Showing posts with label Foodies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foodies. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

From Finicky to Foodie and Back Again: Confessions of a Baby Boomer and What She Ate





Look at her.

She looks like such a nice, dutiful little girl with her neatly folded hands and her little braids with the bows and her crooked bangs (cut by her father), but, don't let that fool you.  That little girl was a very finicky little girl when it came to food and could case major scenes if forced to eat something that "looked funny."

She wasn't just finicky.  She was VERY finicky.

As the audience used to ask in unison on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" when he made a pronouncement like that: 

"How finicky was she?"

And like Johnny Carson, I will reply:

  • She was so finicky that she wouldn't eat steak because she had to chew it too many times
  • She was so finicky that she wouldn't eat spaghetti sauce on her spaghetti, just melted butter
  • She was so finicky that when she went to camp she worried more about the fact that she would have to try at least one bite of what was served than that she couldn't swim and might possibly drown
  • She was so finicky that her salad was plain iceberg lettuce
  • She was so finicky that she wanted her peanut butter toast cut into "fairy cakes" (I think the Brits call them "soldiers")
  • She was so finicky that she cried if cooked carrots were anywhere in her vicinity

You get the idea.  She was really, really finicky.  And as I sit here sipping my glass of gruner veltliner and nibbling on a little piece of taleggio and a baguette, with some baby gherkins and fig jam on the side, I can confess that little girl was yours truly.

So what happened?  How did that little finicky little girl turn into a foodie who thinks nothing of crunching away on squid tentacles or relishing a nice bowl of pho with beef tendon?

I tackled some of my childhood finicky food preferences back in 2013 with "A Baby Boomer's Food Memories," where I shared some of my mother's recipes too, so I won't repeat myself here, though I will remind you just how finicky I was. 

I don't know how it happened but I did not trust food.  Or maybe it was my mother.  She liked to make casseroles and those are anathema to someone with food fears.  When I would ask her what was in it she would say, "Oh, butter and flour and meat and other good things."  I was suspicious that she would sneak something I didn't like into it, to say the least (which she often did), so I just said, "I'll have a tuna sandwich."  And when I say tuna sandwich, I am not talking about tuna SALAD.  Oh, no...that would include onions and mayonnaise (I only ate Miracle Whip in those days) and, horror of horrors, possibly mustard.  No, my tuna sandwich was plain albacore tuna laid out on bread that had been spread lightly with Miracle Whip.  Or if my mother was feeling particularly motherly, she would serve it to me on toast that was buttered on both sides.  Yum.

So besides tuna sandwiches, what else would I eat?

  • Cottage cheese (I liked to stir a little milk into it to make it more like soup)
  • Kraft dinner with pieces of bacon mixed into it (most people call this Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, but we always called it Kraft dinner - I guess because it WAS dinner)
  • Soft-boiled eggs with a dollop of butter 
  • Peanut butter on toast
  • Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup (made with milk, not water, and sometimes my mother would float pieces of peanut butter toast in the soup - I know it sounds weird but it's actually delicious.  Peanut butter is one of those things that goes with everything! See there was a bit of the foodie already starting to creep out though I can't quite explain why tomato soup was OK but tomato sauce on my spaghetti was not)
  • Grilled cheese sandwiches
  • Fish sticks
  • Hamburger with just ketchup
  • Likewise hotdog with just ketchup (I abhorred yellow mustard and actually still do - if I was presented with a sandwich with mustard on it I would go hungry rather than eat it because once that yellow goop gets on the bread, there is no getting it off no matter what you do!)
  • Potatoes in any incarnation
  • Chicken and turkey (but only the dark meat)
  • Jello and anything sweet (but no coconut)
  • TV dinners if the vegetable was corn.

(Speaking of TV dinners, I don't think anyone these days realizes what a big deal TV dinners were when they were invented back in the 50's.  I think my mother must have died and gone to heaven, even though she was a really good cook and cooked most things from scratch.  But when you have a finicky kid like I was, she just had to put one of those babies in the oven, then set it on the TV tray and put me in front of the TV and she was done.  Yes, we had TV trays).

So growing up, that was about the extent of my food repertoire.

And, yes.  If I didn't like what my mother made for dinner, she would fix me something different, one of my acceptable foods.

