tentative hope

i was too nervous last night to watch the election stuff. first of all, my mom bailed on me at the last minute for dinner (this is the THIRD TIME she's bailed on me. me! her LEAST favorite child [ironically i'm also the child who bears the most physical resemblance to her - seriously, my mom in the 70s = a seriously stylin' skinnier version of me. she was the definition of gamine]) so i stayed late at work and rode home on my bike (incidentally, i'm quite smitten and enamored of the new bike lanes on wellesley) and made dinner and then had a brief visit with cousin A and his girlfriend E (i effin' love cousin A) and then spent what was left of the night ironing all my washed and dried quilting fabrics and doing some knitting and reading.

we kept periodically checking into npr to see their maps but i was just too anxious that the media had become too cocky in the final days leading up to the election and that the polling information was wrong. i'm too superstitious i think. i'm way too cautious about expressing happiness or rejoicing too much in my good fortune lest my hubris be my downfall and some higher power sees fit to teach me a lesson in fate-derived humility. it's better to just be a little cautious and tentative rather than risk drawing attention to how good i have it.

i cried watching snippets of obama's acceptance speech this morning and i teared up again at work reading the entire transcript. i would give my left nut to meet his speech writers. that's some good quality writing right there and it's supported by what an eloquent and effortless public speaker he is.

i'm worried though. i don't think people get lionized in this day and age without the inevitable fall. we love nothing more than a chubby, disgusting, grasping hanger-on to draw penises on the faces of celebrities (i effin' hate perez hilton) and to catch people and harp on their human foibles and mistakes. i feel like people are going to give obama a very small window before the sharks start circling (in the case of russia...a VERY small window.) i can't imagine how one goes about untangling the mess of the economy and afghanistan and iraq. i'm wondering if this election is going to represent a realignment of the republican party and i'm wondering in which direction they're going to lean - further cement the kook ultra-conservative element or move more towards the middle?

then there's the inevitable zeitgeist x factor. mass movements are unpredictable, capricious things and our attention spans are shorter and more divided than ever.

okay...that's all my worrying for the day.

the best part was watching the wrap-up on cnn this morning and having the commentator say that the part of mccain's concession speech where he talked about this election and the impact it must have for african americans and how america is a country that offers opportunity to all was met with, "tepid applause" lol! it was a very gracious concession speech.

i was feeling kind of glum on monday evening and had a rough day at work. right before bed i opened my email to an email from the roomie's friend P in new york. it was the funniest thing i'd ever read and it totally make my night. it was a total P moment and in the writing, she managed to convey the P-ness of the situation (long story short, she went to an awkward halloween party where she didn't know anyone, most of the girls were dressed like sluts, she dressed up as someone who got stabbed in the back, she starts drinking out of nervousness and social anxiety, the story ends with her eating cat food (dry) by accident). lol!!!

last night i made this baked penne thing. some guanciale in the pan, with a sliced onion, some chopped garlic, and ground beef (last minute addition - took it out of the freezer, threw it in some cold water and shaved away still-frozen pieces with my knife hoping that: a) i wouldn't cut myself and b) that it would defrost and cook quickly in the pan). added sliced mushrooms and two bags of spinach, chopped, and my last litre of reserved tomato basil sauce. cooked up a pot of penne well past al dente (i didn't want the pasta absorbing too much liquid in the baking) and mixed it all together with a container of ricotta cheese and salt and pepper. topped with some grated mozzarella and baked in the oven for a good long time...basically until the mozzarella got all melted and chewy and crispy brown...i LOVE that shiz (see earlier posts extolling the virtues of lasagna edges.)

in other news...i'm no longer on a pay-as-you-go phone. my bro s-dawg put me on this family plan that i'm sharing with killah-C. which means that i'm going to have to retire the phrase: "I'M ON A PAY AS YOU GO!" bellowed into the phone as my customary greeting. i think i also have voice mail?! i don't know if i'm going to pay for that yet. and i get like a thousand texts and unlimited minutes to 5 numbers, one of which is my dear friend in bc which is nice...so i can talk to her basically for free now. i don't really know what life is going to be like with basically unlimited minutes. can i handle this change? is this a change i can believe in?

tonight's dinner is going to be leftovers. we have a lot to choose from. there's still pozole, leftover pasta from last night, leftover squash pasta from the previous night. i'm going to make a batch of rice krispie treats for the dotytron's after school guitar class. using stale marshmallows results in a sub-par product but last night's batch (he does the program on wednesdays, thursdays, and fridays) was abominable. i'm never scrimping on buying bulk generic rice krispie cereal again. the name brand stuff is where it's at.

this is last night's dinner:



fin.

hormonal

the pms monster struck swift and hard yesterday...i had this weird mood/activity fluctuation where i ran all the way the yarn store, went to an open house, went grocery shopping and then flounced around lethargic for the rest of the evening and moped with occassional forays to the basement to disturb the dotytron doing homework with repeated, insistent declarations to the effect of, "i'm sad"  *significant pause waiting for a response that doesn't come* *cough* "I'M SAD" "nobody likes me"  "life is but a walking shadow" etc etc

this was after i ate this for breakfast:


i made this for dinner.  i scrapped the fennel/orange salad in favour of steamed green beans tossed with the last of the chimichurri.




i also caught "the breakup" on the women's channel and got sucked into watching that as part of my inactive/guilty pleasure/vacant eye candy. ummmm...it kind of totally sucks.  you expect a comedy (based on the previews and the premise and the casting) but it's actually a very dark, depressing, rote look at two people breaking up.  it did have the unintended consequence of adding a layer of nuance to my feeble attempts to get the dotytron to take pity on me and pay me some attention, in the form of me accusing him (completely arbitrarily) of "taking me for granted" in tandem with a list of said ways in which he takes me for granted, a good portion of which i cribbed from jennifer aniston's laundry list from the movie.  

i did manage to rouse myself from my torpor enough to hide my pajamas in a giant overcoat and drag myself to the nearest blockbuster, where i indulged in another movie that i knew the dotytron would never watch with me (he went to visit our friend A after dinner), "definitely maybe" or some shiat. > it stars ryan reynolds telling his precocious daughter this weird story about his bildungsroman journey into adulthood with the clinton presidency in the background (!!!) where his daughter has to guess which of the misnamed characters turns out to be her mother (!!!) i know, really weird, right? and seriously...i think it's a little too early to feel nostalgia for the clinton administration. or maybe it's just me. the backdrop of the politics just seemed a little too forced. not enough time has passed where re-watching snippets of the impeachment confessions can conjure the same reverberations of shared collective unconscious experience that say, buffalo springfield's "for what it's worth" can do for the 60s (or a simulacra of the 60s). anyway, i didn't really care and it was kind of boring but feature rachel weisz who i tend to find impossibly alluring.


