Mickey, what's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective!

Why were you given your particular name?

I'm going to sort of steal Heather Anne's answer and say that almost every girl baby born in 1982 was named Jennifer. Almost all of THOSE babies were named Jennifer Lynn. Which is why I've spent the majority of my adult life answering to variations of my last name.

Before I was born, my parents thought I was going to be a boy and they were going to name me PJ. For Philip James, I think. Or Patrick. But let's go with Philip. Because! If they had named me Philip James and I married Stephen Fry when I grew up and I took his last name, MY NAME TOTALLY WOULD HAVE BEEN PHILIP J. FRY. I KNOW.

What is your favorite thing to do?

Lately it's been this: watching Doctor Who with Joe while wearing pajamas and petting Max, who is asleep on my lap, AND ALSO eating freshly popped popcorn.

What is your favorite food?

Pizza. All the time. Like, you could hand me some pizza at pretty much any time of day and I'd be all, "GIVE ME THAT PIZZA OR I WILL BITE YOUR FACE OFF."

What is your favorite book?

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE. Anyway. This answer varies, like, hourly, but I do seem to reread The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984 quite a lot. Oh, what am I saying, the answer is obviously Pride & Prejudice.

What is your favorite candy bar?

Snickers.

What is your favorite cookie?

Snickerdoodles. Not really. I mean, I like them a lot, and the name is fun to say, but the answer is chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked.

What is your favorite sport?

Calvinball.

What is your favorite song?

POISON. Not really. I just wanted to post this video.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I don't want to grow up. GROWING UP IS FOR SUCKERS.

What place would you like to visit?

Hogwarts. Like now, please.

What is your favorite thing about your mom?

She appreciates the merits of the awesomely ridiculous Lost in Austen.

What is your favorite thing about your dad?

He appreciates the merits of a well-timed smart ass remark.

What is your favorite thing about yourself?

Um...I have lots of t-shirts?

What are three adjectives best describe you?

What is this, a job interview? I refuse to answer this.

In five years, what kind of person will you be?

Cleverer, I hope. And maybe a little less procrastinatey.

In ten years, what kind of person will you be?

I'll answer this later.

Smile like you meme it.

Books! Books! Books!

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses.

[Actually, I looked this up and it is totally an urban legend. The BBC does not actually believe you are this illiterate. However, somebody does, so here it is.]

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road – Jack Kerouak
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare [technically this is included in The Complete Works of. WAY TO GO FAKE BBC.]
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

*****

15 Authors

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag at least fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note.)

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Evelyn Waugh
3. Charles Dickens
4. Richard Wilbur
5. Dr. Seuss
6. JK Rowling
7. Vladimir Nabakov
8. Jane Austen
9. John Donne
10. JD Salinger
11. Kazuo Ishiguro
12. Chuck Klosterman
13. Kurt Vonnegut
14. Edith Wharton
15. Kevin Fanning

The whole thing's tumbling down

Why were you given your particular name?

Because my mom really wanted to name me Pheribee Savage (true story) and so my parents decided on Abigail which was unique but not that unique. My entire childhood I never knew another Abigail. It’s been in the Top Ten Baby Names since 2001. Abigail was the 154th most popular name in 1984. Pheribee is not in the top 1000 names for any year of birth in the last 100 years. Guess you’ll all know it’s me now when I start using my pen name.

What is your favorite thing to do?

Hang out with my friends and/or snuggle animals.

What is your favorite food?

Bread, vegetables, cake, pasta, and carb-like things that surround those. I’ve been very fond of butternut squash ravioli for the last year.

What is your favorite book?

The entire Harry Potter series. I’m actually re-reading them right in hopes of being able to better rank them in order of preference.

What is your favorite candy bar?

Milky Way Midnight Minis (and only in mini form), Twix, and above all others PEANUT M&Ms!

What is your favorite cookie?

Chocolate chip! ["My grandmother said she got the recipe from her grandmother, Nesele Tolouse."]

(Yeah, I figured I’d just leave that in.)

What is your favorite sport?

The Olympics because Wackopedia has bottomless knowledge about it.

