To Toronto I Go!

I'll be in Toronto and Guelph for most of this week, so my online access might be spotty at best. I'll try and do a 1962 recipe at some point though, and maybe an explanation of why Twitter has returned to my life, as you can see in the toolbar to the side. However, if I don't, it's because I'm too busy being two days too late to the G20 protests.

Actually, there's another reason for my visit but, depending on circumstances, I'll have to get into that later. Until then though, wish me luck in the land of English speakers!

American Splendor, Soccer-Style

I went out to watch the Ghana/USA match today. Bros were very much in evidence at the bar. Polo shirts, two USA jerseys... and a whole lot of hilarity. Seriously, I don't understand why the rest of the world has such a hate on for American fans. They're brash, loud and amazing. If I wanted a classy kind of fan, I would watch more polo.

Anyway, even though I was cheering for Ghana, I found these following drunken bon mots so frigging priceless, I had to record them in this here blog. Please imagine them slurred, it's essential to the effect:

3. "Sliiiiiiide, you dumb prick!"
2. In response to the British announcer giving the 2-1 score: "We knoooow, you British fuck!"
And my personal favorite, keeping in mind that the Ghanian jerseys were red:
1. "Kill the redcoats!"
It's funny because it's historical.

It Came From 1962: Alice's Ginger-Citrus Mold

I decided to wade bravely back into the jiggly fields of Jello-dom this week. And I'm glad I did, because this gelatinous mass is DELICIOUS. Sure, it might look like some kind of deep sea dweller, but it's good.

Probably because it doesn't have any meat, cheese, or other foodstuffs that belong out of my gelatin.

Anyway, this is Alice's Ginger-Citrus Mold. Yes, it's still from the salad section, but since it has two -TWO - different kind of fruits in it, I'm prepared to accept it as the fruit variety. And because the addition of grated candied ginger makes it delicious, I'm feeling a little generous. I ate this thing for breakfast. Willingly.

If I might digress though, the fact that both the grapefruit segments and the mandarin oranges have to be canned is such a sign of the times. This cookbook is proud to boast its "California flavor", but they'll eagerly bypass citrus trees that were probably growing in their backyward to grab a can opener. And I, for one, don't blame them. Little Todd has Scouts tonight and my 60s husband (Art McKenzie, FYI) has to go to the lodge. So I can't be assed to peel a grapefruit's worth of segments.

I'm A Winner!

Well.

Absences happen.

I'm beginning to get a little cabin feverish. I try to go outside and accomplish some task each day (on top of the constant, constant job applications) just so I don't get squirrelly, and so that I have an excuse to shower, but it hasn't stopped me from going a little funny. For example, as I told some friends, I recently had a weird dream. I was watching a play of some kind, a very serious kind, because there was no set but a black curtain and two chairs. It was about Robert Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy having a fight after the assassination of JFK.

Who portrayed the brothers? Veterans of stage and scene? Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt hoping to get some stage cred? No, it was two soccer players. Two shirtless, shirtless soccer players.

I won a contest! Go me!

So maybe the next step is to start watching less World Cup action. Fortunately, I got something in the mail the other day to help me out with that: A free book! And not just any free book, but a young adult novel courtesy of YA Bookshelf. So now I'll just curl up with this one and remember a blissful childhood spent with Catherine, Called Birdy and Half Magic, but sadly also a childhood free from super fit athletes.

Music, Movies and Zombies

I've been obsessed with this song, Mes Bottes De Sept Lieues by Le Husky for the past week, so I'm linking to it here as a soundtrack for the following links. Have fun and learn something.

1. Ugh, Canada: The saplings around the site of the G20 conference might be torn up. Why? Because "The trees could be ripped out of the ground by demonstrators 'and then you’ve got a huge bar,' said Constable Wendy Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Integrated Security Unit." Yes, a scrawny, vegan anti-globalization protestor will tear one up from the ground and start flinging it around like a bo staff, roots and all. Because such protesters fucking hate tress. And have the strength of the Hulk.

2. Remember how, a week ago, I wrote about The Small Back Room and its wacky alky scene? Well, it seems that The Onion's AV Club is more positively inclined. You can watch the whole thing there and judge for yourself.

3. Should we kill the label of America's Sweetheart? Alyssa Rosenberg thinks so. I'm not totally convinced, except by her argument that Ms Congeniality 2 sucks. Seems like this is almost a case of hating the player and not the game to me.

4. From Tiger Beatdown: Is splicing horror elements into classic literature remixing or just a ripoff? And what are the gender politics of all this? I think Garland Grey comes on a little strong, but at first I thought at least the fact that all the works getting injected with zombies, sea monsters, vampires and the like are written by women was a point worth investigating. Then I found this: Android Karenina. Well then.

It Came From 1962: Old Family Beef And Noodles

Since I needed something in my diet that would provide me with more nutrition that the goodness of gelatin, I turned to the casserole portion of the book. There's no more painful sign of the fact that this book dates to 1962 than the fact that there is no "Main Course" section. Only Casseroles. Even wraps are somehow casseroles. And pork chops. And stuffed zucchini.

