Recently in TV Category

Eat Like an Immigrant and Disregard the Foodies and Philosophers

By Vincent Scordo on March 2, 2011 | Comment | 3 TrackBacks

Food Philosophy - You Got to Be Kidding!

If you're not an avid reader of the Atlantic (or similar general interest magazines like the New Yorker) then you've undoubtedly missed both B.R. Meyers' anti foodie argument/rant (in a piece called, "The Moral Crusade Against Foodies - gluttony dressed up as foodie-ism is still gluttony") and James McWilliams' March 1st response entitled, "B. R. Myers and the Myth of 'Sustainable' Food".

Both articles are entertaining and touch on highbrow food terms/concepts such as organic, locavore/local, slow food, food sustainability, etc. yet have the stench of pop sociology that would make David Brooks rage with anger (Brooks is the only popular writer that is objective enough to get non academic sociology correct). Heck, McWilliams even mentions Immanuel Kant and French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu - is he kidding (and this is coming from an ex-Philosophy major who was entrenched in circles which espoused theoretical bullshit on a consistent basis)? At the end of day here's what both writers are saying: Meyers' article condemns "foodies" for being glutenous while McWilliams' points out no one is correctly doing sustainable food.

Movie Night At Home: Movie Recommendations, Dip Recipes, and Top Chips

By Vincent Scordo on September 11, 2009 | Comments | 1 TrackBack

The following is a re-post form February 2009 and I thought it was appropriate given the gloomy and cold weather here in the northen New Jersey area. The post includes two great dip recipes, my favorite potato and tortilla chip brands, and 23 movie recommendation by genere and actor.

The upcoming Oscars Award show always gets everyone in the movie-going spirit and why not it's fun to plan a night at your local theatre taking in a good movie followed by a late night meal and a glass of good Zindfandel! But wait, hold on, are you really going to spend $20+ dollars for tickets, $15+ dollars on snacks, and then $75-$100 dollars on dinner and a decent bottle of wine? The answer is an obvious no and not just in the current economy; I find many of our friends who consistently do dinner and a movie to be amongst the cash-strapped crowd. Don't get me wrong I love film, I just don't like spending my hard earned cash on overpriced tickets and snacks. What I do instead is plan movie night at home and head to my local library for DVDs. Yes, some local libraries lack a decent film collection, but our town library happens to have a nice assortment of films. I'm also an on and off subscriber to Netflix, but I never keep the service running for more than 4-6 months (I essentially exhaust the movies I really want to see and then cancel my, auto renew, subscription - Try This Tip!).

Either way you get your films, you'll need some snacks to go with your movies! Here's a list of some of my favorite chips and dips, as well as a list of some great movies by category!

Potato Chips

There's something about thinly friend potatoes with copious amounts of salt that gets me excited! Potato chips are one of my all time favorite foods and please don't let my mother find out. I can enjoy potato chips during a late night rummage through the pantry or, in this case, with a good movie. My all time favorite potato chips include:

1. Cape Cod Potato Chips (Classic and Salt & Vinegar are my favorite)

2. Kettle Chips (any flavor, they're all great!)

3. Lay's Classic Potato Chips

4. Terra Chips (Original)

Tortilla Chips

Corn chips exploded into the US marketplace in the early to mid nineties and they've become a staple (any one know why?) of informal get togethers and parties. There are many tasteless, and overly salted, products on market, such as Tostitos, Santitas White Corn chips made by FritoLay, and TraderJoe's house brand. You can of course make your own Tortilla Chips, however there are also some good brands on the market and I prefer the following products:

1. Green Mountain (great combo of salt and corn taste)

2. Garden of Eatin Blue Chips

3. Doritos (yes, I like Doritos!)

Guacamole

Next to the egg, the avocado would be one of those food items I would want with me if I were stranded on a remote island (it has good fat content, nice texture, and pretty versatile).

