Self-delusion is delicious

though, TRUTH: i'd eat the fack out of that cake.

Crisp, tangy, light

Brussels Sprout Salad with Cheddar, Hazelnuts, and Apple

From Cook's Country

Why this recipe works:

Instead of roasted Brussels sprouts, we wanted a light, bright, raw preparation that was just as delicious. Shredding the Brussels sprouts super-thin is key, and letting them sit in the dressing for at least 30 minutes softens them fully and seasons them deeply. To flavor the salad, we chose a simple lemon vinaigrette, rounded out with shallot and mustard. Sweet fruit, crunchy nuts, and creamy cheese are the finishing touches.

Serves 8 

Slice the sprouts as thin as possible. Shred the cheddar on the large holes of a box grater.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons lemon juice 

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 

1 small shallot, minced 

1 garlic clove, minced 

Salt and pepper 

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 

2 pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved, and sliced very thin 

4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup) 

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and cut into 1/2-inch pieces 

1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned, and chopped

Instructions

1. Whisk lemon juice, mustard, shallot, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt together in large bowl. Slowly whisk in oil until incorporated. Toss Brussels sprouts with vinaigrette, and let sit for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.
2. Fold in cheddar, apple, and hazelnuts. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

How to Slice Brussels Sprouts
You can use the slicing disk of your food processor or slice the sprouts with a chef’s knife. Follow these steps to do the latter safely and quickly.

1. Trim: Trim the stem end of each sprout and then cut each sprout in half through the cut end.

2. Slice: With the flat surface on the cutting board, thinly slice each half.

It's great pumpkin bread, Charlie Brown

Pumpkin Bread

From America's Test Kitchen 

Why this recipe works:

Canned pumpkin puree often lends a raw, metallic flavor to pumpkin bread. We cook down the puree to eliminate those off-putting flavors. Instead of dirtying more dishes, we mix the quick bread right in the pot, adding cream cheese and buttermilk for their tangy flavor. A quick-to-assemble topping adds texture and keeps the loaf from getting soggy the next day.

Makes 2 loaves 

The test kitchen’s preferred loaf pan measures 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches; if using a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan, start checking for doneness five minutes early.

Ingredients

Topping  

5 tablespoons packed (2 1/4 ounces) light brown sugar  

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour  

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened  

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

1/8 teaspoon salt 

Bread2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour  
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder  
1/2 teaspoon baking soda  
1 (15-ounce) can unsweetened pumpkin puree  
1 teaspoon salt  
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon  
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg  
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves  
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar  
1 cup packed (7 ounces) light brown sugar  
1/2 cup vegetable oil  
4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 12 pieces  
4 large eggs  
1/4 cup buttermilk  
1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped fine 
 

Instructions 

1. For the topping: Using fingers, mix all ingredients together in bowl until well combined and topping resembles wet sand; set aside. 
2. For the bread: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8 1/2 by 4 1/2-inch loaf pans. Whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda together in bowl. Combine pumpkin puree, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in large saucepan over medium heat. Cook mixture, stirring constantly, until reduced to 1½ cups, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove pot from heat; stir in granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and cream cheese until combined. Let mixture stand for 5 minutes. Whisk until no visible pieces of cream cheese remain and mixture is homogeneous.
3. Whisk together eggs and buttermilk. Add egg mixture to pumpkin mixture and whisk to combine. Fold flour mixture into pumpkin mixture until combined (some small lumps of flour are OK). Fold walnuts into batter. Scrape batter into prepared pans. Sprinkle topping evenly over top of each loaf. Bake until skewer inserted in center of loaf comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Let breads cool in pans on wire rack for 20 minutes. Remove breads from pans and let cool for at least 1½ hours. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Muffin top

Whole-Wheat Blueberry Muffins

From Cook's Country

Why this recipe works:

One hundred percent whole-wheat muffins can often be dense, squat sinkers that nobody wants to eat. Our goal was to fix that problem. After combining two leaveners and incorporating ingredients with high amounts of moisture (buttermilk, eggs, and blueberries) and a mix of melted butter and oil with 100 percent whole-wheat flour, we were ecstatic to find our blueberry muffins as tender as they are. After a sprinkle of streusel on the top of the muffin, we now had a tender, slightly sweet whole-wheat muffin with that signature nutty, whole-wheat flavor.

Makes 12 Muffins 

Do not overmix the batter. You can substitute frozen (unthawed) blueberries for fresh in this recipe.

