This Month’s Film: Indochine
Cuisine: Vietnamese

I’ve never been much good at idling away entire days doing nothing, but I’ve promised myself that after finishing my two books and celebrating my birthday, I will take the remainder of the month off from everything except e-mail and my Dinner & a Movie weblog. And although it sounds like a glorious indulgence, it’s easier said than done for a gal who’s used to working nearly every waking hour [and sometimes even in my sleep].

But I was determined to uphold the promise I’d made to myself, and so yesterday I spent the whole day reading a novel and making a big pot of lamb curry [playing in the kitchen doesn't count as work]. I rarely read fiction anymore, but the book came highly recommended by David Swanger, an old friend from high school who has recently rematerialized in my life. The book is Replay by Ken Grimwood, a story about a guy who keeps reliving the same twenty-five years of his life, a kind of expanded version of Groundhog Day, my favorite movie. I read the book from start to finish in about seven hours, stopping at the end of every chapter to chop vegetables, saute the lamb, and stir the pot.

And there’s an odd little bit of synchronicity with the story of Replay. My son Will read the book last week…gobbled it up in one day and loved it. The copy he read was borrowed from the library, but one day last week when we stopped by our favorite thrift shop to donate some household flotsam and jetsam from last week’s closet-cleaning project, he found a copy of Replay in their used book section. So now we own it proper. It’s a wonderful piece of work, and the lamb curry turned out splendidly. I served it with mango chutney and a side dish of tomato-cucumber-yogurt raita. A perfect combination.

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