also, my dodgeball game was canceled tonight. without warning. we showed up at the gym only to find that the gym was closed because they were painting the school (on a monday night?!) so i walked my butt all the way to landsdowne and bloor for nothing. then i came home and ate panzerottoes with my brother and made fun of the cbc. so it was a good night. my bro did this pretty good impression of what we think that heavily hyped drama "the border" is about (in our heads, it's about a booth on the queenston-lewiston bridge and features a solid hour of a bored customs official thumbing through passports and delivering scintillating dialogue such as: "how long were you visiting. any cigarettes. how much did you spend." and variations thereof.) my brother had the good idea that the cbc should actually PAY HIM to watch the cbc and then broadcast him making fun of it. i think it would definitely be a ratings success and controversial to boot. totally po-mo.

fin.

fall back, ftw!

i love gaining an hour of sleep and i'm not overly affected by losing an hour of daylight, so fall back is a total win-win situation for team lagerfeld.  

last night was oodles of fun, but i totally was a jerk and forgot to take pictures of the attendees.  i also didn't take a picture of the table when A & C had pics of their grandparents up (complete with these cute post-it note frames that A made to differentiate the still living person from the dead grandparent in the pictures) and one that our friend B brought of our friend S who passed away last year.  this is a picture of the table:

i think calling back the dead people to walk among us totally worked because at some point, everyone's eyes started burning like crazy and we couldn't definitively attribute a source.

these are the crazy paper decorations i bought. aren't they beautiful? i love them...i want to have them around and up all the time. the paper cutting is so intricate and the colours are so punchy. i especially like the purple one and the level of detail in the yellow one is insane. i also dig how coy the religious nun skeleton is being. she's totally giving you come-f**k-me eyes:



i was totally brutal at making tamales so i out-sourced the work to C, dr. rei, and bwong. they did an amazing job. the pozole turned out really nice and toasty with rich chili flavour and my roasted tomatillo salsa was incendiary. overall i was quite pleased.

the piece de resistance was the pan de muerto, which is probably the best rendition of an egg and butter-enriched sweet bread that i've ever done. i think the secret was to start the dough with a sponge. it had a great, moist, texture and didn't require a super-long time in the oven...it was lightly sweet and had a faint orange flavour from 3 oranges that i zested into the dough (the recipe only called for 1/2 an orange...i'm glad i upped the amount.) i've found that a lot of these sweet breads can get a little dry (panettone, babka, even some brioche) but this one was super soft and yielding.

i was super proud of how it turned out, even if my skull and bone decorations turned out looking like weird, vaguely phallic splotches. the hazelnut churros are always a winner. i ate an ungodly amount of those, too.

today i have a jam-packed day of doing sweet f**k all. i might hit some open houses in the 'hood. we went to one yesterday...the house was a gut-job reno and cost $529,900. the thing with a lot of these flip-job renos is that you end up paying a $100,000 premium for this generic "new" looking style that (to me) lacks any personality or individuality. it ends up looking like one of those model homes in the 'burbs or just another standard condo. so yes, it's "nice" but it's also very, very bland and lacking in personality. i'd rather have a place that has a bit more character to it, so that i can personalize it and make it more reflective of my own aesthetic taste. but it seems like you can't hit that sweet spot. so you either get reno'd and super expensive, or you get cheap and a s**thole. you can't really find medium priced, good bones, but not re-done.

for sunday breakkie we made french toast with the pan de muertos and had that with bacon.  we drizzled extra bittersweet chocolate ganache on the french toast instead of maple syrup, and topped it with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.  even with all that, it didn't taste overly sweet. regular french toast with maple syrup is way sweeter.  i'm debating on skipping dodgeball. i don't really feel like going. i kind of feel like maybe going for a bike ride or a run and then doing yoga and holing up on the couch knitting all day.

i really want to unwind.
i'm hoping i can finish giant mitten #2 and get on to knitting fun holiday gifty stuff.

tonight for dinner we're having seared scallops with hollandaise, guanciale, and peas.  with a fennel, radicchio, and orange segment salad with parsley.  maybe new york times chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  maybe not though.  

i tried on both of my performance dresses this morning...they still fit (phew!)  i could probably tone up a little though, but realistically that's not going to happen, and realistically, i'm also probably not going to change my eating habits.  so i'll be a giant silver sausage on my performance day.  i did run to the yarn store at the bottom of my street and back and i'm going to an afternoon yoga class.  so i don't feel TOTALLY piggy.  but sundays are kinda meant for being piggy anyway.

fin.

dia de los muertos!!

the gang: tillers, jen, lisa (steph's scottish friend), steph, dotytron, me)

last night was so much fun!  more the company as opposed to the actual night.  the djs were horrible.  like, terrible.  couldn't mix, didn't know how to beatmatch, how to bring in a tune, how long to play it for, how to program a set...it was deplorable.  but other peeps were EATING THAT S**T UP!  it was kind of weird and disheartening how easily appeased the crowd was.  they played the ENTIRE mj "thriller" video, but played like, 2 seconds of 20 billion hip hop tunes in this weird 5 minute hip hop medley monstrosity.  it was appalling.

it really got us (dr. rei, dotytron and myself) fired up to premier dj fraaaaanche. the legion was a super cool venue with uber-cheap beers.  it was just wasted by stupid people who don't know how to throw a party.  i mean, i've thrown a party or two or 20 in my day.  it's not THAT hard. having good music is usually the first step.  this was a good concept that went horribly awry.

here are some shots of everyone's costumes:

bwong as che, selmy as hal johnson, dr. rei as a vampire pig

A & J looking freaking adorable. seriously. can't i marry THEM?

steph in the best costume of her life (her words)

me and the dotytron

then we went to massimo's for pizza and had hardcore sharing circle with A & J. i seriously want to move to the kdubs just so i could hang out with them more. it makes me sad in my thoughtsicles.

this was last night's dinner.  i skipped the salad and garlic bread since it was just me and the dotytron.


these are more of the new york times chocolate chip cookies, which in retrospect, i should have made more of.  