Mix in fresh lime juice and cilantro and mashed avocado becomes an exquisite tortilla chip accompaniment; here's my recipe:

- 2 large, very ripe, Hass avocados

- 1 large lime (keep out of the fridge for a few hours and roll on cutting board before juicing)

- 1 bunch of fresh cilantro (I know cilantro is a love/hate type of herb, but I happen to love the flavor)

- ¼ finely diced red onion

- ½ finely diced plum tomato

- Salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocados with a fork and add your lime juice (click here if you've never sliced an avocado before). Stir the two ingredients and the cilantro, onion, and tomato. Next, add salt and pepper to taste and give the mixture a final stir.

Sour Cream Dip

Potato chips, in my view, really don't need a dip, but that's not to say that I don't enjoy dipping my perfectly salted chips into a nice white mixture of sour cream! Here's my favorite recipe for Sour Cream and Onion Dip:

- 1 pt of sour cream

- 3-4 finely diced green onions

- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or 3-4 cloves of mashed caramelized or roasted garlic

Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and mix very well.

Movies

A movie critic will tell you that one can, objectively, rate and talk about a given movie. In my view, however, deciding on whether a movie is good or bad can often be a very subjective experience and depdendent on how many other films one has watched, personal history, ethnicity, education, mood, etc. So, I recommend the following "movie night" movies based solely on the fact that I liked them all! Most of all, however, each one of the movies below (categorized by actor, genre, or style) made me feel as though I was totally submerged in the plot and the story the director wanted to convey.

1. Woody Allen

Match Point

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2. Bill Murray

Lost in Translation

The Royal Tenenbaums

3. Johnny Depp

Finding Neverland

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

4. Sean Penn

Mystic River

Carlito's Way

5. Foreign

The Son's Room

Y Tu Mama Tambien

La Strada

Respiro

6. Engrossing

The Shipping News

Pollock

Mulholland Drive

7. Classics

The 400 Blows

Odd Man Out

The Bicycle Thief

Sudden Fear

Notorious

8. Western

The Magnificent Seven

High Plains Drifter

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

In Defense of Making Your Own Food or Julia Child Was Right

By Vincent Scordo on August 5, 2009 | Comments | 2 TrackBacks

How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence -- along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star -- has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.

- From Pollen's article, "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch"

Amen, Mr. Pollen! It seems that everywhere you go people are talking about food; that is to say, how much they love eating it, seeing it on TV, paying for it, reading about it, dreaming about it, etc. However, what folks aren't doing with food is actually making it.

Recently, I had a two day Facebook comment thread discussion with offthebroiler.com food writer, Jason Perlow. Jason and I have never met but I have great respect for his knowledge of food and, of course, the great content on his site. Our discussion on Facebook centered on pizza, specifically, the value and quality of buying pizza from a high end pizzeria (viz., Pepe's Pizzeria in New Haven, CT). Jason was arguing that Pepe's achieves ethereal pizza status (given "char" and "pliability") because of several factors, the most important being the wood burning oven the pizzeria uses (wood burning ovens can get very hot, to the tune of 800 degrees and I've had the pleasure of standing next to my Aunt Giovanna's olive and chestnut wood feed oven in southern Italy). My position was/is that, as Pollen states, good food is about the making and not just the eating and that you can achieve great results by making food at home (including pizza).

Eating out at restaurants, other than the occasional splurge, is in my view a royal waste of money (not to mention the health effects). Now, don't get me wrong, I do consider myself a foodie (as much as I hate the word), but I take great pride in making my own food (using great ingredients and knowing where they come from), saving money, and spending a evening enjoying the end product with a glass of wine and my family.

Much of what Pollen is talking about above puts food consumers in the US in a mindset that believes, "I must eat at that famous restaurant" or I could never do what the Iron Chef on the Food Network is doing because I lack a restaurant style stove or truffles from northen Italy. This type of thinking has led to a huge decline in how much time we spend "preparing" our own meals; as Pollen states:

Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that's less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It's also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of "Top Chef" or "Chopped" or "The Next Food Network Star." What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves -- an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.

You need time to cook good food and there's no way around it (not massive amounts of time in the long run because most home chefs become very efficient at prep and cooking over time). You don't need fancy equipment to make great food at home, but you do need good ingredients and plenty of variety (this is why many individuals turn to high fat foods and restaurant eating). You also need to experiment with different types of cuisine and see preparing food at home as a long term investment in both your health and general happiness/quality of life.

