Brandied cherries.

Lewisburg.

There really isn't much going on here in the winter. But that doesn't mean there isn't good food to be had - epecially if it's been pickling in sugar and booze since summer. Case in point: some good vanilla ice cream topped with some brandied cherries.



I didn't make the ice cream, as is evidenced by the Ben & Jerry's cap. With our tiny freezer, there's no space to pre-freeze the cylinder to make any. Didn't make the cherries, either. Those were a gift from Regina and Jesse last time I was in Madison.

They were just waiting for a good opportunity. And, oh, are they ever good.

Baking class.

Lewisburg.

I never thought of myself as much of a baker, though I've found a developing appreciation for precision in cooking over the past few years. It started, I think, with sausage-making. Cooking's generally flexible and forgiving when it comes to seasonings; taste it as you go, and fix it, little bit by little bit. Sausage, being raw meat and all, doesn't lend itself to that as easily. So it helps to have some ground rules in place, the most important of which is: 8 grams of salt per pound of meat and fat.¹ It's the right amount of salt, all mixed inside, since it's essentially impossible to fix that while cooking.

Since then, I've been sliding into baking. Bread's always been my department, even more so now that I don't know anyplace to buy good, crusty, artisanal-style loaves. Then I maneuvered into pies - made much easier since acquiring a full-size food processor - and into egg-based magic. I can't stand from-the-box or grocery store cakes, since most of them lack any actual texture and are wretchedly sweet, but I've come to adore European-style sponge cakes, like génoise and the dryer biscuit.²

This comes at a convenient time for me, as I've recently been asked to teach a series of cooking classes at the university's Craft Center. The options are essentially unlimited, as long as it fits within the available budget. And can be prepared in the somewhat limited facilities at hand, during a two-hour class.

Okay, so that does put a cap on things.³ But since we're looking at students, mostly novice cooks, presumably with the same sort of shoddy kitchen equipment I had at their age, perhaps that's not such a bad thing. Might as well work with what they're used to, right?

Now, cooking seems to me like a difficult thing to teach because it's best done as an involved activity, not just a demonstration. Granted, if you're already an accomplished cook, you can watch, take notes, and probably hit pretty near the target on the first shot. But if your background consists of warming according to the directions in a microwave? Where to start?

So I picked baking. At its very simplest, such as a loaf of bread, it needs minimal equipment. A bowl, a wooden spoon, and a baking sheet or a loaf pan won't set you back but a few bucks. And the techniques, as a rule, aren't particularly mysterious. Not quite to the level of gauging the doneness of a turkey in the oven, at least. This sort of thing I can teach students. It's inexpensive; the food they'll make is good at room temperature, the next day and sometimes after; and there's nothing I'll go over that they can't handle.

So, in seven classes, we'll hit the following:

1. Yeast Breads - How to make your own homemade bread, and how to tweak the basic recipe into dozens of variations.
   
   
2. Sweet Breads - How to make cinnamon rolls far superior to anything out of a cardboard tube.
   
   
3. Bagels & Pretzels - Because homemade, crispy and chewy bagels are much better than those soft, almost cakey bread rings you find these days.
   
   
4. Quickbreads - How to make cornbread, banana bread and muffins galore. All of which take less time to mix than you'll have to wait for the oven to preheat.
   
   
5. Biscuits & Scones - Again, because homemade and fresh from the oven trumps the grocery store variety - the eerily shelf-stable stuff - any day.
   
   
6. Cookies - How to make chocolate chip cookies. Because if you only know how to make one type of cookie, that's the one. (Though brownies - good, fudgy ones that aren't simply undercooked batter - are a close second.)
   
   
7. Cakes - Last, because a true, unleavened sponge cake is the most difficult of the recipes in class, especially if you're whipping egg whites by hand.⁴ But it's just one of those things that doesn't even come close to the sugar-filled prepackaged junk that we've all become far to accustomed to.

It all sounds like fun to me. I can only hope that the students think so, too.

* * * * *

¹Yes, I know that's mixing systems of measurement. But I buy my meat by the pound, and grams are easier to think about for very small quantities than fractions of an ounce.

²I prefer the former, but a biscuit is more traditional for Sachertorte-style cakes.

³Meat cooking may be a rare occasion, for example, just based on cost. At a cap of around seven dollars per person, per class, for supplies, I need to be aware of how even little things add up.

⁴I used to think that whipping a meringue with a whisk was less than entirely fun, until I found out that my brother managed it with a fork once. He was making eggnog, and at some point - an hour in, maybe - just couldn't bring himself to give up.

Ten Films.

Lewisburg.

