Of Crockpots and Chili

As the school year goes by, inevitably I get busy. Even the most busy person needs to eat, however, and with a bit of forethought it is entirely possible to eat well, even when swamped. For example, I am a huge fan (and owner of) the crockpot. Slow cookers mean tossing food in the pot in the morning and returning to a delicious stew when you drag yourself home in the evening. Crockpot meals can be as simple as tossing some random pieces of chicken in with rice, water and a few bouillon cubes and coming home to a delicious Chicken Congee. (Though normally when I do so, I also add some ginger, a generous dollop of soy sauce, and pepper, too!). And if you want something more complicated, it can involve multiple steps like slicing, dicing, or precooking your ingredients.

One of my favorite crockpot meals is a delicious homemade Chili. I modified my father's chili recipe somewhat for the crockpot: mostly this involves reducing the amount of liquid, since it doesn't cook off as well. Every fall, I make a point of making a HUGE batch of chili in the crockpot early in the season. This is because it is very tasty and freezes quite well. This brings us back to my starting point: late in the fall, I tend to get BUSY. This is the case currenty, in fact - I  am catching up with a lot of things, since I've been traveling around between Baltimore, Boston, New York and New Jersey for Thanksgiving, Weddings, and visits with friends and family. So it was the perfect week for me to dig through my freezer and emerge triumphant with a big container of frozen chili.

Here is the recipe:

Chili

2 lbs ground beef

2 large diced onions (DON’T skimp on the onion)

2 cans dark kidney beans (1 lb cans for all)

1 small can tomato sauce

1 chopped up tomato (optional)

1 can corn

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder to taste

(Hot sauce and salsa can be added as well, for extra flavor)

Brown the beef, drain, put into crock-pot. Sauté onions in olive oil. Add all ingredients. Leave crock-pot 4-5 hours on high, adding corn for the second half. (If you want you can add the corn at the beginning, but it will not be as firm.) If there is too much liquid, take the lid off for the last hour of cooking or so. If there is not enough liquid, add more tomato sauce.

Now, while chili IS delicious enough on its own, one still might not want to eat it plain for several days in a row. So, while my parents were still in town for Turkey Day, my father and I gussied up the chili just a bit to make Chili enchiladas. This is what we always call them, mind, we don't actually use any enchilada sauce or whatnot though. A slightly better descriptor might be Baked Chili Tacos.  This is a really easy way to make your chili a bit more interesting. Once you have the chili, all you really have to do is chop up some veggies and grate some cheese - and if you are REALLY feeling lazy it's pretty easy ot get lettuce and cheese pre-grated.

The recipe is straightforward: chop lettuce, tomato, onion, and any other toppings you might like. Grate a LOT of cheddar cheese. Layer them all into a taco shell (chili, lettuce, onion, tomato, cheese would be MY preferred order!), with perhaps a bit of hot sauce if you wish, and lay those out on a cookie sheet (with foil to make easy cleanup!). Top the whole thing with more lettuce, onion, tomato and cheese, and bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes until its nice and hot. Then, just enjoy!

So busy week or not, I had some very tasty enchiladas for dinner twice, and some straight up chili for lunch a couple other days, finishing it off. So I'll have to do a nice batch of something when I get a bit more time, to resupply my designated "don't feel like cooking" freezer space!

Delicious tacos!

The French Laundry's Gruyère Cheese Gougères

As I said in the last blog post, while Benson and I visited our friend Kaila in Waltham, we did a lot of cooking. This dish is from the same meal as the previous post, but I thought it deserved its own explanation. This recipe originates from the wonderful French Laundry Cookbook, featuring recipes from Thomas Keller's Michelin 3-star restaurant The French Laundry in California. It has amazing, gourmet recipes, with full explanations of WHY you do certain steps, and clear explanations of techniques which I might have thought were beyond me or too complicated until I tried them and saw how much they improved things. It was a Christmas present from a thoughtful, sweet, and hungry boyfriend. I've made other dishes from this cookbook, as well, and each of them have tasted delicious. My presentation skills usually are a bit lacking, but, well, the food is good. It's definitely inspiring me to improve myself, at any rate! Anyways, Gruyère Cheese Gougères are hot and crisp and moist in the center, great for a large group of people to munch on, and, despite the long recipe description, pretty easy to make!

