Movie lines

Mandatory for vacation: some reading material

2011-09-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

My vacation helped me reach my goal of reading 10 new books this year. Before I took a week off in August I wanted to make sure I had some good books to read. I'll admit I'm kind of a nerd for going to the library the Saturday before my boyfriend and I headed for a few days on the Central Coast to make sure I was well prepared.

I wanted a mix of books so that if one turned out to be a dud, I'd have some others for back up. I picked a few books that looked like light reading such as one about a chef who works for a morning show and a senior citizen who turns back the clock to the age of 29 for one day. I also got a few more that seemed a little hardier, such as one about a single mom raising her daughters and a young girl growing up in the South during the 1980s.

When we were packing my boyfriend asked which books I'd be bringing with me, to which I replied that I would be bringing them all. I knew I wouldn't read them all, but I wanted to have a few options. The first night when we stayed at a hotel in Cambria that had an oceanfront view, I started reading "Bitter in the Mouth" by Monique Truong. The book was not light reading, but it was well-written and kept me interested all the way through. In the book, Linda is a lawyer who looks back on her life in a small Southern town. She loves her great uncle and her father, but she clashes with her mother and her grandmother. Linda has the strange ability - or curse - that when she hears certain words she has a strong taste of something in her mouth. The sensation seems almost science fiction, until later in the book the author has her main character discover a brain disorder called synesthesia, in which the senses get mixed up. The book has a lot of dark moments in it, but it written in a way that really brought Linda to life. I read the book all through vacation, finishing it on our last night in San Simeon.

When I got home I still had a stack of books left so I started another one that wasn't nearly as well written. "Romantically Challenged" by Beth Orsoff had some funny moments but I mostly found the main character irritating. She is a single 30-something lawyer who doesn't want to end up alone, but she nitpicks at every person with whom she goes on a date. She finds something wrong with every single guy and is whiny about it without acknowledging her own short comings.

The next book had something of the same attitude. Ellie is a senior who is turning 75, but she is unhappy about getting older even though she still has her own apartment, all her capacities, her best friend lives upstairs and her grandaughter visits often. Ellie wishes to be young again on her birthday - and she wakes up the next morning to find herself 29 again. Written by Adena Halpern, the secondary characters are not very well developed. The writing is rough and the dialogue is awkward.

From there I moved on to "Last Bite" by Nancy Verde Barr. The book is about a chef who works on a morning show, preparing the cooking segments. It is written by a woman who worked with Julia Child so its no surprise that one of the main characters seems to be based on Child. The key character, however, is the 30-something chef whose dentist boyfriend has just broken up with her. She is unlucky in love and when a troublesome agent comes into the life of the TV chef personality, her job also comes into jeopardy. She quickly finds another love interest in an Irish chef who has opened a restaurant in New York and does a guest appearance on the show. She is skeptical about him, though, and assumes he is a player. The storyline is unbelievable, but a fun read. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that instead of developing some of the side characters, such as the prep chef's parents, they became caricatures of the typical Irish or Italian family.

The last book I read, to complete the 10, was "Juno's Daughters" by Lise Saffran. This book was back into the serious realm with its topic. It is about a single mother raising her two teenagers on a secluded island off the coast of Washington State. The central premise of the story is that two island residents put on a professional production of a Shakespeare play every summer, inviting professional actors to try out for it. The islanders get bit parts in the play and help out behind the scenes. The main character has often helped with the costumes and set pieces but she has never been in the cast. This year to appease her 17-year-old daughter she signs on to play Juno from the play "The Tempest." Her daughters have the roles of other spirits in the play. The main conflict in the book is that the oldest daughter happens to be interested in the same 40-something actor as her mother. The youngest daughter is dealing with abandonment issues as her best friend moves away, and then her sister departs for college. The book had the good skeleton of an idea - an abused mother leaves her husband to raise her two children alone and now is struggling with them becoming independent - but Saffran glosses over the impact that the early abuse had on her and the girls. More than that, her interactions with the two girls ring false.

Before I read this batch of books I'd also read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, which I enjoyed even though I felt the movie version released in August fell short. I also read another book I checked out of the library whose title and author elude me now. I do remember it was about a woman who lost a bunch of weight, opened a store to sell healthy home-cooked meals and whose husband left her for a much fatter woman. This was another book whose main character came across as whiny and whose secondary characters where more caricatures than realistic people.

For now, it's back to the New Yorker magazine, which I've been neglecting since July.

A sweet vacation

2011-08-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite parts of taking a vacation somewhere new is being able to eat out - and since I have a sweet tooth that includes desserts. It's no surprise then that two of the stops on a recent vacation my boyfriend and I took to the Central Coast revolved around places to get sweet treats.

I had a few leads on finding places because a friend suggested that we stop in Cayucos, a small coastal town about 10 miles north of Morro Bay and another friend said Linn's in Cambria was a must try.

We stopped in Cambria first and checked out Linn's which serves a comfort-food menu that includes basic sandwiches as well as pot pies and quiche. I had a club sandwich that was typical of other places and my boyfriend had an asparagus and sun-dried tomato quiche. He thought the asparagus was the overwhelming the flavor of his meal, but he liked the flaky crust on the quiche. We didn't want to miss out on the olallieberry desserts so we took a couple items to go. We ordered an olallieberry and cream cheese muffin and an olallieberry cream puff. The muffin was surprisingly devoid of olalliberries and cream cheese, except for on the top and the bottom. The cream puff was tasty though it was quite a mess to eat when the cream and the easy-to-stain olallieberry syrup oozed out.

Cayucos is the home of the Brown Butter Cookie Company, whose owners created a delicious shortbread cookie made completely with brown sugar and brown butter. We stopped in Cayucos on the way from Cambria to Morro Bay on our second day, enjoyed a fresh cooked breakfast from a take-out window before we stopped at the cookie shop.

When we walked in, the room smelled of sugar and butter as workers were busy rolling out the round shortbread cookies. We were offered samples immediately from one of the owners, including an original sea salt brown butter cookie and a cocoa brown butter cookie. They had a sweet flavor finished off with a slight salty taste. I normally don't like shortbread cookies, but these were a lot more moist than the average cookie. We ended up buying a few to share later that day as well as a couple dozen to share with my family and our co-workers when we returned from the trip. The shop makes the brown butter cookies as well as traditional sugar, oatmeal, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. All cookies are for sale individually, or can be bought in a package. The Brown Butter Cookie Co. does sell their cookies online for those who want to try them, but can't make it down the coast.

After the trip to Cayucos, we continued south to Morro Bay, where we spent the early afternoon out on the water on a kayak. We shared a double kayak, and it was the first time we'd been in one for both of us. Luckily, my boyfriend had some canoe steering experience so we quickly got a handle on navigating the water. We judged the kayaking a success as we did not bump boats, we didn't tip over and we didn't get stuck in the sandy, shallow water.

After the kayaking, we enjoyed lunch at a local restaurant and walked around the shops near the bay. I checked out a few different candy stores and ice cream shops before settling on one that served SLO churned ice cream. The small serving came with two scoops so I got a scoop of black cherry that included bing cherries as well as a scoop of rocky road. I got it in a waffle cone because my boyfriend isn't a fan of ice cream, but likes the cones.

On the last night of our trip, we opted to eat close to our hotel in San Simeon. We went to a place called the San Simeon Beach Bar and Grill. There weren't many places from which to chose in San Simeon so we picked the place with a mix of seafood and other typical American fare. The appetizer of sherry sauteed mushrooms was delicious, but my boyfriends seafood platter was mediocre and my burger tasted like typical dinner fare. We decided to order dessert to share, and had a lemon creme cake which had moist cake and just a light lemon taste. It was pretty tasty.

I enjoyed the desserts on the trip, but it was nice to get home and cook a meal of fresh ingredients as well as swapping out the sweets for fruits and vegetables.

A savory dish and a dessert from new ingredients

2011-08-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, I am much better at keeping them than I am about reporting back about them. So here is the first of several updates on how things have been going and a resolve to update things a little bit more frequently.

First off, I finished up resolution No. 12 to cook with five new ingredients quite before spring even got under way. But that doesn't mean I stopped trying out some new ingredients. This year I've tried to push myself to try new foods, recipes and cooking techniques though I still haven't tried any fish-related foods.

A few months ago, when it was still cold and rainy outside my boyfriend and I decided to cook up some beef ribs. But since it was not yet grilling weather, we found a recipe to use his pressure cooker. I'd never used a pressure cooker before, but I know from watching "Iron Chef" that it speeds up the process of cooking slow-cook items - and it can be a dangerous appliance if not used properly.

The new ingredient for me on this recipe was the beef ribs which I had never cooked at home. I wasn't sure what to expect from the process, but we looked over the recipe carefully and gathered all our ingredients. The first part was easy - we just had to cook the ribs with a season blend, sear them on all sides in a saute pan and them put them into the pressure cooker with some vegetables and beef broth. From there the pressure cooker would do the work - except that this recipe called for opening up the pressure cooker halfway to make sure the ribs were not sticking. The problem with opening up a pressure cooker is that you can't do it until it cools down enough to release all the steam from inside.

I was okay with skipping the step, but my boyfriend, armed with a long bread knife and a potholder as a face shield held the steam release valve open so all the steam escaped and we were able to check on the ribs. It is a step we would skip if we made the ribs again since there was no sticking going on. Once the ribs were cooked, we added in the barbecue sauce, which had a nice kick to it thanks to some cayenne pepper. We both enjoyed it and the meat turned out perfectly tender in under an hour.

More recently, I ended up trying a new ingredient on the spur of the moment. When I went grocery shopping with my mom a few weeks ago I saw key limes in a bag on the shelf. I've never noticed them at the grocery store before, but since they have made the dessert that bears their name so famous, I thought I would try to make a key lime pie at home. The recipe was simple, using just key lime juice, condensed milk and eggs. I cheated and used a store-bought graham cracker crust to save the time of making one at home. If I were to do it again, I would go the extra step and make the crust. The pie filling was perfectly creamy, tart and sweet at the same time, but the pie crust was a little dried out. The season for key limes is short so I probably won't be making another one soon. It was a major improvement over the frozen pie versions I've tried.

I'm sure there will be some more new ingredients to try before the end of the year, but at least one resolution can be crossed off the list.

Photos by MELISSA FLORES

Beef ribs are served with plenty of homemade barbecue sauce on top.

Key lime pie is served with a sweetened sour cream mixture on top.

A couple humorous reads mix in with the serious fare

2011-04-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

I've made some progress on Resolution No. 10 by reading three books so far this year.

But I have to say that when I said I would try to read some lighter fare this year, it hasn't really worked out that well. I don't know if I just happen to pick up books that are filled with heavy issues or if that's just what most authors write about these days. It seems even when I don't pick out a book for myself - as was the case with the last novel I read - it still turns out to be a bummer.

I just finished reading "The Year of Fog," by Michelle Redmond. My mom randomly picked it up at the Gilroy library because it had a sticker on it that said "Silicon Valley Reads." I don't know if it is part of a book club offering, or if that sticker means the author is from the Bay Area, or perhaps if the sticker was just because the novel is set in San Francisco.

I kind of knew what I was getting into, though, when I read the book jacket about how the main character Abby spends a year looking for her fiance's missing daughter. A missing 6-year-old has to be a downer. The story is told from Abby's point of view as she continually goes back to the day on the beach when she looked away and her fiance's daughter disappeared. She is convinced the little girl is still alive, though as time passes others become more sure she has drowned in the rough waters off the Bay. The author mixes in a lot of facts about photography and memory - Abby is a photographer and she is obsessed with memory because she is trying to remember important details from the day that Emma disappeared. The details of all this memory and photography stuff might be enthralling to someone who knows less about it than the average person, but as I studied photography in college and worked in a psychology lab that did research on memory, all the details seemed confusing to the story. Sure, all the case studies Abby sites are real, but they don't really have anything to do with Abby's search except that they make the book twice as long as it needs to be. The characters don't seem real enough to make their despair matter.

The first book I read this year is one I got from the library as well, but for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the book or the author. It was by an Irish author, but no one well-know such as Roddy Doyle or Frank McCourt. In fact, the one thing I liked about the book was that it was set in Ireland, but that wasn't really the focus of the story. In a lot of books I've read by Irish authors, the country or city almost becomes a character in itself. This story was set outside of Dublin and the fact it was in Ireland was beside the point.

The story is about a widowed man who raises his young daughter alone. He and his wife are unhappy together, but he is saved from leaving her when she dies in a car accident. He doesn't miss her when she is gone - he's mostly just numb. The early part of the story, about him helping his daughter recover from the loss of her mother is juxtaposed against another great lose for the man - one that he seems unable to overcome. The book was well-written and the characters were mostly interesting, including the mother of his daughter's best friends from down the street who helps him grieve after both deaths with which he has to deal with. But I really disliked that in the last thirty pages of the book the author reveals something that changes the meaning of most of the book. It seemed to come out of nowhere, with little foreshadowing and there was not enough space in the last pages to make it all make sense. I don't mind a surprise ending in a thriller or mystery novel, but not in a dramatic book such as this.

In between these two novels, I read the latest from David Sedaris, "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk." The book is a departure from Sedaris' other work, which is usually essays about his adventures in life. I enjoy his pieces and love when one shows up in "The New Yorker" in between books. This latest endeavor however is fiction. Each story tells some cynical insight into humor nature through the point of view of animals. The stories are dark, some a little on the morbid side, but they work because in almost all of them I could think of at least one person that I could pin those characteristics on in real life. There is an owl who looks down upon is own family because he sees himself as so much better than them. There is a motherless bear who seeks out pity from all she meets. There is the Chipmunk from the title story who gives him to pressure from her family not to date someone different.

Now I am partway through a copy of "Bossypants," a book of essays by Tina Fey. So far, it's funny even though Fey has the same self-deprecating humor that she uses as Liz Lemon on "30 Rock." It's not really a biography, but Fey does share some bits about her life and how she ended up where she is. One of the funniest chapters so far is her recap of her honeymoon in which she and her husband took a cruise because he is afraid of flying - alone to have a fire break out on board the ship. I've always seen a lot of similarities between Liz Lemon and myself - and that might extend to Fey herself as she admits partway through the piece that she really doesn't like the cruise. The one time I went on a cruise, I felt the same way.

A resolution completed at Grill on the Alley

2011-04-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks, I finished Resolution No. 13 without really thinking about it. Though I like to cook at home - and I do often cook on weekends with my boyfriend - there are plenty of times when we find ourselves going out to eat spur of the moment. Since I found myself wanting to share with him lots of my favorite restaurants - like My Pizza, in Morgan Hill, or the 19th Hole, in Tres Pinos, it turns out it wasn't so hard after all. But it turns out we eat out enough that there has been a good mix of old and new.

A few weeks ago, after running a few miles at the track and running some errands, my boyfriend and I decided to check out the Campbell farmers market. I was on a hunt for Jerusalem artichokes (one of the new ingredients I cooked with for Resolution No. 12.) It was close to 2 p.m. and many of the vendors were closing down for the afternoon. We used the time to check out what types of vendors were there and I actually found the Jerusalem artichokes.

We had just a light breakfast so the smells of some of the food vendors, who were selling crepes, tacos and more, made my stomach growl. Since the vendors were in the process of shutting down, we decided to grab a bite at one of the restaurants. Downtown Campbell has a lot from which to choose. We decided to try out Sonoma Chicken Coop, since I'd never eaten there before. The restaurant is set up so that guests order off a menu at a cashier, choose a table and then pick up the meals. It has the atmosphere of a sit-down restaurant, but without the waiters or waitresses.

The restaurant shares a space with the Campbell Brewery and that side of the restaurant feels a lot like a sports bar. When we arrived at the restaurant on Sunday, the brunch menu was still in effect. It was great because I was able to order a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream while my boyfriend got a pesto chicken sandwich, mixing up the breakfast and lunch flavors. The chicken sandwich was my second choice, so I got to have a few bites of his sandwich, too. The waffle was good, but the whipped cream didn't taste like real whipped cream to me. The sandwich and french fries were tasty, however. If I went back, I would go for lunch or dinner.

Another Sunday afternoon, before I had to head home for the evening, my boyfriend and I decided to grab a quick bite to eat a little Taqueria near his house. I never even paid attention to the name of the place, but I drive passed it every time I visit him in Santa Clara. It is within walking distance of his house so it required only throwing on a pair of flip flops and we were ready for dinner out. The restaurant offers the typical taqueria offerings of burritos, tacos and quesadillas, but it also has dinner plates. He was able to get two tacos - one with carne asada and one of al pastor - and I was able to get a enchilada combination plate.

We sat outside on the patio since the weather was warm and snacked on the help-yourself-chips-and-salsa bar that is in the center of the restaurant. There are only a few seats inside, but while we were there a few people were eating inside and out. The rice was tasty as were the refried beans. The corn tortillas of the enchiladas were soft and I had enough left over to take home for lunch the next day. It was a nice two-for-one meal.

From a low-budget taqueria, I finished off my resolution at an upscale restaurant in downtown San Jose. When I signed up for memberships at the Tech Museum a few months ago, one of the perks was a coupon from the Convention and Visitor's Bureau to save $10 at each of 18 downtown restaurants. The coupon expires in August, so my boyfriend and I had plans to hit as many of these restaurants as we can - although I'd be happy if we skipped Scott's Seafood since I don't eat any fish.

So when I had a free Thursday evening this week, I decided to drive up to San Jose to meet the boyfriend for dinner. I suggested Grill on the Alley since it is one of the coupon restaurants and it has great happy hour specials. Grill on the Alley is an upscale bar and steakhouse. Most of the people in the restaurant looked like well-off young professionals. But even if they weren't the happy hour specials are set at a price to let people play the part.

While regular mixed drinks - like the blue and black mojito I had - are $13, during happy hour there are a few martinis set at $6 and well drinks are $5. A handful of beers are available on tap for $5. The best thing, however, is that they have food specials that beat the bar food I've had at any restaurant. The food specials range from $3, $5 or $6 for small plates such as onion rings, spinach and artichoke dip, or loaded mac and cheese, which we chose. There are also some meat and fish offerings for $10 and burgers for $8-9. I ordered a filet medallion that was served with a roquefort sauce and mushrooms. He ordered a lamb chop with a mint sauce and mint mashed potatoes. The amount of food turned out to be just right. We split the mac and cheese, and the filet was just the right size for me. I even tried a bit of his lamb chop, a food I've never eaten before. The loaded mac and cheese came with bacon and mushrooms mixed into the creamy sauce. The top had a bread crumb and Parmesan crust that gave it the perfect crunch.

I would definitely be back at Grill on the Alley - probably for Happy Hour, since the regular dinner menu prices are upwards of $30-40 per entree. Plus the drinks are great, if I have a designated driver with me.

This probably won't be the end of my eating out at new restaurants for this year, so I'll be sure to continue with the updates.

Photos by Melissa Flores

A filet medallion is served with roquefort sauce and mushrooms.

A lamb chop is served with mint mashed potatoes.

Loaded mac and cheese has bacon and mushrooms mixed into it.

A few good shorts

2011-03-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

The 21st annual Cinequest Film Festival is finishing up this weekend in downtown San Jose. Though the festival runs for 12 days - and I love movies - I opted just to catch two shorts programs so far this year. The festival has a variety of feature films and documentary films, as well as visits from a few celebrities, including AnnaSophia Robb and John Turturro.

One of my favorite parts of the festival is the shorts programs because it's one of the few venues to see good quality short-format films locally. This is not the stuff of YouTube videos.

Some of these shorts have budgets up to $10,000 or credits that run as long as a feature film. I sat through two shorts programs last Saturday, "Expectations," which included 11 films and "Slanted," which had five films. The pieces are as unique as the many filmgoers who filled downtown venues throughout the week. Some of the shorts were funny and light-hearted, while others tackled taboo subject matters that were difficult to watch.

The funny thing about the first shorts program being called "Expectations" is that it turns out that my expectations for the day versus my boyfriend's expectations were much different. I wanted to see the first program, which seemed like it might have more fun stuff in it and he wanted to see the darker movie in the second set. I suggested we buy tickets for both and then grab lunch in between. He said we should watch the first screening and then see if we felt up to seeing the second one.

I finally figured out why he hesitated at seeing not one, but two shorts programs, when we excited the theater after watching "Expectations." His first response was that the films were way better than he had expected. It seems he was anticipating low-budget films, with poor quality acting - sort of the stuff you might see on YouTube or in a student film festival. But he was pleasantly surprised by most of the films and I was content with them as well. He liked them enough to sit through a second batch of movies later in the day.

The person in charge of the Cinquest short films sets it up so that the movies are divided into several programs - so viewers can expect to see films that have something in common. Last year I saw films about kids growing up. The "Expectations" movies all have some sort of twist in the end that plays with what viewers' expectations are for the outcomes. "Slanted" was described as a slate of movies about people who have a skewed view of the world.

The first film for the "Expectations" set was probably exactly what my boyfriend was expecting for all the films. It was low quality and it was titled "Dry." It showed a person looking into a refrigerator at a bottle of booze. And then closing the refrigerator. It was short, probably under a minute long, with no dialogue and bad lighting.

But the great thing about a shorts program is that you get some bad films, but since you are seeing several movies chances are there will be some really good ones, too. With Cinequest, if you pick a random feature film, it's either bad or good. It's hard to know from the short descriptions in the program guide.

Of the 11 films, I liked eight of them. "Dry." was the only one I really disliked and the rest were okay. A short film can really be a challenge. It's like a short story - it shouldn't feel like a chapter in a book, but an entity that can stand on its own. It should feel complete. It needs to have enough background and characters that are well-enough developed to grab our attention in way less time than a feature film. It should make us feel something.

Some of the pieces felt a little bit like a prelude to something more or like something was missing. That was the case with "Wonder Boy," a movie about a college student who gets caught up with dealing drugs. The movie didn't have any clear closure, and the filmmakers, who talked after the screening, said they were making it with hopes of expanding it to a feature.

"Liv," a foreign film about a young girl who is a little on the wild side, also seemed a bit incomplete to me. The movie was funny, but it alluded to things that were never touched on again. For instance, the film starts with a blond-haired girl talking to her mother on the phone about how her father likes boys now and his boyfriend has moved in. In an off hand comment the boyfriend notes that the child's mother is dead. But no more is mentioned in the film and it ends on a jokingly upbeat note.

One of the pieces that felt most complete to me was "Mam," a black and white Scottish film. In it, a young teen gets his siblings up and off to school. Their mother is sick in bed. The movie had a lot of characters, but the focus remained on the teen and everything the other people did just added to explaining what he was all about. The movie has a twist at the end, which wasn't entirely unexpected, but the acting was good enough to make it one of the better pieces.

I also liked "Capture the Flag," one of two movies that featured an actor who has been seen in mainstream pieces. The movie is about a teenage girl who is going to the woods with her father and a group of friends or neighbors to play a game of capture the flag. She wants her father, played by Scott Cohen, to allow her to capture the flag this year. He has a boy from another family selected to be on the offense, and says he needs her on defense to guard the flag. The film is set in the 1960s, and what we know is that her mother is in a mental institution. She is on the cusp of adulthood - a lot of the other teens have moved on to not caring about the game. The movie captures the loss of some innocence for her.

One of the crowd favorites seemed to be a short called "The Same Old Story." It was in Spanish and starts with a guy standing on a bus, talking loudly on a phone. At first, the other bus riders seem annoyed with him, but soon enough, they are drawn into his tale of woe. His wife has left him and is at the house looking for a piece of jewelry while he has been out looking for a job - he is unemployed. He begs his wife to stay just long enough so that he can get home to see her - not for another chance, but just to see her for a few minutes. The other riders get so engrossed they stay on the bus past their stops and the driver speeds through a tunnel so the man won't lose his cell phone signal. I even found myself getting a little teary-eyed at his speech and recall of his happier times with his ex-wife. But since the name of the program was "Expectations," I should have known there was a twist. The film got me with the twist, and from the sound of the laughter in the theater, almost everyone else in the theater. I won't give away the ending for anyone who is lucky enough to see it.

As for "Slanted," some of the movies were exceptionally well made, but the movies were exceedingly hard to watch.

The first film was called "The Dive," and its about a bartender who has just gotten into med school in another state. The movie starts with the young man at a hospital, picking up a woman who has attempted suicide. It turns out to be his mother. So we know things aren't perfect with his life from the start. But things take a sudden turn when a man walks into the bar late at night to order a drink. He instantly recognizes the man, but we don't know why. The filmmakers talked about the movie after the screenings and said they wanted to make a story about people who have a hard time letting go of the past. The film slowly reveals how the young man knows the older one and why he is not able to let things go.

The movie was a downer, but not nearly as much as the second one. The movie was made by a group of filmmakers who got funding from the American Film Institute, and the film was made for under $30,000. The acting is good, but the movie's subject is gritty and in your face. "Silencio Fuerte," or "Hard Silence," follows a girl in her late teens or early 20s as she struggles to get away from an abusive mother - physical, verbal and sexual abuse. The footage is raw and graphic, and even days after seeing it, I couldn't get it out of my head. It was a well-made film, just not something I would have willingly chosen to watch. The filmmakers talked about making the film after the screening and they said they wanted to open dialogue about a subject that is not discussed.

Of the other films, one of them was a bit of a bizarre Swedish film, in which two guys roam the country side in search of a cup of coffee. It wasn't very funny and I didn't really get the point of it. The last film was called "Hollow," and it followed a couple who try to get clean from heroin before their baby is born. The actors had a Scottish or some sort of British accent, and the film felt a little bit like "Trainspotting"-Lite. It wasn't long enough to really draw out the characters the way I wanted them to.

The only film in the "Slanted" program that I liked was "Tapeworm." A teen at an all-girls school has such bad body image that she wants to eat a tapeworm so that she can lose weight. Her much skinnier, perkier best friend, however, wants the tapeworm for herself. The movie was an interesting look at how skewed a woman's perception of herself can be and also how mean girls can be to each other.

I liked enough of the films to make the day worthwhile, and I think I have a willing partner for next year's Cinequest.

Lentil soup warms a cold, winter evening

2011-03-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

It's only March, and I've made quite a bit of progress on resolution no. 12. Of course, it is an easy one since I like cooking, and the food column I write for the Pinnacle life section gives me plenty of reasons to cook new recipes almost every week.

I am not an adventurous eater so sometimes I need a little coaxing to try something new. In fact, until a few weeks ago I am not sure I had ever eaten a lentil before. The only reason I did try lentils is because my boyfriend was nice enough to take me to my favorite Italian restaurant for dinner in downtown San Jose. Il Fornaio offers a special passport menu for a couple weeks each month and our Feb. 13 meal happened to coincide with the Puglia region of Italy. I persuaded him to order the taste of Puglia, a three-course meal that includes a small salad or soup, a small pasta dish and a full-size main course, so that I could try a baked pasta and meatball dish, but still order my old favorite standby.

For the first course, he ordered a lentil soup with farro, barley and vegetables. I didn't really have any intention of trying the soup, but since he offered to share it I thought I would give it a little taste. I am sure I've never eaten farro or lentils before, and I was pleasantly surprised that I actually liked it quite a bit. We ended up splitting the soup about evenly between us.

About a week later, when the weather turned wet and rainy, I decided it was time for a column about soup. And inspired by the meal at Il Fornaio, I decide to try my hand at making a lentil soup at home. The great thing about soups is that they usually don't take much work beyond chopping up some vegetables. And it's easy to speed them up for weeknight meals by using store-bought chicken broth as a base. My mom did most of the prep work for the soup one Thursday night before I got home from work. In fact, my main job was to bring it all to a boil, then lower it to a simmer and cover for about 30 minutes, checking on the tenderness of the lentils.

The recipe incorporated some of the same flavors I remembered from the restaurant dish, such as carrots, celery and onion. At the very end, elbow macaroni or another kind of pasta can be tossed in to add a little more hardiness to the dish. My only problem was estimating when the lentils would be done. I didn't want to overcook them, so I tossed in the macaroni about 40 minutes after the lentils had been simmering. The pasta cooked in about five minutes, but the lentils could have cooked a bit longer. Unfortunately, at that point, I risked really overcooking the pasta.

