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Thursday Link Dump

These are some of the interesting things you would have already been enjoying for a week or more if you followed me on Twitter:

This man takes photographs of his lovely (and tolerant!) daughter in the styles of the old masters.

This is just plain nice, which we all need now and then.

Publishers Weekly lists 10 books that we all (supposedly) read in high school and should reread now. I never read Bradbury or Pynchon.

Guess who got free pizza for spotting a spelling error?

Check out these really cool passport photos from the likes of David Bowie, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, and more.

It's true: Cat-friend vs. Dog-friend.

Us old-school book publishing folks love these CMYK playing cards.

Nate Silver Offers up a Statistical Analysis of Your Failing Relationship.

And, finally, this is for those of you who still don't "get" Twitter.

[Update 8/7/13: The spambots keep coming here, so I'm closing off comments.]

So Meta

One of my favorite online resources is Ask MetaFilter, a forum where members can ask any question at all and get prompt, thoughtful responses. Unlike other online groups that have problems with unreliable, rude, or judgmental respondents, MeFi boasts an unusually large and responsive membership. I've seen questions on health, travel, computers, relationships, cooking, movies, and everything else you can possibly imagine.

I certainly don't read every single question, but when I have time I do enjoy scrolling through the entries as they come up in my Google Reader. Some of my favorite questions are the ones where someone vaguely remembers a childhood book or part of a song or a movie, and invariably someone nails it—usually within minutes of the question being posted. 

Anyone can read the questions and answers, but you need to pay a one-time fee of $5 to ask or answer questions. It is so worth it. Here are some questions I've asked in the past, just to give you an idea of the range of topics:

When I didn't get the joke in a New Yorker cartoon

When I didn't understand what seemed to be a crucial part of Per Petterson's novel Out Stealing Horses (I had posted the same query here but didn't get any responses.)

When Steph had been prescribed an unnecessary antibiotic and I hated to throw away the blister-pack-sealed pills in case a charitable organization could accept them

When I wanted to get Pete noise-blocking earphones so he could listen to music while drumming along

When PayPal blocked me for life because someone else tried to hack into my account (Luckily this happened after I joined MeFi, because PayPal is the only way to join, and I still haven't solved this problem!)

When, just last week, I despaired of ever finding jeans that fit me right (I am now the happy owner of both blue and black Style & Co. jeans, which were on sale at Macy's for $15 each!)

The MeFi folks do not judge, they just answer. I've been happy to provide my own two cents' worth to quite a few questions, and it feels great to be a part of the "hive mind."

What Happened Last Week

This is something that happened over a week ago, but it's been weighing heavily on me, so I'm hoping that the act of writing about it will help me manage the many emotions swirling around inside.

It was a week ago Friday, just after 5pm; I was working, Andy was on the stationary bike, and the kids were here and there. Suddenly Andy shouted to me to come down immediately. He had gotten off the bike and was stretching, and just happened to look out the window and saw our elderly neighbor across the street lying by the curb. We both raced out the door and ran to her. She seemed unhurt, and had apparently just slipped on the ice. It couldn't have been long that she was lying there, because she wasn't yet shivering even though she was soaked from the icy puddle at the curb's edge. She is about 90 and has dementia, so we had to reintroduce ourselves to her although we've known her for about 13 years now. There was a time when she knew all our kids' birthdays and got them gifts, and we used to go over there on Christmas Eve, but for several years now she hasn't known us, although she's very happy every time she "meets" us.

She was alone and had no coat on, so Andy asked where her husband was (they go everywhere together), and she said, "Oh, he's at work." Well, he's also close to 90 and it was Friday night and the car was in the driveway (yes, he still drives), so Andy feared the worst: that he had died and she had gone outside to get help and then forgot where she was going. I ran inside while Andy was helping her up the walkway to the front door. I called for the husband, and I heard him shouting. I traced his voice out to the back walkway, where he had fallen on a different patch of ice! We decided that what had probably happened was that he fell and called for her, but she went out the front instead of the back and fell there. I have no idea where she was intending to go when she fell.

So Andy sat her down in the kitchen and came out to where I was shouting for him. The husband was lying face down in the snow and had clearly been there 20 or 30 minutes anyhow. (He had been trying to shovel a path to the garage.) He was completely lucid and could thrash around but couldn't get himself up. We managed to hoist him up (and in the process threw out our backs and were lucky to get squeezed in for chiro appointments on Monday), but he couldn't stand. I ran in and got a kitchen chair, wedged it into the snow, and Andy plopped him in it. 

I ran back in and called 911 while Andy waited out back and held the husband upright in the chair. Meanwhile, the wife had vanished, and I panicked but soon found her upstairs trying to get into dry clothing. 

While we waited, we managed to find their kids' phone numbers. We reached the son and left a message for the daughter. Then came all the excitement with the firetrucks and EMTs. They took them both to the ER to check them out, and we knew that the son was on the way, so we closed up the house and went home.

