"Wellington was a poodle."

I'm making roasted Brussels sprouts with sliced almonds and parmesan cheese! My mom is making the best roast chicken (with fresh rosemary) and we had a bag of the B. sprouts in the fridge, so I figured why not? It was a sign, since on KCET this morning was a lady making this recipe. It sounded delish, so it should be a good accompaniment to the main course. The house REEKS of roast chicken, and I adore that smell. It's so welcoming and home-y. We also have turkey soup simmering on the stove... one of my favorites!

Today, the fam ran a bunch of errands together, including PICKING UP MY NEW GLASSES!

Here they are:

Brown plastic frames that are definitely taller than my last pair with a stronger prescription. Yay, eyesight! It's a nice mix between my first pair of glasses and my second. My first were definitely more "naughty librarian" with a tapering at the upper part of the glasses, with a bronze/metallic plastic frame. The second were rectangular, thin bronze metal frames.

We also went to Carney's, one of my favorite hot dog places to go. I really need to go to Pink's to verify that, as I've never been in person, but Carney's is so close and convenient. I always get a Carney's dog, red-eye split grilled (spicy hot dog), with chili on the side, grilled onions, spicy brown mustard and tomatoes. (The Carney's dog comes with chili, onions, mustard and tomatoes, so this is my variation on the dog) It's kind of like me ordering at In-N-Out, pretty complicated, but it's so worth it.

This is kind of a gory picture, but you get the idea. It's so delicious.

We also got some books from Barnes & Noble, and I picked some up myself: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The former is about an autistic kid that Sapolsky recommended to us. It was on a list of books that he says does a good job of incorporating and interpreting a neurological disorder into the novel without sensationalizing it. The latter is a book that I learned about while reading a Vanity Fair article about the author, who died shortly after he finished this book (some think that his heart attack was suspicious... but the article focused on how true to reality the book is about some pretty bad things in Sweden). I've started the first, and I'm already very entertained. It's a good sign! (I've added a "reading" tag, since I've been blogging a lot about books) AND FINALLY, I FINISHED THE TWILIGHT SERIES!! I never have to touch those books ever again and can actually say that I didn't really care for them even after having read them. I feel much more justified in my opinion in this way.

Tomorrow, my mom is hosting a tea party for a bunch of family friends, which means that from now until then, I'll be baking away (scones, honey vanilla poundcake, blackberry muffins, various cookies) and slaving away over tea sandwiches (salmon/cream cheese/dill, gorgonzola/pear, cucumber/mint, goat cheese/chive, curry chicken, turkey/cranberry sauce). The last time I did something like that, my mom and I made easily over a hundred tea sandwiches for one of my aunts' baby showers. 30 people came. Luckily, we're making them for far fewer people, but I'm still not really looking forward to making more and more and more and more. Bad memories from the last time. Buuuut, these should be yummier (more variety and certainly fewer in quantity). We'll be having different teas: most remarkably Marco Polo (fruity black) and Casablanca (mint/bergamot black) from Mariage Frères.

Alright, the chicken smell is killing me. I'm going to go sit in front of the oven.

Update: Books you can live without, one particularly interesting quote--

A lot of this stuff can go. If I’m being honest, some of it is on my shelf because I like the idea of it being on my shelf. (David Matthews)