Stories

Have you ever called someone you knew to ask a simple question and before you know it you are having a full-fledged discussion about everything that's wrong with the world.

This happened to me when I phoned someone to ask a simple question about "paint" and in polite conversation asked if they had been enjoying the Olympic Games, as I have.

Oh holy hell.

The person I was speaking with said they absolutely DO NOT watch the Games because the Games are shaped by politics.

Oops, I knew our light-hearted discussion was over at this point.

I guess it's obvious politics and not sport dominate the Olympic events. But if you've ever spoken to someone who feels VERY strongly about this, ummm, look out.

So we had a huge discussion about everything wrong with the Olympics for the past, I don't know 100 years.

I was just calling to ask about some paint colors but instead we went for the gold...

Thanks to Sony Pictures, I saw a special preview screening of "Julie & Julia." The screenplay for the film was adapted from two books: My Life in France, Julia Child's autobiography, co-written with her grand-nephew Alex Prud'homme, and Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. One book recounts (among other things) how Mastering The Art of French Cooking came to be, and the other is how one woman cooked every single recipe in it, in the space of a year. I also got to see a presentation with a past Top Chef contestant, the author Julie Powell and one of the primary supporting actors Chris Messina, but the most intriguing person I met associated with the film was the culinary consultant, Susan Spungen. She and an assistant managed to prepare and cook every single dish in the movie as well as prep the cooking scenes. 

Susan Spungen is a cook, food stylist, editor and cookbook author. She worked as food editor for Martha Stewart Living magazine for over 10 years, was a restaurant pastry chef and went to art school early in her career. She is a stylist with the soul of a cook.

Broccoli is my least favorite vegetable. To me, there is simply nothing appealing about its taste, texture, or appearance. The sign above it at the farmer’s market, heralding “broccoli crowns cheap today” does not make my pulse beat faster or my heart sing. I’ve tried chopping up those crowns and hiding tiny slivers among carrots and zucchini. I’ve buried florets in omelets, fajitas, and quiches and covered them up with sauces ranging from hollandaise to mole to duck sauce and ketchup. I’ve tried arguing myself into taking just a bite or two under the category of “strong medicine” for the sake of health and wellness. But nothing has led me to reconsider my position: I don’t like broccoli. This may in fact be the only philosophical stance that I share with former president George Bush, who once went on record to declare his aversion to this particular vegetable.

I realize, as George Bush soon discovered after his impolitic announcement, that broccoli has its aficionados, but I cannot find a single thing about it that’s enticing. Its very name is off putting. There is nothing sensual or succulent here: just that harsh opening of “br” followed by the even harsher short ”o” and “k” sounds (and not just one “c,” but two). And even then the word isn’t finished. It continues on, through two more syllables, the final syllable with its “l” and plural end form—i—working together to produce a sort of shriek that makes poetic hash of its singular form’s more musical ending (broccolo). It’s an altogether unappetizing and uninviting name.

Ah, we’re off once again to see the wizard, played by, in his newest incarnation, James Franco. Apparently, according to a recent story on NPR, there are 8 other Oz-related projects in the works, and I suspect that the reason for this recent surge in interest has to do with the boom in dystopian literature and film. The 1939 film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a dreamscape antidote to the Great Depression, The Hunger Games of its time, as its central character, the unsinkable Dorothy Gale, and her little dog, too, took off to have a series of adventures— only to be quite happy, at the end, in true Hollywood romance fashion, to return to the home that she was once so desperate to leave. Like Katniss Everdeen prepping for the opening ceremony on the eve of the hunger games, Dorothy cleaned up nicely at the Emerald City Beauty Salon, and like Katniss, Dorothy was plucky and brave.

Unfortunately, Dorothy is what’s missing from Oz the Great and Terrible, for this is a prequel. And this version gives us something quite different: one part buddy film (the main buddy being a monkey—surely viewers can’t help but think of the 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in which Franco spent a good amount of time with a chimp), and one-part Updikian Witches of Eastwick. The 1939 MGM musical and the current film are, of course, only two among many adaptations, which began shortly after the novel’s publication in 1900. Baum himself wrote two versions for the stage. And when there are remakes and sequels, a blockbuster prequel is sure to follow, so this latest development shouldn’t surprise us. (There is a rumor of a sequel to this prequel— let’s not go down that yellow-brick road for now).