This was the result of shredding
 a 3.5 oz block of cheese

Benson and I have made these twice: the first time, Benson described the taste as "like Goldfish" (you know, the little orange fish snacks?) - but the second time it didn't quite have that same flavor - it depends highly on the exact cheese you use. The first time we used an older, harder Gruyere and the second time it was a bit fresher and softer. Both times were good, but I could taste the difference. So, if possible, taste your Gruyere to make sure its a flavor you like. I think I'd go with the older hard gruyere, personally! You could use a different cheese for an entirely different flavor! Chedder, perhaps? I was pretty happy with Gruyere.

For another recount of this recipe, visit the excellent blog "French Laundry at Home" in which one woman cooks EVERY DISH from the French Laundry Cookbook, with her own minor tweaks and advice. Every recipe I've made from French Laundry, I've looked at her blog for advice. She also has a useful list of both the most approachable recipes, and her favorite recipes: and sometimes these two lists even overlap! Find that here.

Gruyère Cheese Gougères (makes 4 dozen puffs)

1 cup cold water
7 tbs unsalted butter
1 tbs Kosher salt (specifically Diamond Crystal, apparently)
1 pinch white sugar
1 1/4 cup white flour
4 to 5 large eggs

1 1/4 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (a 3.5 oz block is about right)
fresh ground white pepper

A brief aside on salt: I found these slightly salty (and I LOVE salt), so you might want to go a little easy on the salt. The book actually specifies Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, and warns that if you use some other kind of salt you may have to adjust your salt levels further, since different types of salt have different properties. Kosher salt dissolves fast and is good at mixing it's flavor into whatever your cooking. I've recently started using kosher salt a lot more in my cooking for this reason. I currently have not one, not two, but FIVE different kinds of salt in my house: iodized salt, kosher salt, a grinder full of sea-salt,  my flavored truffle salt, and my prized "popcorn and nut" salt . This last is a very uniform and fine flaked salt which sticks very well to things like nuts and popcorn (hence the name). I only use it for things like popcorn, nuts, and homemade fries - things that you want salted in THAT sense, not salted in the sense of a well seasoned soup. My dad always has this around the house, and, before the internet became so convenient for shopping, often had trouble finding it in stores. This resulted in him hitting up movie theaters (mostly the independent Charles Theater in Baltimore) and purchasing them directly from the movie theater. Though since he's a big movie goer, and after a while people recognize him at these places, he often gets the salt for free. This is how I got MY popcorn salt: when seeing Serenity (the movie from the tv show Firefly) in Boston, we noticed that the popcorn stand had laying out a ton of shakers of Popcorn salt. So we went up and asked how much they would sell two of them to us. This resulted in a couple very confused popcorn venders, who checked with the manager, who proceeded to just give us two canisters. It was awesome and highly amusing at the time. Anyway, that aside wasn't as brief as expected, but again, I really like salt.


Back to the recipe: Preheat the oven to 450F, then combine water, sugar, salt and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add ALL the flour at once, reducing the heat to medium, then stir constantly for 2 minutes. During this time, the batter should reduce and start to dry up and form a ball of dough.

Next, transfer to a bowl and beat with a mixer with a dough paddle for 30 seconds. Or in the case of someone who doesn't have such a thing (*cough* me *cough*) just beat stir it with a wooden spoon.

Add 4 eggs, then mix more on the dough paddle thing (or at this point, blend it in an electric mixer on the "mix" setting). You want it to form a nice, smooth, silky dough, which when you lift up the mixer forms soft peaks which fall over at the tip. If its stiff, add the egg white of the remaining fifth egg, mix more, and if it's STILL too stiff add the yolk as well. Once its softly peaking, add 3/4 of the gruyere cheese and mix until smooth. Taste, and adjust the seasoning by adding additional salt (again, not TOO much) and ground white pepper to taste.

Now, line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or baking mat. In 1 tbs lumps (or perhaps slightly larger), you want to place the batter on the parchment, with 2 inches between each mound. Ideally, these are in nice little balls - we used a melon baller which worked nicely, though I think they turned out a little smaller than I'd like - when they're a little larger they fluff up a bit more. The French Laundry Cookbook recommends using a pastry bag with a pastry tip to put out the little balls - you can do this by stuffing the dough in a ziplock bag and cutting off the corner. Once you've done this, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the doughballs, a bit of cheese on each one! About 1/2 tsp of cheese on each puff, ideally.

