The Tallest Lasagna and the Things I Left Behind

I got busy, and I'm sorry. For the first two weeks of April, most of my time was spent thinking about how to eat the lasagna left over from Easter. I used the Fine Cooking recipe, but I'm pretty sure you need a membership of some kind to access it so I'm not going to provide a link even though that's probably the polite thing to do. Oh fine you can find the recipe here. It's supposed to make three small lasagnas, but I only had one deep dish on hand, so I halved the recipe and made half a lasagna on top of the lasagna. The recipe assures that the pre-cooked lasagna can rise above the edge of the pan, because it settles quite a bit while cooking. I was apprehensive, but they have a picture with two whole noodle layers towering over the edge. 

But no. It still bubbled over, and it was still the tallest, deepest, heaviest lasagna. 

Other ways I altered the recipe: well... I used hot Italian sausage instead of mild. I also didn't have much spice on hand, but the seasoning from the sausages permeated through the lasagna very nicely. I just love the word lasagna, don't you? Lasagna, lasagna, lasagna. 

And: there was some packing up and moving back to Ontario to do. Some things to leave behind. Like my lovely little coffee plant, and a pennant from the magazine project (I was going to bring it with me until the E fell off, and then I figured by the time I got home it would probably just be a brown triangle. i.e. clutter).

And books! Most had to be left behind for weight considerations. I feel like there's a pro-Ebook argument to made here, but I wouldn't have been sentimental about these books in the first place if they'd been electronic. Aww, remember that one on the right? That's the book with nothing in it that I was so excited about. I feel guilty about every one of these books. Except maybe for the Editing Canadian English, which I have only used a) to ventilate my old laptop and keep it from overheating and b) as part of my Mennonite halloween costume because it looks the most like a bible out of all my books.

Fortunately, I sent a couple of things on ahead, like this Super Mutant Magic Academy poster that I just had to have.

In other news, I'm enjoying my mom's house (and company!) so much that I've decided to commute to Toronto for my internship. Or at least give it a try. If it drives me insane I'll find a place to live, but with the way I feel right now I really wouldn't mind having a few hours every day to sit and read or write or think or sleep or whatever. I was brought up on road trips, and 401 traffic has an oddly calming effect on me, as long as I'm not driving (but even then). Without homework to stay behind or rush home for, it feels like there are six more hours in the day.

The only problem now is GETTING the internship. What happened and why don't I have one yet? Oh I don't feel like getting into that. Just wish me luck.

Judy Blume eBooks: Don't Care.

Reading through this article on the New Yorker's book blog. I do agree with much of what she says, because yes, I did read my first Judy Blume book at my best friend's house, and we did giggle over it and share others (she also secretly ordered Goosebumps books from the scholastic catalogue and we giggled over those more), and yes, I did go straight to the library to read as many of her books as I could. Reading Deenie inspired me to write my own books, but you can imagine how good they were, being written by an eight-year-old girl whose only experience with sex, violence and family strife were from a single book written for eight-year-old girls. I don't think I even knew what a halter top was, and that book also made me think I had scoliosis until I was about 16.

The point I'm slowly getting around to making is that there's no reason Judy Blume's titles being released as eBooks should bother anybody. And this is the problem with the view on eBooks. They don't replace print books, and for many writers, publishers, and readers, it's never intended that they will. They're more convenient, sure, and they save some paper maybe, while some people find it strange to mix such an analog activity as reading with something so technologically advanced as a tablet, but aside from the huge booksellers and their requisite device sales, the existence of eBooks doesn't affect much of anything.

I'm just getting worked up about these two examples: readers lamenting the loss of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the objections over Kindle versions of childhood favourites. I ask how many people have been able to afford updating their set of encyclopedias, and in fact how many people still have a set at all. What's more, the print version is being discontinued so the publisher can concentrate on their interactive, constantly updated subscription service, which in all honestly sounds affordable, useful, and more aware of its audience. Maybe I'm biased because I spent more hours playing on my CD-Rom version of the Canadian Encyclopedia than I did reading through the 1968 American encyclopedia that was missing several volumes but hey, I can still name almost all of the Prime Ministers.

And Judy Blume books? Well, it seems to me that the market for the electronic versions are more geared towards parents. Many young girls, myself included, read them with their friends, and without their parents knowing. How many young girls today have an eReader? How many of them can buy and download books without their parents knowing? Why can't two girls share an eReader the way they could simultaneously read a single copy of Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself? How does this change the experience in the slightest?!

As I see it, electronic versions of some of Judy Blume's titles mean that I can now read the books I never read when I was young, and re-read the books I loved. None of this takes away from "that brief yet exhilarating time in a young girl’s life in which internal narratives take precedence over external attributes." One cannot force one's childhood on the children of tomorrow. That's just arrogant.