I still have the New Blog Blues, but we’re getting there. The photos are gone forever (sob, sob), but I have some good news: My list of recipes is back! You can find it over there to the left, in the otherwise nearly barren left sidebar. I was starting to get into a panic regarding Thanksgiving, but now we can all relax.
While I have you, I recently made two very different chicken recipes in the ol’ slow cooker, which I tend to forget all about because I keep it in the far recesses of a lower cabinet, but it really is such a great tool. These are both from the Times, and both turned out yummy. No photos not because I’m traumatized about losing all my photos but because slow cooker chicken tends to just look kind of gloppy. There are professional photos at the links below.
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This first one I served with steamed white rice and sautéed baby bok choy.
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs 3 tablespoons honey 1 teaspoon onion powder 1 teaspoon garlic powder ½ teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 to 4 chipotles (I used 2, which was plenty hot for us) from a can of chipotles in adobo, finely chopped, plus 2 tablespoons adobo sauce 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained Juice of 1 lime
Combine the chicken, honey, onion power, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and chipotles with adobo sauce in a slow cooker. Stir well. Cover and cook on low for 3 to 5 hours.
Using two forks, coarsely pull apart and shred the chicken in the sauce. Stir in the black beans and lime juice. Cover and let the beans warm through, about 5 minutes.
Microbes, really? Yes, but first a very quick book review: I at last allowed myself to read and savor the final book in Claire North’s fabulous Odyssey trilogy. This last volume begins right where the second one left off: Odysseus has finally come home to Ithaca! It is fantastic. I just can’t say enough about this series. If, like me, you loved Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, wait till you get your hands on these. Start with Ithaca (told by Hera), then House of Odysseus (told by Aphrodite), then The Last Song of Penelope (told by Athena). (Oh, new blog, I’m trying to love you even though all my photos are gone and all my links are broken! Sigh. First volume review here, second volume review here, Circe review here, Song of Achilles review here.) You’re welcome.
Meanwhile, this is apparently my alter ego:
OK, so now two things about microbes as they relate to nutrition:
As you know, I edit mostly cookbooks. Some of them are all about pies or chicken or cocktails or slow cookers or whatever, but some of them are more health-related. That could mean a book addressing a particular health concern, like prediabetes or food allergies, but often it’s just about how to eat “healthy,” whatever that looks like on any given day (it changes with the seasons, as you’ve no doubt noticed). I’ve done plenty of books that sound pretty sensible, plus a slew of fad diet books that made me roll my eyes. So, somewhere or other I read a pretty interesting idea. It was talking about how we have trillions of good-guy microbes in our gut, and they all might want to feast on a little something different. This book proposes that you try to eat 30 different plants each week. Which sounds kind of hard, but it’s really not! Think of a salad: You might have lettuce, cukes, carrots, tomatoes, and bell peppers—that’s 5 right there! But instead of buying a clamshell box of just red leaf lettuce, buy the one with red and green mixed—or, better yet, buy the “spring mix” that has several different varieties, plus baby spinach. If you usually have a handful of almonds as a snack, have a handful of almonds and cashews. Instead of just frozen strawberries in your smoothie, throw in a mix of frozen strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. (And don’t forget that grains are plants too—so if you like Dave’s Killer Bread as much as I do, you’re getting something like 21 different plants in each slice of toast, which pretty much seals the deal.) Anyhow, it’s kind of an interesting thing to think about, and I now enjoy seeing if I can add a few more plants to my weekly menu—even if it’s just a sprig of parsley or watercress as a garnish on your plate at a restaurant, that counts! And if you’re at a salad bar, throw in a bite or two of things you normally don’t get—some red onion, sliced celery, a few bean sprouts. You get the idea.
Next: I subscribe to a few email newsletters from The Washington Post, and one from back in July had what I consider kind of earth-shattering news. I can’t seem to link to wherever this appears at the Post website, but here you go:
Something happens when certain carbohydrates cool down, specifically the holy trinity of carbs: white pasta, potatoes, and rice. They turn into a source of resistant starches. Resistant starches aren’t the same thing as fiber, but they can have a similar effect. They ferment in your colon and feed your gut microbes. A resistant starch lives up to its name in that it’s a carbohydrate that resists digestion in the small intestine. Some foods are already rich in resistant starch, such as beans and oats. And some have more resistant starch when they are green and unripe, such as bananas.
