Last night, I thought I would escape to the movies to see “The Great Gatsby.” We’ve been hearing about this latest film adaptation of the only book I enjoyed reading in all twelve years of prep school. However, Warner Brothers’s decision to push back its release by five months in an effort to turn it into a summer blockbuster should have been the first sign that this movie was not going to be good. But we all kept assuming it would be fabulous. The guys were going to be decked out in special Gatsby edition clothes we could all buy from Brooks and Tiffany’s announced it was doing a special collection of Gatsby-themed jewelry. It was going to be the season of Gatsby; the costume parties, the Gatsby-esque drinking (apparently, the champagne coupe is back in style), the works. But just moments after I donned the 3-D glasses and the film began, it happened: I found myself glancing at my watch, praying that time would speed itself up so that this nightmare could end. Yes, the movie that had had so much promise and so much buzz for over a year was THAT BAD!
What’s more surprising, however, is how shocked I was, and still am for that matter. How could I not have seen the signs that this would be awful. They were staring me right in the face: Jay-Z being brought in to executive produce the film’s score; all the rap/hip-hop music replacing the jazz in a film set in the 1920’s (and the excuse that rap/hip-hop is the new jazz is a bunch of hogwash. Though I will say that the cover of “Crazy in Love” is exceptional); the excessive use of CGI to the point that it all feels fake; a movie like this being released in 3-D. I could go on for another hour typing out all the things we should have seen.
Even the casting choices need to be questioned. Leonardo DiCaprio just looks like he was cast simply because of his looks and not his acting ability and that Toby McGuire should just take his “Spiderman” money and go away forever. His Nick Caraway was just annoying. We know Nick is supposed to be naïve, but this was just bad acting. That goes for DiCaprio as well. He tried way too hard to be Gatsby; it all seem forced. And as for Carey Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan, she was too with it. Her character is supposed to be Real Housewife of Orange County aloof. Though she and DiCaprio had chemistry, they just…it didn’t feel right at all and I’m annoyed because I can’t figure out what it is that didn’t feel right.
Then there was the film’s director, Baz Luhrmann. M. Luhrmann is best known for directing a movie I absolutely loved, “Moulin Rouge!” In all honesty, though, it is M. Luhrmann whom I blame the most for ruining this film. After initially trying to film the movie in New York itself, the Australian director decided it would be better to film a movie about the excesses of the wealthy that takes place in Manhattan and on Long Island some 10,000 miles away in what was once the world’s largest penal colony: Australia. This decision to remake New York in Australia just makes the whole movie seem fake.
The sets, though incredibly beautiful, just felt as though Luhrmann was directing a musical with a disturbingly large budget. That said, I will say that Gatsby’s bedroom/closet is just stunning and I would kill to have it for myself. And though it was digitally-created, the Buchanan manor was breathtaking. Can someone please build it? Pretty please. The scenes that takes place there are some of the only good parts of the movie. The only other bright spot being the day Nick and Daisy spend with Gatsby at his manor. It was the only scene that felt real and almost authentic.
After my time prayers were finally answered and the film’s credits began to roll, I noticed that no one in the theatre clapped or even stayed to watch the credits. That was it. No one talked about it on the way to the parking lot. It was then that I realized that this, the fourth adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s superb novel for the big screen, was nothing more than just another wannabe blockbuster that a studio just spit out.
Like the hundreds who flocked to Gatsby’s grand parties, the movie has no soul; we’re not supposed to care that it isn’t a true adaptation of the novel. Instead, we’re just supposed to accept this version of Gatsby because of all the star power endorsing it. All I know is that when my kids want to see the movie instead of read the book, I’m showing them the third adaptation written by Francis Ford Coppola and staring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow because the saying goes third time’s the charm, doesn’t it?
I came to this rather disturbing conclusion after being reminded by my friend Hannah that if all those people in Gotham had lived on the other side of the bridge, in Gotham’s equivalent of Brooklyn, then their lives wouldn’t have been in as much danger. She said this because it’s very obvious that The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of the Chris Nolan trilogy, turns the island of Manhattan into Gotham and I’ve been giving her grief about Brooklyn all summer because I feel it’s just not the same as actually living in Manhattan itself. She loves it and can’t get enough of it. Yet, for a brief moment Friday night after we left the theater, Brooklyn’s geographic location on the other side of the East River was looking like such a positive. I stress that this was a very brief lapse of judgement.
As for the movie itself, here’s all y’all need to know: for the first time in at least five years, I went the entire two hour, forty-five minute long movie without looking at my BlackBerry at all! I didn’t even make it through The Dark Knight four years ago without looking at the Berry, but I also snuck a three-course dinner with ice cream into that movie with another friend, also named Hannah (Yes, it’s not hard to do this. You do take out from a great restaurant and then you go to a movie theatre in a shopping mall and put the food inside a bag from a store in the mall. Then you place a jacket or some other article of clothing over the food so that they don’t assume you’re doing this.). Come to think of it, I saw all three of these Batman movies with three different people all named Hannah.
Speaking of that first Batman movie, it’s kind of ironic that in the time it took for this trilogy to be completed, Katie Holmes, who starred in the first movie, Batman Begins, as Rachel Dawson, dated Tom Cruise, saw him go crazy on Oprah, decided he wasn’t crazy enough to marry, converted to Scientology, had a silent birth in order to bring a kid into the world who spends more a year on shoes than my mother and aunt combined , and then divorced Tom Cruise because she realized that HOLY BOBBY BROWN! This Scientology business is more than a little meshuge!
Oh how times flies by quickly, and not just for Katie Holmes. At the time of writing this, I have less than two weeks before moving out of Charlottesville, which, though I’m thrilled to finally get a break, is really sad because that means I’ve enjoyed being here so much and am going to miss this city more so than I’ve ever missed Winter Park. But alas, we’ll save the melodramatic, tear-jerker for once I’m back home because for the last few months, it’s been well over 100° and as I love to say, we are no where near the Carribean Seas and there are no hot mommies screaming “Ay, Papi.” (That song is Will Smith’s greatest contribution to society)
So it’s been a few weeks since we last spoke and while not a lot has happened, it hasn’t been all work and no play! Hannah, my official taste tester of Summer 2012, and I have been spending the last few weeks getting to know ice cream’s less popular and “healthier” sibling: sorbet. I love sorbets, especially homemade ones because you can actually taste the freshness of the fruit. Plus, there’s no heavy cream or egg yolk that can lead to you having a horrible swimsuit season if you’re not careful. I choose to ignore one step in nearly all the recipes I’ve used that insist I pour the mixture through a sieve before placing it in the refrigerator to chill before it can go into the machine. I let skin and seeds stay in the mixture not just because I prefer the texture that they add to the sorbet, but mostly because my strainer and I have a no love, all hate relationship with each other and cleaning it makes torture seem tolerable.
The first sorbet, made as June drew to a close, was an obvious choice: strawberry. As I ate it at the same feverish pace a person desperately in need of water consumes a bottle of water. As Hannah and I celebrated the anniversary of our nation’s birth and Mr. Jefferson’s death by visiting Monticello (more on that later), frutti di bosco sorbet was to be found in my freezer. The recipe, courtesy of my Sarabeth’s Bakery cookbook, created a sorbet so heavenly that I felt as though I had been transported to Lake Como with each bite. It was so good, I took a photo of it:
Now y’all know that looks so good! Well, because it was so hard to resist, that weekend brought about the only one Hannah didn’t get to try because someone just had to go to New York for the weekend. She missed watermelon, which I ate at a pace the Roadrunner would approve of and was gone before the Federer-Murrary final match at Wimbledon was over.
Another week, another flavor. The scorching temperatures in Charlottesville saw raspberry rose sorbet, a recipe I actually found in the Fitness and Nutrition section of the Times, believe it or not. That one might have been my second favorite, mostly because I wasn’t expecting it to taste the way it did. Initially, I thought the rose water would completely over-power the raspberries, which it did at least in terms of scent (mostly because embraced my heavy pour mentality and doubled the amount of rose water I was supposed to add), but in terms of taste, I feel that the rose water only enhanced the taste of the raspberries. It wasn’t decadent or overtly sophisticated at all, but instead surprisingly simple and comforting, much like chocolate mousse has that pretentiousness surrounding it despite remaining very simple at heart.
The fifth and final sorbet to be made in Charlottesville as the ice cream maker, mixer and 90% of my kitchen utensils were taken home this weekend, was rustic apricot. It’s the most unusual one I’ve made and since I’d never had anything remotely like it before, I was actually almost afraid to try it when it was ready. Yet, it tastes and smells like the freshest, ripest apricot you’ve ever had in your life. With each bite, it’s like you’re taking another bite out of the fruit. Each time I open the container in which I keep it, I feel like I’m standing on a ladder picking the fruit individually off the tree. I’m truly at a loss of words that I can use to possibly convey how amazing this sorbet is!
I guess the only way to describe it is really to answer the question Andrew always poses each time I tell him I’ve made a new ice cream/sorbet. The question he asks is simply, “Is it better than Grom?” Grom, as y’all should know by now, is the upscale, insanely expensive Italian gelateria chain that has three fixed locations in New York, plus a new gelato cart on Fifth Avenue. Usually, I respond to this question with an overly-egotistical yes, but this time, it’s not ego that’s driving my response, it actually is better than anything Grom has to offer!
