The Measure
Synopsis: The world wakes up one morning with a mysterious box waiting for every single person 22 years old or older. Insite the box is a piece of string representing your life span. Hysteria ensues. Do uyou open your box? How does it change your life? society quickly segregates into “long stringers” with the luxury of knowledge of a long life span, and “short stringers” whose fate, sadly, is different. We follow eight characters to see how they grapple with the situation.
Review: It’s a rarity for me, but I did not finish this. I just completely lost interest about half way in. This book has been well reviewed by many, but I just didn’t care for it at all. AT ALL. You would think that carpe diem was an original idea based on this novel. I found this to be too message oriented, and not enough on real character development. The characters were two dimensional, the plot holes gaping, and just, honestly, NOT GOOD. At least for me. I have hated some books enough to hate read them to the end. I couldn’t even manage that degree of emotion here, so, meh.
Rating: 2/5
Recipe: Given the focus on strings, it was hard to avoid the idea of green beans, and I love this simple recipe from Ina Garten. Green beans gremolata is a little bit dressed up, and would definitely make a good holiday side.
1 pound French green beans, trimmed
2 teaspoons minced garlaic
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
3 tablespoons minced flat leaf parsley
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
2 1/2 tablespoons good olive oil
1) Blanch the green beans in large pot of boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Drain, and immediately immerse into a bowl of ice water. Drain, and pat dry.
2) Toss the garlic, lemon zest, parsley, Parmesan and pine nuts in a small bowl and set aside.
3) When ready to serve, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan, add the beans and saute for 2 minutes until heated.
4) Off the heat, add the gremolata and toss well. Sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and serve hot.