Just before baking

We halved the recipe, so we ended up with just over one baking tin full of these: if possible, you want to fit all of your puffs in one batch, since you will be changing the temperature of the oven partway through and thus will have to do each batch completely separately and wait for the oven to get back up to heat between if you don't manage it in one go. So, bake for 7-8 minutes at 450F, until they've puffed up a little and hold their shape. Then reduce heat to 350F, and bake for 20-25 minutes more until they're a lovely light golden brown, puffy and beautiful to behold. Biting into one at this point (careful, they're HOT), you'll find it's mostly hollow, slightly moist on the inside but still crisp on the outside. Absolutely delicious, and best when piping hot. The next day they're still tasty, but they lose a lot of the oomph they have right out of the oven. At any rate, a tasty and DIFFERENT type of starch/roll you can add to your meal, full of cheesy goodness!

A lovely toasty brown, with the cheese all melted into the puff!

Fun times with Kaila and Benson

This past week, Benson (my boyfriend, visiting from California for a wedding) and I went up to Waltham for a couple days to visit a friend from undergrad, Kaila. I lived with her for two years while I was at Brandeis University, in a house with 5 girls total, including us. And I miss her cooking, she's a great cook. All three of us, in fact, quite enjoy cooking and eating well, so we made a very nice feast on Tuesday night. Again, a good way to bond and chat with people, with a delicious result. First, the main course.

My co-chefs, Benson and Kaila

Chicken Cordon Bleu, as found on that very useful site, allrecipes.
6 chicken breasts
6 slices of sliced cheese
6 slices of ham
3 tbs of flour
1 tsp paprika
a handful of breadcrumbs (not in the recipe, but we added it anyway)
3 tbs butter
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup white wine
1 or 2 bouillon cubes
1 tbs cornstarch
1 cup whipping cream

We altered this recipe a bit, namely in our cooking method and the addition of breadcrumbs, but I think it turned out really nicely (we also halved it). Mix the flour and paprika (and we added some breadcrumbs), which will make up the crust of your chicken. Pound out the chicken breasts flat. Lay the cheese and the ham up in a roll, securing with toothpicks. Then roll in the egg, and bread with the crumb mixture. Next, pan fry the chicken packets in butter until they're nicely browned, and bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes, until fully cooked.

Meanwhile, for the sauce, mix the cornstarch and cream in a small bowl, and add to the skillet with the wine and a bouillon cube. Stir constantly until the cube dissolves (as cream can be finicky), and taste to see if you want a stronger chicken flavor - if so, add another bouillon cube. You want to cook this on medium-low heat until it has thickened into a nice saucy consistency. Then, when both sauce and chicken are complete, serve: pour the sauce over the chicken (or allow each person to do that on their own). Watch out for the toothpicks! It might be a good idea to remove those before serving to guests, or at very least warn them!

As sides, we also made Mashed Potatoes and Pan Roasted Parsnips. The potatoes were from scratch, and pretty straightforward (peel, cube, and boil potatoes; mash with butter, milk, salt and pepper until the right consistency and seasoning is reached! Add a bit of garlic for fun.) Similarly, the parsnips were another simple and delicious vegetable. If you haven't tried parsnips, they're really simple and easy to make. They look like giant albino carrots, and have a wonderful nuttiness to them. Here, we just peeled them and sliced them thin, and cooked them with a bit of butter, salt and pepper. Couldn't be more simple, couldn't be more delicious. An interesting and tasty vegetable! We also made Gruyere Cheese Gougeres (aka, cheese puffs), a recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook, but I think I'll save those for another post. They're a bit complicated, and French Laundry deserves it's own place to shine, really, it's a great book.


Finally, for dessert, we made:

Apples Pielettes (Cup-pies!)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 TBS salted butter
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp apple pie spice - aka some cinnamon, and a pinch each of cloves and allspice, with, in our case, a bit of nutmeg as well. Kaila cooking ALWAYS involves nutmeg!
1 tbs cornstarch
8 soft caramel candies
3 baking apples, pealed, cored, and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

Crust:
2 11-oz boxes of pie crust mix
1/2 cup water
1 egg, beaten

Anyways, you want to put the sugar, butter, apple juice, cream, spices, cornstarch and caramel in a pot on medium heat, so that everything melts all together, stirring constantly. Then add in the apples, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 8-10 minutes - you want the apples to still hold the shape, but the sauce to be thick and syrupy. Then remove from heat and set aside. This is delicious, and if you have leftovers, you can do what we did and make french toast the following morning and have this as the topping!