Now I can just hear you parents out there thinking what a spoiled child I must have been and you certainly wouldn't do that for your child.  My mother would prepare the meal for the family, and then if I objected to the menu, make something special for me.  I probably was spoiled in many ways, but I don't think that is one of them.  My experience has been that most parents force their children to at least try the food that is put in front of them, that they eat what the rest of the family eats or go without.  Some parents even make their kids sit at the table until they eat what is put before them even if it takes hours.  And if that is what you believe is the best way to raise your child, then that is your right, but I am also going to say that it is also the quickest way to create food issues for your children. 

I applaud my mother for not making a big deal about food and what I ate.

The way I see it is, the best way to create an aversion to certain foods, or saddle your children with food issues, is to make them eat what they don't want to eat. You have no idea what a casserole looks like to a little kid. Certain foods would literally make me gag and that was not creating a very relaxing dinner table.



Yes, I was a finicky little girl and my mother catered to me, but I grew up to be a woman who has no food issues and eats just about everything.  I was never a model, but I was in the normal body weight range for most of my life (and if you want to know why I am now no longer in the normal range, read my post "My Menopause")!  But I digress.

Though I didn't appreciate it at the time, I believe the fact that my mother catered to me in that way also made me feel very loved and looked after, which in turn led to the confidence I would need to go out and make my own way in the world.  And looking back, being a mother myself, I know she didn't mind doing it, because she was able to show her love.  My mother was not a particularly outwardly affectionate woman, but she showed her love in ways like that.

So how did that little girl who cried if there was mustard on her sandwich or considered iceberg lettuce "eating her vegetables" turn into a foodie?

After years of spending massive amounts of time trying to avoid most foods and causing a scene while I was doing it, I had an epiphany my senior year in college.  I realized my finickyness was affecting my life.  I mean, it is a bit embarrassing to ask at a Thai restaurant if I could have a cheese sandwich.  

But I do have to give myself a bit of slack.  It's not all my fault.  I didn't exactly come from a foodie background.  I grew up in the Midwest and a town that would hardly be called a fine dining town.  Howard Johnsons was my parents idea of fine dining and even then we were not allowed to order anything special to drink or dessert, because that was extra and my Dad only wanted to pay for the entrees.  He would have a heart attack if he knew what we pay for wine these days when we dine out.  Sometimes the wine is a bigger part of the bill than the food!  It was also not a town with a lot of diversity in the food options nor were my parents very adventurous. Let me just say that my mother once told me she had tried "Thigh" food.  I think she was almost 80 at the time.  I didn't have the heart to correct her pronunciation.

So when I moved to San Francisco after college, I vowed that I would no longer be finicky but rather I would eat EVERYTHING. 



Though San Francisco is a town renowned for its food, when I lived there I was, shall we say, a bit cash deficient and thus not really able to avail myself of all of the fine dining the town had to offer. But I was still able to hone my love of Chinese food in that City's famous Chinatown, eat Chicken Kiev at a local Russian mom and pop, try kimchi in Korea Town and expand my hamburger orders to include onions and tomatoes.  I was getting there.

Then when I moved to the Monterey Bay Area where I was married and raised my family, it was all about seafood - sand dabs, abalone, sushi and calamari were favorites. 

But it wasn't until I moved to Seattle over ten years ago, that I became a real foodie.



Seattle is the premiere food capital of the Pacific Northwest (sorry, Portland), and I embraced it with a passion. 

I discovered that I loved not only eating food, but reading about the restaurants serving the food and the "celebrity chefs' who were making it.  The city was awash in new restaurants, and I read every review and attempted to go to every restaurant.  I even made a list of the best restaurants A-Z and started my quest to sample them all in order.  (However, by the time I got to the "F's," I realized that more and more new restaurants were opening with names that began with letters before "F," so I changed my strategy to restaurants by neighborhood).

Moving to Seattle, I became a fervent foodie (and if you want to know which restaurants are my favorites, you will have to check back on this blog) and embraced all things foodie with a passion!

I also threw myself into food-oriented TV programs. I am an avid viewer of "Top Chef" and have also watched all of Gordon Ramsay's TV shows from "Hell's Kitchen" to "Master Chef.  I read Marco Pierre White's memoir (he was the first enfant terrible of the kitchen), as well as all of Tony Bourdain's books (I watch all of his TV shows too).  I even paid extra for the VIP tickets so I could meet Tony when he did a show here in Seattle (he was very nice).



