Hi, everybody! Nice to see you all hanging out here again. Here’s some stuff I’ve been thinking about recently:
- Is Homeland good, bad, offensive, or some combination of all three? I can’t help but think that if I were (a) Pakistani, (b) bipolar, or (c) CIA agent, I’d really hate this show. It’s so completely divorced from reality as to be nonsensical, and yet I can’t stop watching. PS: Claire Danes is pretty.
2. I’m not as bothered by the midterm elections as I feel like I should be. So many friends were gnashing their hands and wringing their teeth (that’s how bad it was) that I’m troubled by my lack of strong emotion. Can anyone help me get a little more freaked out?
3. Has anyone here ever taken a cooking course? I desperately want to be able to cook more than the four or so dishes in my repertoire, but I have no natural aptitude and find it boring to follow recipes. I am totally envious of people who can say, “Oh, there’s an onion, a chicken leg, a sprig of basil and some yogurt in the fridge. I’ll make dinner for six.” I just want to understand the basics of what to do and not to do in preparing various things. Anyone know where I should start?
4. Going to see Kinky Boots at Pantages on Friday. Nothing to ask here; I just wanted to let you all know.
5. God almighty, did anyone else HATE Interstellar with the force of 10,000 suns, like RB and I did? That movie was a preposterous mishmosh of Deep Thoughts and silly plot devices. And it was THREE HOURS LONG. Agony. Plus, I kept imagining Matthew McConaughey driving that Lincoln and muttering to himself, rather than being in space.
Not that bothered by the elections either. Apparently every two-term president since ever ever ever has lost the Senate or something. Also I just ran out of care.
Kinky Boots is a lot of fun, though I can’t say I found the music especially memorable.
People told me Interstellar was suspenseful but not actually scary, which is a kind of movie I like, so we are maybe going to see it, but one might possibly be more excited about the third Hunger Games movie and just not admitting it.
“I just ran out of care” is my favorite new line ever.
And: Hunger Games!! I am unashamed about how excited I am.
Is it true that they are making two movies out of the last Hunger Games book? I feel like we’re getting closer to the point where movies made from fantasy series will become like one of Zeno’s paradox, where the last book keeps getting subdivided into more movies so it never ends.
I am also failing to get worked up about the midterms. I mean, things will be bad politically, but they’ve been getting steadily worse for a while now. Lyndon Johnson, in whose veins flowed a roiling mixture of napalm and the blood of Vietnamese children, was the last progressive president we’ve had.
In a fit of culinary synchronicity, I too wanted to learn some cooking skills. Specifically, how to even bear touching, much less cooking, chicken. I’m fine with autopsies, but a boneless chicken breast gives me the shivers. So I started taking classes at Sur La Table (Surly Table) and love it. The “Fast N Easy” chicken dinners actually are, and I’ve replicated them without illness on the part of the diners. They had a Spanish cooking class, and the best: “Better with Bourbon” — yummy salad dressing and easy thick chocolate dessert. Their classes are on line and at the Farmers Market.
WW, I have taken a couple one-off classes in years past, but they felt more focused on “here’s how to make this one fantastic deep-fried fish tacos dish!” than anything else. I think I need a series of classes on the basics. Will look into Surly Table and see what they’ve got. You wanna take classes together if we can find something good?
Dave, I hate that LBJ’s legacy has always been Vietnam, and I’m glad people have come around in recent years to recognize his advancement of great social / domestic causes. Did anyone see Bryan Cranston’s portrayal of him in All The Way? Really wish I’d managed to see that in its very brief run.
LP, I recommend the book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. Once you have a few basics down, recipes are just for creative inspiration. Though those SLT classes sound absolutely heavenly.
Cooking was one of those things I meant to learn to do better for a long time but had a stupid NYC studio galley kitchen with 1 foot of counter space. Since moving here [ok, brace yourselves; I’m going to say something nice about California] and having not only a normal kitchen but insanely great produce all the damn time, I’ve definitely made some advances and can comfortably contribute to a dinner party. A cooking class seems fun but I’m not sure exactly what it is I want to learn next. Like LP, I’m not necessarily into a “here is a great dish” class. The thing that would be best to learn, but also isn’t really something you can do in a class, is how to come up with things to make.
Uhhhhh . . . huh?
Wait, honey, you really DO love me? I knew if I were just beautiful enough and perfect enough and if everything were ripe enough and fresh enough and the weather were perfect enough, you would stop hating me! Let me give you everything!
Ow, wait, you hit me again? It felt like a kiss.
Can’t believe it took me a whole week to see this, but it’s been a hell of a week. So fun to have an old school catching-up-with-LP post.
Homeland: it’s so terribly terrible. Her facial expressions. Her ugly cry. The crazy plots. The Islamophobia. And yet I watched the first two seasons in big gulps. I really don’t think I can take a third though. Am I missing out?
Oof, just watched this week’s episode, and it is getting nuttier than a pecan pie. Plus, yeah, Islamophobia. Why are we still watching? I dunno, probably because we’re caught up. It’s too daunting to start with season one of the other great shows we missed (Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Good Wife, etc.). So, here we are. With Carrie’s ugly-cry face.