Friday 25 December 2015

M&M: Home Alone

Dear reader,

most of you will already know Home Alone from the year 1990 with Macaulay Culkin, one of the child actors of all time. If no, go watch it. If you missed it yesterday, there's a repeat this afternoon, much like every Christmas. (At least this applies to the German television program.)

Kevin begins rather pitiful. He's the youngest of an extended family and is either ignored or gets riled up. The older siblings don't even grant him a piece of cheese pizza! When he gets attention, then it's in a bad way, at least for the others. While the mother is totally annoyed with Kevin, sending him to the attic, Kevin wishes some quiet time from the others before the Christmas days.

When he comes down from the attic the next day, he finds that his wish was granted. In the haste of the departure for the holidays in the early morning, the others totally forgot about him up in the attic and he's home alone. Naturally this is like an invitation to make just everything he was never allowed. Eating ice cream as much as he wants, also his beloved cheese pizza, without sharing it with anybody at all. But things like doing the laundry, and the washing machine is in the basement, together with the scary heating boiler and shopping has to be done as well. Kevin manages being brave and clever. Just like when Kevin meets an elderly neighbour, he has to pull himself together a bit so he doesn't ran away in panic. But since he's alone now, he can't afford avoiding everything and running away.

But his cheese pizza order already hints that Kevin is by far not a little angle. He scares away the deliverer away in such a way that he runs away and is actually scared for his life!

Cleverly wrapped as a comedy, the viewer hardly notices just how sadistic (yes, sadistic) Kevin already is with his 8 years. He shows absolutely no compassion, but is full of creativity and a high rate of malicious glee, when he protects his home from “wet bandits” Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) towards the end of the movie. The two burglars against Kevin are almost like a real-life Tom & Jerry. Like Tom & Jerry, Kevin's traps against the “wet bandits” are pure comedy and you better don't think at all about what such injuries would do in real life. An interesting article with assessment of the injuries by a doctor can be read at The Week.

“Home Alone” is a very strange movie. It shows the experiences of a boy, who days before Christmas, the celebration of family and love, is simply forgotten by his own family and has great fun, as he protects his home in the most brutal ways. If you look at it like this, that's basically a movie in all points a movie that can ever get you in the mood for celebration of love and yet... and yet it manages just that every time, at least for me. Who of you, at the time of screening, is not busy with your own family, should go and certainly treat yourself with this movie. Although made for children, it's also a nice entertainment for adults as well.

Until next blog,
sarah

Thursday 24 December 2015

Headless Christmas!

Dear reader,

all right, I know that Christmas is at a bad time this year. For us at least, you can go shopping up until 2 p.m. on the 24th though. Friday and Saturday then are Christmas Day and Boxing Day and the next “normal” day is stupidly a Sunday. Which, in my humble opinion, doesn't explain or justify the panic buying, some certain people are currently doing. While I was standing in line at the cash register for lettuce for my guinea pigs, I overheard the female cashier at the cash register next to me, tell a buyer that they are actually out of some stuff even at the headquarters, because certain things were bought so often. While some people were speaking of shopping “like for a war time”, others were talking of shopping like for a nuclear blast that was ahead. In any case totally insane. Yes, there are some holidays and most people probably have visitors coming over and are cooking a couple of courses, rather than the usual single meal plus maybe a small starter and/or dessert. And yet...

On the way back from shopping I came past a house where a group of people were going back and forth between the car and the house entrance. In the hallway I could see four six-packs of water. After I told that to a friend of mine, he suggested, I should have asked what they need all that water for. Even if one partied three days straight with 30 people, I could hardly imagine them drinking all that water up.
 
By the way: a Christmas hat I searched for on the 24th for in about six or so shops, including toy shops and as well as variety stores, turned out to be utterly unsuccessful. Christmas hats were of course sold out.

May we all survive the long four days without possibility of shopping head of us! Merry headless Christmas to you all! ;-)

What kind of shopping experiences before Christmas or on Boxing day did you have this year?
Until next blog,
sarah

Saturday 19 December 2015

Fortune cookies

Dear reader,

I'm always at certain friends on New Year's Eve and I always like to get a small present with me for that circumstance. Now I always get a bunch of glow lights and the year before last and the year before that I had made caramelised nuts. Years before that I once thought I could make fortune cookies myself. Judging from the pure recipe, they're relatively easy to make. My sister, who is more experienced with baking, helped me dividing egg white and yolk as well as getting the cookies on the sheets and removing them. The really difficult part with that is that you have to work fast, because the dough on the one hand has to be baked to a certain degree to be able to shape the circles you put on the sheet to their typical fortune cookie shape and of course you've got to put the slip of paper in as well. On the other hand the fresh cookies, when they come right out of the oven are of course very hot and if you wait for too long, they get hard and you can't quite shape them anymore.
I don't remember anymore which recipe I actually had used, but the following one from allrecipes.com is an example of how it's typically done. I spare me copying the recipe here and just give you the link instead:

I'd suggest looking up the fortunes ahead of everything else and either writing them by hand or on your computer and printing and cutting them out. I forgot which fortunes I used. I'm certain there are many pages with fortunes for fortune cookies to be found with your preferred search engines. Just look for fortunes that you like best.
I still have a small note on my cookies though: of course I wanted to make a test run (or rather test baking) before my visit with the friends. So I made a few cookies just for us as family, but already with the fortunes in the cookies. So I had a small bowl with cookies sitting in the living-room and my father, who didn't know about the cookies, saw them and put one whole one as it was in his mouth. I cried out in horror that there was a slip of paper in! He fumbled with his finger to get the paper out of his mouth and threw it in the waste without a further glance on the paper. After that experience I told the friends and everyone, who grabbed one of the cookies on New Year's Eve, that they have a slip of paper in them. Contrary to my father, the friends took it for granted and ate the cookie accordingly with caution. ;-)

Until next blog,
sarah