Bravo, Cate

Browsing the pages of fashion and celebrity gossip magazines (don't lie, if you don't read them, you at least look at the covers while at the grocery store/pharmacy) can be disheartening at times; we all know that there's a shit ton good amount of airbrushing that goes on to achieve this look of flawlessness, but that doesn't mean that we don't want the perfect hair, skin, body, you name it, for ourselves.  


In a bold move, Cate Blanchett appears on the new cover of the UK's Intelligent Life completely un-airbrushed.  As someone who doesn't leave the house without at least mascara, I find this pretty brave.  It appears that she's still wearing makeup, so it's not a complete au naturel portrait, but one of the first times that I can remember in which a celebrity has willingly skipped the airbrushing.  Fine lines and wrinkles be damned, Cate is still beautiful.

via WSJ

About Time

I meant to post this last week when the news broke, but unsurprisingly I didn't get around to it!  Kate Spade has launched a line of watches (finally!) that are pretty darn cute.  My favorites are the Carousel bangle watches, by far.  The candy-colored enamel was designed to invoke the Carousel in Central Park, New York.  

"Inspired by the sweet, whimsical carousel in manhattan's central park, [the Carousel bangle is] crafted of gold-plated metal and enamel and, just like our signature idiom bangles, you'll find a few of our favorite turns of phrase delicately engraved inside."

The majority of the other selections fit Kate Spade's modern but feminine aesthetic.  Since I work in Georgetown now, just a hop, skip, and jump from the Kate Spade store, I bopped in on my lunch break last week to check out the watches in person.  In fact, I liked the turquoise Carousel bangle so much that I bought one as a congratulations-on-losing-your-job-but-landing-the-job-that-you-really-wanted gift to myself; the inscription seemed so appropriate: DIVE IN! 

Bon March

So, we're about halfway through March already; how did that happen?  I have been crazy busy lately, mainly because of my new job, and some philanthropic activities that have taken up some time.  I really love the new job so far, though starting with a new organization and in a new role (not just for me, but also for the organization) means that there's a learning curve that just takes some time to master.  I work with some great people who are very supportive, so I'm excited about it all.  I'm taking InDesign training all this week since I'll be working on some design-related projects moving forward, and it's actually pretty enjoyable, for an all-day training session.

via

I just finished reading Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and John Irving's Until I Find You.  You might know Mindy as Kelly Kapoor from The Office, and Is Everyone Hanging Out... ? is a book of essays about her life.  Mindy writes like she's your best friend who's writing you random e-mails at 3:00am when she can't sleep, and I mean that in a good way.  The essays are autobiographical and funny, and more than anything, reading them just makes you want to hang out with Mindy.  I blew through this book and would recommend it as a quick and entertaining read.

via

I'm glad that I read these two book at the same time, because as light-hearted as Mindy's essays are (see, I'm even calling her by her first name--friends already!), Irving's Until I Find You was just as heavy.  I think I've said this before, but John Irving can be an acquired taste.  I started out with his best-sellers, which are, of course, generally the better-written and more widely-appreciated selections (A Prayer for Owen Meany, The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and A Widow for One Year were all great, in my opinion).  My last Irving novel was A Son of the Circus, and the only thing these two novels have in common are extended periods of time spent in Amsterdam's red light district.  I just couldn't wait to finish this one; I really liked the ending, the beginning was okay, and I hated the middle. Jack Burns, the protagonist, just endures so many terrible situations that are a bit graphic at times, and it just made me sad for his character. Jack does find redemption in the end, but there was a large portion in the middle that just seemed unnecessary to the story.  I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it as an intro to Irving.

Not sure what I'm reading next, as I've downloaded several new books on my Kindle and have yet to make a decision.  Hopefully I'll be back before the end of March!