DVDs seemed to be a popular gift idea this recent holiday season. For me, anyhow - Sharon received an alarming quantity of port and chocolate from various people. Still, between the two of us, we've enough "new" stuff to watch¹ to keep us occupied for some time still. On top of the Netflix queue, nonetheless.

But all of this got me to thinking. If I had to pick ten films, and have them be all I could ever watch again, what would they be? Sharon's addendum was that we should count television shows, too. Or DVD collections of shorts - Looney Tunes cartoons, for example - to allow the full range of choices.

It's difficult, at least if you really enjoy cinema. For example: You can't simply pick your ten favorite films. Unless you only watch one very specific genre, you're bound to double up too much and leave something unrepresented. Ten is enough to allow a little overlap, but not much. Not enough.

Case in point: Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Once Upon A Time In The West, and A History Of Violence, all on the short list from a quick perusal of the DVD shelf, hit the Western theme pretty well. Most certainly at the expense of something else. Or consider directors: I could fill half the list with the best of Akira Kurosawa. Probably all ten if I actually spent a few minutes mulling it over.

By the time it's all sorted out - all the most important genres, directors, actors, etc. adequately represented - you have a fair shorthand for someone's taste in film. I suppose that an addendum of the honorable mentions could flesh things out, but those first ten are telling.

So, what makes my list? And why?² In rough chronological order:

• Grand Illusion (1937) dir. Jean Renoir
  An exceptional film about the fleeting nature of friendships, especially at difficult times. Set during World War I, it follows several French soldiers as they are captured behind enemy lines and attempt, again and again, to escape from the German prison camps. It isn't an escape film like The Great Escape, but rather a bittersweet story about relationships that exist in the moment but will never last. Sounds corny that way, but Renoir manages to make it compelling and ultimately quite touching.
  
  Plus, it has one of the most stirring scenes in film history: when the prisoners, in unison, break into a chorus of "La Marseillaise" when they learn that France has retaken Fort de Douaumont from the Germans. It's as powerful a musical cue as the funeral dirge that occurs twice in The Battle Of Algiers, after the bombings on innocent civilians on both sides. A perfectly orchestrated moment where the narrative, the visuals, and the sound combine in a near-heartstopping force.
  
  Favorite moment: The chorus of "La Marseillaise".
  
  
• The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 1 (1940-1959)
  As much as I love the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons - which would lead me to pick the second volume of the Warner Bros. shorts - this is a collection with some of the most perfect cartoons ever made. Quite a number of them by Chuck Jones, whose work I enjoy more than any of the other directors around that time. Which is saying a lot.
  
  Standouts among the fifty-six shorts in the collection:
  
  • "Rabbit Fire" and "Rabbit Seasoning": two of the three Chuck Jones cartoons focused on Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The dialogue is sharp and wonderfully absurd. As an example, I submit the "Pronoun Trouble" gag; if you've heard it once, you'll never forget it. And it never gets old.
    
    
  • "Duck Amuck": another Chuck Jones short, and one that's pure absurdity. Daffy Duck stars in a cartoon that breaks the fourth wall, because nothing in it makes a lick of sense. Until, of course, we realize that the cartoonist - none other than Bugs Bunny - is causing Daffy trouble just for kicks. Both his and ours.
    
    
  • "Frigid Hare": Chuck Jones again. Bugs Bunny, having missed a turn at Albuquerque, finds himself at the South Pole, watching as his vacation slips away while he tries to save an adorable little penguin from an Eskimo hunter. Best moment: when the penguin, crushed that Bugs refuses to take him back to Hollywood with him, cries tiny ice cubes.
    
    
  • "Feed The Kitty": Chuck Jones, yet again, and, like the others I've already noted, written by Michael Maltese. The story's simple enough: Marc Antony, the big bulldog, finds a little kitten to take care of - but tries to keep it a secret from his owner. Shenanigans ensue. What makes it so brilliant is the bare-bones animation, where a wealth of emotion is carried along on the fewest drawn lines possible. And where the only dialogue is from a character whose head is continually off-screen.
  
  Favorite moment: "Pronoun trouble." Hands down.
  
  
• Seven Samurai (1954) dir. Akira Kurosawa
  An epic western in samurai togs, and one that's been copied to the point of cliche. But it's the only film I know where the phrase "it has everything!" is a positive. Epic, indeed.
  
