You People...Coming Soon!

It's coming soon, and the trailer is ready. Go here to view the trailer!

The First Snacksgiving

So yesterday my family celebrated it's first Snacksgiving. Because it was just going to be the Golden Girls for the holiday, I didn't want to do the whole turkey thing. So instead of making one giant meal to consume (and have tons of leftovers) we decided to eat all day long.

First, wardrobe. I had a new pair of lounging pants that were all fleecey and cozy. (They also shed all over the house, but they were cute and comfortable while they did it.) I baked yeast cinnamon rolls and we settled in to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and read the Black Friday ads from the paper. This was the first year in a long, long time, that I actually sat down to watch the parade. I'm usually stuffing the turkey or, when The Graminator was living at her house, driving to her place to put the turkey in her oven. So it was nice to watch the NBC smug-a-thon and do running commentary. I particularly enjoyed John Stamos' performance from "Bye, Bye Birdie".

After the parade is the National Dog Show, which we love. John O'Hurley isn't quite as funny a commentator as the one in the movie "Best in Show" but he's still better than the Westminster guy. We were rooting for the Scottie, and she won. During the dog show we enjoyed the 'cheese and cracker' course of Snacksgiving. I made our Thanksgiving staple, which is homemade cranberry sauce over cream cheese served with Ritz crackers (I know it sounds weird but it's actually really good, and so addicting. Plus the cranberry sauce I made this year turned out extra good.) I also made spinach artichoke dip which we ate with flatbread crackers. Yum.

It was two o'clock when the dog show ended and The Graminator wanted a nap. Mom and I decided that a nap sounded good to us too, so we each headed off to our rooms for a little snooze as well. Our nap was interrupted by my bother calling to say that they made it to Modesto okay. Even with the interruption, we agreed that it was a lovely nap, so very indulgent and decadent.

After the nap, we cleaned up the kitchen and I started making the 'hot snacks' portion of the day. I made tenderloin of beef crostini with blue cheese and caramelized onions. (In the interest of full disclosure, while technically we didn't have a holiday 'meal', on Wednesday I did make an herb crusted beef tenderloin, twice baked potatoes and haricot vert. I used the leftovers from that for the crostini. I did all of the prep cooking on Wednesday so that Snacksgiving would be as easy as possible.) I also made some crab cakes and supplemented with mushroom turnovers and mini cheese souffles from Trader Joes. Oh, and deviled eggs, you can't have Snacksgiving without deviled eggs. We consumed that while watching the movie "Almost Famous" which is my favorite Cameron Crowe film and I thought my mom would enjoy the period piece featuring her favorite style of music.

After the movie, we cleaned up the kitchen (again, cleaning was minimal, mostly plates and utensils, no pans to soak or scrub.) we watched the CBS Monday sitcoms, which I DVR during the "Dancing with the Stars" season and enjoyed the 'sweets' portion of Snacksgiving. I made mini pecan pies in phyllo crusts and a pumpkin custard (okay, it was crustless pumpkin pie.) That way we had a taste of the holiday in mini-portion size.

My favorite part of Snacksgiving? The complete lack of stress. It was such a relaxing day (did I mention the Winter Sangria we drank starting with the "hot snacks' course?) No fuss, no muss, just good food, good conversation and good entertainment. Of course we missed the company of our larger family, but without them here, this was definitely the way to go. And because we ate small snack courses throughout the day, we never had that "oh my god, I'm so stuffed, I ate five carb dishes together" feeling.

I know what you are thinking, "But Shae, you don't get any delicious leftover turkey sandwiches". Well, we have that covered too. Today, after my mom gets off work, she's going to stop at Capriotti's and pick up a Bobbie. For those of you not from Delaware or Las Vegas, Capriotti's is a sub sandwich shop that makes their own turkey and roast beef (not sliced sandwich meat, but the real home roasted kind) and one of their signature sandwiches is the "Bobbie", which is turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mayo on a roll. Yup, it's basically Thanksgiving on a bun. So tonight for dinner we are having 'leftover' turkey sandwiches without having to make the turkey. Smart, huh? The best of both worlds.

Whether you celebrated Thanksgiving, Snacksgiving or something else entirely, I hope, Loyal Readers, that you are as blessed as I am to have such wonderful family and friends. I am thankful for you. And deviled eggs. But mostly you.

