The Truth About Celia

So, I am at work, supposedly updating links for 30 blackboard classes. Oddly, this leaves me brain space to think about other things. Like this.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/09/21/young-adult-novel-movies/

Remember how I was talking about modern classics vs what teens actually read? This seems to be another REALLY GOOD example of such a thing.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I really liked Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. When i was 13. It may even still be a good book. But the fact is a) it has a limited audience (how many boys out there have read it?), b) it's significantly dated, and c) well, it's boring. There's a difference between a good story for a book (comfortable, identifiable, etc.) and a good story in a movie. Are You There God will not make a good movie. The *idea* behind it might. But not the book. And this (for me at least) holds true with the many of the rest of them as well.

(To be fair, it holds true for many books just in general. I just feel that the adaptation to a script plus the updating of the story would end up with a movie just loosely based on the book.

When Goosebumps had that crazy boom while I was in HS, I think, and all the Harry Potter and Twilight craziness since then, I thought it was awesome. There may be better books in the world to read (yeah, there definitely are), but I figured every book someone reads is another book closer to a habit. If kids don't think books are fun or relevant or interesting, why should they bother reading for fun? Even if the kids never read another book on their own just for fun, that's still one more than they had before.

So, a while ago I was chatting with an English teacher and some other people my age ish. We were talking about the 'classics' from our high school days and how a) utterly inappropriate they are for teenagers in general and b) how boring they must be for kids who don't like reading much. I think the example that was used was Catcher in the Rye which is a coming of age novel given to people not yet of age *and* in a completely different world than the one in the book. And books like 1984 and Animal Farm, or my personal favorite, Brave New World (which to me in HS was so totally a Utopia--a world where everyone knew where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to do) are less obvious to teens than they are a few years later.

So I started making a class in my head, taking the classics, and pairing them up with contemporary books that 'match' but are more (theoretically) interesting to current teens. Surely it must be possible to look at what we expect a book to be doing and find an analog that would appeal to kids and still a) have the same message and maybe even b) help train critical reading skills.

So Brave New World pairs well with Scott Westerfeld's Uglies/Pretties/etc series. Dracula contrasts with the contemporary vampire books.

I had a few more, but I've forgotten them, and my work server is back up, so you'll just have to come up with your own.

First the song:


( next the lyrics )
Technically, I didn't have to copy the lyrics over, but i chose to do so in no small part because they spelled toeing the line wrong on the site.

( And now the discussion. )

This recipe ultimately comes from a book by Marcella Hazan. I think it's Marcella's Kitchen. (I totally recommend her cook books, she makes *wonderful* Italian recipes.)

At this point, my recipe doesn't much follow the one in the book. Which is why I won't just copy it over here. The good news is, regardless of how much detail I go into, this is an insanely forgiving recipe. It's tomatoes, garlic, and cream. You can make it *better*, but so long as you don't burn it, I don't think it can be *bad.*

Step one: Cut some garlic into slices. Personally, I use 1/2 to 3/4 of a head. Your mileage may vary. Throw them into a *big* (nonstick, if possible) skillet. Add a splash of olive oil. enough to keep the garlic loose in. Turn the heat on low, and just let the garlic sweat. The longer you can do this, the sweeter the garlic will be ultimately, but it's all about patience. If the heat is too high, it will brown. No big deal. when the garlic is soft, brown, or you're bored;

Step two: The tomato step. Again, it's a forgiving recipe. I think it calls for fresh plum tomatoes, but I hate slipping them, so I just used canned. The best is, of course, muir glen, but any of the canned varieties work. If possible, I recommend the brands that come in the finally diced. You want a 14-16 oz can. Diced, nothing but tomatoes (no spices, etc, until you've tried the basic and decide how you want to experiment. I have used Muir Glen fire roasted, and it's not the same, but not bad.) Dump the tomatoes in and put the heat on low again for about forever. I like to cook them down basically to nothing, ultra ultra soft. But I'm not all that fond of tomatoes. :) The original recipe said 'until the fat seperates' and if you watch it, there's a point when that happens and the oil starts gathering at the edges of the pan. like I said, though, it's not rocket science. When you're bored, and/or the tomatoes seems squishy enough:

