Fiberglass is icky

Last night, I was coated in fiberglass. At least, that is how it felt.
That stuff does not wash off easily.
Ugh.
I am itchy.

Tutto Bene Ribollita

Comfort in a bowl comes to me in only one form.....the sublime Ribolitta. The first time I had this soup was on a cold day in Florence. I literally thought that I had died and gone to heaven. It must be the simplicity of the peasant dish....loaded with one of my favorite foods......BREAD!

If you can open a can and use a knife, you can make this wonderful soup.

Start by chopping onion, celery and carrots. I did one onion, 2 celery stalks and 2 carrots. Chop up a clove or two of garlic and saute in some olive oil. Add a bay leaf and some salt and pepper. Don't be stingy, use a good quality sea salt or kosher salt and only fresh cracked black pepper!











Soften the vegetables for about 7 minutes or so. Add in 2 cups of tomato sauce, 6 cups of your favorite chicken stock and 2 cans of white beans. I did use cannelini beans, but do prefer the smaller white beans for this soup. (The first Ribollita I had also had greens in it. This is truyly a soup you can make your very own. Add whatever additional veggies you like!) Bring to a simmer. Now comes the fun part. The Bread! You will need a stale loaf, or at least day old bread. Cut it in half and scoop out the insides. You will tear up the bread with your hands and drop into the soup. The bread will begin to break down and absorb the stock. You can add as much or as little bread as you prefer. The ribolitta can be super thick, or more soupy...your preference prevails. Use some of the crust to dip into the soup for a taste test. Adjust your salt and pepper seasonings if needed.

When you are ready to serve, dish it up into a bowl, grate some parmigiano cheese and a drizzle of olive oil! Tutto Bene!

Things I Learned In Jury Duty

and in no particular order....

1. Jury duty is not that bad. Don't be drama about it if you have to go.
2. Bailiffs work a lot more than I thought....I thought they only said, "all rise"
3. Cool new words can be learned in jury duty.....Voir Dire
4. Not all attorneys make a lot of money.....the prosecutor for the state had on a really cheap suit and bad shoes. It was almost a distraction. Someone call "What Not to Wear"
5. 6 grams of cocaine can put you in prison for a looooong time.
6. A bad public defender is terrible to see up close.
7. Moral Turpitude - one set of words I never heard in my whole life, and now want to use in a sentence when I get the chance to.
8. People brought together to serve on a jury form a really interesting bond.
9. Trial lawyers have to pay close attention all day long. It is intense beyond my imagination.
10. Retired judges on the bench don't tolerate stupidity.
11. If you are a defense attorney - look into Toastmasters....being a low talker is not working for you.
12. Determining guilt or innocence is hard.
13. Reasonable Doubt is a tough one.
14. Determining credibility on people you know is tough enough....determining credibility on total strangers is nearly impossible.
15. Jury deliberation rooms are really small and the chairs are uncomfortable. At least it was not swealtering like in "Twelve Angry Men"
16. There were no Angry Men on the jury.
17. Police officers in bullet proof vests have a really weird body shape and walk kind of funny.
18. Character witnesses on the stand can make you cry.
19. Just because a lawyer has a legal pad, and they flip the pages during questioning doesn't mean they have anything written down. I could see it was blank.
20. It is really hard to not raise your hand and get to ask the witnesses your own questions.
21. It is really hard to not talk about the trial before deliberation.
22. It is really hard to impose a sentence.
23. 12 people carry a large burden.....I'm glad I got to carry it with such a responsible, thoughtful and intelligent group of people.
24. I'm glad we considered the man's family and future in our decision.
25. You get an escort to your car.

This one is originally from The Big Read. Apparently they reckon that most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Underline those you intend to read. (In blogger you can use Ctrl. U to do this)
3. Italicize the books you LOVE.
4. Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who've only read 6 and force books upon them.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Bible
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
1984 - George Orwell
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Lousia M Alcott
Tess of the D'Urbevilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkes
Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisted - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold comfort Farm - Stellla Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula - Bram Stroker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Slyvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
Germinal - Emile Zola
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte's Web - EB White
The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

This list will help with my "reading" resolution for the year.
At least I read more than 6 already....

Optimisim for 09

Happy New Year Everyone!
I just read my own New Years post from 08 ~ I sounded so hopeful. Goodness knows, in comparison to 07 - 2008 was a much better year for me.

Last night, 2009 came in quietly....Tony and I were the only ones awake in the house.
Today, I am not dashing off to a New Years brunch. Instead I am braising pork ribs and making my black eyed peas and donning my new Ovechikin T for the game tonight.
08 had a feminine lovely start....in 09 I will have bbq sauce all over me and am hoping to see a good ole fist fight on the ice!
We will see how this year plays out.
This will be my year to toughen up, not be such a girl, not worry so much about what other people think.
ggggrrrr!
I feel the manly empowerment already.