What is your favorite song?

Band of Horses, “No One’s Going to Love You.” Still painfully and hopelessly shipping me and my unrequited love.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Ruler of the Free World.

What place would you like to visit?

I’ve recently become obsessed with Utah. Also, I’m now a Silver Elite Member with Hilton so I’m letting that go to my head. I CAN GO ANYWHERE.

What is your favorite thing about your mom?

She treats animals like humans. Also, she bounces back like a G6.

What is your favorite thing about yourself? What are three adjectives best describe you?

I had to stop making these lists, because I just don’t know anymore. I have my Christmas depression messing with all my settings. Not vulnerable, that’s for sure.

In five years, what kind of person will you be?

Oh I wish I knew.

In ten years, what kind of person will you be?

Pheribee Savage, bitches.

Open your brain tank, bro, ’cause here comes some premium 91-octane knowledge.

Why were you given your particular name?

Because it was the law that every girl born in 1978 had to be named Heather. The only saving grace for my VERY PLAIN name is that my Anne has an "e." ["Yes, this is Anne Shirley," said Marilla. // "Spelled with an e," gasped Anne, who tremulous and excited as she was, was determined there should be no misunderstanding on that important point.]

What is your favorite thing to do?

Stories is my favorite thing to do. Book ones, TV ones, movie ones, all the ones. ["The world is dark and light is precious. Come closer, dear Reader, I am telling you a story."]

What is your favorite food?

Burritos! Just think about it: A burrito can be whatever you want as long as it is something wrapped in a tortilla (second best food!) covered in cheese (first best food!). It's the perfect thing to put in your mouth! ["OK, who'd like a banger in the mouth? Right. I forgot. Here in The States, you call it a sausage in the mouth."]

What is your favorite book?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. ["No good sittin' worryin' abou' it. What's comin' will come, an' we'll meet it when it does."]

What is your favorite candy bar?

Reese's! ["Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy."]

What is your favorite cookie?

Chocolate chip! ["My grandmother said she got the recipe from her grandmother, Nesele Tolouse."]

What is your favorite sport?

Basketball! ["Strap, God wants you on the court."]

What is your favorite song?

The Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog! ["... the lovers, the dreamers, and me."]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A writer! ["Imagine being able to tell such stories, whispering miracles into other people's brains! To live by imagination alone!"]

What place would you like to visit?

I'm never, ever going to grow tired of visiting Britain. Ever. Ever. Ever. ["Heaven take thy soul, and England keep my bones!"]

What is your favorite thing about your mom?

She loves everyone just the same, regardless of race or ethnicity or social status or gender or orientation or anything. ["I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."]

What is your favorite thing about your dad?

He's a mega-genius and he loves me very much, just as I am. ["Bright young women, sick of swimming, ready to stand ..."]

What is your favorite thing about yourself?

I can quote a lot of lines from a lot of stories. ["Can somebody tell me what kind of a world we live in where a man dressed up as a BAT steals all of my press?"]

What are three adjectives best describe you?

Whimsical, warm, selfish. ["Fuck wank bugger shitting arse head and hole!"]

In five years, what kind of person will you be?

Same as now, probably. Hopefully a little smarter and a little more mature. A little more confident in my ability to succeed. ["I already feel like an idiot most of the time anyway, with or without the fireman's pole."]

In ten years, what kind of person will you be?

Hopefully one with a hoverboard! ["Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads."]

Bananas are good. (Brownies are better.)

Like most of my favorite recipes, this first one came from Kat, before In Kat's Kitchen existed. Before Twitter even existed. I know. You forgot there was a time before Twitter, didn't you? The other recipe comes from Martha Stewart, who I guess sort of knows her way around the kitchen.

Banana bread is one of the first things I ever learned how to bake. Brownies were the other thing. My mom taught me how to make both and I have many fond memories of us baking together on rainy weekends. I would mash the bananas while my mom got the other ingredients ready, my mom would sigh heavily when (not if) I spilled the flour everywhere, and (my favorite), if I helped, I'd get to lick the beaters (not Fred and George Weasley) after mixing the brownie batter.

