Mind-Bogglingly Delicious Black Bean Soup

It's good for you. It's easy to make. And it's ridiculously delicious. The only problem is that it practically disappeared before I could get a picture.

Black Bean Soup

1 Onion, diced
1 Red bell pepper, diced
2 tbsp Olive oil
2 tbsp Butter
salt
2 tbsp Paprika
2 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp Chipotle pepper
1/2 tsp Oregano
2 cloves Garlic
1 lb Boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 16 oz can Black Beans
1 12 oz can Fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 quart Chicken broth

Stupid easy.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a dutch oven or large pot over medium high heat. When hot, add diced pepper and onion and sauté for about five minutes.

Meanwhile, cut chicken into small pieces. Add cut-up chicken to onions and peppers and stir in all dry spices. When chicken is opaque on all sides (about five minutes), add crushed, fresh garlic. Sauté until onions are translucent.

Stir in tomatoes, black beans, and chicken broth (using all the liquid from the cans). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes (the longer the better).

Serve with tortilla chips, grated cheese, and a dollop of sour cream.

Good, Dirty, Fun.

I love my job. But the fact of the matter is that it simply doesn't pay enough to feed my raging book addiction. Hence, I'm seeking alternate employment, which is one of the most painful and degrading tasks know to human-kind.  I'm ridiculously good at an obscene number of things. But do I have a Library Science degree? No. Do I have five-years of experience in Web Development? No. The experience that I DO have could fill a hefty tome, but it never seems to translate to resumé paper. Can't I just have potential employers call all my old bosses and ask them how far above-and-beyond I go?

No.

So. Here's a book review instead. Because even if the job search is always and by definition a shit sandwich, books are always wonderful.

Forrest Gump
By Winston Groom

"Let me say this: bein a idiot is no box of chocolates."

Oh Forrest Gump. The film that launched a thousand over-priced, unimpressive shrimp restaurants.  Is there anyone left on earth who hasn't seen this film? If so, I pity them because it clearly means they live in a war-torn wasteland somewhere without televisions.

I was surprised, considering the popularity of the film, that this book isn't more widely read. Of all of the ridiculous schlock they sell in the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. gift store, the book is conspicuously absent. I know because I've checked.

It's less surprising after you actually read the book. I suspect the reason that it's not featured in the BGSC, alongside smiley-face mugs and t-shirts that say things like "Stupid is as Stupid Does" is because the book isn't really family-friendly. The film is, in fact, only a distorted shadow of the book. Like trying to see your reflection in a puddle.

Groom's Forrest is built like a brick house. He's a big man, a football player, and although he is stupid, he is far from innocent. The book is narrated by Forrest, using a sort of "idiot-dialect" and through him, the grim humor of the book comes through. All of the familiar characters are there, but they are darker, their faults are more prominent. This version of Forrest is more honest.  When asked before an audience of potential recruits what he thinks of the Vietnam war, he answers, "It is a bunch of shit."  There are many genuinely funny moments in the book, but it's no light read. It's most definitely more difficult to digest than the film, and will be forever doomed to unfair comparisons.

The Bluest Eye
By Toni Morrison

How do you write about beauty and self-worth and race and their problematic relationship without completely breaking down? I have no idea how this novel was written. I've been waiting to read this book for years and I don't know what I expected, but I got something completely different. Though I should have known, being familiar with Morrison.

This is the story of a little black girl who wishes that she had beautiful blue eyes. The point of view shifts and changes, and we encounter all of the people around her and come to understand where that desire might come from. But because it's written by Toni Morrison, it's almost emotionally overwhelming. The writing is beautiful, the characters are vivid, but the book is unforgivingly brutal.

This is one of those books I feel everyone should be required to read, but am glad to same I'm done reading it. It's one of Morrison's first, and she has claimed that she feels it's badly written, amateurish. Maybe in places. But the story itself is one I'm glad someone (more intelligent and emotional mature than me) had the chutzpah to tell.