I went over the next day and saw them, and they were both fine, and very grateful. The daughter was there, and she pulled me aside to say that she's been trying for 3 years to move them to an assisted living place, but they won't hear of it. She can't legally force them to move, and they simply refuse. She said to them in front of me, "If Karen and Andy hadn't found you, you would have frozen to death overnight!" and she's right, but they do not want to give up their home and their independence. It's an awful situation.

All I keep thinking about is WHAT IF Andy hadn't noticed her lying there? It was getting dark, and we live on a side street that is not very well lit and doesn't get much traffic. WHAT IF she had in fact gone out the back door and slipped right next to her husband? No one would've known they were out there. WHAT IF they were our parents? I have lost so much sleep worrying about them, and there's nothing I can do.

Lotsa Movies

So first we watched Skyfall with Pete. I was shocked and dismayed to see that I had originally dismissed Daniel Craig as the new Bond, because now I think he is teh awesome. (I realize that I was already there last time around, but I'm still not happy that I didn't fully appreciate him the first go-round.) So this is a typically exciting Bondsian romp, which is a good thing, and wow, Craig is just as gritty yet cool and sexy as you could want. <fanning self with Netflix return envelope>

Then it came to light that neither Steph nor Julie had ever seen Back to the Future, which is pretty close to grounds for calling DSS, so we remedied that asap. Oh boy, it is still just as much fun as ever. If you, like me, haven't seen it in a long time, you could do a lot worse than spend a couple of hours with this one.

Next up was The Devil Wears Prada, which Pete claimed to have already seen (when? why?) and was off at a friend's house anyhow, so we watched with the girls. This was a gem. Meryl Streep continues to just be able to do anything she wants, and very well, while Anne Hathaway is as adorable as ever. We also loved Stanley Tucci in this one. (Budding journalist takes job at fashion mag under dragon-lady boss. Maturation ensues.)

And, finally, last night we all ate dinner picnic-style while watching Once, per the recommendation of Twitter pal @hieronymus. It's rated R, but this is solely because of a shitload (whoops) of f-bombs. There is no sex, no nudity, no violence, and no gore, just lots of swearing. It's the story of a guy and a girl (seriously: in the credits they are listed as "Guy" and "Girl") who meet and make some beautiful music together. That's not a euphemism: He is an Irish singer-songwriter waiting for his big break, and she is the Czech who nudges him toward that. I regret to admit that we had to turn on the subtitles because their accents were so tricky to navigate that we were missing out on the dialogue, but otherwise this is a small but lovely, sweet, and just plain charming movie.

And Then I Read...

Two more book reviews for you:

I enjoyed Kathleen Flinn's memoir The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. The subtitle is Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School, referring, of course, to Le Cordon Bleu. Flinn is a corporate workaholic who suddenly finds herself downsized out of the company, with no plans for her "next step." She decides to take advantage of the work hiatus to chase her lifelong dream of graduating from Le Cordon Bleu. With a smattering of grade-school French and no experience in a "real" kitchen, she takes a leap of faith and enrolls. Each chapter describes a particular cooking lesson, including everything from how to properly "turn" (cut) vegetables to how to butcher a rabbit, as well as descriptions of her explorations of Paris with her new friends, who are attending the school from all over the world. This book won't knock your socks off, but it made for interesting reading and I ended up feeling much more a part of the author's world during that time than I did when I read Service Included, another in the "woman embarks on intense food-related career" genre (see that review here).

Next up was another slim novella from Stewart O'Nan, author of the much-acclaimed Last Night at the Lobster (glowingly reviewed here). This one was The Odds: A Love Story, which tells the story of Art and Marion, a couple in their early fifties who are facing likely divorce and even likelier bankruptcy. With nothing else to lose, they cash in their meager savings, book the honeymoon suite at a resort on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls for Valentine's Day weekend, and plan to double their money or go bust at the high-stakes roulette tables. (Art has devised a "system" for betting.) During the days, they do some schlocky sight-seeing, both hyperaware of the difficulties they face and the mistakes they've made but trying to make the best of it. This book was a pretty depressing statement on the stagnation of marriage. I didn't feel that O'Nan presented Art and Marion in a balanced way—I think he meant to have us feel that both deserved equal blame and credit, but I didn't. A weird problem I had was that because of their names, I kept thinking that they were much older than me and Andy. I have probably met a couple of Arthurs younger than 60, but not any I can think of, and I definitely have never met a Marion younger than 70. O'Nan is 51, so I don't know what he was thinking—people our age are named Sue and Mike and Lisa and Dave! So I had to keep reminding myself that this story was about my contemporaries, not my parents' contemporaries. And finally, I thought the ending came too abruptly. All that being said, I did enjoy myself while reading it—O'Nan is a terrific writer—so I think you could do worse than spend a few hours enjoying the dialogue and the prose even though the story is pretty much a downer.

