For the last 2 weeks I've been adhering to a new diet called Macrobiotics. It is pretty complicated, so for simplicity's sake I will say that it is basically like being vegan, except you eat sea vegetables a lot, and you can eat fish. It's also about balance, so it's not super restrictive and there is no holier-than-thou attitude about it. Anyway this morning I made amazing vegan pancakes that I found at vegweb.com. It's a very simple recipe:
1 c. plus 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 tbsp brown sugar (I used dark brown)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp applesauce
1 c. plus 2 tbsp water or soy milk (I used vanilla soy milk - it added a nice extra bit of sweetness)
Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Then add the applesauce and water/soy milk and stir well, until batter drips from a spoon but is not runny. Heat the griddle or frying pan and spray with olive oil or cooking spray. When the pan is hot, ladle the batter onto it. Flip the pancakes over when they bubble a little bit on the edges. Keep them warm in the oven or microwave while you cook the rest of them. This recipe makes 8 medium-sized pancakes. They are delicious plain or even with a tiny bit of Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter spread on them.
I enjoyed my pancakes with some Iron and Wine too, who I've been obsessed with for the past week or so. I even learned 2 songs on the guitar, and am trying to work my way up to the finger picking - although it is hard to know where to start with that. I guess it'll be best to just dive right in! I've also been listening a lot lately to Neko Case and The New Pornographers, and I highly recommend TNP's album Twin Cinema and Neko Case's album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.
So there you go - a new recipe and some music recommendations! How do you like that.
Also, happy new era with President Obama.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
syntax: challenge!
A friend of mine mentioned this exercise on his website (www.derekorth.com) and I thought I'd try it in the waning minutes of my Tuesday. Basically, you take a couple sentences you've written recently (I used the beginning of my last blog post), and then you mix up all the words and add new punctuation. It's an exercise that challenges syntax, and ultimately challenges you to see outside the box. Here is what I got:
Day here: the impending woo in I flew my Thursday out of last Chicago. Early night I to heard midway—about on Thursday a flight was of the ones. Leave snowstorm airport! Am apparently night; Florida I on Well when one?
My favorite is the last line. It seems to me like I subconsciously asked Florida if I should move there.
If you partake in the challenge, please post your exercises as comments. How fascinating!
Day here: the impending woo in I flew my Thursday out of last Chicago. Early night I to heard midway—about on Thursday a flight was of the ones. Leave snowstorm airport! Am apparently night; Florida I on Well when one?
My favorite is the last line. It seems to me like I subconsciously asked Florida if I should move there.
If you partake in the challenge, please post your exercises as comments. How fascinating!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Well here I am in Florida. I flew out of Chicago a day early when I heard about the impending snowstorm on Thursday night. Apparently my flight was one of the last ones to leave Midway airport on Thursday night--woo!
So now I'm here in the land of palm trees and sunshine, and things are great! Thanks for reading, and happy holidays and all that.
So now I'm here in the land of palm trees and sunshine, and things are great! Thanks for reading, and happy holidays and all that.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
And on the 6th day...
Well, as you can see, there is not much to do in this town. But on the bright side - I am updating my blog more often! So everyone who always clamored for more, more, you got it!
Today I decided not to venture outside again, since yesterday I finally learned why they call it BRR Ridge. Ha. Anyway now I'm in the hotel room, and somehow there is a breeze in here. I don't know how to make it stop! So I am just sitting here with 2 sweaters on, and my slippers. It's nice, though.
This morning I ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was pleasant. I was pondering eating alone in general, and I was surprised at how much easier it is to eat alone in a public place when said public place is empty. I was the only one in the restaurant, and I wasn't gripped by intense self-consciousness or the obssessive need to occupy myself somehow. Maybe it's because when no one is around, you don't worry about what other people are *thinking.*
Yesterday I tortured myself by looking at the weather in Orlando. Here in Burr Ridge the highs hover around 27, and in Florida it is a balmy 80 degrees!! Thank god I will be there soon. Phew!
Today I decided not to venture outside again, since yesterday I finally learned why they call it BRR Ridge. Ha. Anyway now I'm in the hotel room, and somehow there is a breeze in here. I don't know how to make it stop! So I am just sitting here with 2 sweaters on, and my slippers. It's nice, though.
