Biscuit: Tasty Doesn't Get You A Date To The Prom

Mrs. Peel and John Steed, relaxing after a hard day's work.

Sometimes it seems that I carry within me a near bottomless appreciation for a few certain things. Things like camp, for example, or cheese, in both the comic and the dairy sense of the word. I also carry within me a near bottomless revulsion for things like philosophy and shrimp, although that last one refers solely to the crustacean, a.k.a. the earthworm of the sea.

I think this is why I was able to fall so completely in love with the most recent installment of The Matrix. I honestly think that this movie was tailor-made expressly for my brain. Its every nuance, heavy-handed nuances though they may have been, was form-fitted to wrap snugly around each and every satisfaction center in my cerebral cortex. I knew what was coming, I directed the action in my head before it ever appeared on screen, and when the movie echoed the scene inside my skull, I grinned like a madman and actually pumped my fist in the air. It had, if I may be so bold, everything.

A Quick List Of What This Movie Had, Without Revealing Too Many Details:

--a crusty general
--an adorable little girl
--Starship Troopers
--an inspiring, rousing battle-speech
--a quest
--screaming
--Star Wars
--miracles
--mechanized battlesuits fighting with swarming robotic killers
--beefy muscle-boys in latex making out with each other
--Dark City
--high-speed chases
--insurmountable odds
--Starship Troopers
--a grimy lesbian with a rocket launcher
--grimacing
--superheroes
--a plucky kid who believes
--Starship Troopers
--a haute couture rave
--love
--sacrifice
--revenge
--cookies
--fourteen and a half fuckloads of bullets

As soon as the movie was done, the people around me started talking about the imagery and the philosophy and the gnosticism and the yin-yang-nature-of-the-universe, and all I really wanted to do was lie back in my seat, spent, reflecting happily on the memory of the way his coat twirled, and just how big all of those fucking EXPLOSIONS were.

I think that I could probably take over the world today.

If I wanted to.

I feel cute and clean-shaven (finally! after a week of forgetting to buy new razorblades), and last night I got bored and used a bit of the leftover Manic Panic under the sink, so my hair is a subtle dark purple. I am about to go on vacation with Shiv and Little Owl, Tranq and my adorable Flexible. We are going to Providence, RI. I have never been to Rhode Island, and have in fact been part of several discussions in which the theory that Rhode Island is, as a state, completely illusory, utterly fabricated, and in all other ways just not there, was posited with a great deal of fervor. I look forward to seeing if it actually exists.

Plans for the weekend include wearing pale blue cable-knit sweaters and tan corduroy, sitting in front of a blazing fire, and gazing out wistfully over the sea.

My work suffers today, however, as I have learned the secretive secret that we are, as a group, being taken out to see The Matrix: Revolutions this afternoon. We leave at 3, and to be honest, I cannot see how I could bring myself to start a new project with only TWO HOURS left in the day. Also, I get to see the movie again, which makes me jump up and down and squirm like a very excited puppy who needs to pee.

My turkey and pear chutney wrap was lovely as usual. The cauliflower-cheddar soup was not quite so tasty.

Also, please allow me another dose of narcissism, not like you could stop me even if you wanted to: John Smokin' Steed.

And finally, the bus ride to Providence features a marathon of first-season episodes of ALIAS, the show that kicks ALL the ass, now that Buffy is no longer available to kick any of it herself. Netflix provides me with the Season One discs, in December they will provide me with Season Two, and after that, my DVR will provide me with a backlog of Season Three, after which time I can watch the show with everybody else. It's a chore, sometimes, catching up on those bits of pop culture that you are amazed you missed in the first damn place.

I have been growing increasingly nervous regarding Thanksgiving over the past few weeks. In past years, I had a basic menu hammered out by now, and allowed myself time to add and remove recipes as my whims demanded.

This year, for some unknown reason, that did not happen. For that matter, it is entirely possible that in past years I decided my menu three days before Thanksgiving and I only delude myself now, with false memories of my own organizational skills.

Nevertheless, this year? It is done. Shiv came over and we had a hard-core strategizing session, printing recipes like mad and wielding Sharpie pens and glasses of our Yellow Tail Shiraz-Cab blend with aplomb and little regard for safety. The menu has been created, and I present it to you here, now.