I "starred" on an episode of "Check Please," a PBS program that plays in several cities across the country.  The Chicago version can even claim a young Senator named Barack Obama (check You Tube). The gist of the show is that you and two others choose your favorite restaurant. Everyone goes to each other's restaurant choice, and then we get together with the host of the program to be filmed as we talk about our experiences.

(Here it is if you care to watch it).
 



And there I was expounding about food. And watching myself, realizing I was doing it insufferably so.

So as with most passions, it is easy to overdo it.

The finicky little girl who only liked her spaghetti with butter on it, had turned into a true foodie who could rave about her calamari steak, but as you can see, she had also turned into a huge, insufferable food snob!  I mean I am even saying on the show in front of millions of people that I don't like to dine in a restaurant with children!

If I were to revise that list of how finicky I was when I was a little girl to a list of how finicky I am today, it would look  something like this:

  • I am so finicky that I send my steak back if it's not perfectly medium rare (even though I know I risk the chef spitting on my food)
  • I am so finicky that if I want pasta, I don't even eat spaghetti anymore - more like lobster ravioli or braised monk fish on a bed of spiralized zucchini
  • I am so finicky that when I am at a high end restaurant I am disappointed if they don't give me an amuse bouche
  • I am so finicky that I won't order wine if the restaurant doesn't have a nice Oregon Pinot Gris or Pinot Blanc
  • I am so finicky that haven't set foot in a Denny's in over 10 years
  • I am so finicky that I refuse to be seated in a restaurant near the door, bathrooms or kitchen
  • And I could go on, but I won't

And I am not proud of all of that. 

I have also turned into a person who chefs don't even like.

I read an article recently where Seattle chefs shared food terms that are overused and they hate to hear:

"Foodie" is right up there but how about these?

  • Veggie
  • Like butta
  • Sando (for sandwich)
  • Food porn
  • Foodgasm
  • Yummy
  • "Chef" as a verb (as in "cheffing)
  • Ethnic food (as in throwing all food that isn't European into that category)
  • Umami (using that to describe any flavor your don't understand)
  • Sexy
  • Mouthfeel


There's more, but I will let you read the article for yourself. 

My point here is that I have used over half of those words myself and finding out that, if a famous chef heard me say any of those words to describe the food I was eating, he or she would describe me as an idiot, has made me rethink this whole foodie thing, er, I mean this thing about food snobbism.

I may eat everything and actually savor all kinds of great food that I would never have touched as a child, I may love to read restaurant reviews and talk about my dining experiences, I may know what buerre blanc and veloute are, but in so doing, I have gone in the other direction and my newfound passion has turned me into a finicky snob about food. 

I have reverted back to that finicky little girl.

However, there is hope.

The difference between me now and that little finicky girl who expected her mother to cater to her finicky nature is that the adult Rosy realizes she can be a pain in the butt about her passion for fine dining, so from this day forward I vow to continue to enjoy good food, dine in fine restaurants and review them (watch for the occasional restaurant review in my Friday "Week in Reviews" posts), but I am going to watch my language and stop showing off. 

I may know all about galettes, aguilettes and semi freddo, but I don't need to be snooty about it.  I don't want to be that kind of person. You know the type.. describing her meal and acting all shocked and snobby that you didn't know what she was talking about ("You don't know what bucatini is?  Well, bless your little heart!") or telling her that you are not a big fan of chicken feet and her looking all sorry for you, not to mention your nodding off because she was boring you to death. 

No, I don't want to be that person. I certainly don't want to shame people about their food preferences, just as I wouldn't have liked it very much if people had made fun of me when I was young because I had never tried pizza (it looked funny).  Well, they did, but I got over it. 

Food is like art.  It's a matter of taste.

So for those of you out there who consider yourselves food experts, or god forbid, foodies, this is a cautionary tale.  Realize that not everyone knows what rillettes are, and more importantly, not everyone even cares. Gauge your audience, realize everyone is not as gung ho about food as you and stop showing off. No matter how passionate you might be about something, nobody likes a show off, even when it comes to food! 

And, finally, there is a little irony in all of this. 

Despite my food snobbism, in weak moments or when I am depressed or late at night when no one is looking, I revert to my childhood.  That finicky little girl who didn't like much in the way of food, whose mother catered to her, is still in there.  When I am craving something to eat, I don't whip up a cheese soufflé or a fancy omelet or potatoes lyonnaise. OK, sorry, a fancy potato dish.  

