Food: BOTANICA

A healthful restaurant & market in L.A.

The restaurant uses this recipe to spoon over cooked Japanese sweet potatoes (purple skinned with white flesh kind). But you can use the salsa for multiple uses; fish especially. Spoon generously over the potatoes or fish. Garnish with cilantro. Yum!

Salsa Verde

Makes about 1½ cups

1 large shallot, minced
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 bunch parsley, finely chopped (tender stems are okay, too!)
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped (ditto)
2 tablespoons capers, roughly chopped
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 cup delicious olive oil
Sea salt

Place shallots and sherry vinegar in a medium jar, stir, and set aside to soak for 15 minutes. Drain the vinegar (we think this gives just the right amount of acidity) and reserve (in case you want to add it back in for more acidity), then add the rest of the ingredients to the jar and stir well. Add a nice pinch of salt and a couple grinds of pepper. Stir again and taste: You’re looking for a balance of acid, salinity, and herby freshness. If it tastes too harsh, add a few more splashes of olive oil. If you want it punchier, add a bit of the vinegar back in. It’ll keep in your fridge for a couple of weeks, but the chances of it lasting that long are slim!

LA is a veritable Eden, and the vegetables and fruits that we’re able to buy locally never fail to amaze us. What better way to eat than to celebrate what’s beneath our noses? If we can inspire someone to get excited about produce, or to shop at the farmers’ market — that feels influential.

Taken from Atelier Doré, an integrated creative studio + website @ http://www.atelierdore.com/

Girl Who Would be King

Monday Mood Board #11

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad, my dad & me, as a toddler with my parents

My dad died 25 years ago, only six months after my mom passed away. I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately, especially after having just lost my husband of 25 years (timing was good and bad the year we got married) and a close friend three months before him. But we humans do find strength and manage to carry on with our day and get through it, no matter how painful.

Allan King, my dad, was many things. He was warm and generous with a wicked sense of humor and had an adventurous spirit. He loved kids and animals. But he was also unconventional, complicated and restless. He loved a good card game and played for money. Red was his favorite color. He was extremely smart. He skipped grades at school and as a result hung out with an older crowd. He got bored easily. My mom always said she knew him better than he knew himself but even so, didn’t really know him. Maybe that’s what kept them together.

He was born in Russia of Jewish descent and emigrated to New York as a young boy. He spent many years in Manhattan before deciding to move to Ottawa, then Montreal, where he met my mother. He loved everything Montreal. He was friends with Lorne Greene (Bonanza + Wild Kingdom whom he met in Ottawa) and knew William Shatner. He knew a lot of people.

With my grandfather (mothers side) & their dog Prince.

His easy come, easy go carefree attitude was daunting to some, and at the same time admirable, as he lived life on his own terms.

With my grandmother (mothers side) and my mom.

He got lots of speeding tickets and refused to wear a seat belt. He smoked but never touched alcohol (except for the occasional toast).

He was compared to handsome actor John Garfield (Postman Always Rings Twice…..)

I would stay up late and watch the Tonight Show and old movies with him, even though I should’ve been in bed.

Main thing I remember was that he cared about us and that’s really what mattered most.

I miss him and will celebrate him in spirit.

FUN, Girl Who Would be King

Feel-good Friday: Listen up

My friend went to Cuba and all she brought back was this fine bunch of Cubans. They’re called Brisas del Palmar.

If you live in Vancouver you have the opportunity to watch them perform this evening. I’ve seen them before – they’re amazing! In Vancouver for one concert only before returning back to Cuba for Fall/Winter is EL GRUPO CUBANO – BRISAS del PALMAR.

Fresh from engagements in Victoria: these Cuban musical ambassadors have performed for the Pope and granted diplomatic passports to represent Cuba in international music competitions. Their traditional music and danceable tunes are featured daily on the nationally broadcast Radio Taino. Their winter engagements include Bodequita del Medio, the Havana bar made famous by Ernest Hemingway! Yes, I’ve been there too. And yes, I had a daiquiri (a temporary departure from mojitos). Havana little more:

Where: St. James Hall – 3214 West 10th Ave., Vancouver, B.C.

When: Friday, October 13th at 8 pm. They start on time. Doors open at 7:30.