so my starters are doing well.  not super-strong...but definitely surviving...the grape one has attained equilibrium now that i'm feeding it twice a day and the whole wheat one is actually the more sluggish one.  i've swtiched to feeding the whole wheat one with white flour.  

grape starter:


and the whole wheat one:

today is dia de los muertos!!!  i'm cooking up a storm.  here's the menu:

- pozole rojo (pork and hominy stew with guajillo chilies and ancho chilies)

- assorted toppings for the pozole (shredded iceberg lettuce, crema, limes,)

- chorizo, cheese and corn tamales

- roasted tomatillo salsa

- guacamole

- fresh corn chips

- hazelnut churros

- chocolate dipping sauce

- pan de muerto (the traditional sweet bread that's the most consistent food thing associated with day of the dead)

and some mexican beers and maybe tequila.  i think peeps are going to come over and help me wrap tamales.  we have bwong and dr. rei and hanbo and A & C coming over...maybe our high school friends B & G...i ran into B yesterday on my way home from work and thought he and G might want to come by for a bit.  should be a fun night of eating, deep frying, and talking s**t.

fin.

who's pumped for tonight?

answer: moi!!!  

i was doing a signature, "karl lagerfeld only knows two lines of the song" rendition of "monster mash" last night, along with this weird shimmy shake/marching band dance and that monster-mash style faux dracula haunted voice effect.  it was pretty aces and totally made the dotytron laugh which = mission accomplished.  i also do a pretty good serena vanderwoodsen impression (from "gossip girl" for the woefully uninitiated) that drives the dotytron crazy.  she has this weird way of mumbling and compressing her lips when she talks and not enunciating that's i'm pretty good at.  so to date, i can do the following impressions:

- donald fagen singing steely dan's "rose darling"

- shakira singing "hips don't lie"

- blake lively as serena vanderwoodsen

- a fake sarah mclachlan and/or the chick from the cranberries and/or tori amos (these are all the same...basically i just do a high-pitched shrieking rendition of "into the fire" or "zombie" or "silent all these years"

today i'm having lunch at mickey d's as a send-off to pregnant colleague M.  but i'm going to be restrained and NOT have my chaser.  in fact, i might forgo the big mac combo altogether (!!!!!!) right now i'm leaning towards a filet-o-fish combo OR a mcchicken combo.  or maybe just a six pack combo of mcnuggets (taking a page from K's book).  that's very disciplined of me, if i do say so myself.

we're going to this party at this legion on niagara street tonight.  it's called "thriller" night.  should be fun!!!  dr. rei and hanbo are coming, bwong is coming, some of dr. rei's friends, and my beloved kdubsguelph crew.  i can't wait to see everyones' costumes!  i'm going to take a tonne of pictures and then post 'em...especially cuz me and the dotytron look pretty damn cute, if i do say so myself. homemade costumes are the bestest!

ahhhhhhh!!!  so excited for hanging out!!!  and dancing!!! and costumes!!!  and getting crunked!!! and the dotytron getting rid of his shift tomorrow so he won't be a stick in the mud cranky pants!!!  

tonight for dinner i'm making a roasted pumpkin penne with brown butter, sage, hazelnuts and grated parm.  with that fennel, radicchio, romano salad and garlic bread.  and new york times ultimate chocolate chip cookies.  tasty tasty!  

fin.

let there be warmth!

so my gentle but scatterbrained and perenially overworked and hen-pecked landlord finally came and changed the furnace filters.  so i finally consented to turn on the heat.  i almost roasted in my bed last night.  holy criminy...it was HOT.  since we sleep in the basement and the furnace is in the best, we're the first stop on the - "so you think you can dance" reference alert - hot tamale train.  now the stupid weather is warming up.  you can't win.  and by "you" i mean me, captain thermostat nazi.

yesterday when i was filling up the giant recycling bin the city of toronto is insisting you use now, i caught our skeezy next door neighbour (she of the second floor apartment drum kit and the s****y sense of rhythm and dubious percussive skill) trying to sneak something in ours.  she saw me giving her the evil eye and was all like, "is it okay if i put this in there" and i was like, "why aren't you using your own" and she goes, "it's around the corner"  i was on my way to work and she was wearing her black and pink skull kitten tank top and pajama bottom set from like, claire's so i didn't have time to get into it with her.  

i KNEW someone had been using our gear.  i KNEW IT!  i'm pretty maniacal about maintaining the green bin so i wash it out every week and try to avoid getting the inside all gross and disgusting and garbage juice-y.  lately it's been EXTRA garbage juice-y.  gross!  NOT ON MY WATCH, SISTER.  i also have this freakish ability to like, x-ray scan garbage/recycling/compost with my eyes and know when stuff is in there that's not ours (well, 99% of the food that passes through our household i have been directly involved in the procurement/preparation of) and there's been suspect bags of garbage in our bin the morning after we put it out (we tend to put it out in the evening).  AND one day i came home and our garbage bin had been dragged out front of her place.  she better not mess with me.  i'm not above taking her stuff out of our bin and just dumping it on her front lawn.  nothing gets my machiavellian inspiration flowing like a neighbour feud.  

i've started feeding my grape starter twice a day and it seems to be responding well.  but wasting all the flour from discarding half at a time is making me feel bad.  i'm keeping the discarded starter in another jar in the fridge (apparently you can use it to make pizza dough and stuff) but i'm rapidly running out of room.  i put both starters down in the basement where it's warmer to see if that'll speed things along and help them grow strong and hearty.  

in other news: we still have fleas.  smudge seems to be okay, but el stupido boddington showed signs of minor flea excrement.  the dotytron doesn't believe me that you have to take a multi-pronged, super-diligent approach to "breaking the flea life cycle" by vacuuming every day (probably because he's in charge of the vacuuming).  we're going to go over the house tonight and saturday.  i felt bad for the poor little guys and relented and let them into our room...so we have to wash all the sheets and vacuum the bed again and have to go back to quarantining them away from our bedrooms (ours and the roomies) which definitely puts a crimp on their available space. i'm also going to buy a flea collar to stick IN the vacuum.  i'm convinced i have at least one new bite.  if i emerge from this ordeal without typhoid, it'll be a miracle because the stupid fleas definitely favour me.  

i hope that doesn't deter people from wanting to come over.  lots of cats have fleas!!  it's fairly common!!!  i keep a clean house for crissakes!!!  (to wit: my obsessive weekly scrub downs of the green bin).  

