I read 28 novels and 26 graphic novels last year. Not bad! This year, I’m putting recent acquisitions and reads at the top. That does not mean READING order, just PILE order.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King. This is a re-read. It’s a short story collection – a style that King excels at. The foreword has valuable info about writing the short story and a bit about his process. Nick has been on a King binge, so I thought I’d join him.
Taste / My Life Through Food, Stanley Tucci. Yes, this is a second read of his memoir. It is SO GOOD. He is extremely witty and you’ll read it in his voice. He shares family recipes along the way. HIGHLY recommend.
Burn the Place, Iliana Regan. Yes, I did read this a couple of years ago, but I picked it up again at Ollie’s. Memoir of being a self taught chef, rising to Michelin heights. It’s about being a queer, self taught chef. STILL a great read. Found the other copy in a pile that Nick moved. WORTH getting twice!
Home, Marilynne Robinson. Pulitzer Prize winning author. This book is one of Oprah’s, so I look forward to reading it. Eh, well, it’s as wordy as you’d suspect for a Pulitzer Prize winning author. It’s slow and ponderous, and feels English to me, despite the author being American. It’s just OK. Finally finished. Not a fun read by any means. Her catchphrase is “he put his hands to his face”. WAY overused, as is a character crying on every other page and saying “it doesn’t matter”. UGH. Probably will not read the other one (below).
Lila, Marilynne Robinson. Same author, same reason for getting it.
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina, Zoraida Córdova. This author does a lot of fan fic and even writes romances under another name. She is from Ecuador but lives in New York. I think this is a fantasy book set in Ecuador. We’ll find out! Continue reading “2025 Reading List”
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Got kind of a random list of stuff on my mind, so this post will be loosely organized, however not as fanciful as the title implies. HA!
The main thing on my mind is something I’ve been struggling with for a while now. It is my status as The Party Girl™. I’ve always been known for knowing how to have a good time and I’ve certainly leaned into it over the years. I do love me a good party, true, but now that I’m getting old and slowing down, it has been damned hard to move people away from the perception that every interaction with me needs to be a party. This may seem to be a minor thing, and for most people, perhaps it is, but for me, it has become an issue. I can’t have people over for dinner without it becoming an all night affair. Again, I like to party as much as the next girl, but I simply CANNOT do all nighters any more (I don’t even do it at CONS any more FFS!). I am simply too old. It takes me DAYS to get over it – the fatigue, the detox, the angry tummy, all of it. Late night parties are just not worth the price any more! BUT I can’t seem to get anyone to understand this. Every person to the one is deeply embedded with the belief that if you’re at MY house, then baby it’s gonna be a par-TAY! I know change is hard and all that, but I really need my friends to be more open to having a relatively early evening (1am I can do!) and perhaps not all of it spent smoking (which is getting harder for me to recover from). I AM capable of having movie night, or game night, or whatever without it being a balls to the wall party. Sigh. This is my cry for help!
I had a keratosis thing on my cheek recently. It just appeared and was pretty big and ugly – keratosis is basically a skin bump. I fished around the intertubes and found a thread about diclofenac (yes, arthritis cream) being useful to get rid of them. I had some, so I thought: what the hell! I’d already been using microneedle blemish patches with a little success, as well as hyaluronic acid moisturizer and retinol serum. Well, the diclofenac WORKED! Who knew? I also now have eczema spots all over my body, which I find most irritating. They don’t itch, they just look awful. My neighbor works for Dermalogica, and she gave me some serum stuff that has plant STEM cells for the keratosis. It did little for the keratosis, BUT it did help with the eczema spots. I’ve never had so many issues with my skin. UGH. I hates it.
My chronic GERD has advanced to a LOT more spitting up and/or vomiting up the whole meal. It is fairly random, but sometimes I can feel when it’s going to happen and stop eating immediately. Yes, I know that getting a revision to a full bypass would solve this, but I just can’t. I may be driven to it at some point, but for now, I just can’t face another surgery. So I’ll live with occasional bulimia. Sigh.
