If this 1993 hands-over-breasts cover...
Lead to this 1997 nipple-through-the-shirt cover...
Which lead to this 2004 catastrophe...
Does that mean that this 2006 itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-skanky-wanky bikini bottom cover...
...will lead to full out, full-frontal porn?
Discuss.
Summer is almost here - the sun is shining, I'm sweating just by walking to work and attractive people are jogging in minimal clothing. And yet, Sereena X at Metaphor Voodoo wants us to think about...doomsday.
Aw, do I have to? I don't know want to think about that stuff...I just want to figure out what I want at Jamba Juice.
Let me lay it down for you: you have seven days to live - what do you do?
I would...well, I'm not going to tell you here. You have to head on over to Metaphor Voodoo to find out...and leave your own answer, too.
When your cooking idol tells you what to cook, you do it, right? Right. So when Giada De Laurentiis told me, in person, to my face, to make her Raspberry Tiramisu, I was scooping out the mascarpone before she finished signing my book. I found the perfect occassion to make it when Mother's Day came up a week ago. In case it didn't quite work or wasn't quite enough, I also whipped up another batch of Espresso Brownies, which have quickly become my go-to dessert for entertaining and chocolate fixes. (In case making Raspberry fuckin' Tiramisu wasn't gay enough, now I'm having chocolate fixes. Great. What's next, runway coaching the girls of Top Model?)
Raspberry Tiramisu - Giada must think of this as one of her signature desserts. Not only is she pushing it at book signings, it's the only featured recipe on her website and her popping one the powdered-sugar-dusted raspberries into her (cavernous) mouth made the cover of her second book. I can understand why she's so into it - for tiramisu, it's fairly simple, yet automatically looks both fancy enough for company and complicated enough to make said company think you worked harder on it than you actually did.
However, while I definitely liked the recipe, I wouldn't say I loved it. In fact, out of the seven desserts I've made of hers, there are at least five others I'd make again before this one. Everything was about it is...fine. Grand Marnier mixed in with both the layer of raspberry jam and the layer of whipped mascarpone? Sounds awesome, but in the end was just...there. The layers just didn't come together for me the way they do in traditional tiramisu, mainly because the mascarpone, even folded into whipped cream, was way too heavy for what's trying to be a ligher alternative. The slight crunch from the ladyfingers should have contrasted with the fluffy mascarpone filling and the bursts of raspberries layered in between, but in the end it felt like dressed-up raspberry shortcake. Again, not a bad thing, and it did get raves from my family, but with all the build-up - I mean, it was recommended by none other than Giada herself; this was the recipe she had recommended above all others! - it didn't live up to expectations (which, in all fairness, may have been trumped up unreasonably).
After making the tiramisu, with an entire pound of mascarpone cream folded into whipped cream, I swore off desserts for a while. Since I left my family's homemade Mother's Day brunch with a bag of leftover berries, I naturally made...
Fresh Fruit with Cannoli Cream - Right, because taking the filling out of a cannoli shell and plopping it onto some berries doesn't count as dessert? I wish. But I've been eyeing this recipe ever since I bought Everyday Italian and I now had the chance to make it. All I had to do was fold some ricotta cheese into whipped cream with a dash of cinnamon and I was set. Sprinkle some sliced almonds on top (but take care not to burn them, like I almost did) and you've got one satisfying dessert. Plus, since you're eating fruit, you can convince yourself you're being somewhat healthy.
Fresh Fruit: $4.95 Ricotta Cheese: $2.95 Self-Delusion: Delicious.
With those creamy sins tucked into chilled tupperware, I made a few stabs at actually cooking something for dinner.
Roasted Chicken with Balsamic Vinaigrette - With summer almost upon us, I thought I'd squeeze in one roasted entreé before it gets too warm to use the oven. I don't think this is exactly an Italian dish, or even Italian-American. Instead of always recreating Italian recipes for us modern, ADD home cooks, Giada sometimes, as she explains on her show, chooses to incorporate staple Italian ingredients into regular American stand-bys. Here, she uses balsamic vinegar in a chicken marinade. That part was fine. It was after the chicken baked that I had problems. In the online version, it says to simply place the roasting pan on the stove-top, add chicken broth and boil while scraping up the brown bits on the bottom to create a flavorful sauce (technically a gravy, actually). In the book, however, there's no chicken broth; you pour the remaining marinade into a saucepan and scoop off excess oil (which was hard as it was 75% oil). I then boiled the sauce down to a thick paste rather than a syrup that I could barely spread on the chicken, much less pour.
