Quinoa has been very popular, of late. David Lynch even cooked up a bowl as a special feature on the “Inland Empire” DVD. And now we have Jessica Harlan and Kelley Sparwasser’s terrific cookbook, “Quinia Cuisine”, which boasts “150 Creative Recipes for Super-Nutritious, Amazingly Delicious Dishes”. If you’re skeptical about quinoa, that claim might sound like a bit of an oversell. Perhaps it’s because there are still a lot of people out there who are suspicious of it. I can understand why. It looks weird. It smells a little strange before you cook it and especially before you give it a good rinse. But trust me when I tell you that this strange little food really can be “amazingly delicious”.

“Quinoa Cuisine” is a terrifically laid out cookbook with an unusually worthwhile introduction, outlining its history and health benefits as well as many cooking methods and a few factoids. For instance, did you know that quinoa is NOT actually a grain? I did not. Apparently, it’s more closely related to beets, spinach and chard. What you’re actually eating is quinoa seeds, thus making it a “pseudograin”. I won’t spoil the whole thing for you. I’ll just say that I usually skim over introductions to pretty much every book I read. Not this time.

The actual recipes in the book are coded with helpful symbols that indicate such qualities as “30-minutes or less”, “gluten-free”, “kid friendly” and vegan or vegetarian.

The first chapter consists of “Essential Recipes” which are not only recipes you’ll make often, they also appear as part of other recipes later in the book. This is where you might begin to realize the true magic of quinoa. You can make every damn thing with it, from pancakes to pizza dough, tortillas to pie crust. If you’re living gluten free and didn’t know about quinoa this book will probably change your life.

From there, the book moves through every meal, blowing your mind with options: Breakfast, Starters, Salads, Soups & Stews, Side Dishes & Pilafs, Meat & Fish, Vegetarian and even Dessert. There are also special sections for Packed Lunches and Party Food. This is a truly comprehensive book that transcends genre and cuisine ethnicity. Think of your favorite dish. I’ll bet you cash money that there is some version of it in there. And, as a side bet, I wager that you’re going to love it made with quinoa. Maybe I have a little bit of a gambling problem. But that doesn’t mean I’m not right about this.

My one complaint with this book is that, apart from the front and back covers, there aren’t any photos of the food. I’m a visual person and I always like to compare my completed dish with the photo in the book, just to make sure I did it right. Granted, I get kind of annoyed with the step-by-step photos that food bloggers are so fond of. I don’t need to see what all my ingredients look like laid out on the counter together. But a little food porn is what often draws me to a recipe. I know they probably wanted to make more room for recipes (and possibly to save money by printing in black and white). But I wouldn’t mind a slightly higher cover price for the benefit of one little picture for each recipe.

Apart from the lack of photos, I am perfectly pleased with “Quinoa Cuisine” and highly recommend it to anyone who is already a fan or even a little quinoa curious.

You’re gonna want to bake everything in this book. Some of the recipes sound harder to pull off than others but, if the pictures are any indication, they would doubtless be worth the effort. There are also plenty that sound quick and easy. They aren’t too proud to encourage pre-made pie crust and other store-bought short cuts. A proper southerner understands that a good homemade dessert is a good homemade dessert. Who cares if it didn’t take all day to make?

Each section introduction gives some history behind the genre and highlights a few standouts. The descriptive paragraph for each recipe oozes with imagery, making each and every entry sound like the greatest dessert of all time. Where applicable, they also tell the stories behind the recipes so you can feel like you are reenacting history in your kitchen.

Each recipe is also helpfully labeled to identify certain categories of desserts such as “holiday favorite”, “sweets to share” and “kids love it”.

