Chloe: Critic Girl/Renaissance Woman

Mainly for creating feasts of a similar magnitude…

She opened with a turtle soup and a light aperitif. Not my particular favorite starter, but a nice rich broth-y soup to whet the appetite.

Next, she served Blinis Demidoff with a classic champagne. Yes, please!

I believe the next course was her centerpiece, the Caille en Sarcophage. And the Clos Jouveau (mental note to find that out, for knowledge’s sake - I do know that young Erik calls it Clo Juvo in the subtitles).

She cleansed the palates with a light salad. The quick glances we see seem to have endive and other lettuces and possible walnuts on top.

Then the cheeses and some water to clear out the tastes.

She finishes with a lovely cake Baba au Rhum dressed with cream, liqueur and fruit as well as a large and significant fruit tray.

Finally, coffee and a port (?) to finish.

Debra Ollivier has assembled some recipes for a couple of the dishes which I will add below:

Blinis Demidoff

Olllivier takes her recipe from Chicago’s Theater Oobleck (included in Entre Nous, see link above). In the movie, Babette definitely tops her blinis with caviar, creme fraiche and chopped onion. Blini at your own risk.

Baba au Rhum

1 package yeast
1/3 cup warm milk
2 1/3 cups sifted flour
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 2/3 cups sugar
6 eggs
5 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup dark rum
candied fruits or thinly sliced almonds for decoration

Dissolve yeast in milk in a large bowl. Stir in 1/2 cup of the flour, cover, and set aside in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.
Beat 7 tablespoons of the butter in a food processor (or equivalent, as I do believe Babette did not have a Cusinart in Denmark). Add two tablespoons of the sugar and 2 tablespoons of the flour. Then beat in the eggs one at a time.

Beat remaining flour into the risen yeast mixture; then beat in the butter and egg mixture to form a thick , doughy batter. Butter a large baba or Savrin mold (modern day: Bundt pan) with a tablespoon of butter, then spoon batter into the mold. Cover with a clean cloth and set aside to rise until dough reaches the top of the mold.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake baba for 40 minutes until golden brown on top.

Meanwhile, combine remaining sugar and water in a saucepan and boil until syrupy and reduce to about 3 cups. Remove from heat and stir in rum.

After baba is removed from the oven, spoon warm rum syrup over it entirely, allowing it to saturate the cake completely.

Let cake cool and then unmold and decorate with fruits or nuts.

Serves about 8.

…..Now if only I had a Bundt pan!