Both of these recipes are from the comfort food department (located directly across the hall from the Department of Mysteries).

Kat's Banana Bread (with rum!)

You will need:

4 bananas (old ones that have gone a bit soft)
1/3 c melted butter
1 c sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp dark rum
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 1/2 c flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Mix all the ingredients in that order.

3. Bake for at least an hour (possibly more...just keep checking it after it's been in for an hour or it'll get burnt and gross and you'll hate everyone).

4. Let cool, slice, and eat. I like to spread a bit of butter on a warm slice until it's nice and melty. DROOOOOL.

Martha Stewart Brownies* (nutty or nutless)

You will need:

1/2 c unsalted butter
8 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 1/4 c sugar
3/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.

2. Place butter and chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of simmering water. Heat, stirring frequently, until almost melted. Remove from heat and stir until completely melted. (Note: sometimes this seems like a huge pain in the ass so I melt everything in the microwave.)

3. Whisk sugar and salt into chocolate mixture until smooth; whisk in eggs until combined. Gently whisk in flour just until smooth (don't overmix). Fold in nuts (heh), if desired. And who doesn't desire nuts every now and then?

4. Spread batter evenly in baking pan. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Cut into tiny squares or big squares or, I don't know, triangles if that's your thing and try not to eat them all in one sitting because THAT'S HOW GOOD THEY ARE.

*from this cookbook

About Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I mentioned once before that I have exactly two cookie recipes, and this is the other one. And can I just tell you how lucky you guys are that you’re getting this today? Because it’s H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY STICKS week at work and I’ve been (a) away from the computer, and (b) STUCK IN MOTHER EFFING VIRGINIA.

So, to recap, cookies = delicious and Kat = busy. And this recipe = 18 delicious oatmeal raisin cookies, which are made of oatmeal and raisins, and since oatmeal and raisins are very healthy and good for you, you should feel free to eat all 18 by yourself. Which you are sure to do, because as I said, cookies = delicious. Here’s what you need:

• 12 tablespoons (that would be 1 1/2 sticks) of unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 cups rolled oats (and I mean the good, Irish rolled oats, not the quick-cooking or instant oats)
• Sea or kosher salt, for sprinkling

You can easily make this recipe by hand, but since I now have this amazingly amazing stand mixer courtesy of my non-mother-in-law (gift registries RULE!!!11!!!!!!), I will be making it in that. So. In a large bowl, beat the butter for a few minutes (on medium-high speed if applicable) until it’s light and fluffy.



Scrape down the sides of the bowl (if applicable) and add the sugars, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon, beating until the mixture is well blended.



Reduce the speed of your amazingly amazing stand mixer (if applicable) to medium and add the eggs and vanilla extract, mixing until well incorporated.



Stir in the raisins. Then, reduce the speed of your amazingly amazing stand mixer (if applicable) to low and add the flour and oats, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary and mixing just until they are incorporated.



Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill your dough for at least an hour before baking. Meanwhile! Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat silicone non-stick baking mat. (Thanks, Jennie and Joe! Gift registries RULE!!!11!!!!!!) Form the dough into balls about the size of balls of golf and place them on the mat about 2 inches apart.



Now here’s the (arguably) weird part: generously sprinkle sea or kosher salt on top of each dough ball. Trust me on this one; it makes all the difference.



Bake 1 sheet at a time for 15 minutes or until the cookies are puffed and beginning to turn golden.



Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. If you can wait that long. Me? I eat them as soon as they stop burning my fingers. And then I eat them all. Which brings us to today’s PROTIP!

You can go ahead and scoop out all of your golf balls onto a baking sheet like this:



and then stick that baking sheet (without the sprinkling of salt) in the freezer. As soon as your dough balls are frozen through, transfer them to a freezer bag for storage and safe-keeping. Then! Whenever you want warm fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies, take a ball or two out of the freezer, sprinkle them with salt, and stick them in your toaster oven. They’ll bake at the same temperature, but add a minute or two to the cooking time. Then! Voila! Warm fresh-baked oatmeal cookies whenever you want them!

Yay!