Sweet Potato Gnocchi and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Surprise hiatus! But we're back! Since we're already on a roll with being timely, it should come as no surprise that only recently have Lorena and I watched Buffy. Ok so Lorena plowed through it all, I am actually just on season 4. I have a low TV tolerance. Anyway, I was surprised at how easy it is to make gnocchi. I guess I assumed it's deliciousness must have more secrets? Well, it doesn't.


Sorry it's a little longer than usual.... we had a lot to say. There was a TON I cut out. Syd will discuss in text.   I'll keep this part short. Here is the recipe:

Sweet Potato Gnocci

Okay, this is really easy.
Cook a Sweet Potato/Yam in an oven until it is soft.
Mash it up
SLOWLY add one cup of flour per sweet potato/yam and kneed into a dough. Add more flour if the dough is still sticky.
Roll the dough into thin little snakes and cut them up into little gnocci shapes.
Boil water and add gnocchi.
Cook. Strain.
Add sauce of your liking.

(I think you could season the dough if you felt so inclined. Maybe add some rosemary or something.)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Seasons 1-3)

Created by Joss Whedon (Firefly, Toy Story, Dr. Horrible)

Season 1 Trailer

Where to begin. Ok, "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer." Enter Buffy, an attractive young California high schooler who's always got a snappy comeback ready, whether it be for the school bully or a lumbering vampire. Sunnydale High happens to be situated on top of a hell mouth—an opening into hell, duh—so Buffy and her friends are plenty occupied with not only the usual highschool drama, but also the various creatures attracted to the hell mouth or trying to come out of it. 

So think your usual cast of enjoyable characters, plus supernatural hijinx! It's a surprisingly thoughtful show at times, moral issues are not black and white and sometimes things don't get a satisfying resolution. Regardless of vampires, it is no ideal other world the show is set in—popular kids and sports rule the school, parents are absent or divorced, college is impending but not a given—it is very relatable. Also, it's way 90s, heh. Also also, we think it's kind of queer. Despite what seems like the obvious setup of the hot  female superhero trope, Buffy is no shallow object, and she will not have you patronizing her. Being a Slayer was not her choice, but being femme is. Also there are actual lesbian happenings but not till season 4, but you should know it is still worth watching to get to that point. 

General Rating:
Lore: 10/10  loves it.

Syd: 8/10

Queer Rating:
Lore: 6/10
Syd: 5/10

Have a good week! Also, for those of you who have seen it, Giles is my favorite.

Milanesas and My Summer of Love

Happy Weekend, friends!

I've seen and interacted with a number of known/famous people while living in LA and working where I do, but I have never been as star struck in everyday life as I was earlier this week. 

I wouldn't have thought that Ben Savage would have this effect on me... The more I thought about it though, I realized that he was a HUGE part of my childhood. My brothers and I (and I'm sure many of you in our generation) were raised on Boy Meets World. It's not about celebrity status, it's about the impact he had on my young life. Cory Matthews and the gang were our friends! We cared about them! ...  Is this weird? It feels weird writing it out like this. Let's move on.

A milanesa is basically just a breaded ... meat. It can be chicken, beef, fish, etc. It's very typical in Argentina and most of South America. It's a delicious thing to have all around the globe really, with different countries specializing in it in their own way. Add some fries and a salad, and you have yourself a well balanced dinner!

You will need:

- Thin steak cutlets (or other meat of your choice)

- Eggs

- Bread Crumbs (I usually have a batch that I acquired from putting stale french bread through a food processor and keeping it in a jar in the fridge. Or you can toast bread and then put it through the food processor.)

- Garlic

- Vegetable Oil

- Lime

- Sides (french fries, salad, fried egg, etc)

Begin by setting aside a bowl of whisked eggs and a bowl of bread crumbs. I like to mix in a diced garlic clove in the egg bowl. If you wish to have fries to accompany your meal, you should put those in the oven now too.