Thanksgiving breakfast for the chefs:

Holiday quiche -- hash brown crust, swiss and pepper jack cheeses, and sliced ham
Coffee
Orange juice

Appetizers

Vodka-spiked red and yellow cherry tomatoes
Winter fruit chutney (with oranges, cranberries, pears, figs, raisins, ginger, and apple)
Cheddar-stuffed mushrooms with walnuts, parsley, Worchestershire, and cognac
Sushi rolls (peanut or avocado) courtesy of Shiv

Main course

Herb-roasted turkey with shallot pan gravy (and the best under-the-skin herb-butter rub you've ever seen)
Vermouth-roasted garlic and mascarpone cheese mashed Yukon Gold potatoes
Bourbon cranberry sauce
Jerusalem artichoke and sage gratin
Ambrosia salad, because I cannot have Thanksgiving without it
Stuffing courtesy of Little Owl
Mushroom and onion gratin with Gruyere cheese
Sauteed mushrooms and leeks, courtesy of the Neff
Buttered brussels sprouts, because I adore them
Sweet potatoes that were clearly concocted by the GODS, courtesy of Shiv
Green and white asparagus with parmesan cheese
Butternut squash gratin with rosemary breadcrumbs

Dessert

40-proof pumpkin pie, courtesy of Shiv
Carrot cake, courtesy of Shiv
Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake
Vanilla-pear clafoutis
and a Chocolate-bourbon tart with currants and orange-custard sauce.

So, yes. It seems that I might have my hands full. Next step: scheduling the order of preparation, figuring what I can make beforehand, and working out in what order dishes need to be added to and removed from the oven.

All day today I was in a horrible mood. I went from tired to grumpy to worried to annoyed to grumpy to pissed off. As soon as I got home, I started making dinner -- a vegetable cobbler with a scallion-biscuit top -- and the second my knife bit into a potato, everything seemed all right again. This is how I want my life to be.

Everybody, listen up: I need you all to invent something for me.

Ask around, friends, neighbors, parents, atc. See if anyone has any ideas on how to build a Dream Recorder, would you? I am really in quite dire need of one. I am convinced that if I had a Dream Recorder, first of all I would stop driving myself crazy every morning trying to remember stupid details from my nonsensical dreams.

Secondly, it would be much easier to tell people about my dreams if I remembered all the details. ("So then there was this guy, and he said something but I don't remember what, and I think it was in my old house, like the one I grew up in, not the one I am now, except the wallpaper was purple, I think." The biggest drawback to that is that instead of just having to listen blankly to someone talk about their boring-as-fuck dream, you actually have to watch a boring-as-fuck slideshow.)

Thirdly, hoever, and far more important: If I had a Dream Recorder, I would be so rich. Here is why: I dream stories. Like, entire novels, on occasion. Or movies, I suppose; I do not dream in text. For example, last night? An epic. I actually jumped around to several different points of view, starting with a small girl with her hair in long black braids who was filling her pockets with (on one side) pentacles and crow claws and (on the othe other side) crucifixes and rosaries; a blond teenage boy who for some reason was running with his scientist father through a sleek white laboratory; a man in a beat-up pickup truck driving down twisty rural dirt roads to get away from this plucky female sheriff; and a plucky female sheriff who was chasing a man in a beat-up pickup truck.

The plot revolved, somehow, around Satan trying to take over the world. The nasty li'l devil would actually sort of take over each of the characters I was, and I would do these little things that would facilitate his takeover, and then I would run around trying to undo what I had done. It really was remarkably detailed, and all I need is a simple Dream Recorder to bring back all of these vital and piquant details, whereupon I could transcribe them, sell the book, and make a lot of money, especially when the book gets optioned for a film, starring me.

So, right. Dream Recorder. That is what I want for Chistmas. See what you can do, okay?

I think that I am the only person I know who gets out of bed at 1:30 in the morning to assuage an insatiable craving for Brussels sprouts, drenched in melted butter, kosher salt, and freshly-cracked black pepper.

You heard me. I said Brussels sprouts.

The Holidays are so officially here! There are lights up at Macy's. Glowing snowflakes hang from the lampposts down 7th Avenue. I have started buying Christmas presents (which is fairly remarkable in and of itself, given that it is not currently December 23rd).

Number one on my list, though, the primary signifier that the holidays have begun:

The Herb Butter Is In The Fridge.

Following a massive delivery from my beloved FreshDirect last night, I whipped up some bourbon-cranberry sauce and a batch of stuffed mushrooms for my work-sponsored Thanksgiving lunch today. I chopped sage and thyme and parsley until my arm hurt, and then Flex mashed them all into a bowl of butter, which soon shall be part of the best turkey ever. There is a turkey in the fridge as well, and the 2003 Wall o' Dairy. Tonight is Beet Night, and tomorrow is Baking Night. Thursday is Thanksgiving, and from there, it is a rapid-fire whiz-bang descent into the depths of the Happy Holiday Season. Jolly sights and tempting smells and velvet and cider and gold and snow and airplanes and holly and parties and candles and wine and friends and family and bells and vacation and sweaters.

But it all begins when the herb butter is in the fridge.