Step three: Cream! I get the medium sized heavy cream container (for those who need realish numbers, this is the 2 cup container, and you're going to use about 2/3 a cup of cream at a time). Dump about a third in to the pan, stir throughly until it's a solid color (sort of pink-ish orange, depending on how much you cooked the tomatoes) Again, lowish heat, just let it cook waaaaay down. WAY. I accidentally thought I'd burned it the first time I did it this way, but no. It was awesome. Sweet/carmelized. Add another third, mix it completely as above, turn the heat up and hover over it until it's cooked down to a thicker sauce. It's an imperfect science, but you basically want it to at least be thick enough to cling to pasta. (So if you have the pasta done already, or are still testing it at this point, I advise taste testing with the pieces of pasta, to see how it stays on the pasta. If you cook it down too much, just add a little more cream.

And you're done. Pour it over a pound box of pasta, ideally cartwheels, otherwise radiators or rotini work well. You want lots of surface area to catch the sauce--nothing like penne or elbows or etc. They aren't *bad*, but they are less awesome. I have been making this dish for...10 plus years, and I still scramble to get the pasta and sauce done at the same time. I *think* if you start the pasta in the water after you add the cream the first time, it'll work out okay. Luckily, you can take a break with the sauce (turn the heat off after cooking down the first dose of cream.) while you try to get the pasta caught up. It will be *best* fresh, but works just fine reheated. (by 'best' I mean that 4 of us ate it tonight and there are no leftovers at all, and at least two of us had seconds. I have also eaten half of it myself in one sitting.)

There is also a step .5, which goes...somewhere. It is 'add salt.' I usually forget it while cooking. Also, taste it repeatedly. It is awesome, and every step only gets better. (by the cream steps, I usually try to talk myself around to just eating it out of the pan directly.)

And if you come visit, or I come visit you, I will make it for you, and you can stand at my shoulder and watch and taste and learn all my tricks.

ETA: I just remembered there's a non-vegetarian version of this as well which some may be interested in. If you make the sausage variation, it is worth finding the cartwheel pasta to go with it.

I will explain my method, you can reason out your own alternatives easy enough: Get yourself some sausage. About a pound I think, depending on your fondness for meat. If you actually live somewhere civilized enough to have a butcher (I miss Lewisburg for the butcher shop if nothing else.), it's the not-hot/Italian option. Just plain old sausage. If you have to make do with a grocery store, you want a bland sausage, ideally pork and little/nothing more. Breakfast sausage might be your best bet. Freeze it overnight or so, and then cut the sausage into rings a little wider than a pencil/basic pen. Wheels, basically. I don't like the sausage casing, which is one reason why I like freezing it--it peels off easily that way, but even with the skin, frozen is easier to cut into wheels. It cooks just fine from frozen or fresh, so that doesn't matter. You add the wheels to the pan while you sweat the garlic, so you only need enough oil to keep the sausage from sticking long enough to produce it's own fat. Sweat the garlic/brown the sausage (carefully, if you have removed the skin, so it holds together). When the garlic is done, move to step two, proceed normally. At the end, you'll have pasta cartwheels mixing with slices of sausage in much the same shape, for a nice blend of tastes and textures.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8408233.stm

"One of the researchers, Dr Julian Finn from Australia's Museum Victoria, told BBC News: "I almost drowned laughing when I saw this the first time."

---

"Australian Scientist dies discovering octopus tool use. "

"Naturally we're all terribly upset about this," said a press release issued by the museum. "But every time we try to have a moment of silence for him, someone snickers, and then we're all laughing ourselves sick."

I figured, why not? I've already got the coloring for it, might as well try something a little crazy. (The color is called Cherry Cola.)

( old Hair Color, a reminder )

Fun note: as always, hair dye dyes skin. I felt the strands stick to my face a couple of times, but wasn't really worried about it because I figured on my skin it would be almost exactly the same color as my freckles. And I was right. To the point that not only did my hairdresser not get some spots off first try, but when I was correcting him (once I had my glasses on), I pointed out a few places on my face that were still stained, one of which turned out to be an actual freckle.