A dough blender

Heat the oven to 425F, then make up the pie crust. We actually used Kaila's pie crust recipe instead of the box kind: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 cup crisco, and a bit of water to keep it sticking together, all smashed together with a dough blender (NOT electronic, though it sounds that way!). Usually, I admit, when I make pies or quiche I use the pillsbury frozen ready made pie crust doughs - the crust isn't pre-baked, it's still dough form so you can shape it a bit, and you can bake it exactly as required by the recipe, and that's just fine. They're pretty tasty. But I have been thinking I want to try my hand at making actual crust, especially as it's fairly straightforwards. If you have your own recipe for crust, you want enough for a two crust pie. So just make that up, and divide in half. Take one half, then roll it out to 1/4 to 1/8 thickness.  Using a 4 inch cookie cutter (or the rim of a 13-oz coffee can), cut out 6 circles which you put in the bottom of a cupcake pan as the bottom of the cup-pies, then cut out 6 smaller 2 3/4  circles (with a glass rim, perhaps), which you'll use as the top. Then repeat this with the OTHER half of the dough, for an even dozen.

Fill each of the up pie crusts with the filling, and put the tiny circles on top, pinching all around the rim to seal them - make sure they're sealed tight! then slice a few slivers through the pie crust tops so they can vent (in decorative patterns, preferably!). Brush all over with egg so the crusts are a nice golden brown. Bake for 15 minutes until nice and brown, then remove from the oven. You can remove these from the muffin tin after perhaps about 10 minutes of letting them cool. And then, delicious pie-letts!

Pumpkin Pie-lettes

We liked these so much, the next day we did the whole thing again, only with pumpkin pie filling, instead. Note that if you take a random pie filling recipe, you'll end up with extra filling, so we had to take some dough and make one extra big pie-lette (not shown).

Anyway, Benson and I had a wonderful time visiting Kaila. We didn't JUST cook, naturally, we also walked around Waltham, which is really nice to do, since I DID live there for 4 years; we went to see Wreck-it-Ralph (a lot of fun, worth seeing); we watched some Arrested Development (Kaila hadn't seen it, though Benson and I had); and generally had a nice time. Benson left to go back to California, and I stayed an extra couple of days. And cooked some more, but thats another blog post!

Dinner is served!!!

Movies!

I am a huge fan of movies, in general. Old, new, everything in between. I like to read about them, I like to talk about them, and in undergrad I even took a couple film courses completely unrelated to my majors (math and physics, so no big surprise that the "Hitchcock" and "Film Noir" classes I took were unrelated to those). But I have a special fondness for older films, the films that could be called classic. There are a lot of new movies I like, don't get me wrong, but older films often have a quality that sometimes seems to be lacking in the more modern film. 

Since I do very much like to TALK about movies - what I've seen, what genres I like and dislike, what I would recommend - I have, on occasion, been asked to recommend films to people. Recently, on an observing run to Hawaii, one of the local observers was kind enough to give me a tour of the island, and we ended up talking quite a bit as she did so. She had been wanting to get more into classic cinema, since when you are up on a mountain all night, you tend to have some downtime, when you are able to watch film. So, she asked me to write her a list of recommendations of where she could start off. I, personally, was thrilled. Not only do I love movies, but I ADORE interesting lists. Data can be lots of fun, and sorting through and organizing things is something I can find very satisfying. So, after returning home, I crafted a very long email recommending some of my favorite films. 

Now that I've recently started this blog, I figured that with some editing and expanding, that email could make for an interesting blog post - to those interested in starting off with some good old films, at any rate. And will give folks a sense of what kind of films I like. So, without further ado, if you like good movies, here are my recommendations.

First, I thought I'd give a couple recommendations for good sources for this: The American Film Institute's (AFI's) top 100 movies of all time (all from the USA, however). They also, if you look to the left, have other top 100 lists, and it's definitely worth checking out there more specific "10 top 10 list" which gives top 10 sci fi, top ten westerns, comedies. That's linked here.  For a more international approach, every 10 years or so, the British Sight and Sound poll (BS&S) - taken by movie critics and directors, specifically - comes up with their top movies of all time, world wide. And of course IMDB has their "best movie" lists, as well, which is always another good place to look, and also breaks down into subgenres.

Now, for some of my personal favorites, I'll start with a few favored directors.