The most important thing to remember when making milanesas is to use very thin cutlets. You can use a kitchen hammer, or anything heavy, to pound down on your choice of meat to make it thinner if it isn't already. Once this is done, dip your meat into the egg bowl, making sure to completely drench it. The next stop is the bread crumb bowl. Bury the cutlet deep into the crumbs and roll it around. Make sure the meat is entirely covered in crumbs. 

Now you are ready for the frying pan! Use A LOT of oil to cook the milanesas, but please don't burn yourself (Syd has a tragic story about burning up an entire arm with hot oil). It should only take a few minutes to have both sides crispy and ready to go.

Once done, place your milanesa, fries and salad on a plate, and enjoy! Some people also like to add a fried egg on top of the finished product. The milanesa will be extra delicious drizzled in lime juice.

My Summer of Love (2004)

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski

Trailer

Girl meets girl from the other side of the tracks, they show each other their different lifestyles….oh and fall in love. Crazy love. 

Mona and her brother, her only remaining family member, live above a bar their family used to run. Now the brother has converted it into a church and Mona is not taking it well and feels like she's lost him. Tammy lives off in some mansion and has a horse and plays cello and name drops Nietzsche and Freud when they first hang out. She also has some family troubles, but largely just seems bored. 

They start hanging out all the time and quickly become entirely codependent. They are both hot-headed sort of people, so perhaps it is not surprising that things don't end as well as they might have…watch it so we can talk about it ok? Like, woah.
Queer Rating: (out of ten fries)
Lore: 2 fries
Syd: 2 fries   

Overall Rating:
Lore: 8½ fries
Syd: 7 fries

Fun fact: I'm largely culturally illiterate because I did not watch TV as a child and so had no idea who Ben Savage was. I just wanted to say that incase you didn't either and felt alone. I think the most famous person I've seen was the guy who played Wolverine, and that was not in LA but at a Renaissance Faire where I worked. (y'know what, it was fun and it payed well) It is true that I have a horrific oil burn story. You should ask me about it sometime, in retrospect it's quite humorous.  

-Syd

Chicken Enchiladas and Fucking Åmål

Hello Internet! 
Did you know that I am actually blonde? It's true, as a kid I had super blonde, super straight, long hair—every SoCal girls' dream right? I was too busy being weird to really use my attracting powers though. That is until I switched high schools and chopped it off and dyed it and became a person my mother warned me about. Nothing like realizing you're queer to switch things up, amiright? Worked out ok for Eilin and Agnes anyway. 

Er, but yeah, so I've been thinking about trying to go back to blonde to at least see it and I thought I could expedite the process by trying that "color out" stuff or whatever. Well it took all the color out of the sides but left the longer top slightly orange. These things happen. Sorry I fidget with it so much in the video, I needed a haircut.   -Syd

For the record - I LOVE syd's blond hair, it is so fricken cute.
Recipe! You will need: Chicken Broccoli (we liked adding a veggie, you don't have to) Corn Tortillas Enchilada sauce (you can make it from scratch too, but we're going for quick and easy for your date ;)  Cheese Hot sauce Vegetable Oil SOUR CREAM - don't forget the sour cream.
Cook the chicken and broccoli as the oven preheats (at about 400). Once they are done, you can shred the chicken, chop up the broccoli and combine them. Mix in some enchilada sauce.
Dip the tortillas into your bowl of still remaining sauce and fry them on a little bit of oil one by one.  Spread them out on the bottom of a casserole dish, fill in the middle with the chicken, and then add a top layer of tortilla. I like to do it this way, instead of rolling up individual tortillas, but to each his own.
Pour the rest of the sauce on top and sprinkle on lots of cheese. Put the dish in the oven for about ten minutes. Once it's done don't forget to add some hot sauce and sour cream to balance out the meal. Enjoy!
Fucking Amal / Show me Love (1998) Directed by Lucas Moodysson Trailer In the small town of Amal, Sweden, Agnes has just turned 16. She is very timid and basically a social outcast. Her parents decide to throw her a birthday party (with invitations and everything) even though she doesn't have any friends. Oh, and she is in love with Elin.
Elin is very popular, beautiful and rebellious. She likes to go to raves and make out with boys. She is also always talking about how terribly bored she is with everything. There seems to be something missing in her life. In one of her bouts of boredom, Elin drags her sister, Jessica, to go to Agnes' birthday party instead of their friend's house party. That night and the next few days will give you lots of feelings. Not all good, but not all bad. Elin realizes what it is she's been missing, as well as how hard it is to have it, and Agnes wishes she didn't have to wait so long for things to get better. 
This movie does a great job of showing genuine teenage angst, as well as the struggle for kids to fit in with their peers but also into their own selves. I also enjoyed that the characters were played by actors who are actually that age and not by 25 year olds. (Sidenote: it is not all angst, there are some pretty funny parts.)
Queer Rating: 5 enchiladas out of 10 for both of us.
General Rating: 6/10 enchiladas.
Also, one of my favorite scenes is at the very end when Elin and Agnes have a really cute and awesome conversation about chocolate milk. It's so true!  See y'all next week! -Lore

