While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for May 2010

An open letter to the cast of Sex and the City 2

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Dear Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda,

Sex and the City 2 did not offend me. You did not make me think less (or more) of Muslim culture. You did not make me think less (or more) of Dior, Gucci or Manolo Blahnik. You made me laugh and you showed me that women “past their prime” can still get work in Hollywood. You made me envious for more girlfriends and appreciative of the ones I’ve got.

Sure, you rocked some fugly frocks, but that’s what you people do. And besides, I wear cutoff denim shorts on the weekends. What do I know about fashion?

Underneath the razzmatazz, your movie was filled with realistic and honest exchanges between girlfriends, which is why I’m delighted by your little television-turned-film enterprise and why millions of women all over the world love you. You live fantasy lives and wear fantasy clothes. You’ve been dumped, cheated on, proposed to, knocked up and told you were too old, too sensitive, too forgiving and too unforgiving. The most inspiring thing is you treat each other well, which as a message, never gets old.

Now. I know folks like Roger Ebert called you “flyweight bubbleheads” because you dared to make a comedy about women and for women that was bawdy and outrageous. But I guess male film critics don’t take kindly to middle-aged women in short skirts and high heels mucking up a a genre dominated by men. Bawdy outrageous comedies are supposed to be about men and for men, starring Seth Rogen.

How unbecoming, to slide a raucous summer movie steered by a nearly all-female cast into movie theaters, where it must compete against such quality cinema as Russell Brand’s Get Him to the Greek.

Tsk, tsk, ladies. Don’t you know your place? I mean, look at Miss Scarlett Johansson. Her rear end gave such a good performance in Iron Man 2, which Ebert loved. Message to moviegoers: there’s nothing bubbleheaded about an asshole in a rocket-propelled robot suit.

Ebert paints Sex and the City director Michael Patrick King as a simpleton, which I suppose makes Jon Favreau a film auteur.

Carrie: I’m sorry Ebert ripped on your narration and suggested the dialogue with your husband was unrealistic. I suggest when/if you film Sex and the City 3, you amp up the realism by casting a Vodka-swilling, electric whip-wielding Mickey Rourke. His gold teeth and collagen lips oozed the kind of Shakespearean dialogue you can only get on a Bazooka Joe wrapper.

Samantha: I’m sorry Ebert called you a “sexaholic slut.” Since you deliver the best and most hysterical performances in the movie, the least he could have said was that you were a funny sexaholic slut. Oh well. Grain of salt. Grain of salt. If it makes you feel better, Ebert called Iron Man 2 hornball Tony Stark “cocky and egotistical,” which I know is barely a consolation coming from His Royal Filmness, since he bestowed one star upon your movie and three stars upon Iron Man 2.

Oh, and about that slow-mo sequence of you girls walking over sand dunes in haute couture camel-riding attire. I accepted that the background was likely CGI-enhanced and promptly got over it. Why in his review of Iron Man 2, Ebert applauds the use of CGI in what was essentially the most absurd scene in the movie (Rourke slicing race cars in half with his electrified lasso) and then snidely chides Sex and the City 2 for digitally rendering the Abu Dhabi desert, tips the hypocrite scale in new and impressive ways.

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Dinner Rehab #3: Eat like a single man

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Dude food is cheap and easy.

Bachelor alert.

This meal suggestion came from my quintessentially single 30-year-old male friend, Zipper Boy. Remember him?

“Pizza, subs, meat and potatoes”

Thanks Zipper, for reminding me that sometimes cooking is overrated.

So, in the spirit of ordering take-out, here are (in my opinion) the best pizza, sub and meat & potato eateries within a five-mile radius of my St. Petersburg home:

Best pizza: Valentino’s Little Italy. The pizza is thin and the sauce is savory. I love that there’s always a stack of Old Northeast Journals by the register. And the people who work there are so agreeable even though Joe constantly knocks over the little cup of toothpicks on the counter.

Best $5 sub: Jimmy John’s. Yes, I’m going with a chain. I’m obsessed with JJ subs. They’re the best bang for your buck and the #6 vegetarian option comes with a delectable mayo/avocado spread.

