anoth­er great British actor

Have you seen “Becom­ing Jane”? Well, it’s worth see­ing, I think, espe­cial­ly if you are a chick look­ing for a flick for your­self and for your 10-year-old daugh­ter. Tak­ing a jet-lagged male along with you is ask­ing for trou­ble, because real­ly not enough hap­pens in it to keep a man’s atten­tion (aside from look­ing at the delec­table Anne Hath­away) even if he were ful­ly awake, which mine was­n’t. Avery said, “But, Dad­dy, there was good real estate,” which was sweet of her, but real­ly, they were just coun­try hous­es. At least in “Miss Pot­ter” the real estate was in Bed­ford Square, where we were actu­al­ly look­ing at a house.

But that’s not the point. The point is, James McAvoy is, while not an actu­al cur­rent crush, def­i­nite­ly crush-wor­thy and may be called upon by me at a lat­er date if one of my oth­er can­di­dates is unable to ful­fill his duties. He played the faun in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” and as the mes­sage boards say (yes, I’ve looked him up), for a man with hooves, he’s very nice-look­ing. A sim­i­lar type to, dare I say it, Matthew Mac­fadyen (although slight instead of beefy) and Edward Nor­ton, real­ly ver­sa­tile and intel­li­gent. “Becom­ing Jane” is like a fluffi­er “Pride and Prej­u­dice,” part­ly I think because Anne Hath­away brings a lot of plucky humor to what­ev­er role she plays (although I did not see “Broke­back Moun­tain,” in which I can­not imag­ine plucky any­thing played much of a role). And whether or not all these roman­tic inter­ludes actu­al­ly did hap­pen to Jane Austen or not, it is fun to com­pare the things they claim hap­pened to her with the var­i­ous events por­trayed in her novels.

Well, see­ing movies aside, the last few days have remark­ably unpro­duc­tive for me. I decid­ed that I need­ed to branch out from cook­ing the same old things I always cook, and for three nights run­ning have been an absolute (or almost absolute) washout. Branch­ing out reminds me why I usu­al­ly cook the same old things I always cook: because they’re good. But I had to learn this the hard way. On the advice of near­ly every­one I know, I recent­ly acquired the Riv­er Cafe Cook­book. I have nev­er eat­en there, because I almost nev­er eat any­where, but every­one raves, and it’s paper­back, so I thought, why not? Well, maybe it’s just me, but…

The recipes don’t work! That’s actu­al­ly not fair, since I messed with both the recipes I tried. I just can’t seem to leave a recipe alone, so I know it’s my fault. But first I tried a pas­ta dish that was meant to be with crab­meat but it was so ruinous­ly expen­sive at Sel­f­ridges (36 pounds a kilo! sor­ry, no) that I sub­sti­tut­ed tiger prawns, and prob­a­bly they did not pro­vide the juice that would have helped the dish. The sauce was meant to be just olive oil, chopped pars­ley and gar­lic, and red chilies, and obvi­ous­ly with seafood, no cheese. Well, it was just plain BOR­ING. Too much spaghet­ti for the amount of sauce, and too oily, and just plain dull. Then last night, I tried a veal chop recipe, only all the veal chops in Lon­don seemed to have run back to the coun­try in fear, so I sub­si­tut­ed pork chops, which should have been fine. I was meant to rub them with a paste made of pro­sciut­to fat, lemon peel, gar­lic, fresh sage and salt. Which smelled divine. Only I was also meant to grill them, but I don’t have a &^%$ grill, so I decid­ed it could not hurt to pan saute them. Only it did hurt, because they sim­ply stuck to the pan and all the paste burned. It still tast­ed rel­a­tive­ly all right because all the ingre­di­ents were so good, and John and Avery man­ful­ly downed them, but what a bummer.

Set in between these two unsuc­cess­ful and demor­al­is­ing din­ners was anoth­er total dis­ap­point­ment: I tried to recre­ate the deli­cious chopped beef-in-let­tuce that I had with my friend Julia at E&O last week. Only why do I do this? Try to recre­ate things I’ve had in restau­rants where, say, an actu­al CHEF is in charge? It was total­ly labor inten­sive to chop the beef, and along­side I had sliced mush­rooms and pears, red radish­es and a chili dip­ping sauce, AND home­made fried rice, and can I tell you how bor­ing it was? It was edi­ble, but every­thing tast­ed like I had been put on a diet where no fla­vor was allowed.

Grr. Through it all, Avery and John have brave­ly sat at the kitchen table, eat­ing these dull and failed din­ners, accom­pa­nied by untasty side dish­es, and offered their sug­ges­tions. But my friend Becky this morn­ing offered the most sane advice of all: go back to the basics. So I think tonight will be… meat­loaf and mashed pota­toes. No new inno­va­tions, no weird unchart­ed veg­etable on the side, maybe I’ll even be rad­i­cal and have NO veg­etable on the side. And if any­one says, “But we have this all the time,” I’ll… well, let’s not think about that.

In the mean­time, I’m off to meet up with a lady I have met only on the com­put­er screen! Through a mes­sage board! How excit­ing. A new friend, and maybe a snow­storm. Who could ask for more, on a Tues­day in March in London.

Kris­ten’s Pre­ten­tious Meatloaf 
(serves six eas­i­ly, with leftovers)

1/3 pound each: minced beef and minced lamb
1/3 pound pork sausage
4 slices whole­meal bread, with­out crusts, torn into shreds
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup grat­ed parmesan
3/4 cup ricot­ta cheese
1 medi­um onion, minced
3 stalks cel­ery, minced
1 hand­ful curly pars­ley leaves, chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pep­per to taste
six slices streaky bacon

It could­n’t be any sim­pler: mix every­thing togeth­er, except for the bacon, which you drape over the loaf once it’s shaped in a glass dish that you’ve sprayed with non­stick spray, or lined with alu­mini­um (note the dar­ling extra “i” there) foil. Bake at 400 degrees for one hour.