Foodstuff Friday: let's go to the Lowes or AMCs house for the holidays

This year Thanksgiving falls in November. Whatever. There is a rumor I will be sharing a meal with two relatives, though it was the younger relative who told me her mother was going to be on the east coast. Since I'm pretty darned sure no one I'm related to reads my blog I'm not poking or suggesting. Just telling you the news.

Sure I like a bird, stuffing, mashed potatoes--what's not to like; but what the Turkey Scrooge recommends this Foodstuff Friday is: Mr. Movie Snack. Theaters open early most places. Holiday movies are happy, glossy, tear-jerky.

Not to digress but have I told you about the Christmas Day my family saw Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers? I was eleven or twelve. "The pivotal scene in the film comes when Simone rapes Nadia in front of Rocco . . . " (copied and pasted from Answers.com).  Good times! If I knew available resources back then as youngsters do today, I would have reported my family to Children's Protective Services.  (Adult me recommends Visconti's The Damned, but not on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Mother's Day.)

Back to Mr. Movie Snack.  Such foodstuffs are easy to dress up with a buttery coating that shines like morning dew on Dow Chemical Corp. Who can pass up orange dye added to Elmer's glue glooped over nachos? I can, but apparently they're popular. 

Alice Waters followers might prefer a simple, unadorned box of Milk Duds.  Or combine the Thrill of the Sweet with the body's need for iron and roughage by choosing Raisenets.  We're hardwired to pass the box to members of our tribe, shake out a handful and offer a tribute to Mr. Movie Snack by messing up the already sticky floor.  

A suggestion for classicists is boxed--but now is available in a small tub!--bon bons.  Oh the feel of that exquisite crunch into a cold chocolate-like coating over vanilla-like ice cream-like substance.

I confess I no longer eat candy while at the movies though I could be tempted by famously unhealthy Mr. Movie Snack popcorn.  And keep this between me and you but I have no problem if you smuggle in candy. Times are hard and that stuff costs. A close "friend" has been known to smuggle in nuts, frozen yogurt and coffee.

Here's a list of poetry or lit-related movies to rent: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/195 (in which case, all bets are off, snacking wise and on wise snacking). But nothing goes with Denzel Washington or Jennifer Lopez like a rise in blood sugar.

Christmas movies, Abba, booze, free asssociation

When I moved to New York I was introduced to a loose group of gay and straight men and women, all younger than I am, devoted to their vodka, especially David, my egress to the group through a Seattle friend. He was extremely intelligent, gay, self-sufficient and devoted to booze. He was also devoted to things Scandinavian (he spoke several languages), including Abba, would crank up the stereo and we'd dance.

He owned his apartment, always enviable, but that didn't guaranty compliant neighbors. The stereo was usually and quickly cranked down. He made use of the interim to pour another round. I'm not a dedicated drinker and by then—I was in my forties—not much of a drinker redux and amplified; but very much a wuss. More than once I remember surreptitiously pouring my drink into a plant (sorry) or empty glass. Nancy Reagan, honey, it's hard to say no.

I wasn't happy with these friends and eventually they were no longer friends. A different David and some others, who I met in my first six months here, are still friends. We see action movies together and go out for a meal. Back then we'd also play board games.

I am faced with a conundrum today, a problem lite—very lite. A few times a year we have brunch first and then head to David's apartment to watch a DVD, instead of going to a theater. I've been asked to offer a few suggestions. You must remember, my family used to go to a movie on Christmas Day, after festivities died down.

A movie on Christmas Day sounds great (at least to me) but there is that serious streak running through my blood. One year we saw Brother Rocco, a grim Italian art film. I was ten or twelve. I was outraged. I didn't turn away from art film, but reserved a space in my ten or eleven year-old heart for fun film.

David is okay with comedy. He likes it, but another and more dominant of this group is disinterested. Maybe it's silly movies associated with dope. Harold and Kumar (the first was good, the second dull). I want to suggest, among other movies, The Ringer, which stars, of all people, Johnny Knoxville, and has a horrendous premise, that Knoxville will fake being "special" so he can enter the Special Olympics. So he can win. So his uncle, played by Brian Cox, who will bet, can get money owed to bad people.

My next blog will be a story I wrote, published in 2005. It's locale is a rooftop I danced (to Abba) on through the graces of the first David. I was diverted by the Davids and memory. But it all fits.

to. be. continued.