Ingredients

Streusel

3 tablespoons granulated sugar  

3 tablespoons packed brown sugar  

3 tablespoons whole-wheat flour  

Pinch salt  

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 

Muffins3 cups (16 1/2 ounces) whole-wheat flour  
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder  
1/2 teaspoon baking soda  
1 teaspoon salt  
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar  
2 large eggs  
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted  
1/4 cup vegetable oil  
1 1/4 cups buttermilk 
  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract  
7 1/2 ounces (1 1/2 cups) blueberries 
 

Instructions

1. For the streusel: Combine granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, and salt in bowl. Add melted butter and toss with fork until evenly moistened and mixture forms large chunks with some pea-size pieces throughout; set aside.
2. For the muffins: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12-cup muffin tin, including top, generously with vegetable oil spray. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl. Whisk sugar, eggs, melted butter, and oil together in separate bowl until combined, about 30 seconds. Whisk buttermilk and vanilla into sugar mixture until combined.
3. Stir sugar mixture into flour mixture until just combined. Gently stir in blueberries until incorporated. Using heaping 1/4-cup dry measuring cup, divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups (cups will be filled to rim); sprinkle muffin tops evenly with streusel.
4. Bake until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out with few crumbs attached, 18 to 20 minutes, rotating muffin tin halfway through baking. Let muffins cool in muffin tin on wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from muffin tin and let cool 5 minutes longer. Serve.

Don’t Make this Mistake: Heavy and Dense Muffins
You can’t simply swap whole-wheat flour into a regular muffin recipe and expect it to work. But if you know the science behind baking and account for the variables, you can make great blueberry muffins using 100 percent whole-wheat flour.

The wrong whole-wheat muffin . . . Makes for a fine doorstop . . . but bad eating.

Breakfast fit for a rancher

Huevos Rancheros

From Cook's Country

Why this recipe works:

This spicy dish of eggs, charred chiles, and tortillas makes for an eye-opening breakfast but is often hard to put together for four people. For maximum flavor with little effort, we roasted diced tomatoes with brown sugar, lime juice, green chiles, chili powder, and garlic that we bloomed in oil in the microwave. We spread that flavorful mixture in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish, made divots in the mixture to hold our eggs (eight divots in all), sprinkled cheese over the divots, added our eggs, and baked the eggs for about 15 minutes, until just set. Topped with avocado, scallion, and cilantro and served with warm corn tortillas, huevos rancheros will get your day started with a bang.

Serves 4 

Use a heavyweight rimmed baking sheet; flimsy sheets will warp. Our winning sheet is the Wear-Ever Half Size Heavy Duty Sheet Pan (13 gauge) by Vollrath. Serve with refried beans and hot sauce.

Ingredients

2 (28-ounce) cans diced tomatoes 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar 1 tablespoon lime juice 1 onion, chopped 1/2 cup chopped canned green chiles 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons chili powder 4 garlic cloves, sliced thin Salt and pepper 4 ounces pepper jack cheese, shredded (1 cup) 8 large eggs 1 avocado, halved, pitted, and diced 3 scallions, sliced thin 1/3 cup minced fresh cilantro 8 (6-inch) corn tortillas, warmed

 

Preparation

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 500 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Drain tomatoes in fine-mesh strainer set over bowl, pressing with rubber spatula to extract as much juice as possible. Reserve 1 3/4 cups tomato juice and discard remainder. Whisk sugar and lime juice into reserved tomato juice and set aside.
2. In separate bowl, combine onion, chiles, oil, chili powder, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and drained tomatoes. Transfer tomato mixture to prepared baking sheet and spread in even layer to edges of sheet. Roast until charred in spots, 35 to 40 minutes, stirring and redistributing into even layer halfway through baking. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees.
3. Transfer roasted tomato mixture to 13 by 9-inch baking dish and stir in tomato juice mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then spread into even layer. Sprinkle pepper Jack over tomato mixture. Using spoon, hollow out 8 holes in tomato mixture in 2 rows. Crack 1 egg into each hole. Season eggs with salt and pepper.
4. Bake until whites are just beginning to set but still have some movement when dish is shaken, 13 to 16 minutes. Transfer dish to wire rack, tent loosely with aluminum foil, and let sit for 5 minutes. Spoon avocado over top, then sprinkle with scallions and cilantro. Serve with warm tortillas. 

 

TO MAKE AHEAD: The sauce can be made 24 hours in advance. Microwave until hot, about 2 minutes (stirring halfway), before transferring to baking dish and proceeding with recipe.

 

Roast the Vegetables; Bake the Eggs

To evoke the charred flavors in traditional huevos rancheros, we roast vegetables in a hot oven before layering them into a baking dish with cheese sprinkled over. Cracking eggs into wells in the mixture allows us to bake eight servings at once—no more standing at the stove frying egg after egg for an impatient crowd.

Piping loaves of meats on blustery days

Turkey Meatloaf

so, i threw this together last night after reading several meatloaf recipes online (largely using ina garten's for flavor profile). all amounts approximated.

4 hearty servings

somebody else's rando turkey meatloaf, but mine looked pretty similar, though cut into a wedge, not a slice.