While we’re on the subject of Andrew, a lot has happened to him in the last few weeks. After realizing that it wasn’t worth working an eighteen hour day for five, sometimes seven days a week, Andrew quit his job and is taking a well deserved and much needed break. He’s been rejoining the world after a brief hiatus and I must say that it’s nice to have him back.
Grace, meanwhile, celebrated her birthday many weeks ago, and even though she despises the idea of growing older and celebrating in any grand sort of way, she knew that wasn’t going to stop me from giving her yet another useless gift for her birthday. So, I went home two weeks after her actual birthday to assemble what has to be the craziest gift I’ve ever purchased anyone. I had found these wonderful red lighted carousel letters at the store Maison 140 in Chelsea, about two blocks from the Chelsea Market and after months of wondering whether I should get one for Grace, I came to the decision that this was perfect for her because Grace loves burlesque. She thinks there’s something romantic and artistic about it. It’s not stripping, but almost performance art. Anyway, this carousal letter to me screamed Le Moulin Rouge and so with her sister Annie agreeing that she would absolutely love this, it was ordered.
The four hours I spent stringing the lights onto it in a way so well done that no one will even see a cord, save for the one that plugs into the wall itself taught me that no matter how nice it must be to have a Christmas tree and all the decorations, you couldn’t pay me to do anything that painful again! I broke two lightbulbs and half came dead. Once I’m home, I’m going to call and see if they can send me a new set of lightbulbs because none of the hardware stores have the required bulbs. This gift proved that there are very few people for whom I would waste four hours of my life so I could assemble a gift! Fortunately, she knows that if she doesn’t use this gift, my back, which was in pain from bending over for all that time, will kill her!
This is the back, which I think is even more impressive than the front:
A week after this extravaganza in Virginia Beach, we entered July, a month of pure insanity, packing, extreme heat, and one of only three, maybe five (if you include President’s Day and Veteran’s Day), days of the entire year in which you can wear red together with white and blue.
Naturally, I’m talking about the Fourth of July, which also happens to be the anniversary of Mr. Jefferson’s passing. This year, instead of watching the entire eight-part HBO John Adams miniseries in order without bathroom breaks (I’ve done that more than once, unfortunately), Hannah and I decided to get all decked out in our most patriotic outfits (sadly, she doesn’t have one of those American flag shirts, but if she did, we probably wouldn’t be friends, so it’s probably for the best that she doesn’t) and headed up to Monticello for the day. Though we spent most of the tour standing behind a man who had more hair on his back than on his head, it was kind of neat to be at the home of the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence on the day he died.
In addition to posing for photos next to a wasp nest, waiting way too long for small children to finally leave the little pavilion along the garden so we could take a photo and braving triple-digit heat, Hannah pointed out that there’s this narrow line in between the trees so that you can actually see the Rotunda from Monticello because as he got older, it wasn’t as easy for Mr. Jefferson to get down to his university as he got older. I’m told everyone already knew this fact, but apparently that wasn’t true since I didn’t.
Please note that I did not zoom in on myself in this photo because if I had done so, y’all would have been able to see the power plant currently operating inside my hair! I swear, NASA should study me to see if they can capture the heat my hair produces and convert it to something useful!
The following Monday, Justin, someone not prone to do making incredibly stupid decisions because they sound like good ones at the time, left Winter Park to drive by car up to visit his bubbie in New Jersey (he’s well aware of my views on New Jersey) because, like the time he thought it was a good idea to take a Greyhound bus from Richmond to Manhattan, he wanted to see America. Having done the drive more than once, I tried to use my experience to explain to him that aside from South of the Border, there’s nothing to see at all until you hit the DC beltway and can sort of see the Washington Monument in the distance and even the Rotunda of the Capital if you get close enough.
Justin, being Justin, didn’t heed my warning and spent the first night in Charleston, which is a great city where I almost went to school (the actual incentive for attending school there, aside from the food and the countless historical buildings saved by the city that set the standard for historical preservation in America (presumably after Fort Sumter was lost to the Union in the War of North Aggression) being that had I attend the College of Charleston, I could have gotten a part-time job at the Charleston Chew factory and therefore gotten free Charleston Chews for the entire time I would have worked there. The saddest part is I still think about that). Having had his fix of Southern hospitality in Charleston, Justin proceeded inland a bit as he made his way to Grandma’s by making a detour to Charlottesville!
This, in my opinion, was the only smart decision he made on this trip, especially since he didn’t even get me a Charleston Chew (fact: I haven’t had a Charleston Chew since I bought one in Charleston when I toured the College of Charleston in the Spring of 2008, yet for some reason, they remind me of summer camp, so I keep thinking about them). He pulled into Charlottesville just in time for him to join Hannah and me for dinner at Whiskey Jar where he tried fried chicken for the first time in his life!
Frankly I’m appalled that it took him nearly 23 years to eat something so delicious and affordable that a man named Colonel Sanders managed to start a business that today is the second largest “restaurant” chain in the world after McDonald’s! I know he’s from Cape Cod and everything, but don’t they eat fried chicken up there?
As I try to figure out how Justin never ate fried chicken until he was nearly 23, I’m also quickly realizing that my time in Charlottesville is quickly coming to an end. At the time of writing this, there are only nine days left until I leave this wonderful place for the last time as a student. With that in mind, I’ve also realized in the last few days just how many things I have yet to do (I’m sorry, Grace, but streaking the lawn, or what’s left of it since it’s being resowed at the moment, is not on that list). I guess I’ll have to move quickly to fit it all in!
Until next time…
-JD
PS: Last night, it was announced that Sherman Hemsley, the actor best known for playing the other Mr. Jefferson, passed away and so in his honor, I thought I’d include what is quite possibly one of the best theme songs to any television show.
Welcome to April, quite possibly the most stressful month of the year. Amazingly, I got off to a good start this week and I’m somehow ahead of schedule for this week in terms of work. I’m convinced it’s because Katie Couric is back on TV in the morning. That’s not a joke either. In case y’all don’t know, Katie is co-hosting Good Morning America this week while Robin Roberts is on vacation and I have to say that it was such a breath of fresh air to have the bubbly personality back to wake me up! The last nearly ten months of Ann Curry has just been painful and I think we can all agree that she belongs back at Dateline because the stories reported on by Dateline work better with her facial expressions and over-caring.
Meanwhile, a few things have happened in the last few weeks, most notably being that Justin was told by the law firm he was working at that his services were no longer required, even though they just gave him a promotion of some sort. Naturally, nothing else has changed because he’s still continuing to remind me daily that I’m still in school and how he doesn’t have to take finals and write papers. The only difference is that now he can remind me all day long, when he’s not working on his tan, that is.
Moving up the East Coast to North Carolina, Andrew actually saw The Hunger Games, this year’s Twilight and while every girl I know who has seen it-Andrew is also the only guy I know who has seen it-loved every minute of the seemingly pointless movie, Andrew wasn’t impressed. He’s more excited about today’s re-release of Titanic, which is being brought back to the big screen in time for the 100th anniversary of the ocean liner’s sinking. Now I understand why it seems like such a big deal being in 3D and whatnot, but I just… I don’t really see the point in having to wear special glasses just so I can see a movie. Furthermore, I don’t get why I need to have things come off the screen. If I had wanted to be apart of the scene, I would have tried out for a role in the movie.
Yet, I’m apparently in the minority on this because every movie is now being made in 3D. The biggest reason for why I probably won’t be seeing Titanic, though, is not about it being in 3D, or even because I don’t think James Cameron needs any more money. Instead, it’s because I don’t know how many more times I can handle hearing that damn “My Heart Will Go On” being played. But, again, I’m in the minority on this one since the Caesar’s Palace Colosseum (which is actually how they spell it) is sold out night after night so people can see Céline Dion do this:
Justin is so excited about seeing Titanic (and hearing Céline belt it out) that he’s going tonight, because he has some free time. Maybe after, he’ll enjoy a nice piña colada, which I’m slightly embarrassed to say was the first alcoholic beverage Justin told me he ever ordered. Mine was a glass of white Spanish wine when I was in Lugano, Switzerland with Mother and my Aunt Wendy. I’m still mad at myself for never finding out the name of it. Also, I’m waiting for ABC to air the Titanic two-night miniseries written by Julian Fellowes that airs on the 14th and 15th of April.
Back here in Virginia, it’s been a busy couple of weeks and my mind has finally consented to the idea that we have to go back to school after kind of refusing for a while after Spring Break. Two weekends ago, however, work was swept aside for something far more important. It started Friday night when I went with my dear friend and hall mate, Lindsay, to try the Whiskey Jar on the Downtown Mall. Now I have been trying to get into the Whiskey Jar for weeks because it just looks like a cool place, but it is always overflowing with people. Yet that night, the stars were aligned and even though we were seated up against a hideous concrete retaining wall, at least we were seated outside on a perfectly gorgeous evening. The location did get a bit better once I realized that the couple at the table behind Lindsay was on that beyond awkward first date based on the nervous conversation that was taking place. And yes, that means I was eavesdropping the entire time. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it; I just love knowing other peoples’s business.
