Oscars + cousin's dinner -- the aftermath
Feb. 23rd, 2009 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
As per my usual MO, I didn't actually watch them but just looked at the LA Times scorecard once in awhile. I don't care about celebrity watching but do like to know about winners and such, so this is the perfect method for me as it means I can still be doing other things.
From what I've read it sounded pretty cool (but other than the opening number, I'm not sorry to have missed any of it -- but I'll be able to catch that on YouTube at some point). It was all rather predictable though, with Slumdog taking most of the prizes. Among the 5 nominees it was the one I was rooting for (without having watched Frost/Nixon or finishing Milk), but it didn't make me giddy or anything because I still think Gran Torino should have been nominated at least.
I was kind of torn about Best Actress. I'm glad Kate finally won an Oscar, there's no question about that. But, like with so many winners in the past, it wasn't really for the right role. It's like the Academy doesn't ever award these at the right time, because they're constantly trying to play catch up with people who should have won before, but didn't, and so everyone's kind of constantly waiting to get their Oscar. This was long overdue for her, but frankly I've seen better performances from her in which she should have won (and wasn't even nominated, like for Jude). That said, she actually was fantastic in The Reader.
The problem is, I don't necessarily think she was more fantastic in it than Meryl Streep was in Doubt. Meryl is one of the most amazing actresses who've ever lived, many acknowledge that, and yet it seems that just acknowledging that is supposed to be enough. She apparently never needs to win another award, because she's already won two. But the last one was for Sophie's Choice in 1982! And she has done phenomenal work since then (including Doubt)! So I feel bad for her that she's this wonderful actress who's widely accepted as one of the best, and yet she's been snubbed by the Oscars for many years running now (longer than Kate was without an Oscar -- though of course, at least Meryl has at least won one), mostly, as far as I can tell, because she's already won a couple, the "overkill on Meryl Streep" factor, and they want to reward some people who haven't, and who aren't as appreciated as she already is (so they think). But you know, it's hard to provide that level of consistency performance after performance, and ostensibly they are supposed to be rewarding a single performance from the year (though we all know that that is actually very rarely the case), so really she should have won another one by now. In my mind, the nomination isn't enough -- she's long overdue for a win.
And my last comment is -- I'm glad Sean Penn won over Mickey Rourke. Given everything I just said about how historically the Academy doesn't generally hand out awards to a 'newcomer' to the scene (maybe in the Supporting categories, but not Best Actor/Actress), it would have been a crime for Mickey Rourke to win (ditto Anne Hathaway). From everything I've read, he just wanted it too desperately. He took on the role to make a comeback, and seemed to feel that he deserved an Oscar for it, regardless of the fact that he's done squat in the past to be worthy of such an acting accolade. And I will admit a bias here -- I just plain don't like the guy. This was probably the only role he'd ever have to play that would be deserving of an Oscar -- there's nothing else he has the skill to play. If he proves me wrong and actually comes out with another fine performance in another movie, preferably something different, to show he has range -- and isn't just Mickey Rourke acting out his own life/demons on the screen -- then we can talk again.
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My haircut went okay. It looked fantastic immediately afterward, of course, because she blow dried and curled it, but the cut itself isn't the best I've ever had. I did like that, maybe because she had long hair herself, she didn't go crazy with the cutting. The danger of getting a haircut is always that the hairdresser will cut off more than you want (especially when you have long hair like me). She did also give me some pretty good tips about shampooing and conditioning and what not that I can use to take care of my hair better, and more importantly, that will hopefully make it look good without needing to be washed and blow dried and the whole gamut every day.
=============
It ended up being fairly OK, because she and her husband both 'helped' (he ended up making the mashed potatoes following the recipe I'd printed out, as well as sauteing the zucchini strips) -- I put the word helped in quotations because even though their efforts did make things go faster (and I didn't have to worry about every single thing), their intervention also meant that some of it wasn't as good as it could/should have been.
They like to be healthy, so they use a minimal amount of salt. (Also, I had brought over a bunch of ingredients, but they use everything organic, cage free, etc., so we ended up just using their butter, eggs, etc.) But salt makes everything taste better. I'm not alone in saying that -- I was just watching a cooking program the other day in which the chef was basically like, "If it doesn't taste good, always add more salt." That's obviously not ALWAYS the case, but salt heightens the flavor of food, and you don't need to overdo it -- but neither should you underdo it. Thus the mashed potatoes could have used a bit more salt (though my cousin raved about it just as it was), but with the creams and butters it was still good. (I forgot to take a picture of it.) The dish that really suffered with the lack of salt was the shrimp scampi. It REALLY needed more seasoning, but her husband was being all anal about how he had already salted the pasta, and had added parmesan to it, which also is salty, and cautioning me to be careful with how much salt I used on the shrimp, that I was like, okay, you just season it to your preference, then. When you're dealing with anal people like that it's easiest just to take yourself out of the equation. And then, guess what. The shrimp scampi and fettucini were bland.
