Packing!

I would like to begin this post by saying I am reading an actual book! Nothing like 2 hours to kill waiting for jury duty... so, coming next week: a review of Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

In the meantime, I have decided to blog about something else completely unrelated: packing. Traveling has become a semi-regular part of my life that I am still trying to figure out. In the beginning I struggled most with the 3-1-1 liquid rule, and feeling like I have finally mastered that, I've decided to post my tips. (Now, I just need to figure out how to bring only 1 pair of shoes...)

Here is Rachel's guide to getting through security with everything you need.

#1. Almost all hotels offer the basics like soap, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. You don't need to bring any of those things and most of these items can be re-purposed!

What else is shampoo good for? Instant laundry. While that free hotel soap might leave little white flecks all over your black undies, shampoo is clear. Fill your sink and voila!

Conditioner makes pretty good shaving cream and can also be applied to your ends as hair product if you're prone to dry hair, frizzies, etc...

If the thought of going without body wash makes your skin itch, (soap can be pretty drying), after suddsing up, apply lotion liberally (standing away from the direct flow of water) and wait about a minute. Rinse and enjoy your non-dry skin. You can always put more lotion on again out of the shower.

#2. Your deodorant? Not a liquid. If you use the gel kind, I think you can switch to a solid for 2 days of your life.

#3. Facewash? Not needed. Face cleansing wipes are also not considered liquids. I like the foaming ones from Olay, but Ponds, Neutrogena, and probably every other skincare brand offer them too.

#4. Perfume. Department store makeup counters frequently give out little tiny samples of perfume as a gift with purchase. You can also buy them from Sephora, Amazon, and online perfume sites for about $2 each.

#5. When it comes to haircare, a straightening iron is your best friend. No liquids required. Also, no matter how bad your morning hair a bun will usually hide the worst of it. Stash some bobby pins in your bag and you're good to go.

#6. There's no substitute for toothpaste. It's important to know that you cannot bring a larger size toothpaste tube that only has 3oz remaining. Why this is, I have no idea.
Fortunately, travel sizes are widely available. If you're cheap, the best place to get these for free is your dentist! He or she will be delighted that you are taking such an active interest in your oral hygiene. Alternatively, if you and your coworkers all do a lot of business travel, your company might be willing to spring for a bulk box.

#7. Makeup
- Tinted moisturizer is like face lotion, sunscreen, and light foundation all-in-one. Pretty much every drugstore and department store brand makes one and all of the ones I've seen are 3oz or less.
- Mascara might be a liquid, but I have yet to be stopped at security for going through with it in my purse. If you're a stickler for rules, try one with a skinnier tube so it takes up less room in your bag.
- Chapstick, lipstick, and eyeliner aren't liquids. (Unless you use liquid eyeliner...I'm not that skilled/steady handed.)

And finally, if you must have your (insert product you can't live without here), you can order travel sizes of pretty much any product online. Here are my two favorite sites (and before you ask my blog is not nearly popular enough to have paid advertisers): http://www.minimus.biz/ which carries the usual brands you'd find a store and some more upscale brands, and http://www.3floz.com/ which only carries fancy brands.

Happy travels!

Does a cookbook count?

I still haven't been doing any actual book reading. This is mainly due to not having a lot of time, and also that I don't have a library card in my new city. Instead of entertaining you all with another chapter from my trashy romance novel, (I know, my readers are dying to know what happens to Theo...) I thought I would share a little culinary adventure I had with The Barefoot Contessa cookbook.

Yesterday I had about 14 people over for brunch and of course turned to my collection of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks to help me figure out what to make. A recipe for potato basil frittata caught my eye, mainly because it contains Gruyere, which is one of my favorite cheeses. You can find the recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/potato-basil-frittata-recipe/index.html

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
• 2 cups peeled and 1/2-inch diced boiling potatoes (4 potatoes)
• 8 extra-large eggs
• 15 ounces ricotta cheese
• 3/4 pound Gruyere cheese, grated
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a 10-inch ovenproof omelet pan over medium-low heat. Add the potatoes and fry them until cooked through, turning often, about 10 to 15 minutes. Melt the remaining 5 tablespoons of butter in a small dish in the microwave.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, then stir in the ricotta, Gruyere, melted butter, salt, pepper, and basil. Sprinkle on the flour and baking powder and stir into the egg mixture.

Pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and place the pan in the center of the oven. Bake the frittata until it is browned and puffed, 50 minutes to 1 hour. It will be rounded and firm in the middle and a knife inserted in the frittata should come out clean. Serve hot.

I did exactly as the recipe said except that I had mistakenly purchased large eggs instead of extra large eggs. Not knowing the conversion from large to extra large, I put in 10 which seemed reasonable to me. I got to the pouring everything in the pan part, when I noticed that my pan was looking very full. Very, very full. Unconcerned, I put the entire thing into the oven and set the timer for 50 minutes. 50 minutes later, my frittata was liquidy in the middle. I reset the timer for another 15 minutes. Unfortunately, my pan being as full as it was, little bits had dribbled over the side onto the bottom of my oven and as my frittata continued to cook, my oven started to smoke. Concerned that my apartment was now completely filled with smoke and I had people coming over in 10 minutes, I shut off the oven and decided that the frittata had been a failed experiment in baking.

An hour or so into the brunch as I was telling the story of how I failed to make this frittata, we decided to see how it was looking. By the miracles of Sunday brunch, it was done! A knife inserted into the middle came out clean and we declared it ready for eating - which we did.

The frittata was devoured too quickly to get any photos, but I look forward to many more frittatas and brunches in my new home :-)

New city - a little less commute time for reading

I recently made the move up to the city and have been enjoying my extra hour of sleep every day tremendously. Unfortunately, this also means I have a lot less time each day built in to my commute for reading. I think I may go back to blogging in greater detail about one book at a time (which was my original intention for this blog anyway).

So, let's begin with the recently finished, "The Cheap Bastard's Guide to San Francisco". My boss, who also recently moved to SF, highly recommended it, and a used copy off Amazon was a steal at $6. Now I know why...

The thing about travel/recommendation books is that restaurants come and go, prices change, things become overrun by tourists and less fun, etc.. I was excited to try a restaurant the book mentions several times called Home. The other day I walked by and it no longer exists :-( Same with several of the other restaurants, bars, etc... that I looked up. Also, I don't really care that all these great bars have $2 drinks on Tuesday. I don't want to go out on Tuesday nights! The same way I feel about sitting around at a hair salon from 10-2 on Thursday hoping to get a free cut in exchange for letting a student practice on my head. Really, there's only a $1 entrance fee to the zoo on the 3rd Wednesday of months ending in Z between 3 and 5pm?!

Enough criticism, some of the ideas for entertainment are really good and he has a whole section on festivals/parades/other community happenings. (Though I could probably find this info on sfgate, yelp, or other community websites. Just saying!)

In the end, I can't help but wonder if sites like Groupon, Living Social, Goldstar, etc... have made this book a lot less useful? These days I can pretty much get a bargain massage, facial, dinner, theater tickets, and more for half price any time I want.

Worst blogger EVER award :-(

Well, I knew when I accepted this new job it would be longer hours but I did not anticipate exactly how long... My time on the train that I used to spend reading is now spent:
A) working
B) sleeping
C) playing mindless cell phone games to avoid doing item B and missing my stop

Here's the quick rundown of what I'm been reading:
Cutting for Stone - This was incredibly well written but I felt some of the violence/bloody-grossness was not contributing to the book in any way. The storyline reminded me a little bit of Slumdog Millionaire (which I was also not crazy about even though everyone else seemed to love it) so maybe others will love this book and I'll be the lone "meh". I'm fine with that.

