fiddy-fiddy

Great news! I've decided to expand my commentary on life beyond food and housewivery and not having a job and food and the suckage of the academic market and the folly of becoming a historian and ice cream! I am going to now include film reviews! Today's selection, 50/50. First off, you should know that if you have cancer, or have ever had cancer, or know anyone who has cancer, this is probably not the movie for you. It is a SAD movie, despite it being billed as a heartwarming comedrama. I've never written a real movie review before (despite writing about film all the time in my professional life) so I'm going to try very hard to keep my impressions from giving too much away--but I make no promises, so read on at your own spoilage alert. First up, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I love me some JGL. Since Heath Ledger went on that big walkabout in the sky, Joesph Gordon-Levitt has become one of the cutest patooties on the silver screen (and believe me the similarities between them don't hurt). And he can act! This is one of the primary reasons I wanted to see this movie. I thought he was genius in 500 Days of Summer and he didn't disappoint here either. Unfortunately the fact that he remains gorgeous was probably a bad thing in this movie. I totally bought the emotional despair, but physically, he still looked like JGL. His losing weight was a matter of personal/directorial interpretation (we can't all be Natalie Portman) and sure they shaved his head, but I think they should have done his eyebrows too. It bothered me through the whole movie. A stocking cap and some dark under-eye circles seemed unfair given the magnitude of what this movie was trying to convey. Second, Seth Rogan totally nailed his part and gets double kudos for delivering the movie's best line with consummate panache ("here's what I like to call Exhibit WHORE!") The rest of the acting was also good, although the writing fell apart in other places. For example JGL's therapist, a grad student named Katherine (played by Anna Kendrick) was simultaneously spot on and completely unbelievable. Kendrick did a great job of conveying that not-so-rare academic combo of book-smarts and cluelessness. She also captured that look of being young and frail and awkward and earnest and herself just a little crazy that I've seen on many a grad student. But the rest of her character was just nonsense. Who lets a 24 year old grad student see patients by herself? (No one, that's who!) And how does someone who at best had only three years of training get an office in a hospital, not to mention an office that's bigger than my apartment?) And well, there's more that I truly hated, but I don't want to ruin the movie. Speaking of, I hate, hate, HATED the way the movie ended. Not the part where we find out whether JGL lives or dies--that part I was totally fine with. No, I hated the very end, which was some of the dumbest, campiest, most cliched writing I've seen in a long time, which threatened to ruin what was to that point a perfectly reasonable, if dead-depressing movie. I'm a big fan of endings, and I don't mind sacrificing characters for the sake of the narrative. But this was, to use the German, total quatch. I'll leave it at that. I'm going to give it a 7/10, a generous assessment, not because I'd ever want to see 50/50 again, but because I can't stop thinking about it. In fact, Steve and I have been celebrating Halloween by working our way through the Bela Lugosi collection (with heavy help from Boris Karloff), and yet four days later, this remains the movie giving me nightmares. I'm not sure what that says, but it certainly says something.

fenugreek

After a relatively fruitless morning trying to describe my 300 page dissertation in as few words as possible (I hit a rather ineffectual low of 274 before yo-yoing back up to an equally ineffectual 295) in my admittedly vain and increasingly half-hearted attempt to find a tenure track job in the greater metro area I now call home, I've decided to pause and tell you about my new favorite spice: fenugreek. You may know all about it, but it's new to me, which has made it, well, the flavor of the week. For those of you have yet to be initiated into the fold, fenugreek is mostly used in Indian food, and I've heard (but can't confirm--and possibly made up) that it's what makes curry taste like curry. I bought it in powdered form, but I think one can also buy the seeds. It's more or less white--like pollen--and has a sharp planty taste. It also has a unique, but unoffensive smell that may be reminiscent of a combination of celery salt, fish, old cheese, and something else I'm clearly missing. I know I'm not selling it super hard, but I used it to make the most lovely lentils! I started with this recipe that I found on the internets: http://vegeyum.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/dalmakhani/ but I won't bother to print it here, since I'm not really sure that what I made in any way resembles this dish. I always forget that one of the problems with searching for and then bookmarking Indian recipes is that outside of not always being able to find the ingredients, they're always in British and I have no real way of knowing if what I'm using is 10g of ginger etc. The easy solution would be to buy a scale, but instead I started throwing random measurements into a pot, with surprisingly wonderful results. So, for the "ingredients" I used 3/4 of a cup of tiny dark green French lentils from the co-op (they weren't the Indian black kind but they looked like them), one can of dark red kidney beans, 1 T of ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 jalapenos finely minced, and enough beef broth to cover the lot (hey, I never made any claims about authenticity or religious sensitivity). For the tadka I used 1 T butter, 1 tsp cumin seeds, a pinch of celery salt (since I couldn't find any asafoetida), a full tsp of fenugreek and a small can of tomato paste. Then I added as much butter and cream as I wanted. I also used the masala and the chili to taste and added a couple tablespoons of fresh cilantro. It was freaking amazing. (I get it that my four friends probably aren't going to run out and make this, but I'm also trying to document my changes so that someday I can make this again. But seriously guys, this was totally delicious, you should run out and make it.)

