve with your favorite rice, and finely sliced basil, mint, and cilantro to sprinkle over the top.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

This somewhat surprising almost whimsical book won the Pullitzer Prize this year and so has become the "it" book.
 It introduces us to a minor novelist named Arthur Less (which is definitely a double entendre) as he finds himself abruptly single.  We first see him as he is coasting through a studiedly casual not-quite-relationship with a vain younger man for several years. Less is described as “an author too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered”, which gives you a bit of a sense of where this is all going. The younger man, who happens also to be the son of his arch enemy, then announces his engagement to someone else.
While still not acknowledging to himself that he was in love all along and that his heart is cracked, if not quite broken, Less accepts a slew of invitations that stem from his modest literary career, and conveniently fit together to provide a round-the-world trip. Not only will he thus avoid the wedding, but sidestep the pain of turning fifty in the company of people who know him.
The various stages of this journey lend the novel its structure and, as is customary, provide both a parade of colorful characters and a voyage of self-discovery.

Human Flow (2017)

Ai Wei Wei made this film, which was short listed for Best Documentary this past year, but did not quite make it onto the nominated films.  A shame, although his name recognition internationally is so high that I suspect this will get the attention it deserves. 
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II.  The filmmaker examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact, and does so in a way that the magnitude of the problem starts to become understandable.  The fact is that even when it is done as well as can be expected, it is horrible, and the truth is that almost none of it is being done at all well.  The flow of people seems overwhelming and inevitable, and as he points out at several points in the film, the average refugee will spend 26 years being displaced before being able to return home, and in some cases it is far more.  This is streaming on Amazon Prime, so accessible.

Beethoven's Bonn, Germany

 The devotion of Beethoven's home town to his legacy is quite impressive.  Bonn is not known as a city of music for nothing. It is home to the birthplace of the famous German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. He first entered the world in the Bonngasse house in December 1770, where his family lived in one of the flats. During his 57-year life, Beethoven became one of the most important composers in musical history.
Besides the permanent exhibition, the Beethoven museum also regularly puts on temporary exhibitions, which likewise address topics relating to the famous composer in their historical context, and in the lab next door you can hear recordings of Beethoven's compositions on instruments that either he did use, or are congruent with the time he wrote in.  Very cool.

The collection of things that Beethoven used bordered on an obsession at his house.
You can follow in his footsteps and see through their own eyes the composer’s birthplace, which is now a museum. The historic atmosphere takes museum guests back to the 18th century and the museum offers deeper insights into the life and work of the great composer. The museum houses the largest Beethoven collection in the world, using impressive authentic documents to vividly depict Beethoven’s life and work.
Wandering through the museum’s twelve rooms, visitors can see 150 original exhibits offering an opportunity to reflect upon how Beethoven thought, felt, worked and acted. The authentic exhibits include manuscripts, photos, letters, furniture and other everyday objects from Beethoven's life, as well as musical instruments and memorabilia, including famous pieces, such as Beethoven's last grand piano, made by Viennese piano maker Conrad Graf, and valuable original manuscripts, such as that of Moonlight Sonata.

Mai Beck, Cologne, Germany

 This was a great restaurant, our favorite out of a number of really good restaurants on our recent trip to the Rhine region of Germany.  It was our favorite of the one Michelin star restaurants that we ate in, which is definitely saying something, as we had some spectacular meals.
There are two great things about this place, beyond how terrific the food is.  One is that you can order as little or as much as you want, which allows for some who are more self regulating than we are to have a petite meal (if I lived in Cologne, I would eat here all the time, one dish at a time).  The other is that they are not trying for another star--that is our favorite restaurant style.

Pictured are two of the six dishes we had.  The cold smoked salmon in the dish above was melt in your mouth smoke, just delicious, and the cucumbers three different ways, the sunflower butter, and the avocado were all perfect compliments, each bite was perfection, bright and delicious.  The pasta dishes (one of which is on the left) are something the restaurant is famous for, and we were not disappointed in this fresh pea tortellini with a light goat cheese.  All in all, I would go back, and probably eat here twice if I could.

An Inconvenient Sequel (2017)

My overwhelming feeling when I finished watching this, beyond that we are completely screwed if we do not start right here and now working together as a country on climate change, is that I continue to underestimate and undervalue Al Gore.
He quietly demonstrates in this film, which does a devastating update on just how much worse things have gotten since his first documentary on the subject, despite some very hopeful things that have been counterbalancing the desperately hot planet that we have today, all the while showing that he has been talking about this since the late 70's.  He was a canary, screaming in a coal mine full of politicians who did not want to hear him, and are being paid by big oil to not listen to him now, all the while they are trying to sew up their economic future in renewable energy.  He has been literally chipping away at the problem all the while his own country has done its damnedest to sabotage world wide efforts to improve the situation.  This was short listed for an Oscar nomination this past year, and  while it missed the cut, it is yet another great call to action on climate change.