No, in those quiet, soulful moments, there is nothing like a piece of toast with peanut butter on it (cut into "fairy cakes, of course) to dip into some cream of tomato soup or a soft-boiled egg mashed up with a dollop of butter or a toasted tuna sandwich buttered on both sides to make me feel better.

Those comfort foods from my past take me back to that finicky little girl back home again being cared for by her mother. 



And nothing served to me in even the best restaurants in the world can compare to that.

 

That's it for this week!
 

Thanks for reading!

 

See you Friday 

 
for my review of
 
"Denial"

 and 

  The Week in Reviews

(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)


 and the latest on



"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before  

 I Die Project." 

 

 
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Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.

 

Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database). 

Go to IMDB.com, find the movie you are interested in.  Once there, click on the link that says "Explore More" on the right side of the screen.  Scroll down to External Reviews and when you get to that page, you will find Rosy the Reviewer alphabetically on the list.

NOTE:  On some entries, this has changed.  If you don't see "Explore More" on the right side of the screen, scroll down just below the description of the film in the middle of the page. Click where it says "Critics." Look for "Rosy the Reviewer" on the list.

Or if you are using a mobile device, look for "Critics Reviews." Click on that and you will find me alphabetically under "Rosy the Reviewer."

 

Friday, January 10, 2014

The Best Food Shows on TV and the Week in Reviews

[I review the movies "Saving Mr. Banks,"  "Last Love," "Tell No One," "Elysium," "Sightseers," and "I'm So Excited" and recommend a great cookbook].

But first

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you have probably already surmised that I like food and my TV, so it's no wonder that I consider myself a bit of an expert on food programs, not to be confused with "cooking shows."  I don't particularly like watching people cook, but I love watching people running around cooking in competition or traveling the world and eating food in exotic locales.


So here are
Rosy the Reviewer's picks for
The Best Food Shows on TV.



Top Chef


Top Chef is the granddaddy of the cooking show competitions. 

Well established chefs from well- known restaurants all over the U.S. compete for money, but mostly culinary props as "Top Chef." This is a slick show with no heavy handedness, though there is unabashed promotion of the City in which the competition takes place (though when they were in Seattle they shafted us by heading to Alaska after only a couple of episodes)The show is currently in New Orleans. 

The host is Padma Lakshmi, ex-wife of novelist Salmon Rushdie, and I am not really sure what her foodie credentials are.  She is a skinny bitch (pardon my French), who doesn't look like she really likes food, and her main roles on the show are to tell the chef's when they have only five minutes left, taste the food, and basically look good in her tight frocks.  But it's fun to hear her tell the loser "Please pack your knives and go" at the end of each show. 

 "Top Chef Masters" continues the "journey" as past, popular contestants compete alongside other well-known chefs for that highest honor. 

I have to brag that I have eaten at Art Smith's (Southern Art), Richard Blais's (The Spence), Hugh Acheson's (Empire State South) and Kevin Gillespie's (Woodfire Grill) restaurants in Atlanta (thanks to my daughter who lived there for a few years) - all major players in the "Top Chef" franchise. 

And here I am with Richard Blais at his restaurant. 
Yes, I also groupie for famous chefs!
 
Next stop:  Aragona, here in Seattle.  Chef Carrie Mashaney was just booted off "Top Chef" last week after a stellar showing.





The Taste


Think "The Voice" for food. 

Contestants for The Taste prepare one perfect bite of their dish for each judge to try in a blind taste test.  As in "The Voice," the judges choose the best tastes from a blind taste test, the winners become part of their team and the judges mentor them for the rest of the show.   

Marcus Samuelsson joins the judging team this year (it's on now).  He was born in Ethiopia and was adopted by a Swedish couple and he grew up in Sweden. He won "Top Chef Masters" in 2010, and I have had the privilege of eating at one of his restaurants in Stockholm (American Table Brasserie and Bar).  I have fond memories of the cute bartender.  But I digress. Samuelsson now runs a famous restaurant in NYC.  You can read about his life in "Yes Chef: A Memoir."




Anything with Gordon Ramsay


 
Gordon is really a pussy cat.

I know he yells, but from Hell's Kitchen to Kitchen Nightmares to Masterchef, I am a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay's.  Yes, Hell's Kitchen has some ridiculous contestants and, yes, Gordon yells a lot, but I love watching Gordon do his stuff. However, if you are not a fan of people who tell it like it is, you probably won't like Gordon or Tony (see below).  But being direct is also my credo, so I get them and appreciate their talents despite their sometimes jarring sensibilities. 