Shasti is starting to show her true age. We think she is probably 15+, which is 4 years more than we initially thought. Her eyes have begun to show age with the irises changing colour and the pupils becoming a bit cloudy. She sleeps a LOT more. Her kidney numbers are not great, but holding steady for now. I have to get her on fluid therapy, which means I have to learn to do it myself ($145 a pop? NOPE.). I have a difficult time with the hard jab necessary to pierce that tough skin on her scruff. I’ve managed to get her to take her kidney and constipation meds in her food, but now we are trying to do a week of antibiotics every month, rotating the kind, to see if we can keep that gum infection at bay. THAT is proving nearly impossible to put in food – it is the pink stuff, clavamox, and she is supposed to get 1ml a day. It is too much for food and gods I hate fighting her to take it orally. I spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the cat.
And finally, I guess I’m just a little on the depressed side lately. I feel misunderstood, I am always tired and I have no motivation to do anything. BUH. It will pass, it always does, but it’s just a DRAG. I try daily to remember that I have a basically good life with a nice home, good friends and a wonderful partner in crime. I try to avoid the news and avoid thinking about this country going down the toilet because I am trapped here and can’t leave, so what good is it to waste time worrying about it? I just try to accentuate the positive, baby.
And with that, I go forth to find some happiness. Which means I’ll probably cook something. ;)
This is a riff on a cheesecake pie recipe I have. I only had one brick of cream cheese, so I came up with these easy little soufflés instead. Yummy!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, French
Keyword cheesecake, souffle
Prep Time 45 minutesminutes
Cook Time 25 minutesminutes
Servings 4ramekins
Author misangela
Equipment
4 Ramekins small 4oz size
1 sheet pan with a lip to hold water, or use a casserole dish
Ingredients
18ozcream cheeseregular brick, not whipped or any of that
2Tblsour creamheaping Tbl, regular not low fat
2Tblkey lime juiceor reg lime, or lemon
1tspvanilla extract
1/4cupsugar, plus 2 Tbl
2eggs, 1 whole, 1 yolk only
large crystal sugar at the end for crunch, optional
Instructions
This recipe actually only takes about 10 minutes to assemble, the first 35 minutes is to let the cream cheese and eggs come up to room temp. Or you can be like me, give it 15 mins and put up with small blobs of cream cheese in your soufflés. :D
Preheat oven to 350? and thoroughly spray ramekins with food release spray.
In a stand mixer (or hand mixer), blend together cream cheese, sour cream, citrus juice, vanilla and sugar until smooth, then add the eggs and beat for 2-3 mins on medium.
Fill ramekins to the lip (usually about 1/4" from top). This recipe was exactly 4 ramekins for me. My ramekins are about 4.5oz.
Put ramekins on sheet pan and put on oven rack. Add hot water to about 1/2" on sheet pan.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until they are set and just barely starting to brown around the edges. I tossed on some large crystal sugar at the end, just because I had it. Optional, but a nice little crunch.
Cool completely and refrigerate before serving. Or if you are like me and impatient, chuck one in the freezer for a few minutes, then devour it partially chilled. :D
Notes
I think I like these better than the original cheesecake pie recipe! The pie is in a graham cracker crust and I find that I like the filling more than the crust anyway. Perfect! This is a cross between cheesecake pie and key lime pie. I substituted key lime juice to get that flavour rather than lemon. It's good either way.
– I am not here to be your personal chef, therefore I do NOT owe you any dinners at any time. If you find this offensive, then leaving my sphere is the best move. I don’t miss you, HS.
– I will not stand for abusive behavior couched in the notion that it was “for the best”. NOPE. Abuse is abuse and I don’t regret ditching you crazy bitches one little bit, CBH & JC. The children have also been damaged and that is unforgivable as well. Don’t miss you in the least.
– I do not care about your widdle fee fees, RC. YOU are a Nazi sympathizer and Felon worshiper. There is no excuse for that level of complete self absorption. I don’t miss you, either.
I will not acquiesce to demands made by crazy self absorbed people any more. I’ve done it for years to keep the peace and I’m done. IDGAF if I have only a few select friends – I’d rather have FEWER of better quality than a bunch that I don’t really have ties with in the first place.
If any of this offends you, you know where the door is. I’m old, cranky and out of time to waste with people who are just out for what they can get for themselves. I want quality over quantity.
