Here’s a high/low combination: I’m eating a tasty duck leg (Greens Eggs and Ham, of course!) while watching The House Bunny. It’s good!/it’s terrible! Just like life.
I seared the leg on both sides, then popped it in the oven for 15 minutes. I made a cheater sauce with ginger marmalade and a sploosh of dessert wine– good enough! Served with Jay Smith’s amazing potato salad and some Sparrow’s Nest chard. Just a little something I threw together!
So you know I have this awesome contract with the EAC involving public art. One of the things I’ve had to write about is the sculpture at the Southgate transit terminal. It’s called Immense Mode, or, more commonly known as “the legs.” People either love them or hate them. Arguments are the usual: how many potholes could you fill with that money? Isn’t it ugly? But on the other hand, seeing them close up, they’re pretty cool. Today, they let us have a closer view of the piece in progress, where you could see the detail– the “stitching,” the little creases in the “leather” of the shoe. And the artists are really cute!
cute, eh?
detail of the toe: floral shapes will be filled in with glass mosaic
stitching!
detail of the tiled "socks"
the inner metal structure
I guess I'll be B roll on some news clip tonight!
Mike Leigh is supposed to be one of those serious filmmakers, and I know I’ve seen a couple of his films but I can’t for the life of me remember a single one. What was it I saw? Secrets and Lies? Isn’t that a Bergman film?
Anyhow, I found the trailer for Happy-Go-Lucky to be incredibly grating. Oh god, another free-spirited kook who teaches us all that we should be positive! Happy! Whee! And her dumb outfits. But the reviews were good, so I decided to put it on my list. I should’ve gone with my instincts!
Now, I’m as much for being happy when you can. And I’m a quirky free spirit; sure, I can admit that. I freelance, for christssakes! I have not one, but TWO dogs! I have no real life plans! Who does that? Only crazy ladies. But this Poppy character isn’t quirky. She’s manic and delusional! You know this because at the bookstore she looks at a book, a title called Understanding Reality or something like that, and she says, “Ooh, no thank you.” And she spends a great deal of time cocking her head and giggling and basically acting like a confused bird. Bird in the actual sense, not in the charming cockney sense. ANNOYING!
Is it a territorial thing? Can two manic pixie dream girls not occupy the same space? Well, I’m NOT one. So shut up. But real happiness isn’t about being a kook. Life IS misery. You get hurt, bad things happen to good people, and even if things are going well, you know that someday you will die. I think that ignoring those facts is stupid. After all, isn’t happiness even better knowing that it’s in spite of all that? I’ve been so depressed I’ve wanted to die. My heart has been broken on several occasions. I read the news every day. I know how bad it gets. But I don’t want to erase that reality. How can you learn compassion if you ignore suffering?
I don’t want to see a movie about a woman who flits through life wanting people to be happy but is unable to do more than giggle and joke. Poppy doesn’t get below the surface until her racist driving teacher loses his shit. Yeah, Poppy– some people are f’ed up and unhappy and have deep, f’ed up feelings. It’s not like you tried to get to know the guy, or asked him any questions about why he feels the way he feels. How about yours? I don’t get the sense that her feelings are terribly deep. She’s not happy; she’s oblivious.
Also: the way she talks– unbearable!
I’m not much of a baker, but there has been so much talk of baking cookies on the dash of your car that I got a hankering for gingersnaps. I didn’t have butter, so I debated winging it, or going out into this thunderstorm to get some. Shopping in the rain won out. It just wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t buttery and good! The recipe I use is a very basic one from The Joy of Cooking, measured very inexactly. It’s easy!
You cream 3/4 cup of butter with two cups of sugar. I used about a half cup of brown with a cup of white. You add molasses to it too, so I usually err on the side of adding less sugar. Then add two well-beaten eggs and two teaspoons of vinegar and a half cup of molasses. I used apple cider vinegar. Then you sift together about 3 1/4 cups of flour, a couple teaspoons of baking powder, three teaspoons of ground ginger, a couple teaspoons of cinnamon, and a half teaspoon of cloves. I used Sunny Boy whole wheat flour because I like the texture of whole wheat with these gingersnaps, plus it’s organic and local. Mix the dry with wet, then I rolled out 3/4″ balls on parchment paper and baked them for about 12 minutes.
They turn out to be a tiny bit crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. Perfect! I am so happy!
I got this recipe from Rachael Ray, who claims that this dish is so good, it can get a man to marry you. I know better– I want a man to marry me for something more substantial than my sauces! But it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t get hitched because of it, but then again, my marriage was pretty lousy.
I sauteed a couple of minced shallots and garlic in olive oil, then added a cup of vodka. All I had was Zubrowka, which is a flavoured vodka. Something called Bison grass. It tastes herb-y. Anyhow, after adding the alcohol, I reduced it by half, then added a can of tomatoes which I mashed into the pan, then a cup of turkey broth (I had no chicken!) then simmered it some more. Then, in went half a cup of cream, salt and pepper and some fresh basil. In it went with the penne, a side of butter-fried broccolini, and there! A very tasty dinner.