Read Marco Pierre White's book "The Devil in the Kitchen" if you want to find out why Gordon yells so much.  It's the kitchen culture he grew up with But if you want to see him get all warm and fuzzy, watch "Kitchen Nightmares" where he not only helps people get their restaurants solvent again, he imparts personal advice too.  He's a sort of foodie psychologist.


MasterChef


If you like "Top Chef," you will like Master Chef.

Yet another show we stole from the Brits. As one of the judges, Gordon Ramsay is actually a teddy bear in this one.  Similar to "Top Chef," but with amateur cooks, the contestants are thrown difficult food challenges using strange ingredients and with little time to prepare them.





Anything with Tony Bourdain


If you like food and travel, you will love Tony.

Tony's book "Kitchen Confidential," where he skewered the restaurant industry, brought him to the public's attention, but his TV shows "A Cook's Tour," "No Reservations," "The Layover" and "Parts Unknown" have made him a big star (he is also a judge on "The Taste.")  His shows are not just food shows, but travelogues.  He travels the world and eats, yes, but he also shows the viewer an interesting, unusual and personal side to the countries he visits.  "The Layover" is particularly fun as he shows us what to do in a particular city when we have a 24-48 hour layover.


2015 Update:  Tony came to town and we were able to see him and do a Meet and Greet.  He's a really nice guy!


Food Network Star

Want your own show on the Food Network? 

Contestants are put through their paces to see who has the personality and cooking and TV skills to host their own show.  Winners do actually get their own show and become a Food Network Star, in varying degrees. Guy Fieri and Melissa d'Arabian have been past winners.  Not sure if there will be a 2014 series, but you can find past shows on YouTube. 
(2015 update.  Yes, there was a 2015 series).






Check Please NW/Come Dine With Me


"Check Please" is a TV show that airs in various U.S. cities. 

Three people choose their favorite restaurants and all three eat there and then get together on camera to discuss what they thought.  Yours truly appeared on the show in July of 2012 and if you care to see my star turn, take a look.  "How To Cook a Wolf" was my restaurant.




Currently, you can find this show in Phoenix, Miami, San Francisco and Kansas City, in addition to Seattle.

"Come Dine with Me" is similar, except in this case 4 or 5 people gather at each other's homes to eat a meal prepared by the host.  At the end of the evening, they rate the meal and at the end of the week, the host with the most points wins money.  What makes this show fun is the narrator who tosses out snarky comments throughout.  I started watching this program on UK TV (and you can find it on YouTube), but this year, Lifetime picked up the Canadian version for a few episodes.  Fingers crossed that a U.S. version gets made because it's a great show if you are a foodie.

What are your favorite Foodie shows? 
 



***In Theatres Now***
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
The supposed true story of how Walt Disney secured the rights to make a movie of "Mary Poppins," despite the reluctance and downright irascibility of the author, P.L. Travers.
 
This film embodied what you expect from a Disney film.  It's thoroughly entertaining.  Tom Hanks embodies Walt Disney (it's been a good year for Tom) and Emma Thompson will surely be nominated for an Academy Award for her portrait of Travers, though one could say her performance was a bit on the one note side. 
 
Though I  enjoyed the film very much, my one complaint would be the script.  Throughout the film, I wanted to know why P.L. Travers turned out to be so bitter. In my mind, I couldn't make the leap from her childhood to the bitter middle-aged woman she became.  Yes, she had a traumatic childhood and there were some allusions to other aspects of her life, but the events of her life from childhood to middle age were left unexplainedBut other than that, Mary Poppins is a beloved figure and movie and people sitting near me were singing along with the tunes and smiling, remembering Mary Poppins and her movie and, no doubt, their childhoods, and I think Hubby was blubbering a bit.
 
Rosy the Reviewer says...fans of Mary Poppins and Disney films will love this.  The acting is first rate. Recommended.
 



***DVDS***
You Might Have Missed
And Some You Should Be Glad You Did
(I watch the bad ones so you don't have to)
 
 


Last Love (2013)

 
A grieving, widowed American philosophy professor living in Paris makes a connection with a wounded young French woman.
 
Michael Caine can do no wrong in my book, though why they made him an American, I don't know.  His accent is fine, but I like him better as a Brit.
 