Ingredients
1 lb 93% lean ground turkey
< 1/4 of an onion, chopped (i used purple, but i think yellow would be even better)
c. 1+ t garlic powder
c. 1+ t onion powder
large pinch dried thyme (fresh would kill)
salt (the more mustard/soy/worcestershire/spices you have, the less salt you'll need; play it by ear)
freshly ground pepper
1 T dijon mustard (i sometimes use stone-ground)
soy sauce (worcestershire would be even better, i think)
1/4+ c ketchup, divided
1 egg, whisked
c. 1 c bread crumbs (i had plain, but i think italian would be fun)
1ish t extra-virgin olive oil 

Additional Optional Add-Ins
chopped olive tapenade–type thing (i just happened to have this on hand and thought it was really fun; by no means necessary; or try other savory spreads here. how about pickled veg? chopped artichoke spread?)
chopped fresh parsley (this is the husband's suggestion, and i agree it would be killer)
large-dice hard-boiled egg (also his addition, which i think is brilliant. growing up i knew a family that used to bake whole hard-boiled eggs into their meatloaf, which i think is amazing. and would make for a killer '50s-era-looking cross-section, no? i will do this one day.)
ooked, chopped -- so it's not stringy to the bite -- well-seasoned (key!) spinach (be sure all the extra water is squeezed out, or it will eff with your loaf, man)


Preparation

1. preheat the oven to 325^F.
2. in a large mixing bowl, gently combine the turkey, chopped onion, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, maybe 1ish t salt, as many cracks of pepper as appeal, dijon mustard, a few good glugs of soy sauce, 2ish T ketchup, and whisked egg. (if you are adding in additional ingredients -- like the suggested tapenade, fresh parsley, and hard-boiled egg -- now's your cue.) 
3. once the mixture is just barely combined, with a fair distribution of the ingredients, mix in the bread crumbs, using an easy hand. you don't want to overwork the mixture. combine until it feels solid enough to hold together without becoming tough or dry feeling. you may need to add additional bread crumbs 'til you get the right feel (see notes about wet vs. dry ingredients below). just experiment.
4. oil the bottom of a square 8" x 8" cake pan (or really any oven-safe vessel that will give your meat goodness room to breathe -- i say this because if you use the traditional loaf pan i can't be sure how the temp and times will change). place the meat mixture into it, patting it into an even circle (or, really, whatever damned shape you fancy). spread another 2ish T ketchup on the top of the loaf.
5. bake in the middle of the oven for 40 to 50 minutes. you want the meat to hold together nicely without any pink remaining, but you don't want to overcook, or it will become dry and tough. i don't have a meat thermometer and so just cut the whole thing in half when i suspected it was done to check it; imperfect but effective.
6. serve with something super nummy like mashed potatoes and a simple salad. note that this loaf is tasty hot out of the oven, at room temperature, or even cold (especially in a sandwich). vee obliging, this turkey meatloaf.

A Word On Breadcrumbs
the more dry ingredients you have -- any grated cheeses, chopped eggs, abundant spices and herbs, etc. -- the less breadcrumb you'll need; the more wet ingredients -- soy/worcestershire, mustard, egg, etc. -- the more breadcrumb you'll need.

Sweetest

Mrs. Cochran's Perfect Pecan Pie, Courtesy of Sweetie-licious

Note: To make this a chocolate pecan pie, add 1/2ish cup semi-sweet chocolate chips to bottom of pie before pouring in filling? Yes? Dark chocolate? Other? —dj

Ingredients
3 eggs
½ C. sugar
½ C. dark brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
¾ C. dark corn syrup
1 Tbsp. flour
1 C. whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. brandy
2 C. pecan, chopped or whole

Eggnog ice cream, to serve
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, sugars, butter, corn syrup, flour, and cream. Stir in the vanilla, brandy, and pecans. Pour into an unbaked frozen pie shell. 
2. Bake for 45-60 minutes or until the filling is set. Cool.  Serve with eggnog ice cream . . . and enjoy!

A starchy must

Tyler Florence's Chive and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

serves 4 to 6
 

Ingredients

6 to 8 large Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 tablespoon salt
4 bay leaves
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
4 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
3 sprigs fresh thyme
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped chives

Preparation

1. Put the cut potatoes into a large pot, cover them with cold water, and add salt and 2 bay leaves. Bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are fork tender, about 20 to 30 minutes. Drain well and remove the bay leaves. 
2. Meanwhile, in a small pot heat the cream, butter, garlic, thyme, and remaining bay leaves. While the potatoes are still warm, press them through a potato ricer or food mill into a mixing bowl. Add the warm cream, straining out the solids, a bit at a time until the potatoes are fluffy. Season with salt and pepper and gently stir in the chives. Serve immediately.

Riffing on a Kanuk classic

Tyler Florence's Green Bean Poutine

serves 8
 
Notes: We wanted to deconstruct the classic green bean casserole that graces Thanksgiving tables around the country. Instead of overcooked green beans and canned soup, we wanted to highlight the quality of the vegetables, but we also wanted to have a little fun. So we took inspiration from poutine—a pile of French fries, gravy, and cheese—and we combined green beans with a great mushroom gravy and fresh burrata cheese to make our Thanksgiving version. Who would complain about it?

