Bossypants by Tina Fey

My second book of the year was a gift from my brother this Christmas. As I unwrapped the present, he explained that he got me the book because whenever he thinks of me, he pictures Tiny Fey on 30 Rock singing "working on my night cheese!" in a Snuggie™ (As seen on TV!). Because I am that cool.


Bossypants was unlike any book I've read before, because I've never read a comedy memoir before. It was light and fun and I finished it in couple days, which was heaven after how long it took me to slog through A Cook's Tour. While not as funny as 30 Rock, I thought that Bossypants was smartly written, and its self-deprecating tone rang true with all my previous experiences with Tina Fey (Mean Girls, 30 Rock, etc). The genre was interesting, because the movement between sincerity and jokes felt like I was getting to know Tina Fey better while simultaneously being held at arm's length. Ultimately, though, I think she revealed and did not reveal appropriate amounts of what a celebrity should let their fans know. Also, what she did reveal in this book made me like her even more than I already did. I bet we'd make great friends, Tina and I.


Jared and I both read this book this week, and one of the more interesting things we talked about was that this book, although fun and amusing, will not hold up well with time. A lot of the jokes are referential to culture, music, and celebrities, so in a few years they will be dated and a reader may not get what was funny about those jokes in the first place. There were some referential jokes that even I did not get, pointing out to me that Tina Fey and I are truly from different generations. If someone who has been alive for half of Tina Fey's life doesn't get some of her jokes, there will be less and less overlap in cultural knowledge the farther we get out from the publishing date. That doesn't necessarily make this not a worthwhile book, just something interesting to think about.


I would recommended the book to anyone who likes 30 Rock, Tina Fey, or wants something that's quick, fun, and easy to read. It wasn't a revelation, but definitely a nice snow day read.

Animal Origami

The last few days have gone by in a whirlwind of absolutely no commitments (weekend + MLK holiday + two snow days). I've had a few posts to write up, but somehow when you have nothing pressing to do, it's very hard to get anything done. Anyway, now I'm getting back on track.

Last week (or what feels like a world away when I still had work to go to) I had a massive headache during work one afternoon, and decided that crafting would be the best way to fix it. I started out making a couple paper flowers, but that wasn't working out, so I ended up making a whole menagerie of origami animals for my desk from this website. Here's a rundown of the animals, in order of least cute to most cute.

This squirrel looked cute on the website, but turned out weird.

I had the hardest time with this dog, and ended up having to cut out some of the paper.

Dachshund: simple and cute.

Koala: a little odd looking, but adorable.

Happy Lion!

Equally happy little fox.

And... The best one of the day... Drumroll please...

The oddly named, but wonderful, Asian Racoon.

A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain

It took me a really long time to finish this book. I generally like Anthony Bourdain and the language was simple, but it still took me over two weeks to finish a 274 page book (I spent 4 days on the last 20 pages!). This is really unheard of for an English major who is used to reading almost 300 pages in an evening.

Now, just because it took me so long to finish the book doesn't mean I hated it. I generally enjoyed most of it, and honestly I don't think the book really had enough substance for me to hate it. The real problem was that this book had no forward motion. Every chapter was an entity entirely separate from the rest of the book, so when I finished one section I didn't feel compelled to continue on to the next one. Bourdain slaps on an intro that attempts to tie the chapters together because each one is a part of his 'search for the perfect meal,' but the fact is that the book is just a bunch of separate short stories which he ties together with a forced feeling and overly sappy 2 page conclusion.

 Bourdain wrote the book during the year that he travelled around the world filming his first show, A Cook's Tour, that ran on the Food Network for a season in the early 2000's. Each chapter is set in a different country and you follow Bourdain as eats a huge variety of food (the still beating heart of cobra!), meets colorful characters, does some crazy things (jumping into a Russian lake frozen over with ice after being in a sauna for an hour, etc), and generally gets drunk all the time. So, as anyone who has seen A Cook's Tour or No Reservations could tell, the book really reads as though it is a mishmash of episodes from a TV show. While Bourdain is good at translating these escapades into writing, I just couldn't help feeling as though I'd rather be watching these adventures on the screen. Getting a huge list of the foods he's eating, most of which are unfamiliar to me, just doesn't do the same justice to the experience as actually seeing the food, and watching his reactions as he eats them. While I do like getting Bourdain's genuine opinions and feelings, instead of something edited down by the Food Network or Travel Channel, the book felt a little incomplete without having seen the series also.

