Daily Xmas

Daily Halloween: Night 10

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 15:07:00 +0000

Due to poor Netflix queue management Rabid (1977) arrived in my mailbox yesterday. I didn’t need to watch another early Cronenberg film so soon after Shivers, but who am I to fight the fates? Rabid stars Marilyn Chambers¹ as Rose. After a motorcycle accident Rose undergoes experimental surgery², during which skin from her thigh is treated to become “morphogenically neutral” and grafted to her abdomen and other damaged areas. After a month-long coma, not only has the graft repaired the damage, but it has mutated into a phallic protuberance that projects from an orifice in her armpit. (This is not hard science fiction.) Rose becomes a sci-fi vampire, seducing men and penetrating them with her armpit stinger to drink their blood. She is cunning and self-aware, but her victims become voracious and highly contagious – they are the rabid. When they fully succumb they’re like the infected from 28 Days Later, only less enthusiastic (the infected set a high bar). Shivers is a claustropobhic film taking place entirely on the grounds of a high-rise enclave; in Rabid we see the malady spread from the clinic and overrun Montreal.

These two films mark the middle of what I think of as Cronenberg’s early, raw period. In 1983 he made Videodrome, a highly conceptual, metatextual sci-fi horror film about violent media and S&M (it still involves new bodily orifices, that remains a motif until 1999’s eXistenZ, at least). It’s also his first film with a cast widely familiar to American audiences – James Woods and Debbie Harry. After that come The Dead Zone and The Fly, with higher budgets for cast (Christoper Walken, Martin Sheen, Geena Davis, and Jeff Goldblum) and effects. From there, Cronenberg makes all kinds of movies: crime films, an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, an investigation of Freud and Jung, and others. Somehow, after mentioning J.G. Ballard in my Shivers post, I neglected to mention that the Cronenberg adapted Ballard’s famous cult novel Crash for screen in 1996.

David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon, made his directorial debut with Antiviral last year. As a filmmaker, he’s very much his father’s son. I don’t think Antiviral holds together very well but Brandon shoots it with a lot of style and an uncompromising (if somewhat derivative) vision. Finally, father David published his first novel, Consumed, less than two weeks ago.

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¹Chambers was a sometimes mainstream, sometimes pornographic actress known best for Behind the Green Door, a film that came into my consciousness when Jackie Chan watches it in his teched-out Subaru in The Cannonball Run. As a kid I loved Cannonball Run.
²No good comes of experimental research and treatments in Cronenberg’s world – see Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Shivers, Rabid, Scanners, The Brood, The Fly, Dead Ringers, eXistenZ…

Daily Halloween: Night 8

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 02:08:00 +0000

I declare In the Company of Wolves to be a great movie. It’s a dreamlike dark fairy tale with its own logic (dream logic, I guess). It has werewolves in the strictest sense but it’s not a werewolf film, or even really a horror film. Based on a short story by Angela Carter, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Neil Jordan, it brings the subtext of Little Red Riding Hood (sex and predatory men) to text. But Carter and Jordan turn the story on its ear – they empower Rosaleen, the red-hooded heroine, and aren’t entirely clear about the wolves’ nature.

Most of the film is set in a shadowy forest of mossy, gnarled trees and giant mushrooms; lizards, frogs, snakes, and birds are tucked into almost every scene. The setting and the man-to-wolf transformations work not because they’re believable or realistic (they’re not) but because they fit the uncanny world. It has stories within a dream within a story, and, though the logic of the real world doesn’t apply to any of it, the story coheres.

Sarah Patterson, who was only about 13 when the film was shot, delivers a good performance as Rosaleen and I’m surprised she didn’t go on to do more. The rest of the cast is also very good: Angela Lansbury plays Granny, David Warner plays Rosaleen’s father, and Stephen Rea and Terence Stamp make short appearances.

This was a nice change of pace, and my favorite of the new films I’ve watched this month.

Daily Halloween: Night 7

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 01:38:00 +0000

I put on The Killing of Jacob Marr, a low budget indie horror film, tonight. It was wholly unremarkable so I did some work while it played in the background. No more need be said of it.

But I’ll take a moment to sing the praises of Ken Russell’s weird Lair of theWhite Worm (1988). I saw it in high school, sometime in my twenties, and then again about a month ago. It has new Doctor Peter Capaldi, an early-career Hugh Grant, and, in a fearless performance, a vampy Amanda Donohoe. It's a crazy movie full of hallucinatory psychosexual imagery, and really quite fun.

Daily Halloween: Night 6

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 01:03:00 +0000

I finally got around to watching a Mario Bava movie, Black Sunday, a.k.a., The Mask of Satan (1960). I am a big fan of Italian horror, and Bava is the godfather. I’ve put him off because I’m always a little resistant to watch old films, particularly from before the late 1960’s. I am not proud of that and when I do see one I’m often pleased, but it’s a hang-up nonetheless. But Bava is the predecessor to Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Michael Soave, Lamberto Bava (Mario’s son) and others I’m forgetting or don’t know, so I had to try.

