You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright ...

Every single Monday I try to reinvent myself as a better person. A person who makes delicious healthy foods every day, goes for long, techno music blasting runs, and drives a car that isn't a time capsule for empty bottles of my favorite flavored waters. Better yet, what if this is the week I become to be a person who always rides a bike.

This typically lasts until Wednesday. And by Friday I am closer living as a frat boy than I am to living like a responsible and peaceful adult.

This year, the stars have aligned against me. Cruel, cruel world, my birthday is today. On a Monday. Barf. It's the first time in a decade that I haven't cleared the next two days on my schedule. No. It will be bizness as usual for this old lady. Go here. Go there. Come home. Read a book. Go to bed.

On the other hand, it gives me the grand opportunity to do not just the traditional Monday reset. Now I get to do a Monday as a newly minted 34-year-old reset.

My grand resolutions for being 34 include:

Reading that friggin' New Yorker that I've subscribed to for years, but rarely do more than glance at the cartoons when I'm on the can.

That's it for now. I hate to put too much pressure on myself. Anyway, here is how I spent last week:



Red Bean Gumbo with Greens: I wanted this to be really spicy and it wasn't and I don't know why. It was good, and it meant being all show-offy with a roux. But the zip was zip. Not to mention a fatal error involving not chopping the greens, which, between the floaters in the water -- I love that about gumbo, It makes me think it was made in a dirty Louisiana river -- and the sopping drapes of leaves, I felt like I'd been washing clothes in a stream.

I also made cornbread, but just the recipe from the box of cornmeal, so I hardly deserve any awards for that.



Baked Tofu with Braised Vegetables: This had a lot of steps and resulted in a game of "Guess some of the ingredients in this!"

The tricky answers include: Cooking sherry; Dijon Mustard; Tomato Paste; Soy Sauce ... I could have played for hours. Every bite tasted differently to me, ranging from a strong feety flavor to something pretty good. I think I liked it about 60 percent, and it was definitely better than I thought it would be as it baked.

MOVIES
Brotherhood of the Wolf - Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition): Oh my God. Awful. So long. So lame. It could only be worse if it was called "Dances with the Brotherhood of the Wolves."

The Informers: This is like "Less Than Zero," with less attractive stars and no soul. With a delicious 80s filling.

READING
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell: After reading food-memoir-Julia-Child-love-letter-turned-movie Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, I have two regrets: A) I wish I had come up with an idea like this. But not this one. I’m never going to eat liver, let alone saw away at a bone to get to that succulent marrow. And you’ll be hard-pressed in this book to find a moment when Powell isn’t going all Patrick Bateman on something that would have made a fine pet;

B) I wish I’d been following her blog when she was in the middle of this project. Unfortunately, I’ve jumped onto the bandwagon at the point where her Dooce-ian count of readers make comments on her site that rival the jackholes who comment on the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Web site.

Full review will be here.

I'm So Happy for You: A novel about best friends by Lucinda Rosenfeld: Congratulations to Lucinda Rosenfeld, who has created the least likable protagonist in the history of fiction for women by women. To the readers of "I'm So Happy For You" who laud the honest portrayal of female friendships, I say, "Who the hell are you hanging out with and why?"

Full review will be here.