Sorry Mimi, but having taped and fastforwarded through it at high speed, I’m compelled to disagree: Prospero’s Books is just a nauseatingly bad movie.

Just to balance the negative comment: Cathy Rogers interviewed on slashdot today - she’s such a (intelligent! insightful! quintessentially British!) babe. Her show Full Metal Challenge rocks too.

Lagging a couple of days here between event and journal. Jamie and Neal hosted an Italian dinner party on Saturday. As usual, the food and wine were excellent - everyone outdid themselves preparing really good grub. Although next time, I will know better and not show up early; pitching in on the hosts’ elaborate food preparation (running late), I soon found myself preparing one of Mario Batali’s ridiculously complicated asparagus recipes. So now I know what zabaglione is - and what it probably shouldn’t look or taste like.

For my own contribution, I had managed to weasel away the task of making tiramisu from Jason (since I knew full well that it was within my abilities). I went for a fairly standard recipe - this one, somewhat modified by jacking up the brandy (perhaps a little too much) and mixing in two tablespoons of instant coffee into the cream. That turned out well - highly recommended recipe for a good impression/minimal effort ratio.