Zombie Anniversary

Every year for our wedding anniversary, my husband and I try to do something special. This year we had a loose theme to our anniversary road trip. I loosely called it Year 10 - The Zombie Anniversary. 

Now, you might be asking, what sort of things or places may a person go/do on a Zombie anniversary.  I am glad you asked. Some of these events need little to no explaining on how they are related to zombies, but trust me they belong. 

Zombie Anniversary Highlights 

1. Rocky Horror Picture Show
2. Abominable Dr. Phibes
3. Castle Halloween
4. Space Acorn
5. Evans Cemetery 
6. Monroeville Mall
7. Living Dead Museum
8. Carnegie Natural History Museum
9. Carnegie Art Museum

Rocky Horror is not just a catchy cult musical, but a story about a mad scientist bringing their creature to life. Is a zombie not a creature brought back to life? Therefore Rocky Horror is a zombie musical.

Abominable Dr. Phibesis a Vincent Price movie where the antagonist is pretty much a walking corpse seeking revenge upon the living. That might be the summary or plot devise of most zombie movies. 

Castle Halloweenis a fascinating museum that is dedicated to the history, origin and continuation of Halloween and Halloween traditions. While the proprietor is not keen on the horror aspect of Halloween, there were many historical tie ins for undead and celebration the dead. 

Evans Cemeteryis the cemetery where Night of The Living Dead was filmed. What is more zombie themed than one of the most famous zombie graveyards?

Monroeville Mallis more than just a failing shrine to consumerism. It is also the film site for one of the movies that inspire killing zombies in unique ways. That movie being Dawn of The Dead.  In addition to maintaining the majority of its structure from its gory film days, it contains a bust of George Romero, the progenitor of the zombie of modern culture. 

Living Dead Museumis not just a museum that features George Romeros famous works of film art, but discusses the media evolution of the zombie. 

Carnegie Natural History Museumhas unique animal displays that show an animal being half bone and half taxidermies. It is a fascinating to look at and has a slight Return of the Living Dead vibe to it.

Carnegie Art Museumliterally has a sculpture in bronze by Thomas Schutte called Zombie VIII. It is a unique piece of work that makes me wonder what the other pieces in the collection looked like. 

Now you are probably wondering, how does the Space Acorn tie into a zombie themed excursion? In December of 1965 an object fell from space.  In 1968 Night of the Living Dead was released. In the movie there is discussion of a comet that fell from the sky and may have caused the calamity with the undead.  

Love Notes

 Often things are not as bad as they seem.  

It is all a matter of perspective. I was reminded of this when I tried a recipe out of The Baking with Kim Joy cookbook. Kim Joy was a contestant on The Great British Bake-off who makes ridiculously cute eats. Most of them are almost too cute to want to eat.  I was gifted her cookbook recipe for Christmas and used Mother’s Day as an excuse to try something out of. 

This is what  I was trying to make.

This is what they looked like coming out of the oven.

This is what they looked liked iced.

The entire time making them I was nervous. I am admittedly more of a cook than a baker. Baking is really precise with measurements and if you don’t follow it exactly then the chemical reactions in the bake will be off and it won’t turn out right.  Cooking is more forgiving. If you screw too terribly cover it in cheese or gravy.  Many things have been fixed with cheese, gravy or both. (This is where my theory on the creation of Poutine is pretty sound.) 

While I agonized over how imperfect the bake was and how Paul Hollywood would hate it, I forgot something very important.  These treats were not for Paul Hollywood. They were for my mother in law. My mother in law didn’t see how shaky my icing was, or how imperfect the envelopes were shaped. She saw how much effort my husband and I put into making them for her. We did everything from making the jelly from scratch to rolling the short bread to keeping the cats from tasting them.  It was an adventure that I was able to have with my husband for a beloved member of the family that appreciated our efforts.  

Sometimes you have to step back take a breathe and give yourself a break.  It is about perspective and the hardest  view to change is your own.  Often things are not as bad as they seem. 

Album Art Appreciation

 There was a great mental debate on writing about my Mother’s Day plans and in the end I have decided to hold off and write about it at a later date. Mostly because I don’t want to provide any spoilers to my mother and mother in law.   Instead I will talk about something that both my mother, mother in law and myself have in common and that is art appreciation. 

