The Ramen Girl

I'm a big fan of great food and Japanese culture, so it's probably no surprise that I liked The Ramen Girl. Think Like Water for Chocolate meets The Karate Kid.

I chose to watch the movie mostly because the cover features Brittany Murphy in a kimono. I'm thinking, this movie has promise!

What made a believer out of me was the excellent character-acting and the really decent screenplay.

When Murpy's character Abby's boyfriend leaves her, she is miserable and wanders into the local ramen shop to find it's propietors generous and kind, though the chef is almost always gruff. He is also a master ramen chef, and his broth stirs something in Abby.

Ultimately Abby and her ramen-chef sensei, odd partners, turn out to be just the ingredient the other needs to create a more satisfying, flavorful life for themselves.

This movie is a bit thin in places, but overall it is well played and heartwarming.

Amadou et Mariam

If you had to pick the best musician out of a crowd of musicians you've never heard before and you happened to notice only one of them was a blind guitar-player, what would you do?

And what if that the blind guitar player happened to be a West African with a blind chanteuse for a wife and bandmate?

Before I get to far in this, and the reader starts to think I buy into nothing but stereotypes, let me say this was essentially the situation a few weeks ago while I was browsing emusic.com.

I had a few downloads to use up and I wandered over to a list of African guitar legends. Having heard of none of them previously, I was left to read these books by their respective covers. Each was generally interesting, but when I found the blind husband and wife team, my instincts took over; this music I must hear.

Now, if I had made this choice and my stereotype-based choice had proven wrong, you wouldn't be reading this blog because I wouldn't have written this blog.

As it turns out though, Amadou et Mariam have been a particular pleasure for me to listen to as of late, which is why I'm bothering telling you so, if I may steal the line from Dr. Seuss.

They aren't bombastic, or in-your-face with their skill-level. Rather, their style is understatement. They tend to have a gentle, typically African sounding rhythm section. The guitar is used rather sparingly but is of good quality. The guitar doesn't become the obvious focal point of the music, which is the great evil that good guitarists often partake in. Instead, many parts combine to create a satisfying whole: brass, drums, vocals, strings interwoven well, with some particularly attractive and brief solos for the brass and strings.

I also like the fact that the lyrics are in French which always sounds nice and allows me to focus on the music and the mood that's created by it.

This is my musical recommendation for the month.

You can listen to perhaps the best track on their Greatest Hits album in the following embedded YouTube video

Magenta Potatoes

Boy were we sold a bill of goods.

Heidi picked up these seed potatoes labeled "Red" and put them in the ground in all good faith earlier in the spring.

Now that it's summer and the potatoes are ready to harvest*, we pull them from the ground and lo and behold, they aren't red, but magenta!

Despite the unabashed false-advertising of the seed-potato seller, being hungry for breakfast, we decided to see if the flavor and texture of the potatoes would be at all decent.

We found the potatoes also completely different from those of our recent memory; rather than thick-skinned, dry, bland and starchy, these were thin-skinned, moist, sweet and silky. Preposterous!

These were potatoes not in need of sticks of butter to make them delicious. I had thoughts of adding these to my butter to improve the butter's flavor.

Having recovered from the shock to our systems these unexpected events caused, and having nothing else at hand for breakfast, we promptly devoured the lot with garlic and thyme, a la Alice Waters.

* In all seriousness, why did it take 35 years for me to learn that potatoes can be harvested before fall?! This stuff should be taught in gradeschool! Use flashcards if necessary, but teach the children for heaven's sake!