Oh well, I wasn't expecting to cook 125 recipes perfectly every time anyway. I garnished the moist, tender chicken with some lemon zest, served it with a baked sweet potato and spinach and I was happy. And pretty healthy, too. However, I had to turn to Giada's second book to really make a healthy dish that was perfect on a sunny spring day.
Grilled Chicken with Basil Dressing - Marinate the chicken in olive oil and crushed fennel seeds, grill, and then serve with a basil/olive oil/lemon dressing, like pesto without the Parmesan and pine nuts (although, again, the online version is different - what's up with that?). Done. That's it. Grilling chicken is so fast and easy, and if done correctly (not that hard), produces beautifully tender, juicy meat. Love it. Serve with grilled zucchini and yellow squash, plus some brown-buttered corn with basil, and I was a happy man.
Last time I blogged about cooking I said I'd attempt Giada's marinara sauce next, which hasn't happened. I had made a lot of pasta dishes at that point and wanted to take a break. Plus, I'm thinking of trying whole wheat pasta again, but I've had bad experiences with it (chewy, tough) so I'm hesitant to go back. But it's healthier, and there's no way I can get through a book that practically worships starch without trying some alternatives.
If the whole wheat pasta doesn't taste good, I'll just top regular noodles with some cannoli cream. That makes everything healthier.
George Carlin. Janeane Garofalo. Eddie Izzard. Chris Rock. Margaret Cho. Jon Stewart. Lewis Black. Sam Kinison.
How many f-bombs are too many? (Or, is there such a thing as too many f-bombs?) How many jokes can one female comedian have about her period? Is being Asian really that funny?
Just a few of the names and ideas that are being tossed around in the discussion over at Atul's blog, Things I've Noticed. Sadly, no one has mentioned two of my favorites, Maria Bamford (who's deceptively chameleon voice and hilarious rants on temping and online dating can be seen here) and Pablo Francisco (also a gifted vocalist who can create a suspenseful movie trailer like nobody's business and can be seen here), but that's okay, I guess. I just have so much to teach people in so little time...
Grab a martini, hop on over and leave your thoughts...
This is SO random, even for me, but I just happened to find out that Jonathan Brandis committed suicide almost three years ago. How sad and how strange.
He starred in The Never-Ending Story II (which, oddly, I saw before the first one), Ladybugs (the soccer movie with Rodney Dangerfield) and the TV series Seaquest DSV, among others. It's not that any of these were incredibly successful, but if you saw one you'd probably think "Oh yeah, that kid. Whatever happened to him?"
I just assumed that a young, good-looking actor like him who had found success so early would keep getting work. I guess I thought I'd be seeing him around, maybe not in major, serious movies (maybe because he didn't have time to develop and/or show off a more serious side?), then at least still around on TV and big-screen romantic comedies and such.
But according to his Wikipedia page, friends have said he was upset about his "career lull," especially after his role in Hart's War, the Bruce Willis war movie, was cut down to nothing. His mother claims he only drank socially, while friends claim he was a heavy drinker. Obviously, there were troubles lurking underneath that telegenic smile. It's sad to think what might have been if he had the resources, internally or externally, to get through a low point that many successful actors have had to get through.
On a side note, how did I not hear about this? I've always followed pop culture pretty closely and even things that don't completely interest me still cross my radar. But this one slipped by and it's just so strange.
Sorry for the depressing entry about something that happened almost three years ago. I just had to...I don't know what. Share? I'm not sure what the point in sharing this would be. I guess I just thought I'd focus attention on the tragic death of a talented young actor - no more, no less.
