Sunday Night:
Orecchiette with Cauliflower and Anchovies with grilled salmon, followed by Daci's cheese cake cupcakes. All very delicious.

Trail cooking

Cooking: After returning from Italy we have tried a few new things. Spaghetti Carbonara, with turkey bacon instead of Pancetta which was excellent

Read:
Norman Rose,     A Senseless, Squalid War: Voices from Palestine 1945-1948
C. J. Sansom       Revelation
Norman Collins   London Belongs to Me
C. J. Sansom        Sovereign:
Terry Pratchett     Maskerade
C. J. Sansom        Dark Fire
Hilary Mantel     Wolf Hall





Weather: Around 100, with 1.5 inches of rain in 1 hour yesterday


Kids:
Gil, at camp Jacobs
Noam: Working in BR in an Architect's office
Yoni: on Peds after his excellent showing on step1 of the USMLE

Cooking: Ribeye, 3 pea stir-fry

Reading: Dissolution

Exercising: 2 days in 30 mins on the elliptical machine.

Not Eating: Snacks.

Cooking: Brisket with mop sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and home made-coleslaw followed by strawberry blintzes (all home made)

Watching: Pacific, last episode and Treme

Reading: Dissolution a murder mystery set amongst Richard Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries.
also Onkolos' commentary on the garden of Eden.

Cooking: N Carolina BBQ, fresh corn and Arugala salad

Studying: Torah as literature, three books, Hebrew and English bibles, Alter translation as the Stone is so ideological. Serious textual criticism very slow work.

Watching: Pacific, Treme

Cooking: south western chicken, mushroom risotto and grilled asparagus
Followed by rustic blackberry pie

Reading: Talmud and crime short stories. Still trying loving Frank

Thinking: about morals and ethics for medical students


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Cooking: Martha Stewart Codfish cakes with red horseradish tartar sauce (delicious)

Cleaning: The pool..it is open but it is cold

Reading: Adin Steinsaltz: The Talmud. and Loving Frank

more cooking: mushroom briskit, Porchini, botton and Shitake













Grilled wild salmon and marinaded Asparagus

What the book called Tea biscuits but turned out to be really good scones

Cooking: Fresh Turkey wild rice stuffing rhubarb and strawberry crumble (from fresh fruit)

Reading: Adin Stiensaltz introduction to the Talmud


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Watching: Wallinger, minimalistic Swedish detective, brilliant

Reading: Witches abroad

Cooking: Grilled salmon and new potatoes in butter and mint sauce.

Testing: Ipad
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Cooking: Cod cakes, with fresh cod. Did not look good but tasted fine. Need to chop the cod finer and remember the mayonnaise.

Reading: 1848 year of revolutions

Watching: Nothing

Cooking: Whole trussed chickens in teh oven, after the style on a travel channel program I bought. Best breast I have ever had though the presentation of a half chicken on teh plate leaves a little to be desired.

Reading: Wyrd Sisters

Watching: Pacific followed by Treme (what would  we watch without HBO?)

Reading: Wyrrd Sisters, Discwolrl witch series

Cooking: Spaghetti Bolognese (with plenty of wine), fresh baked baguette

Watching: An Education, Up in the Air

Working: Documenting student encounters without letting the screen get in the way.

Reading: 36 arguments for the existence of God...Brilliant cross between Chaim Potok and David Lodge what could be better

Cooking: Veal schnitzel, and mushroom stuffed pasta (store bought).

Watching: Parenthood (not bad for a sitcom but the endings are too simple)

Reading: Homicide, life on the streets..nearly finished

Cooking: Whole side of salmon on the grill (wild caught), with marinated, gilled asparagus and acorn squash. Pear and raisin cake with filo dough, ox-tail casserole. (cake was good, ox-tails are too fatty)

Listening: Wolf Hall from Audible.com

Enjoying: Listening to Gil run the Shacharit service.

Relaxing: Easter Monday my one day off when Gil is at school and I am cleaning the garage, go figure.

Cooking: Mexican chicken, spanish rice with onion and yellow pepper.

Reading: Homicide life on the streets.

Watching: Penicillin: Breaking the mould, from Amazon UK.

Cooking: All of the last list and 24 pieces of Salmon (great grilling Yoni)

Wishing: Every Seder night should go as well.

Spending $2K on Noam's CRV, it has got 100K miles on it!

Watching: Absolutely nothing

Cooking: Passover, two briskets, pears in anise and sugar, Chopped liver.

Enjoying: Having all 3 boys in the house this evening

Reading: Seigfried, Harry Mulisch

Watching: Alice in wonderland 3D, very appealing.

Reading: Terry Prachett equal rites first of the witches novels.

Cooking: Alton Brown steak, red cabbage and pepper coleslaw

Watching: Rome series 1, a little revision for the summer BluRay is wasted on us as we originally saw it in HD anyway.

Lost: Bidding for the whole Discworld series on eBay, funnily when it sold it was close to teh Amazon price for the books.


Thinking: Adam Smith, JSM and Utilitarianism.

Cooking: Beer battered cod and chips, excellent.

Reading: The checklist manifesto, much better after page 50.

