i'm old-fashioned

i have a thing for old movies. well, more a deep-seeded love affair. i am a girl who owns upwards of 200 movies, and i'd wager that at least half of them were made before 1965. tonight's old movie is the original father of the bride.

please ignore the awkwardness of that particular photo. we all know the 50's were an odd time, when it would have been perfectly acceptable for spencer tracy to hand-paddle his lovely daughter, elizabeth taylor. the silly, cheesecake-esque look on her face would've been absolutely in vogue as well. i promise. no monkey business.

i think spencer tracy was the tip-top of screen actors. not just of his generation, but ever. he's hilarious as the bumbling everyman-- father of the bride, woman of the year, adam's rib--and always sincere and touching in his more emotional roles--boys town, guess who's coming to dinner. i just want to squeeze him! his well-documented affair with katharine hepburn is one of my favorite hollywood love stories. sigh. we just don't make 'em like him anymore. maybe tom hanks will evolve into that, if he stops making movies based on dan brown books and reacquaints himself with his sincere and charming goofiness.

up was my absolute favorite movie of last year, and i think part of it has to do with the more than passing resemblance that carl frederickson, crotchety old man prototype, bears to good ol' spence.

well, i loved spence's doppleganger and that montage at the beginning of the film. you know the one. the one that makes everyone--including my 21-year-old, clint-eastwood-loving boyfriend--cry like wee babes. i don't think you get that much honest sentiment in today's films. people are afraid of coming off as too schmaltzy: emotion makes people uncomfortable, especially in an environment where media is meant to distract rather than connect.

maybe that's why i love spencer tracy and old hollywood in general. the movies were intelligent, witty, and maybe a little bit soppy when it came to good old-fashioned sentimentality. there was soft-lighting and romantic dialogue, and there didn't have to be irony. it's wonderful.

if you'll excuse me, i think i'll go watch the movie. if you need me, i'll be the one day-dreaming about what it must be like to look like young elizabeth taylor.

curds and whey

i am what you might refer to as a pseudo-midwesterner. i was born and raised in washington state, but this really makes no difference. yes, i have a healthy appreciation for the cascade mountains, the columbia river gorge, smoked salmon, and starbucks coffee. but in my purest moments--and by this, i mean moments when i'm slightly inebriated and less than inhibited--i sound a little bit like a cross between frances mcdormand in fargo and rose nylund. i call pop "pop," rather than pretending that it should be called soda or coke. i root for one of the worst teams in professional football, but i do it with a religious sort of gusto. i always say "please" and "thank you," i get excited when people hold doors for other people, and i--like all proper ladies-- love me some great lakes beer. but perhaps the thing that really separates me from my western brethren is my love of amish country.

yes, amish country.

my first trip was with my grandmother and eccentric uncle extraordinaire. we had lunch at a quaint little chalet, and my uncle yelled really loudly at the poor waitress (who looked like the little girl from the swiss miss box). good times. really. lasting impression made there. but my grandmother bought me a genuine black forest cuckoo clock, so there was that.

i remember wandering through one of the many country stores and looking out at the rolling hills--the kind we definitely don't have in washington. i'm not sure how the midwest did it, but they have perfect, half-sphere hills. none of this volcanic, craggy nonsense!--and seeing the little amish kids running through their fields. it was like witness, but happier! at the time, i was obsessed with the american girl franchise and the idea of getting to wear dresses and do romantic things like farm chores all day long. in that brief instant, i wanted to be amish.

then i went home and remembered how much i loved watching television. so, that idea landed on the proverbial scrap heap.

i have since gone back, and every time, i feel all a-flutter with that desire to knit and bake and scrub floors and have a strict and exclusive religion. seriously. secretly, it's what every woman wants. but the best thing about amish country--at least in the sugarcreek region of ohio-- is heini's cheese chalet.

