Roasted Beet and Orange Salad

It only looks like this if you don't stir it at all.  With one or two stirs the whole thing is purple.  And if you toss with your hands, they are purple too.  This is simple once you have roasted the beets.  I like to do it when my spouse is slow roasting meat and the oven has to be on anyway.

 3 lb. beets
2 c. chopped pineapple
4 mandarin oranges

Dressing:
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Roast beets and peel them.  Cut to the size that you want them to be.  Cut pineapple to the same size.  Cut the mandarin oranges in half once you have peeled them.  Toss with the dressing (which you make by combining all the ingredients and shaking), or keep separate and dress separately, then add together carefully in a bowl or everything will be beet colored.  Garnish with chiffoned fresh mint if desired.

Fundamentals of Caring (2015)

This movie has Paul Rudd playing in my favorite Paul Rudd role.  And because Paul Rudd is in it, we have a sense of how the story is going to go, which could be a bad thing but in this case it is a good thing.  We meet a man who won’t sign his divorce papers but know that he will by the final scene. It’s a “lesson movie,” one in which we’re going to watch people start off in places of grief and bitterness and evolve towards happiness. Now, there’s something to be said for films that do this well. They teach us that we are all capable of more than we think we are, that even our darkest days will be followed by light.
I, for one, am a fan of these when the aim for the movie night is to not think too hard.  let the movie take you there.  This is great for that.
Rudd becomes the caregiver for a young man with muscular dystrophy named Trevor.  He is in a bad place in his life, and Trevor is sadly at the end of his life.  Together they help each other have a little bit more of a life, and the script is for the most part cleverly written and aptly delivered.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is a modern day telling of Pride and Prejudice.  The endeavor to change and update a classic that has endured for 200 years is undeniably brave.  It is like painting a target on your chest and daring people to shoot at you.  So I give the author great credit there.
The whole cast of characters has been updated to fit the roles in modern society of the well off and the ultra rich so that we can all understand the class differences.  The basic elements of Austen’s plot have been neatly rehabbed, too. Mr. Bennet, you’ll recall, had no sons to inherit his estate, which threatens his family with the eventual loss of their home. Sittenfeld’s Mr. Bennet faces crushing medical bills, which will just as surely leave his family homeless. Other translations to our modern times are equally as creative: Artificial insemination and sex reassignment surgery add complications inconceivable to a society once determined by primogeniture laws.
Sittenfeld’s cleverest but slightly irritating move is working a reality-TV dating show into her story. What might seem like a bit of pandering to pop taste is really a feat of  satire. After all, just as the Austen Project recasts Regency romance in the 21st century so “The Bachelor” recasts modern dating in terms of Regency courtship. In either direction, the mashup is just as awkward and hypnotically bizarre. I found it underwhelming on the one hand, and on the other I could not put it down.

Broccoli Slaw

Yes, I am now back up and running, cooking things that are green and trying new things on a somewhat regular basis.  I even forgot that I was getting chemo today.  That is a first.
This is a recipe that is greatly improved by very thinly slicing the stems of the broccoli.

2 heads of broccoli

1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds, toasted

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

Buttermilk Dressing

1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken

1/3 cup mayonnaise (this is more than is in the original, to thicken the dressing further)

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot (or, you could just use a little extra red onion to simplify it)

Trim broccoli and cut it into large chunks. From here, you can either feed it through your food processor’s slicing blade, use a mandoline to cut it into thin slices, or simply had chop it into smaller pieces. I used the stem and the flowerets, but if you have a broccoli stem aversion you can just use the tops. (P.S. My favorite way to prep the stems is to peel them — the tough skin is why most people think they don’t like broccoli stems; the broccoli underneath is juicy and crisp — then use the mandoline or a knife to cut them into thin slices.)

Toss the sliced broccoli with the almonds, cranberries and red onion in a large bowl. Meanwhile, whisk the dressing ingredients in a smaller one, with a good pinch of salt and black pepper. Pour the dressing over the broccoli (if you’ve skipped the stems, you might not want it all; I otherwise found this to be the perfect amount) and toss it well. Season well with salt and pepper to taste.

Learning to Drive (2015)

This movie has two actors in it that I very much like.  Ben Kingsley plays a Sikh man in New York who teaches driving by day and drives a cab at night.  Patricia Clarkson is a basically unhappy woman who knows so little about what she wants and how to make herself happy that it is astounding.  The movie opens with her getting into Kingsley's cab where he witnesses an ugly break up between her and her soon to be ex-husband.She decides that as a result of losing her relationship that she needs to learn how to drive.  Her husband did all the driving and if she is going to do something as simple as visit her daughter she is going to have to learn to drive.  That is the text of the story, but the subtext is that she needs to learn how to live her life, and Kingsley helps her with both of those tasks.  His soothing words of advise apply to both being a good driver of your car and being a good driver of your life, and they form a tight bond with each other over the course of the movie.  Kingsley learns to relax and help his new wife adjust to both him and her new country.  Clarkson learns to let go of her old house and her old life, and to move forward.