Alfred Hitchcock:

-- Vertigo: probably my favorite Hitchcock (or at least the one that affects me the most) - a psychological thriller about a detective hired to investigate the strange behavior of another mans wife, who has been acting almost as if she's possessed. This film also has the benefit of having one of my favorite movie composers - Bernard Hermann - who wrote the scores for a number of excellent Hitchcock films. I own a number of his scores on CD.

-- Rear Window: A photographer who is stuck in his apartment with a broken leg (and thus spends his time people watching out the window) thinks that a murder has occurred in an neighboring apartment.

-- North by Northwest: classic Hitchcock: an innocent man mistaken as a spy, on the run (another BH score)

-- The Trouble with Harry: a COMEDY, kind of different in feel from most of his other movies, but full of good, dark, fun. Basically, a body is found in a small town and it causes some difficulties. (ALSO a BH score).

Other classics: Psycho, The 39 Steps, The Birds, Dial M for Murder, Rebecca, The Lady Vanishes, Rope... I could list a whole bunch of really good Hitchcocks, honestly, he's awesome. And if you're in NYC, the play version of 39 Steps is also really fun. And if you're going to watch any Hitchcock, you can't forget to look for his cameo appearance in each film!

Akira Kurosawa:  a Japanese director, most of his films are set in the samurai-type era. 

-- Rashomon: This is a really interesting story. Not a samurai film, per se, but instead an interesting study of a crime, told from the perspective of the various participants and witnesses. REALLY good, probably if I had to recommend one Kurasawa, this might be it, as an introduction to his work. The other one I'd be inclined to recommend is his most famous one:

-- The Seven Samurai: As the age of the samurai is ending, it's hard for them to find work. 7 samurai find work protecting a village from bandits. This movie is awesome, though it is rather long. The western Magnificent Seven is based on this film)

-- Throne of Blood: This is a movie version of MacBeth, set in feudal Japan. It's been called by some the best film version of the play, even if it's in Japanese and a completely different era! Plus, a super creepy lady MacBeth  (well, technically she's Lady Asaji Washizu, but really. It's MacBeth. You're going to think of her as Lady MacBeth.)

Others: Ran (Basically King Lear), and Yojimbo (which was pretty much stolen and made into Clint Eastwoods' A Fist Full of Dollars).

Orson Welles: both a great actor and a great director. Beautiful cinemetography. He's also responsible for the War of the Worlds reading over the radio which made people panic and think that aliens were ACTUALLY invading New Jersey! Anyway, if he touches a movie it gets better.

-- Citizen Kane:  often named the best movie of all time, based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. 

-- Touch of Evil: a very fine noir, about a detective, corruption, and a bomb threat.

As an actor, he's particularly good in:

-- The Third Man:  Shot in Vienna, a wonderful, top class noir about a missing man. 

-- Jane Eyre: a very good adaptation of the (wonderful) book, he plays Rochester.

Miyazaki:

And Studio Ghibli. Excellent animated films, a lot aimed at children, though not all. 

-- Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro): my all time, #1, absolute favorite children's movie. You don't need subtitles to understand or love this movie, although they are nice to have. But yeah, even if you have kids below reading age, this is a wonderful film. Roughly, about man with two children who move to be closer to their mother (who is in the hospital), to an area with a guardian forest spirit (the Totoro).

-- Laputa (Castle in the Sky): Another favorite movie as a child, about a boy and a girl who are searching for the lost land of Laputa, a floating castle in the sky. Also has giant robots.
Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are also wonderful. (Of those, Mononoke isn't quite as much for children, as it has a bit more a violence).

Misc Other Movies:
(Generally categorized, but it can sometimes be hard to judge exactly where something should fit, so don't take this absolutely literally. Especially the one's in the "drama/other" section, I kind of stuck a bunch of other ones in there that just weren't as obvious. Being there doesn't mean things aren't funny, or noir-ish, just that they aren't as clearcut.)

Noir:

--Chinatown:  A detective, a mysterious woman, and a fight over local water rights. An amazing noir film starring Jack Nicholson.

-- Blade Runner: Another pretty classic Neo-noir, with Harrison Ford. There are about a million different cuts of this film, however - directors cut, original, etc, and some people think that the director has tinkered around with it WAY too much. I think I'm included in this. Not sure which cut I like best, but probably not the most recent directors cut. I don't know.

