More Good Movies You Might Have Missed...

by Jill Eisner
Information Services


Hi Everyone,

Looking for something to do this weekend? Check out these new titles from our collection:

Take This Waltz

Written and directed by Sarah Polley. Starring Sarah Silverman, Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby, and Seth Rogen.

Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author, but when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable, setting up an unusually true and unsentimental portrait of adult relationships.
2012, rated R. Drama.

Hemingway and Gellhorn

Directed by Philip Kaufman, starring Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall, Clive Owen.

Tells the story of the passionate love affair and tumultuous marriage between Ernest Hemingway and WWII correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's inspiration for For Whom the Bell Tolls. 
2012, rated TV-MA. Drama.

Side Effects

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

A young woman's world unravels when a drug prescribed by her psychiatrist has unexpected side effects.

2013, rated R.  Drama/Thriller.

Hope you like them as much as I did!

Jill

Dig into Reading this Summer at SBPL




Be prepared for the dark and mysterious this summer as the 2013 Summer Reading theme is all about what’s underground.

Programs and events reflect the theme for an added dimension of learning and fun for adults, teens, tweens, and children.



Topics include gardening, jewelry, archeology, and spelunking. Participants of all ages can look forward to parties and prize drawings.



To learn more about upcoming programs and how you and your family can participate, please visit http://www.sbpl.info, read The Compass newsletter, or call the Library Information Desk at 732-329-4000, ext. 7286.

It's (truly) All Good

It’s  (truly)  All Good

I’ve been trying to find cookbooks that support the bounty of fresh, organic produce I’ve been getting from my CSA, Dogwood Farms (read – use up before it overtakes my fridge.)  Here are several I picked up at the Library.

The first one that caught my eye was appropriately called The Farm by Ian Knauer.  This one had lots of recipes for seasonal produce but what really stood out to me in this cookbook were the number of recipes that included bacon!  Truth be told,  I like bacon as well as the next person, but lately it has been so overused that chef Michael Symon recently tweeted:  “Bacon:  the duct tape of food.”  It’s almost like cheating – add bacon, and everything tastes great!

Besides the bacon, many of these recipes called for more cheese, meat and fat than I was comfortable with.  I was looking for recipes that were fresh and healthful, not just good tasting, and where the produce itself takes center stage.  Next.

Another promising candidate was Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison.  Here was a book that read almost like a primer for the professional cook.   In fact, its subtitle is “Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom with Over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes.”  Each chapter contained its own little lesson about the growth habit of the vegetable, who its botanical cousins were and what flavors paired well with it.  The recipes were interesting but were often of the side dish variety, again, not quite what I was looking for. (I am soooo picky.)

Enter Gwyneth Paltrow’s new offering It’s All Good, and its recipes are exactly what I want to be making this summer.  Yes, it veers off into the realm of fervent veganism, as well as being gluten free, but you can look at this in two ways:  it might expand your culinary horizons, OR, you could just re-adapt the recipes back so that you use flour with gluten, regular sugars, add meats and cheeses, whatever, if you like.  (Cheating?  Well, nobody's perfect!  Except maybe Gwyneth...)

One thing I loved about this book is that the salad dressings are all phenomenal, plus they're different enough from one another that you could vary the salad ingredients and enjoy lots of different tastes to keep you happy all season.

If you are looking for a healthful, fresh way to cook that is also gourmet delicious, and truly easy, It's All Good is your book.  Great example, this refreshing peach basil summer smoothie combination that I bet you haven’t had before.  Wonderful for breakfast, I poured out two glasses full, but after one taste, I decided not to share and drank them both!  (Full disclosure:  I did make another batch for my husband, but it wasn’t quite as good, as the peach wasn’t as sweet and ripe.  So if you don’t have a giant luscious peach like I did, use two smaller ones, and decrease the lime to ½ a lime if they’re not dead ripe and sweet.)

Crazy Delicious Peach/Cucumber/Basil Lime Smoothie

1 large ripe peach, pitted, not peeled

1 cucumber, peeled

1/3 cup of fresh basil

1 lime, peel and pith removed

1 cup or so ice cubes

Coarsely chop up the first four ingredients, and add them to your blender in order.  Add  ice cubes.  Blend away.  Be amazed.

(If I hadn’t scarfed down the whole thing immediately, the glasses would have looked so pretty decorated with a peach slice and a basil leaf…!)

Can’t wait to see what I get this week from the farm!

Diane Whitman

@whitlibrarian

Gwyneth Fan

If you want to see what a CSA is about, check out their website:  dogwoodfarmsnj.com.