The soup was dished up, served with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and then drizzled with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil. Everyone liked it, and my boyfriend even drove more than an hour in stormy, rainy weather to eat some of it. I gave him most of the leftovers to take home, for his effort. The soup held up well for lunch the next day. It's definitely a soup that has made its way into the winter rotation.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

Lentil soup is cooked with vegetables and chicken broth, with elbow macaroni added in just for the last few minutes of cooking.

Cinequest turns 21

2011-03-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

The only film festival I've ever been to is the Cinequest Film Festival, hosted in downtown San Jose. It's not Sundance or Cannes, but it's close enough that I can usually hit a screening or two each year and it's affordable enough with tickets selling for $10 per screening (a little more for special events.)

It may be in the heart of Silicon Valley, but I've had the chance to see plenty of celebrities at the various events I've attended. Each year the film festival gives a Maverick Spirit Award to a filmmaker or actor of note. In recent years, they have also added events with "emerging" Mavericks, up and coming filmmakers to watch, such as AnnaSophia Robb.

Through the years I have seen William H. Macy, Michael Keaton, Lili Taylor,Edward James Olmos and Benjamin Bratt. This year's maverick is John Turturro, who is featured at tonight's opening night event.

One of the cool things about the festival is that even at the regular screenings, not just the special events, a lot of the filmmakers come into town so guests have a chance to ask about the films. I've heard from actors, directors and producers about what it was like to make the movies that are shown at the festival.

Each year I try to see a shorts program since it is one of the few opportunities to see short films. I like the way Cinequest comes up with new ways to group the short films into three or four programs. In addition to the short films, there are plenty of feature films and documentaries to watch as well.

The hardest thing about Cinequest is trying to decide what to see since there are so many movies from which to choose. The festival runs today through March 12. I won't be able to catch any of the showings on weeknights, but I am looking forward to catching a few this weekend. I plan to catch a shorts program, and hope to hear from at least a few filmmakers.

83rd Academy Awards

2011-02-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

I wasn't sure what to expect of Academy Award hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, but they did okay with the opening montage. Using "Inception" as the concept for the montage made it really easy for the two to seamlessly mention every movie in the best picture category. Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman's cameos were very amusing. The best spoof was that of "The Fighter," in which Anne Hathaway channeled here inner Massachusetts rough girl and then socked James Franco.

Anne Hathaway's play on "On My Own," seemed only to be a way to lead into a joke with James Franco in a dress with a Marilyn Monroe wig on. It might have been worth it for his jab at Charlie Sheen who has lately been off his rocker more than normal.

Overall, the skits with Anne Hathaway and James Franco weren't all that funny. About 7:30 p.m., I was really ready for it to be over, but I stuck it out to see the top awards.

Now a bit about the winners in some categories:

Art direction
Alice in Wonderland takes home for the best art direction. Though I didn't like the movie all that much, it did look pretty cool.

Cinematography
"Inception" won and it is deserving for the crazy, upside down dream world the cinematographer caught on camera.

Supporting Actress
So it seems that the Academy does like to honor women who make themselves look awful on screen for the sake of their art. Melissa Leo wins for her turn in "The Fighter," as mother/manager of boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). For the movie she looks 20 years older with frosted blond hair and a trashy '80s wardrobe. She did a good job since there wasn't much likeable about her character.

Animated feature
The other films in this category never really had a chance. "Toy Story 3" has a history with it as the final chapter in a franchise that many film goers grew up with. It has a feeling of nostalgia that appeals to adults while the Buzz Lightyear and Woody characters certainly appeal to kids. Any movie - especially if its animated - that can make grown men cry deserves an award.

Adapted screenplay
No surprise that Aaron Sorkin won for best adapted screenplay for "The Social Network." The screenplay is based on a book about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. I'll give him credit for turning a movie that is essentially about lawsuits into a tense movie that was interesting to watch. Who knew computer geeks could have such intense lives?

Best original screenplay
I would have guessed "Inception" would take the win with its crazy dreamscape, but "The King's Speech," actually won. It is great to see David Seidler win for his screenplay since he waited so long to make the movie. He joked that he might be the oldest person to win the award. He had the idea for a film about Kind George, and his struggled with stammering, decades ago. But he held off until the King's wife passed away because she said it was too painful to relive the memories in her life time. The movie is a great watch, and my favorite of the year.

Supporting Actor
I said a couple months ago that if Christian Bale is nominated for an Oscar, the other actors should just bow out. Bale deserves the win for his turn as Dickie Ecklund, a former boxer who became a drug addict before getting clean. While the movie is focused on Micky Ward, Dickie's half brother, Bale really made it. It was great to see Bale get joked up as he accepted his award since he is such a great actor - it was a just to see him as himself. A testament to what a great actor he is - when he started speaking in his natural British accent, my mom said, "He's English? I didn't know that."

Visual effects
"Inception" takes home the prize over such movies as "Alice in Wonderland," "Harry Potter," and "Iron Man 2." It's not a surprise since the movie includes plenty of effects, what with the multiple layers of dreams in it. They deserve the award for the slow-motion fighting scene in the hotel hallway.

Directing
Tom Hopper takes home the award for "The King's Speech." He drew out some great performances from all of the actors with whom he worked. During his speech he talked about how his mother was actually the one to discover the movie and recommended it as his next film.

Best actress
I only saw two of the five performances in the best actress category, but Natalie Portman got my vote. Even though I didn't really enjoy Darren Aronofsky's take on Swan Lake, I though Portman did a great job in "Black Swan." She stretched herself for the role, losing tons of weight and practicing ballet moves for months. She balanced the vulnerable role of Nina with a dark decent into madness.

Best actor
First off, Sandra Bullock was the best presenter of the night as she introduces the nominees for best actor. She had a natural way with the usually canned banter that the presenters read off the teleprompter. Her jokes her funnier than anything else on the show and better delivered than anything the hosts had to say all night.

Now for the winner, Colin Firth won for "The King's Speech." He was nominated last year for "A Single Man," and while his performance was good in that movie, he was even better as the king with the stutter. He showed the restraint that is required of a royal, but had enough depth to play through the occasional outbursts. He made a movie about a man with a stutter exciting to watch.

Best motion picture
Of the 10 movies nominated, I saw eight of them. I had my own personal favorites, which I have blogged about before. "The King's Speech" was at the top of my list. I wasn't sure what to expect of it since I knew it was a movie about a king with a stuttering problem. But the movie is really about much more than that. Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth portray two men who become unlikely friends, forming a bond that last the rest of their lifetimes. The movie was my favorite of the year and I've been recommending it to everyone who asks about it. I was glad to see a movie I personally enjoyed win for best picture.

A breakfast item from north of the border

2011-02-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

After eating a whole pile of sweets - Valentine's day chocolates, cupcakes, homemade banana bread, lemon bars and slices of lemon tart - not to mention eating out twice in one day last weekend - I thought it might be a good idea to find some healthy recipes for the week.

I spent some time on the Food Network under the "heart healthy" link and found quite a few dinners that seemed appealing. But I also found one breakfast option that seemed perfect for a light morning meal and also offered a chance to try out another ingredient. The recipe, from Ellie Krieger, was for healthy breakfast sandwiches and the ingredient is Canadian bacon. Sure it's not really an exotic ingredient, but it is one I haven't used before so it counts toward Resolution No. 12. In fact, I rarely cook bacon at all unless you count tossing some bacon bits on a meal.

I don't really like the smell of bacon frying and the need to get rid of all the grease that is leftover after cooking it. But Canadian bacon offers a lighter option without all the messy clean up.

So Sunday morning I put the recipe to the test after my boyfriend and I went for a three-mile run in Campbell (despite the temptation to stop at a place called Psycho Donuts that is right down the black from the track.) The recipe is basically a healthy take on egg McMuffins. It called for one whole egg and one white egg per serving - I even used brown eggs that my boyfriend's mom gave us when we visited a couple weeks ago from her chickens (those eggs also went into some of the lemon desserts.) To give the eggs lots of flavor, I finely chopped fresh parsley, chives and basil, mixing the herbs into the eggs. I cooked the mixture in an omelet pan and then folded it over into quarters to fit on a toasted double fiber English muffin (Orowheat actually makes great double fiber wheat bread and muffins.)

To cook the Canadian bacon, all I had to do was add a little cooking spray to the pan and brown it up over medium heat. It was way easier than using regular bacon and I actually liked the way it added just enough saltiness to the meal. From there, the egg and Canadian bacon was topped with a slice of tomato.

I thought it tasted great and it was filling even after a long workout. My boyfriend liked it, too, though he admitted that the few ways he thought to improve the dish (like adding cheese) would only make it unhealthy. In the future, I might compromise and add a little Parmesan cheese in with the egg mixture.

Photo by MelissaFlores

Healthy breakfast sandwiches include an herb omelet, Canadian bacon and tomato on a whole wheat muffin.

Hot stuff - trying out a new ingredient

2011-02-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

In between all the eating out, I have been cooking at home but I haven't devoted much time to those five new ingredients (Resolution No.12) I want to try this year.

I actually bought a bag of sunchokes at the beginning of the year, but I didn't get to cooking it that week and by the time I got to them they just didn't look that appealing anymore. Sunchokes are not much like artichokes, but more of a root vegetable. The recipe I had for them also called for saffron, which turns out to be about $20 for a couple strands so if I see them in a grocery store I might buy the sunchokes but find a different recipe.

The one new ingredient I have cooked with so far this year is one that is quite familiar, but one that I usually avoid. Last month, when I was on a healthy cooking quick I decided to make some chicken and vegetable fajitas. The key to the recipe was to marinate the chicken and vegetables for a few hours with a strong mix of ingredients. The marinade included a mix of green onions, cilantro, spices and jalapeno. Now usually when a recipe calls for jalapenos, I just leave them out because the pepper is a little too hot for my palate. But this time since I was cooking for a couple people who like dishes that are a lot spicier, I decided to put in a little bit of it. After roasting the pepper over the flame on the gas burner, letting it sit in a plastic bag for a few minutes and peeling off the skin, I tossed in about one and a half peppers into the blender with the other ingredients. Perhaps it was the mix of other items, including honey and chicken broth, but the marinade had the slight flavor of the jalapeno without all the heat. Of course, I didn't actually use any of the seeds from the pepper.

For the same meal, I made a side dish of chile-cheese rice. The rice called for chunks of poblano peppers. I bought the largest peppers available in my grocery store, a couple of light green Anaheim chiles. Since I cooked a dish at a different kitchen than my own, I had to improvise on getting the skins off the without a gas flame. Instead I cooked the peppers in the oven for a few minutes, then slipped them into a plastic bag. When I pulled them out, the skin slipped off easily on one side of the pepper, but it wouldn't come off on the side that was face down on the cookie sheet in the oven. It seems it needs to get a little cooked on both sides so I had to put it back in the oven for a little more time.

The Anaheim chiles were mild enough for me and they packed in a lot of flavor into the rice dish. It was a perfect compliment to the chicken and vegetable fajitas. Since these ingredients are so similar, I'll count the jalapeno and Anaheim chiles as one so I've got four more to go before the end of the year.

Photos by MELISSA FLORES

Chicken fajitas with guacamole sauce and chile-cheese rice.

An easy resolution - eat out more

2011-02-16T17:11:00.001-08:00

So far this year, some of my New Year's Resolutions have been easier to keep than others. I'll be honest and say I've been more focused on the early stages of a relationship than on meeting those 14 goals I set for myself. One of the easiest, of course, is the one thing on the list that fits easily in with dating.

Resolution No. 13 is to eat at five new restaurants this year and just two weeks into February, I'm more than half way there. A few weeks ago I dined at Flames Restaurant in downtown San Jose. I was torn whether to include this visit as one of the "new" restaurants I had tried because I visited the Flames Restaurant on Winchester Boulevard more than 10 years ago. But I didn't actually eat there. I barely had a drink there. I was out on a date with a guy who had taken me to dinner at the Elephant Bar Restaurant nearby. We were to follow up the meal with a movie, but it wasn't quite time for the next showing. He asked if I wanted to hang out at Flames to kill a bit of time. I said okay, assuming we would order a drink or dessert. Once we were seated inside, he said we should just order water because he didn't want to spend anymore money. For anyone who hasn't guessed it, that was the last date for him.

But my companion on a recent Sunday was much better company. We originally planned to have lunch at Flames, on the corner of Fourth and San Fernando streets, before a trip to the Tech Museum. We arrived to a busy crowd and put in our name for the half-hour wait. But as the wait stretched to 45 minutes, and we realized we really weren't that hungry since we had a late breakfast, we opted to leave before our names were called. Instead we returned later in the afternoon, when the crowd had moved on.

We ordered a tri-tip sandwich with sweet potato fries along with an appetizer of asparagus fries. For anyone who is wondering what asparagus fries are, they are dipped in batter and deep fried into crispy goodness, served with a dipping sauce. The sweet potato fries were tasty and seemed a little less greasy than typical French fries. The sandwich was tasty and filling enough to split. Though the restaurant had a full display of desserts in a case near the entrance - including cookies that we decided were about the equivalent of five regular-size cookies - I opted against dessert. I am sure we will go back and try out some more things in the future. I'd love to go back in the evenings for one of the exotic drinks on the menu.

A couple weeks later, I dined at a Mexican Restaurant in Merced called La Nita's Restaurant. The reason for being in Merced is a long story, but we were there in the late afternoon and I'd developed a headache from not eating enough or drinking enough water throughout the day so by the time I arrived at La Nita's, it was more about sustenance than good food. I ordered a two-item combo with an cheese enchilada and a shredded beef enchilada. Those were pretty average. But the one thing I loved on the plate was the rice, which was fluffy and moist in a way I can never manage to get Spanish rice to behave at home. I also liked the warm tortilla chips that a dinner companion claims are made fresh. If I end up back in Merced, which is not too likely, I'd eat there again.

I'm not really counting this in the tally, but I did eat at Bill's Cafe in Willow Glen over the weekend. I'd already eaten at another Bill's Cafe a few miles away, but my boyfriend said the one in Willow Glen has a better atmosphere. When we arrived for a Sunday morning brunch, I understood what he meant. Despite a large crowd, we were seated in under 20 minutes. Prior to seating, we ordered drinks from the bar - a mimosa for me and a drink of beer and lime juice in a glass rimmed with salt for the boys. We were seated on the patio, perfect for the unseasonably warm weather.

Bill's menu is great and there are so many more things on it that I'd like to try. They offer half a dozen different takes on eggs Benedict, a bread pudding French toast and tons more. Last weekend I went with an egg white scramble which included tomatoes, Jack cheese and mushrooms. It seemed like a lighter option given the mimosas. The waiter was attentive and the service was quick, without feeling like we were being rushed out.

Photo by MELISSA FLORES

Enchiladas, rice and beans from La Nita Restaurant in Merced.

When a restaurant is named 'burger' its easy to guess what's on the menu

2011-01-31T20:11:00.000-08:00

When I went to Santa Cruz a few weeks ago, I figured it would be a great opportunity to meet a one of my New Year's resolutions to eat at five new restaurants (Resolution No. 13.) Driving on Hwy. 1 toward Natural Bridges State Beach, I noticed a brick red restaurant along the road called simply Burger.

So after walking around to visit the monarchs and visiting the beach for a time, I was ready for a late lunch. As I drove back up Hwy. 1, Burger again got my attention. My boyfriend and I decided to stop there since we were pretty sure we knew what would be on the menu.

Burger has just that on the menu - plenty of burgers. But they also have a full dinner menu with a lot of other items. The burgers are just the typical cheeseburger, bacon burger or barbecue burger. The menu runs the gamut from burgers topped with unique items such as the Don Ho - garlic aoili sliders with a slice of pineapple on top - or the Bada Bing Boy - meatball sliders served with garlic fries. There were also vegetarian burgers, salmon burgers and turkey burgers.

In addition to the burgers, there are milkshakes on the menu and though we didn't try it, they even serve beer shakes and beer floats. There is a bar full of a variety of beers, although my boyfriend laughed that several of the TVs in the bar area were atypically showing something other than sports.

Customers order at a central cash register area and then are given a picture of a movie star instead of the typical number to let staff know where to deliver the goods. We got an '80s shot of Winona Ryder, pre-shoplifting charges. Other tables had Keanu Reeves circa "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" or other stars from yesteryear.

The bathroom walls had a monster theme, including werewolves painted in the bathroom.

More important than the decor was the fact that burgers were really tasty. The burgers are made with free-range beef. My sliders were tender and tasty. The hawaiian sweet bread complimented the tart pineapple well. The fries were crisp. The only complaint I had was that my meal came out well before my strawberry shake.

The sliders we order were reasonably priced and if we didn't have to drive home on Hwy. 17, I'm sure the drinks or beer would have been great, too.

Photo by Melissa Flores
The Don Ho sliders
The Bada Bing Boy sliders

Academy Awards noms get some right, some wrong

2011-01-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

I see a lot of movies, but most years I don’t see a lot of Oscar nominated movies until after the awards ceremony or when they come out on DVD. But this year I managed to see eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture.

Now first, I have to say that I still don’t really like that the Academy decided to open up the field from five nominations to 10. I understand the reasoning of doing it so that more popular movies have a shot so that it’s not just all about high-brow art movies that no one ever sees. But the truth is most years there aren’t even 10 good movies, let alone 10 that deserve to win a best picture award. So in some ways the increased number of movies nominated kinda dilutes what it means to be Oscar-nominated. Of course, we all know some of the movies don’t really have a chance.

Though I loved “Toy Story 3,” and I am happy to admit it tugged at my heart strings in a way that most movies don’t manage to do, I don’t really think it deserves a best picture nomination. As an animated film, its unfair to compare it to movies that have to deal with actually actors. Sure, the voices are great in “Toy Story,” but it’s really not acting in the same sense as say, Natalie Portman in “Black Swan,” or Jeff Bridges in “True Grit.

The two movies on the list that I haven’t seen yet include “127 Hours,” which is now in general release, and “Winter’s Bone.”

Of the best picture movies I have seen, my vote still goes to the one I thought should have won the Golden Globe. “The King’s Speech” was the best 2010 movie I saw, and perhaps I am biased because I’ve always loved Colin Firth in anything, but the movie was the one that seemed to tie everything together – acting, directing, screenplay – and so I think it deserves the win.

The one movie I did see that I really don’t think deserves the nomination is “The Kids Are Alright.” I know the critics loved it and all the reviews talk about how it was a movie that broke down the barriers of what it means to be a family or a married couple – but my big gripe with it remains that at its center I find it hard to believe that a lesbian woman (Julianne Moore) would just fall into bed with the first donor dad (Mark Ruffalo) that comes along. Really?

As for “Black Swan,” I have mixed feelings about it. I think Natalie Portman did a great
job as a driven ballerina, and she deserves the nod for best actress. But overall, I just didn’t really enjoy the movie. Maybe Darren Aronofsky’s deeper meaning was lost on me, or maybe I’m looking for a deeper meaning where there is none.

“The Fighter” is another movie that deserves the supporting actor nods for Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Amy Adams, but overall the movie isn’t strong enough to win the best picture nod. It feels like a story that’s been told before.

“Inception” is a story that feels completely new, even though its heart it really is a story about a man trying to get over his heartache. This movie should win for best original screenplay and art direction, but it’s not as strong a contender as some of the other films. In a field of five, this more mainstream movie probably would not have been nominated.

“The Social Network” won the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie so it’s likely to make a showing at the Oscars. The movie was good, given that it was basically about two lawsuits filed against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Director David Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin took something everyone is familiar with and gave sort of an insider’s view of how it started. I think people – and critics – like the movie because of the juxtaposition that one of the biggest ways people stay connected with friends was founded by a guy who allegedly screwed over his friends. Personally, I think Facebook is overhyped enough without the movie winning a best picture Oscar.

“True Grit” was the last movie I saw in 2010, on New Year’s Eve, and it was one of my favorites. I guess I just like Jeff Bridges as a grizzly old man. I did enjoy newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross. I don’t like westerns, and I enjoyed this movie, so maybe that’s why I think of it as a favorite. But Bridges character might have been a little too close to his turn as the alcoholic country singer in “Crazy Heart” last year to edge this into the best picture win.

For best picture, my pick is “The King’s Speech,” though I think the Academy will go with “The Social Network.”

Some thoughts on other categories:
Lead Actor – I saw three of the two movies in which people are nominated. Colin Firth is the clear lead for his turn as a stutterer in “The King’s Speech.” Not only was his stuttering superbly painful to watch, but he also showed the way in which royalty can stunt one’s emotional growth.

Supporting actor – I saw four of the five movies nominated and I think if ever Christian Bale is nominated, the Academy should just cross out all the other nominees. I’ve never seen Bale turn in a bad performance and he changes not only his appearance, but all his mannerisms when he becomes a character. According to magazine reports, residents of Lowell mistook Bale for Dickie Ecklund, the jittery boxer turned drug addict he plays in the movie. I believe it.

Lead actress – I saw only two of the five movies in this category so it’s kind of hard for me to make an informed comment on this category. I didn’t really like “The Kids Are Alright” or “Black Swan,” the movies I did see. I give the edge to Natalie Portman over Annette Bening, though Bening won the Golden Globe and is probably a shoo-in for the Oscar.

Supporting actress – I saw four of the five movies and my vote goes to Helena Bonham Carter, in “The King’s Speech.” She proved that she can play a role that is not outlandish (as she often plays in Tim Burton films) and still be phenomenal. I like Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit,” but I just don’t like that studios can campaign to have an actor in the supporting actress role instead of lead so they have a better shot at it. Steinfeld was clearly a lead actress in “True Grit,” as a main character, but the studio campaigned for her to be in the supporting character because of her age. She is still unlikely to win.

Animated feature film – I didn’t see “The Illusionist,” and I probably never will since I tried once to watch “The Triplets of Belleville” from the same creator and I just didn’t like it. “How to Train Your Dragon” is a fun film, but it’s “Toy Story 3” that really has heart.

Art direction – I don’t really know what the academy members think about when they choose best art direction, but I think “Inception” was pretty damn artful in creating dreamscapes that feel real, but are just off enough to feel like an alternate reality. The thing that makes me vote for “Inception” is that it created so many different realities, including the heartbreaking world that Cobb longs for with his wife and children.

The winners in these categories, and all the rest, will be announced Feb. 27, at 5 p.m.

Golden Globes miss the mark with two 'best' categories

2011-01-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

Award season is officially started with the Golden Globes, the awards ceremony put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press to honor work from the small and big screen.

Click on movie titles to read the movie reviews that ran in the Pinnacle newspaper.

The Golden Globes are no Oscars for a couple of reasons. First, they honor both television shows and films. Second, they divide up movies into two categories - drama and comedy/musical. It is the later with which I have some issues. I like the way the Oscars does it - all the best picture movies go into the same pool so there is only one best picture. With the Globes, you get two best pictures of the year, though one is almost inevitably better than the other. With the two categories, there are certainly movies nominated that don't really deserve the nod.

The two categories follow into the best actor, best actress, supporting and director categories, so again twice as many people are nominated as would be for the Oscars. The field would certainly be more narrow if there were just one category for all those - and though I loved "Easy A," I am not sure Emma Stone gave one of the best actress performances in 2010.

The one thing that miffed me the most at the Golden Globes is that many of the movies, actors or actresses nominated for comedy/musical didn't actually seem to be in movies that fit the category. The best picture winner was "The Kids Are Alright," a movie that critics seem to love but that I didn't really like all that much. The movie is much more of a drama, with its storyline of two teens raised by lesbians who decide they want to meet their donor dad. The donor dad disrupts the family in all kinds of crazy ways and the movie isn't very funny. If the movie had been nominated in the drama category it would not have won out.

The best actresses nominated in the comedy/musical category also seemed not to be in very funny movies. I enjoyed Anne Hathaway's "Love and Other Drugs," and it had a few funny moments but overall it was more of a melodrama than a ha-ha film. Two of the actresses (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) nominated were from "The Kids Are Alright," which I've already said I don't believe should have been dubbed a comedy. The other movies included "The Tourist" with Angelina Jolie, which I thought was an action film and the aforementioned "Easy A."

I saw four of the five movies nominated for best picture - comedy or musical and I think my vote would have gone to "Red" because it was the movie of the bunch that made me laugh the most. Helen Mirren sports semi-automatic weapons - what could be funnier than that.

For once, I saw all the movies nominated in the best picture - drama category. I enjoyed all the movies, except for "Black Swan," which I have to admit was a little "artsy" for me. Natalie Portman's acting was great, but I didn't really get or like the ending of the film. "The Social Network" won for the category and I can only imagine it was because everyone is so familiar with Facebook and hardly anyone knows someone with a stutter or a British monarch, the subject of the movie that should have won the honor. "The King's Speech" was the best of the movies I saw that were released in 2010. It turned a movie about the British monarchy and a man with a stutter into a taut movie that kept me engaged throughout. At least Colin Firth won the best actor award for his performance.

If I were to rank the best picture - drama nominees in order of my favorites it would be "The King's Speech," "Inception," "The Fighter," "The Social Network" and in a very distance last place "Black Swan."

I'll look forward to seeing how my favorite picks line up with the Oscar nominations, especially since he best picture field has been expanded to 10 since last year. I am sure a lot of the same movies will be nominated, but it will be interesting to see what of the actors/directors/actresses get dropped when the other categories drop down to only five slots.

Chewy chow mein - a new ingredient goes awry

2011-01-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

I started off my resolution to cook with five new ingredients with a recipe for vegetable chow mein. The recipe served two purposes - the first was to kick off the new year by eating some more vegetables to make up for all the junk food I ate through the holidays - and the second was to try out a new ingredient, per Resolution No. 12.

I've cooked with plenty of noodles before, mostly the kinds of dry pasta available in the dry goods aisle. Angel hair, spaghetti, penne, ziti, orzo ... get the picture. I have never cooked with chow mein noodles, which are made with a different ingredients than pasta. I bought a couple packages of fresh noodles that were in the organic refrigerator section, near the tofu and organic polenta. The directions from the recipe and on the packaging were simple enough. I was supposed to add the noodles to boiling water, separating them and cooking for three to four minutes.

But when my mom and I put the noddles into the water, instead of separate apart, they clumped together into a ball of gooey mess. Or more accurately, several balls of gooey mess. I thought we might be able to salvage the noodles by tossing them into the saute pan with the vegetables and sauce. The noddles just stayed stuck together, but worse than that they were starchy and not very palatable. The sauce, which included ginger, garlic, hoisin sauce, chicken broth and soy sauce, and the vegetables tasted great so we just picked those out and left behind the noodles.

I would try the recipe again without the noodles, or perhaps using dry noodles. I might even stop by an Asian food store in hopes are finding something better than I can get in the limited section at the grocery store.

One ingredient down, four to go.

Photo by Melissa Flores

Chow mein includes a mix of vegetables.

Trying to find some balance in the pilates studio

2011-01-11T18:48:00.000-08:00

Since last year I've wanted to take pilates. Last summer for my birthday my parents actually gave me a gift certificate to do some pilates lessons with a trainer at Snap Fitness, the gym where I work out. But I ended up using it for the first of many boot camp sessions and since I liked the boot camp, I stuck with that.

The trainer I work with opened a yoga and pilates studio a few months ago and I had been meaning to check out one of the classes at her place, Invoke Yoga and Pilates Studio, in Gilroy. The classes are $15 each for drop in, or $130 for 10 prepaid classes. But I still didn't manage to stop by to try out either the yoga or pilates classes. So I had it in my head that I should make it a New Year's resolution to at least try one of the classes out (Resolution No. 1.)

Then around the holidays my trainer offered me a free session on the reformer, the machine that was originally adapted by Joseph Pilates to help WWII soldiers recuperate from injuries. And then the same week, my company offered employees a choice of membership at several local gyms or fitness centers as our annual Christmas gift. Invoke Yoga and Pilates was one of the options to take a class once a week for a year. It seemed like I had no excuses left.

