Rose Cantine

I just bought Alice in Wonderland from Vook, a website that sells multimedia books (price: $2.99). When you view a “vook”, you don’t just read text as you would on a Kindle, you get video on the side explaining aspects of the book, the location, the author’s biography, a history of the place. In the case of Alice in Wonderland, which is an illustrated book to begin with, you see the gorgeous illustrations on the screen and you watch beautiful video clips made by filmmaker Emma Heald. I love Vook and recommend it to anyone who likes to read and experience the greater depth of a book. I read Alice in Wonderland when I was a child and reading the “vook” is a vastly different experience. You can also buy Vook for the iPhone. My only complaint is that if I want to see the Alice in Wonderland “vook” on the iPhone, I have to buy it again.

Why not have a subscription model where I pay a monthly fee and can view my “vooks” on whichever platform I choose?

Where Vook will really shine is in the world of cookbooks on an iPad. You place your iPad on the kitchen counter, go to a recipe, watch the author making it or giving you tips on how to braise, make a meringue, or a terrine.

Vook takes books to the next level and I can’t wait to see it on the iPad. The publishing industry is NOT dead; it’s just moving on to another platform. There will always be a place for paper books, which I love, especially those made with great care and artistry. But even for a paper book lover like me, the richness of the experience on Vook is something to celebrate. As long as there are good storytellers – whether in print or video – people will want to see their work.

www.vook.com

I have made this 5-hour bolognese sauce many times. It’s perfect for cold evenings or for dinner companions who have a robust appetite.The reason I’m posting this online is my dinner guests always ask for the recipe and I’m tired of printing it out. Now, I can just point them to this article.

5-HOUR BOLOGNESE SAUCE

(4-6 people)

• 1 lb (0.5 kg) of ground meat: 1/2 lb (0.25 kg) ground beef + 1/2 lb (0.25 kg) ground veal
• 1/2 tablespoon of kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup yellow chopped onion cut up in small dice (usually a medium sized onion is 1 cup)
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 cup chopped carrots, in small dice
• 1 cup chopped celery, in small dice
• 1 ½ cups whole milk (do not use reduced fat milk)
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
• 1 ½ cups dry white wine
• 2 cups chopped canned tomatoes with juice (best one to use is the Pomi brand chopped tomatoes from Italy: it comes in a small carton – use the entire carton even if it slightly exceeds 2 cups)
• Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (use only real Parmigiano-Reggiano, not the fake stuff often called “Parmesan” or “Grana Padano”)

(1) Rub the salt into the ground meat preferably 24 hours ahead of time, but you can also do this right before cooking.

(2) In a large heavy saucepan, melt the butter and oil over medium-low heat. When the butter has melted, add the chopped onion and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Saute the onion for 10 mins.

(3) Add the chopped carrots and celery, mix well with the onions. Cook for another 10 mins.

(4) Add the ground meat and stir to coat with the oil/butter/vegetable mixture. Cook until most of the pink is gone, about 5 min. Break up large clumps of meat.

(5) Add milk. Reduce the heat so that it’s not boiling. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Add nutmeg (optional).

(6) Add wine and simmer (as you did with the milk) for another 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Make sure the heat is turned down low enough so this mixture is not over-boiling. It should be simmering.

(7) Carefully add the tomatoes, stirring them into the sauce. Reduce the heat to as low as you can go. Cook for 3 hours. Stir occasionally to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. Make sure the sauce is not boiling too much. It should be only simmering.

(8) Serve the sauce over pasta (fresh pasta is best). Add grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Note: If your butcher has run out of veal, you can simply use more beef or substitute the veal with pork.

Bathroom scales are useless. Worse, they are dangerous to your emotional well-being. If you own one, here’s why you should toss it out.

(1) Weight is nothing more than a convention used by humans on Earth to denote the the force they are exerting — in this case, on a bathroom scale — due to the strength of the Earth’s gravity (g). Because g, which is approximately 9.8 meters per square second, varies slightly depending upon where you are on our planet, weight scales have to be calibrated to reflect an accurate reading. So your weight in Bali, Indonesia will probably be different from your weight in Oslo, Norway. What does the numerical weight reading on your bathroom scale tell you? Nothing but a number related to the Earth’s gravitational force. If you were to weigh yourself on Mars, the number would be different.

Unfortunately, if you are like most people, when you see this number on your bathroom scale, your mind adds several things to it. Your mind adds grief and disgust if you see a number above the threshold. If that the number has not changed over the past six months, your mind adds disappointment. Even if the number falls below the threshold and you feel happy, there’s this sense of disquiet and anxiety: what if it goes up again? Your mind is never at peace.

(2) Therefore, a bathroom scale’s only function is to inflict mental torture on its owner. For this reason alone, it should be tossed out. But wait, doesn’t it indicate how healthy (or unhealthy) you are? No.

