08.04.09: the dirty dozen {twelve useful things}, part I

01 i feel like the last person on earth to get into dr. bronner's products - i mean, esquire pimped the liquid soap a month or two ago, and it was on display at our local american apparel - but in case you haven't tried it, man, hook yourself up with some dr. bronner's. it's cheap, it's eco-friendly (unlike the shockingly-effective-but-probably-evil scrubbing bubbles shower cleaner i still can't quit), it smells fantastic, and it really is multi-use (i've only washed dishes, clothes, and hands with it to date, but i'm almost ready to give it a try on my hair as well).

02 paul newman: a life (shawn levy). write-arounds (that is, pieces generated without a subject's cooperation) can be painful for writers and readers, but levy worked it out; when he learned that he wouldn't get access to newman, he dug up decades of existing interviews and cobbled them into a next-best-thing mega-monologue.* he also researched his ass off as a general proposition, and his work on newman's development with the actors studio, racing career, and philanthropy is meaty (he's a film critic for the oregonian, so his discussion of the films has some heft as well). some of the family scenes were a bit skimpy, but i was so charmed to learn, say, that newman would sneak off to the bathroom at restaurants and wash his salad (so that he could use his own bootleg dressing instead) that i didn't mind the occasional mystery. a fine read, internets.

03 rachel's baked zucchini fries. we don't have a big box of CSA veggies to dispose of each week this summer, since we thought we were going to be out of town for several weeks and i didn't want to waste the subscription. we do, however, have a habit of eating the same vegetable over and over until it becomes deadly boring, and i needed to transition away from brussels sprouts before we started to resent them. i made these for the first time on friday and had plowed through four zucchinis by sunday afternoon: yum. this weekend i'm all over her pasta with kale, lentils & caramelized onions.

and you?


*for his own edification, that is - not for the text. that would be frightening.

5 comments:

east side bride said...

diluted dr. bronner's works really well for shaving. (i grew up with the stuff but scorned it until i married a quasi-hippie.)

lauren said...

well, i can't get any worse at shaving than i already am (they finally stopped asking me to do the beauty test drives with razors at work; too scary). experiment scheduled!

east side bride said...

Hey, how'd the experiment go? (Or are you still hairy?? It is summer...)

lauren said...

results were...fair to middling? (same for joe, who pronounced it "okay" for his face.)it's not quite as viscous as i think i'd like it to be (perhaps there are several varieties - the stuff i get at our local natural foods store is superthin already). i'm on my second bottle for dishes already, though.

east side bride said...

hmmmmm. I was actually going to suggest that you weren't diluting it *enough* I find that one dot lathers up very well.