Since I was still recovering from the green-tinged madness of last week, I landed on a recipe that was pointedly unadventurous. There's mostly ground beef and noodles in this thing, along with canned tomatoes and mushrooms. That led to this conversation with my Mom:
Me: At least this one has honest-to-god vegetables in it. Even if they are canned.
Mom: Well, couldn't you use fresh mushrooms instead?
Me: Pardon me? St. Zada accepts NO SUBSTITUTIONS. Nutrition be damned!

However, a scant 1/8 of a teaspoon of basil and 1/4 a teaspoon of pepper are all the flavorings you'll get in a large-sized casserole. Even by 1962 standards, when having more than two spices was to be suspiciously continental and perhaps a little light in the loafers, that's sad. So, I played the rebel and - hold on to your pillbox hats, ladies - doubled the amounts! Just don't tell Zada, or her vengeful spirit.

Verdict: Edible.

Splice: Half Human, Half Animal Sampler, All Crap

Oh, if only she had stayed a somewhat mangled Greyhound.

I like sci-fi horror as much as the next gal, although a small, perverse part of me wishes that it was called scifiho, pronounced almost like syphilis. That personal oddity aside, I was very excited to check out Splice last week.

It's directed by Vincenzo Natali, so I was already ready to pay cheap-night prices after watching Cube a few months ago. I had also read some plot spoilers, and figured that if even half of them were true, it would be enough to power cultural studies classes on gender, motherhood and sex for months. Plus, the reviews were good.

THEY WERE ALL LIES. Instead of being an interesting take on the Frankenstein myth, Splice feels like a syndicated action show and is acted like a telenova. I even went with a friend who was excited to see it, but afterwards only had issues with the "depiction of sex and gender" (her Facebook comment, June 2010) in the film.

I could see her point, but felt like that was one of the ways in which the movie did not screw things up completely. For those of you who aren't interested in wasting $8-12 on a ticket, let me give you a brief plot summary. For those who hate themselves, thar be SPOILERS ahead.

Ilsa and Clive are hotshot genetic engineers with racy cover shots on Wired, as one so frequently encounters in life. Knowing that their unit will be closed down and converted before they can succeed in playing with human DNA, they illicitly combine that with their last experiment. And so, Dren is born.

She looks like a bald, bug-eyed human with goat legs and gecko feet. Since Ilsa and Clive have never seen any SF movies, but we have, we are not as surprised as they are when Dren turns out to be a bit of a problem. She's got a stinger and she's not afraid to use it, but the real issue has to do with sex. Not only does she have a creepy round of father figure banging with Clive, but when this changes her sex to male, she also rapes Ilsa.

Since Ilsa used her own DNA to create her and male-Dren kills Clive, it's like s/he gets to have her Oedipal cake and her Electra complex too. Another one of my friends pointed out that the differences between she-Dren (who seduces) and he-Dren (who rapes) are more than a little problematic as well.

However, I'll almost give the movie a pass on that since both modes are part of her monstrous, constructed nature and could, almost, be seen as a critique of assumptions about how natural gender roles are.

Then again, I don't want to work that hard to salvage this movie. And it is a lot of stretching. So, if there is anything radical about it, it's so incoherent that it doesn't even matter.The movie just sucks on its own.

I know I'm a difficult moviegoer, but if a theatre of more generous types is laughing at your showcase scenes, then you've got a problem. Even Sex And The City 2 had some people who took the film seriously.

Canadian Content: The 49th Parallel

Even if you've never visited Canada, you've probably seen it at the movies. However, it might have been called New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. And the only reason you might have recognized it is if you had brought a Canadian along and they had muttered about how those were Canada Post boxes on the street corner.

However, Canada playing Canada at the movies is a rarer find. So, when I found out that the Archers (AKA Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, my favourite director/producer team in film) made a movie set in Canada and called (of course) The 40th Parallel, I had to rent it.
Now, when I say The Archers are my favorite, that's an opinion based entirely on four gorgeous, fever dream-like movies: Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp and Peeping Tom. I'm also rather partial to I Know Where I'm Going. And yet, I've been burned by them before, by a stodgy little picture called The Small Back Room, which featured a 8 foot tall bottle of booze as a prop.

The 49th Parallel isn't half as ridiculous, but it isn't half as good as Colonel Blimp either. Powell was pretty direct, even back then, that it was made as propaganda to encourage the Americans to enter the war. And when there's propaganda afoot, awkward speechifying is sure to follow.

The movie follows a group of German sailors who, after their sub is blown up by Canadian airmen, attempt to travel the True North Strong and Free to enter into the United States Then Neutral. Along the way they meet many people, from a French Canadian trapper in the North to a Hutterite farmer on the prairies, who've prepared impassioned speeches to tell them why Canada is so great and will win the war, as if they had expected a troop of Germans to come goose-stepping over the horizon.

Way more exciting than the actual movie, where the closest Olivier gets to an actual woman is about 15 meters.