--The Maltese Falcon: Humphrey Bogart, detective, stolen objects, awesomeness. Humphry Bogart at his best! (I'm a Bogart fan, so any movie with him is also a good start. Same for Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, or Jimmy Stewart)
-- Brick: a modern film noir set in a high school
-- The Usual Suspects: An excellent gangster type film, in a story told by the only surviver of a mysterious boat explosion.
--Infernal Affairs: A fantastic Hong Kong movie, which The Departed was based off of. Cops, gangsters, and a mole in each camp.

Comedy:

--Shoulin Soccer: A hilarious Hong Kong film, where a bunch of Soulin Monks make up a soccer team. Director Steven Chow also has some other very good Cantonese films as well. You might also check out, by him, Kung Fu Hustle, The God of Cookery, and the James Bond spoof From Beijing with Love
--Bringing Up Baby: Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, a screwball comedy about a scientist, an heiress, and a wayward leopard. I LOVE this movie, it's really fun.
-- Some like it Hot: comedy with Marilyn Monroe
--The Apartment: A man moves up the corporate ladder by lending out his apartment for higher-ups to have affairs.
-- The Philadelphia Story: Romance/comedy with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart
--Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: errr, lets call this one a dark comedy/satire about nuclear annihilation.

Drama/Other:

-- Casablanca: I will quote my college film professor of mine and say: "If you haven't seen Casablanca, see it immediately. Because you could die and you shouldn't die without seeing Casablanca"

--Metropolis (1927): A very early science fiction film, be sure to get the extended cut which was recently (2008!) uncovered from Argentina, the plot is a lot more cohesive and is a lot deeper. There are also various sound tracks which can go with it, it being a silent movie - my favourite is from the Alloy Orchestra, a modern group which writes music for silent films. This film is german, it's about oppression and the differences between classes, and the dangers of letting technology lead morality.

--Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Politics! Corruption! One man just trying to do right in DC!)

--12 Angry Men: (The original, not the remake) Literally the whole film takes place in a jury room, where 12 men decide the fate of one man.

--The General:  An old silent film, where at the climax they literally burn a bridge under a moving civil war engine train and collapse it. You have ONE SHOT for something like that. ONE.

-- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:  A fine Clint Eastwood Western during the Civil war

-- High Noon: An excellent western. The bad guy is coming to town at noon sharp, and the local sheriff knows he'll be the first target.
-- Run Lola Run - A German film about a woman and her boyfriend who need to raise a lot of money in half an hour. They take this time minute by minute. Note: this film is not half an hour long! 

-- The Bicycle Thief - an Italian film about a man who's bike get's stolen, which could put him out of a job if he can't get it back.

-- Primer: one of the best, or most relistic, or most confusing time travel movies I know of. Good science fiction, anyway.
-- Kill Bill: maybe not the best movie ever, but certainly a very fun, very violent one.

-- Groundhog Day: A man finds himself reliving the same day over and over. A great movie starring Bill Murrey.

-- Forest Gump: A slow but sincere and sweet man, living out his life throughout historical times in the 60's-80's.

-- The Day the Earth Stood Still: THE ORIGINAL NOT THE REMAKE FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. *Ahem* An alien ship lands on earth, and turns off all the power and electricity sources on Earth for a day, in order to make the humans PAY ATTENTION.

And then there is Charlie Chaplin (City Lights, The Gold Rush, Modern Times)... and Harold Lloyd (Safety Last, The Freshman, Ask Father [a short]),  another wonderful silent action star/filmmaker... and Yellow Submarine is a fun movie if you like the Beatles though it's not exactly a classic... and It's a Wonderful Life makes me tear up every time, though that should properly be seen around Christmas.  And Preston Sturges - another great director - Sullivan's Travels is just a fantastic film about the depression era, and a rich director who decides to try to find out what life is life for REAL people. Very funny, but also a lot of social commentary.

I just realized that I may have gotten a bit carried away here, and it's getting less and less organized.... I guess this list should be a good start and last any new moviegoers a while? I had fun coming up with the list, anyway... and it certainly gives you a sense of my tastes. It's not really a complete list of everything I like, of course! I'm a sucker for Disney movies, and for musicals, for example! Not to mention a good action movie, superhero movie, or rom-com. But if I was going to think of my top recommendations, this would be a good start.

