What mamacita is...

Reading

This is a fine book. I like the chatty introductory bits before each recipe. The recipe for Figgy Piggy Drumsticks looks good, and it's hard to find fault with a chapter called "Things With Cheese." Really, though, I find that my cooking really always comes back to two places:

1. Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa, for those times when I'm having my fabulous Hamptons friends over in their matching pastel cashmere sweaters, and

2. Pam Anderson's How to Cook Without a Book, for those times I have to face the people who show up to my table every day and be told that according to Momma's Ridiculous Rules of Etiquette, one is required to wear a shirt to dinner.

Watching

If you ever get one of those free Redbox codes, use it on this. Just don't keep the movie for four days, because regret will set in.

Listening to

It's sometimes hard to listen to tribute albums, because you can't help but compare the remake to the original, all the while thinking "that's not how it goes!" But this record turned out better than I thought. I don't mean to go all Pitchfork on you, but I think that Buddy Holly's songs were so elemental--just bare sketches of songs, ready for any embellishment--that lots of other people can actually do them well, too. There are a few irritating songs on the record (Paul McCartney--WTF was that about, sir?) but there are also some great ones (The Black Keys and, surprisingly enough, Fiona Apple).

You can stream the record here.