tonight is leftover night.  we have tonnes.  i'm probably going to my yoga class.  i also may or may not carve another pumpkin but i don't know if i have time because going over the house is taking priority because we're entertaining on friday AND saturday.  i have a wikked template for pumpkin number 3 so i don't want to sit on it, but at the same time...there are only so many hours in th evening.  and i have to somehow lug the pumpkin home and degut it and then carve it and then do the whole photoshoot thing.  i might just give it a rest with the two i've already done. 

fin.

halloween 2008 - gearing up

subtitle: the final, thrashing throes of the fat little weirdo chronicles.  my friend M had to stay at work last night so she bailed on our dinner plans.  since my old supervisor T had brought in tonnes of sweets and I had been working on the presupposition that i was going to be eating fatty wings and crispy fries and cool dill dipping sauce for dinner, i may have helped myself to a diabetes-sized portion or ten of her two (!) kinds of fudge (peanut butter and skor) and the cranberry nut bars with pretzel crust.  faced with the thwarting of my gleeful descent into saturated fat depravity and having already banished the inclination to cook anything, i ended up eating a panzerotto AGAIN last night.  that makes like, 4 in less than week.  that's SICK.  but i felt like hell afterwards and won't be doing that again (anytime soon, and by "soon" i mean - in the next week.  hold me to this!  for the good of my cholesterol count!!!).  

i started my day off with a big bowl of steel cut oats and i had a bowl of spicy beef kimchi soup for lunch.  tonight for dinner we're having mushroom barley risotto with pecorino  romano and some braised collard greens with bacon.  

last night i spent 2 hours carving this little guy:  

(jacques derrida)

i messed up his left eye (the eye on the right if you're facing him, but technically, HIS left eye if you're a pumpkin version of jacques derrida.)  i'm not completely happy with it, but after letting it settle in overnight, i think i did a pretty good job of capturing his likeness.  tonight will be more pumpkin carving...i'd like to do 2 more if i can squeeze it in...we'll see.

my starters aren't doing so well.  the grape one, after showing amazing amounts of activity on days 2 and 3 has barely any life to it and all and is giving off a very sharp, fermenty smell with zero bubbles.  as well, there's a later of starter "hooch" on top...i'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.  *edit* just researched hooch...it's fine...doesn't mean my starter is dead...just needs to be stirred...will probably start feeding it twice a day*  

other one is kind of sluggish.

i'm going to give the grape one until saturday.  if it doesn't perk up, i'm going to start another grape one (last one for all time).  i'm going to skip waiting for the proscribed 6 days before feeding though, and just start a feeding schedule when it looks all bubbly and active on day 2 (assuming it comes to life like this one did).  *edit: did some reading on starters...it looks like my grape one is doing okay...but needs to be fed more regularly...that's why it's making hooch.  phew.  in other news: i'm a bad mom.*

i'm also going to start another starter using the guide from breadtopia that A used...his is looking hella lively!  

*i'll update with pics of my dinner, the pumpkin from tonight, and my s****y starters tonight when i get home and finish doing all my stuff!

dinner shot:

i carved a pumpkin in dr. dre's likeness tonight. i think it turned out pretty effin' awesome:

fin.

sore

i almost passed out in my epsom salt bath last night.  3 hours of dodgeball over two days is tough on my already-tight ligaments and muscles.  i was going to go for a lunchtime run but then realized i left my sweatshirt at home...i didn't really think it was a good idea to run on tight muscles in the cold.  

not much to report other than the fact that design blogs are taking over my life.  i REALLY REALLY REALLY want a house.  more than i want to get hitched.  more than i want kids.  i guess for me, crafting > kids?  a house is the ULTIMATE craft project!  i just added a wackload more design blogs to my rss feeds.  i can already SEE it (my future home) in my mind's eye!  the struggle is to get the dotytron over his love of kitsch.  i mean, i like my tasteful novelty items and kitsch as much as the next person...but the dotytron SERIOUSLY and SINCERELY loves those like, salt rock lamps you see in those stores that sell crystals and giant hunks of amethyst.  he also SERIOUSLY and SINCERELY loves those wizard-y valhalla-y smoke-spewing table fountain things that all-to-often feature a be-robed skeleton looming ominously over a murky pool of water in some dreary woodland scene.  that's what basements are for...or "rec" rooms.  

tonight after work we're meeting my friend M from the canoe days to have dinner at duff's wings.  or something in that general vincinity.  stopping off in kensington for some supplies for my dia de los muertos dinner party we're having on saturday.  i bought some kick-a** decorations from kensington yesterday...gorgeous, gaudy tissue-paper cutouts and such...i have to pick up some sugar skulls and hominy tonight for my pozole.  i'm excited!!!  this weekend is going to be so much fun!!!  the dotytron ditched his saturday shift which means he can let loose on friday night (a dotytron restrained is a pitiful sight) and help on saturday...we'll have a whole proper weekend together.  now if only i can get through my mountains of work, first.  

fin.

so i guess this is really happening...

we booked the site. eeps! we both really loved it...as soon as we pulled the car in...and *embarrassing admission alert* i totally started welling up which of course made the dotytron turn to me brimming with happiness at the fact that i was showing something akin to tenderness and emotion, which of course made me hastily quell the rising tide of sentimentality and tell him that it had nothing to do with him and that it's not a big deal.

so...we have a date set, i guess?  whatever that means?  after i faxed in the form, i kept assuring the dotytron that even if we break up or get cold feet, we're only out $100 and change for the wedding permit for the park so it's not a big deal.  and it's NOT A BIG DEAL (he, on the other hand, was entering it into the google calendar even as i spoke - i guess nothing makes it more official than THAT, our own personal tablets from on high).  it's really really really hard to have a conversation with people where you mention looking say, at wedding sites, before people get all glowy and giddy and zippy about it.  you can't just say, "yeah, we checked out some potential sites for a wedding" to peeps when you're tallying up your weekend and have them treat it the same as if you'd said, "yeah, we just tried to rid our apartment of fleas." and i hate to generalize, but women especially go crazy for that s**t.  but it's actually kind of sweet that people care so much and get so excited and amped up...i'm just most excited of all to have everyone we love around us and hanging with us and eating with us and laughing with us.  

anyway, in other news...we also checked out this house that we both really really like but i think we're going to put all thoughts of home ownership out of our minds until i'm assured a job for the next 8 months at least.