Ingredients
1/4 c grapeseed or vegetable oil
1 bunch sage leaves, with stems
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
kosher salt
1/2 pound brown button mushrooms
3 to 4 ounces maitake mushrooms
3 to 4 ounces brown beech mushrooms
1/2 cup sherry
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 pounds green beans
1 bunch chives
1 package burrata, about 4 ounces
1/2 cup fried onions, such as Durkee's or French's
extra-virgin olive oil, to finish

Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, and when the oil looks wavy, fry the sage leaves. This both infuses the oil and provides a garnish for the final dish.
2. Remove the sage once it is crisp, and drain on paper towels. Add the onion and garlic to the oil with 1/4 t salt to sweat them down, stirring occasionally so they don't brown unevenly.
3. While the onion is cooking, wipe the mushrooms to clean, then quarter them and add them to the saucepan. Cook the mushrooms until they have released their liquid and it has evaporated and they get a bit of caramelization on the edges. Add the sherry to deglaze the pan. Then add the cream and salt to taste. Simmer to reduce the cream and sherry by about half, [end recipe excerpt]

Will post remainder when can find it, yo.

Mulling over my menu

Tyler Florence's Test Kitchen Stuffing

Makes enough to stuff one turkey.
 

Ingredients
4 cups Sourdough Bread (torn into 1" pieces, without the crusts)
2 tablespoons Grapeseed or Vegetable oil
1/2 pound Sage Breakfast Sausage (crumbled)
1/2 cup Diced Carrots
1/2 cup Diced Celery
1/2 cup Diced Onion
5 Sage Leaves
3 Thyme Sprigs
Kosher Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
2/3 cup Chicken Stock
1 Egg
Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Toast the Bread on a sheet pan in the oven for about 15 minutes until crisp and golden.
2. Heat the Oil over medium-high heat in a large saucepan then add the Sausage and let it brown. After it's nice and golden on one side, stir to get color all over. Add the Carrots, Celery, and Onion, followed by the Sage and Thyme. Turn the heat down to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, to keep the cooking even. Season with Salt and Pepper. When the vegetables are aromatic and tender, add a splash of Water if necessary to loosen the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the Toasted Bread and the Chicken Stock and mix.
3. Remove the Thyme Sprigs and pull the Leaves off. Add the Leaves back to the stuffing and then transfer the stuffing to a food processor. Process until fairly smooth, adding the Egg while pureeing (if you're doubling the recipe for extra stuffing, puree only half the stuffing; the rest you can bake as directed below).
4. Transfer the stuffing to a piping bag (or a large zip top bag with a comer snipped off).
5. If you would like to have the stuffing as a stand-alone dish, skip the pureeing. Transfer the stuffing mixture to a greased baking dish and cook in a 350°F oven until the top is golden brown.

Taking Umbridge

J. K. Rowling offers a profile on Dolores Jane Umbridge
 
from http://www.today.com/books/j-k-rowling-writes-harry-potter-halloween-tale-profiling-malicious-1D80248516

The story of Dolores Jane Umbridge
Dolores Jane Umbridge was the eldest child and only daughter of Orford Umbridge, a wizard, and Ellen Cracknell, a Muggle, who also had a Squib son. Dolores’ parents were unhappily married, and Dolores secretly despised both of them: Orford for his lack of ambition (he had never been promoted, and worked in the Department of Magical Maintenance at the Ministry of Magic), and her mother, Ellen, for her flightiness, untidiness, and Muggle lineage. Both Orford and his daughter blamed Ellen for Dolores's brother's lack of magical ability, with the result that when Dolores was fifteen, the family split down the middle, Orford and Dolores remaining together, and Ellen vanishing back into the Muggle world with her son. Dolores never saw her mother or brother again, never spoke of either of them, and henceforth pretended to all she met that she was a pure-blood.

An accomplished witch, Dolores joined the Ministry of Magic directly after she left Hogwarts, taking a job as a lowly intern in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Even at seventeen, Dolores was judgemental, prejudiced and sadistic, although her conscientious attitude, her saccharine manner towards her superiors, and the ruthlessness and stealth with which she took credit for other people's work soon gained her advancement. Before she was thirty, Dolores had been promoted to Head of the office, and it was but a short step from there to ever more senior positions in the management of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. By this time, she had persuaded her father to take early retirement, and by making him a small financial allowance, she ensured that he dropped quietly out of sight. Whenever she was asked (usually by workmates who did not like her) 'are you related to that Umbridge who used to mop the floors here?' she would smile her sweetest, laugh, and deny any connection whatsoever, claiming that her deceased father had been a distinguished member of the Wizengamot. Nasty things tended to happen to people who asked about Orford, or anything that Dolores did not like talking about, and people who wanted to remain on her good side pretended to believe her version of her ancestry.

In spite of her best efforts to secure the affections of one of her superiors (she never cared particularly which of them it was, but knew that her own status and security would be advanced with a powerful husband), Dolores never succeeded in marrying. While they valued her hard work and ambition, those who got to know her best found it difficult to like her very much. After a glass of sweet sherry, Dolores was always prone to spout very uncharitable views, and even those who were anti-Muggle found themselves shocked by some of Dolores's suggestions, behind closed doors, of the treatment that the non-magical community deserved.

