Cultural Notes

TV:

We satisfied our curiosity wrt a cultural phenom and rented the first disc of CSI. Not what I expected. I don't know why, but I figured on more science and less soap. I doubt we will watch any more.

My brother-in-law sent us the current season of Dr Who. Yes, the writing was less cheesy than the original, the acting pretty good and some of the plots were more complex and worthwhile. Mostly lots of fun. But the season ending? Eh. A little over the top. Zach is very curious to see some of the old Doctors. I used to have many episodes on vhs tapes, but can't find them. Perhaps in a cleaning fit I tossed them? Mostly they were pretty poor quality.

Franz and Zach go to boy scout camp in a couple weeks and I am trying to decide what to do while I relax, knit and not make dinner. Deadwood seems a likely candidate. Any other suggestions?

Food:

I love Cook's Illustrated and splurged to register for cooksillustrated.com. So much information is available on the internet without a fee, it was a hard decision, but the archives were worth it to me. Through this registration, I was offered the opportunity to sign up to test recipes. How could I resist? Well it took a couple months, but they've recently sent me a few recipes. First was a pound cake. Baking a cake during a heat wave? Ick. I almost didn't make it but the weather cooled off enough to give it a go. Unfortunately it was still warm so I did not get the butter and eggs at just the right temperature to emulsify and the cake was so-so. Will be better to make this in the winter when the recipe will (probably) appear in the magazine. Interestingly to me, the survey asked how I modified the recipe. I didn't even think of modifying it. Well, it's hard to successfully modify baked goods, but mostly I thought following the recipe exactly was the law.

Finding out that they allowed us to break the law helped me when they sent me a second recipe, Baked Manicotti. While the recipe looked intriguing and easy, it called for puny amounts of garlic and basil. I rectified their mistakes and made the dish. Yum. My family also said yum. In fact, I just made it again for dinner tonight. The key technique is to use no-boil lasagne noodles instead of manicotti shells. Just soften as directed for lasagne, add the cheese filling and roll them up. I look forward to seeing the final recipe in the magazine. I'm curious how much garlic that version will call for.

A couple weeks ago Franz brought home some Ginger Ice Cream. Zach and I were both a bit dubious, but we tried it and liked it. I thought it would be really good with one scoop of Ginger and one scoop of Coconut. Woo Hoo, look what was on sale today!







Clothing:

CeCe blocked well and has a button! Will model it and give the specs when I get some photography help. The battery on the remote still being dead.