The Times Online recently published a story about a movement in Spain to end the super-skinny body image projected by rail-thin models and tiny dress sizes in window displays. The Spanish Health Minister and major players in the Spanish fashion industry, such as the owners of Zara and Mango, agree that the increasing number of anorexia and bulimia cases signal that measures should be taken to adjust the highly unrealistic standards of fashion designers. While it's not clear exactly how they plan on doing this, even acknowledging that there might be a connection between the fashion industry and young women's self-image at all is a big step.
"They are to move away from what they call the 'dictatorship of size 36' (about an 8 in British measurements) by exploring ways to avoid promoting the image of emaciated women, including the withdrawal of smaller-sized clothes from shop window displays.
With the backing of the Spanish fashion industry and designers, the Spanish Government has begun an investigation into the problem. A report is expected in three months."
Wait, what? Are they for real? The whole story is surprising on so many levels: businesses making decisions not entirely based on the bottom line (although I'm sure they know the good will they will generate with their customers could convince them to shop at their stores more often), the government and the fashion industry working together even before the investigation has produced any results, and the fact that a size eight is considered too thin in England (can you imagine if a model was a size eight by American measurements? Their agency would drop them in a second, but it would be okay because they'd actually have a little bit of booty to cushion the fall).
My favorite part of the story was this: "They are likely to suggest self-regulatory measures for the fashion industry such as raising the sizes of clothes that are displayed in shop windows and ending the careers of the super-thin models."
Isn't that last part great? It sounds so sinister and even threatening, like it should be accompanied by a shot of Kate Moss with scary sound effects: duh duh duuuhhh... 
Wait, it gets even better: "In Andalusia, in southern Spain, shops are banned from displaying clothes that are smaller than size 38, in a move to stop women who might have put on a pound or two from feeling that they are no longer fashionable."
Awwww, they're so compassionate just because women "might have put on a pound or two." Don't you want to give Andalusia a big hug?
On the flip side, the Model Blog argues that the fashion industry is being unfairly blamed for eating disorders that could be caused by many other factors. (Note that their title is "Fashion industry under attack," compared to the Times' headline, "Fashion is forced to act on anorexia.") They make the following comparison:
"Painters often depict horrific violence and blood shed, yet they are not blamed for wars or crime."
OK, it's not exactly graceful, but I think the point they're trying to make is somewhat clear. When does the fashion industry's responsibility end, and personal accountability begin? If young girls are hurting themselves to look like the models in magazines, where are the parents to explain how fashion advertising works?
Unfortunately, there's a flip side to influential cultural contributions - if artists can be praised for shaping the way we see, think and feel about the world around us in positive ways, then they can sometimes also be criticized for doing so in negative ways, whether it's done fairly or not. Which is where the Model Blog (no specific author is credited, so I have to keep referring to it as the Model Blog) is choosing to wear blinders. How many people blamed Marilyn Manson for the Columbine tragedy because the violent teenagers listened to his music? It's not that those people were right in doing so, but the fashion industry is hardly the first artistic medium to be blamed for collective behavior.
More problematic is the Model Blog trying to paint the fashion industry as one big victim. Honestly, who feels sorry for anyone involved with fashion at all? With so many depressing stories coming at us on TV, the radio and the Internet every day, it's hard to reserve sympathy for people who get to paid to design, wear and talk about clothes all day.
Plus, who exactly in this big, bad fashion industry is really to blame? Leni Renton, the "head booker" at a modeling agency, blames the fascination with toothpick models on male designers, saying: "Take Alexander McQueen for example, his clothes are always angular designed and therefore cut to be modeled on skinny women. But then you'll find a female designer like Donna Karen is the opposite of most male designers. She always designs more curvy fashions with real women in mind.”
Right, because Miss Karan's models are so skinny. (See photo at left.) Well, this is an industry where Gisele Bundchen is considered "curvy," after all. Even if Miss Karan has "real women" in mind when designing clothes, she's still using the same blade-of-grass girls in her shows.
Let's face it: the idealization of dangerously thin women spreads beyond any one designer. Which is why the fashion industry in Spain is taking a big risk in trying to change such a universally accepted aesthetic. Even though it's not exactly the fashion Mecca of the world, they're still on the style radar, and everyone from Milan to New York to Tokyo will at least be glancing over their Gucci shoulder bags to see how this campaign affects Spain's business.
