Saturday, July 25, 2009

Another Great Read


Just finished All Other Nights by Dara Horn (her 3rd book so far). What a wonderful story! I've told at least 4 people about it already because I want them to read it asap. As I said in my sidebar, this is about a young Jewish man living in New York at the time of the Civil War. He escapes an arranged marriage with a simpleton girl by joining the Union army. When it becomes known that he is related to a New Orleans man who is plotting against Pres. Lincoln, he is smuggled behind the lines to kill his uncle on Passover night.

That part was thrilling enough, but it was only the beginning. His next assignment is to marry one of four sisters in a Jewish family from Virginia to find out which of them is a Rebel spy ringleader.

It turns out that the author did research on the history of American Jews during the Civil War and came up with material for some utterly fantastic plot twists. A tragic thriller that's a very satisfying read.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Peas - Too Much Work


Yesterday I finally got the last plump pea pods from my garden. Time to rip out the plants.


I had been saving the pods until I got all of them or had enough to make a decent side dish for dinner - whichever came first.


Here are the measly results: about a cup and a half of various sizes of peas. That means you have to cook them in stages. The biggest ones cook first, then you add the mediums, then the teeny ones.


Next, the pods go into the food processor for compost material.


I like this picture with the steam rising from the just cooked peas! They're very good when you eat them, but IMHO it's very hard to tell them from frozen peas from the supermarket. This may be my last year for them. I could grow more plants next year, but they would use up too much garden space and only give me one crop. Off with their heads.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Addicted to this Map Quiz!

As I get ready to teach a class on Websites for maps and directions, I came across The Traveler IQ Challenge from TravelPod. I started trying it out myself (on North America, of course), and I was doing so well that I kept going on and on to the next level to see if I could keep it up. It was so much fun that I forgot about the time. Nothing like getting paid to enjoy yourself!

If you want to try it yourself, know that there are 13 different areas for the quiz and each one has several levels of difficulty. Be prepared to get sucked in!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Google Squared - I like it!


Have you seen the latest from Google? I just tried out Google Squared to get a handy list of vegetarian restaurants in Chicago - easy to read and compare addresses, features, etc. There's a handy Help Screen to explain it all. This might be useful for lots of stuff. Let's see.......