Tuesday, January 3, 2012

the MAGNIFICENT ambersons

This is the book I am reading.* As of now, it's about as interesting as it's cover.

Ok. I'm being a hater.  The Magnificent Ambersons won the Pulizter Prize for literature in 1919, the second year of the award's existence. The book is one of a series of three (it is the middle book), but it doesn't read like that, thankfully, I was able to start and didn't feel like I was stepping in the middle of an epic.  The Magnificent Ambersons is a book, I think, that is about a post-Gilded age (~1900) "dynasty" of the (you guessed it....) Amberson family who reside in small-town Indiana (I gather the author modeled the town off of Indianapolis, where he is from... THANKS WIKIPEDIA!!)

So far, the Amberson heir, George Minafer, seems to be a bit of an ass, and has a mother with a past.  He is, as you would imagine, incredibly spoiled (by the aforementioned mother, and the rest of the town who lives in fear of the Amberson wrath), and the author hasn't given him ANY redeeming qualities.  Manipulative bastard.

Of course, the mother seems to have a story with the father of the new girl in town (and OF COURSE the new girl has caught the eye of the young George.)  I'm calling it right now that the new guy (Mr. Morgan) is really the true love of George's mom (I really should know her name by now) and that George's father is not really the brow-beaten shadow of a man named Mr. Minafer, but is Mr. Morgan. BA-BAM!

That being said, the book really isn't too difficult to read (my main fear), and perhaps it's because of books like these, which were obviously deemed good literature, are the reasons we have the stereotypical situations that I am so keen to hate on.  I'd like to think so.

*I am also attempting to read other books, but I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to keep that up,  stay faithful to this resolution, AND satiate my internet t.v. addiction.  Right now I am reading an e-book copy of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which truly has been delightful.  I have two Stephen King books checked out now, after my SUPER experience with 11/22/63, but It and Under the Dome   will (probably won't) get read.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

HELLO NEW YEAR

Alright, so I can't figure out how to change the title of this thing, so for now, this will have the title of a cooking blog.  And that's fine, and is something I plan to continue, however, my goals for this space have widened in scope from simply cooking.  Like the rest of America (and perhaps the world) today is a day for the making (and within a week, breaking) resolutions for this new slate of a year.  I'm not overly pessimistic at heart, however, since I'm not a very dedicated person either, I've never had a propensity to even make New Years Resolutions, much less keep them for more than a day or two.  This year, however, I think I've stumbled upon some goals that I'm excited about (attempting!) to maintain.  First of all, I think what I have chosen is not only concrete, but also they are goals I can measure and catch-up with, if need be.

1.) I want to read all the Pulitzer Prize winners (in the literature-fiction category.) Here's a copy of the list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_Fiction), my one caveat is that I will only be reading books present in my local library system so I can not only have easy access to them, but so that the completion of this goal is not fiscally daunting, and so I can recommend books to patrons!  I am starting with The Magnificent Ambersons (winner for 1919, the 1918 winner is not held by the library... yay?) I will correct my math for accuracy soon, however, I believe that I have about a week to read each book.  I will read at least 1 hour per day per book, and will only continue to the next book after the allotted time (1 week, 1 hour per day) has been exhausted.  I will be re-reading the books that I have read previously, and if I have a copy of the book, I will be reading my personal copy.

2.)  I want to drink (at least) an 8oz glass of water every day.  I do not at this time.  I want to change my default settings, from drinking "anything but water" to actually considering water a viable (and legit) choice!

3.) I am going to try to re-create a new (and optimally, healthy) recipe each week.  I believe (I haven't been keeping track, though) that I am doing this already, however, I want a log of what I try, what techniques succeed, which fail, and what ingredients I tend to use more than others.

I'll probably post here more often in the beginning of this year, however, I really want to keep up with this.  I've never been a diary/journal/ blog person and I think it's a very admirable habit, something I need to become adapted to.  It takes 21 days to make a habit, right? Here's day 1!