(3) Using a bathroom scale prevents you from truly feeling your body. It is an excuse that keeps you from the more challenging task of getting in touch with your body. It distracts you from focusing on what’s important: the state of your health.

I have never owned a bathroom scale. If you ask me how much I weigh, I can give you a pretty good guess based upon the weight recorded by my doctor during the previous year’s physical examination.

What do I need a scale for? I know if I have gained or lost a little weight by the way my clothes feel. It’s the same with you. Do your trousers feel tighter? Can you still close your shirt? Is it still easy to zip up your skirt? Or perhaps, the waistline of your trousers feels roomier. Is the butt of your shorts sagging? How do your clothes look on you? How do you feel in them?

You do not need a bathroom scale to tell you how you feel and look. When I have been eating well and exercising regularly, I can see that my clothes simply look better on me. I also feel better. I have more energy. I am in a better mood. So far, my annual physical examinations show that I am in good health. What do I need a bathroom scale for?

But one must go beyond looks. It is important to focus on how your body feels when it is in motion. Are you lumbering when you run? How do your feet, legs, arms, belly, and butt feel when you are doing yoga or pilates, swimming, hiking, skating, running, biking? Can you walk up 11 flights of stairs and continue to talk without losing your breath? If the answer is yes, you are out of shape and having a bathroom scale flash a number at you every morning is utterly ridiculous and irrelevant. Some people who weigh less than people their same age and height, cannot climb more than 5 flights of stairs without stopping.

In summary, toss out your bathroom scale. There are more accurate and emotionally healthy ways to figure out the state of your body. A bathroom scale only inflicts mental torture on you and distracts you from the most important task at hand: looking at and listening to your body.

While others are making lists of New Year’s resolutions, I have only one: simplicity. I used to make lists of resolutions. It seemed comforting and the thing to do. But lists of resolutions have become nothing more than yet another to-do list in a world of too many things to do. What’s needed isn’t another list, but a principle that takes away the need to have a list. That principle is simplicity.

Simplicity means reducing the number of things you do in a day. It means focusing on the task at hand. Because we divide up our days in 24 hours and we need sleep, simplicity means limiting the number of tasks we do in any given day. How much time have we spent tweeting, sending text messages, updating our profile on the various online social networks we have joined? Was all that necessary?

I will be the first to admit that I have spent countless wasted hours reading blog posts, commenting on them, posting on Twitter, reading and retweeting tweets, updating my Facebook page, and then wondering why I don’t have time for anything else and why I feel so unsettled. I don’t want to spend 2010 in this way. To start the year, I have cut in half the number of blogs I subscribe to and am limiting my time on Twitter.

As for my offline life, I have been doing my daily meditation, spending time with friends, cooking, reading books that have been screaming for attention on my bookshelf, and writing. I feel peaceful and grounded.

The Nigerian man, Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, who was arrested in Detroit after setting off an incendiary on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, is the son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former Nigerian minister who,  until recently, was a director of Nigeria’s oldest bank. Mutallab belongs to a very prominent and wealthy Nigerian family. What is disturbing is that the father says half a year ago, he told the American embassy and the Nigerian security authorities about the activities of his son, who over the last few years, has been expressing extremist views. The father does not understand why his son had been given permission to travel to the United States.

The mother (stepmother) of the suspect is a woman from Yemen (where the suspect is said to have received the incendiary materials). During his middle school years at the international school in Togo, he already had extremist views. Then he went to London to study, then went to Egypt, and finally to Dubai. Family members say that he told them he did not want to have anything to do with them.

Source: Het Parool (Dutch paper)

I love Christmas carols, especially the traditional ones from 19th century England. But if you want to go farther back in time and listen to 17th century Christmas music, make sure you get these songs from the album “Angels and Shepherds” (in MP3 format) recorded by the Netherlands Bach Society (Nederlands Bachvereniging). Among the composers whose work they perform are Bach and Buxtehude. The Netherlands Bach Society’s choir and Capella Figuralis perform the vocals. Jos van Veldhoven, is the conductor. Hearing these heavenly voices and melodies brings me closer to the first Christmas.

John Cheever is my favorite writer. His short stories are masterpieces. Here is what he says about fiction (from The Paris Review Interviews, Vol III):

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction. One never puts down a sentence without the feeling that it has never been put down before in such a way, and that perhaps even the substance of the sentence has never been felt. Every sentence is an innovation. [my emphasis]

Recommended reading:

The Stories of John Cheever

The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. III

What used to be a 4 hour plus train ride is now only 3 hours and 18 minutes. The Thalys TGV between Paris and Amsterdam is finally running at its intended speed. After many years of incompetent bumbling around, the Netherlands railway authority and the Dutch government finally got their act together. This comes years after the Belgians were already allowing the high-speed trains to run at high speeds through Belgium. Sigh.

Recently on Shopplr, the online paper goods store, Felt & Wire shop: www.feltandwireshop.com. Featuring beautiful notebooks, greeting cards, wrapping paper, note cards, and more.