What I watched: Still watching the Expanse. It is addictive, but I think that the show is giving me bad dreams. It is so intense, and all that walking around in open space just stresses me. It’s sixth and final season appears to be planned for a December 2021 release. Also, yup, Team Amos.
What I read: I read varying degrees filler. A Lady’s Formula for Love (The Secret Scientists of London) by Elizabeth Everett was pretty good. If you read period romance novels you know the trope: women with secret scientific interests, espionage, class differences, protectors from the home office. I think it may be book one of a series.
I also read another E. A. Copen book, Cyberspell, not her best work. The premise is world hopping alien detectives solving intergalactic murders and fighting cults that worship planet-destroying old gods.
And I read the second-to-last book in Laura Adrian’s Midnight Breed series, Fall of Night (the final book, King of Midnight, comes out in September). She has spin-off series, including Midnight Breed Next Generation and Hunter Legacy, nearly thirty books in all. Each book follows a similar plot-line: hot super-soldier vampire descended from an alien race resists falling in love with a “breed mate” or Atlantean refugee, whilst helping the order fight an evil cabal. And gratuitous vampire sex scenes. I’m looking forward to the last book, to see how she wraps up this long running series.
What I listened to this week: @HammerZeitgeist posted Half Moon Run on DUAN, and boy, am I enjoying them. Another winner (from @butcherbakertoiletrymaker) was Bill Evans. And I’ve been listening to Attawalpa (like them a lot as well):
New Truth
I’m Getting Sentimental Over You:
Borrowed Time:
So, darling DeadSplinterites, are you doing okay? What have you watched, read, or listened to? Is your weather warming up at all? Please do let us know what is going on with you!
I watched some stuff on Acorn. Mayday was very entertaining, some others I ditched after 1 episode. East West 101, the racism is central to the story, just no.
The big event of the week was going out to the store with my neighbor. We had to charge the battery of my truck first, then we went to the apple orchard/farmer’s market. It’s ridiculous how much fun we had doing something so ordinarily mundane. I bought four soft cheesey breadsticks, small baguette size, and ate 2 of them that day, they were so delicious. Then, the very next day, went to the pharmacy and auto parts store. Living like a person this week!
Was thinking I miss the ‘how to’ posts. I made mustard this week, it would be a good one.
Making mustard would certainly fit into an FYCE post. Give Ellie a shout.
Mustard is my favorite condiment. I’d like to see your how to.
Me too, @Hannibal!
Oh, there used to be How To posts? As Butcher says, there’s FYCE but I’ve been thinking for a while now that there could be FYCE mini-posts. I sometimes throw them into my recipes, like how to make a hollandaise sauce or how to make Thomas Keller’s chocolate sauce, but they’re part of a larger, exhaustively wordy contribution about how to make something where they’re only part of the equation. It would be fun to separate them out. I sometimes make my own mayonnaise and I’ve made my own ricotta and its Asian relative tofu (don’t bother with tofu; the store-bought is easier, better than mine, and cheaper by a mile). I reflexively flinch when I hear about home pickling, because it is/was a hipster trend jacked up on steroids during the pandemic, but still I’d like to learn how to do it, just because.
Pickling really isn’t that complex–you just have to be really mindful of keeping a clean and sterile environment. Maybe I’ll do a preserving post or two this year when we start harvesting.
Do you ever make your own cornichons? We go through those by the jar. By the huge jar. It would be fun to learn how to make those. I also like pickled herring, because in a previous life I was a rural coastal Scandinavian I guess, and that’s actually kind of difficult to find in my neighborhood.
Haven’t yet made cornichons, but I keep thinking about maybe growing some one year so I can try my hand at them. Before they were purchased by Vlassic, the Milwaukee Dill company used to make jars of what they called “Baby Dills.” I used to eat them by the jar.
Pickling meat and fish, however, is a completely different thing and one that I haven’t bothered to learn.
That would be awesome, @butcherbakertoiletrymaker.
How much pot do you think the guys from Attawalpa smoked when they thought up this video concept? I’m guessing all the pot.
