Made some simple pasta and gravy last night and watched an "eh" documentary called Eat This New York.



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The "main" story is not too interesting at all. the interviews with some of the big chefs were good though. Sirio Maccioni's interviews were worth a netflix queue if you have netflix (pretty funny quotes this guy)....I wouldn't buy the DVD or rent it from blockbuster for 499$ though.

All those "names" listed, really had nothing to do with the documentary other than some little interviews...and the main story....just was not interesting. 2 guys opening up a bistro/restaurant in "hipster" Williamsburg (Brooklyn)...didn't get much deeper than that other than the "almost bailing at last minute" and "taking the jump" feelings...

Took another Boar D. Laze recipe for some simply gravy (with a little kick!)

Sugo for Paisans:

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbs tomato paste
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 28 oz can plum or (preferably) San Marzano tomatoes, whole, peeled and seeded; or, 1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes (see Note.)
3 tbs sugar, divided
1 glass red wine
2 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano or marjoram
1 tbs salt, divided

Drain the tomatoes, reserve the juice, and rough chop the tomatoes.

Saute the onions on medium high heat in olive oil until sweated and just beginning to brown. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, two minutes at most. Add the tomato paste, and move the vegetables through it. Cook until the paste darkens, another three or four minutes.

Add the tomatoes, half the juice, reduce the heat to medium, and bring to a simmer. Adjust the flame to hold a medium simmer. Add 2 tbs sugar, the wine, the instant coffee (or a shot of espresso) and the pepper flakes. Simmer 15 minutes, until wine is cooked.

Taste and adjust for sugar and wine. Add the herbs, crumbling them into the sauce. Let simmer another 15 minutes.

Taste and adjust for herbs, and salt. It may not need any salt, depending on the type of tomatoes ues. Continue to simmer until the tomatoes are almost, but not completely melted. Probably another half hour, altogether. If sauce is too thick, thin with the remaining juice, water, and/or wine as desired.

This sugo is as unadorned as can be, add anything that tickles your fancy.

Note: This sauce will be slightly chunky. It may be milled, sieved, processed, blended or otherwise pureed to smooth it. Alternatively, it may be made with crushed tomatoes instead of whole.

With this menu, beer or cheap red. Think juicy -- Chianti, Barolo, Zin, Barb, "Big House Red," and other wallet-buddies.

for an under 5$ meal, it was great!

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Friday - Early dinner at Bonefish Grill (East Brunswick). I had never been, but Laurie has been wanting to go so since for once, there was an open reservation, we would overlook the early seating at 6:15 and get it out of the way. We were seated at a nice table, and although the paper table clothes and music didn't compliment the atmosphere very well, overall, I liked the atmosphere. Much better than most chain restaurants. The water and bottle of wine took a while, but the food came rather quick. Albeit, the main course wasn't supposed to come yet, as Laurie had ordered a Caesar Salad! Doh! Chalking it up as an oh-well, meals here now, kind of thing. The meal. I ordered the small filet, and it was good, especially for the price. I ordered it medium-rare, knowing that they would over-cook it at least a little to medium, thankfully, the did it actually medium, which is fine for me. Laurie, ordered hers medium, (she ordered the Filet special, with shrimp on top) and it came WELL, not a hint of pink, which, thankfully(and unfortunately), she likes. Potatoes were good, can't screw them up too much. To make up for the salad debacle, the waitress offered us dessert in which we indulged in the newly added to the menu Strawberry Shortcake which consisted of strawberrys, some melted vanilla ice cream, and a shortbread-type biscuit that grew on me. Overall a decent meal, especially for the price. The (young?) manager, or whomever was asking everyone how there meal was needed either clothes that fit him, or someone to tell him that you can't pull off "the sag" with a tucked in dress shirt and dress pants...

Sat - Decided to buy all new, much needed bedding. (and a few kitchen stuffs, aka Pasta Roller) Watched a movie called Summer Lovers with Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah. Makes me want to go to Greece, but strange movie. Also made some Pasta Fagioli soup as a compromise to never going to Olive Garden (aka hell) again. Soup = WOW Breadsticks = Owww.....not so wow. Perhaps I'm not a baker. To quote my love, "Ugh, they taste like flour". Well, at least they looked good. All that kneading of dough for nothing.








We knocked it out of the ballpark with the soup...I think we have officially graduated "Soup School".

Sunday - Went to the movies to see Juno, great flick. The girl who plays the lead is most excellent. Although, while I'm very liberal, if I had a 16yr old daughter, there would be no way I'd let her see it....

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Friday - Watched Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Fell asleep to a horrible ending of a movie. Let's recast it with maybe Kevin Spacey as the strange guy, Ben Affleck as the husband (because Ben can made any role better), and get rid of the ugly chick who plays the sister...oh yeah and re-write the ending. Oh yeah, Red Truck wine is horrible.

Saturday - Woke up and cooked some breakfast with Laurie. I must say, we are a kick-ass team of cooks. Iron Chef style. I whipped up some Eggs Benny, my favorite breakfast dish, and since Laurie doesn't like anything runny, or raw-eggy, a spinach and mushroom omlette for her.
Are we Emeril or what?