As she grew older and harder, and rose higher within the Ministry, Dolores's taste in little girlish accessories grew more and more pronounced; her office became a place of frills and furbelows, and she liked anything decorated with kittens (though found the real thing inconveniently messy). As the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge became increasingly anxious and paranoid that Albus Dumbledore had ambitions to supersede him, Dolores managed to claw her way to the very heart of power, by stoking both Fudge's vanity and his fears, and presenting herself as one of the few he could trust. 

Dolores's appointment as Inquisitor at Hogwarts gave full scope, for the first time in her life, for her prejudices and her cruelty. She had not enjoyed her time at school, where she had been overlooked for all positions of responsibility, and she relished the chance to return and wield power over those who had not (as she saw it) given her her due.

Dolores has what amounts to a phobia of beings that are not quite, or wholly, human. Her distaste for the half-giant Hagrid, and her terror of centaurs, reveal a terror of the unknown and the wild. She is an immensely controlling person, and all who challenge her authority and world-view must, in her opinion, be punished. She actively enjoys subjugating and humiliating others, and except in their declared allegiances, there is little to choose between her and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Dolores's time at Hogwarts ended disastrously, because she overreached the remit Fudge had given her, stepping outside the bounds of her own authority, carried away with a fanatical sense of self-purpose. Shaken but unrepentant after a catastrophic end to her Hogwarts career, she returned to a Ministry, which had been plunged into turmoil due to the return of Lord Voldemort. 

In the change of regimes that followed Fudge's forced resignation, Dolores was able to slip back into her former position at the Ministry. The new Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, had more immediate problems pressing in on him than Dolores Umbridge. Scrimgeour was later punished for this oversight, because the fact that the Ministry had never punished Dolores for her many abuses of power seemed to Harry Potter to reveal both its complacency and its carelessness. Harry considered Dolores's continuing employment, and the lack of any repercussions for her behaviour at Hogwarts, a sign of the Ministry's essential corruption, and refused to cooperate with the new Minister because of it (Dolores is the only person, other than Lord Voldemort, to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry, having forced him to cut the words 'I must not tell lies' on the back of his own hand during detention).

Dolores was soon enjoying life at the Ministry more than ever. When the Ministry was taken over by the puppet Minister Pius Thicknesse, and infiltrated by the Dark Lord's followers, Dolores was in her true element at last. Correctly judged, by senior Death Eaters, to have much more in common with them than she ever had with Albus Dumbledore, she not only retained her post but was given extra authority, becoming Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission, which was in effect a kangaroo court that imprisoned all Muggle-borns on the basis that they had ‘stolen’ their wands and their magic.

It was as she sat in judgement of another innocent woman that Harry Potter finally attacked Dolores in the very heart of the Ministry, and stole from her the Horcrux she had unwittingly been wearing. 

With the fall of Lord Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge was put on trial for her enthusiastic co-operation with his regime, and convicted of the torture, imprisonment and deaths of several people (some of the innocent Muggle-borns she sentenced to Azkaban did not survive their ordeal). 

Birthday: 26th August
Wand: Birch and dragon heartstring, eight inches long 
Hogwarts house: Slytherin
Special abilities: Her punishment quill is of her own invention
Parentage: Muggle mother, wizard father
Family: Unmarried, no children
Hobbies: Collecting the 'Frolicsome Feline' ornamental plate range, adding flounces to fabric and frills to stationary objects, inventing instruments of torture

J. K. Rowling's thoughts on Dolores Jane Umbridge
Once, long ago, I took instruction in a certain skill or subject (I am being vague as vague can be, for reasons that are about to become obvious), and in doing so, came into contact with a teacher or instructor whom I disliked intensely on sight. 

The woman in question returned my antipathy with interest. Why we took against each other so instantly, heartily and (on my side, at least) irrationally, I honestly cannot say. What sticks in my mind is her pronounced taste for twee accessories. I particularly recall a tiny little plastic bow slide, pale lemon in colour that she wore in her short curly hair. I used to stare at that little slide, which would have been appropriate to a girl of three, as though it was some kind of repellent physical growth. She was quite a stocky woman, and not in the first flush of youth, and her tendency to wear frills where (I felt) frills had no business to be, and to carry undersized handbags, again as though they had been borrowed from a child's dressing-up box, jarred, I felt, with a personality that I found the reverse of sweet, innocent and ingenuous. 

I am always a little wary when talking about these kinds of sources of inspiration, because it is infuriating to hear yourself misinterpreted in ways that can cause other people a great deal of hurt. This woman was NOT 'the real Dolores Umbridge'. She did not look like a toad, she was never sadistic or vicious to me or anyone else, and I never heard her express a single view in common with Umbridge (indeed, I never knew her well enough to know much about her views or preferences, which makes my dislike of her even less justifiable). However, it is true to say that I borrowed from her, then grossly exaggerated, a taste for the sickly sweet and girlish in dress, and it was that tiny little pale lemon plastic bow that I was remembering when I perched the fly-like ornament on Dolores Umbridge's head.