Lonely Thanksgiving

Normally, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. But this year, not so much. See, if I could, I would have a giant Thanksgiving with tons of people. I love to cook and to eat and to share with everyone, and isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about? But my father was an only child with no cousins and my mother has only one brother and one sister, both of whom live elsewhere. And while my brother did get married this year, that means they split their time between families, and this year that means going to Modesto for Thanksgiving. My Uncle Stuart and his girlfriend Roberta usually come down to have the holidays with us (because Roberta is allergic to sage, I'm the only one who will cook a sage-free Thanksgiving meal for her.) But they have both come down with the swine flu and don't want to come and risk infecting The Graminator. So that means that this year, I will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for three.

Now, I cook dinner nearly every night, and I usually make pretty good meals (so far this week we have had pork chops stuffed with apples, cranberries and pecans with an apple-balsamic reduction and crispy rosemary shrimp over garlicky beans and spinach. Just so you know that I'm no Martha Stewart, tonight we are having chili dogs). And I love the traditional Thanksgiving meal. But it's a lot of work. I make my own turkey stock for the gravy, stew down fresh pumpkins for the pies, etc. And I'm not sure I want to go through all of that for just the three of us (and The Graminator only eats enough to qualify as a half serving really.) Christmas will only bring Stuart and Roberta to the table (Will and Val are going to Modesto for that holiday too - we are trying to talk them into splitting it up next year so both families get them for one or the other holiday) but I could make the huge turkey dinner then. So what should I do for this Thanksgiving? The only recipes that I've found appealing so far have been one for Winter Sangria and one for Pomegranate-Rosemary Champagne Cocktail (hmm, do you sense an adult beverage theme?) So do I make a turkey? Do I make an alternative but equally festive meal? Do I just heat up a T.V. dinner and drink my way to Christmas? Help, Loyal Readers, what should I do?

So I have to add to my 'dream man' list of qualities I am looking for in a mate. In addition to smart and funny, he needs to have at least two siblings, with spouses and children, who want ME to cook for the holidays. Owning a large cabin in lovely wooded area (with Christmas being lightly snowy) would be a bonus. Yes, I want to live in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Long Time Gone

Sorry, my few Loyal Readers who still check the blogs to see what's going on, that I haven't been keeping up my end of the bargain.

After months of buying new accessories, pictures and painting huge swatches of paint on the walls, we finally started the redecorating process. Picking a paint was a HUGE ordeal! After starting with the idea that we wanted a blue-green, there was the search for the right blue-green. Not too blue, not too green. Then we found the perfect drapes for the Cape Cod concept my mother desired, only the blue stripe in them was blue, not blue-green. So we had to go back and find a blue paint. It took forever but we finally settled on a color called "Lament" (hmm, should we have taken that as a warning?) After months of not getting started, one Sunday I decided we would paint the hallway ceiling first. My mom was not happy about it, I think she would have preferred to procrastinate longer. But once the ceiling was painted she got into the swing of things and decided that the walls and doors in the hallway were next.

So off to Lowe's for a gallon of Lament in an eggshell finish and white semi-gloss for the hall doors. After getting it all painted, it looked very nice, but very, VERY blue. Maybe too blue for an entire house. So my mom decided that perhaps in the living room we would have one blue accent wall and the other walls would be perhaps a dried wheat color. So off we went again in search of samples, painting them on the wall. The first was too pink, looking like we painted the wall with my makeup foundation. The second, too white, it would have blended with the furniture. The third was just right. The only problem was that it was a Dutch Boy color called "Butter Cookie" and Lowe's doesn't sell Dutch Boy. But they said they can match anything so we get a sample can. Eureka, it was perfect. A lovely lightest dried wheat shade that went with the blue and the drapes. So off I go to buy two quarts in eggshell for the kitchen.

The man mixes the paint on a very busy night (the lady next to me was buying bright apple green for a bathroom, it was a really, er, bold choice) and puts a dot of color on one of the cans. It looks really light to me but paint dries darker so at first I'm not too concerned. But as I run my other errands (we finally found a great white chair for the computer desk) I keep thinking that it's not the right color. Maybe my mom gave me the wrong paint chip. But no, when I get home, it's the right paint chip but the wrong paint. Not the color we want at all. So my mom heads to Lowe's with the paint and sample to fight it out while I get the kitchen primed (since we are painting over semi-gloss, the paint store man says we need to prime). The paint and the sample were a different mix, the lady at Lowe's agrees, but with no instructions put on the sample can, she tried mixing it several times but can't get the shade we want. So after graciously allowing us a refund, Mom heads to the Dutch Boy store and buys a quart. I paint the kitchen by myself (using some Cirque du Soleil type acrobatics) and we step back to take a look. It looks nice, but it wasn't the exact color we wanted.

