Weekly Round Up: I Can Explain

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This week I tried out a few things in the kitchen and saw an incredible TV show.

Wait didn't you say you were going to start writing a Friday post?

Yeah, I said that and did not do that, but I can explain.  In theory I would like to check in here more than once a week, but in practice work leaves me completely drained and not in a good place by the end of the week.  The first prompt in the format that I was testing was "what was the high of your week?" which shut me down flat and that post never had a chance to get written.

I read something about writer's block recently that said that if you're having trouble writing something that one option is to take it as a hint and not write it.  I'm not sure that I agree with that 100%, but I also know that when I get a good idea it's almost impossible not to roll with it.  On the flip side when I get a post that doesn't take shape when I start writing it, the process becomes too much like work.

Whatever.  Give us some eats.

That I can do! 

The NYT food section is hit or miss for me, but I came across a little not-quite-pasta-not-quite-stir-fry number that I wanted to try.  May I present mushroom pasta stir fry?

Right off the bat I only made half of the pasta, a bit more than half of the veggies, and all of the sauce and I feel that the proportions that I used were good.  If I make this again I wouldn't bother with broccolini (something that I have to go to the store for) and would use regular broccoli instead (something that I always have in the freezer).  Overall this was easy to make and I liked it.

For those keeping score of what foods Doggo likes, she loves broccoli and does not love broccolini.

On the dessert front, I felt that we needed to try these cheesecake cookies.  They were very easy to make and very good, but they also left me with a hankering for cheesecake, so if I had it to do over again I would have just made our go-to cheesecake bars.

Workouts

Some kind of cardio during the week, hiking on the weekend.  Nothing much more to say.

Watching

We're almost done with season 7 of Seinfeld.

In other news, oh man have I got a show for you!  Or a book depending on your POV.

I heard a recent episode of the Sarah's Bookshelves Podcast with Georgia Hunter.  She wrote a book called We Were the Lucky Ones, which is a fictional telling of her family's experience in the holocaust.  It's a book that I've been hearing about for years that I've never gotten around to reading.  The podcast was about Hunter's new book, and also about the process to adapt We Were the Lucky Ones for TV.

As I was listening to the episode, I kept thinking "Ok, why haven't I gotten around to reading this book" but those thoughts were soon replaced by "I need to drop everything and watch the TV show".  She got my attention when she said that the producers made the choice to use an all Jewish cast, and that there were challenges in trying to get the mix of American, European, and Israeli actors to all use the same generic Polish accent.  Oh hello, which Israeli actors?  In recent years I've seen quite a few Israeli TV shows, and they've invariably been quite good.  The thing about Israeli TV is that it's a small industry, so if you watch one show and then start a second, the chances are good that there will be a few actors in common between the two shows, so you're instantly in a world of familiar faces.

I immediately sat myself down in front of the TV, and sure enough the next eight hours of my life were spoken for.  It always feels wrong to use the word "enjoy" in the same sentence with the word "holocaust" but this was an incredible show that I couldn't get enough of.

The final thing that I have to say about TV is wow it feels weird to watch a show and not be on my phone or computer.  In recent years I'd pretty much stopped watching shows and was mostly watching Youtube videos.  Between Mo, Apple Cider Vinegar, and now We Were the Lucky Ones, I feel like the curse has been broken, but it feels strange to just watch TV and not do anything else.  When I'm watching Youtube the odds are strong that I'm on my phone or laptop at the same time.

Reading

I bet you can guess that as soon as I finished the show, I dived right into the book.  The book is good, but I almost wonder if I would have been able to get into it without the TV show, since it's a lot of characters that come at you all at once.

Peace Out!  Who's read/seen We Were the Lucky Ones?  Have you ever gone right from the movie to the book?  Or right from the book to the movie?