What’s Don Draper Doing?

It would be an under­state­ment to say I’ve been remiss in writ­ing about Mad Men this sea­son. The show con­tin­ues to bog­gle my mind and last night’s episode, “The Jet Set,” was no excep­tion. So while I’m still scratch­ing my head, let me sug­gest you read Alan Sepin­wal­l’s take over at What’s Alan Watching?

The hobo trope Alan teas­es out is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing. The Bob Dylan ref­er­ence may be a lit­tle Young Indi­ana Jones, but we’ll see where it goes.The com­ments are worth check­ing out, too. Sev­er­al read­ers take issue with how “Sopranos‑y” it felt, and I can’t dis­agree. If that show had a weak­ness, it was those indul­gent, clunky flashback/dream sequences.

Some com­menters also feel that this episode was an homage to Felli­ni and Anto­nioni, which is plau­si­ble, but poor­ly exe­cut­ed. Don would’ve been repulsed at a “Sick Soul of the Bour­geoisie” par­ty, yet he felt seemed almost at home, even in the most awk­ward moments.

I’m still curi­ous to see how every­thing pans out in the final two episodes. I cringe at the prospect of this show tak­ing a turn for the bizarre at the last moment.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

My Attempt at Handmade Pasta

Yes­ter­day was pas­ta night in my cook­ing class at the Restau­rant School. For starters, I learned that I need to be more con­fi­dent in my mea­sure­ments when mix­ing wet and dry ingre­di­ents. I’m lucky that the teach­ing staff showed me the error of my ways and sal­vaged my dough.

The over­all lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly high, but if you’re try­ing to make any sig­nif­i­cant amount of pas­ta for a big meal, you might think twice. I learned that a lot of effort goes into mak­ing a pound of pasta.

Home­made pas­ta is per­fect if you’re cook­ing for your­self or for date night. There’s a notice­able dif­fer­ence in the fla­vor and tex­ture than store bought mac­a­roni. Whip up a quick pesto and you have a deli­cious meal!

(Red wine, brought by class­mates, is a great companion!)

Posted on by J T. Ramsay

Our Trip to Snipes Farm

Snipes Farm Trip, orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by Black­mail Is My Life.

For the past three years, our cir­cle of friends has made pil­grim­ages to Bucks Coun­ty for our annu­al apple and pump­kin pick­ing extrav­a­gan­za. This year we vis­it­ed the ven­er­a­ble Snipes Farm in Mor­risville, Pa, where we picked fruit and enjoyed cider donuts on a beau­ti­ful fall afternoon.

It was fun, but we’re always on the look­out for great spots to pick-your-own fall fruit. If you have a favorite, let me know in the com­ments! It may be a per­son­al bias, but I think it’s time to find out what Berks Coun­ty has to offer!

Posted on by J T. Ramsay