The Changeling Bride
By Lisa Cach

Here's something completely different.  Please observe the two covers at left. The top is the cover accompanying my Kindle edition of The Changeling Bride. The bottom is the trade paperback cover. Had I seen the trade paperback cover, I probably never would have first purchased and then DEVOURED this book.  Yes, that means I'm judgmental and snobby, and in this case I'm sorry for it.

This is the story of a young woman who receives a coupon good for "one free husband." In a moment of frustration, she jokingly attempts to cash in the coupon and is promptly swallowed by a mud slide that takes her into the past. The 1780's, to be exact. Upon arriving, she discovers that in one day she will be married as part of an arranged union. Will she be able to get out of it? Will she be able to get home? Will she... fall in love?

This book is infinitely silly. It's concerned with all the same things I would be concerned with if I were in such a ridiculous situation, such as: where does one pee? Do people really eat meat puddings every. single. day? Why are the clothes so uncomfortable? Time travel? What?

Make no mistake about it, this is a romance novel. It is, in actual fact, the first and only romance novel I've ever read, thanks to false advertising. But I'll admit that I didn't find any of the gross, sexist, "wilting female" tropes I expected to find. It was just good, dirty fun from beginning to end.

Pasta Primavera

Tim and I went a little nuts and bought into one of those "buy ten boxes of pasta for $10" deals at the grocery store. Needless to say, we've been eating a lot of pasta. I get tired of tomato sauce, so this is what I came up with last night.

Pasta Primavera, y'all!

• Farfalle (Bowtie Pasta)
• 1 large chicken breast, cubed
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
• 1 yellow squash, sliced
• ½ Onion, sliced thin
• 1 bell pepper (yellow or red), sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 Tbsp olive Oil
• Herbs de Provence (any Italian herb are good; Rosemary, Oregano, etc.)
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 bunch fresh basil, chopped
• 1 cup white wine and 1 cup chicken broth (2 cups chicken broth may be substituted)
• Optional: 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

Set a large pot of water to boil. Add pasta when ready.

Meanwhile, in a dutch oven or wok warm olive oil over med-high heat. Add cubed chicken and all herbs and spiced EXCEPT fresh basil. Sauté until the chicken is opaque on all sides.

Add all vegetables EXCEPT garlic and sauté for 7-8 minutes or until veggies start to soften. Add garlic and basil and sauté two more minutes. Add wine, or if not using, 1 cup broth.  Simmer veggies in broth for 3-4 minutes, then add second cup of broth. When pasta is ready, drain and stir into vegetable mix, tossing to coat all pasta with sauce. 

If using tomatoes, add with the pasta.

Serve with Parmesan cheese.

The Winners' Circle

I'm supposed to be running errands right now. Like, actual, real, important errands. But instead I'm sitting on my couch in my underwear blogging about books. Because when you work a half day on a Monday, pants are like kryptonite to the Superman of my laziness.

Before the wedding, when I was in the supreme funk of wedding planning mode and my fingernails were splitting up the middle and my brain was melting, I slipped into a sort of stress-induced illiteracy.  I tried to read, but the words went from my eyeballs into my brain all garbled. Sort of like I was trying to read with my feet instead of my face. It was very unsatisfying. I don't recommend it.

Since the wedding, my fingernails have grown back in very strong and healthy, thanks for asking, and I'm backing to ripping through books the way that Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and all those years of the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Summer Reading Program programmed me to do.

I like it when I can gush about books instead of finding everything in the world dreadfully boring and unsatisfying. It's funny what a little perspective will do.

The Art of Fielding
By Chad Harbach

I began reading this 500-page monster before the wedding and should have known better. I only made it about 75 pages in before I hid it under the bed and decided that I would rather die than read another word.

This was a huge mistake. Or at least, I'm lucky that my reading funk is over and I picked the book up again (which I rarely do once I've put it down).  It turns out that this is a pretty delicious piece of literature.

It's a pleasure to read a novel where the two recurrent themes--baseball and Herman Melville--seem totally unrelated, but weave together invisibly. The characters in the novel are also surprising, complex, and real in that way that makes you think about them for hours after you put the book aside. Sexuality is treated as something human rather than over-the-top or scandalous! A woman makes a choice motivated by something other than a man! (Granted, there is only one female character in this book and she does pretty much EVERYTHING in relation to the gaggle of male characters, but considering that this is a very masculine book, some of her actions make my giddy with glee.) At the end of the day, it's one of those books that, when you find yourself at the end of a chapter and your logical brain is begging you to go outside or go to sleep or do the dishes, your eyes trail over to the next chapter completely outside of your control.