Steve and I also went to see a truly horrendous bit of performance art at the Reputable Modern Art Museum, but since it was too bad for words, I'm sort of hoping someone will post a copy of it on youtube so you all can see for yourselves. If not, I'll tell you about it the next time I reach the breaking point on my job letter.

hack

It does not pay to do the right thing. At least where my stupid body is concerned. Sure, I signed up for my race (another half marathon) next Sunday rather late and with very little training--but you could even consider that doing the right thing since I had no particular inclination to push myself on speed or distance while the heat index was still over 80. But this was a conscious choice and one I don't tend to regret. However, I was left with little time and less stamina--and I really could have used a long run on Monday, the one that was scheduled to be my last before pre-race tapering. But I have a chest cold (yeah, I know it sounds a bit Victorian, but there's really no other way to describe it), and I've made myself run with a cough before and it doesn't end well, so I relaxed instead. I even took yesterday off: plenty of fluids, lots of sleep, a nice healthy dinner, and even a very short walk in the sunshine to keep the circulation going and the dry rot from setting in. I did all of this because I would like to get healthier in the shortest possible amount of time. But doing the right thing is bullshit. I don't feel better; I feel worse! I should have just run on Monday if I was going to end up convalescing all week anyway. So on that note I decided that if I were going to have a shot of Theraflu expectorant (the color and the bottle may indicate orange flavor, but truly, it tastes more like gasoline) for breakfast, by gum I was going to have a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sandwich too. And sure, my stomach threatened to reject this unholy alliance, but I powered through and now I have the pleasurable sensation of having eaten ice cream for breakfast and that floating feeling from whatever the active ingredient in Theraflu might be. This reinforces what I've been thinking all along: doing the right thing is wrong. Ice cream is right.

high art

I watch too much TV. This is a given. Up until recently there wasn't much else to do shy of prolonged communion with nature or making myself sick through overenthusiastic consumption of my own cooking. But now it's made its final transformation from tool-for-winding-down to daily distraction to guilty pleasure to disturbing addiction. I offer as proof of this that I have seen the pilots of BOTH Pan Am and The Playboy Club. I'd love to say that this is because I'm indulging Steve's penchant for boobs, but deep down, we all know it's because reruns of The Office on the CW and hilariously neutered versions of movies like Sideways on the local classic movie channel will only get a girl so far towards that digitally induced high. (I mention Sideways because it is in almost no way a movie that instinctively lends itself to prime time television: by the time they've muted all of the sex, gloss over the alcoholism, cut the male frontal nudity and changed all the creative cussing to less offensive terms that make absolutely no sense--my favorite was the substitution "ashcroft" for "asshole"--the movie's four minutes long and sounds more or less like a long string of gibberish.) So we've been partaking of this year's crop of new well-endowed if largely ill-conceived dramas.

However, having seen Pan Am and Playboy Club, (and perhaps in a desperate attempts to intellectualize a particularly low point in my cerebral trajectory) I'd like to offer my thoughts. At first glance, one might assume that these two shows were more or less the same--and they are! Both are set in the late 50s/early 60s, so both are fairly unabashed Mad Men knock offs. Both feature rebelliously independent fun and flirty women who are on their own and loving it, (with well chiseled, muscle-bound co-stars) and both glamorize occupations that most normal people would find at very best completely exhausting. In terms of acting, photography and narrative structure, Playboy Club is far superior--and indeed Pan Am will be very lucky to get a second viewing. But what I find fascinating, if also completely horrifying, is that both have decided to depict the latter part of the women's movement as coming not from any grassroots feminism but from highly sexualized corporate structures that "allowed" women to break free from previous constraints of hearth and home and see the world, have their own careers and (if you believe Playboy Club) single-handedly triumph over discrimination. All a girl needs to be (indeed best!) Betty Friedan is a 20 inch waist, a corset and a generous C cup. And my question is, why? Why is this how we've chosen to remember this particular past? Sure, NBC could really use a gyno-triumphalist narrative to justify those crazy bunny suits, but why need we suggest that the key to opening up opportunities and remedying inequality is abject objectification? Why not just call a spade a spade and say this is the closest thing to soft-core porn the FCC will let us air on network television and cut out the shots of the cute little girls looking up in rapturous awe to our high heeled heroines? (People would still watch it--and I for one would feel much less guilty about doing so!) And (I think this is the real question), why do I let these shows and their inherent flaws to occupy so much of my attention, when, as previously mentioned, it's quite intentionally a very fine veneer of historical fiction that's hiding a story with all the sophistication of an unpeeled potato?

house guest

I've never been much of a dog person. At least, I've always fallen squarely in the group of people who believes dogs are dogs and not people. I also feel that if a dog knocks over the garbage can, spreads trash everywhere and then eats enough to coat most of that trash with vomit (or conversely jumps up on the kitchen table and eats my breakfast while my back is turned) he is a Bad Dog and not terribly fun to have around. It was with some trepidation then that I agreed to have our current house guest stay with us for four days this week.

