The Roundup: Holiday Haze
Tell me if this happens to you - between Thanksgiving and Christmas I get lost in a haze of holiday cheer and almost forget to post on my blog! My apologies for the lack of new content in the past few weeks. One thing that has been on my radar lately: season two of This American Life's Serial podcast. I was an avid follower (and theorizer) during the first season and really enjoy Koenig's style of reporting and narration. You can check out the first episode, Dustwun, and tell me what you think! The podcast follows the court-martial trial of Bowe Bergdahl and his capture by the Taliban.
Two movies that are currently on my watch list: Spotlight and Legend. I've heard so many good things about Spotlight from friends and coworkers. The movie is about the Boston Globe reporters that uncovered all the cases of abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston. I heard about Legend through a radio program as I was driving home from work this afternoon. Legend details the early careers and rise to fame of the Kray brothers - Ronnie and Reggie were once the biggest mobsters (and celebrities) in the East End of London.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting my college town of Durham to visit a pal that's still in the area. I got into town on Friday and toured the newer buildings on campus (amazing how much can change in just one year!) and had lunch with one of my former Biology professors. I ended up getting the most delicious portabello sandwich of all time with bacon ketchup. Whoever invented bacon ketchup clearly knew of the two greatest loves of my life. Friday night was spent in Chapel Hill at Cholanad, a local South Indian joint on Franklin Street with insanely good fish curry and chicken chettinad! On Saturday my friend and I spent the morning at the North Carolina Museum of Art in the da Vinci/Escher joint exhibit. We saw several leaflets out of da Vinci's Codex Leicester, a collection of his musings and drawings concerning fluid dynamics, wave action, and the properties of liquids. We marveled at how much time he spent thinking about physical properties of the world and how those properties could be codified and "turned into fact" through series of proofs alongside careful observation.
The adjacent Escher exhibit was much larger and contained works from his very early years all the way up to the very last lithograph. We were particularly taken by how much work must have gone into carving each particular design on a metal plate to later be inked and pressed onto papers of all different textures. Can you imagine the forethought that has to go into creating a work of art using this methodology? Along one of the exhibit walls there was a quote from Escher's son, which detailed Escher's creative process. The most striking portion of the quote revealed that Escher was oftentimes unhappy with the product of his labor - that the final print never came close to the one he conceived in his head, which always seemed to be so much more "crisp" and "simple."
We ended up at Mint Indian Cuisine for their buffet-style lunch on Saturday and back in Durham at Melo's Trattoria for dinner. I highly recommend their bruschetta, chicken parm, and tiramisu! On Sunday morning we kept it simple at Parker & Otis for brunch and spent the remainder of our time wandering around campus and through the remodeled portions of Perkins & Bostock Library. Construction on the Gothic Reading Room began when we were second year students, but was only recently completed. It's absolutely beautiful - I have no other words to possibly describe it. I would highly recommend the BLT breakfast sandwich at Parker & Otis, along with one of their famouse cheddar cheese biscuits! If you're vegetarian, my friend gave their veggie sandwich two thumbs up!
The past few days have been a little chaotic as I tie up some loose ends for my Christmas party this Sunday. I'll be hosting about 12-15 coworkers at my place for dinner and a little gift exchange! I'll be serving bruschetta, mini-quiche, and spanakopita as hors d'oeuvres. We have a tasty Italian sausage lasagna and pulled pork sandwiches as main dishes with mac and cheese plus some zesty pasta salad as hearty sides. For dessert I'm trying to pull together a pound cake with honey rosemary orange syrup and maybe a holiday log cake (if I'm feeling ambitious). All of this will be served up with some Welch's sparkling white grape juice, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and warm apple cider! Some of my coworkers are vino fans, so I recently purchased this adorable wine charm set from BaubleBar!
While the majority of our holiday decorations are up, I'm working on a few more DIY additions to really spruce up the place! I'll be using this digital print garland to hold up some custom Christmas stockings for each of my coworkers and their kids! There is a matching digital gift tag set to match the garland if anyone is interested :)