So, we decide to leave the kitchen alone, as it isn't seen from most of the other rooms and can stand alone. Plus we had already found this fabulous fabric for curtains in the kitchen window. But we still needed a color for the living room walls. So Mom headed to Lowe's and got yet another sample can. This one was definitely more brown. I could tell she wasn't happy but she was resigned to having to live with it. I can't stand to see anyone unhappy so I headed to Lowe's and picked two more sample cans (if anyone needs a small sample can of paint, please call me, I have plenty laying around). One, called "Baking Stone" looked great to me, but I picked up "Bayshore" as well, just in case. Mom agreed that the paint chip of Baking Stone looked the best. But when I painted some of the sample on the wall, it was quite obviously mixed wrong. AGAIN. It was about two shades darker than the sample chip and this weird brown/green. I opened the Bayshore with little hope. I painted a swatch on the wall. And do you know what? It was almost EXACTLY the color of the sample can of Butter Cookie that they couldn't duplicate. EUREKA!!! We had the paint!

So with a few days of vacation from the bread store we got down to the hard work. I painted the ceiling - not the most fun job in the world but it looks amazing. It's truly remarkable how much your ceiling yellows after the years and how white white can be. Buy the good Kilz ceiling paint, trust me it's worth the investment (and now I have to re-paint the ceiling in the hallway because it's a different white now). Then with the help of Will and Val on Sunday we got the living room painted (I could have painted it myself but I needed help moving furniture.) The transformation is incredible, it looks like a different house.

But we still aren't done. Because the two blue accent walls were primed before painting, they are now a slightly different shade than the hallway. So I have to prime and re-paint the hall. There is one wall in the living room that was painted a little sloppy so I need to go over it again. There are touch ups all over the place. We still have to hang the new pictures and accessories. We have to put the curtains back up. We were hoping to have everything done before Thanksgiving but we won't quite be done. But since it's just the three of us for Thanksgiving (I'll post that story later) we have some time to get it done.

There are also the Christmas stockings I have been crocheting, the Graminator and her memory slide, the charity events I've been helping out with and the NaNoWriMo that I'm way behind on. That's what I've been up to. What have you been doing?

Crazy for Popcorn

I love good popcorn. I'm just old enough to remember when movie theaters had real butter, not 'buttery topping' as the man at the theater described it to me recently. (And the popcorn came in tubs, not paper bags.) When I worked at The Comedy Stop there was a popcorn machine and while it didn't have butter we would sneak in sticks of butter for the corn ourselves. (Shhh, don't tell the management, I may want to work the club again one day.) Microwave popcorn, while edible, isn't quite as good as the popper kind (and don't get me started on air popped, that's just wrong.)

I like the flavored popcorn too. Cheddar, herb, Parmesan, caramel, kettle, chocolate, it's all good. (For the best white chocolate popcorn, go to Danielle's which is also the only place in Las Vegas where I can get caffeine free Dr. Pepper.) A few years ago Will and Val got some popcorn from her folks for Christmas from The Popcorn Factory which is how I discovered the delightful combining of cheese popcorn with caramel popcorn.

Anyone from the Chicago area is familiar with Garrett's Popcorn and their 'mix' which is half cheese popcorn and half caramel popcorn mixed together. I'm into salty and sweet together so this mix is extraordinary. But Garrett's is pricey and has to be shipped. Ditto for Popcorn Factory. I tried a cheap kind from the discount store last holiday ($2.50 for a three gallon drum should have tipped me off, but no) and was sorely disappointed. So imagine my delight when we went to lunch last Sunday (to Cafe Deia for tapas, future post on that later) and I spotted Dyer's Gourmet Popcorn. We had to stop and try some (okay, I had to stop and everyone got dragged along) and boy is it good.

They have several 'everyday' flavors like butter, white cheddar, caramel, caramel pecan (whole pecans, delicious) and they had the "mix". He also has some specials like pina colada, jalapeno and chocolate (which is more like a cocoa kettle corn that a chocolate covered). It's fresh (never more than a few hours old) They offer samples and we had fun trying it. And I got my mix. Oh so good, the caramel is a great but not overpowering caramel corn and the cheese is such a fun orange with great cheesy flavor. Yum.

Now, I wish I could be the business advisor there. He has a lot of things I would improve upon, first of which is a functional website. I swear, I could increase his business by 30% if he's let me make a few suggestions. But instead I'll just keep my mouth shut (mostly to chew the delicious corn!) But if you are ever hankering for some Chicago style popcorn while you are in Vegas and you are out by Durango and Flamingo, head to Dyer's. Get the mix. While you're at it, get me some too!