Black Sunday is shot in black and white. The lighting in some of the scenes is beautiful and there are some startlingly good visual effects. It’s an interesting watch, romantic and gothic in story and milieu and with an uncanny creepiness I rarely find in older films. Barbara Steele is good in dual roles, playing the 15^th century Moldavian witch Asa and her 19^th century descendant Katia. In the end, though, I am a philistine: I admire this film but am unmoved by it. I recommend it for fans of the genre who want to see some of its roots.

But Amazon has a slew of Bava films streaming, so I next opted for the 1966 Kill, Baby, Kill!, a much more modern film than Black Sunday but not so lurid as the title suggests (how could it be, unless it were a rape revenge prison flick?). The story brings the modern and the scientific against the supernatural when a coroner visits a late 19^th century cursed village in the Carpathian Mountains. Bava’s direction is much more dynamic and interesting than in his earlier film, panning and zooming to explore the artfully arranged spaces. It has cobwebs, a foggy cemetery, timely gusts of wind, and a spooky child ghost, all lit in alternating vibrant color and shadow. This film was a happy discovery.

Daily Halloween: Night 5

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 01:14:00 +0000

David Cronenberg is an art house director best known as the prime practitioner of body horror, though he has expanded well beyond that in his 40 years of filmmaking. Shivers (1975) is one of his early films. It takes place in a planned condominium reminiscent of the high-end enclaves in J.G.Ballard’s novels High Rise and Super-Cannes. In the film a sexually transmitted parasite runs rampant, causing uncontrollable libido in its hosts and resultant deviance, chaos, and death. Clearly, the juxtaposition of the setting and the increasingly twisted sexuality is rife with social commentary; you can watch and decide for yourself if it’s effective. The character Nurse Forsythe encapsulates the mood: “Even dying is sexual.” Not unexpectedly, Shivers met with much controversy when it came out, but Roger Ebert was an early (somewhat hesitant) proponent and it has come to be mostly well-regarded.

I appreciate Shivers. The Fly may be my favorite of Cronenberg’s horror films and his most polished. The Brood might be his creepiest. His psychological horror drama Dead Ringers, wherein Jeremy Irons plays twin gynecologists Beverly and Elliot, is a truly unique film and probably the one I most recommend from his early catalog. And then there are his recent forays: his crime dramas like the great A History of Violence and Eastern Promises and the surreal, literary Cosmopolis. His is an oeuvre worth exploring.

You could spend a lot of time diagramming Cronenberg’s influence, and one branch would lead you from Shivers to the 1986 cult horror comedy Night ofthe Creeps, which also showcases mind-controlling slugs. Both are directly referenced by James Gunn’s 2006 Slither, a fun film with a great cast – one of my favorite post-2000 horror films. I’m glad Gunn is seeing wider success now with Guardians of the Galaxy.

(Here’s a Paris Review interview with J.G. Ballard from 1984.)

Daily Halloween: Night 4

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 17:09:00 +0000

I jumped back to 1971 for last night’s movie. By then the world had seen Romero’s gory Night of the Living Dead and the almost naturalistic evil in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (both 1968). Mario Bava expanded on Psycho’s (1960) edginess by introducing the violent, trashy but stylish giallo in the mid-1960’s, but the genre doesn’t seem to have fully bled over (hah) into America’s popular consciousness until later in the 70’s. And 1971 was still a few years before the American-bred horror renaissance of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper.

Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971) has a look from the New Hollywood and the feel of a gothic tale. When the film begins, Jessica (Zohra Lampert) is recently out of a mental hospital and she, her husband, and a friend are escaping the city and driving to their new home in rural Connecticut, a journey that includes a portentous river-crossing by ferry. From the first scenes Jessica maintains a troubled internal dialogue, has visions of ominous figures, and hears near-constant creepy breathy whispering. The film’s first third feels as much a psychological thriller as a supernatural horror film, and it suggests that all of the weird happenings may be borne from her madness, and it even seems possible that she is being intentionallydriven insane. It toys with this pretense until the end but it shows its hand pretty early.

Director John D. Hancock and cinematographer Robert M. Baldwin make great use of the old house and, especially, the pastoral setting, which seems summery and vibrant one moment and stark and foreboding the next. The film’s other strengths lie in its two female leads. Lampert is jaggedly vulnerable but always comes across as a real person facing her demons (which of, course, are probably not just her demons). Mariclare Costello plays Emily, a mysterious drifter they find squatting in the house who quickly falls into their lives. Costello is an interesting presence, ethereal and magnetic in her way but with a natural roundedness that belies her true role in the story. The film relies heavily on their performances and much of the tension comes from the interplay of their expressions and subtle spoken hints.

Costello as Emily

I admired this film and was glad to see it after reading about it for a while. Subtle by today's standards, but spooky and interesting.

