Salad with romaine, pear, walnuts, cheddar, and a vinegrette.

Main dish of "Three Way Garlic Pasta With Beans and Peppers" to which I added grilled tomatoes and a little basil.

Desert of apricots and peaches, coated with a mixture of brown sugar (1/2 c) and cointreau (3 tblsp) and grilled for about ten minutes and served with vanilla yogurt (ie plain yogurt with some vanilla stirred in).

All with white wine, then we went to see Hitchcock's 39 Steps.

You need:
8 ounces red lentils
3 cups of stock or water
1/2 tablespoon paprika
5 cloves garlic
2 pounds (20 or so) roma tomatoes
1 large eggplant
1 bunch mustard greens
Toasted pine nuts
Paremsan cheese
Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper.

Line two baking dishes with foil and grease with olive oil.

Make a vinegrette of about 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, a good amount of black pepper, some salt.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place them in one baking dish. Brush with vinegrette.

Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch pieces, and layer in the other baking dish, also coating with vinegrette. Did you run out of vinegrette? Make more.

Bake both at 350F for 40 minutes. Pull out the eggplant, do something to keep them warm, and bake the tomatoes for 30 minutes longer.

Meanwhile. Bring your stock to a boil, add the lentils, garlic, and paprika. Return to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cook for at least 20 minutes, until the lentils are very soft. Drop the heat down to low and stir continuously for five minutes, until the lentils end up being more of a paste than anything else.

Wilt the mustard greens in a wok, or whatever, with some water.

Plop the lentils on your plates, nestle the greens around them, put the tomatoes and eggplant on top of them, then cover with more vinegrette, pine nuts, and parmesan.

Serve with crusty bread.

Press your tofu.

Set 3 quarts of some mixture of stock and water to boil.

Chop into small cubes: 2 turnips, 2 carrots. Chop one onion. Cut one half of a large head of cabbage into small pieces. Put all of this in the stock, boil for an hour or two.

Combine in a bowl: Three tablespoons orange juice, three tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons five spice powder, one teaspoon garlic powder, a teaspoon or two of honey, salt and pepper. Whisk until pretty well blended. Cube the tofu and stir in bowl, coating with Flavor Goodness. Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a hot wok, and add the tofu, stirring constantly until browned. Add oil if it sticks.

Remove from heat, portion the tofu into bowls. Pour soup stock into bowls with lots of Sriracha sauce and serve immediately.

Combine. Stir. Let stand. Serve.

First, the good: Monet's works are brilliant. The exhibit allowed three or four works that reflect the same subject to be hung side-by-side, clearly illustrating how fully the artist manipulates mood through color and brush. Seeing three views of the same scene side-by-side is absolutely worth the price of admission.

Now, the unavoidable bad: The show is slim on Monet. There may be a dozen of his works in the first room, then there are three more exhibit rooms with works of his contemporaries. Though the works in these rooms are often good, none approach Monet's brilliance. It's useful to show how he transcended his peers, it's good to see the artists who inspired him, but these rooms are a complete emotional disappointment after the opening act.

The rooms, especially the third with old photographs and woodcuts, are too dimly lit. I am very sympathetic to the fact that light damages art. In this case, however, I had to lean close to a work to get any idea of its details, at which point the over-vigilant guards asked me to "keep a one foot distance" from the (under glass!) woodcut. Even the museum employees were talking amongst themselves about how dim it was in these rooms.

Disorganization at the museum hampered our efforts trying to plan this trip. As we were going to be in Tampa the weekend the show opened, I was worried about tickets being unavailable. The week leading up to the show, I tried to call the museum several times, to be answered by 1) nothing 2) a fax machine 3) a non-English speaker. Deciding to go ahead to the museum, I arrived and attempted to buy tickets for the remaining 7 family members who were coming down in separate vehicle. The guard outdoors told me I had to wait for them to arrive. Most of my confusion arose from my mistaken impression that I was buying a ticket for a particular show time, when, in fact, I was simply buying admission to the museum, which included the Monet exhibit. The museum's web site has since been updated to reflect that advance tickets are not available, but this wasn't clear when we were planning our trip.

Finally, the museum could've gotten more money from me! Often these special exhibits rent headphones with recorded commentary on the works displayed. I usually buy these and enjoy what I learn. The museum sold no such thing, and although they had the traditional three paragraphs about Monet's life and times on the wall at the entrance to the exhibit, I would've liked more information on the artists and works.

The exhibit is worth the cost of admission for the brilliance of Monet. Poor facilities and organization from the museum hampered my enjoyment, but the effect of the works on display overcome that.

Officials say "a plant operator plugged the wrong value into a
computer, which sparked a series of events that ultimately lowered
water quality. They also acknowledged that no safeguards were in
effect to flag the mistake, which led the utility to issue a boil
advisory Jan. 6.

"The advisory ended the next day, but not before classes were
canceled for 40,000 students, hospitals and other businesses
switched to bottled water, and officials scrambled to ensure the
system contained enough water pressure to fight fires."

The employee was fired and some input validation (gasp!) was put in
place.

Here's a video.

You can here her here, starting at about 2 hours and 7 minutes into the archive. You can here almost the entire album at 56k here, beginning at about 68 minutes into the archive.

I enjoy the songs, but her voice is quite jarring at first.

I took one pear, sliced it thinly, and put it in a casserole
dish. I covered it with a mixture of butter, brown sugar,
cinnamon, and oats. I baked it at 350 for 20 minutes. It was
really good.

Were I to do it again, I would probably peel the pear.

http://mmsw.org/photos/PearBetty2005/PearBetty2005.html

The PD has a review also.

In no particular order:

10. Good college radio stations; WCLV classical radio
9. Great Art Museum and Symphony
8. Low low cost of living
7. Cheap seats at Jacob's Field; several nearby minor league teams
6. Hopkins airport is a Continental hub
5. Free talks at the Natural History Museum
4. Case Film Society and The Cleveland Cinematheque
3. The West Side Market
2. Lots of snow!
1. Two for one burger night at McNulty's Pub

I bet I'm not the only one who is called upon for tech support at the inlaw's on Christmas morning. The suggestions in his article are excellent. Additionally, I have a USB thumbdrive, before I visit a relative's house where I expect to make a support call I make sure I have loaded: Spybot, Stinger, Ad-Aware, Firefox, AVG, and the Zone Alarm firewall. All of these are free for personal use. I hide IE and set Firefox for default. I make sure Automatic Updates are enabled. If they have broadband, I take them to the store and buy the cheapest NAT router available.