Movie review

"The Visitor" is fabulous. Richard Jenkins was nominated for an Academy Award, and that I can't remember who won that year is testament to this statement: I think he was robbed.

The plot revolves around the visitor, and it is the audience's job to figure out who the visitor is.

Jenkins plays a lifeless college economics professor, whose life stopped when his wife died - maybe before. She was a classical pianist, which we find out only by inference, and his pitiful attempt to learn to play the piano is also his pitiful attempt to continue the life he knew. His life is interrupted when he visits his flat in the Village in New York only to find squatters living there. His integration with their lives and the reawakening of his life is the meat of the story. His and theirs are great stories.

The movie does not have much dialogue, but it doesn't need much. The actors tell their stories without saying too much. They also make great music, which I love.

One sub-plot deals with how illegal immigration is handled by our country. One of the characters, the mother of one of the major characters, says, "This is just like Syria." That should give us all pause. Is there an easy answer to this issue? Probably not. But we all should realize that any story has more than one side.

See it now. Netflix has it. So do I.

Passion for Cooking

Last night was a one-of-a-kind experience. Two trusting souls bought a wine-pairing/tasting dinner at an auction last year. For around $700, they bought 24 bottles of wine, and my love for cooking. Last night, I hope I did them proud.

Mary and I picked a date, and unbeknownst to me, it was the perfect date, because I had nothing to think about for the entire week preceding the dinner other than the dinner itself. I had a list of the wines, and set about looking for perfect pairings; in order to do that, I had to buy some of the wines! Darn! I was already familiar with a couple of them, so had a "leg up" as to what dish to prepare that would be the perfect companion to that wine.

I used my friends as guinea pigs, asking them to taste different dishes and tell me which was better. I tried tuna with two different rubs, a roast boneless leg of lamb, scalloped potatoes to die for (Julia Child calls them "potatoes Dauphinois"), a molten chocolate cake, and even a risotto with butternut squash and mushrooms.

I read lots of issues of "Food and Wine" to try to pick the right flavor for the right grape. I drooled as I thumbed through recipe after recipe, trying to find just the right combination of, well, food and wine. Ultimately, it worked. It worked very well.

Before I brag, however, I need to thank my good friends Kim and Kevin and Wendy and Rob. They were my kitchen help, serving the food when ready, picking up empty plates, and washing the dishes that I had to cart home. The evening was a success because these people, along with my wonderful and accommodating husband Max, worked their tails off to make sure the evening was a success. I would never have been able to carry it off without each and every one of them. On a positive note, we were able to snack and tipple in the kitchen while we were between courses. I think we each at one full meal, even if it was as we were standing around waiting for other people to finish their meals!

I cooked for two days straight before Saturday, figuring that the easiest thing to do would be to have everything ready to assemble on S-Night (Service Night). We carted pans, knives, dishes, glasses, ingredients, Tupperware, and odds and ends to the hosts' house, and we set up shop in their kitchen. We had six courses, six wines, six dishes to serve. Timing would be an issue. How long does it take one person to eat a salad, after all?

We began with a Riesling and a salad. The salad had blue cheese, walnuts, pomegranate seeds (thank you, Costco, for selling the seeds only), and sliced pears. The salad dressing used a reduced Riesling as the base. The salad and the dressing were yummy, even today after each had sat for 12 hours!

The second course/wine was Sauvignon Blanc. I read somewhere that a natural pairing for that wine is goat cheese, one of my favorites. So I did a bruschetta with goat cheese and sauteed mushrooms. I toasted the bread with olive oil and salt the day before; we spread it with the cheese and topped it with mushrooms right before popping the bruschetta under the broiler for a few minutes.

Third was the risotto. Timing was a complexity, because I had to begin the cooking process while my friends were serving the salad. I had roasted the squash and sauteed the mushrooms the day before, and I measured out all the ingredients to take with me; all I had to do was add the ingredients at the right time and stir. This course deserves a special note. Max and I tried this recipe and decided to buy the Chardonnay with which we were pairing it to make sure that the wine was not too oaky or buttery for the risotto. This pairing was, as far as I am concerned, the highlight of the dinner. It was almost perfect. Somehow, the wine's accents and tastes meshed with the rice, squash, and mushrooms, and the diners were in, as we say in southern Missouri, Hog Heaven. William Hill Chardonnay was the champion here. I will buy that wine specifically to drink with this risotto some time in the future. Amazing!

Next was spicy-sweet tuna. I found some rub recipe and thought it sounded interesting. Brown sugar was the main ingredient, and I believe cumin was also prevalent. I patted tuna steaks with the rub, mixed up a mango and red pepper salsa, and put the tuna in the skillet for a minute or so on each side. It was done very well - seared on the outside, bright pink and warm on the inside. And it went very well with the King Estate Pinot Noir, which is one of our favorite Pinots. I didn't want to mess up that wine, and from the comments, I didn't!