Zucchini With Beanballs and Water Lilies

Hello! Welcome to date cinq (5). Syd and I are happy to have you with us.

I feel like this renedezvous is a good time to share something very personal. The internet often overwhelms me. I don't understand the twitter or the pinstagram or how a tumblr is different than what livejournal used to be. What I do know is that sometimes as I get lost in the jumble, I find neat stuff. I found this recipe on a fantastic blog/website, which I acquired from a friend's tumblr, which she linked to me on facebook. It's networking on a whole different level! And it's delicious. enjoy!

You will need :
2-3 Zucchinis
1 can of black beans
1 handful of oats
marinara/tomato/somesortof sauce
bread crumbs
maybe some soy sauce
vegetable oil

Start by julienning (cutting into matchstick-like pieces) the zucchini. Have someone drain and mash the can of black beans as you do this. Add a handful of oats to the mashed beans. Mash some more. Fry the zucchini in some oil. Add some soy sauce if you like that. Make little bean balls out of your bean concoction and coat them with bread crumbs. Fry said bean balls in some oil. You can add some soy sauce to these as well. Place bean balls on zucchini as if they are pasta. Pour warm sauce on top. Enjoy. Discover other simple and easy recipes on www.theveganstoner.com YUM!

Now onto the awkward movie I like to make people watch!

Water Lilies (2007)
Written and Directed by Céline Sciamma
Trailer

The trailer soundtrack is kind of misleading in my mind, I feel like there was actually a very noticeable quietness to this movie. Maybe it was just the awkward.


Set in a suburb somewhere in France, Water Lilies* focuses on three girls in their coming-of-age suffering. Anne is part of a synchronized swimming group and one day her friend Marie comes to see her perform. Marie instead takes note of another team's captain, Florian, and becomes infatuated. She does all she can to join the team, but sort of ends up just tagging along. Florian uses this dedication as sort of an ego boost and also Marie as an alibi for her going out and meeting boys. Anne also has boy troubles, but instead of getting too much attention it's that she can't get attention from the one she wants. Her dedication is also eventually abused, and so really nobody ends up happy. Still, as Wikipedia eloquently says, they "come to learn the true meaning of arousal and the power of sexual attraction," so that's something right?

Overall Rating:
Syd: Like I said, I am very on the fence, which is sort of an unusual feeling for me since I usually just like or dislike movies. (I am really not a movie person, don't ask) 5 out of 10 beanballs.
Lore: 4.5 beanballs.

Queer Rating:
Syd: 5.5 beanballs
Lore: 6.5 beanballs

Thanks for dropping byy~ keep putting down the heteropartiarchy and eating delicious things!


*Or, Birth of the Octopuses. I am guessing something is lost in translation? Still, sometimes I feel like keeping that original title would be an interesting effort to see things other ways. A great article with more thoughts on book translation here. 

Vegan Chicken Salad and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Hello World!