This morning I ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which was pleasant. I was pondering eating alone in general, and I was surprised at how much easier it is to eat alone in a public place when said public place is empty. I was the only one in the restaurant, and I wasn't gripped by intense self-consciousness or the obssessive need to occupy myself somehow. Maybe it's because when no one is around, you don't worry about what other people are *thinking.*
Yesterday I tortured myself by looking at the weather in Orlando. Here in Burr Ridge the highs hover around 27, and in Florida it is a balmy 80 degrees!! Thank god I will be there soon. Phew!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Burr Ridge, day 5
Today is day 5 in Illinois (yes, Ernest, Illinois (c:). I am back in my new favorite starbucks, where they have the ever elusive maple scone (it's a Christmas miracle!!), so I have been happily munching that and sipping my Christmas blend. The "town" of Burr Ridge is an interesting place. On the way in my lost cab driver drove us through developments with gigantic houses, so it is clearly a rich area. The hotel and my office are across the street from each other in this business park, which is also where the starbucks is. There is a "village" also in the business park, which is the cookie-cutter suburban deal where you have a yankee candle, a banana republic, and of course a starbucks. And of course there is Christmas music pumping from hidden speakers in the well-planned landscaping. Not that I'm judging...
Yesterday I went to the city of Chicago, which was great! I met Melissa and Becca there--two of my friends from Ithaca. I was so happy that Melissa contacted me because I had not realized how close she is to Chicago. It was great to see familiar faces so far from home. We went to see the Bean in Millenium park, and then went to Giordano's for pizza. The famous Chicago style pizza was so delicious! It lived up to all my expectations. I wish I could have more time to spend in the city itself, because I really liked what I saw. There is so much interesting architecture there! Melissa and I also stumbled across a mini German festival where amazing smells wafted from the booths, and there were tiny hand-crafted wooden ornaments everywhere. I had a really good time, and hopefully someday I'll get to come back in the summer time for a real vacation.
Work has been really tiring mentally, but I have been able to have excessively slow, lazy mornings, which I have been drinking up, needless to say. Today there is a layer of ice covering every surface, and the wind is brutal. But at least the sun is shining, and there is an ever-familiar Starbucks in which to take refuge.
Yesterday I went to the city of Chicago, which was great! I met Melissa and Becca there--two of my friends from Ithaca. I was so happy that Melissa contacted me because I had not realized how close she is to Chicago. It was great to see familiar faces so far from home. We went to see the Bean in Millenium park, and then went to Giordano's for pizza. The famous Chicago style pizza was so delicious! It lived up to all my expectations. I wish I could have more time to spend in the city itself, because I really liked what I saw. There is so much interesting architecture there! Melissa and I also stumbled across a mini German festival where amazing smells wafted from the booths, and there were tiny hand-crafted wooden ornaments everywhere. I had a really good time, and hopefully someday I'll get to come back in the summer time for a real vacation.
Work has been really tiring mentally, but I have been able to have excessively slow, lazy mornings, which I have been drinking up, needless to say. Today there is a layer of ice covering every surface, and the wind is brutal. But at least the sun is shining, and there is an ever-familiar Starbucks in which to take refuge.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Hello readers. I'm sitting in a Starbucks in lovely Burr Ridge, Illinois. I am here for work, and my shift is 2 PM to 11 PM CST. So I have been enjoying the freedom of this long, long morning.
It is very cold here, everything is covered in a thin layer of snow. The receptionist at the hotel warned me about going out in the cold. I scoffed at her inwardly thinking that this day is tame compared with winters I used to spend in Ithaca. Buuuut it has been a long time since I lived in Ithaca, and I have to say I am not used to this anymore.
Anyway, I don't have a ton to say, just a quick update on my location. I'm flying to Orlando in one short week!
Hope everyone is doing well.
It is very cold here, everything is covered in a thin layer of snow. The receptionist at the hotel warned me about going out in the cold. I scoffed at her inwardly thinking that this day is tame compared with winters I used to spend in Ithaca. Buuuut it has been a long time since I lived in Ithaca, and I have to say I am not used to this anymore.
Anyway, I don't have a ton to say, just a quick update on my location. I'm flying to Orlando in one short week!
Hope everyone is doing well.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Well, the last two weeks have certainly been amazing, haven't they?? I am very happy and relieved about President-Elect Obama, and I subscribed to the New York Times yesterday so that I can follow every step of the way! However, what I really want to write about is what I did yesterday. (And please be aware that the rest of this post is me nerding out about opera, so. You've been warned)
I woke up to the strains of the "Menuet des Follets" from Berlioz's Damnation de Faust, and I remembered that last night was its opening night. My interest in seeing Faust at the Met was sparked by reading the program notes for Doctor Atomic: John Adams said that his opera was commissioned to be a modern American Faust story. So, since I loved Doctor Atomic, I thought it would be really neat to see Faust to compare.