Washington and Thatcher

Happy Presidents Day!  Hopefully you aren't at work today, though I know quite a few people who are.  It's interesting to read about the history of Presidents Day and the different titles the holiday has in different states. For example, the actual name of the holiday is "Washington's Birthday," originally a holiday observed only by government workers in the District of Columbia.  In the great state of Alabama, the holiday is officially called "Washington and Jefferson Day," although Jefferson's birthday is actually in April.  Who knew?  (Most of all, Presidents Day reminds me of the fantastic movie, Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. It's a must-watch if you have never seen it!)

Yesterday I spent the day with a friend, and among our adventures was a viewing of The Iron Lady, promoted as a biopic of Margaret Thatcher.  Thatcher was not only the first, and only, female Prime Minister of Great Britain, but she was also the longest-serving Prime Minister.  

While the movie did show us many of the accomplishments and failures of Thatcher's life, it also focused much on her dementia in later life; it seems more like a snapshot of Thatcher's life rather than a full-fledged biopic.  I will say that Meryl Streep was excellent in this role; she was perfectly cast, and she truly transformed herself into Thatcher.  She has already won a Golden Globe for her performance, and I would be shocked if she didn't win the Academy Award for which she's also nominated.  The film is also nominated for the Academy Award for best makeup, which was so realistic it was hard to believe it was simply makeup.  I did like the movie, and it's rekindled my interest in reading more biographies, though we'll see if I stick to that.

Some Good News

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  You would think that not having a job means I have much more free time, and I do, but luckily I've had quite a few interviews that have been keeping me busy.  The short story is that I was presented with three very attractive job offers within a 24-hour period; the good news is that one of those offers was my top choice, so I am beyond thrilled!  I start work on Tuesday and couldn't be happier. 

That's me, celebrating my new job.

My birthday was on Tuesday (yep, Valentine's Day) and I had a pretty phenomenal birthday, all things considered.  Since my sister now lives in DC, and since we were born five days (and five years) apart, we had a joint birthday celebration last weekend.  It was tons of fun, and so great to see so many friends in one place!  We went to New Vegas Lounge, a DC favorite for live music and dancing.  Then, my sweet roommates treated me to dinner at Town Hall (our home away from home) on Monday night to celebrate turning another year older; my sister came by later that night with a delicious rainbow birthday cake, her specialty.  The night of my actual birthday, my sister, her boyfriend and I celebrated again at another favorite restaurant, Zaytinya.  Like I said, pretty phenomenal. 

rainbow birthday cake

I leave you with the recipe for Town Hall's Goat Cheese Macaroni, because it is amazing and I hope to recreate it myself one day.  I found the recipe via Pinterest, naturally.

Town Hall’s Goat-Cheese Macaroni

Serves 4 to 6

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1½ cups half-and-half
¾ cup heavy cream
1½ tablespoons white wine
1¼ cup fresh goat cheese
½ cup garlic-herb Boursin cheese 
1½ teaspoons kosher salt (or more to taste)
1⁄8 teaspoon ground white pepper
Dash of Tabasco
½ box (½ pound) cavatappi pasta 

In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the flour to make a roux and cook for 1 minute. 

Add half-and-half, heavy cream, white wine, salt, and white pepper. Stir to combine and bring to a high simmer, but make sure not to boil the milk. Cook the mixture on low for 10 minutes to thicken. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Put the cream mixture into a blender and add the goat and Boursin cheeses and Tabasco. Blend for 10 seconds on low speed until smooth. 

Strain the cheese sauce through a mesh strainer back into the saucepan and set aside to cool until the pasta is cooked, or store it covered overnight in the fridge. 

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the cavatappi, and cook until al dente, about 8 or 9 minutes (the pasta will continue to cook in the sauce). Strain the pasta and add it to the cheese sauce. Turn the heat to medium-low and warm the macaroni and cheese until heated through, about 2 minutes. Season with more salt if necessary.

Devour!