The Circus Fire: A True Story of an American Tragedy
By Stewart O'Nan

The Circus Fire is a non-fiction work of historical reconstruction about a tragic fire that occurred in Hartford, Connecticut in 1944. The author is originally a fiction writer, so he begins by explaining why he chose not to fictionalize the book: the fire was already legendary, and the truth much more interesting and messy than fiction writing can neatly account for.

The circus fire itself was a massive blaze that consumed an entire Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey big top tent with somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 people inside when the fire began. The book is about what happened before, during, and after those five or ten short minutes, based on records and eye-witness accounts.

There are large portions of the book that unfold like a train-wreck. They're impossible to look away from. There are also portions of the book that are rather boring and difficult to follow; the fire naturally involved a lot of legal action, and people in the 40's weren't very creative with names, so folks begin to run together in the who-was-at-fault, who-sued-who sections of the book. Really, the biggest fault of the book is how difficult it can be to keep people straight, which is probably due to the nature of the subject matter.

It's difficult not to consider what you might do in a similar situation (and the author does discuss other fires and crowd psychology) as well as to compare the way the public reacted to the fire then to how we react to such tragedies now...  people were upset that the circus was blamed for something that was an Act of God.

Misery
By Stephen King

Another one from the King. Sorry... and you're welcome.

1. The metaphor of the "pilings" that King uses to describe Paul Sheldon's pain throughout this book is so astonishing and apt. How does he do it? He's really not the most amazing writer in the world, but sometimes he writes things that are just friggin' incredible. I think about this metaphor every time I get a migraine now, and probably will for the rest of my life.

2. If the movie wasn't gory enough for you, the book will really do the trick. Delicate gag reflexes beware. (If you haven't seen this classic film, please do. Kathy Bates plays Annie Wilkes and she just makes you cringe.)

3. If you're a writer, read this book. It's a horror novel with the added bonus of being a novel about the craft of writing and the not-so-delicate relationship between the author and the reader.


Ready Player One
By Earnest Cline

I challenge you to read the introduction to this novel and not want to immediately proceed to the next level. Er, chapter.

Does it tell you something that the Audio Book is narrated by Wil Wheaton? It should.

It's a dystopian future (is there any other kind?) and world is plugged into the OASIS, a virtual reality MMORPG where people attend school, have jobs, build homes, and live out most of their lives (if they can help it). When the creator of the OASIS dies he leaves behind an easter egg--a hidden treasure within the game--the person who finds it first inherits his vast fortune and control of the OASIS itself.

This book flies on the strength of its story alone. It's badass. However, it also envelopes you in a warm cloud of pop-culture nostalgia, specifically, 80's pop-culture nostalgia. It's a little like watching every John Hughes movie, listening to every Duran Duran song, playing every Atari game, and wearing every color of neon leggings at the same time, except fine-tuned for nerds, so there are a lot of light saber references, etc. What saves the novel from being nothing more than a kitsch-receptical is Cline's ability to create a completely engrossing and believable future. Not only does it seem like, yeah ok, that might happen... it seems like this future is pretty much exactly what IS going to happen and he's just reporting back to us like Marty McFly.

BONUS: It turns out that I sometimes buy multiple copies of books because I'm overzealous and scatterbrained and a little weird. I have a brand new copy of Misery just begging to be read by someone. I'll send my spare copy to the first person who can correctly answer the following three movie trivia questions, either in the comments or by email:

In the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, who is the Sausage King of Chicago?

Name all seven Goonies.

What instrument does Dana Barrett play in Ghostbusters?

An Open Letter to My Friends and Family

On the Occasion of My Marriage

Tim and I were engaged on August 15, 2010. For anyone who's counting that means we had just over two years, or exactly 791 days to shed blood, sweat, and tears over our wedding on June 16, 2012. Which, for for those of you counters, was an event that was just over five and a half hours long.