Here are a few titles that caught my eye and will be realized on my counter top ASAP:

*Praline Bundt Cake (with sugared pecans!)
*Baby Sweet Potato Cakes with Pecans and Sticky Caramel Sauce
*Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches with Rum-Raisin Filling
*S’more Puffs
*Grapefruit Tart
*Caramel-Applesauce Cobbler with Bourbon-Pecan Ice Cream
*Sweet Potato Cobbler
*Bananas Foster Upside-Down Cake
*Key Lime Frozen Yogurt

Now try to tell me your kitchen isn’t calling to you.

Southern Living’s “Classic Southern Desserts: All-Time Favorite Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Pies, Puddings, Cobblers, Ice Cream & More” is now available in hardcover.

While the concept is terrific, in terms of being a functional cookbook, there are a few problems. For one thing, it’s not terribly well organized. The book is logically broken up into sections by season, starting with spring. But if you want to know what to cook with the ingredients you already have, or if you’re looking for, say, a good soup to make for dinner, you pretty much have to read the whole seasonal section to find it. It also doesn’t feel very comprehensive, having only a few recipes per dish per season. It’s really more of a series of suggested menus than a complete guide to seasonal cooking. However, there are certainly some inspired gems. The photography is also quite lovely, making every dish look like a winner. And that is quite a feat considering the calorie-counting implications of Cooking Light.

The book is broken up thus: There are four sections, naturally. Each individual season has a summation page (“The [season] Kitchen”) followed by an “In-Season Chart”, “Flavor Companions”, “Best Ways to Cook” and then the recipes. The “In-Season Chart” is the most helpful of the book’s features. It lists which fruits and veggies to look for at the store and it’s a great way to make a shopping list based on what your personal flavor preferences are.

The “Flavor Companions” section expounds on your shopping list by suggesting accompaniments for the seasonal produce such as cheeses, herbs and sauces. This is also very helpful, especially if you plan to cook seasonally beyond the recipes in the book and maybe even make up some of your own dishes.

The “Best Ways to Cook” section is another con to the book, unless you are really new to cooking. It reads like a beginners’ guide, explaining basic cooking techniques like boiling and grilling. There are a few helpful tips in there, but anyone who cooks their own meals on a regular basis will probably skim through these sections.

Another small criticism of the book is that it’s not particularly vegetarian-friendly. These days, there are so many dietary restrictions around that it seems like it would be in the best interest of new cookbooks to cater to a wide variety of needs besides just the traditional American diet.

That said, this is definitely a terrific book for getting started in the practice of seasonal cooking; a practice which every American should seriously consider taking up.

Cooking Light’s “Cooking Through the Seasons; an everyday guide to enjoying the freshest food” is now available for purchase in hardcover.

Like nearly every American teenager, I first became familiar with J.D. Salinger when I read “Catcher in the Rye” in 9th grade English class. And like many American teenagers, it absolutely spoke to me. It was even more profound considering that most of the other kids in my class were completely unaffected. Some were bored by the book. Some just thought Holden was a jerk. Some probably didn’t actually read it at all. I was in private school and many of the characters in the book that Holden called “phonies” reminded me of the people I begrudgingly spent every day with. I wrote two papers about the book. One was a typical literary analysis and one was a “diary entry” written in Holden’s voice. The latter came to me very easily. I got an A+ on both papers. I felt that I had never completely understood a book better than I understood that one. And with that, “Catcher in the Rye” became my favorite book.

What really knocks me out is a book, when you’re all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

Later, I voluntarily took an AP English class over the summer which was all about Salinger. We read every book that he’d published that summer. I had never had so much fun in school. “Nine Stories” blew me away even more profoundly than “Catcher”. I was so moved by “For Esme with Love and Squalor”. I don’t think a book had ever made me cry before. We also learned a bit about J.D. Salinger, the man. He was crazy. He was a recluse. His family hated him. He’d been accused of inappropriate relationships with young girls. It was fairly obvious that everything he wrote was at least semi-autobiographical. This did not bode well for his mental state. But I fully understood how one could let the world get to him. And that’s what had happened. He was better off in hiding.