The new production at the Met is directed by Robert Lepage, who did a Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas recently. I knew this before going into the opera, and I wonder if I would have had the same reaction had I not known. I thought that the opera was a little circusy--there were acrobats suspended on wires doing flips in almost every major dance. Marguerite's Act 2 aria, "D'amour l'ardente flamme," started out very simplistically, but as the music swelled a giant image of the soprano was projected on the large screens behind her. The projected image was not only the height and width of the stage--the image was also burning (in case you needed a visual for love's FLAME?). I thought that all the larger-than-life staging took away somewhat from Berlioz's music. Although, in the middle of Act 1, when Faust is having the vision of Marguerite, the dance is made to look like it's under water. I loved that--partly because it really seemed magical (is it a tank of water, or just a visual trick??), and partly because of the symbolic weight of Faust falling through water, drowning as he is coming under the spell of Mephistopheles. It was beautiful and unique.
The singers were fantastic--Marcello Giordani, John Relyea, Patrick Carfizzi, and Susan Graham. I can't imagine the vocal stamina it must take to play Faust; he sings almost constantly for the entire opera. And Susan Graham's D'amour l'ardente flamme was so beautiful, even with her own giant burning head behind her. The ensemble was huge, and all of the choral numbers were really gorgeous. It was also really cool to see James Levine conducting! I have seen his name and image so many times on CDs, text books, etc., and to finally see his little head bopping over the edge of the pit was so neat. I wished that I had been able to take a crash course on Berlioz opera with my favorite music professor Dr. Swenson, as I'm sure he could have provided me with some great insight.
I also have to mention my seat, or lack thereof. I actually thought it was really neat to be in the standing room orchestra section--even though you can't really see the top half of the stage, I don't know that anything was really lost. Being in standing room is neat because you know that the people standing with you are really there because they love opera. It's a necessarily intimate setting, because the translation screens are so close together, that you kind of have to huddle next to the people around you. It felt like reading a book with someone--both bent over the same story and experiencing the same excitement over it. A couple of women walked by at one point and one said, "Standing room?" to which the other replied, "I guess if you REALLY want to see it..."
I woke up to the strains of the "Menuet des Follets" from Berlioz's Damnation de Faust, and I remembered that last night was its opening night. My interest in seeing Faust at the Met was sparked by reading the program notes for Doctor Atomic: John Adams said that his opera was commissioned to be a modern American Faust story. So, since I loved Doctor Atomic, I thought it would be really neat to see Faust to compare.
The new production at the Met is directed by Robert Lepage, who did a Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas recently. I knew this before going into the opera, and I wonder if I would have had the same reaction had I not known. I thought that the opera was a little circusy--there were acrobats suspended on wires doing flips in almost every major dance. Marguerite's Act 2 aria, "D'amour l'ardente flamme," started out very simplistically, but as the music swelled a giant image of the soprano was projected on the large screens behind her. The projected image was not only the height and width of the stage--the image was also burning (in case you needed a visual for love's FLAME?). I thought that all the larger-than-life staging took away somewhat from Berlioz's music. Although, in the middle of Act 1, when Faust is having the vision of Marguerite, the dance is made to look like it's under water. I loved that--partly because it really seemed magical (is it a tank of water, or just a visual trick??), and partly because of the symbolic weight of Faust falling through water, drowning as he is coming under the spell of Mephistopheles. It was beautiful and unique.
The singers were fantastic--Marcello Giordani, John Relyea, Patrick Carfizzi, and Susan Graham. I can't imagine the vocal stamina it must take to play Faust; he sings almost constantly for the entire opera. And Susan Graham's D'amour l'ardente flamme was so beautiful, even with her own giant burning head behind her. The ensemble was huge, and all of the choral numbers were really gorgeous. It was also really cool to see James Levine conducting! I have seen his name and image so many times on CDs, text books, etc., and to finally see his little head bopping over the edge of the pit was so neat. I wished that I had been able to take a crash course on Berlioz opera with my favorite music professor Dr. Swenson, as I'm sure he could have provided me with some great insight.
I also have to mention my seat, or lack thereof. I actually thought it was really neat to be in the standing room orchestra section--even though you can't really see the top half of the stage, I don't know that anything was really lost. Being in standing room is neat because you know that the people standing with you are really there because they love opera. It's a necessarily intimate setting, because the translation screens are so close together, that you kind of have to huddle next to the people around you. It felt like reading a book with someone--both bent over the same story and experiencing the same excitement over it. A couple of women walked by at one point and one said, "Standing room?" to which the other replied, "I guess if you REALLY want to see it..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)