Pumpkin Rice Pilaf

So, I've been off meat lately. It's just something I'm trying. I don't want to make any life-altering proclamations that define who I am. I might eat it again some time. But, for the past 18 days, I haven't had any. And what is a little surprising is that it's so easy not to eat meat. My biggest struggle in the past was going out to eat and seeing all kinds of wonderful meaty things, especially burgers. But now...I don't know. There are other things. I guess I'm not eating it because I don't really have a desire to eat it. I don't feel like I need meat in my life right now. So, I've eliminated it for now.

We made this awesome rice pilaf and shoved it into a roasted pumpkin. The recipe can be found here. It was really, really good.

Pizza Night

It has been snowing pretty non-stop for the past couple of weeks. The roads are bad and all we can do on the weekend, really, is stay in and watch movies. So for the past couple of weekends, we have been experimenting with homemade pizza. It is so much fun! The best part is, we had everything we needed for all kinds of fun combinations at home. There is something to be said for a well-stocked pantry, I guess.



The dough was super easy. Thank you, whoever invented bread machines. Do you own one? You should. Because in less than 3 minutes of prep time on your end, you can have fresh, preservative-free (whole wheat) bread for like $0.75 a loaf. We've been using ours pretty much exclusively since we moved here. I think we've bought maybe 6 loaves of bread since we moved to WV, all fancy ones for special times. Anyway, the bread machine has a setting just for pizza dough type stuff, it does all the kneading and rising and everything and it only takes about an (unattended) hour. We made a soft and lovely whole wheat dough. We noticed that the thinner you can roll it, the better it is.
On to toppings. One thing I really miss about Boston is good food. Specifically, Aaron and I really struggle with the pizza situation here. We were used to good pizza. Brick oven, interesting toppings. There is something to be said for a classic, cheap pizza, but as far as I know, there is only one place in town that sells unique toppings, New Day Bakery. And they only recently started making pizza. Also pretty sure that the water makes the dough different here, which is sad.
Anyway, one place I really miss is Cambridge's Veggie Planet in Harvard Square. Holy pizza! This place rocks. It's all in the dough: whole wheat, chewy, crusty. And they have such amazing toppings. My all time favorite is Dinner for Henry: roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, rosemary, sage and goat cheese. Oh mama. We decided to make our own.
Let's take one more look:
Here is what we found: you need to really slather on the squash and use enough onions. The more the better. I would say at least two big ones. The key to caramelizing is a steady temp, not too hot, and a lot of time.
This is insanely good. Actually, it was so good that we've made it twice already. It was like tasting home.

As for other toppings, we mixed it up, doing different things on each 1/3 of the dough. We made a simple red sauce with crushed tomatoes, garlic and herbs. One of the best was pesto with sundried tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

I'm pretty sure pizza making is our new favorite thing. There are just so many things to try.

52 Books

I reached my 52-book goal just in time. I managed to just make it by the skin of my Tintin. I'm counting it, even though it was short. This year wasn't a great one for reading. I'm not sure why. I didn't read a lot of stellar books. I ended up reading mostly sub-par stuff. I'm not sure how it ended up that way. I also did a lot of starting and not finishing books. I got several hundred pages into Bleak House and somehow couldn't bring myself to finish it.
It's getting harder to devote time to reading/reaching my goals and also to read really worthwhile stuff at the same time. So I ended up turning to a lot of fluff with very little substance. Also had to read a bunch of stuff for work and none of it was really good. I did end up reading Ulysses, which was a major event in my reading life. It had been on my formal "to read" list for over 10 years. It was as tedious as I had anticipated, but there were some very nicely written parts. I am looking forward to reading better in the coming year, even if it means not reading a book a week, and I'm also hoping to tick a few more off of that life-long list. Even though this year's books were largely a bust, there were a few books this year that made an impact. My Top and Bottom 5 after the list...