I re-read “Catcher in the Rye” and “Nine Stories” yearly. In college, I once spent an entire Saturday in the downtown Tacoma library (remember libraries, kids?) seeking out his uncollected works: short stories which had been published in literary journals and magazines and then forgotten. I exhaustively searched through the microfiche and spent dime after dime photocopying everything I could. I didn’t find everything, but what I did manage to collect felt like a treasure. I later devoured those stories and thought this was an author who was incapable of writing a bad sentence.

He does have that vault full of unpublished works. He has said that what’s in there is vaulted for a reason. He thinks it’s terrible and he never wants the world to see it. I don’t know who is in charge of his estate or what will become of those stories now. Part of me wants to read them, of course. But considering the quality of what he allowed to be published, I also trust his judgment. And I never want to read a Salinger story that I don’t love.

Speaking of which, it’s been a while since I re-read “Nine Stories”.

Apparently, he now looks like this:

Proof-positive of the magic of facial hair. The evidence is undeniable. The shorter bangs help too.

If you have a minute (and a copy of the book), please give it a (preferably favorable) review.

The 2009 book is on its way!

You know what though? The Watchmen trailer didn’t look…that…bad. I know. I couldn’t believe it either. Granted that Billy Corgan soundtrack was pretty atrocious and I couldn’t help but snicker when they billed it as being “from the visionary director of 300“. Visionary? Really? The man knows how to use a green screen and that freeze motion camera effect, I’ll give him that. But so do lots of people in Hollywood. Was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a visionary film? (Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical. And also, no.) 300 was at best a decent action film (and at worst, an offensive right wing polemic.) Before that, Zach Snyder poorly (and needlessly) remade one of my favorite films of all time, Dawn of the Dead. The man is on pretty thin ice with me.

But Dr. Manhattan looked pretty amazing. Hell, everyone kinda did. We saw a glimpse of Dr. Manhattan’s Mars. We heard Rorschach’s growl. We saw the Comedian’s cocky grin. We know that the movie is taking place in it’s original time period (the 80′s) which lessens the preachy parallel-to-our-current-administration potential. Everything, thus far, appears to be in order. Time will tell, of course. I am worried about what they will cut out. At 400 pages of Moore’s signature dialog-heavy storytelling, they have to cut something. (And I sure hope it isn’t ANY of Dr. Manhattan’s explanation of time travel and why he is unable to stay connected to the human world.) But for now, I rest a bit easier. I hope Alan Moore does too. But let’s be honest. Ain’t nothing pleasing that old curmudgeon.

And just remember. No matter how bad it gets, it could have been much, much worse:

{{{Shudder}}}

The book is basically an existential rumination on filmmaking. I can easily picture it as the cornerstone of a film school theory class. It’s funny, thoughtful, clever and honest. Just like the best of Mamet. But what really struck me was the voice of the writing. I’d heard it somewhere before…And then it hit me.

My favorite Mamet film, and one of the best films about filmmaking period is State and Main. It’s considered the least “Mamety” of his films. It feels toned down. I think it’s due in large part to having found a cast that perfectly grasps the tone of his dialog. In particular, he found the great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman is downright adorable in the role Joseph Turner White; an earnest playwright turned screenwriter who is frustrated by having to rework his script. The film is called “The Old Mill” but the crew, having been run out of the previous location thanks to the errant actions of their leading man (Alec Baldwin basically playing himself) now must complete production in a town which does not have an old mill. This is the film industry exposed, forsaking story for drama and dollar signs. White doesn’t want to lose the heart of the story. The director doesn’t care what happens so long as the producer is happy. In short, White is Mamet is why Mamet prefers to direct his own films.

Turner White is also a gentle, soft spoke, thoughtful man. He is charming and morally upright. He falls for a like-minded local girl (the quintessential Mamet actress Rebecca Pidgeon who, by happy coincidence, is married to Mamet). She is a fan of his plays and attempts to help him find his new story without selling out. They both have an old-timey manner of speaking which shows that they are cut from the same cloth. There is not an expletive uttered between them. They are clearly meant for each other.

