So, I noticed that the last time I posted was at the end of August…they whole of September has come and gone, like a long commercial break. Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled random crap.
September was a whirlwind to say the least – I’ll hit the highlights so I can move on:
August 31: Anna takes first cooking class at Glass Bazaar (will post about this in sorts later).
Sept 3: We help celebrate the phenomenal Lady Dotson’s birthday in fine form at Bravo!
Sept 5: My Mom’s birthday, always a melancholy day for me and only makes me miss her more!
Sept 10 – 13: We took an AMAZING trip to Chicago, Illinois (will dedicate a post to that later).
Sept 15-18: A business trip to South Carolina ends with a bang (not exactly – will explain that soon too).
Sept 19-27: Anna spends her time trying to become mobile again, and Jim wins super husband of all time award.
Sept 28: Back to work finally! I take another Culinary Class – Knife Skills at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. One of our best friends of all times loses a family member (sudden and heartbreaking). Renews my belief in actually letting others “in” and keeping them aware of how much you love them.
Oct 1: Friends rally in support of friend mentioned above; we love our friends. We really can’t believe we know such good people. Anna relaunched a former business with a super classy company!
Oct 3: We celebrate the beautiful and sweet wedding of Rob & Sally at the surprisingly gorgeous Bleak House on Kingston Pike (to blog soon).
Oct 4: We see Zombieland…we laugh…A LOT.
Oct 5: Anna takes Sauteing class at UTK; and LOVES IT! Realizes that she’s a budding home chef, no doubt.
That’s the short version, some of the above will warrant a better telling; so, dearest reader, stay tuned. Hope you’ve been fine during this short break.
The Jim and I DVR Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and then usually watch it when we’re eating dinner, or there’s nothing better on and we happen to be upstairs (we have 2 TVs with 2 DVRs…yeah, stupid, I know). Growing up, I was a huge fan of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I ABSOLUTELY loved that show, and he was the reason why. I actually have some of my best childhood memories of watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with my Grandmother whom I loved more than I could ever tell you. He was funny, and hysterical at times. Just good comedy without a lot of blue humor since it’s TV mind you. So, I’ve never really got into the Tonight Show since Jay Leno took it over. In fact, if I did watch a late-night show, it was probably David Letterman (which I never watched religiously). I will say that the 60 minutes that Jimmy Fallon fills, however, is often pretty funny, highly entertaining and silly…things I enjoy wholeheartedly.
If you haven’t watched Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, let me give you a few reasons why we like it so much.
1) Jimmy isn’t pretentious at all. He likes to have fun with his guests, and often gets them to do silly things with him (like drive go-carts through the studio, or the clips that I’m putting right here…it’s a hysterical skit to me because it’s so “out there” and bizarre that it strikes me funny and the Jim and I can’t get the damn song out of our head for days!)
2) Jimmy really interacts with his audience, which I love. He has games like hot dog in the hole (it sounds worse than it is), cell phone shoot-out, and he’s pretty generous. I especially love when a joke is off, or doesn’t hit the right note he’ll hand out the cue cards to audience members. It’s just a funny touch that I like.
3) The BEST BAND in the business is his house band. HE somehow managed to get the legendary ROOTS crew as his house band. I LOVE THE ROOTS! Plus he has Questlove (Ahmir) and Black Thought (Tariq) acting in their ongoing series “7th Floor West”, as well as I love when they have Tariq sing back up when they “Slow Jam the News”. It’s amazing. I mean, I love getting to see The Roots every night and they so deserve this spotlight.
4) Jimmy has some memorable recurring items like “Head Swap” and “7th Floor West” (which is their take off on “The Hills” which blessedly, I have never watched).
It’s just good wholesome and very silly stuff, and adds a nice little point to our day. If you get a chance, check him out or better yet, add him to your DVR and watch him when you get a chance.
This is the tale of two women. Two women from different parts of the world (ok, so not really one lives in Tennessee the other in Florida). Two women who were inspired by the movie Julie and Julia to start really flexing their cooking muscles. Two women who, this weekend spent their Saturdays shopping for items that are not standard fare in their fridges. Then these two women set out on Sunday to cook their way through a wondrous and luscious journey – one cooking French and the other cooking Mexican; both using the recipes of geniuses. That is our tale today.