Daily Halloween: Night 3

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 17:42:00 +0000

I am a fan of British filmmaker Ben Wheatley's movies. Down Terrace is a very black black comedy with a kitchen sink aesthetic and Sightseers is, somewhat, in the same vein; Kill List starts with the kitchen sink and keeps the realistic style even as it ramps up the occult trappings on the way to its surreal ending; A Field In England is a psychedelic nonlinear historical (17^th century) drama awash in English folklore and references to alchemy. I watched the latter only a few weeks ago and, as imperfect as it might be (and I’m not sure it is – I need at least one more viewing), I love his fearlessness and creativity of both form and content. He really is one of the most interesting directors working today.

Michael Smiley is in three of Wheatley’s four films and is terrific in all of them. I came across the film Outpost while looking though a list of Smiley's films. It sounded like it might have undead Nazis, so I added it to the queue and watched it last night. Smiley has a secondary part behind Ray Stevenson, who I also like. (And by the way, the more British TV and film I watch the more I notice that they have maybe 20 actors over there, and it’s fortunate that they’re good actors because you see one or two of them in every production.) It is the only film directed so far by Steve Barker and it was only released on DVD in the States. The DVD only thing isn’t always such a bad sign, I find, with lower budget films like this – maybe because distribution and marketing costs are so high? I’m speculating, but I’ve seen much worse films in the theaters.

In Outpost, a businessman named Hunt hires a team of mercenaries, led by Stevenson, to guide him to an old Nazi bunker in an Eastern Europe forest. These Nazis, it turns out, were exploring the dark arts and melding it with twisted steampunk technology. There’s an endless roster of films and comic books where Nazis are associated with the mystical or the occult, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, of course, as well as The Keep and Hellboy. I particularly like the charming Norwegian comic horror Nazi zombie film Dead Snow. Outpost has the Nazis experimenting with unified field theory (it references the apocryphal Philadelphia Experiment) and the bad guys, when they show up, are pretty bad. Director Barker uses some interesting animation and the setting is effectively creepy. He makes good use of his budget and the seams don’t show much. The acting’s good except for Richard Brake’s mysterious outback Appalachian cockney accent. Overall, forgettable but a fun and atmospheric 90 minutes.

A maybe better Nazi horror film

So far, I’m 0/2 on new horror films this month. Neither has been terrible but neither is a great discovery, either. I hope things look up.

Daily Halloween: Night 2

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 00:36:00 +0000

I was excited to see Ti West’s The Sacrament show up on Netflix streaming a few weeks ago. His early Trigger Man (2007) was an efficient, stripped down, effective film. I loved House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. He’s a good writer, has an excellent eye, and is known for slowly building tension and then blowing it up with intense action late in the film. (The term “slow burn” has been so often applied to his work that he’s apparently annoyed with it; seriously, google it and his name and you’ll see). Ti West wrote and directed The Sacrament, Amy Semeitz and Joe Swanberg get top billing but AJ Bowen has at least as much screen time. Semeitz and Swanberg are two of the most prolific young filmmakers/actors in indie film and West is no slouch either.

As excited as I was, I saved this film for October. And now I’ve seen it and I am sadly underwhelmed. It follows a reporter, a cameraman, and a photographer (all ostensibly from Vice magazine, in a weird media synergy) who travel to a remote compound to check on, and maybe rescue, the photographer’s sister (Seimetz) from a possible cult. The Sacrament looks good and is competently constructed, building tension and dread (as we expect from West). But the film ends up being far too conventional. Except for the presence of the crew and some grisly shocks at the end, it might as well be a Jim Jones docudrama. No twists, no surprises, nothing to make it stand out.

Very disappointing. So disappointing, in fact, that I stopped the credits and promptly played House ofthe Devil, which I hadn’t seen since it came out on video. It’s so indebted to 80’s occult horror – music, hair, costumes, the grainy look of the film, the walkman dancing – that it straddles the fence between homage and caricature. But it’s made with love and gets every bit right. This one burns so slowly that it has its detractors, but I find it kind of beautiful.

1980's Greta Gerwig

Everyday Halloween...Day One

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 01:22:00 +0000

October has arrived. The leaves fall from the trees, the nights grow long, and Halloween approaches. Every year around this time I watch a slew of horror films; I watch them all year, to be truthful, but I really ramp up around Halloween – ghost stories and monster movies and an occasional slasher flick. This year I’m starting early and I plan to stretch it out a bit. It's cool in my house and I'm under a blanket with the dog at my side, so it’s a good time to begin.

Tonight I watched Neil Marshall’s 2002 Dog Soldiers. I’d seen it before, a few years back, but I wanted to revisit it because I've come to really appreciate Marshall's films since then. This is his first, three years before he made the The Descent, one of my favorites and a film I watch every few months. Centurion is good as well, a fun comic bookish film.