I have noticed more than once in life that a taste for the ineffably twee can go hand-in-hand with a distinctly uncharitable outlook on the world. I once shared an office with a woman who had covered the wall space behind her desk with pictures of fluffy kitties; she was the most bigoted, spiteful champion of the death penalty with whom it has ever been my misfortune to share a kettle. A love of all things saccharine often seems present where there is a lack of real warmth or charity. 

So Dolores, who is one of the characters for whom I feel purest dislike, became an amalgam of traits taken from these, and a variety of sources. Her desire to control, to punish and to inflict pain, all in the name of law and order, are, I think, every bit as reprehensible as Lord Voldemort's unvarnished espousal of evil. 

Umbridge's names were carefully chosen. 'Dolores' means sorrow, something she undoubtedly inflicts on all around her. 'Umbridge' is a play on 'umbrage' from the British expression 'to take umbrage', meaning offence. Dolores is offended by any challenge to her limited world-view; I felt her surname conveyed the pettiness and rigidity of her character. It is harder to explain 'Jane'; it simply felt rather smug and neat between her other two names.

I piccoli

At L'Arche Those at the Margins Find Love at the Center
Michael Gerson
from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-at-larche-those-at-the-margins-find-love-at-the-center/2014/10/27/4c2bc534-5df0-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html
 

In an older, gentrifying, suburban Virginia neighborhood — the kind with porch flags and pumpkins on the front steps — I am welcomed at an indistinguishable door to an exceptional little community called L’Arche. Here, intellectually disabled “core members” are paired with often young and intensely idealistic “assistants” who share their lives, normally for a year or two. (L’Arche has more than 140 such group homes in 35 countries.) 

Hazel, who uses a wheelchair and communicates mainly with a shy smile, has helped prepare dinner. Before the meal, she shows me photographs she has taken during a recent riverside vacation. (Her more typical photographic subjects, I’m told, are babies at church.) Fritz, a middle-aged man with Down syndrome, watches videos of the rock group Queen on a computer in the living room. Before we eat, he offers an extended, emotionally intense prayer, only occasionally intelligible to listeners in the room but certainly (if there is any justice) intelligible to God.

 

There is a method in L’Arche’s work. Routine and consistency are important. Core members have chores and, when possible, jobs. (Fritz takes out the trash and washes cars at a city facility.) L’Arche is big on rituals of personal affirmation. When any member of the community has a birthday, the others take turns recounting his or her talents and gifts. While L’Arche is not sectarian, the atmosphere is strongly religious. After dessert, a candle is handed around, with each person expressing a prayer request as they hold it. 

The assistants are given months of training before they start. But L’Arche’s goal is not primarily the provision of services. The prevailing professional model of social services involves the setting of emotional boundaries. L’Arche exists to cross those boundaries — to strive for a friendship of equals. The saintly founder of L’Arche, Jean Vanier, argues that generosity is offered from a position of power. True communion, in contrast, involves the loss of power and a willingness to be “transformed by weakness.” Assistants approach core members as teachers. 

The result is a deeper, riskier relationship. The challenges of dealing with the intellectually disabled should not be sentimentalized. A core member at a L’Arche home recently became threatening and needed to be hospitalized. (“God holds that person,” says John Cook, the executive director of L’Arche in the Washington area, “but we can’t.”) Some volunteers burn out. More typically, however, assistants report being stripped down to emotional essentials and opened to something larger. “My job, what I make, meant nothing to her,” says one assistant of her core member. “She loved me, without any accomplishments, without anything I thought made me lovable. It is how God loves me.”

There is a human tendency to recoil from fragility. But we are humanized by closer acquaintance with the intellectually disabled. Cook speaks of his friend Fritz with admiration: “He has the gift of companionship. He is very attuned to distress and overtly comforting. He gives people a blessing by putting his forehead against their forehead. And people come away feeling moved, like something powerful has happened to them.” At church, Hazel sits at the front by the aisle. During Communion, she greets each congregant as they come forward, receiving a kiss on the cheek, as much a part of the service as the bread and wine. 

Those interested in the most efficient provision of social services would probably not design L’Arche — a program that lavishly invests a single life in a single life. Whether this is viewed as wasteful depends upon your ultimate goal. “It is a matter of ends,” says Cook. “If your end is the greatest good at the least financial cost, then some get favored and some discarded. If your end is a place where everyone has a place of honor, and where everyone lives in love, then L’Arche is experiencing it. People who get pushed to the margins are intentionally placed at the center.”

This small community accomplishes many outsize things. It vindicates the ideal of human dignity, which does not depend on normal measures of human accomplishment. It lays bare the illusion that ability means superiority. It displays the lavishness of grace, which, in Christian theology, is needed by and granted to us all. And it shows — amazingly, inspiringly, accusingly — that the beloved community might be created on any suburban street.