Now, as for the food, it was Southern food euphoria. We started with the hush puppies & sweet potato biscuits, which were served with apple & sorghum butters. Now I’m not a huge biscuit eater, but the sweet potato gave it this flavor that made it so welcoming and when combined with that apple butter, it makes one wonder why people would rather spend their money on cheap liquor when they could be eating these little bundles of joy! The hush puppies, equally scrumptious (yes, I feel it’s time to bring that word back), took me right back to when I went to summer camp in North Carolina and they would take us to Moorhead City for a weekend and the Sanitary Restaurant, where they would take us for dinner the first night, gave us these amazing hush puppies and I rarely if ever see them anywhere so it was so a real treat to have them. We also split the fried quail & homemade coleslaw because it was so nice outside that it felt like it was time to start eating summer foods and I feel that coleslaw is one of those ultimate summer foods on the beach or by the pool. The quail was crispy and just…one almost wants to join Dick Cheney on his next quail hunt to get some more.
For our entrees, Lindsay and I are like-minded eaters who both chose the ultimate Southern food, fried chicken. Aside from being something that will kill you if you eat it too often, in all honesty, the only eatable fried chicken comes from the South. It doesn’t matter if you take a black, Southern grandmother up North, the fried chicken won’t taste the way it does in the South. It was so crispy on the outside, tender on the inside; melt in your mouth, can you taste the butter, my mouth is watering right now at the very thought of them, and the accompanying collards, which are not and have never been a staple of my diet, were like eating healthy candy. Initially, I told Lindsay that I was definitely going to have some leftovers to take home because the portion was so good, but by the time the waiter cleared our plates, very little remained aside from the chicken bones, which I don’t recommend eating. The next time I go back, I’m trying the side of macaroni & cheese I didn’t see this first visit. Also, it was surprisingly inexpensive; the fried chicken was only $12, so it’s very college budget-friendly, even though I know some people who would argue that it’s better to spend that $12 on three beers at the Corner instead. I don’t eat with them.
From an affordable dinner on Friday night, Saturday night was a little different. That night was the 49th annual Restoration Ball, an event Grace and I have been talking about attending together for three years. The black tie ball raises money for the restoration of the Rotunda here at UVa. The night, regardless of the amount of fun we had, was not without its problems. First of all, it didn’t just drizzle as expected. Oh no, it poured the way it pours in a rain forest! Did I mention this took place under a tent? Also, while Grace and I actually tried to look good, some people thought this was a perfectly good time to dust off the old prom dresses, which was not a good idea! To make things worse, those of us over the age of 21 were treated to sparkling wine, but it was inside a nearby building that we had to run to in the downpour, and they ran out very early in the evening!
But it was a lot of fun, especially the part where they made us perform the Virginia reel, which Grace claims we learned how to do in the Third Grade. Do y’all remember what you learned in the Third Grade because I sure as hell don’t! Thankfully, I wasn’t the only person who didn’t know it because we got a crash course before beginning. After what was probably the highlight of the night, Grace decided it was time for us to move on, and by move on, I mean sprint to the Corner to bars before going back to her apartment to order copious amounts of borderline uneatable food I would never normally eat because I don’t want to die at 30 and eat it while watching Eat Pray Love, the movie that made me decide to study abroad in Italy (not much has changed; that bowl of pasta still looks so happy!). It was a truly memorable night and I’m so glad Grace, who looked radiant in her vintage Badgley Mischka gown, and I finally got to go!
Flash-forward five days to last Friday and I did something I never thought I’d do, I went to a jazz concert at a fraternity house. Lindsay schlepped me over to the Delta Upsilon fraternity house, which is most civilized one I’ve been in because it’s also the newest house at UVa. My other experiences at fraternity houses here at UVa have seen me standing in puddles of alcohol, being dragged by Grace halfway down a flight of stairs to a basement filled with “water” that I refused to get near (I didn’t want to risk having to get my legs amputated), painfully loud music, and how could I ever forget the stench of cheap beer mixed with grain alcohol and throw-up. This was about as far from any of that as one can imagine, save for the beer and grain alcohol, well it was bourbon.
Now this place was actually clean, no doubt thanks to pledges who did such a lovely job of wiping up the floors the second someone spilled something; if any of you would like to make extra money, I’d pay for my apartment to be cleaned because I despise doing it. Unfortunately, in what must be a cost-cutting measure to pay for this beautiful frat house, the DU men served up Keystone Light Beer. Y’all, I thought it couldn’t get worse than Fratty Natty. Oh no, it turns out I was wrong. Imagine drinking water that’s been infused with hops; it’s like cucumber water, only absolutely revolting! Now I know why people carry flasks with them!
Anyway, the next day, Miss Lindsay and I met at the very civilized hour of 11 to head over to the Pigeon Hole to partake in the best meal ever invented, brunch. Who doesn’t love brunching? It’s not just the food that makes brunch the perfect meal because when one brunches, it’s always done with friends/relatives if we must and it’s the only time when one is no longer in college for it to be perfectly acceptable to drink before noon without being labeled an alcoholic. Granted, these alcoholic beverages are limited to either a mimosa or a bloody mary, but you can’t really go wrong with either.
Unfortunately, most of my friends look down on things like brunch. Andrew needs to do the three meals a day in order to “survive;” Justin is now on some nut workout that means he is eating five small meals and nothing on a brunch menu is designed for that; and Grace sleeps until well after brunch time. Lindsay is a diamond in this rough of boring so she and I decided that since we could have a mimosa whenever, we’d go for the less conventional “cranmosa,” which is champagne with cranberry juice, and they were quite good, if I may say so myself. Lindsay went all out Southern for her selection of the biscuits & red eye gravy, accompanied with lots of hash browns. I stayed with the more conventional French toast option, which came with sliced apples that were glazed in cinnamon and just so yummy! I also got hash browns, but didn’t pay much attention to them.
Following brunch, we decided that since it was such a beautiful day, we would take our homework outside and do the cliché UVa student studying on the lawn thing. However, too many other people beat us to the lawn so we ditched that plan and headed to the fine arts school’s courtyard. On the way, we noticed that the UVa club rugby team was playing UNC and of course we got distracted and watched. Fortunately, I had my camera with me; this is the only photo I liked:
After about an hour of watching rugby, a sport neither of us understands (don’t even get me started on the location of hands), it started to rain and we quickly took shelter in the fine arts school’s library and actually got work done before heading to a wine and cheese tasting at Feast, the amazing specialty foods store not far from grounds. I absolutely love their charcuterie department because they have such a great variety of local and out of the ordinary meats from which to choose. Plus, they sell something called chocolate goat cheese, which I have yet to try but plan to very soon.
All of this talk about food is the perfect segway for me to mention an article I read in the April 2nd issue of New York about my generation’s desire to actually care about food. In case y’all haven’t noticed, I live for food. I decided to start this blog after watching movie about Julia Child (food), I picked my study abroad country after seeing a bowl of pasta, I have spent the equivalent of a paycheck on a meal more than ten times in the last year without any remorse, and to be perfectly honest, I just love eating.
Unfortunately, the majority of my generation feels that it is perfectly acceptable to eat what can only be described as garbage; y’all might know them as frozen and other assorted pre-packaged foods. They would rather spend their money going out to get drunk, sometimes to the point that they blackout. Now I’m not saying that blacking out is a bad thing (on the contrary, as a shareholder of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the more you drink, the better the profit they’ll have for the next quarter, which means the more the street will like the stock, therefore meaning that the stock price will climb and I’ll make money off of your weekend you can’t remember), I just wish that there were more food lovers in my life, not that I’m saying I’m a foodie in any way whatsoever.
I actually have serious issues with people who feel the incessant need to photograph everything they eat in order to share the meal with others as opposed to enjoying it in the moment. At the same time, if one is too busy photographing the food, think of all the things being missed during this time: the incredible aroma that is rising off the plate and into the camera instead of the nostrils or just the overall atmosphere of the restaurant itself; many people don’t realize it, but the atmosphere of a restaurant does have an impact on the overall dining experience. Most of all, if you’re spending all your time photographing your food, then you could be missing out on the couple breaking up at the table just inches from yours at the Serafina on 61st between Park & Madison; and then she leaves and he’s sitting there for what seems like an eternity before realizing that she has his wallet! That whole mini-drama didn’t necessarily make the food taste any better, but it made the meal unforgettable. Y’all need to remember that the consumption of any meal, whether it is eating a bagel while walking to class or the tasting menu at Jean-Georges, is an experience that should be worth remembering. That’s all.
Well the last Spring Break I’ll get for at least the next few years has come to an end and of course my brain isn’t functioning regularly yet even though I’ve been back at school since Sunday. To make things worse, Andrew sent me the following clip from this past week’s Saturday Night Live, which I missed, that has to be one of the all-time funniest things to come from SNL and features one of my favorite people and America’s answer to the Two Fat Ladies, Paula Deen:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Now, aside from the sheer brilliance that are”That’s as stupid as fat free cream cheese,” “It started with me gettin’ what my mamma calls ‘the sugars'” and the ‘n’ word being nutrition, Kristn Wiig’s spot-on impersonation of my favorite hillbilly left Justin, Andrew and me wondering something: how does one spell my new favorite saying, “hot butter and oil” in this Southern dialect that is just too Southern for me to apparently comprehend. Now, I figured out this unique pronunciation of butter is “booter,” but the way Kirsten Wiig says oil is just so bizarre. Andrew thinks it’s spelled “aayl,” but Justin feels that spelling is wrong and offered “aaieyl.” Grace, meanwhile, is convinced that both are wrong and that it should be “awl.” I’m still trying to figure out how I think it is properly spelled so if anyone from my beloved SNL is dumb enough to read this, A, my mother thinks I should write for you (but her opinion doesn’t count because I’m her only child and like all Jewish parents, she secretly thinks I’m the Messiah) and B, (and more importantly), can I get the correct spelling, please. Thanks, y’all!