  Set in sixteenth-century Japan, it follows a group of samurai hired to defend a poor village against marauding bandits. The images on screen are beautiful - like most any Kurosawa film, you could print any random frame and proudly hang it in a gallery of fine photography - whether they're a field of wildflowers in the forest or a lightning-fast sword battle. In the more than three hours of runtime, there's ample opportunity to explore a wealth of themes, particularly those reflecting the resilience of the human spirit in desperate and changing times. There's nothing here that hasn't been done to death since, but rarely with such elegance and wit. And humor.
  
  Favorite moment: When Kyuzo, the greatest swordsman in the world, is felled by a single gunshot. It's heartstopping.
  
  
• The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder
  Billy Wilder mastered at least two essential genres: comedy and social commentary. On top of that, he had a knack for intertwining the two with an air of sophistication. In the filmmaking; not necessarily in the characters.³ On top of that, his films tend to have an optimistic view of human nature, in a comfortable, subdued manner that's the cinematic equivalent of well-worn blue jeans.
  
  C.C. Baxter, played by a never-better Jack Lemmon, is an accountant at a major New York firm, a peon at a little desk among a sea of others. And he's a pushover, a man who can't say no when the upper managers ask to borrow the use of his prime-location apartment for their mistresses. Things, of course, spiral out of control once the big man upstairs finds out - and wants in. With the woman Baxter's secretly in love with.
  
  The dialogue's clever and witty, delivered with impeccable comic timing. It's all just a step beyond believable, and yet perfectly normal; you could listen to a friend relate the story at a party and never be sure which details were embellished, and which true. It predates the romantic comedy⁴ - the modern-day, omnipresent version, usually starring Meg Ryan - and isn't loaded with that tired framework. Until the end, Wilder continues to mess with the audience's expectations, and the ending is more warm than happy.
  
  Favorite moment: "Shut up and deal."
  
  
• The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966) dir. Sergio Leone
  I'll grant that Once Upon A Time In The West is a better film; the opening scenes alone - a drawn-out, dialogue-free pause at the train station preceding Harmonica's arrival (and accompanying burst of gunfire); Frank shooting a young child at point blank range simply for overhearing his name - are the sort to etch themselves into memory. But The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly has style. In spades.
  
  The shots are long; those that precede the sudden bursts of violence can linger forever. Tuco hanging from a noose; the Mexican standoff. Leone doesn't flinch, but rather waits for you to do so first. His characters are cool and self-confident, templates mimicked in action and tough-guy roles ever since.⁵ Not until the appearance of John McClane in Die Hard does the motormouth tough guy appear to complement the silent tough guy. The tall, silent type's got the edge in style for what he lacks in snappy dialogue.
  
  And it's not that his dialogue isn't sharp; when Blondie says something, it's like a razor blade. "There are two types of people in this world: those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig." He may not have much to say, but every word of it counts. Quentin Tarantino has been trying - more or less successfully - to be that cool for his entire career. Just without the lovely Ennio Morricone soundtrack.
  
  Favorite moment: That final, five-minute Mexican standoff.
  
  
• Brazil (1985) dir. Terry Gilliam
  There had to be some science fiction on the list, and Terry Gilliam's bizarre dystopia trumped the runner-up, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. It's about as black as comedies get - on par with George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead - and as irreverent and absurd as a critique of bureaucracy could ever hope to be. And it features Robert De Niro as a rogue heating engineer, a James Bond secretly fixing air conditioning systems in the wee hours of the night.
  
  It is, in a word, insane. Terry Gilliam's skewed perspective run through Tom Stoppard and sent back again. Populated with the details of everyday life, and, like the best dystopias, close enough to a bad day in real life to be almost believable. Technology, intended for efficiency, that only makes life more complicated and difficult. A bureaucratic system so convoluted that even the simplest task involves dozens of different departments - each of which doesn't know and fobs off the problem on someone else. Everyone operating on good intentions, though misguided, often due to a narrow perspective of the world. Like a world of Homer Simpsons, feeding off of each other.
  
  It's a world where incompetence rules, and poor Sam Lowry, played by Jonathan Pryce, can barely deal with it. He only survives by retreating into his dreams and imagination, the last refuge against a system that crushes ordinary folk beneath the tank treads of "progress". Does he win in the end? It's all a matter of perspective.
  
  Favorite moment: Any and every scene featuring Spoor and Dowser.
  
  
• Dead Ringers (1988) dir. David Cronenberg
  The most disturbing film ever made? Probably not. But a story of the self-destruction of a pair of identical-twin gynecologists, co-written and directed by the man described as the "King of Venereal Horror" doesn't suggest casual family viewing. So, yes, there's much about this film to place it high in the realm of intelligent horror.
  