Dog Soldiers is, of course, a werewolf film. Lycanthropes don’t get much appreciation, being less romantic than vampires and less of an easy vehicle for social commentary (like mindless consumerism) and modern anxieties (like pandemics) than zombies. Still, there are some gems in the genre. I love John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, and you should, too. It’s funny and scary and has likable characters, both dead and alive. And it has Jenny Agutter, who is charming and really should have been in way more movies. I really like Joe Dante’s The Howling as well. Both are 1981 movies. Ginger Snaps, a nice twist on the dangerous trappings of burgeoning teenage sexuality (most horror is metaphor, right?), is another good one.

Dog Soldiers is a strong debut. The roots of Marshall's atmospheric style show in the shadowy woods and craggy hollows. It certainly has enough gore, and the monster effects work well enough, though I like them better during the dimly lit early scenes. He makes good use of his budget – instead of a full werewolf transformation we get instead a few Lon Chaneyesque drop-out-of-frame-and-emerge-as-a-monster scenes, which I kind of like, and lots of hairy, taloned arms punching through windows. A solid cast, especially Kevin McKidd (Rome) and Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) deliver good performances. There's a lot of wit and the dialogue is natural. So it’s fun and it has some genuine tension, especially early on. A good start to the season.

Thanksgiving. Then off to Antarctica.

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:03:00 +0000

My last month has been a harried struggle to get things together before I leave for Antarctica to look for meteorites (you can follow our blog to see how it goes). Lots of preparation, but also an excuse to buy a new camera, which I've been using a lot this week.

So I took my dog on a last walk before delivering her to my friends' house, where she will get more attention, canine company, and table scraps than I usually offer her. She'll be happy to see me when I return, but I don't think she'll have time to miss me.

I fly out tomorrow, but I drove to Atlanta to stay with friends for Thanksgiving. It was a great meal and a great time. We had radishes from the garden.

Charlie cooked the turkey in parts on the grill. Great idea, and it turned out well. We had glazed carrots with cumin, homemade rolls, and I made Brussels sprouts with figs and bacon.

And beautiful desserts, including two kinds of blueberry tarts, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and a chocolate tart. We drank champagne and Burgundy with the meal and had Noval Black port with dessert.

Afterwards, there were group pictures, taken with Charlie's exotic cameras, and a walk with the dogs.

Then Charlie beat the hell out of me in both cribbage and backgammon.

Today, we had leftovers. Maybe the best Thanksgiving sandwich ever, inspired by a banh mi. Smoked turkey, Duke's mayonnaise, sriachi, cabbage, and pickled daikon and carrots.

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I'll be gone for a while, so I wish everyone Happy Holidays. Cheers.

St. Vincent and paella

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:59:00 +0000

Music and my slackassness

I haven’t posted in a long, long time. I wrote here and on my science blog until I realized I couldn't do that and meet my other responsibilities. (Also, I’m a dilettante and I rarely stick with hobbies for long.) Too bad, because I was just starting to get links from other blogs I read and respect. I may post occasionally and mention it on Facebook.

I made paella Saturday night, and while drinking wine and cooking, I listened to St. Vincent’s new album, Strange Mercy. I liked her previous album Actor well enough, but this one is great – my favorite of the year so far. It’s interesting and complicated, alternately hard and ethereal, and kind of proggy. She won me over in the interim with her badass cover of the Big Black song Kerosene, which I watched online. As a wayward youth, that was one of my favorite songs, and little Annie Clark owns it. Seriously, if you’re fan of Big Black, St. Vincent, or just music, watch that. When I was in Chicago this summer for the Pitchfork Festival, my friend Steve and I drank bourbon and watched it every night. So, yes, Annie Clark is the best ever thing to come out of Dallas.

And on a free-association Dallas music tangent, there’s the Silver Jews song, Dallas, (“How’d you turn a million steers into buildings made of mirrors?”) and The Mountain Goats song about its suburb, The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton – someone, I don’t recall who, wrote than John Darnielle spins whole short stories out of three minute acoustic punk songs, and it’s true.

Paella

On the food track: Paella is a Spanish rice dish most associated with Valencia on the eastern coast. Its name is from the Latin-derived word for pan, and the shallow pan it’s made in is itself called a paella or a paellera. Most recipes have chicken, shrimp, and maybe clams. Often they include duck, rabbit, mussels, snails, or cockles. They always have saffron and almost always Spanish chorizo. Some are especially heavy on the seafood, but mine had chorizo, chicken, and shrimp only. Good paella should cook until the liquid is completely absorbed or evaporated and it should have a nice crust on the bottom.

Saffron costs more than gold by weight and Spanish chorizo isn’t cheap, but you can make a less expensive version by substituting a bit of turmeric for saffron and substituting chorizo with another sausage, or bacon, and some extra smoked Spanish paprika (pimenton).

I mostly followed the recipe in The Essential New York Times Cookbook (which, if you haven’t seen it, is awesome). I also wanted to use Mark Bittman’s technique of finishing it in the oven from his Minimalist recipe, also in the book. Cooking it in the oven yields some of the texture and crunch without needing the paellera or the expertise. It’s not as pretty as traditional paella because you need to stir it before it goes in the oven or the shrimp would be overdone. I used a 12” cast iron skillet.

