Saturday Morning Walkers - September 16

Hi everyone!

Well - I did not walk yesterday - I was honored to escort Jan and Terri to DIA to start their trip to Italy and meet up with Barb and Laila in Venice - we left at the "crack of dawn" - actually before dawn and by 8 AM I was ready for a nap!

Book Report:

I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Although it is a difficult and painful story to read, knowing how true to reality it is, I think that Hosseini is a wonderful storyteller. It is important for us to know what women have endured in that country and may continue to do so for some time. I know that my friend, Rae, was not so enamored with this book but do check it out for yourself.

Amazon.com
It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

Jack is currently reading Spook Country by William Gibson and enjoying it very much.

Amazon.com
Now that the present has caught up with William Gibson's vision of the future, which made him the most influential science fiction writer of the past quarter century, he has started writing about a time--our time--in which everyday life feels like science fiction. With his previous novel, Pattern Recognition, the challenge of writing about the present-day world drove him to create perhaps his best novel yet, and in Spook Country he remains at the top of his game. It's a stripped-down thriller that reads like the best DeLillo (or the best Gibson), with the lives of a half-dozen evocative characters connected by a tightly converging plot and by the general senses of unease and wonder in our networked, post-9/11 time

Website of the Week - http://www.momsrising.org/ - Despite all the rhetoric about being family-friendly, we have structured a society that is decidedly unfriendly... What's missing now is a movement. What's missing now is an organization. That's why MomsRising is so important." -- Senator Barack Obama, 9/28/06.
This organization that supports mothers and families in the workplace was co-founded by Joan Blades, one of the co-founders of MoveOn.org

Podcast of the Week - http://wamu.org/programs/dr/07/09/06.php#13704 - this is a specific episode of The Diane Rehm Show - this is actually an interview by guest host,Steve Roberts with John Heath & Lisa Adams who wrote "Why We Read What We Read" (Source Books). "They take a look at what the books we read have in common and what they say about America our culture, our beliefs, and how we relate to one another."

Vocabulary Word of the Week - eponymousEponym
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Find out more about navigating Wikipedia and finding information •An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, who has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item. An eponymous person is the person referred to by the eponym. In contemporary English, the term eponymous is often used to mean self-titled. The word eponym is often used for the thing titled. Stigler's law of eponymy suggests that Eponyms are usually false, i.e., things are rarely named after the person who discovered or invented them. An aitiology is a "reverse eponym" in the sense that a legendary character is invented in order to explain a term

Cooking and Dining Report:
I do have two recipes we tried out this week:
Don't let the anchovies scare you - they melt down and you just get the wonderful flavor they impart, especially if you use fresh anchovies (Whole Foods usually has them). I also would cut the amount of lemon juice a bit. Also, I used linguini instead of tagliarini.
Tagliarini with Lemon Anchovy SauceExcerpted from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992). Copyright 1992 by Lynne Rossetto Kasper/p>

Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish, 6 to 8 as a first course

The unusual but winning combination of lemon and tomato come together in this sauté of garlic, parsley, and anchovy. Served as a main dish, it makes a fast and satisfying weekday supper. This recipe comes from the cooks of Modena's and Ferrara's Jewish communities.

Sauce

10 whole salted anchovies, or two 2-ounce cans anchovy filets
1 cup cold water
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons minced Italian parsley
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup water
2 large fresh tomatoes, cored, peeled, and chopped, or 6 canned plum tomatoes, drained and crushed
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Pasta

6 quarts salted water
1 pound imported dried tagliarini, linguine, or spaghetti
1 tablespoon minced Italian parsley
Working Ahead: The sauce cooks in no time and is best made just before serving.

1. Preparing the Anchovies: If you are using salted anchovies, rinse off the salt, then open each up like a book, and gently pull away the backbone running down the center. Soak the anchovies 10 minutes in the cold water; then drain and coarsely chop. If using canned anchovies in oil, rinse them and soak in cold water 10 minutes. Drain and coarsely chop.

2. Making the Sauce: In a 12-inch heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the parsley and cook slowly, lowering the heat so it sizzles gently. Cook only 1 minute, or until the green herb darkens. Stir in the drained anchovies and cook over medium-low heat for 30 seconds. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring frequently, 2 minutes or until the small pieces turn golden, taking care not to burn it. Immediately stir in the 1/2 cup water and cook over low heat about 2 minutes, or until the anchovies are melted. The goal is not to evaporate the water, but simply to melt down the anchovies. Blend in the tomatoes and lemon juice, raise the heat to medium, and cook 1 minute. Generously season the sauce with black pepper. Remove the skillet from the heat.

3. Cooking the Pasta: Have a serving bowl and shallow soup dishes warming in a low oven. Bring the salted water to a fierce boil. Drop in the pasta, stir to separate the strands, and cook about 8 minutes. Taste a strand for tender texture with some firmness or bite. Drain immediately in a colander.

4. Serving: Return the sauce to high heat and quickly bring it to a boil. Immediately add the cooked pasta, and toss to coat it with the sauce. Turn out into the serving bowl, sprinkle with the tablespoon of parsley, and serve. (No cheese accompanies this dish.)

LYNNE'S TIPS

Anchovies packed in salt have a richer flavor than oil-packed ones. Find them in some well-stocked supermarkets, specialty stores carrying Mediterranean foods, or online purveyors like www.chefshop.com, www.gustiamo.com, and www.igourmet.com. Rinse them well and pat dry before using.

Using good quality imported pasta matters, especially in simple recipes like this one where individual ingredients shine. Look for artisan brands such as Rustichella, Latini, Dallari, Benedetto Cavalieri, Spinosi, Michele Portoghese and Mamma Angelica. Dependable brands for less money include Barilla, De Cecco, Delverde, and La Molisana.

My basic pasta cooking method is six quarts boiling salted water for every pound of pasta you are cooking. Use plenty of salt in the water (it should taste salty). I'm talking a good 1/3 cup or so for 6 quarts. Pasta must be salted while it cooks; otherwise, you will never get it seasoned correctly. Keep the water at a vigorous boil and stir often. Judge doneness by taste, not time.

Try the sauce alone over grilled chicken or baked cod or bluefish.

A glass of chilled crisp Sauvignon Blanc rounds out this pasta nicely.

Garlic and Citrus Chicken by Giada de Laurentiis http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_32602,00.html - very moist and the flavor is wonderful - a great Sunday dinner!

A couple of events to tell you about - George Peters and Melanie Walker, the very talented Grillo Center Labyrinth designers have two local exhibits for us all to enjoy.

As part of EcoArts 2007, George and Melanie have created a sound sculpture at NCAR - it will be there through December 21 - best viewed on a windy day. Check out http://www.bmoca.org/ for information on this and other exhibits around town.

They also have a kite exhibit, One Sky, One World, that opened on September 9 at the Denver Public Library - http://denverlibrary.org/programs/fresh/index.html

While we're at it, don't miss George and Melanie's beautiful sculpture in the atrium of the new Tebo Cancer Center at Foothills Hospital. The Center opened a few months ago and it is a very impressive facility.

Whooo - that's probably plenty for now! Have a wonderful week ahead!

Love,
Susan