Watched: Am totally enjoying Stanley Tucci’s CNN special Searching for Italy. I’m super bummed that they’re only doing six shows, when there are twenty Italian regions. Mrs. Butcher thinks they’ll re-up the contract for more shows, but I’m guessing that CNN’s Creative Marketing division isn’t about long runs.
Read: After watching the 3rd episode of Searching for Italy, I picked up a copy of “Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well” by Pelligrino Artusi. It was first written in 1891 and is still in print. It’s essentially the first Italian cookbook that wasn’t written by, or for, French-trained chefs–but for the “women and domestics” of Italy. This means that Artusi assumes the “women and domestics” already know their way around a kitchen, so he doesn’t get into specific instructions. He lists ingredients (not always by volume) and then says things like “prepare in the usual manner.” It’s also got a lot of recipes in there that are clearly designed for the Old-Word, hardcore days when you would eat literally everything. There’s a stuffed, roasted chicken recipe (hold on @matthewcrawley, the punchline is coming), in which the stuffing includes the comb and wattles of the chicken you just killed. But, I did find some good recipes to bookmark and plan to try them out.
Listened: The other night, Mrs. Butcher and I danced (well, she danced and I just bounced around like an idiot) in the living room to Dean Martin. I bet his shows was great fun to attend–at least in the first hour before he got too drunk.
The Stanley Tucci show is so good! I’d love to see it as a regular feature. You may have seen this already, it’s a good read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/05/stanley-tuccis-life-quarantine/611557/
Jezebel ran a story on Zaddies once and I submitted a pic of Tucci. A regular who lived in LA commented that Tucci hit on his wife once at a coffee shop. But she said it was sweet and non creepy, and he even paid for her coffee after she rebuffed him. And it was after the death of his first wife so not a cheating celeb encounter.
Fun fact – Dean Martin was Elvis Presley’s favorite singer. I don’t think he really drank all that much, it was an image he cultivated as a sophisticated member of the Rat Pack.
I hadn’t read that Atlantic article before, so thank you. I just can’t help but think that Stanley would be great fun to hang with.
I laughed like crazy a while back at Conan O’Brien’s trip to Italy with his producer Jordan Schlansky. There is a series of bits on Youtube like tbis
It’s the kind of thing that will drive half the world insane but I really like the pairing. I like all of his travel shows for that matter.
Most vintage (say, a century or more ago) cookbooks are like this. They assume you’ve seen a lot done but just need to know what raw materials to use and in what order. I came across a recipe once from 1870s Britain that went something like “Dress a guinea hen, or some modern butchers may do this for you.” You were supposed to stuff and roast it. The roasting instructions, in their entirety, were, “Roast to your liking.” This actually is not so far-fetched because Victorian ovens were incredibly expensive, weighed a ton, and came with no instructions and varied widely, so the cook using one had to figure out how hot they got under what circumstances and how long to leave things in for. You couldn’t say, like with a 21st-century turkey, “Roast at 325 degrees for 15 minutes per pound until your meat thermometer reads 160 degrees at least.”
Right? I was not taught to cook at home, so even easy things like how to remove the skin from a bell pepper, were revelations to me. @MatthewCrawley.
@Sedevilc, that sounds like a good week! The “I did a thing” posts, mostly from @myopicprophet, have waned with increased demands on his time other places. But I would love to hear about your homemade mustard, if you are willing to write a draft? We could easily and happily slip it within the FYCE schedule!
@elliecoo I kinda think maybe 1 post a week of a “here’s a sauce/pickling/basics” post that covers some of the basics would be interesting?
Like there’s the mother sauces, plus other interesting ones. After I made chimichurri the first time, I was like wow what else can I serve this on because it’s amazing. Etc etc
Please feel free to add your chimichurri recipie to drafts!
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker that cookbook sounds excellent…can’t wait to read more about it on FYCE (subtle I am not). I have preordered a cookbook that mostly shuns measurements, just lists ingredients, “to taste”. Dean Martin always appeared so sophisticated, didn’t he? And yes, all the drugs.
I’m still watching The Magicians. The alternate time lines/mutiple universe story is beginning to wear on me.
I downloaded The Wolf In the Whale that @MemeWeaver suggested and am looking forward to starting it today.
