8th Annual SouthSide Film Festival

Last week Dave's mom sent me an email with suggestions of things to do in the Allentown area, seeing as I would be there for two weeks while Dave studied for his boards. As it turns out, I started work two days later (a month before I originally thought I was going to) and was not desperate for things to do. However, I was so intrigued by the SouthSide Film Festival website that I made a long list of films I wanted to see. At the top of that list is Tucker and Dale vs Evil, a comedy/horror movie starring Alan Tudyk (who I love) that I have wanted to see since I saw a preview of it almost two years ago.

This is the 8th year the film festival has run, and though I'm not sure how it has run in previous years, this year has a theme of African film. There are a number of feature length and short films from and about Africa, ranging from documentary to sci-fi. I am going to try to see two features and two blocks of short films - that seems ambitious enough. Maybe next year I can plan this out better and see more.

Flushing for Dinner: Red Chopstick - Restaurant Review

Dave and I are back in Allentown again, this time for two weeks. He takes his first round of boards (the Osteopathic version) on the 23rd and after that we will go back to Maine to finish moving out of our apartment. I'll be glad to stop driving so much.

This time we decided to stop in New York to meet Jin for dinner. He took us to a Taiwanese restaurant in Flushing called Red Chopstick. They have a really good meal system - you can order a variety of things to split between 2 or 4 people for a relatively cheap price. Of course, there was also complementary tea, which Jin kept waving around.

We got five dishes - the Duck Soup, which was essentially a large bowl of broth with pieces of duck floating in it. Bones and all. Dave liked it so much he ate almost all of it on his own. Second was the drunken chicken, not a huge fan of that one. It's cold and has the skin left on it, and it's a pain to eat. The dungeness crab (which you can see below) was also a pain to eat, but it tasted better than the chicken.

We also got sauteed spinach, which was very good, and, my favorite, beef, celery and either tofu or mushrooms, we couldn't tell. That's the one in the square plate. I couldn't stop eating it.

After dinner we hunted down the bakery we got amazing egg custard from in April. For future reference, it is called the New Flushing Bakery. We got there late so there weren't many custards left, so we bought them out. We really need to start going to the gym again.

On the way back to the car we stopped by a market and bought crazy cheap fruit (apricots fo 69 cents a pound!), lychee candy and an aloe drink. I really love Flushing.

X-Men: First Class - Movie Review

****/5

I have been really impressed with the superhero movies of late. Both Iron Man movie have excelled, Thor was delightful, and the Batman movies almost don't count as "superhero" movies - they are genuinely awesome of their own right. X-Men: First Class continued in the same line.

Leaving X2, 3 and the abysmal Wolverine far behind, it did what the first tried to do, and did it better: it is a movie about the X-Men that ever so slightly makes fun of X-Men. It's self awareness is what made it work for me the way it did. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge X-Men fan. I wore a Rogue style skunk stripe in my hair in high school and I'm one of the 9 people who actually saw Wolverine in theaters - guess which of those two embarrasses me more. Hint, it's not the hair one. As a result, I would have gone to see this movie regardless of how good it was, but I don't think I'd have seen it opening weekend if I hadn't heard such good things about it.

It is really excellent. The casting was great; Jennifer Lawrence, who will soon be gracing theaters as Katniss Everdeen - the heroine of the Hunger Games and one of the greatest role models for young girls ever written - plays Mystique as a vulnerable young woman desperately looking for acceptance and affection. James McAvoy is a charming, if not particularly sexy, Charles Xavier and holds his own, though does not capture the character the way Patrick Stewart did. Michael Fassbender, unlike McAvoy, does make Magneto sexy in addition to very dangerous and slightly unhinged.

January Jones is a *cough* cold Emma Frost - so emotionless and nasty that we almost overlook the fact that she is only partially dressed for the entire movie. The rest of the cast is extremely good - the young mutants are endearing without being annoying, and the adults seem like actual people rather than caricatures. Rade Serbedzija scares the shit out of me, so I was rather distracted during all of his scenes, but that is a personal problem. Really, it's because after watching Mighty Joe Young as a child he haunted my nightmares for months, but you don't really care, do you?

Kevin Bacon, on the other hand, bears some mentioning. Sebastian Shaw is the "Big Bad" of the movie, bent of nuclear war to rid the world of it's pesky humans. At first sight, Bacon is an amusement. "Oh look, Kevin Bacon. Quick, someone sing Footloose!" Soon, however, he becomes tedious and brings absolutely nothing to the movie other than the question of why cast Kevin Bacon? Maybe Christoph Waltz was busy, or didn't want to play a Nazi again so soon, but I feel he would have been a far better Shaw.