State and Main could have just as easily been called Mamet in Love. And when one reads “Bambi vs. Godzilla”, one hears Joseph Turner White.

But the true revelation occurred when I watched Mamet’s new film Redbelt, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. Ejiofor is another incredibly gifted actor. Like Hoffman, he can convey a rainbow of emotions with a simple look. His deep, dark eyes are pools of insight. In Redbelt he plays Mike Terry, a teacher of Brazilian Jui Jitsu who lives by a very strict moral code. But he sees only truth and justice which allows him to be taken by evil men. Like Joseph Turner White, he speaks softly, earnestly and without profanity. The profanity is reserved for the bad people. People like Tim Allen’s spoiled aging Hollywood star and Joe Mantegna’s corrupt producer (tell us how you really feel about producers, Dave). They drop the F-Bombs like Nagasaki. And that is your clue to the Mametverse. As a viewer you know they are nefarious the minute they open their mouths. Swearing is the mark of corruption. Mamet has injected a natural spoiler into his scripts. The good people control their speech and their volume. They choose their words carefully. They speak like David Mamet.

For most people, Mamet is a love-him-or-loathe-him kind of guy. I have always been on the fence. I don’t care for Glengarry Glen Ross’. But I adore State and Main and I similarly took to “Bambi vs. Godzilla” and Redbelt. They always say you should write what you know. Now that I’ve cracked the Mamet code, I can safely say that he is at his best when he’s just being himself.

I have been reading books about weddings. I justify it by the fact that every book has a counterculture title implication like “anti” and “alternative”. Unfortunately, most of them are still pretty damned annoying. They offer advice like “Moisturize, get a massage, and drink Cosmos with your girlfriends to relax!”, a packing list for your honeymoon (in case your mom is still packing your suitcase for you” and “Eat a hamburger on the day of your wedding! You'll need the protein to give you energy! (If you're a vegetarian, eat a veggie burger.)” PHEW! I thought that I was going to have to throw away 15 years of vegetarianism in order to make it through my wedding day. Luckily, I found one book that I love. It's written by a Seattleite who is an ex-raver and I must admit that after reading the book and her blog, I'm a little obsessed with her. She's sardonic, hilarious (filthy jokes abound) and my kind of candid (meaning she regularly drops the f-bomb. Furthermore, she actually gives useful advice. Unlike the other books I've read, she writes with the assumption that you actually have SOME idea of what's involved in a wedding and, like, how to take care of yourself. And OMG we have so much in common! She appreciates high camp, her mom is new-agey and she is a former rat owner! I'm quite convinced that we would be BFFs.

The internet makes creepy stalkers of us all.

Friday

Around 6:30, my friends Ryan and The Kidd came over to get me ridiculously baked and drive my ass to Everett. The Kidd was just taking us up there and leaving. Ryan and I would have no ride home. At the time, we weren’t concerned. There HAD to be a bus that left Everett, right? Besides, it would be a rock n’ roll adventure. Little did we know, seeing Oasis at the Everett Events Center is about the LEAST rock and roll thing a person can do.

The ride up was promising. Ryan played DJ in the backseat by spinning the best Oasis b-sides (as every Oasis fan knows, are the best Oasis tunes). The Kidd dropped us off at the Events Center around 7:45. The show had started at 7, but we couldn’t be bothered with the openers, Kasabian & Jet. I didn’t expect much hassle from the bag checkers. Why should I? The guy looked inside my bag and was set to move me along when he noticed my patches.

“Are those safety pins on your bag, ma’am?”, he asked.

“Yes. They’re holding on the patches,” I said.

“Well, you’re going to have to remove them and throw them away,” he said sternly.

“Are you serious?” I asked. “What kind of damage can a person do with safety pins?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s regulations.”

As I huffily removed all my safety pins, I muttered about how ridiculous it all was. Ryan concurred.

