obsessions this week

(Wish I Was) Watching: Like Crazy



 Listening: to 8tracks.com which streams thousands upon thousands of playlists. My favourites are the French music mixes, such as this one. Perfect for setting a relaxing atmosphere in my office.

Reading:The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

Browsing: Anthropologie's October Catalog -
full of lovely finds & begins with the following poem:

Go he said,
Until rock gives way to sea, gives way to
Salt and air and the elements all - 
Until feet touch land that creaks, melts and sighs.
Rippling, crashing, splitting beneath you.
It's tired arms open to the cold of night - 
Everything frozen, everything hushed.
And then, with eyes at rest, look closely.
Closer.
Closer still.
And in that moment, you will find me - 
Indeed you will see.

the perfect sunday

Is there a better way to start the week than with Truman Capote and homemade spinach and feta muffins? I don't think so. And if you're a smart cookie you'll make the muffins the night before so you can have breakfast in bed with Mr. Capote.

Recipe below for my foodie friends:

Ingredients
Canola oil, to grease
2 1/2 Cups self-raising flour
1/2 bunch of spinach,trimmed, washed, dried, shredded
150g feta cheese, crumbled
2 Tablespoons finely grated parmesan
1 1/3 Cups milk
90g butter, melted
1 egg
2 Tablespoons finely grated parmesan to sprinkle on top

Method
Preheat oven to 400. Brush muffin pan with canola oil to lightly grease.

Sift flour into a bowl. Add shredded spinach, feta and parmesan. Stir to combine. Use a fork to whisk together milk, butter, egg and dill until well combined. Add milk mixture to flour mixture and use a metal spoon to stir until just combined (do not over mix).

Spoon mixture into prepared pans. Sprinkle with extra parmesan. Bake for 18 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 12.

quick read

I had seen the books everywhere - from grocery stores to billboards - and decided to be stubborn and not read the book that everyone seemed to be talking about. (I automatically hold a grudge against any book that has been sold more than a couple million times. I still haven't even read Eat, Pray, Love). Eventually, after having it recommended to me again and again AND again, I gave up and picked up a copy.

If you're looking for a series of books you can't put down and relentlessly turn the pages despite the fact that it's 4 am and you have to get up for class in a few hours, then these are the books for you! Sure, the writing might not be stellar and there is a unnatural amount of coffee being consumed every few pages, but the plot is amazing and characters are addictive. I definitely recommend them. Sadly, the author of the trilogy, Stieg Larsson, died shortly after delivering the manuscripts so he never knew how wildly popular they would be, and his fans have to suffice with these three books when Larsson most likely had more amazing stories up his sleeve.

Here's the description from the first book: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Harriet Vanger, scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.

the marriage game

Feel like reading books that will crush your vision of marriage? Yates and Updike do just that, but they do it so well.
Both novels circle around themes of adultery, the search for self, marital balance and selfishness, yet the writing is strikingly beautiful and honest.
Below are passages taken from each of the novels - hopefully they will be enough to get you to pick up a copy.

Let's face it, movies are never as good as the books the stories were taken from. I thought the Revolutionary Road movie was extremely well done, but it still doesn't quite compare to the book.



"He rolled heavily upright and groped for his bathrobe, moistening the wrinkled roof of his mouth. Then he went and squinted through the brilliant window. It was April herself, stolidly pushing and hauling the old machine, wearing a man's shirt and loose, flapping slacks, while both children romped behind her with handfuls of cut grass.
In the bathroom he used enough cold water and toothpaste and kleenex to revive the working parts of his head; he restored its ability to gather oxygen and regained a certain muscular control over its features. But nothing could be done about his hands. Bloated and pale, they felt as if all their bones had been painlessly removed. A command to clench them into fists would have sent him whimpering to his knees. Looking at them, and particularly at the bitten-down nails that never in his life had had a chance to grow, he wanted to beat and bruise them against the edge of the sink. He thought then of his father's hands, and this reminded him that his dream just now, just before the lawn mower and the headache and the sun, had been of a dim and tranquil time long ago. Both his parents had been there, and he heard his mother say, 'Oh, don't wake him, Earl; let him sleep.' He tried his best to remember more of it, and couldn't; but the tenderness of it brought him close to tears for a moment until it faded away."




"'Sally!' He was on the sunless side of I Street, hatless, his arm lifted as if for a taxi. In a business suit, he looked disconcertingly like everyone else, and as he waited at the intersection for the electric permission to walk, her stomach dipped as if she had been snapped awake two hundred miles from home. She asked herself, who is this man? The sign said WALK. At the head of the pack, he trotted towards her; her heart thrashed. She hung helplessly on the curb while the distance between them diminished and her body, her whole hollowed body, remembered his twitchy posing hands, his hook nose that never took a tan but burned all summer long, his sad eyes of no certain colour, his crooked jubilant teeth. He grinned proudly but nervously, stood uncertain for a moment, then touched her elbow and kissed her cheek. 'God you look great,' he said, 'rolling along with that farm-girl gait, your big feet wobbling away in heels.'
Her heart relaxed. No one else saw her this way. She came from Seattle and this made her in Jerry's eyes a farm-girl. It was true, she had always felt uneasy in the East. There was a kind of Eastern woman, Ruth [his wife] for example, who never bothered with makeup or conspicuously flirted and beside whom Sally felt clumsy. Richard noticed this and tried to analyze her insecurity. Jerry noticed and called her his girl in calico. Not since before her father had died, on a trip to San Francisco, had she felt, what she supposed all children are supposed to feel, that it was somehow wonderful of her to be, in every detail, herself."

the breakup dress

The beautiful Dolce & Gabbana Spring 2011 dresses remind me of Grady McNeil, a character in Truman Capote's "Summer Crossing" who exudes effortless confidence and ease. The dresses are stunning and soft and bound to make heads turn. Best of all, they keep the drama in the dress. If I were facing down a break up, these are the types of dresses that would make me feel cool, calm and confident.

Play:


Read:


Wear:


When I get to Warwick Avenue
Meet me by the entrance of the tube
We can talk things over a little time
Promise me you wont step out of line



When I get to Warwick Avenue
Please drop the past and be true
Don't think we're okay just because I'm here
You hurt me bad but I won't shed a tear



I'm leaving you for the last time baby
You think you're loving but you don't love me
I've been confused out of my mind lately
You think you're loving but I want to be free
Baby you've hurt me



When I get to Warwick Avenue
We'll spend an hour but no more than two
Our only chance to speak once more
I showed you the answers, now here's the door...