Room - LOVED IT! I thought this was incredibly well written and handled a very difficult subject matter without making me nauseous. I was still thinking about it a week later. There's so much to discuss I think this would be a great book for a reading group.

The Alchemist - Wow. Wow. Wow. I found the recommendation for this one on the list of "books you must read before you die" and I couldn't agree more. There are so many life lessons hidden in this book that I think this is one I'll go back to over and over gaining something new each time.

The Birth of Venus - I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked this up from a used book store in Oregon, but I ended up really enjoying it. Set in Florence during the renaissance, it's the story of a girl whose wealthy father hires a painter to come live with the family and paint their newly constructed chapel. The girl is secretly drawing (something young women are apparently not supposed to be doing) and she turns to the painter for "tutoring". I think we all know how that story goes... The plot is set against the start of an invasion by France, strict religious rules, and the overthrowing of powerful political families within the city. I thought it was engaging, well written, and I would definitely recommend it.

Catching up...

I've been doing a lot of reading and not a lot of reviewing, so it's time to play some catch up! Here goes:

I finally finished Inside the Mind of the Shopper by Herb Sorensen. Unfortunately, part 2 of the book was not any more interesting than part 1 of the book. Unless your job is to design grocery store layouts (other types of retail stores are not really addressed) you will likely find this book a snoozefest. My personal favorite part is that all of the charts that are clearly meant to be in color, are printed in black and white. Useless.

Next, The Husband Trap by Tracy Anne Warren. The premise is completely unrealistic, the characters are stereotypical, you can see the ending coming from the first sentence but I LOVED it. Loved, loved, loved it! Enormously entertaining and great light reading. Best for those who love trashy romance novels.

Next up, PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. This is a fairly light read about Alice Butler, a 29 year old woman who works for a toy company designing secret code and spy games for kids. Which is fitting, because she wears a necklace given to her by her father, containing a secret code which leads to some treasure, and she spends a good part of the book trying to decipher it. This sounds much sillier than the book really is... Actually I thought 95% of it was extremely engaging and well written. Unfortunately, Thomas completely blows the ending. Recommended (but please note lack of the word highly...)

And last but not least, Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama. This is a beautiful story about Pei, a Chinese girl whose family can no longer support her and when a fortune teller tells the family he does not see marriage in her future, the family sends her to work in the silk factory. There she becomes good friends with the other girls and the story is about their relationships as they grow older and must face more difficult life decisions.
I got a little bit hung up on the details in some parts of the book, but still felt that it was very good.

PHEW! Enough for now. I'll be back to review Cutting for Stone later this week which I finished Monday.
Currently reading Room by Emma Donoghue. I seriously cannot put it down it's so amazing. Pending the last 25% of the book, this might be a top five for the year pick.

Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters

Unless you are familiar with lesbian slang of the late 1800s, you probably did not know that tipping the velvet has absolutely nothing to do with a) leaving a tip, b) tipping your hat, or c) velvet fabric. (I won't post what it really is as I'm pretty sure my immediate family reads this. If you're curious, just google it.)

The book is a coming of age story for a young woman, Nancy, who at the beginning of the story is about 16 or 17 years old. Her sister's boyfriend works at a theater and when the show isn't sold out, which seems to be every night, he allows the girls to watch for free. Nancy soon becomes obsessed with one of the acts, a masher (which is slang for a woman who dresses up like a man) named Kitty Butler. Before long Nancy is making the trip to see the show every night and Kitty, noticing her adoring fan, offers Nancy the chance to be her dresser. It isn't long before Kitty's act becomes too popular for the little theaters, and her manager, Walter, takes Kitty to London to grow her career. Nancy goes with her to escape her family and the small town oyster life. The girls have to share a bed and so one night they have a little too much to drink and...well, you know what happens. (But of course from Nancy's conversations with her sister about her feelings for Kitty, you'd have to be blind not to have seen that coming.)

