blue artichoke

Last night, GC and I resurrected our ol' dinner & a movie habit. We watched the recent remake of Casino Royale, and I'm ashamed to admit that that was only the second James Bond movie I've ever seen. The first one one was an early Sean Connery one, but I can't even remember which. Anyway, we didn't decide to watch it until we sat down to eat, so the menu has nothing to do with the movie. In fact, GC had band practice and I got sidetracked so I didn't start dinner until pretty late. We had pan-fried chicken breasts with maple-mustard sauce leftover from last weekend's Easter ham and a salad. Definitely not a James Bond-caliber meal, but a healthy one to fuel us through those long chase scenes.

Getting to Know All About You: What's your favorite Bond movie?

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 03:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

GC had band practice on Tuesday night; our Wednesday night show (Lost) has ended, so we went to see Borat in the theater last night. What a great, funny movie that made me a bit ashamed to share a nationality with idiotic Americans. Dinner was movie theater popcorn.

Speaking of idiotic Americans, I've narrowed down the possible replacements for Njiri to 6 cars. I went to the Honda dealership and test-drove Civics and Accords. The salesman was a condescending jerk. I'm smart. I didn't ask stupid questions, but he acted as if I were a moron and kept answering my questions with unrelated metaphors. Example: BA: "Is the 2006 Accord much different from the 2005 Accord?"
Salesman: "Yes, just as you and I are different people."
Huh? So one is a fat, grumpy jerkface and the other is a smart, quiet girl. I hope I can tell which is which. For the record, I didn't like the Civics; the 2006 Accord has some aesthetic differences inside, has an exterior brake light, different rear and headlights and a different trunk shape. I prefer the 2006 Accord, but there are still 5 more cars in the running. I keep procrastinating test-driving them because I don't want to deal with the salespeople.

Now, let's hear from an American who isn't an idiot, as far as I know: Red Momo, as the Kosher Gentile.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Yesterday GC stayed home sick from work. Though he had a fever, he thought he could stay awake and alert enough to carry on with our new Tuesday night D&aM tradition. What a trouper. We watched The Matador and marveled at how much we like Greg Kinnear, though we never expect to. It was a good movie with a bit of an unexpected (well, to us) ending. For dinner I made soup (for the invalid) with a Spanish bent (for the matador, even though the bullfighting scene wasn't in Spain, but in Mexico. Who knew?). It was a traditional Basque white bean and cabbage soup. It seems that the ham hocks I used in the soup had splinters that broke off into the soup; all ended up in my bowl. Luckily, I am a savvy eater and spit out the shards before they caused any damage. I also made black pepper cornbread, which was thin and crispy and interesting enough to keep as the best savory cornbread so far in my informal Cornbread Snackdown. I tend to like sweet cornbreads; this one doesn't even compare to my Kickass Cornbread, but I'll keep the recipe for those rare occasions when sweet cornbread won't do.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Last night was the second installment of Dinner & a Movie, but the first time we actually watched a movie. We saw Thank You for Smoking. I tried to match the food with the movie somewhat, so we had Turkey Cutlets with Smoky Black Bean Sauce. The movie was great: funny and farcical. I like morally ambiguous movies and when the "bad guy" is the good guy. The food too was great: easy and healthy, though not actually smoky. I knew I didn't have any Liquid Smoke, but I thought I had some sort of BBQ Smoke powder. Nope, I guess I threw it out; I never used it. Except for the corn I served on the side, everything was a SuperFood: turkey, black beans and tomatoes. Gentleman Caller and I are the epitome of good health, vitality and good sense. We are awesome.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Gentleman Caller and I get movies from Netflix, but are getting increasingly bad at watching and returning them in a timely manner. We sometimes sit on these movies for weeks before remembering to watch them. I'm not sure why; they're all movies we'd like to see. I'm going to try to make Tuesday nights "Dinner and a Movie night" in hopes that we'll have a faster turnaround rate for Netflix. Starting next week. Last night, instead of a movie, we watched most of the most recent Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view event. We didn't finish it because we got a late start, so don't you dare spoil it for me.

The food will sometimes tie in to the movie we watch, but not usually. Last night we had an artichoke, ham and egg casserole. We both liked it well enough, but didn't think it was spectacular. GC renamed it the Unanimous Decision Casserole because it was a winner, but didn't have a dominant finish or a strong showing.

Posted by Blue Artichoke at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)