Editor’s Weekly Top 10 List 12/3/12 – 19/3/12

Top Movie

       “Hachiko: A Dog's Story”

Plot: A drama based on the true story of a college professor's bond with the abandoned dog he takes into his home.

Top TV Series

      “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” 

Plot: Watch the story of history's greatest gladiator. This is Spartacus.

       Top Song

“Adele - Set Fire to the Rain”

The song has charted within the top 10 of Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa and Switzerland. "Set Fire to the Rain" was released on 21 November 2011 as 21's third official single in the United States, and has already peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Adele’s third consecutive number one hit from the album 21.

 Top Video

“Fasten your seatbelt”

A nice and thrilling commercial about traffic accidents and safety precautions such as the usage of safety belts in cars.

Top Book

“Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”

Plot: Perfume, The Story of a Murderer is a 1984 literary historical cross-genre novel (originally published in German as Das Parfum) by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry. Above all this is a story of identity, communication and the morality of the human spirit.

Top Website

The Zeitgeist Movement is an advocacy organization founded in 2008. The movement primarily concerns itself with campaigning against the "monetary-market" economy, which they hope to replace with a resource-based economy where money doesn't exist and economic decisions are based upon direct scientific resource management. This new system would be designed and maintained by technicians through the scientific method, instead of politicians and corporations. The movement is also known for its criticism of fractional reserve banking.

Top PC Game

“World of Tanks”

World of Tanks puts players in command of their very own World War 2 era battle tank. WoT is a team-based game where two sides of up to thirty players each compete to destroy all opposing vehicles. With 150 combat vehicles of American, German, and Soviet design, World of Tanks offers an in-depth gaming experience.

Top Travel Destination

“Santorini, Greece”

Santorini, officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera. It forms the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands. Santorini is essentially what remains after an enormous volcanic explosion that destroyed the earliest settlements, on a formerly single island, and created the current geological caldera.

Top Food

“Spaghetti pesto”

Pesto Sauce is a classic garlicky basil sauce from Liguria. Pesto sauce is one of the finest summer pasta sauces.

The word pesto derives from pestare, to step on or mash, and therefore can be applied to a number of different sauces. However, to an Italian the word pesto by itself means the classic Ligurian summer sauce made with basil, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese. To make spaghetti al pesto sufficient to serve 4 to 6 

as a first course or four as a main course with a tossed salad 


You will need:

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Yield: 4 Servings Spaghetti al Pesto

Ingredients:

• 45 leaves freshly picked basil (about a packed cup) 

• 1/4 cup grated aged pecorino (Tuscan or Sardinian, because Romano is too sharp) 

• 1/3 cup grated Parmigiano (increase this to 3/4 cup if you cannot find the pecorino)

• 2 cloves of garlic 

• 2/3 cup the best olive oil 

• 1/2 teaspoon salt 

• 1/2 cup pine nuts (technically optional though almost everybody includes them) 

• 1/3 cup walnut meats (optional) 

• 1 pound (500 g) spaghetti

Preparation:

If you have a marble mortar and wish to use it (purists say neither brass nor wood mortars will work), put the salt, garlic, nutmeats and basil in it and grind the mixture, firmly crushing the ingredients against the sides of the mortar, rather than striking sharp blows with the pestle. When the mixture is ground, add the cheese, a bit at a time, continuing to grind, and when it is all worked in, add the oil in a slow stream, stirring with a wooden spatula. The resulting pesto should be smooth and creamy.

If you are using a food processor instead, chop the garlic, basil, nutmeats, and salt, being careful not to let the mixture liquefy, then transfer it to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese and the oil.

Cook a pound of pasta in lightly salted water, and just before you drain it stir two tablespoons of hot water into the sauce. Pour the sauce over the pasta and serve. The wine? The bitter sea tang of a good Vermentino would offset the garlic perfectly.

This sauce is also perfect for making lasagne al pesto, which is amazingly refreshing on a hot day, perhaps even more so when served cool.

 Top Drink

“Smirnoff North”

Triple distilled and infused with Nordic berries, Smirnoff North is extremely smooth and quite different to any other flavoured vodka. With limited stockists outside of Europe, Smirnoff North has countless forums dedicated to the appreciation of this rather singular spirit, and the search for retailers who import it.

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