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe

This book was apparently written years ago by the author as a semi-fictional account of the author’s childhood, and if that is the case, it describes a resilient if slightly dysfunctional family.  She and her sister set about trying to right their mother’s ship after their father leaves her for another man.  Worse yet, he moves them to a small English town with almost nothing going on.  On the up side, it gives the daughters a lot of time to think about the next step for their mother.  On the down side, they decide that she needs a man, and unfortunately, there are very few candidates in their new location.  The book then goes on to chronicle what happens next, which includes a few affairs, the overuse of pills and alcohol, and a manipulative married man who magnifies the financial troubles they all find themselves in after their father’s company goes belly up.  It is not the destination but the journey that is so entertaining.  This light hearted handling of weighty subjects is well worth reading.

The Home Ec Road to Craft Recovery

Lots and lots of what I have been about these past nine months is about having cancer.  It has occupied a good deal of my physical energy and a surprising amount of my psychic energy as well.
But for once I would like to point out that while I have required above average amounts of medical assistance these past months, that I have just now really started to make progress on my creative recovery, and the local shop, Home Ec, has been a key ingredient in that success.

I just love this shop.  It has all the wonderful touches that I would never be able to swing in a home craft room even if I were to have one.  It has lots of wonderful handmade things that are tastefully arranged and impeccably put together.  The teachers that I have had (one for a napkin making class and another for an oilcloth tote bag making workshop) teach with a perfect blend of instruction and hand holding mixed with let yourself go and pick up the pieces later.  I had been stuck in not getting much done to what is true now, having completed projects and looking forward to what I might do next.  Please check them out if you need an injection of creativity into your craft life.

Burnt (2015)

Bradley Cooper does a remarkably good job of capturing the personality and pathology of an elite chef.  Cooper plays Adam Jones, a chef who crashed and burned on drugs, alcohol, self agrandizing and debt.  Prior to all that he was a 2 Michelin star chef in a Paris restaurant with many talented people who all currently hate him.  After his ignomious departure he does a period of self-imposed penance in New Orleans, shucking literally a million oysters.  Seriously, he keeps count on a daily basis, and at his millionth oyster he takes off his apron, leaves the restaurant and goes to London, where he somewhat obnoxiously foists himself on an old friend and supporter who agrees to let him cook there.  The thing that is at once painful to watch and strikes me as accurate is just how self absorbed he is.  When things go wrong he literally throws things and trashed food.  His verbal abuse of his staff is shocking.  And either Bradley Cooper is truly a through and through asshole or a great actor because these scenes are cringe worthy they seem so real.  The ending is a bit tied up in a bow but I did enjoy the movie.

Theatetus by Plato (369 BCE)

Socrates believes that knowledge is innate in man, but that man does not always allow knowledge to rule him.  Emotions play a role and they can at times overwhelm knowledge.  Socrates asserts that man knows the right thing to do, but does not always choose to act that way.  Socrates warns the reader that what is good and virtuous is complicated.  He rejects the notion that a certain amount of bad behavior can be outweighed by good behavior.  The virtuous behavior does not negate the bad behavior.
    Socrates states that all desire is for pleasure and nothing else.  Man seeks happiness, even though what brings him happiness is not always good.  This premise is necessary because without it there is not an explanation for why man does things that are not virtuous.   The desire to do something outweighs the negative impact the behavior will have on your relationship with your parents, which is a virtuous relationship.
Socrates premise that mans desire for a course of action is in direct proportion to the amount of pleasure he will receive.  This explains why man would seek pleasure in the short run, because it is an intense and overwhelming emotion that can interfere with man’s pursuit of what is virtuous, even of he has the knowledge of it.  For example, man has the knowledge that marital fidelity is virtuous and will bring both he and his spouse happiness.  Occasionally man is tempted to have sex with someone who is not his spouse.  He is driven by the desire for immediate pleasure, and may not consider the consequences for his long-term happiness in the pursuit of his immediate desire.  If he chooses to have an extramarital affair, the pain that he endures later outweighs the pleasure he enjoys in the moment.
Socrates argues that when man demonstrates a weakness of will, what is really happening is that he has not correctly assessed the damage that his pursuit of pleasure will have or that he has incorrectly assessed the amount of pain that he will endure based on his action.  Socrates believes that if man was able to accurately measure pleasure and pain, and the consequences of them he would always act in a knowledgeable way.  When man makes the wrong assessment, he errs.  This can appear to be a weakness of will, but it is actually a failure of knowledge.  I agree with Socrates in principle.  For example, a robber chooses to hold up a liquor store to steal money for his own pleasure.  He is aware of the fact that what he is doing is illegal and that he could go to jail if he is caught.  Often the thief makes an inaccurate assessment of his risk of being caught.  He is conscious of the bad possibilities that he faces with his action, but he makes the mistake of believing that he will not be caught.  His emotions overrule his knowledge, and lead to his weakness of will.

Rhubarb Syrup

This is a flavored simple syrup, and many cocktails that call for simple syrup could have this substituted.  I posted several cocktails that use it, and I have to say it is quite a delicious addition to the cocktail cupboard.  Some recipes add lemon juice, but that can always be added later, so this one is just straight ahead simple syrup.  You can save the leftover rhubarb as a spread on bread.

• 5 ounces rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cups water

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a small saucepan and stir. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Once the mixture boils, reduce the heat to low and simmer until the rhubarb is falling apart and the color has bled into the syrup, about 20 to 25 minutes.
2. Remove from the heat and, using a fine-mesh strainer, strain and discard the rhubarb solids. Let the syrup cool to room temperature, then transfer it to a resealable container and store in the refrigerator.