Ghost Town

Last night we rented the movie Ghost Town. I'd been mildly curious about the movie when it was out in theaters, but not curious enough to shell out real money for it (we have a Blockbuster plan that lets us trade in 5 movies a month at the store, a good deal that we usually take advantage of). Ricky Gervais is probably most well-known, at least in America, for his work on the British show The Office, which inspired the American version. He plays the same role on the show that Steve Carrell plays in the American Office. Anyway, I like Ricky Gervais, but wasn't crazy about Ghost Town. Gervais himself was fairly mediocre. He seemed a little restrained, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, he can be a little too caustic, but here it came off as a little flat. There were some scenes that dragged on for too long (like the one between Ricky Gervais and Kristen Wiig from SNL who plays his surgeon, where Gervais is trying to get her to tell him what went wrong during his operation), and overall the movie had pacing issues throughout. Greg Kinnear was pretty good, though. I don't usually like him, but I found him more likable in this, where he played a fairly obnoxious guy, than in other movies where he's usually a good guy.
I was surprised to see that Metacritic gave Ghost Town a score of 72 out of 100, I'd expected it to be in the low 60s range.

Recent Recipes

I've been cooking a lot this week because schoolwork hasn't really piled up yet. Here are a couple of the recipes that turned out really well, and notes on my modifications.

THIS is Ina Garten's butternut squash recipe from the foodnetwork website. It was really pretty good and tasted quite rich for a vegetable. Her recipe calls for 2 squash, I only used one for the two of us, and it made enough for a couple of days. I cut down on the butter a bit, from 3 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons, and really, only 1 would probably have been fine. I didn't bother much with the seedy end of the squash. Maybe it was the particular squash, but it wasn't very thick on that end, not much seemed worth saving. I added a tablespoon or two of dried rosemary to the squash and spice mixture, it's a trick my grandmother uses, and it gave the squash extra flavor. I definitely would recommend putting parchment paper or tinfoil between the squash and the cookie sheet, it saves a lot of clean-up trouble. Garten says that it will take between 45 and 55 minutes, mine were starting to brown around the edges by 40. All in all, a very nice way to eat vegetables.

Tonight we had a cheesy fondue
We'd made this recipe before, so this time we felt confident enough to make a few changes. Instead of 4 cups of cheddar (we used a nice aged Vermont cheddar, it made a big difference), this time I did 3 cups of the cheddar, and 1 cup gruyere. It added a little subtlety. We doubled the spices (normal practice for us). We left everything else about the same. We ate it with a couple day-old baguette, and peeled carrots, celery, and apples cut into nice dipping strips. Very nice and filling! There was plenty of the fondue mixture left over, so I'm planning on using it for a macaroni in the next couple of days.

Tomorrow we're planning on a bolognese sauce (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything) is the source for it, it's really nice, tastes almost like the real thing. I think the secret to that is the carrots in it.

First Post!

Hey blogosphere, if you're still being called that!

So, I'm planning on using this as a place to share articles and recipes and other things online that I find interesting, hopefully you will too.

Rickey Henderson was elected on Monday to the Baseball Hall of Fame with almost 95% of the vote (what message were those other 5% trying to send?). I remember some great stories about him when he played for the '99 Mets (probably my favorite team). I saw him sit down in the outfield during pitching changes, slowly jog to first on automatic outs, and seemingly steal bases on whims. He played on the Mets with John Olerud. I heard a great story on the radio about Henderson that I'd like to share. Olerud, a first baseman, wore a batting helmet in the field because of a brain injury earlier in life. A few years after Henderson played on the Mets, he went to play in Seattle, where Olerud was then a player. Henderson asked Olerud why he wore the helmet, Olerud explained his condition, and Henderson remarked that he'd played with someone in New York who had a similar story. So, maybe he's self-centered, but he's got a lot of self to focus on.
Here's an article from the New York Times a few days ago about more of Rickey's antics:

Henderson Is an Enigma Wrapped in a Record Book