Last Love (2013)

This is yet another movie about the end of one's life--I seem to be watching a lot of movies of late that involve actors who are at or near my parent's age.  It may be coincidence or it might be because I am thinking about my parents.  They are trying to move to be nearer to us at a time when they can do the move themselves, rather than having to be moved.

Matthew Morgan is a retired philosophy professor who's wife died, and he is left bereft.  I am sure that I do not want to feel like he does, although it is entirely possible that if I outlive my spouse and I still have my wits about me that I will be incapacitated.  His life takes a turn for the better when he meets Pauline on the bus.  She is a cha cha dance instructor who befriends him in the most genuine of ways.  I think that one of the keys to successful aging is to have friends who are younger than you, ideally along the way, so that even if you live to be quite old, and everyone who is your age is long gone, that you still have people in your life who are still alive and kicking.

Pauline does more than give Matthew something bright in his life--she is a bridge between him and his children.  Losing a spouse does not help with the task of  helping your children lose their parent--and Matthew was not a model father, so he was no better at that task than he was at moving on himself.  Pauline facilitates detente, and it is a bittersweet film with some flashes of wisdom.  And it is streaming on Netcflix. 

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

This is the tale of the very difficult life of a mother and her daughter in the waning days of the 19th century going into the time of WWII.  The story is mostly set in Shanghai, and the options for women there are severely limited.  Men control money and property.  Women are largely sexual objects to be controlled.  They are either one of several wives or they are courtesans or they are prostitutes, at least in this tale.

Lucia is the daughter of parents who do not love her--she acts out by sleeping around and elopes with a Chinese man from a traditional family who is returning to Shanghai when she gets pregnant.  This is the mistake upon which the rest of the story turns.  Predictably, the young man is unable to convince his family to accept the foreign girl as his wife, not even his second wife.  The first child is a girl, Violet, who they completely ignore, but when the second child is a son they do much worse--they steal him.  How Lucia copes with this loss is the first story.

The second part is the story of Violet, who gets stolen from her mother and sold into a brothel.  Never a good start in life, but she does manage to make the best of it, although it takes a piece of her dignity to do so.  She has some luck--some of it good and some of it bad--and in the end we hope for the best for her, but the story, while not a happy one, is well told.

Grilled Baby Zuchinni

The key here is to marinate the zucchini ahead of time (after pricking their skin, so that the flavor can enter) and using teeny tiny squash.  Larger squash should be grilled, then have flavor added--this recipe had a component of steaming the vegetable on the grill, and getting enough flavor in ahead of time to make it delicious when finished.

1/2 cup olive oil

4 garlic cloves, peeled

1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt plus additional for sprinkling

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 pound baby zucchini, trimmed

Blend oil, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper in blender until almost smooth. Using fork or wooden skewer, pierce zucchini all over. Place in medium bowl. Pour garlic oil over zucchini and let stand at room temperature at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour, tossing occasionally.
Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Grill zucchini until tender and golden in spots, turning occasionally, about 6 minutes. Transfer to plate, sprinkle with additional salt, and serve.

The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete (2013)

The subtitle of this should be "When Your Father is a John and Your Mother is a Heroin Addict, Defeat is Your Only Option".  But let it not be said that Mister goes down without a fight. 

The setting is in one of the notorious urban section 8 housing projects where the building is at least as dangerous as the streets and you can't buy fresh fruit or vegetables for miles around.  The movie opens on the final day of the school year, and Mister failing 8th grade.  His teacher delineates all the reasons that he cannot pass him and Mister's only response is "Fuck you".

Mister is angry, but he has every reason to be.  He mother shoots up heroin in front of him, gives a guy a blow job in a restaurant to pay for the kids dinner there, and doesn't try very hard to hide that either.  She tells him to stop treating her like a child, but it is clear that she has stopped treating him like a child long ago.  When she gets arrested, she doesn't come home, leaving Mister and his side kick Pete to cope on their own.  The movie is heartbreaking but not violent, and thought provoking.

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones

This is a great book about the consequences of impulsive decisions.  The time is post-WWI in Wales.  Wilfred is the local undertaker and he has a small but thriving business.  He is an eligible bachelor.  He is carried away one day at a picnic and impulsively asks a woman, Grace, whom he barely knows to marry him.  The next day he has serious buyer's remorse but he is not quite sure how to reverse the situation.  Grace has already told her parents, who have in turn alerted the whole town.

Wilfred tells Grace, but she is in her own fix--she is pregnant.  The proposal from Wilfred couldn't have come at a better time for her, and his backing out leaves her in a serious fix.  So instead of facing up to the situation, she keeps quiet, and Wilfred has to alert her parents and the rest of the town to the fact that their situations have changed.  While all this shuffling is going on, Wilfred has fallen for the lovely Flora, who sees herself as unable to love since her intended failed to come back from the war.  When Grace tells her father that she is with child but fails to disclose who the father is, he forces Wilfred to marry her.  All seems lost for our hero, but eventually Grace realizes what she has to do and she rights several wrongs--but not all of them. 