Since we planned on nothing for the day, or rather we planned on a nice relaxing, magazine reading, music listening, couch day, we (read: I) decided to finally duplicate one of my favorite meals I've ever had. The original meal was at a place in Brussels, Belgium called The Belga Queen and reads as follows:
Meatballs as in Liège (sauce based on a meat stock and pear/apple syrup), cone of fries BQ, lettuce with beer vinegar and virgin olive oil

Now, this "Liege" or rather "Sirop De Liege", upon investigation. Is one of those traditional, only in Belgium, super-top-secret only made by one company, never homemade type of things. (see: website). Phooey. 50$ to have it shipped to me? no thanks. but it can't be that hard right?.....

So scouring the internet, even a pro like myself, proved difficult for a recipe. However, once I started searching in other languages, something came up. A few favors from some foreign speaking friends, and I "sorta" "thought" I had "maybe" the start of a recipe? But it was merely a crap shoot. But, what the hell, it sounded simple, why not give it a try. The recipe called for about 20lbs of fruit, pears and apples and a couple of handfuls of dates....with a total cooking process time of ~9 HOURS! ahhh. Must be good. Well, here are some process pictures, and here are some result pictures. I say it (the sauce) came out EXACTLY as I remember, even better. Out of 20lbs of fruit and 9 hours, it only yielded a jar of sauce/syrup.








Next time around, I'll mix the sauce with the meatball stock a little more as it was almost sweeter than Laurie!

While this was cooking, we had a blast listening to music and catching up on the stack of magazines that have been collecting! We also watched The River Wild - OK flick.

Sunday - Homemade waffles and some scrambled eggs for breakfast, again, tag-team iron chef style! Shopping at Bridgewater mall, Oil change, and bike show to collect a trophy.

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Sweeney Todd - Amazing. Johnny Depp, amazing. Some of the shots/scenes....were more than amazing. The musical numbers....amazing. Could very well be the movie of the year for me. (well, movies that were released this year at least!).

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I am Legend - Visually amazing. Visually amazing. (yes, I said it twice) The "monsters" were way too GCI looking. A few unrealistic (even more so than the plot as a whole) key parts to the movie that I can't give away without spoilers. The ending was very weak. The acting, well, it was Will Smith so its either going to be good or horrible depending on which bandwagon you are riding on this week.

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The Tunnel - Great based on a true story Cold War movie. Long, but great. If you can't read subtitles for 2 hours, don't bother. Acting was great. Lead actor reminded me of Jason Statham for some reason. Actually, all the actors I could have linked to Hollywood Actors. For the second time I noticed a foreign film did some things that Hollywood flick wouldn't regularly do and went places that Hollywood would have never went. The plot, and all the subplots were all interesting. Like any good movie, you'll hate certain characters and you'll love some. If you have any interest in the Cold War, this is a must-see. Not sure sure how anyone who lived in Germany slept at night for all that time...

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Forward: This past week or so has been littered with countless hours on the couch watching snowfall with my love, eyes glued to mind-numbing horrible movies. (in front of a beautiful Christmas tree)

A Christmas Story - Classic feel good Christmas flick with WAY too many funny quotes. If you don't know this one by now...

About a Boy - Hugh Grant. As much as I can't think of anything that I actually LIKE Hugh Grant in, this flick, I actually liked him in it, although Mr. Affleck could have made this movie a little more than "just watchable". The little kid was a bit annoying, as was the nut-case "granola"mom. The kid desperately needed a haircut. Kind of a silly plot, with an OK ending and Hugh Grant was actually a little more than bearable in it. I rate is a little above "just watchable"

Garden State - So I kept hearing, even though it was from typical chick flick fans, that this movie was pretty good. Being a loyal because I live here resident, I figured I'd give it a shot. I like Natalie Portman and I think thats the dude from Scrubs which I watch from time to time. I liked everything about the movie but the actual love plot. It was just stupid. Beyond cliche' ending, etc. etc. The rest of the flick, if they were aiming for what I thought they were aiming for, which was to make this depressed actor feel a little better about himself compared to the people who are still stuck in NJ digging graves with fantasy ambition, was pretty good. I must also note that the part where the knight walks by when he wakes up, is hysterical. So in conclusion, I really dug on the story of him "finding" himself, using a field of typical false-ambitious New Jerseyites, however the love story, which I guess was the main plot, was horrible. P.S. Whomever on IMDB gave a review that was titled "A Film that Defines a Generation" needs to clubbed about the face with an old sneaker.

Children of Men - GREAT premise. Kinda....VERY poor execution and an even horrible ending. I don't know why I thought this was going to be good, but it DID have a lot of potential. This plotline would have played out much better in a series of books, so that rather than spend 20 minutes of gunfire battles running through a refugee camp, they could have just said it in one sentence and been done with it. So, because my reviews this week have been kind of negative, I'll still leave this movie as rated horrible, but I will list my likes about it. The sets. They must have spent the entire movie budget on sets (because the acting was horrible). Damn, thats it...I just liked the premise and the sets. Oh yeah, how could I forget, I absolutely hated the character of Sid. If that son of a bitch referred to himself in 3rd person one more time I was going to throw my DVD on the railroad tracks behind my house. For the love of god...