did i tell you guys that a few weeks back when paul newman passed away, "entertainment weekly" published a tribute issue, and i was reading it on the subway and totally started CRYING?  in public?!?  i just became suddenly overcome with what a decent man he was (by all accounts) and how sad it is that they really don't make 'em like that anymore.  like what kind of comparable actor do we have now who approaches that kind of gentle altruism?  he seems to stand for a simpler, better, time...not the current decaying decadence and moral decrepitude in which we find ourselves.  

so the dotytron and i decided we would undertake a "best of newman" retrospective.  last night we watched "cool hand luke."  talk about an anachronism!  do they even MAKE anti-establishment movies anymore?   and how bloody effin' fantastic is that movie poster???  "cool hand luke" has this awesome, jolty texture to it and a certain brick-fisted panache.  the cuts are pointed and stylized at the same time...and the story is fantastic, but soul-crushing.  it's like a prison "one flew over the cuckoo's nest."  i wonder if the eventual crushing of the upstart protagonists in these films was a necessary device to enrage and inspire the anti-establishment in the populace, or whether it's a commentary on how truly entrenched the establishment is (a nihilistic philosophy.)  i can't really decide.  at least you HAD these kinds of movies being made. nowadays, the odd-duck, square-peg movies aren't exactly inspiring...they're either played for broad laughs or are hopelessly maudlin, relying on actors going (in the words of robert downey jr's character in "tropic thunder") "full r-tard" (forrest gump, etc.)   

anyway, it was great and i think few people can approximate newman's clear-eyed, rakish charm.  there's a lot being suggested in the film and it unfolds with long, grand conversations that have a certain stage-like delivery.  there are hints as to the self-destructive psychological underpinnings for newman's seemingly carefree inability to toe the line...most evident in the exchange with his mother.  you should all definitely check it out.  

tonight i have an early(ish) dodgeball game and then i'm going home to make spicy beef kimchi with udon.  dead easy and hella tasty.  i got the idea from martha stewart living magazine.  la martha's source recipe is for a "kimchi stew with chicken and tofu."

fin.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

spicy beef and kimchi udon

makes 4 servings but you can easily tinker with it and up the quantities

prep time: 30 minutes MAX and that's if you're dragging your feet like a mofo

4 c. beef or chicken stock

water

2 16 oz. jars of kimchi (usually in the refrigerated section of chinese grocery stores)

1 T. minced ginger

1 T. minced garlic

however much beef you have/feel like putting in...cuts like flank are good, thinly sliced (tonight i'm using about 1 lb of leftover beef chuck from my freezer)

2 packs of enoki mushrooms (i cut off the last 1" or so so they break up easy)

1 block of soft tofu (chinese style silken is best), cut into cubes

salt and pepper to taste

4 packs of udon noodles (the plastic white square ones)

- throw everything up until the salt and pepper into a pot, heat and simmer until the beef is cooked through...season to taste with salt and pepper.  make up the stock with enough water to give you enough soup for 4 servings.  

- meanwhile, in a different pot of boiling water, cook the udon noodles until they separate and are cooked through.  divide the noodles between the bowls, ladle the kimchi beef soup on top.

- slurp up with chopsticks and big spoons.

 

performance preparation

last night's dinner was well worth the 2-3 hours of kitchen work.  the chicken was delicious...all craggy with herbed breadcrumbs and zippy from the mustard.  the braised leeks were the melting, tender essence of allium and the squash gratin was so autumnal and comforting.   here are some pics:


the tarte tatin was probably the best iteration of the recipe that i've ever made.  i used crispin apples (also called mutsu) and at first i was a little concerned that they had cooked down too much. as i ate the tarte, the jammy tartness of the apples against the hearty flake of the oatmeal crust turned out to be a winning combination of textures.  


bwong brought me some red fife flour, whole wheat and white.  red fife is hugely sexy and popular in the toronto food demi-monde at the moment, fulfilling all the prerequisities: locally grown, rarified, small farm success story, heritage strain brought back from obscurity...it's gotten the stamp of approval from THE purveyors of toronto taste, james chatto and jamie kennedy.  i'm going to wait until my starters are ready and then do a grape starter loaf with both the usual organic hard flour from the bulk store and the red fife white.  then i'm going to use my whole wheat starter and do the same with the bulk organic whole wheat flour and the red fife and do blind tastings.  it's best to be scientifical in these kinds of ventures.

here are what my starters are looking like.  i accidentally forgot to feed my whole wheat one after the suggested 12 hours.  it was starving!!!  but starting to show signs of life.  i vow to be a better parent from now on.  bwong is insisting that i name them, but i'm not going to name them romulus and remus, sorry.  whole wheat baby i'm not sure about the name.  any suggestions?


the grape starter was looking pretty active, with bubbles spotting the surface and some fizzy activity.  i'm going to name this one "spumante bambino."


today i've got a dodgeball DOUBLE HEADER!!!  but first me and the dotytron are going to drive around looking at prospective performance spots.  we've got two parks lined up and this historic museum.  so frustrating the limited number of cute, individual spots in toronto.  i mean, there ARE spots, but the city just won't let you do anything.  they'd rather it languish in the feeble hope that the ten members of the public willing to rouse themselves on a saturday late afternoon to go see one of toronto's forgotten sites should have an experience unblemished by people's nuptials. laaaaaaaame!

yesterday was oodles of fun with hanbo and dr. rei.  it was nice to talk furniture with people. lately i've been neglecting my financial, knitting, craft, and food blogs in my blogrolls and have become unduly fixated on design blogs.  i think the tantalizing nature of the housing market right now is spurring me to thoughts of having my own place to finally realize and centralize my design aspirations.  i'm feeling REALLY inspired and unfortunately, we're maxing out the space in our home at the moment for new acquisitions...plus it's really hard to buy anything if you're dealing with temporary, loaned space.  i want to have an idea of what i'm working with before i shell out the ducats.  i want to be able to paint the walls and do it up proper.  le sigh.  someday.  

sunday breakkie was a fridge cleaning exercise that resulted in toasted "western" sandwiches. i used spanish chorizo in the toasted western and green pepper, white onion and garlic, sauteed in a pan...added beaten egg, made a messy, flat omelette/pancake thing, and then slid that between some toasted, buttered white. it was tasty.


