Saturday, December 30, 2006

I Have No Great End-of-Year Reflections

Just a list of things. That's all I got.

Stupid Things I Can't Seem to Quit Doing:

Drinking three 12-ounce mugs of strong coffee, eating nothing for breakfast, and then, 2 hours later, wondering why I'm all shaky and hypoglycemic-feeling. This happens at least once a week and every time, I sit there going, "Huh! Why do I feel so weird?" for at least five minutes, and usually ten.

Things That Smell Awesome:

With apologies to my vegetarian and vegan readers, the beef bones and vegetables I'm roasting to make stock with. Holy crumb.

I'm using this recipe, if you're interested. Yes, I know Emeril is a total douche, we've been over that already, but for a total douche, he makes some remarkably tasty things, like this horrifically expensive and decadent macaroni and cheese recipe that I save for special occasions. One teaspoon of it is roughly 873 calories, I think, but my, is it tasty.

If this stock comes out half as good as it smells so far it is going to be King of Stocks. If this stock were my kid, I would have to get a bumper sticker for the car reading, "My Beef Stock Can Beat up Your Honor Student." That's how good it smells.

Things I Am Embarrassed to Admit:

That I still tear up at the end of The Sound of Music, even though come on, is Christopher Plummer an asshole or is Christopher Plummer an asshole in that? (Actually, wait: Are there any movies in which Plummer isn't an asshole? Hey, is he dead or alive? I just realized I don't know.) In a just world he'd have married the baroness and Julie Andrews would have found a non-asshole guy to fall in love with. Why I get teary-eyed at the whole wretched thing, I do not know.

Your turn. Tell me some things.

25 comments:

belledame222 said...

Emeril is willing to use enormous amounts of butterfat, which redeems him in many ways, even if he is astonishingly annoying.

ilyka said...

I have such mixed feelings on his butter obsession. I think primarily I'm annoyed by the similarity it has with the I'm-not-bigoted, I'm-just-politically-incorrect horseshit that's especially beloved on the right. Meaning, he's using massive quantities of butter just to be a dick, kind of, but then he's playing it off like "Yeah, I just told that mean old American Heart Association to blow me. BAM!" Like it's knee-jerk: Everyone is anti-butter; therefore, Emeril is such a rebel for using TONS of butter. Because he can and because let's face it, butter never tastes bad. (Unless you burn it, that is.)

Anyway, it's a little too much like the guy who says "I can say [slur] because I'm beyond all that, and anyway, how dare you censor my speech, you politically correct moron."

Like the fish recipe referenced in my old post--that thing calls for an entire stick of unsalted butter. Well, we made it that way, once. Never again. It's, and I never thought I would say this, too much fucking butter. We do half a stick anymore. And even that's too expensive to do often.

But I admit, you have to work pretty hard to over-butter food for me. Emeril's got that distinction, anyhow. He's one of the few who's done it.

Aw damn, I just tasted this stock. It's only half done yet, but already I'm knocked out. I might actually have to clarify this with the egg white and all that tediousness; it's that good and that worth spending the extra effort on.

It was originally intended to be the base for a vat of posole, but now, I don't know. I might end up drinking cupfuls of it for breakfast every morning, with some stale bread dunked in. Ooh. I have to quit thinking about this, I'm getting all emotional.

belledame222 said...

You know, i honestly hadn't listened to him enough to grok the stuff about "up yours, AHA!" just mostly oogled the recipes. oh well. BAM!

i saw him in a restaurant once, p.s. he kind of hunches over the plate and shovels it in.

belledame222 said...

who i really liked: the Two Fat Ladies (only one left alive, alas).

and Julia Child, of course. i'm reading "My Life in France" right now.

ilyka said...

Alas indeed on The Two Fat Ladies. SO wonderful.

Julia Child was a little before my time, but I loved reading The Julie/Julia Project. I ought to pick something of hers up, because you just know she'd have wiped the floor with old Emeril.

(He hunches over and shovels it in? Well, there's proper food appreciation for you! Just go have Burger King, Emeril, really.)

Lesley Plum said...

I tear up at the beginning of "The Sound of Music". As soon as I see Julie Andrews on that hilltop, arms wide, getting ready to twirl, and the music swells...tears running down my cheeks. I generally try to pass this off to people as being because it's the first movie I ever saw (I was 3) and that my father was born (Jewish) in Austria in 1931 and didn't leave with his family until 1939. Not that they were a singing family or escaped over the mountains. And yes, Christopher Plummer was a major asshole. I bet Theodore Bikel was much better on Broadway. Bonus Bikel benefit - He can actually sing.