Chef Julio runs a damn fine kitchen! HERE is their site, but it’s pretty awful, and here’s their FB and IG.
We had the Honi Honi Valentine’s menu, which was:
– Tiki Drinks (Can’t remember the names, Nick’s was passion fruit something, mine, as you can see, was ON FIRE! LOL)
– Pork Bao buns (not pictured, we scarfed them too fast)
– Chateaubriand with carmelized onions and demi glace
– Creamed spinach
– Duchess potatoes
– A fancy chocolate and raspberry dessert
Everything was seasoned to perfection (you know how I am about SEASONING) and Chef Julio is very sweet. The manager (Jesus? Maurice?) is also FABulous!
The table starter is crackers with a dolled up peanut butter. It has honey and soy sauce whipped in. The Bao Buns came with spicy fried onion bits and a thick sesame sauce. They were yummy!
Chateaubriand was cooked perfectly to temp (midrare) and served with a strong demi glace and sweet 6 hr carmelized onions. Perfectly executed and delicious. The duchess potatoes and spinach were seasoned appropriately and, again, executed perfectly. The duchess potatoes were light and fluffy (they have egg in them, then they are baked) and the spinach was creamy with a bechamel.
Our server (shoutout: Chryslin!!) was delightful and we had a great time dragging on this couple that came in immediately complaining about time (another server’s section), ordered, THEN SENT THE FOOD BACK because they were in a hurry. ASSHOLES! Look, you hipster fucks, this ain’t McD’s, yanno? God people are fucking FERAL. I’m glad we scooted out before the big rush at 7! We had fun dragging on them with the manager, too. HA!
Finally, we had the VERY fancy dessert which was a chocolate enrobed trifle of sorts. It had dense chocolate cake on the bottom, then a cream gel (think panacotta) with luxardo cherries, then chocolate mousse, all set inside a milk chocolate shell. It is topped with chocolate mousse covered in raspberry powder and cryo frozen raspberries. All the fancy pieces – even the doily – were edible! It was delightful.
Overall, this was a really nice dining experience! I HIGHLY recommend following their socials for the Luaus and other events they do over the year. The next one is a tasting dinner with Chef Julio, which I’m sure will be OUTSTANDING.
I woke up with this post almost fully realised in my head this morning. This is a good sign! I hope to get back to writing more this year.
I was thinking about the things we’ve lost to corporate greed. It’s a long list and I believe that these things that have been monetized to the hilt are part of the reason so many of us are depressed and bored. Here we go.
MUSIC & TV
Not only have we GenXers had to go from records to cassettes to CDs then back to records, we’ve lost radio to subscriptions. I’m happy that radio is rebounding a little here in ATL. 99x is back on the air and there are a couple of other stations still hanging on. But since the advent of the internet, the monetization of music has pretty much torpedoed free over the air radio. I have my curated list on my phone, but I have to consciously go forth and search for new music. This contraction is why TayTay RULES pop music and there are so few artists getting traction. I’ll also touch on the advent of AutoTune, which has absolutely devastated TALENT in music. That rant is for another day, but AutoTune has contributed significantly to the decline of talent being necessary to make it in music.
TV is the same: cable ruined over the air, but it *is* still available if an HD antenna will work for you (won’t for me). I’ve not had live TV in years. I’ve given up watching horse racing, ice skating and NFL amongst other things and it sucks. I’ve got Netflix, Disco+, AppleTV, PBS and free Peacock and still cannot enjoy the few things I like. NO JOY.
INTERNET
Back in the day, mid 90s, when all of us tech minded GENXers were CREATING THE DAMN INTERNET, things were pretty wild and wooly. Content was everywhere, socials were not clogging up things yet. You had to know how to create a search term (over on DogPile, REPRESENT) to find anything while using your Netscape Gold (which we called Nutscrape because reasons). Then Google happened: YAY! better searching! Then the socials started to show up. I remember a kid talking about FaceBook in the early aughts, and I thought it sounded stupid. Everyone had a MySpace page, complete with annoying music. Tripod was a place you could put together a website without hand coding! Miracle! Websites were hand coded, then DreamWeaver changed everything for us nerds who were into websites. THEN the corporations started to form around Google and the socials. The tech bros wondered if these sites with tons of users could be worth anything? By the 2010s, FB had gobbled up everything and the rest is history. I also remember Twitter and the awesome thing it WAS before bots and Felon Tusk. Now AI will continue to ruin all that is (was) good about the internet. And it makes me sad. Further reading about the enshittification of TECH by Edward Zitron: Never Forgive ThemNOTE: This guy is young (b 1987), so he does not remember the Olden Days™, therefore I take a grain of salt with his writings. He is also a tech bro, which I don’t care for. The article is still worth your time, however.
