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[S. Woody White]

So what kind of goodies are ya'll looking forward to on the official "Stuff Yourself Silly" day?

Thanksgiving will be spent with der Brucer's family, his daughter and all of her fixings menfolk.  I've been asked to bring sweet potatoes and the Smithfield ham der B promised to share some time ago.

The sweet potatoes will be very traditional, as requested.  (Also, as it becoming tradition, she asked her daddy to ask me, instead of doing the asking direct  .)  Orange juice, brown sugar, chopped pecans, marshmallows browned on top.  The advantage to this is that I can make it at home, and we can reheat it at their place.  The disadvantage is that son-in-law cannot stand sweet potatoes.

By the way, the tradition of marshmallows on sweet potatoes apparently started in the 1930s.  A lot of bad food ideas come from that decade.

I've never prepared a Smithfield ham before, so I've been looking up country hams and aged hams in my cookbooks to get the basic idea of what I'm supposed to do.  Apparently, step one is to get out a good scrub brush and some plain soap and start scrubbing.  Smithfield hams get a patina of mold on the outside while they're aging, and that needs to be washed off before anything else can happen.  They're also coated with salt, which also has to be washed off first, then leached out by soaking, preferably for a couple of days.  Then, the ham has to be skinned and a lot of the fat layer cut away...

This sounds like a lot of work!  

Fortunately, I was able to talk about this with my favorite chef, Charles.  His suggestion was to soak the ham in the sink, usually the most spacious area in any kitchen and the easiest to drain away the salty water.  He also gave a few suggestions on roasting the pig leg when it's been fully soaked.

So, I'll be scrubbing that ham tonight.

Since I'm in a Holiday mood, here is another question.  What was/is your favorite Holiday classic?  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, Frosty The Snowman, The Little Drummer Boy, Year Without a Santa Claus, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, etc?

Oh, how I remember Rudolph.  Der B has never seen it, but we were able to find it on DVD and he's got no excuse now!

I also fondly remember Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, with razzleberry everything.

[S. Woody White]

An animated Christmas page three dance to you all!

[S. Woody White]

Star Wars:  Full Screen or Wide Screen?  Which one would you buy?

Wide screen.  Just don't try to watch it on one of those TVs you can set on your stomach while you lay down on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner.

[Panni]

FYI - The newest CHRISTMAS CAROL was shot in jolly old Budapest.

I walked to the Studio City Farmers Market this morning, Bought some nice fresh tomatoes and lovely flowers for the new home environment, as well as a few other items. Now will clean up the office, await a visit from my landlord, Giorgio (yes, he has a charming accent) and then do an errand or two. After that I will finish clearing my office space -- tomorrow it's back to work full time. Among other things, tomorrow afternoon I have a big phone meeting with New York (not the whole city, just a few select people) regarding what I dearly hope will be my next gig.

DR Elmore - Gift of Love was run on United Airline flights to (or from) Hawaii a few Christmases ago, so I guess it must be holiday appropriate. Debbie Reynolds gives a lovely performance for which she was Emmy nominated. As I said yesterday, it's not War and Peace, but it has some nice moments.

[S. Woody White]

Yesterday I heard Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is? on the radio and I decided that it must be the stupidiest non song ever recorded. Does anyone have other choices for the stupidiest non song ever recorded?

"They're Coming to Take Me Away"?

What bothers me about "Is That All There Is" is that it is such a damned depressing song.  How can it ever have been a hit?  Or was it that a lot of people identified with the ditty, because it was released before Prozac became the drug of choice?

We'll break out the wine and self-medicate
If that's all there is!

[S. Woody White]

Always widescreen.  Jennifer, you are simply tied to your square TV and wanting to fill it with an image.  However, when you fill it with an image of a scope film you are missing forty percent of the image, and every composition that the director and cameraman strove for is no longer in evidence.  The motion picture is an art form.  Would you prefer the painting of The Last Supper with only the center portion, so it could fit your TV?

If you can stick to films made prior to the Scope processes became popular, you should have plenty to watch without losing any of the filmed image.  And there are plenty of films out there that were made for the TV screen.

Of course, since many current television programs are being made in "widescreen", you may soon have to stop watching anything new.  

[S. Woody White]

And the joke about gettting a widescreen TV - people like Jennifer (and there are millions) who want their TVs filled, will then be upset that older Academy ratio films and TV shows (you know, anything made before 1953 and most TV shows up until the last few years) have bars on the sides of the image and only fill the center of the screen - I fully expect that they will want those images reformatted or they'll use their zoom feature and just lop off the heads and feet.

Cinematography by the great Sidney Carton!  Love it!

[S. Woody White]

From the "Kids Say The Darndest Things" file...

I turn on my laptop, and start IE.  Playbill.com is my home page.  And on the homepage today is a picture of Dame Edna's opening night playbill:



My nephew comes by...  "Hey, is that a picture of you?"

-"What?!??!  No!"

"Well, it sure looks like grandma!"

Hmmm...

I can't quite see you with fuchsia hair, DR Jose.  Teal, perhaps, or possibly lilac...but you'd risk being mistaken for Mrs. Slocombe.