Best meat & potatoes: Moon Under Water. They serve fried macaroni cheese bites. Hello? Who could ask for more?

Dinner Rehab #2: Camouflage your cauliflower

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Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

– Mark Twain

Today’s meal suggestion comes from London, who works with Joe and who brilliantly suggested I hide vegetables in his food. I especially like that she recommended I hide cauliflower. It’s one of my favorite veggies and the subject of one of my favorite quotes.

London: to answer your question, Joe’s dietary habits tend to skew toward dull and unoriginal, not fried and unhealthy. In fact, he’s a pretty healthy eater as far as type of chicken and type of potato goes.

And yes, purple cauliflower exists.

I’m sorry to say it, but Misha and I typically prepare our own meals individually and then eat next to each other! He’s big into pork and dumplings and sauerkraut and I’m into salads and pasta (pseudo-vegetarian also). Sometimes we don’t eat the same meal, but it’s worked for us for 10 years!

My brother is the same way: no fruits or veggies. To me that is sooo crazy because I could live on salad alone. What DOES Joe like to eat? Does it typically skew fried and unhealthy, or is it just the same old stuff?

I’ve noticed that Misha and I can agree on ethnic food: Chinese, Mexican, Thai, some Italian, so maybe you can head in that direction.

Here are three things we like to eat that aren’t overloaded with fruits or veggies. I think you’re out of luck if you don’t like seafood though!

Fish Tacos: battered and fried tilapia in tacos or tortillas with lettuce, salsa, cheese, sour cream. YUM

Rotini Pasta with Salmon: with butter and olive oil and Parmesan and that’s it! Maybe add in some shrimp?

Salmon Patties: This comes in a can. Just add eggs and breadcrumbs like you would meatloaf and fry them up.

Sometimes you can camouflage veggies, if they are in a different form. I creamed cauliflower and fried it up in patty form. It was amazing! We also tend to make a lot of soups and dip our homemade crusty bread in them. Very filling.

Anyway, I hope that helps!!

London


PS. London’s photo by Chip Weiner.

My urban rooster flew the coop

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Tonight I learned from my neighbor, Sherry, that the family with the urban rooster moved out last month. They bought a farm out east where they can have a whole barn full of roosters. I wonder if their little late-sleeper will start rising at 5 a.m. now that he’s a real farm animal? There’s no way the other barnyard animals will put up with a groggy cock with an 11 a.m. wake up call.

On the upside: I learned that the people across the street have a goose. I’ve heard it honking before, but I just assumed it was their newborn baby.

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PS. Photo by jaybergesen via Flickr.

Dinner Rehab #1: A taste of Spain

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Cookbooks are overrated.

Last week I sent out a culinary S.O.S. to friends, family and fellow bloggers.

Via mass email I asked for meal suggestions to help Joe (a carnivore who detests all fruits and vegetables) and I (a pseudo vegetarian who occasionally eats chicken) break out of our food funk. Now, if you ask Joe whether or not we’re in a food funk, he’ll probably tell you all is well in our kitchen.

But all is boring in our kitchen.

Thank you to all the folks who responded to that email. Can you believe I received 30 replies? Some of you were short and sweet. Pizza. Burgers. Fries. Some of you felt compelled to write lengthy and colorful descriptions of your dietary habits and how they jive (and don’t jive) with your mate’s.

It turns out that many of you are in a similar culinary pickle, making mine and Joe’s opposite palates seem more … palatable. To quote my friend Adam, “SOLUTION: Make separate meals. If you think about it, that’s actually a kind of weird concept; every night, every couple should eat the same thing together AND LIKE IT.”

To help shake up our predictable dinner rotation, I plan to fold these suggestions into our supper stock as well as post them here. You’d be surprised how revealing a dinner menu can be.

As for the actual implementation of these recipes, I’m a struggling and impatient cook. But I’m nothing if not dedicated. I plan to print out every suggestion and create a kind of Dinner Rehab Cookbook.  Wish me potluck.