Clocking in at 2 hours and 12 minutes, the film was surprisingly long, but never dragged. Start to finish, it was engaging and at times sweet, funny and exciting. Speaking of start, the opening scene of Erik and his family in a concentration camp is shot for shot from the first X-men movie - so much so that I was at times wondering if the editors had simply reused footage.

Personal favorite things:

All of the inside jokes for the benefit of hardcore fans
Excellent cameos - look carefully, they go by fast

Absolute best use of the one allowed "fuck" in a PG-13 rated movie I have ever seen

Less than favorite things:

A number of mistakes, especially math issues: in 1942 Erik and Charles are both 12, but in 1962 Charles is only 24
There is no after the credits scene, so don't wait in the hopes of one

Honestly, I had to think of things to complain about for this one. Definitely go see it, it's really quite good.

Toro Sushi - Restaurant Review

Toro Sushi
1105 South Main St.
Cheshire, CT 06410

Dave and I are still in the long moving process, and drove from Allentown back to Springvale today. We will do this drive three more times by the end of June. Then we are done.

Today was a very sunny day, and as always when I am faced with hours of uninterrupted sunlight on a drive, I got a blinding headache. By Connecticut I was unpleasant enough that Dave suggested we stop for food. I had a craving for sushi (this is an almost constant thing, not brought on by the headache or anything), so I did a quick search on his awesome new tablet and found a highly rated one a few miles away.

At Toro we got edamame and shumai for appetizers as usual - both good, though not extraordinary. Dave and I almost never get separate entrees anymore; we each like so many things we just narrow all the choices down to a few and share. We got five rolls: spicy salmon (because it is always good), peanut avocado roll (honey roasted peanuts and avocado *swoon*), a New York roll (Smoked salmon and apple with sesame seeds, tasty but a bit bland), a sweet potato roll (tempura sweet potato with bonito sweet sauce, my favorite of the bunch) and an Indian roll (yellow tail and banana, Dave's favorite). The service was great (hot towels to wipe your hands with after your food) and the decor tasteful. By the time we were finished my headache was gone (whether it was from the delicious food or the codeine I took beforehand, I can't say) and I was a much more pleasant person. The Dairy Queen we had after that completed my recovery and we were able to continue our trip.

Back to Allentown next Friday.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Movie Review

**/5

I remember when the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out, I saw it in theaters twice. I've never seen a movie more often then that on a big screen, and have only done so with a handful of others. I loved that movie, as did everyone else. It was surprisingly fresh and original, with a fun storyline and good action. Unfortunately, as with many franchises, it did very well in the box office and was never able to evolve. Each sequel has been more formulaic than the last, and my disappointment grows. On Stranger Tides is no different.

Think about the first movie. What were some of the most enjoyable scenes? The fencing scene between Will and Jack in the rafters of the blacksmith's? Jack's daring escapes? Battles at sea? Attractive young women with barely concealed breasts? Well, if those were your favorite parts of The Black Pearl, save yourself some money and just watch that one again. On Stranger Tides does every single one of those things, only not as well. It is like the executive producers sat down to watch The Black Pearl and made a list of their favorite things, and then made sure all of them made it into this movie.

In addition to repeating a lot of old favorites until they are cliche and annoying, so many new elements were added in this movie that there was not enough time to explain them all. Barbossa is back, of course. He, Gibbs and Keith Richards are the only characters who have appeared in the previous movies, apart from Jack. Added into the mix are Angelica (Penelope Cruz), the only woman Jack has ever had "stirrings" for. "Stirrings", incidentally, are slightly less powerful than "feelings". Also Blackbeard (Ian McShane), the only real pirate in this series. Filling the Will and Elizabeth rolls are Philip and Syrena, a Christian and a mermaid, respectively.

Since two of the three main characters of the previous movies were missing, OST seemed to try to reboot the series completely, as well as having a complicated story line. The result is a long, garbled mess. Too many characters and ideas are introduced, and not enough time spent on any of them. There are mermaids and zombies and Blackbeard and so many other things you almost forget that the main object is the freaking Fountain of Youth! I just did, honestly, right now, and I saw the movie about ten hours ago.