From there to the end, it's a fairly predictable hike. However, there's one reason to see the movie and that's Laurence Olivier's attempt at a French-Canadian accent. He doesn't quite make it to the Quebec. Hell, he doesn't even seem to make it to France, as it sounds like he got stuck halfway between Scotland and Sweden. It's hilarious. And, to give the man credit, he really makes the plaid flannel work.

It Came From 1962: Ginger's Pineapple And Roquefort Cheese Salad

It's only the second week of cooking and partying like it's 1962 and already I've hit a wall. A wall labeled PEOPLE IN 1962 ATE CRAP.

Okay, not literally, but almost. Which brings us to the second recipe from A Time For Cooking, Ginger's Pineapple And Roquefort Cheese Salad. A few weeks ago, I decided just to pick a number at random and make whatever happened to fall on that page. I realized the folly of that plan when the page happened to contain this... "salad."

I like pineapple. I LOVE Roquefort cheese. I even enjoy stuffed olives, celery and lime jello, the other major constituents in this recipe. However, I've decided that I like them when they're kept far, far apart from each other. Just imagining the flavour sensation of pineapple and blue cheese together was bad enough, without even factoring in the strong tastes of the other ingredients. I shuddered just reading the recipe. But I soldiered on.


Then, I slipped the salad out from its mold. And I felt nauseous. Quivering on a plate sat a big... pile... of bloody mucus. The sour smell of the lime coupled with the earthier scent of the cheese even smelled like vomit. The recipe wanted me to put this thing on lettuce leaves and serve with mayonnaise, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I had created my own little torture porn movie with nothing more than a grocery list.

But reader, I ate it. Or at least no more than one slice, the flavor of which I can barely describe. I told someone it tasted like mothballs, not because I've ever tried one, but because that was the worst thing I could think of someone eating at the time. It starts off citrusy and sweet, before suddenly turning salty and sour and, I swear to Christ, MOLDY because of the frigging blue cheese. I couldn't even finish my bit before throwing out the whole thing.

So, from now on I am going to pick randomly, unless it looks like cold molded ass in which case I will move on the next thing that could be passingly edible.

And if I ever meet this Ginger character, I am punching her right in the goddamned face.

It Came From 1962: Molded Feminine Fare

This requires cream cheese, a cup of sour cream, sugar, salt, canned apricots, canned pineapple, cherries and miniature marshmallows. As you might expect from those ingredients, it is filed under "salads."

There's hardly any prep to this thing at all. You just beat the cream cheese, add the sour cream, the sugar and the salt, then mix in the fruit and marshmallows. Put it in a loaf pan and freeze over night and you should be more than ready for your Cribbage Society's meeting in the morning.
Sure, it's a little alarming-looking. And it's worse when you slice it, when it looks like it probably got it's name 'cause it looks exactly like a woodland fairy's menstrual pad. Although that might be my fault for going with the coloured marshmallows.

In any case, it doesn't taste entirely awful. However, it produces enough Feminine Fare to turn even Clint Eastwood femme, so I've been eating it for dinner every single one of that past three days. And now I kind of want to take three Valiums, have an affair with the lawn boy and drunkenly ask my husband for a divorce in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.

It Came From 1962: The Beginning

Last weekend, there was a $1.00 Used Book Sale at one of my favorite bookstores in the city – S.W. Welch. Actually, I didn’t care all that much that it was at one of my favorite places. The fact that somewhere books could be had for $1.00 was enough. I would have probably shown up if it was run by the Church of Latter Day Saints.

Among the 10 prizes scored that day was this little cookbook. It looks unassuming enough on the outside, but inside this book shares pages with the Necronomicon. Alright, I’ve never read the latter, but I’m sure it would have just as many recipes for gelatin and canned crap salad as this.

The brain trust behind this book is comprised of Zada Taylor, “well known among California librarians” and Betty Herman, “the daughter of the late, beloved Lloyd C. Douglas.” I’m not sure about Mr. Douglas, but I think Ms. Taylor was more well feared than well known, since she starts off the book with a salvo like “A time for cooking is cooking when it is convenient” (But what are your thoughts on fucking, Zada?) and later follows it up with “A good cook never takes the chance of upsetting the balance by subtracting from or adding to the required amounts.”

The shaggy-haired Beats and their bongos may have already started to turn her California topsy turvy by 1962, but by God, their rebellious ilk would be kept out of the kitchen.

Anyway, I’m in love with and terrified by this thing, from the “Idiot’s Delight” on page 14 involving dry onion soup mix, goose liver sausage and sour cream to the “Steamed Salmon Loaf” on page 132. Basically, it’s as if Mary Worth had written a cookbook. And, since I’m about to be bored and unemployed, what better way to pass the time than attempting to cook from it? So, for the next 52 weeks – or until my death from gelatin overdose, whichever comes first – prepare yourself for It Came From 1962.

Tomorrow: I tell you what it’s like to spend three days eating Molded Feminine Fare (page 58.) Here’s a hint: I’m off to my Ladies Bridge Club meeting.