Listening to the new Mitski track, it meets my Fun Music Saturday demand
The Baddy Man
@Hannibal
It did for us also. That is why we stopped watching Eureka.
A little of that goes a long way.
@Hannibal, oh yeah, me as well…power through it…it gets better. You can track your timeline by which Penny is which. And seriously, I want to be Eliot or Margot. As opposed to a boring old lady. I may need psychedelics. Saw on Vice that someone has a patent for a psychedelic weight loss drug, score!
Psychedelic weight loss? Count me in!
Good morning! My p.o.s. phone is being cooperative this morning, so I’m taking my chance to say “hi!” I keep having to run a file cleaner on it (like, multiple times a day) and reboot it (same) or else my messenger and other useful features are unusable. I’ll be getting a new phone (probably the Samsung S20 FE) when we get taxes back in 6-8 weeks, so cross your fingers for me that the old gal holds out til then!
Watching – finally finished the entire series of Stargate SG1. I’ve seen the early seasons a ridiculous number of times, but had never paid much attention to seasons 8, 9, and 10, so it was nice to see how things wrapped up. I need to track down the 2 movies they made after the series, Ark of Truth and Continuum, and watch those, and then I will have finally finished the entirety of the show.
Watched Striptease with Demi Moore last night, which I haven’t seen in about 15 years. It’s not exactly Shakespeare, but it’s a pretty fun movie, and not nearly as offensive as I was afraid it might be!
Reading – still working my way through Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz. It’s fascinating, but rather dense and scholarly, so I keep putting it down to read fluffier things. For instance, book 5 of the Bridgerton series, To Sir Philip, With Love, came in on my Kindle loans and I whipped through that in a day. Not bad, not bad, but I think Eloise deserved better than what she got! Also read the 3rd book in the Body Farm series by Jefferson Bass (can’t remember the title! Stupid brain), which was pretty good. If you’re a fan of Kathy Reichs and have a strong stomach, I recommend this series.
Listening – I’ve been revisiting some of my late ’90’s loves like Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Hole.
…striptease was bas d on a book by the same name by carl hiaasen
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hiaasen
…I think he might have a few out that I haven’t managed to read yet but of the ones I have I think I’d recommend any & all of them…generally they have at least some angle that lets him get in a good chunk of venting about the shitty side of the way florida has been fucked with in an environmental sense…but they’re funny & a good kind of ridiculous?
Thank you for the recommendations @SplinterRIP, yours are always spot on for me. Hope that you are well, sleeping a bit, and having a good weekend!
…thank you kindly…sadly a bit might be too good a description on the sleeping front…but so far it’s been a fairly relaxing weekend so I think that counts as far as the being well goes
…hope you (& indeed everyone else) can claim better sleep-wise…& that your weekend is relaxing
@SplinterRIP I am cooking ahead, the kids are coming over tomorrow (our pandemic bubble), so I will humans…a better than average weekend, thank you!
I knew it was based on a book, but I’ve never read it. I’m adding it to my reading list now!
(Somehow, I managed to star and unstar and, hopefully, re-star this comment… all in one tap! As I said, this phone is going wonky :/ )
@HoneySmacks
We watched a British tv show called Body Farm. Will have to see if it is related to the books. Ellie read the Bridgerton books but has yet to watch the tv show.
I have to say, I loved the Bridgerton tv series, and the books are… fine. There’s a lot that’s different between the two, and I honestly think that the show is better. And I’m usually a “But, in the book…” kind of person!
Hi @HoneySmacks, sorry to hear of your tech hardware turmoil. Hardware, grrrr, mostly the solution is to throw money at it…looking forward to hearing about your new phone. I have a Samsung 8 that works fine for my simple needs. My early-30’s son keeps telling me I need to upgrade, but I resist. We are the same way with cars, we run them well past the loan and basically untill maintenance costs are more in time and money than is a car payment. Happy weekend!
I resist upgrading until I can’t put it off any longer, too! I’m sad that this phone has reached that point… and I am not looking forward to learning all the quirks of a new one!
The car, now, that’s an entirely different story. I’m desperately looking forward to getting a new one, because this one is on it’s last legs (tires?)!