I don't mean to sound as though I really disliked the book, it just didn't hold my attention as much as I thought it would when I began reading. That being said, it was generally enjoyable: I learned some cool things about other cultures, built up an appetite to be a little more daring in my culinary choices, and realized with more urgency that there is so much going on in the world that I would really like to see (damn you, Bourdain, and your all expenses paid trips around the world!!). If you're interested in food, travel, and you like No Reservations, you'll probably like this book.

Note: I haven't actually read it, but I've heard from multiple reliable sources that Bourdain's first book, Kitchen Confidential, is awesome and probably a better read than A Cook's Tour.

Change In Plans / This Week In Exercise

Minutes ago, i published a version of this post in which I described how much I hate running (a lot) and how this week I only ran once for two miles. The moment I posted it, I realized that this running goal wasn't quite accomplishing what I wanted it to do in my life (multiple times this week I thought about going to the gym and ultimately talked myself out of it by internally whining "but if I go to the gym I'll have to run because of this stupid goal!"). The purpose of the running goal was to encourage myself to be consistently active and up my fitness level, but obviously sitting on my couch watching How I Met Your Mother and thinking about how much I do not want to run but would be okay with going to the gym is not really helping me accomplish that.

In the spirit of setting goals that are achievable and empowering, instead of daunting and awful sounding, I'll be changing my "Run 500 Miles" goal to a "Exercise for 365 Hours" goal. I still plan to run as part of this goal, but this way, if I'm really not feeling the running vibe that day I can go to the gym and not feel guilty for doing a different kind of cardio. I maybe could have achieved the running goal, but I think that ultimately just being an active person is a better and more apt goal for me to aspire to than being a runner (and hopefully I'll become a better runner along the way anyhow).

Phew. I feel better now.

Harry Potter Food Fest

This past weekend I completed the first 4 of my recipes for the year in a whirlwind day (January 1st!) at my friend Maggie's house down in Tigard, Oregon. Maggie, her friend and blog-partner, Kelsey, and I spent the whole day cooking, from about noon to 9 PM. We produced 3 Harry Potter related sweets, and a hearty dinner of chicken pot pie. Here's a picture to give you an idea of what the day was like:

Yep, that's a giant Harry Potter movie poster, three Harry Potter recipes, and Maggie with a small lightning bolt drawn on her forehead.

The first recipe of the day was butterbeer cupcakes, recipe found online here. These cupcakes were tasty and very butterscotch-y, with a butterscotch ganache injected into the middle of the cupcake using a plastic bottle bought at a beauty supply store. We used a ziploc as a homemade pastry bag to frost the cupcakes, and bought some gold gems to jazz them up a bit - they were really pretty! The other great thing about these cupcakes is that apparently Jared loves butterscotch, so when I brought some home to him he was really excited!

Harry Potter dessert number 2 was chocolate cauldron cupcakes, that we made from a combo of this recipe (for the cake itself), this recipe (for the chocolate ganache), and some store bought "Whipped Cream" frosting. These cupcakes were almost more like brownies in texture, and were really tasty in combination with the chocolate ganache and frosting. They were fun to decorate, but it also ended up being really stressful trying to get the ganache, frosting, sprinkles, and handles on all at the same time. I'm not really sure we could have done it with less than the three people we had. For the HP nerds out there, the green cauldron on the front right of the photo is what we deemed "Neville's Cauldron." We spent a lot of time completely cackling about how hilarious it was, and it became our crowning achievement for the night (despite the fact that we initially made it because the cupcake broke when it came out of the pan).

The third and final treat of the night was butterbeer, made from this recipe. I love the Bakingdom blog, and I had really high hopes for what the butterbeer would taste like, especially because Darla (from Bakingdom) has been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and she says that this recipe tastes really similar to the butterbeer they serve there. It was essentially cream soda with McCormick Imitation Butter Flavor, topped with whipped cream that was also made with the butter flavor (I know, right? We were a little freaked out by the idea of whole butter flavor thing, especially because it smells exactly like the butter you get at the movie theater). The butterbeer wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite as much of a revelation as I was hoping for. We also talked a bit about how we all imagined butterbeer to be a little more along the lines of hot buttered rum, instead of a cold soda-type drink, but that may just be something our 13 year old heads made up when first reading Harry Potter.

Now, the day wasn't all sweets. We also made a delicious chicken pot pie from Joy The Baker. It was really easy, really delicious, and a great way to add something savory to an otherwise super sweet-filled day. I would definitely recommend that anyone who likes chicken pot pie give the recipe a try.

Well, this is a pretty long post to go along with a pretty long day of cooking. It was a great start to the new year, particularly spending it with a far away friend (everyone should check out her blog)! Hope everyone has had a great and productive first week of the year!