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Jan. 9th, 2014 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Attempted to watch the two hour season premiere of Dowton Abbey, attention kept wandering, so stopped and saved it for another time, and watched one of the three Sleepy Hollow episodes remaining on my DVR. This one was entitled Necromancer, and like the others - is rather fun, disarmingly different in both casting choices and its tongue firmly in cheek approach to American History. (If you didn't study the American Revolution ad naseum as a child, you may not appreciate the humor.) Also, Abby and Icabode make a great comedy team.
I adore all the characters, well except for Katrina - who I find a wee bit cloying. This episode revealed why the Horseman is after Icabode, and it did reference the original tale of Sleepy Hollow. (ie. in the original the fight between Icabode and the Horseman had to do with Katrina...here as well.) Clever that.
It always makes me laugh at any rate. Downton Abbey on the other hand has lost its sense of humor - it was rather funny in the first season...now its sort of drab and humorless.
2. Decided to forgo Whole Foods tonight in favor of Union Market on Court Street. A new Whole Foods popped up ten blocks from my apartment. It's basically just five blocks, but they are long ass blocks. The market is huge, with a large parking lot, windmills, and benches scattered outside. It's also always packed with people. I don't understand these people - they treat grocery shopping as if it is a social outting. Something to bring the entire family along. Folks? Please please please don't do this. It's a grocery store not a huge outdoor market with clowns. And it is very hard to maneuver around and grab stuff - when you and your brood are blocking the aisles chatting, with small children scampering about, or strollers. Leave the kids at home with your spouse. You do not need everyone in attendance. Plus the lines would be shorter.
Whole Foods is better than our version of Trader Joes - which is much smaller, located in a converted bank building, and doesn't have quite the selection of meats, fish, and produce.
Price wise? About the same. Actually all the stores are from my perspective. But keep in mind, I don't buy that much any more. Anything made with grain flour, dairy, soy, sugar, potatoes, eggplant and tomatoes is pretty much out. So I skip the baked goods section entirely. Focus just on the fresh produce (no frozen), fresh meats, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts and fruit.
Whole Foods does have amazing fresh ground almond butter. Also great wild sockeye salmon that I can't get elsewhere. Plus, organic fruit - harder to find than one might think. And apples are on the must buy organic list, along with celery apparently - which is also only available at Whole Foods. Plus all their meats, poultry, etc are organic. When you have a weakened constitution - you have to stick with organic. Actually - there are 17 Foods that You Must Buy Organic. I'm admittedly not doing a great job with the green beans. So am hoping they aren't completely right on that one. But the list does explain why I've given up corn and soy for the rest of my life.
Union Market on Court Street - approximately 10 blocks from my apartment, but on the way home, is not as big as Whole Foods (an understatement) and inside a converted blockbusters video store. It has organic meats and wild caught fish. Also organic nuts. So not a bad choice. I was also able to find a new favorite treat - chia pods - basically chia, water, coconut milk, and vanilla bean. It's a pudding made out of chia seeds.
Tonight had Long Island Wild Caught Blue Fish ( with coconut oil - works better on this fish than olive oil, parsley, garlic, dash of dill, and salt and pepper - baked in the oven in tin foil) - rather tasty and quick. Also green beans boiled, but still green, with dill and salt and pepper. Desert was sliced green apple, with lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, heated, and dipped in almond butter.
The trick is to find new foods you like and experiment. Of course it helps if you enjoy that sort of thing.
3. While I'm still enjoying The Husband's Secret - it is starting to remind me a little of a chick-lit ( a category name that I personally find offensive). What I find fascinating about women's contemporary literature is how self-defeating and critical of themselves and their gender - women are. This is particularly true in chick-lit. Also, how we tend to blame ourselves for things. There's also a lot of body image issues conveyed. A big trope in chick-lit is body image issues - ie, being too fat or too thin or not in good shape. In this novel - the worry over weight, body image, attractiveness to the opposite sex, is almost over-examined. To the point that some of the reviewers on Good Reads saw the book as being a wee bit shallow or the female characters portrayed as shallow. (But I beg to differ - we live in a society that is obsessed with looks, body image, and physical appearance, and always has been. This isn't a new thing - just our views regarding what is physically attractive have changed. Fictional novels naturally comment on that tendency - it should.)
And I think that...or rather this is what I keep reminding myself to do whenever I watch something or read a novel, particularly read - is to not judge the story or the style, but figure out what the writer is trying to tell me or convey...to let myself fall into their head a bit, and enjoy it on its own merits. This is the story this writer has inside them - they are trying to tell me this story the best way that they know how...so I'm going to try to listen. And listening requires...letting go of my own ego, and my own critical process.