During the wedding and since (and weirdly, in the week BEFORE the wedding even happened) so many people have told me that it was perfect. I have received a flood of compliments on literally every aspect from the food and decorations, to everyone's clothes, to how well everyone got along.

All of this is incredibly important to me, of course, after so much planning and working so hard to bring people from so far afield into my favorite place on the planet without giving anyone a coronary.

But despite everyone trying to give me all kinds of credit, I absolutely did not do it all by myself.

There were many times in the two years leading up to this crazy celebration when Tim and I wondered why we were doing this at all. It would be much easier to just... not. There are lots of ways to get married that don't involve the expense and time and pressure (oh my god! the pressure!) of having a big wedding in a far-off place, where people must travel and every bit of equipment has got to be trucked or bucked.

There when many moments, particularly in the months just beforehand, when things looked anything BUT perfect and I went to see a lot of movies, since it was either that or start drinking.

However, one does not get to marry someone like Tim every day. Anyone who's ever read a wedding planning book or looked at theknot.com can attest that the groom is supposed to be sort of like a cardboard cutout who stands where he's told and lets people hand him things and hang stuff on him until it's time for him to have a bachelor party and then say "I do." Luckily, Tim is a fully functional human being with a mind of his own. Without him, this wedding not only would not have happened in the most obvious sense, but it also would have fallen to complete shambles. You probably know this by now, but I love him and appreciate his willingness to spiral into insanity with me.

The thing that kept us sane was not really the promise of a big, fun party. It was our friends and family helping in colossal and sometimes unexpected ways. The thing that keeps you from running off to Vegas is the realization that only the lucky ones get to have big, crazy weddings with friends and family like ours. It's a once in a life-time deal. A wedding it not just about two people, alone in the center of the universe, at least I don't think it should be.

There are so many people who helped us with this wedding, some of whom couldn't even attend. It would take reams of paper to name everyone individually and list all of your accomplishments and how eternally grateful I am, we are, for your time and energy and enthusiasm and money and moral support and man-power and patience. Nothing anyone did was "little."  Some of the things that people did for us in the days and months before the wedding were huge. Gargantuan. Planetary. We have no way to pay some of you back for your kindness.

I know I speak for both Tim and myself when I say that I'm honored to have the friends and family that I do. Thank you. You're perfect.

Horror Shows and.. Hiking.

AGH! This is my last chance to write a book review before I dash off into the wild blue wonder and I have SO MANY books to review. This despite the fact that wedding planning has made it incredibly difficult to concentrate on reading. I've never excitedly started and disgustedly thrown down so many books in my life. There's a huge pile of sad, discarded book carcasses on the floor next to my bed, which I think Mugi might be making a nest out of.

This is super overkill, but here are five book reviews at once. I've got to get them out now or they'll never happen because, obviously, in two weeks, I'm going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and my brain will have turned to butter.

Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro

Here is the premise: Our narrator attends a mysterious school full of children growing up in an alternate Great Britain, in a mirror universe that seems easy and carefree. But here, humans are cloned for a specific and nefarious purpose. The narrator, Kathy, is one such clone, and when the time is right, she and her friends will eventually have their organs harvested while they're still alive.

Here's the problem: This is the most boring freaking book I have ever read. And I kept reading because I thought, it must get interesting at some point right? I mean, it's about CLONES? I have been wracking my brains over and over to figure out how someone took all of the exciting, intriguing elements of this story, and mashed them into a steaming pile of nothing. No one in this book cares that their organs are being harvested. They have arguments about things like, "why didn't you tell me I had mud on my shirt?" I guess not addressing the real issue is supposed to be "deep" but really, it just seems to me that the author thinks all women have the minds of infants. Please spare yourself the trouble and do not read this stupid book unless you're trying to put yourself to sleep.

We Need to Talk About Kevin
by Lionel Shriver

...On the other hand.