tonight i'm making mushroom barley risotto with braised collard greens with bacon. we have SO MANY LEFTOVERS right now.  it's a good thing i'm not cooking on monday or tuesday.  we have to slog through the backlog somehow.

fin.

the fat little weirdoes epilogue

okay...i've decided to get my life together in earnest.  so, even though i started the day with one of those breakfast sammies from carousel bakery in st. lawrence market (peameal, egg, american cheese, soft squishy kaiser), i also went to yoga class, and now i'm headed off to meet dr. rei to go to this vintage/estate sale thing and then we're going to do a rainy saturday walkabout on queen east and gawk at expensive mid-century modern furniture and gentrificaton.  i think maybe hanbo might join us too!  

i'm shopping for a little black 20sish, 50sish cocktail hat with a veil that i can use as part of my performance ensemble.  trying to find a performance venue in toronto that's halfway decent is like, impossible.  there's no where cute and fun and low key...there's like 10 different spots that everyone uses downtown and the rest are all banquet halls and stuff.  it just goes to show you what a lame-ass third rate city toronto is.  you can't even get hitched in a PUBLIC PARK without all these restrictions.  laaaame!!!  and u of t is a total fascist.  you can't do just the ceremony on a saturday, you can only do that on a friday or sunday and even then, you need to guarantee a minimum of 150 peeps.  it's like, what business is it of YOURS how many peeps we have?  

anyway, so i'm going to be doing a lot of walking today...and i've promised myself that i'm also going to do my crunches and half-assed tricep dips and push ups.  that plus yoga plus walking seems like a decent amount of physical exertion for a saturday.  

tonight for dinner i'm making a recipe from suzanne goin's "sunday suppers at lucques." goin is a chef after my own heart.  according to my friends A&C who read this book recently about cooks (i think it was "stanley park"), the author divides cooks between bloods and crips.  apparently, i'm a blood.  here's the definitions i was provided:

"blood cooks were respectful of tradition, nostalgic even...linked to 'local' by the inheritance of adoption of a culture, linked to a particular manner and place of being." 

Crip cooks, "were post-national. They called themselves artists. They tended to stack things like mahi mahi and grilled eggplant in wobbly towers glued together with wasabi mayonnaise, and were frequently suspicious of butter."

that's a little too dichotomous and a trifle dated for my liking, but since i like the bloods gang-sign better and that's the one i can do, it's sufficiently accurate to suit my purposes.

anyway, i love suzanne goin and really respect her as a cook.  i love the book too, but i hate the layout...it's organized by menu, by season.  i can handle by season, but i prefer stuff to be organized by course so that i can assemble my own menus.  at any rate, i'm making her "deviled chicken thighs with braised leeks" with a LOT of streamlining.  for one thing, i'm not marinating my chicken legs (drums and thighs) for 24 hours before-hand...i'm kind of inherently suspicious of marinades penetrating the meat, and in this case, the chicken is heavily browned, doused in a dijon mustard-shallot mixture, and then coated with browned butter thyme breadcrumbs (i'm omitting the brown butter) and baked on a bed of braised leeks.  i don't think the marinade flavour will be missed.  i'm serving this on egg noodles with a baked parmesan squash gratin.

for dessert, we're carrying on the autumnal theme with an apple tarte tatin in an oatmeal crust with vanilla ice cream and movies and knitting in front of the soothing glow of le television.

fin.

tgi motherf**kin' f

i was so so soooo looking forward to about 7pm tonight when my night of autumnal/pre-winter bunkering down could begin in earnest.

the only thing getting me through an epic friday was being able to fully anticipate being in my flannel pjs, with warm soft-centred chocolate pudding cakes baking away in the oven, eating a giant bowl of tagliatelle with sauteed radicchio and bagna cauda, topped with a fried egg.

then we're going to watch "the wild chef" on the food network...which is becoming something of a friday night tradition 'round these parts. it's martin picard's (of montreal's wildly celebrated au pied du cochon) show, which sees him off in the wilds of quebec hunting and eating random game and fowl prepared a la campagne with rough chopped natural herbs and liberal doses of fat in a makeshift kitchen hauled from the city, or over a wood fire. it's not the best...his halting command of english really hampers the flow of the show and you can tell that he would be a much more genial and tv-worthy host in his native tongue, but there's something inexplicably alluring about cooking in the wild and it tugs at my culinary heartstrings.

while we're doing that, i'm going to finish working up my costume and perhaps start on the dotytron's or finish my stupid giant mittens so i can start a new knitting project and get a leg up on holiday knitting for gifts. i've lost my drive to knit recently...i'm uninspired by how giant and unwieldy the mittens are going to be and i'm disinclined to finish them...but since i'm such a dogged finisher, i won't let myself start something new til they're done...so the conflict between my OCD and my perfectionism is gumming up my motivation. the costume is turning out pretty cute though, if i do say so myself. handmade costumes really are the best.

the pasta tonight is one of my absolute favorites, and is based on a recipe from nancy silverton (i loves me some silverton). i pulled it from her book, "a twist of the wrist" (it's actually the cover recipe though mine won't be as pretty) which is about using some of the high quality canned and jarred and prepared goods available today to make fast and easy dinners. we all know how much i loves me some bagna cauda too. it's great to have some of it kicking around in the fridge to drizzle as a warm dressing on salads, or dress up a sandwich, protein, or simple steamed veggies. she provides a recipe for it, but i don't bother...it's so simple it's really to taste...i'll give my rough approximation at the end of the post.

here's a pic of my glorious panzerotto from last night to make your stomach growl:

here's a pic of tonight's dinner:



the dotytron made the warm chocolate pudding cakes (really easy, one bowl recipe). i topped it with a scoop of this mint ice cream i made in the summer with some of our bumper (accidental) mint crop.

there's also going to be a new installment 'round these parts. i call it: "a tale of two starters." i'm going to give a scaled-back version of nancy silverton's grape starter a try. the original version in "breads from la brea bakery" has you feeding that thing THREE TIMES A DAY for A MONTH. THREE TIMES A DAY!!! that's like having a biga baby! completely not feasible and way too labor intensive. i'm going to try daily feedings instead and i scaled back the proportions. she had you making almost 2lbs of starter, half of which was discarded each time you fed it. kind of wasteful.

here are the pics. this is day 1. tepid water, unbleached organic white bread flour, organic grapes smushed up in a cheesecloth bag.



the only thing i have to do for the next few days is make sure it's warm enough and just monitor it and let the microbial action and naturally occurring yeasts on the grapes and in the flour to ferment.


to hedge my bets, i made a more standard, restrained starter using just tepid water and whole wheat organic flour. this one should come along a little faster than the grape one. whole grains tend to have a little bit more microbes on 'em than white flour (so i've read).


with any luck, the next batch of no-knead bread will have some sourdough flavour and i can start expanding my bread horizons.

fin.
------------------------------------------------------------------
bagna cauda

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1/2 c. olive oil

1 T. (or thereabouts) oil-packed anchovies...i usually use about 6-10

10-12 cloves of garlic, peeled

1 lemon

black pepper

chop the anchovies and garlic pretty fine. add to a small pot or pan with the butter and the olive oil and heat on low heat until the garlic smells slightly fragrant and mixture is hot and bubbling. turn off the heat, add the zest of 1 lemon and squeeze in the juice of the lemon. season liberally with cracked black pepper.