 

[JoseSPiano]

...Unless I'm just blind to my own post... Or maybe I just thought I hit the "Post" button...  I thought I had posted this already... In any case...

DR elmore - I'm heading back down to Richmond tonight, so I'm afraid I won't be able to meet up with you while during your LoC visit.  Safe travels, and short waits (at the LoC).

...Now I go back through the posts now and see that I indeed already post this, then...

 

[George]

Hmmm, am I the only one who hates widescreen?

No.  I work with a woman who doesn't like widescreen, either.  Up until a few years ago, there were even a couple of movies that she wouldn't get because they were only available in widescreen.  She has since relaxed her standards.

I prefer the "original aspect ratio."  Whatever it was filmed in or originally shown in.  The worst is when they take some TV shows (and some movies) that were full frame and cut off the top and bottom to make widescreen DVDs.  I hate it when they do that.  Modern movies such as "Dick Tracy" were shot full frame and matted for the theatrical release and that's okay...for the most part.  In that case, I have the full frame laserdisc.  But when they take older movies that were NEVER widescreen and crop them because audiences want widescreen no matter what, then that's just plain wrong...in my humble opinion (IMHO in Internet lingo).

[Ginny]

Dear husband Richard and I just returned from major Thanksgiving grocery shopping, which we had to do today, because I work Monday and Tuesday and didn't want to put it off until the day before the big day.  Have other fun and important things to do that day like baking pumpkin and pecan pies and going to the Univ. of Cincinnati to pick up our freshman son, Rob.

Safe travels to the Pogues and to elmore, who's going to LoC, one of my favorite places.

[George]

I've never prepared a Smithfield ham before, so I've been looking up country hams and aged hams in my cookbooks to get the basic idea of what I'm supposed to do.  Apparently, step one is to get out a good scrub brush and some plain soap and start scrubbing.  Smithfield hams get a patina of mold on the outside while they're aging, and that needs to be washed off before anything else can happen.  They're also coated with salt, which also has to be washed off first, then leached out by soaking, preferably for a couple of days.  Then, the ham has to be skinned and a lot of the fat layer cut away...

This sounds like a lot of work!  

Sounds disgusting!

I have to admit...well, I don't have to, but I'm going to...I don't like turkey.  Chicken's okay, but I just have never liked turkey.  Or stuffing.  When I was still in school (middle and high), there was a period of about five years where I got sick at Thanksgiving time and wasn't able to eat.  Shucky darn!  Anyway, nowadays I only like turkey thinly sliced on a sub sandwich.  This year, we're having the food fest at my sister's house.  She's getting me sandwich stuff.  Fine with me.

[Matt H.]

And Peggy Lee won her only Grammy as Best Female Performance for "Is That All There Is."

[Matt H.]

This afternoon I watched the third in the NUNSENSE family of musicals: NUNSENSE JAMBOREE. During the course of NUNCRACKERS, several of the characters including the character I play make reference to JAMBOREE, so I thought I ought to watch it to see what they were talking about.

It was as tuneful and silly as all the NUNSENSE shows are, but even if I'm very prejudiced, I think NUNCRACKERS is a far superior show to JAMBOREE with a lot more heart and better songs. It's also not as long, for when you go too much past 90 minutes, the whole worldly nun concept really wears out its welcome. JAMBOREE was over two hours.

[Charles Pogue]

According to  my exec, everybody including Jennifer Love Hewitt does their own singing.

[S. Woody White]

...The worst is when they take some TV shows (and some movies) that were full frame and cut off the top and bottom to make widescreen DVDs....But when they take older movies that were NEVER widescreen and crop them because audiences want widescreen no matter what, then that's just plain wrong...in my humble opinion (IMHO in Internet lingo).

It's the new colorization!  Eeeewwwww!  

[S. Woody White]

On a related-if-odd note (D flat, I think), I've lost track of the number of times I've been asked while shopping for DVDs what the difference is between fullscreen and widescreen.  

All right, it's only happened maybe five or six times, but since I'm not really sure of the exact count, that counts as losing track, right?

It usually happens at Sam's Club, where an older couple (my age or older) will be holding two different copies of a film, one widescreen and the other full.  From the puzzled looks on their faces, I can guess what the problem is, so I go over and help them understand why the film has two versions in release.  No, I don't pretend to be an employee.  No, I don't tell them which version to buy; there have been enough films on TV by now shown in widescreen that people have seen what it looks like.  And I get a lot of thank-yous for the help.

My next job, perhaps?

(By the way, this used to happen to me at the Long Beach Sam's Club, as well as the local store in Dover.  I suspect it would happen to me in Kalamazoo.)

[George]

On a related-if-odd note (D flat, I think), I've lost track of the number of times I've been asked while shopping for DVDs what the difference is between fullscreen and widescreen.

I work for a library and co-workers ask me what's the difference between widescreen and letterbox!

[S. Woody White]

Which reminds me, we need to get large dog biscuits.

It's one of those odd shopping things.  Normally, der B and I are nominally together, often covering different parts of a store, and Sam's Club is no exception.  I'll have the list, and he sort of explores.

