On tonight's menu: Pasta Al Pomodoro, a slight variation from the cover recipe featured in this month's Bon Appetit. This is an insanely easy "scratch" sauce to make, but has enough flavor to make it seem like you spent hours slaving away in the kitchen. This recipe makes four servings. My husband and I were able to go back for seconds and had a bit left over for next-day lunch.
This paired nicely with bread sticks and a strong red wine.
3 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 minced medium onion
2 minced garlic cloves (this might make some cooks shudder, but I used a garlic press)
A pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
One 28 oz. can tomatoes, pureed in a food processor or blender
1 Italian chicken sausage (skin intact)
1 tablespoon dried basil (or 2 spring of fresh)
12 oz. dried spaghetti
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
kosher salt
Heat 1 tablespoon EVOO in a small skillet on medium-low heat. Brown both sides of the sausage. Add 3 tablespoons of water, cover and let cook for 20 minutes, adding extra water as needed. Remove from heat. Slice sausage into bite-sized pieces.
Meanwhile, heat 3 tablespoons EVOO in large skillet or dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 10-12 minutes. Add the garlic and cook an additional 2-4 minutes. Add red pepper flakes and cook until combined, about 1 minute. Increase heat to medium, add pureed tomatoes, sliced sausage and season with kosher salt and basil; cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens and flavors meld, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook spaghetti until al dente. Drain, reserving a 1/4 cup pasta cooking water. Stir in as much cooking water as needed to loosen sauce; bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until sauce coats pasta. Remove pan from heat; add butter and Parmesan cheese. Toss until cheese melts. Add more cheese if desired.
The Movies
Directed by Tom Hooper
Starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
I've been slacking on my Academy Award nominees. I saw so little in the theater last year...thank goodness for Netflix and AppleTV!
But, alas, even then I seem to drag my feet getting to films I know I'll like. It's as if I'm taking them for granted: they become my go-to movies for when I need something that won't disappoint. Of course, occasionally, these cinematic "sure things" are anything but.
The King's Speech was a "sure thing."
If you're like me and are late to the party that's been draping accolades on this fine film, The King's Speech is a historical drama about King George VI's (Colin Firth) struggle to overcome his stammer using the methods of an unorthodox speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Yeah, it's a movie about speech therapy, but it focuses on the unlikely bond between two men from different walks of life. Before he becomes King, Prince Albert, Duke of York is the perfect austere picture of the monarchy save for his stammer, which is a constant source of humiliation and despair. His father (King George V) and his boorish brother don't understand why he can't just snap out of it. The only sympathetic figure in Prince Albert's life is his wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), who finds Logue after the traditional treatments, which are more like torture than medicine, fail to work. Prince Albert is trapped, terrified and alone in his suffering; Lionel eventually gives him the tools to find his way out.
All the performances are top-notch, but Colin Firth is mesmerizing as Prince Albert/King George VI. Prince Albert is caught between a world that teaches him that by birth he's better than others and having to rely on a "commoner" to help him become who he was meant to be. It's not an easy role to play and in the hands of a lesser actor, Prince Albert might have been wholly unlikeable, a prig unable to step down from his gilded cage. But even in moments of angry outburst, Firth manages to show Prince Albert for the sad, scared man he is--a man who has accepted who he was born to be, but desperately yearns to be better than he is.
I remember reading some time back that Queen Elizabeth claimed to have never seen The Queen--the excellent movie where Dame Helen Mirren plays Her Highness in the days after the death of Princess Diana. I never quite believed that; if someone plays you in a movie, I can't imagine that your curiosity wouldn't eventually get the best of you. While The Queen was sympathetic in its portrayal, it wasn't always kind.
The King's Speech, however, is a love letter to King George VI's--Queen Elizabeth's father--courage and tenacity. The Queen apparently has seen it and said she was "moved." Apparently, Queen Elizabeth's mother had requested screenwriter David Seidel not make the film until after her death because she felt it would be too painful to watch. In these days of tell-alls and the tearing down of popular figures, the respect shown the family and the film's subjects makes me love The King's Speech all the more.
Directed by Kevin Smith
Starring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, Linda Fiorentino
Rating: 8 out of 10
We decided to celebrate the non-Rapture with another viewing of Kevin Smith's controversial Dogma.
I first heard about Dogma on release because of the protests it raised around the country. The film was distributed by Lions Gate, who purchased the film after Disney and Smith supporter Miramax succumbed to pressure by groups like The Catholic League. The filmmakers received over 300,000 pieces of hate mail, including several death threats.
So was all the hoopla justified? As is often the case, no. This isn't to say the film isn't good--it remains one of my favorites in the Smith cannon--but there's nothing in it that should so easily rankle the ire of the religious. Smith is a Catholic, grew up going to Sunday school and has clearly spent a fair amount of time reading The Bible. With Dogma, he takes this knowledge and turns it into a raucous fantasy about a possible scenario for the end of the existence.
The thing is Smith is exceedingly respectful to the source material. Dogma could have been an exercise in questioning the morality and intelligence of those who believe in God (as so many films with pious characters do), but that's far from the case here. Where he does takes some pokes is at the Church, which is a creation of Man, rather than God directly. Smith's beef, if he has one, is with Man's interpretation of God's word and ideas, rather than in whether The Big Guy (or Girl) actually exists.
With me so far?
Because apparently God likes Skeet Ball and travels out of Heaven once a month to play, He isn't around to take care of the Loki/Bartleby problem. The Voice of God, aka the Metatron, asks for the help of The Last Scion, a Planned Parenthood employee who has been questioning the existence of God since her husband left because she couldn't bear his children. Reluctantly she agrees to travel to New Jersey and is given aid in the form of two bumbling prophets (Jay and Silent Bob) and the 13th Apostle, who claims he was left out of The Bible because he's black.
Dogma is a harmless and fun film. It doesn't aspire to uplift or inform, but it also isn't anything the religiously righteous should run from. Religion through the eyes of Kevin Smith is simply a path that one can choose to follow or not. He understands the big questions of faith and existence, but doesn't try to answer them--this isn't the movie for it and he realizes that those aren't his questions to answer.