We did a palate cleansing with lemon sorbet, which we served in shot glasses that Max found. The glasses were the perfect size for a little bright citrus. This serving was a surprise, as I didn't tell anyone I was preparing it, but I thought it would be better to have a clear palate for the next fat-infused dish.

We paired Kanoonga Hill Shiraz with a roast boneless leg of lamb and potatoes scalloped with cream and Swiss cheese. The lamb also came with a red wine sauce that used veal demiglace. The demiglace cost more than the leg of lamb. It is SOOOOOO good and rich, though! This was the most disappointing dish to me, because the lamb was too well-done for lamb. It was not dry, nor was it flavorless, but I should have taken it out about 10 minutes before I did. I have heard that good gravy covers a multitude of sins, and in this case, it did. I was very grateful to Williams-Sonoma for selling demiglace.

Finally, the diners drank a white Moscato, and I prepared a sweet red wine ice cream. AFTER I had mixed the ice cream, I thought that it would be even better if I had added ground peppercorns to the custard. We added the pepper as a topping for the ice cream, and we served the dessert with a square of very dark chocolate. I brought along some raspberry sauce, but forgot to put in over the ice cream. It made no difference. The ice cream with pepper and chocolate. but NO raspberry sauce, was gone.

We stayed a little while afterward to relax and converse with the people who had enjoyed the evening, but we had the best time talking to the host, who is a wine lover, and who enjoyed the food - the risotto most of all.

After all the work, I can still say that I had a great time and will probably donate the same dinner to the auction this year. Not that I am complaining or anything, but Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, donated lunch for six to a similar auction for a different organization. HER lunch garnered $100,000. I wonder if it made any difference that she was at lunch, as was Mariska Hargitay and Alec Baldwin? Well, we will start recruiting for next year's event. Who knows? Maybe we can find someone famous to show up - someone like, oh, someone. Maybe you!

SNOW DAY!!!

Last night when I went to bed, the classes I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays were meeting. "In Session," the posting proclaimed. "In Session." Immediately, I began worrying about how I was going to get to the College by 9:30. Since Emily's car was totaled by a thankfully-insured driver, we have been getting by with one car here and one car there. I don't want to consider getting another car until she graduates and lands somewhere so we know what kind of car she will need. New York, no car. Savannah, small car. Little Rock, mid-size car. You get the picture.

Anyway, Max and I have his car, which is the cutest little sports car, but it is worthless in snow. And the reason I was worrying about how I was going to get to the College was that the snow was, by the time I went to bed, about six inches deep. And the snow was still coming.

When I woke up, however, the snow had stopped, was resting in the cold, and the web site triumphantly exclaimed, "Canceled!" Except I think that the "Canceled" was incorrected spelled "Cancelled." I can't remember because I jumped about 10 feet in the air as I read the heavenly word.

So today will be a snow day for me. Unlike when I was in elementary school, though, when snow days were few and far between, and when ice days required that I unsuccessfully wheedle my father to let me sled down Pentecost Hill with "everybody else," this day will give me one more day to get caught up: to successfully, I hope, wheedle a mortgage company to postpone a foreclosure, to tweak my syllabi, to list my new students on my Outlook Contacts page, to balance my estates' checkbooks, to write seriously overdue thank-you notes, and maybe to take a nap. Oh, and I WILL watch "The Closer," which TNT has most graciously decided to re-run at a time that is not usually available to me - thank you, thank you so much.

Then tomorrow, I will be relaxed and cheerful as I get ready for the wine pairing tasting I am preparing for Saturday night.

These will be two good days.

The Happiest Days . .

In Gone With the Wind, Mammy said, when Bonnie Blue Butler was born, "The happiest days is when babies come." How true that is. It seems that when a baby is on the way, we become excited, hopeful, anticipatory, and just happy thinking about the new life that will, in some way, give new meaning to ours.

We had a baby shower today. The youngest member of our church choir, the young woman who grew up in our church, moved away, and then came back to be married and be a part of the church, is having a baby. Max and I made a cake and spiked coffee, I got flowers and new candles, and I even bought "baby" napkins so that we could remember why we were there. Our church choir is a tight-knit group, singing together every Wednesday and Sunday, seeing each other through family crises, illnesses, death, and, most happily, new life. Stephanie brought her husband John, who sat stoically through the opening of the gifts, the "oohs," the "ahs," and the stories of Stephanie's grandmother Marilyn, who, though she died many years ago, is still larger than life through tales of her legendary antics.

Max, Wes, and Jim (Stephanie's father and our ringer tenor) also braved the femininity of a baby shower to come and "ooh" and "ah" along with us women. Even they had a good time. We laughed, shared stories, shared gossip, remembered the choir's past and its present, and celebrated what may be its future in preparing to welcome Hannah, the fourth generation of this family to come into our church and who knows? Sing in the choir?

