Talkin' Movies 2

Three movies about food, none of which is Tom Jones:

Babette's Feast – I've only seen this once, but this tale of a French political exile taking refuge in a community of Danish Lutherans features some very toothsome preparations of very simple foods, as well as an amiable yet subtly suspenseful dinner party. I don't believe there's another film in all of cinema history in which the heroine triumphs over her nemesis by simply excelling in the kitchen.

Eat Drink Man Woman – A true don't-watch-this-hungry wonder from Taiwan. The "stunt cooking" alone will make your mouth water, but this robustly romantic tale of a widowed master chef at the end of his professional endurance and the struggles of his three grownup daughters to find their way in the world surprises at nearly every turn.

Tampopo – This first, and most iconic, noodle western from Japan has a wandering spirit, but never strays too far from the main plot of a noodle shop owner and the five men who ride in to aid in her quest to make the perfect bowl of ramen. This may sound altogether silly, but the characters are superbly played and easily convince you that this goal is more than worth the struggle. As for the famous egg yolk exchange scene…well, it simply has to be seen to be believed.

Three Days of Rain in One Week!

Monsoon season as arrived for real here in northern Arizona. After a virtually rainless spring, we've had three major days of rain - July 1st, 4th and today, the 6th. Not sure it's enough to stop the bark beetle, which in the past several years has devastated our stands of Ponderosa pine, but it might be enough to slow 'em down a little. Anyone who thinks it's our famous wildfires that destroy forests around here, sorry to disappoint; the bark beetle is far more destructive, and there is precious little that can be done to fight them…except, perhaps, letting those famous wildfires burn and thin the stands of pines the way nature intended.

Sauce It Right

And here's another tip, for those who wok: prepare your stir fry sauce in a separate pan, to make sure your thickener is thoroughly cooked and the flavor is just how you like it. Then, when the meat and/or veggies are all fried up, add the sauce and stir a few times to mix it in and heat it through. This avoids the often insipid results of pouring an uncooked sauce mixture directly into the wok with main ingredients.

Easy Enhanced Chow Mein

Nissan makes a line of packaged dry chow mein noodle meals that are actually kinda tasty, and certainly convenient. You just tear off the plastic wrap, peel back the paper cover sealing the plastic tray, remove the extra ingredient packets, pour in water to the fill line, add any of the extra ingredients that should be added prior to cooking, close the cover (this part never works well, but usually is of little consequence), and microwave for six minutes. After you let it stand for an additional minute, you add the final ingredients from the packets, stir, and serve.

Flavor and texture can be greatly improved, however, by using canned broth instead of water, and adding fresh veggies – nappa cabbage, bok choy, bean sprouts, green onions, celery, whatever one might fancy – prior to cooking. Takes a little more time to prepare, but no extra time to cook. (Hold the green onions back and add after cooking for extra zip.) And the results are worth it!

Gettin' Punchy

Subprime mortgage bubble bursts…the U.S. dollar fades against the Euro and other currencies…oil and gas prices rise with stunning rapidity…the stock market stumbles about for weeks like a drunk deacon…

How is it that all of this is suddenly unleashed on America when a looming national election threatens to unhorse the Republican Party, perhaps for many, many years? I know, none of these problems simply cropped up in the past six months, but their cascading body blows to our economy at just this time is hard to dismiss as mere fiscal coincidence. Somebody, frankly, is just flat out not minding the store…or is trying to burn it down.

Scaling Another Culinary Mountain!

Oh yeah! Roasted my first ever leg o' lamb this past weekend! Stuffed it with homegrown rosemary and baked it for the prescribed time plus ten minutes per pound extra due to our underperforming oven. Turned out quite nice, if I and my wife and our neighbors do say so ourselves.

How I Have My Morning Coffee

I've begun writing again. Not just rewriting manga, which I edit for VIZ Media, but real, all-mine writing. Every morning it's out on the front porch or the back patio with a mug of coffee, a couple of pieces of reading matter, and my journal. The hardware of this journal is paper bound between cardboard covers, while the OS is a biro. Didn't realize how much I missed working on things of my own with no electronic assistance.

The reading matter is usually composed of one piece of fiction and one piece of non-fiction. I'm currently tackling The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides and The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells. I'm sure the first is non-fiction and the second fiction, but I have to say that at times I can't quite be sure of that. Good reads, though.

The coffee's brewed up from beans from Costco, usually with Safeway fat free half & half and a shot of sugar free hazelnut Torani syrup. Sometimes I get wacky and grate some nutmeg into it.