And then there are foods that magically transform into resistant starches. When you eat a bowl of hot rice or pasta, what typically happens is your blood sugar will spike, only to crash later on, potentially making you feel gross and sad. But when we cool pasta, rice, and potatoes after they are cooked, the starch’s molecular structure changes. This process is called retrogradation, which is a pretty fantastic science trick. The now-cooled starch bypasses the small intestine and instead makes its way down to the colon, like fiber. And reheating these carbs doesn’t change its benefits, either, which means you don’t have to eat cold pasta, potatoes, and rice.
At first I didn’t believe this, but I googled and found it discussed in numerous prestigious medical journals. And just a few weeks after I read that, I was editing a cookbook written by a nutritionist, and she talked about it too! So it turns out that those supposedly “unhealthy” white potatoes, pasta, and rice are actually good for you—if you cook them first, let them cool, and then either reheat them or eat them cold. Game changer! (But for heaven’s sake, you can still eat them freshly cooked—they’re delicious and plenty good for you, just maybe not at every meal…)
I apologize for the lack of, um, ambience here. It’s like I got a new apartment and invited everyone over but didn’t bother unpacking anything! I still need to do some decorating. But in the meantime, I regret to inform you (and myself) that my 20+ years of photos did not make it over here in the Great Typepad to WordPress Migration. So if you want to see photos of my kids when they were in elementary school or that awesome meal I cooked, you can ask me and I’ll try to dredge it up on my phone … but it ain’t gonna be on the blog. I’m nearly sick about it but trying to “let it go” as the song says. I’d like to try to get a recipe list up if I can, as that is as useful to me as it is to you (likely more so) and will let you know if that happens.
In the meantime, I found a scrap of paper with a list of movies scrawled on it, which suggests to me that I had intended to review them for you. So:
The Accountant: Andy had seen the trailer for The Accountant 2, so we watched the first one first. It was good—your usual exciting shoot-em-up but with a side of autistic anti-hero (played by Ben Affleck). And Anna Kendrick, who … well, what’s not to like? The interesting thing was that throughout the movie I kept asking Andy a particular question about a particular character and he kept not answering (no spoilers here!). Turns out that the trailer for Part 2 (which I had not seen) had a big revealer if you hadn’t seen Part 1. So I got a nice surprise ending, and he got a bitten tongue for not caving and telling me throughout. (Oh, and we still haven’t watched Part 2, which precipitated this whole thing.)
The Phoenician Scheme: If you like Wes Anderson, you will love this, because this is about as Wes Anderson as Wes Anderson gets. Two points: Benicio Del Toro (LLOOVVEE) is in every freaking scene, and that is reason enough to watch. Also, there’s a new girl on the block! Mea Threapleton joins the usual crew and is absolutely fantastic. It doesn’t matter what the plot is. Loved this.
The French Dispatch: I was so high on Wes Anderson that I decided it was time to watch the only one of his films I had somehow missed. Well, ugh. I’m sorry, but DID NOT LIKE. It should’ve been right in my wheelhouse because it’s kind of a love letter to fans of The New Yorker (me!), but what can I say. It felt disjointed and not interesting. Sorry.
Freakier Friday: A bazillion years ago, Steph, Julie, and I went to see Freaky Friday, so it seemed only fitting that we all go together to see the sequel. It did not disappoint! Frankly, I could watch Jamie Lee Curtis wait for her nail polish to dry and be happy; she was excellent, and so was Lindsay Lohan. And there were many little treats and “Easter eggs” for those of us who had seen the original. It’s exactly what you think it’s going to be, and that’s a good thing.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: I don’t know why it took me so long to get to this one because Frances McDormand is one of my favorite actresses of all time, and she is a major badass in this! She plays a woman whose daughter was raped and murdered 6 months earlier. She is dissatisfied with the way the local police chief (Woody Harrelson) has handled the case—or not handled it, more precisely, so she buys space on three billboards to complain about him. Although the subject matter makes this the polar opposite of a feel-good movie, there’s quite a bit of quirky, small-town humor, and I found myself laughing quite a bit (and getting weepy, too). I liked this one a lot.