I thought about going to meeting today. I slept in instead, but I thought about it before and since, and if i'd gone, I think I would have stood up and spoken, which I have never done in meeting. If I had gone and had stood up, I would have said something like this:
*
When my grandmother was little, she lived about three streets away from here. She watched people come here Sunday mornings, and she decided that she liked the look it. Of the meeting house, of the people, or of the religion, I don't know. But when she grew up and had kids, she raised them as Quakers, at State College Monthly Meeting in PA. I was born in that meeting, and grew up being Quaker, and knowing how much my grandmother valued Quakerism. When I started coming here, every time she asked if I had a meeting, and I told her I was attending meeting here, she would tell me again how she found Quakerism though this meeting.

She died Friday night, in her sleep. I will miss her.
*
Of course, there's a lot that I wouldn't have been able to say in the meeting. Like how she went back to school after her youngest, my dad, went to college. And she finished her BA and then got a PhD. And moved to New Jersey to teach. How we went to get her when she moved to my home town, and I was 8 or 9, and couldn't even remember what she looked like I'd seen her so rarely. She had loong hair, down to her waist, that she wore in a bun. When she moved to Lewisburg, she cut it short and wore it that way from then on. When I went to Italy on study abroad, I read a book called Mothers of Feminism, about Quaker women in the early days, and I wrote back to Libby about how brave these women were, to tell their husbands they were going ministering, and leave their children behind and travel the country on horseback, going to meetings and talking about god. And even the old women would do it! 75 years old, and traveling around ministering! And she wrote back and reminded me that she was 75, and moving to Philadelphia to work for the Quaker UN.

She was 85. She was living in a nursing home, in the first level of it (independent living?), and she was rapidly approaching the time when she wouldn't get her own apartment, just a room in the next level (assisted Living). (my father made a Dante reference here.) She had been getting more and more forgetful every time I saw her, but she approached it in a wonderful way, as suits a scientist. She was curious and interested in everything new to her, and everything was new to her. She'd say, "Now who are you?" to me, and I'd explain it all, including my parents, and their names, and their relationship to her. And she'd say, "Is your father here?" and look around interestedly. For a while she would write it all down, but that didn't really work because she'd just ask you the same thing again, and then write that down. The last time I saw her, I went with her and my uncle to Woods Hole, where she grew up, and she had a wonderful time. She knew everything! Where she'd lived, where other people had lived, how she had dated a boy with a motorcycle who lived over on the rich part of the bay, and her parents had disapproved. And she told me about her dad, who discovered the Redfield Ratio, and worked in the Woods Hole Oceanographical Institute, and showed us their house that is now part of the WHOI, and we had a wonderful day. And we drove back to my aunt's house, and got out, and she asked me again who I was, and I wondered if she had ridden the whole way back, wondering who I was in the back, and how it didn't matter to her at all. She wasn't scared or fearful of the unknown, she liked learning everything just as much every time.

I will miss her. But, I have been missing her for the better part of 10 years now, I think. Definitely 6 or more. I miss the grandmother I grew up with, and I am sad because even though that woman was gone, now she will never come back, not even for the split seconds i'd see now and then.

So, I love Eureka. I have loved it since the first moment I saw ads for it, whereupon I went to the internet and found all of it to watch. And the first season one of the BIG plot points revolved around the son of the love interest/head of the company. Who has not only disappeared from the show, he has NEVER BEEN MENTIONED this season. This season when his mother has been pregnant and talking about having a baby, blah blah blah, there has been not even a "gosh, X (I can't even remember his name any more) is doing so well off in Y, where he is doing Z." I mean, I don't require small children to stay on shows forever, but they could at least pretend he still is a human being and talk about him from time to time. They talk about other people who have left the show.

That said, I still do love it, and its interesting view of science. Not as much as Psych, though. I love Psych so much that would like to marry the writers from Psych. Well, really I would like to marry James Roday (who write scripts too!), but if he is taken, I will settle.

This video was stuck in my head for AGES at Dragoncon.



I posted it on my facebook page as well, so some of you have already seen it, but I feel that ALL of you should have it stuck in your head. Why *IS* he climbing the mountain?