It should be noted that while writing about this, I came to the sad, and overly disturbing realization that is the tenth time I have mentioned the beloved Queen of Butter and the third time in 2012 alone! All I can say about this is “Hot booter ‘n’ oil [since the correct spelling yet to be determined, I will be using the actual English spelling of oil], y’all!”
Moving away from “hot booter ‘n’ oil,” Spring Break was nice, until I woke up 48 hours after arriving in Palm Beach sniffling like a teenage girl watching “The Notebook” (which, for the record, is a movie you couldn’t pay me to see). The only difference was that I wasn’t watching anything depressing. Now, I will not come out and say that I had a cold because I had dinner reservations every night and like hell was I staying in to eat a baked chicken from Publix!
So what did mother and I do once we dropped off our Lady Madonna at the airport on Sunday? We took two of the three free movie passes some moron gave him and drove down to Boca, Land of the Jews, to see the other Madonna’s new movie, “W.E.,” the movie about the love affair between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor while showing the blossoming love affair between a married woman named Wallis (because her mother and grandmother were obsessed with a woman who looked like a man and nearly brought down the entire British Monarchy; that right there is what I would like to call a great role model) and a security guard at Sotheby’s in 1997 during the historic auction of the personal items belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry because the movie doesn’t make any sense at all either. Sadly, the trailer makes it look half decent, but in reality, I actually left that theatre thinking one thing: I would like my free ticket back! Madonna, just go into retirement. The music career is over (I think the Superbowl Halftime Show confirmed it since you’ve now joined the league of such illustrious performers as Ashely Simpson and Kid Rock), you haven’t acted in ages; just let the 80, 90s and early 2000s music you made define your career.
Harvey Weinstein, as much as I have enjoyed many of your films over the years (I even bought an Adult ticket to see some of them, including my favorite movie of 2011, “The Artist”), I cannot believe you associated yourself with this overly confusing, poorly-made, recorded nightmare. I would call it a film, but that wouldn’t be fair to actual directors who know what the hell they’re doing!
Aside from visiting old Palm Beach restaurant favorites, mother decided that since I’m of legal age, it was finally time for her to do what she has wanted to do for years and that is go to get drinks before dinner at restaurants and hotels all over the island. See, aside from mother and I, no one in our family really drinks alcohol, aside from the occasional glass of wine with dinner so there has never been anyone who has wanted to go with her before me and hey, I wasn’t paying!
The Tapestry Bar at the Breakers is one of the most magnificent rooms in the world. There will never be rooms of that scale and grandeur ever built again and to be able to experience even a taste of what it was like back when Henry Flagler’s hotel was a second home to everyone who mattered for decades is just remarkable. Plus, they have a Happy Hour from 17h0-19h0. Mother and I each had a glass of wine, plus the trio of dips to go with the chips that accompanied our drinks (the Port Wine Pommery was our favorite because of its very subtle taste and smooth texture) was less than $20, including gratuity. And they validated the parking ticket! For Palm Beach, that is a bargain, people!
For non-hotel bars, we preferred Buccan, which is right on County, across from the one gas station left on the island. We’d never been before (because some people don’t like to try new things anymore) and decided to give it a shot. I’d heard that it’s more of a place to go for appetizers than it is for dinner and so we sat at copper-plated bar tables that glistened just like a freshly-polished copper pot. Again, Happy Hour exists in Palm Beach, which is odd because one would assume that every hour in paradise is happy. In addition to a glass of wine each, we shared the featured cheese and the prosciutto & fontina arancini, which I really enjoyed.
What I enjoyed even more though was knowing that I’m not the only guy who has to put up with his mother constantly trying to take photos of her “baby.” Two bar tables away from us sat a guy about my age, maybe younger, with his very thirsty parents who did what mother loves to do more than anything else: take embarrassing photos of young adult sons in restaurants with the flash. Do y’all know how annoying that iPhone flash is? I swear, I hate the flash, so when we were in Florida this time, I just started carrying my Leica around with me because I’ve come to the conclusion that if someone is going to be taking a photo of me, it’s gonna be taken with a real camera!
The highlight of the trip for me, though, was not having cocktails every night before dinner, but it was our final evening when we dinnered at Palm Beach’s newest restaurant, Imoto, a sushi bar with a limited Asian-inspired cuisine menu located right next door to Buccan. Despite probably belonging more in South Beach than in Palm Beach, a place that kind of shuns change of any kind, especially pennies because nothing in Palm Beach has ever required the need to even contemplate using a penny, Imoto is capturing a market that until now has been dominated almost exclusively by restaurant-turned nightclub after 22h0, the always popular Cucina Dell Arte.
Aside from not having a website as promised on the business card and matches, Imoto’s only flaw is that it’s only open for dinner. If they opened for lunch, that stupid Pizza al Fresco off of Worth Avenue would finally realize that you can’t charge $20 for a salad and not have service to match it. My only complaint with the dinner itself was that I would have preferred that the rice on top of which my fillet of beef was placed was a bit too spicy for my liking. That, and we didn’t get the orange slices like everyone else at the end of the meal. Mother’s rock shrimp tempura with spicy aioli sauce, which was not spicy at all (thank you very much), was so good the next morning cold before we left for the airport! The non-spicy, spicy aioli sauce gave it this invigorating kick that just took the overall flavor to a whole new level!
I highly recommend this place, but warn that if you happen to be over the age of 47, don’t be there past 21h0 because you will definitely be the oldest person in there. This might be the only restaurant in Palm Beach that won’t have a single customer on ventilation and that is impressive! In my opinion, Imoto might just be the new Cucina becuase it’s hip, it’s fun, the food is amazing, and most importantly, I wasn’t the youngest person there!
Mother’s highlight was a bit different from mine. She and Jean went to a charity luncheon at Mar-a-Lago for the American Humane Society because of a dog dressed in a pink gown and wearing a tiara. I’m not making this up. This year, the society was honoring Candy Spelling with their humanitarian award in recognition of her philanthropic efforts. Sadly, I think Princess Zelda, the tiara-wearing dog, got more attention because well, it’s a dog wearing a dress and a tiara vs. a woman who had three gift-wrapping rooms in the house she finally sold after being on the market for over two years. In all honesty, I’d being paying more attention the dog too.
Meanwhile, Andrew spent his final Spring Break on the Coast (I love saying that) doing whatever it is people in LA do. The high point of his trip came on the flight back, though, because Andrew was seated across the aisle from legendary actor Sam Waterston, better known as District Attorney Jack McCoy from Law & Order. Yes, cue the music:
Now, of course, because it’s Andrew, he refused to just make my life complete and casually make that infamous noise in Mr. Waterston’s presence during the plane’s descent into JFK , but he did tell me that he watched an episode or two of the show, so I guess he gets something for doing that.
Back in Florida, Justin, who continued to remind me over Spring Break that some people don’t get a week off for Spring Break anymore, to which I should remind him that he volunteered to graduate a semester early so it’s his own doing, is moving. He’s leaving his apartment not far from the Rollins campus and heading to a new apartment near my beloved Whole Foods in Winter Park. This was where I developed a disgusting obsession with the two-bite brownies, which I then topped with Betty Crocker vanilla frosting using a knife I took from the prepared food section. It was so delicious, eating from a trash can after discarding the evidence in an effort to stop inhaling anymore of them. And don’t judge because this is something that happened in college and everyone does some weird stuff in college!
Back to Justin, his move-in date is on April 22nd, when the average daily temperature will be 84°F, so you have fun with that one, Justin! He realized it was time to leave his current apartment, which he has had since this past summer, because the cinderblock chic decor that was provided for him and the noise from the house parties his college student neighbors make nightly was too much for him to handle. Having stayed there, I’m just so thrilled to see him leave that dump and move into a place more fitting with the 21st Century. I say this because in his on-going efforts to pretend like it’s 1975, Justin lacks something even my 90-year old grandparents have: internet access! Justin, the 21st Century can’t wait to see you again.
In a more serious note, today marks the 12th day since Justin smoked his last cigarette, cigar or pipe which is very impressive, especially since he’s too cheap to buy Nicotine gum or patches! I’m so proud of you, Justin, but at the same time upset because now I actually have to put thought into your graduation present!
Finally tonight, before I head to a “I’m Not Irish and Therefore Not Celebrating Tomorrow” party, I whipped out the Leica and took some photos of my dog, Buddy, when I was home last weekend before returning to Charlottesville to prove to Andrew that I do in fact use my new camera. However, His Royal Buddness (which is a name to which he will respond) is useless. Out of about 45 photos, maybe ten came out well because he refuses to stay still.