I should concentrate on analyzing plots and acting more, and I will, but this week was not the week to start...

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The Lives of Others - Great flick. A love plot you don't expect to see much in US films. I even loved the chubby hooker. One thing I just love about foreign flicks is simply the different way they 'take' a plot rather than the typical happy ending/sad ending. In this flick, they made it more complex than that. The actors were "OK" but the plot had me loving it.

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Very Bad Things - FUN movie, dark humor that kind of lost me at the very end. Cameron Diaz is pretty good in this...Christian Slater, I didn't think acted very good. But, it is a cheezy comedy about a bachelor party gone wrong. The minivan scene had me dying!

Born Into Brothels - Documentary about kids who's mothers are prostitutes in Calcutta's red light district. Did not focus on prostitution, but an American photographer who is trying to help the children get an education. Dark reality, and I almost felt it was borderline exploitative. Very good if you are into documentaries that aren't all shot through rose colored cameras.

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Friday: Interview in the City again. Same company, another offer, another offer I might not take.

Saturday: Wake up at the ass-crack of 5am to go riding in Bald Eagle, PA with Rob. Load the bike on the trailer and we are off by 5:30am. Loooong ride out there but worth it. It was ~35 degrees out. First, my bike gives a little trouble starting in the cold. After starting it...I gear up and hop on the bike to get going. I almost bounced right off the seat felt like a pogo-stick! DAMN, I blew out the rear shock. So, I had to ride the whole day without any suspension. Thank god we mostly road just regular dirt roads. The one single track trail we took was a series of long rocky hillclimbs. Putting along best I could, trying to get traction, I look up and Paul was stopped on the hill, having trouble getting going again. I knew if I stopped I wasn't making it up. Sure enough, I stopped, went to start and ooofph right over. Rob ended up embarrassingly riding my bike up after rolling it all the way down. We had some lunch and ended the day at 3:30ish with 100 miles of riding. Looong ride home, pizza for dinner, and I immediately passed out on the couch watching American Splendor.

I forgot to mention. On the way up, we stopped at a gas station so I can get some grub before we went out riding. I walk into this Pennsyltuky station and I immediately see the "hot dog roller" machine with those 8 day old greasy rolling hot dogs. Well, to my surprise, I was taken back by what they had to offer other than hot dogs. Cheeseburger-Hotdogs...yes....a cheeseburger in sausage formation. An inbred of American comfort food gone a rye. You know how bigmacs from MickyDees look good in the picture but horrible in real life? Take that to the n'th level on this picture.

1 review that I found on the web.

Now, last but not least, the “cheeseburger bite” $1.79. The folks at 7-11 decided to try and make a cheeseburger in the shape of a hot dog, roll it around on the rollers and tell people it was good. It was not, not in the least, it was gross, which is an understatement. My “cheeseburger bite” felt and tasted like a rubber doggie chew toy. What were you people at 7-11 thinking when you came up with this? I have this final thing to say about it, you know what the cheeseburger bite looks like when its sitting on the rollers; well it tastes like it too!

Amazing. Here is what 7-11 says.

Cheeseburger Big Bite™ Hot Dog
Easy to eat perfection! It looks like a hot dog, but it tastes like a cheeseburger! Fresh from the 7-Eleven grill, beef and cheese combine to create the easy-to-eat one-third-pound Cheeseburger Big Bite Hot Dog. Add your favorite condiments or toppings! Yummy!

Ugh. I can't pull up the nutrition facts for it but this thing can't be near good. I asked Rob what he would give me to eat one before we went riding, and he said he doesn't nearly have enough money to make it worth my while but almost offered his first born in trade.

Sunday: Slept late and cuddled with my love. Showered and went to Target, then Chili's for lunch. Laurie got Patron margarita drunk at lunch and we proceeded to head home to watch movies as it was quite the shitty day. Head home, get in the PJ's and watch American Splendor.

American Splendor: Great indy flick. Funny, Witty, and the way they did it, documentary style was great. The 2d animation was also great. Paul Giamattis performance was great too! I usually don't dig on comedies, but this flick was pretty damn good!

We then proceeded to plan our Washington DC trip that we are taking over the Thanksgiving weekend. We decide on the Sofitel hotel (why not...), The SPY Museum, The Smithsonian, and the National Air and Space museum if we have time. Closing the laptop's it was time for another movie.

I Netflicked The Covenant, why I'm not sure. The reviews were bad, everything I read about it was bad, the trailer LOOKED bad, but for some reason, I felt compelled to see it. No justification. It was bad. Not even your typical teen movie. Sure there were good looking teens in some rich private school driving expensive cars, and even a shower scene or 4. I waited what felt like FOREVER for act II to begin about 45 minutes in!!! By that time I was pre-occupied with something else and ignored the movie until the very predictable end. I would not recommend this flick.

Next up, a run to Borders for some reading/books and coffee...then home for a shower, shit and bed. I started watching the TiVoed The Great Escape while waiting for Dexter to come on (and is getting damn good BTW!) .

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