(lovingly ripped from the queue at flickr)

i know, i know, surely i jest.

i don't jest. i never jest about cheese.

and heini's cheese chalet is the real deal, the motherload, the big kahuna of the cheese world. and how do i know it is the best? well, my friends, i am a seasoned world traveler. i went to france once when i was sixteen. i was there for forty-eight hours. i bet i tried two different kinds of cheeses. heini's beats them both. you know what heini's has that the french don't have?

amish farm milk. seriously. where does anyone get off making cheese without using 100% amish farm milk? they should be ashamed of themselves. why can't we all throw the amish a bone and use their clearly superior product? globalization is a tricky business, i tell you what.

but quite honestly, heini's has got an amazing selection and each and every one--that i've been able to try-- is fantastic. they have flavors like tomato-garlic, garden vegetable, onion, and magic! and the best thing is that when you visit the chalet, you can have free samples of all of these cheeses. no, the kind swiss entrepreneurs at heini's are not there to gouge you. they are there to provide you with no-end of scrumptious cheese.

(also lovingly ripped from flickr)

so, clearly, what you must do is this: drop everything and go to berlin, ohio. (or, you can simply go to their website, but you'll miss out on all the free samples). heini's cheese chalet is waiting for you. you can afford to mess with your precious digestive tract for one day. this cheese will not kill you; it will but make you stronger. go. do it. revel in the magic. and while you're there, give a big "hey-o" to all the people named yoder! they'll be the ones with moses-like beards piloting buckboards. tell them a girl from the internet sent you. see what kind of irritated and/or puzzled looks you can elicit. then, tell them to throw caution to the wind and see what their 100% amish farm milk is going to. then you can share a package of triscuits and some delectable cheese together-- just be sure to turn your cell phone off.

oh, but for a prep island

all right. i have a confession to make.

are you listening? (actually, no one's listening yet. i need to get better at this whole networking thing if i'm going to try to keep this up).

i am addicted to cooking blogs.

what's this, you say? how is this odd in any way? aren't there a veritable crop of culinary confessionals on the internet? didn't meryl streep just make a movie in which the focal point was a food blog? isn't flickr half-full of photos of people's various kitchen masterpieces? how is this at all original?

i suppose it isn't. but i'm in love with them.

also, it's a strange obsession when you're living in an apartment with a scary kitchen and roommates who--god bless them--firmly believe that food scraps wander from the periphery of the sink to the garbage disposal when the mood strikes them. they don't, by the way. generally, those pesky scraps resist until the last possible moment and end up being scrubbed vigorously to their doom. i may or may not enjoy flipping the switch of my disposal and listening to those little suckers scream.

tangent. oops. a note to animal-vegetable-rights activists everywhere: no edible morsels were harmed in the making of this entry.

long story short: it seems unlikely that i'd get a kick out of food blogs when i have hardly any space to cook. also, i lack the necessary implements of, well, basic cookware. we've got pans so old and ill-kept that the teflon is literally peeling right off. we haven't a potato ricer, masher, meat tenderizer, anything past the garden variety spatula and lots of odd-sized knives. my one ally in the kitchen is the $10 green santoku knife that i bought from crate and barrel (akaheaven) last year--and i can't do much with that besides, well, slice the occasional foodstuff.

and yet, i do indeed receive a good swift kick. i spend a lot of time daydreaming about my future kitchen. it will definitely include one of these:

i dream about these little babies. imagine the baking. imagine the mashed potatoes. imagine the wonder of not having to do everything with a wooden spoon that dates back to the prop room during my junior year of high school.

also, one of these:

perhaps i've been reading thepioneerwoman.com too often, but those soup recipes are making me long for a stock pot, a dutch oven, pretty much anything big, beautiful and equipped to handle large volumes of wonderful.

can you tell my favorite color is green? oh, you could. it baffles me, your powers of deduction.