Pink was the predominant color, laughter was the loudest noise, and familiarity and comfort the most prevelant feelings. It was a good day and a great shower.

We didn't play any games.

The Wisdom of Solomon

Court was interesting yesterday, but the day began with a story I didn't want to hear.

A young man, 20, approached. He didn't have the money to pay his ticket, which had been issued because he couldn't produce proof of insurance when asked to do so by a police officer. Typically, we ask those people to buy insurance so that they will be legal drivers, and then they pay a reduced fine. He bought insurance, but he doesn't have the money to pay a fine. The insurance he bought has now expired because he could afford to buy insurance for only one month.

He is homeless. He doesn't have a car. He doesn't have a job. He does have a GED and a sister. They are orphans. The sister has a job at a nursing home, but doesn't make enough money to find an apartment and pay the first and last month's rent and a damage deposit. Their father died last July, and their mother died last August. At the time of his mother's death, he lived in Blue Springs, still with no car. She had been admitted to the hospital and he had called to find out how she was. She was improving. The next day she was dead.

He found that she had left a van, which he planned to use, but by the time he could get to it, his mother's roommate had arranged for it to be towed. The towing company now wants over $1000 to release the van; however, if he can pay $600, they will accept that.

I like to solve problems, and that's one of the reasons I like being a municipal judge. I can use wider vision to solve problems, but I can't solve this one. I have no idea what to do to help this young man and his sister. Someone, the mother of the sister's friend, is allowing them to stay in her home, but the long term for both of them looks bleak. How do we help kids such as these? How can they get on their feet when the very things they need to survive and work - a home, a car, insurance for the car, food - costs money that they can't get because they can't find decent jobs?

The kid is a decent kid. His problems must seem overwhelming to him, and yet I don't know what to do to help him begin a life that is stuck in first gear.

He needs the money he would have to pay for a fine.

I dismissed the charge

Winter

The snow yesterday was absolutely beautiful as it fell, and, as long as I was looking out the kitchen window to the back yard, after it fell. Our pergola was the perfect winter picture: the table and chairs that welcome us in the summer sat silently as the snow became both tablecloth and seat cushions. Wisteria branches were redolent with white rather than lavender. Dusk came and the snow still sifted down, sparkling through tree branches as the lights from the motion sensors hit it. I couldn't tear myself away from the kitchen window, as I watched the soft and quiet, listening to the silence of the January evening.

Today, the magic was gone, as the sun came out and melted the white stuff and exposed the street and its gray imperfections. One of my regulars at court showed up to shovel the walk, and was surprised to see me at the door. Cars traveled fast down the street, turning the lovely powder lining the street a dingy brown speckled with black and dirt. Work and my computer beckoned, and so out my office window, minute by minute, I watched the landscape change from lovely to Missouri winter.

But the back yard still looks gorgeous. Found Fluffy tracks aren't really visible in the yard, and the table and chairs on the pergola and the wisteria branches over it are still dressed in their white finery. Safe and warm, I can look out into the yard and be mesmerized once again by winter as it should be instead of how it usually appears.

Oops!

I wrote "Sense and Sensibilities" rather than "Sense and Sensibility." Sorry for the error.

A Day of Rest

I enjoy our interim pastor so much. I often think that Alex is God's gift to our little congregation, the congregation that has been buffeted by so many hard winds over the past ten years. For today, he selected a hymn, a spiritual, that everyone knows but that no one has really sung in a church service: "Amen." The problem with the song is that it is divided into two parts: One part sings, obviously, "Amen," and the other part sings the verses. We had no idea how to break up the song so that it made sense and so that everyone would sing, but we finally got the idea to break the congregation in half, one side singing the "Amen" and the other side singing the verses. I think it went rather well, and even more important, we had a good time while singing it. Can you imagine? A group of Presbyterians having fun when singing!!!

I was lucky enough to have Sandy play the hymns with me, which takes some of the pressure off my feet (organ foot pedals, you know). She and I have a habit of dressing, without consultation, alike. Today, we wore gray trousers and pink sweaters. We accessorized with silver jewelry. Alex saw us before the service, as we were discussing how to play "Amen," and he suggested that Phil, the music leader, begin each hymn by saying, "A-one-a, a-two-a, hit it, Girls!" As I write it, I guess you had to be there, but such a jovial and joyful atmosphere is energizing and uplifting, exactly what I needed for today.

After feasting on leftover New Year's Day bounty, when the Chiefs began their hideous demise, I took a nap in our sun-filled bedroom, while the found Fluffy snored from her favorite chair. Now, I watch Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet in "Sense and Sensibilities" and wait for the fire to take hold. I can't remember when I experienced such a lovely afternoon - an afternoon of rest.