hey yall. Sorry I’ve been mute. My plan was to go to Paris this summer, meet some critic friends and see the Godard exhibition. I pulled the necessary bootstraps up and quit my job but capriciously decided to stay home and try to make a film with my bootstraps. Brian (et al.) was kind enough to offer all sorts of help and advice and now I feel bad for not making it there. At the moment I am trying to make it here (!), my idea of making it being a film (on dv) about talking dogs.
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Author: Eric
Pivot point for this idea
Cookin’ in California
Chocolate ChefOur week entertaining niece Masha was chugging along even with the worst heat wave in recent memory hugging the Bay Area. Monday was Chinatown day with all the usual shops and of course, dim sum.
Tuesday we had invited friends for dinner. Marc made the menu and then as usual said “dessert is your part”. After some thought, I decided to do fruit and chocolate,have it done ahead and something fairly simple. Masha has always loved to make strawberries dipped in chocolate so why not branch out. We rolled bananas in dark chocolate & nuts then froze them; dipped Turkish apricots in the same chocolate; then made Masha made white chocolate patties with dried apricots, cranberries and toasted almonds.
Potato Bugs
Besides black flies, Windswept Farm is plagued with Colorado Potato Beetles (CPB – Leptinotarsa decemlineata), whose larvae will chew a potato plant like a dog chews a smoked pigs ear, and almost that fast. They don’t touch the tubers underground, but if there’s no plant to feed the tubers, you don’t dig potatoes in October. They are a scourge not just here in Monroe Maine, but around the world despite originating in Colorado. The Wikipedia article mentions that they may have been used as a crude form of biological warfare against Germany in WWII, and the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
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Back from SC
Alison on the Hunting Island Beach
Alison and I just got back from a nice little visit to Alison’s parent’s place on the South Carolina coast (with apologies to the Traveller’s Rest crew, who we probably flew over twice on our way in and out of the Charlotte airport). Her parents are retired and live beyond Beaufort, SC, which is pronounced “Byoo-fort” and you will be corrected on the spot if you mistakenly use the NORTH Carolina pronunciation of “Boh-fort.”
“When you like the way something looks, you don’t say it is “BOH” -tiful, do you?” The natives will point out with a smug smile at their unassailable logic…
“BYOO-fort” is a “BYOO-tiful” small city that reminds me of Belfast, Maine because it features many restored period buildings in its walkable downtown, it’s right on the water, and it’s the ‘step-child” of a nearby famous resort town (Hilton Head), which means that it has been spared many of the unappealing aspects of wild growth. The Berards live beyond Beaufort in a non-famous resort community at the end of the state highway heading east through a clump of islands amid the picturesque brown and green spiky estuaries (think The Big Chill, Prince Of Tides, and Forrest Gump — all of which filmed scenes around these islands) bordering the Atlantic ocean called Fripp Island. Alison’s sister Leslie and niece Tait were visiting at the same time to make it a full Berard family reunion.
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Let’s Rock
This morning, the Morning Show on KFOG interviewed a woman who runs a women’s band camp (unlike the band camp featured in American Pie), catering to women of all ages and backgrounds that want to start a rock band.
The question of band names came up, something unusual, catchy and band-like.
“Here’s one way; pick up any book at hand, go to page 62, third paragraph, third line, first two or three words, you”ve got your name.”
The book I”m reading just now is My Life in France by Julia Child. The name of the band:
JULIANNED CARROTS
Let’s hear your names.
The Power At Our Fingertips
Omnivore’s Dilemma via Library Loan
Alison wanted to read Michael Pollan’s latest book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. When she went to the Belfast library, they didn’t have it, but they showed her how she could order it over the Internet via the state’s library network. That night she browsed through the entire card catalog of the Belfast Free Library, as well as libraries across the state until she found one that had it, and she was able to ask them to send it to Belfast for me to check out. When she was done, she told me: “I can see every book in every library in the state on my computer — that’s pretty amazing!” And now Alison has the book.
Mem Day Meat in Maine
Real Time Maine Meat: 3:45pm Monday
Like most Memorial Days weekends I’m barbecuing — well, actually closer to smoking my meat as a kick-off to the summer barbecue season. Unlike most recent years, however, it is HOT and SUNNY in Monroe rather than cool and rainy, which is a nice change. For the past few years I’ve gotten carried away with all the apple and cherry and red oak wood that we have in plenty around us and will be trying to mitigate the smoke applied to a two pound hunk of London Broil that I’m attempting to ‘cue like a brisket using the North Carolina pork barbecue technique of wrapping the sumbitch in foil after an hour or two to finish cooking with a liquid baste. With pork bbq you add your cider vinegar ‘sauce” to the meat; here I’ll be using beer. I’ll update with results.
And despite success with Cooks Illustrated’s excellent general barbecue sauce for the table, I’ll be making a “Texas Ranchouse BBQ Sauce” to make the meal more brisket-like in atmosphere. What are y’all grilling on the Holiday?
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The Notorious Betty Page
A Review
Slim pickin’s on the movie scene. We walked to the Lumiere last night to see The Notorious Betty Page. Coming out of the theater, Carol said, “That was fun.”
“I was just going to say that myself,” I said.
It’s the story of a naive and open young girl from Nashville, abused by her father, growing into a naive and open woman in New York and taken advantage of by certain sleezeballs, befriended and sheltered by a nice husband and wife team who happen to do bondage photography.
What I knew: Betty Page is a pin-up queen; a wholesome, girl-next-door type who was totally built, but wasn”t terribly sexy. As noted in the movie, “She can be nude, without being naked.”
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What Took You/Us So Long?
Okay. Friedman writes a fine piece:
How could there still be 29 percent of the people who approve of this presidency?…I think a lot of Americans in recent months have simply lost confidence in this administration’s competence and honesty…Is there no job in this administration that is too important to be handed over to a political hack? No…And that is the core of the matter: the Bush team believes in loyalty over expertise. When ideology always trumps reality, loyalty always trumps expertise.
Nice hook, heart in the right place, good examples, etc. But what gets me about these kinds of pieces is that it’s been obvious since Day 1 what DB’s m.o. has been and the American press gave him such a long honeymoon that you have respected columnists writing pieces like this NOW, almost 6 yrs into this dark age and two years into his second sham term!
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KABOOM 2006
This year we knew where to where to park and how to deal with the whole enchalada, so we took a picnic of sorts, pumped up the car radio, relaxed and let the show come to us.
The accolades I heaped on KABOOM last year still apply, so in case you missed it, here’s last year’s journal.
KABOOM 2005
KFOGs 12th Annual Music & Fireworks Show
And a beautiful day it was. One of those perfect San Francisco days when the sky is blue and clear, the sun is soft and warm on your skin and there is just that hint of cooling breeze that makes a loose overshirt feel just right. (Of course, if one has the right body, a tight tee shirt works too. We saw a few of those.)
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