The other dish that suffered from their intervention was the zucchini. You're not supposed to saute it for more than 3 minutes so that it maintains a slight crispness (the point is, you don't want it soggy). But by then we were already working on the appetizer, and I just couldn't be bothered to oversee her husband, who had taken charge, and has very particular ways he likes to do things. Anyway, it was also unsalted and much softer than I had intended it to be, but oh well. It wasn't bad.
The creamy scallop soup turned out well -- but because we were still running around doing some things, it had cooled (even though I kept telling them that they had to drink it right away, while it was hot, because this soup lukewarm is no good). Still, the complex flavor was still there, even if it was too cold to drink as soup by the time her husband got to it, so he ended up using it almost like a sauce for the fettucini. Sigh.
The onion tart, being that it was the first time I'd ever made it, actually came out fairly well. It was surprisingly sweet (there's NO sugar in the recipe, but onions are actually super sweet). The one part where I messed up was when I made the pate brisee earlier in the day -- I knew I had added just a bit too much water, so the crust didn't come out as crisp as I would have liked.
All in all, a very good meal even though I'm being kind of hard on it in retrospect. If I had 8 arms and could have been in charge of everything, it would have gone much better. Oh, and being in my own kitchen. It is SO hard to not know where anything is, or what people prefer to use for x, y, or z. (Like, they have 3 different cutting boards, depending on what you are cutting.) What was very cool was that I got to try their induction stovetop, which boils a giant pot of water in minutes. It's really neat. Plus of course, there's the whole thing where the stovetop itself never heats up, and has to interact with the metal of the pan to get it hot. So high tech. Oh, and I don't know if this will ever come to pass, but they had apparently purchased a very expensive set of copper cookware at some point that they now can't use (as apparently copper doesn't work with the induction stovetop), so they're going to give it to me once they've dug it out of storage.
OMG I almost forgot -- THERE WAS NO BLACK FOREST CAKE! >< The dessert slave apparently had visitors from Egypt, and completely forgot about it. (She apologized and said that she probably shouldn't have committed to doing it at all, but she totally could have and just forgot.) So then my cousin had to run out to their favorite bakery, which was miraculously open until 10pm, to get some dessert. They recommended the "pooch-kees" (I never saw the word, so don't know how to spell it), which were essentially the zebras of dessert -- they were just fancy donuts. Yummy though.
From what I've read it sounded pretty cool (but other than the opening number, I'm not sorry to have missed any of it -- but I'll be able to catch that on YouTube at some point). It was all rather predictable though, with Slumdog taking most of the prizes. Among the 5 nominees it was the one I was rooting for (without having watched Frost/Nixon or finishing Milk), but it didn't make me giddy or anything because I still think Gran Torino should have been nominated at least.
I was kind of torn about Best Actress. I'm glad Kate finally won an Oscar, there's no question about that. But, like with so many winners in the past, it wasn't really for the right role. It's like the Academy doesn't ever award these at the right time, because they're constantly trying to play catch up with people who should have won before, but didn't, and so everyone's kind of constantly waiting to get their Oscar. This was long overdue for her, but frankly I've seen better performances from her in which she should have won (and wasn't even nominated, like for Jude). That said, she actually was fantastic in The Reader.
The problem is, I don't necessarily think she was more fantastic in it than Meryl Streep was in Doubt. Meryl is one of the most amazing actresses who've ever lived, many acknowledge that, and yet it seems that just acknowledging that is supposed to be enough. She apparently never needs to win another award, because she's already won two. But the last one was for Sophie's Choice in 1982! And she has done phenomenal work since then (including Doubt)! So I feel bad for her that she's this wonderful actress who's widely accepted as one of the best, and yet she's been snubbed by the Oscars for many years running now (longer than Kate was without an Oscar -- though of course, at least Meryl has at least won one), mostly, as far as I can tell, because she's already won a couple, the "overkill on Meryl Streep" factor, and they want to reward some people who haven't, and who aren't as appreciated as she already is (so they think). But you know, it's hard to provide that level of consistency performance after performance, and ostensibly they are supposed to be rewarding a single performance from the year (though we all know that that is actually very rarely the case), so really she should have won another one by now. In my mind, the nomination isn't enough -- she's long overdue for a win.
And my last comment is -- I'm glad Sean Penn won over Mickey Rourke. Given everything I just said about how historically the Academy doesn't generally hand out awards to a 'newcomer' to the scene (maybe in the Supporting categories, but not Best Actor/Actress), it would have been a crime for Mickey Rourke to win (ditto Anne Hathaway). From everything I've read, he just wanted it too desperately. He took on the role to make a comeback, and seemed to feel that he deserved an Oscar for it, regardless of the fact that he's done squat in the past to be worthy of such an acting accolade. And I will admit a bias here -- I just plain don't like the guy. This was probably the only role he'd ever have to play that would be deserving of an Oscar -- there's nothing else he has the skill to play. If he proves me wrong and actually comes out with another fine performance in another movie, preferably something different, to show he has range -- and isn't just Mickey Rourke acting out his own life/demons on the screen -- then we can talk again.
