Thursday, November 17, 2005

Parsnippets

I made pork pot roast in cider the other day. It was a crock pot recipe, so it was pretty easy to handle. But it involved parsnips, which I didn't have any experience with. (They look like albino carrots, as it ends up.) I also found out that they taste nasty -- kind of bitter or something; strong at any rate. And it kind of gave everything else that was simmering in the crock pot that flavor, too.
Ick.
My advice? Cut out the parsnips when cooking.

I've never really jumped on the Harry Potter bandwagon. I kept meaning to read the books, but have just never gotten around to it. The latest movie opens Friday and a few friends of work are going, so I decided I may as well at least stick a toe in the waters that seem to make everyone so crazy for Harry. But I'm obviously not going to be able to read all the books that quickly, so I've got the first three movies. I've seen the first so far and have until Monday to watch the next two. I'm hoping they get better as the kids get older, because right now, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. (Although I'm sure the books are better -- they always are.)

I started doing a bit of Christmas shopping for family members over my days off this week and ended up getting a couple of gifts for other people, but also:
1) 3 CDs (Kanye West and 2 Jason Mraz albums -- I'm really digging the "Geek in the Pink" song lately)
2) 1 DVD
3) 1 book ("The Dante Club," which has been recommended reading from a friend for some time)
4) 1 box of chocolate covered cherries (What?! They're tasty. Back off.)
5) 1 bamboo plant for my cubicle at the office (easy to care for and don't need a lot of light)

Apparently, I need a little work on the whole giving/getting thing...

8 comments:

nanners said...

remember the bamboo plant you had that died in about 3 weeks even though it had water and indirect light? poor little Virginia bamboo. it doesn't have a chance.

Autumn said...

I don't know why everyone loves Harry Potter so much. I read the first one, and it was fine, but I wasn't interested in devoting more time to them. Let me know if the movies are good.

Abba said...

This isn't mine, but I love it:

"Don't judge a book by its movie."

Don't get me wrong. The Harry Potter movies are cool. But they're just the tip of the iceberg that is Jo Rowling's imagination.

Dapper Dad said...

BriGuy, I'm slightly baffled at your comment that the book version of a story is always better than the film version.

What about the novelization of Police Academy 2? I thought the frequent shifts in point-of-view were effective, with Hightower's account building on but subtling undermining the accounts of the same situations as relayed by Tackleberry and Lassard. But such a structure basically requires a past-tense construction, which meant that "the first assignment" lacked the urgency that it had on film.

mightybob said...

Crock pots are the best. I cooked a pork roast in a sauce with apricot-pineapple preserves, ketchup, and vinegar last week in a crock pot, and it turned out downright decent.
I wonder if parsnips come in different levels... mild, medium, and extra bitter. I've never eaten parsnips in the US, but I quite liked them Romania. Thought they were bland, actually. But then, don't we all do weird things in foreign countries?
In the case of Harry Potter, the books are definitely better.
And hey! there's nothing wrong with chocolate-covered cherries (... except that I could easily down an entire zillion-calorie box in one sitting)

Jessica said...

I tend to agree with the generic comment that the book is almost always better than the movie... but I think a caveat needs to be added: "The book is almost always better than the movie, *if the book came first*."

IMO, novelizations after the fact suck (almost) universally.

Maybe storylines just tend to work best in their original medium?

Abba said...

Agghhh. Please do not base your opinion of the Harry Potter phenomenon on that movie. All action, no soul, very little magic (of either the metaphorical or practical kind). Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Umm. Did you really buy yourself a box of chocolate cherries? Did you eat them alone with a box of Kleenex to the song "King of Pain" playing on repeat? Hey, it's a good song.

R