I really like Tori Amos – if you haven’t listened to her since the 90s, I really like some of her albums that came out in the aughts and teens (although, there are some I’m kinda ‘meh’ about…)
And I also really like Hole and Courtney Love – also, if you haven’t listened since the 90s, Courtney Love has put out two solo albums (the second under the name “Hole” which I think caused some issues with her former bandmates…), and while I liked the first (America’s Sweetheart), I can’t really defend it as a “good” album. I do think the second (Nobody’s Daughter) is pretty good, and worth tracking down if you haven’t heard it yet.
@lochaber I too really liked Courtney Love’s solo/Hole stuff, and it on CD back when it was new. May have to add it to my Spotify list, thanks for the reminder! I always thought that she got a bum rap; life is messy, people are complex.
I feel like a lot of people bought into some Nirvana/Kurt Cobain vs Hole/Courtney Love antagonism/conflict, which didn’t help the situation, on top of the nonsense where some people are trying to claim that Love killed Cobain…
But, yeah, her personal life has been a bit of a train wreck, and she’s been through a lot, but I also believe she’s a really talented artist.
plus, there is this:
I’ve heard Love’s new stuff, and I gotta say, Live Through This is my favourite of her albums. It’s just raw enough to be real and professional enough to carry it past the rough bits.
Tori basically saved my life. I’ve never met her and she’ll never know it, but Little Earthquakes and From the Choirgirl Hotel both came to me when I needed them the most. I got to see her live once, during her Strange Little Girls tour, and just… wow. That was intense in a way I was not expecting.
Just started reading a how-to: Cross-Country Skiing: Building Skills for Fun and Fitness. Wanted to read something like this to see how I can improve my current skiing form and fitness. Man I love our library.
@MemeWeaver, libraries rock. Also among the hardest hit nonprofits during the pandemic. Libraries were already morphing due to the pervasive nature of ebooks, and looking at ways to better serve their communities. If anyone has dollars to share, a local library donation is another good place to spend them ( beyond food banks, etc. So much need, so few billionaires solving it.)
Excellent idea, @elliecoo. I was already taking advantage of e-books and e-magazines (I have one actual mag subscription still, and that’s a gift from my dad) before the pandemic, but the system here has really stepped up to offer curbside service, the forgiving of late fees, and other great ideas. We will definitely be donating some money this year.
I’ve been watching a ton of horror on Prime. Lots of it bad! But not all. Notable recs “Gehenna: Where Death Lives,” “Entity,” (not The Entity), and “Lake Artifact.”
@PumpkinSpies, horror gives me bad dreams and shadows my following days. If you have a moment, would you be willing to share it’s appeal for you?
I like slasher flicks because I find them funny and somewhat cathartic.
@elliecoo Honestly, I’d be hard pressed to put it into words! Maybe my chip is broken but it has never affected me. I have been watching (or reading) it since I was way too young. No nightmares. Occasionally I’ll get the ooks if i watch something creepy late into the night (Hell House LLC was one) and have to check all my closets. But i have a visceral repulsion to romance or feel good stories. Maybe I just like the escapism? The “glad that didn’t happen to me” factor?
@PumpkinSpies, no judgement, I know that there are some excellent horror flicks. I’d like to be able to get my head on straight to watch them, which is why I asked…so says your wimpy friend Elliecoo.
Likewise still on the expanse… about halfway through season 4 now (but I can’t continue binging till I get home tomorrow night) I’m actually starting to enjoy it not quite following the books as it keeps surprising me
Wonder what they’ll do with the final season as it’s coming out before the final book
Anyways still reading the Dragonlance chronicles (now on dragons of summer flame )
And not currently listening to anything coz YouTube with adds is insufferable
(But I do have my drum kit here so I might just go make my own noise for the sake of it)
Hello @Farscythe, thank you for checking in from the wilderness!