- i store leftover of this in the fridge in a ramekin of glass container with a lid and re-warm and use as necessary.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

pasta with bagna cauda, radicchio, fried egg

adapted from nancy silverton's "a twist of the wrist"

- serves about 4

3 heads radicchio

chili paste or dried chilies (to taste)

1 lb. egg tagliatelle

1/4-1/2 c. prepared bagna cauda

4 eggs

pecorino romano or parmesan cheese for grating on top

- thinly slice radicchio and saute in a bit of olive oil and chili flakes/paste until wilted

- meanwhile, cook tagliatelle in a pot of boiling salted water

- when the pasta is cooked, toss with the wilted radicchio and bagna cauda and a little bit of the pasta cooking water to loosen. season with salt and black pepper to taste

- fry 4 eggs in olive oil (sunny side up)

- divide pasta between bowls, top with fried egg and grated cheese.

see! so easy!!!

the fat little weirdo chronicles

i'm rapidly joining dr. rei in a descent into the bowels of fat little weirdo territory, from which no amount of half-hearted tricep dips will save me.  

today we had a staff appreciation pizza lunch at my work,  i appreciated myself to the tune of 4 (!!!) pieces of pizza (in my defense, they were "party pizza"-sized squares, not triangles), 2 cookies, and like, handfuls of those cheap cream puffs they sell by the bin in the freezer section of grocery stores.  i'm OBSESSED with those.  i must have eaten about 15-20.  there were extras after lunch so i kept furtively casing the staff room and sneaking in when it was empty.  you can tell i felt guilty because i wouldn't eat any if someone else happened to be in the staff room.  instead, i would idly wash my hands and do weird laps from the fridge to the sink, all the while making awkward small talk so that no one would see me (and judge!) me while i went for more cream puffs.

see.  total fat little weirdo.  now that the prospect of eating dinner has gone OUT THE WINDOW...i've coaxed the dotytron into picking up panzerottoes for us.  i'm OBSESSED.  literally...they've been on my mind since monday night.  i've been flirting with the idea of eating one with the dedication and verve of leah mclaren at an investment bank holiday party full of bay street sharks.  

i know i haven't been doing much cooking.  this week was busy.  tonight i'm going to work on my halloween costume and knit and relax.  i can't decide when to buy my halloween pumpkins!!!  it's so tough.  i want them to be fresh and crisp enough to make good canvases, but i also don't want to save it to the last week leading up to halloween and there's a run on them and i'm left with the rejects.  it's a very delicate balance.  i have to anticipate the potential weekend double-income family shopping trends...where comely pumpkins are snatched in the blink of an eye.

fin.

young love

before i start extolling the winsome, heady virtues of "nick and norah's inifinite playlist" allow me to just relate an exchange i had with an individual yesterday, a young nymph pursuing her masters in political science who wanted me to research a legislative platform that john f. kennedy implemented when he was "governor (!!!) of either new hampshire (!!!!) or new england (!!!!!!!!!), i'm not sure which." eep.

interjection #2 - i don't like bridge mix. it's chocolate covered candy and nuts and raisins people! one of the candies bears a startling and regretable similarity to "big turk" (the most unfortunate convenience store chocolate bar in the history of candy.) it's gross! i'm way too much of a control freak who revels in the anticipatory delights of what's about to cross my table to deal with the random mystery grab-bag of life that bridge mix represents. it was determined that we all LOVE chex mix, but chex mix (we suspect) is something you make, not buy. so we improvised our own with my bag of bits'n'bites mixed in an unholy but oh-so-right union with dr. rei's bag of party mix.

okay. onto the big show..."nick and norah's infinite playlist" is a thoroughly enjoyable little independent that pulls you into the heady thrill of being young, flush, in love, and out and about and is a thrilling love letter to new york city and the untold allure and promise it holds for the young the world over...whether you're part of the bridge-and-tunnel set like the titular couple, or if you're me, in toronto and can remember the first time visiting new york on my own (my family went all the time and the macy's and bloomingdales experience is totally valid, but a little less thrilling and romantic)...the 9+ hour middle of the night greyhound bus ride that had us tumbling out in the wee hours of the morning, exploring the city on foot with my then boyfriend, discovering that there's actually stuff beyond my mum's "safe area" of 5th avenue.

the city unfolds as its own character on one of those only-in-the-movies long and fateful nights that has nick and norah (is there a dashiell hammett resurgence or something lately?) on a grand adventure, finding and losing people, on the search for a band, figuring stuff out and tentatively reaching out to each other over the course of an epic evening. kat dennings and michael cera's characters couldn't have been more aptly named...has there ever been a couple as worthy of emulation or reference than nick and norah charles? i think not. dennings is all giant wary eyes and lush lips and michael cera's textbook awkward teen is proving again to be surprisingly versatile to a wide range of emotions...he doesn't ever really play the same character...giving each one its on individualistic quirks and nuances while maintaining the signature cera-ness that girls go crazy for.

so many notable cameos and familiar faces from the new set...from harold (from harold and kumar), andy samberg, jay baruchel, the other asian guy who's in everything who isn't john cho, seth myers, devendra banheart in a very devendra cameo. loved the fact that there was no tokenism...gay characters are gay so what, jewish characters are jewish so what, asian characters are asian so what, not really worthy of mention...neither of the above becomes the platform for cheap jokes. i'm kind of hot for the lead singer of the jerkoffs and the stage actress who plays the drunk girl gives a convincing drunk girl performance that resonates to anyone who has ever set foot in a university bar.