Two Dozen Years!

As the parent of a childhood cancer survivor, each birthday that child has is a cause for celebration.  There is a book written by a pediatric neurosurgeon entitled "If I See Five" that has stuck in my head through the years.  It was said to him by a patient who had a brain tumor with a terrible prognosis, and the heart breakingly matter-of-fact way that she acknowledged what for her was going to be a very short life indeed.  So every birthday my first thought is that Ethan gets to see another year, and for that I am most grateful.
And an eventful year it has been.  He graduated from college with two majors and a minor, an excellent GPA, and most importantly, a liberal education that affords him the knowledge and the background to navigate the world.  I, his stalwart tutor, also learned quite a lot, and am thinking of becoming a Khan academy aficionado in order to go further in my personal studies.  I tutored Ethan for his sake, but I ended up gaining more than I could have imagined doing so.  The best kind of altruism.  So with great joy, I present my newly twenty four year old. 

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

This was long listed for the Booker Prize and it is by one of a group of favorite authors (in reading it I realized that I have missed a couple of his more recent books, so will have to rectify that).  And I was not disappointed.
The novel opens in 1945. Nathaniel, who is 14, and his sister, Rachel, have been left by their parents in London, in the care of a mysterious figure called the Moth. The book is partly in that time period and partly in the future looking back on that time period, which was both traumatic for the children and also not what it seemed to them at the time.  They felt abandoned by their parents into the hands of sketchy guardians, and while there are elements of truth to that as Nathaniel finds out later, there is a lot more going on than that. 
Ondaatje has a series of works that look at broken childhoods that are poorly remembered and even worse to have experienced, and within that framework this one is not amongst the most traumatized, but the things that we do to each other and war are both very much within his wheel house, and this book is no different.  Well written, and I hope that it at least gets to the Booker short list.

One More Time With Feeling (2016)

While it made me feel completely out of step with modern culture, I was unfamiliar with Nick Cave.  He makes music that is not out of step with my tastes and by all appearances he is nearer my age than not, but I knew nothing of him prior to watching this (streaming on Amazon Prime).
I suspect that this movie started off as an exploration of the creative process of a man and a band, but it ended up being a very intimate portrait of grief.  In that context, this is a thing of great beauty and pain.  The death of the child lies at the core of what comes out in this documentary.  There is no sugar coating the unbearable aspect of that, even as both the singer/songwriter and his wife deal with it head on, and make an effort to be normal, to allow joy and beauty into their lives, they are forever changed by the loss of their son.  The songs that come out of this period of intense loss, which are a sort of poetry put to music, seem reflective of that intensity of emotion, the grappling with it.  Very moving in an unusual way.

Thai Basil Chicken

One of my sons has some rampant basil going, so this has been a favorite this summer.  Really delicious, easily multiplied to feed a crowd.

• 1/3 cup chicken broth
  
  
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce, or as needed
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup sliced shallots
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced Thai chilies, Serrano, or other hot pepper
• 1 cup very thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
• 2 cups hot cooked rice

1. Whisk chicken broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, white sugar, and brown sugar together in a bowl until well blended.
2. Heat large skillet over high heat. Drizzle in oil. Add chicken and stir fry until it loses its raw color, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in shallots, garlic, and sliced chilies. Continue cooking on high heat until some of the juices start to caramelize in the bottom of the pan, about 2 or 3 more minutes. Add about a tablespoon of the sauce mixture to the skillet; cook and stir until sauce begins to caramelize, about 1 minute.
3. Pour in the rest of the sauce. Cook and stir until sauce has deglazed the bottom of the pan. Continue to cook until sauce glazes onto the meat, 1 or 2 more minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Stir in basil. Cook and stir until basil is wilted, about 20 seconds. Serve with rice.

Franz Marc (1880-1916)

Franz Marc was a German Expressionist painter who, like August Macke, went to France as part of his training as an artist and was influenced by what the French impressionists were doing.  He is known for his paintings of animals, as this painting to the right demonstrates.
He had many alliances in his short life.  Marc worked with Macke and then Kandinsky.  They split from the Neue Künstlervereinigung in 1911, forming a rival group of artists named Der Blaue Reiter. Together they edited an almanac of the same name, which was published in 1912. Having long been interested in Eastern philosophies and religions, Marc responded enthusiastically to Kandinsky’s notion that art should lay bare the spiritual essence of natural forms instead of copying their objective appearance. Kandinsky and Marc developed the idea that mystical energy is best revealed through abstraction. Marc believed that civilization destroys humanity's  awareness of the spiritual force of nature; consequently, he usually painted animals.  Like Macke, he was killed on the battlefield in France in WWI.

