Reading this book, I was reminded of a moment near the end of season 3 of Top Chef, when Casey presents her dish to the judges as a coq au vin inspired by memories of her grandmother. Tom Colicchio scolds her for calling the dish coq au vin when it wasn’t, but he also tells her it was a good dish and probably would have won the challenge if she had just called it what it was: chicken braised in wine. The moral of the […]
Good Enough For My Needs
Best for: People visiting Lisbon In a nutshell: It’s an Eyewitness Guide. They have pictures and highlights. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: I’ve tended to enjoy the Eyewitness Guides in the past, and we’re going to Lisbon later this month. Review: I appreciate that these books start with some history of the area that they cover. I have basically no knowledge of Portugal, other than that when I look at a map of Europe, it looks like a face to Spain’s hair. Now […]
The Movie Can Be Better than the Book
I am an unabashed fan of the film The Princess Bride. The swashbuckling, romantic, revenge, pirate, adventure, fairy tale, family film was not a film I expected to like when my dad introduced it to me, but I quickly fell in love with it. It is a film that has improved upon rewatching and when sharing the film with those who haven’t seen it. Going in, I was skeptical about reading the book upon which the film was adapted. How different could the book be, and […]
I suppose she’s just dying of living–that’s the one infection that strikes us all down, sooner or later.
I’ve seen the Lonesome Dove miniseries no fewer than 10 times and love it to death. And so when I read the novel, I was blown away by it and by the series again in terms of its adaptation. It’s not a perfect adaptation of what feels like a near perfect novel. So learning much later that there were more books, I was initially thrilled. And then I read Dead Man’s Walk and I was like umm ok, I guess. And the same thing happens […]