The SF Chronicle was at the courthouse for the California Supreme Court ruling today for reactions. You can spot San Francisco City Hall, where all of this began four years ago, kitty-corner in the background.
The pop culture media outlets are all abuzz with the winner of the latest installment of "America's Next Top Model". The articles abound with words like "full-figured", "plus-sized" and "big girl", but seriously, is this girl really any of those things???
HELL-OOOO! This girl is a size 8-10!!! Last time I went shopping, you couldn't find an 8-10 in the plus-sized department. In what world does that qualify as plus-sized or even full-figured? No wonder girls today have body image issues.
]]>My name is Alissa and I am a HUGE Gordon Ramsay fan. OK, 12 step moment over :-)
But seriously, I truly respect his passion for food, his drive and his commitment to cooking local.
A few months back, I ordered 2 Gordon Ramsay cookbooks from Amazon UK. Yes, with the current exchange rate that means I paid way too much for these books, but I couldn't get them in the US and I love the recipes. I've worked my way through so many of the recipes in the book and haven't been disappointed by a single one. As a matter of fact, my "company's coming" signature dish is from Gordon's Fast Food cookbook (which, BTW, recently became available in the US).
So, imagine how thrilled I was to received an email from Amazon UK telling me that Gordon not only has a new cookbook, but its filled with Healthy Recipes.
I was keenly interested in this book because I've been looking for healthy recipes that use whole food and local ingredients. I am SO sick of the healthy cooking cookbooks filled with their less than healthy, chemically altered ingredients. In Healthy Appetite, you have recipes that don't compromise on taste or flavor. These recipes work for whatever life throws at you... a simple mid-week family meal to an elegant dinner party.
When I read the Introduction, I know that I had finally found what I had been looking for...
]]>"Choosing the right ingredients is the core of healthy eating. It's not just a matter of selecting the leanest cuts of meat and reducing the amount of fat we consume, it helps to know which ingredients are at their peak at any given time, both in terms of flavour and nutrition. When it comes to putting a healthy dish together, balance and moderation are key. It's not simply a matter of putting the right types of food on a plate. How the food is cooked and seasoned and how the whole menu comes together are just as important. And I don't advocate cutting out butter and cream completely, just using a little here and there where it will really enhance the flavour of a dish."
The package arrived yesterday and I immediately began picking out the recipes I would cook this weekend. I promise to report back on my findings and share a recipe or two along the way.
Released: May 13, 2008
*****
It´s controlled violence, trained violence, not designed to hurt the
other person, but to make them submit. The referee is involved to
ensure a clean fight. A cage doctor is on hand to tend to the injuries.
I don´t think there´s anything quite like MMA in any other sport.
Football comes closest, but even the most manly of American sports
pales in comparison. Shoulder pads, cleats, helmets…none of these
fighters have anything of the sort. There´s a primal, base animal
emotion to what we´re watching.
*****
EliteXC: Renegade DVD Review
What have I done!
Checking out the equality score card to find out if GLBT citizens in my state are second class citizens, I got a shock (not a huge one...but still...)
I have taken you, my Trentie, from a state with a 4.0 score (out of six) to one of the three worst states in the union with a score of 0.5 Ohio is in the company of only Idaho & Mississippi...we're behind Alabama fer Buddha's sake!
How does your state fare?
http://www.equalitygiving.org/States-of-Equality-and-Gay-Rights-Scorecard
(Oh, and it doesn't matter if you pick the state I actually took him from: Massachusettes or the state of his birth: Maine...both have that 4.0 score).
Sigh...
I need a laugh...here:
Thanks to Heather who had this on her Vox & it made me larf so hard...since we live it every morning...minus the bat, though I do have recurring headaches lately, hmmm.
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Well, have I got a story for you. There's no love lost between us and our neighbors on the one side (we like the other side fine)...the ones of which I speak I have complained about here before; they have the beagle who never shuts up. Endeavoring to be the good Buddhist, I smile and wave at them when I see them...but that may be a little more difficult from now on.
Sunday morning it was raining. I was in our kitchen making a lentil salad to take to my sister's for our Mother's day dinner. Our kitchen is large. Here's a picture:
Those windows look out over about five feet of yard...then a low wooden fence...then about five feet of their yard. I was working at the counter there by the sink. As I said it was raining out, so the light was on in the kitchen.
I saw the neighbor's 12-ish year old son walk by with his jackey over his head...I didn't think anything of it. They usually go to church. (Or I should say they usually dress up on Sunday mornings, I'm assuming the destination)
I often wonder what they think of us sometimes dancing in the kitchen...smooching over the sink...I know they can see in and they know we are a couple...So a few moments later, I look up from veggie chopping and the kid is back. He has his hand at his belt buckle. I think, "Oh no, is he going to scratch himself?"
Nope. He whipped it out and peed. Right there. Between the houses. Not only in full view of our lighted windows at 10 a.m. but with nothing but about forty feet of clear yard between him and the road...I fled.
I yelled, "Oh my god!"
Trent who was doing laundry in the basement said, "What?"
I repeated, "Oh my god! You will never believe waht I just saw."
"One of the neighbors naked?"
I kid you not, he actually said that. But he was just thinking of the most outrageous thing he could...and I had to tell him he was pretty much right on target.
Maybe that's why we have a patch of dead grass in the back...
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Released:
October 12, 2007 (New York Film Festival)With lesser actors, director Sidney Lumet's latest outing would have rung hollow, as if the script was imposing a set of character traits on a group of actors unable to inhabit the parts. Without muttering a line of dialogue, though, we know each of the people on screen, if only in the broad sense. Hawke, as Hank, with his moppy, unkempt hair is a man at the end of his rope while brother Andy carries himself with dignity and class, despite being in well over his head as well. Then there's Andy's wife Gina (Marisa Tomei). We know her, too. She is upper class, with Andy only for the money and not real love. It is these people, and to a lesser extent Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris as the parents, we want to shake, rattle and stir. In the great pantheon of bad movie ideas, robbing your own parents store is near the top of the list.
What the film doesn't tell us-at least not all at once-is why they do it. Instead of being a simple whodunit story, the script throws that question out of the window at the outset. We know who it is. But why? That's the great mystery. And once those answers come, in the form of segments devoted to each character leading up to and after the robbery, they are whole people. Not terribly brilliant people, but complete. Even at this point the film doesn't fade to black, allowing us to ruminate on what they have done. We are forced to follow them to their ultimate destruction. Remember that yarn? It is pulled to such lengths there is no ball anymore, just a mess of tangles and waste.
Lumet gets perhaps the best work out of Hawke since Dead Poet's Society, as he is continually forced to carry the emotional burden of the film. Perhaps a bit overreaching in some scenes, he isn't strictly a bad person, just caught up in events he can't do anything about, trying to be everything to everybody. Hoffman is more restrained, lashing out only at the end. Tomei is wonderfully understated, knowing full well hers is a supporting part and not where the camera is going to be focused for any prolonged period of time. A minor gripe: the slam cuts which shift the perspective of the film come on suddenly, just as we're becoming comfortable with what we're seeing. Maybe that's the point, though. To make sure we're not comfortable watching a group of people dig their own graves.
Released: April 18, 2008
Director: Nathan Frankowski
*****
As hosted by Ben Stein, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" purports to
tell the story of why the creationism theory is "under attack." Quite
simply, as we´re told in the film, the upper levels of scientific
academia are slavishly attached to evolution and Darwin, rejecting any
and all contrary opinions. Several professors and scientists recount
their excommunication from the scientific community after merely
mentioning intelligent design.
*****
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Review