Modifications and improvements: I enjoyed the dish, and so did my friends who tried the leftovers. The texture was right and the flavors blended nicely, but I look forward to tweaking the recipe next time. You can use whatever mix of stock, wine, and water you like; I mistakenly thought I had homemade stock in the freezer, so I had to use low sodium organic chicken stock. Homemade stock is always best, and next time I’ll follow Mark Bittman’s recommendation to steep shrimp shells in the stock (I didn’t think of it, and I was lazy and bought peeled shrimp). Also, I should have browned the chicken with or after the chorizo and added it back in with the peas.

I drank a good, inexpensive Spanish Grenache (Garnacha) with this. It held up to the spice, chorizo, and chicken. If I made paella with more seafood I might’ve tried a white wine like Sauvignon Blanc, Alboriño, or an Alsatian Riesling.

Recipe:

olive oil

4 oz. chorizo, sliced or diced

12 oz. chopped chicken thigh meat

1 lb. shrimp

1 cup each onion and red pepper, diced

3 large garlic cloves, minced

1 cup peas (you could use up to 2 cups, I used frozen and thawed green peas)

1 cup chopped tomatoes

2 cups arborio rice

3 cups chicken stock

½ cup white wine

½ cup water

Red wine vinegar

Pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika)

Saffron (1/16 to 1/8 tsp., you could use ¼ tsp tumeric)

Preheat the oven to 500°. Toss the chopped chicken with red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper in a bowl and put aside. In a saucepan, start the stock and saffron (and shrimp shells, if you have them) heating to a simmer.

Put a 12” or larger cast iron pan on medium-high heat. Sauté the chorizo in oil until it just starts to brown then remove it with a slotted spoon.

Cook the onions and peppers until soft. Add a few dashes of pimentón. Add tomatoes and cook for about a minute. Add the chicken and cook until it changes from pink to white*, then add the rice and stir until it becomes opaque. (Preferably, brown the chicken with or after the chorizo, remove, and add back with the chorizo.)

Add the liquid (stock, wine, and water). Add the shrimp and peas and stir no no shrimp are exposed. Add the chorizo back in. Put the pan in the oven until all the liquid is absorbed and the paella browns a bit, about 20-25 minutes. Use a pizza stone and preheat longer if you want more bottom crust. Garnish with parsley and lemons.

New Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:17:00 +0000

I spent last week in New Mexico, mostly around Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I’ve visited northern New Mexico a number of times in both summer and winter and it’s always beautiful. It’s also one of the most distinctive states in the U.S. – the landscape differs even from elsewhere in the Southwest (though things blur around the four corners area). A high desert filled with stunning and varied mountain ranges, volcanoes, and the Valles Caldera.

The interior of the Valles Caldera. Redondo Peak is in the background and Cerro la Jara is the dome in the near center.

New Mexican food is one of America’s unique regional cuisines (even more so than the South). I love the food there. The ubiquitous New Mexican chiles vary in heat but are always flavorful, and they’re prepared with apparent care and skill even in the cheaper restaurants. The flavor of the chiles and their abundant use most sets New Mexican cuisine apart, but there are other differences, too. Blue corn is common, pinto beans are usually served whole (not refried), and many dishes (even the chile rellenos) are served lighter on the cheese than in other American-Mexican traditions. There are plenty of dishes I haven’t tried and probably much more diversity than I’ve encountered, but I look forward to working my way through it all on future visits. I love posole but I haven’t eaten it there, and I look forward to trying carne adovada.

(copyright Judy Henning)

The best chile relleno I had was a stuffed blue corn-encrusted green chile from The Range Café in Bernalillo (they have three locations but I liked that one best). A close runner-up (and my host’s favorite) was at El Patio De Albuquerque near the university. My favorite tamales (topped with green chile) were from the North Valley El Pinto – they have sauces available nation-wide but I haven’t tried them outside the restaurant. I had great blue corn chicken enchiladas with green chile at a few spots. My host turned us onto eating the end-of-the-meal soapapilla with a little bit of green chile along with the honey. I don’t know if that’s traditional, but it was good. Those are some highlights, but almost every meal we had was very good.

In addition to some great margaritas we found a really good beer during our first meal (at the High Noon in Old Town Albuquerque) and drank it thereafter – the Marble Red Ale. It’s unusually floral and hoppy for a red ale but it has more conventional flavors of light malt and caramel underneath, and it goes well with New Mexican food.

