Fresh peaches straight from the orchard
Sweet corn on the cob straight from the farm
Fresh berries
Fresh tomatoes straight from the vine… (okay okay, fresh anything that comes straight from the garden–Oh how I love summer foods–especially in the summer)
Bruschetta
Tomato soup with grilled cheese
Cafe Rio
I must be hungry to be posting this. I think I could eat these foods at least once a week and never tire of them.
What about you?
I’ve been growing basil on my windowsill and have consequently been eating bruschetta a heckuva lot. Here’s my favorite/easy way of preparing it:
Ingredients:
Nice crusty Italian bread, thinly sliced (I usually pick up something nice from the Smiths Bakery)
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Vine-ripened tomatoes, diced
a clove of garlic
fresh basil, chopped
salt and pepper
optional: fresh mozzarella
Preparation:
Combine the tomatoes and basil (proportions are up to you–I like lots of basil) in a bowl and mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Toast the bread until it’s nice and crunchy (if you’re making lots, you can do it all at once in the oven, but for one or two people, a toaster is fast).
Rub the toast with a clove of raw garlic.
Drizzle the toast with olive oil
If you use mozzarella, put a slice onto the toast.
Pile the tomato/basil mix on top
Drizzle the whole thing with balsamic vinegar to taste.
Eat.
I love this meal oh so much, and it’s so easy.
This is traditionally served in small portions as an appetizer, but I’ve taken to making myself 3 or 4 slices of toast (depending on the size of the slices) and just eating it as a main course. :)
I looked for a good pic online but haven’t found one yet. Maybe I’ll just have to photograph my own next time I make it. But the one I’ve got here will do for now.
(Don’t worry, there are no spoilers in this post)
1) Books. Whatever the movie, my eyes are instantly drawn to the books. Gandalf may be chastizing Bilbo, but all I’m looking at are the books behind them. So here I am, watching Harry Potter. Harry and Hermione are in the library, and subconsciously I’m examining the books, when I think: “wait–I know those books…” and suddenly I remember that Duke Humphrey’s Library at the Bodleian in Oxford (where I interned last year) is used as the Hogwart’s library in all of the films. Only then did I look at the rest of the library in the film–which would be the logical means of recognizing it in the first place. Anyway, I was tickled that I identified the library by its books.*
2) Tapestries. There’s a very short scene where the following tapestry is shown:
Kohleen and I looked at each other right away. This is one of the Unicorn Tapestries–the originals were woven in the late 15th century and now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2001, West Dean college (my grad school) started the ambitious project of reproducing all 7 tapestries. The completed ones are now hanging in Stirling Castle in Scotland (and yes, I did get to see them in person). Read more about the tapestries here, and more about the West Dean / Stirling Castle weaving project here.
And those are my two nerdy things about the newest Harry Potter film.
*When I first arrived at the Bodleian, my mentor took me across the street to Duke Humphrey’s library for a private tour. She explained to me that many of the books, many of which are 500+ old, were bound at the Bodleian–and back in those days, the books had a specific hash line across the head of the spine to indicate that the books had been bound at Oxford. (I looked for a picture online, but couldn’t find one). Of course the film didn’t show the books closely enough to show the hash marks. I’m sure that the books/environment were just familiar because I’d spent a good amount of time gawking at the magnificent library and its books.
(I already boasted about this on Facebook, too–fb seems to be my new blog…)
Often when people learn that I have a Mac, they begin some kind of rant for or against Macs.* I don’t really care. I got a Mac b/c I planned on using it for type/graphics, and I’d spoken to designer friends who had pursuasive reasons for why they preferred to use a Mac… I figured I’d give it a try… and I have liked my Macs, but I don’t play the “my-computer-is-better-than-your-computer” game.
However, Mac recently took such good care of me that I can’t help but at least love Apple Care.
Remember this tragedy?
Well, come to find out, the sad story of my computer has a happy ending. Well, first it gets sadder. But then it gets happy. Hang on, you’ll see.
About a month ago my computer’s screen went completely black. Truth be told, I’d known for months that my computer had a faulty graphics card because sometimes the screen would glitch to a funky pixelated screen… I researched the issue, and found that some of my make of MacBook had bad graphics cards, but that Apple would replace them for free. I just never got around to getting it fixed–until the screen completely died, that is.
So it probably helps to have a cousin who is a Mac Genius… He told me to bring it in. It tested positive for the particular graphics issue… I asked if they had to send it in, if it might be possible to do something about the dented corner (the metal was pulled away around the cd slot). I more or less told them that I’d dropped it–and I knew this meant that it could possibly void any future issues it might have. They worried that it might be considered a caused-by-the-consumer condition, and that it might not be worth it to me if I had to pay to have it fixed (but they would take care of the display issue), but they called ahead to give the fixer-people the heads up that the problems weren’t related. The fixer-people (I’m sure there’s a better word for fixer-people) said no worries, they’d take care of it…
A week and a half later when my computer came back to me, I didn’t even recognize it. They had replaced
the optical super drive,
the keyboard,
the top case,
the battery,
the logic board,
the display housing,
and the bottom case.
Apparently the replaced everything and anything that had even minor issues, including the cosmetic blemishes that _I_ caused. And it cost me nothing, since I still have a year remaining on my Apple Care.
My cousin assures me that I got lucky. He says that since the computer did have the particular manufacture issue, they had typed in some code instructing the fixer-people (nope, still haven’t found the word I’m looking for) to replace the logic board, which apparently gave them clearance to just do a complete overhaul.
So… I don’t know how this compares to other people’s experiences with Mac customer service, but I am a happy camper.
—
*My brother’s co-worker recently shared the following hilarious story that relates to Mac/PC users. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing it:
On election day last year… I sat in my uber-liberal audio class, and had just pulled up my laptop and turned it on. A classmate walked up to me and said “I see you voted for Obama.” I had not yet voted, nor would I be voting for Obama, and I had no propaganda on my person that would lead him to this conclusion. I asked him “where did that come from?” He simply pointed to my mac. Words cannot describe the anger i felt at that moment.
This car was right in front of me:
A double take–and then a photograph–was in order.
(Sorry, I already posted this on facebook–I seem to have forgotten that I have a blog)