at first i was worried it was going to be a little too indie for me (a dinosaur jr. poster on a teen bedroom in movies always gets my antennae up) but it settled into a very sweet little groove, balancing between funny and tender and overall extremely winning and endearing. it reminds me of when i actually used to go to shows and how important it was (remember going to your first concerts in your teens? in my case late teens [thanks overprotective, strict parents]) and how the nights all but sparkled with the limitless potential promised by the night. the soundtrack is tastefully indie thought still overall not to my taste - my favorite music was the one played by nick's band in the movie, which according to hanbo was composed by mark mothersbaugh of devo fame. we also all know how i feel about teen love when it's depicted right (ie. less "high school musical" and more...well, "nick and norah" is a great example.) it's just generally sweet and has you leaving the theatre with a smile on your face.

tonight i'm being ultra-ambitious and very very brave and going to see my dodgeball teammate's folk outfit play at c'est what. they're called rival gang theatre . some of my teammates are going too. i'm doing a LOT of after-work stuff this week and i'm seriously hoping that this means that on friday and saturday i can hunker down and eat chocolate pudding/tarte tatin with ice cream and wear flannel pjs. i figured i've earned it if i did a tonne of socializing in my precious after-work unwinding time during the week.

i made irie pumpkin stew for dinner with brown rice cooked with some coconut milk and kidney beans and sauteed/braised swiss chard on the side.

fin.

job anxiety

i find out in the next little while if my contract will be extended past the end of december.  nerve-wracking...considering i'm hoofing both my and the dotytron's share of the rent and expenses until teacher's college is done breaking his heretofore indomitable spirit.  a sobering and not-quite reassuring talk with the powers-that-be definitely have me in nervous heart palpitations until this thing is settled.

last night marked the consumption of my first deep-fried panzerotto.  it was GLORIOUS.  the dotytron has been stumping for panzerotto pizza for years and years, but for some crazy reason i was suspicious and would instead grab a slice from pizza pizza.  now i'm cursing all those wasted panzerottos (panzerottoes?) that could have been.  they recently redid the panzerotto pizza in our hood and it's gorgeous (the space).  before it looked like it was run by low-level vietnamese street thugs...broken plate glass masking taped over, sketchy dudes milling around outside overflowing from the 24 internet place next door...you catch my drift.  

i ordered one with extra cheese, mushroom, and pepperoni, heeding the dotytron's advice to specify that it be deep-fried, not baked.  unsheathing it from its' paper bag wrapping i was assaulted with the spicy warmth of the dried oregano flecking the crisp surface.  my first bite was bliss!  i have an inherent wariness of anything that could fall on the side of too-bready...but this...this was pizza pocket perfection and cast a pall on anything else purporting to that name.  the dough was chewy, crisp on the outside, not greasy, encasing a piping hot filling that had comingled and rearranged itself into the essense of pizza filling bliss (in other words: the first bite of any pizza slice - pizza bliss arranges itself in a radial formation based on decreasing proximity to the epicentre of the pizza.)  now i'm jonesing for more panzerottos and have sent forth the rallying cry to support panzerotto pizza and never again let them slide dangerously close to shuttering its doors and leaving us without a purveyor of deep fried pizza within walking distance.  

tonight i'm going to see "nick and nora's infinite playlist" with dr. rei and her betrothed, hanbo. dr. rei is concerned she's turning into a "fat little weirdo" (her words) - a state brought on by the dangerous combination of housing bridge mix and watching harry potter before bed (apparently). i'm not sure i've ever had bridge mix so hanbo's bringing supplies so that we can turn into fat little weirdos together. i'm excited/terrified.

fin.

up the yangtze

we watched the canadian-made documentary, "up the yangtze" over two nights this weekend (in between our home-ec style low-grade, non-toxic fumigation).  it is an extraordinary, deeply affecting documentary that stirs and nourishes with still, dream-like visuals that call to mind chinese watercolour paintings with their economy of line and their soft, swirling, bleeding edges.  the grey mist that cloaks the hills lends a hazy, dreamlike quality to the film - each scene so beautiful it makes your heart ache, reinforced by a lush, lilting, delicate score.  

the story follows two central figures, one middle class young man and a poor girl from a very rural family, working on an elaborate, decadent cruise ship catering to westerners with their downy, doughy forms and guileless, placid demeanors, who follow the river in its' last throes of life.  

there is also attention paid to the girl's family, who represent the old china, caught in the hinterlands that mark those too old, poor, and uneducated to be pushed with all the inexorable, unyielding force of the river into modernity.  they are some of the 2 million people replaced by the dam project - driven from the only way of life they know by more than the impassive slow surge of water.  they're the impotent negative balances obliterated by a tidal wave of capitalism, nationalism, and power.  i haven't seen a documentary this affecting in a long, long time.  watching the girl's father, the perpetual hollows beneath the sharp planes of his cheeks, his body worn down by work to an assemblage of skin and bones and sinew made operational by nothing more than a sheer force of grim will, watching his own obsolence and meeting his fate in this new world with resigned, bemused grace that would be inspiring if the very necessity of it all didn't make it all the more tragic...it made me squirm with discomfort at my own decadence and brought tears to my eyes.  we are so spoiled in the west.  i am so spoiled. the father and mother's awkward nervousness when they are invited to board the ship where they've sent their daughter to work makes me physically uncomfortable with the piercing aftershocks of their humbling.  it makes me want to cry just thinking about it...reliving that scene - the father dressed in a grimey t-shirt...his halting, stoop-shouldered steps, his self-deprecating deference in the face of the gaudy opulence of the boat and of the life he's pushing his young daughter towards...creating an ever-widening experiential chasm between them, severing the familial ties with the discordant cut of material promise.

at one point, eating by the light of smoky, cheap candles in his ramshackle hut, held together by lord knows what makeshift industriousness, he ask his daughter, on one of her visits home, if she still wants to return to visit her poor family, this after querying his daughter on the quality of the meals, the availability of meat at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  she says yes, she still wants to visit, but the silence after her statement stretches and fills the space between the word and the hulking, oppressive, unspoken reality.  

it's hard for me to express the pull of this film...it's so compact, so quiet, yet the filmmaker accomplishes and relates so much in the negative space that breathes in the still perfection of the images, in the silences between the words, and in the knowing far-gazing eyes of the subjects.  

i can't recommend it enough.

fin.