The Night Circus and Salvage the Bones

I'm not sure exactly what prompted me to purchase The Night Circus for my Kindle, except that I remember finding the reviews interesting.  The Night Circus is indescribable; it's a fantasy, a dream-like story of romance, with plenty of humor and suspense thrown in.  It's a thoroughly entertaining read that I didn't want to put it down.  Erin Morgenstern writes eloquently about the surreal world of Marco and Celia, pitted against one another in a magical and fierce competition, and the cast of characters that each play a pivotal part in their story.  From the Amazon page: 

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. 

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. 

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. 

While plenty of magic occurs in the pages of The Night Circus, the compelling story seems so real that you find yourself pulling for the protagonists, all the while realizing that only one can win the competition.  

It was a hard to swing from the elegant prose and vivid imagery of The Night Circus to Jesmyn Ward's stark and gritty Salvage the Bones, winner of the 2011 National Book Award.  The novel chronicles the days of a poor family living on the Mississippi coast in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.  While this book was a quick read, it was not an easy one.  Esch, the narrator, is fourteen and pregnant; her mother is dead, her father is an alcoholic, and one of her three brothers is stealing food and medicine for his pitbull's new litter of puppies.  There are some pretty graphic descriptions of dog fighting in the novel, which were hard for me to read.  Thin glimmers of hope shine throughout the novel, such as the community of friends that pull together after the storm, but these slivers of light are so fragile that I was left feeling depressed upon finishing the novel.  It's well-written and deserving of the praise it has received, but it's not a book I would choose to read again.

The Book Thief

Pre-unemployment, I borrowed my roommate's copy of The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.  I cannot do this book justice by writing my own review, so I'm going to borrow one, which I'll get to in just a second.  One day last week, when I had nothing to do since I no longer have to be at work from 8:30am-5:30pm, I stopped in at Barnes & Noble for a coffee and for some browsing.  I was a few chapters in to The Book Thief so I decided to pick up a copy and read at the store while I sipped my coffee [for those wondering, this is entirely legitimate and even encouraged by Barnes & Noble staff; I know because I've asked].  

Trouble was, I couldn't find the book.  It's had a bit of buzz so I thought perhaps it was sold out; I pulled out my trusty iPhone to make sure I was spelling the author's name correctly, when I realized that The Book Thief is actually a young adult novel.  Cue surprise.  The novel doesn't read like The Twilight Saga or Judy Blume, so I was surprised, but upon reading the author's biography, I realized that he is a young adult author, therefore causing this novel to fall into the young adult genre.  Regardless, I finished the book (not at Barnes & Noble) and have to recommend it.  This story is heartbreaking, heartwarming, funny, and very sad, but overall it's a wonderful book about one girl's struggle to survive Nazi Germany and how the power and comfort of the written word helped her through it all.  

I told you that seemingly random story about not being able to find the book so you'd understand why this review is from Teenreads.com:

"A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both."

So muses the narrator of Markus Zusak's powerful and moving bestselling novel of 2006, THE BOOK THIEF, which is now out in paperback. As you might guess, this is no ordinary narrator. The contemplative first person guiding you through this book is Death, an at-once fitting and ironic vanguard for a tale that both celebrates the power of words and agonizes over the consequences of their use. 

Set against the tragedy-stained canvas of World War II, Death tells the story of young Liesel Meminger (the eponymous book thief) growing up in Nazi Germany under the watchful eye of a staunch foster mother and kindly foster father who teaches her to read. She attends meetings of the BDM, a youth group aimed at indoctrinating young girls into Hitler's ideology. She plays soccer with the boys on her street, holding her own in any disputes that arise. And all the while, dreams of her dead brother haunt and goad her into a fascination with reading and words that inevitably leads to her life of crime. 

...

While other writers have employed Death as a narrator, Zusak makes his own indelible mark on the technique in the dimensions he gives to the character. Death is simultaneously dispassionate about his work and the impact it can have while striving to understand humanity's resilience. Death boasts an omniscience of what will happen in life but also a naivety about what can happen in the human heart. 

...

Read this book.  That is all.