This brings us back to the bottom line. While most people are reliably impressed with Spain's efforts, Leonie Barrie at Just Style makes a good point:
"There will also be drawbacks if the issue is self-regulated, since it’ll be all too easy for the industry to slip back to its thinner ways if there are signs of a sales slide."
So, after all the effort is made, after all the mannequins are padded and the models are force-fed entire bites of solid food, you have to wonder what the message will be if this negatively affects sales. After all, isn't the fashion industry and advertising in general based on selling fantasies that people aspire to? Did that Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign last year, endorsed by none other than Oprah, really change anything in the States? (Most American models are still pipe-cleaner beauties, right?)
But I must stop, as this is good news. Now is not the time for cynicism. Now is the time to add that pint of chocolate ice cream to your grocery cart and know that somewhere in Spain a model is doing the exact same thing just so she can stayed employed.
Today in Chicago we had fifty degree weather and a rain storm. The brutal wind was like a phantom boxer, slamming me with uppercuts and jabs from every direction. My umbrella would flip inside out and, as soon as I fixed it and aimed it against the wind, would flip open again as the wind instantly changed direction. My fellow pedestrians struggled along with me, a people mocked by the ravaging forces of nature who point at our trendy briefcases and expensive haircuts and laugh.
When I settled back in my office, I noticed that one of my shirt buttons had been whipped open as I had been stupid enough to run from Borders to my office with my jacket open. I then realized the whole point of the storm in the first place...
Mother Nature was trying to get in my pants, the slut.
Forunately, at least my shoes looked good, if a little slick. Because, according to RW holding court at the latest Roundtable discussion, if I was wearing those stupid loafers with tassels dangling on the top, I would have looked as ridiculous from the ankle down as I did from the waist up struggling with my stupid inverted umbrella. Curse ye, Fashion Gods, for letting these "shoes" take hold in the anals of style to become "classics" in the eyes of the stupid and drunk.
The devil wears tassels.
Oh, to be fourteen again - starting high school, first kisses, tying up and torturing grown men before running off to a movie with your best bud...
Everything seemed much more innocent, much more -
I'm sorry...what? What was that? You never did that last thing? That torturing thing? Geez, you must be old. What, did you grow up in the 80's or something? Don't you know all the cool kids these days go online to trap potential pedophiles, meet them at coffeehouses, flirt their way into their homes and then punish them for going along with all of it?
At least, that's what resourceful little Hayley does in Hard Candy, a new movie that's slowly being released across the country. This fourteen-year-old protagonist believes her friend was seduced and harmed by an older man who got away with it, and she's going to take justice into her smooth, tiny little hands.
The movie is basically a cat-and-mouse thriller that begins with a wonderfully played scene in the aforementioned coffeehouse and then takes place almost entirely in Jeff's chic, modern L.A. lair. Hayley (Ellen Page) has a lot more in mind than just running to the police with the first bit of evidence she can find. No, she's convinced Jeff (Patrick Wilson) was involved with her friend's disappearance, and she's going to make him pay.
Using a combination of roofies, rope, e-mails, ice packs and medical textbooks, Hayley terrorizes the thirty-two-year-old man with the skill of someone who's seen a lot of movies. It helps that Jeff, as written by Brian Nelson, is a complete idiot who has apparently never seen a horror movie and will gladly investigate any strange sound no matter how ominous. Doesn't he know that if he's tied to a chair with only one free foot to push himself around, he maybe shouldn't wheel out into the middle of the living room and call for Hayley to stop hiding just because he managed to grab a gun with his severely restricted hand? Dude, gun or no gun, you want her to hide. At least when she's hiding she can't spray bleach down your throat, right?
If you're going to have a psychological battle between two characters, at least make it a remotely even playing field. Conveniently for the filmmakers, Hayley is, of course, wise beyond her years (talking about and knowing things nowhere near the intellectual radar of a fourteen-year-old). Conversely, Nelson and director David Slade apparently think the only way Hayley could ever out-smart her enemy is if he's not very smart to begin with. I stopped counting how many times I restrained myself from yelling "Um, hello!" every time Jeff did the exact opposite thing a trapped, tortured man would do.