Hold on to your hats, but Andy and I went on a REAL vacation—like, on a plane with passports, just like in the old days! (We’ve taken only short driving trips since covid…) We went to the Azores! And if you are feeling like you recently heard of the Azores in the news, that’s because Hurricane Gabrielle showed up there just a few hours before we were supposed to fly back home yesterday morning. Luckily our flight was delayed only 3½ hours, and then we were on our way.
Before I tell you about the trip, I wanted to mention something I’d never heard of but learned about on TikTok (!): If you are a USian traveling overseas, you should download the MPC (Mobile Passport Control) phone app for your flight home. It lets you bypass even the people waiting in the Global Entry line! It takes less than a minute to set up, and then you whiz through US customs—we waited maybe 30 seconds in all! (The woman on TikTok said she has even told people waiting in the Global Entry line to download it right then and there and then switch to the MPC line!) Go to your phone’s app store and look for the MPC app from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It’s free.
Well, we had the most wonderful week! I was surprised to learn that the largest of the Azores islands, São Miguel, has an international airport—it’s about a 5-hour direct flight from Boston! That made more sense when I saw on the map that the Azores are much farther out in the Atlantic than I had imagined—something like a 2½-hour flight from Lisbon. Anyhow, even though it is the largest, it’s still quite small—40 miles by 9 miles—and so very doable. We rented a car and easily explored most of the island.
The scenery/landscape/terrain/whatever you want to call it is just breathtaking—mountains, valleys, gorges, volcano craters, lakes, and lagoons, plus ocean all around. There are miradouros (scenic viewpoints) everywhere. Some have lots of signage and even a little parking lot, while others you just happen to come across, but all of them are just unbelievably beautiful. And the lushness can’t be adequately described—GREEN GREEN GREEN everywhere, and lots of trees and flowers that I couldn’t identify. Many smaller roads are wall-to-wall hydrangeas, although we were just past peak blooming season. Here are just a few photos, although they barely do justice to the real thing.
This is in the northwest, where the Miradouro da Vista do Rei offers a panoramic view of the volcanic crater that is now home to the Blue Lake and the Green Lake (see?!):
And a little farther down, from the Miradouro do Cerrado das Freiras:
And all the way down:
I think this is the Miradouro Lagoa de Santiago:
In the middle of the island is Furnas, home to lots more active volcanic stuff, including numerous steaming geothermal swimming pools (we went in one!), and also geysers:
The drive out to the northeast corner, Nordeste, was absolutely spectacular. I kept making Andy stop the car so I could get a photo:
This is the Miradouro de Santa Iria:
And that day we also visited Ribeira dos Caldeirões, a gorgeous botanical park with waterfalls:
We also soaked for an hour in 100°F mineral hot springs, and I dug my toes into the black volcanic sand at a few (ocean) beaches, where we watched surfers. And everyone we met was soooo nice! I remembered that from our trip to Lisbon some years ago—they’re friendly and knowledgeable and helpful, with no “attitude.” But once again, I found the Portuguese language positively confounding to understand! I have pretty good French, Italian, and Spanish, so I could identify lots of words on signs, menus, etc., but I could understand nothing that I heard. It just sounds so different from the other Romance languages! But no fear, because everyone speaks English there, even in the tiniest villages—including seemingly all the European tourists we met. It always impresses me when, say, a Portuguese waiter and a French tourist can communicate in English, or a Portuguese hotel clerk and a German tourist, or whatever.
Summer is the high season, and we were very glad not to be there when it’s overrun with tourists (and hot); even so there were occasionally 10 or even 20 people at some of the miradouros we went to, and we were told that it’s almost unmanageably crowded in August. So I think September/October is ideal, or else May/June, which is when my chiropractor and his wife went (that’s how I got the idea!). The temperatures were in the high sixties and low seventies every day. It does tend to rain at some point almost every day, so you’ll want to take along your raincoat as well as sunglasses no matter what the weather looks like in the morning when you set out! On our way to Furnas, the Miradouro Pico do Ferro was 100% fogged in when we visited, but on our way back at the end of the day it had started to clear up up, so we stopped again and were rewarded with this splendid rainbow!