The French-Chef hails from Lakeland, Florida and goes affectionately for me by Mrs. House of Flying Monkeys (Melissah) for short. She set out to make more recipes from Julia Child’s iconic book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. She apparently purchased the book after seeing Julie and Julia and initially made her own boeuf bourguignon, which she affectionately called beef fauxguignon. When she did this, she twittered about the journey. Her twittering caught the attention of one of the reporters from the NY Times and she was interviewed (see it HERE), about her experience cooking as the Julia Child cookbook has seen a huge resurgence in sales and my copy still hasn’t shipped yet from Amazon.com! So after the interview, the Lakeland Ledger (where she is a current resident), picked up on the story and decided to give her a challenge – they wanted to see her cooking in action. Melissah, not one to let a challenge go, took the bait, picked out her apron and planned her menu. On deck was Potage Parmentier (Potato and Leek Soup), Salade Jardinere au Vinaigrette (Green Salad with Vinaigrette Dressing), Galettes au Fromage (Cheese Biscuits), and Gateau a L’Fraises et Framboises (Butter Spongecake with Strawberries and Raspberries). How amazing does that sound?! Ah to be there and taste it…I just read her tweets and the reporter has left, the photographer has left and she has been successful. I’m sure she will enjoy dining of the fruits of her labours, I know I would love to be there to help! 🙂
I, on the other hand, still waiting for my French cookbook, decided to learn a few things from the new Top Chef Master himself, Rick Bayless. While at McKay’s, I found his cookbook “Mexico: One Plate at a Time”. I couldn’t wait to get to the checkout! I’m working on a personal self-improvement project called Anna101 and learning to be a better cook is one of my goals for the next 365 days (I’m a good cook, but I want to become more adventurous as a cook). So, what better way then to learn to cook real Mexican food that is not from a box labeled “Ortega” or in a bag from “Taco Bell”. I picked what I considered to be a Mexican standard dish, Enchiladas Suiza and I wanted to go by his rules and recipe exactly. Also on my menu for the day is homemade guacamole (something I’m pretty good at already, Spanish Rice and corn – oh and tortilla chips, naturally). It all started out with the best of plans, I would shop on Saturday and cook on Sunday. I invited friends over to try my experiment and 3 took the bait, my husband is a captive audience member already. So, question is…how’d it go?
Well, it started out with an effort to find all my ingredients. I struggled with finding plum tomatoes so I had to settle for the standard large Grainger County variety. I also couldn’t locate any of the original cheeses that Rick Bayless suggested (one of them was called something like Chiuahuah – um, huh?); so I settled for his fall-back, Monterey Jack. In addition, I needed to find sour cream with ACTIVE cultures. Unless you’re buying an organic one as I did, no active cultures appear present in the standard store variety of pasteurized pleasures. My plan was to make CREMA that was suggested as the ideal situation for one of the ingredients of the enchilada sauced, however I chickened out. It involved mixing heavy whipping cream with active cultures sour cream and letting it sit (unrefrigerated), for 12 hours. I just used one of his “cheats” he suggested. So, that was Saturday.
Sunday, I woke up and went to work. Roasted the tomatoes and jalapenos. Let me just say that roasted tomatoes are JUICY as all get out and I used a lot of paper towels to soak up the rest of the liquid that didn’t make it into the blender. We put the chicken in the Ronco Rotisserie, and I began the process of reducing my sauce. I had to do it in a saucepan since I don’t (as of yet), own a dutch oven – I do, however, covet one from Le Cruset. I think it would have reduced faster if I had one. Still, I reduced it, added the chicken stock and we took a taste. First thing we noticed – HEAT. Rick Bayless likes his Mexican food hot! Adding the cream definitely helped calm it though; but I cannot imagine how much we would have suffered if I bought Serrano peppers over the jalapenos. Whew! I shredded the chicken by hand, and the cheese…nearer to showtime I fired up the Spanish Rice, Corn and made fresh guacamole using Frontera Guac Mix (I like my own recipe for fresh guac better). I softened the corn tortillas, rolled them and set them to bake. The friends arrived and voila…Mexico on my table!