my whistle is also whet for these--though they're marketed under the banner of a woman who, frankly, makes me a little nervous:

seriously, i'm not sure what to make of paula deen. i'm afraid of her in the same way that i was afraid of tammy faye messner--may she rest in peace, of course. their joy is suspect to me. maybe they just had better kitchens than i do. and better bank accounts to boot. the budget really puts a strain on my pantry.

however, none of these pretties is worth owning until i've got a more suitable living situation going on. bigger kitchen, more of those inflated american greenbacks, and more experience. this shall not deter me from reading food blogs and seething with jealously, nor shall it deter me from experimentation in my hovel of a living space. i'm planning on hitting the stovetop--figuratively speaking--hard this weekend when the boyfriend comes to visit.

he really doesn't seem to mind a tiny garnish of teflon. sweet boy, that one.

one lump or two

well, so much for keeping up with the jones's! i have one busy week--and one very nice weekend at home--and i forget to update the one thing i had resolved to keep up with. dear, oh dearie me. here's taking another stab at it.

i mentioned a couple weekends ago that my friend elli was in town. while she was here, we made a pilgrimage to the queen mary tea shop. it's a little salon about the size of a postage stamp and has all the copious floral decoration you would imagine comes with a name like "queen mary." there were cherubs hanging from the ceiling and everything. seriously. tremendous (okay, mid-sized) cherubs just dangling in all their gold-painted glory. i think one of them may have had a trumpet. but i suppose that's beside the point.

the point, dear pretend readers, is that this place was wonderfully charming. the above photo was my lunch. smoked salmon quiche. mmmmmmm. i need to learn me how to make some quiche. everyone gets his or her own personal sterling silver tea pot, and each tea pot has a cute little infuser that fits right beneath the lid. the tea stays warm for almost two hours. i don't know how this works, but however they accomplish it, it's pretty sweet. and it kept me from having to drink the earl grey that my lunchmates had agreed on.

besides being a restaurant, inside there's a little shop that stocks every possible color of tiny tea pot and a really delicious assortment of... wait for it... just a little longer... i know the suspense is killing you... yes... tea! i got something called "andes merry mint." apparently, it's a red bush tea. i have no idea what that means, but it tastes like french vanilla and mint at the same time. i wish i could buy a little tin for every tea lover that i know.

places like this always give me the feeling of being transported. i sit up straighter, i feel daintier, i feel more cozy. even with the cherubs, who may or may not give me the willies. i wish that i could exist in a world that felt that cozy. looming adulthood certainly doesn't feel all that warm and inviting, but i'm determined to find the sweet things in it. things like wonderful afternoons with good friends always seem to help.

about a soup

it's been a delightful holiday weekend. i love long and lazy weekends that allow for that all-important combination of leisure and industriousness. my friend elli was in town this weekend, and so there was the requisite running around. we did some delicious window shopping at anthro--or "shopping crack," as i like to call it--and williams sonoma, and we actually went to an old-fashioned tea shop for brunch on sunday morning. pictures will follow in another post. i was even able to take myself shopping on saturday. even though i love hanging out with friends, sometimes its nice to have a whole day to yourself; to sample every yankee candle in the store (blue hydrangea is to die for!); to walk through pottery barn and have conniptions because you haven't any house to put things in, nor money to buy it with. it's also nice to finish all of your classwork before the eleventh hour and get a bit ahead for the week.

maybe the nicest part of the weekend has been this evening. all the roommates were out, so i decided to experiment in the kitchen. so, i threw a load of laundry in--mmm, i do love being industrious-- opened my computer and logged onto my nickel creek station on pandora, and proceeded to try my hand at tortellini soup.

i got the idea from the wonderful shannan over at flower patch farmgirl, a blog i've been following for several months. a few weeks ago, she was kind enough to post her dinner menu for the week and give me a few ideas! her measurements are much more precise than mine--i told you i was a bit of rogue in the kitchen--so i recommend visiting her blog for the actual recipe.

