Greatest Movie Ever

One of the greatest moves we ever made was upgrading our cable service to get a DVR, (patents be damned, everyone calls it a TIVO). The DVR lets us record much easier than the old VCR's, you can set it to record by keyword- Syracuse of course being the most key of words-, or by Series name etc. I like to check out the next few days and record obscure stuff that Debbie and I (OK usually just I) can watch after the kids go to bed. Turner Classic Movies has been rerunning classic silent films for the last week or two and I ran across "Speedy". Speedy was made in 1928 and stars Harold Lloyd and BABE RUTH!! How could I not watch that?


I expected to fast forward through most of it for a glimpse of the Babe, but last night I put it on as the girls were getting ready for bed. Lo and behold they were instantly captivated and watched the first half of the movie before bedtime. As soon as they woke up this morning, they wanted to watch the rest. We read the title cards to Devon, Megan followed on her own.


The hero, Speedy (Harold Lloyd) is a baseball obsessed underemployed everyman who is trying to convince his girlfriend, Jane to marry him. Jane's father, Pops, runs a small streetcar. Some bigshots need to close down Pops streetcar so they can run a central subway through the neighborhood. Speedy battles the thugs hired by the bigshot to win Pops a big buyout and, of course Jane's hand in marriage.











Along the way you get to see Coney Island in its heyday, Babe Ruth handing out baseball to orphans, car chases, a street brawl with septuagenarian Civil War veterans- who are of course on Harold Lloyd's side, and a dog that saves the day. Funny how little has changed in 100 years of filmmaking. I particularly enjoyed the subway scene, it seems that subway "etiquette" hasn't changed much since 1928 either.


Still it was enormous fun, Harold Lloyd was an amazing comedian, sometimes I forget that Charlie Chaplin wasn't the only brilliant artist making silent films. After the movie ended, the girls asked me to record some more Laurel and Hardy who they also love. I think I'll sneak in some Chaplin and Keaton too.

IT WORKED!!

My big Christmas project was a genuine Bûche de Noël, or Yule Log for those of you who didn't have the privilege of having Brother Donan beat French into you.

The French have a tradition of making a rolled cake decorated to look like a log. I saw Jacques Pepin do this last year right before Christmas and I gave it a shot. The cake itself was OK, but the chocolate frosting I made was pretty bad.

This year I used semi-sweet chocolate for the for the frosting instead of bittersweet, and voila!!

Cool Toy

Debbie made her annual Holiday picks last week, now it's my turn. A few weeks back Megan went to a birthday party at MetroMall in Middle Village. I had some time to kill and decided to wander around BJ's.

My parents have a BJ's membership- we actually got a free membership from Debbie's Aunt, but I never cared for the place. I used a free trial to shop for our annual Belmont party and even though I was trying to feed thirty people, the damn portions were STILL too damn big. Does anyone except Warren Jeffs need to buy ten-lots jumbo sized jars of Skippy?

Still, mooching at BJ's was a better choice than watching five year olds hula hoop to Hannah Montana, so off I went. After drooling over the flat screen TV's, I ran across the AeroGarden.

AeroGardens are tabletop hydroponic gardens that can produce salad greens, herbs, (or if you're a complete loser, flowers). According to the AeroGarden people NASA actually tested the thing, though I'm not sure if that impresses me anymore. It has a computer and the growing medium is some kind of soylent green-like substance, that's gotta be better than plain old dirt. These things appeal to both my inner geek and my inner chef.

Wafflemania

We had friends over yesterday for brunch. That gave me the excuse to make one of my favorite meals- waffles. My father is the family pancake specialist. When I was little he used to pour the batter into "R" shaped pancakes. He still can make "M" and "D" pancakes when the girls come to visit.

While I still love flapjacks, I get the biggest kick out of making waffles. As my legions of loyal readers already know, I'm a big Alton Brown fan, and one of the first episodes I watched was "The Waffle Truth" (usually his titles are a bit better than that).

AB's pointed out that pouring Aunt Jemima mix into a waffle iron is a really bad idea. Pancakes may look a bit brown on the outside, but are light and airy inside- cake. Waffles are crunchy and crisp- you are almost frying them on the hot iron, especially if you coat the iron with PAM. You can check out AB's recipe here, the video is here. Hint- go with a round waffle iron.

Now all I have to do is find some real Maple Syrup that goes for less than $25 a gallon. . .

No Relation

I have Google Toolbar installed on my browser. It's handy for quick searches and checking my Gmail account. One of the neat little features is that the toolbar makes suggestions as you begin to type your search (Yahoo tried to rip this off- they should have sold out to Microsoft before the crash).

As I started to type Groppe, I came across this suggestion: Groppetti Mastiffs. I have always loved dogs, especially OTHER people's dogs. The kind I don't have to walk at 5 AM-- in the rain.

I'm sure I am in no way related to the Gropetti's. But these dogs are freaking HUGE!! Kudos to anyone who can run a kennel and specialize in these monsters.

City Island

Debbie and I took the kids to City Island for lunch today. City Island is one of our favorite spots, we almost always head to Johnny's Reef, which is at the very tip of of City Island Ave. It's right on the water and serves great fried clams and shrimp.

You can eat outside on picnic tables 0n the edge of Long Island Sound; the girls love to feed their leftover french fries to the seagulls. Now seagulls are maybe one step above pigeons in the flying rat hierarchy, but they get a kick out of it. I have to admit, I enjoyed getting one to take a fry directly out of my hand.

There are still some party boats based there. City Island has been a recreational fishing spot since at least the early 1900's. Lou Gehrig used to keep a rowboat there, my father rented a skiff more than a few times, though not with The Iron Horse. Back then, nobody had outboard engines, if you wanted to fish you rowed.

I've been meaning to rent a skiff from Jack's Bait and Tackle sometime myself, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. The girls are still a bit young for me to take them out in a boat that small by myself.

City Island is in a great spot if you like NY History (and who doesn't?). Back before the America's Cup boats started to be more complicated than spaceships, The Minneford Boat Yard on City Island used to build most of the ships that defended the Cup. The island was a big bootlegging center during prohibition; I once met a guy who had rowed booze in from ships in LI Sound. That stuff ended when the mob moved in to control the flow of booze; they had their own unique methods of reducing competition.

Just to the East (you can see it from Johnny's Reef) is Hart Island. The ferry to Hart Island leaves from City Island. Hart Island is where the City buries paupers- I think they're now called the indigent. If you don't have a family or friends who will pay for your burial, this is where you go. The City has been burying people there since 1869, more than 750,000 is the number I found on the web, and that means it MUST be true. Anyway, my old Agency, the Department of Correction, actually handles the burials using inmate labor. My grandfather was briefly stationed there at the end of his DOC career, he hated it. Since most of the unclaimed bodies are infants, you can see how it would be a depressing place.

Hart Island was also the setting for one of the WORST movies I have ever seen, Don't Say A Word. I figured out that the loot was stashed inside a coffin on the island about ten minutes in- spent the rest of the movie trying to stay awake.

Screaming Cookies

I saw this photo on the food channel website. The cookies look exactly like The Scream. They're my next project. Stay tuned for an update. I guarantee they won't look as good as the ones here.

PS

This is the same expression I get when I contemplate SU Football.