Novitiate (2017)

This movie on nuns in the making takes place when the bad old Catholic Church was on the verge of changing, and as you might imagine, fans of the old school church were none too pleased.
A movie about nuns in the '60s may not sound exciting. It may not even sound vaguely intriguing. But the filmmaker wisely depicts these young women as individuals who contain multitudes, even within such a structured setting. They’re full of contradictions as they figure out who they are and what their place is in the world—just like any young woman in any walk of life. These teenage girls, however, have chosen to dedicate themselves to God—to marry Him, as they say in the vernacular, which includes donning a white gown and veil and taking vows.  How can boys compete when the groom they are seeking is Christ?
Only nuns will take a very steep dive from grace after Vatican II.  The modernizing of the Catholic Church allowed for more lay ministers to take part in services and ministries, so donning a habit and becoming a bride of Christ was no longer the only path to church leadership.  Nuns were no longer as special as they once had been.   More women elected to serve God without taking vows. As a result of all these changes, the number of nuns has plunged dramatically.  So this chronicles the end of an era.

From the Oven to the Table by Diana Henry

This cookbook, which came out just about a month ago, is the November cookbook of the month in the Food 52 cookbook club.  Henry is a well loved cook within this group, and while this book does seem to have a fair amount of failures to it's credit within the group's home cooks, everything that we have made out of it has been great.
The overarching concept of the book is that you add the ingredients into an ovenproof pot and pop it in the oven.  When it comes out, you have a meal.
There are dozens of intriguing recipes in this book, and I will be cooking out of it for some time to come.  There are lots of vegetarian options, some of which could be the center of the meal and others that could be assembled into a meal.  There are some fussy dishes, and some that do not have quite enough instruction (like what sized pot, and whether it should be baked covered or uncovered are sometimes missing).  Read through it first, and then pick a place to start.  Recommended.

The Art of Thanks

While the history of Thanksgiving is checkered, and its Puritan New England roots are something that directly pertain to my roots, the act of pausing to give thanks at least once a year is a good tradition.  That is something that I do not do often enough.
This photo was taken one Thanksgiving long ago and brings to mind the things that matter to me.  It doesn't matter if we celebrate today or another day (although it certainly has to have what we always have on our Thanksgiving dinner table).  Everyone does not have to be there is body, but in spirit.  Ever since my youngest had cancer as a five year old, I have had to redefine what being lucky means and what gratitude entails.  It is not about having no adversity.  We all have that sooner or later.  It started for me when my brother died when I was ten.   I learned quite quickly that life is not fair, but many many people know that far sooner in life than I.  It is about the connections we make, the people we support, and the life we lead.  May yours be true and clear, today and beyond.

Exploring Raymond (2010)

Phil Rosenthal is the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond which is based on his belief that family is funny and that the comedy of those relationships is universal.  He was sent to Moscow by Sony to supervise development of Everybody Loves Kostya, the Russian equivalent and this is a documentary of his experiece there.
Rosenthal took along a small crew and approached his assignment with the bemused detachment a certain lack of curiosity about his surroundings.  Nobody will question the importance of Ray Romano and the chemistry of his cast-mates in making Raymond a nine-season smash as well as a syndication perennial. But exposure to Rosenthal reveals just how much of his self-effacing every man persona went into the central character.  Not to mention the influence of his bickering parents on the show’s Marie and Frank.  The resemblance is uncanny.  The film highlights the frustrations he has with the cultural divide, and basically feeling like they just didn't get him.  Until the moment that they did.  Fun to watch even if you were not a fan of the original show.

The Library Book by Susan Orleans

This is a masterful tribute to libraries, and, even better than that, it has a plot and a story line.  On April 29, 1986, a fire consumed or damaged more than a million books in the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.   It was an inferno that burned for seven hours.  As you can imagine, there was a lot of flammable material held within.
The fire that nearly destroys a collection, leads Orlean to histories of libraries and Los Angeles and to an exploration of the physics of how a book burns.  There’s a suspected arsonist at the center of the story, but the hero is the library along with its collections of books, maps, menus, autographs and marionettes.
She goes on to explore the role of libraries in contemporary American life, which has gone well beyond the boundaries of books, or even things that are printed.  It includes multi-media, it has a social role, it is a place of safety and learning.  All that is beautifully laid out within this book.

Spicy Chinese Noodles

This comes right out of Ruth Riechl's new memoir about her time working as the editor of Gourmet magazine.