i'd explain tortellini soup like this: you throw two cartons of chicken stock and a can of diced tomatoes--don't drain them!--into your soup pot of choice (note: i only used one carton of chicken stock because i was only cooking for myself, and my soup wasn't quite brothy enough. so, you know, use two). the only diced tomatoes i had on hand tonight were the sort that have green chiles mixed in with them, so my soup had a bit of an extra bite to it. shannan has her own particular assembly of vegetables to toss into the mix; i, myself, diced some baby carrots, mushrooms, celery, and green olives and threw them in. (there's a lot of throwing involved in this particular culinary adventure). i also added a bit of V8, just to supplement the juice factor. then, you bring the whole thing to a lovely rolling boil. if you leave to, say, go retrieve some laundry, try not to let it boil over.

once it's boiling and lovely, throw, toss, lob, hurl, what have you a package of tortellini into your already delicious cavalcade of ingredients. let the tortellini cook until done, probably about 10-12 minutes. then, reduce your rolling boil to a simmer and let it be for a bit. once you've had enough of this simmering business, add some basil (i'm poor, so i had to resort to the flaky sort) and fresh baby spinach. i threw in some croutons as well; i was having french onion soup fantasies, i guess, and wanted soggy bread on top of my soup. stir it a bit, let the simmer thing go on for just a tad longer, top with some cheese, and then-- serve.

dinner really provided a fantastic end to an already fantastic weekend.

really. i mean, i can hardly wait for leftovers.

i hope you, my fictitious readers, had a wonderful weekend as well. back to the slog tomorrow!

baby, i love your way

yesterday, i fell down the stairs. today, i have bruises in places i don't remember landing on. the moral of this story? always step on the center of the stair and don't wear slippery socks. this has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood klutz.

in other news, peter frampton covers are the stuff that dreams are made of.

or rather, peter frampton covers are the stuff that the nineties were made of. that, and self-reflective movies where ethan hawke rambles on about young adult angst in a stream-of-consciousness fashion that involves a lot of fantastic words that were probably on some incarnation of the sat's.

so, tonight, i am watching reality bites, ben stiller's sterling 1994 directorial debut. i am also enjoying some $5 cabernet

sauvignon, working on my reflection project for my multicultural education class, and thinking about consuming another of the beautiful cupcakes my roommate made. i have reached the point where this movie has become applicable to my life. i'm that pretentious. oh dear.

maybe the theme for my blogging adventure should be life as a postgraduate without a master plan. it's compelling stuff! do i choose higher education? do i travel? do i try to find semi-gainful employment to finance this travel? do i curl into a ball and avoid the real world for just a bit longer? in a way, it's very exciting--this is the first time in my entire life that i haven't known exactly what i'm going to do next. for the last seventeen years, there has been the simple expectation of the next school year, separated by intermittent summer breaks. now, i'm being offered a break from the monotony, and i have no idea what i want to do with it!

i find some of the nuts and bolts of becoming an adult really pleasant. i'm enjoying learning how to take care of myself. i actually really love grocery shopping; i think keeping house (well, apartment) is fun, much to the dismay of my roommates. i even like menial chores like laundry. i'm sure that this will all change the longer that i do these things, but for now, the cult of domesticity is pretty appealing. i just wish i knew what to do about a career. teaching high school is appealing; graduate school with an eventual university gig is also appealing; so is investigating more creative spheres like interior design or publishing. a b.a. in english is sort of a wide-open ticket to the greater universe. it's applicable, but not specialized.

this degree came with critical thinking skills, now i just have to use them!

mamma mia

i made the decision to abandon my computer this evening and watch a movie instead. and so; i leave you with what i feel might be my most fantastic idea yet.

i do believe meryl streep should be my best friend.

well, aside from my actual best friend, who resides somewhere in wales and is much younger and cuter than dear meryl. but after chelsea, i do think meryl would be a commendable second lieutenant. yes, yes, i do.

and now. to sleep!