You're description of farmer's cheese is totally different than what I know as farmer's cheese. To me it's a hard, dry, very much like cheddar, but usually white.

Hmm. What I know as farmer's cheese, I've only ever seen sold either in Jewish stores or made by exclusively kosher brands. It's the stuff traditionally used for cheese blintzes or dairy lukshen kugel. But now, most people use a mixture of cream cheese and cottage cheese for that stuff, because it's easier to find and it's sweeter.

OK, wikipedia suggests that what I know as farmer's cheese might be the same thing as quark (I've tried quark, and it is pretty similar), which is sold in Canada as baker's cheese.

OK, wikipedia suggests that what I know as farmer's cheese might be the same thing as quark (I've tried quark, and it is pretty similar), which is sold in Canada as baker's cheese.

I prefer strangeness and charm cheese to quark, personally.

If you aren't worried about canon, Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale qualifies as American magical realism.

I'd agree on Neil Simon for American theatrical comedy -- maybe The Odd Couple, although today's high school students will certainly see things in it that Simon's original audience probably didn't. Barefoot in the Park might work better, but it loses something on the printed page, so you'd want to show them the movie. If you want to go back a bit further, there's Philip Barry -- much as I love The Philadelphia Story, I suspect Holiday would speak better to today's high school students. But his comedy may be a bit too "drawing room."

He says to look at Caryl Churchill

UGH. Please don't inflict Caryl Churchill on your students, I beg you.

might be the same thing as quark

The problem is, the grocer SAYS it's in the dairy case, but you can never find it....

t /physics dork

The problem is, the grocer SAYS it's in the dairy case, but you can never find it....

I believe the solution is to throw a pint of heavy cream really hard into the rest of the items in the case...

Timelies all!

Took today off to go to Malice Domestic. I'll head down there after lunch. Mmm, mysteries...

I'd never heard of quark until I landed in Austria and my friend slathered it on rye with raspberry preserves. Mmm.

Why is it I only wake up late on days I have to be here by a certain time? I'm all frazzled still. Made it. but frazzled.

Argh. My apartment has a whole lot of ceiling lights. Two of them are burned out. They're both the sort of fixtures with a glass dome over the bulb, and I can't figure out how to get the dome off of one of them. (I got it off the other one, replaced the bulb, and it's still not working, so I think that there's something wrong with that fixture.)