My husband is a connoisseur of vinyl records. It is his hobby and he is constantly on the hunt for new music. He has a talent for finding obscure and often very interesting records. While not all the records are to my musical taste, some of the art on the album covers is remarkable.   Below are 11 gems from the record collection that I think have interesting album jackets.

1. Monomyth - Exo - This is amazing because not only is the jacket a space trip, the inside is fascinating to look at.
2. Comacozer- Binbeal - I love how psychedelic this is. 
3. Orphans of Doom - I am not going to lie, I picked this one because of the octopus.  The flowers and octopus is beautiful to me.
4. Alunah - Amber &Gold - I feel like this one could be the cover to several fantasy novels. It reminds me of a fallen angel in the garden of eden with the apples and wings. 
5. Book of Worms - Remythologizer - This is the exact type of fantasy novel that I would have bee drawn to. The more you look at it the more details you see. 
6. The Pilgrim - Walking into the Forest - This reminded me of the sort of folk music that I enjoy. 
7. Slift - Ummon - This is another amazing one that the out side of the jacket is just as interesting as the inside of the jacket. 
8. The Well - Pagan Science - This I would expect to see in a museum. 
9. Waveshaper- Artifact - I love how retro and futuristic it is. I makes me think of an 80’s set in what they thought the future would look like.
10. Turned to Stone Volume 2- Masamune and Maramasa- Howling Giant- Sergeant Thunderhoof -  There is so much going on in this.  The more you look at it, the more details you see.
11. The Greasy Gills- The Spring Collection - This album cracked me up. It made me laugh.

The Sad Cupcake

 You can’t be sad when you’re holding a cupcake. My dear friend Faye, gave me this magnet. It made me laugh and I thought it was the truth. Then I found an exception to that.  When that cupcake is a lie, the phrase misery loves company comes to mind. 

Welcome to a story about a terrible cupcake.

My friend Nic is a vegan. A gluten free vegan. Being vegan and gluten free is not a terrible thing. I have had some amazing vegan food and gluten free food in my life. While it is not my way of life, I am open to trying new recipes. Nic wanted to make red velvet vegan gluten free cupcakes.  She found a recipe on the internet. 

This is proof that the internet is a cruel and terrible place. They looked like cupcakes. They tasted like misery and tragedy. Of course I brought one home for my husband to try. After all, what if they were fine and I was just being super critical? (Truth: Misery loves company and I needed someone else to be just as traumatized as I was over the experience.) I have never seen a person spit a cupcake out of their mouth so quickly. My husband might never forgive me for the cupcake betrayal.

Things that were wrong with the cupcake:

1. Texture - It was crumbly yet gummy, like it lacked the will to live, but was trying anyway
2. Flavor-It did not taste like red velvet. It did not taste like chocolate. It tasted somewhat nutty.
3. Icing- The recipe had described it as tangy. Tangy is not something an icing should ever be. I am pretty sure my husband described it a barf. 

Lesson learned. Be wary of anything that is mostly held together by maple syrup, coconut oil and optimism.  Thank you Nic for reminding me that cupcakes can be deceiving. Happiness is not always a cupcake.

Pie Thief

My father might be an evil genius. Or perhaps he is just trolling me and it is all a joke and not a conspiracy to drive me insane.  At the very least, it can be said that he is a man that works in mysterious ways.

This past Christmas, my father gifted me five large ramekins. This in itself is not strange. My father has gifted me instruments of baking persuasion in the past.  Five is a little bit of an odd number, but not anything questionable.

The real mystery started with the discussion with my father on what inspired him to send me crockery. I am not complaining about the dishes, I am just curious. My father normally has something that inspired him.  This something that inspired him happens to be chicken pot pie.  The sort of chicken pot pie that has a flakey crust at the top and not the noodle concoction that is native to the area that I live.  The question I had was where did he get the ramekins. The answer I received wasn’t clear. 

After multiple conversations with my father, I have been able to deduce that the crockery came from some sort of place that sells these pies that can be heated at home. My father bought these delicious pies, ate them and saved the crockery. The ramekins are worth at least $9 a piece. My father assume that my husband would not be adverse to pot pies. He was enabling my husband to enjoy a pot pie life. 

The concept that a place will let you make off with their dishware is foreign to me. If feels like a bad restaurant model to replace dishes with take out orders. I have begun to research how to send a pie by mail and if said pie comes in its own crockery.  This search may have resulted in me sending at least on pie to a friend randomly. 