SHOPPING
Back in the Olden Days™ (1900s!), Walmart was all about American Made. Most of their products had this proudly emblazoned on the labels. Then the old man died and the money grubbing children took over. In an effort to remain the cheapest place to shop (in consumer minds, it really is NOT, LOSS LEADERS, look it up), they decided that all their vendors needed to manufacture in China to bring down the cost of their products. Now I’ll tangent a little to tell you a story about a lady I met at some random job, whose company was forced to manufacture in China if they wanted to sell at Walmart, so they did. Then the Chinese booted them from their factory and the country and STOLE IT ALL. Walmart said ‘too bad, so sad’ and dropped them. This is why I have a bad attitude about the Chinese and their complete lack of integrity when it comes to copyrights and fair treatment. THIS story is why I will not shop at Walmart and I do my best to find American made products if possible. 99.9% of the time, it is not. Thanks Walmart for nuking manufacturing in America.
Then, of course, there is Amazon. The other elephant in the room that stomped out small business across the land and killed bookstores outright. I also do not shop at Amazon very much, I try to find things on eBay, which is the last bastion of small businesses online. You’ve got to be careful to avoid the Chinese on eBay, they proliferate. And even if you filter to N America only, they’ll still get you. I ordered some compression gloves from “Kentucky” which took 2.5 weeks to arrive. They were from China and repackaged no doubt.
HEALTHCARE
Not much to add about this, everyone knows how fucked up healthcare is in the US. Corporations (insurance) run it and they are out for money, fuck you and your health. Bravo to the shooter, I giggled with glee. I DGAF about that CEO – just like he didn’t give a fuck about how many people HE KILLED with his company. Fuck them all.
GROCERIES
Of course, we can all understand that the pandemic fucked up the food supply lines and things were pricey AF simply because it was so hard to get items moved from one place to another. BUT. Then the corporations who own the food supplies just left the prices where they were. Are we shocked? NO WE ARE NOT. These corporations are out for MONEY. Fuck you and your groceries. Food is up about 25% across the board – if not by price, then by shrinkflation, which is the method of reducing the size of the item but keeping the price the same. This has been going on for years – a “pound” of coffee has been 12oz forever. But now it’s in just about everything. This is earning the corporations 25% any way you slice it.
HOUSING
Not much to add about this, either, it’s well covered by many. The outrageous cost of buying or renting has been fueled by corporations buying up all the starter homes and rentals in the 08 crash. Corporations should not be allowed to own private residences, period. When corporations own all the property and control all the prices, this is what you get.
The bottom line is that allowing corporations to run wild is what is fueling this plethora of oligopolies that are controlling massive swaths of our economy (and our lives). For an explanation of OLIGOPOLY, I give you the first honest cable ad:
Link to the youtube video if iframe is not working HERE.
Corporate greed is the root of why there is no joy in ANYTHING any more. Listening to music, reading a book, going shopping, going out to eat, hell, even movies are foul now. Corporations have brought this country to its knees economically and beaten its citizens into two groups: one is just TIRED and SAD; the other is too stupid to see that there’s a problem. The next four years will be tough, my peeps. As corporations continue to aggregate power (a fucking rich fuck OWNS the goddam president FFS) and the rich continue to get richer, the rest of us will continue to barely hang on. I don’t want a civil war, but I think it could happen. What I do totally support is uprising against these rich fuckers and their corporations. We, as a nation, need to decide that we are not going to allow corporations to rule this country. We need to take back our nation and provide for EVERYONE, not just rich fucks. I’m fine with any method we choose to do that. Take that as you will.