Last Flag Flying (2017)

One thing to be thankful to Amazon for is that  they bring to a broad audience many little known films.  There are a lot of movies that are made and worth seeing that never make it onto my radar, or on occasion my local theater for very long.
Richard Linklater is the director, the man who brought us the trilogy that started with Before Sunrise in 1995 and Boyhood.  He is also the guy who made Dazed and Confused, so he has a sense of humor as well.  The first two say something about him, and about where this movie came from and is going.
This is a film built on the deeply humanist career of its filmmaker, one that is about, at its core, what we’re willing to do for one another on our darkest days. It is about being there for people when they need a shoulder to cry on or a hand to help them get up.
The plot is simple.  Three Vietnam veterans who are tied together by a shame in their past that only one of them paid for are called upon to pay their debt to him when his son is killed in Iraq.  They go with him to get the body and  help him bury his only child.  It is how they do it that matters, and Linklater is a master at telling a story.

Zucchini Pizza

We are well into the zucchini season, and while I have a good number of recipes that I love for this part of the summer (I am one of those people who mourns the end of the summer squash season, I just love a number of dishes that you can make with abandon this time of year), there are a limited number that use grated zucchini and on occasion, there is a need for that.
We came back from a recent trip and had a gigantic zucchini, and this is what we made with it.

3 medium zucchini, or about 4 cups grated zucchini

1 large egg

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

3 c. shredded mozzarella, divided

1/2 c. grated Parmesan

1/4 c. cornstarch

kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/4 c. pizza sauce

1/4 c. pepperoni

Pinch red pepper flakes, for garnish

Basil, for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425º and line a baking sheet with parchment. On a box grater or in a food processor, grate zucchini. Using cheesecloth or a dish towel, wring excess moisture out of zucchini.
2. Transfer zucchini to a large bowl with egg, garlic, oregano, 1 cup mozzarella, Parmesan, and cornstarch and season with salt and pepper. Stir until completely combined.
3. Transfer “dough” to prepared baking sheet and pat into a crust. Bake until golden and dried out, 25 minutes.
4. Spread pizza sauce over crust then top with remaining mozzarella and pepperoni. Bake until cheese is melted and crust is crispy, about 10 minutes more. Garnish with red pepper flakes and basil.

Rouen Cathedrals, Roy Lichtenstein, 1968

I have always loved Monet's obsession with light and his series of paintings that are not nature, but rather buildings, are something that I have always enjoyed.  I have postcards of two of them up in my office, I like them so much.  I was unfamiliar with Lichtenstein's riff on this theme until I saw this at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany recently.
Roy Lichtenstein saw photographs of Monet’s Rouen Cathedrals, which inspired the young pop artist to create what he called “manufactured Monets.” While Monet’s repetition seemingly reaffirms the individuality and uniqueness of Rouen Cathedral, Lichtenstein’s Cathedrals, broken into democratizing dots and binary color schemes, mechanize this subject matter. Lichtenstein’s appropriation delved into the nature of repetition and seriality by taking an iconic image, by then cheapened by overexposure and popularity, and reinvesting it with renewed, ironic vigor and relevancy. Yet, for both artists, the subject is less important than the act of seeing, and it is precisely this obsession with sight that this brings to light (so to speak). I read that they have been exhibited together, but I have seen them separately.

Tomb Raider (2018)

This was total wonder woman style action adventure.  Lara Croft is kind of a devil may care bad ass, who fortunately for the trajectory of the story has been kick boxing, bike messengering, and generally getting herself into superior physical shape before impulsively taking off for an island in the middle of the Pacific looking for her long gone father.  She gets a clue as to where he was off to when he disappeared, and rather than declare him dead, she has been ignoring it, up until the point where if she doesn't do something, she is going to loose the family home--which she doesn't live in but still is very attached to.  What she finds there sets her off to be shipwrecked, captured, chased, a few near death experiences, only to be rescued, come home, and find out things that will set up the next movie in the series.  It was very entertaining, Alicia Vikander is an excellent bad ass woman, and I would root for her again in a sequel, no question.

Corn and Butternut Squash Chowder

My son and friends made dinner for us this weekend, and we had leftover butternut squash and corn.  What to do?
Turn it into something else, is what I say--it is rare to have fresh corn and winter squash in the fridge at the same time, but if you find yourself in that situation, here is your solution.