Simple Tomato Sauce

I can't believe this is not already on my blog because it is my favorite marinara sauce, which is basically Mario Batali's with a little extra carrot (I love how it sweetens the tomato and balances out it's acidity).  This one is for Tucker.

1/4 cup  olive oil

1 onion diced

4 garlic cloves minced

3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tablespoon dried

1  carrot, finely grated

2 (28-ounce) cans peeled whole tomatoes, crushed by hand and juices reserved

Salt

In a  saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook until soft and light golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot, and cook 5 minutes more, until the carrot is quite soft. Add the tomatoes and juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until as thick as hot cereal. Season with salt and serve. This sauce holds 1 week in the refrigerator or up to 6 months in the freezer.

Still Mine (2012)

This is the second movie that I have watched in the past month that features older couples and the good news for those of us in the second half of our lives is that they are still enjoying life, even when it is really hard, which in this movie it most certainly is.

Craig Morrison is set in his ways and he is getting quite old--87 when the movie starts.  His wife of 61 years, Irene, is just as stubborn and she is also very clearly more than a little forgetful.  She is still sweet, but Craig is at once irritated by her and worried about her.  And maybe a little worried for himself, because he decides to get rid of his cows when they make a break through old fencing.  His friend Chester is both annoying to him and the one who is telling him the truth, the devil on his shoulder.

Craig decides to build a small one story house with a nice view across the street on his own land.  Their house is in good shape, but the bedroom and bathrooms are upstairs and it takes too much wood to heat it.  Craig can afford to hire someone to build the house by selling land, but he doesn't want to do that, he wants to build it himself.  He is irritated to learn that he is going to need a building permit, plans for the house and a building inspector.  The inspector is just as difficult as Craig is, all by the book and with no real skills or knowledge himself to increase his flexibility.  After Irene breaks her hip and is going to have a walker, Craig goes ahead and finishes his house.  He is bucking the tide of many things, and while he isn't likable, he is admirable.

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

This novel by Amy Bloom, her first since the wonderful book 'Away' came out, has all the quirks and charm that I have come to associate with her stories.  This one is about a two-timing father who has two daughters by two different women.  When his wife dies, his mistress drops his younger daughter Eva off at the wake and leaves her forever.  The father is a weaker than weak character who married his wife for her money and has no idea how to take care of Iris, his older daughter, much less take on his other offspring.  No matter, because Iris is able to manage both of them.  Eva is brilliant and Iris has hutzpah and showmanship.

The bulk of the book is about how the two girls manage to grow up and make it in the world of post WWII, first in Hollywood and later on the east coast.  The stories are not full of lightness and joy--they are bittersweet, which is the sort that Bloom tells best.  This is a sweet quiet book which will hold you in it's palm and cradle you to the end.

Green Tomato Salsa Verde

Salsa verde is usually made with tomatillos, but this version takes advantage of all the green tomatoes that abound this time of year, especially when we haven't had much sun.

• 4 green tomatoes
• 5-6 garlic cloves
• 2-3 jalapeños
• 1/2 small yellow onion, diced
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground coriander
• Salt to taste

Preheat the broiler. (Or, alternatively, use your grill!) Wrap four of the garlic cloves in aluminum foil. Place the aluminum foil packet, the green tomatoes, and the jalapeños on a broiler dish broil for about 10 minutes, or until the skin of the tomatoes and peppers are charred, and the garlic is soft.
Run the tomatoes under cold water to remove their skins. Place the tomatoes, jalapeños and roasted garlic in a food processor or blender, and add 1-2 cloves of raw garlic, the cilantro, and the raw onion. Pulse until blended but still a bit chunky. Add the lime juice, cumin and coriander, and blend again. Add salt to taste.

Reed Flute Cave, Guilin

The Reed Flute Cave is a natural cave carved out of the karst limestone mountains over millions of years, and has been one of Guilin’s most famous attractions for over 1200 years. The cave got its name from the verdant reeds growing outside, which can be made into melodious flutes. Inside this water-eroded cave is a spectacular world of various stalactites, stalagmites, stone pillars and rock formations created by carbonate deposition and illuminated by multi-colored lighting to create a surreal experience.

Inside, there are more than 70 inscriptions written in ink, which can be dated back as far as 792 AD in the Tang Dynasty. They are travelogues and poems writing by Tang Dynasty literati who visited the cave. These aged inscriptions tell us that it has been an attraction in Guilin since ancient times. The cave was almost forgotten for a thousand years, before it was rediscovered in the 1940s by a group of refugees fleeing the Japanese troops.

The most striking thing about this cave, aside from the excellent representations of stalagtites and stalagmites that have grown over centuries of time is that they have chosen to use very colorful lighting to highlight some of the formations.  It is not exactly to my taste, but it is unusual, and something worth seeing.

There is a projected video show complete with music at a point in the cave, and again, this is in my experience a unique way to combine entertainment with a natural experience, and while it is not strictly a national park approach, it is well done, and interesting to view.  It is hard for me to take off my cultural blinders sometimes and experience something that is not how I would do it, but it is well worth the effort to do so.