Also, there's something wrong with that coffee thing?

Anonymous said...

There is one movie in which Plummer is not an asshole. Wait, no, there's a scene where he brings all three of the women he's dating to dinner. Yes, all three, even though one of his choices is Stockard Channing, and say no more, please. Best. Effing. Actress. In. The. World.

Oh. The movie is "Must Love Dogs," in which John Cusack finally shows signs of aging, and which is a cute movie with a dumb ending, and Plummer is the girl's father. He does a good thing at the end which makes up for being an asshole earlier.

They simply don't make good chick flicks any more. The most you can hope for, it seems, is "cute."

Anonymous said...

Christopher Plummer is still alive at 77 - dude's credits on IMDB go back to 1953. He wasn't too much of an asshole in The Return of the Pink Panther and he did play Sherlock Holmes a bunch of times.

belledame222 said...

mmmMMMMmmmm, Stockard Channing

Lesley Plum said...

and he did play Sherlock Holmes a bunch of times.

Yeah, but let's be honest. Holmes may have been brilliant, but he was a brilliant asshole. He just used his assholery for good, not evil.

Anonymous said...

He just used his assholery for good, not evil.

I hate to admit it of one of my favorite fictional characters, but you're right. And when Plummer played him he was more acerbic and snappish than when played by, say, Jeremy Brent.

So who would will an assholopooza, Emeril or Plummer?

Anonymous said...

Agh! Brett! Jeremy Brett.

ilyka said...

Ha! Yeah, it'd be nice if blogs could give commenters an edit option, but even I have none here. If I screw one up, my only option is to delete it and try again.

And I'm thinking one of Plummer's thousand-yard stares would completely do in Emeril.

Anonymous said...

I have often wondered if Amanda Plummer's twitchy manner comes from having faced down a few too many of those stares.

Re list: You know what else smells good? Pumpkin bread. I use the recipe in the Fanny Farmer cookbook and add chocolate chips and walnuts. Hmmmm. The recipe doesn't have butter, though.

This re

belledame222 said...

I am embarassed to admit that I don't quite know who Christopher Plummer is. i mean, i'm reading this here, but i amn't putting a face and so on to him.

Amanda Plummer...what has she been in?

i probably -could- get an image if i didn't keep getting mentally sidetracked by Christopher Walken.

belledame222 said...

(the only one of the above-listed i've seen is Sound of Music, and i have repressed the memory, or most of it)

ilyka said...

Well, there's a photo gallery here, but I admit he's not an easy guy to put a face to unless you've seen him in something recently. I tend to think of him as "Canadian actor who always plays the bad guy," myself.

Um, let's see: The Thorn Birds miniseries, he was the Archbishop in that; Sherlock Holmes, of course; I just saw him a really, really insipid movie I saw at my parents' (and surprise, he plays an asshole); oh, looks like he was a chaplain in Malcolm X; and he's a bad fella in this cheesy movie I like too much, Somewhere in Time, with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

Huh, says on IMDB he was in A Beautiful Mind, too. Don't remember that. Was probably distracted by Ed Harris' scenery-gobbling, there.

ilyka said...

And Amanda Plummer is apparently on Battlestar Galactica these days. I don't recognize her, myself.

Lesley Plum said...

You might remember Amanda Plummer from "Pulp Fiction". She was in the third vignette with Tim Roth. They played the couple who robbed the diner.

belledame222 said...

Hm. i may have Amanda Plummer confused with someone else. (i am having the most annoying deja vu this morning).

has James Woods -ever- played anyone who -wasn't- an assole?

Deborah said...

I'm pretty sure Plummer wasn't an asshole when he played Mike Wallace in The Insider.

My sister-in-law is a chef who does backstage prep on a lot of cooking shows. She thinks pretty highly of Emeril, who is a gentleman and treats his staff very, very well.

J. Goff said...

Christopher Plummer, that is. James Woods...didn't he play Roy Cohn? *shudder*

ks said...

I love Somewhere in Time too, but it is super cheesy. I don't particularly like to watch Emeril on tv, but I've heard that he's a really nice guy in person. And I practically worship Julia Child, it was a serious tragedy to me when she died.

belledame222 said...

oohhhh, Dolores Claiborne. NOW i know who he is. okay. yeesh.

Rob said...

Sorry I missed this conversation earlier: I don't think I've ever seen Christopher Plummer in anything where he wasn't the stiffest person in the scene. I didn't know Amanda was his daughter. Yeah, she's best known for playing Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction going from meekly saying, "I don't want to kill anyone" to growling, "if any of you pricks move, I'll execute each and every last motherfucking one of you".