Interesting pairing

Fat Bastard shiraz with Five Guys cheeseburger (with jalapenos, tomatoes, mustard and hot sauce) & fries. Trust me, it works.

Scotch Watch 2008

In the case of my ever-evolving palate, I’ve decided to find out about the best single malt scotches (to me, that is, of course), experientially. To that effect, I’ve been trying a few and here are my latest (but by no means last) observations:

Laphroaig: I recently tasted this at a local pub-sterant ($10 a drink). Let me just say that the smell of it turned me off right away. Chemical, nasty. Taste was the same. No go on this one.

Macallan 12-year ($45/bottle): Good. Edges, but not harsh. Drinkable.

Glenmorangie Santa Rosa ($80/bottle): Beautifully light and smooth, with just a hint of sweetness. Aromatic. Very drinkable. DH Jeff & my only negative observation: …but is it worth $80/bottle?

Tamdhu 10-year ($20/bottle): I was persuaded to try this by a Sikh liquor store employee who doesn’t even drink. Note to self: don’t trust the advice of someone who doesn’t actually drink the stuff. The edges on this puppy were so hard they could cut. I found this scotch to be undrinkable. Using it for cooking.

More on this story as it develops. There is a dizzying array of scotch choices, even from the same distiller. My question: would we actually be able to tell the difference between a 12- and an 18-year scotch? We will see…

Book Review: The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is just a wonderful book. Jeff’s Aunt Joan had recommended it to me awhile ago and since then, numerous others have recommended it to me as well. I finally had a chance to read it and was blown away. I said it before when I reviewed A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s second novel: he’s a very effective and engaging story-teller. What’s more, Hosseini is really good at characterization: his characters are layered, faceted, flawed, compelling, nasty, selfish, brutal, redeeming, sympathetic and sometimes lovable. Furthermore, he gives us glimpses into elements of Afghani culture that we wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

To wit, The Kite Runner revolves around a certain defining kite flying competition and the events that occur therein. It deals with the relationships between both master and servant, and two best friends at the same time. It’s a story about the lack of courage and loyalty, and yet the possibility of redemption for nearly unforgivable wrongs. Hosseini draws you in and the 400 pages just fly by. If you haven’t already done so, go read it!

Buh-bye!

A hopeful story in the WaPo this morning: Virginia is submitting names of immigrant sex offenders to the Feds so that they (the Feds) can deport them. About time.

But of course you have those who will object...after all, we NEED to import sex offenders, we just DON'T have enough AmCit sexual predators of our own. Diversity and all. Harrumph! [end sarcasm]

Read all about it here.

How can I get a job like this?

No oversight for twenty years. In a government job. Wherein you could just steal $50 million. And conspicuously, brazenly spend it to boot. Much of it gone for good. And only now you get caught. Nope, you can't blame this on Bush. It's the DC Tax Office scam. Investigators are finding it's a lot worse than they thought & went on for a lot longer than they thought. Read the whole thing here.

What I did on my summer vacation...

...i mean, long weekend.

- DH Jeff & I had a zombie movie marathon on Saturday

- my dear husband alsso graciously shared his cold with me

- but we had no plans to go out

- and had carpet picnics

- as a result of the cold & equal measures of laziness, I didn't work out all weekend

- but I made a whole chicken plus veggies in a crock pot

- I put too much liquid in the pot

- but the chicken turned out great

- & we had ready-made chicken soup for lunch the next day

- and what's better for a cold than chicken soup?

- I didn't get to start my Arabic lessons (Rosetta Stone)

- but we moved around our apartment

- and we both went "SNONK!" every five minutes

- the "den" is now a cozy bedroom

- and the bedroom is now the workroom...in progress

- the other night my lamb chops turned out a little bit overdone

- but tasty and moist nonetheless...

- and much better than my last attempt!

My apologies...

...for being such a sad, sad blogger. I've just been letting silly little things (work, school, sleep) get in the way of quality commentary.

Tsk, tsk. I'll try to do better...soon!