What I'm Not Reading -- All Gone: A Memoir of My Mother's Dementia, With Refreshments

I've read some books about aging.  Generally I find the topic to be interesting and educational, if somewhat sad.

I love food -- cooking eat, eating it, reading about it.

This book should have worked.  I got partway into chapter 3 before I called it quits.  Maybe I should have given it more time to get rolling, but life is short (reference paragraph 1, herein).  So I'm moving on.

Gold -- Take 2

Imagine my delight to discover that Gold is a novel about bike racing!

It's the story Kate and Zoe, friends and rivals.  They were both invited to an elite development camp, and been training together for thirteen years.  Each race brings their relationship to a head, highlights Kate's motherly instincts and Zoe's cruel manipulation.  They live lives off the track too, but even there, everything is a competition.

They dance this dance for years.  Their lives become ever more intertwined and their friendship balances on a razor's edge until their final contest.

Warning: there is a child with cancer, which can feel a bit like it's too easy of a tool for a writer to use.  But nothing's perfect.

The Man Who Loved China -- Take 2

The Man Who Loved China is one of those stories so fascinating stories that it's hard to believe you haven't heard it yet.

The only real character in the story is Joseph Needham.  He was a quirky Brit (the only other kind being incredibly dull) who fell in love with a Chinese woman, and then with China itself.  Despite that China was not his background, his training, or the reason for his employment, he parleyed his professorship into lifelong employment immersed in the subject he loved most.

I found the narrative a bit repetitive, but the story was so enjoyable that I didn't mind much.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Goal #45

Goal #45: plan the post-Thanksgiving feast, and tidy up the odds and ends as best I can.

I'm having some folks over for a meal on Black Friday, because none of us believe in shopping, apparently.  (And hopefully I'll have my food shopping for that day done before that!)  I think we have a theme, so now I need a menu.

Recap of goal #44: I still have a ways to go, but I made major progress on my CDs this week.  Hooray!

What I Watched -- Hotel Rwanda

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, I decided it was high time I watch the award-winning Hotel Rwanda.

I don't feel like there's much you can say about a movie about genocide.  It's dark.  It's heavy.  It's stressful.  But it's well done.

Bottom line: worth watching, but be prepared.

Art at the Table

I recently learned about a new thing that they're doing at Panorama, the restaurant at the St. Louis Art Museum called Art at the Table.  My friend M and I attended the "Whiskeys of the World" dinner to see what it was all about.

The main seating area of the restaurant is closed for the evening, although I believe the small tables along the two sides are still reserved for regular guests.  Seating is family style, so M and I were at a table of six.  The other four knew each other, and we got to know a bit about them over the course of the evening.  Two of the courses (1 and 4) were served family style as well.  Introductions to the food were given by chef Ivy Magruder; introductions to the whiskeys were given by a guy from Major Brands.

Course 1: fried oysters, buttermilk marinade, sweet potato puree, Andouille BBQ
Paired with: Tyrconnell Single Malt Irish Whiskey

Course 2: braised pork belly, grilled asparagus, apple mustard, poached egg, togarishi-spiced creamed corn
Paired with: Knob Creek Rye Whiskey

Course 3: grilled filet, smoked Gouda, caramelized onion-porcini gratin, glazed beets, whiskey demi
Paired with: Suntory Hakushu 12-Year Single Malt Whiskey

Course 4: candy plate (pecan pralines, chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, bacon fudge)
Paired with: Glen Garioch 12-Year Single Malt Scotch Whiskey and Canadian Club Small Batch Sherry Cask

My favorite whiskeys were the Irish and the Scotch - not the two I expected!  In restaurants, I tend towards the American, but I guess that's why something like this is such a good idea.  What's more, all the food was delicious; I've been back to the restaurant since just for a nibble, and I will go to another Art on the Table event for sure!

What I'm Reading Now -- Gold

I don't know how Gold came to be in my audiobook collection.

Strange though it may sound, this is a relatively common frustration of mine. Here's how it happens: someone recommends a book to me, so I added to my "list" based solely on their recommendation.  But there are problems with these "lists," which is why I'm putting them in quotation marks.

One version of it is an Evernote note to myself.  Another version is a Goodreads list.  A third version is my saved requests at the library (city or county).  A fourth is books I've downloaded into my iTunes.  Fifth is books I've uploaded into my iTunes, usually because Mom sent them to me.

I'm sure there are others, but that's all I can come up with right now.

Whatever form the list takes, though, there is very little in the way of opportunity to note who recommended the book or why I thought I might like it.  So often, I end up diving blindly in with no idea what to expect.

As for this particular book, the reason I need to get it out of my library is because iTunes, when it did its last update, lost the ability to distinguish between the book Gold, by Chris Cleave, and the CD Gold, by Ryan Adams.  I'm not sure what glitchy thing happened that caused that, but it's an easy fix and solves the problem for me of which book to listen to next!

TV Wins the Day

Sorry I haven't been writing; catching up on the new seasons of Mad Men and Downton Abbey has been taking up my evenings!

Goal #44

Goal #44: CDs, take 2.

Recap of goal #43: CDs are all still in boxes.  But I moved the boxes to a different area of my apartment!  Does that count for something?