Blizzard Baking

Hey, everyone! It finally stopped snowing! We ended up getting something like 25" here, but we never lost power, so I won't complain (much). While the snow fell, we ate, watched movies, ate, read, ate, played games, ate ... that sort of thing. 

And Julie baked! Years ago I clipped a page from the Sunday Times magazine that listed three variations on chocolate-chip cookies: thin and crisp, flat and chewy, and thick and gooey. We are all about flat and chewy here, so that's what she made. They were delish:

Flat and Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon kosher salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups packed light brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate (chunks and shavings)
2 cups chopped toasted walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla. Add the flour mixture all at once and blend until a dough forms. Fold in the chocolate and walnuts. Chill the dough.

Roll 2½ -tablespoon lumps of dough into balls, then place on the baking sheet and flatten to ½ -inch-thick disks spaced 2 inches apart. Chill the dough between batches. Bake until the edges are golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes. Let cool slightly on the baking sheet, then transfer to a baking rack.

Makes 30 to 35 cookies (we got only 24).

* * * * *

Julie also made yet another winner from Abby Dodge's Desserts 4 Today:

Chocolate-Banana Soufflés

⅓ cup sugar, divided use (plus more for sprinkling)
3 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 medium very ripe banana, peeled
3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk (large eggs) 
1 tablespoon water 

Heat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease six 6-ounce ramekins with cooking spray and sprinkle granulated sugar in the ramekins, tilting to coat completely. Tip out the excess and arrange the ramekins on small jellyroll pan.

Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl and melt in the microwave or over simmering water. Set aside to cool until barely warm, about 5 minutes. Add half of the sugar, the banana, egg yolk, and water. Whisk until smooth and blended.

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form when the beaters are lifted. Continue beating while gradually adding the remaining sugar. Beat until medium-firm peaks form. Whisk about a quarter of the whites into the chocolate-banana mixture until blended. Add the remaining whites and, using a rubber spatula, gently fold in until just blended.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared ramekins. Bake until the soufflés are puffed and jiggle when nudged, about 13 minutes. Serve immediately. We put vanilla ice cream on top, but whipped cream wouldn't be bad, either.

 

General Yum

I used to be the first one to suggest we get Chinese take-out, but in the last year or so I've found that I often feel like crap after I eat it. I don't know whether it's the MSG or the deep-fried-ness or just the fact that I tend to eat more of it than I should, but it's definitely not my first choice these days. For the Super Bowl, Andy and the kids wanted it, so I went along with the idea, but I tried not to go overboard. I didn't have any appetizers, just some veggie lo mein and a few scoops of General Tso's Chicken (or, as it's usually known in the Boston area, General Gau's chicken*). I felt fine afterward, so that makes me think there's hope.

It also made me think that it was a good time to try making my own General's Tso's Chicken, albeit a version that is not heavily breaded and deep-fried. I made it tonight and it was awesome. We ate every last morsel. 

General Tso's Chicken

1½ teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 large egg white
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon soy sauce, divided use
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons cornstarch, divided use
1 pound skinless boneless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1½-inch pieces (This was a bit more work than I expected—lots of little bits of fat to cut off and tricky to cut into the right size pieces.)
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon Chinese chile-garlic sauce (I used a scant teaspoon of sriracha.)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for frying
2 tablespoons very finely chopped fresh ginger
2 large garlic cloves, minced
4 scallions, thinly sliced
Steamed broccoli and white rice, for serving

In a medium bowl, combine the toasted sesame oil with the egg white, 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce, and ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons of the cornstarch. (This was the weirdest mixture ever—I was sure I had done something wrong! It looked like peanut dipping sauce for satay and had the consistency of Elmer's glue.) Add the chicken, stirring to coat. Let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the chicken broth with the chile-garlic sauce, sugar, and the remaining ¼ cup of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch.

In a large saucepan, heat the 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the ginger and garlic and cook over high heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir the broth mixture, add it to the pan, and cook until thickened and glossy, about 3 minutes. Keep the sauce warm over low heat.

In a large, deep skillet, heat ½ inch of vegetable oil until shimmering. Carefully add the chicken, one piece at a time, and fry over high heat, turning once or twice, until very browned and crisp, about 4 minutes. (Someone on the F&W website left a comment because they thought it was a pain to cook each piece individually—um, you just add them one at a time, but then you cook them all at once!) Drain the chicken on paper towels and immediately add to the sauce along with the scallions. Cook just until coated, about 30 seconds. Serve right away, with steamed broccoli and rice.

Oh yum, so good.

*This is something I happen to know: Chinese used to be transliterated into English following the Wade-Giles system but was eventually replaced by the Pinyin system, which more closely follows the actual Chinese pronunciation. That's why, for instance, we no longer say Peking, but rather Beijing.