Deliciousness or Un

 Some of the foods I've been enjoying this week and last.

 

 I have given duck pate the new name of Rich Man's Devon.  It costs about $4.00 for 100gms, but tastes very similar to devon only more like a paste.

This was my response to the fancy cake in the Gilmore house.  Didn't really measure up to their standard.

Rosemary's Baby

An interesting story and possibly satisfyingly shocking in it's day, but it just didn't do it for me. Maybe because it is so fantastical I wasn't struck with horror at the end the way I'm sure Ira Levin was intending. The movie followed the book virtually word for word. It brought the characters to life better than my imagination could, especially Minnie and Guy, but really served no other purpose having just finished the book the day before. It didn't invoke any emotions or give any added depth to the characters or script. I would recommend watching the movie or reading the book, but don't bother with both.
Now I just need to be reminded of the Gilmore Girls reference to get a true sense of what Rory was saying. It must have been Guy she was comparing Dean to, was it? I had always pictured a story with a creepy/dangerous guy watching a girl in her sleep. Not so.

Chilli Fries

I looked up a few recipes for chilli fries but decided to create my own.  I used a can of chopped tomatoes, an onion, beef mince, sweet chilli sauce, some dried chilli, paprika, cajun seasoning, and a can of mixed beans for the chili sauce.  Then just some frozen chips and grated cheese.  I'm sure this is far from traditional chilli fries, but I enjoyed it.

Back from the Deep

Moby Dick was not what I had expected.  Previously any references to the story had always conjured visions of a fantasy, about a man and his friendship with a mighty whale. The real adventure is far from this image.  This as a serious, almost non-fiction style story about whaling in the 19th century.  The images conjured of whales being caught and slaughtered are especially confronting in this age of animal rights and Green Peace.
Although the story is highly regarded in literary circles, I was not particularly impressed with it.  I suppose partly because whaling is not really within my field of interests, but mainly because it was such a long book with extensive descriptions that were hard to follow.  Descriptions seemed to describe descriptions. A sentence would begin with a clause indicating what Melville was talking about, but by the end of the sentence I had forgotten what this was.  I struggled to keep the narrated images in my mind as clause after clause or sentence after sentence would convolute the illustration.  I will admit that I possibly have not developed the habit of visualising words well and a better and more intelligent reader would have gotten more out of it. 
I have at least extended my vocabulary and I followed the story enough, but I am sure I missed really interesting segments, just because I couldn't get a true gist of what Melville was saying. I also found there were long segments of disconnected elements.  The scientific descriptions of the different types of whales seemed unnecessary and might as well have been an appendix for all the attachment they had to the rest of the storyline.
There were definitely points where I thought, wow, that was cleverly written. I can really picture that or I get that metaphor. Although the book isn't going to make a favourite list of mine, I acknowledge the art of the author and his place among the ranks of brilliant authors.

A few enjoyable steps

 I was hoping to have finished Moby Dick by today, but still have 500 pages to go. Another few days and I'm sure I'll be done.  It's a hard slog of a book.  You have to concentrate on every sentence to really get its meaning. I think the next book I plan to read will be a little smoother in the reading. I just hope the content doesn't horrify - Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road'. I get the impression he was a somewhat uncensored author.
I have managed to tick off a few foods on the list though...photos to follow. The peach sauce was rather a dismal experiment, so I may try again at a later date.  I very much enjoyed the waffles I had with it though.  I have also made a lovely lamb dish with a little fancy mashed potatoes. And I've had coke and coffee, no milk, no sugar, just like classic Luke's diner coffee.  I only regret forgetting to drink my red wine with my lamb dish.  They would have gone perfectly together. Well, I'll just have to drink it with my chilli fries. Classy!

It's getting late, so I'll see if I can get these photos up and I'll post again soon.