We stayed in Ponta Delgada, the main town near the airport, but our hotel was at the marina, about a 15-minute walk to the restaurants downtown. That allowed us to have this lovely view from our balcony of the ocean and boats and also be out of the hubbub and nightlife of the main downtown area:
How about the food, you ask? Absolutely wonderful. The Azoreans really pride themselves on taking advantage of their local foods, like amazing cheese (there are cows everywhere on the island!), wine, pineapple, tea, and of course fish. They are very serious about responsible stewardship of the seas. We ate fish every night, and these were not the varieties we have in Boston. We ate bluemouth rockfish and triggerfish and forkbeard and ray and amberjack and blackspot seabream and, my favorite (to say and to eat), cuckoo wrasse! One restaurant in the marina was exceptionally good—we ate there twice, on our first and last nights. The lengthy catch-of-the-day menu on the blackboard was so overwhelming that the waiter took us out back to the kitchen to show us all the actual fishes and describe each one in great detail!
Our hotel had a lavish breakfast buffet every morning, with fresh cheese, butter, fruit, beautiful pastries, natural yogurt and granola and smoothies etc., and the “Samurai” preparing all types of eggs to order. I fell in love with the presunto (Portuguese smoked ham—think Spanish jamón or Italian prosciutto) wrapped around wedges of perfect cantaloupe. We did not need lunch on any day! While I’m talking about our hotel, it was far more luxe than I had expected—the kind of place where the valet fetches towels and water bottles for you on your way out for the day. We even took advantage of the spa—on the day before we left, after fretting all morning about the impending hurricane, I had this 90-minute treatment: “Body scrub with green tea, sea salt, fresh mint, and lemon, followed by invigorating massage with Azorean laurel.” Reader, I had not a care in the world after that…
And here I am relaxing at the hotel’s rooftop bar, which we visited every day around 5pm for a cocktail and to recap our adventures.
We saw and did a lot in 5 days (more than I’ve mentioned here), and most of it I’d happily do again anytime, but there is also plenty more that we didn’t get to. I would be thrilled to go back to São Miguel.
In nervous anticipation of Typepad ending service on September 30, I’ve decided to park my blog here on WordPress—and wouldn’t you know it, the name Verbatim was available! If your’e reading this, I’m very excited! Please let me know in the comments or email me at wisekaren@gmail.com. I think my 21+ years’ worth of Typepad posts successfully migrated here as well, which has me positively giddy. (I was particularly despondent at the thought of losing all my recipes…)
I have a few bugs to work out—namely, my username. A million years ago a few other editors and I started a very short-lived WordPress blog about editing and words and whatnot. My oh-so-clever username was Lili Von Stet. And apparently that will forever be my name here at WordPress, at least until I figure out how to change it to the usual WiseKaren as I am used to being known. And I haven’t figured out how to add photos yet. All in good time, I hope…
Gah, I just got an email from Typepad, this blog's host, that they are shutting down at the end of September! There are instructions for exporting all my posts since March 2004 (!!!!!), but I'm nervous about it. Hopefully I can figure out somewhere else to park this thing, for the 8 or 10 of you who still read it… Stay tuned.
I updated you last time on books and movies, so now it’s time for food! (Although I realized I omitted a movie we saw: “Mickey 17,” which stars Robert Pattinson as a “disposable,” meaning he has agreed to allow his body to be modified so that every time he dies, he comes back regenerated. They test drugs on him, send him on dangerous missions, etc., and every time he dies an awful death and then wakes up in a new iteration of himself. Yes, it’s sci fi, but it’s also very dark comedy, and I do really like watching Pattinson. It also stars Mark Ruffalo as an over-the-top narcissistic idiot of a politician (merge our current prez with the Meryl Streep character in “Don’t Look Up” for a rough idea) and Toni Collette as his wife.
And so on to food! We were up in Ogunquit for the weekend and somehow managed to not get lobster rolls! But I did have some splendid fish tacos, and my favorite entree of all time, anywhere, which is the shellfish risotto at the Front Yard, and which I get every single time we go up there. I have never had anything like it anywhere that comes even close.
Oh, and then of course fried clams at Bob’s on the way home, because that’s the law.
And before we get to the recipes, I wanted to share a tip I learned. I was making a recipe (it was meh, so I won’t bother sharing it here) that called for ⅓ cup rice flour. That’s not something I keep at home, and I wasn’t thrilled about buying a whole package for such a small amount. But then I learned that you can simply blitz raw white rice in a blender or food processor until it’s pulverized, then pass it through a fine-mesh sieve. Instant rice flour! It worked great. Too bad the recipe was a downer—but now I’m even more glad I didn’t spring for a whole bag of rice flour at the market!
