• I have a new Daily Muse column up on Hollywood themed books and other media.
• I’ve got my next Where Is My Guru book, a yoga themed novel that I will unveil soon.
• Renaissance Learning–the people behind the Accelerated Reader program that I loved as a kid–have an interesting new survey out on what high school students are reading now. They compare their 2012 results to previous decades, all the way back to 1907. What do you think of these results?
• I’m still reading my way through classic mysteries this summer. Lots of Rex Stout, some Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Cater Dickson. I’m in the middle of The Bishop Murders. Not sure how I feel about Philo Vance, though. Any SS Van Dine fans out there?

“I used as few French and miscellaneous fancy words as possible in writing up this stunt of Nero Wolfe’s but I couldn’t keep them out altogether, on account of the kind of people involved. I am not responsible for the spelling, so don’t write me about mistakes. Wolfe refused to help me out on it, and I had to go to the Heinemann School of Languages and pay a professor 30 bucks to go over it and fix it up. In most cases, during these events, when anyone said anything which for me was only a noise, I have either let it lay–when it wasn’t vital–or managed somehow to get the rough idea in the American language.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                  -Archie Goodwin in the forward of Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout

If you haven’t heard of Archie Goodwin, he is the narrator and Dr. Watson figure for a series of mystery novels by Rex Stout, which began in the 1930s and ended with Stout’s death in the mid-1970s. While the sarcastic Goodwin narrates, he is the “legman” for Nero Wolfe, an eccentric orchid collector, gourmet, and detective who seldom leaves his NYC brownstone. Someone on Goodreads called it the Mycroft Holmes-meets-Sam Spade series in an attempt at derisiveness. However, if you like both of those, the comparison  is fairly apt and not at all negative. I just read 1965′s The Doorbell Rang, where Wolfe is offered $100,000 to stymie FBI harassment of a wealthy widow who criticized J. Edgar Hoover. I had no idea this was a fairly controversial plot for the 1960s (according to Internet rumor, Wolfe fan John Wayne had a falling out with Rex Stout over this one and the FBI compiled a file on Stout, who they assumed was a Communist). Anyhow, my favorite part of these novels is Archie Goodwin’s voice, with its sly sense of humor.

The main characters don’t age, although there are a few contemporary references in the series, which is nice. I’m always slightly depressed by the aging of classic characters in series mystery novels, personally. The end of Tommy and Tuppence was a painful thing for me in high school, y’all. There was a Nero Wolfe television adaptation a few years ago, starring the late Maury Chaykin as Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin. It’s brilliant, perfectly cast and faithful to the books.

Oddly enough, I can’t find any of the books at my local B&N, so I’ve had to order them or dig up copies at my library. I think the library’s copy of The Doorbell Rang might actually be from 1965, but I’m not sure. It certainly looks like old paper.

Speaking of old paper, I just ordered a perfume that is supposed to smell like old books, Demeter’s Paperback. I’m wondering how this one will turn out. I love how books smell–you know that inky paper scent in bookstores? I’m hoping it smells something like that, although other online reviewers have guessed that vintage Bantam books were the inspiration. Anyone know what those smell like?

]]> http://hopebordeaux.com/2013/06/03/rainy-day-reading/feed/ 0 hopebordeaux photo-63 http://hopebordeaux.com/2013/05/30/coco-chanel-shocking-pink-and-corsets/ http://hopebordeaux.com/2013/05/30/coco-chanel-shocking-pink-and-corsets/#comments Thu, 30 May 2013 21:50:15 +0000 hopebordeaux http://hopebordeaux.com/?p=1387 ]]> This week’s Daily Muse column looks at books and resources about women’s fashion history, inspired in part by an interesting Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast on undergarments.

You only get two of them, after all. So, I’m returning the DVDs. I don’t think they’re the right fit for me, although your mileage may vary. I’m sticking with my low-impact elliptical and yoga workouts. You know what shows up when you google “gentle exercise”? This article from WebMD. Their “gentlest, kindest” exercises?

1. Elliptical machines

2. Recumbent bikes

3. Yoga

4. Pilates

These are all the things I’ve been doing regularly, except Pilates! That’s almost irritating. Obviously, I need to dig out my Pilates DVDs and spent more time in mat-based work. It’s frustrating to think you’re doing something correctly, then hurting yourself. It definitely made me feel like a mere mortal. On that note, check out my latest Daily Muse column on superheroes here. That said, there’s research to suggest that walking is the best thing for you. 

Did you hear that, folks? “The butt is very complex.” This cracks me up.  When the Basic kit arrived, it came with three DVDs, booklets, a tape measure, a card for writing down your original measurements, a resistance band, and a pencil for “The Pencil Test.” The Pencil Test is like something out of Mr. Blackwell’s era. I can imagine a Hollywood mogul snarking, “Did you hear that Joan failed the Pencil Test?” over a gin and tonic. I’d recommend taking your test “results” with a heavy grain of salt. Essentially, you use a pencil to see if your bum sags where it meets your thighs. You use those results, plus a picture of 4 types of booty concerns, to help determine what program you do–there are month-long DVD rotations designed to target your primary issue, whether that is lifting a flat butt or slimming your butt and thighs. I passed the pencil test, but I think that is due to my natural shape, rather than the workouts I’ve been doing. Most of the women in my mom’s side of the family have larger, rounder butts. The joke is that J. Lo finally made our body types popular. So, I imagine that some people’s Pencil Test results might freak them out and there’s a strong possibility that you can’t change your genetic inheritance entirely. I wouldn’t worry about doing the dreaded test, if the idea bugs you.