Rosy the Reviewer says...If you liked "Amour (won Best Foreign Language film in 2012 and Emmanuelle Riva was nominated for Best Actress)," you will like this one. 
 
In fact, I loved this one. This one is less dark, utterly charming and captures the beauty of Paris and the French countryside.  Not to be missed. 




Tell No One (2006)

A French doctor is suspected of his wife's murder which happened eight years earlier.  He gets involved in trying to solve the case when he starts getting emails from his dead wife!
 
Hubby wanted to see this because he was reading a book about French parks and it said Parc Monseau, one of the parks in the book, figured prominently in this filmI was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my favorite French actors - Francois Cluzet - was in it.  I call him the French Dustin Hoffman, because they look so much alike. 
 
Am I not right?
 
 
 
You may have seen him in a more recent film, The Intouchables, where he played a paralyzed man, whose nurse tries to help him get the most out of life.
 
Rosy the Reviewer says...A fast paced mystery (you won't even notice the subtitles), photographed beautifully and well-acted.  If you are a Hitchcock fan, you will like how this unfolds. Highly recommended.






Elysium (2013)


It's 2154, the earth is a wreck and the wealthy have moved to a space station and left the poor to rot on earth. 

Matt tries to save the earth.

This is similar to "Upside Down" (2012), which I reviewed in an earlier blog and which I actually liked better.  Directed by Neill Blomkamp, who directed the excellent District 9, (which I highly recommend), this is bloody, fast-paced and has a great villain.  Speaking of bloody, Jodie Foster is bloody awful as the villainess Delacourt.  I couldn't figure out if she meant to play it campy or not.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you like dystopian thrillers, you will enjoy this, but it's not in the same league as "District 9."





Sightseers (2012)



A dream caravan holiday turns into a killing spree.

Caravan is Brit speak for a trailer. Both of the stars are British stand-up comedians who perfected these characters in their routines and they are perfect for this. These characters are not nice people. This is a very dark, but humorous treatise on what it means to be a good English person from the viewpoint of a serial killer. Let's just say this guy has high standards and if you don't meet them, well...

The ending was reminiscent of "The War of the Roses." If you like dark, dark comedy and, if you like British humor, or should I say, humour, you will like this.  If not, proceed at your own peril.

Rosy the Reviewer says...Think gorgeous English countryside, quirckiness and lots of blood. If Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg collaborated, this would be it.


 
 
I'm So Excited (2013)
 
 
 
 
A flight from Madrid to Mexico City encounters some problems and everyone on board must face the danger in their own way, and let's just say, much kinkiness ensues.
 
Almodavar! 
 
Nobody's movies look like his.  The colors are so vibrant and the characters so flamboyant. I have been a fan since his first big hit "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (1988).  Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz make cameo appearances here because Almodavar made them stars in Spain before they hit it big in the U.S.  When I saw Banderas in "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (1990)," I went...drool... and predicted he would become a big star, despite the controversy surrounding the film (see it and see what you think). I consider myself a feminist, but couldn't understand what all the sturm und drung was around that film. So there was some bondage and some forced sex.  Stuff happens.  Penelope was his muse in "All About My Mother" and the rest is history. 

Rosy the Reviewer says...after seeing this movie flying in a plane will never be the same.  Or movies, for that matterNo one makes movies like Almodavar.  But they are kinky, so if you are easily offended, perhaps his movies aren't for you.




***Book of the Week***
 


The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes by Amy Thielen (2013)
 
 
This ain't the food I ate growing up in the Midwest.

I don't remember "Sweet and sour potluck meatballs."  I remember Swedish meatballs.

I don't remember "Braunschweiger Mousse," I remember just plain old braunschweiger.

I don't remember "Fancy meatloaf with bacon, mushrooms and pistachios," I just remember plain old meatloaf, though my mother did use ground beef, pork and veal. Pistachios in meat loaf?

I don't remember "Wild Boar Sloppy Joes," I just remember plain old sloppy joes.  Are there wild boars in the Midwest?

And the Seven Layer Salad wasn't a Russian Seven Layer Salad.

But, hey, we all have to grow up sometime.

 
Rosy the Reviewer says...I love reading cookbooks and this one is fun. Create some new memories.


Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned. 
Also Netflix is currently streaming "Sightseers."


That's it for this week. 

See you for Tuesday for
"The Year of the Baby Boomer."
 
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it and/or email it to your friends.