Cost: $20 at the door

Sampling: 5 years ago at the Vogue Theatre:

PURE FEEL GOOD MUSIC

Film Reviews

VIFF: Borg Vs McEnroe

The Perfect Match

The game of Tennis is somewhat compared to the game of Life

When you commit a fault, you are given another chance to get it right.

If you make the same mistake again (double fault) you pay for it.

When you have an advantage, it’s up to you to make use of it. If you don’t, someone else will.

Any point in the match can be a turning point.

Every new game begins with “love all”

All of us make our own unforced errors (we all have our imperfections). That doesn’t stop us from trying.

We always want to ace it. This movie did.

I’m normally not so into sports movies but this one is about one of, if not the, greatest tennis match of all time. The 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Finals between cool Swede Björn Borg and hot tempered New Yorker John McEnroe. It was a stimulating battle of opposite personalities.

Borg was the top tennis player in the world, dominating the sport both on and off the court. He had already won four Wimbledon championships in a row and this would be a record-breaking fifth.

McEnroe, considered among the greatest in the history of the sport, was famous for his shot-making skills, as well as his confrontational on-court behaviour.

The players are incredibly acted out by Shia LaBeouf (McEnroe) and Sverrir Gudnason (Borg). It delves in and out of how they first started out in the game and the enormous pressures put upon them. You realize they have more in common than what is initially perceived.

In the end I found myself rooting for both of them.

Last two days for screenings. Get your tickets here: https://www.viff.org/

Film Reviews

Bombshell – The Hedy Lamarr Story

Beauty and the Brain

It’s a complicated story. Hedy Lamarr was one of those women who had it all. Beauty, brains and a career as a Hollywood actress. Perhaps most famous for her movie Samson and Delilah and a whole bunch of other lesser known films.

Born Hedwig Eva Kiesler in Vienna, Austria, to Jewish parents, she was considered an icon, regarded by fans and critics as the most beautiful woman to ever grace the silver screen. But she had so much more to offer than only her looks and it’s a shame she wasn’t recognized for that. She also had a beautiful mind. She could have been a scientist. What is so amazing about this documentary by Alexandra Dean, is that it delves beneath the surface of a legendary glamour queen and 40’s sex symbol to explore the depth of her other talents, specifically her mind.

Of course any legend worth her weight in salt is not without scandal. She was no exception and it was a hot mess. Six ex-husbands, denounced by the Pope at 18, drug addiction and financial ruin. Can you imagine what kind of reality show that would make?

The Hollywood Reporter:

“A mechanically minded, self-taught inventor, Lamarr was 5 years old when she took apart and reassembled her music box; years later, when she was dating Howard Hughes, she allegedly revised his designs for a plane she knew wouldn’t be able to do what he wanted. Her biggest claim to the glam-nerd hall of fame, though, is “frequency-hopping,” an idea she came up with during WWII: Hearing that Allied forces’ radio-controlled torpedoes could be thrown off course by jamming the frequencies transmitted to them, she teamed with a friend, composer George Antheil, to implement a solution. Perhaps inspired by an early remote-control for home radios, the two adapted the mechanism of player-pianos to propose a system that would skip from one frequency to another as a torpedo traveled, with only the broadcaster and the torpedo knowing which frequency would be used at any moment. The two were granted a patent for the device in 1942, but the Navy rejected it. (They put her to work selling war bonds and entertaining troops instead.) But a version of the design was used in the Cuban Missile Crisis, after the patent expired, and worked its way into practically all modern wireless communications tech. “Wi-Fi and Bluetooth — that’s my mother’s technology,” boasts Lamarr’s son.”

Before even seeing this film I loved watching a rare TV interview where she appeared on the Merv Griffin Show in 1969 joined by Woody Allen. She had a sense of humor and an amazing personality to boot. A total delight. What a woman!

The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) ends on Friday, October 13th. If you want to see about tickets please visit: https://www.viff.org/

THINKAboutit

VIFF: BLUE

What lies beneath the waves falls on silent shores

The very first time I went scuba diving was in the Bahamas. Fascinated with what lay beneath the sea, I was lucky enough to go out with a team from National Geographic and swam with sea turtles and lots of Grouper. I was hooked! Since that time, and in other locales, I noticed it getting rarer and rarer to spot certain fish and especially sea turtles. A lot of these creatures have been around much longer than me, and sharks have been around since the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. Which is a lot longer than me.