 

photo from http://www.larche-gwdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Taylor_120117_larche_archdiocese_019.jpg

My shelves

LIST OF AUTHORS ABOUT WHOSE WORKS I GET RABIDLY EXCITED
jane austen, everything
laura kinsale, everything
cara mckenna/meg maguire, almost everything
joanna bourne, everything
laurie r. king, mary russell series
julia spencer-fleming, everything 


LIST OF AUTHORS WHO BRING IT
curtis sittenfeld
feminists in comedy today (e.g., poehler, fey)
dorothy l. sayers
tana french

You're welcome for making your life the best place ever to live

http://www.buzzfeed.com/colinheasley/i-am-in-no-mood-to-give-consequence-to-young-ladies-who-are

ATTENTION all Duggars okayish with explicit sex scenes and who don't think red nail varnish is too, too whore-y

have i got the book for you: Bygones by lavyrle spencer.

*** FIRST UPDATE, LESS THAN SEVENTY PAGES IN, 10.15.14 ***

oh, m'god, y'all, i'm not sure i'm going to be able to DO this. i was blown away by lavyrle spencer's Morning Glory -- a POEM of a book; broke my heart. so when i saw a shelf full of spencer at my local Goodwill a few months back, i picked out some paperbacks. hardly five pages in to this one, i was ready to throw it against the wall. it has aged BADLY, people.

oh, how, you ask?

THE STYLE:

• raspberry pumps paired with matching leather gloves
• the cute fiance sports "naturally curly brown hair, crew-cut on top and trailing in thinned tendrils over his collar." MULLET COUNT: 1
• kitchen newly redone with white Formica cabinets and a new vinyl floor in shades of seafoam blue, the new furniture a blend of smoky blues and apricots; "the window treatments were lavish above, simple below: great billowing valances in a busy blue-and-apricot floral, paired with pleated horizontal blinds of pale apricot."
• the cute son's "hair was black, like his father's, and dressed with something sheeny, spiked straight up and finger-long on top, slicked back over the ears and trailing in natural curls below his collar in back. randy was an eye-catcher. . . . he adopted the rough-cut look of the unshaved young pop singer george michael." PEOPLE. WHEREFORE ALL THE MULLETS. I CAN'T. SOMEONE NEEDS TO ETERNAL SUNSHINE MY MIND OF THE EIGHTIES. MULLET COUNT: 2 MANY
• mom's favorite shop clerk, who creates "a positive first impression when customers walked into the store," sports "sculptured garnet fingernails bearing tiny rhinestone nail ornaments that flashed as her hand rested on the railing."
• "When Bess came to the door Paula Abdul was blasting 'Opposites Attract' from the CD player, and Randy was standing before his dresser adjusting the knot in a skinny gray leather tie. He was dressed in baggy, pleated trousers, a silvery-gray double-breasted sport coat and a plaid shirt in muted shades of purple, gray and white. He'd put something on his hair to make it glossy and though he'd said he'd had it cut, as promised, it still hung to his collar in natural ringlets . . . looking spiffy for once." THIS ≠ SPIFFY

THE LOWBROW:

• personal libraries consisting of five stephen king novels. y'all, i love stephen king as much as the next book junkie, but i also kept my copy of to kill a mockingbird from the time i read it with my fifth-grade class, you know?
• a Fancy Meal consisting of: (1) cheese ball with Ritz crackers, (2) beef stroganoff, (3) corn pudding. i mean, on their own, maybe? but, like, in a menu? . . . and "corn pudding" = "nutritious vegetable side"? . . .
• a Buick Park Avenue and a Cadillac Seville are the motorcars of choice for conspicuous, fairly tasteless middle-american consumption. take note, Heartland!!

THE HELLISH SEXISM:

• he's bitter that she "left her family" -- read: she decided in her thirties that she wanted a career and so started taking college classes during the day, which meant she wasn't there to single-handedly raise their two children and warm her husband's fucking toaster strudel for him. UM. NO.
• his cheating isn't what RUINED the marriage, you see; he only cheated because he felt NEGLECTED when she went to COLLEGE. my spork is at the ready; his jugular is looking REALLY soft.
• she's constantly turning down food because she's ten pesky pounds overweight! see what the author did here? she maintained the heroine's required neurotic self-loathing and body dysmorphia (we aren't allowed to ever be at peace with our bodies; it's a WAR, ladies), but only TEN pounds overweight is code to the rest of us ladies reading this novel -- "oh, she's GORGEOUS! ten pounds is NOTHING! i've got twenty-five extra pounds i could give you right now!"
• the husband's mistress is "ten pounds underweight." women versus women, no one's healthy, everyone's either too fat or too thin. well, every woman, anyway.
• cute fiance on gender roles: "you'd be surprised how many girls today can't even boil water. when i found out [my fiancee] could cook i told my mother, i think i've found the girl of my dreams." darling, i hope you step out on her if she ever leaves the frying pan soaking in the sink in favor of community college evening classes!!
• "toward the end of their marriage, when she'd been caught up in the rigors of studying for her degree and maintaining a domicile and a family of four, he had said during one of their fights, 'look at you, you don't even take care of yourself anymore. all you ever wear is blue jeans and sweatshirts, and your hair hangs in strings. you didn't look like that when i married you!" at which point i shot him in the chest with a copy of something by betty friedan and a book cannon. RIP, douchebag.

