Your Mummy’s Coming to Dinner

When the mummy comes to life in Universal’s 1932 movie The Mummy, Boris Karloff does little more than slowly open his eyes, and almost as slowly, drop his bandaged hand from his chest to his side. Yet it is that combined series of small movements which makes the scene so effective. The mummy is not a villain that is going to win by brute strength or agility (unlike the 2001 remake). It is Imhotep’s will that is the source of his power. It’s a shame we only see Karloff wrapped up as the mummy briefly in the opening scenes. Unfortunately, the series’ sequels lacked both Karloff and his intensity: The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944) and The Mummy’s Curse (1944).

Waiter, there’s a hair in my beef chow mein!

“I saw Lon Chaney walking with the queen doing the werewolves of London.
I saw Lon Chaney Junior walking with the queen doing the werewolves of London.
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s.
His hair was perfect.”
“Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon

Few are those who are unfamiliar with Warren Zevon’s most popular song. Jimmy Buffett has covered it. Kid Rock has sampled it. Thousands, if not, millions, have gone in search of Lee Ho Fook’s. An even greater number have wondered what a werewolf was doing with a Chinese menu in his hand. What many do not realize is that Lee Ho Fook’s was an actual restaurant in the Soho district of London, now sadly no longer around. Allegedly, they did not give out menus.

Name Your Poison: Culinary Icons of Halloween

Would you let this man cook for you?

It had really started to bother me to the point that I resolved to do something about it. Like every 7 seven-year old boy my son is well acquainted with the Star Wars universe and I couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to let him associate one of my favorite actors with the almost comical character of Count Dooku. The time had come, I decided, to introduce him to the real reason movie goers around the world know the name of Christopher Lee. You see while I despise the modern take on horror movies, which are really nothing more than two hours of torture scenes strewn together with dialogue, I have a certain affinity for the classics of old. More properly called monster movies than horror, they came from a time when there were still such things as literary classics to inspire actors and film makers. Peter Cushing, who along with Lee made Hammer both a house hold name and one synonymous with horror, got the better turn in George Lucas’ double trilogy when he was cast as Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars. Lee had to settle for Dooku, but then again, throughout the dozens of films the pair made together, Cushing always had the better lines. Famously, Lee complained to Cushing that he had no dialogue in Hammer’s 1957 The Curse of Frankenstein. “You’re lucky,” Cushing replied, “I’ve read the script.”

In the 1930’s through 1950’s when many, if not most, of the best of these films were made, the meal still held an important place in daily life and ritual. This was even more true for the days of the mid to late 19th century when many of the literary works on which the movies were based were originally written. It is therefore no surprise that eating and the requisite drinking played a more important role in these stories than just to supply a background scene. In many ways, the communal meal represented the normalcy that was about to upended when shortly, in a literal sense, all hell broke loose.

The Notes of Autumn

The chromatic scale consists of 12 notes, out of which endless variations exist to give us everything from Beethoven to the Beatles. The seasons number only four but account for an almost equally diverse number of possibilities for combining flavors and ingredients. One flavor note that most people associate almost exclusively with autumn is apple cider. Apples have their place nearly year round, from crisp green apples in summer salads to caramel apples at Halloween. Apple cider, however, is one of those flavors that just seems fundamentally wrong if you encounter it at any other time of the year besides the harvest and holiday seasons.

The first word in healthcare is…

“You say you want a revolution…”
John and Paul

I don’t make it a habit of reading the editorial pages of newspapers. However every so often, in a rare while, I’ll find a piece published that almost universally restores my faith in the print media. Several weeks ago the New York Times published what is possibly the most intelligent article I’ve read yet in the whole sordid healthcare debate. It was the kind of article that made me want to jump out of my chair, pump both fists in the air and scream “Yes!” at the top of my lungs.

Nothing But The Best

Sometimes even the gourmet, foodie, culinary enthusiast – whatever name you want to call them – that person we all know (or in some cases are ourselves), the one with the ever prepared kitchen ready to launch into a meal at a moments notice, sometimes even that person just plain runs out of stuff. A situation all the more complicated when the “stuff” we are out of happens to be, well, something to drink after a hard day’s work.

Simple as Salsa

It’s that time, towards the end of summer, when the garden really begins to give up it’s bounty. Around here that means it’s salsa time. In Kentucky it’s not until late August that the hotter variety of chile peppers start to flourish. Convential wisdom is you never plant anything you want to keep before Derby Day (the first Saturday in May). Even then, it’s a race to bring in a harvest of some of the hotter chile’s (like Tabasco’s) before the cold night air starts to cut off the plants’ fruiting. This summer with it’s unusually cool nights has been a particular challenge in the old chile pepper patch.

Real time blogging during “No Reservations – Sardinia” tonight at 10pm EDT

Tony Bourdain in season 1. Will season 5 mean the end of snark and the beginning of, gasp, respectability?

The fun starts tonight at 10pm EDT for the final episode of the summer season.

Bourdain’s blog earlier this week was interesting.  The thumb ring, one of the more potent symbols of the man Tony once was, is gone.  Dropped into the abyss to spend the rest of eternity in Davey Jones’ locker.   It went, as he wrote, ”…the way of my earring, joining—in one sense or another—my Dead Boys T-shirt, my telescoping billyclub and my crack pipe.”  On the heels of that posting comes tonight season 5 ending episode where we meet, at last on camera, the Bourdain family.  His brother we know already, but to the image of the little sibling so at odds with his more famous older, more adventurous brother, we know add… Mrs. Bourdain.  Along with all of her Sardinian relatives.    Has Tony turned over a new leaf?  Has the snark finally gone to the way of Dead Boy’s t-shirt? 

Dinner on the fly…

I am blessed to have friends that love food and cooking, while at the same time being reasonably tolerant of me. 

I have said often on these pages that the best dinners are sometimes those involving the least amount of planning. A few ingredients picked fresh that morning, maybe a quick trip to the butcher, and everything else already present and accounted for in the kitchen or pantry – nothing more is required. Saturday was one such dinner, and I should hasten to point out that I had very little to do with making it happen.

Real Time blogging during “No Reservations – Burning Questions” tonight at 10pm EDT

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flame went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
“Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash

Ah yes, burning questions. I had a friend in the Marine Corps once come back from leave with a bad case of those, but hey that’s what penicillin’s for, right?

Tonight’s show is based, God forbid, on a Travel Channel online poll.  Tony answers the top questions from viewers, complete with illustrative scenes gleaned from previous episodes.  Now clip shows can be scary enough (anyone remember the NR Labor Day Special from last year?) Shudder.  I’m already incredulous going in, but the No Reservation’s Facebook page promises much hilarity and a Zamir highlight reel, so maybe it will all work out in the end.  I mean, Facebook wouldn’t lie.  Would it?