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks (about 5 cups)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 10 oz. of corn
• 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 28 oz. of broth
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

1. In a large heavy pot, heat oil over medium-high; add squash and onion. Cook until onion is soft, about 6 minutes. Add corn and curry powder; cook until curry is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add broth and simmer until squash is tender, about 25 minutes. In a blender, blend half the soup until smooth. Return to pot and stir in cream; heat through over medium-low (do not boil).
   
   

Educated by Tara Westover

Let me start off by saying that I did not love this book.  It has gotten great reviews, and so know from the beginning that I might be amongst the few rather than the many.
This memoir spans the authors entire young life, growing up in rural Idaho in a large Mormon family with parents who lived off the grid for paranoid and religious reasons.  She describes her father as bipolar, but what she says about him doesn't raise that diagnosis as a possibility, and she has a very cruel and uncontrolled brother who physically abused her.  He father put his children in dangerous situations and left her mother to heal them.  That part of the story is about the happiest part, in that the mother uses herbs and her skills as a midwife to largely support the family.  The other plus is that three of the kids go to school, and those who manage to tolerate conventional education all pursue higher degrees and are independent, at least financially, from the yoke their parents saddled them with.  It is a good reminder that trauma always comes back to bite you, even when you have a good escape route.  You can't run and you can't hide so you better face up to it.

The Leisure Seeker (2018)

This is a break your heart movie about a couple who are at the end of their lives.  She is dying of metastatic cancer and he has dementia.  So if you are nowhere near this phase in your life, you definitely want to skip this because it hits all the problem notes just right.
Helen Mirren is the wife, and her life is exasperating with occasional flashes of happiness.  Her husband doesn't always even know her, much less the kids, and his well remembered threads from his life as a passionate and inspiring high school English teacher annoy her more than they entertain or reassure her.  Donald Sutherland is the mostly vacant husband who only occasionally is aware that he is not altogether there.  They cause their two offspring no end of worry when they take off in their 40 year old RV for one last adventure.  Everything that you would think could go wrong does, and even so, as it unfolds in all it's predictability, it keeps a hold on you because it rings all too true.  WIndow into many of our futures.

Dionysus Mosaic, Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, Germany

This mosaic was uncovered in 1941, largely intact, and it was so big and so stunning that it was left where it was found and the museum was built around it.  The museum is designed in such a way that you do not have to go into it in order to see the mosaic.  You can peer in through a large glass window about one story above.  The view takes in the scope of the floor, but lacks the detail that can be seen close up.
Dionysus is in the center mosaic, but the various scenes depicted include satyrs playing instruments and maenads dancing.  The level of detail in each scene is not well captured in this picture but is breathtaking to see.  The floor dates to about 200 CE, which is around the time of Hadrian.  His personal villa in Tivoli is replete with mosaic floors, and the skill of the artisans of the time is magnificent.  I think the Romans would applaud the recent surge in valuing hand made items, as they were builders on an almost unimaginable scale.

Toro Bravo by John Gorham and Liz Crain

My spouse and I ate this highly recommended Portland restaurant a number of years ago, and I am not sure why, but it just didn't wow us.  Maybe it was us, maybe it was the night, and maybe they paled in comparison to some truely exceptional food that the city has to offer.
The cookbook, which I came upon when I was looking for one by another Portland chef, is a whole other story.  This is an exceptional reflection on both the food and the people who are making it.  I have made several of the vegetable side dishes and they have been distinctive, easy to prepare, unusual in both flavor and presentation.  I had to order an expensive and unusual ingredient, and, as the recipe described, it makes the dish.  One thing about cooking at home is that not only do you control the ingredients, you also enjoy food at a fraction of the price of a high end restaurant and this cookbook allows you to do just that.  Highly recommended.

Game Night (2018)

This is exactly what you would think it is based on the title and the cast.  It is a little bit juvenile in an adult sort of way, and entertaining in a "I really do not want to think too deeply" kind of way (although there are some underlying messages about inclusion, sibling rivalry, and how quickly things can spin completely out of control embedded not too far under the surface here).
The story is that a group of friends meet regularly at Max and Annie's house to play games.  This is actually making a comeback, the face to face playing of games without screens involved.  There are two significant threads that unravel.  The first is that their cop neighbor has been excluded since his divorce and he is looking for a way back in.  The other is that Max's brother Brook, who has outperformed Max since childhood and is constantly reminding him of his bigger talents, higher income, and overall  greatness turns out to have a skeleton or two in the closet.  These two themes interweave in an entertaining way to a modestly surprising (not really) conclusion.