Classes are mostly over and my long-delayed birthday weekend is here. Yea! Recipe for a delectable birthday cake: devil's food mini loaves supplemented with dark chocolate chips, cakes cut in half and filled with generous layer of cooked buttercream; cakes are then covered with a cooked dutch/dark chocolate icing. I threw in a 1/2 cup or so of ground flaxseed, so I could argue the cake was not wholly unhealthy. Marginally healthy or not, the cake was so rich that it made me sick--my heart was racing and I was having trouble breathing. But in a good way. Hmm, sick feeling might have begun with finger licking during preparation.
We went and saw War of the Worlds. Movie tickets are inexpensive here, and I'm not sorry to have given $5 for this show. We got lots of previews and a roller coaster of a movie. Tom Cruise, in spite of his bizarrely insensitive-to-prudence-or-sense recent behavior, is still a charismatic actor.
Happy July 4th! My cooking continues today with a foray into wacky burger land. I'm not a big hamburger eater, but I love veggie burgers. I'm going to attempt a merger today: Nature's Burger (from Fantastic Foods) mixed in with ground beef, some sauteed onion, and worcestershire sauce. For added pizazz I also threw in a hefty serving of crumbled goat cheese for half the burger mixture. David says there's too much cheese. We'll see. UPDATE: The cheese provided flavor but not cheesiness and definitely no gooeyness. Overall texture of the burgers was crumbly and rich, not beefy at all. Perfect!
Latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey on America's image in the world shows the USA is not so positively viewed by many in the rest of the world including Europe. Confirming numbers do intrigue me but the notion that we aren't god's gift to the universe really doesn't come as a surprise. I love my country; I'm not so fond of our foreign policy and (lack of) diplomacy. As one of the speakers on CBS's Sunday Morning report about the Pew survey said, powerful countries can behave as kindly older siblings or as bullying older siblings. We're venturing into bully-land. How do you realize you're the one being the bully? Isn't the first step in solving a problem admitting that you have one?
Learn more about foreign affairs. Take a look at the Council on Foreign Relations.
MUSIC DU JOUR: Natalie Merchant's Ophelia. Gorgeous, positive, soul-searing music and lyrics.
2 comments:
You are making me hungry! And part of my sometimes wants to slide one foot into living in Canada and duck my head when foreigners spot me as an American.
I'm preparing for a trip to Europe and that Canadian flag patch sure looks tempting for the old backpack. Instead I'm hoping to represent the best of US thinking and travellers.
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