30-Day Challenge: Day 5 – Favorite Food

Do I HAVE a favorite food?

It’s much easier to pick the things I DON’T like.


Ah, a tough one. Certainly, I’ve stated my love of spinach lasagna. Partly, it came from the realization that I didn’t have to cook the noodles beforehand; no, you don’t need to buy those special noodles, you just need extra tomato sauce. But I don’t have it very often. Same goes for dishes with duck, or a beef steak.

I do know that I tend to like things mixed more than plain. Cheerios and shredded wheat is better than either component.
Ditto:
orange juice and cranberry juice
cottage cheese and apple sauce
sharp Cheddar cheese and a Ritz cracker

Thing is, I don’t like that many things over and over. I eat a lot of chicken, but it becomes tolerable only because it’s prepared in different ways.

Though I have gotten into ruts. If I have a bagel, it’ll always be cinnamon raisin, if it’s available. Likewise, strawberry ice cream, lamb saag (spinach) from the local Indian restaurant. My candy choice tends to be plain M&Ms, which I eat in color order (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown); it’s part of the enjoyment.

Do I HAVE a favorite food? I suppose it’s spinach, a function of propaganda from daily doses of Popeye on television as a child.

It’s much easier to pick the things I DON’T like: things with peanut butter; things with the artificial banana flavor (I like bananas) or almost any fruit; anchovy; cauliflower; sauerkraut. Don’t drink coffee, beer, vermouth or Scotch, so I don’t like coffee ice cream, e.g.

30-Day Challenge: Day 4 – Favorite Book

What about “real” books, books with actual sentences?

About a month before Carol and I got married, some of our friends threw us a party. We were supposed to answer a series of questions about each other. I was supposed to pick her favorite book; don’t know what I chose, but it was wrong. It was 100 Years of Solitude, which I had never heard her ever mention.

She guessed the World Almanac. Some folks declared skepticism about her pick, but it was dead-on right. It’s a book I’ve gotten every year except maybe a couple since I was 10.
Now that the computer is so ubiquitous, can’t I find the same info online? Probably most of it. But I know where to find it in this book, with a notation for the source of additional data; in some ways, THAT is more significant than the initial information. Besides, sometimes I don’t WANT to be on the computer.

Indeed I love my reference books on music, TV, movies; that’s why the former is on my list for The Giveaway (see right column until July 3, 2010).

But what about “real” books, books with actual sentences? Certainly, one of the most significant is Lying by Sissela Bok; except for a couple books on the Beatles, it’s one of the books I’ve read more than once all the way through as an adult.

Another would be the Bible, but that’s a special case. Sometimes it’s just too oblique for me. In our Bible study, one of the goals is to ascertain what the reading means for today. But there are plenty of readings, in Leviticus, e.g., that I can’t fathom., even after repeated study.

So I pick the book with the facts and figures as my favorite.

The 30-Day Challenge: Day 3- Favorite Musician

He’s not the greatest singer, or guitar player, or pianist, though more than adequate.

Does one have a favorite musician? I mean, I do love:
B.B. King’s guitar
Jerry Douglas’ dobro
Rick Wakeman’s organ
Alison Krauss’ fiddle
Itzhak Perlman’s violin
Pete Seeger’s banjo
Bill Evans’ piano
Hubert Laws’ flute (he plays on It’s Love by the Rascals
Nat Cole’s vocals (the voice is an instrument – and I have an irrational affection for the way he says BEER)

But truly, anyone who knows me for a while KNOWS that the ultimate choice will be John Lennon. I have a picture of him in my office (thanks, Rocco) and a picture of the IMAGINE section of Strawberry Fields in New York City (thanks, honey).

He’s not the greatest singer, or guitar player, or pianist, though more than adequate. He IS a great songwriter, of course.

So, what Lennon song should I link to? WWJD? (What would John do?) It being Memorial Day weekend, he’d probably find an alternative version of
I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier.

30-Day Challenge: Day 1 – Favorite Actor

Who would I pay to go to see in most anything they were in?


I took on this 30-day challenge because I thought it would be interesting. And, just as important, quick and easy. But I got stuck on the first question.

I assume “actor” is gender-neutral in this case.

Starting to parse the category, I began with theater actors. But I don’t really see stage actors that often, though in fact, this year’s Tony nominations feature a lot of familiar names from TV and movies.

Favorite television performer: I could pick actors I watched in more than one series: Bob Newhart (Bob Newhart Show, Newhart); James Garner (Maverick, The Rockford Files); Mary Tyler Moore (Dick van Dyke Show, MTM Show); Jimmy Smits (L.A. Law, NYPD Blue). There are others who qualify because of other functions, such as Alan Alda (writer/director). I might have to go with Betty White, game player extraordinaire, who’s been on TV longer than I’ve been alive, because not only did I record a new Saturday Night Live for the first time in forever, I might even check out her new series on TV Land called Hot in Cleveland.

Still, when I thought about it further, it was always the movies that defined the question in my mind, fairly or not. Which is to say: “Who would I pay to go to see in most anything they were in?” I recognized that the leading males in this category were Robert Redford, Paul Newman (a couple of times together), Dustin Hoffman, and Denzel Washington. It might be Philip Seymour Hoffman or Paul Giamatti down the line.

But there were two actresses for whom I saw a large majority of their films in a particular stretch.

One was Jane Fonda. I saw well over half of the movies she was in between 1969 (They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) and 1985 (Agnes of God), even the truly dreadful Rollover (1981), filmed partly in Albany, NY.

The other is Meryl Streep, whose output between 1977 (Julia, starring Jane Fonda) and 2009 (the mediocre It’s Complicated) I’ve seen maybe 70% of.

Eventually, Laura Linney will likely be in this category.
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All pictures from LIFE magazine from the 1990s.

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