So last Thursday I made a point to stop for the pilates class at 6 p.m., to be followed by a one-on-one hour session on the reformer with my trainer. I wasn't sure what to expect of the class, but I dressed in my regular gym clothes and brought a bottle of water. The yoga mats were provided and there was only one other person there for class which made it less stressful for a first session. For class, we did a variety of stretches and exercises from a standing position and lying down on the mat. The only equipment we needed was the mat and some rubber bands to add resistance to some of the movements. Some of the exercises were familiar from my boot camp class, since it is with the same trainer. I had no problems with the ab work or the arm work, though I was surprised at how much some of the simple movements could make my muscles tired without lifting any muscles, just due to the number of repetitions.

My biggest challenge in the class were some of the balance exercises. I am not very coordinated and I am not very good at anything that requires balance. So when the trainer had us get into downward facing dog pose, I was fine - until she asked us to lift one foot off the ground and then one arm ... It was about then that I started to topple over. There was one other pose with arms out and one leg lifted that was also tough for me. But I am confident if I keep going to the class every Thursday, I will see the same improvements I've seen in the exercises I do regularly in boot camp. And perhaps the best thing about pilates is that the slow, controlled movements are much more relaxing than the high-energy boot camp. It's a nice way to workout in the late evening.

So after my classmate departed, the trainer pulled out the reformer. The machine has a bench that slides back and forth, as well as some straps that can be wrapped around the feet or hands. Underneath the bench are different springs that can be adjusted to increase the resistance. It's kind of hard to describe, but this video shows some examples of exercises that can be done. I went throw several sets of exercises for legs, arms and the core. The best thing about the reformer was the ability to get some really good stretches that are nearly impossible to get on my own. It did feel a little weird doing some of the exercises because I was not quite sure how the machine would move, even though the trainer demonstrated each exercise for me. Overall, the two hours left me exhausted, but I wasn't really too sore the next day. I did have a little bit of a dull ache in most of my muscles the next day, the sign of a good work out.

The trainer offers one-on-one sessions with the reformer but for now I am going to stick with the class. I can't wait to go to class again this Thursday.

Another year, another round of resolutions

2011-01-02T17:24:00.001-08:00

Until last year, I was never one for resolutions. But when I sent out a bunch of goals for myself last year - mostly ones that would be fun to complete - it was kind of cool to have something to work for all year outside of work stuff.

So this year, I wanted to set out to complete another batch of resolutions. Some of them are the ones I didn't get to last year, such as learning to make gnocchi or cleaning out the garage. Others are ones that I completed successfully last year, but that I'd like to try again such as cooking with new ingredients and eating out at new restaurants. It was a nice touch to get me to try new things, since I tend to be a creature of habit. The first part of the list are new things I'd like to do this year, and I am sure I will continue to add to it in the next few weeks. But for now here is the list as I start out with 2011.

1.) Take pilates.

This one should be easy enough to complete since my company's Christmas bonus to us is a membership to a yoga/pilates studio where I can take one class a week for a year. Plus, the instructor of a boot camp class I take at my gym, who happens to work at the pilates studio, is offering me a free session of pilates. I'm hoping to add pilates in as a regular part of my workout routine.

2.) Work up to a five-mile run.

I successfully completed a 5K run last year and went on to run in two more throughout the year. I love the challenge of trying to beat my time each time and I would eventually like to work up to a 10K. But for now, I will try to get past the 4-mile mark, which is the furthest distance I've ever run at one time.

3.) Plant a new type of vegetable in my garden.

I don't really have the greenest thumb, but I'd like to try growing something in addition to tomatoes and basil. I'm not sure what I'll put in, but when spring comes around I will check out what kind of transplants are available at local stores.

4.) Take a day trip to San Francisco.
I've lived in the Bay Area all my life, but I rarely make it up to San Francisco. There are things I've never done there, such as visiting Alcatraz Island or seeing the museums in Golden Gate Park so this year I'll make a point to get up to the city more often.

5.) Learn to make gnocchi from scratch.

This is a resolution left over from last year and hopefully I will complete it this year - as soon as my aunt is free to teach me how to make the potato gnocchi that is the family recipe. I'd also like to learn to make a basil potato gnocchi my cousin made for the holidays.

6.) Watch all the Academy Award best picture winners.

I didn't make any progress on this one because I was too busy watch old TV shows on DVD and Netflix instant play. I vow to start watching some of the best pictures this year - before another one is added to the list with the 2010 Academy Awards.

7.) Clean out the garage.
I didn't work on this because, well, cleaning out the garage is just not an attractive chore. But I would still like to make some progress on getting rid of some of the things in my parent's garage this year and de-clutter the house a little bit.

8.) Write a short story.
I wrote a few things that could count as short stories, but nothing really felt complete to me. I'd like to continue to write some fiction stories since it's something I really enjoyed when I was younger.

9.) Scan old photos of family and friends.
We have storage bins full of photos in my house and I'd like to scan them - not necessarily to post on Facebook. It just seems like a good idea to scan some of the old photos before the quality degrades anymore and it would make it easier to share them with people.

10.) Read 10 new books.
I finished off this resolution easily last year, but I did enjoy reading a lot of different things in 2010. I actually read two more books after completing the resolution. This year, I'd like to make a point to read some lighter fare since a lot of what I read last year seemed to be pretty serious and dark. Perhaps I'll try out some New York Times bestsellers.

11.) Take a class.
Last year I took a cupcake decorating class. This year I'd like to take something else, though I am not sure what. I might check out other cooking classes offered through the local community college or Sur La Table, which offers classes on the weekends.

12.) Cook with five new ingredients.
This resolution last year helped me discover a few things I really like, such as roasted root vegetables, and some things I really disliked, such as quinoa. But all in all, it was a great chance to try some new things and I'd like to do it again. I haven't identified what new ingredients I want to use, but I am sure I'll be able to find five things I haven't used before since I am such a picky eater.

13.) Eat at five new restaurants.
I really liked trying out new places last year and found some restaurants I really liked - though some are far-flung in Indiana or San Diego. I did find some new places nearby that I liked and I am hoping to visit a few new places in 2011.

14.) Keep up the gym routines.
I did really well with keeping up my gym routine -which included running, weight training and other exercise machines five or six days a week, yoga three times a week and walking the dog in the morning every day of the week. I even signed up for a boot camp class at my gym that meets twice a week and pretty much kicks my butt. For the last two months, I know I've gotten a little lax with my workouts because of the holidays, a prolonged cold and spending time with someone, so now that the holidays and the cold are gone, I'd like to refocus on the routine.

Top 10 movies of 2010

2010-12-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

Every year, I look back at all the films I reviewed in the Weekend Pinnacle’s “Movie Lines” column. Each year, I am shocked at the number of movies I see in the theater and the number I also see on DVD or on TV. In 2010, I saw at least 45 movies in the theater and reviewed a handful more that were already out on DVD.

It was no surprise to me that a few of my favorite movies that I saw in early 2010 were actually 2009 releases. The top of the list includes “Crazy Heart,” “Up in the Air,” and “Invictus.” But since this is a list of the best movies released in 2010, I’ll leave those off and hope that I will have a chance to see some of the Oscar-buzz fare that is just now coming into wild release. For now, here is my top 10 of 2010, based on the few dozen films I had a chance to see.

10.) The Other Guys
This is the one “guy” movie that makes my list. Why? Because Mark Wahlberg is really funny and paired with Will Ferrell, I laughed more at this movie than any other movie I saw this year. Was it a good movie? Not really. Was it predictable? Yeah, pretty much. But it made me laugh as Wahlberg and Ferrell work together as two misfit cops who are the only ones who can unravel a mystery. Michael Keaton also earns a few laughs as their Captain, who moonlights at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

9.) Red
“Red” is another movie that isn’t really good, but I just can’t resist Helen Mirren toting a semi-automatic weapon. She’s played the Queen Mum and Tolstoy’s wife – now she is a former covert agent who knows her way around espionage. Mirren’s role in the movie is small, but still worth a watch. Bruce Willis is the lead character, a retired CIA agent who is the target of an attempted assassination, who tries to figure out who and why someone would want to kill him. His cohorts include John Malkovich, who always plays the crazy guy, and Morgan Freeman, as the distinguished martyr. Mary-Louise Parker plays Willis’ love interest who sticks by his side despite an unorthodox first meeting.

8.) The Fighter
Anything with Christian Bale is bound to be good and “The Fighter,” is a good movie that went a little awry into melodrama for me. The movie is about Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg,) a working class guy from Massachusetts who has his sights set on being a champion boxer. The biggest thing holding Ward back is his family, which includes an overbearing mother (played by Melissa Leo) and half brother Dicky Ecklund (Bale), who is more interested in getting his next score than training his younger brother. Amy Adams turns up as Micky’s girlfriend in a role that couldn’t be farther from her turn in “Enchanted.” There are no fairy princesses in this movie, though there are a slew of evil older sisters in the form of Micky and Dicky’s seven sisters who chime in together once in a while.

The movie is touching in that it is based on a true story, but the caricatures of the sisters and the melodrama between Micky’s family members just held it back a bit.

7.) La Mission
I might just like “La Mission” so much because I saw it at the Cinequest Film Festival in March, got to walk up some stars next to Benjamin Bratt, who certainly didn’t look in my direction, at the California Theatre before it screened, and heard the filmmaker talk in depth about it. In some ways, the movie reminds me of the more recent release “The Fighter,” but without all the melodrama. The thing that made the movie work is that all the heavy scenes in it are balanced with just the right amount of humor. Peter Bratt directed brother Benjamin Bratt in the film about a recovering alcoholic and former jailbird who is trying his best to raise his son on the straight and narrow in the Mission district of San Francisco. The problem is Che’s son Jesse (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is a great kid, but he’s gay, something that his father’s machismo won’t let him accept. The movie follows Che as he struggles with his pride and his desire to love his son.

6.) Easy A
As with romantic comedies, the pure comedy genre has also had its share of misses in recent years. I saw quite a few movies with what I would describe as “guy humor,” including “Due Date,” “Dinner for Schmucks” and “Cop Out.” The movies combined low-brow humor with lame plots and ended up less than entertaining. So perhaps it’s no surprise that my favorite comedy wasn’t a “guy comedy.”

“Easy A” is about a high school teen who finds her popularity increasing as she gets an undeserved reputation for being easy. She helps the nerds and geeks at her school by pretending to have relations with them to increase their social standing, but she soon finds her own status plummeting. Emma Stone plays the lead role in the film. It is witty and clever in a way that reminded me of my favorite ’80s teen comedies, and there is even a sequence in it that pays homage to John Hughes.

5.) It’s Kind of a Funny Story
Every once in a while I will see a movie that is sort of under the radar that really surprises me. This year it was “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” It was the one movie with Zach Galifianakis that I actually liked this year and that is probably because he didn’t play is typical type. In it, he is a mentor of sorts to Craig (Keir Gilchrist,) a teenager who checks himself into a mental hospital and then immediately has second thoughts about it. While Bobby (Galifianakis) has real problems, Craig’s issues seem to pale in comparison. He just gets stressed about his schoolwork and anxious about his future. Even Noelle (Emma Roberts,) another teen in the hospital seems to have worse problems than Craig, as the bandages on her wrists attest. Gilchrist is sweetly likeable and comes into his own in a way he hasn’t yet on the Showtime series “The United States of Tara,” in which he stars as the gay son of a woman with multiple personalities (it’s a comedy, in case you couldn’t guess that.) Galifianakis is likeable as a mentally ill man who is trying to take the first small steps of starting over. The movie stays light most of the time, though it is dealing with serious stuff and it makes it understandable that even the best of us might sometimes need a little mental break from life.

4.) The Social Network
A movie about a corporate lawsuit has a lot against it in creating the kind of tension that keeps a film interesting. But “The Social Network” works nonetheless. The biopic follows Mark Zuckerberg as he creates the social phenomena we all know as Facebook. Luckily the movie doesn’t focus on the computer geek programming a bunch of code, but on the ways that he may or may not have screwed over friends and acquaintances on his way to the top. Jesse Eisenberg is perfectly awkward as the Harvard student turned Internet start-up owner and Andrew Garfield is well placed as his best friend and first investor. Justin Timberlake also proves that he has enough acting chops to make it in the business, with his turn as the creator of Napster, Sean Parker. The movie moves back and forth in time, between Zuckerberg’s time on campus and during the early stages of Facebook to the time period when he was facing two lawsuits. At the very least, it was interesting to watch one interpretation of how Zuckerberg got to the top and created something that people embraced so thoroughly in just a number of years.

3.) Babies
I’ll admit I don’t see a lot of documentaries. If I want to see a documentary, I am much more likely to see it when it comes out on DVD. Part of that is because documentaries aren’t very likely to play around Gilroy. But it’s also because a lot of documentaries can be dry and depressing, as was the case with “Waiting for Superman,” which chronicles issues with public school education. But there was one documentary that was a joy to watch and that was last year’s almost dialogue-less “Babies.” The filmmakers picked four families to follow through the first year of birth from different countries. The babies came from Africa, Mongolia, San Francisco and Japan. The parents’ lifestyles are all drastically different, but the movie really shows are similar the human experience can be as each baby takes the same milestones of crawling, talking and walking in stride. The thing I liked the most about the movies is how loved and content all the babies seemed to be, no matter where they lived.

2.) Toy Story 3
I am a sucker for a cartoon that can make me feel real emotions and this year’s “Toy Story 3” did just that. Of course, it is a Disney Pixar movie, and the filmmakers are masters at creating children’s fare that appeals to adults. Just remember 2009’s “Up,” which had grown men crying in the theater. “Toy Story 3” is the last in the trilogy and it’s been quite a while since movie No. 2 came out. Andy is all grown up and ready to head off to college. But before he leaves, he has to clean out all the childhood things he doesn’t want or need anymore. Andy quickly picks Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) to come with him to college, but the fate of the other toys is less certain. The toys end up on another journey, but the thing about the movie is that it creates an emotional response for anyone who has put aside childish things as they grew up.

1.) Inception
A lot of movies I saw this year were bad or just mediocre, but there was one movie that stood above all the rest for me. I had high expectations for the film, which I know from experience can often lead to disappointment. But when I heard the director who was behind “Memento,” a twisted mystery thriller starring Guy Pearce, and the much lauded “The Dark Knight,” I knew I wanted to see “Inception.”

Christopher Nolan directed this more recent twisted story that had me still guessing what had really happened even after it ended. Leonard DiCaprio leads the cast as a master manipulator of dreams. Using high-tech equipment he and his crew of dream bandits can go into someone’s dreams and find their secrets. But when he is hired to perform inception, the act of planting an entirely new idea in someone’s mind, he and his crew have to go more layers deep than they have gone before. I am not sure that I really understood the movie, but it is one of those movies I want to watch again and again. The movie also had a profound effect on me, apparently, since I had some crazy dreams for a few weeks after seeing it. Now that it is out on DVD and Blu-ray, I am looking forward to watching it a few more times and seeing if I can find any new answers to the puzzle Nolan created.

A year in the making - 19 resolutions set and 15 squared away

2010-12-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

There are a couple years left of the year, but the truth is I know I won't complete any of the resolutions that aren't already done. And the great thing about a new year is that it offers 356 new days to tackle the items that are left and to add some new ones.

When I started this list of resolutions early this year I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone a little bit as well as get back to some things I really enjoy, but for which I don't always make the time. The list was also sort of a back up plan in a ways because the one thing I really wanted last year was to get a fellowship to study at Stanford, which I knew was a long shot. I thought the list would be a way to distract myself if the fellowship didn't come through, which it didn't.

I finished a lot of the resolutions, such as eating at five new restaurants and cooking with five new ingredients, early on in the year. Others took a lot longer to accomplish, like going on a date. Still others have yet to come to fruition - like clean out the garage. For the resolutions I didn't complete, I'll carry them over to next year. And there are some I did complete that I'd like to keep as a reminder to try new things next year. In the next few weeks. I'll spend some time thinking about new things I might want to add to the list, just to keep things fresh next year. Look for an updated list soon after the New Year.

For now, here is a recap of how things went so far in 2010:

1.) Read 10 new books
I actually just finished an 11th book a couple days ago - an early work by the author of "Bridget Jones Diary," "Cause Celeb" just wasn't quite as endearing as the later works to come.

Some of the books were by authors I know well, such as Nick Hornby. Others were by people I'd heard of, but never read before such as Chuck Palahniuk. I found that I have a habit of picking books on the serious side, so maybe next year a resolution will be to find a little lighter reading through the year.

Other reads included:
Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang
Lullabye by Chuck Palahniuk
Click by multiple authors
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
Passing for Thin by Francine Kuffel
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
A Version of the Truth by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

2.) Eat at five new restaurants - I ate at more than five new restaurants this year and I am proud of myself for getting out of the regular routines of going to the same, old restaurants. The list is longer than what I have below, and includes some places I tried while on vacation in San Diego as well as a great breakfast place in San Jose called Bill's Cafe that has eggs Benedict served up in unique ways. This is a resolution I'd like to carry over into next year, especially since I still haven't gone to the fancy Los Gatos restaurant that inspired the resolution in the first place.

Rosy's at the Beach -Morgan Hill
Pluto's - Santana Row
Village Bistro - Santana Row
Lizarran Tapas Selectas - Gilroy
Knife and Fork Cafe - Hollister
The Mucky Duck - Monterey
Brickhouse Burger Company - Indianapolis - okay, this place has a pretzel bun for their burgers - enough said.
Champp's - Indianapolis
Kona Jack's - Indianapolis
Aqui - Campbell
Satura Cakes - Campbell

3.) Make homemade ravioli
The homemade ravioli should have been simple - had the pasta maker I have at home not been broken. Pasta is not meant to be rolled out by hand with a rolling pin so my ravioli were a little bit thicker and tougher than they should have been. But they still tasted good, especially with the homemade sauce.

5.) Take a trip somewhere (other than Indiana)
Now I thought this resolution was going to be complete in May, when I booked a flight to Denver and made plans to stay with someone I knew there. But it didn't work out and I ended up cancelling that part of the trip. I did, however, make two trips to Indiana two months in a row. The first was to surprise a good friend at her bridal shower/bachelorette party. She was surprised when I showed up at her house in a rental car. It was a whirlwind trip, where I flew in on a redeye and back out early the next morning, without any time to sleep. It was exhausting, but worth it to be with my friend and the rest of the wedding party. I flew back for the wedding and it was worth it.

Now for my trip somewhere other than Indiana, I spent a few days in San Diego to see my cousin graduate from marine boot camp. The extra time was spent visiting the San Diego Zoo and scoping out Old Town San Diego. One of the great finds on the trip was some artisan olive oil and vinegars from Temecula Olive Oil Company. In fact, the stuff is so good, we hardly want to use it because we have such a limited supply. It can be ordered online, so I might have to order some more.

6.) Cook recipes with five ingredients I haven't used before
Hoisin sauce - This tangy sauce is perfect with chicken, though a friend of mine argued that it doesn't really count as an ingredient. I think it did.
Swiss chard - This vegetable can be sauteed and served alone, or added into pasta dishes. It has plenty of healthy ingredients, though I prefer the regular chard to rainbow chard, because the latter tastes a bit bitter to me.
Quinoa - This seed has is a complete protein, but it was something I couldn't stomach. I am not sure if it was just the way I prepared it or if I had a bad batch. Whatever it is, the experience turned my stomach and now just seeing photos of quinoa makes me queasy.
Celery root - This root vegetable is perfect roasted in the oven with a little bit of olive oil. It was one of several new root vegetables I tried this year, and it's about time to cook some up again.
Golden beets - Until shit year, I had never cooked beets at home. For people who have only had canned beets, the fresh variety roasted in the oven is an epiphany. The vegetables and sweet and complex, and so worth the time of making them oneself.

8.) Write a short story - I actually wrote a few things, though I am not sure if they are complete yet so I don't really know whether to call this one done. I plan to continue working on this pieces of started and try to find time to start some new ones.

9.) Go on a date - I actually end up going on more than one date, with more than one person, in addition to a few kinda, sort of date situations. But at least last month, I went out with someone when I knew for sure it was a date and had a good time.

10.) Apply for a fellowship - I applied for the Knight Fellowship early in the year, and was disappointed when I got the news early in February that I had not made it past the first round of the application process. It's one of those things I could apply for again, but part of me feels like I was applying because I felt really stuck where I was and I didn't know what else to do. I'd love an opportunity like this in the future, but for next year I'm happy with where I am with the paper for which I work.

11.) Quit farmville - I had to give it up cold turkey - though I still received requests from family and friends for quite sometime. No more FB games for me. I can't do it.

12.) Take a class - I took a cupcake decorating class and I wasn't very good at it. I don't think I will be decorating many cupcakes, and in fact, except for the plethora of baking around the holidays, I don't really like to bake all that much. I will be using one of the tips I got, however, of using an offset spatula when I bake a cake for Christmas. Hopefully I can get the cake to look decent since I have a bad history with them not turning out quite like I'd like them to.

I'd like to keep this resolution again for next year, even if it is just a cooking class.

14.) Keep up the gym routines - I've been to the gym once in the last week - due to a cold that morphed into a sinus infection - but I am proud to report that since January, with the exception of this week, I have been an avid gym-goer with a record of five to six trips a week. I run everyday I go, I weight train, I ride the bike and I use the elliptical. At the end of August, I even started taking a boot camp class twice a week and it really seemed to add intensity to my workout. When I first started, I would be sore for days after class, from the squats and lunges and crunches, but it all started to get a lot easier and I started to see the difference in myself.

It helps that I have family who go with me a few times a week to keep me motivated from skipping all the time. And I love having a nike sensor that tracks my mileage for me so I know how far I've gone - since July I've run or walked more than 300 miles! I feel healthier, less stressed out at work and just feel better overall. It's a resolution I definitely plan to continue over to next year.

15.) Decide on what kind of car I want - My parents bought a car and I got their old car so I didn't really have to decide what I wanted. It worked out pretty well for me.

16.) Enter (and complete) a 5K run/walk
I entered my first 5K in March and was glad just not to be the last one in. My time was a mediocre 41+ minutes. But I kept running at the gym and entered another 5K in May, and one in October. For my last 5K, I came in just over 34 minutes, a vast improvement from my original time. Now, with the exception of the last week or so when I've been pretty sick, I run 1.5 miles five days a week and tackle a longer 3.5 mile run once a week. It's something I hope to continue to do, with the goal of whittle my time down a little for each 5K I enter.

18.) Have tulips or lilies in my garden
I missed the winter planting time for tulips last year, but I did buy some transplants when they were available at a local hardware store in early spring. This year, I am hoping to get some bulbs in the ground early in the year in hopes that they might bloom on their own in spring. I haven't had much luck with bulbs in the past, but I can always try.

19.) Make homemade pasta sauce (entirely from scratch)
This resolution turned out to be a lot of work. With my mom's help, I roasted a bunch of tomatoes, only to get about 1/2 a cup of tomato sauce to use in the pasta sauce. It was tasty, but required a lot of work, especially since a glass pan exploded in the oven with the first batch of tomatoes, which then had to be thrown out.

To be continued next year:
4.) Learn my aunt's gnocchi recipe - My aunt has promised to show me the recipe early next year, so hopefully this will be in the bag soon enough. On the other hand, I did learn to make spinach gnocchi, which was a tasty and pretty easy meal to prepare.

7.) Watch all the Academy Award best picture winners - With this one, the truth is I was just watching too many movies in the theater and too many TV shows on DVD at home. I watched the complete series of Criminal Minds, the Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia so that took up a lot of time. I rented "Hurt Locker" with someone once, but we didn't actually watch it so this is still one to work on next year, preferably before a new best picture is added to the list.

13.) Scan old photos of family and friends - I never got around to this one, but I'd still like to work on it for next year. I did print out some digital photos for my family, however, since my aunt wanted to know how to get "normal" pictures.

17.) Clean out the garage - My mom did some work on the garage on days when I wasn't home, but this one needs to get done but always ends up a last priority. So next year, I'll keep this on the list.

Resolutions No. 4 and 9 collide - gnocchi and a dinner date

2010-12-08T20:07:00.001-08:00

When I started my resolutions last year, I thought some of them would be harder to complete than others. I thought making gnocchi (resolution No. 4) with my aunt would be easy enough. I told her I wanted to learn the recipe about six months ago and I mentioned it when I saw her for family gatherings throughout the year. But as the holidays rolled around, she has been busy with work and when she made gnocchi for a cousin who was home from marine boot camp, I happened to be out of town that day so I couldn't help. But she's promised to show me the recipe in January so I'll still get around to it.

But I did make gnocchi this year even though it wasn't my family's traditional gnocchi recipe. And strangely enough the gnocchi-making was tied to another resolution. I made a resolution to go on one date this year (No. 9.) And this is one of the resolutions I thought would be hardest to complete since it required someone else to make it happen.

I had a couple "was it or wasn't it a date" experiences earlier in the year and though my coworker insists that if the guy pays, its' a date, I didn't agree. The whole dating thing just seemed like a lot of work most of the year as I asked my friends to set me up on blind dates and tried other ways to meet people.

I needed something clear cut to clear the resolution. So when my sister's girlfriend asked if she could set me up on a blind date I agreed. I met the guy for coffee, and since it was a short 30 min. meeting at Starbucks, it didn't really feel like a date. But we followed up with dinner, so I figured that must count as a date. The thing is, when dinner was over after an hour, I was ready to go.

But a few weeks later, I made plans with another guy. We had lunch together, and when lunch was over, I wasn't ready to go. We walked around Santana Row. And when we'd walked around there for a while, he asked if I wanted to rent a movie and hang out some more. And I found I did want to spend more time with him. And after I left, I knew wanted to make plans with him again.

So a couple weeks later when he offered to make me dinner, I knew it was a date. And I really knew it was a date when I arrived and he was preparing to make homemade spinach gnocchi instead of pasta from a box with a jar of sauce (which is what I expected.) If he was trying to impress me, it worked. He did most of the work, though I offered to help. The gnocchi recipe is not much like the one my family makes which uses potatoes since it used spinach, parmesan cheese, flour and eggs to make the gnocchi. The only thing that was similar was the shape of the dumplings. I had a hand in putting in a few of the ingredients into the gnocchi mixture and I helped roll them into dumplings, though he did most of the work. I brought garlic bread and a bottle of my favorite wine. The recipes are definitely ones I would use again and it was nice to share a meal with someone else on what was clearly a date.

A literary endeavor

2010-11-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

I finished reading "Hunger," by Lan Samantha Chang on Sunday marking the completion of resolution No. 1 to read 1o books this year. The short story collection by Chang includes stories that emphasize the isolation of the immigrant experience - from other colleagues, from neighbors and even from their own children. My favorite story was the title one, "Hunger," about a woman, her husband and her two daughters. The story is the longest one in the book, coming in at just over 100 pages, but her characters are as developed as if it were a full-length novel. The stories struck a chord with me as they stressed how the same people can experience the same things in such a different way. Though I am a second generation American, the stories did make me wonder what it was like for my grandfather when he arrived from Italy speaking no English, or for my father's parents who immigrated from Mexico as children. Though Chang's story is about Chinese immigrants, it seems that there would be some similarities to the experiences.

Book No. 9 was "Lullaby" by Chuck Palahniuk. The author is perhaps best known for writing "Fight Club," which was adapted into a pretty cool movie with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. I'd never read any of his stuff, but I'd been warned that is writing is pretty dark. "Lullaby" is about a journalist who is assigned to write a series on crib death. As he goes to each crime scene, he finds an unusual connection at each of the homes. They all have a book of lullabies and the books are open to the same page. Little by little, the author reveals that the journalist knows has seen the book before - the night his own daughter and wife died. It's a culling spell - a poem that has the power to kill off those who hear it. The crux of the story is what the journalist chooses to do about it - use it to eliminate anyone who annoys him or rid the world of all the copies. In Palahniuk's world, everything is pretty complicated. The writing style was easy to read and the characters were well developed, but the actions of the characters is far from pleasant.