Karina Holden’s Blue is an important and timely documentary for everyone living on planet Earth. Filmed on location in Australia, Hawaii, the South Pacific, Philippines and Indonesia, it’s a very tough closeup look at our oceans and all disappearing marine life.

It really hits home, as it should. It makes you consider your choices and makes you question how you can make a difference. How even one person can help make a difference. Think about it.

Why on earth, in this day and age, are people still cutting off shark fins and throwing shark bodies back into the ocean? It’s sickening and it made me cry. Seabirds who rely on fish to sustain them are also in rapid decline. We, as a whole, have to do something about it. But there is a chain reaction because uneducated people who have no money and who live in small fishing villages in third world countries thrive on the livelihood of this industry. And $100 per shark fin is a lot of money. It is wasteful and horrific.

WARNING: More than half of all marine life has been lost due to plastic pollution, over fishing, habitat destruction and the expansion of industrialization.

While we get closer to a trek to Mars, why not concentrate first on what we can do here on Earth to make our planet a better place for all living species?

Because a healthy ocean is key to a healthy planet.

Please WATCH this short Trailer:

The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is on until Friday, October 13th. For tickets and information please visit: https://www.viff.org/

Film Reviews

VIFF: The Florida Project

Two things drew me to this film: 1) Willem Dafoe is in it 2) it shows the gritty side of living near a place where dreams come true.

That place is Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

On the other side of the tracks, just outside the magic kingdom lies a bunch of rundown motels originally built for the overflowing tourist trade looking to save a buck but still be close enough to get fairy dusted.

But this is not an enchanting story. It revolves around a specific motel The Magic Castle. A mother/daughter relationship, a place where tough talking families live, barely able to make ends meet, scraping by just to make the monthly rent as the housing crises rises. The inwardly frustrated although patient motel manager, is played outstandingly by Dafoe. But the real stars of this movie are the motel kids who live in a world all their own. You feel sorry for them, and you also cannot stand them as they go about their precociously uncaring antics. They are, after all, a product of their upbringing.

It is another world to many of us, but too familiar for many others. A despairing time and place in America; all too real, right now.

It’s a fascinating look from a safe distance into a chaotic world of what is the opposite of enchantment, mostly seen from the eyes of the kids.

Directed by Sean Baker (Tangerine)

One more week left. Check it out @ https://www.viff.org/

Girl Who Would be King

Feel-good Friday: Give Thanks

For a little Inspiration from A-Z. DARE TO . . .

Ask for what you want.

Believe in yourself.

Change your mind.

Do what you love.

Enjoy each and every day.

Follow your heart’s desire.

Give more than you receive.

Have a sense of humor.

Insist on being yourself

Join in more.

Kiss and make up.

Love and be loved.

Make new friends.

Nurture your spirit.

Overcome adversity.

Play more.

Question conformity.

Reach for the stars.

Speak your truth.

Take personal responsibility.

Understand more, judge less.

Volunteer your time.

Walk through fear.

Xperience the moment.

Yearn for grace.

Be Zany.

Meiji Stewart (A taste of Chicken Soup to Inspire a Woman’s Soul)

And some darn cute photos of my pooches.

Wishing a wonderful Thanksgiving to my Canadian cohorts.

Film Reviews

VIFF: The Nile Hilton Incident

My reasoning for choosing this feature from the many contemporary world cinema selections were the words “Nile Hilton.”

That’s because I stayed there for almost a month in 1999 (now it’s called the Ramses Hilton) in a beautiful 2-bedroom suite on an executive floor as my husband had business in Cairo. I would take my coffee on the balcony overlooking the River Nile and enjoy all-day refreshments in the lounge. It was very decadent at that time and I got to know the staff while Don was working, hung out at the pool and walked a short distance to the Egyptian museum to check out the mummies…more than once. I got to know a lot of shopkeepers too. I bought gold jewelry, perfume, leather bags, a silk carpet and a belly-dancing outfit. I had a lot of time on my hands. I had my own little incident at the hotel which got resolved quickly with the help of a burly bouncer who came to my rescue, but there were no casualties that I was aware of.

