bgbm

So my roommate and I decided that Oscar weekend was the perfect time to venture out and see a film that received only a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  That film was The Roommate.  While we love bad movies, it's not often that we pay to see them in theaters.  Usually we and some other friends relegate them to something called bgbm.  The "bgbm" stands for "bad girls, bad movies" and while I'm still a little unclear about the bad girls part (maybe because we make rude comments?), the bad movies began in 2007 with 50 First Dates and have gone on to include It's Alive, The Room, I Know Who Killed Me, Troll 2, Gymkata, Leprechaun 5: In the Hood, and even one called The Oscar.

Some were not so bad (Death to Smoochy, Spice World).  Others were so terrible they could only be categorized as mind-numbingly dull and not even worth making fun of (*cough Glitter cough*).  And yet others were remarkable because of the discovery of people who are famous now but at one time were attached to schlock like this (google The Apple and Nigel Lythgoe).

While we're on the subject of bad movies, might I also suggest that there is a fourth category which could be labeled "Movies I Am Ashamed to Admit I Love"?  These are movies that I acknowledge are not paragons of cinema, yet every time they are on TV I have to watch or record them.  You could also call it Jurassic Park Syndrome, but that movie is EXCELLENT.

For me, probably the best example of MIAATAIL would be Where the Heart Is.  That movie . . . where do I even begin?  It has everything:  an all-star cast, babies born in Wal-mart, tornadoes, kidnapping, children named after snack foods, bad southern accents, librarian alcoholism, deadbeat dads getting hit by trains . . . and I love it.  It fascinates me.  I will never get tired of watching this movie.  The only reason I would ever change the channel when it's on is if my roommate walks into the room, and even then I usually make her watch about 10 minutes of it, depending on if Natalie Portman had the Wal-mart baby yet.

So there you have it.  If you, too, would like to start your own bgbm (or bbbm), email me and I'll give you a starter list of movies free of charge.

Oh and hey!  Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday!  Enjoy:

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons, and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one, and calls out “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn.
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate…
But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.

Mi amore

I have an obsession with pasta.  It's not at all something I've recently discovered.  I'm not having a whiny, middle-aged woman-who-takes-a-gap-year Italian food renaissance,  My passion for pasta has always been and always will be, to the point where I first considered writing a blog about spaghetti long before I even entertained the idea of writing about poetry. 

Pasta and I go way back to a time when I was a toddler and it was a pastina.  My mother used to coax me with a mixture of pastina and egg when I refused all other food, and to this day it is still my go-to dish when I'm sick.  The pasta's and my relationship escalated last year when I was no longer satisfied with simply emptying a box of linguine into boiling water.  I wanted to get my hands dirty.  So I bought a $40 pasta-maker at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and, armed with a book of recipes from Mom, I hand-cranked my first batch of noodles.  Well.  What can I say that will convince you to live a life of only homemade spaghetti?  That it is like nothing else in the world?  That angels and Etta James sang? That it really is the easiest thing to do and cooks up in about 2 minutes?  That true pasta in its plainest form actually tastes rich and eggy and not at all like cardboard?  

Now that I have found gastronomic bliss with my pasta maker, I am continuing to build our relationship.  I have discovered two things in the last month, during which I made a Christmas and a New Year's batch: 

1) Using Italian "00" flour really does make a difference and only costs about $3 if you can find it.  It is so finely ground, it is like working with talcum powder.
2) Instead of relying on a food processor to mix the dough, make an old-fashioned well out of the flour, put the eggs and olive oil in the middle and mix it up yourself.  Ten minutes of kneading dough will certainly help you feel less guilty about that big bowl of fettuccine you're about to eat.

And for those of you who are reading this and thinking, when did I sign up for a cooking blog?  I say, come over and I'll show you what all the fuss is about.

Pumpernickel

Monday mornings Grandma rose an hour early to make rye,
onion & challah, but it was pumpernickel she broke her hands for,
pumpernickel that demanded cornmeal, ripe caraway, mashed potatoes
& several Old Testament stories about patience & fortitude & for
which she cursed in five languages if it didn’t pop out fat
as an apple-cheeked peasant bride. But bread, after all,
is only bread & who has time to fuss all day & end up
with a dead heart if it flops? Why bother? I’ll tell you why.
For the moment when the steam curls off the black crust like a strip
of pure sunlight & the hard oily flesh breaks open like a poem
pulling out of its own stubborn complexity a single glistening truth
& who can help but wonder at the mystery of the human heart when you
hold a slice up to the light in all its absurd splendor & I tell you
we must risk everything for the raw recipe of our passion.

-Philip Schultz

Take two and call me in the morning.

Last night I tried something new.  I went to a dance class that was more than a dance class.  This one had a live DJ, the steps were really easy to follow, and you do not stop moving for an hour and a half.  For all you LA people, it's called Groov3.  Check it out.  The instructor, Benjamin Allen has a really great philosophy about dance improving your life, I have to say that I agree.  When you're stressed and overwhelmed with life, spending a chunk of time learning dance moves and trying to look cool busting them out in front of a large group of people can really take your mind off things.  Plus, I think by now we can all agree that music soothes the soul (and uplifts it).

When I was in college, a couple friends and I would meet in our dorm common room to take a dance break from studying.  For some reason I can only recall us dancing to Weird Al and Space Jams.  Surely there was more to the playlist?  Napster had just come on the scene and I think we were all learning to harness it.  Anyway, try it sometime.  Instead of a smoke break, take a dance break.  Do it in traffic.  It will probably bring joy to the people around you, as they will count themselves lucky to have witnessed such an exuberant display.

The Dance

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess

This poem was written by William Carlos Williams about a scene in a painting called The Kermesse: