Saturday, April 30, 2005

Yet another Spielberg WWII movie

And what do you know, Schindler's list is awesome. I can almost forgive Liam Neeson for being in Ethan Frome. Almost.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Sideways and Kung Fu Hustle

Sideways has Lowell from Wings and that other guy who's usually the annoying hostage who gets shot. Well... at least in the Negotiator. This movie has some amusingly funny moments but it's really a very soul searchingly depressing movie that shines some hope on all those severely depressed people who think that their lives are absolutely horrible. But like all other movies like this, it's all about "taking that first step." Whatever that means. It also makes me want to go out and buy some Pinot.

Stephen Chow made a movie almost exactly like all his other movies except with better special effects. There's a really funny Bruce Lee movie reference that makes you want to see Chuck Norris get his ass kicked. Again.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Samurai Champloo

Ridiculously silly at times and insanely serious at others. Reminiscent of Cowboy Bebop cept with a conclusive ending. BAD ASS.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005



Sweet. This just goes to show that U of I students and alumni get free lifetime web hosting. And it also shows a picture of me "peeing." o.O

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Spare Ribs

Topic: Recipe
Cuisine: Continental

This one's taken from the Good Eats guy. I think it's under "who luvs ya baby back" at foodtv.com. I don't even know why I changed it... I think it was cuz I didn't have the cash to invest in spices... ah yes... the college life.

2 slabs of spare ribs.

Rub:
4 tablespoons brown sugar
liberal amounts of salt (or seasoned salt), garlic powder, rubbed thyme, cracked black pepper.
Liberal as in you're shaking the hell out of the shaker :P
Some cayenne pepper depending on how you like it.

Liquid:
1 cup white wine (cheap ass cooking wine... I used the asian stuff :P)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce (or more if you like it )
2 tablespoons honey
2 cloves chopped garlic (you can never have too much so throw some more in for good measure.)

Preheat oven at 250 degrees.

I usually just have the ribs on heavy aluminum foil (shiny side down) and shake everything on it one ingredient at a time. I guess the proper way of doing it is mix everything together so that it's all blended then rubbing it on. wrap each slab in foil and let the ribs sit for a while (1-2 hours) in the fridge.
Pour liquid into the foil pouch thingers and braise in the oven for 2.5-3 hours. you can do it longer if you like your meat more erm.... pull offable.

Unwrap and grill them for that burnt flavor. You can take the braising liquid and reduce it and use that for a sauce. I like sweet baby ray's. If crazy vegetarians like that crap on white rice... it has to be good. apply the sauce while grilling.

Now you know why I get excited when spare ribs are on sale for less than 2 bucks a pound :P

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Green Curry.... auuugggghhhh

Champaign was a pretty good food town. It's got some awesome mexican... some pretty good japanese... and some nice chinese food. It's got one of the best reubens too ;P.

But one thing that never failed to disappoint was Thai food. ONE place had some good stir fried food like pad thai (GOLDEN WOK) on the cheap but the one thing I enjoyed the most of thai food was green curry. Green curry sucked at all the thai places I tried in champaign. It was a sad time, indeed.

Now I live in a burb that mostly consists of chain restaurants with a small collection of really really nice restaurants (Bellagio? Ichiban? Spiros?). But the thing that pissed me off about the area was the asian food. But man... Thai Bur-ree has some nice food. They could definitely work on the service, but that green curry was by far the best green curry that I've had in the midwest. Granted, I haven't been to any Thai places in St. Louis proper.

Which leads to the question. Should I move closer to the city? More young people... more restaurants... closer to specialty grocery stores and farmers markets...

Gonna make a spreadsheet on this. But yeah Thai Bur-ree is the rocks. Shit I'm starting to type like Kevin.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Beef Soup

Stolen from Byron :P Just a bit different. All the ingredients are easy to get cept the beef paste may need some extra searching. The asian grocery store here has it so I'm happy. Obviously not as good as the beef noodle soup we all know and love but it's pretty damned good and cheap and easy to make.

1 pound beef soup bone with meat or any other relatively fatty beef with bone.
2 slices Ginger
Two things of green onion
2 cloves garlic
Any noodle you like. Flat asian ones (rice or bean) are good.
salt / pepper
1 tablespoon oil
2 quart water
1/2 cup cooking wine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Two spoonfulls "gia vi nau pho" instant beef flavor paste.
Cilantro
More green onion.
Lime
Any chili sauce that you like.


Rub oil on meat (be sure to rub bones too) and season with salt and pepper. In a medium pot on medium/high heat brown both sides of the meat. When flipping to the other side of the meat throw in the green onion, garlic, and ginger onto the pot's surface. Add the cooking wine and soy sauce and let that sizzle for about 2 minutes. Add water and the beef paste. Bring to high heat to bring to a boil, then let simmer on low for at least 2 hours. This is so the meat practically falls into nice chunks when you're serving it.

Cook the noodles according to instructions. Serve soup with noodles, Cilantro, Lime, or anything else you enjoy with this type of soup. Serves 4-6 people. I think. :P

Sunday, April 10, 2005

The Shoveler, Alec Baldwin, that chick from ER

The Cooler has the Shoveler from Mystery Men aka that Guy from Fargo as a severely depressed guy whose bad luck oozes out on other people and works in Baldwin's casino to "cool" the hot tables. He falls in love with the ER chick and his luck changes. I really don't know what to make of this movie. I really enjoyed it. It made me want to know what happened next and the acting was good. What's bothering me about this movie? I dunno. I'll prob watch more movies with the Shoveler and maybe actually know his real name.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Adaptation, The Upside of Anger, and Sin City

Charlie Kaufman does some crazy soul searching in this movie that makes you appreciate his crazy mind but also makes you wish you spent your time doing something else like watching anime... about BREAD.

I still don't forgive Joan Allen for being in Ethan Frome. Everyone who was in that movie should die horrible deaths in the rest of their films. Like that british guy who was qui gon. But alas... this was a pretty darned good movie... one that I can actually recommend to my coworkers for its... how do you say it... more mature nature. Mature as in senior mature... not boobies mature.

Now Sin City's got boobies. Lots of them. Definitely for people who like melodramatic eye candy... and violence. Lots of violence. Definitely a dvd worthy movie. But yeah I can understand how one can not appreciate it because it's definitely a guy's movie. Did I mention that it has lots of boobies?