I’m on Day 4 of the Classic routine now. The music and beach scenery is energetic and fun, but the routine is still very challenging for me. There’s some dance cardio, lots of tough compound movements, like squats and lunges, plus some mat work that is similar to pilates and yoga. It really hits all the bases of exercise movement and so far, it’s not boring, because the DVD order changes every day. I’ll update periodically over the month to let y’all know how it turns out.

I’ve been cooking a lot lately and looking for good, yet easy recipes. Preferably with few dirty dishes, too! So, risotto is one of my favorite things to make. I’ve written before about my experiment with Matt Bittman’s brown rice risotto, which substitutes parboiled brown rice in the standard arborio risotto recipe. Well, I tried a variation on that again for dinner tonight–with a small snafu! I boiled the brown rice for twenty minutes, while I sauteed cubed squash, a little red onion, a handful of spinach, and some slightly drained sun dried tomatoes. My sun dried tomatoes come in their own oil, so I left a little oil on them to impart the other vegetables with that great flavor. I love these tomatoes–they’re sweet and slightly smoky (I really want to make this smoky tomato risotto next). After twenty minutes on high, the rice was ready to be drained and put in the pan with the vegetables and a little white wine. All good. But what about the snafu?

I added in the rice and toasted it for a few minutes, adding white wine and a squeeze of lemon. But when I went to retrieve the one remaining container of chicken broth from the pantry, I realized it wasn’t chicken broth, but beef broth! And I was completely out of any alternative broth. I had to go with the beef, even though I only use it for recipes for my dogs (I don’t really eat beef, but they love it), not for me. Whoops!

Fortunately, it turned out to be delicious. More like a jambalaya, I think, than your usual risotto. Hearty and flavorful. Yum! I can’t decide what movie goes well with this, but I’ve been meaning to Netflix that John Cusack movie where he plays Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven. It looks so ridiculous that it might be fun.

The Calamity Jane Risotto

Cook brown rice, per package directions. Then in a wide pan, drizzle a small amount of olive oil and saute the following ingredients:

Two medium-sized squash, cubed

1-2 cups of spinach, stems removed

Red onion, to taste (I used a handful, sliced into thin strips like you would to caramelize them, rather than cubing them)

Two heaping tablespoons of sun dried tomatoes, lightly drained of oil (if yours are dry packed, add a little olive oil to the pan)

Salt and pepper to taste

When your rice is done cooking, drain it of excess water, then add it to the pan of vegetables. Mix and toast for a few minutes. Add in a splash of dry white wine and a little bit of lemon juice. Then get a 14.5 oz. can of beef broth and add it to the pan, in 1/2 cup increments, stirring the mixture on medium-high heat until all the liquid is absorbed. Since the brown rice is tougher, you want it to be very hot and bubbly. When all the liquid is absorbed, add grated parmesan and fontina cheese. I used about a 1/4 cup of each cheese. Then, you can add more pepper and even a little butter, if you want.

This is part of a 28-Day Yoga Challenge to follow the guidelines of Mandy Ingber’s new book, Yogalosophy, before I review the book on the Where Is My Guru radio show on May 17th.

Hey, guys, I just finished recording the WIMG show LIVE for the first time, talking about Yogalosophy! Come listen to Jess, Jenn, and the other fabulous guests here. The theme for today’s show was showing up for yourself, which I think is wonderful. I loved the 5 As that Jess mentioned today from listener Josh Becker, including attention, acceptance, and affection, appreciation, and allowance. This whole project has been a month-long exercise in showing up through those principles in various ways and I’m really stoked that you’ve all expressed such enthusiasm for the book. It’s been fun! Today and tomorrow are my last official Yogalosophy days, so this is my sum-it-all-up post.

Yogalosophy by the numbers:

Starting weight: 144 lbs.
Final weigh-in: 138 lbs.

I just whipped out a tape measure to get my body measurements, too, which confirmed my “Yogalosophy leg lifts will work your butt like crazy” theory. The last time I did this, months ago, I could have sworn that my measurements were 38-31-42, but I didn’t write them down. I had no idea I’d be blogging about this stuff! Post-Yogalosophy measurements: 37-30-39.  Mandy wasn’t kidding when she jokes in her DVD that her mantra is “I have a great butt.”

I love today’s Yogalosophy prompt–to work on meditation during your day and add meditation to your regular yoga poses.

“Most of our thoughts tend to be repetitive and can be categorized as follows: worrying about the past, planning for the future, listing, and worrying. A very basic form of meditation is to notice what type of thinking you are doing and simply label it…Watch the thoughts float by like clouds.”-Mandy Ingber