(It's not the babysitting I was worried about, I just felt that it might be better that if Sadie the Labradoodle was going to destroy a house, it should be her house and not my house.) There was little trauma (and even less instruction) when Steve's coworker dropped her off yesterday. Because I had to head immediately to the dentist, I moved all the food off of our second shelf, picked up any shoes I had genuine attachment to, set the dog treats on the back of the counter and shut the bedroom door. When I came back, I found Sadie lying more or less where I left her. In fact I've never seen an animal with such singular lack of curiosity. She did light up like a Christmas tree when Steve came home--and cried when he left to go get milk (I'm not sure what that means)--but otherwise she seems completely content to lie with me on the sofa, making her more or less the perfect couch potato's companion, despite the special bond she and Steve seem to have formed. I'm fairly certain they conspired last night to get her into bed with us because despite my firm decision that there wasn't the space, the very nice dog bed we set up for her on the floor and the sofa to which we offered her free reign, I still woke this morning spooning not with my fella but with a twenty pound fur ball that had wedged herself between us during the night. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but I feel this whole experience acts as evidence that Steve and I are well on our way to becoming (much nerdier versions of) Phil and Claire Dunphy from Modern Family. In fact, my sister drew this conclusion well over a year ago and thinks it's hilarious. But he being fun loving and me being uptight seem to be working, especially with regard to our very pleasant house guest (slash labradoodle).

j

soft pretzel rolls

I made these this weekend. Actually, I make these all the time. I think they're partially responsible for my marathon weight gain. I suppose they're vaguely German in origin, but I like mine far better than anything I had in Germany, even first thing in the morning from the bakery across the street. They're best while still a little warm with some gouda tucked in the middle, but they keep fairly well and can be revived by a few minutes in the toaster oven. (Toaster Oven is also the name of Steve and my hypothetical, as of yet unconceived offspring, but that deserves more explanation than I feel like providing at this juncture.) So all ye with time to kill and calories to consume, I offer this as a recommendation. I think I found this recipe on the internet on the blog of someone who modified it from Alton Brown or some such thing. It doesn't really matter, but still, credit where ambiguous, largely indifferent credit's due. Try them. They're wonderful.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) instant yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• 5 cups water
• 1/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt (optional)

Directions

1. Proof yeast with water and sugar in a large bowl. (c. 5 minutes)
2. Add salt,and butter.
3. Stir in flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl. (You might not need all the flour.)
4. Transfer the dough to a buttered bowl, cover and let rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
5. Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Prep a cookie sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper.
6. Bring the 5 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in a large stock pot.
7. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 10 equal pieces. Form each piece into a small, oval loaf.
8. Place the loaves into the boiling water, topside down, one at a time, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula to the cookie sheet.
9. Brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Slash with a sharp bread knife once or twice. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 14 minutes.

means to an end

I suspect that at my age/weight/position in life, I should somehow be flattered or appreciative of the odd catcall as I’m walking down the street. It’s really hard to say because we spent the last year and a half in the Middle Of Nowhere where I could literally walk for miles without running into another person, let alone a street. My copious television consumption has led me to believe that women who are about to turn thirty like being objectified, even if they know they’re not supposed to. But now the issue is more than purely academic since in the last two days I’ve had multiple men in cars honking at me while on my way to the dentist, grocery store etc., and I have to say I’m a little conflicted. Mostly it just scares the crap out of me. I’ve learned that city life in general and city driving in particular involves a good deal of honking—and on the whole very little of it has to do with me. For example, yesterday I saw a person take an admittedly close (but nevertheless successful) right turn at a red light. The oncoming driver honked at the turning driver, so the turning driver honked at the person now behind him. This induced the oncoming driver to honk more, which then precipitated the same in response. They continued this for about a block and a half until (I can only assume) it was no longer fun. This isn’t my favorite way of life, but I’ve been told to get used to it. The Big City has very little in the way of functional mass transit, and while there are those like me who prefer to limit ourselves to walking distance to avoid being stopped at a traffic light every fifteen feet and paying $3/hour for parking (in quarters, no exceptions) or those who brave bicycles to save the environment, almost everyone drives. And because this is a relatively Old City with no particular plan, the sidewalks and the streets more or less run into one another with no truly discernable separation. This is why when a man feels in necessary to honk and shout as he passes me, it’s fairly terrifying. It’s loud, sure, but I’m also not certain whether he’s expressing his appreciation for my ample backside (or equally ample frontside) or if he’s warning me to jump into the nearest topiary because he’s planning to mount the curb and drive where I had been walking for a while. Sure, my previously held notions on feminism and its meaning for my life have been called into severe question lately. But more on that another time. For now, suffice it to say that all this exuberant goodwill towards my lady parts is eventually going to make me pee my pants.

j