Whip It Real Good

Friday I went to the movies for the first time in forever (I believe it may have been the first time in 2009) which is unusual for me but with the business plus raising an 88 year old I never have time. But I had received a summons for Grand Jury duty so Mom was home to watch The Graminator and I had already done my hair and makeup (wow, makeup, I know but for me it's a feat) when the court called to tell me I had been excused and didn't need to go. So I decided to get some supplies for a cake I'm doing and go to the movies.

I went to see "Whip It", the roller derby themed directorial debut of Drew Barrymore. It was terrific and I give it two very enthusiastic thumbs up. *SPOILER ALERT* Don't read more if you don't want to know about the film!

Ellen Page (Juno) plays Bliss, a small town Texas teen who doesn't quite fit in. She's not a square peg in a round hole, she just hasn't found her niche yet. When a classmate says to her, "So, you're alternative now?" she answers quizzically "Alternative to what?" Bliss tries to be a good daughter, competing in the town's beauty pageant to please her mother, a former Miss Blue Bell herself who now delivers the mail and lives in a tiny house and pins her lost dreams on her two daughters. Bliss' father loves his kids but can't quite relate to all that estrogen so he watches a lot of football (and looks longingly at the guy next door with his two rough and tumble sons.)

Bliss and her best friend Pash sneak off the bright lights of Austin one Friday night to see an exhibition match of the Texas roller derby league. After the excitement of her first encounter with derby, Bliss tells the captain of the Hurl Scouts ( the losingest team in the league) that "You're my new heros." Maggie (Kristen Wigg from SNL) tells her to come to try outs and "be your own hero".

Bliss straps on her Barbie roller skates and even though she's too timid to hit anyone, makes the Hurl Scouts. Her journey to become "Babe Ruthless" through derby is a fairly typical coming of age story. All of the things that happen to Bliss probably would have happened to her in college anyway. But derby teaches Bliss to stand up for what she wants, to be her own person, even if that person isn't 'mainstream' and that men are pigs (sorry guys). Sure, she takes some hits along the way, but the derby metaphor holds. If you get up, keep going and get a little help from the team, you can "Whip it".

This movie was Girl Power to the max but so much fun that I think even men would like it. It's less about Roller Derby and more about learning about yourself and your relationships with people around you. How the people who may not understand you can still love you and how important family is, whether they are you 'real' family or your teammates.

Brilliant performances by the cast, including Marcia Gay Harden as Bliss's postal carrier mom (I adore her as an actress but find her arched eyebrows just a bit distracting), Andrew Wilson as the Hurl Scouts' coach (he's the third and most underused of the Wilson brothers, Luke and Owen. He has their talent and he's as good looking so I don't know why he isn't in more movies), Juliette Lewis who was awesome as "Iron Maven" the rival team captain who fears that Bliss is going to steal her last chance at a moment of glory, and Daniel Stern as Bliss' dad, who had one of my favorite moments of the film. (Putting out his own yard sign of pride.)

The credits end with the dedication something like (I'm paraphrasing, sorry) "For all the girls who think they can, you can!" and that's how I felt leaving the theater. Empowered and happy. I've heard that some 'real' roller girls aren't happy, that they felt the derby stuff wasn't realistic enough but again, the movie wasn't about derby as much as it was about people. And I learned more about derby than I expected. My grandparents used to watch derby when I was a kid but that's about all I knew. Now I understand how it's played.

Drew did a great job directing, relegating herself to a fairly minor character, the Whole Foods cashier by day and roller derby "Smashley Simpson" by night. The scenes were well shot, the pacing was great and the movie never lost it's focus on Bliss.

I don't roller skate (fear of falling down) and I could never be a roller girl (see fear of falling down compounded with fear of elbows to head, flying over railings and concussion) but I loved the power and freedom those girls had. So while I may not be a derby girl on the track, I'm a derby girl at heart. They all had such awesome names that I wanted my own derby name. So just call me "Ginger Wail" as I wail on you while I pass you on the imaginary track in my head!

Get Out

A friend's sister was a battered wife for apparently a very long time and the years of physical and mental abuse ended in terrible violence. I know what toll emotional and physical abuse can take, and I know what it does to your self-esteem. In my opinion, abusers NEVER change. They can promise you anything, but they will abuse again and again and they will try to make it all your fault. If you are the victim of abuse, get help and get out. Don't hide it, don't excuse it and don't live with it.