Just deeply hearing what they have to say. This is what I am trying to do - I don't always accomplish it. Often not.
Good night, sleep tight...don't let the bed-bugs bite...(which has become a rather real problem in NYC the last few years, but luckily has died down a bit. Fingers crossed. Knock on Wood.)
I adore all the characters, well except for Katrina - who I find a wee bit cloying. This episode revealed why the Horseman is after Icabode, and it did reference the original tale of Sleepy Hollow. (ie. in the original the fight between Icabode and the Horseman had to do with Katrina...here as well.) Clever that.
It always makes me laugh at any rate. Downton Abbey on the other hand has lost its sense of humor - it was rather funny in the first season...now its sort of drab and humorless.
2. Decided to forgo Whole Foods tonight in favor of Union Market on Court Street. A new Whole Foods popped up ten blocks from my apartment. It's basically just five blocks, but they are long ass blocks. The market is huge, with a large parking lot, windmills, and benches scattered outside. It's also always packed with people. I don't understand these people - they treat grocery shopping as if it is a social outting. Something to bring the entire family along. Folks? Please please please don't do this. It's a grocery store not a huge outdoor market with clowns. And it is very hard to maneuver around and grab stuff - when you and your brood are blocking the aisles chatting, with small children scampering about, or strollers. Leave the kids at home with your spouse. You do not need everyone in attendance. Plus the lines would be shorter.
Whole Foods is better than our version of Trader Joes - which is much smaller, located in a converted bank building, and doesn't have quite the selection of meats, fish, and produce.
Price wise? About the same. Actually all the stores are from my perspective. But keep in mind, I don't buy that much any more. Anything made with grain flour, dairy, soy, sugar, potatoes, eggplant and tomatoes is pretty much out. So I skip the baked goods section entirely. Focus just on the fresh produce (no frozen), fresh meats, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts and fruit.
Whole Foods does have amazing fresh ground almond butter. Also great wild sockeye salmon that I can't get elsewhere. Plus, organic fruit - harder to find than one might think. And apples are on the must buy organic list, along with celery apparently - which is also only available at Whole Foods. Plus all their meats, poultry, etc are organic. When you have a weakened constitution - you have to stick with organic. Actually - there are 17 Foods that You Must Buy Organic. I'm admittedly not doing a great job with the green beans. So am hoping they aren't completely right on that one. But the list does explain why I've given up corn and soy for the rest of my life.
Union Market on Court Street - approximately 10 blocks from my apartment, but on the way home, is not as big as Whole Foods (an understatement) and inside a converted blockbusters video store. It has organic meats and wild caught fish. Also organic nuts. So not a bad choice. I was also able to find a new favorite treat - chia pods - basically chia, water, coconut milk, and vanilla bean. It's a pudding made out of chia seeds.
Tonight had Long Island Wild Caught Blue Fish ( with coconut oil - works better on this fish than olive oil, parsley, garlic, dash of dill, and salt and pepper - baked in the oven in tin foil) - rather tasty and quick. Also green beans boiled, but still green, with dill and salt and pepper. Desert was sliced green apple, with lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, heated, and dipped in almond butter.
The trick is to find new foods you like and experiment. Of course it helps if you enjoy that sort of thing.
3. While I'm still enjoying The Husband's Secret - it is starting to remind me a little of a chick-lit ( a category name that I personally find offensive). What I find fascinating about women's contemporary literature is how self-defeating and critical of themselves and their gender - women are. This is particularly true in chick-lit. Also, how we tend to blame ourselves for things. There's also a lot of body image issues conveyed. A big trope in chick-lit is body image issues - ie, being too fat or too thin or not in good shape. In this novel - the worry over weight, body image, attractiveness to the opposite sex, is almost over-examined. To the point that some of the reviewers on Good Reads saw the book as being a wee bit shallow or the female characters portrayed as shallow. (But I beg to differ - we live in a society that is obsessed with looks, body image, and physical appearance, and always has been. This isn't a new thing - just our views regarding what is physically attractive have changed. Fictional novels naturally comment on that tendency - it should.)
And I think that...or rather this is what I keep reminding myself to do whenever I watch something or read a novel, particularly read - is to not judge the story or the style, but figure out what the writer is trying to tell me or convey...to let myself fall into their head a bit, and enjoy it on its own merits. This is the story this writer has inside them - they are trying to tell me this story the best way that they know how...so I'm going to try to listen. And listening requires...letting go of my own ego, and my own critical process.
Just deeply hearing what they have to say. This is what I am trying to do - I don't always accomplish it. Often not.
Good night, sleep tight...don't let the bed-bugs bite...(which has become a rather real problem in NYC the last few years, but luckily has died down a bit. Fingers crossed. Knock on Wood.)