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A Pancake revelation

The highlight of Thanksgiving weekend (aside from deep frying the Tofurky, perhaps) was cooking an eggless* pancake** for my father-in-law, who is extremely allergic to eggs, and had threfore never eaten a pancake. Bringing pancakes to the pancake-less...I've found my calling in life!

*I used the trick I learned from my friend Robert about substituting flaxseed meal for eggs.

**They were cranberry sauce pancakes and were pretty good.

Another list

My list of autographed records/CDs:

Missing Persons: Missing Persons EP

• I waited in line at Trade-a-Tape in Boulder for this in 1982 even though their concert that night sold out before I could buy a ticket.

Downy Mildew: Mincing Steps LP

• Bought this from them in person at their concert at the Garage at XXIII Parish in Denver, mostly out of sheer enthusiasm--the only time I've ever done that. They should have been bigger, though I wasn't as excited about their later albums.
  

Curve: Clipped EP 10" Limited edition

•  I was thrilled to death about winning this rarity from one of the British music papers (either the NME or Melody Maker, I can't remember). It came all the way from England! I was a Curve completist at the time and this was, for a brief moment, one of my prized possessions. Now nobody really cares.

Mazzy Star: She Hangs Brightly CD

• Bought at an in-store performance at Wax Trax in Denver. They were actually touring for "So Tonight That I Might See," but I really wanted this instead. Hope Sandoval was shooting the whole scene with a video camera, so just scrawled "Hope" with her left hand. One of the other members signed "Love Hurts David Roback."

Ana Voog: anavoog.com

• I had a brief (now embarrassing) fascination with Internet semi-sensation Ana Voog, so bought this from her website.
  

DeFranco Family: Heartbeat, It's a Love Beat CD

• My interest in the DeFranco Family went back to high school, when I bought a 45 of "Heartbeat It's a Love Beat" for 5 cents at Trade-a-Tape. When they re-emerged online earlier this decade, with Tony hawking this greatest hits compilation, I had to buy it. I'm not proud, but not as embarrassed as I should be.
  

Corey Feldman: Former Child Actor CD

• A gift from my late friend Don, who bought it in person at some type of entertainment memorabilia show in California. I have no interest in Corey Feldman, but Don thought that I would love the sad picture of him sitting at a table signing CDs. He was right.

Beyond Ketchup
Wikipedia explores the world of stuff to put on french fries.

My Life of Crime
In my dream last night I was involved in a successful armed robbery of a house, led by Danny DeVito (I've been watching a lot of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia lately). We were immediately apprehended, but managed to steal a cop car and get away, though I lost a shoe in the process. We were trying to figure out a plan to get away for good, and had to admit to ourselves that we weren't really criminal masterminds and it was just a matter of time before someone noticed a one-shoed person driving around in a cop car. It was right about then when I woke up and in my half-awake stated kept thinking of a good plan, but soon realized that even conscious, I just don't have a criminal mindset (either that or I'm just not that clever).

Vote for Home Movies

Vote for the Center for Home Movies on Facebook's Chase Community Giving application.

 

The List

A whole week since I've written, really? Oh, life is too busy these days. I always prided myself on not being one of those busy people, but those days have changed, at least for a while. It doesn't help that I'm falling asleep earlier and earlier these days.

So, a list of things I was thinking about this week:

• Goats (general appreciation of)
  
• Cheese (tormenting appeal of)
• Goat cheese (newfound love for)
  
• Dieting (need for, see also: goat cheese)
  
• Thanksgiving (anticipation of)
  
• Commuting by car (dislike of)
  
• Commuting by Amtrak (like of comfort; dislike of cost)
  
• The decline of 30 Rock (sadness at)
• Dwight Eisenhower and Mamie (lingering interest in)
• Sazeracs (history of)
  
• Medical film symposium (excitement for, and hassle of)
• Lady Gaga (inexplicable appeal of)
• Cleaning up for company (need for)
• Home movies (...always)

 Explanations available upon request.

Food

[note: updated to include more nuance]

I've been thinking about food lately. After my trip to St. Louis I decided I need to come up with a simple phrase that describes my philosophy of eating--because even I can't figure it out sometimes.

Why St. Louis? Because I don't know of any other place that has so many localized foods that aren't found even 100 miles away, and they're all slightly perverse. The pizza is well-known as being distinct in a way such that non-natives can barely stand the stuff, while locals swear by it. I had it twice on this trip and seem to be developing a tolerance for it, though I will never claim that it's actually good. The real revelation on this trip was the St. Paul Sandwich (recipe here), which is odd and good, or oddly good. While eating it I just kept thinking to myself "this sandwich makes no sense," and I think that best describes my food philosophy. The adjective I most appreciate in food is "whimsical." Taste and flavor are way down on the list, if they even appear at all, especially since when I lived in Kentucky, where we often had food challenges at our drunken parties, I discovered that I am able to eat almost anything, as long as it doesn't include meat.

What many people don't realize is that the actual food I eat is not the same food that I talk and write about. Some people seem to be under the impression that I eat nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and pancakes. In fact, I do have some notions of nutrition, but don't think that many people want to hear about the normal things that I eat almost every day, and only Jennifer knows of my great love of casseroles.

I do think I have an inordinate number of food rules, though. For instance, if a food is included in the name of a restaurant (such as the Waffle House or Old Spaghetti Factory) I am obligated to order that. The exception to this is Taco Bell, because until they added the Crispy Potato Taco recently (recommended!) all of their tacos were meat-based, and doing special orders is a hassle. And besides, why mess with the perfection of the Seven Layer Burrito?

I also have a longish list of foods that, if they appear on a menu, I feel I must order. These include: veggie burgers, okra and portabello mushrooms, and obviously this rule clashes with itself on many occasions, in which case I throw caution to the wind and just pick one. I'm on hiatus from the portabello rule, though, after having one too many soggy-bunned portabello sandwiches--there's just too much moisture in those mushrooms for most breads. And I think that I've explained before that my compulsion to order okra has to do not with the fact that I like okra, but because I don't, but am bound and determined to develop a taste for it, and I feel confident that the next time I order it is going to be the time that I like it for the first time. This is similar to my pickle experience of many years ago. Pickles were the last thing that I refused to eat, so I decided that it was just too much trouble to keep pulling them off of sandwiches, so I just started eating them and now love them, especially when deep fried.

Keeping Up
I'm in a semi-permanent state of exhaustion these days. Here's why: I got back from St. Louis at about midnight on Sunday, after my annual exercise in sleep depravation that is the film archivists' conference. After 31 hours in Baltimore, I took the train to New York, where I gave a lecture at NYU (on home movies, of course, since I'm pretty much an idiot savant these days). I spent the night in New York, then left at 6:45 to go to Philadelphia for a day of work. After one night at home I left early for my long commute to the Smithsonian, then came back, slept, and did that again today. Tomorrow afternoon I take the train to Williamsburg for a night there (accompanying Jennifer), then will stop in Richmond on the way home.

My Alternate Life

Vail, CO, 2007