THE GROSS RACIST UNDERTONES:

• cute fiance is "all american," which we all know is code for white (because people of color aren't allowed to be totally american; they're fake, part american).
• it was super cute when as a child the daughter dragged around the neighborhood a little BLACK doll she called gertrude -- get it? she's WHITE! the doll was BLACK! kids. *benevolent head shake*

THE GROSS HOMOPHOBIC UNDERTONES:

• the host at the restaurant was "effeminate," y'all. our heroine is raising an eyebrow.

THE GENERAL GROSS EARLY-NINETIES BOURGEOIS/CHRISTIAN-RIGHT MORALS THAT ARE SUFFOCATING AND HATEFUL AND NARROW:

• mom: "i can't pretend this is anything but terrible, our only daughter and a shotgun wedding." oh, shut up. i'm sorry you're horrified. but once you're done pulling your perfectly coiffed head out of your ass, maybe you can realize that it's not all about you playing Real-Life Dollies and that your child needs your support as she navigates several major life changes simultaneously. m'kay?
• mom has been exclusively seeing "keith" for three years now but won't let keith spend the night, because her deadbeat nineteen-year-old, randy, might figure out she's sexually active. oh, sighhhhhhhhhhhhh. now i see why mom is so bent out of shape about daughter getting knocked up out of wedlock. THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT SEX HERE.

THE WEIRD, POORLY CHOSEN MOMENTS TO INFUSE BACKGROUND DETAIL WITH "ART":

• "on saturday night, bess took pains with her hair. It was nearly shoulder-length, its shades of blonde as varied as an October prairie.* she curled it only enough to give it lift, and pouffed it out behind her ears, where it billowed like the sleeves of a choir gown caught in the wind."

* book is set in greater minneapolis metropolitan area.



WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED FROM THE FIRST SIXTY-SEVEN PAGES OF THIS NOVEL:

• using labels and explicitly dressing your characters doesn't often paint them as the elegant paragons of style you want them to be, author: rather, it dates them immediately and shows the limits of your class experience, which can be awkward and weird and will immediately take bunches of your audience out of the story.
• same with descriptions of decor, popular-cultural icons, favorite brands and labels -- don't go into it unless you're cool with your book written in 2014 only sounding relevant 'til mid-2015.
• take a feminist-theory class. i'm not saying you can't have sexist complications and heartland mores in your book; i'm just saying you might not want to make it quite so clear you're CHAMPIONING them is all

*** HOMEWORK ***
watch the first season of Mad Men. now drive to broadway, go to TKTS, and watch Jersey Boys.

1. in which show were women treated as second-class citizens? (ANSWER: Both)
2. in which show were the writers AWARE they were treating women as second-class citizens? (ANSWER: Mad Men)
3. which show used the treatment of women as a commentary on sexism? (ANSWER: Mad Men
4. which show's writers had a used condom, a cracked leather jacket stinking of body odor, and a meatball sub where its sense of nuance and egalitarianism were supposed to be? (ANSWER: Jersey Boys)

now, go forth and kick ass, writers. and, self, be aware.

This is good news

 

Words to live by

"Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!' I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: 'Tough' and 'Competent.' Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write 'Tough and Competent' on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control."

—Gene Kranz, January 30, 1967, to his segment of NASA's flight control team the Monday after the Apollo 1 disaster

"It starts with how we view women."

right on, james brown.

Suggestions to be taken with a grain of salt

Steve Jobs's Best Productivity Tips

the caustic-corporate-monster thing aside, herr jobs was massively productive. here are some of the ways he shaped his work life for maximum efficiency (just, you know, maybe don't do the whole verbally abusing coworkers thing?).

from http://lifehacker.com/steve-jobs-best-productivity-tricks-1632476352

1. Get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on what matters (make it easy to focus on what's important, which will probably mean saying no more often).
2. Delegate responsibilities (and don't multitask).
3. Get more life experiences (a diversity of experiences better informs your work and success).
4. Assess your life daily and change what you need to (if too many days in a row you're displeased with how you spend your day, it may be time to make some changes).

Thoughts, thoughts . . .

 

and one proposed response: http://jezebel.com/if-you-care-about-women-and-still-support-the-nfl-you-1631903485

Questions for Discussion:

1. Is a six-game suspension adequate punishment for a player who beats another person?
2. Especially considering some dude who smoked a joint was suspended for a year?
3. Why did the NFL wait to fire Ray Rice 'til the video -- which they'd previously seen and which squared with the accounts Rice and his wife had already given of the incident -- went public?
4. Is there room in the NFL for domestic abusers?
5. Is a boycott of the NFL throwing the baby out with the bath water?