Well that was my first reason. My second was that the movie blurb appeared to be intriguingly film noirish. It turned out to be better than I had hoped for. It was a gripping crime mystery filmed on the streets of Cairo; seedy and corrupt. All the elements of a good detective story. It won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. This was the Canadian Premiere and the line was loooong. I sauntered in thinking I had plenty of time to spare but it was already sold out. I stood in the standby line even with my media pass (“but you don’t understand…I lived at that hotel”). Just managed to make it, along with my medium bag of $9 popcorn.

An innocent young maid is witness to the murder of a beautiful singer in one of the hotel rooms. Noredin, The cop who gets involved, (played by Fares Fares, that’s his name) meets resistance at every step of his investigation and you begin to realize that many people are at play here and politics are involved. Always, right?

The movie is set in a Cairo on the edge of revolution. On January 25, 2011, all across Egypt, millions of protestors from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyption President Hosni Mubarak. As the engrossing story enfolds, it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

To check out more great cinema at VIFF please visit: https://www.viff.org/

Film Reviews

VIFF: A Fantastic Woman & The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Una Mujer Fantástica – A Fantastic Woman (subtitled)

If I didn’t know any better I would swear this movie was directed by Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, All About my Mother). But it was not. Instead it was Chilean director Sebastián Lelio (who made the smash hit Gloria in 2013).

This is a timely film. Because it is about time that people are more compassionate and at the very least, more tolerant of those who are different than what those of us less broad minded deem to be “the norm” in society. But guess what? This is the new normal.

I found this film to be beautiful, disturbing, touching and frustratingly maddening. It makes you want to fight for equality.

The main character is played triumphantly by Daniela Vega, an actual trans performer. As Marina, a nightclub singer living with Orlando, her much older heterosexual lover (played by Francisco Reyes) who suddenly dies, you see her struggle in dealing with non-acceptance and disrespect from all angles. From the police who suspect her to be a factor in Orlando’s death, to the ex-wife who doesn’t want her to come anywhere near the funeral because she will only upset the family….she is humiliated constantly.

Even so, she faces it all with dignity and a strength most of us would envy. A powerful movie. A Fantastic Movie! I give it a score of 5/5.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a whole other animal.

Here is a perfect example of two top-notch performers: Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell being cast in a perfectly flat out psychological disaster of a movie. Sorry; but that’s just my opinion. I’m not saying the performances were not good (the characters were supposed to be flat, joyless and strange I’m guessing) but overall it was so disjointed with no explanation given to……too many situations. But the music was anything but flat. It was over the top (again; meaning to be) outlandish. I never saw the film “The Lobster” but apparently it was a pretty good twisted movie, directed by the same person – Yorgos Lanthimos.

In a NUTshell Farrell plays Andrew, a surgeon who’s patient dies while undergoing an operation. The patient’s son Martin (played by Barry Keoghan) is a total screwball looking to get back at Andrew. He keeps showing up in oddball places while I keep wondering (trying to make sense of course) why Andrew keeps allowing him access. Well it is a movie after all so just don’t question the bad sensibility of the surgeon who invites this boy into his home and brings harm to his once happy family. And it just goes (and goes, and goes on) from there. And it gets even weirder. And there’s spoiler alert: NO happy ending. My final words are: I’m just not that into this one!

Special mention: Okja

AND here I thought the special presentation of “Okja” was strange…………. although that one had amazing computer-generated imagery (CGI), and Tilda Swinton who did an excellent job (as always) playing the big boss-lady of a huge company manufacturing genetically modified super pigs. Also, a surprisingly zany Jake Gyllenhall. It had everything….humor, violence, glamour, scenery, car chases, crazy people, animal rights activists, capitalists, consumers and mostly, an innocent animal friend. I found it very schizophrenic but with outstanding direction from Bong Joon Ho. Very Hollywood. Now streaming on NefFlix.

If I lived up in the mountains of South Korea with only my grandfather for companionship, I’d love to have Okja for a pet.

More reviews to follow

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the films playing until October 13th @ https://www.viff.org/