ye olde split pea ‘n’ doggs

I think it may be time for me to start branching out… using some kidneys or brains or something. but I’m on a strict budget until my trip over the pond (17 days!) and, also, I’m terrified of kidneys and brains (yeah, yeah unless they’re ground up in hot dog form). it seems like the brits are always eatin’ on kidneys, perhaps I’ll come back nicely evolved. nevertheless I’m going to keep plowing through my stack of YOT CBs and think about offal later.

joe & jim loaned me a couple of their YOT CBs about a year ago and while flipping through one discovered a lovely little promotional number tucked inside titled timely meat recipes for meal appeal.

published in 1945

the gist of the foreword (after it dedicates this book to the american homemaker) is every meal revolves around meat and/or lard because, lets get real, meat is the “main stay” and contains more essential nutrients than any other food. (quotes around “main stay” not added by me). here’s one of their examples:

And when you ask Mrs. Neighbor across the back fence what she is having for Sunday dinner, is she going to say that she has decided on a tossed green salad? Well, hardly! She’s more likely to come up with an idea such as roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, and the salad will be fit into the menu later.

totally. I mean, tossed green salad for sunday dinner? the horror!

so I decided on something from the luncheon section. picked out because split peas are cheap and I had some hot dogs in the freezer.

split pea soup with frankfurters after the jump.

muni haiku

man next to me smells
like motor oil and wet farts
thanks for the good times.

(published on muni)

all about eve

Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s sharp script anchors this story about New York City theater life, with Bette Davis playing an aging Broadway diva who employs a starstruck fan (Anne Baxter) as her assistant, only to learn the woman is a conniving upstart. The now-classic All About Eve won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Mankiewicz), Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (George Sanders). –Netflix

uhh… this movie is seriously so, so awesome. I was dreading watching it because I had in my head I’d seen it before and was bored beyond belief. if that’s the case I must have been in the single digits because I was simply mesmerized. yeah its all old-n-black-n-white but the characters are timeless, the dialogue is glory and the story does not disappoint.

things worth mentioning:

1) why is this movie on the sf flicks list? because all of the interior theatre scenes were filmed in the curran theatre. totes legit!

2) marilyn monroe has a small part and as I assumed after watching my week with marilyn… she’s a crappy actress. I still feel sorry for her as she clearly suffered from mental illness but lets get real: she got everywhere by being a hot piece of ass. period. and I’m not so much annoyed that sir elton wrote a song about her but that he got lazy when he wrote the song about diana. something tells me miss monroe wasn’t out there all puckered and coiffed while cradling AIDS babies… but wikipedia is currently dark so if you’ve got info otherwise lemme know.

3) obvi I went on a googling rampage finding out what happened to each of the main players and stumbled upon some juicy scoop about celeste holm who played bette’s bestie. super old lady, marries someone half her age, sons are angry, inheritance is blown on legal fees… just read it.

4) and lastly, I’ve got a new favorite movie quote. slick theatre critic, addison dewitt, is explaining to eve how he scored some info and says, “I had lunch with Karen not three hours ago. As always with women who try to find out things, she told more than she learned.” yep. pretty much the story of my life.

FIVE STARS

mar-low-licious

as perhaps a few of you will recall, just over a year ago I received the most delightful gift from a good friend who is oh so familiar with my YOT obsession. I figured it was time to tackle something from this most fabulous of booklets and dive into the world of desserts once and for all.

published 1930 by angelus-campfire co., chicago

desserts scare me. there, I said it. I never make them for three reasons: 1) I prefer savory to sweet always, 2) desserts are unbelievably easy to source in the purchased form and 3) baking is like watching paint dry. so I rarely go down this road and when I do find myself out of my element. I figured it would be a no-brainer to make one of chef roemer’s recipes of the palace hotel fame but that turned out to be too stressful to fathom. check this out:

EGGS IN A NEST: Mix 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar and the grated rind of 1/2 lemon. Chill, then roll as pie paste and bake a shell of this sugar dough on a pie tin. Fill with French Cream and cover with Campfire Marshmallows. Garnish with apricot jam.

that’s the extent of the recipe. sure, an experienced baker could sort this out in a heartbeat but I’m left with “chill how long?” “bake at what temperature?” “bake on a pie tin or in a pie tin? and for how long?” “wtf is french cream?” “why is chef roemer all hoity-toity?!?”

so I chose something that came with a ton of explanation and didn’t involve an oven. not a famous chef’s recipe but definitely doable. campfire marlows after the jump.

fancy food takeaways

this weekend was the fancy foods show and, as expected, all in all good times. I put in a solid 7 hours over the course of 2 days and am straight up exhausted and stuffed. if you aren’t familiar with the glory that is the fancy foods show, well, I’d suggest watching the video in the above link which does a pretty good job capturing its scope. the ffs isn’t open to the general public although it’s pretty easy to roll if you so desire. (we register under suzy’s company, batter & dough.) it’s 35 bucks to walk around and eat samples of close to everything you could dream of. best deal under the sun. here are my takeaways.

1) is stubb’s bbq undergoing economic hardship? their booth was depressingly subpar this year.

2) is being a total pouty faced b*tch a requirement to work at the republic of tea? I’m not a tea drinker but if I ever become one will not be subscribing to their corporate grody-ness.

3) is slapping the word “brooklyn” on anything the new trend? suzy seems to think so. my favorite pickles at the show were by far the ones by the brooklyn brine co.

4) is three twins ice cream the best thing ever? I’m going to say yes.

there were many, many other yummy things we tasted. I loved the gabbi patrick booth and the olive oil at arianna trading company was out of this world.

it wouldn’t be a fancy foods show without a celebrity chef sighting and I had zero shame in snapping a pic. I took only a few others which are posted on flickr. good times, yo!

the revenge of sister act

Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) is again asked to don the nun’s habit to help a run-down Catholic school, presided over by Mother Superior (Maggie Smith). And if trying to reach out to a class full of uninterested students wasn’t bad enough, the sisters discover that the school is due to be closed by the unscrupulous local authority chief Mr. Crisp (James Coburn). –IMDB

I am seriously, not joking, 100% convinced this movie didn’t have a script. nope, the entire thing was ad-libbed.

I knew I was in for trouble when I saw jennifer love hewitt had a role and she was calling herself jennifer “love” hewitt. horrible use of quotations is one of my biggest pet peeves. is your middle name love or not??

of course I immediately report to IMDB and was very pleased to discover they’re so on top of it.

in a nutshell: script or no script this movie blows.

TWO STARS