I would like to note that I’m fully aware that everyone who has a dog is convinced that they have the cutest, most handsome dog to have ever been brought onto the face of the earth, but I’m just saying that HRB looks like the cutest dog on the face of the earth in these photos.
Look at that 11-year old puppy!
He gets away with murder because of this face. I would pay millions to learn how to make it but he’s stubborn and refuses to tell me.
Alright, I’m off to go die of heat stroke here in Charlottesville while trying to imagine the same temperature with a breeze from the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach. It looks like this:
When I was staying in Winter Park with Justin just before coming back here to Charlottesville, we were sitting at brunch and his father called. While the conversation wasn’t on speakerphone and I could actually hear what his father was saying, Justin’s facial expressions and his very drawn-out response said it all. His father, like my own President Suharto, had but only one thing to ask: Have you found a job yet?
So naturally, I began asking Justin that very same question when he would call me and it was fun while it lasted because now, he has an answer that isn’t no. Yes, Justin, college graduate, has found a job to hold him over until he hurries up and applies to law school. He’s working as a clerk for the bankruptcy division for the law offices of Jew, Goyim and Goyim down in Hotlando.
For reasons that only he and people over the age of 70 understand, Justin finds the deathly summers of Central Florida to somehow be relaxing and enjoyable. Personally, the thought of potentially bursting into flames from the record heat doesn’t do much for me. But hey, Justin also wants to see the re-release of Titanic in 3-D, so he’s a free spirit anyway. Free spirit sounds so much better than “unique individual,” doesn’t it? Well, I guess free spirit would really be applicable if Justin were going backpacking through Bhutan before taking yoga in an ashram in India, but he’d never do anything like that, so I guess he really is just a “unique individual.”
The real issue now, however, is not where Justin is going to live (as charming as Winter Park is, where he is currently residing is basically off-grounds housing for Rollins students and the Thursday-Sunday non-stop partying isn’t conducive to a working person’s lifestyle), but rather what on earth are his father and I going to ask him when we call him from now on? After all, it’s far too early to ask if he’s made partner (seeing as that requires a law degree, among other things) or if he has his own office with a secretary, so I just… I don’t know what we’re going to be able to say to him from now on. In any event, mazel to Justin, our little graduate all grown up!
Well now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, after months of waiting while being told not to expect them to arrive from numerous, unnamed sources, what has to be the greatest gift of all time finally arrived at Grace’s doorstep on Tuesday! Inside the FedEx box, wrapped warmly inside their shoe bag was the gift that had been promised me a year ago by Princess. Yes, I’m making this big of a deal out of a single pair of shoes, but these are not just any ordinary shoes! These shoes can actually talk on my behalf! That’s right, I’m talking about the College Slippers from Stubbs & Wootton:
Now, I’m told that this is one of the last pairs of the College Slipper that was done in the linen; they’re usually a black velvet with a red U instead of this pair, which I feel will somehow get more use. The big question is where in the hell does one where a pair of shoes like that? It’s not as though one can wear them on a regular basis (because they don’t exactly feel comfortable enough to be everyday walking shoes) and there are no doubt certain situations when wearing them will not be acceptable, such as when out to dinner with one’s parents. Regardless of where (and when) they’ll be worn, I can’t thank Grace enough for this gift! She got me what I always wanted!
Meanwhile, Andrew insisted (to put it mildly) that I see the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the “not a 9/11, 9/11 movie.” Well let me tell y’all, IT’S A 9/11 MOVIE! That’s the first thing that was wrong with this movie. Julia Roberts should have played the part of Linda Schell, not Sandra Bullock; Oskar, the main character (played by Kids Week Jeopardy winner, Thomas Horn, age 14, meaning Jeopardy might survive longer than one would have ever expected), should have been seeing a therapist, not to mention the fact that he should have had more adult supervision! I don’t think I’ve ever been this upset about a movie in my entire life, and while I get that movies like this want the viewer to leave feeling somehow effected by what has just been viewed, but I left feeling angry at how insensitive Oskar was acting throughout the movie. Yes, he lost his father, but he left his mother to grieve all on her own without any sort of help, instead telling her he wished she had died in the towers instead of his father! AND WHAT KID IS AFRAID OF A SWING SET? And as a side note, there were scenes that showed taxis in the background that weren’t introduced until 2005, and unlike that one scene in The Queen where the modern cars can be seen in the background while the Jaguar is driving on the M4, I noticed this the first time!
To make up for the horrible movie experience I had with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, my friend Lindsay and I went to see the completely outrageous and over-the-top Joyful Noise, staring Queen Latifah and the Queen of plastic surgery (sorry, Joan Rivers), Dolly Parton! Now aside from the fact that this movie is just under two hours long and the overly dramatic family drama associated with Queen Latifah’s character, Vi Rose Hill, the movie is surprisingly wonderful! Between the young choir love, the music, the more mature choir love, “tap and die,” and Dolly having a shotgun in the vestibule of her home, I loved it!
The other thing that made this movie was the audience, which was half middle-aged white people who have probably visited Dollyland more times than I’ve been to the Preakness (22 times, if you count the mother being five months pregnant with me race in 1989) and then you had the black ladies who sang along like it was the Mamma Mia Sing-Along re-release and provided a great deal of very humorous commentary. We sat in the middle of the theater so we could get the best of both.
Besides, I don’t get the opportunity to hear such exciting music at temple, where the newest songs were written a long time ago, BC, and don’t have as much energy and excitement as it seems gospel churches have. Also, Lindsay and I have decided that we’re now going to go to one of these church choir competitions because they look hysterical, but of course we’ll be going for purely academic research!
Finally tonight, before I stop so that I might devout my full attention to Downton Abbey, today’s “36 Hours” column in the Travel section of the Times, took place in Birmingham, England. Now, I’ve been to Birmingham myself and I can say that unless they’ve made some serious improvements in the last ten years since I was there (for no more than one day, I might add). The Birmingham I saw was extremely dirty and reminded me of the images of England during the riots and strikes of the 1980s. Shurato had a conference to attend in Birmingham and Mother and I traveled along; we stayed about an hour outside of the city in the most picturesque hotel on earth, The Mallory Court, and on the one day we ventured into Birmingham, all we seemed to see was a British equivalent of the Baltimore ghetto, but with a Bank of Pakistan.
The place where the conference took place was in a part of the city that had been extremely gentrified to the point that it was surrounded by a recently-constructed fortress wall. The Hyatt Regency connected to the convention center didn’t even have a gift shop! Graffiti was on all the buildings and it was truly like entering another world. Apparently, The Times saw a side of Birmingham that we either failed to see or was built within the last decade.
Alas, time to finish watching my beloved Downton, so until next time…
On Friday, I braced the unseasonably cold weather here in Charlottesville and went out to see the first movie I’ve deemed worth seeing since this summer, The Rum Diary with Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, and the breathtakingly beautiful Amber Heard. Based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel of the same name, the movie follows the life of “journalist” Paul Kemp (Depp) as he leaves New York and journeys to the less idilic 1950s Puerto Rico, which at the time was in the midst of some not so great relations with the US, but we don’t need to go into details. In Puerto Rico, Kemp gets a job at the struggling San Juan Star and picks up a healthy-yeah, I think that’s the word I’ll use-appetite for rum, lots and lots of little bottles of rum. While there, he falls for Chenault (Heard), the fiancée of Hal Sanderson (Eckhart), a wealthy, influential and a bit cocky American millionaire who plans to develop a virtually untouched island that the military is about to sell so his wealthy friends can have a place away from the chaos and bowling alleys (which I’ve been told are no longer all the rage).
Kemp’s infatuation with Chenault leads to a most interesting and rum-filled story of corruption, racism, a wild night in St. Thomas, sex, and a bizarre Hitler connection that sadly not too many people seemed to have enjoyed. That said, I found the movie intriguing and entertaining. The Rum Diary, in theaters now, came in 5th place at the weekend box offices on its opening weekend.
So for some reason, this semester seems to be busier than any other semester I’ve had at college, hence I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. Since last chatting, I ended up receiving a second gift from Andrew, Assouline’s new book,”Maxim’s,” giving his gifts a French theme. I also received the incredibly heavy “Tachen’s Guide to London” from Justin with a note saying that I’ll get a second part when I see him in December on my way down to Palm Beach. Honestly, I’m terrified of knowing what that second part is. Grace, who has recently decided that she wants to fly to Switzerland and attend a finishing school for a few weeks, which could be both interesting and highly entertaining to hear about, has been granted an extension, once again, since my late birthday/Hanukkah present from last year, also known as the greatest thing ever, has finally been ordered and will be in Charlottesville before Winter Break!
Grace serenaded me at Midnight while we ate dessert at the C&O restaurant in Charlottesville, which I feel we’ll be going back to simply for the late night menu they have there. All in all, this birthday felt more mature and less juvenile as there wasn’t this sense that one has to drink to a near blackout state, which was nice.