Election Day Special

I am currently 27 years old. The first year I was eligible to vote in a major election was the 2004 Presidential race, between John Kerry and George W. Bush. This was also my first year in college, and I spent a good chunk of time in my first semester volunteering for the student democratic organization for John Kerry. In fact, this was where I first got to know my friend Lauren, who is getting married this weekend and for whom I am a bridesmaid. We shared a cab together going home from a very disappointing "victory rally" in Boston on election night, together. (That was also the night I had a professor of mine give me an excused absence for missing lab for purposes of attending said rally, even though he informed me that he hoped that my guy lost.) That year, I sent in my absentee ballot for voting in Maryland. Naturally, the following 3 years I did the same thing, since I was at school at the time (Brandeis!) and didn't want to go home via 8 hour bus ride to vote.

Four years later, for the 2008 Obama vs. McCain election, I was no longer in college: I was taking a gap year between college and grad school in order to work, travel, and in general get a breather from school. However, once again I sent in an absentee ballot: this time, because I spent the entire month of October (and obviously, the first week of November), volunteering my time for the York, Pennsylvania  Obama campaign. It was a fantastic experience, overall. I didn't get paid, but one of the staff gave me a free place to stay while there. I preformed quite a WIDE variety of tasks. I was acting as the assistant out of state volunteer coordinator, figuring out where best to place OTHER Maryland volunteers. I went door to door all over the county, trying to convince folks to vote for then-Senator Obama. I made phone calls, sometimes convincing folks to vote for Obama, other times searching for volunteers. I registered lots of young (and older) voters. I answered phones and questions as a receptionist for the center. I sorted through swag and signs, making sure people only took what they needed. On election day, I ran from house to house, reminding people to vote. I basically did whatever they needed extra folk for each day. And I met some great people, of course! So when Pennsylvania was awarded to Obama only very short time after polls closed at 8'o'clock, I was extremely satisfied, and extremely emotional and happy at the victory party held by staffers later that night.

The past 3 years, I've been in graduate school, and again voted in general by absentee ballot each year for the local ballot questions. But finally, FINALLY, this year, for the very first time, I was here, in Baltimore, to cast my ballot in person. Not only for the President of the United States, and for Senator and Congressman - all of whom are shoe-in democratic in my state and district - but also for a few very important ballot measures. The most pressing in my mind, of course, being for Question 6, for Maryland to be the first state by voter referendum to allow gay marriage. It also is a very carefully worded measure to protect churches and religious institutions from being forced to officiate such marriages, which I'm absolutely fine with: state shouldn't force church just as church shouldn't dictate to state. But it was extremely satisfying to vote "yes" on such an important issue, where I know my vote matters quite a bit.

I don't know how the presidential or local measure will fall out: both of these have been polling in my favor, but of course, nothing is certain until after elections are over and done with. I can only hope for the best at this point; though I also spent about two and a half hours phone banking into Virginia, where the turn out matters quite a bit more, for presidential politics.  But this year, it felt just a little more real to actually go into the voting booth and pressing the buttons. I'll be staying up to watch the polls come in with my parents (as well as the Stewart/Colbert election night stuff), then heading off to jury duty first thing tomorrow morning. Civic duties abound.

A picture from the 2008 election, while working in PA.

Fun times with Lloyd

Last week I had a visit from a dear friend, Lloyd, who I have known since the 4th grade. She and I have, as you might expect, many common interests. But it is our tradition to use our time together in order to create a delicious meal. This also, of course, gives us plenty of time to talk and catch up, since we don't see each other nearly enough. So this time, we made a three course meal: a soup, a salad, and main course-ish second soup related item. Nothing wrong with that!

We started with a nice corn and potato chowder,  getting a recipe from Food Network, which we somewhat modified.

Corn and Potato Chowder
1/2 pack of bacon (we used black pepper crusted bacon, which added a nice spicy taste!)
1 cup chopped onion
1 tbs minced garlic
2 cups frozen corn
butter
2 tbs flour

4 cups chopped potato (peeled first!)

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup half and half

thyme, salt, pepper to taste

Chop up and fry the bacon, then set aside on a paper towel to drain - leave a little bacon fat in the pan, but not all of it. Toss the onions into the fat, cook those up nice and soft, then put in the garlic as well.  Sprinkle the flour over it all so it blends in, adding some butter if necessary to make a roux, then add the potatoes and broth. Simmer 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally. Next, add corn and let simmer another 5 minutes. Finally, stir in the half and half and add seasonings.

