my comments are back on

and my first comment was from somebody named "cock it and pull it." it's probably a fall out boy reference but it's still a good way to start the day.

do you have any weird "recipes" that aren't really recipes to share? like odd things you do with food that you think are delish but suspect that others would consider "suspect" or "strange?"

if so, feel free to leave them in a comment box.

like i now like wasabi peanuts added into my shrimp lo mein. and i will dip odd things in french onion dip that people don't usually dip in french onion dip. i like vinegar in my chicken pot pie (if you're not from PA you probably are thinking of a different "pot pie." it's not really a pie here. there is no "crust.") sometimes it is called bott boi.

what do you do like this that makes your tummy and head very happy?

i like savory in tons of things from mashed potatoes to soup to roasts that i make. i think savory is the most underrated spice in america.

i think tuna salad and chicken salad are crying if you don't add a bit of fresh dill.

it's weird to think in most centuries past in europe and america everybody put valerian as a spice into their soups and roasts and other foods. it doubtless acted as a tonic because it has prozac like qualities. most people buy valerian today as a nerve tonic or sleeping aid. you can find it in walmart. i love valerian. the scent makes my cat go crazy just as with catnip. i have a book of cat stories where Leigh Hunt describes watching a cat go apeshit with a valerian plant in nature. it's a very funny passage.

this is weird because valerian really stinks. it smells awful and makes your breath smell awful too. but your cat will want to french you. the victorians put it into sachets and put these in their clothes drawers. what were they thinking?? were their olfactory "palates" really that different from ours? or is there a hidden story here. does valerian have some sort of insecticidal or insect-repellent properties i haven't read of?

if you ever want lemon balm my garden goes crazy with it every year. drive by and I'll have a fresh bag ready for you, kept moist. check first to make sure i'm not "entertaining" banditti. it's nice for iced tea. in my summer gardens i have oregano, greek oregano, mint, dill, and about ten others. i love rubbing the various leaves between my fingers and sniffing the essences.

lee and i cooked a full indian and thai meal the other night at 3 a.m. we had all this stuff in the larder, fridge and freezer and didn't realize it from thai coconut soup to saag chole and in the freezer were lambchops, thai noodles in the larder, and lee has indian spices so it was fun and delicious. we didn't have naan bread though so we substituted.

lamb is underutilized in the american diet. icelanders love lamb. greeks love lamb and that's my heritage. mango chutney goes great with lamb just as it does with pork chops (i stopped eating pork a few years ago). i even found preserved apples sauce from Strites Orchard which tasted like summer to go with the spicy indian food. I love Strites Orchard. They've been around since like the 1920s...I could walk to it from where we used to live. It's a very beautiful place to walk in the spring or summer. They sell seasonally fresh vegetables and fruits and preserves and craft items and fresh cut flowers and tomato and other seedlings and well you get the idea. the structure where you buy these things hasn't changed in like eighty years. you can see all the dead family members and some of their belongings in glass cases in the fruit and vegetable room. it's spookily nice. nature and death are comfortable together at strite's orchard. their applesauce is the best. they've won awards for it and their apples for more than half a century. no store-bought applesauce tastes like strite's. so i was happy to find that in the fridge kept perfect with the vacuum seal.

i wanted to "blither on" about other things but lee who is preparing my taxes is driving me fucking nuts with requests for info he should know right now so this post ends prematurely here. aren't you lucky?

ok i'm back. aren't you luckier?

we watched Pee-Wee Herman's Big Adventure last night. I told you we were gonna watch something stupid. It was actually great. I loved every minute of it. It's all about the set design, baby. We have like a dozen items he has, and I never even realized it. Maybe the movie had implanted the suggestion to buy these things when I first saw it in 1985. This was Tim Burton's directorial debut.

Tim Burton is a god of film. I would bow down before Tim Burton if I saw him on the street. He makes everybody happy and harms no one. That is what a god should be and do.

Now if he were only immortal.

We were shocked at all the people who later became "otherwise famous" who were not famous when they were in this film.

Like the Dwarf guy who dances around the op art room on Twin Peaks is in here...he owns a magic and novelties shop. Only he's not a dwarf! He's a regular sized man!

And Joey Adams (is that her name?) from Chasing Amy was in here as his girlfriend Dottie. It's so funny when Pee-Wee's life gets made into a movie at the end and sexy James Brolin (he was sexy in 1985) and Morgan Fairchild play Pee-Wee and Dottie.

Pee-Wee has the best faces. Sometimes his face gets a little orgasmic. So when people acted surprised about the sex...it's really all there even in the fun movies...he appears to be "cumming" sometimes. And he looks like Alan Cumming a little bit. Maybe Alan Cumming as he appeared in that film short about the guy obsessed with the goldfish. That was nice. Alan Cumming is very, very sexy in my book. I liked him in the Julie Taymor adaptation of Titus Andronicus that everybody (and I mean everybody on earth) hated. I liked that. I like Jessica Lange. I like Anthony Hopkins. I like Julie Taymor. I like Shakespeare in swimming pools. What's not to like?

It's weird to think of Alan Cumming cast as Nightcrawler in the X Men movie. But then it's a gay director and those X Men movies always have a huge gay subtext. (Character to the very blue Rebecca R.-Stamos' Mystique: "You can take the form of anything on earth and blend...avoid detection, avoid prejudice." Mystique: "Why should we have to?") I'm paraphrasing, but that's a classic example of the movie's homo subtext and cultural critique. Okay, it's not just homo but that's one segment.

Now it's the other Brolin who is the long draught of sexy. I want to see that Bush movie. Oliver Stone is so hit or miss. Actually he's usually both at once, like JFK. What the fuck was that? I think I would put that on my list of most ridiculously pointless films ever. But great cinematography. It was nominated for the only award it should have been nominated for.

We started watching Paul Bartel's Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills but that's so hard to watch. It's not really that funny and it's shot claustrophobically weird. What was up with the cameraman/men? Robert what's his name is sexy and it's nice to see Jacqueline Bissett do something different, and I adore Paul Bartels for Eating Raoul, but it's sort of a pointless, self-congratulatory type of humor (Scenes I mean). Why didn't he just totally slum it and have fun and make a movie worth watching. Comedies of manners are not American terrain. If you're not French, you should just stay out of them. Making them or acting in them. The French can do that. I still love reading French plays from the fifties or sixties along those lines. Because they work.

I found a Subway gift card somebody gave me around Christmas while I was digging for info Lee needed for my taxes. So I'm going to call and see what's on it, the balance. I could go for a Subway sub today.

Mmmmm tuna....on asiago bread...mmmmm....

Oh, we also watched The House of Yes. It's based on Wendy MacLeod's play and you will know it's based on a play because it does have just a little bit of that dramatic claustrophobia. The device used to establish unity of place is a hurricane hitting the D.C. suburbs. So the characters are holed up in the familial estate and cat scratch fever hits a few of the characters in the good ole Albee style. I like that movie. Great ensemble. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Tori Spelling are both very good in that and rise to the material. Of course it's Parker Posey's film and she revels in it. It's totally over the top. If you're not gay you probably won't like it and even if you're gay you might not like it. Gayness is probably "a necessary but not sufficient quality" for the enjoyment of this film. To speak technically. I like Genevieve Bujold. I loved Last Night which she was also in. That's a great Canadian film. Sandra Oh is in one of my all-time favorite scenes in movie history...at the end.