1 teaspoon of chitter chatter ...

There is a lot of stuff here, so I'm going to go light on the chitter chatter. Here is what I've made, watched and read in the past few weeks.

MEALS MADE IN OUR KITCHEN THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN MADE THERE BEFORE

Slow-cooker Bean and Corn Bread Casserole: Crock pot things happens and you get chili with a layer of corn bread attached on top of it. Science! This. Is. Awesome.

Artichoke and Spicy Tofu Casserole: Okay. So this is a bunch of rice with a bunch of vegetables and tofu, a non-cream cream sauce and then baked like a casserole with a few bread crumbs and shredded fake cheese. I'm not sure where I got the idea it was going to taste like Tuna Noodle Casserole, but that is what was in my head. Regardless, I liked this. It was different. It was good. It actually made me hungrier, though.

MOVIES
Super 8 "Goonies" + "Stand By Me" / "E.T." = This is my favorite thing I've seen in awhile. Little geeky filmmakers save their town from an alien.

"New Year's Eve": Have you ever been at a shitty party and every time you turn around you see someone you are trying to avoid?

J. Edgar This movie that includes the secret side of J. Edgar Hoover was good. It was too long, like 90 percent of all movies. But mostly it has given me good background for sections of the book "Underworld" by Don Delillo that include J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson.


Magic Trip: Found footage of the Merry Pranksters and the sights and sounds described in "Electric Kool-Ade Acid Test." This documentary, now streaming on Netflix, was pretty delicious and will make you eternally grateful that you've never been trapped on a bus with that maniac Neil Cassady.

I Love You Phillip Morris: This true-ish story of Jim Carey as a scam artist who meets the love of his life in prison and then proceeds to scam, scam and scam so more is really cute. Like.

Dawning: Anyone who has ever spent time in Northern Minnesota knows woods can be terrifying. But this horror movie is poorly plotted and kind of like a junior high film project. Brother and sister visit alcoholic dad and his new wife at the cabin. Evil ensues. Blerg.

TV MARATHON
Portlandia: Good. God. We started watching this on New Year's Eve Day when I was so hung over I could barely blink or even stand upright long enough to shuffle to the bathroom to dry heave into the toilet. It was physically painful for me to watch because instead of sitting quietly and laughing occasionally this was going to require laughing non-stop and rarely sitting quietly.

For the three people on the planet who haven't watched it, this was my point of entry:



BEEN READING
1Q84by Haruki Murakami: This one is very Murakami. I liked it. I probably don't need to read another Murakami sex scene for awhile though.

Full review here.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: This is the story of an older man who doubles back to think about his past and then has a jarring awakening that things weren't exactly the way he remembers them and maybe he didn't know all the facts. I loved it.

Full review here.

Ten Thousand Saints: A Novel by Eleanor Henderson: This was deese. It's the story of teens gone wild, then falling into a straight edge lifestyle in NYC in the 1980s.

Full review here.

The Last Nude by Ellis Avery: This is about Paris in the 1920s. The art deco painter Tamara De Lempicka and her muse slash lover. I liked it. It's a nice introduction to the artist. Things get a little hokey when Avery brings in other famous people living in Paris in the 1920s.

Full review will be here.

Anyway, I also posted my list of my favorite things read in 2011 (And somehow missed the Julian Barnes book in my tally. Gross oversight). Here is the list.