Book No. 8 was "Click," which has multiple authors. Proceeds from the book all went to Amnesty International, but the only reason I was drawn to the book is that some of the chapters were written by some of my favorite authors, including Nick Hornby and Roddy Doyle. The book has 10 authors who each write one chapter of the book. The book starts out focused on Maggie and Jason, two American kids who have just lost their grandfather. But from there the book scans continents and decades. My favorite chapters were those by Hornby and Doyle, whose writing in the chapters was similar to their writing in books I've written by them. I didn't like some of the chapters at the end, including one by Gregory Maguire, who is known for rewriting classic fairytales such as his novel "Wicked." Those chapters went a little too far into the realm of sci-fi for me and they didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. Most of the chapters, however, felt surprisingly cohesive. At the least, the book is an interesting experiment.

Book No. was "Bog Child" by Siobhan Dowd. I was drawn to those book, which is a young adult novel, because it was set Northern Ireland. I studied there when I was in college and I'm always interested in reading books or seeing movies based on the emerald isle. The novel is set during the Troubles, the era in Northern Ireland with the most violence. I've read a lot about the Troubles, but its hard to whittled down into a simple explanation. That is one of the problems with Dowd's book - anyone who doesn't know about it might be a little lost with the book. The main character is Fergus, a high school student who is studying for his A levels, the British test students take to get into college. He wants to be a doctor and get away from his small village. More than anything he wants to get away from the cause his older brother has embraced. His brother is a member of the Irish Republican Army, a radical group that for many years tried to fight for independence for Northern Ireland, which was under rule of Great Britain. His brother is in prison on a hunger strike. The book focuses less on the political strife, however, than on Fergus' studying for his A levels, running and falling for a girl who visits his village for the summer. The story was a little bit too simple, but then again it was written for young adults.

Now that I've finished my goal for the books, I can start tackling the stack of "New Yorkers" that have backed up - all the way back to June.

A trip to Sunny San Diego

2010-11-26T13:16:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is just past and that's a sign that 2010 is winding down. That also means my deadline to finish up my 19 resolutions is fast approaching. But unlike the news business where missing a deadline means the paper not getting out on time, life is a much more flexible endeavor.

I have actually finished quite a few of the resolutions and I am close to finishing some of them, though I haven't been that diligent about reporting on them. And I will continue to work on some of the resolutions I have completed, but for now here is a recap of one that is done.

I took a trip somewhere other than Indiana (Resolution No. 5). Last week I took some time off work to head to San Diego for my cousin's graduation from Marine boot camp. My parents and I went down a couple days in advance so we could stroll around the San Diego Historical Park, visit the San Diego Zoo and eat out at a few good restaurants. For anyone heading to Old Town San Diego, I recommend the Old Town Mining Company, which recently opened. I had an awesome burger there as well as a tasty vanilla wafer (a twist on the classic white Russian made with vanilla vodka.) The service was good and the meal was reasonably priced. Avoid the Acapulco restaurant. The mojito was made with Sierra Mist, instead of real lime juice, the service was slow and the food was just so-so.

The biggest stress of the trip was renting a mid-size SUV. I drive a Saturn, which is not a big car. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It's easy to navigate into parking spaces. The Suzuki Vitara I rented from Budget had the benefit of being high off the ground so I could see easily, but I also had no feel for how much space I actually needed to switch lanes or park it. To exacerbate things, I planned to use the GPS feature on my MyTouch phone during the trip. But San Diego roads around downtown and Old Town are just weird. The GPS kept giving us strange directions and heading us in circles. Luckily, the amount of driving on the trip was limited, and as for parking, I just parked far away from other cars.

The main purpose of the trip, however, was to see my cousin graduate from Marine boot camp so much of the trip was spent at the Marine Recruit Depot. It was great to see my younger cousin, for whom I started babysitting when he was only four months old and I was 12, look so grown up and mature. It was a busy, and tiring trip, but worth it.

Picky eaters something to be studied

2010-09-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

Duke University's Medical School is conducting an interesting survey online of adults who are picky eaters. According to the blurb on their website, "Most people have foods that they dislike or will not eat. However, for some people, unusual or picky eating leads to distress or problems."

I've been told by many people that I am a picky eater. Friends and co-workers like to point out when I say I don't like something, which apparently I do a lot out at restaurants or when talking about meals.

Even though I write a food column each week in the Life section of the Weekend Pinnacle, I am certainly not adventurous in what I eat. Anyone who reads the column on a regular basis will probably notice the almost complete absence of seafood recipes. It's not something I eat, so it's not something I cook and it's not something I write about. Others who know me personally will also know that anytime a recipe calls for dark chicken meat, I substitute white meat. If it has bell peppers, I pick them out of my serving. If it calls for jalapenos, I leave them out or substitute in a milder pepper. I don't eat tofu, eggplant, zucchini or anything that has an unpalatable mushy texture. I avoid pork chops, pork shoulder, pork tenderloin but am totally fine with pork sausage and ham.

The main things that make something not appealing to me are texture and smell. The smell of curry is enough to make me nauseous and the smell of fish is equally appalling.

I don't eat anything that comes out of the water - except perhaps rice. That includes fish, shellfish, seaweed and anything else someone might come up with. The last time I ate fish I was probably 7 years old and it was probably a tuna fish sandwich at my grandparents' house. I've had friends who have tried to cure me of my dislike of fish. I tried a bite of teriyaki mahi mahi once at a restaurant. It tasted good - but it still brought about a gag reflex and made me lose my appetite. I tried a tiny taste of fish in South Africa at a friend's insistence and again the gag reflex kicked in. He said he didn't realize I actually have a physical reaction to it and asked me to never try fish again. A few years ago I ate a stuffed mushroom that a friend assured me had to crab in it. I swallowed it and ended up sick for days - which perhaps could have been a food allergy but since I never ate shellfish I didn't know about it.

So I thought I might be a candidate for the survey and decided to take it a few days ago. It's sort of the first step in gathering information so there is no long-term commitment to follow up studies or any requirement to taste test things in front of researchers. Once I started taking the survey, I realized that perhaps I am not as picky an eater as I thought. The questions include things about avoiding social situations or not going to restaurants.

I will admit that I do dislike potlucks because I don't like eating dishes when I don't know exactly what is in them. But it is also because I think a lot of people just aren't very good cooks. When I do have to go to potlucks, I generally stick to what I brought and scout out a few other safe dishes. If I am going to a new restaurant, I do check out the menu on the Web site to ensure there is something I like. There almost always is, unless it is a seafood restaurant. So I wouldn't say I stay out of situations because of picky eating habits.

It does ask if you lie to people about your eating habits and I emphatically say no. I am open about all the things I don't like to eat so people know not to offer them to me.

I did try to break out of some of my pickiness this year by making resolutions to eat at five new restaurants and to cook with five new ingredients. I did get a few ingredients I liked, but I also got one that I will never use again. When I made quinoa at the beginning of the year halfway through dinner the gag reflex kicked in and I couldn't finish my plate. Now the sight of quinoa turns my stomach so I've added that to the lengthy list of things I don't eat.

Homemade tomato sauce and ravioli offers quite a challenge

2010-09-13T19:15:00.000-07:00

It wasn't easy but New Year's Resolutions No. 3 and 19 are now complete. The task involved dozens of tomatoes, an explosion of glass in the oven, a broken pasta maker, and eventually a tasty meal.

The resolutions were to make homemade ravioli and pasta sauce, neither of which I've done before. I have made linguine and angel hair pasta so I figured it would be easy enough to use the same basic recipe to make sheets of pasta that could be folded over into raviolis. For the filling, I wanted something simple such as ricotta, Parmesan cheese and herbs mixed together.

I figured the complicated part of the meal would be the pasta sauce since I wanted to make it as much from scratch as possible. That meant starting with a homemade tomato sauce that would be slow-roasted in the oven. Back in the spring, I planted three Roma tomato plants specifically with my eye on the prize of homemade tomato sauce. But the weather did not cooperate this summer. While I have tons of cherry tomatoes, we only had a dozen or so small, misshapened Roma tomatoes.

So on Saturday, I went to the Morgan Hill farmers market and bought a bunch of vine-ripened tomatoes. They were expensive, but looked delicious. With help from my mom, I spent Labor Day chopping garlic, herbs and slicing tomatoes. The tomato sauce recipe called for slow-roasting the vegetables with olive oil, garlic, onion and other herbs for two and half hours in a glass baking dish.

Once everything was in the oven, the house started to smell like a pizza with the mix of tomato, garlic, oregano and thyme. But at 15 minutes, there was a loud explosion in the kitchen, like nothing I've ever heard before. At first I assumed the cats had climbed on the counter and knocked something done, but as smoke started coming from the oven we knew it was something more. One of the glass pans had shattered inside the oven, leaving none of the three pans of tomatoes viable.

We had to wait for the oven to cool off before we could start cleaning it up. My mom took the lead on the clean up and went out to the store to buy some more tomatoes. These tomatoes were smaller than the ones from the market and not as ripe. My mom prepped batch No. 2 and put them in metal pans we knew would not explode. At the 15-minute mark, there were no explosions so we figured we were okay.

As the cooking time neared an end, we heated up a deep skillet with olive oil, then tossed in onion and garlic. Into the mix went ground beef, fresh mushrooms and eventually the strained tomato sauce. The recipe called for using a food mill, which I don't own. So I put the roasted tomatoes into a wire mesh strainer and squished out as much liquid as possible. Out of 24 tomatoes, we ended up with 1/2 to 3/4 c. of liquid - not so much for all that effort. To the sauce, we added a cup of white wine and two large beefsteak tomatoes, diced. In the end, I broke down and added just a little tomato paste left over from a meal earlier in the week. The sauce smelled and tasted excellent.

The next step was making the raviolis. I started mixing up chopped basil, chopped spinach, ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese for the filling. As my mom was working near the stove, she accidentally knocked over a bottle of balsamic vinegar, that then shattered all over the kitchen. For the second time that day, we had to clean up a huge mess of glass.

After the clean up, we got to work on the pasta. The pasta dough is a simple one that uses 2 c. of flour and three eggs. Then I went to get the pasta maker, which I gave to my sister for her birthday last year. It had been used once. I tried to clamp it to the kitchen table, but the clamp didn't fit right. So my mom held the pasta maker still as I tried to crank the first ball of pasta through the rollers. But the pasta wouldn't go. We soon realized that only one of the rollers was rolling and it was just not going to work.

With the pasta sauce already made, not making the raviolis didn't seem like an option. Instead, I got out a rolling pin and rolled the pasta out as thin as I could by hand. It certainly wasn't as thin as it would have been with the pasta maker. And I am sure the pasta got a lot tougher from all the handling. We only got 18 raviolis out of the pasta, but they were pretty big so I just figured each family member would just eat a few. The pasta squares weren't perfect, but I did feel good that the raviolis did not pop open when I tossed them into the boiling water. The filling tasted great and the pasta tasted fine. It just wasn't quite the right consistency.

We each had our fill for dinner, and then cooked up some frozen raviolis to toss with the rest of the sauce for lunch.

I don't think I will be making either of these recipes again, but at least now I can say I have.

Cheese ravioli with meat sauce - a photo essay

2010-09-10T16:50:00.000-07:00

Cheese and spinach ravioli with tomato and meat sauce

First I grew some Roma tomatoes.

Then I sliced them in half, seeded them, coated them with olive oil and seasoned them with onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper, to roast for 2.5 hours. All with help from my mom.

Then one of the glass pans exploded in the oven. So we waited for it to cool and then started over with the second batch of tomatoes.

The tomatoes came out of the oven roasted and caramelized just right.

I sauteed onion, garlic, ground beef and button mushrooms.

Then, I squeezed as much liquid out of the tomatoes as I could - it wasn't a lot. Then I added in white wine.

While the sauce simmered, we mixed up a filling of cheese, spinach, basil and garlic for the raviolis.

But then the pasta maker didn't work. So we had to roll the dough out by hand.

The dough came out thicker than it should have, a little tougher from all the handling and the ravioli were a little malformed.

But they stayed together in the boiling water and tasted fine. The sauce was great, but next time I want to make homemade pasta sauce I'll just use canned.

A Sunday afternoon game of croquet

2010-08-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

I learned something new about myself yesterday. It was something I never would have suspected, especially given my lack of hand-eye coordination in most instances. But apparently I am a pretty good croquet player.

I went to a friend's birthday party in Salinas yesterday and they had a few activities planned. Most of the time, I stay away from any sort of competition, especially with people I don't know. I tend to get super competitive and I don't like to lose, so I often subscribe to the attitude that I should just not play at all if I am not going to win. It's my attitude with board games, card games, video games and most athletic endeavors.

But I didn't want to be a spoil sport - and the hosts said it was "mandatory" to play - so I lined up to see if anyone would pick me for their team. Since no one at the party knew my name, except for the hosts, I thought I might be picked last, but I was selected in the first go around. Maybe I looked like I knew my way around a croquet ball.

First off, let me just say that the croquet "arena" wasn't the best. Actually, it was set up once in a wily nily fashion by one guy at the party. Then another guy actually read the directions and set it up according to the diagram included in the game rules. Then a little kid came along and pulled out all the "wickets," the white plastic things you have to get the croquet balls through. For a while it seemed like the game might not happen, but then the birthday girl insisted that we play.

The course includes two sticks at each end and six wickets. You have to go through five in one direction and five in the other direction. The last two were staggered because we didn't have enough space before running into the pavement. Parts of the course were also close to dirt, tree roots, sticks and piles of leaves. But we managed.

I was on the green team with two other girls. For our first round, the first shooter, or whatever players are called in croquet, ended up a little off course. See, if you go past the wicket, you have to back track around to the front of the wicket. Luckily for me, when I was up, there were plenty of croquet balls in my path. I hit two on my way back toward the wicket, giving myself two extra hits. The rules say you get an extra hit for passing through a wicket, two for hitting another player's ball and one for hitting the stick at the end.

My team was ahead for most of the game. We avoided the death trap that was the dirt area near the edge of the arena. It sloped downward and many a player ended up in it. The one down side to being in the lead is that there were not that many other balls nearby to get the extra strokes, so we mostly ended up with one stroke each, while our opponents were often getting three.

In, the end, everyone's interest in the game waned as it headed into hour two. My team members stopped taking their turns and finally the team that had been in last place for most of the game ended up in first. We were going to continue competing to see who would take last place. But everyone kind of lost interest. At the end of the game, green was the further behind on the course. But at least prizes went to the winning team and the losing team.

I'll probably never play croquet again, but it would be interesting to see if my early shots were just beginner's luck or if I actually might have some sort of skill.

A little heavy reading for the summer

2010-08-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

I like to read. I do it at the gym when I am on the treadmill or a bike or an elliptical machine. opting for "People," "Entertainment Weekly," "Esquire" or "GQ." I do it every night before I go to sleep, lying in bed, with a "New Yorker" propped up on my pillow . I do it at work as I edit my stories or those of coworkers, or when I take a break to read a few L.A. Times articles online.

The problem with all this reading is that it leaves little time to read books, which I also love to consume. So that's were resolution No. 1 came in for the year. I've already reported on the first four books I read this year: "Juliet, Naked," by Nick Hornby, "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffeneger, "Too Much Happiness," by Alice Munro and "A Version of the Truth" by Jennifer Kaufmann and Karen Mack.

I've been better at the reading than blogging about the reading, as I have read three other books so far this year to bring the total to seven. Here is a summary of the others:

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel - I picked this book up because my sister had it on her computer desk and said it was pretty good. Even though it's a graphic novel, I still think it counts as a book. Besides, this little graphic novel had more baggage than an 800-page Wally Lamb story.

The book is basically a memoir of Bechdel's odd family life. First off, the family lives in a funeral home, which her father runs. Second, her father is apparently gay and has a thing for barely legal men. Third, Bechdel discovers that she herself is gay. All of these issues are convoluted by her father's tragic death, a death that could have been an accident or a suicide, something Bechdel is still trying to figure out. Overall the book is depressing and Bechdel's humor is on the dark side.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - I've been a fan of Margaret Atwood's writing since I was a high school student. I devoured her books in college and always look forward to a new release from the Canadian author. Her latest book, "The Year of the Flood," is a prequel to her novel "Oryx and Crake," which featured a post-apocalyptic world. It's been a few years since I read it so I don't remember all the details, but there were elements and characters in the latest novel that felt familiar to me.

Atwood's genius is that she creates future worlds in her novels that are just enough like the modern day to be believeable - it's just a world were so many of the negatives are stretched to the limit. For instance, the main characters in the book are vegetarians who have rebeled against a culture that eats meat at all costs - and it is meat of questionable origin. It is a world where endangered animals have become delicacies at restaurants and genetically mutated animals have escaped from science labs.

The book has an ensemble of characters and the point of view switches from chapter to chapter. Most of the narratives are told from a female point of view, which is one thing I've always liked about Atwood's work, that she pays so much attention to the female persepctive. The novel follows a few characters who join up with a cult - some because they are believers, some because they want the protection of a group and others because their parents have forced them into it.

I can't say that this book was a fun read, but it is another example of Atwood's good works. It made me want to re-read "Oryx and Crake," which I might do as soon as I complete my resolution.

Passing For Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding Myself by Frances Kuffel - I found this book in a box from our storage and started reading the first few pages when waiting for my mom to get ready to walk the dog. I put it down and forgot about it until I had a few hours to myself last weekend. I figured I might as well use it to read a book and I picked it up again. It was a book my mom had bought, but she only vaguely remembered reading it, commenting that she didn't remember it being very good.

The book is a memoir by Kuffel, who discusses her addiction to food, which led to her all-time high weight of 338. About half the book focuses on her "fat" life and how miserable everything was. The second half of the book focuses on her "thin" life and how miserable she still seemed to be. She mentions a tough childhood, but never really goes into the details of it except to talk about an older brother who picked on her. Still, she refers to the family home as the place of her soul and seems to get along just fine with her mother and father. As a compulsive eater, Kuffel never really delves into the reasons for her addiction.

When I picked up the book, I thought I might relate to Kuffel's struggle as someone who has realized that when life gets tough I tend to give up my gym routines and turn to junk food. I rededicated myself to working out this year and eating healthy and have been happy with the results of weight loss, less stress at work and good health.

But there was really nothing in Kuffel's story to which I could relate. One, I found her food plan of eliminating all sugar and flour to be impossible to maintain (it turns out it was, as Kuffel has a 2009 book out that chronicles gaining half of her weight back and then trying to lose it again.) If I want a cookie, I'll have a cookie and I don't feel guilty about it. Two, she didn't exercise at all during most of her weight loss, which I've found to be important to me. It lowers my general stress level and just feels good to be building up muscle.

The biggest issue with the book was just the "woe is me" pity party Kuffel wants to throw for herself. She's unhappy because she was adopted, her older brother was mean, her job sucks, she's never had a boyfriend. But even after she takes the first step of losing the weight she still seems unwilling to take responsibility and change the other things in her life that she doesn't like.

Even when she takes the first tenative steps into dating, she choses only men she thinks are unattractive because she still believes that is all that would actually like her. The most frustrating moment in the book is when she describes a date with a guy who at the beginning of the date says she should have listed herself as "a few extra pounds." And then she continues with the date AND goes back to his apartment, where he continues to insult her until she finally leaves. I just can't imagine having such low self-esteem as to be someone's verbal punching bag, even for the duration of one date.

By the time I realized how much I disliked the book, I was already half down with it and decided I might as well finish it. I didn't find the book that engaging and I found parts of it a little hard to follow. Kuffel uses a lot of little inside jokes that were not well explained. The book just didn't have a flow to it.

I probably will never read Kuffel's second book, about gaining back her weight and losing it, or her book on dating. But I do wish her well in her attempt to keep her weight off because I know how easy it can be to fall back into the old routines.

Even though summer is nearly over, I think I might pick one of the books from the easy summer beach book lists just to read something a little lighter. After these three books, getting back to the "New Yorker" will actually seem like lighter reading.

A few more resolutions complete

2010-08-25T20:01:00.001-07:00

When it came to making my list of New Year's resolutions back in January, I didn't put a lot of thought into them. I just listed off some random things I wanted to do this year - and thought making it public might help keep the pressure on to actually do them.

As I wrote yesterday, some of these resolutions have been a little bit harder than others - like the date thing.

Since it is nearing the end of August - with really only four months left to complete the list of 19 items I made for myself - I thought it was time to check back in and see what I have left to accomplish. I have to admit, I didn't spend too much time thinking about these resolutions during the summer. There was just so much else to do - graduation parties, baby showers, weddings, watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of "The Gilmore Girls."

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I have completed 8 of my 19 resolutions and that one of them is kind of obsolete now. One of those resolutions had been to decide what kind of car I wanted to buy, but since I sort of took over driving my mom's Saturn when she bought a new used Saturn I didn't really decide anything. Still, I think it should count as complete.

I also quit Farmville months ago. I was torn because so many of my relatives and friends were playing it - so for weeks I would still log on to send supplies and gifts to all the people I knew who were playing it. The game was never fun. I mean, it consists of clicking on squares to "sow, seed and harvest" plants. It's much more exciting to pick real vegetables in my backyard. Finally I realized I just had to give it up cold turkey. It has been months since I've started up the Facebook game and I no longer feel bad for ignoring all those requests I get from other people. It was just too much of a time suck. Now when I see all those please for help, I just ignore them.

I also feel like I should be able to claim No. 14 on the list - keep up the gym routines. Since January, I've been going to the gym an average of six days a week. I run about 10 miles a week. I've completed two 5Ks and have plans to do another one next month. I even signed up for a boot camp class at my gym that has been kicking my butt twice a week and have a gift certificate for one-on-one sessions with the same trainer. Though it's not the end of the year quite yet, I feel confident that I will continue with my rigorous routine. The benefits of it have been too great to ignore - sleeping better, getting down to the same size I was when I was 23, not feeling super stressed at work and having visible muscle mass - so the routines came with a lot of motivation.

I've read a couple books I haven't reported on yet and I am nearly complete with another one. The sad thing is I have only really enjoyed a couple of the books I've read and a lot of them just haven't been that interesting. More on this resolution when the next book is complete.

Some of the other resolutions haven't really gone quite as well. I have yet to watch any of the Academy Award best picture winners - aside from ones I've watched in the past. I guess I just got too wrapped up in getting "The Gilmore Girls" from Netflix, and a few other TV series, so I haven't put much effort into it. As soon as I finish with "The Gilmore Girls" and perhaps the last season of "Criminal Minds," I promise to add a few movies to the queue.

I have not learned the family recipe for gnocchi though I made it known to my aunt that I want her to make them with me. I am sure it will happen before the end of the year. I also have not made ravioli from scratch or pasta sauce from scratch. The goal was to use tomatoes from my garden to make the sauce and then make the raviolis. Unfortunately, of the two roma tomato plants I put in the ground, one died of and the other has just now begun to produce ripe tomatoes. The weather has just been off so much this year we only have cherry tomatoes in abundance and those wouldn't really work well for sauce I have in mind. I still haven't decided exactly what I will do about the sauce since even tomatoes at the farmers markets haven't been that good this year.

But I still have four more months to make some progress so here's to hoping I can finish up the last 11 resolutions.

Navigating the world of (not) dating

2010-08-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

When I made a list of 19 New Year's Resolutions, I'm not sure exactly what prompted me to go on one date on the list. The truth is I've never really dated much. I generally hang out with guys as friends, have crushes from a distance and on rare occasions it turns into more.

So perhaps this resolution was influenced by the three weddings I had to attend this year or all the unsolicited advice I've been getting about dating in the last few years. Mostly I think it was just an opportunity to challenge myself to get out of my comfort zone, like a lot of my other resolutions.

But this resolution has been a little harder to complete than any of the eight I've crossed off the list. It seems like a simple enough resolution, one date, but it really hasn't been. I have to admit that I am not the most social person. I spend a lot of time at work and a lot of time at the gym and a lot of time at movie theaters, so I probably don't open myself up to many opportunities to meet people. But I swear, I have been making an effort.

First, I started telling friends about my resolution in hopes they might set me up on a blind date. All of them seemed to think it was a good idea, but most of them said the only guys they know who are single are jerks. So that avenue hasn't been very fruitful.

Early in the year I created a profile on okcupid.com, a website a friend recommended since he knew someone who met a girlfriend on the site. It's basically the same as any other dating site - except its free and the creators maintain an interesting blog that mines data from the site.

The free thing seemed like a plus to me since I would have to shell out $30 or more a month for a dating site that probably wouldn't work. But as it turns out, the free site is also a bastion of men who are in the middle of a career change, figuring out what to study in school or taking a break (all those things translate to unemployed.) I haven't had much luck on the site, whether it be because of my photos, my master's degree or my reporter's salary, but I have gotten a few laughs out of it.

I got a message from one guy who in the first correspondence asked if I wanted to be friends with benefits. A quick look at his profile revealed he was unemployed, living with his parents and unattractive. So yeah, it was easy to pass on that one. There was also a guy who e-mailed me multiple times in between each message I sent him, and within the first week of communicating with me told me about his very ill mother. I had images of him being frantic to get married so dear old mom could be there for the wedding. His over eagerness was just too much for me.

There was one guy I actually considered meeting in person - he was funny over e-mail, well-educated and cute in his picture, even though his listed height was a bit on the short side for me. We actually got to the point of talking about getting together. I mentioned we could see a movie together - so I could get a resolution and a movie column out of the way at the same time, even if the date was a bust. He said it would be fun and he was available in a couple weeks. And then when I wrote him back to confirm a date, he went silent. There was no response back - ever. Guess he changed his mind.

Personally, I haven't been a fan of my online interactions so last month I decided to try something different. I saw a posting from Solis Winery on Facebook about an "It's Just Lunch" singles event. It was only $15 and it was in Gilroy so I wouldn't have to drive far on a weeknight. The cover included wine tasting, appetizers and a chance to meet new people. I figured I would go and check it out. My one hesitation was that I worried it might be just a long pitch for the "It's Just Lunch" dating service, which sets up busy professionals on lunch dates.

When I arrived at Solis Winery, it wasn't a long pitch at all. It was a strange crowd, however. When I walked into the tasting room, most of the people there were at least 20 years older than I am. Some of the women came across as very much on the prowl. And with some of the others, I could see why they were single. One talked about how many dating services she has joined through the years and another talked about her divorce - 13 years ago. Really didn't seem like first meeting topics to me, but what do I know as I can't even get one date.

I was getting ready to make an early exit when two guys who looked more around my age walked in. I noticed them because they seemed so out of place. They were both kinda cute, but I probably would never have walked up to them on my own. One of the guys came over to the group of women I was talking with and introduced himself. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to get to know him better - but one of the women would not stop talking. Basically no one else could get a word in. I was again thinking about making an exit again. But then the group I was stuck in decided to buy a bottle of wine and take the conversation outside. I thought it might be a chance to get to know the only guys there around my age a little bit.

Unfortunately, I had consumed only a little wine so all the other women, who were still drinking, were a lot more talkative and flirtatious than I was. They were, perhaps, also a little charmed by the fact that they had the younger guys at their table. I talked a bit, but didn't add much to the conversation. I did, however, find out that the two guys, who were friends did not really belong. They had been invited to the event by a friend who worked for "It's Just Lunch" who wanted to increase the male-to-female ratio.

At the end of the night, the one guy asked to exchange business cards with me for a potential story for my newspaper. The other guy exchanged numbers with all the women at the table, programmed the numbers in and then called so we would all have his number, too. A week after the event, I texted him and asked if he wanted to hang out some time. He said sure. We exchanged a couple more texts - and then he went silent. I guess I could have followed up with him again, or suggested a specific date, but I think I read too much of the book "He's Just Not That Into You" because he seemed clear to me he wasn't that into me. And maybe that's one of my problems with dating - I just don't want to waste too much time on people who aren't interested in me.

And as it turns out, the hard sell for "It's Just Lunch" came a couple weeks later when the cute guy's friend called me five days in a row when I was busy at work to talk about my interest in a membership. Seems the woman who barely talked to me at Solis except to mark me off as present had told the sales girl I was "really interested" in learning more about the membership. I finally called the woman back and said I might be up to more pay-as-you-go events, but the special $200 off membership just wasn't for me. And three days later she called me again to say she remembered we had a conversation, but couldn't remember exactly what we talked about. I reminded her that, no, I did not want to join. Solis and "It's Just Lunch" paired up for another event last week, but I skipped it.

