Thursday’s Tale: The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

by Carol9 Comments
No, The Paper Bag Princess is not actually a classic fairy tale. It was written in 1980 by Robert Munsch, but it has all the familiar characters - a princess, a prince, and a dragon. And there's a quest and an ending. And I wanted a chance to show off Amber's painting of a paper bag. It's only the second painting she's done - she almost didn't bring it home because it's "only practice." Princess Elizabeth is a lovely princess who lives in a beautiful castle and plans on marrying Prince Ronald. However, a dragon arrives, destroys her kingdom, kidnaps Ronald, and burns all her clothes so that she has no choice but to wear a paper bag. Elizabeth bravely follows the dragon to rescue Ronald. She comes to the dragon's cave an knocks. Twice he tells he to go away but then she calls out, asking him if he isn't the smartest, fiercest dragon in the whole world. He, of course,...
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Review: Sous Chef by Michael Gibney

by Carol6 Comments
Title: Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line  Author: Michael Gibney Published: March 25, 2014 by Ballantine Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible The back must slave to feed the belly. . . . In this urgent and unique book, chef Michael Gibney uses twenty-four hours to animate the intricate camaraderie and culinary choreography in an upscale New York restaurant kitchen. Here readers will find all the details, in rapid-fire succession, of what it takes to deliver an exceptional plate of food—the journey to excellence by way of exhaustion. Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider’s perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol8 Comments
Here's my plan, more or less. Since last check-in, I finished Week 2 and am starting Week 3. Tuesday I did 30 minutes of Yoga and took the dog for a mile walk. Wow, the yoga made my inner-thighs sore. It's been a while since I've done it. Wednesday I was supposed to do 30 minutes of cross-training, but I must have read  the plan wrong before I went to the gym. I ended up doing 60 easy minutes on the elliptical on the "hills" setting. Thursday I ran 2.3 miles and took the dog for a mile walk. We also went fishing, but the only exercise to that is walking up the hill from the parking lot and down the trail to the lake. Saturday I ran in the Debbie Green 5K in Wheeling. My time was 32:41, 19 out of 36 in my class. You can tell I forgot to "finish" my workout on my watch right at the finish line. Not a great time...
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At the Movies: Lucy (2014)

by Carol7 Comments
Title: Lucy Director: Luc Besson Writer: Luc Besson In theaters: July 25, 2014  from Universal Pictures Genre: Sci-fi/Action Rating: R Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic. Lucy is not a good movie, but since we were using a gift card and just having a night out since Amber's out of town for the week, it was fun enough. First, you have to overlook that it's not actually true that people only use 10% of their brain, a "fact" the movie is based on. I'm okay with overlooking that, although I do think they could have made more or less the same movie with a different base theory that wouldn't have immediately turned some people off. It's like the movie is stuck. It wants to be an action flick, but how much action can you really have when the main character can control people, objects, is...
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Thursday’s Tale: How the Goats Came to Hessen

by Carol3 Comments
"How the Goats Came to Hessen" is a German tale told in Sagen Gebräuche und Märchen aus Westfalen und einigen andern, besonders den angrenzenden Gegenden Norddeutschlands by Adalbert Kuhn, 1859. The version I read was a translation by D. L. Ashliman. It's a bit like the "Three Billy Goats Gruff," but this time around cleverness wins rather than pure size and strength. Hessen is apparently a lovely area, but it was surrounded by giant forests. As any reader of fairy tales knows, scary dangerous things live in the woods, in this case it's wolves. Many goat families who attempted to enter Hessen were devoured by the wolves. One day a week little kid goat was trying to get to Hessen. Almost immediately after he entered the woods, he was met by a wolf. The kid told the wolf that his mother was coming, and the wolf decided to wait and eat the mother who would be bigger and make a better meal. When...
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