Mexican Cuisine Part 2: Sopa de Lima

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:03:00 +0000

We flew back from the Yucatán into Atlanta on a Friday in early January and I headed home the next day. It was snowy and icy in the South and the drive was a little squirrelly until I go to the interstate. I don’t mind the cold but it was a shock after the beach, and I wanted a nice meal to ease the transition. So I decided to make sopa de lima, or lime soup. We had it for lunch on New Year’s Day in Mérida at an outdoor café on a small downtown square. The soup had a generous helping of shredded chicken in an herbed and mildly spicy broth; it tasted of lime zest and had just a hint of acidity. It was served with fresh salsa and tortilla chips. Simple, but delicious and memorable. I got back to town a day before my girlfriend, so I set out to surprise her.

Sidewalk cafe in Mérida on a quiet New Year's Day

I chose a Rick Bayless recipe as a start. He has a respectful approach informed by years of anthropological study, culinary training, and residence in Mexico. (You may have seen him on PBS or Top Chef Masters. He’s kind of a goober but it’s mostly endearing.) I have one of his later cookbooks but this recipe isn’t there, so I found it on the internet. I followed it pretty closely, but here’s what I used:

For the stock:

1 3.5 lb organic chicken

2 medium white onions

2 heads of garlic

4-5 freshly ground peppercorns

~1/4 tsp cinnamon

~1/8 tsp clove

1 jalapeno and 2 banana peppers from the summer garden, thawed

small handful (2 tbs?) fresh oregano from the garden (I was lucky to have some that had survived or was flash-frozen on the stalk)

some pork (fatty boston butt trimmings from the freezer)

4 key limes (ends for stock; remainder sliced for later)

salt

For the soup:

meat from the chicken (see instructions)

1 green pepper, chopped

1 large white onion, chopped

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

For serving:

lime slices

fried corn tortillas

I usually keep a quart or two of home-made chicken stock in the freezer but I was out. Fortunately, for a chicken-based soup the lack of stock is an inconvenience but not a deal breaker. The recipe called for dry-toasting and caramelizing the aromatics, a technique I hadn’t used before, but I cut the two white onions and two full heads of garlic in half and laid them flesh-down in the pot on medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes. I added the pork for the last few minutes. I almost overdid it: the onions were a satisfying deep brown but the garlic surface was toasted just past the sweet nutty stage. Meanwhile, I coarsely ground the peppercorns and mixed them with the cinnamon and clove and broiled the peppers. I then added 3 or 4 quarts of water to the pot, brought it to a simmer, and added the chicken, a few teaspoons of salt, and the oregano, spices, and peppers. I cut the ends from 4 key limes and tossed those in as well (I reserved the lime centers for serving).

Sopa de lima and beans with greens

And here’s a trick, though not an especially clever one. If you need chicken meat and stock for a dish, poach the chicken and make it all at once. I kept the water at a scant boil and covered the pot for 45 minutes or an hour, skimming the foam and fat off regularly. When the leg and thigh wiggled freely, I pulled the chicken from the pot and put it on a plate. I let it cool for 20 minutes or so and then pulled the meat off and put it aside in a little bit of broth (if you let poached or braised meat cool completely out of liquid, it can dry out). I added the bones and skin back to the pot and returned it all to a simmer. When the stock was flavorful and the carcass broke apart (another hour or two), I poured it through two layers of cheesecloth in a mesh strainer and discarded the remnants. I put the stock aside to cool and skimmed the fat once in a while.

I wiped the pot clean, softened the chopped onion and green pepper in a bit of oil and then added the tomatoes. A few minutes later, I added the shredded chicken and the stock. When it was all warmed through it was ready to serve.

While the stock was finishing, I fried the tortillas. I like fried food as much as the next southerner, but I can count on one hand how often I’ve done it because frying is a big, messy pain in the ass. I put about ½” of vegetable oil in the skillet on medium heat and fried two tortillas, cut into strips, at a time. I did it all by look and feel and had moderate success. And since the mess was already made, I added a little more oil to the pan and fried some plantains to make tostones.

Finally, I made a beans and greens dish inspired by a recipe in the Bayless cookbook I own, Mexican Everyday. I cooked 2-3 tbs of meaty pork in the casserole until the fat rendered and added one whole diced jalapeno, seeds and all. When the pepper softened I added 2 cans of drained and rinsed black beans. I chopped two 10 oz. bags of spinach and wilted it in two batches in the skillet (wilting the spinach beforehand reduces the amount of liquid it gives off in the beans). When it was all combined I finished it with queso fresco.

Sopa de lima, beans and greens with queso fresco, tostonés, and a michelada

I’m glad to say that the timing was perfect. When she arrived and settled in I had tostonés hot and ready and served them with cervezas preparadas (subjects of another post, maybe). I served the soup with the chips and thinly sliced limes. It was delicious, but it wasn’t quite like it had been in Mexico. I think the broth was too heavy – I’ve never mastered making a clear and defatted broth, though I’ve made hundreds. Mine always have good flavor but I don’t fuss enough to get the texture just right. Some of the chips were chewy in the center but they were good enough when tossed in the finished soup. With the beans and greens, it was a nice full meal and we happily had leftovers for days.