As it turns out, I am beginning to think this might be the one resolution I don't resolve this year. And to be honest, that's just fine by me, since all this not even really dating stuff is kind of a roller coaster ride in itself. I'd rather just stick to having a crush from afar, say on the cute guy I see a couple times a week at the gym. I don't know his name. I don't know what he does for a living. But he smiles at me and says hi when I see him.

Addicted to the Gilmore Girls

2010-08-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, a co-worker whom I loaned dvds quite frequently kept telling me that I should watch "Gilmore Girls." He - yes, it was a he - said the show was great and he was always supposed to bring in the DVDs, which he owned, for me to borrow.

I never watched the show when it was on TV because it was already on for a few years before I realized it existed. It seems to be a trend with me, to wait until a series has gone off the air to then get the DVDs from Netflix and watch the entire series at once.

That's how I watched Sopranos, which was loaned to me by a cousin who had all the seasons. That's how I caught up on "The Office" when it was already a few seasons in. I watched it on DVD, and then watched the most recent season on NBC online so that I was eventually caught up and ready to start the new season. Ditto with "30 Rock."

I did the same thing with "Criminal Minds" this year. My mom started taping random episodes of it when there wasn't much on TV. It was a mix of episodes from different, seasons, out of order. We finally decided to rent the series DVD by DVD from Netflix so that we could watch it from start to finish. It was a chance to get to see the relationships between the agents of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit grow. Plus we didn't have to wait months between the cliff hangers at the end of each season. The best part with "Criminal Minds" is we still have one more season to watch on DVD - last year will be released in September - and then we get to start with the latest season.

So now that we got caught up on "Criminal Minds," we decided to start watching "Gilmore Girls" and "Angel." The "Girls" we are getting from Netflix, and Angel we are watching on instant stream from Netflix. I have to say, though, my coworker was right. If I go a few days without watching an episode of the Gilmores, I feel a little bit of withdrawal. I love the quirkiness of the show and the sarcasm of mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel.) The pair grew on me quickly and I like the supporting cast, including appearances by actors who appeared in other shows later in their careers such as Milo Ventimiglia and Adam Brody.

The one bad thing about watching a series that has already ended is that once I get to the last disc of the last season, there is nothing left to see. For now, I've got a few more seasons to go.

Emptying storage leads to some interesting finds

2010-08-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

It's amazing sometimes the kind of things people will box up and store in the garage, or in the closet or under the bed. Or maybe it's just amazing the things that I will box up and store wherever I can find space.

I'm not quite as much of a pat rack as my dad or my sister, but I definitely hold on to things more than other people I know. I think it runs in the family because I remember visiting my grandmother's house when I was a kid and the counters were piled high with stuff. I don't really remember what the stuff was, but it was always there.

When my parents bought a house a few years ago and we moved from a townhouse to the new place, I thought I did a good job of purging all the necessary things in my life. I donated tons of books, DVDs and videos. I emptied out my closet to just the bare necessities. I got rid all the textbooks I'd been holding on to for years - after all, I didn't really need my psych textbooks from 10 years ago.

But it turns out the purge wasn't as good as I assumed it was. Just a few weeks ago, my mom finally decided to empty out a storage she rented before we moved. It was supposed to be a temporary space to throw some stuff until we cleaned the boxes out of the garage and could move it all back home. The garage is still pretty full - and we need to deal with that at some point - but now the contents of the storage are in the living room.

I had a box of old papers from elementary school and high school. I don't know why I would possibly have packed English papers and overheads for biology presentations. But there were a bunch of notebooks with poetry and journals, and creative writing projects, and I couldn't bring myself to toss those out. Even though I write all the time for the paper now, that stuff reminds me that someday I want to get back to that creative stuff.

I also had a bunch of programs from different theater productions, tickets from movies and brochures from when I was in Ireland. I also couldn't bring myself to through any of this stuff out. It's the kind of stuff that would be perfect for a scrapbook - if I scrapbooked. Instead the notebooks and the memorabilia is piled on the floor in my room until I have some free time to sort through all of it and put it with the other stuff stored under my bed.

I also found a pile of old VHS tapes, including a bunch with videos recorded from MTV. One was even labeled as my high school best friend's favorites. There were also about four boxes of random CDs, which I am slowly trying to go through and add to iTunes. Some of the music is really bad stuff - a soundtrack to Young Guns II, Jasmine Guy, Bell Biv Devoe - but some of it is decent. I've added some Beatles, Elton John and a bunch of old school dance music to my iPod.

The one nice surprise in the bunch is that I had a plastic tub full of clothes. It was slacks and shirts from when I worked at San Jose State before graduate school, and none of it fit when I packed it up. But since I've taken up running and working out again, all that stuff fits again. Some of it is out of fashion or I just don't like it anymore, but you can't really go wrong with gray slack pants.

Most of the stuff from the storage is going to be donated, and as for the CDs, anyone who wants some random music just let me know because we're not quite sure what to do with it all. It always feels good to toss out some of the clutter.

Cupcake class should grade on a curve

2010-08-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

So when I made my list of New Year's resolution and I put on the one (No. 12) about taking a class sometime this year, I was still hopeful that I would get that fellowship I applied for and be auditing awesome classes at Stanford. But since I am not enough of an egghead for Stanford, I had to have a back-up plan.

Last Friday I took a cupcake decorating class. While I like to cook, I am not much for baking. I like to bake and I like to reap the rewards of baking, but I get a little overwhelmed at having to measure everything out precisely and waiting patiently for things to cook. A friend of mine said he likes baking because you just follow the instructions and you can't go wrong. But personally, I find that I can go wrong - and do - all the time. In fact, a few months ago when my mom and I baked a strawberry cake for my aunt's birthday, we improvised a little on the frosting. In the end more frosting ended up on the cake plate than on the actual cake. But I guess we didn't follow the instructions.

The class was offered through the community class offerings at Gavilan Community College. I've taken a few cooking classes and enjoyed them so the cupcake class sounded fun. Last fall, the class was offered and registration booked up before we could get in so this time I rsvp'ed early on.

Penny Perluss, the owner of Pennycakes in Gilroy, teaches the class and she kept it to the basics. Each classmate received six cupcakes - two chocolate, two lemon and two vanilla - and a bag of supplies. We had three types of icing and three basic cake decorating tips, three colors of fondant and a cup of buttercream frosting to share. We also had a square sheet of plastic on which to practice our designs before putting them onto the cupcakes.

The first design was a daisy, with a green leaf, pink petals and a yellow center. The petals and center were easy enough. The tough part was getting the leaf tip to look like a leaf and not like a snack or random squiggle. It was a bit frustrating. After practicing, we did the design on our first cupcake and then practiced on one more. It was surprising to see how much better the second one looked than the first. For the next cupcake, we practiced a design with three dainty flowers. This design required use of a 5 or 4 point tip, and as it turns out, it requires a lot of pressure to push thick icing through a small hole. My arms got tired doing it. We also made a sunflower design, with the leaf tip, which I found the hardest to use. My sunflower looked a bit saggy compared to the one Perluss did as an example. But as she said at the beginning of the class, there's no doing anything wrong in cupcake decorating. I am sure, however, if the work were graded, I would definitely be below the curve.

I was pretty good with following along - as long as someone was telling me what tip to do and where to put things. But at the end, Perluss let us loose to play around with fondant, with only the guideline to create three different flowers. For anyone who doesn't know, fondant is sort of like surgary play-doh. It doesn't taste good and it gets really sticky if you handle it too much.

During the "free design" period of the class, I noticed that some of the other people in the class were doing extravegant or elegant designs. I was just trying to get three flowers done to meet the requirement of the teacher - even though this was a non-credit class. I made one flower that the teacher described as a mosaic, with petals and leaves shaped the way I used to make them when I'd doodle on my notebooks in class. Then I just made a simple flower with circles and a stem. For the last piece, I made a toadstool, but unfortunately the fondant cap was too heavy for the fondant stem so it kind of fell over.

While I probably will not work with fondant again, if I ever bake a cake I might try to use some of the design tools to make borders or flowers or stars. It was easy enough and it might make people think I actually know what I am doing when it comes to baked goods.

The best part of the class was eating a cupcake when I got home - although half a dozen was a bit too much for one so most of those went to waste. The worst part was my hands still smelling like buttercream and vanilla the next day. Apparently vanilla extract can get under your skin just as much as garlic.

Photos by Melissa Flores

A cupcake is decorated with pink and yellow flowers.

Fondant can be used to mold decorations, such as this toadstool.

The movies that nearly made the list

2010-07-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

For a while now, my editor has been joking about all of the editorial staff writing a top five list of their favorite movies. At least we thought he was joking. I think it all started when the new reporter, who is straight out of college would stare at us blankly when we mentioned certain movies we all loved.

In fact, most recently his response to a comment made by another co-worker about "It's a Wonderful Life," was "Isn't that a Christmas movie?" Well, yes, but it's so much more. So we finally published our list this week, two reporters, a sports editor, a photographer, the editor and me. The list can be viewed online at the Weekend Pinnacle Web site.

I learned some interesting things about my co-workers. One person had no movies that were more recent than 1971 - not because he's so much older than the rest of us, but because he grew up in an era without VHS or DVDs. He said movies came on TV once a year and it was a big event, like watching the aforementioned "It's a Wonderful Life" during the holidays each year. Another person had what I referred to as a typical guy list - lots of action/comic book movies. My list, I was surprised to find, was composed of movies that aren't the best ones I've ever seen. Instead, many of my pics reflected some personal connection to the movie and people in my life. Number 1. on any good movie list has long been the first movie my best friend and I saw after she got her driver's license - it was our first moment of freedom from parents shuttling us places and I still think it's a pretty darn good movie after all these years.

But sticking with our strict five movies only policy, there were quite a few movies that just didn't make the final cut. I think most of us started with a list of a dozen or so movies and then culled it down. Here are some of the ones that didn't quite make the final cut and why - although as with any favorite movie list, ask me next week and the answers might be different.

Flirt - This is a strange indie film that is basically divided into three parts in which the exact same story is told with different actors, in different places and with different languages. The essential plot line is that a person is torn between two lovers and not sure which person they should chose. It's set in New York, Berlin and Tokyo. I loved this movie when I was in high school, but I haven't watched it in years so opted to live it off the top five list.

Wings of Desire - I really like this indie foreign film, too, in which an angel falls in love with a human and decides to trade in his wings for mortality. It's a little odd with random appearances of Peter Falk, but it is so much better than the "City of Angels" rip off of it with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. But I left it off the list because it seemed unfair to list this Wim Wender movie and then leave of the sequel, "Far Away, So Close."

Bend It Like Beckham - I really liked this movie when I first saw it. It was a cool girl power movie. Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley were great as soccer phenoms whose moms are both unhappy with their choice to play the sport. Plus Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is extra cute when he uses his natural accent. But, alas, there was no room for a sports movie at the top of the list.

About A Boy - This movie was probably the closest to making it into the top 5. I loved the book by Nick Hornby and it is one of the few times when it felt like a film did justice to an author's intention. Hugh Grant did well as a selfish man who somehow finds himself engaging with a middle school kid after his mom attempts suicide. Though he's just a kid, Nicholas Hoult is great as Marcus. Will learns that no matter how hard he wanted it to be true and unlike the Simon and Garfunkel lyrics, no man is a rock or an island. The film was just inched out by No. 5's "Say Anything," because Lloyd Dobler was sympathetic from the start.

Four Weddings and a Funeral - Another Hugh Grant movie to nearly make the list, this movie was exceptionally funny the first time I saw it and it continues to be funny every time I see it. I can relate to it a bit more now that I've been to my share of weddings and worn some bridesmaids dresses. I love the way that Charles (Grant) blinks and stumbles over his words (and who knew that was going to be Grant's trademark) and pines over Carrie (Andie MacDowell) not quite long enough. But what really makes this movie for me is Matthew's (John Hannah) reading of a W. H Auden poem at Gareth's (Simon Callow's) wedding. The movie is full of unrequited love, but also offers the lesson that true love is worth the wait. If only Grant didn't act the same in every other the movie, this performance would have remained more meaningful.

Clueless - I love this movie about Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and Dionne (Stacey Dash) navigating the teenage world of Beverly Hills while trying to do good deeds like makeover the new kid Tai (Brittany Murphy.) Paul Rudd is great at Cher's stepbrother. But one movie from when I was 15 was enough and my No. 1 pick got the slot.

Up in the Air - I really liked this movie and it was my pick to win the best picture at the last Oscars. But I've only seen it once so it seems unfair to put it on an all-time favorite movie list. I've seen all the movies that made the list at least a half a dozen times, some more, and I will be watching them all again.

I can't quit this f*$&^ng bad habit

2010-06-24T18:48:00.001-07:00

I have a problem, and I swear I've been trying to work on it. Well, maybe I haven't been working on it exactly, but I feel like I should be. I have a problem with cursing. I do it at work, at home, on aim, over text. I just can't help myself - curse words just come out. Mostly it's to express a sense of frustration, sometimes it's to express a sense of amazement and sometimes it's just because I am so used to cursing.

For the longest time, probably until a few years after college, I was pretty good about keeping the curse words to a minimum. And I never, ever cursed in front of my parents. Sure, something would slip out occasionally, like a g*#dammit when I stubbed my toe or dropped a glass of juice on the carpet. But it was a rare thing.

I don't know quite when cursing started to become a regular occurrence. It was probably in graduate school when everything was so g%$damn hard all the time and I was under a lot of stress for two years. And then there was my first job as an intern, where I had to bust my a#$ in hopes of landing a permanent job.

But I think things really went south when I started to work at the paper I'm with today. I had a few coworkers who were under the impression that the newsroom hadn't changed much since the 1950s in that they liked to curse like sailors, tell off-colored jokes and would probably be smoking in the middle of the office if it weren't against the law. I had two coworkers in particular who are no longer at the who were especially bad at dropping the f-bomb. They started a curse jar in hopes of curbing their enthusiasm for off-color language - but just ended up dropping a few dollars a day at .25 a word into the jar. It was enough for a nice gift for our reception when she retired.

Now I've always been a little bit of a mimic when it comes to language, meaning that I often pick up expressions or phrases that other people say without really realizing that I am doing it. So the summer I was home from college and my younger sister and best friend started using the term butt hurt that became part of my lexicon. And when I came home from Ireland I kept saying I was a wee bit tired or a wee bit cold or a wee bit something or other. Or when I refer to freeways, when I talk about ones in Los Angeles I use the native "the" before them, as in "I was driving on the 405 or the 101. But when I refer to the ones from Northern California I say, "I was driving on 101 or 85 or 680." I even started using "hehe" instead of "haha" over aim and text because a good friend always used it as his short-hand expression of amusement.

Most of these little catchphrases work their way out of my everyday use after a while, or some separation from the person who brought them to me. But for some reason I can't shake this f*#$ing cursing. I'd blame it on working in an office full of men, but to be truthful I know I cuss way f%^&ing more than they do.

So what occasions elicit a curse from me? I find a mistake in the paper - the day after it's gone to press - and it's "Oh s^&t." My computer freezes for the 15th time while I am on deadline and it's "G*d$%mit." Someone calls me when I am on deadline - and it's "I don't have f^&*ing time for this right now" - not to them, of course. Someone reads the latest wacky headline from yahoo news - "That's f^&*ing crazy."

I told my coworker this week, right after I had said some sh#$ in the newsroom that I was trying to cut down on the cursing. And then I admitted, I'm really not trying to cut down on the cursing but I feel like I should.

I can stop it, really, I swear. Like if there are kids in the room or my 70-year-old aunt. But mostly I don't try that hard. So for the next week, I am going to make a pact to watch the words and use some alternatives to the salty languge like freaking or goshdarn or sheesh. And I'll report back soon on my f$%#ing progress.

'Toy Story 3' brings back some memories

2010-06-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

Disney/Pixar has a way of tugging at my heartstrings – and they did it yet again with “Toy Story 3.” And I’m not the only one who feels that way. I saw “Toy Story 3” with my family over the weekend – as did several of my coworkers. I asked one of them – a male colleague – if the movie brought him to tears and he said, “I was choked up a few times.”

Though “Toy Story 3” is a kids’ movie, it is one that will resonant with many adults. While it’s been years since I packed up my own stuff to head off to college, like Andy does in the movie, I have some vivid recollections of trying to decide what to take and what to leave behind. There were things I knew had to come along – the CD binder full of music (back in the days before iPods) and a Sony discman to play them on. I had a pile of carefully selected videotapes to keep my roommate and I entertained, among them “Interview with the Vampire,” “Wings of Desire” and “Reality Bites,” just a few of my favorites at the time. I even had a plastic storage bin full of school supplies and other necessities that one of my aunt’s gave me as a graduation gift.

But some of the most important things I brought along weren’t really necessities and were more to offer a sense of comfort away from home. I brought a stuffed turtle my friends and I won at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk one summer a few years before. We’d spent all kinds of money playing games in the arcade just to get enough tickets to win the turtle. My best friend and I had traded off keeping it at our houses for a while, joking that we were sharing joint custody. But it went to me for that first year of school.

I also brought along the baby blanket my grandmother had made for me when my mom was pregnant. My grandmother died when I was 2 ½ years old so the blanket was always the one thing that made me feel connected to her. My mom told me the story of when she was pregnant with my sister – she sent me to Reno with my aunts will she was in the hospital recovering from a cesarean. My dad had to work so there was no one to watch me at night so my aunts took me along on their trip.

On the way home, they realized that they had forgotten my blanket in the hotel room. They were already across the California border when they turned around and headed back to Reno for it. When they arrived, housekeeping had already laundered it and folded it up in case someone returned for it. So in a lot of ways the blanket was also a reminder that my family, immediate and extended, would always be willing to drive miles out of their way for me. By the time I went to college, the blanket was ratty and torn along the edges, but I kept it folded up on the bottom of my dorm-room bed.

The last thing I packed was a photo album with pictures of all my best high school friends to keep on my dorm room desk. Now, again, this was in the time before digital cameras and social networking sites so the pictures felt like they were worth a lot because I had to pay for the film and to have them developed – and their was limited space in the album so I had to pick and choose the best ones to keep with me. The album included pictures from trips to the Boardwalk and the beach; the 17-mile drive and Monterey Bay Aquarium, pool parties at one of my best friend’s houses and just snapshots at school.

It was a small photo album that could be easily packed up with me and it became the album that I kept with me through moves, new jobs and graduate school. I even took it with me when I studied overseas. I added in photos of my college friends through the years and my first boyfriend; pictures of my best mates in Ireland, including my coulda-woulda-shoulda guy; photos of the friend who helped me make it through graduate school and then who dropped out after the first year, but not before scoring me a picture of the super hot bartender from our favorite bar – who turned out to have been married all along.

The thing that really got to me about “Toy Story 3” is that the packing up and moving on never really gets any easier than it was on the first move away from home. In some ways, that was the easiest move because I was still young and sure of where my life was headed, and I have a naïve belief that my best friends would always be my best friends. It’s always hard to decide what items to pack up and take along, but I think now the hardest part is the people that are left behind. I’m old enough now to know that it is really hard to keep in touch with people who live halfway across the world or even just in another county.

I still keep in touch with friends from high school, from college, from Ireland and from graduate school, but in a lot of ways it’s never quite the same as when we were immersed in a situation where we spent most of our waking moments together.

Summer concerts - now and then

2010-06-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

I had big plans this week - U2 was supposed to be performing at the Oakland Coliseum yesterday. But Bono's back injury while rehearsing in Germany, which led to back surgery and a need to recuperate, sort of ruined that for me. The latest news is that he is doing well rehabilitating with Lance Armstrong somewhere in Europe - at least according to People Magazine. The concert is supposed to be rescheduled, but it probably won't happen until some time in 2011.

I am hoping that this postponed concert experience works out better than the one I had in college, when a bunch of friends and I got tickets to a Bjork concert. We bought the tickets from the Wherehouse Music store, which used to be a ticket vendor. And then Bjork got a bladder infection the week of the Los Angeles concert. At the time I was pretty pissed that it got cancelled - but now that I've experienced a bladder infection and the extreme pain that comes with it I totally get it. The problem was the concert was cancelled and all the ticketholders were encouraged to get a refund and repurchase tickets if and when the concert got rescheduled.

My friends and I went back to the Wherehouse Music where we had bought the tickets - and it was a our bad luck that in the time between when we bought the tickets and needed to get a refund, Wherehouse Music had left the business of being a ticket vendor. They refused to give us a refund and the concert was never rebooked. So we were just out the money.

I am hopeful that the U2 concert will get rescheduled - even though I know it probably won't happen anytime this summer. But I do have another option for summer entertainment - and it will be a lot cheaper than tickets to U2.

The Spin Doctors are scheduled to perform at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk - for free. Now the Spin Doctors are not one of my favorite bands at any rate, but they do hold a special place in my heart as the first rock concert I ever went to with my friends. I was 15, and my cousin bought me three tickets to the concert at Great America - featuring Screaming Trees, Soul Asylum and the Spin Doctors. It was the perfect day for a group of noisy, goofy teenage girls - we all had season passes so we got in for free to the park and we spent the day riding all our favorite rides and flirting with the cute boys who worked on the log ride.

At the end of the day, we headed over to the amphitheater and were shocked at all the beer and pot smokers in the audience. Now I know it's just part of the concert-going experience - as with the U2 Rose Bowl concert when the person sitting behind us started puking as the concert ended due to a mix of too much beer, too much pot and too much sun.

At the Spin Doctors concert we sang along to all the songs we knew, which I will admit weren't that many. But we loved the Spin Doctors "Two Princes" and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong," probably like every other kid our age. The music wasn't great and the performance was just okay. But it was at a time when my little trio of friends thought life would always be just the three of us having a good time - back before college, relationships, careers and life made it a lot more difficult to get together for things like a concert with our favorite band of the moment.

The perfect gift to give myself

2010-06-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

Whenever I get a gift card for my birthday or Christmas, I tend to hold onto it for a while. I guess I feel like I should use it for something extra special since it is a gift and then I usually end up saving them forever because nothing seems to be quite good enough.

Last fall when I was helping my cousin register at Macy’s for her wedding, I saw a whole bunch of kitchen appliances I really wanted. At the top of my list was an automatic ice cream maker.

Last summer, I bought my mom a “play and freeze” ice cream maker. It’s basically a plastic ball that has a compartment for rock salt and ice, as well as a spot for ice cream ingredients. And you have to roll it around, agitating it for half an hour until the ice cream freezes. I bought it for a camping trip, but when we tried it out at home it quickly got relegated to a shelf in the garage. The lid didn’t seal well so the ice cream mix was kind of leaking out the whole time. And rolling around a ball full of ice, rock salt and ice cream is basically like rolling around a medicine ball. It’s hard work. The end result was a really labor-intensive milkshake since it didn’t really freeze all that well, either.

So I tried to persuade my cousin to register for the automatic ice cream maker, which would be the least she could do for all my maid-of-honor work to come. But she said no.

Then in January, it finally dawned on me that I had several $50 gift cards to Macy’s in my purse, way more than enough to buy an automatic ice cream maker. I spent some time looking over the different models before deciding on a mid-end one. Of course, I also had to make a trip to the grocery store for some ingredients to mix up my first batch of ice cream.

For the first batch, I made strawberry ice cream – with frozen strawberries, since it was the middle of winter. I was a bit impatient and didn’t let the inner chamber of the ice cream maker get cold enough for the first batch. The next time I let it chill overnight and then made peach ice cream – with frozen peaches. The ice cream still came out about soft serve consistency, but it held up well when packed into a sealed container and put in the freezer for several hours.

I put the ice cream maker away for the rest of the winter, as I started on my healthy eating kick. I knew when summer came along I would want to try a few recipes with fresh ingredients. I had in mind one with fresh strawberries, perhaps with cherries and definitely peaches. But I never thought of Meyer lemons until a few vendors at the local farmers market had them for sale. I bought a half dozen last week and set out to make some frozen lemon custard.

I was home alone on Friday and so I attempted to make the frozen lemon custard, which called for tempering eggs, which I've never done before. I was sort of multi-tasking as I was trying to prep the custard by finishing up dinner. I slowly added some of the hot cream mixture into the eggs as described by the recipe I was using. But as soon as I added it all together and continued to cook it over the heat I realized something had gone wrong. The mixture wasn't smooth and creamy - it looked like something had separated out. I decided to go with it anyway, and let it chill in the refrigerator for a while before putting it in the ice cream maker.

The custard thickened up faster than regular ice cream, but there was one problem. A lot of the fat from the heavy whipping cream had separated out into chunks in the ice cream. Before I put it in the freezer, I tasted it and it tasted great - but I just couldn't get over the solidified lumps of fat in the mix. So my first attempt at frozen custard didn't turn out so well.

Since that batch wasn't very edible, I decided to find a recipe that required no cooking to make some more ice cream today. We had fresh strawberries from Andy's Orchard in Morgan Hill. The recipe calls for mixing strawberries, sugar, a pinch of salt and a little bit of fresh lemon and blending it all together. I mixed it into the cream and then chilled the whole mixture for an hour. Then it went straight into the ice cream maker. It was thick and creamy, and most importantly smooth and without any separated fat chunks. It came out about soft serve consistency, but I packed it into a container and put it into the freezer for a few hours. It tasted delicious after it hardened up a bit more.

Photos by Melissa Flores

Strawberry ice cream can be made with fresh strawberries, sugar and heavy cream - and requires no cooking.

Frozen lemon custard, requires tempering eggs and cooking with heavy cream, something I haven't mastered quite yet.

'Glee' gets another year

2010-06-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

When "Glee" started it's first season it had so much potential. It was funny in kind of a snarky way. The characters were amusing, the actors good a pulling off their roles. And there was really good music mixed into every episode.

I liked the love triangle of Finn-Quinn-Rachel (and maybe Curt deserves to be in there too) and I liked the love triangle of Will-his wife-Emma. I guess I can relate to Emma and Rachel having feelings for someone they will probably never stand a chance with, but it was fun to root them on.

I was excited to see where things would go with the couples as the show took a break mid-season.

But when it came back, something just seemed to be awry. The weekly plot of coming up with ideas for a song to sing at competition - or to teach some kind of lesson to the kids - just started to get old. Also, the couples I'd been longing to see together in the first half of the season where quickly torn asunder for really no good reasons.

Something about the second half of the season just felt a lot more superficial than the first half. And the music turned bad, too. It started to seem like the writers were coming up with plot points just so they could use as many different musical genres as possible. Finn and Puck get a job where Will's ex-wife works seemingly just to have a chance to sing Beck's "Loser." There has been no mention of the job since that very short scene.

The low lights for me this season were some of the bad renditions of the songs. Rachel sings U2's "One" in an episode and I may be biased as a huge fan of the band, but even people I know who listen to them casually said it was a bad mix. The "Loser" rendition was also bad as was a song from "Les Miserables" that was turned into a duet.

I haven't done an actually count, but the number of songs performed in each episode certainly seems to have gone up all in an attempt to sell more on iTunes.

In the season finale this week, the students lose the competion but get another year to make Glee work. Hopefully, the writers take it to heart or the show may only have another year.

Talent show follies

2010-06-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Last week I covered two local talent shows for elementary schools - one I did in person and the other I did by phone (which really hardly counts as covering it, but attending one talent show a year is really quite enough and I couldn't make myself attend two in one day.)

There were a couple things I realized after the talent show. One is that little kids really, really like Justin Bieber whose songs I had never heard until the show. Not one, not two, but nearly half a dozen kids picked one or another of his songs to perform. The second thing I realized is that even though the kids mostly stood in place instead of dancing and lip synched or sang out of tune, they had some guts to get up there in front of their whole school and take a chance at it.

I was never a talent show kind of kid, and I guess I'm still not. I've never done karaoke or an open mic night and the closest I've ever gotten to a public performance was putting on an art show for my senior project at Pitzer College. But it was easy since I just had to hang the photographs and write up descriptions of each piece - I didn't actually have to deliver a speech in front of a large audience.