I awoke this morning in a cheerful mood. I am hooked up to a wound vac (it’s like an IV drip, but goes in the opposite direction, it sucks stuff out, doesn’t pump stuff in) and yesterday’s Visiting Nurse (they have become my best friends during my confinement) told me my progress is excellent, extraordinary really, and I may be out of this thing much sooner than anticipated. My birthday is coming up soon so I am bracing for lots of well-wishing phone calls and a
big checkthoughtful gift from The Better Half.But maybe the gift won’t be so thoughtful after all. Our washing machine broke this morning and has to be replaced. That’s not the worst of it. Today he is off to see our accountant and get our taxes done. I’m going to be in for a world of pain. I was supposed to go with him and have my own appointment but am a shut-in, so he took all my documentation and my driver’s license (to offer some kind of identity, I guess) and God knows what he’s going to say to the accountant third-hand. I normally do my own taxes but 2020 was a very messy year. We’ll see how this goes.
Taxes + broken washing machine = super-craptastic day, @matthewcrawley. Your attitude is impressive. Throw in a wound vac, and most of us are just DONE for the day.
Like Brian, as in The Life of, I always look on the bright side of life. The taxes are done and I owe far less than I was fearing (still a good chunk of change, and the accountant’s fee was pretty stiff, but apparently the accountant had to file many schedules, very messy year 2020 was), so my sunny mood has returned.
This is so twee and cliched but people should be more grateful for what they have. Soon I will be able to don a pair of pants. Once I’m off the wound vac the physical therapist will visit me and we will walk together, outside, so he can see how and if I can do it. Even here in benighted Gotham people are getting vaccines (the rollout has been beyond chaotic) so I can look forward to someday rewinding to 2019, walking around, perhaps even maskless, descending a flight of stairs to enter a subway, going somewhere interesting, who knows? The sky is the limit!
Glad you’re doing well!
…hadn’t realised your brief stay in hospital had left you with such residual encumbrances so I hope you manage to shed them as swiftly as possible & it’s nice to hear you might be ahead of schedule
…also…though it might be a tad impertinent (& possibly an inexplicable tangent since I’ve not watched it yet) but I gather wandavision has been kind of emulating different famous tv shows with each episode…& between memeweaver’s pointing out your impressively upbeat attitude & the wandavision thing I found myself thinking your current situation might be ripe for rear window remixed as a sit-com?
I am totally in Rear Window mode but one of the reasons we bought the apartment we did is it’s a bright, corner unit on a corner lot. South of us is a very low-rise municipal building that will never be built up. Maybe someday, but my friend lives near a subway station where they needed to replace an elevator. Replace an elevator, not install one. It took 11 years. To our west is a small park and beyond that a building but I can’t really see them and they can’t see us, presumably. So my surveillance opportunities are severely limited. We used to get a lot of hawks, for some reason, and then for some reason they disappeared, probably the pandemic, with Cuomo and de Blasio shutting everything down there’s not a lot of foraging to be done. Although garbage collection has been severely curtailed, trash does pile up on the streets, so I don’t know, I’m not an urban wildlife ecologist.
@MatthewCrawley, taxes are so stressful. I TurboTax ours, and it is never pretty. Also new appliances are always a challenge. Happy weekend to you!
I’ve been watching some Parks and Rec on Netflix which I didn’t really get into when it was on NBC. Partially because I lived with a real life version of Andy and its early episodes weren’t all that good. I’ll admit I’ve developed a crush on Ann Perkins/Rashida Jones and not Aubery Plaza (maniac pixie girls in real life are not all they’re cracked up to be.)
Also watched a little bit of Sharpe, based on the Bernie Cornwell novels. I guess I can call it writing research too. The only show where Sean Bean does not die. Not a big fan of Imperial Britain so the context bothers me, but still somewhat entertaining which I guess is the damn point.
@MemeWeaver, I may be the last person living to have missed Parks and Recreation. I am adding it to the list!
Oops, @ManchuCandidate, sorry, and I hope that your exam went well!
Also includes adventures in Solid Dose Formulation as I had a midterm exam on that this past week, but I don’t think anyone outside of pharmacists or process engineers want to read that. I don’t actually, but I do for work related reasons.
I watched Monster Hunter so you don’t have to. It’s hard to pinpoint what is lacking but all these movies being bankrolled by Chinese production companies are devoid of soul. It’s like paint by number or like an AI auto generates them based on a simple template.
@elliecoo I read some Lara Adrian like 15 years ago, I had no clue she was still publishing in that series!
I’m going to finish WandaVision tonight I think. I have 2 episodes left and I am really enjoying it!