Here's one to read if to don't want to be able to fall asleep. I'd been meaning to read this for ages, but I have to thank Jdarnutz for urging me to do so as soon as possible.  This is not a "pretty" book. It's listed with American Psycho on a number of "most disturbing books" lists. (Along with Geek Love [not really that disturbing] and Blindness [incredibly disturbing]). Why do I read books like this? I don't know, I actually think they make me feel better about the world than any Chicken Soup crap ever could.

Anyhoo. This book is, on the surface, about a boy who commits an utterly atrocious school shooting, and about his complete lack of remorse. But it's also about American motherhood. Shriver says things in this books that I think many women think at one point but would never in a million years admit to thinking for fear of feeling persecuted. We're supposed to want to be mothers with every fiber of our beings and we're supposed to be innately good at it. What happens if we don't and we aren't?

I couldn't stop thinking about the end of this novel for four days.

Bonus: the writing in this book is so good it makes your brain turn inside out. It takes you twenty pages to learn how to read Shiver's writing because it's so rich and intelligent.


A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
by Bill Bryson

This is the perfect book for someone who is brain-dead and having difficulty concentrating. It's a breath of fresh air. Anyone who's ever read any of Bryson's many memoirs already knows this, I'm sure, but if you haven't this is a good place to start. This is the story of an overweight, inexperienced man deciding one day that he will hike the entire appalachian trail with his idiotic, unprepared, alcoholic friend. Every time Tim and I go hiking, Tim tells an anecdote from this book like it's his own story and it makes me laugh every time. This is a testament to how funny and relatable this book is. Well, here, this pretty much speaks for itself:

"Up to that moment it had not occurred to me that bears might prowl in parties. What on earth would I do if four bears came in to my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out by backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children's parties--I daresay it would even give a merry toot--and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag." p.19

Me too.

Not all of the book is so...vibrant, but it's all funny. And worth a read.

Full Dark, No Stars
by Stephen King

Another good book for those with temporary ADHD and a need to be thrilled and chilled. I normally can't do short story collections. Who knows why, but this one did it for me.  Five stories in the paperback:

1. 1922
2. Big Driver
3. Fair Extension
4. A Good Marriage
5. Under the Weather

The stories are all very different from one another, though each is gruesome in its own way. King is almost more harsh in the short form than in in his long novels, like "horror concentrate." Big Driver and A Good Marriage are probably my favorites, though I don't think I have the stomach to read "Big Driver" ever again.

Bonus: I love how frequently King quotes and references The Beatles.

The Lovely Bones
by Alice Sebold

Ok, I'd like to distinguish here between "a good book" and "a good read."  A good book has the whole package, good writing, good characters and plot, good atmosphere, it just wraps you up.  A good read can suck you in and hold your attention, but maybe just doesn't quite have that spark that makes it exceptional.

The Lovely Bones isn't really a good book, but it's a good read for sure.  The sentence structure is all over the map and parts of it are, for lack of a better word, sort of fruity. But it moves along swiftly and it's unpredictable, which is refreshing. I had no plans to read it... until someone who told me they loved Decision Points by George Bush said that they hated it, and I was intrigued (I'm so awful).

In case you can't tell from the title, it's about someone who is murdered, but it's written from the victim's point of view. It's not really about murder, so much as what happens to everyone who is left in the wake of a tragedy. Like I said, the book is unpredictable, and that was really my favorite thing about it. It veered off in directions I never predicted (I spared myself watching the movie) which, for a book of this sort, gives it about a million bonus points.

Stitches

Somewhere along the way I got the bright idea that instead of a guest book, we would ask our wedding guests to sign a quilt.

So for the past couple of months, Tim and I have been working together on this fabled wedding quilt. If you've ever made a quilt, you know it's rather time- and effort-intensive. Working on a quilt with a boy takes it to a whooooole new level. (Has it been scientifically proven that men and women see colors differently? It must have been.)

Working on a quilt with a cat? I deserve a nobel prize.  Mugi is incredibly helpful. Helpful in that he enjoys both burrowing under carefully laid-out fabric, attacking and attempting to eat sharp objects like pins and scissors, and sleeping on fabric that is currently being guided through the machine.

I have no idea if this signature-quilt idea will work out or not, but at this point I don't even care. This is clearly the most popular blanket I've ever made.