The last time I had to give a public speech was at my cousin's wedding. I wrote up what I had to say the day before, tried to memorize it frantically that night and can't honestly remember how things went with the delivery. I thought I was calm and collected, but when I reviewed the pictures of me giving the speech I really didn't recall any of those moments so I must have been really nervous. At least the speech made people laugh and cry - my goal - and it was just in front of family or friends of my cousin I will never see again.

The only time I was ever involved in a talent show, I was on the stage crew. It was my freshman year of high school and it was a fundraiser for the art-lit magazine. Several of my friends were also involved in the backstage work, but I think the real reason I got involved was because of my crush on a senior MC of the show. Being part of the crew gave me a chance to see him during rehearsals and performances, even though he hardly knew I existed. It turns out I didn't really like moving around stage props and lifting the curtain on scenes anymore than I liked being on stage, so I gave up the stage crew after the show.

My joke has always been that I don't have any talent and that's why I wouldn't perform in a talent show, but it's more that I am a little bit scared of making a fool of myself and a lot uncomfortable with being the center of attention. I'd rather be the one with a pen and a pad of paper, taking notes, reporting on the experiences of other people. And that's where my talent lies.

Summer love bites

2010-06-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Every summer since I was a tiny kid I've had the curse of being a little too likeable - to bugs. When I was a kid, I'd get bit by mosquitoes, spiders, anything that likes to suck on human blood. And the bites would swell into hard, red welts. A doctor once said I was allergic to the bites (though I guess most people and that's why we all have a reaction to them.) My bug bites, however, are enough to drive me to distract although my parents always tried to distract me by saying the bugs just loved to bite me because I'm so sweet.

Most summers I can avoid getting more than one or two bites, but some years are just plain bad. Most of these really bad years included some kind of travel. When I was a senior in college I went to Mexico - Rosarito - with some friends. We stayed at this really nice condo overlooking the beach in May. I shared a room with another girl that opened up onto a balcony. We left the doors open to the fresh air the first night. I woke up with my right eyelid swollen shut with a bug bite. For the rest of the trip, I slept with sweatpants and a long sleeved sweatshirt, with the hood pulled tight over my head so a minimal amount of skin was exposed.

Perhaps the worst was a rafting trip to King's Canyon about seven years ago. A friend invited me to go for Memorial Day weekend. I thought I was prepared with some Avon bug repellent. I applied it as well as sunscreen and thought I was ready to go. On the second day, I decided to take a shower. One of the guys brought along a solar shower, which is basically a balloon full of water that heats in the sun. It hangs from a tree and works great for a quick wash up. But in the late afternoon heat and shade, the water caused a swarm of mosquitoes to attack me. I ended up with 42 mosquito bites - I counted them. I actually felt pretty sick after that - like feverish and flu-like - and was plenty itchy. The worst part was driving home in the front cab of a truck, sandwiched in between two people who rubbed up against the bites the whole ride home. The bites were swollen and hard, and took more than a week to go away after all the irritation.

It turns out the only deterrent that works on me is straight DEET, which feels gross and which is so poisonous I'd rather avoid being outdoors during mosquito hours than use it.

Luckily, when I was in South Africa five years ago, where the mosquito bites can come with malaria, I stayed bite free. I took malarone, an anti-malaria drug, just to be on the safe side. But most of the trip was spent in the urban area of Cape Town and Johannesburg. I just needed the malarone around the time we went on safari in Kruger National Park. But since it was winter and the weather was dry there were no bugs to worry about.

This summer, I considered going on the Memorial Day rafting trip again since my trip to Denver earlier in the week was off. I knew my friend would welcome me along, even at the last minute. But I think the thought of all those mosquitoes was enough to make me stay home.

I spent some time outside in my yard barbecuing on Sunday afternoon. I brought a blanket outside on the grass and laid down with the dog for a bit. And as the weather has gotten warmer, we started leaving the glass door open and the screen door shut to let in cool air in the evening. The door doesn't close all the way since the dog broke it last summer and we just haven't gotten around to replacing it. Now I can't say exactly how it happened, but by Monday afternoon I had developed seven itchy red spots in various places on my body. One on each wrist, two on my lower right shin, two on my chest and one on my knuckle. This morning I woke up with two more - one on my back and one on my neck. I don't know whether a few bugs got into the house, or if they got me while I was outside.

I really hope this is not a sign of things to come this summer. But one thing is for sure - getting the screen door fixed is a top priority and from now on, I'll wear long sleeves when I am outdoors in the evening.

Airplane reading

2010-05-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

Last week I was supposed to fulfill one of my New Year's resolutions to take a trip somewhere other than Indiana. But unfortunately my plan to head to Denver didn't quite work out the way I had intended it to and I ended up flying straight home to California after my friend's wedding in Indy.

But the condensed trip still helped me make some progress on another resolution. Though I get a little stressed out by air travel - the packing, getting their early enough to make it through security screening, worrying about catching connected flights - the one plus to spending hours in airports, on runways and on planes is that it offers plenty of time to read.

When I travel, I try to bring a mix of reading materials - a couple New Yorkers, which are always plentiful in my house, a lighter magazine like People and a book or two. I rarely get through all the reading materials, but it's nice to have options. This time around, I was low on People magazines since I read those at the gym so I packed two copies of the New Yorker and a random book I found in my room. See part of what prompted resolution No. 1 to read 10 books this year is that I have a cardboard box full of them in my room - gifts from Christmas and birthdays over the last couple of years. I grabbed one out of the box that seemed like it would be light reading and stuffed it into my carry on bag.

When I got through security at the airport, I pulled the book out to kill sometime and that's when I realized it was going to be bad. "A Version of the Truth" is written by two authors, Jennifer Kaufmann and Karen Mack. Now, call me conventional, but I prefer my novels to have just one author and one voice. The pair wrote another book together and I wonder what their process was. Did they trade off chapters? Or did one write the first draft and then the other go through it, adding to it.

The book was not very well-written and it wasn't all that entertaining. But it did offer a break from the in-depth articles in the New Yorker. So I kept reading it. It's one of those books I would have put down after a couple chapters if I had picked it up at home. But being as I had about 12 hours in airplanes and a few more in airports, I kept chugging through it.

The book is about Cassie Shaw who is a 30-something widow who is glad her mean, alcoholic husband died three years earlier. Now it's really hard to find a character sympathetic who wishes her husband dead and then is actually glad when he dies. Even if he was a jerk, she should have had some more complicated feelings than just being happy about it. Cassie doesn't have much going for her. She barely finished high school. She lives with her mom, who is kooky as can be, and she doesn't have a paying job.

She suddenly decides to take things into her own hands - but not by any self-improvement, higher education means. She just lies on a job application and says she has a college degree. She gets hired in the psych department of a college. The more time she spends around the college, she begins to want more out of life - like nice clothes and a good-looking boyfriend. But she is still in the woe-is-me mode for most of the book and it gets old really fast.

The actions of the characters is not believable and a lot of their behavior is inconsistent. The most annoying thing in the book is Sam, Cassie's African gray parrot who not only talks, but seems to converse with Cassie as well as any guests she has. Her conversations with the bird were just one step too much for me. But I nearly finished the book while I was traveling. I only had two chapters to go when I arrived home so I figured I might as well finish it to its very predictable conclusion.

Hopefully the next book I read for the resolution will be better.

Indianapolis has its share of culinary treats

2010-05-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing I don't live in the Midwest because it seems like everything I love to eat out there is an the unhealthy end of the food spectrum. I've been to the Indianapolis area a few times to visit a friend and every time I seem to discover a new food that is delicious and unhealthy.

One my first trips, I feel in love with the sippable sundae at Steak N Shake. It became a staple of my visits, although I have skipped it the last two visits. A couple years ago, I tried fried pickles for the first time ever when my friend's mom attempted to copy a recipe from a local restaurant. I got to try the originals last time I visited at Scotty's Brewhouse in downtown Indianapolis. It sounds weird, but the fried pickles are quite tasty. Also on my last visit, my friend's mom made corn fritters for the bridal shower and they were also delicious. She made them with a mix of cornmeal, corn kernels and green onions.

This weekend I went back to Indianapolis for my friend's wedding and I was there for a few days. It seemed like most of the trip revolved around eating. The first night I flew in late in the afternoon and my friend's mother picked me up at the airport. She offered to take me to dinner since my friend was busy with wedding-related stuff. She picked a place near her house called the Brickhouse Burger Company. With a name like that, I knew what I had to get - the only problem was making the choice between the seven or so offered on the menu and building my own. I ended up going with the 'shroom, which included a burger with sauteed mushrooms, Havarti dill cheese, tomatoes, and pickles, all served on a pretzel roll. I had never heard of a pretzel roll before, but I love soft pretzels. The roll was not shaped like a pretzel, but it had all the softness with the brown crust of a pretzel. It held its own against the burger. It was the best burger I've had in ages and I will now be on a mission to find a place in the bay area that has a pretzel bun. The burger was good, but I opted to only eat half of it, thinking I would save the other half for later.

But then the next day, I grabbed breakfast in the hotel lobby (offered for free with the night's stay) and then I went to lunch at a place called Champp's with the other bridesmaids. I started off with a cup of french onion soup and then had the Champp's club. While the soup had just the perfect amount of cheesy goodness, the club sandwich had too much cheese for my taste, with the double layer of Monterey jack and cheddar cheese. I ate half my sandwich so that I could save room for the mile-high ice cream pie we split five ways for dessert.

So after eating lunch close to 2 p.m., I was hardly hungry at all by the time we got to Kona Jack's for the rehearsal dinner around 8 p.m. But I couldn't pass up the soy ginger house dressing on a fresh salad and filet mignon. The best part of the meal was the taste of warm lemon cake I had for dessert, though I stayed to just a few bites since I was so full.

The delicious food I ate during the trip almost makes me wish I visited Indianapolis more often so I could have it again. But for now I am trying to get back to eating healthy with fresh vegetables and fruits from the farmers market.

Photo by Melissa Flores

The 'shroom burger at Brickhouse Burger Company includes Havarti cheese, sauteed mushrooms and burger fixings on a pretzel roll.

The practice of packing in a rush

2010-05-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've always had a system for packing that ensures I don't forget anything I need no matter how long or short the trip. I make a list of all the essentials and then cross each item off as it goes into the bag.

Part of what has changed is that I am a lot more judicious in what I bring with me. I remember the first trip I took far from home, to Ireland, I had a back pack and two huge rolling bags. I couldn't control my luggage on my own so I think the hospitality of the Irish for helping me lug those things around. It's easy to remember what you need when you just take it all with you. Now I pack just what I can handle on my own. But the other thing is that the last few times I've needed to pack a bag, this system has gone out the window because I am in a rush.

Yesterday is a perfect example. I had to catch a 6:45 a.m. flight out of San Jose with Indianapolis as a final destination. Now I'd spent months thinking about what I needed to bring and how to pack a bridesmaids dress without turning it into a wrinkled mess.

My ideal plan was to pack it in a garment bag and bring it as carry on. But then last weekend when I went to buy a garment bag, the cheapest one I could find was $100. It didn't seem worth it for something I would probably only use once in my life. Instead, I decided I should borrow a garment bag. The problem is the people I know don't travel - or they don't travel with nice clothes. My mom asked a co-worker who said she might have something, but then the co-worker forgot to bring it in for two days.

So the garment bag arrived at my house yesterday afternoon. I unfortunately, did not arrive home until a few hours later. Wednesday is the day the paper goes to press and as the person designing it, I need to stay until it is done or I would have just taken off an hour or two early to get a jump on packing. The paper was done about half an hour before deadline, but I needed to leave notes for a student intern who would be helping while I was out and then I had promised to pick up dinner at the farmers market in Hollister.

By the time I was pulling off the freeway into town, it was almost 7 p.m. And then I suddenly realized I forgot my wall charger for my cell phone at work. My office is a half hour drive, one way. And my phone, as a mytouch, lasts barely a day without being charged. With a flight leaving at 4 a.m., I didn't have time to go to my office so I decided to go to the nearest T-mobile store and just by another charger. $35 later, I was set.

By the time I got home, ate dinner and took a shower, it was almost 9 p.m. before I started packing. I used the technique of rolling all my clothes to fit more in the suitcase. Actually, a few days ago a friend sent me a link to a slideshow from the New York Times of an airline flight attendant packing a carry-on bag for a trip. The airline I flew, Delta, charges for checked bags so I was hoping to avoid it. Plus, I am kind of a control freak and the idea of leaving my bag in someone else's hands and hoping it gets to my final destination really makes me nervous.

So everything was in the garment bag and ready to go when I went downstairs to print out my boarding pass. I figured I should double check the measurements for carry on. And then I realized the garment bag is way bigger than the allotted space per passenger.

In the end, I decided to use my trusty carry on, which has pockets for my shoes, a little case for toiletries and seems to hold just enough clothes for a few days. Based on the slideshow advice, I put the bridesmaids dress in the bottom of the suitcase, piled in my heavy items to lighter items and then folded the dress over all the stuff in the middle. I definitely had plenty of space in my suitcase.

By the time I finished packing it was nearly 10 p.m. and I was just hoping I hadn't forgotten anything. The last time I packed in a rush, I forgot tweezers, a razor and shaving gel. Other family members forgot toothpaste and deodorant so I wasn't alone in forgetting things. But luckily it was at my cousin's wedding in San Jose where half my family was staying so I was able to swap the necessary items with other immediate family members for the things they had forgotten.

So far this trip, the dress came out a little wrinkled but nothing an iron couldn't fix. And as for forgetting things, I think I've got everything I need. The only problem is I may have inadvertently mixed my neutrogena face wash in with some conditioner and vice versa. See, I had my shampoo, conditioner and face wash in little travel size containers from the last time I traveled to Indianapolis for the bridal shower/bachelorette party. So I just left them in the bathroom for this second trip. But last night I decided to fill them up a bit more. All three items contain white liquids and the only way to tell them apart is that the shampoo has a little more sheen to it, and the conditioner and shampoo are scented while the sensitive skin face wash is unscented.

When I took a shower tonight, I couldn't tell the conditioner and face wash apart - the consistency of both seemed off, leading me to the theory that I filled the conditioner bottle with face wash and the face wash with conditioner. If that is the only issue I discover over the next three days, that won't be too bad.

'Daria' release brings more sarcasm into the world

2010-05-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

A new generation is going to have a chance to get a little more sarcasm in their lives with the release of the complete boxed set of "Daria" on DVD.

I am so excited about it. And if I weren't trying to practice some self-restraint and allow someone the opportunity to buy it for me for my birthday in two months, I would run right out and get it so I could start watching it right away.

Though I could not stand "Beavis and Butthead" when it debuted on MTV, I am forever grateful for the spin off that came out of it, "Daria." I watched it all the time, mostly with my best friend, and we loved that Daria and her best friend Jane were as sarcastic as we were. They were two kids who were kind of on the outside at their high school, but who didn't really care because they knew they were way cooler than all the other kids in school. I think my friend and I saw a lot of ourselves in them. And we really did think some of the cheerleaders and football players we knew were as dumb as Britney and Kevin. And the teacher with the anger issues whose eye was always popping out was hilarious. Plus, Jane's brother Trent was really cute - for a cartoon.

I watched the show when I was home on winter break or for summer vacation since I did not have cable in my dorm room. And thanks to MTV's penchant for marathons, I probably caught every episode. The box set comes with all five seasons, as well as two movies, which I already own on DVD, "Is It Summer Yet?" and "Is It College Yet?"

I can't wait to add the "Daria" box set to my collection - and I really hope someone gets it for me. The only problem is I will probably want to watch the whole thing in one week!

The definition of a date

2010-05-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

So a friend of a friend writes this blog "50dates50countries" where she is chronicling her ambition of going on 50 dates total with men from 50 different countries. She plays a little fast and loose with her definition of a date - after all one of her posts was about meeting a guy randomly at a bookstore and having coffee after and then getting stuck with the bill. I would never have classified the perchance meeting with someone I wasn't really interested in as a date, but she did. Reading her blog, which is updated sporadically, has made me rethink some of my past encounters and whether or not they might have been dates.

Like the time a guy from work invited me to dinner and a concert for some band I'd never heard of before. I can't remember exactly why I agreed to go because I didn't really like him, but I just assumed it wasn't a date because I wasn't really interested in it being a date.

And there was the time when I guy I knew casually from the gym invited me to see a movie after work one day and when I declined because I had to catch the train home, he offered to drive me home if I would go to the movie. It was an hour drive round trip. It was some depressing Scottish film, certainly not a good date movie. But after the movie, he asked if I wanted to grab something to eat and then proceeded to walk to my favorite restaurant in downtown San Jose, which I had casually mentioned a few weeks before. I'm pretty sure it was a date, even though a few years later he denied it.

Or there was the time in grad school when I invited the guy I liked to a movie screening with me and we made reservations at my favorite Italian restaurant beforehand. The fact that he showed up in a coffee-stained shirt and paid just for his share of the meal made me certain it was not a date.

I don't really know what my definition of a date is, but I guess if no one in the equation utters the word I assume it's not a date. A friend insists it's a date if the guy pays. A coworker said if afterwards you are still not sure if it was a date, it was probably a date, though I am not quite sure on the reasoning of that.

I hung out with someone I like in a date-like situation recently, but the jury is still out on whether it was actually a date. Good conversation, check. Plenty of eye contact and laughing, check. Him picking up the tab even though I offered to split it, check. But I don't really know what he thought of the whole thing so I am going to hold off on saying I've completed New Year's Resolution No. 9 to go on one date this year. I am hoping that instead I will be able to report that I've been on two or more dates with the same person.

And if it turns out not to have been a date, I've got someone who asked if he could set me up a blind date. At least then I will know for sure it is a date.

Maid of honor duties complete

2010-05-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

I was under the misguided assumption that my maid of honor duties would end when the wedding reception was over - but though my cousin's wedding was May 1 I finally think my duties are complete today.

See, when the professional photographer from the wedding posted up more than 600 photos from the wedding day, my cousin suddenly realized there were not that many pictures of just the two of us together. There were some group shots, a few of me helping her get ready before the wedding and helping to bustle up her train, but none of the two of us actually looking like we were enjoy ourselves.

She already had plans to go out with the groom again to get more photos of the two of them in a more relaxed and playful setting - like with his Harley in some of the pictures. A couple days after the wedding she sent me a text asking what weekend I had to fly out for my friend's wedding. I had no idea what the inquiry was about. And then she texted me back and said she wanted to pay for me to have my hair done again so that we could get some more photos together.

Now after the wedding, I swore I was never going to wear the floor-length blue gown again. Even after two alterations, it was too big and I had to pull it up all night long. Someone spilled champagne on it. Someone else stepped on it all night long. I took my shoes off and it dragged all along the floor at the reception. And the day after the wedding, I folded it in half to make it easy to carry out of my room to the car - all because I figured I would never wear it again.

But as maid of honor, I figured it was still my duty to make the newlyweds happy. So this morning I skipped my long Sunday work out so I could shower and blow dry my hair for a 7 a.m. appointment to get it all curled up. Then we came back to my house and I helped her get back into her wedding dress, heels, tiara and veil. And then I put on the floor-length blue gown that is now even looser on me since I upped my running time at the gym.

The photographer took us out to a local garden off Hecker Pass and as the sun came out, I also served as the photographer's assistant by holding a diffuser that helped keep the happy couple from squinting into the sun. I didn't have to have too many photos taken, which is good since I always feel a little uncomfortable and awkward having my photo taken. See, I always get a fake smile on my face that looks really bad and I know it looks bad so then I get even more nervous about it. The result is it just gets worse and worse. The only really way to get the natural smile is for someone to make me laugh a little. So luckily the photographer we were working with has known me since I was 15 and he had a knack for relaxing me.

I can't wait to see the latest photos of the bride and groom, especially the ones of them with the motorcycle. And I was happy I was able to help out with the final photo shoot - even if it meant donning the too-big, too-long blue bridesmaid dress one more time. Now I just have to have my hair done again on Saturday and deal with more photos - and try to avoid the fake smile - at my friend's wedding next weekend. But at least as a bridesmaid, I don't have nearly as many duties as maid of honor.

'Rejection' book offers a bit of humor

2010-05-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

So when it comes to my first resolution to read more books this year, I've been doing a lot better at reading book reviews and compiling a list of books I might want to read in the future than doing the actual reading. I took a break and read two books last month - and now I am three months behind on my New Yorker magazines so I decided to take a little break again from the long-form materials.

I do read a lot of book reviews - some in the New Yorker, some in People Magazine and some in whatever other magazines I read while doing cardio at the gym. I've noticed that People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and some other popular magazines all tend to run reviews of the same books. The New Yorker rarely offer reports on anything that is quite so mainstream and popular.

One of the recent book plugs in People is for one called "Other People's Rejection Letters" and it is edited by Bill Shapiro. At first, I thought it seemed like kind of a mean idea - poking fun at other people's lowest moments. After all, it's hard not to take any rejection a little personal. The few letters used by People's writers to illustrate the book are written by children - to a mother and a grandmother. One is just a kid saying they can't go with grandma because they have other plans and it's pretty funny seeing it in the large print of a young child's handwriting.

I guess rejection is sort of a universal thing. I know I have had my share of it - from friends who back out of plans, to breakups, to getting the brush off from a potential employer. I've gotten rejected by voicemail for a job I had already decided not to take. I've gotten e-mails, handwritten letters and in this new digital age I am sure I will eventually get rejected by text. The thing about rejection is that it smarts in the moment, but I have to say that most of my rejections end up to be funny stories down the road.

There was the rejection by my first sort of boyfriend, with whom I never really got past the "hanging out" phase when I was fifteen. After two-intense weeks of talking on the phone, holding hands and a kiss or two, he wrote me a short letter about how we needed to stop "hanging out" because of our different views on alcohol. It was news to me as we were 15 and the topic had never come up between us. Of course, the most recent time I saw him a couple years ago, he was pretty heavy into drinking so maybe he was right way back then.

And just a few months ago I reconnected with a former coworker on Facebook. We exchanged a few messages and all seemed well. In my last message to him I said if he ever wanted to catch a movie to let me know because I write a weekly movie column for the Pinnacle. And he never responded back. Message received.

Perhaps the book is really just a way to help everyone find a little humor in their past rejections and to realize that it really is a universal experience. It sucks to go through it, but I guess the optimistic way to look at it is that by risking the rejection we can end up with great opportunities, in love and jobs, and whatever else.

I haven't added the book to my to-read list yet, but I might get to it someday. After all, I'd hate to make editor Bill Shapiro.

Resolution No. 2 eaten up

2010-05-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

I guess in the last couple months I stopped keeping track of where I was with my resolutions. In fact, I completed resolution No. 2 to eat out at five new restaurants this weekend and didn't even realize it. It turned out to be really easy to try new places - it just took being open to getting out of my comfort zone and spending a little more time socializing than usual. After all, grabbing a meal is a great way to spend time with friends.

I already blogged about the restaurant that put me across the line when I wrote about eating out all day on Saturday - Aqui was a new stop for me. I actually visited restaurant No. 4 a few weeks ago for my cousin's bachelorette party. Her friends made plans to go to a pub-like place in Monterey called the Mucky Duck. I'd never heard of it before, but a few of my friends from the area seemed to have fond memories of it. All I knew about it was that a band with a guy named Junior (whom my cousin and her friends new) would be playing there and a coworker said he used to hang out there when he was younger.

I checked out the menu before we went because I wanted to be sure I had the option f a hearty meal if I was going to be drinking for a long time for the bachelorette party. It seemed to have typical pub grub - burgers, sandwiches, greasy appetizers. It looked perfect.

Some of the group, which included about 15 of us, opted to skip the meal while others ordered a full meal. I opted to order a few appetizers to shared with a couple of other people. We went with the nachos, which came piled high with beans, cheese, sour cream, tomatoes and were pretty much enough to food a whole table of people; the Guinness sliders, little mini burgers that had a distinct Guinness beer smell without the overwhelming flavor; and some chicken strips. The food was good enough that I would eat there again - on a rare occasion since, of course, it wasn't all that healthy.

As for the drinks, they had a few original concoctions on the menu but the one I had - something with rum and pineapple juice - was okay, but not exceptional.

Even though I've completed my resolution, I hope to continue to try out some new restaurants - especially since I still haven't made it to the Los Gatos place a friend recommended. I'll keep it on my to-do list for now.

Tripped up during the morning run

2010-05-12T20:52:00.001-07:00

Since I signed up for dailymile.com and my friend has been posting his (long) daily runs, I've been encouraged to add a couple more miles a week to my workouts. The problem is I don't really have extra time to devote to running and I don't want to cut down on weight training, biking, yoga or the elliptical machine.

I thought I would start adding in a few 10-minute mile runs a couple more days a week. It would pick up the pace from my average of 12:30 a mile for long distance runs and I figured it might help me increase my speed for the 5K I am signed up to do on Memorial Day Weekend.

I started out the run at 5.3 mph for a couple minutes and then upped it to 6.3 mph - and that's when I started to encounter a slight problem. See a few months ago I bought a pair of $100 yoga pants. I love them because they are comfy for yoga, weight training, bicycling at the gym and using the elliptical trainer.

When I first bought the pants, my friend told me to consider buying something with a drawstring since I've been on a workout/health food kick. She warned me that if I continued to tone up and lose weight, the pants would not stay up for more than a couple months. Now for the last couple of weeks, I've noticed they've gotten a bit loose but I just pull them back up and go on with the workout. It hasn't been much of a problem - until this morning.

As I sped up the treadmill to 6.7, the yoga pants started to slip down at a bit more rapid pace...and fortunately for me, I was the only person in the gym at the time (although there are security cameras, which the staff hopefully never review.) I held my pants up with one hand as I tried to slow down the treadmill to a walking pace with the other. In the meantime, as I was flailing around and trying not to lose my balance, my new headphones kept getting caught on the treadmill and then I had to struggle not to trip on those. Now a normal person would probably have given up the run at this point, or at least settled for a slower pace. But I was already running late with my workout since I woke up a little late, so I decided to hike the pants back up and speed it up again. I repeated the process a few more times until I completed my mile in 10:45.

I'll have to give my friend a chance to say she told me so. And on my way home from work tomorrow, I have plans to stop at the Gap outlet to get a new pair of workout pants that will hopefully stay up as I run. I need them before my Friday morning run. The $100 yoga pants are going to be relegated to yoga and other light workouts.

Farmers market opening day

2010-05-11T19:12:00.000-07:00

The Hollister downtown Farmers market opens for the season tomorrow, and I highly recommend those in the San Benito area stop by. The market is open Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. through September.

The opening of the market each season is a sign that summer is on the way. The market moved to Fifth Street last year and lucky for me, it's a short walk from my office. The best part of the market is the fresh produce from local growers - and there are a lot of them in San Benito County. My personal favorites have always been the fennel, leeks and onions at Phil Foster's Pinnacle Organics booth as well as Swank Farms tomatoes and fresh corn. I am looking forward to Fairhaven Orchards, which will be selling cherries as soon as the crop comes in. I can't wait to start trying new recipes based on what I find at the market each week for the Pinnacle's food column.

In addition to the fresh produce, Hollister's market also has an offering of prepared foods from local vendors. New this year is Dave's Dawghouse, a hot dog vendor, which the guys in my office have for lunch at least once a week. Some local restaurants will be selling desserts, including pies, cookies and fudge, from what I hear.

My longtime favorites for the five years I've worked in Hollister include the roasted corn and baked potatoes from Charley's Corn and pretty much everything sold at Mansmith's booth. Mansmith's sells smoked brisket, ribs, chicken, tri-tip sandwiches, whole tri-tips and garlic bread.

I'm going to try to stick to the healthy fruits and vegetables, but I am sure I'll give in to the brisket, potato and corn for dinner once or twice during the season.

There will also be arts and crafts booth and local musicians, though the schedule is still in the works. Check out the Pinnacle calendar section for performers as well as any special events taking place each week.