1. Do I really want people to read this blog?
2. Why is my chest all congested?
3. Should I go check out the acupuncture place up the street?
4. How can I get my apartment in order?
5. Is there really room in my apartment for another person to live here?
6. Is there really room in my life for another person to live here?
7. Will I ever get a good night’s sleep in this apartment?
8. Why do I constantly start projects and leave them hanging?
9. Am I defeating the purpose by doing this on the computer?
10. Am I having second thoughts about even being able to complete this?
11. How do I find more spontaneity in my life?
12. How do I include more creativity?
13. How much sleep is enough?
14. Why do birds fly south for the winter?
15. Why don’t other animals?
16. Why didn’t I realize that a lot of animals migrate?
17. How can I satisfy my love of fashion and be frugal?
18. Will I be able to retire by the time I’m 40?
19. Will I ever buy those lovely Rebecca Taylor sandals I saw in a magazine?
20. Will I ever actually take my drawing and design classes?
21. Will I get my act together this semester?
22. How can I keep myself motivated to do all of the things that I want to do in my life?
23. What is my mental block against exercising?
24. Will there come a day when there are no more movies left to watch?
25. Could I really live an austere life?
26. What are my basic values?
27. Do I square away my values with my interests?
28. Can they be different?
29. If I had to pick just one of my dream careers, which would it be?
30. Should I answer these questions some day?
31. Could I be a vegetarian?
32. Could I give up chocolate?
33. Why don’t I have a better plan for my time?
34. If I skipped a question would anyone notice?
35. Is frugal living better for one’s happiness?
36. Could I really manage a dog?
37. Could I really manage children?
38. How many children do I want?
39. Can I live my life in accordance with my broader social values and my love for the earth?
40. Will I wake up one day and see all of the damage we have caused to the earth?
41. Will I ever live on the water?
42. What is it about water that makes me feel so happy and calm?
43. What is it about wind that makes me feel engulfed?
44. What is my true style?
45. Will my new computer ever get here?
46. Will I ever get to live in France?
47. In San Francisco?
48. Is there anywhere else that I would really like to live?
49. What are the millions and millions of people in the city doing right now?
50. How do artists get their inspiration?
51. How do they keep their motivation?
52. Why is long-term commitment to projects so difficult?
53. Why is it so hard to pick a favorite activity or a first priority?
54. What will be my cause celebre for my life’s work?
55. Do I have to pick just one?
56. Could I become a food critic in my spare time?
57. Who would listen to any opinion that I would have?
58. Why is there so much bad food in the world that people actually pay good money for?
59. Why isn’t there a better BBQ place in my neighborhood?
60. Why isn’t Indian food easier to replicate in my home kitchen?
61. When will my boyfriend ever get here?
62. Will I like living with another human being?
63. Would I like to have fish?
64. Or birds?
65. Could I pull it off at Pratt?
66. Or Parsons?
67. Will I actually try kayaking this year?
68. Or horseback riding?
69. What is the new Sex and The City, really?
70. Do I have an addictive personality?
71. Or obsessive compulsive?
72. Or anal retentive, for that matter?
73. Do I have to pick just one?
74. Would I do best working from home?
75. Do I need to get out more?
76. How do I commit myself more to the issues I care about when I am exhausted and barely able to keep up with my academic obligations?
77. Will I be able to continue this blog?
78. Will I be able to become a fashion designer?
79. Why do the neighbors run up and down the stairs and drive me insane all day?
80. Why do I listen to everything that is going on around me including the conversation I’m actually engaged in?
81. Can a person be too introspective?
82. Or too open about their faults?
83. Or totally blind despite that apparent openness?
84. Will I ever solve my financial woes?
85. Will the credit card debt dissolve?
86. Will I ever own a pair of Christian Louboutins?
87. Will I ever not care who designed the shoes I wear?
88. Can a person really truly be happy?
89. Is asceticism required for letting go?
90. What does one say to a psychoanalyst?
91. Why is healthcare so expensive?
92. Why don’t I know an acupuncturist so that I could be treated for free?
93. Why can’t I stop eating the foods that I know are bad for my skin?
94. Will I ever have clear skin again?
95. Why don’t macrobiotics eat fruit?
96. Why does organized religion make things so complicated?
97. What are my real spiritual beliefs?
98. Can one not practice anything and still be part of the spiritual world?
99. How can I replicate the feeling of being on a mountain top while in New York City?
100. Will I ever be done?

Sipping a glass of pomegranate cider in my skivs; nibbling on a bit of organic milk chocolate truffle in the afternoon. Sheer delight. And a lovely entree into the latest project for this space of mine.

I have made several attempts to start following the “How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” program (by Michael Gelb) which actually codifies a lot of what I find worthy in life. I find myself constantly amazed at the world around me, thinking of what a certain pattern of moving cars would look like from above, or how a child would perceive some newfangled creation, or what I felt the first time I saw a sunset, cat, homeless person, etc.

One shouldn’t need a book, let alone an entire step by step program, to rekindle fascination with the world, appreciation of sensual and sensuous pleasures, and intellectual curiousity. But, I am a self-proclaimed self-help addict with undertones of anal retentiveness. I use plans and schedules like a parapalegic uses her wheelchair. They are my main source of mobility, and frankly, I feel stranded without them. (Another quality I’m perpetually trying to rid myself of in a positive fashion).

And so, today, a day without new Netflix treats, I will begin to transcribe my developments here, in addition to my film chatter and in and out food and wine chatter as well.

I have to learn how to archive by topic, since I also want to include some simple living chatter as well and it would be nice to be able to organize (for myself) these missives. I’m sure it’s just a google or a ‘help’ click away.

Long had I held in my impressions that this movie was gastroporn, and that it was French! I suppose I had no real reason to believe these things other than the title and a recommendation from Entre Nous.

As I should have from my previous misconceptions, I believe I have now learned to keep an open mind and simply believe.

While the food that Babette creates is wondrous in itself, it is the power of touching people’s lives with what you do best that resonates throughout this film. Set in a small religious community in Denmark, Babette truly creates a life-changing, or at least enlightening, event with her culinary expertise. It took it’s time to get there, like any classic gastronomic phenomenon, and the creation was too much of a blur to be the miracle in itself. I was desperate to enjoy that meal and savor every taste with the unknowing recipients.

