Dr. Jekyll and the Frankenstein Monster Called Pop Culture

At long last I've crossed out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the to-reads! (Getting closer to letting myself buy the deluxe edition of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I made a financial pact with myself about wherein I don't buy it until I've read all the books that the main characters are from).

I have a major guilty pleasure for Late Victorian science fiction (or scientific romance as they called it) and so I of course loved it. That felt like a given though.

Favourite line: "If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."

What I want to talk about though is how pop culture almost creates a whole other - almost universally preferred - version of stuff like this. It was the same as when I read Frankenstein this summer: both were entirely different from what I expected because of how I'd come across them before.

For one thing, Mr. Hyde is always talked about like this Hulk-figure, big and brutish who smash but no talk English. But in the book he wasn't. I mean, he was a troglodyte (best word ever, ftr) as they put it, but he was also a dwarf and highly articulate. As for Frankenstein's monster, instead of grunting and moaning from the bolts in his neck, he also ended up being exceptionally articulate - enough to narrate his entire life story at the end in a classically dignified Victorian way.

So *adjusts hipster glasses*, how do these stories get patchworked from our false preconceived notions with overdramatized misrepresentations?

The movies of course :)

...well, and TV. And graphic novels. And probably other books making hyperbolic references to them too.

Not that that's bad - I think it's awesome how these characters evolve and have cropped up all across the media globe to make all their separate universes. It makes it that much more fun for writers to dip into the collective cauldron of characters while crafting their own stories.

Anyway, to throw it out there, what books have you read that have been nothing like you thought because of pop culture?

Chicken Brie Sandwich with Avocado and Dijon

Whenever there's leftover roast chicken, the best thing ever (aside from maybe attacking the cold carcass like a ravenous tyrannosaur the next day) is having a cheese melt sandwich. This is one of my favourite things to bring to work (we have a toaster oven and it makes my day so often!) or just have on a lazy Saturday brunch.

Tips:

- If possible, use a loaf of bakery bread instead of pre-sliced sandwich Wonderbread 

- Spread a generous slather of dijon mustard

- Cut thick slabs of chicken, but cube before so it warms easier

- Use brie. Any kind. Cut thin so it melts quicker

- Slice avocado into thin-ish crescents - the bigger the piece, the less likely it'll slip out when you bite into it

- Grind some fresh pepper over the avocado

My one regret about today was that I toasted the crap out of my bread by putting on the wrong settings (damn you broil vs. bake!) Anyway it still tasted good after scraping the darker patches off, but it fell apart and my dignity was compromised while attempting to eat it.

Morning Blus

The flat layer of steam as the sun evaporates the frost: this is morning in the North just as much as the blushing stain of sunrise, the orange band on the horizon.

Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back (for 4 years)

Well. Thank the gods.

The one sad thing is that all the Romney satires are over now.

The Series of Unfortunate Days of Jean-Paul Sartre

In this spirit of blogging and awesomeness, this is an excellent modernization of a past thinker given contemporary social networking opportunities.

Lolz.

Roasted Bacon Chicken

I'll admit I've always had a fear of cooking meat. Today seemed like as good a day as any to take the plunge, and so I grabbed some chicken breast, bacon, and ground up some spices to make a delightful remedy to October chills.

I got the recipe from here, but I'll write out

Serves 3-4 (or 2 with delicious bacon-chicken sandwich leftovers!)

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 4 bacon strips (Montreal bacon)
- 1 garlic clove
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- tabasco sauce, to taste
- salt and pepper, to taste
- water

Preheat oven to 375 C and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

With a mortar and pestle, grind up the garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, and tabasco sauce (with a bit of water to make it more soluble and spreadable).

Basted the chicken with the mixture very generously, tucking extra garlic into some of the folds in the meat.

After that, wrap the top of each chicken breast with two slices of bacon and set it in the oven with the timer set for 40 minutes.

If the chicken is of a particularly thick cut, as mine was, or if the bacon doesn't look cooked, then leave it in a bit longer according to personal judgment.

My chicken turned out a bit dry, and I think that's because I didn't follow the instruction to put some foil on for 10 minutes after taking it out of the oven.

Otherwise this is a delicious recipe. It goes nicely with a cucumber pomegranate mint salad, which I'll post the recipe for tomorrow.

Up the Food Chain

After writing three articles (not including my work last semester), I have officially been promoted to staff writer for The Concordian newspaper!

This week I've written up a tea/shisha lounge review and a promo for the Rocky Horror Halloween Ball to get people in the mood for decadence. It'll be good to see my name in print in two sections.