1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Shaffer and Barrows

2. Beloved - Toni Morrison

3. The Basil and Josephine Stories - F. Scott Fitzgerald

4. Something From the Oven - Laura Shapiro

5. The Sweet Hereafter - Russell Banks

6. Big Hair and Flying Cows - Dolores Wilson

7. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks

8. The Secret History - Donna Tart

9. Ulysses - James Joyce

10. Rabbit, Run - John Updike

11. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

12. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

13. Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins

14. Fablehaven - Brandon Mull

15. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

16. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbra Kingsolver

17. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niggenegger

18. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

19. Harry Potter (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling

20. How to Cook a Wolf - MFK Fisher

21. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang

22. Trout Fishing in America - Richard Brautigan

23. The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) - Rick Riordan

24. The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson #3) - Rick Riordan

25. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson #4) - Rick Riordan

26. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) - Rick Riordan

27. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

28. Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

29. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro

30. Atmospheric Disturbances - Rivka Galchen

31. The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping - Ormond and Harry Arbi

32. Strange As This Weather Has Been - Ann Pancake

33. Wolf Brother - Michele Paver

34. True North - Jim Harrison

35. Spirit Walker - Michele Paver

36. The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff

37. The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff

38. Maus - Art Spiegelman

39. Maus II - Art Spiegelman

40. The End of the Affair - Graham Green

41. A Lost Lady - Willa Cather

42. You Better Not Cry - Augusten Burroughs

43. Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick

44. March - Garadine Brooks

45. The Book of Nightmares - Galway Kinnell

46. Pride and Prejudice (Graphic Novel Version)

47. Kindred - Octavia Butler

48. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

49. The Food of a Younger Land - Mark Kurlansky

50. Turtle Island - Gary Snyder

51. Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney

52. Tintin in America - Herge

Top 5 books:

5. American Born Chinese - An incredibly funny and heartbreaking graphic novel that should be taught in school. It blew me away.

4. Kindred - A SciFi book about slavery in America...it's what all SciFi should be. I remember all of my professors doing a "read-in" of this book in college, so it was nice to remember them, as well.

3. Rabbit, Run - It's been on my list for awhile. Had I known it was this good, I would have read it a long time ago.

2. Maus and Maus II - I spiraled into this world for days. The most visceral depiction of the Holocaust I've never read. I think it could have only been told in graphic novel form.

1. Beloved - Brilliant. Seriously, read this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks afterward, and that is what a proper book should do to you! She is a master.

Bottom 5 books:

5. Poisonwood Bible - It just didn't seem believable, the characters were one dimensional. I was really disappointed with this book.

4. The Te of Piglet - A really pathetic follow-up to a sweet book. Not worth wasting time on.

3. True North - Not his best. Meandering and repetitive, unfortunately. I forgive him.

2. The Secret History - Not a badly written book. It was a page-turner. However, it really upset me. Here is my goodreads.com review from last Feb: 629 pages? Overly long; flat characters that are difficult to sympathize with; muddy details which I often times questioned the authenticity; purple patches. I hate it when authors use first person and then, when it's finally time to reveal a major point, the character "doesn't remember exactly," or "doesn't want to go into it" for no good reason. 629 pages and you don't want to go into it? Bogus, Richard! You're fictional...you don't even exist. And yet, you owe it to me for putting up with your excruciating minutiae. Everything you ate that year, the drinks each character in the room were drinking every time they drank, every cigarette anyone ever smoked, what time you woke up every time you woke up that year. Then you go and do a "what they're doing now" for the last 5 pages of the book like the ending credits of some movie...for characters so minor that I didn't even remember some of them. Way to tack on a few. I can't believe that someone caught up in murder can be so boring.

1. The Time Traveler's Wife - A lot of people recommended this book to me. A lot of formerly trustworthy people. Like Secret History, it is not poorly written. The first half or so was really good. I was so excited to be reading something romantic and well-written. Then it all just fell apart. I felt like I knew the characters less towards the end than I knew them at the beginning. What's more, I hated them all toward the end. They were also totally flat and the the writing wasn't exciting. In fact, it was really boring. It felt as though the author wrote it while suffering from insomnia. And it went on forever. It was at least 200 pages more than it should have been.

*Note about the Bottom 5: these are certainly not the worst books I've read, they are just the books that disappointed me the most. I hate it when someone recommends a book and it doesn't come through. I hate it when something garners a lot of interest and it's total crap. Usually, these books have been on my shelf for a significant amount of time. That's way more upsetting than randomly choosing a flop from the library. That said, please recommend some books for 2010! I might not love them, but I sure hope I do.