One scoop of creamed potatoes. A slice of butter. Four peas. And as much ice cream as you'd like to eat.

Ah, many thanks to the mother-in-law, who provided me with this Christmas's Williams Sonoma gift card. Now I know you're not going to believe me, but I have a hard time spending $75 there. The stuff I would love to buy is all $400 or else the cool gadgets on which I could spend $75 I feel silly buying at $20-30 a pop. There were lots of cool things but even though I have a gift card I still feel silly spending $19 on a wooden spoon.

In the end I bought two margarita glasses (because I've never had any and I got the second one in case I ever get a friend and they like margaritas and they come over) and a really cool scoopy-spoon with a sieve-like filter bulbing out from the side. A picture would do wonders, ah, if only I still worked at the lab...anyhoo. Good for picking out stuff from stock, serving green beans, etc. Also got some 70% cacao cooking chocolate and vanilla beans. Fine Cooking has some great vanilla recipes but I refuse to pay $6 for a vanilla bean. Now someone else has, yeah!

My margarita is so tasy. Yum yum.

Watched so many movies lately I have not mentioned...



#1. Watched Sherrybaby last night, with the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal. Overall it was really well done and way more uplifting than you might expect from a film like that. Needless to say, it was all on Maggie and she gave a great performance. It had less-than-pleasant moments, but hey.

#2. Saw that wretched POS Freedomland with Julianne Moore and Sam Jackson. Total abysmal waste of talent. So unpleasant and predictable. Uglied up JM and gave her a horrendous role to play...everyone did a great job but ugh. Avoid at all costs, even if you're a rabid fan of either of them, like myself.

#3. This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated. Really, really interesting despite not really telling me much I didn't know. Although, I guess some of how the MPAA is made up and works was all fairly new to me. They also make lots of comparisons between the R and NC-17 films (yeah, yeah)...really well done, though; great interviews. The MPAA's methods have always been such a mystery to me. Definitely worth a watch.

#4. Started the series Strangers With Candy; I'm curious if any of you have opinions on this or have seen any. D and I had both seen parts and not liked it. And funny enough, Netflix doesn't have the first season available so we had to start with season 2. The first show was ok and the second was awful. I guess we'll keep watching. The show just seems to have rabid fans and I think I like the people in it, sooo...?? On the one hand, The Young Ones had rabid fans and neither of us knows why...but on the other hand we didn't think we'd like Firefly and now we know it's one of the best things ever (thanks to Veloute, of course).

As for tonight I have The Great New Wonderful



(of which I've heard mixed things but again, it has Maggie Gyllenhaal so ask me if I care. Note: This doesn't mean I'll be watching World Trade Center.) and Quinceanara. We had the latter at the Angelika...looked kinda cute. We shall see.