Also, if they wanted Hayley to be incredibly (I would say unbelievably) smart, that's fine. That could be fun, even. There are child prodigies in math, science and music, among other subjects, so why not a child prodigious in torture? And, since she's basically the "good guy" in this thriller, I guess the audience would root for her. But do they have to make it so hard for us? Anyone who snaps "playtime is over!" to their dumbfounded target cannot be taken seriously. Who talks like that?
The always-brilliant Rich at FourFour said it best when he described Hayley's heavy-handed dialogue as "rants and raves about dirty 32-year-old men with the finesse of a women's studies major at Stereotype U." I would add "a women's study major who only recently discovered the internet." As much as Hard Candy (which is internet slang for an under-age girl) tries to be topical about online stalking (which can only mean it will be seriously, laughably dated in about two minutes), it doesn't come up with believable tech references for such computer-literate characters.
More problematic is, after being with just these two people for an hour and a half, we barely know either of them at all. Of course the audience is going to care in a generic, theoretical way about a child who's fighting for her life to avenge a friend, but it's hard to specifically care about the enigmatic Hayley. Plus, while the dialogue is awful, Page and the writers do effectively give us a know-it-all brat of a teenager, and who wants to spend time with one of those? Even parents don't want to spend time with their own teens - why should we? Inflicting vicious pain is what makes her interesting; unfortunately, most of the time she paces back and forth waxing philosophically on why men like Jeff are bad. Guess what? Every reasonable human being already knows.
And Jeff? He's a fashion photographer who likes underage girls...and that's about all we have. Both actors are impressive with such strained, intense material but they just don't have a lot to work with. While that makes it all the more admirable when they do find the different levels in each scene, they can't elevate the material overall.
In an interview, Nelson said, "We spoke to some audience members at an early screening with a real gender breakdown, where guys were like, `She should be caught!' and the women were like, `This should be shown in sex-education classes.'" The gender-divide is an interesting point, but unrelated to my experience. My female companion laughed at the movie louder than I did. Since it was her idea to see the movie, when the end credits rolled, she turned to me and whispered, "Sorry."
Besides, both groups are missing the point. I say, who cares?
The film's poster doesn't have a tag line, so I'll make one up for them:
Hard Candy - Never accept candy from strangers...
Or maybe:
Hard Candy - Sweet, sour and deadly.
But I prefer this one, which I mean literally:
Hard Candy - This is one pill you don't want to swallow.
SK of the Incurable Insomniac, yet another new addition to the virtual Roundtable, has given us her first contribution, a lovely look at what comes out when you drop a coin in the slot machine of culture. Apparently, what you can expect is awkward converations with friends, long-lost acquaintences calling out of nowhere, self-conscious e-mails from strangers and the knowledge that you'll always be more famous in Europe than in your homeland.
Confused? Intrigued? Trying to figure out why you're reading this after that whole "slot machine of culture" metaphor fiasco of one paragraph ago? Yeah, me too. (Hey, this is what happens when you stay up with insomniacs. You get giddy and make up weird stuff. What? It's only 11pm? Oh. Nevermind.) Just don't think about it too hard. Grab a drink and stay up all night chatting with SK, the Incurable Insomniac...
Also, if you have nothing else to do, you can check out my piece entitled "Literary Gold!" The editors at Blogcritics chose it as one of their Picks of the Week. They summed it up much better than I ever could:
"'How to write a best-seller' is an old line, but Don has come up with a new idea of how to piggy-back on an existing top-seller. He's kindly shared it with Blogcritics' readers before heading off to utilise it himself."
One of the very first lessons Julie Powell learned when tackling Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was that "simple" is not the same thing as "easy" (think about tying your shoe vs. a prostitute. See? Not the same thing.) As I make my way through the recipes of Giada De Laurentiis, I'm learning the same thing. That's why I have to break down my latest dishes into two separate categories.
