Around Here

I have my father to thank for my appreciation of good food. We had similar taste, and with the exception of my mother’s spaghetti sauce (for which she was “famous” - more on that soon), dad, of the parental units, was the better cook. This was a quiet understanding between us, not openly flaunted at home in the suburbs, where my mother's nutritious but unremarkable nurse's food was the norm, but relished on our weekend “bachelor” get-aways at the cabin, where spit-roasted rabbit, grilled lake perch, and quail with wild mushrooms were not unknown, along with open hickory flames, deeply inhaled anticipation, and the occasional spark-stung eyelid. My local supermarket stocks 24 oz packages of frozen wild-caught Patagonian bay scallops. I keep them on hand for a quick meal, sautéed in a cream sauce over rice: Sauté about three dozen bay scallops in olive oil with a teaspoon of chopped shallots. When lightly browned, remove scallops from sauté pan and set aside. Deglaze the pan wit...

Coming home from my ride today, I pulled up to an intersection where I saw pickup truck stopped at the red light advertising a business:  Wasted Seamen  Fishing Company  Charters   Apparel   Fishing Cruises  Pretty funny. But I was left to wonder whether it was a nod to Onan or Rimbaud. I pedaled up a bit closer to have a look at the guys inside. I deeply suspect it was not Rimbaud.

Familiar Stephen King stuff, a troubled writer, marriage on the rocks, in an isolated country house. His evil alter ego ( John Turturro)  is a discrete external character, or so it seems, menacing the protagonist and those close to him. The theme has an interesting literary twist, but I could see the denouement, which I watched without an ounce of suspense, coming from acres away. Yet it’s one of those movies, its setting, its characters, intimacy and pacing, its formulaic conflict, that is oddly agreeable, like a comfortable old porch. Johnny Depp’s  campy , appealingly  cranky  performance is very entertaining. (2004)