This is the point where you taste to make sure everything is just right - we found that the soup was not thick enough here, and added some extra potatoes. Another option we considered (but rejected due to not wanting to wash more dishes) was be to blend some of the potatoes we'd cooked in a blender with some of the soup, so we could have  nice, thicker broth. Even adding the potatoes, we needed this to cook down a bit more than the original recipe suggested. It turned out quite tasty, and extra peppery due to our choice in bacon! (Bacon is a running theme in Lloyd and my cooking attempts, I shall have to describe some past efforts at a later date.)

Second, we had a lovely salad: Pear, Romaine lettuce, crumbled gorgonzola, and homemade roasted candied walnuts! The first 3 ingredients of this salad are pretty self explanatory (make sure items are in suitable sized chunks, or in the case of the pears, slices). The candied walnuts were a treat, though, and a lot easier then they sound!

Candied Walnuts (paired with a pear/romaine/gorgonzola salad)
1 cup chopped walnuts (or whole, either works!)
1.5 tbs butter
1.5 tbs maple syrup
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

A note here: I am a purist when it comes to maple syrup. I DON'T eat maple flavored or maple inspired syrups. At all. No Aunt Jemima's for me. I just can't stand the taste - I was raised going to New Hampshire every other summer for family reunions and picking up delicious, grade A pure maple syrup in large gallon jugs, which was then used over the course of the next year or two until we returned. Dad would, occasionally, buy local maple syrup as well, which was also fine - honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between New Hampshire and Maryland syrup. But the point is: REAL SYRUP. /end{rant}

This recipe is super easy: Preheat oven to 400F. Put the butter and syrup in a bowl, heat it up so they are nice and warm and melty together - in the microwave works just fine. Take your walnuts, then put them in the bowl with the syrup mixture - stir thoroughly until everything is well coated. Mix salt and sugar in another bowl, then sprinkle some of this over the walnuts, mixing again. Lay out all the walnuts in a single layer on a piece of aluminum foil on a tray, and sprinkle the last of the salt/sugar mix over that. Bake for 7 minutes. Remove from oven, let sit and cool, then poof! Delicious walnuts, the better to be sprinkled over your salad with, my dear! So that was the salad - nice, tasty, easy. Pears, gorgonzola and walnuts of course go terrific together, with a bit of lettuce to fill things out!

But the dish that's was the most fun for me was a dish I'd made before, gotten from Benson: delicious homemade Wonton!

Wonton

Around 2 lbs ground meat (Pork works best, but chicken works fine, too)

Around 1 lb peeled, de-veined, raw shrimp –   chopped into chunks (optional)

Wonton wrappers

Baby Bok Choy – chopped finely, maybe a cup and a half, maybe a little more. 

Light Soy Sauce

Sesame oil

1 tbs Cornstarch

1/2 tsp Sugar

Salt

Scallions (optional)

MSG (optional)

Mix the ground meat, salt, soy sauce, MSG, cornstarch, salt, sugar thoroughly, and set aside. Wash and chop bok choy finely, mix into ground meat, add even more soy sauce and a bit of seseme oil. Its a good idea to cook up a little of your meat mix in a frying pan to make sure that the soy sauce/oil/salt levels are good. (Plus, if you have extra, you can fry up the remaining meat as a tasty snack!) Mix chopped up shrimp into mixture, adding more soy sauce and whatnot if you think it needs it. You don't actually need to add shrimp - for this batch we didn't - since it tastes just fine without. But shrimp does add some extra flavor and a bit more interesting variation!

Now the fun part: wrapping the wontons.Take a wrapper with the more floured sized face down, put a bit of meat mix into the center of the wrapper. Dampen the edges of the wrapper, fold over into a triangle (or rectangle if you don't want to be traditional). Seal the edges carefully - you should have a small bowl of water that you can dip your fingers into so you can wet the edges well. Take the far corners of the wonton (the ones where the meat is in a lump between them), dampen more, and fold them to meet each other, seal. As you do this, you can kind of fold the wonton slightly as well, so it's more rounded and less flat. The traditional wonton is apparently supposed to look like an ingot of gold, to bring luck! Boil beef or chicken broth, add some scallions and sesame seed oil, cook wontons in broth until they float, plus a little more time (like an extra couple minutes), until meat and shrimp have cooked. You'll want to cut one in half to make sure it's done! Then serve with the broth, and enjoy!

The whole meal turned out really well - we ended up with three bowls of food and no plates, mind, but that's not really a problem.