Mexican Cuisine Part 1: On the Yucatán

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:38:00 +0000

Toothed Chac (the Mayan Rain God) at Sayil

I’ve posted about my trip to the Yucatán Peninsula elsewhere, and I discussed the history and archaeology and, of course, the food. But there’s more to be said and more pictures to share.

One of the many awesome customized bugs in Mexico

In my foolish youth, which I think I’m only belatedly (very belatedly) leaving behind, I thought fruity drinks were for the weak. I’ve changed my mind about that; providing the fruit is fresh (or even freshly frozen) and the drink is made with care, there’s a place for daquiris and piña coladas and the like. Hemingway himself loved daquiris and is said to have drunk sixteen in one sitting, and he epitomizes machismo, right? A well-made piña colada is damned good, and no man need feel that enjoying one supplants his right to drink straight tequila later in the evening. That’s what I kept telling myself when the waiter on the beach in Tulum tried to hand me my girlfriend’s michelada and chuckled in surprise when I pointed at the frothy drink on his tray instead.

A night on the porch of our beachside bungalow in Tulum

I mentioned some of our favorite meals on the trip: the cochinita pibil and sopa de lima we had in Mérida, the Italian-inspired seafood pizza and Thai-inspired shrimp salad and shrimp tacos we had on the Caribbean coast, the tamale I bought from a Mayan woman at the market in Valladolid, and the posole in Cancun. We also had great breakfasts – the Mexicans have a way with eggs, beans, and sauces, and they make nice savory-sweet pastries as well, like sugar-coated pork buns (I don’t know what they call them). We bought meringues and marzipan from Mayan women on the street in Valladolid, and we could tell from the smell that they were made with lard. I was happy to try them but my gringo taste found them awfully porky for confections.

Pozole rojo from El Tapatio in Cancun

Seemingly every restaurant and coffee shop served licuados – fruit blended with a little ice and either water or milk. My girlfriend had one or two papaya licuados a day. I have a smoothie aversion and I think most fruit juice is lame, but these were light, fresh, and brightly flavored, and I was having one (melon o papaya con agua) with breakfast by the end of the trip.

Huevos rancheros with black beans and fried plantains from the restaurant at La Vita è Bella in Tulum

Thai shrimp salad and shrimp tacos with sweet chile sauce, from some place we happened across on the Tulum beach

Beautiful tomatoes and pre-zested citrus at the market in Valladolid

Since our return, I’ve made a few of the dishes we enjoyed there with marked success, if not verisimilitude. I’ll write about those soon.

Welcome to Daily Xmas

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:33:00 +0000

Greetings. I have another blog which I mostly take seriously. On it I try to communicate the important work of my vocation, I practice the craft of writing, and all the rest of it. Here, I'll post when I feel like it and I'll write whatever I feel like. I expect it will mostly cover food and drink with a dash of books, music, and movies. Those are the things I spend most of my free time, and perhaps too much of my paid time, dwelling on. I'll try to avoid politics when I can help it.

I chose the name Daily Xmas because I love the winter holidays -- indulgent food, atmospheric lighting, excessive drinking, all with a hint of darkness and drear but followed by the renewal of a new year. I don't intend any religious connotation but if you swing that way, you're welcome, too (just don't leave evangelizing comments or I'll block your ass).

Cheers!

One Timely and One Belated Obituary. R.I.P. Jay and Vic

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:11:00 +0000

(note: This post was imported from Iapetus Beat)

I’m sad to hear about the death of Memphis punk-garage rocker Jay Reatard. Although I was more of an appreciater of his than a fan, I liked his music and enjoyed his audacious interviews, and I’m sorry to hear he’s gone. I’m trying to keep this blog at least tangentially about science, but there are some things I can't ignore. Another musician died over the holidays, and it deeply affected me, though it took me a while to digest. I'll take an aside from science writing to remember Vic Chesnutt, who died on Christmas Day, 2009.

Vic Chesnutt

Vic Chesnutt was a unique songwriter and a truly unusual voice from Athens GA – the home of many talented and unusual musicians. I heard his album The Salesman and Bernadette right before I moved to Athens, and its bizarre literate emotionalism still stands for me as a standard of Athens rock. Later, at the UGA Chapel, I saw him talk and play his way through a weird song cycle about the first president of the University of Georgia, Abraham Baldwin – songs which were, to my knowledge, never released. If that seems an odd choice of material I can only say that it wasn’t that far out for him, and the songs were meaningful and heartfelt. He was an eclectic and prolific songwriter. Michael Stipe of REM produced his first albums; he appeared in Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade; he played with musicians as far removed as the great J. Mascis, Athen’s own jam band Widespread Panic, and Athen’s perrenial indie band Elf Power. He mentored his niece Liz Durrett, who has turned into a fine musician. He played some of his best work, to my mind, with the criminally underappreciated Nashville ensemble Lambchop. His last album, At The Cut, is among his best. Like most of Athen’s notables (and there are many), if you were around town you saw him at shows and bars once in a while.

