Weekend accomplishments
Saturday
Has a leisurely breakfast and finished John Darnielle's Devil House. Which I have thoughts on, but they deserve their own entry.
Went to Michael's, the carwash (vacuum, cleaning wipes, dashboard wipes, $7 wash--it's going to rain a lot next week, but eventually you gotta involve soap in the cleaning process), Rouse's.
Did some carpet sweeping downstairs, cleaned the staircase, dusted my bedroom, did two loads of towels.
Finished the Netflix documentary about Woodstock '99, Trainwreck. I almost didn't go back to it, because I watched the first episode and was like eh, this isn't as good as the HBO one from last year. But for whatever reasons I decided to watch the rest of it, and now I think it's more like the dueling Fyre Fest documentaries of 2019, they make good companion pieces. With the Fyre Fest documentaries, broadly speaking, one focused on why it was such a shitshow, and the other focused on how it was a shitshow. With Woodstock '99, the Netflix documentary focuses on the many ways Scher and Lang cut corners and farmed out responsibilities to the lowest bidders; the HBO documentary focuses on why the resulting crumbling infrastructure and lack of security led to sexual harassment/rape, vandalism and arson, and empty water bottles being contstantly hurled on stage.
Sunday
I had bought some dried cherries a couple weeks ago that I wound up not needing, so I made cherry chocolate scones for breakfast:
The secret to good scones is a) freeze the butter overnight and grate it into your dry mix, and b) put the scones in the freezer while your oven heats up. Cold ingredients is how you get them to keep their shape, and letting them rest allows the gluten to relax.
Changed/washed my bedsheets, vacuumed my bedroom, started reading a biography of Sidney Gottlieb, Poisoner in Chief.
Made another recipe from my fancy toast cookbook, black bean and guac toasts with fried eggs and creamy tomatillo salsa (made the salsa myself).
And made a lemony olive oil cake, the first recipe I'm trying from Snacking Cakes:
The secret to any cake where citrus zest is providing the main flavor: don't just dump it into the sugar and mix. Use your hands to rub the zest into the sugar, which will get it to release more of its oil.
This is my usual MO when I get new cookbooks: mark recipes I want to try, and make them one after the other. If it's worth making again, leave the mark in the book.
Watched a couple episodes of Sandman. I never read the graphic novels, so I have nothing to compare it to. It's okay, but it kind of feels like they're ticking boxes off on a list. It's interesting enough, and certainly beautiful to look at, but I don't feel any particular emotional connection to it. (I expect to have the same reaction to Amazon's kajillion dollar adaptation of The Silmarillion.) I assume "Johanna Constantine" was because they don't have the rights to John Constantine, who Matt Ryan is still playing somewhere off in the Arrowverse. But I recall from the books that John did have a niece who was showing magical ability, I don't remember her name but I guess this could be her grown up. The timeline's off anyway, because they wanted to set it in the present day instead of the 1990s.
Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, though? A thousand times yes.
Has a leisurely breakfast and finished John Darnielle's Devil House. Which I have thoughts on, but they deserve their own entry.
Went to Michael's, the carwash (vacuum, cleaning wipes, dashboard wipes, $7 wash--it's going to rain a lot next week, but eventually you gotta involve soap in the cleaning process), Rouse's.
Did some carpet sweeping downstairs, cleaned the staircase, dusted my bedroom, did two loads of towels.
Finished the Netflix documentary about Woodstock '99, Trainwreck. I almost didn't go back to it, because I watched the first episode and was like eh, this isn't as good as the HBO one from last year. But for whatever reasons I decided to watch the rest of it, and now I think it's more like the dueling Fyre Fest documentaries of 2019, they make good companion pieces. With the Fyre Fest documentaries, broadly speaking, one focused on why it was such a shitshow, and the other focused on how it was a shitshow. With Woodstock '99, the Netflix documentary focuses on the many ways Scher and Lang cut corners and farmed out responsibilities to the lowest bidders; the HBO documentary focuses on why the resulting crumbling infrastructure and lack of security led to sexual harassment/rape, vandalism and arson, and empty water bottles being contstantly hurled on stage.
Sunday
I had bought some dried cherries a couple weeks ago that I wound up not needing, so I made cherry chocolate scones for breakfast:
The secret to good scones is a) freeze the butter overnight and grate it into your dry mix, and b) put the scones in the freezer while your oven heats up. Cold ingredients is how you get them to keep their shape, and letting them rest allows the gluten to relax.
Changed/washed my bedsheets, vacuumed my bedroom, started reading a biography of Sidney Gottlieb, Poisoner in Chief.
Made another recipe from my fancy toast cookbook, black bean and guac toasts with fried eggs and creamy tomatillo salsa (made the salsa myself).
And made a lemony olive oil cake, the first recipe I'm trying from Snacking Cakes:
The secret to any cake where citrus zest is providing the main flavor: don't just dump it into the sugar and mix. Use your hands to rub the zest into the sugar, which will get it to release more of its oil.
This is my usual MO when I get new cookbooks: mark recipes I want to try, and make them one after the other. If it's worth making again, leave the mark in the book.
Watched a couple episodes of Sandman. I never read the graphic novels, so I have nothing to compare it to. It's okay, but it kind of feels like they're ticking boxes off on a list. It's interesting enough, and certainly beautiful to look at, but I don't feel any particular emotional connection to it. (I expect to have the same reaction to Amazon's kajillion dollar adaptation of The Silmarillion.) I assume "Johanna Constantine" was because they don't have the rights to John Constantine, who Matt Ryan is still playing somewhere off in the Arrowverse. But I recall from the books that John did have a niece who was showing magical ability, I don't remember her name but I guess this could be her grown up. The timeline's off anyway, because they wanted to set it in the present day instead of the 1990s.
Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, though? A thousand times yes.