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Apr. 25th, 2005
Of lasagna and books
Apr. 25th, 2005 10:34 amSaturday involved a flurry of cleaning activity followed by a flurry of cooking activity followed by a flurry of hosting activity. Deb, Kevin and a pair of Becca's work colleagues came for dinner and everything went smashingly, long into the night. We made lasagna (where I used my well-honed skills at making water boil to prepare the noodles), snow peas and shallots (where I used my well-honed skills at making water boil to prepare the peas), a fennel salad and finished off with chocolatey goodness. Everything turned out splendidly, thanks mainly to Rebecca, who has skills far beyond the boiling of water.
Conversation ranged all over the place, well-lubricated by cocktails and wine so that people were making interesting observations and candid confessions that cannot be repeated in a public blog. Things were apparently a little too well-lubricated for Kevin, who once again did his level best to combat Irish stereotypes. Nothing disastrous, but he lay for a while in a quiet, dark room. As is well known, time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. Which is to say, our guests left at 3 AM, and I had just strength enough left to fall into bed.
Had a nice slow day on Sunday. My greatest adventure was going to the LA Times Festival of Books. Now that I see UCLA at roughly annual intervals, there's always a surprise. The long-abandoned frat house at Strathmore/Glenrock has been demolished. On campus, Kinsey seems to be undergoing reconstructive surgery and there are lovely white roses outside Haines that I don't remember being there. I picked up a signed copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse, the El Cholo Cookbook for Becca and a couple Philip Dick paperbacks with neat cover art. That paperbook guy had tons of really cool and swinging 60's spy novels and trashy erotica and trashy erotic spy novels. I was really taken by the Clyde Allison 0008 Series with titles like Gamefinger, Sadisto Royale and Platypussy. I thought to myself, "Haha, how shagadelic! I'll pick some of these up for Becca." Then I saw that the paperback of Gamefinger was $150. Damn! This guy was cranking out one softcore Bond parody a month, and now they're $100+ a copy.
Conversation ranged all over the place, well-lubricated by cocktails and wine so that people were making interesting observations and candid confessions that cannot be repeated in a public blog. Things were apparently a little too well-lubricated for Kevin, who once again did his level best to combat Irish stereotypes. Nothing disastrous, but he lay for a while in a quiet, dark room. As is well known, time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. Which is to say, our guests left at 3 AM, and I had just strength enough left to fall into bed.
Had a nice slow day on Sunday. My greatest adventure was going to the LA Times Festival of Books. Now that I see UCLA at roughly annual intervals, there's always a surprise. The long-abandoned frat house at Strathmore/Glenrock has been demolished. On campus, Kinsey seems to be undergoing reconstructive surgery and there are lovely white roses outside Haines that I don't remember being there. I picked up a signed copy of Jared Diamond's Collapse, the El Cholo Cookbook for Becca and a couple Philip Dick paperbacks with neat cover art. That paperbook guy had tons of really cool and swinging 60's spy novels and trashy erotica and trashy erotic spy novels. I was really taken by the Clyde Allison 0008 Series with titles like Gamefinger, Sadisto Royale and Platypussy. I thought to myself, "Haha, how shagadelic! I'll pick some of these up for Becca." Then I saw that the paperback of Gamefinger was $150. Damn! This guy was cranking out one softcore Bond parody a month, and now they're $100+ a copy.