Thai Night

Here are some of Hal's research students cooking up a storm of Thai food in our kitchen last night. They made Tom Kha Kai and Pad See Ewe.

Dinner and Movie

One of Harvey Mudd College's alums produces the James Bond films, and last night he provided the opportunity for some of the Mudd family to catch a sneak peak of the newest film, Quantum of Solace. A chartered bus took about 35 students, alumni, faculty, trustees and staff to the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City where we had dinner catered by Wolfgang Puck. We were joined by many more HMC people, as well as Bill Nye (the science guy).

Then we went onto the studio lot to a theater where we watched the film. Although I am no Bond afficianado, I did enjoy the exotic locale shots (starting off in Siena, Italy). Just to be part of this big event and to walk around on the studio lot was pretty darn fun. We even made it home before midnight!

A Birthday Luncheon

Today I was invited to a luncheon to celebrate Mary Fallis' birthday. Mary has worked at the Stone Center for Children's Books for many a year. I used to spend hours of my afternoons at the Stone Library. Here we are after consuming a delicious lunch, and I am standing between Judy (who hosted the event) and Mary, the honoree!

Book Review

I saw The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates listed alongside some of my very favorite novels in an ad and thought I ought to read it. It started out okay, but then seemed very fragmented, with little cohesion, and then I realized I didn't care about any of the characters. So I guess I would give it two stars out of five.

Also, Hal and I tried watching the first three episodes of the Emmy-winning Mad Men and took the rest of the disks off of our Netflix queue. Who likes a show where every character is unlikeable?  (Apparently, lots of people...)

In the News

NY Times: You can check flu trends via Google now.

MacWorld: Netflix will soon stream movies to Macs instead of just PCs.

Channel 4 News: Highs in the 90s for the next few days (but it's still chilly at night).

Tomorrow is the Great So Cal Shakeout - the largest-ever earthquake drill tomorrow at 10 a.m.

AND THIS JUST IN FROM THE INTERNET - - - Peter Yarrow will be in Claremont next week signing books (and I hope he'll sing....)!!!!!!!

A Day Off

Today was a delightful day to catch up on things. Ever vigilant, I took another trunkload of stuff to Goodwill, cleaned up and organized a room upstairs, went grocery shopping and even had time to play duets with Lynn and have coffee this afternoon with Hal.

However, the best part of the day was PEPPERNUTS, PART 1. Every year about this time, I start on these family Christmas cookies - a recipe from my Grandma Wiebe. Today was the day to make the dough. This takes about 45 minutes to an hour. First you warm up Dark Kayro Syrup and melt butter in it, then add sugar. When that's all creamed, you put it in a large bowl and add oodles of flour along with all kinds of spices. Today I used up the last of my cardamom... Anyway, after that you add a mixture of sour cream and eggs into which is put anise oil (which you must order from a pharmacist) and lemon extract and finish adding flour and stir until your arm falls off. Put your arm back on and put the dough into the refrigerator so the spices can intermingle.

PART 2 arrives when I have another spare hour or two. Maybe this weekend.

Royal and US Post

Claire ordered some stamps by mail in London and the Royal Mail shipped them here. Of course, Claire had confirmed with them the difference between her billing and shipping address. So I took the envelope to the Claremont PO and the nice guy said he would try to forward it to Claire (without charging me). He intimated that stuff like this had happened before.

Anyway, he spent about 5 minutes peeling off the address label (for what reason I have yet to determine) and telling me that as a child he used to open up all his Christmas presents early and then reseal them, so he was a real pro at this kind of activity. He even told me that one year he had gotten a car that you had to assemble, and by the time Christmas morning had rolled around, he had opened up that package enough times that he had actually already assembled the little car and it was ready to go when he officially opened his present! I got a good chuckle out of that.

Anticipating Thanksgiving

It's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Ahhh.

Last year I made Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes which we really enjoyed, especially my family who doesn't like the marshmallow yams. Here is the recipe:

Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

2 1/2 pounds cubed peeled sweet potato
1/2 cup half-and-half
3 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 (7-ounce) can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
Preparation
Place potato in a saucepan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes or until tender.

Drain and return potato to pan. Add half-and-half, butter, and juice; mash to desired consistency. Cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring constantly.

Remove 2 chiles from can and chop; reserve remaining chiles and adobo sauce for another use. Stir chopped chiles, brown sugar, salt, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon into potato mixture. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon.
Yield

8 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup)
Nutritional Information

CALORIES 264(22% from fat); FAT 6.4g (sat 3.8g,mono 1.8g,poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 3g; CHOLESTEROL 19mg; CALCIUM 65mg; SODIUM 328mg; FIBER 4.4g; IRON 1.2mg; CARBOHYDRATE 49.4g

Please share with me any of your favorite Thanksgiving dishes!

Poetry

You can visit my friend's new website about her poetry at luciagalloway.com. Additionally, you can see her read her poetry at this youtube site.

SCAM Fest 08

The good kind of a SCAM - So Cal A Capella Music. While Hal is off at a trustee meeting in Palm Springs this weekend, I went to this a capella concert with Jennifer tonight. Big Bridges was filled to hear these 7-8 college groups from the area sing 2-3 songs each. Some groups were great, some less great, but it was well worth the $8 admission price.