Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

saturday at home

Yesterday, I did something I haven’t done in a long time: I poured a glass of fresh iced tea and settled into a comfy chair for an afternoon of reading.

That’s it.

No errands, no freelance work, no mindless Internet surfing. Just an afternoon of reading.

It was wonderful.

I got to read Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannoli all the way through in one sitting (more or less — I’d read an essay or two the night before on the Metro), something else I haven’t done in a while.

Later that evening, Dari came over for dinner and I made White Bean Soup with Tomato Salsa for dinner. The recipe ran in Real Simple about a year ago, and I’d only attempted it once before because it’s pretty work-intensive to prepare. (15 minutes of “hands-on” time/30 minutes total time? Ha. This thing takes me at least an hour to get together.) The upside, though, is that if I have the time and energy, it’s totally worth it.

While we watched an old VHS tape of the movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, I also took a stab at DCist’s copycat recipe of Teaism’s Salty Oat Cookie. The writer’s instructions that the cookies were best made with cold ingredients and chilled dough meant that this recipe was a little more work-intensive than the one off the lid of the Quaker Oats container. But since the result was a couple dozen pretty yummy cookies, I can’t complain too much.