My husband has a theory that my father is absconding with the pies and sending me the crockery to coverup the theft. I do not think my father is a pie thief. However my father has informed me that he has acquired more ramekins. My husband lives in fear that we will be taken over by pilfered crockery.   The more I subtlety question my father about the pot pie, the more vague he gets.  The more vague he gets, the more pie I make, so I can bring up the topic. My husband gets to live his best meat pie life as this mystery continues. 

I have  fixed over half a dozen different pot pies for my husband and brother in law since the arrival of ramekins.  Maybe we all need to eat a little more pie in our life and not worry about the details of the crockery. 

Tomato Soup Resolutions

 Nobody wants to hear about New Years Resolutions. A resolution is a personal thing and if you made one, it is something personal to you and not anyone else.   I have a few attainable resolutions that I have made this year.  They aren’t anything major, but if asked I’ll share all of them.  Today I have one that I want to talk about and it is going to be quite a journey.  I want to write about the journey and to do so, I need to share the goal. 

I want to make the best tomato soup.  

I know.  It isn’t what anyone was expecting. I don’t even know if it what I was expecting when I was thinking about resolutions, but then outside influences happened.  My husband is a unique outside influence, because he doesn’t even try to influence anything other than my music choices. We were watching a food documentary and talking about favorite foods and comfort foods and the goal came to me out of the wild blue yonder. 

When I was a wee young lass (think around age 8), my mother and I would eat tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches together. It was our thing when I was a kid, because no one else in the house liked tomato soup.  At the time I didn’t like tomato soup. I just wanted to hang out with my mom and I loved grilled cheese sandwiches.  I learned swiftly that cheese and tomato are secret best friends.

I am an adult now, and I love tomato soup.  It is the go to soup that my husband and I can agree on and is a nostalgic sort of comfort food. If I am making soup, it is in the top the requested.  Until recently, I have never made tomato soup from scratch. It has always been a name brand canned soup.  Recently I have made my first attempts into learning the art of tomato soup and for a soup that some think of as a side step away from ketchup, it is not an easy soup to make. 

The first step in the journey was to do research.  I have a plethora of cookbooks, but the one I used as the basis of my first attempt was Ski Town Soup.  (If you recall I may have blogged about a chili I made when I was going through a cookbook challenge. The chili was magnificent.) This cookbook held half a dozen variations of tomato soup from notable ski resorts.  I was able to flip through and compare the different ingredients and preparations with ease and come up with a game plan for my first attempt.

 

First attempt consisted of roasting tomatoes in the oven and then peeling them. While the tomatoes were roasting with rosemary and thyme, diced carrots and onion were sweating it out together in a sauce pan.   After the tomatoes were done being roasted they were peeled, chopped and cooked with the carrots and onion. After simmering together, chicken broth and basil was was added and all of it spent quality time in a blender until it was an odd tomato smoothie.  After blender time, cream was added to the soup to make it a creamy tomato.  Salt and pepper were added through out the process.  Everything was heated through and served with grilled cheeses sandwiches.  The end result wasn’t terrible, but certainly not the best. 

The ratio of carrots used in comparison to tomatoes, made it seem more like a carrot soup. (Who knew carrots were that mighty?) I like the roasted tomatoes. I think they brought out a nice flavor, even if peeling skins off hot tomatoes is an act of madness. I was a nice soup, but not the best tomato soup.  Additional  experiments will commence.  If you have any suggestions on processes/ ingredients to tweak let me know.  There is no wrong path to take to get to the best tomato soup.

May Movie List

I keep thinking that I will discover a theme an underlying theme when reviewing the list of the previous movie viewing pleasure; however a theme seems to escape me.  The genre is all over the place. There isn’t an particular decade we stuck to, and certainly not an actor or actress.  I suppose a  loose theme would be  Repeats. Not necessarily a repeat on the list, but more of movies I have seen at least once prior to this year.

May Movie List

• Capitan Kronos Vampire Hunter
• Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance
•  The Protector
•  Cast a Deadly Spell
•  The Abominable Dr. Phibes
•  Mr. Sardonicus
•  Lethal Weapon 3
• RoboVampire 
• Aliens
•  Straitjacket
•  Dogora The Space Monster
•  I Was a Teenage Wereskunk

 How many of theses movies have you seen?