Watching: The final episode of the wire, it has been a long and very stimulating journey

Ordering: The DVD of "Breaking the mould", the new film from the BBC about the discovery of penicillin.

Reading: The Checklist, Atul Gawande. a really a long essay once you've got the point.
However, the new edition of the NYRB has a great review by my hero, Jonathan Israel of Lisa Jardin's book about the glorious revolution of 1688. I thought very little of the book and I found it was just barely readable. Israel has a similar opinion.

Cooking: Warm soup and fresh rolls to go with the near freezing weather.

Watching Disc 3 (of 4) of season 5 of the Wire

Thinking: How to help our unmatched students

Buying: Tables for Seder night

Cooking: Spaghetti squash with Marinara sauce veal schnitzel. Alton Brown steaks with coleslaw with poppy seed dressing (home made and cooked).

Watching: State of Play

Reading: The checklist

Listening: Audiobook, Wolf Hall.

Cleaning: Rotting leaves off the pool cover ready for spring opening.
Fixing: all the small issues with the irrigation system.

Watching: Nothing

Reading: My Jesus year, Benjamin Cohen searches for Jewish meaning by visiting churches in Georgia.

Cooking: Mexican chicken with stir fried zucchini.

Working: Getting students through the scramble unscathed, as brutal as ever, though this year at  least the faxes went through.

Cooking: Salmon fillets (outdoor grill), Spaghetti squash and salad. desert; pears with anise.

Watching: Part one of "The Pacific"

Listening: Philip Glass

Reading: Rome and Jerusalem.Know I understand how Hellenization was important long after Greece ceased to be important.

Working: Cleaning the yard ready for spring.
Germinating: Peas

Cooking: Alton Brown steaks, need to be warmed very slightly in the microwave first, 5 minutes each side in the oven.

Dining:  Cathay Palace

Reading: The lost continent (Discworld series) Rome and Jerusalem

Attending: Synagogue, with Judy, Gil,  Yoni and Daci

Watching: Season 3 "The Tudors"

Reading: Rome and Jerusalem: and the next book in the discworld series.

Cooking: Veal Marsala, 3 pea stir fry andmashed potatoes

Watching: Tudors series 3.

Thinking: How many holes in my knowledge of history

Reading: Finished "The renaissance in Italy" starting "Rome and Jerusalem"

Eating: Crap from Wendy's (OK salad but it is still crap)


Listening: Keren Ann (in French, even though she is Dutch/Israeli)

Thinking: How the hell are we going to feed 25 on Passover

Cooking: Butternut and apple soup; flank steak with red onion marmalade; minestrone. Pound cake with poppy seeds (thanks Daci).

Watching: Doc Martin 4th series (okay but nowhere near as good as the earlier shows.

Planting: Vegetable garden (too early, I'll be doing this again after the last frost).

Thinking: About how Jews pray after reading a review on the new Sacks Siddur.

Reading: Londonstani ( poor) but an interesting sub-culture.

Cooking: No supper for me only bread

Watching: Gil's Basketball team win the championship, not only did he get off the bench but he scored.

Thinking: How slowly the legal process moves

Cooking: Roast Butternut squash...excellent with Weiner Schnitzel
Reading: Petrach (well about Petrach)

Watching: Nothing!

Thinking: About the law

Cooking: Alton Brown steak (I have now understood the importance of warming everything throughly first, the steak at room temp. and everything else at 500 F.

Reading: The renaissance and londonstani (written partially in cellphone language.

Watching: Nothing!

Listening: Philip Glass

Cooking: Pot Roast with root vegetables, stuffed artichokes which look much more complicated to prepare than they were in reality.

Reading: Back to the Renaissance.

Working: Filling the vegetable garden with soil mixture (700 lbs of it).

Listening: Josh reading the Megillah this Purim, fantastic.

Baking: Hamantaschen, chocolate and apricot I need to improve the aesthetics.

Listening: A radio 4 show about why the public are disenchanted with politics, the first speaker began by quoting Aristotle, yet he still wonders why....

Reading: Krugman in the New Yorker, history of the Ostia Antica synagogue

Cooking: Judy made the kid's ultimate comfort food:Chicken Schnitzel

Booking: Rooms in Florence, visits to the Uffizi

Listening: Anne Sofie van Otter: Bach

Buying: Postcards of Donald Evans fantasy stamps.

Reading: Introduction to Anthony Julius' history of Antisemitism in England. Incredible reading.

Cooking: Alton Brown steak, mixed pea stir fry and zucchini stir fry.

Watching: Winter Olympics, on and off

Feeling: Tired mosty

Cooking: Minestrone (original recipe, only fresh vegetables and dry (not canned) beans). Pretty good, plenty of extra it serves about 12 so Yoni and Daci and we were able to have it for lunch. Southwestern baked chicken and salad Nicoise. Divine brownie pie and ice cream for desert courtesy of Daci.

Watching: Dr. Bramell..Meh

Thinking: about random decisions with far reaching implications. Someone in the Jewish agency decided that our group should go to Mishmar David in central Israel rather than the more common choice of the periphery. Without that decision I probably would have not gone back to University.