He died of an overdose. It’s not for me to sort all that out, but he wrote about suicide throughout his career. If you want more biography you can read about him on online or listen to him on one of his last interviews on NPR’s Fresh Air. Some musicians we follow as something more than fans, even if we don’t know them personally, and that’s how I always felt about Vic Chesnutt. I offer my own small consolations to his family and friends. Goodbye, Vic.

The Old Fashioned

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:22:00 +0000

(note: This post was imported from Iapetus Beat)

For a few years, my cocktail of choice was the Manhattan*, but lately it has been the Old Fashioned. I follow Ted Haigh’s recipe from his great book on Classic Cocktails: a teaspoon of simple syrup (or a sugar cube and a splash of water) muddled with Angostura bitters and a swath of orange zest; add bourbon or rye and ice. I drink these now and then during the week, but I’ve made it a tradition to have one or more while watching Mad Men on Sunday nights. It’s Don Draper’s tipple. He orders one in the first scene of the first season and mixes two for himself and Conrad Hilton in the third season’s third episode. Draper normally uses Canadian Club and finishes it with soda water.

Image from Esquire article on the Old Fashioned

An important aside concerning rye: American rye is like a spicy and light-bodied bourbon. Canadians call their whiskey “rye” though it often bears little resemblance to either the historic or the boutique ryes now available. I’ve learned that some Quebecois, such as the bar staff at a particular downtown Montreal hotel, take exception to this distinction. I was feeling loose and cosmopolitan in their stylish yet non-threatening bar and thinking, hey, these French Canadiens are cordial and welcoming and I’d like to share with them my perspective on their much-adored national product, so I critically deconstructed my Manhattan and asked if they had real rye. This led to harsh words and lots of gesturing. Don’t misunderstand me, some of their whiskeys meet the criteria we use to distinguish rye, and many are quite good. They are a proud and spirited people and I appreciate their occasionally misguided vehemence.

Anyway, bourbon is great for the Old Fashioned, but the right rye can be even better. Sazerac is my new favorite. As far as I can tell, it’s based on the original New Orleans whiskey that lends its name to the classic cocktail**. I’m not in a position to judge its fidelity to the original product, but it’s good and it’s available in my town. The Old Fashioned is a cocktail lover’s drink – it’s strong but nuanced and it benefits from a balanced hand. Soda isn’t traditional but it’s been common since at least the 1950’s, and the drink’s flavor stands up to it. My girlfriend, who likes her drinks a little less alcoholic and has to get up extra early on Monday mornings, joins in during Mad Men and the soda helps. Made with a single shot of whiskey, 2-3 ice cubes, and topped with soda, it’s still a fine drink.

(*The Manhattan is maybe the oldest extant cocktail: ~3:1 bourbon/rye:sweet vermouth stirred on ice with Angostura bitters, and served up with a maraschino cherry. The balance is easy to ruin. First, don’t put the cherry in the shaker but add it to the chilled glass. Second, avoid orange bitters – it’s often used because it seems a natural fit, but if you must, consider mixing it with angostura. The wrong bitters, like mashed cherries, can make the drink too sweet.)

(**The Sazerac is a beautiful but slightly difficult cocktail. You need the right bitters [Peychaud’s] and you can’t take shortcuts. For a video of a true New Orleans bartender mixing a Sazerac, click here. I’ve only had a few mixed professionally, but if you’re in San Francisco, NOPA’s is damn fine.)

Cheers.

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (CM) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:57:00 +0000

(note: This post was imported from Iapetus Beat)

For Halloween, I've updated the Things I Like list (found in the right column) with some of my favorite horror movies. It's not ranked or comprehensive, and I'm sure I've forgotten a few. Reproduced here:

Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento (1977)
The Descent, directed by Neil Marshall (2005)
Night of the Living Dead, directed by George Romero (1968)
The Beyond, directed by Lucio Fulci (1981)
28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle (2002)
The Thing, directed by John Carpenter (1982)
Return of the Living Dead, directed by Dan O'Bannon (1985)
Paranormal Activity, directed by Oren Peli (2007)

On the slow zombie vs. fast zombie controversy, I fall in the middle. I love all of the Dead films of George Romero (slow), represented here only by Night of the Living Dead. I consider Return of the Living Dead to be maybe the first fast zombie film. 28 Days Later, a great film, introduced the hyperkinetic zombie, (if you have issues with calling Boyle's 28 Days a zombie film because it's about a virus, you're a splitter.) Fast zombies were reanimated in Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake, which I liked very much in its own rights and aside from comparisons to Romero's original.

Some of my favorites are Italian -- Suspiria and The Beyond on this list. I could go on at length about either (and I have, repeatedly, to my friends), but for now I'll just suggest you see them. I saw Paranormal Activity last night and found it very effective (in spite of jackasses in the theater). I don't think it would make a lifetime favorite list but I recommend it.

Happy Halloween!