julie & julia

Oh, the movie was painful.

Just so you don't waste your time.

As far as I can tell, they should have just had Meryl Streep play Julia Child in a film version of My Life in France.

365 days, 524 recipes

Despite the underwhelming number of stars from Amazon reviewers, I loved Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. And I don't think it's just because it was the first non-textbook or journal article I have read in five months. During the few short days I was reading it, I thought a lot about my pre-graduate student life; the story prompted such thoughts frequently. My former life and Julie Powell's were not incredibly similar, but some things were. I used to cook a lot more, try more new recipes (nothing like the types of recipes in the book), drink wine with friends more, blog more, have cats in my life, watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with friends every Sunday evening, go to work and have my evenings to do as I pleased. Ah. A lot of things about it were very good.

Not much to say; just some thoughts I've been having. I recommend the book and look forward to viewing the film. Now I have to wait until tomorrow (fingers crossed) for my shipment from Amazon for my next book.

wish i had a picture for you

Yesterday in my Dysphagia (swallowing disorders) class, we had a guest lecturer on electrical stimulation therapy. Because I know the research base is inconclusive -- or perhaps more correctly, inadequate -- I went into class with some skepticism, but the presentation was interesting and I appreciated the perspectives of the presenter. I did not come to any personal conclusions about efficacy/effectiveness, but that isn't the point of this post.

So we learned that you aim for a sub-maximum motor contraction level of current to be applied to the target muscles. A max motor contraction contracts the muscles so much that you can't un-contract them while the current is being applied. It's a little bit creepy. The presenter needed someone to demo the procedure on before we would all get to try it on each other. (We were doing it on the facial nerve to avoid things like putting the electrodes too close to the carotid sinus and perhaps triggering a vasovagal attack.) Although kind of leery, I volunteered to be the "model." It felt weird -- tingly, then more like stronger pokes, I couldn't keep my eye open, and it also stimulated a nerve to a tooth (which really kind of hurt). Apparently I looked pretty funny because the class kept laughing.

pie crust timmings

What do you / what did your mom/dad/grandma/grandpa do with the trimmings from pie crusts? My mom always put them on a cookie sheet, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and baked them. So, sooooooooo good. I love those little treats. I've made one pie crust on my own. It wasn't that great. Edible but certainly not stellar, especially the texture of it. I tried to make trimmings treats, but I ended up burning the sugar on them, and they had to be thrown away.

Needless to say, due to inexperience and (mostly) the simple fact that I pretty much never make pie crusts (and don't have time to), my prospects for having trimmings treats are not very favorable. However, a few weeks ago Whole Foods had a nice sale on Stacy's Pita Chips. I usually make my own pita chips, but since there was a sale, I bought several flavors. One of them was the Cinnamon Sugar flavor, and they taste so much like the pie crust trimming treats. Mmm, mmm. Harder and crunchier, sure, but tasty-tasty. I just ate these for breakfast (yes, I know how late it is; that is how I roll on the weekend).

2 wheels

I just bought a bike. Like 1 hour ago. It is a used bike of a good brand that fit what I was looking for. You know that feeling you get when you've just bought something and you're not sure you made the right decision? Well, I don't have buyer's remorse; I have non-buyer's remorse. My mistake was that I went to three bike shops before I went to the used bike shop where I ended up buying. At one of those three, I fell in LOVE with a bike. Love. It was such a sweet bike and such a great deal for the bike. The problem was that it was more than I originally budgeted. I could have afforded it, but I really should save that extra money for other things. Plus, one of the reasons for buying a bike is that I wanted something cheap that I could commute with and feel ok about locking up and leaving and not incredibly disappointed if it were to be stolen. My new used bike fits this need. The other one, not so much. But it was so hard to be a responsible adult and let the dream of owning that sweet, sweet bike go. Good-bye, Trek 7.3 FX; I'll never forget our test ride together. :)

A work of beauty...beautiful components...rides like a road bike
with more of a mountain-bike-like geometry

goldfish debate

I'm working on materials for my lesson in the preschools tomorrow. I'm using the Goldfish Colors crackers for part of the lesson (genius that these were created...go so well with Rainbow Fish!). Due to being lazy and not wanting to go downstairs and dig through our materials box in the clinicians' work room for our crackers but needing to know the colors, I google image searched them and came across this gem to share.

two stories i love (ripped straight from the headlines of my facebook status)

1. Last week Brian was in Florida for meetings related to a project he is working on in collaboration with about seven other people at universities across the country. One of those people (a professor at Vanderbilt, I believe?) was talking about doing service work in Paraguay. Brian asked him about it, and it turned out it was through MCC, that the guy and his wife are Mennonite, and that he and/or his wife grew up in and/or went to Bluffton!

2. Last night we went to a Mardi Gras celebration on campus and were eating at a table with two other graduate students, one of which Brian had met before. The other was the neighbor of that guy. We were all talking about being glad we went to smaller schools for our undergraduate degrees. The neighbor guy said he was from Indiana. Brian asked him where and he said close to Notre Dame. Brian and I looked at each other, and I said, "Goshen is close to..." The guy piped up with, "Goshen -- that's where I'm from." I had to ask, "You're not Mennonite, are you?" Yep, he sure is (but he didn't go to Goshen or to Bethany).