OK, now I’ll share two recipes that are keepers. The first one I’ve already made more than once—it’s very quick and easy and tasty. I tried Trader Joe’s frozen Spanish-style rice for the first time, and it was a perfect accompaniment—4 minutes in the microwave, and Bob’s your uncle. I don’t have a photo of this dish, but you can use your imagination.
3 garlic cloves, minced Juice of 1 lime 1 tablespoon vinegar-based hot sauce (I like Cholula) 1 teaspoon onion powder 4 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1½ pounds) For serving: warm tortillas or taco shells, guacamole or sliced avocado, pico de gallo or salsa, pickled red onions, shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, more lime juice, more hot sauce, etc.—whatever floats your boat
In a large bowl, combine, the garlic, lime juice, hot sauce, onion powder, 2 tablespoons of the oil, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and ½ teaspoon ground black pepper and mix well. Add the chicken and toss to coat on all sides.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken in a single layer and cook until browned and the edges begin to crisp, 6 to 8 minutes per side. Transfer to a cutting board. Turn the heat down to medium-low, carefully add ½ cup water, and scrape up all the browned bits with a wooden spatula.
Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and return them to the skillet, still over medium-low heat. Toss to coat in the pan sauce and cook, stirring frequently, for 3 more minutes. Serve on tortillas or in taco shells with all your favorite toppings.
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And here’s something very different that came out swell! Leftovers were excellent too.
½ cup pitted green olives (Don’t be like me and accidentally buy unpitted—what an annoying task pitting is!) ½ cup Italian giardiniera mix, drained (This comes in a jar near the pickles and whatnot. It usually has carrots, cauliflower, celery, peppers, etc.) 1 garlic clove, minced 1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs 1 (1-pound) ball pizza dough ¼ to ⅓ pound thinly sliced provolone cheese ¼ to ⅓ pound thinly sliced salami ¼ to ⅓ pound thinly sliced ham, capicola, etc. ¼ to ⅓ pound thinly sliced mozzarella cheese 1 large egg, beaten 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Combine the olives, giardiniera, garlic, and Italian herbs in a food processor and pulse until chunky and small.
Spread out a large piece of parchment paper and flour it. (I could’ve used more flour, as I ended up with a very sticky situation when it came time to roll the whole thing up.) On the parchment, roll out the pizza dough into a rectangle about 1o x 14 inches. (There are some nice process shots at the link above.)
Top the dough with a layer of provolone, leaving a 1-inch border on three sides and 2 or 3 inches on one short side. Lay the salami on top of the cheese, then the ham. Using a slotted spoon, spoon the olive-vegetable mixture evenly on top. Top with the mozzarella.
Carefully roll up the dough, starting from the short side with the 1-inch border and tucking in anything that falls out. Seal the dough when you get to the end and leave it seam side down.
Brush the beaten egg all over the roll. Cut 3 slits in the top of the roll to help release steam so it doesn’t explode too much. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds.
Transfer the parchment and roll to a rimmed baking sheet and bake until nicely browned on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes, then slice into 2-inch portions.
The best thing I read recently was House of Odysseus, the second book in Claire North's "Songs of Penelope" trilogy. I loved this one just as much as Ithaca! Whereas that one was told by Hera, goddess of women, this one is told by Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. It picks up right where the previous one left off and ends just before Odysseus finally comes home. I already bought the last one, The Last Song of Penelope, but am holding off on reading it for a bit because I just don't want it to end! North is a fantastic writer, and I just love her woman-centered take on this beloved story. Again, if you are at all an ancient Greek literature/mythology/history nut like me, definitely do this trilogy.
I am in love with the way Amor Towles writes, so I knew I'd be in for a treat with his collection of short stories, Table for Two. As with any story collection, some of these are stronger than others, but they're all worth reading just for the way Towles crafts every single sentence with such care. I laughed, I cried—you will too.
After Annie by Anna Quindlen begins like this: "Annie Brown died right before dinner. The mashed potatoes were still in the pot on the stove, the dented pot with the loose handle, but the meatloaf and the peas were already on the table. Two of the children were in their usual seats." So I'm not giving anything away by telling you that this is the story of life for the Brown family after Annie, the wife and mother, dies suddenly of a brain aneurysm. The book follows her husband Bill, their four kids (well, mostly just her daughter Ani and a little bit her oldest son Ant), and her best friend Annemarie. It's of course sad but not the kind where you're crying your eyes out, and in fact it's really very sweet too.