In the two weeks following the celebration of my life, I’ve rediscovered the love I have for my ice cream maker. Last year, I believe I used it a grand total of two times. This year, I’ve used it about twelve times, with three of those twelve times in the last month and a half! See, I bought the Sarabeth’s Bakery cookbook from Rizzoli, although I honestly have no recollection of buying it, and have yet to make anything that requires my mixer. So far, I’ve made rice pudding (milk/heavy cream heaven) and butter pecan ice cream, which has to be the most amazing thing I’ve ever made! I’ve also made chocolate sorbet and chocolate ice cream, but they were from François Payard’s “Epiphany.” By the way, the chocolate sorbet left cocoa powder all over my kitchen (I found more three days ago) because instead of being a user-friendly container, the cocoa powder I bought comes in a box so it is absolutely impossible to get a measuring cup in it! I don’t know why, but I just love having my ice cream maker more than ever. This week, in honor of the fact that there are only twenty-three days until Thanksgiving, I’m making maple ice cream! Sarabeth, on behalf of my soon-to-be-rapidly-expanding waistline, thank you!
While I’ve been eating way too many pints of homemade ice cream, Andrew has been losing sleep to the point of waking up in the middle of the night because he has been busy organizing a special screening of the upcoming movie, Grassroots, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, father of Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. If you’re at Duke, or for some reason decide the Durham in November is just the place you need to be, it’s at 19h0 in the Bryan Center and is followed by a discussion with M. Gyllenhaal and his wife, Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal, who is c0-producing the film. It sounds like fun and if I didn’t have a class at 9h0 Wednesday morning, I’d probably be going down to Durham (the things I do for my friends) as a way to escape from what will be way too many “Sleepless in Charlottesville” nights leading up to Thanksgiving, just without a cross-country romance and ice cream in place of Rosie O’Donnell’s character.
Finally tonight, Justin has gotten a new car! This is car number three, though we can count it as two since the last one, a very used Volvo, isn’t worth remembering. In a move that I never thought imaginable, Justin broke his rule of never even considering an Asian car (or box, whichever word you want to use to describe them) and got a new Hyundai Accent SE, which is… I’m not going to judge it until I see it in person in six weeks. That said, I still like my little workhorse of an Audi! It gets the job done and unlike everyone who has ever heard me sing, doesn’t complain when I do!
Well, after what’s been a crazy weekend with Halloween parties that we don’t ever need to discuss, snow blanketing the Northeast in October and the fact that I wore socks before mid-November for the first time since 2007, October seems to be going out with a bang and November is coming in for landing at Mach 2.0! I believe that this clip of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps does a pretty good job at summing up what my month is going to be like:
Thanksgiving can’t get here soon enough! Until next time…
-JD
PS: This past Friday night was Global Champagne Day and so of course Grace and I celebrated! Personally, I think we should celebrate this holiday more than just one day a year, don’t y’all?
I mean really, it would have done wonders to his self-esteem! Besides, I’m sure there is a spell in the magic world that could have just made a nose appear. So yes, I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. I have to say, I found it to be a slightly moving one because if you think about it, the Harry Potter series has in fact shaped my entire generation. I was barely nine years old when I started reading Harry Potter books and now I’m twenty-one as the last movie comes out. That is thirteen years of my life that I have spent with Harry Potter! The only other thing that I have had just as long is a pair of eye glasses that I do not wear in public (unless I really have to) that will be fourteen in a few months, and I’m throwing them out before that milestone is reached.
I remember exactly where I saw the first movie and with whom I saw it; I bought so much chazerai when the movies first came out; I was absolutely obsessed with them. Also, I still have the same crush on Emma Watson I had back in 2001. So with all of these emotions filling my head, I sat in front of a man dressed as Dumbledore who critiqued all two hours and five minutes of this final Harry Potter movie. I must say that I’m okay with the fact that the movie didn’t follow the book word-for-word, though as “cute” as it was, that epilogue scene could have been left out because I think it ended on a really good note already. As always, the kids did great (I guess we can’t call them kids anymore since they’re kind of really my age) and the adults were phenomenal, with a special mention to Maggie Smith and Julie Walters for their amazing line delivery, and of course a pause to mention Helen Bonham Carter because she now no longer has an excuse to dress like a crazy person who has just done copious amounts of drugs!
In closing, I just have to say that while not adored by every critic, the Harry Potter franchise helped my generation love books. It gave us a reason to go to a bookstore other than to buy a CD or magazine. They offered an escape into a world that was entirely unknown and you know, it’s nice to have a place to go to escape the muggle world every now and then. Also, I’d like to thank J.K. Rowling for sharing her brilliant beyond brilliant story with the world and for inspiring so many to keep dreaming. Until next time…
Last week, I went to the Vinegar Hill Theater in Charlottesville to see Woody Allen’s new movie, “Midnight in Paris.” I know the movie came out in late May, but it’s better late then never! Okay, so I loved it, but probably for the wrong reasons because for me, it was more about seeing Paris and less about the story that Woody Allen created around what is probably the most beautiful city on earth.
In case y’all have been in the Sahara for the last year,”Midnight in Paris” follows Hollywood writer Gil (Owen Wilson) and his new money fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams), on their freeloading trip to Paris with Inez’s parents (Mimi Kennedy and Kurt Fuller). Inez and her parents remind me of the cast of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I say this because only people from Beverly Hills would check Goyard luggage and bring multiple Birkin bags on one trip.
Gil goes out for a walk and ends up going back in time to the Paris of the 1920s, meeting Hemingway, Picasso, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, and Dalí. It’s an era that Gil feels was Paris at its best. It’s at this point in the movie when I began to question why he was engaged to Inez, a Malibu-loving label whore whose mother is one of those women who thinks she has great taste and has turned herself into a decorator because she hast too much free time and nothing to do! Inez is the exact opposite of Gil and it becomes quite clear that they have little in common and she really just with him because he’s rich.
All of that said, I loved the movie! I thought it was Woody Allen at his best. No, it wasn’t “Manhattan” or “Annie Hall,” which will forever be his greatest movies, but it was really quite amazing. The way Allen shows Paris is just as magical as the way he shows New York in “Manhattan” as a character on its own, and it was just so enchanting that I’m ready to go back tonight (no really, instead of driving back to Virginia Beach for the 4th, I can just go straight to Dulles to catch the 21h50 flight to De Gaulle)!
Now, in my last note about the movie, I have to say that I read last year in the Daily Mailthat Mme. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the prettiest spouse of a Head of State anywhere in the world, required thirty-five retakes before finally getting her scene right. I thought she did a great job playing a tour guide at the Rodin Museum, regardless of the number of takes that were required.
Moving back to reality, the pair of J Brand raw denim jeans I bought finally made it up here to Charlottesville, courtesy of Annie, just in time for Grace’s birthday bash. Now, maybe it was the heat that was messing with my brain, maybe it was the fact that I bought them very quickly (I tried them on because they had to be shortened), maybe it was because I had just had an interview, or because I had eight blisters with two more on the way because I was wearing my new pair of Tod’s, but these jeans are very slim-fitting!
Now, I’m not complaining because I love them and I wanted a pair of jeans that doesn’t have a label on my tuchus! I’ve gone nearly seven years with everyone knowing that I wear 7 for all Mankind or AG Jeans because you can tell by the logo. Even though my new jeans have a leather label on the back, my belt will hide the J Brand logo (I always wear a belt and I don’t understand why people don’t wear belts, especially if there are belt loops on their pants), so I have nothing to worry about now! Plus, I was talking with my favorite Rollins graduate/fellow French class survivor, Tasleem, and she said that she only wears J Brand because they’re “The only brand that fits me well.” That’s all I needed to hear, because as much as I loved that first pair of 7’s, these feel right.
Now, everyone who knows me now knows that I’m obsessed beyond all belief with Twitter after a few years of me refusing to accept Twitter as a normal social media tool. Now, I think it’s brilliant! Well, among the now seventy-five Twitter accounts I follow as of right now is Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Ivanka Trump‘s husband, soon to be father and owner of the New York ObserverJared Kushner. Unlike Jared, Joshua Kushner actually tweets things and on June 28th, he tweeted this video, which I watched at about 3h30 because I couldn’t sleep and it rocked my world:
This has to be the neatest thing I’ve EVER seen in my life! I just can’t get over how amazing this is and I have to try this “liquid mountaineering.” Thank you, Joshua Kushner, and Twitter for this amazing moment that has captivated me for the last few days!
Finally today, I have a major announcement to make. After years of refusing to visit, I’m finally going to go somewhere I’ve never been before, even though I’ve had the chance to go so many times! That’s right, 2011 is the year that both the New York Times and I discover BROOKLYN! Andrew used to live and go to school in Brooklyn Heights, but I still never saw a reason to go across that bridge to see it. Well, that changes this summer because this time next week, I’ll be back in Virginia Beach packing to spend the last six weeks of this summer, my last as an undergraduate, in New York, interning at Departures Magazine, the American Express Platinum and Centurion card member only magazine! I’m so excited because it’s a magazine that I love to read and find to be not just entertaining, but interesting(Andrew says it’s his favorite magazine), and I just can’t wait to get there to start because all of the people there seem to actually enjoy their jobs! And as an added bonus, Andrew is working two blocks from where I’m working, so we can get lunch on a regular basis! Last summer, my lunch consisted of me in a Starbucks for thirty minutes. This summer, I have so many options that I won’t know where to begin! This might actually be the first time in my life that I genuinely love Midtown Manhattan, even though it’s full of tourists who walk at a glacial pace!