 

April Movie List

I think I might be the only person that did not binge watch movies for the month of April while the world shut down.  My husband had frequent movie nights with his friends, while I worked on a few sewing projects and building furniture for my new and improved lady lair.  One of themes that April seemed to have in movie themes was Bigfoot, the other theme being Cult.  In the very rare instance the two themes combined.  I always have high hopes for a Bigfoot movie, but vary rarely do they pan out.

April List

• Shriek of the Mutilated 

•  Dr. Phibes Rises Again 

•  The Capture of Bigfoot 

•  Night of the Demons 

•  Robowar 

•  MST3K Starcrash 

•  Night of the Demon

Any guesses on which movies could be considered Bigfoot movies and which ones could be considered cult movies?   While April may have been lax in my movie watching pleasure, it seems that May is starting out a bang.

Be a Calm Iggins

These are interesting times that we live in. I was listening the public radio on the way to work before I became part of the work from home force, and the radio host talked about the importance of being calm. The abbreviated version was that keeping a calm head will keep you safer. Then my brain leapt immediately to “Fear is the mind killer” and then jumped to the time that Iggins was startled and ran directly into a wall.  I do not want to be an Iggins running into walls.  However, I know that it is not easy to keeps a calm out look.  Some people go for distractions, such as binge watching movies until it is over and others are using this time to learn new skills.  I am a list person, so my distraction tends to come in lists and completing them.  Good things come in multiples of threes.

Things that I have learned:

1. I still hate grape juice
2. Trying something on Pinterest does not equate automatic success
3. Date Bread does not taste the way you think it would.  

Things that I am grateful for:

1. Postage Stamps
2. Fabric Hoarding
3. Fluffy Socks

Things that distract me:

    1.  Things We Do in the Shadows (television show)

    2.  My husband and his need for new records

    3.  Family 

What are some things that you have learned, you are grateful for and distract you?  

March Movie List

In the crazy world that we live in that feels more like the beginning to several sci-fi movies, it is a good thing that my husband has various sources for visual entertainment.  The March Movie list feels like I should have earned a badge.  If I had a creative talented I would make a badge for some that has seen at least half of these movies, that isn’t married to me.  It is an eclectic mix.

How many of these movies have you seen?

March movies

• Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla
• Godzilla Tokyo SOS
• Godzilla 2000
• The Mad Mission
• Guns Akimbo 
• Alien Trespass
• Christine
• Rifftrax: The Girl from Rio
• Rifftrax: The Last Shark
• Lethal weapon 
• Lethal weapon 2
• MST3k Zombie Nightmare 
• Red Son
• The Monster Club
• Dr.  Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine 
• Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs
• American Movie
• Jodorowsky’s Dune

Thoughts on some of these movies:

• I think that Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine might have the catchiest song ever. I still find myself humming and singing it days later.  It is one of those Vincent Price movies that doesn’t seem like it was a hardship for him to film.  
• Guns Akimbo is one of those movies that is a fun action movie that made me laugh more then I expected and will mostly likely get a copy for my brother for the next holiday/birthday/just because gifting.
•  Jodorowsky’s Dune made me realize that you don’t always have to read the book to find inspiration. 

Comfort Food: Twisted Chicken Noodle Soup

Comfort Food: Twisted Chicken Noodle Soup

I should probably call this Thai Chicken Noodle Soup or Not My Mother’s Chicken Noodle Soup, but both of those seemed like really long titles for a recipe this delicious.  (Mom- If you are reading this, your Chicken Corn Soup is awesome and also great comfort food.)

This recipe originated from my husbands work.  They have a healthy eating section to encourage positive life choices and this recipe sounded good to him, so he forwarded it to me. I took what I liked out of the recipe and molded it into something heartier that makes a good meal by itself or an excellent part of a soup and sandwich meal.