=============
My haircut went okay. It looked fantastic immediately afterward, of course, because she blow dried and curled it, but the cut itself isn't the best I've ever had. I did like that, maybe because she had long hair herself, she didn't go crazy with the cutting. The danger of getting a haircut is always that the hairdresser will cut off more than you want (especially when you have long hair like me). She did also give me some pretty good tips about shampooing and conditioning and what not that I can use to take care of my hair better, and more importantly, that will hopefully make it look good without needing to be washed and blow dried and the whole gamut every day.
=============
It ended up being fairly OK, because she and her husband both 'helped' (he ended up making the mashed potatoes following the recipe I'd printed out, as well as sauteing the zucchini strips) -- I put the word helped in quotations because even though their efforts did make things go faster (and I didn't have to worry about every single thing), their intervention also meant that some of it wasn't as good as it could/should have been.
They like to be healthy, so they use a minimal amount of salt. (Also, I had brought over a bunch of ingredients, but they use everything organic, cage free, etc., so we ended up just using their butter, eggs, etc.) But salt makes everything taste better. I'm not alone in saying that -- I was just watching a cooking program the other day in which the chef was basically like, "If it doesn't taste good, always add more salt." That's obviously not ALWAYS the case, but salt heightens the flavor of food, and you don't need to overdo it -- but neither should you underdo it. Thus the mashed potatoes could have used a bit more salt (though my cousin raved about it just as it was), but with the creams and butters it was still good. (I forgot to take a picture of it.) The dish that really suffered with the lack of salt was the shrimp scampi. It REALLY needed more seasoning, but her husband was being all anal about how he had already salted the pasta, and had added parmesan to it, which also is salty, and cautioning me to be careful with how much salt I used on the shrimp, that I was like, okay, you just season it to your preference, then. When you're dealing with anal people like that it's easiest just to take yourself out of the equation. And then, guess what. The shrimp scampi and fettucini were bland.
The other dish that suffered from their intervention was the zucchini. You're not supposed to saute it for more than 3 minutes so that it maintains a slight crispness (the point is, you don't want it soggy). But by then we were already working on the appetizer, and I just couldn't be bothered to oversee her husband, who had taken charge, and has very particular ways he likes to do things. Anyway, it was also unsalted and much softer than I had intended it to be, but oh well. It wasn't bad.
The creamy scallop soup turned out well -- but because we were still running around doing some things, it had cooled (even though I kept telling them that they had to drink it right away, while it was hot, because this soup lukewarm is no good). Still, the complex flavor was still there, even if it was too cold to drink as soup by the time her husband got to it, so he ended up using it almost like a sauce for the fettucini. Sigh.
The onion tart, being that it was the first time I'd ever made it, actually came out fairly well. It was surprisingly sweet (there's NO sugar in the recipe, but onions are actually super sweet). The one part where I messed up was when I made the pate brisee earlier in the day -- I knew I had added just a bit too much water, so the crust didn't come out as crisp as I would have liked.
All in all, a very good meal even though I'm being kind of hard on it in retrospect. If I had 8 arms and could have been in charge of everything, it would have gone much better. Oh, and being in my own kitchen. It is SO hard to not know where anything is, or what people prefer to use for x, y, or z. (Like, they have 3 different cutting boards, depending on what you are cutting.) What was very cool was that I got to try their induction stovetop, which boils a giant pot of water in minutes. It's really neat. Plus of course, there's the whole thing where the stovetop itself never heats up, and has to interact with the metal of the pan to get it hot. So high tech. Oh, and I don't know if this will ever come to pass, but they had apparently purchased a very expensive set of copper cookware at some point that they now can't use (as apparently copper doesn't work with the induction stovetop), so they're going to give it to me once they've dug it out of storage.
OMG I almost forgot -- THERE WAS NO BLACK FOREST CAKE! >< The dessert slave apparently had visitors from Egypt, and completely forgot about it. (She apologized and said that she probably shouldn't have committed to doing it at all, but she totally could have and just forgot.) So then my cousin had to run out to their favorite bakery, which was miraculously open until 10pm, to get some dessert. They recommended the "pooch-kees" (I never saw the word, so don't know how to spell it), which were essentially the zebras of dessert -- they were just fancy donuts. Yummy though.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 03:14 am (UTC)Glad it went well, even if it was lacking in yummy salt.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 06:55 pm (UTC)And DUDE!!! I just listened to your message (I don't know why I can't hear my cell phone half the time -- try me at home!!) and my cousin and I totally talked about that book! And she was like, you should read all her books, and I was totally going to look for them! What a crazy and awesome coincidence. And for $2!! What good shopping. So yes, I'd love to read that, please dig in your car for more change and mail it haha!!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 04:09 pm (UTC)The Oscars were quite entertaining this year. I thought bringing out past nominees to announce the present ones was a neat idea but the program really bogged down during those times.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-24 06:57 pm (UTC)