“Do you know how many times I’ve flown with these pins on this bag?” I asked. “They don’t even let nail clippers on airplanes but they don’t care about safety pins.”

“I’m sorry ma’am,” he said again. I know it’s not his fault but COME ON! Safety pins! They have the word “safety” in the name!

Anyway, even after that little annoying incident, we entered the building in high spirits. I wasn’t drinking that night on account of my stomach still feeling a bit weak, but Ryan purchased a double-fister and, this being an all-ages show, we had to stand along the wall by the concessions stand to drink them. We could hear the irritating strains of Jet as we scanned the crowd. After a while, we realized this was the WEIRDEST crowd we had seen at a show in a long time. There were Dockers everywhere. Girls in tube tops strolled along with ex-frat boys now in their early thirties. A middle-aged woman in what appeared to be a house-frock, stood along side some younger adults with beer-in-hand. A couple of guys who looked like they came right from the office strolled by. Ryan and I wondered if we had the wrong night and we were actually about to see Third Eye Blind or something. Or perhaps there is so little to do in Everett that the entire town turns up to a gig at the Events Center, no matter who’s playing. Even with the tame crowd, cops sauntered around like giant twats with moustaches, actually HASSLING the 30-somethings. One such group was asked to show their I.D.s for the beers they were holding. Another group was hassled for a good 10 minutes by two mustachioed cops. I couldn’t hear what the altercation about was about, but it was clear that these perfectly law-abiding people were being bothered for no reason. When it was obvious to the cops that they had nothing on these guys, they sauntered away, pausing to exchange smug glances with a nearby security guard. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN EVERETT! Ryan and I were definitely losing heart by this point. As Jet finished spewing their shitty Gap inspired “rock and roll”, we went in to the arena to find our seats. We were right above the floor and had thought it might be easy to sneak down TO the floor. That was before we knew there WAS no floor. What should have been a sea of people standing around waiting to be rocked, was actually row after row of folding chairs, filled with people sitting dutifully. Some people stopped in the aisles, talking to each other. A security guard came by and told them they had to sit in their seats. Are you kidding me? No one at this show was under 20 and we were all being treated like a fucking after-school day-care. The crowd continued to weird me out. To our left was a group of people who appeared to be dressed as the Kinks. They were hanging out with Mr. Kotter. A woman in a short-shirt and cowboy hat strolled by about a hundred times, stopping periodically to put her arms over her head and cheer. More people in work clothes scrambled to find their seats as the lights dimmed. The sense of normalcy came from a small gathering of English guys around my age who were excited as hell to see some boys from back home.

When Oasis came out on stage, I knew instantly that they were not going to give a good show. Their body language was heavy. They were tired. They didn’t know where they were and they didn’t care. They stared out at a half-empty arena and decided to plow through their set as quickly as possible so they could get the fuck out of there. “Where the fuck are we?” asked Noel. “Everett!”, someone shouted. “Everett? What the fuck is Everett? Is that Seattle?” he snarked. “No. I know. I went to Seattle today. It was forty-five fucking minutes away.” Later he introduced a song by saying “Ever have one of those days where everything comes together in a zenlike fashion? This is not one of those days.” He never addressed the audience again. Meanwhile, Liam was being a twat, which I love. During the guitar solos, he would come to the front of the stage and just stand there, arms crossed. At one point, he balanced his tambourine on his head. At another point, he hid behind a stack. It was all kind of funny. But I couldn’t help but feel his heart wasn’t in it. The played only two new songs. The rest of the time, they plowed through the hits like it was a Revue. The English guys didn’t care. They sang their hearts out. It was pretty cute and the only thing that really kept me entertained throughout. Oh well.