When we went to Québec City last year, two friends separately asked if I'd read any of the Louise Penny mysteries set in Three Pines, a fictional village in Québec, and I said no, because I'm really not much into mysteries. Both insisted that these were not those kinds of mysteries and that it's a whole series where you really get to know all the different characters. So I found the first one, Still Life (since there is no way I'm starting a series midway through…), and really liked it! There is indeed a murder, but as my friends said, it's more about getting to know Three Pines and the people who live there. And mostly it's about Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who is called in to solve the case. I already have the next one, A Fatal Grace, on deck. This was Penny's first book, published in 2008, and I just love this bit from the acknowledgments, after she goes on at length to thank her family, friends, editors, etc.: "I went through a period in my life when I had no friends, when the phone never rang, when I thought I would die from loneliness. I know that the real blessing here isn't that I have a book published, but that I have so many people to thank." Lovely.
I hadn't read anything by Stephen McCauley in years, but I'm glad I picked up My Ex-Life. I always find his brand of humor to be right up my alley. As usual, it's about a gay man in some kind of complicated relationship. This time it's David, whose boyfriend has left him, and for a number of reasons he finds himself staying with his ex-wife Julie (who is divorced for the second time) and her daughter Mandy. Julie is trying to turn her house north of Boston into an Airbnb, and David is a college coach helping Mandy figure out what she wants to do. It's a good story with several very interesting relationships, and so so so funny. I kept giggling, which I do so rarely while reading that Andy even noticed.
I can't remember what else I read, but I also saw some movies! We realized we hadn't seen "The Gentlemen" even though we love Guy Ritchie, and this one did not disappoint. I generally can't stand Matthew McConaughey, but he was pretty good in this, and Colin Farrell was great. But the real scene-stealer was Hugh Grant—I couldn't get enough of his character. I won't give anything away, but as you'd expect, it's full of action and also absolutely hilarious. The pace reminded me of Ritchie's earlier movie "Snatch," which we had really liked, so we rewatched that one too—Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro, Dennis Farina, and Jason Statham are in that one. But then we watched "The Covenant," which is also Guy Ritchie but nothing like those other two—no humor, no wacky gangsters, no nothing. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a soldier who goes back to Afghanistan to try to help get his interpreter and family out, and it's a good story, but it was way too long and got kind of boring. I'm also not a big fan of Gyllenhaal. The only hint of Ritchie came for a split second at the very beginning when we meet a character named Jack "Jack Jack" Jackson, but he dies right away, almost before I had finished laughing about his name.
This past weekend we watched Steven Soderbergh's "Black Bag," which was very entertaining. It stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, a married couple who are high-level officials in whatever is the UK version of the CIA or NSA. The term "black bag" is what they say to one another when they have to go on a mission but can't say where or why. (So of course now if I come home and Andy asks where I was, I have to say "Black bag!" and vice versa. We are easily amused.) Lots of clever banter and who's-good/who's-bad plot twists made this very enjoyable to watch.
Oh, and a while back we also watched "Conclave," in which we go behind the scenes to what happens after the Pope dies. Interestingly, this came out just before the real Pope died (but we didn't see it until afterward). There's a lot of political in-fighting over who should get the job (whether they want it or not). Ralph Fiennes is good as always, and we found it very interesting, but we thought that one particular plot twist was unnecessary—and felt it kind of took away from the rest of the drama. (If you've seen it, you now which one I mean!)
And you, what have you been reading and watching (and doing and eating) during this long, hot summer?
Remember last July when Andy and I took a little trip to Québec City? Well, we liked it so much up there we decided to do Montréal this time! (In truth, we had intended to do Montréal last year, but our vacation week coincided with the largest jazz festival in the world, which explained why we couldn't seem to find a hotel room or get a dinner reservation, so we pivoted and ended up absolutely adoring Québec City! This year the stars aligned and the jazz fest was the week before our vacation.) It's just over 300 miles from home, so we did each drive all in one day, going up through Vermont and coming home through New Hampshire.
