FOODS I MAKE
beer bread (via recipezaar): healthy? no. healthier than the cinnabon i was craving? yes. easy and delish? for sure. i used about 1/4 cup more beer than the recipe called for, and in a strange twist neither chuck nor i wanted to finish that opened, barely used summit. ... wha?
potato and apple soup (via vegetarian times): remember hypercolor shirts? they changed colors in different temperatures? this is a hypercolor soup: warmed, it tastes like potato soup with a hint of apple. cold it tastes like applesauce with a hint of potato. the gist of this creation is 1. bake apples and potatos; 2. peel off skin; 3. mash with hand masher; 4. put in sauce pan with 4 cups of water, curry powder and onion powder; 5. heat its head off. as with all vegan meals i've attempted, coat tongue with a layer of salt before consuming.
LISTENING TO
nada surf "lucky": i've been listening to nada surf since 2002, and this is the first cd where i've ever noticed they sound like deathcab. and i didn't even notice that specifically. i did specifically think: if i were on the o.c., i'd like this music to be playing.
MEALS TAKEN IN PUBLC
midi, pecan crusted salmon with reisling wine sauce: this was my second trip to midi and i basically ordered the same thing as last time. i have a tendency to REALLY LIKE THINGS A LOT! which makes it very taxing to try new things. the space has obviously improved since my last visit -- when i felt like i'd been stuffed into the basement of fitgers for a private party no one else knew about, with the upper crust members of the elite traveling bingo team. this time i was at an actual restaurant.
we were starving and went all out, including a cheese tray starter that was $11 for the equivilent of a lunchable. we also had raspberry torte which just about satiated my pms-neediness. still craving cinnabon, but my substitutes are getting better.
oh, and dessert came with an orchid. did you know you can eat orchids? me either. it felt very "into the wild." like eddie veddar yodeling could only enhance my chewing.
MOVIE PROJECT MOVIES
the basketball diaries, 1995: big pussy gets puked on by a junior huffer; dr. melphi won't lend her son $5; christopher maltisanti used to make steaming dog crap bombs until he gets cancer -- then this movie quickly segues into an anti-drug public service announcement where leonardo dicaprio struggles with addiction by sweating, drooling and twisting his body into shapes unrealized by even the finest contortionists. that's no way to get a basketball scholarship to st. john's.
NON MOVIE PROJECT MOVIES
terminator: california's governor falls naked from 2029 to 1984, revealing to los angeles the toned muscular buttocks of a cyborg who is no stranger to free weights, banana hammocks and baby oil. a $6.4 million chase scene ensues, as he tries to kill the morally flexible sara connor -- who uses a dead roommate and a romantic jilting to justify one of the more horrific "love" scenes in the history of synthesizers when she beds her protector -- equally toned and from the future -- in one of the most egregious of cradle-robbing violations, considering technically he wasn't born when they throw down. all in all, i'd say the catholic church probably has a stance on this film.
t2: judgement day: part two introduces us to a strong and silent, albeit loveable mimetic polyalloy who attempts plan b: skip the middle man and go after JOHN CONNOR'S BANGS! all sorts of crazy plot twists and science lessons, but not nearly enough chase scenes. how about linda hamilton's arms?
can you believe i'd never seen either of these films?
hudsucker proxy: this movie about the rise of the hula hoop may be the cutest, most clever movie i've seen in a long time -- although i'm not sure a coen brothers movie has ever been called "cute" before. it's very "big fish" and "pushing daisies" in its grandness and narration. i rarely demand that you do as i say -- aside from strongly encouraging you to use mint-flavored "kiss my face" chapstick -- but i demand that you put this in your netflix queue immediately!
READING
"kitchen confidential" anthony bourdain: in your life, you belong to a little subset of people based upon your job, your college, or a shared hobby or experience. occasionally, when you get together with the people from your niche, an outsider is thrown into the mix and everyone spends the whole night telling stories about the "good old days" and how reckless and badass and drunk everyone was -- pretending these are stories to update the outsider, but really they are just stories you want to repeat. and for the outsider, sometimes its funny. then as things ramp up more, it gets less funny. pretty soon they're yawning and hate everyone in the entire world and would rather slit their own throat with shards from a wine bottle than hear another story about this guy who did this thing ...
that, in a nutshell, is kitchen confidential. when anthony bourdain writes in the introduction that he wrote this for other chefs and was surprised that it got so much outsider attention, i think that was genuine.
the first third of the book is a collection of funny and interesting stories about making his way through the cooking industry and the characters he met. then he starts repeating himself, then the chronology gets confusing, then he throws in a love letter to his mentor -- referring to him only as 'bigfoot' and spends paragraph after paragraph explaining that he's NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHO BIGFOOT IS! then insists that anyone who is anyone KNOWS who bigfoot is. [i became so distracted by this 'who is bigfoot' thing that i could barely read the book ... not that i know anything about the new york restaurant scene. i just hate secrets.]
on the other hand, there is one completely fantastic chapter about eating his way through tokyo that is so colorful and paced so perfectly. you can almost see him -- an insatiable westerner gorging himself to the delight of the restaurant's staff. drunk on sake and eating and eating and eating. this chapter is where he puts away his voice, his drug years, his knives and you see that he can write.
TRIATHLONING
somehow i need to swim about 65 laps by the end of the month. i should note here that the primary excuse for girls to get out of the swimming section of gym class is bearing down on me. i'm in a race with my own shark bait.
6 comments:
I loved "The Hudsucker Proxy". I read some critic's analysis of the Coen brothers' work last week, and this person (can't remember who, so I can't say "he" or "she") was extremely snide about "Hudsucker" which shows that critics are often idiots.
I do remember the hypercolor shirts, because people's armpits and nipples would be the things that change color.
I'm so addicted to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I started watching it because River from Firefly was in it, and as a true Joss Whedon fan I had to support his actors after their shows get cancelled. And now I can't stop watching. Although I should probably review the first two Terminator films to remind myself of the backstory.
OH, I adore beer bread, only I'm particularly opposed to sweet(ish) breads that go w/ savory foods....I omit the sugar in my beer bread (otherwise, use the exact recipe), much to the chagrin of those that like the sweet. I also don't sweeten cornbread. I don't want sweet w/ my ham-n-beans. I don't eat jelly or honey on biscuits either. Not that I like biscuits much. I guess what I'm REALLY trying to say is that I don't like my savory mixed w/ sweet.
I remember reading "kitchen Confidential" for the first time and thinking what a freaky badass Mr. Bourdain and his cronies were.
Then I opened a restaurant and realized that my stories were infinitely more scandalous and debaucherous than his were.
Guess I'm not the poseur I thought I was...
Oh, and I freaking love beer bread. Sweet or not sweet. Love it.
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