After the show, Ryan and I wandered around Everett looking for the bus station. We asked a few passers by for directions but…surprise surprise, no one was from there! In half an hour, the entire town seemed evacuated and Ryan and I were hopelessly lost. We found a Texaco station and asked for directions. The told us the bus station was 10 blocks away, but that he was pretty sure they weren’t running until morning. Everett. Finally, Ryan broke down and said he’d pay for a cab. Back to Seattle. I wasn’t going to argue. He was hoping we’d get a cool cabbie who would be interested in bartering with weed. We didn’t. $60 later, we were back in Seattle. Everett. Not going to do that again.

I was home (thanks to a kind Dom who picked me up from Ryan’s) at 1:00 and took solace a rerun of Star Trek TNG (the one with Hue!) before going to bed.

Saturday

I make no apologies for sleeping in till noon. It was fantastic. I’m pretty sure I needed the rest. Dom and I watched some TV and putted around the apartment until dinner time. Faye came over, we exchanged presents and then went to get some dinner at Toreros on Broadway. We got to the Nite Lite around 8:15. Cherry wasn’t there and we didn’t really know if we should ask about getting in the back room since she was the one who reserved it. Sherrard finally got up the courage to ask someone. We entered a fairly large room full of extremely random décor. None of the wallpaper matched. One wall was lined with shiny red and white cloth. Still, it was kinda cool. People began to stream in and the rest of the night is kind of a blur. Not because I was drunk (I only had 3 drinks!) but because people came and went constantly. Large parties like that are fun but also difficult because, if you’re hosting them, it’s impossible to talk to anyone for longer than 10 minutes at a time.

Matt bought me a drink I’d never had before called a Greyhound. I really liked it. I’m so picky about mixed drinks. A Greyhound is grapefruit juice and vodka and I think I like it more than vodka and orange. So that was cool.

Dom and I made out with some pretty cool gifts. Sherrard got me a great print of the “Rude Boy” one-sheet. The tagline for that movie is “Grab the future by its face”. I think that might be my favorite tagline of all time. Especially since it has NOTHING to do with the movie itself. Faye and I were very excited to give Sherrard his “Alone in the Dark” theme gift which included the movie, the t-shirt and a copy of “I Wish I Had An Angel”. He seemed pleased. Erin got me and Dom and copy of the Suicide Girls book, which I had bought for Ryan and was coveting. I actually knew what it was before I opened it just based on the size of the book. Kayobi got me some delicious, booze-filled chocolates. Faye got me the DVD of “Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge”. I’m VERY excited about that. Love the Steve Coogan. Sherrard got Dom a book on Paul Verhoeven which is full of fantastic pictures and inspirational quotes from the man himself. Love the Verhoeven. Faye also got Dom a game that looks pretty cool called “Darkwatch”. Birthdays are nice.

For some reason, me, Dom, Borgia and Faye all pooped out around 12:30 and cabbed it back to the Hill. This turned out to be a highlight of the evening. The cabby had the radio on and we heard “She’s Got a Way” followed by “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips. For some reason, we were in a singing mood and we sang along to both, Faye throwing some sweet harmonies in to the latter number. The cabby said we sounded better than Wilson Phillips. Awesome. And all this fun was had sober. Who knew?

Sunday

I put together a book shelf while I watched “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”. Then I went to yoga. After yoga, Dom and I watched the last episode of Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston. I was very very sad at the end because SPOILER he turned into some other dude. Granted, it was a very clever way of dealing with Christopher Eccleston leaving the show without killing him off. And the new Doctor is pretty damned hot. But I doubt the new guy will be able to exude the same dangerous, sexy, creepy and charming British James-Spader-ness of Christopher Eccleston. Plus, I’m going to miss that charming Northern accent. Damnit. End Spoiler

Then I tried to finish the Jenna Jameson book before bed so I could return it to the library. I couldn’t do it. Despite being filled with (sexy) pictures, it’s also chock full of words and is taking me a long time to get through. I highly recommend it though, if you’re a fan (maybe even if you aren’t). She’s very well-spoken and has had a difficult and interesting life. The book is engaging and honest. And overdue. Doh!