So, become a true foodie and start cooking at home and eating out less. Take the money you would use for a mediocre meal out and buy fresh, high quality, ingredients and prepare a meal at home (I swear you'll be impressed). I also promise your quality of life will improve and, yes, if you have a Pepe's Pizzera around the corner from you you can order a large pie on occasion!

Here are some related links from Scordo.com that will help you make your own food:

HBO's New Series Generation Kill

By Vincent Scordo on July 21, 2008 | Comment | 1 TrackBack

You can always count on HBO to experiment with new series and this summer is no exception with the premier of Generation Kill.

Generation Kill is based on Evan Wright's book which follows the Marines of the First Recon Battalion through the first forty days of the Iraq War.

The series is nicely done, including a great performance by the highest ranking official on the ground, "the Godfather:"

Nadal versus Federer in the 2008 French Open Final

By Vincent Scordo on June 6, 2008 | Comment | 0 TrackBacks

For the 3rd time in recent history it will be Nadal vs Federer at the 2008 French Open. The odds are with Nadal who is a 3x champion at Roland Garros even though Federer is the world's number 1 players and winner of 12 Grand Slam titles (none which include the French).

The match is scheduled for Sunday June 8th at 9:00 AM EST on NBC, so tune in to see if Federer can finally beat Nadal on clay!

Want to understand the anatomy of a serve then see this video from Professor Bruce Elliot.

Does American Idol Work?

By Vincent Scordo on May 22, 2008 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

The American Idol finale took place last night and for the most part the show featured slightly washed up singers (attempting to mimic Freddie Mercury) and "Brady Bunch" like numbers by the 12 finalists. The highlight of the show was Gladys Knight, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Junior performing the song, "Midnight Train to Georgia:"

For a critical look at American Idol see the recent New Yorker article. Oh, the New Yorker seems to think that Idol does, indeed, work.

The ShowTime Series The Tudors Starring Jonathan Rhys

By Vincent Scordo on May 16, 2008 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

Showtime launched a new series last year called, The Tudors starring Jonathan Rhys as a young King Henry The VIII. At first, I didn't pay much attention to the show (partly because I am not a Showtime subscriber), but when season one become available on DVD at my local library I became an immediate fan. Rhys is pretty convincing as the angst ridden king, though I may be a bit bias given his role in Woody Allen's Match Point.

« Sport | Main Index | Archives | Technology »

BECOME A FAN OF SCORDO ON FACEBOOK:

GOOD READING:

MORE ABOUT US:

FEATURED STORIES:

Homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil Recipe
Don't settle for the canned varieties found at supermarkets; find out how to make your own [+]

H ow to Make Authentic Tomato Sauce
This is the authentic Scordo family recipe - straight from Calabria. You'll be amazed at how simple the recipe is to make [+]

Guide to Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
My grandfather produced his own extra virgin olive oil in Italy and I've put together an olive oil buying guide just for you [+]

How to Make Rice Balls or Arancini At Home
The ultimate Italian street food - these fried treats are great for the holidays or for any lunch or dinner; try them with your kids [+]

Guide to Making Espresso at Home
Making good espresso at home isn't easy but once you master a few easy tips you'll never settle for the junk served at most cafes in the US, including Starbucks [+]

Why You Should Not Eat Out
My argument on why eating out doesn't make sense [+]

Guide to Italian Meats: Salame, Capicola, Prosciutto, etc.
Learn all about the great "deli meats" and authentic cured specialties from Italy [+]

Scordo Pizza Recipe
Who doesn't love pizza, but did you know it's real easy to make at home [+]

Italian

^{English to Italian Translation Powered by}

↑ Grab this Widget

SPONSORS, AFFILIATES, SUPPORTERS:

Independent Budget Backpacking Travel Tips

DONATE AND HELP KEEP US GOING:

Feeling generous and want to help keep Scordo.com producing fresh and original content?

QUESTIONS, IDEAS, TIPS:

Note: The views expressed herein are solely my own and should not be attributed to my employer in any way. This site is not maintained utilizing my employer's resources or on company time.

Subscribe to Scordo.com via RSS

Search