For our first gathering we're making vegan chicken salad and talking about Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (I was vegan for 5 years but not anymore, but this salad is so good even omnivores like it). We recorded our thoughts for a video only to have iMovie turn it into a terrible unsynced mess, so here is a brief introduction with what I could salvage. I feel like I'm in highschool making a multimedia project gone terribly wrong, but that's what the YouTube revolution is all about.






So, now let me provide the actual recipe.
     Chop up 3 stalks of celery, one apple, 2 carrots, and a handful of fresh parsley.
     Toss in a bowl with raisins and one block of tofu that you have drained* and crumbled.
     Add veganaise until you've reached your personal favorite texture. (I like this kind of dry, around ½ cup)
      Season with ½ cup nutritional yeast* and trocomare* to taste. Sometimes I throw in curry power or whatever else I feel like.
      Feel free to experiment! The original recipe also calls for chopped onion but I frequently don't include it, but maybe you want to. Best enjoyed on toast or croissants.


*This is where non-vegans or people who don't live in Portland might get tripped up. If you don't know how to drain/press tofu, google it. Never cook with undrained tofu. Nutritional yeast is a sort of flaky yellow powder that tastes almost like cheese. You can find it at most health food stores, including Whole Foods if you must. Trocomare is an odd seasoned salt substitute thing that is uniquely delicious and can be hard to procure. Look in weird little health stores or coops, but worse case use some regular salt and other seasonings.


On to the movie! -S

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

2011

Directed by Wayne Wang

Starring Bingbing Li and Giana Jun

Based on a novel by Lisa See, this movie follows two parallel stories of friends in nineteenth century and modern China, but is kind of confusing about it. Hugh Jackman shows up for some reason. No blatant lesbianism seen, but I did fall asleep somewhere in the middle, so I could be wrong about all of that. 

The movie is actually about a very beautiful, sacred relationship between two women in Chinese culture called LaoTong*

We start off in modern day Shanghai following Sophia and Nina, who as teenagers became committed to each other in this LaoTong relationship, but have since become estranged. The movie opens at a party where Nina has been promoted at work and will be sent off to New York. Sophia, outside sobbing, tries to reach her on her cell phone, but instead gets hit by a bus and falls into a coma.

The rest of the movie takes us through three different storylines: them as teenagers being really cute and finding ways to hang out even though Nina’s mother forbids it; them as Lily and Snow Flower, fictional characters in Sophia’s novel set in 19^th century China; and the present day where Nina tries to uncover the truth about where her friend has been all this time and where we try to figure out if they’re actually secret friends of the heart *winkwink* .

There are a lot of shifts in time and setting, which may cause some confusion, but overall it is a cohesive story.

Is this queer?

Perhaps not deliberately, but there IS something to be said about a story that is showing us that the most important relationship in a woman’s life is the one she has with another woman. And what an INTENSE relationship it is.

Rating

Lore:

I found it a bit dramatic at times, as romantic relationships can be, and I kept thinking they were going to make out, but then they didn’t. Don't expect any homosexiness.
On a scale of none to one chicken sandwich:

⅓ vegan chicken salad sandwich in general.

⅔ vegan chicken salad sandwich in queerness.

Syd:
There are a lot of unnecessarily dramatic scenes, and it does kind of reduce the impact of the actually dramatic ones (see: foot binding), but I at least would not call it a slow movie. Nothing particularly wonderful, but good for hanging out and talking about as it's playing. Apparently the book is only the 19th century China storyline, so possibly more enjoyable. 

⅔ sandwich in general, ⅓ sandwich in queerness. 

It's kind of like getting married

*More on LaoTong relationships:

From what I understood/read about on the internet later, a LaoTong relationship is established at a very young age and is stronger and more intimate than that of a husband and wife. The women are completely committed to each other as faithful supporters and for lack of a better word, super best friends, for the rest of their lives. These bonds were especially important when they were created in ancient China because of the hardships that these women would be enduring in their lifetime.

They also shared a secret women’s language called NuShu, which they used to inscribe letters to each other on the folds of a sacred fan, hence the title of the movie.