My first meal plan comes from Gracia, a Lance reader who hails from Spain and who is getting married this summer to her sweetheart, Eric.


♥♥♥

Hi Heidi,

It must be quite hard to find things you can both share, and although I’m lucky because Eric eats almost everything, there are a couple of my favourites that he won’t touch. Luckily, they are very easy to prepare just for me, and that’s what I do.
..
1st – Zucchini Soup (I guess it’s more like pureed zucchini, but I just translated the Spanish name.) You basically cook together a zucchini, potato, carrot, onion and a couple laughing cow cheese wedges with a bit of salt and then puree it. It’s really good cold in summer and hot in winter.
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2nd – Gazpacho. Take a can of tomato pure (I have no idea what you get in a can of tomato puree over there, but here it’s just raw tomato, pureed. Clever, huh?), add a slice of onion, a strip of green pepper and a bit of cucumber if you like, and puree. Serve very cold (add ice cubes, it’s ok!) with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Sure, you could puree your tomatoes, but don’t waste the pretty things from your garden on this, the canned type is perfectly OK.
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3rd – Veggie Frittata – Cook any vegetables you want following any method you want. put them in a pan. Cover with beaten eggs, salt and pepper. Love it.
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I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for, but in the meat department I only know about steaks and chicken breasts. Not an expert, you see. And right now, with the hot weather, I can only think of the three things above, paella and sangria. (Can you tell where I come from?) And a bit of watermelon, but preferably soaked in sangria.
Can’t wait to read your foodie series!
..
Gracia

10 things you (might not) know about me…

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…and probably don’t want to know about me, but since I’ve been away for a little bit, I’ll treat you to something revealing and narcissistic just because that’s the kind of mood I’m in.

1. I own a pair of Arizona cutoff denim shorts from 6th grade. (Yes, that’s them above.) They’re high-waisted as hell and at one point in my teenage life I cut them shorter than their original Bermuda-length. I received them as a birthday present on my 12th birthday from my old friend Sarah, who loosely inspired the name of this blog. (Lance. Not While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping.) No, I don’t wear these suckers. I save them for body image purposes. Feel free to elbow me in the face for this, but these shorts represent a standard to which I hold myself. I don’t slip them on often; maybe once or twice a year. I use them as a means to gauge my weight and fluff my ego. I can’t possibly be the only woman who holds onto an item of clothing for the mere purpose of being able to say, if I can still fit into these coochie cutters, I’m doin’ alright. Last week, I sauntered out of the bedroom wearing the Arizona cutoffs and Joe just shook his head in disgust. “That’s a disappointment waiting to happen,” he said. “What?” I asked, appalled by his response. “After you punch out a few kids those things are never gonna fit.”

2. I haven’t been to the dentist in 16 years. The last time I went to the dentist was around the same time I received the Arizona cut-offs. No, my teeth are not rotting.

3. I unabashedly love country music. And the same goes for country music videos. It comforts me and reminds me of home. It gives my erratic consciousness something simple to focus on. It fills me with warmth like a cold beer on a hot day and makes me wistful for dusty roads, lemonade, orange Popsicles and corn on the cob. Like most popular music, country music has been bastardized by corporate branding and political pandering, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cry when I hear an old Alan Jackson song. Remember when we had Verizon FIOS for less than four hours before our flat screen imploded? Those four hours were spent tuned to CMT. While I worked in my office, Dixie Chicks and Brad Paisley videos played out on the flat screen. I’m certain if I reveal this, my non-country-music-loving husband will have some wiseass thing to say about what really fried our TV, but I’m putting it out there anyway. I might not always agree with the politics of country music, but I can belt out Tobey Keith’s Should’ve Been a Cowboy better than a drunken Texas frat boy on a Friday night. Sure, the Top 20 stuff is hokey, aw-shucks, good ‘ol days, god-fearing boozy righteousness, but it’s the chicken soup to my homesickness. So alert the hipster police. I’m a card-carrying, shit-kicking redneck at heart.

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