Friday, because he was up with the Grandlads, he ended up going to Sam's Club without me (but not alone, since the younger grandlad was with him.  Precocious fellow, William knew what he and his family needed Grampa to buy, like cereal.  Even at four years, he's better organized than anyone else in that household).  There were two items I knew we needed ourselves: dog biscuits and mushrooms.  Only problem was, I told der B over the phone that we needed the LITTLE dog biscuits, when it was the LARGE biscuits we were almost out of.

Why I remembered little, instead of large, I don't know.  I do know that if I'd been there, I would have visually remembered large.  It's a visual thing, but one that didn't translate into the right words.

But we've got plenty of little dog biscuits right now.  At least we won't be running out of those for a while.

[Noel]

That's easy: Widescreen is a pretty good song by Rupert Holmes.  Letterbox isn't.

[George]

That's easy: Widescreen is a pretty good song by Rupert Holmes.  Letterbox isn't.

Thanks!  I'll remember that the next time the questions comes up!

[Dan-in-Toronto]

DR Elmore,

Good question (whose translation of The Lark, at Stratford). Checked Stratford's website, but couldn't find out. It opens August 11, 05.

[Dan-in-Toronto]

That's quite a trivia question (questions). Each time I think I have a new angle, it fizzes out.

[Jason]

I've oversung today. How do I know? I feel like I've pulled a tendon in my throat. Not a good thing.

Re. tipping: Someone asked yesterday if I thought the people around us didn't tip at the end of the night because they heard me call out El Cheapo. I don't know. I'm not even sure they checked their coats. It wasn't my intention to say it loudly so they'd tip me - I just wanted to embarrass the hell out of him, which I think I did. I'm sad to say it's the norm to only walk out with $5-$10 in tips after a four hour show.

I'm of the opinion that if someone provides a service for you that you could be doing yourself, then you should tip. That hateful man asked me if I would expect him to tip for a $1.25 cup of coffee. I said I would and that if he didn't want to tip $.50 for a $1.25 cup of coffee then he should make his own coffee at home and carry a Thermos. If you can do it yourself and don't want to pay for it, then by all means, do it yourself. No sweat off my back - literally. Eat at home. Keep your coat on your lap. Bring your own cup of coffee. Schlep your own luggage. Fine by me, but if I'm going to serve you your meal, carry your suitcase, pour your drink or hang your coat, you better believe you should tip me, and when I go out and people do those things for me, you better believe I tip them the way I would hope to be tipped. It's called courtesy.

And now I will step down off my soapbox.

I'm off to the Encores! Bash at City Center. Ms. Patti LuPone will be singing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and Mr. Brent Barrett (TSMOE) will be performing, as well. Tres exciting!

[Dan-in-Toronto]

On the subject of tipping (I'm catching up on posts). I have a neighbor, a retired CNR (Canadian National Railway) porter, who has some interesting stories about tippers, generous and miserly. He tells me that "service people" like himself are almost always healthy tippers.

As for museums, my favorites include The Cloisters in upper Manhattan; and the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo.

Years ago (merging topics) I went to New York with an extraordinarily wealthy friend and her husband. We went to the Cloisters, where the admission wasn't set - it was simply whatever you wished to pay. I placed a five dollar bill into the box. My friend's husband told me I was nuts. He dropped in a quarter. (I don't go out with these people any more, but I do remember topping up their meager tip at a Chinese restaurant.) (How wealthy are they, BTW? They have one kid - and nine bathrooms.)

[George]

I have a friend who, as a general rule, tips 20% but never less than $2.00.  Just had to share.

[bk]

elmore's review is up at amazon - I liked it very much.

[Jane]

Re: tipping


As for DR Jane's comments about leaving extra tip, do most people leave cash tips?  I know I usually pay by credit card and leave the tip there (and so do many people I know).  Hmmmm, if someone else is paying, how exactly do you sneak a look at the bill and then check what they've left?  I guess I'm not used to this!

Jennifer you nonchalantly get money out of your purse, and then as you are leaving you make sure you are the last person to do so.  Another method is to leave something personal on the table you have to retrieve.  I usually know before hand if I need to leave an extra trip.  Remember this is only if someone else has paid and I feel the tip is too meager.  If a group is putting in money and I don’t feel it is enough I will openly say they need more and throw it in.  You must be careful then, yes this has happened to me, someone will then remove the portion they put down.

Like td, if we are paying to begin with then it isn’t a problem including a big tip for additional service, or to cover our rude co-diners.  Sometimes instead of including the tip with the credit card slip I leave cash on the table.

[Jay]

I'll be leaving shortly to meet some friends for dinner, after which we will hie ourselves to Walt Disney Concert Hall for a concert by Miss Barbara Cook.

[elmore3003]

I'll be leaving shortly to meet some friends for dinner, after which we will hie ourselves to Walt Disney Concert Hall for a concert by Miss Barbara Cook.

DRJay, I'm jealous!

Dear Friend BK, thank you.  I thought I'd phrased it better yesterday.  I am so looking forward to seeing you in two weeks,  PARTAY!