Three square meals eaten out

2010-05-09T18:21:00.001-07:00

I try not to eat out too often so it is a little odd that yesterday I ended up eating out for two meals - and having a little mini takeout in between. A while ago I had e-mailed a friend and said that we should try to get together May 8 or 15, after all my maid of honor duties had calmed down. And in the meantime, I was trying to arrange a time to go to breakfast with another friend. Somehow this week, they both got back to me that Saturday would work great. With breakfast plans at 10 a.m, I figured I could manage dinner at 6 p.m.

The first meal was breakfast at OD's Kitchen, which is always great. Since it is a little hole in the wall place in Gilroy, I always like introducing out-of-towners to it. So I went there with a friend who is from the East Coast. I'm not really a breakfast person and he admitted while we were at breakfast that he's not much of a breakfast person either. But he seemed to really enjoy the eggs benedict and I love the home fries. I've tried to recreate the home fries at home, but I've never quite been able to do it. So I guess OD's will always get a visit from me every once in a while.

Since I knew I had plans to eat dinner out later in the day, I ate half of my breakfast and took the rest of it home, thinking I could always warm it up today.

I didn't think I'd eat much more before dinner. But a couple hours later my parents showed up at home with a plate of samples from the "No Bull BBQ" cook-off in Morgan Hill. I couldn't resist trying the brisket, tri-tip and a piece of garlic bread. Luckily the samples were quite small so I didn't really eat that much of it.

For dinner, I met up with some friends in Campbell and the meal helped me along with Resolution No. 2 (eat at five new restaurants.) My friends have a place across the street from the Pruneyard, and within walking distance of downtown Campbell. I left the place we'd eat out up to them and they chose a Aqui, which is a Mexican restaurant with a southwest flare. The menu included burritos, tacos and other typical fare, but with a little twist. For instance, my chicken burrito had slaw and barbecue sauce in it. My friends knew pretty much everything on the menu, and said they eat there at least once a week. The burrito was good, as was the roasted tomato salsa I had with some tortilla chips. The salsa was perfectly mild for me, but quite tasty.

Once again, I ate only half of my meal - this time to save room for a dessert at a little place around the corner called Satura Cakes. The place had cookies, donuts, truffles and a bunch of fancy little desserts. I got a New York NY cheesecake souffle. It was light and fluffy, and delicious. And since we had to walk a few blocks to and from my friends' apartments to get downtown, I didn't feel so bad about all the eating out.

My friends have already listed a whole bunch of other places in Campbell they want to take me to eat, so I am sure I will have Resolution No. 2 done well before the end of the year. And hopefully, I will get to introduce my other friend to a couple other good local eats, even if it doesn't move me closer to completing a resolution.

Of course, this morning before I could warm up my leftover breakfast my dad got to it and ate it all. I went back to my normal eating routine by having a piece of toast.

Photo by Melissa Flores

The New York NY Cheesecake souffle from Satura Cakes in downtown Campbell.

Web sites to track just about anything

2010-05-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of months I've started using a few new Web sites - some more useful than others. One can be used to track the places I've been, though with my good memory I can pretty much do that on my own. One helps me track my spending and budget my money, which I had been doing with excel. Another helps me track how many miles I'm logging at the gym.

A friend of mine told me about Foursquare, an app you can download to your phone so that you can "check in" at different places. The goal is to unlock badges and to compete to by "mayor" by having the highest number of check ins. For instance, I am "mayor" of my gym, Snap Fitness, with 78 check ins in the last Foursquare can be connected to facebook or twitter so other people can see all the places you've been. The program uses gps to locate places that are nearby, but users can also search for a specific place if it doesn't come up. And they can add new locations if one is not listed.

For a couple of weeks, I connected my foursquare account to facebook and probably really annoyed my friends with all the udpates about where I was. But I quickly realized that the foursquare updates would make a perfect storyline for an episode of "Law and Order: SVU," where victims are stalked based on their online posts. I wasn't really worried about someone stalking me, but a former boss did caution me to be careful so for his peace of mind I made my posts private.

The only people who can see the posts are a couple of friends who use it, too. I used to log in a lot in the first month I used it. But I have to admit, I don't really see the point of it. I mostly just check in at the gym in the morning.

But another site I've started using as proved a lot more useful. Someone mentioned mint.com to me and suggested I use it as a resource to track money flow. And then one of my best friends recommended it to me, too, so I signed up. The way the site works is that users connect their checking, savings and credit card accounts on a mint. It makes it really easy to put together a budget for different types of expenses - gas, clothing, food, rent - and it breaks it all out for users. I've been using it for about two months - and it's made me more aware of how I spend my money. A lot of it goes to student loan payments, and lately a lot of it has been going to wedding-related expenses for my cousin's recent wedding and a friend's wedding later this month.

The site is really easy to use and it e-mails you if you go over your budget for any category or with weekly updates.

I've also recently started using dailymile - like really recently as in yesterday. The same friend who told me about the other sites mentioned this as he set a goal for himself of running 100 miles by August. while I have no such lofty goal as that, I thought it would be a nice way to track how much I walk and run, as well as give some motivation for increasing my pace.

So far, I've tracked three workouts - and I am including my daily walk with the dog - and it will be interesting to see how many miles I can rack up.

Too much to confess after a month off from blog

2010-05-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a month since I blogged last, and I've come to think that getting away from a blog is a little bit like skipping confession. The longer you put it off, the harder it is to get back to it because the pile of items to share just keeps growing. So I have decided I will recommit to my blog - though I am going to put off that confession thing a little bit longer.

A lot can happen in a month. I've made some progress with some of my New Year's Resolution - two more books read - and I've digressed on some others - the trip to Denver is off.

I attended two bachelorette parties, a bridal shower, a wedding and flew to Indianapolis for a weekend.

I got my first French manicure before the wedding and it lasted less than 24 hours before it started to chip.

I wore a floor-length strapless gown for the first time and I hope to avoid ever doing it again.

I had my hair curled for the first time since junior high school and though people told me it looked amazing, the can of hairspray to keep it in place meant it didn't feel so amazing.

I served as maid of honor for the first time at my cousin's wedding and I think I did a decent job of being supportive of the bride up to the very last minute - my last duty of the night was making sure her teenage son made it back to his room and didn't get too crazy for the night. My highlight of the night was giving my maid of honor toast, which made everyone laugh and tear up, my goal while I was writing it.

I've won two awards, one from the California Newspaper Publisher's Association Better Newspaper Contest (second place for investigative reporting), and another from the Association of California School Administrators, District 10 (for media coverage of the year.

All in all, it's been a pretty good month. I will expand on some of these items in the coming weeks - though I do have one more trip to Indiana planned at the end of the month for the other wedding in which I am part of the bridal party.

Benjamin Bratt - something of a 'Maverick'

2010-04-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

I can honestly say I’ve ridden in an elevator with Jim Carrey and that I’ve walked up the stairs with Benjamin Bratt. The elevator ride was years ago when I was a student reporter for the Daily Trojan at USC. The stairs were just a few weeks ago at the California Theater for the Cinequest Film Festival’s Maverick Spirit Award. Bratt was conducting interviews with the press in the lobby of the downtown San Jose theater. Crowds were gathered around him, trying to get snapshots with their cell phones. I just happened to be walking up to the balcony seats with my parents when Ben departed the throng and headed up the stairs and behind the scenes.

It’s rare for me to see an interview with a celebrity on TV, in a magazine, or once in a while in person, and think, “Gee, that’s someone I might actually want to hang out with in real life.” But that is actually what I thought after sitting through the presentation of the Maverick Spirit Award for Benjamin Bratt at the Cinequest Film Festival March 4. And I’m not just saying that because he is so dreamy.

Bratt won me over with a few of his comments, but perhaps the thing that got me most was a jab at a recent vice presidential candidate.

“As a Maverick, I can tell you what I’m not going to do next and that is hang out of a low flying helicopter and shoot at wolves,” he joked.

But then on a serious note, he added, “The truth is I am really honored for what the award is – not a lifetime achievement, but kind like a mid-life achievement…Looking back eight years, it’s no chock to see my work got better after I met my family. They define who I am.”

Each year at Cinequest, a filmmaker or actor is honored as a maverick. I’ve been to a few of the award presentations, which often include a screening of a film and a Q&A with the honoree. I’ve seen William H. Macy, Edward James Olmos, Michael Keaton and Lili Taylor.

The event with Bratt featured a screening of his latest film “La Mission,” which opens in select theaters in the Bay Area April 16. A review of the movie, will appear in the April 16 edition of the Pinnacle (http://www.pinnaclenews.com/.) It also featured a short Q&A with writer/director Peter Bratt, Benjamin’s brother, who worked on the film, as well as the presentation of Bratt’s award.

Bratt then sat down with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom and an actress/filmmaker, for a question and answer session. Bratt talked about how he got into acting, growing up in San Francisco, and more, all with an air of humor.

“I was born in the early ’60s, though I don’t look like it,” he said. “And not a lot of people looked like me on TV.”

He told a story of working with Michael Caine on the comedy “Miss Congeniality.”

They were both in Texas, near San Antonio, and the pair went shopping in a local mall. No one recognized Caine, but Bratt was surrounded by fans.

“Michael said, ‘Your like the Alamo. Every time I turn around you’re surrounded by Mexicans,’” Bratt said. “He is a wonderful, witty man.

Born in the U.S., Bratt’s mother was Peruvian and his father was German. His mother was active in native American causes, and Bratt narrated the PBS series, “We Shall Remain.” The four-part series followed Native American trials through history.It was Bratt’s father who first suggested he try out acting.

“I was a bit of a ham and he asked if I thought about trying out for a play,” Bratt said. “I said no.”

But then he realized he would have a chance to hang out with all the girls who also tried out for plays so he got involved in theater. He studied acting at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the American Conservatory Theater, in San Francisco.

“If all fialed, I’d have a degree to be a teacher,” he said.

He almost didn’t take his first break, when he was offered a tryout for an ABC pilot, “Juarez,” because he didn’t have the money to get to Los Angeles to audition.

“The casting director – I was driving super shuttles and working in a print shop – grabbed me by the lapels and said what are you studying for if not to have an opportunity.”

Bratt flew to L.A., was cast in the lead with a six-episode contract.

“We only made two episodes, but I paid off all my student loans,” he said.

Since then, Bratt has appeared in 43 movies, TV shows or miniseries, including two projects with which he worked with his brother Peter.

He said it is great to work with someone “who is so in line with you socially, spiritually, familially – is that even a word?”

Bratt added that Peter had always been the storyteller.

“There is no experience quite like working my brother,” he said, adding that it helps his performance to work with a director who is also the writer of the material, as his brother was with “La Mission.”

“I find that my brother creates roles that have weight to them, but in circumstances, sometimes like real life, you need a good laugh,” Bratt said. “He know how to tap into it.”

He added that at the end of the day, what he wants to achieve is “to make you feel something, whether it is a comedy, drama or Greek tragedy. There is a reason this craft is centuries old.”

Peter chose the Mission District for his film because it is the family’s favorite San Francisco neighborhood. The film shows footage of the homes, the murals, Aztec dancers on the street corners.

“The best thing about the Mission District, the one thing that makes it unique is it’s in a constant state of evolution,” Bratt said. “The lifeblood is very strong. There is a strong Latino presence…Yes, there is gang violence, but there is a vibrancy of culture, in the murals…”

The movie deals with some of that gang violence, as well as the Latino machismo ideal and homosexuality.

“It’s about a young man deciding to stand by who he is at the risk of losing his father and extended family, Bratt said.

Bratt is continuing to promote “La Mission,” which opens at the Camera 12, in San Jose, the AMC Mercado, in Santa Clara, and some other select theaters April 16. For more on the movie, see their facebook page by searching for “La Mission” or visit the movie’s homepage http://www.lamissionthemovie.com/.

As for his next project, he said he has a few things in the work.

“Maybe a comedy,” he said. “It’s a long process. I used to go to the new Mission Theater and see Bruce Lee movies – double billings. I gotta do a martial arts movie. I need to kick something.”

Resolution quarterly report

2010-04-05T18:55:00.001-07:00

It's been just about three months since I made my list of 19 resolutions. I've added four to the completed list (cook with five new ingredients; enter and complete a 5K; have tulips or lilies in my garden and apply for a fellowship.) The 5K was fun and I can't wait to do another one. The tulips were short lived, but I have the bulbs drying outside with hopes that I will be able to plant them for next year. I cooked with five different ingredients with Swiss chard being on of the best of the bunch and quinoa being the worst. And I got the news about a month ago that I didn't get the fellowship, but at least I tried.

As for the rest of the resolutions, I have started on some of them, such as eating at five new restaurants this year. I tried Rosy's at the Beach, Pluto's and Village Bistro, so I just have two more to go. I've also read three books, including Alice Munro's "Too Much Happiness," Audrey Niffenegger's "Her Fearful Symmetry," and Nick Hornby's "Juliet, Naked." I've got a few other books on the to-read list, including one by an author I met last week, Tim Z. Hernandez.

For some resolutions, I've started to lay the groundwork. Two weekends ago, I planted basil and a variety of tomatoes that will be used this summer to make my homemade pasta sauce. Unfortunately, a recent storm may have hurt the young transplants so I may need to replace them this weekend. I am determined to use as many of my homegrown tomatoes in the sauce as I can.

I have also booked a flight to somewhere other than Indianapolis for a short vacation. I will be stopping in Denver for a few days on my way home Indianapolis and it costs the same as flying straight home. Some people have asked me why Denver and all I can say is maple bacon cupcakes. Or at least that is the reason a friend told me to go there. Also, I know someone who lives there who has offered me a place to crash and to be my tour guide for a few days.

And with some of the resolutions, I have to admit, I haven't started at all. I keep meaning to add a few Oscar best picture winners to the netflix queue, but I'm on a "Criminal Minds" kick and trying to catch up on all the old episodes. I'm still on season one. I have also not started working on a short story since spending most of my week reporting and writing (and blogging) makes me not really want to write in my spare time. I've got some ideas kicking around in my mind, but just need to find the time.

I just keep reminding myself I still have nine months to go, plenty of time to finish the other 15 resolutions.

Music mix offers a rhythm to the run

2010-03-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Now that I am back into working out regularly, there are a few key ingredients I need for a good work out.

One is the proper attire, which mostly means a comfortable pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, a tank top and New Balance sneakers. Though I can hardly believe I did it, I dropped $100 on the pair of yoga pants I have now at Santana Row about a month ago. They are comfortable, the right length (which is an issue for me at 5'1") and as my friend said when we were shopping they make everything look a little perkier and shapelier. Luckily, I get my New Balance shoes and Gap tank tops for cheap at the Gilroy outlets.

Another key ingredient for a good work out is a couple of magazines to keep me occupied while I am working on cardio machines. The truth is I get kinda bored on the elliptical, bike or treadmill so a magazine is a good distraction. I wasn't going to the gym for a while so I had a backlog of People magazines. People is perfect because there are lots of pictures and it's light reading. It doesn't take a lot of concentration and the type is larger than in a magazine like my favorite read, The New Yorker. But after a few months of a six-day a week gym habit, I quickly caught up on the magazines. So now I've been mixing in an issue of Entertainment Weekly here and there, or Esquire or GQ, which have surprisingly high-quality and clever writing.

But perhaps the most important part of my workout routine (and something that has been a part of it since my first fitness stint back in college) is good music. Back when I used to run in college and at San Jose State University, I used to carry around a Sony Discman. When I was using cardio equipment, I'd prop it in the cup holders. When I was using weight machines, I wore baggy men's gym shorts so that I could stuff the Discman in my pocket. It was heavy and unwieldy.

Times have certainly changed. Now I run with my iPod nano strapped to my arm with headphones that have soft earbuds to block out all the outside noise. I have 600+ songs on the iPod so it's easy to mix up the music. I have to say I have eclectic taste in music in general, but especially when I workout. I don't really care what the lyrics are as long as it has a fast pace and isn't heavy metal. When I first started jogging at the gym, I listened to the soundtrack from "Slumdog Millionaires," which has some great high beat per minute music on it. "Mausum &Escape" is what I use to start the jog because it sets the mood and rhythm.

So when I was preparing for the 5K last weekend, I spent some time thinking about with what music I might want to start and end the run. I wanted to use the music to help pace myself - like two fast songs for jogging and then one slower song for walking. But mostly I wanted fun stuff that would keep me going when I got a little tired out.

So below is my random mix:
Hop on a Plane - Tegan and Sara
Mausam & Escape - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Blah Blah Blah - Ke$ha
Amphetamine - I Can't Go On I'll Go On (Bandslam soundtrack)
Sexy Mistake - The Chalets
Upside Down - Jack Johnson
Beggin' - Madcon
Mean Girls - Sugarland
Supermodel - Jill Sobule
Walking on air - Kerli
Party at a Rich Dude's House - Ke$ha
Girlfriend - Avril Lavigne
Single Ladies - Beyonce
Shake It - Metro Station
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas
Get On Your Boots - U2
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Gimme More - Britney Spears
Whatcha Say - DJ X-Change

I put on an hour and 10 minutes of music, just in case I really blew my average time of a 40 minute 5K (on the treadmill at the gym.) The songs that gave me the biggest motivation included Mausam & Escape, Supermodel and Girlfriend, perhaps because of their timing in the run. I crossed the finish line to Beyonce's Single Ladies so I didn't even get to the one song by my favorite band U2. But I am sure I will get some more use out of the mix at the gym.

And anyone who has suggestions for other songs to add is welcome to share them.

Resolution No. 16 done in 42 minutes

2010-03-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

I finished my first 5K this morning. It's something I've always wanted to do, but I've never entered one because I think I had some concerns left over from my really nonathletic days in high school when I used to be the last one to finish the mile in PE.

So when I added a 5K as one of my resolutions (No. 16) in January, I planned to enter one in July so I would have six months to train. I started out doing 10 minutes on the treadmill and my plan was to add three minutes a week to build up my time and endurance. But about six weeks ago, my mom's coworker mentioned the Wildflower Run in Morgan Hill. It sounded like a good run to start since it has a flat surface and a place that is cool in the mornings. But it was four months ahead of my plan. I immediately amped up my training. The first week I ran two miles on the treadmill. The next week I ran 30 minutes, or about 2.5 miles. Then the week after I went for 3.1 miles just to see if I could do it. I reserved my running for Friday and Sunday, but never got around to running outdoors.

I had two people tell me that running outside is a lot harder than on a treadmill. I haven't run outdoors since I was in college and the main reason I stopped was that my allergies really act up outside. One person said she thought it was easier to run outdoors because you get into a rhythm more easily than when you try to stay in the center of a treadmill.

I eventually worked my way up to 3.1 miles in 40 minutes and I've been doing that on Sundays, with a 20 min. run on Fridays. I felt well prepared for the morning run/walk. I made a mix of fast tempo songs to help pace myself and keep me motivated during the trek. I skipped the gym this morning, but warmed up with a mile walk with the dog at the park. I had a bottle of water to keep hydrated.

At 9:15, the 5K started and I encountered my first issue with running outdoors. For some reason, my yoga pants kept slipping down for the first 10 minutes on the run so I kept having to hike them up. Eventually they started staying up on their own. I have to agree with the people who said running outdoors is harder than running on a treadmill, since I had to stop a few more times than when I run inside. And my nose started running thanks to allergies. The mile markers were helpful to keep track of how far I had left and as I came up to the finish line I tried to pick up my pace. I didn't notice what time I crossed the finish line, but it was some time between 42-43 minutes - just a few minutes off my 40-minute goal.

After I finished, I walked back the way I came to meet my mom who was walking the 5K. She wasn't far back, about 10 minutes behind me. The best part of this run is the free Jamba Juice offered at the finish line, along with the oranges and trail mix. And, of course, I have my green "finisher" ribbon - perhaps my first "award" for any athletic event ever.

I am ready to sign up for the next 5K, maybe one at the end of May. Now that I have a time, I can set a goal to improve it a little with each run.

Dream a little dream

2010-03-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

One of my coworkers and I often share the things we dream about, especially when they are oddly work related. He has dreamt he had two mountain lines perching on his chest. "It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable," he said. I suggested perhaps his two part-time jobs were weighing down on him.

Most of the time, however, our dreams are a lot more obvious. We both work at a newspaper, which is a deadline driven business so maybe it's not unusual that we both have the same recurring dream. In mine, I am back at school, most often at Gilroy High School, and I suddenly realize that I have missed a class all semester and I have a final or major project coming due. The class is almost always a math class, but once in awhile it is a photography class. The dream just kind of goes around in circles with me thinking I need to get the project/final done, but not really doing anything to get it done. A lot of times in my dream I am semi-aware that I am dreaming.

My coworker has the same dream, and yes, his missed class is often math (we are both not very good with numbers.) He said he doesn't think he stresses about deadlines, but maybe he does subconsciously.

Dreams are a weird thing and that was reiterated by an article on nightmares I read in a November issue of the "New Yorker." According to the article, 20 percent of people have lucid dreams, where they are aware that they are dreaming and have some control over their dreams. And through the years people report differently whether they dream in color or black and white. One expert in the article said dreams are probably more like sketches, and when we wake up our brains fill in all the dimension and color details. My own dreams seem to be in color, and sometimes they are lucid - at least I think they are.

The article was interesting because some of the researchers who are treating people who suffer from extreme nightmares are not trying to figure out what triggers them or what might be the root cause - instead they are trying to teach people how to control what they dream about. They have the patients practice visualizing dream scenarios in the day where they change the scary or disturbing elements into more benign imagery. They are having some success.

I can understand that happening since I will often have dreams that are seem to relate to something I watched or read before bed. A few weeks ago, I watched a video of a friend's baby on Facebook before going to bed. That night I dreamt about babysitting him and that he wouldn't stop crying. I couldn't wait for his dad to pick him up. And a few months ago when I chatted with a guy I sort of have a crush on before bed, I dreamt about him that night. The dream basically clarified that I was unsure if he reciprocated the feelings.

When I reconnected with someone I knew in college while I studied in Ireland, I dreamt about him. I tried to get him to eat jelly bellies and let me borrow his car to drive around Ireland. I don't really get the jelly bellies, but maybe borrowing his car just has to do with my desire to take a vacation in Ireland someday.

I try not to analyze my dreams too much, but it is funny to swap stories about the most odd ones with my friends and coworker. And lucky for me, the nightmares are few and far between lately.

Munro stories collect tragedy and hope

2010-03-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

Last week I finished reading the third book of the year (Resolution No. 1.) It was not one of the many books piled in a box in my room from birthdays and Christmas, but a book I picked out somewhat on a whim.

I always read the book reviews in magazines and try to keep in mind the ones that sound interesting - but usually I forget them all by the time I get to the library or a bookstore. There was one review that stuck with me, however, a review of short stories by Alice Munro, "Too Much Happiness." There was a line taken from one of the stories that struck me enough to make me want to read the book.

A few weeks later I was at Barnes and Noble with an ample supply of gift cards and I happened across the book. Unlike a novel, the short stories sort of fit into my schedule the way a magazine would - I could read one story a night the way I read one article a night. There was no desire to stay up way past my normal bedtime to find out what would happen next. And with a mix of short stories, there is always a chance that if one story is not so great, the next one might be good. With a novel, if it's bad at the beginning, it's probably bad all the way through.

Though the stories in Munro's latest collection are unrelated, they do have some common themes. Most of the stories are told from the point of view of women, and several of them are women who've made it to late life without having children. There is something of a dreary outlook on relationships to the collection.

My two favorites in the book are the first story and the last. I liked the stories because they are the most different from the rest of the pieces in the book. The first is about a young woman who is travelling on a bus to visit someone who is in an institution of sorts. Long before much is revealed I guessed what had happened to the woman's family. But it is told in such a way that I could feel the young woman's pain as she struggled to come to turns with the worst tragedy of her life and move on.

The last story is the one that made me want to buy the book. It is the longest piece in the book, and the most moving one. It is about a woman who settles for a marriage of convenience so that she can study mathematics in an era and in a country where women are not encouraged to do much beyond raise a family. Then when she is older, she settles for a man who isn't really interested in a commitment. She accepts a lot less than she really wants from him. And she rethinks every moment she has with him, trying to find any sign that he might want more.

A friend reminds her to "Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind. When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her."

It is such a succinct reminder of how two people can experience the same moment in such different ways.

A lot of the stories in the book are a little heartbreaking - and in taking a break from reading "The New Yorker," I was disappointed to see that several of the stories were ones I'd already read in recent years in "The New Yorker." But there are some pieces where a little ray of hope shines through in the most unusual of circumstances.

Pluto's - good food, bad design

2010-03-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, I really don't hang out at Santana Row all that often, but I found myself there again last weekend after a shopping trip to Valley Fair, which is right across Steven's Creek Boulevard. Since my mom and I had to be in San Jose anyway, we figured we'd grab lunch and a movie at Santana row.

It seemed a good chance to continue on with Resolution No. 2 and try another new restaurant. The restaurant I really wanted to try was the gourmet burger place, The Counter. But instead, keeping in line with my healthy eating kick, I opted for Pluto's a few storefronts down. As it turns out, Pluto's is one of the more affordable options at Santana Row (aside from perhaps Subway) and the food is quiet tasty. They offer large salads with all the fixings, sandwiches and sides. I opted for a green salad with my choice of dressing and toppings. You can pick up to seven, plus a meat. I went with tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli, eggs, croutons, grilled chicken and corn.

The only problem with Pluto's is the system set up for ordering. The best way to describe it is a really busy college dining hall, where every one queues up and waits for their turn to go through the line and select what items they want - only it's really noisy and hard to hear what the servers are saying and there is not a whole lot of space as three or four servers try to help three or four customers at a time. When I was waiting in line, I got a dirty look from the guy behind me for not hearing the server call for the next person. Apparently he was really anxious to get his salad.

The servers basically toss up the lettuce, toppings and dressing in a big metal bowl and then dump it onto a plate. It turned out to be pretty heavy for a salad. Once I had it, my mom was still in line for a turkey sandwich - the line hadn't moved yet. So I stood holding my very heavy salad while I waited in line. There were a lot of people waiting in a small space for their sandwiches and sides before they moved on to pay.

The only plus of the whole, weird ordering process was that a lot of the tables were empty because so many people were still waiting for their food. I decided to grab a table - and put down the huge salad while my mom waited for her sandwich.

Once we got the food, it was quite tasty. Unlike other salad bars, the veggies were cooked a little so the broccoli wasn't as tough as it can be raw and the mushrooms were sauteed up nicely. The turkey sandwich used freshly carved turkey - we know because the bird was sitting on a counter under a heat lamp. For a large salad, a sandwich, a side of onion rings and two drinks, it was $20, which anyone who has eaten at Santana Row knows is comparably cheap. I definitely would eat at Pluto's again - and next time I'll listen more closely for the server to call on the next customer in line.

Oscar surprises and predictability

2010-03-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

I watched the Academy Awards last night - sort of. My version of watching the Academy Awards is setting the DVR to record it, letting it record for at least an hour and then watching it. That gives me the ability to fast forward through all the speeches by people I've never heard of before. It really speeds up the three-and-a-half hour show.

I found the hosts this year, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, funny enough most of the time. I have to give the edge to Alec for the funnier lines. The show was produced by Alan Shankman, who is a judge on "So You Think You Can Dance" and has been involved in dance movies such as "Step Up," "Step Up 2: The Streets" and "Hairspray." Knowing that, I wasn't at all surprised when a dance troupe took the stage for the presentation of the award for best score. But a lot of other viewers may have wondered about it.

The presentation of the best actor and actress awards also was a surprise. This year, five people took the stage and paid homage to each of the nominees - most often a costar, sometimes a director and in one case a producer. It was a little too much of a pat on the back for me. Yeah, we all know the Academy thinks these people are great. Do we really need an awkward tribute as the camera switches back and forth between the nominee and the person talking about how awesome they are? Of course, it was nice to see Jeff Bridges get a little weepy-eyed as Michelle Pfeiffer talked about him. The only tribute that was truly worth listening to, however, was Stanley Tucci's to Meryl Streep. He was funny and clever in a way that paid respect to the great actress without feeling overly earnest.