What a lovely city! We were surprised how big it is, especially compared to Québec City. (Andy had been to Montréal for EXPO '67 and understandably doesn't remember a single thing about that trip; I went once for a long weekend when I was about 21 and don't remember much about that either…) We knew we wouldn't be able to even come close to doing everything, so we picked our spots and had a great time. We stayed in Old Montréal, which we liked a lot—it's near the Old Port neighborhood on the river, which is full of shops and bars and restaurants. Our hotel was fantastic, and one of the best parts was our concierge, Ricardo, who sat down with us every morning and drew out a map with a list of "adventures" for the day. All of his suggestions were spot-on.
The first full day was kind of rainy, so we spent most of it at the Museum of Fine Arts—and even that was more than we could do in one visit! We also explored the "underground city," which at first I thought was just going to be a bunch of tunnels connecting everything, but in fact there are entire malls and food courts down there! We also did a sort of trippy immersive exhibit thing at Oasis. You would never know there's so much going on underground when you're out and about!
The next day Ricardo clearly wanted us to enjoy the beautiful weather, so he sent us to Mount Royal, the large hill/small mountain that the city is named after. It is a huge and glorious park (designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park in NYC), but OMG did we walk a lot that day! To wit:
The next day we walked around in the Old Port and sat by the river for a bit. We also went to the Notre-Dame Basilica, which is quite amazing and worth a visit. And we did Pointe-à-Callière, which is a fascinating archaeology and history museum. It's built on the ruins of the original city, so you can walk on glass floors and look down and see the old foundations! And walk down the tunnel that was once the original sewer system. Pretty cool!
We had some wonderful meals, including the requisite lunch at Schwartz's Deli for their "world-famous original smoked meat sandwich." I tried to order a turkey sandwich but the guy behind the counter wouldn't let me. "The turkey is cold. You can get that anywhere." So smoked meat it was!
We really had to make an effort to not have steak frites at dinner every night. The best was the last night at Moishe's, a really super steak restaurant (the kind where they bring out a box of steak knives and you choose which one you want…).
I realize that I neglected to get a single photo of us together, but I did manage to capture some of our cocktail hours! For example:
And here I am goofing around with a bronze statue guy:
I had the same experience in Québec City where I could read 100% of the French signs, menus, etc. but had a terrible time understanding people speaking with the Québécois accent! But this time I did notice that in a few instances when I spoke French, the person replied to me in French, which means that either my accent is not as bad as I imagined or they were just being nice! We did find everyone we met to be super nice, and the city is so clean and pleasant. I can definitely see us going back sometime to do more exploring.
I don’t think I mentioned that we finally had to put down our old lady cat Luna back in April. Yes, she who did not exactly welcome Calvin and Phoebe as kittens, and ended up spending her life in one part of the house while those two were in another. It wasn’t ideal for her or for us, but that is how it worked out. Aside from feeling bad about it, I also hated the fact that Calvin and Phoebe thus couldn’t use the litterbox in the basement like Luna (and every other cat we ever had), so we had to put their litterbox in our closet. So, as sad as I was about Luna, I was doing a happy dance about the litterbox situation. That’ll show me…
First I moved the litterbox from the closet to the top of the stairs so the kitties would know where to find it (Phoebe isn’t the brightest cat we ever had, but she’s a freaking genius compared to Calvin). I also closed the closet door so they wouldn’t get mixed up (which is pretty inconvenient for us, as you have to walk through our closet to get to our bathroom). All was going well for a couple of days until one day I neglected to close the closet door and Calvin decided to poop in the closet. Whoops! So I made sure to close it, and after a few successful days, I moved the litterbox to the bottom of the stairs. Then I sprayed the entire closet with some magical (nontoxic) spray that is supposed to remove odor and repel cats. I tried to leave the closet door open for one night, and he did it again. D’oh! Closed it up and moved the litterbox to the top of the basement stairs. All’s well. Then a few days later to the bottom of the basement stairs. Good job, kitties! Then finally into the basement proper. That worked for a day or two (closet door still closed just in case). Then Calvin decided he’d had enough and peed on the kitchen floor. I sprayed every square inch of the area with the magical spray. So the next day he peed on the kitchen table. Then I bought an even more super-duper (nontoxic) spray and coated the entire kitchen. Calvin didn’t care and decided to pee on the floor again, this time in Andy’s shoes for good measure. More spray. More pee. Day after day.
Calvin, you broke me. The litterbox is now back in our closet. You may be the stupidest (or perhaps laziest) cat on the planet, but you won. (Shown here with his beloved tinfoil ball.)
