Yesterday a.m. was productive for me in terms of academic writing. Wednesday afternoon Ms. S. and I took in part of our ‘rotation’ before her afternoon/evening shift. While she was at work I prepared dinner for myself, did some more work, and took in a couple other episodes. What interested me about all of them was food.
1. SG-1
It’s my meat-and-potatoes show.
We’re in season 9 (I’ve watched it all before; it’s new to Ms. S., and she’s not enamored of Cam Mitchell), toward the end, with only two episodes left. And so this episode was “Arthur’s Mantle,” in which Sam and Cam activate an Ancient device and are shifted to an ‘alternate dimension’ (but an alternate alternate dimension, not the one Daniel was shifted to during the Crystal Skull episode), not an alternate universe, mind you.
Season 9 is relatively meta and self-aware; not only has Cam read all the previous mission reports, but he wonders about alternate dimensions, etc., and he’s curious as to whether they’ll have to eat or drink … and other bodily functions. Now it’s not that self-aware or self-critical; they don’t wonder why if they can’t touch tables and cups and walls, they can touch floors (insofar as they do not sink through them), and they don’t wonder how it is that if they can see people (light hits their eyes) but people can’t see them … but just about every such story has these issues.
Some time back Ms. S. noted that just about whenever SG-1 characters eat in the cafeteria there is (blue) jello. I wonder whether it’s an inside joke; I also consider that in terms of sitting all day on a set and holding up to long takes, jello is better than a lot of ‘fresh’ foods. This episode, though, Cam had a hankerin’ for some hash browns. Later he laments that the one time they make roast beef is the time he is ‘out of phase’ and can’t have any.
I wanted hash browns and roast beef …
… I rarely get either these days. Roast beef for one — not to mention finding reasonably (not cheaply) priced organic or grass-fed beef in this town — is a losing proposition. I love potatoes, but hash browns is not a preparation I’ve done for a while, since they often seem like a starchy side dish to an already carby meal (i.e. breakfast … with a waffle or pancakes or grits).
2. Bones
For a while this was my healthy-alternative to regular network television. It was never that exciting or exotic, but it was a variation on a theme; not it’s gone mainstream.
For some reason I “go into” Bones several years ago. I like procedurals; I especially like procedurals with a twist or a take, and Bones came long after a long line of two takes on said genre: the forensic and the freak. In the forensic sub-genre we deal with the particulars of evidence and analysis; in the ‘freak’ we get the abnormal detective, the one who sees better because s/he sees differently. In this latter category we of course have Grissom from CSI, but also Monk, and D’Onofrio’s Detective Goren. One might also add House and Holmes, though it’s worth noting that in the original Holmes stories Holmes is a tad eccentric, but hardly psychologically pathological as sequels and adaptations have portrayed him. And Bones gave us both: a protagonist originally acted as emotionally distant and stunted, with both childhood trauma in her past and a fashionable hint of something like Aspergers, as well as a focus on the “hard science.”
That focus has disappeared, becoming in recent seasons just a cipher and nod to trivia. Angela can reconstruct or decode whatever the plot requires, for example. It’s all “wow,” and it even parodied itself last season when Booth and Bones went to Hollywood to observe/advise a film adaptation of Bones’ books …
… this most recent episode moved ahead at a decent pace with great timing; although the plot was all paint-by-numbers, there was a joy in what the actors were doing, as Sweets went out on a case with a replacement for Booth, who was stuck behind a desk crunching numbers. The Bones-Booth material was easily the weakest part of this; but the over-the-top need to blow things up, the quick back and forth of the dialog, and the ridiculousness of the identical twins and their cookie-cutter wives made it all pass by enjoyably.
In the last moments Booth and Bones get some down time for dinner, and quinoa is served.
Ah, quinoa.
I’ve known about quinoa for years, but curiously enough it’s only been in the past year that I’ve gotten around to eating it. Ms. S. is not as overjoyed by it as I am, which, in the-glass-is-half-full world, means more for me. I also hadn’t had amaranth, and while all the big boy stores carry quinoa these days, only the local “healthy” market carries the latter; I need more recipes for amaranth. Both seeds are so small they substitute rather nicely as a more flavorful couscous, but less so for rice or whole grains.
3. Castle
As with Bones it’s my guilty-pleasure-procedural, the difference being that while Bones has gone downhill since its earliest seasons, Castle has always been a slacker show. It had some high concepts, but no ambition. In the first few episodes of season 1, when Rick Castle would get together with his poker buddies, real life mystery writers (all male, of course), there would be some smart, but literate and literary, discussion of how the case would play out, based on genre assumptions. That is, for a few episodes, Castle was an almost postmodern take on the genre.
Since then it’s been the Nathan Fillion show. And there’s no reason to dislike it for being that.
The main complaint would be: it’s formulaic and predictable. It brings nothing new to the table. If it’s just another example of the genre, why/how does it stand out? It should offer us something, such as character chemistry. But the problem has always been that that chemistry is one-sided: all Fillion, no Katic.
Luckily with the new season that has changed a bit, and as other reviewers have noted, whereas in most shows resolving some of the romantic tension and getting the leads together often signals a bad turn in quality, here things have improved. Fillion is his old self (but mostly without his mother or daughter); Katic actually showed hints of emotions other than the 1000-yard-stare on that mannequin facade of hers.
Somewhere in the B or C plot Castle found himself on a ‘date’ with a local television personality known for her line of bikinis, but instead of going out to a restaurant she bullied her way into Castle’s apartment in order to seduce him with oysters and chocolate-covered strawberries.
My only experience with oysters comes from childhood when I had an oyster chowder that I despised. I had a cookbook for kids that had such a chowder recipe in it, too, but I never made it. I always loved clams, though. Somehow oysters have remained a mystery. I feel as if I should go to a good oyster bar at some point and try them, rather than buy some and come up with a preparation.
But strawberries …
… Ms. S. buys little pints and so of them from the store and takes them as a snack to work. But store-bought fresh strawberries are such a risk. Not like fresh oysters, not in terms of what they could do to your stomach, but in that they go bad so quickly. Some of the time. Other times they remain ‘fresh’ and blemish- and fungus-free for days on end.
… I have a several-pound bag of frozen berries in the freezer, and I add them to oatmeal and smoothies. They nuke well and thaw relatively nicely. I should make a sorbet or sherbet with the ones I have.
… last week or so I was hungry for chocolate-covered strawberries and decided to throw together something between a dipping sauce and a ganache together with cocoa, butter, vanilla, and sugar. Frozen berries and nuts were covered and frozen again. The results were delicious and a bit decadent.
4. Thursday
Ms. S. works the night shift today and so we’ll probably hit a bit of the rotation this evening before she departs. If it’s SG-1 there may be jello; if it’s Parks & Rec, it could be waffles. If we return to Oz, I’m not sure I want to know what they’re cooking up in the prison …