There also is a fair amount of religious symbolism that I am sure can be explored further and I would like to take the time to address after I’ve had the opportunity to watch this film several more times. The first that jumps out at me is the 12 diners at the table, breaking bread together. The diners themselves refer to the wedding at Cana, though the miracle here is not in riches made out of mere paucity. More significantly, the sisters - the right and left hand of their father, the prophet-priest - have arranged this dinner to celebrate their father, on the anniversary of his birth. Is he the Jesus figure to complete the Last Supper? Is the General, who guides the reluctant participants through the wonders, instead? Or is the sacrifice made by the woman in the kitchen, behind the scenes, who may have been able to be the twelfth at the table had not the General come to call?

The true miracle, though, is in the kinship and reconciliation that is brought out through good food, fantastic wine, and a well planned menu. May Babette forgive me for eating an improvised version of Don Henley’s chili over leftover grains when I could have been eating Caille en Sarcophage!

I do believe that my culinary adventure, though, in creating a warm late-winter stew on one of the last nights of the winter season might indeed be considered my art, as in Babette’s words, I simply strove to “do my best.”

see also: thoughts on the actual menu for Babette’s feast

I seem to have made myself the self-appointed evaluator of pseudo-Cinderella films in today’s media. I hope that some uninspired ingenue in film school will do the same.

A Cinderella Story - just typing out the name made me space out and think of much better versions (for the younger set - Ella Enchanted, for the “literary” film set - Ever After). But it does make me wonder why society has such a fascination with the tale of the little cinder girl. We have an easy answer - uninspired (the theme’s post, it would seem) writers take stories that worked and try to “update” them or re-tell them or make yet another buck on them. Every little girl grows up and wants to be in the Cinderella movie, so there is no shortage of starry eyed starlets to play the role.

There is also, of course, the stock re-telling of traditional fairy tales to empower girls and young women and eliminate the childhood myth that all a young girl needs is a prince on a white horse. And, in fairness, A Cinderella Story does attempt to do that. Young Sam’s father tells her that it’s not all about princes and there is more in that book that might help her than just being saved (how best to sweep floors in his diner?). We see Sam decide to stand up for herself (Warning: spoilers from here on in, disappointing, I know) and stand up to her evil stepmother (the ever-hysterical and usually under-used Jennifer Coolidge) and her wishy-washy text-message lover. So the requisite grrrl power elements are there.

The real change, though, happens in the wishy-washy text-message lover. When Sam stands up for herself, the underlying reason is that she thinks she got rejected from Princeton. She, herself, states earlier in the movie that she only follows orders because she needs tuition money from Fiona, the stepmother. So now that she’s not going to college (always apply to safeties, Sam!), she actually has nothing to lose and hasn’t taken any real chances. Her “family” at the diner has already let her know that they will support her so she has fallen into a safety net.

Austin, though, walks out of the homecoming game (oddly several days after the homecoming dance) during the final play of the game, handing off the glory to his lesser noticed sidekick to choose Sam, Princeton, and pissing off his dad. He chooses to be the “closet poet” writer inside instead of the hot jock full-riding to USC and Car Wash fame. Austin is the true cinderella coming out of the foofy-career-choice-closet (according to Big Andy, A’s pa) and wearing the glass slipper in full view.

But really, it looks like he just goes to kiss Sam in the rain.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind allows for some interesting questions. Are there really people out there that we can’t avoid regardless of the enormous lengths we would take to eliminate them from our lives? Will we ever be able to map to specific memories in such a way that we can delete them like so many files in a leftover laptop?

But most importantly, who would you erase? I suppose movies like this are meant to inspire existential questions and thoughts - even those “deep” thoughts that seem so cliche once they come out. Case in point: As I was falling asleep last night, I pondered this last question and I realized that there might not be any one relationship that I would actually want to erase - each has made me who I am today. So there, I said it.

And the movie makes a fairly good case against the very industry that it has created. Joel Barish can’t remember anything about the previous two years in his life since everything was colored by Clementine. Immediately after the procedure, he is despondent and depressed and believes that he has just done nothing but stand still for two years. (Not a spoiler, this is in the first ten minutes of the film) If we do indeed develop the ability to erase people we love so intensely as to wanting to erase them, then we will erase all emotions we feel during that time.

This procedure, though, may have some benefits - erasing so many drunken encounters, failed pick-up attempts, but more seriously - traumatic events. The first “who” I really thought of erasing was a terribly traumatic personal relationship that would only require erasing one day and some memories of the aftermath. I would be healed! But then, even the positive outpouring which came from that would be erased and so many good feelings that came from the bad would be lost forever.

