In which I report on recent cooking adventures and cover my recent reading list.

The second round of soup went well. I did a better job of browning the meat, cut bigger chunks of vegetables (although the celery was cut a little too big), and diced tomatoes are the way to go. I halved the browning and seasoning sauce which made it taste more like what I remembered, but I think the recommended amount actually tastes better.

I need a good chef’s knife.

I bought a large bag of potatoes for the soup. Since the soup only required a few of them, I sat staring at the rest of them wondering what to do with them. Recently I had a nasty experience with some potato flakes that were long past the expiration date (about which the less said, the better) so I was still hankering for mashed potatoes. One quick trip to Kohl’s for a quality potato masher later and I was trying my hand at a new cooking experience. It turned out very well, if I do say so myself (although The New Joy of Cooking deserves a lot of the credit).

I have been trying to read a little more lately. I subscribe to more magazines than I can keep up with (Macworld, MacAddict, Wired, Consumer Reports, and Funny Times) so there are about a dozen of half-read issues all over the apartment.

I have also been trying to do some more weighty reading.

Population: 485 : Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time is a really great book. I heard a few chapters on Chapter A Day and decided that I had to have it. Luckily the local bookstore had a huge pile of signed copies. Part of my affinity for the book is that it tells true stories of a small Wisconsin town (which I can identify with) but even more I love the way that the author tells stories. He has a wonderful way of mixing humor and sadness. (This one sits half-read next to my bed.)

Found : The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World was an impulse purchase but I am glad I made it. It’s a great book to enjoy in small bits. It’s a collection of some of the best items from Found Magazine. If you’ve ever found a scrap of paper on the ground, picked it up, and tried to figure out the story behind the words on the paper, then you understand the premise of the book. It offers no explanations, no solutions for the items compiled between its covers and it’s all the more interesting for it. (This is on the coffee table, mostly read.)

Li’l Beginnings and The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 are also sitting by my bed, occasionally opened and studied. (I haven’t picked up The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954 yet, but it’s on my Christmas list.)

Another recent fascination of mine has been with books that celebrate a certain, ummm… I am not sure what they celebrate. A time period? A lifestyle? You can decide. The titles are JELL-O: A Biography, The Gallery of Regrettable Food, and Beetle Mania Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bug: a History and Celebration of an Unlikely Icon. Interior Desecrations : Hideous Homes from the Horrible ’70s and Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands are on my Christmas list. I am a sucker for brands that are larger than life (Coca Cola, Apple, Volkswagen, etc.) and kitschiness taken to extremes.

The last item is my brand-new copy of the CCNA Certification Library. I was using DataWave’s copy but Endo was using the intro book and I figured that it would be useful to have my own copy anyway. Now I just have to buckle down and study the damn things. Having my CCNA would greatly improve my chances on the open job market (and might be worth a raise in my current job). It came with a $10 coupon for the exam that expires on January 31, 2005, so now I have a deadline.