I am SO INTO myself right now.
I’m generally against buying prepared foods at the farmers market since getting something ready to eat takes the fun out of making something myself. And besides, they are usually expensive. But once in a while, I do get lazy. And time is money! So last night, after spending a day around food and food prep, I heated up some salmon cakes from Ocean Odyssey Inland. You get two for about $8, not a bargain, but at least I didn’t have to think too hard to get a quick dinner ready. A few boiled potatoes and spinach sauteed in butter, and I had something very nice to eat with very little effort. Yum!
This is a dinner I made for myself a while ago, but I’m catching up. The wonderful folks at Greens Eggs and Ham are always coming up with ever more delicious ways to enjoy duck. One time, I went to market and they had these smoked duck legs, which are pretty much heat-and-eat. They’re new, so I had to try one. It was a quick, easy and relatively cheap meal, and very tasty indeed. You can get them from their truck at the downtown farmer’s market, or sometimes at the Sobey’s on 104 St.
When my friend Ben suggested we go see Moon, I said the following: “I really liked Sam Rockwell in Charlie’s Angels.” I think it made him want to punch me in the arm, hard. But seriously, that’s all I really knew about the movie, that and the dreaded Kevin Spacey was in it, in some capacity. Little did I know that Spacey would give the performance of his life, and that not only can Rockwell totally seize control of your eyeballs and own them for nearly two hours, but he is also capable of pretending to be a bad dancer, which he is not. He is, in fact, an awesome hot dancer.
The premise of the movie is that, in the future, our energy source is mined from the far side of the moon. One man, Sam, is in charge of maintaining the mining station. Three gigantic automated machines crawl across the lunar landscape collecting whatever it is that makes the energy go, with Sam sending reports and troubleshooting and putting the canisters of that stuff into rockets to send back to Earth. Something like that. In any case, he’s the only person there, with a robot named Gerty (Spacey) to give him a hand. Gerty is a metal box who runs on rails attached to the ceiling and a claw arm to perform basic tasks like giving Sam Flowbee haircuts and minor surgeries. And the best part is, he has a smiley-face screen to show his “moods.” Combined with his HAL 9000, deadpan voice and a “Kick Me” sign on its back, Gerty provides a bit of sympathetic robot pathos that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. Such a moving character! A role Spacey was born to do.
In fact aside from Sam Rockwell becoming your new celebrity boyfriend with his fragility/aggression (depending on the situation– versatile!), the machines in this film are the most lovable since Wall-E. The moon buggies? As adorable a baby skunk out for a stroll. Because in the future, the enemy is not technology, but the jerks who make ONE GUY sit alone with Kevin Spacey for THREE YEARS. Alone. ALONE.
Watch this movie as a double bill with Sunshine. You’ll understand.
I’ve been basically on my feet since 8 am helping at Beer and Boar at Alley Kat today, beginning with a little setting up and even spending time in the kitchen prepping salads and being a nice hostess. The Slow Food people are super-nice, and are understandably concerned about everyone having great food and a good time, and it was fun to be part of that. Here is the story, in pictures:
The boar, which had been cooking for four hours when I got there at 8 am. It was served at 2 pm, so imagine!
Breads from Treestone. Beautiful!
Preparing giant salads in the kitchen at nearby Transcend Coffee.
Giant salads!
Earl, the Hog Wild man, with the boar almost ready to serve.
The band.
Beers!
Carving the hog.
My plate! Five salads: green (from Greens Eggs and Ham) with vinaigrette, cucumber (yogurt/herb), tomato (herb vinaigrette), and coleslaw, and marinated mushrooms. Boar with amazing mustard (I have to ask where they got it. So good!)
Where salads go to die.
So you know I love food, right? Well, a year ago I did an article for Legacy magazine about Slow Food in Alberta and I’ve been getting involved with the Edmonton convivium over the last while. I’m volunteering, for example, at the Beer and Boar event happening next Sunday. It sounds like it’s gonna be a blast. And, of course, boar-y goodness!
Here’s the details:
This celebration of local food and drink features beer samplings and brewery tours of Edmonton’s award-winning microbrewery, Alley Kat.
In addition to wild boar from Mayerthorpe’s Hog Wild Specialties, the menu will feature various local, regional, seasonal side dishes. Live celtic blues music (http://www.dawndesmarais.com/) rounds off the afternoon.
With the increasing awareness of carbon and ecological footprint our foods come with, concerned consumers are becoming more and more interested in sourcing foods closer to home. And food less traveled just tastes better, is fresher and leads to a more vibrant food community.
Tickets are $35 for members, $40 for non-members, $10 for kids 10 and under. Tickets can be purchased at on-line (http://www.slowfoodedmonton.ca) or at the Alley Kat Brewery. Get your tickets early; this event has sold out every year.