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 tablespoons water

1 Onion diced

1 tablespoon dried ginger or 2 inches  of fresh ginger rood thinly sliced

2 tablespoon curry powder or 1 tablespoon red curry paste

1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk

3 cups of vegetable broth

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro

1 cup edamame 

3/4 cup riced cauliflower & sweet potato mix 

2 cooked chicken breasts chunked in bite size pieces(I use rotisserie to save time)

1 small packet of Thai vermicelli rice noodles

Directions:

1. Wrap sweet potato in cling form wrap and microwave for 7 minutes.  This should cook the potato all the way through.  Put the potato in the freezer to bring down temperature for handling later.
2. In a pot for noodles, fill will water and put on the heat to boil noodles.  A watched pot never boils, so move on to step 3 as the water heats. 
3. In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion and ginger; cook until onions are tender and translucent. This should take about 5 minutes. Add the curry and water and stir together with onion ginger mix for about a minute.  Once everything is blended, add the unsweetened coconut milk and vegetable broth to make the soup broth.  It should smell amazing.  Bring soup broth to a boil and then let it simmer while you work on step 4.
4. Take the potato out of the freezer. It should be cool to the touch but not frozen. Remove the skin from the potato and dice into small pieces and put in the broth. If the potato is not cool, it will mush when you attempt this step.  IF the potato is still super warm, put it back in the freezer and work on other steps. 
5. Add the chunked cooked chicken into the broth along with the edamame and riced cauliflower/sweet potato mix.  Stir the the pot every now and then to verify that it nothing has settled to the bottom of the pot.  
6. The water for the noodles should be boiling.  Add noodles to the the pot and stir.  You want to make sure that nothing sticks together. Rice noodles cook quickly.  Once they are done cooking, you will want to rinse the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking process.  Once the noodles are cooked and cool to the touch, refrain from eating them from the bowl and put them in the soup broth. IF the sweet potato is still in the freezer cooling down, take it out of the freezer and it should be fine to dice and put in the soup. 
7. Stir all the ingredients together and let simmer for at least five minutes. You want the potato to gain some of the curry flavor.  IF the noodles seem to overwhelm the soup, it is okay to add half a cup of water. 
8. Add salt, lemon juice, cilantro and sesame oil to the soup.  Stir to the tune of Ring Around the Rosie letting the ingredients incorporate in to the broth and then serve.

This is a hearty chicken noodle soup that is full of flavor and sneaks in a couple of vegetables while providing comfort that only a chicken soup can provide.  

February Movie List

It is weird keeping track of all the movies that I watch in a month. Especially since I have the attention span of a gnat. I am hoping that by the end of the year when I look at all the movies I have watched I can identify a couple of trends in my husbands viewing pleasure and therefore able to better predict movies he would be interested in as future gifts.  That is the hope.  

February Movie List

1. Come Drink with Me
2. City Hunter
3. The Magnificent Butcher
4. Crank 2
5. The Tingler
6. The Devil’s Nightmare
7. The Strange Door
8. Yo-Yo Girl Cop
9. Tears of the Black Tiger
10. Doctor Bloods Coffin
11. The Abominable Dr. Phibes
12. Knives Out

While February was less intense in volume, the variety was up kept.  Other than Knives Out (which was a birthday gift and I loved it when I saw it in the theater), my favorite movie was The Abominable Dr. Phibes.  My husband discovered this movie based on a tour of Silver Screen monsters we did on our anniversary in Connecticut. It is one of the strangest Vincent Price movies I have ever seen. 

Paint Colors

Names of paint colors is weird.  Jon and I were picking a color to repaint our entryway and I have decided there should be rules when picking colors. At the moment I have it boiled down to two rules. 

Rule # 1  Don’t use a paint color named after a food unless you are going to be eating in that room. 

Rule #2  Nautical colors should be used in nautical locations only. 

The thousand of colors to choose from os at best overwhelming. All of the paint names are upbeat or neutral at best. Does the name of the paint color describe who I am as a person?  If so, perhaps I might recommend some of these names to be used for paint colors.

Dismal: This would most likely be a grey or a brown or some weird combo of both.  It would be great to be used in horror movies.  

Institutionalized: I think you can picture this color in your head. It is the color of a faded green, that feels like it is trying too hard to be cheerful and welcoming.  This color would also be great to be used in horror movies. 

Blood of the Enemies: This would be a dark reddish brown.  Perhaps matte would look better than a glossy. This color would also be great to be used in horror movies.  

Maybe there is a slight horror movie theme, but you have to admit it has a bit of charm to it.  In fact I am sure that any one of an Emo or Goth nature would be thrilled to have a Dismal hallway, or a Blood of the Enemies bedroom. 

What are your thoughts?