Life continues blissfully for Kitty and Nancy in their relationship until other mashers start coming onto the scene. Suddenly Kitty's act is not as unique and exciting as it was before. So when Walter walks in one day to find Kitty and Nancy singing and dancing together, he reacts the way any normal man would. What could be better than one woman? TWO! A new act is created and suddenly Nancy is a star. Unfortunately, her happiness is brought to an abrupt halt when Kitty decides she's ashamed to be a lesbian and secretly marries Walter. Nancy runs away and thus ends part 1.

In part 2, Nancy finds herself wandering on the street wearing her masher outfit (menswear) when she's approached by a man looking for a little fun. Deciding that this seems like an easy way to make a quick buck, Nancy turns to world's oldest profession: prostitution. This continues until she meets Diana, a very wealthy woman who invites Nancy to come live with her in luxury as her companion/boy toy. Everyone is happy and this goes on for a while, but then Nancy has sex with one of the maids and is promptly tossed out on the street. End part 2.

Nancy begins part 3 broke, beat up, and pretty much desperate. She goes to the house of Florence, a woman she met once years before, and after much persuading, talks Flo into letting her stay there in exchange for housekeeping, cooking, etc... After a few months of sleeping on the floor, doing hard manual labor, and making no money, Nancy falls back on what she knows: sex. Though the book tries to convince you that Nancy is in love with Florence, I think it's pretty obvious she just didn't want to sleep on the floor anymore.

If this book is about Nancy escaping her small town life, Waters has definitely succeeded in transforming Nancy into a big city girl (errr....boy). But in the process she becomes someone completely different than the Nancy we come to love at the beginning of the story, and you just want to yell at her to go home to her family! Though her sister clearly does not approve of Nancy's lesbian relationships, when midway through the book Nancy moves without telling anyone and stops writing letters, it's hard to feel that the family shunned her for the lifestyle choice. Clearly Nancy has turned her back on them. And so, as she makes one bad decision after another, it's just too hard to be sympathetic.

Verdict: Well written, but the story is hard to relate to and the characters (except Kitty) lack warmth. I heard they're making a movie so I'll be interested to see how the images on screen match the ones in my head.

The Man in the Wooden Hat - Jane Gardam

I didn't realize that this is actually the third book in the series so I'm a little disappointed as reviewers on Amazon gush about how the first really set the stage for this one. I guess that probably explains why I felt pieces were missing from this story...

Although the book's title suggests the man in the wooden hat is a main character, or at least theme, the central people in the story are well known lawyer/judge Edward Feathers (or Filth as he is commonly known) and his wife Betty. The two meet in Hong Kong and although their prior meetings are never described, or maybe there were none, Edward proposes via letter a few days before arriving for a work assignment. Betty, having no other prospects and being very poor, accepts his offer. At a party that evening she meets Terry, another well known lawyer/judge Edward frequently clashes with. Sparks fly and she promptly has an affair with him.

Edward's childhood, which is not explained in great detail (probably in book 1) but is hinted at in this book, has left him with serious issues of abandonment. He makes Betty promise repeatedly never to leave him and Edward's assistant/friend Albert, a dwarf wearing a wooden hat (hence the title?), threatens to "break" Betty should she leave him. It's unclear throughout the book if Albert actually exists or if he is a figment of Betty's guilty conscience.

There's a lack of clarity at times regarding Betty's relationship with Terry, as well as much later in the book with his son Harry. Then again maybe it's left intentionally vague for the reader to view Betty either sympathetically or as a villain. (At the time of the affair, Terry is married himself.) Personally I had a hard time feeling sorry for Betty. She can't seem to make up her mind. One moment she's rude to Edward, running away to a friend's house to escape him without so much as a note, and the next she's declaring her love and delighted to see him when he comes looking for her.

The continuous flashbacks make it a bit hard to follow as do the presence of so many characters. But having finally finished it, I think it's an interesting story about how a very simple, almost businesslike marriage, can become so much more complicated by the longing for and eventual addition of love and passion.