In the end, erasing may not be such an exciting prospect after all….

In a fit of madness, I scoured eBay for my perfect tote. Ladies and Gentlemen, I found it. Well, I found two. One, a gorgeous Hogan bag and the other, a lovely Balenciaga. Oh yes, the holy grail would be mine.

And then, like any pauper-dressed-in-diva’s-sequins, I looked at the price. Woe be to me! Naturally, they were out of my league. There is still hope for the Balenciaga, but the reserve has not been met and I’m not sure how far I am willing to go to test it out. It would be a lot, but I’ve been quoted as being ready to pay a pretty penny for the bag of a lifetime.

And so, like any buying-obsessed-bunny, I began to lower my expectations. Or at least the commodity of the name brand and settled on bidding on some very lovely Le SportSac bags. And of course, I found several and of course, bid on them non-stop.

But the good news is that I found one very cute casual bag which does not take the place of my beloved but at least will not leave me without grocery money for the week.

I’ll put up a picture whenever I can get the link to work. For now, imagine rainbows dancing on a blue hobo. Whatever happened to Handy Smurf?

I’ve completely confirmed that Anne Hathaway has one character that she plays. And, yes, she may be worthy of being called a “young Lucille Balle” as the esteemed Jane Starks (I spelled that wrong, but the producer of the afore-referred to Ella Enchanted) deemed her. But, let’s please remember: Lucy was always Lucy. She was very comfortable with physical comedy and natural in her skin, but we always think of the stomping the grapes, the vitamegamin, the chocolate candies and of course Desi with his world-famous “LUCY!”

Now nearly mandatory criticism aside, I think what this film does for the Cinderella story and for the quality of obedience borders on family movie genius. The movie is smart, empowering, funny, cute, and Hugh Dancy is a hunk of G-rated burning love.
Minnie Driver is under used and the relationship as “household fairy” could have been better developed. Additionally, there is some confusion over who the actual fairy godmother is. Vivica, as Lucinda, is referred to as the fairy godmother, but only for having given an undesirable gift.

I actually even thought about buying this movie. And it’s one that I would definitely think about giving middle-school age girls as a ‘go get ‘em’ gift. And, someday, it may make it’s way into my collection.

No, not Jason or Freddie…or even Nick Lachey.

After five long years, my long distance lover is on schedule to become, of all things, my roommate. Talk about an intense turnaround. But I’m really excited. I had a fairly intense existential crisis about it last month and wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Me, the girl chasing the diamond all the while luring suitors in without shame - therein lies the clash. Suddenly, I had to pick one.

Not that I’ve been unfaithful. Not that I ever even want to do more than be crazy and loud and slightly less than obnoxious when out and about. But suddenly, the world changes.

“I have a boyfriend” isn’t just the easy letdown that also happens to be the comforting reality. Chances are that boyfriend will be in the bar. Or, chances will be that he’ll be home waiting for me to show up.

And so that was what freaked me out. Just suddenly knowing that leaving my skivs on the floor or letting the dishes pile up or staying out just a tad too late on a Tuesday night was going to be monitored and watched and maybe even judged sent me over the edge.

But it’s been a month. A month with a lovely weekend of being nursed back to health and another trip with friends and just being together. And I think I’m really ready. We’re both deathly afraid of the reality, but I’ve got one foot in the door.

Now I just need to actually get the dishes out of the sink and make space for the man in my life to become the man in my apartment….

Why did Mira Sorvino get an Oscar for this movie? I haven’t done my research to see who she was up against, but this was largely lost on me. In general, it was clever and classic Woody Allen. The greek tragedy element was novel and well-woven into the movie. This could not eliminate the bad accent and generally vapid performance of Mira. Helena Bonham Carter was just as uninteresting and her Amanda Sloane was unlikeable at best.

Now, I do appreciate that writers love to write movies in which they get to be the love interest of whoever they damn well please (note: Zach Braff and Garden State), but it is this very flaw which maybe makes Mira and Helena so generally dismal in this film. Would these two women have anything to do with Woody Allen? Even if he is the interminable Upper East Side devoted Lenny? Not hardly. Give us a break, Woody.

And on a final note, I need to do further research to come up with the timing of this movie and the Mia Farrow/Soon Yee episode - but lusting after the mother of his adopted son? Could this be the foreshadowing/artistic presentation of lusting after the adopted daughter of his son’s mother?