Simple and Easy 
Lemon Spaghetti - This definitely qualifies as both. All you really need is a box of spaghetti, olive oil, Parmesan and two lemons. Cook the pasta, make a little sauce/dressing with the rest of the ingredients, add some fresh basil (because everything is better with fresh basil) and you're done. Seriously, that's it. Spring on a plate. So make that simple, easy and cheap, too, because all together this dish costs less than $10. Not only that, it lasted me a long time (one pound of pasta for one person? Um, what's up, carb-a-thon?) and by adding some broccoli and grilled chicken, I had an easy one-dish meal.
Espresso Brownies - OK, so Miss Giada may be doctoring up a brownie mix here, but hey, everyone needs a shortcut here and there, right? Right. Just like how I couldn't find instant espresso (seriously, Jewel, I'm not asking for imported Chinese cinnamon here) so I used instant coffee instead. So I guess these were technically Coffee Brownies, but whatever. The point is...they're awesome. Adding chocolate chips and instant coffee to the mix, then smearing a creamy coffee vanilla glaze over the top - ugh, stop me now, before I go into a chocolate coma via mere memories.
These are so densely rich, and yet I ignored Giada's advice to cut them into little bite-sized squares. Because men don't eat bite-sized anything, right? I mean, I had to counteract the fact that I was indulging a girly chocolate fix by at least eating manly, brick-sized portions, right? Oh well, I guess if you're going to indulge, why hold back? Hence the title of this blog: everything in moderation, including moderation.
Simple...but not so Easy
Spaghetti with Garlic, Olive Oil and Red Pepper Flakes - Simple, classic Italian flavors, a straightforward recipe - what could go wrong? First of all, it says to saute the garlic in the olive oil, and then "remove and discard the garlic." Um, she wants me to actually take garlic out of a dish? Blasphemy, no? So, OK, I tried, but since Giada warned me not to overcook the garlic, I instead over-compensated and undercooked it, and the garlic flavor barely infused the oil. And when you're working with as few ingredients as this, you want as much flavor as possible. Next time, I'll just leave the garlic in.
Second, I read the part where you save some of the pasta's cooking water to add to the oil, helping create more of an actual sauce. Yeah, well, I forgot that until I was already draining the pasta, so I barely got even the two tablespoons the recipe recommends.
Third, well, this wasn't so much a mistake as a future adjustment. Giada adds her own twist to the recipe by adding some fresh parsley, basil and mint at the end for flavor and color. I would have added more, because with just one tablespoon of each for a pound of pasta, the red pepper flakes easily overpowered the herbs. Still, add some grilled chicken and you have a simple, spicy dish.
Apricot Crostata - Who looks at a recipe where you actually have to make pastry dough by hand and thinks it will be easy? Me, that's who. Me and, um, (fill in name of famous French pastry chef). I saw the minimal ingredients, skimmed through the recipe and thought nothing of it. When, in fact, you're creating a dough, balling it up, flattening it out into a disc, chilling it for an hour, then rolling it out again to the right thickness, adding some jam in the middle and then folding over the edge to create a rustic, handmade yet expertly crimped Italian fruit tart.
I over-rolled it, creating, what I thought, was a much-too-thin dough. I also used orange marmalade instead of the apricot or raspberry jam that Giada recommends. The marmalade was thicker and therefore heavier than jam, thus endangering my precious, delicate dough. However, everything worked out in the end, as the crust was crumbly and buttery, with the aroma of grated lemon zest floating through my kitchen. The recipe says it serves eight, but I don't know who she's kidding. In my family, this would barely serve four. And we're not pigs or anything, we just want more than a thin sliver of our dessert.
The brownies and crostata are from Giada's newest book, Giada's Family Dinners. Yes, even though I'm nowhere near finishing all of her recipes from Everyday Italian (my original plan), I simply couldn't resist. I guess I'll now be making my way through both books. And while I love finding new Italian desserts, I really need to keep the sweets in check, so I'll be focusing on the recipes that really prove a chef's worth: marinara sauce. I used to make my own tomato sauce from scratch and did a pretty damn fine job, so we'll see how it compares. Bring it, Giada.
