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.