½ pound Chinese noodles, dried egg noodles, or spaghetti
Peanut oil
½-inch-long piece of fresh ginger
2 scallions
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons Chinese black bean paste with garlic
1 tablespoon Chinese bean paste with chili
1/4 pound ground pork
Sesame oil

1. Cook the noodles in boiling water until al dente (the time will vary with the type of noodle). Drain, toss with a half tablespoon of peanut oil, and set aside.
2. Peel and mince the ginger (you should have about two tablespoons).
3. Chop the white parts and slice the green parts of the scallions.
4. Mix the sugar and the two kinds of hot bean paste, and set aside.
5. Heat a wok until a drop of water skitters across the surface. Add a tablespoon of peanut oil, toss in the ginger, and stir fry for about half a minute, until the fragrance is hovering over the wok.
6. Add the pork and white scallions and stir-fry until all traces of pink have disappeared. Add the bean sauce mixture and cook and stir for about 2 minutes.
7. Stir in the green scallions and noodles, and quickly toss. Add a drop of sesame oil and turn into two small bowls. This makes a perfect snack for two.

Boundaries (2018)

After a bit of a hiatus in watching movies at home, we are back to having our youngest son pick out the movies the three of us watch, and this is a recent one.  I wouldn't have gotten it out myself, based on poor IMDB reviews and not watching enough trailers to be encouraged to get movies that I would otherwise not have heard of.
This is kind of wacky, unless you put it in the road trip movie category alongside such gems as Nebraska and Little Miss Sunshine, and then it has a home.  If you like either of those, you will be glad you watched this.  The characters are few but they are well fleshed out in a movie that is well under two hours.  They include Christopher Plummer, who is well over 80 years old,  as Jack, a ne’er-do-well barb-tongued weed dealer who reaches out to his estranged Seattle-based adult daughter, Laura (Vera Farmiga), fabulously flustered in pique angst-ridden mode after his outlaw ways get him kicked out of his senior living accommodations. Laura's son, who definitely did not fall far from the tree joins them as they wend their way to a better relationship all around.

Simple Cake by Odette Williams

This was the Food 52 Baking Club cookbook for October, and i wish that I had had something like this when my children were younger.  It is written by a good home baker, and the approach is to make easy cakes that look beautiful and can be brought to a birthday party or serve as dessert for a family dinner.
The book is a repertoire of tinkered and fine-tuned recipes that reflect the author's nurturing, easy-going sensibilities: unfussy, not overly sweet, endlessly flexible, and straightforward.   Their genius lies in how they are organized: 10 classic base cakes (Very Vanilla, Tangy Olive Oil, Cinnamon Spice) and 15 toppings (Nana’s Simple Glaze, Toblerone Ganache, Beautiful Buttercream), followed by 30 “Cake-worthy Moments” where the author illustrates the infinite creative possibilities for assembling these elements to suit any situation.  So you can mix and match cakes and frostings, do variations of each, or simply follow the basic instructions.  If you never want to make something that requires more tools than a handful of cake pans and a frosting kit, this is a great choice.

Roasted Peppers Stuffed with Ricotta and Herbs

I made this because at the end of the fall my CSA still had lots of peppers and I wanted to do a side dish that highlighted them.
I used a recipe from Diana Henry's new cookbook, From the Oven to the Table, but there are literally so many ways to make this you certainly do not need to seek that one out.
I start by cutting the peppers in half and seeding them.
I toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and start to roast them in a 400 degree oven until they are just getting soft.
This allows for the peppers to have a developed richness of flavor, regardless of how long the filling needs to cook.
The filling starts with whole milk ricotta, and for every 6 oz. of ricotta add an egg to it.  Then add other cheeses for flavor.  Options include goat cheese, Parmesan, grated Gruyere, the list goes on.  I used a flavored fresh sheep milk cheese in mine, which allowed for the pepper flavor to dominate.
Then add salt and pepper, a minced clove of garlic, chiffoned fresh herbs, even some steamed spinach if you like that.
Then stuff the peppers, top with panko or chopped nuts, and bake for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

The Tillman Story (2010)

 I watched this documentary on Veteran’s Day.

I work with Veterans in my every day life at work, and so Veteran’s Day is a time that I reflect on what service, country, heroism, respect and bravery.  This movie fit the bill for that.  This is a recap of a high profile enlistment post-September 11^th, and how things went from bad to worse after his death.

The filmmaker, Bar-Lev, who previously made the documentary My Kid Could Paint That, employs the conventional documentary format of talking heads, file footage, and insert shots, but he assembles it skillfully, presenting the Tillman The Patriot narrative first, then going back to show a more complicated man, whose real reasons for abandoning his lucrative football career to enlist in the military have never been fully revealed. Along the way, Bar-Lev blasts the media for merely parroting what the authorities tell them, and effectively accuses a succession of investigative bodies of entering outright, obvious lies into the public record. Most of the material in this movie has been seen, heard, or read before, but never with this level of useful illustration. 

Tillman’s death was warped into a message about recruitment into the military, but through extreme persistence his family uncovered the truth about his death, and worse yet, the cover up, which went well up the chain of command.

The anger at the disservice to veterans through the lying is palpable and made understandable.