  But what makes it so special? For one, the horror rewards engagement; the more you pay attention, the more disturbing it all becomes. Especially upon reflection, because Cronenberg leads you along, making the bizarre, the perverse, seem almost natural. It's like watching exotic creatures enclosed in a unique zoo. In their world, it all makes sense.
  
  Then there are the remarkable performances by Jeremy Irons as Beverly and Elliot Mantle, perfectly identical twins. Physically. Their personalities, however, are two halves of a single whole, and Irons manages to communicate this subtly and perfectly. There's never a question of which twin is on screen - or which is which, when you see both side-by-side, in conversation - because the posture, the body language, the tone of voice and cadence of speech make it clear. Looking over the Best Actor Oscar nominees for 1988 - Dustin Hoffman won for Rain Man - it's a damn shame.⁶
  
  Favorite moment: When we see Beverly, dressed in red as a high cardinal of surgery, and it seems completely natural.
  
  
• Groundhog Day (1993) dir. Harold Ramis
  Yes, it's a romantic comedy, but it's clever. It works without any need for the typical contrivances. And with Bill Murray at his best - not counting his shattered, disillusioned characters from films like Broken Flowers - it's a genuine pleasure from start to finish. Smug, abrasive, and self-centered? What's not to love?
  
  Phil Connors, a weatherman for a local Pittsburgh news program, goes to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog Day festivities. There, through circumstances never explained, he ends up reliving February second over and over. And over. And over. Waking up at six to the same strains of "I Got You Babe". And the same small town that he hates, and cannot escape.
  
  In the process, we watch him progress through the Kübler-Ross "Five Stages of Grief", though in perhaps the most amusing manner possible. Rarely is a suicide montage so enjoyable.
  
  Favorite moment: "He might be okay." Fiery explosion. "Well, no, probably not now."
  
  
• The Big Lebowski (1998) dir. Joel & Ethan Coen
  It's easy to think that the Coen brothers deserve a place on a list like this. They're precise filmmakers, detached from their subjects, though they lean to humor where Cronenberg - also precise, also detached - leans to explorations of darker subjects. Not that Steve Buscemi and his foray into the wood chipper aren't dark.
  
  Fargo is a chilling crime drama; O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a wonderful musical, and one in which the songs actually make sense in the context of the story. No Country For Old Men is utterly brilliant. Perhaps the best film of 2007. But, if you're noticing a trend in the films I've selected so far, there's an element of not-quite-believable absurdity more often than not. And as dark as some of them may be, each and every one has a measure of humor.
  
  First time through, I'm not entirely sure that The Big Lebowski is particularly funny. It rewards repeated viewings. The humor is layered, playing off of expectations again and again.⁷ It's a fish-out-of-water story; a Dashiell Hammett story where the protagonist has been replaced by the least competent option available: The Dude. The Dude, a lazy man, "quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the running for laziest world-wide". A middle-aged, unemployed stoner. The calmest, most laid-back man in the world, until his best friend - like in a dysfunctional marriage - gets him all worked up. Incompetence, after all, is hilarious.
  
  There's been a kidnapping. (Maybe.) A million dollars missing. German nihilists. A pedophile bowling champion. Lots of White Russians. And a urine-soaked rug that needs replacement, all because two dumb thugs mix up two different Jeffrey Lebowskis. Among many, many other wildly amusing details and references. The film is rich with them. And if anything makes for great subsequent viewings, that's it.
  
  Favorite moment: "That creep can roll, man." "Yeah, but he's a pervert, Dude."
  
  
• Futurama, Season 3 (2001-2002)
  Rich with details and references? That's a Matt Groening cartoon. I grew up with The Simpsons - particularly during the high school and college years - and there's no doubt that had a significant influence on the way I deal with popular culture. It certainly explains my love of really meta humor. And Futurama fills that need.
  
  Philip J. Fry, a 25-year-old delivery boy, is cryogenically frozen in the year 2000 - seemingly accidentally - and wakes up one thousand years later. Somehow, the world hasn't changed as much as one might expect in that time. Sure, his new best friend is a foul-mouthed, alcoholic robot, and his love interest is a one-eyed, purple-haired spaceship pilot. Famous people are still around as heads in jars - thanks to Ron Popeil. With nods to science fiction of all sorts - and a talented writing team that included at least two Mathematics Ph.D.s and another in Physics - it's a nerd-fest with endless possibilities.
  
  Top-notch episodes in this season include:
  
  • "Amazon Women In The Mood": The battle of the sexes. On a planet populated by giant, prehistoric-looking women as envisioned by R. Crumb.
    
    
  • "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid": Evil, flying brains attaack Earth, making everyone stupid. Everyone except Fry, that is, with his "special" brain. If only he weren't too dumb to know what to do to save the planet.
    