Getting back to talking about Brooklyn, I figured that with this being a year of trying new things (after all, I stood on an active volcano on the island of Sicily, toured vineyards in Bordeaux, went to a museum dedicated solely to medals given to the Republic of France, and managed to get wine back from Italy without changing the color of my clothing in the process), so I figured that if Brooklyn is good enough for the Times to re-discover, then it’s sure as hell good enough for me to see for the first time!
I’m going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, see where Andrew went to school (oh yeah, Andrew, you’re going with me on this little journey to Brooklyn) and then that’s all I’ve got so far, but I am going to visit the Brooklyn Slate Company because I think their slate place mates are kind of neat (and can double as great shields during food fights). Well, that’s all for now, but I wish y’all a Happy Fourth of July and until next time…
Well, Christmas is over and the child molester flew back to the North Pole to rest and prepare for yet another month of molesting next year. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the sales that come with the most popular holiday of the year, so I guess thanks are in order? So in the time between now and our last “chat” together, I moved out of my apartment in Charlottesville (oh what a joy!) in only two car-loads, which I must say was impressive considering how much stuff I own. Additionally, mother and I did the trip to Florida this time (Field Marshall Rommel lucked out) and it was um… bizarre.
Unlike Field Marshall Rommel, who only allowed me to stop so he could deal with his “problem” (a problem that I’m sure Flomax could fix, but that’s just a personal opinion), mother insisted we stop on a regular basis. Interestingly, every time we stopped, we were near an outlet mall. Gee, what a coincidence! When we arrived at the “lovely” Courtyard by Marriott in Florence, South Carolina, mother slept in her clothes for fear that the sheets hadn’t been washed and that we would contract bedbugs. It’s been over a week and nothing yet has happened to me so I rest my case. The drive itself was a bit more verbal than the previous ones, which have usually consisted of Rommel telling me he needed to use that facilities every hour or so and little else, but it was okay, on the whole.
There was one minor incident when he reached Florida, however. After visiting an outlet mall in St. Augustine, we go to get gas. Well, mother has some credit card that she has to call before going out of town (literally, she has to call before using it in Williamsburg, which is an hour away from our house) to let them know that she would be using it. I have only done that when I’ve traveled abroad. Meanwhile, we arrive at the gas station and my American Express was declined, so we drove to the one across the street where it is declined again. I immediately received an email saying there were fraudulent charges on my account because of gas station charges along I-95, which is odd because this was only my THIRD drive from Virginia to Florida!
So we pull into Palm Beach and the next day, we’re on Worth Avenue and spending like we’ve sold the house for cash! Mother’s card for which she had to call and give prior notice was declined due to “extremely high prices” being charged to her card in more than one store, which lead her to have a mini-meltdown because it was kind of embarrassing. My cousin Kevin arrived and was dragged to see The King’s Speech immediately after landing by mother and me. He thought it was, “well produced;” I think Colin Firth’s performance is going to win him the OSCAR he deserved last year in A Single Man.
Now, while all of this was happening, G-d sneezed while doing a line of coke and it blanketed the entire East Coast in feet upon feet of “snow,” which, aside from leading to a sudden drop in the price of the powdery drug (rich, prep-school kids around the nation rejoice:
(Yes, I do realize how fitting it is that Mick Jagger and David Bowie, super druggies, are singing this song; hell, they looked coked up in this video)), meant that flights weren’t exactly running on schedule. So mother’s flight is supposed to leave at some inhumane hour on Sunday morning and I had to drive her to the airport only to basically leave the airport because it was undoubtedly canceled. This was also a major glitch in my usually perfect Day After Christmas gift shopping because there’s no telling as to how many great items I missed out on by not being at the doors to Neimans or Saks at 8h0 like usual. To make things worse, I ran into this “sweet, little old grandma” with whom I fought over a tie a few years back and to my astonishment, she was still breathing! She had taken a tie out of my hand and when I told her I was buying it, she laughed with amusement while saying that I was too young to need a tie to wear (I was sixteen and attending a prep school that required one to be worn every day at the time) and I told her that it didn’t matter if she bought it because no one would be alive to wear it by the end of the day (harsh, I know, but Starbucks wasn’t open yet and I was on the backend of a sugar high). She then saw me outside of Neimans talking on the phone to my cousin and overheard me say that I was just going to look at the Ferragamo ties on sale and then leave so what does she do? She bought every single Ferragamo tie on sale, EVEN the duplicates! When we saw each other in Neimans on Sunday, it went through the following stages: calm, shock, double take to make sure it was her, a “DAMN SHE LOOKS READY TO KICK THE BUCKET” thought, a glance from her, hate in her eyes, mutual stink eyes, and then back to being asked, “why aren’t you looking for my size?” by mother. This video does a good job of encapsulating it all:
Monday came around and I still couldn’t get Southwest to just force her on the plane. FINALLY, she gets on the plane on Tuesday, only after yelling at me for being late because I had to put oil in my car after driving it to Orlando/Winter Park the night before to see my friend Tasleem before she goes back to Canada. When we pulled up to Fort Lauderdale International Airport, she turns to me as says, “Don’t drive too far away in case I miss the plane” EVEN THOUGH I GOT HER THERE EARLY! Y’all, I got out of there so fast because I could not bring myself to have to drive back to Fort Lauderdale again on Wednesday (I had plans).
Winesday (yes, just like the Today Show‘s cocktail hour with permanent drunk, Kathy Lee Gifford, and FORMER award-winning journalist-turned-babysitter to a drunk, Hoda Kotb calls Wednesday) was spent with everyone’s Jewish grandmothers in their winter homes in BOCA! with Andrew, which as y’all can imagine, was a spectacle. There simply is no other word to describe what happens when the two of us are together. We told off a security guard at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, over-ate, went ice-skating on marble floors with wooden-soled shoes (I nearly broke my neck, which has it’s benefits because then I could sue the life out of the hotel for having a way-too-slipery floor and then never have to work a day in my life, so DAMMIT WHY DID I HOLD ON TO THE RAILING? I COULD BE IN A HOSPITAL WITH PUDDING AND A SPOT ON OPRAH ALL READY TO GO!), multiple indecisions over whether to take a boat or to wait for a shuttle, complaints about children, BROS, spectacular views of BOCA!, a bad ending with the Focker clan (musical condoms?), saw this poster: , got rejections from about five restaurants, had a waitress who must have been having her time of the month that night, ateLike a Missed Period, I Guess I’m Late! seafood restaurant with a view of man-made lake, and thrown out partridge and a pear tree!
In case none of y’all got that, Little Fockers might actually be the worst movie I’ve ever seen, save for the Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman scenes, which were either about sex or making jokes at the expense of Jews, both of which are usually necessary! We had a really good dinner at the seafood restaurant City Fish Market, which was where I discovered my new drink of the moment, the Rue Royale, which is delicious and goes down rather smoothly.
It was Thursday though that really made this the best end to the best year of my life. We went to Donald’s little shack in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, for lunch. Y’all, it’s stunning. There are oriental rugs outside, which I hope get put away when it rains, but still. We ate by the pool oceanside, since Andrew said that the other pool area was basically for old people (he was right since the youngest person there was on oxygen I think). While eating a delicious lunch, we spotted the heirs to the hairplug’s fortune, Donald Jr. and JVanaka! Well, Don Jr. looks just like daddy (which is not good), but JVANKA is amazing! Yes, JVanka is a single unith that refers to Jared Kuschner and his gorgeous (and now Jewish, so in case they get divorced I have a shot) wife, Ivanka Trump Kuschner, who does not have that fat, chipmunk face in real life, by the way. Here’s my first question about JVANKA: HOW IS JVANKA NOT EXPECTING A CHILD YET? I mean really, if you were married to either one, wouldn’t you be in bed shtupping 24/7? I’m just sayin’. The only reason to not want to have children so soon might be out of fear that it could end up looking like Grandpa Donald, whose youngest son, Baron (aged five), will be an uncle when this child is born. Getting back on track, Jvanka went off to the tennis courts and Andrew and I waited ten minutes before following. Leonardo couldn’t have sculpted better legs (personal opinion of course). Plus, girl is smart because she had the tennis pro playing for her. However, here’s where Jared messed up: he was beating his wife at tennis (strike one) at her father’s club (strike two) while staying at the same club (strike three). Regardless, it was a huge relief to know that despite looking like a chipmunk in photos, Jvanka’s face is not fat in real life, which make Maggie and me happy (Maggie, a friend of mine whom I met through Andrew looks to Jvanka as a role model, nothing more)!
After leaving Club Hair Plug, which was immaculate and showed few signs of being a shrine to el Donaldo as I expected, Andrew and I headed up to Worth Avenue for a simple stroll around and then dinner at Michael McCarty’s, which was great as usual (their macaroni and cheese always hits the spot). This was a sad day because Andrew and I were faced with the fact that our daily talking time, which is probably more than what it should be, is about to be extremely restricted starting in January since we will have a nine-hour time difference between Siena and LA. Somehow, I feel we will find a way to overcome this.
So in the middle of finals week, Grace welcomed a new member to her family (Maury Povich, what am I?