As always there were some surprises among the winners and some that were totally predictable. This year I'd seen more of the best picture nominees than I usually see - partly since I see a lot more movies since I've started writing a movie column for the Weekend Pinnacle and partly because there were 10 movies nominated. Of the nominees I saw "Up in the Air," "District 9," "Blind Side," "Avatar," and "Up." Back when I wrote up my predictions in February, I was rooting for "Up in the Air" to win though I thought the honor might go to "Avatar" for James Cameron's awesome new technology.

In the end, the best picture award went to "The Hurt Locker," which has long been on my list of movies to see since a few people I know said it was really good. I will be sure to see it now since one of my resolutions is to see all the Best Picture winners.

When I wrote my predictions back in February, I wanted George Clooney to win for his performance in "Up in the Air." But then I saw "Crazy Heart" and Jeff Bridges blew me away as Bad Blake, a country singing who is more than just a little down and out. Bridges just encompassed the role so much I forgot it was him on the screen. Bridges turn is heartbreaking and moving, and he does his own singing on screen. He won and he deserves it.

One of the big surprises for me was the winner for best actress. Though I had not seen the movie, I thought Helen Mirren had the best shot at the award. But the Oscar went to Sandra Bullock for her turn in "The Blind Side." It was a great performance.

The one category I was certain about was best animation. If there was ever a cartoon that deserved an Oscar it is "Up." The movie somehow condensed a life worth of loving someone into a four-minute interlude. When they showed the clips during the Award, I almost got weepy again just thinking about it.

Avatar, surprisingly, did not get wins for Best Picture or Best Directing. It did get Oscars in two deserving categories, including Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. The art direction award was deserved for the creation of Pandora, with its lush forests, wild creatures and the way it looked. Of course, a great cinematography was needed to make it all look great.

See the complete list of winners here.

A few go-to lunch spots are a must

2010-03-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's a necessity to have a few good restaurants within walking distance of where one works. Even though I bring my lunch from home most days, there are those occasions when there are no leftovers to pack or when I just don't feel like eating a meal two days in a row.

When I worked at San Jose State University, I had an hour lunch so it was easy to select a place that I could walk to, order and eat while still getting back to the office on time. Grande's, an Italian and pizza place, on the corner of Fourth and San Carlos streets was the go-to place. It was just up the block from my office in MacQuarrie Hall and I ate their countless times with my friends. I think the keys where that it was close and it was relatively affordable. Other favorites included Togo's, also on Fourth Street, Iguana's taqueria and (at least when someone else was footing the bill) Il Fornaio.

Since my job is a busy one now, it helps to have a place that will take phone orders and is a quick walk from the office as my go-to place.

When I was working in the Pinnacle office in Gilroy, I went home for lunch most days. But on the days when I wanted to eat out, it worked perfectly that my favorite Mexican restaurant in town was directly across from the building in which I worked. Cielito Lindo is a little whole in the wall place in downtown Gilroy that has the best flautas ever. The service is good. The food is good. It's a place that only locals know and I make sure to take friends visiting from out of town there.

Now that I've been working in downtown Hollister for a while now I know most of the restaurants within a few block radius. The top choice most times I want to grab a quick lunch is The Elegant Touch. They serve sandwiches, homemade soups, a daily special and mini eclairs that are delicious. The main reason it's at the top of the list is that it is right across the street, I can call in my order and they have the menu up online so it's easy to decide what I want.

This week I wanted something light for lunch and decided to try a new restaurant that's been open for a while in downtown. The spot on San Benito Street has been a bit of a revolving door for restaurants. I stopped going to it when my friends and I went for lunch one day to eat in. We ordered sodas - and had drunk half of them - when my coworker noticed ants floating in the drinks. When we informed the girl at the counter that there were ants in the soda, her response was "Oh yeah. that happens every morning in the soda machine." That was enough to make me not go back.

But the place is under new ownership again, with a new chef, a new menu and a new name. My coworkers had been mentioning how good the food is at the Knife and Fork Cafe for months. So finally this week when I didn't have much of a lunch packed, I decided to try it out. The restaurant doesn't have a Web site, which is a minus, but the staff was willing to fax me a copy of the lunch menu. I selected a Mediterranean salad with greens, kalamata olives and feta cheese. The salad was slightly overdressed for me since I usually prefer my dressing on the side, and it had green onions in it, which I don't really like. It came with a couple slices of ciabatta garlic bread. But overall the ingredients were fresh and tasty. The salad was about the same price as others at downtown restaurants. I'm not really counting this as eating at a new restaurant (Resolution No. 2) since I didn't technically eat at the restaurant. But the salad was good enough I will be back to try the sandwiches or specials.

Risotto requires virtue - or at least patience

2010-03-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

I bought a new kitchen gadget at Crate and Barrel a couple weeks ago - a microplane zester. So to make good use of it, I looked for a recipe that would make use of it. I found an Alton Brown recipe for mushroom and asparagus risotto on the Food Network Web site. The zester would come in handy for the freshly grated parmesan cheese as well as freshly grated lemon zest that the recipe required.

Most of the recipe seemed simple enough. But the only thing that worried me a bit is that the recipe calls for arborio rice, cooked slowly over low heat. I don't have a good track record when it comes to cooking rice dishes. I always try to make the Spanish rice my grandma used to make, but I've only gotten it right once. Most of the time some of the rice turns out mushy and other bits remain crispy. So unless the rice is instant rice or a box of Rice-a-Roni, I don't do well.

But I read over Alton's recipe carefully - several times - and I thought I could manage it if I followed it carefully line by line.

Apparently the key to making a creamy risotto is slowly adding in liquid, allowing the rice to absorb it, and then adding more liquid. The recipe said it would take about 35 to 40 minutes to cook. So after stirring the rice almost continuously for that long, I took a little taste - and the rice was still crunchy. I had a lot of liquid left still so I added more to the pan and continued stirring. Another 15 minutes and the rice was still crunchy. Nearly an hour and a half later, when I was about ready to give up, the rice suddenly turned soft. It was almost an instantaneous change.

The risotto was amazingly tasty and well worth the wait. But it won't be a recipe that makes it into the weekly rotation - it will be reserved for once in a while.

Photo by Melissa Flores

Mushroom and asparagus risotto takes a lot of stirring and time to make right.

A (very) few highlights from Cinequest 2010

2010-02-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

The Cinequest Film Festival started last week and movie fans have another week to catch the shows. If I could take two weeks off work and afford a VIP pass, I would see as many films as I could. But as it is, I limited myself to two screenings today.

The first screening I went to was at the San Jose Repertory Theatre, "No Tomorrow," which had it's world premiere at Cinequest. One of the highlights of Cinequest is that some of the filmmakers show up to talk about the films. But in this case, the filmmaker was snowed in in New York and couldn't make it out. Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth made the film as something of a follow up to their 2002 film "Aging Out." In their original film, they followed Risa Bejarano as she ages out of the foster care system. The film shows her graduating from high school, heading off to college, but it includes the struggles she faced growing up and the struggles she continues to face as she starts her life on her own.

A year or so after the film was wrapped, Risa was brutally murdered in an alleyway in a bad neighborhood of Los Angeles. But instead of being another anonymous Jane Doe, the prosecutor soon realizes that the documentary can be used to help make his case of a life that was just beginning being cut short as he pursued the death penalty.

The filmmakers started the new project, "No Tomorrow," as a way to deal with their ambivalence about their original project being used as ammunition to sentence someone to death. The documentary is a well-painted portrait of the complications of the death penalty, and though the filmmakers state their opinion against it early on, they offer points of view from all sides. There is footage of the trial, interviews with the jurors, graphic images of Risa with 13 gunshot wounds at close range. The filmmakers ask a lot of hard questions about the death penalty, and they offer a lot of different points of views and perspectives on the complicated issue. Anyone interested can catch the film one more time, March 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the Camera 12 in San Jose.

For the second screening, I headed to Camera 3 for a shorts program called "The Darker Side of Growing Up." It had five films, and included a mix of serious pieces as well as lighter fare. As with all short film programs, there was also a mix of good pieces and some stuff that was just plain weird.

My favorite of the films was "Anna," by Danish director Runar Runarsson. The piece follows Anna, an adolescent girl who is having a rough go of it since her father left the family. She goes every day to her father's boat and drains out water to keep it from sinking. Her sidekick, a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy named Ole rides her around on her bike. The film shows the extreme vulnerability of preteens as Anna one second is cursing at her mother to leave her alone, and hours later, is climbing into bed with her for comfort. In one scene, Anna's mother shields her eyes from a sex scene on television and then begins to tickle her as the girl writhes in laughter. The film shows the delicate balance of a kid in turmoil who is trying to assert her independence, but still needs a strong parent.

The other film I liked was "Brother," directed by Mary Bing. The film follows Lucy who has to deal with an annoying a little brother. The film is short, but it made me laugh as the little brother does all kinds of things to annoy his big sister, even faking an episode of allergic reactions that sends Lucy guilty to her room to hide. The acting was that great, but the sibling rivalry was amusing.

The first film shown was "Ana's Playground," by director Eric D. Howell, which is supposed to be a commentary on children of war. The film has very little dialogue in it and it has quite a surprise ending. But it just didn't quite work for me in sending the message it was supposed to send. The young actress in it posted footage from the set on YouTube, for anyone who is interested.

The other films were both filmed in New Zealand, including "Patu Ihu" by Summer Agnew and "The Six Dollar Fifty Man" by Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland. "Patu Ihu" follows a young boy's interaction with his uncle and older cousin's at a funeral, but it is quite short and just didn't have enough substance to really tell the poignant story it was trying to tell. In "The Six Dollar Fifty Man," a young boy who is somewhat bullied and ostracized by his peers finds redemption in an unlikely place - the principal's office.

Cinequest continues through March 6.

Resolution No. 16 set for March

2010-02-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

I always joke with my coworkers that I don't do things if I am not good at them. And there is a little bit of truth to that. Singing karaoke - no thanks. Crossword puzzles - ditto. I stick with the things when I know I have the competitive edge.

So it's a bit out of character for me to be signing up for a 5K since I've never been much of a runner. The problem is not that I don't think I could finish a 5K at a slow pace - I work out quite a bit at the gym and walk a mile a day with the dog - but that I don't want to be the last person across the finish line. I know I will never be the first person across the finish line, but I'd like to end up somewhere in the middle of the group.

When I first started seriously thinking about a doing a 5K in January, I figured I'd do the Stinkin' Roses Run, which is during the summer. I figured it would give me plenty of time to start working up to a faster pace for the three-mile trek. I've been doing just that, using a program on the treadmill at the gym twice a week, and adding on one minute each workout. It's a program that goes 3.8 miles at the fastest pace, but is on an incline so I figured once I got on flat terrain I would be better conditioned to run at a faster pace.

But then someone my mom works with started talking about a Wildflower Walk in March. They have a group of people, most of who I know, signed up already. They talked my mom and I into registering for it. So now I have a month to prep.

Today at the gym I tried to see how long it would take me to run a mile at a faster, flat pace. I set the treadmill on a 5K run setting and it started out well. But soon the treadmill was kicking the speed up to 6.6 miles and I couldn't keep up. I slowed it down to 5.3, ran for about 10 minutes, then slowed down for a couple minutes and speed up again. I ran 1.5 miles in 21 minutes, which should be quite an accomplishment considering how out of shape I was a few months ago. But I am not sure it's enough for my competitive streak.

I'll just have to continue the training and see how it goes. And maybe I'll just plan to beat my time in the March run at the July one to fulfill my need to do everything well.

Note to self: Read recipes more carefully

2010-02-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

So last Friday I wrote about making a butternut squash soup that was way too spicy to eat. In fact, over the weekend we cooked up a bunch more butternut squash and leeks, added in more chicken broth and the soup was still to spicy to eat.

Well, on Tuesday when I was designing the paper and placing my food column on the page, I took a closer look at the recipe I had followed. Now the recipe for the soup was broken down into three parts - one for the soup, one for the toasted spice rub, and one for candied walnuts (which we did not make.) If I had read the recipe more carefully, I would have realized that the soup recipe called for two teaspoons of the toasted spice rub and that the toasted spice rub recipe actually makes one cup to be used for multiple recipes. So think of the amount of pepper, red pepper flakes, chili powder, fennel and coriander seed and more that would be in two teaspoons of a mix versus an entire cup. It's no wonder that soup burned going down.

So I have once again renewed my vow to pay more attention to new recipes before I start making them so I don't skip any steps or use too much of an ingredient that could make it inedible. My discovery just gives me another excuse to make the soup again - minus the excess spice.

A close encounter of the celebrity kind

2010-02-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend when my friends and I were wasting time at Santana Row, we popped into one of two yoga shops. We were wandering around just browsing at stuff when a woman started talking to my friend who was wearing a Pitzer-Pomona sweatshirt (we are all Sagehens and alumni of Pitzer College.) She talked about the new dormitories and facilities on campus, which are all environmentally friendly, and which the woman described as being like a spa.

One of my friends asked the woman if she went to the Claremont Colleges, and she laughed as she said no, she was just there with someone else she knew. They chatted a bit longer and then we wandered on to another part of the store. And as we did, my one of my friend's suddenly realized the woman was not just any random person out shopping at Santana Row, but Brandi Chastain, Olympic soccer player. I would never have recognized her on my own, but we googled her on my phone and verified that it was likely her.

My brushes with celebrities have been few and far between, but maybe that's because I've never been too star struck about most celebrities. After all, just because someone can act or sing or play an instrument, that doesn't mean they are nice or interesting or fun person.

But I have a friend from Indiana who came to Los Angeles for grad school and was always on the lookout for stars. We went shopping at the Grove and Beverly Hills on weekdays in hopes of seeing someone famous, and hit up clubs they were rumored to frequent. She had much more luck than I did since she once had a pedicure at a spa at the same time as Demi Moore and her daughters. She also had brunch at a restaurant with some other famous person, though I can't recall if it was Nick Nolte or Clint Eastwood.

The first time I came close to seeing a celebrity was when I went to see a late-night showing of "Kill Bill" with another friend and stopped to use the restroom before we went into the theater. I emerged to my friend spouting off about seeing Cigarette Smoking Man from "X-Files." I just cursed my small bladder.

But I got my own turn my second year in graduate school when I was assigned to cover a movie junket for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" for the Daily Trojan. I arrived early at some fancy Beverly Hills hotel where I sat around with a bunch of other journalists - college ones and professionals. I waited around for half a day for the PR people to let us know when it would be our turn and finally I got a message that I could go up to meet for one-on-one interviews with the actors and director. I headed to an elevator and none other than Jim Carrey walked in right behind me. I was quiet and tried not to act too awkward. He was quiet, too. And when we got off on the same floor, he was ushered into a room and I was approached by a PR person who told me they had cancelled the interviews for college press.

Instead they wanted the 40-plus people to gather in a room with all the actors - Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, Carrey, Mark Ruffalo - and writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. Just a select few of us would have a chance to ask a question, and in the end I was not one of them. But it was still a pretty interesting experience, especially since "Eternal Sunshine" makes my list of great movies.

Now that I live back in the Bay Area, my brushes with celebrities are usually limited to the Cinequest film festival when I - and several hundred other people - have a chance to hear the Maverick Spirit Award winner talk about their filmmaking career. Next week, I'll be seeing Benjamin Bratt - albeit from a distance.

Breakfast at the Village Bistro

2010-02-22T18:42:00.000-08:00

I met up with some college friends this weekend at Santana Row, a place that is a convenient point between the places we live. We originally planned to grab lunch, and I had a few places picked out to help along Resolution No. 2 (eat at five new restaurants.) But since my family had tickets to Cirque du Soleil later in the afternoon (4 p.m.) and my sister at work in Campbell, we decided to get together earlier in the day.

The problem with meeting at 10 a.m. is that there are slim pickins' at a shopping center at that time when it comes to eating. In fact, the only place that was open was The Village Bistro and Bar. We were not drawn in by the sandwich board sign outside that promised a Bloody Mary bar inside, but simple by the fact that it was open.

Now here is where I should probably confess that I am not a breakfast person. My sister and dad love breakfast - the bacon, the sausages, the eggs, the pancakes, the chorizo - if it's on an early morning menu they love it. They even love breakfast burritos for dinner or just plain breakfast for dinner.

But me, I only eat in the morning because when I go to the gym at 5:30 a.m., I'm kinda hungry by 7 a.m. Most days I eat a piece of wheat toast with jam, a hard-boiled egg white and a glass of fat-free milk. And I don't crave anymore than that.

Paired my underwhelming feeling about breakfast foods with my attempt to eat healthier this year, and I was kind of at a loss about what to order off the Village Bistro and Bar menu. There were plenty of items that looked good. A BLT breakfast sandwich, eggs benedict, french toast. But I went with a three-egg scramble with sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and jack cheese, roasted potatoes and a buttermilk biscuit. The potatoes were delicious, coated in a red spice mix that was reminiscent of Season-all. The egg scramble was pretty standard, though, and I ate about half of it, and I skipped the biscuit altogether.

Next time I am craving breakfast, I think I will stick with OD's Kitchen, a little hole in the wall restaurant in downtown Gilroy that has the best homefries and pancakes I've ever eaten. It's the kinda place only locals know about and the family pick for Father's Day. And next time I go to Santana Row, I'll make sure to get there after the lunch hour so I can try Pluto's or the Counter, or one of the many other restaurants only open for lunch or dinner.

It's a bugs life at latest Cirque show

2010-02-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

I've seen three Cirque du Soleil shows now, including the latest touring show "Ovo," which opened in San Jose at the Taylor Street Bridge on Friday. I can say each one has left me amazed.

There are few things I can expect from a Cirque du Soleil show, especially the touring shows, which are performed in the Grand Chapiteau, a kind of big top tent that offers good - and close - views from almost every angle. There will be some high-flying trapeze act that will nearly make me have a panic attack and that will cause me to look away and cringe from time to time. There will be a contortionist who will make me wonder at the amazing way a human body can move, given that I am barely flexible enough to touch my toes. And there will be a plot that isn't really clear until I read the synopsis of the show.

The latest show "Ovo" is about a thriving colony of bugs, though I can't really say what most of the bug costumes were, except for the grasshoppers and a spider. Oh yeah, and some random bug shows up with a big egg and falls in love with a rotund lady bug and that's kind of the storyline.

But somehow the creators of every Cirque show I've ever seen have made me forgive them for the lack of plot since it's really all about the awesome performances. My favorite pieces from the latest show are the same types of acts as my favorites from the past shows I've seen, "O" and "Kooza." I love watching trampoline acrobats, in this case the grasshoppers, and I like seeing contortionists, in this case a spider. The grasshoppers leapt around the stage, and up onto a rock wall stage piece.

The show didn't have quite the wow factor of "O," which has been showing at the Bellagio in Vegas for years, and which features a stage that opens up into a water tank, or "Kooza," which featured the wheel of death act. But the costumes were still spectacular, even if it was a bit hard to recognize what some of the bugs were supposed to be. The performers move in amazing ways that seem to defy the limits of human abilities. The music was perfectly matched with each act. It was worth the cost of admission for fans of past Cirque performances while it is in the Bay Area, where tickets are still available for some of the shows through March 21. Arrive early, though, since parking is hard to come by in the area near Taylor Street - and be patient when leaving since traffic jams are inevitable on the streets nearby.

Holy spicy butternut squash

2010-02-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

I grew up Catholic and even though I haven't been to church since 1996, I still get little guilt pangs if I eat meat on Fridays during Lent. So most of the time I just try to come up with meatless options for the six weeks of Lent.

Most years we stick with a few standbys - grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese pizza with vegetable toppings, cheese tortellini with marinara sauce. But since Resolution No. 6 is to try some new ingredients this year, I decided to cook up some winter squashes that are hardy enough to be a main course.

I've eaten butternut squash before, but I've never made it at home. And I've never had spaghetti squash before. I visited Food Network's Web site and found piles of recipes for both. For the spaghetti squash, I had to cut it lengthwise down the middle, no easy task, and then cooked it in the oven with a bit of water to help steam it for an hour. After it is cooked, the flesh of the squash pulls away and is stringy like spaghetti. I sauteed the cooked squash on the stovetop with a bit of butter, herbs and parmesan cheese.

The butternut squash recipe incorporates the squash, apples, leeks and a whole pile of toasted spices. The veggies cooked up for while and then simmered with chicken broth and the spice mix. The mix included fennel seeds, coriander seeds, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, chili powder and cinnamon. But I didn't really measure out the spices so when I blended all the cooked ingredients into the smooth soup, it turned out to be a lot on the spicy side. With the amount of peppercorns and red pepper flakes int he mix, there was lots in every spoonful. It turned out to be a bit too spicy for me, but tomorrow I have plans to mix in some more leeks and squash to mellow it out a bit.

So spaghetti squash marks the final of the five ingredients (others were celery root, quinoa, swiss chard and hoisin sauce) I said I would use and it's only February. I think I'll continue to try out new ones as the year goes on, and I am especially looking forward to picking up new vegetables and items at the farmers market when it starts next summer.

Photos by Melissa Flores

The seeds are scraped out of roasted spaghetti squash.

The squash is sauteed with a little bit of butter and herbs.

'Her Fearful Symmetry' incorporates wacky characters, but less heart than Niffenegger's first

2010-02-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

I read Audrey Niffenegger's first novel "The Time Traveler's Wife" well before it was made into a movie last summer. The story was so well-written and unique, I couldn't wait for Niffenegger to write another novel. Though the movie wasn't very good, the book was excellent as it followed a man who time travels against his will and the love of his life in a story that transcends time.

So I was pretty excited when I saw a book review a few months ago that Niffenegger had a new novel coming out. I added it to my wishlist and got it for Christmas. So I figured this could be book No. 2 for my resolution to read 10 books this year (resolution No. 1.) The book promised to have some of the same magic as her first novel and I expected it to be a little bit off the wall, too.

This latest story revolves around two sets of twins - the first set Elspeth and Edie are British and have not talked to each other for 20-some years. When Elspeth dies of cancer, she leaves her London flat, which happens to be next to Highgate Cemetery, to Edie's twin daughters Julia and Valentina. The original set of twins have some secret the girls are hoping to unlock in the flat.

The characters are rounded out with a cast of wacky characters. There is Elspeth's much younger lover - who turns out not to be quite as young as I at first suspected - who hangs out at the cemetery giving tours and working on his long overdue thesis. And there is Martin, an obsessive compulsive man who hasn't left his apartment in years. And there is Elspeth herself who still seems to be around even after death.

The book was well-written and mostly interesting, but the characters just didn't draw me in quite as much as the husband and wife in "The Time Traveler's Wife." It's worth a read for fans of Niffenegger's first work, but don't expect it to outshine the first book.

Romantic moments in the movies

2010-02-14T15:38:00.000-08:00

Even though I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day, I went to see the movie by the same name this weekend. It's an ensemble romantic comedy, which means there are a whole bunch of different people whose lives somehow intersect and it's the viewers job to figure out how they are all supposed to fit together. Some of the actors included Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Julia Roberts, Emma Roberts, Shirley McClaine, Hector Elizondo, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner, among more. The movie is supposed to be all about love, from lifelong marriages, to best friends, to puppy love and everything in between. Some parts of it where more successful than others, but I will reserve more thoughts on the movie for next Friday's movie column, which will posted at the Pinnacle Web site after noon.

For now, here are other love stories that make my list of most romantic movies ever, from the classic to the obscure. Some of these movies aren't romantic, strictly speaking, but they all have a moment on screen that makes me want to fall in love so I can feel a little bit of that magic.

The Princess Bride
Westley (Cary Elwes) has it right in this movie when he always responds to Buttercup's (Robin Wright Penn) requests with "As you wish." He's got the perfect combination of good guy paired with bad boy attitude, when he becomes the dread Pirate Roberts. Plus he rescues her from having to marry a mean king. The movie is fun to watch, with a little hint of love thrown in for good measure.

Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn is so lovely in every role she had, but she is especially charming as Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." From the beginning we are hoping for Paul 'Fred' Varjak (George Peppard) to win over the flighty socialite who seems to be more interested in money than love.

Say Anything
Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) is the king of big romantic gestures. The image of him standing outside Diane Court's (Ione Skye) window with a boombox playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" has been indelibly ingrained into the brains of many generations of women. We are all waiting for a big fancy gesture. Plus it's so cute when Diane's father asks Lloyd what his plans are for the future and he says he just wants to be with Diane.

Four Weddings and a Funeral
Hugh Grant is the perfect bumbling guy in romantic comedies, but he's never been quite as good as he was in "Four Weddings and a Funeral." This movie has plenty of great moments in it. I love that Charles (Hugh Grant) and Carrie (Andie MacDowell) are star-crossed lovers from the start - he's Britsh, she's American - but after all the missed opportunities they eventually end up together. It's like love that is meant to be can transcend time and continents. The most moving scene in the movie, however is the funeral scene. Matthew (John Hannah) reads a poem after his beloved Gareth (Simon Callow) dies. W. H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" is the perfect ode to a lost loved one.

Bridget Jones' Diary
This movie makes the list because Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) says he likes Bridget Jones ( just the way she is - all her crazy, zany quirks, her too much drinking and too much smoking, and all her curves. It takes a while for Bridge to realize Mark is the one for her and not playboy Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), but the journey is funny and endearing all at the same time.

Playing By Heart
This ensemble movie has a little bit of every kind of love - the young crazy 20-somethings, a happily married old couple, an unhappily married middle-aged couple and the cynical divorcee who is slow to trust. The cast includes powerhouses such as Angelina Jolie, Madeline Stowe, Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands. It's well-acted and touching.

My Sassy Girl
The Korean version of this movie, which is hard to find since it was never released in the United States, is one of my favorite movies period. But it is also one of the quirkiest romantic comedies I've ever seen. In it, Kyun-woo (Tae-hyun Cha) is a university student who is at a loss about what to do with his wife when fate intervenes. He is riding the subway home one night when a drunk girl (Gianna Jun) is mistaken for his girlfriend. for some reason he feels obligated to take care of her. Soon he finds himself on a rollercoaster ride as she drags him on some bizarre dates, always dictating what he will wear, say and drink. At first he just wants to get rid of her, but she begins to grow on him. He starts to understand her only after she suddenly disappears from his life.

Reality Bites
"Reality Bites" is another of my favorite movies and the relationship between main characters Lelaina (Winona Ryder) and Troy (Ethan Hawke) is the reason this film makes the list. Lelaina is the driven over achiever who finds her college success hasn't translated into success in the real life. Troy is her best buddy who has more potential than anyone, but chooses to spend his time in deadend jobs. The sexual tension between the two is palatable, and the whole movie, I rooted for them to get together. Troy is the consummate jerk who hurts Lelaina, but he redeems himself when he shows up on her doorstep and says he has "a world of regret" and declares his love.

Wings of Desire
In this foreign film by Wim Wender, an angel gives up his wings and internal life to be with the woman he loves. Enough said.

Casablanca
In this timeless classic, Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) are former lovers who reunite unexpectedly in Casablanca. Blaine is an American ex-patriot who is cynical and bitter since Ilsa left him in Paris. The reunion gives Isla a chance to explain her reasons for leaving and they consider running off together, in this movie set against the backdrop of World War II. In the end, Richard loves Ilsa enough to let her go.

Love Actually
"Love Actually" is an ensemble love story in the same vein as "Playing By Heart" and "Valentine's Day," but this 2003 movie gets my vote for the best love story I've ever seen. It is packed with actors - Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and more. Like "Playing by Heart," it has a lot of different scenarios of love and all the characters are somehow connected. It is heartbreaking, lovely and beautiful all at the same time and I see bits of my own life in so many of the stories.

One of my favorite storyline is that of Daniel (Neeson) as a man who has recently lost his wife who is adjusting to life as single dad to stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster.) Sam has his own puppy love crush and has the best line in the movie when his stepdad asks him what is wrong and he says he's in love. Daniel said he thought it would be something worse and Sam's response is "Worse than the total agony of being in love?" Truer words were never spoken, but Sam keeps the faith later on in the movie when he says, "Let's go get the shit kicked out of us by love."

It seems that even with all that agony, a lot of us are willing to get the shit kicked out of us again and again. At least, I know I am.