    
  • "Time Keeps On Slipping": Interstellar Harlem Globetrotters challenge Earth to a game of basketball. Professor Farnsworth rises to meet the challenge with a team of atomic super mutants, but in doing so causes a space-time disruption that threatens to destroy the universe. Meanwhile, Fry persuades Leela to fall in love with him - though neither of them knows why.
    
    
  • "Roswell That Ends Well": The spaceship crew travels back in time to 1947, where Fry inadvertently kills his grandfather - and then manages to become his own grandfather. Plus, since they crash-land in Roswell, we discover that the alien spaceship at Area 51 is actually Bender - incorrectly assembled - and the alien is none other than Dr. Zoidberg.
    
    
  • "Godfellas": Bender gets lost in space after taking a nap in one of the ship's torpedo tubes. He becomes host to a race of tiny aliens who take him as their god, until he screws up and they all die. Meanwhile, Fry and Leela scan the heavens to bring their friend home.
  
  Favorite moment: Damn, it's tough to decide. Either the gorgeous deep space backgrounds from "Godfellas" or the "Your words guide us/We're dumb" bit from "A Pharaoh To Remember".

And even so, I feel like I've left some out. What didn't make it?

Other David Cronenberg films: Spider and A History Of Violence. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law. Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb and The Shining. Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Rashomon. The Simpsons. Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle Of Algiers.

Among others.

* * * * *

¹Most of it's stuff we're quite familiar with, and know we'll get repeat viewings out of. But then again, there's this year's left-field entry: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The film. I'd put the album on my list, and somehow ended up with the DVD. It's genuinely enjoyable concert and backstage footage, but a bit of a headscratcher.

²And how long would it take me to realize I forgot something critical? Minutes?

³Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag don't precisely qualify as sophisticated. For example.

⁴I don't know what the first one was, but I think of the 90s as when it jump-started into an obscene sort of overdrive. As a genre, it isn't necessarily bad, though few of its many representative films have much to recommend them. At least if you're interested in seeing anything remotely new.

⁵Though the "Man With No Name" was simply plucked - unashamedly - from Toshiro Mifune's Kuwabatake Sanjuro character in Yojimbo. Then again, the entire Fistful Of Dollars film was basically a stylized copy of that.

⁶At least the nominees in 2002 seem like fair competition for Ralph Fiennes in Spider.

⁷Fargo has much the same quality. The first time, it's hard to look past the blood. But each extra viewing highlights the rich humor, until it reaches the point where it's hard to see the blood because you're laughing too hard.

Punk'n pie.

Lewisburg.

It's the middle of winter - though the unseasonably warm weather's a bit confusing - and I'm missing good, fresh vegetables. The availability of local produce is about as close to zero as possible, and we've been steadily raiding the basement's museum to summer produce. Last night, while our neighbors were over for drinks, we showed them the little glass jars, all lined up, and sent them home with a few.¹

Then the four of us ate a jar of spicy pickles. Because, really, they're just too addictive.

It's a scant little museum down there, with just a few batches of produce put up. We'll be ramping up production next year, once we have a yard - and space for a monstrous garden - and a basement capable of keeping a large freezer just for storage. Will I be getting in over my head? Judging by the size of the planting schedule spreadsheets: oh, my, yes.²

That assumes that everything goes just gangbusters in the garden. Which, of course, it won't. There'll be bumper crops of some things, and very little of some others. And, presumably, a lot of lessons learned. Such as: what on earth are the neighbors going to think?³ Also: how much should I expect to lose to the local deer population?

And: what am I going to do when everything goes right, and we end up with a lifetime's supply of crookneck pumpkins? (For example.)

Pumpkin pies, presumably. Like this one:



A homemade pumpkin pie is, indeed, a wonderful thing. I use cream instead of evaporated milk, and err on the side of more eggs for a more custardy quality. And, since any good pumpkin pie's so loaded with spices as to make the pumpkin flavor near-irrelevant, I like a crust made from pulverized gingersnaps. Or, in this case, gingersnaps tempered with the last of the Cabibbos' cinnamon almond biscotti.

Rich, warmly spice, and not too sweet. It's even better with a cup of coffee the next morning.

* * * * *

¹They'd already been kind enough to deliver a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls around the holidays.

²Additional upside: there'll be less to mow. I hate mowing the lawn, so I'll happily trade it in for garden work, even if it takes more time.

³Hopefully they can be buttered up with overflow goodies from the garden. Really, who can say no to a free basket of fresh, ripe, organic vegetables?