Thank you). Weighing in at just over eight pounds, I’d like to introduce Grace’s new baby boy, Henry Flagler Wilkins:
That’s right, it’s a great dane. Rachel said she can’t wait for the day when she can replace her human body pillow with HFW while I can’t wait for the day when we can rent him out for birthday parties and pretend that he’s a pony who just has some spots. Grace also managed to break her arm following a lovely evening of karaoke. I decided to stay in that night and missed all of the festivities involved.
Sadly, this holiday season has not been without its painful moments. Justin’s grandfather passed away on Christmas Day in his home in New Jersey. From what I’ve heard about him, he seems like a lovely person who I know will be greatly missed. On the bright side, Justin said that at least he now had a chance to wear his new, vintage three-piece suit from Gant! Also, I managed to completely corrupt the once intellectual Justin since he now loves my love, Wendy Williams and has watched her show multiple times this month. So Justin,
Well, to wrap up what has without a doubt been the best year of my life, I just want to wish y’all a very happy new year and let’s all hope that 2011 is just as fun as 2010! On a more serious note, let’s also hope that Barbara Walters remembers that she was once a distinguished journalist who would never bring herself to interview the cast of Jersey Shoreor Justin Bieber. Worse, she would absolutely NEVER learn to Dougie:
From my lounge chair oceanside in Palm Beach receiving tweets from @YesImWaspy and getting lost in my book, The Widow Clicquot, until next time in 2011…
-JD
PS: In the final Basil Watch of 2010, Rommel sent me this photo of my little plants just a few weeks before they’re to be moved into their new home, a terra-cotta pot:
Did I mention I was Jewish? Anyway, Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I know mine was just a tad bit more of a fuck-up than usual, so hopefully it was the same for y’all. So Justin decided that since he couldn’t kiss-ass his way into the Kennedy Compound at Hyannis Port this year, he’d travel to the “Real South” for the first time (yes, Florida is the southern-most state in the Nation, but with everyone’s bubbe and zayde on the Sunshine Shuttle between Zabar’s and Boca, combined with the extreme insanity of the state:
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and
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Florida is basically the Northern-most State in Union, while Maine, with its lobsters (they have them in Florida too), basically hillbilly-esque residents (not all, but most) and the Bush Family Compound in Kennbunkport (Florida, Florida, Florida), basically should be below Georgia (which would make more sense since both states are a little… special:
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I rest my case.)
As I was saying, Justin made his first venture into the South this past week. Since there was obscene traffic getting home, we stopped in Williamsburg so Justin could play hopscotch around horse manure in the dark while strolling down Duke of Gloucester Street. We then had an absolutely fantastic dinner at the Fat Canary, which The New York Times said was the place to eat when it did its “36 Hours in Williamsburg” article in June of 2009. It has to be one of the best restaurants in the state of Virginia and has turned the once unrivaled Trellis into a tourist-only freak-show complete with a kid’s menu and food not worth its price.
Following dinner and our stroll along Duke of Gloucester Street, Justin and I climbed back into Old Faithful and drove home to Virginia Beach. On Wednesday, I took Justin to see all of the historic sites of Norfolk including the Battleship Wisconsin (from the stoplight), the Moses Myers House, my grandparents, the Chrysler Museum, ODU, their house, our Temple, the original Norfolk Academy, Ghent, the Virginia Zoo, they have original Westinghouse appliances that still work, the Hunter House, Scope, Chrysler Hall, the Harrison Opera House, and because the MacArthur Memorial was closed, I took Justin to see MacArthur Center. In addition, I took Justin to Doumar’s, the Norfolk institution that is more important than just about every other site in the city. By judging the small stain on his jacket after lunch, it’s clear to say that Justin was more than satisfied by his visit.
Then came Thanksgiving, which started off alright, but then it became painfully obvious that Al Roker had taken too many crazy pills and that should have been a sign right there that I should have just gone back to bed and slept through the day.
So mother imprisoned Justin in the kitchen and basically chained him to the counter so he could peal vegetables for her and help with the sweet potato pies. I, in addition to making desert, was forced into slave labor so we could have the haricots verts with crispy fried shallots and whatever else needed to be done. Justin got to see a side of me he never thought he would ever be fortunate to witness: me being domesticated, cleaning dishes, cooking, screaming at people for being incompetent (okay, so he’s seen that before). The table was even a diva experience as mother was unable to find the right table cloth she wanted to use and, as usual, made it my fault somehow. She looked like she was on the verge of tears when the turkey came out a tad bit overdone, but I reminded her that the only thing people remember is desert and that it doesn’t matter how the turkey tastes. This year, I made three deserts: a French chocolate bark, an apple crisp and a vanilla armagnac ice cream (yes, all three are Ina Garten recipes; I love her because her recipes are designed for humans, unlike a particular nutcase:
Prison did wonders for her!). Sadly, due to technical difficulties with ice cream maker, which was acting like an incompetent fool, it wasn’t done in time. Twice during the course of dinner, we seemed to lose my Uncle, who lives for his sports and just went away unnoticed for a good ten-fifteen minutes. Grace, as usual, came over, having spent part of her day out hunting for ducks. She was kind enough to send a photo:
My cousin Kevin, crazy person, informed us that he had been online from 23h0 the night before until 7h0 Thursday morning shopping the sales before sleeping until 16h0. After dinner, he went to Wal-Mart and Radio Shack before collapsing in a bed. Black Friday was spent showing Justin the oceanfront’s sites: the boardwalk, the Dairy Queen that puts on a firework display for the 4th of July it’s so popular and many other touristy areas before getting dinner at Mizuno. We then joined Grace and my cousin Holly to see the film Love and Other Drugs, which was a huge letdown. Let me break it down: two hours of random, pointless sex (not that there’s anything wrong with it), a rich people pajama/sex party, a great plug for Viagra, and then trying to find a plot in the final ten minutes of the film. This was a huge letdown for all of us, who were all expecting so much more from Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway (Grace was sad that Anne Hathaway wasn’t as bitchy as usual). The film just lacked any sort of direction, it was pointless, boring, made no sense whatsoever, and as a classmate of mine said this morning when agreeing that the film was bad, «At least someone else paid for my ticket or else I would have demanded a refund.»
Saturday morning began with brunch with Grace and Annie at Mary’s, a «favorite» local diner before going back to their house to watch Virginia Tech destroy UVa. Justin got to meet Walter, which was purely wonderful. Meanwhile, I took this photo of Annie, to which she responded, «That’s why the boys like me!»
Following this, Justin got to go walk on the beach, which was FREEZING, but nice:
After this, it was time to head to Richmond so Justin could go where no sane person has ever gone before: a Greyhound bus station. It turns out that he has completely lost all sense of sanity since he’s been out of school and didn’t understand why I was yelling at him for even considering taking a bus to Manhattan in the first place. He wanted to get some reading done and thought this would be the only way possible. IT’S CALLED AMTRAK YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL! There aren’t fights that break out on a train, you don’t have to sit in fear the whole time worrying that you might get shot and there are no changes in DC. Instead, you get two power outlets, a café car, a footrest, and a pillow/blanket!
Grace spent her Saturday night in a deer stand, but sadly turned up with no venison for me to cook. I returned to Charlottesville to find my basil basically dead:
I’ve brought them back to life though:
And yes, I’m reading «True Prep,» which Justin, it mentions my beloved Tiffany & Co. monogramed belt buckle that you said was hideous as being very preppy, so as Jim Cramer would say, BOOYAH!
Finally this evening, Andrew spent his Thanksgiving with his family (<3 them) in BOCA and he sent me fifteen photos from inside Donald Trump’s Florida club/private hair plug treatment center, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. I thought I’d pass a few on:
Ladies, if that pose doesn’t make y’all swoon, frankly I won’t blame you because that is kind of a scary sight. And yes Grace, I can see he has a large bulge; they’re called socks.
I wasn’t aware that you could earn Six Stars, especially since the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences only has Five Stars on its logo. I’m looking into this and will report back later.
So, clearly it’s been a freak week, but as Cyber Monday turns into the Tuesday after Cyber Monday, and Hanukkah is now less than twenty-four hours away (seriously, it’s starting this early? I mean if we had moved it up a week, we could have done latkes and turkey on the same day (and I bet that would go well with the apple sauce and Costco caviar)! Andrew and I wish to inform whatever idiot that decided Hanukkah could start this early in the season that we’re not prepared! I’m not supposed to buy Wikileaks his annual Brooks Brothers tie with his Brooks Brothers MasterCard (which is only used when making purchases at Brooks Brothers I might add) until after New Years, when I get it for over 60% and am fighting little old ladies on Worth Avenue who tell me that I’m too young to need a tie and then I have to remind them that they’ll probably be dead before they get home! What? It’s part of the tradition. Besides, I don’t even know what I want for my four gifts. All our goyim friends get an extra month practically to pick out their thirty-six presents, decorate their trees, bake the cookies for the pedophile, and listen to Christmas music while we’re stuck watching oil burn in a candle for eight nights (and they say it’s wrong to stereotype)! Anyway, until next time…
-JD
PS: Congratulations to Jean and Lily for managing to avoid their government-mandated fondle at Newark and for both making it to France safely! Justin, on the other hand, experienced something like this when flying to Richmond last Tuesday:
Look at that 11-year old puppy!
He gets away with murder because of this face. I would pay millions to learn how to make it but he’s stubborn and refuses to tell me.
The Yapper 