It was DELICIOUS but I will say, I made a few mental notes of things I may adjust or change for my next go round. Still, I feel wonderfully more confident making a true-to-form, fresh Mexican classic for my friends/family. Now, to decide the next adventure!
BTW…I have decided to only do 1 main culinary adventure dish each month as the cost of this meal was kinda steep and I really can’t afford to do this every weekend. I will do other adventure smaller dishes (sides, vegetables, etc.), for the remainder of each month. PICTURE COMING SOON.
On Wednesday, while waiting for a friend, I picked up the latest copy of one of the Brit music mags that had an interview with Liam Gallagher of the group that I was obsessed with in the 90s, Oasis. Apparently the title of the article was something like “It takes more than blood to be my brother”, and highlighted the rocky-state of the band as well as the relationship between the two brothers who head up the group. I’ve never been a fan of Liam, as I have always preferred and at one point had a huge crush on his elder brother Noel, but the notion/reality had been brewing for a while that they were not even on speaking terms these days. The Gallagher brothers are infamous for their sibling rivalry and woes. At one point in their hay-day, a bootleg CD/EP was released of an argument they had during a radio interview…the CD was called “Wibbling Rivalry”, and highlighted that these two really didn’t see eye-to-eye and were both too proud and too stubborn to let either one in. There’s been many instances of flare ups and tensions through the years, but both of them seemed to focus on the band rather than their issues with one another. I even thought there was a breakthrough when Liam was allowed to provide songwriting abilities for some of the albums (a job that previously Noel had appeared to have an iron grip on and no desire to give up as he was the lead songwriter for the group). Still, apparently the issues continued to fester and now, Noel has released a statement that he has left Oasis…for good apparently.
I have seen an evolution in Noel throughout the years. When I first started loving Oasis, I adored the fact that he was brash, unapologetic, full of bravado and way too overconfident in Oasis. He has a swagger to him, and had a pride in his group that was at sometimes annoying and other times entertaining. While I have never believed his statements about Oasis being the greatest musical group in the world, I loved them. They produced some great Brit-pop-rock music that heavily borrowed licks and hooks from some of the iconic rock classics which made their music so easy to become captivated with. When I first crushed on Noel, he was a stubborn, jerk who was also dependent on both drinking and drugging. However, that changed through the years…he stopped the drugging, and quieted down on the drinking and he became more…soulful and slightly reticent. I actually marveled at the man he became, because he “grew up” in my opinion. He has children now. His priorities changed and I never faulted him for that. In fact, I think I’m okay that he’s moving on from Oasis. The work he’s done solo while in Oasis (a track on the X Files movie soundtrack – the first one not the most recent one, as well as collaborations with the Chemical Brothers), have always been enjoyable to me and highlight some of his divergent interests musically. I think sometimes, all relationships have a point where they’ve run their course. Not all of them do this, but sometimes the ending of an relationship can lead to something more. For those who were, they may become more separately. Wounds may heal, or there may be freedom to move farther away and just “let it be”. Either way, while I am saddened that Oasis as a unit will certainly be no more…I truly think that it’s time to move on and see where life takes these artists.
In the meantime, I wanted to share my list of must listen Oasis songs that I cherish:
Slide Away
Live Forever
Hello
Wonderwall
She’s Electric
Don’t Go Away
Acquiesce
Underneath the Sky
Talk Tonight
Half the World Away
The Masterplan
F***in’ in the Bushes
Gas Panic!
Where Did It All Go Wrong?
It was a good run boys…hopefully you’ll find and follow your bliss separately and continue to produce music that highlights your new directions and lives. In the end the music you left us will indeed…Live Forever:
Eddie Izzard (one of our favorite comedians), is doing something truly and utterly extraordinary in our opinions. Something I could NEVER do…he’s running marathons, almost daily, to raise money for SPORT RELIEF. I have had the fortunate experience to see him live and to be very close to him in a meet/greet. I’ve always admired him for his sense of humor, his sometimes silliness and his intellect. Add to what I admire, is his stamina. I have NO idea how he’s doing this. Here’s some of his journey – enjoy and if you can, donate for what he’s been doing. It’s amazing.
LIFE with the RETRO-MODERNS 