Buying: Dirt for the yard, with an aim to grow as many of our vegetables and herbs for next year as possible. I no doubt, will lose enthusiasm somewhere in June.

Baking: The usual and cinnamon bread.

Watching: AJP Taylor an unusual kind of star (youtube).  Well yes he is smart, and he was a public intellectual but his views on the origin of WW2 were despicable.

Reading: Finished 1977, too much for me, it might be "realistic and gritty" a bit like a very serious version of "life on mars" but I got little pleasure from it.

Cooking: Veal again

Watching: Rick Steve's the Cinque Terra, a little homework for our summer trip.

Cooking: Lamb chops (Yehudit is working late) mashed potatoes with skins and peas

Reading: 1977

Listening: Macbreak weekly

Watching: Winter Olympics.

Thinking: Surely the Mossad wouldn't use the names of Anglo-Israeli's would they?

Driving: Gil to fencing lessons

Watching: Weeds season 5, the Lightening thief (with Gil)

Reading: 1977, War and Peace

Cooking: Mushroom and Barley soup, Cornish Hens with molasses, green squash with mint

Eating: Katia's Beef Bourguignon (delicious).

Baking: Chocolate pie and Bread.

Socializing: Dinner at Katia and Andy's.

Reading: Finished Interesting Times back to war and peace

Cooking: Vegetable soup with smoked sausage  Spaghetti with meat sauce

Watching: Shreveport's excuse for a snow shower, we are supposed to get 4-6 inches but they must be expecting blizzard conditions for that to happen.

Listening: The Be Good Tanyas

Thinking: Helping the students work out that we have no real way to explain what a "good doctor" is or how to measure that.

Cooking: Baked chicken with cilantro and chopped chile (a family favorite). Creamy mashed new potatoes.

Reading: Interesting times, still hilarious but I think you need to be a 50 something Englishman to understand all the jokes.

Watching:  The Year My Parents Went On Vacation. How many Jewish/Brazilian movies can there be.


Thinking: Favorite historians: Simon Schama,  Jonathan Israel, J. M. Roberts, Roy Porter, Gary Schwartz and Martin Gilbert.

Listening: Simon Schama on Barak Obama, broadcast on the BBC world service

Reading: Interesting times (book 4 of the rincewind discworld cycle).

Listening: ITunes U History 167B: The Rise and Fall of the Second Reich  UC Berkeley(recording not great but fantastically interesting)

Cooking: Veal Marsala and new red potatoes in olive oil and rosemary

 Watching: As it is in Heaven: wonderful Swedish movie

Reading: Finished book 1:part 1 of W and P, Prince Andrei goes off to war. Time for something a bit lighter than Napoleonic wars and the Holocaust I think. NYRB arrived with two more articles about Isaiah Berlin and more of Tony Judt's recollections.

Watching: The bloody miserable rain.

Listening: Liszt Sonata, Ballades and Polonaises

Cooking: Sunday, Flank steak Argentinian style. Lamb chops for Lunch (Yehudit at work). Another chocolate pie. More chopped liver and simple red cabbage coleslaw.

Reading: More Sir Ian Kershaw

Viewing: The Superbowl...what else!

Buying: Furniture for what was an office and is now officially a sun room

Thinking: I had no clue about Weber's theory of Charismatic Authority.  Blomberg-Fritsch affair

Caring: Gil has Antibiotics and is feeling better.

Cooking: Mushroom and Barley soup, from scratch, of course.

Reading: Ian Kershaw essay on the differences between Stalin and Hitler.

Viewing: A truly miserable Grey day.

Reading: Yes, Yes still war and peace (about 6 months I think)

Caring: Gil needs a doctor this morning

Cooking: Platt family style Italian meat sauce and spaghetti (a radio 4 cooking show cautioned on the use of the term Bolognaise as this a very specific N. Italian dish)

Baking: Fresh baguette to go with above and a largish white loaf.

Half Watching: Awful British movie, those Glory, Glory days

Fixing: Sink in kids bathroom, pump, pump more of Noam's hair, pump and now it is free.

Thinking: We need to bring back social and political discourse without name calling and accusations

Reading: Still War and Peace, eventually I will be able to work out who everyone is but that may take a few more days. The book is neatly devided upp into books and parts so I am aiming to finish part 1:book1 this weekend. Then I must push on with Ian Kershaw

Watching: 24 season one. After The Wire it all looks so unsophisticated. Can you really have Plastic surgery to change your appearance to match someone else so far ahead still knowing that in 3 months the same person will still be taking teh photographs, surely it was easier to change the ID picture rather than kill 300 people?

Thinking. IP rights in Medical School

Reading: War and Peace the new translation , having read an older translation during interminable guard duty in the Israeli army many years ago. Even after the first chapter it is  clearly an easier text to read. However, having to look down for the translation from the included French is a little wearisome.

Cooking: Veal Schnitzel with small red potatoes in lemon, butter and parsley

Watching: Season 4 of The Wire, final episode.

Listening: The Waterboys "red army blues".


Wondering: What the lyrics were to polyushka polye that we sang in Habonim, the Hebrew version is a bit crude.