I did like Blackbeard, but that's because I love reading about real pirates. I was pretty excited to hear that he was in this one, and I was pretty pleased. A number of his legendary traits were included - lighting his beard on fire to scare his enemies, his decapitated body swimming around his ship - but I'm not sure that the added supernatural powers were needed. Maybe the writers thought that a telekinetic Blackbeard would be less frightening than the real one. The one in the movie didn't shoot people in the kneecaps for fun, so I guess that was their reasoning.

It was an entertaining two hours, but I'm not really sure what it was about. Not really worth paying for, and certainly not worth watching in 3D, which I didn't. It can't have been that spectacular. I've rather lost faith in this franchise, and I think I will skip any other sequels. I'll stick with the original and be happy.

Birthday feast!

Tuesday was my 24th birthday, and rather than getting food from Dinosaur BBQ like my mother suggested (which I did for my graduation party last year, I am by no means knocking the deliciousness that is Dinosaur), I wanted to do a more personal dinner.

I asked a few friends over and together we made and ate dinner. My mom, ever the helpful one, lent her kitchen and her cooking skills. She made (above) shrimp sauteed in olive oil with loads of garlic.

I had the master of Syracuse alcohol, Fernando, take care of the drinks.




















Sangira a la Fernando

One bottle white wine
1/2 C raspberry rum
1 C orange juice
2/3 C sugar
1/2 C raspberries, smashed
1 mango, diced
1 lime, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
1 orange, sliced
peach, diced

Put sugar, rum and orange juice into pitcher, stir until sugar is dissolved. Add all of the fruit, let sit until you are ready to serve. The sugar allows the fruit to soak in a lot of the alcohol, so the longer it sits, the more potent the fruit will be.

Add wine immediately before serving.

Fernando made a red wine sangria for last Christmas dinner, and it was amazing. I like white wine better, so I asked him to try one for my birthday, and it turned out even better than the last. Very fruity, very sweet and very strong. Fantastic.

My mom also made an amazing salad/appetizer from her favorite Tapas restaurant in DC, Jaleo.

Apple and Manchego Salad

1 Granny Smith apple
Manchego cheese
Vinegar or Lemon juice

Slice the apple into long, thin spears. Slice about as much of the cheese into similar pieces. Toss together in a bowl, sprinkle with vinegar or lemon juice to give it a kick and so the apple doesn't brown.

I made the crepes, the recipe for which can be found elsewhere.

Also on the table are bowls of Spanish olives, baked brie, roasted peppers, cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto, a salad that no one touched, and a Spanish dessert bread.

For dessert we had a vegan chocolate cake that Sally won at a silent auction
and the traditional lemon cake, my favorite. We also had a second pitcher of sangria that Fernando was good enough to make - this is a family of wine drinkers, in case you hadn't guessed that already. We were all quite full and tipsy by the end of the evening, and ended the affair with a story from one of the guests, a former children's librarian.

All in all, a pretty good birthday.

Final photo credit: Hannah Nast

Snickerdoodles!

Snickerdoodles used to be my favorite cookies in the world, and I haven't made any for a long time. I lost an old recipe I had, which I remember being phenomenal, but this one is pretty good too. Good enough that Dave consumed half a tray in about two minutes, then made a new house rule: I am only allowed to bake once a month, lest he get fat. I guess moderation is a concept beyond him.

Snickerdoodles

1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C shortening
1 1/2 C white sugar
2 eggs (1/2 C eggbeaters)
2 t vanilla extract
2 3/4 C all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
3 T white sugar
3 t ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.

Cream together the butter, shortening, 1 1/2 C sugar, the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. You may find it easiest to mix in the last three first, then the flour one cup at a time. This mixing should be done by hand; the consistency of the cookies is drastically different otherwise.

Mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon for the topping. You will have to coat each cookie in this, so you will find in much easier to put the cinnamon sugar in a sandwich bag.

You will probably need two cookie sheets going at once, because this makes about 48 cookies. Cover each sheet in parchment paper, it will make you life considerably easier.

Shape the dough by rounded teaspoonfuls into balls. Roll them lightly between your palms for a few seconds to form them. The dough is very sticky, so make sure to wet your hands with cold water first, and do not roll for too hard or too long, or you will just make a mess. x_x

Drop the dough balls one by one in the sandwich bag, shake it a little to coat in the topping, then place on a cookie sheet. Wasn't that easier than rolling each one?

Bake sheets one at a time for 8 minutes. Only 8. When you take them out the tops of the cookies will have cracked, and in the cracks you may see wet dough. DO NOT cook them longer. They will just harden. You want these to be chewy cookies.

If you are able to put one tray of 12 cookies in every 8 minutes, this shouldn't take you much longer than an hour to do.